I Know Where I am Eating the Next Time that I am in Toronto

I will have a meal at the Antler Kitchen and Bar, if just because the chef and co-owner had such a beautiful way of dealing with protests from the nut-job vegan crowd:

The vegans planned their protest for the middle of the restaurant’s busy dinnertime shift.

The group of animal rights activists were incensed that Antler Kitchen & Bar, a locavore restaurant in Toronto that says it highlights regional ingredients, served foie gras and farmed meat “meant to run in the wild.” So a group of them stood in front last week chanting “you’ve got blood on your hands,” and holding a banner that read MURDER in hot pink lettering.

Then came the counterprotest.

Michael Hunter, a chef and co-owner of the restaurant appeared in its window with a raw deer leg and a sharp knife, when he began to carve up the meat in full view of the protesters, some of whom later said they were disturbed for days, according to news reports.

“I figured, I’ll show them,” Hunter told the Globe and Mail. “I’m going to have my own protest.”

The episode, which was captured on video by one of the protesters, has since drawn wide attention from local news outlets and social media. The event page created by the activists for their protest has since been inundated with comments, many harshly critical of their cause.

It also appears that this may have actually generated some more business for the restaurant in the long run:

Next time I’m in Toronto I’m dining at Antler. https://t.co/ymcOOu6bSk

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) March 27, 2018

Another Sign of the Apocalypse

In Ottowa, a New Year's concert was canceled, and a hockey game was moved indoors because it was too cold for Canadians.

"Too cold for Canadians," there was a phrase I never expected to say:

First no hockey, now no music. Ottawa has declared that it’s officially too cold – even for Canadians.

Heritage Canada has announced that a New Year’s Eve concert planned for Ottawa has been cancelled because of an extreme cold weather warning.

The party’s cancellation on Friday came after the federal government also moved an outdoor hockey tournament indoors and away from a C$5.6m (£3.3m) temporary ice rink installed on Parliament Hill.

The forecast overnight low for the nation’s capital on Sunday is -29C [-20°F] , nearly 20 degrees [36°F] colder than the seasonal average. Public skating and a fireworks show on the city’s Parliament Hill will go ahead as planned on Sunday night, but Heritage Canada warned revellers have been warned to dress for the weather and “prepare accordingly to prevent frostbite and other injuries”.

My suggestion would be for Canadians to watch the fireworks on TV.

Canada is Trying to Save the American Labor Movement

In NAFTA (re)negotiations, Canada is demanding extensive labor protections:

The Canadian government is meeting with some of the country’s biggest labor groups to discuss Nafta as talks on the deal are set to resume.

Labor Minister Patricia Hajdu will meet union leaders Friday in a round-table discussion near Toronto to get input on the North American Free Trade Agreement. It’s the latest sign that labor has the Trudeau government’s ear in talks that could hinge, in part, on Canada’s push to raise working standards in both the U.S. and Mexico.

“That’s an indication of how much we value our labor movement, and we want to make sure as we go into negotiations that the rights of Canadian workers are protected,” Hajdu said in an interview with Bloomberg. “We’ll do everything in our power to make sure of that.”

Nafta talks resume Monday with a partial round in Washington, without political leaders at the table. Canada wants the U.S. to undo so-called “right to work” provisions in some states, while also calling on Mexico to raise labor standards. One of Canada’s top union leaders, Jerry Dias, has met often with the Canadian negotiating team and regularly predicts Nafta talks will fail.

Trudeau has been pushing to add “progressive” elements like labor, gender and the environment into all trade negotiations -- a move derided by political opponents as “virtue signaling” that could make it tougher to get a deal. That strategy was a driving factor in the surprise false start this week of trade talks with China, a country that typically shuns the bells and whistles Canada wants in any trade deal.

Those added elements are among Nafta’s sticking points. Canada wants its two North American partners to ratify eight core conventions, including the right to organize, laid out by the International Labour Organization to make Nafta work. “We did put forward a very ambitious proposal on labor,” chief negotiator Steve Verheul told lawmakers this week. While Canada has adopted all eight and Mexico has nearly done so, the U.S. has adopted only two, Verheul said. “The U.S. is resisting that proposal.”

Canada’s call to claw back U.S. “right-to-work” laws, which ban unions from requiring workers to pay dues, is another obstacle. “The U.S. is also resisting that,” Verheul said.

As Yves Smith pithily observes, "Sounds like the Canadians are doing better by labor than our own Democrats."

The history of the modern Democratic Party does not show meaningful support for organized labor.

When Republicans pass so-called "right-to-work " laws, Democrats never repeal them, and the Obama administration dropped its support for the Employee Free Choice Act (Card Check) before the last states were called in 2008.

The positions pushed by Trudeau benefit workers in all three of the signatories of NAFTA, so I expect Democrats, or at least the current Democratic Party establishment to vociferously oppose labor justice, because they have sold their souls to big donors.

Another Stopped Clock Moment from Trump

It appears that the Trump administration wants to effectively gut the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), which would be a very good thing:

U.S. ISDS PROPOSAL WOULD CUT TWO KEY PROTECTIONS: Expect USTR to put at least one of those “poison pills” forward at talks this week. The final U.S. proposal on investor-state dispute settlement comes not only with an “opt-in” provisions that effectively makes the whole process voluntary, but also rolls back two key investor protections private companies have been able to use under the mechanism in past U.S. agreements. U.S. business and agriculture groups have already signaled that a radical departure from the current U.S. approach to investor protections would be forcefully opposed by them.

I don't expect this to actually happen.

Even if Trump wants to do this, and I think that it is likely posturing, I would expect resistance from Congressional Republicans and the non "Alt-Right" personnel in his administration to make this outcome highly unlikely.

Good for the Canadians

The Canadian government has decided to pay Can$ 10 million to Omar Khadr.

To recapitulate the story, he was taken to Afghanistan by his father as a 15 year old, and then threw a grenade in a firefight that killed a US soldier.

He was taken into custody, tortured repeatedly, and eventually pled guilty, he was later repatriated to Canada, and then released on bail in 2014.

Khadr filed suit against the Canadian government for depriving him of his rights, and illegally treating as an adult while in detention, and now Canada has settled with him, paying him Can$10 million settlement:

Canada's Liberal government will apologize to former Guantanamo Bay inmate Omar Khadr and pay him around C$10 million ($7.7 million) in compensation, two sources close to the matter said on Tuesday, prompting opposition protests.

A Canadian citizen, Khadr was captured in Afghanistan in 2002 at age 15 after a firefight with U.S. soldiers. He pleaded guilty to killing a U.S. Army medic and became the youngest inmate held at the military prison in Cuba.

Khadr later recanted and his lawyers said he had been grossly mistreated. In 2010, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that Canada breached his rights by sending intelligence agents to interrogate him and sharing the results with the United States.

The case proved divisive: defenders called Khadr a child soldier while the then-Conservative government dismissed calls to seek leniency, noting he had pleaded guilty to a serious crime.

The US took a child soldier and treated him as a criminal, they then tortured him abd coerced a confession out of him with the active support of the Canadian state security apparatus, a fact that Canada's judiciary has repeatedly taken a dim view of.

This is a good thing, though I am not surprised that former PM Stephen Harper had to exit the scene for the right thing to be done.  Harper was to doing the right thing as Josef Stalin was to rule of law.

It's nice that the Canadian government is doing the right thing.

It will never happen here, since Obama decided to normalize this behavior, (Looking forward, not backward) and then systematically promoted the people who aided and abetted crimes against humanity in the US state security apparatus.

There will never be an accounting for the torturers, much like there will never be an accounting for the banksters who blew up the world in 2008.

I Know That Stereotypes Are Bad, but ………

I was just listening to NPR, and they were talking about the Canada Day celebrations, which is a big deal because this is the sesquicentennial (150^th year) since the founding of the Canadian Confederation.

There was a mention of security precautions being taken, and mention was made of an, "Elite Canadian Anti-terrorism Unit," (This would probably be JTF2) being on alert as a precaution. (No mention of any specific threats.)

I know that this is rank stereotyping, but the image that came into my head was of a bunch of guys in cardigans apologizing profusely.

This is clearly an inaccurate characterization of Canadian soldiers in general, but the image remains in my head.

Does this make me a bad person?

Seriously, Are There ANY Ukrainian Nationalists without a Nazi Family Background?

It appears that you cannot even find one non-Nazi Uke in Canada:

Exclusive: Canada’s fiercely anti-Russian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland says her Ukrainian grandfather struggled “to return freedom and democracy to Ukraine,” but she leaves out that he was a Nazi propagandist justifying the slaughter of Jews, writes Arina Tsukanova.It really says all you need to know.

………

So, it appears Freeland’s grandfather – rather than being a helpless victim – was given a prestigious job to spread Nazi propaganda, praising Hitler from a publishing house stolen from Jews and given to Ukrainians who shared the values of Nazism.

Among other things, as editor of the Polish newspaper Nowy Dziennik, he lauded the Babi Yar massacre of Kiev's Jews:

The Nov. 6, 1941 issue of Krakivski Visti ecstatically describes how much better Kiev is without Jews. “There is not a single one left in Kiev today, while there were 350,000 under the Bolsheviks,” the newspaper wrote, gloating that the Jews “got their comeuppance.”

That “comeuppance” refers to the mass shooting of Kiev’s Jewish population at Babi Yar. In just two days, Sept. 29-30, 1941, a total of 33,771 people were murdered, a figure that does not include children younger than three years old. There were more shootings in October, and by early November, Krakivski Visti was enthusing over a city where the Jewish population had “disappeared” making Kiev “beautiful, glorious.” Chomiak’s editorials also described a Poland “iinfected by Jews.”

It should be noted that my awareness of the history of Ukrainian nationalism going back hundreds of years, might influence my positions on the current conflict in the Ukraine.

On the other hand, it appears that Freeland would Steve Bannon's kind of foreign minister.

You Gotta Love the Right Wing Media

Fox and its ilk are continuing to proclaim that the terrorist who shot up a mosque in Quebec is a Moroccan, despite the fact that this is not true.

The  Mohamed el Khadir, who is of Moroccan extraction in this crime was the guy who called 911:

A mass shooting at a Quebec City mosque last night left six people dead and eight wounded. The targeted mosque, the Cultural Islamic Center of Quebec, was the same one at which a severed pig’s head was left during Ramadan last June. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the episode a “terrorist attack on Muslims.”

Almost immediately, various news outlets and political figures depicted the shooter as Muslim. Right-wing nationalist tabloids in the UK instantly linked it to Islamic violence. Fox News claimed that “witnesses said at least one gunman shouted ‘Allahu akbar!’,” and then added this about the shooter’s national origin:

Suspect in Quebec mosque terror attack was of Moroccan origin, reports show https://t.co/oRzxGHEXDm pic.twitter.com/aEsEtccMvi

— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 30, 2017

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer exploited the attack to justify President Trump’s ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. “It’s a terrible reminder of why we must remain vigilant and why the President is taking steps to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to our nation’s safety and security,” Spicer said at this afternoon’s briefing when speaking of the Quebec City attack.

But these assertions are utterly false. The suspect is neither Moroccan nor Muslim. The Moroccan individual, Mohamed el Khadir, was actually one of the worshippers at the mosque and called 911 to summon the police, and played no role whatsoever in the shooting.

The actual shooting suspect is 27-year-old Alexandre Bissonnette, a white French Canadian who is, by all appearances, a rabid anti-immigrant nationalist. A leader of a local immigration rights groups, François Deschamps, told a local paper he recognized his photo as an anti-immigrant far-right “troll” who has been hostile to the group online. And Bisonnette’s Facebook page – now taken down but still archived – lists among its “likes” the far right French nationalist Marine Le Pen, Islam critics Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the Israeli Defense Forces, and Donald J. Trump (he also “likes” the liberal Canadian Party NDP along with more neutral “likes” such as Tom Hanks, the Sopranos and Katy Perry).

Clearly, we need to ban Katy Perry fans from entering the United States.

They are dangerous.

Doesn't This Violate Anti-Torture Treaties?

Police in Prince Edward Island have promised to arrest drunk drivers and take them into custody.

While they are being taken to the station, the police will make the detainees listen to Nickelback.

The horror.

Damn, Damn!

Wallonia caved, and in response to language that changes nothing about the deal, has authorized the Belgian government to sign off on the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with Canada, including its irreversible privitization and ISDS provisions:

European Union leaders have expressed hope of signing a trade deal with Canada after Belgian politicians overcame differences that had been blocking the treaty.

The Belgian prime minister, Charles Michel, confirmed that leaders of five regional parliaments had reached an agreement with the federal government shortly after midday on Thursday. He tweeted:

………

The Belgian compromise – a four-page text that sits alongside the 1,600-page treaty – was approved by ambassadors from 28 EU member states on Thursday afternoon. Belgium’s regional parliaments are expected to endorse the text on Friday, paving the way for the deal to come into force on a temporary basis.

Expect to see higher drug prices, the end to the precautionary principle, the gutting of safety, employment, and environmental protections, and a growth in the most parasitic parts of the financial industry as a result.

This Would Have Been Unthinkable Just Ten Years Ago

The Walloonian Parliament just put a stake through the heart of the Canada/EU trade pact:

The EU’s once-mighty trade negotiators never dreamed that their powers would be stripped from them so unceremoniously — and possibly for good.

The Francophone parliament of the Federation of Wallonia-Brussels — only 10 minutes’ walk from EU headquarters — stands to win a place in history for sinking the EU’s landmark trade deal with Canada and potentially for scuppering the European Commission’s ability to lead the world’s biggest trade bloc for many years.

Failure to conclude the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) by this month’s deadline would be a devastating blow to the EU, which has spent seven years working on the tariff-slicing agreement with Ottawa.

………

The Federation of Wallonia-Brussels parliament, which focuses on the cultural and educational concerns of 4.5 million French speakers in Belgium, voted Wednesday evening to reject CETA because of worries about public services and agriculture. Laetitia Naklicki, a spokesperson for Minister-President Rudy Demotte, said this vote meant that the government of the French-speaking community “would not issue its full power for signing CETA to the federal government.”

Unless the Belgian central government can find an imaginative compromise quickly, the EU will be unable to corral the signatures of all 28 EU countries before an EU-Canada summit on October 27. The pressure on Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel is only likely to increase Friday, when another regional assembly, Wallonia, also voted against CETA.

Under Belgium’s complex constitution, all five regional governments must approve the trade deal before the federal government can give consent.

The fact that these deals have become increasingly more difficult to pass, and as such will become far more limited in scope.

This is a good thing.

I really do hope that this is the start of a trend.

The increasing investment of authority in anti-democratic institutions has been a disaster for everyone but the elites staff, and directly benefit from, those institustions.

Looks Like the EU Just Threw a Roadblock in Front of CETA

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada now must be approved by individual parliaments, and not the European Council and European Parliament:

The European Commission performed a startling U-turn on its landmark trade agreement with Canada on Tuesday, succumbing to pressure from France and Germany by deciding that national parliaments would have to ratify the deal.

The need for approval from almost 40 national and regional assemblies not only threatens to scupper the Canadian deal itself, but delivers an ominous signal to British politicians who insist that the U.K. could negotiate a quick post-Brexit trade accord with the EU.

Speaking in Strasbourg, Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström said the EU had decided to call the Canada deal a “mixed agreement.” This means that the bloc’s most significant trade deal to date is now hostage to hostile lawmakers in parliaments ranging from Romania to the Belgian region of Wallonia.

I think that this development is being driven by two things:

• Concern that the British Brexit vote is spreading to other EU members, particularly on the periphery.
• Setting a precedent of allowing every member of the EU to have a potential veto over the conditions over which the UK would negotiate its leaving the EU.

I think that this also means that the trade deal, which is a kind of mini-TTIP will not happen in the next 12 months or so, if at all:

The decision, taken during a meeting of the EU’s commissioners in Strasbourg, represented a surprising volte-face because the Commission had hoped to treat the accord as an EU-only deal, meaning it would require approval only from the European Parliament and national governments in the Council.

The Canadian deal has stoked sensitivities across Europe primarily because it is seen as a precursor to the far more contentious Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the U.S.

Matthias Fekl, France’s trade minister, said it was “unbelievable” that Brussels had been planning to treat the deal as an exclusively EU competence.

“I find it even more hallucinatory only a few days after the result of the British referendum that one could envisage this type of procedure at the level of the European Commission,” he told the news agency AFP in an interview.

The tortuous path to approve the deal will sound alarms in London, where politicians are pinning their hopes on a quick settlement with the EU after Brexit. Debates in national parliaments could potentially add years of delay to the Canadian accord, which has already taken seven years to finalize.

It isn't often that you get a diplomat using the adjective hallucinatory.

This also does not bode well for the TTIP.

Considering the impacts of such trade deals, inflated pharmaceutical prices, destructive capital flows, increased financialization of economies, etc.  This is a good thing.

Oh Snap!

The Parliament for the Belgian province of Wallonia and Romania will not approve the EU-Canada trade deal.

The government of the French-speaking Belgian region of Wallonia has refused to ratify the EU-Canada free trade agreement approved by the Belgian cabinet, the region's minister-president said.

"As long as we do not have all the guarantees…. it will be impossible for us to ratify such a text [the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA)], and it is not possible to give full powers to the Minister of Foreign Affairs to sign it either," Paul Magnette was quoted by the RBTF broadcaster as saying late on Wednesday.

The opponents draw a parallel between CETA and the US-EU Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which has been criticized for the lack of transparency in the negotiations and the power it would give to international corporations at the expense of small and medium-sized businesses.

The guarantees appear to deal primarily with the Investor State Dispute Settlement system, while Romania is upset that it does not have visa free travel to Canada, and the lack of support on this matter from its EU partners:

Romania will not ratify the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada which was concluded in 2014, as an angry reaction to the refusal by Ottawa to lift the visa requirement of its nationals, but also for the lack of EU solidarity for solving the issue.

The Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has published a position regarding Canada maintaining the visa requirement for Romanian citizens, expressing disappointment that Ottawa had not delivered on its promise to solve the issue, contained in the Statement of the 2014 EU-Canada summit.

Canada has a visa-free regime with all EU countries except Romania and Bulgaria.

These deals no longer being a sure thing is good.

Tariff barriers are minimal now, and these deals are really about giving rent seekers like Pharma, Music, Film, and Finance an opportunity for increased profits.

The secondary goal is to create a regime where profit trumps government power and the will of the people.

Shutting this down shutting this down is a very good thing.

Headline of the Day

Canada Bars Goat-Sacrificing Blood-Drinking US Senate Candidate

—Sputnik News

No words.

Canadian Awesome

I just have to say that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has the most awesome socks in Canada.

Canadian Defense Industry May See Immediate Benefit from F-35 Cancellation

Specifically, Canada has two needs, to replace its tired F/A-18s. but it also needs to replace much of its navy, which is well past its "sell by date".

It turns out that the money saved by cancelling the F-35 may well free up money to allow for new ships, which will have the effect of creating a net plus for the Canadian defense industry:

While Canadian firms stand to lose business with the country’s withdrawal from the F-35 program, its maritime industry is expecting a potential windfall from the change of direction in defense.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised to put more money into Canada’s ailing naval shipbuilding program, including any savings from selecting a cheaper alternative to the F-35 fighter jet. Maritime industry officials said that could mean more ships and more work.

Trudeau promised the shift in defense priorities during the recent federal election campaign. His government was elected Oct. 19 and took power Nov. 4.

The previous Conservative Party government had launched the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS) in 2011. That outlined an ambitious CAN $30 billion plan (US $23 billion) to construct new vessels for the Royal Canadian Navy and Canadian Coast Guard. NSPS would see construction of 28 major warships and 116 smaller vessels.

Conservative Party Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was defeated by Trudeau, had earlier dismissed the Liberal promise to spend more money on shipbuilding as unnecessary, noting that his government originally put enough funding into NSPS.

But the shipbuilding strategy has been dogged by concerns from industry. Defense analysts, the Royal Canadian Navy and the country’s Auditor General Michael Ferguson have all warned there is likely not enough money to build all the needed vessels.

Before the Conservative Party government was defeated, Defence Minister Jason Kenney acknowledged that the NSPS plan, supposed to build up to 15 replacement ships for the Navy's frigates and destroyers, might actually only finance 11 vessels.

Trudeau may very well have backed himself into a win-win scenario for canada.

I Should Feel Good about This, but I Keep Waiting to the Other Shoe to Drop

Obama has now officially rejected the Keystone-XL pipeline.

While a rational person should see this as an unalloyed good, I keep thinking that if TranCanada had not attempted to defer its application, making it clear that they were planning for a Republican victory in 2016, Obama would still be hedging his bets:

Saying that "the Keystone XL Pipeline would not serve the national interests of the United States," President Obama rejected the much-debated project on Nov. 6. (AP)

President Obama rejected a presidential permit Friday for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, citing concerns about its impact on the climate.

"America’s now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change," Obama told reporters, standing in the Roosevelt Room beside Vice President Biden and Secretary of State John F. Kerry. "And frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership. And that's the biggest risk we face, not acting."

Also, I wonder if this might be some sort of attempt to disarm the left in an attempt to get the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal passed.

Another Benefit to the Libs Winning in the Great White North

It looks like the elections in Canada make it far less likely for there to be any purchases of the F-35:

British Columbia — Canada will see a major shift in defense policy with the election of a new Liberal Party government and its planned withdrawal from the Iraq coalition air campaign and the US-led F-35 program.

Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau promised both during the election campaign leading up to Monday’s vote. Trudeau won a surprise landslide victory, forcing the ruling Conservative Party government into the opposition ranks of the House of Commons.

Trudeau said Tuesday he talked to US President Obama about Canada’s changing role in Iraq and the battle against the Islamic State militant group.

“I committed that we would continue to engage in a responsible way that understands how Canada has a role to play in the fight against ISIL,” Trudeau told journalists in a televised news conference from Ottawa, using an alternative acronym for the Islamic State group, also known as IS. “But (President Obama) understands the commitments I’ve made around ending the combat mission.”

………

Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper said if he was re-elected, he would approve a long-term commitment to the Iraq and Syrian wars.

Although Trudeau intends to end Canada’s role in the bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria, he has promised to boost the number of soldiers available to train Iraqi troops.

………

Trudeau also has promised to move quickly on replacing Canada’s aging fleet of CF-18 fighter aircraft and to pull out of the F-35 program. He said Canada does not need a stealth fighter for its defense needs and that the F-35 is too expensive.

The Liberal Party released its 88-page election platform Oct. 5, which included some details about how it would proceed with replacing the CF-18s. “The primary mission of our fighter aircraft should remain the defence of North America, not stealth first-strike capability,” the platform said. “We will make investing in the Royal Canadian Navy a top priority. By purchasing more affordable alternatives to the F-35s, we will be able to invest in strengthening our Navy.”

………

Alan Williams, who signed the original memorandum that brought Canada into the F-35 program in 1997, said the planned withdrawal from the fighter jet project would be embarrassing for the US.

But he said that Canada has to base its decisions on its own defense needs, and not only on the security and industrial concerns of its allies.

………

The other potential contenders to replace Canada’s CF-18s are the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Dassault Rafale, Boeing’s Super Hornet and Saab’s Gripen.

Williams said holding an open competition for a CF-18 replacement would ensure Canadian aerospace firms have the best chance at obtaining work on such a project.

Trudeau has suggested that the F-35 would not be considered in any competition.

There is an interesting comparison of capabilities at this page, and you will notice that, apart from low observability performance (stealth), the F-35 does not seem to be a particularly good deal:

	Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II	Saab Gripen JAS 39E/F	Eurofighter Typhoon	Dassault Rafale	Boeing F/A-18E/F/G Super Hornet
Crew	1	1(E), 2(F)	1 or 2(Trainer)	1(C,M), 2(B)	1(E), 2 (F,G)
Engines	1	1	2	2	2
Power	28,000 (43,000 with afterburner)	13,000 (22,000 with afterburner)	26,000 (40,000 with afterburner)	22,500 (34,000 with afterburner)	26,000 (44,000 with afterburner)
Thrust-to-weight ratio (with 100% fuel and A2A weapons)	0.87	1.06	1.07	0.99	0.93
Max speed (in mach)	1.6	2	2	1.8	1.8
Supercruise	No1	1.2 (with 2 WVR and 2 BVR missiles)	1.3 (with 2 WVR and 4 BVR missiles)	1.4 (with 6 WVR/BVR missiles)	No
Combat Radius (Air to Air mission)	1,100km (internal fuel only)	1,300km (with centreline 290 gallon tank)	1,389km	1,000+km	1000+km (internal fuel only)
Ferry Range (with external tanks)	2,220km (internal fuel only)2	4,000+km	3,790km	3,700+km	3,300km
Service ceiling:	60,000ft3	50,000ft4	55,000ft	55,000ft	50,000ft+
Wing loading (lower = better):	91.4lb/ft2	58lb/ft24	64lb/ft2	62.8lb/ft2	94lb/ft2
Rate of climb:	Classified	50,000ft/min4	62,000ft/min	60,000ft/min	44,882ft/min
Radar:	AN/APG-81 AESA	Raven AESA	CAPTOR-E AESA (planned)	RBE2-AA AESA	APG-79 AESA
Infrared Search and Track:	AAQ-40 EOTS	Selex "Skyward G" IRST	PIRATE IRST, LITENING pod	SAGEM-OSF	IRST mounted in external fuel tank
Helmet mounted display System:	HMDS (still in development)	Cobra HMDS	Eurofighter HMSS	TopSight HMD	JHMCS
Electronic warfare and countermeasures:	AN/AAQ/37 DAS missile warning system, AN/ASQ-239 Electronic Warfare system, stealth design resulting in decreased radar and infrared signature.	ECM pods, BOL advanced countermeasure dispenser, MAW (missile approach warner), Laser Warning System, towed decoy, internally mounted RF jammers.	ECM pods, flares, IR decoy dispenser, chaff pods, radar warning receiver, MAW, laser warning receiver, towed decoy,	Thales SPECTRA electronic warfare suite	ECM pods, towed decoys, chaff, flares, AN/ALE-165 jammer pod, AN/ALR-67 radar warning reciever
Gun:	GAU-22/A 25mm 4-barrelled gatling cannon	27mm Mauser BK-27 Revolver cannon (E model only)	27mm Mauser BK-27 Revolver cannon	30mm GIAT 30/719B autocannon	20mm M61 Vulcan gatling cannon
Hardpoints:	4 internal, 6 external	10	13 (4 semi-conformal)	14	11
Payload:	18,000lbs (using external pylons)	15,875lbs	16,500lbs	21,000lbs	17,750lbs
“X-Factor”:	Stealth, advanced sensors	Can operate from unprepared runways, low operating cost.	Legendary air-to-air performance, twin engine.	Ground strike ability, naval version available, twin engine.	Naval airframe, easy transition, twin engine.
Problems:	Troubled development, questionable performance, high operating cost.	Smaller design, less payload.	Troubled history, high operating cost.	Proprietary systems and weapons.	Old design, unremarkable performance.

¹Unofficially, the F-35 can supercruise at mach 1.2 for a distance of 241km.
²External fuel tanks are planned for the F-35, but none have been flight tested yet.
³The F-35 has only been tested to 43,000ft so far.
⁴Gripen C information, Gripen E data is unavailable

I would note here that the F-35 is more than 50% more costly than any of the competition, and has a direct operating cost more than that of an F-15, which was never known as an aircraft that was cheap to operate.

Further, it appears that the use of external tanks in a combat configuration will not be something that we will see in the near future, the Pentagon has its eggs in the stealth basket, and adding a combat tank would require its cooperation.

This means that its range in a typical combat configuration will typically be no better than its competitors.

In an air to air mode, the F-35 either needs to carry missiles externally, negating stealth, or to limit itself to just two missiles, placing the aircraft at a disadvantage.

Furthermore, much like Donald Trump's hair, it's fat, heavy and slow.

Finally, the F-35 is a roach motel: Data goes in, but it does not come out until it reaches Lockheed Martin in Ft. Worth, which means that there will be a heavy rent collected for developing new weapons, which will suppress the defense industries in partner nations.

The inability to access the source code of the aircraft also means that there will be some serious tactical issues, as data collected on new threats cannot even be examined by anyone but LM and the Pentagon, which could make for lots of flaming debris when an opponent deploys a heretofore unknown air defense system.

I do understand why Trudeau wants to drop the program:  It is less a defense program than it is an industrial base preservation program centered on the US defense industry.

Canadian Election Update

Pretty much says it all

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Election Results
Party	Current Seats	Election Results (Preliminary)	Net
Liberal	36	188	+152
Conservative	159	101	-58
New Democratic	95	38	-57
Bloc Québécois	2	10	+8
Green	2	1	-1
Strength in Democracy	2	0	-2

John Oliver lays waste to Harper

The Canadian election tonight has turfed out the Conservative Party after 10 years.

It really does amaze me that they reelected Stephen Harper 3 times.

He has always been very straightforward on the fact that he dislikes the idea of Canada as a modern western nation.

He vision of Canada appeared to be a white Christian Saudi Arabia. He makes Dick Cheney look like an environmentalist, and he was trying to starve the Canadian health system into oblivion.

I kind of figured that the game was up when Harper tried a Hail Mary by campaigning with: crack-smoking former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

Still, that did not stop John Oliver from risking the wrath of Canadian authorities by suggesting that Harper is Canada's dick boyfriend. ($5,000 CDN & 6 months in jail, but the video is worth it)

The NDP has completely cratered, largely because after unprecedented electoral success in the last election, they were the official opposition (2^nd place) for the first time ever, Jack Layton the party leader, up and got cancer, and was replaced by Tom Mulcair who tacked to the right, promising no deficits, which meant no austerity, and so ended up to the right of the historically more centrist Liberals.

One of the longstanding criticisms of the LDP is that they are seen as ineffective, and can be relied on to waffle^* rather than have the courage of their convictions.

So they gave up their ideology this time around, and got clubbed like baby seals.^†

It will be interesting to see how much the young Trudeau, the new PM to be, will be able to undo the damage that Harper has done.

My guess is that many of the changes that Harper has made will be very hard to roll back.

H/t Obsidian Wings for the kitty pic.

^*This is an obscure Canadian political and historical pun.
^†A somewhat less obscure pun involving Canada.

Why Does this Remind Me of Stalinist Architecture?

Positively Hideous

It seems to me that whenever a reactionary government remains in power too long, it seems that they develop an edifice complex:

A plan to erect a 10-storey statue in a national park on one of Canada’s most scenic shorelines has prompted outrage and sparked a growing political row as the country heads towards a general election this fall.

The statue of Mother Canada – a cloaked female figure with her arms outstretched towards the Atlantic Ocean – is intended to honour the country’s soldiers who died overseas.

But growing anger over the plan has made it a new focus of opposition to the increasingly unpopular government of Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper.

The proposed monument is an awkwardly remodelled, vastly upscaled version of an earlier statue, known as Canada Bereft, which adorns the memorial to the country’s first world war dead near Vimy, France.

The design has been widely lambasted both for its design and its proposed location in Cape Breton Highlands national park. In an editorial this week, the Globe and Mail newspaper described it as “offensively tasteless” and a “hubristically arrogant act of arrogant unoriginality”.

“The bigger-is-better approach to art is best left to Stalinist tyrants, theme park entrepreneurs and insecure municipalities hoping to waylay bored drive-by tourists,” the paper wrote.

Stephen Harper has gagged government scientists,  used the Canadian Revenue Agency to target charities who protest his agenda, and gutted the census, among other things, and now we have this.

My condolences to my friends in Canada, because this cannot be good, particularly if the Conservatives are not turfed out in the 2015 elections.