Search: “embassy”

Is there any more annoying phrase than “the world needs more Canada”?  There is a book by that name by Heather Reisman, head of Indigo books, and a frequent slogan used by that chain.  It refers, I think, to the notion that Canada is such a nice place and that we Canadians are just so […]

When I was growing up in London (Ontario) there was a famous quasi-mythical family that lived near the town of Lucan, about a half-hour away, in the 19th  century.  The Donnellys, or the ‘Black Donnellys’ as we were taught about them, were Irish immigrants who were killed by a mob in 1880 in a feud […]

I, like many others I suspect, have grown tired and increasingly frustrated at trying to understand anything the Trump administration is doing.  So many of its decisions seem to be made with little forethought or analysis and appear to be taken in a ‘screw you’ kind of way.  What other interpretation can be given to […]

There are few places on Earth more pitiable than Mali, a landlocked country in West Africa that is about the size of South Africa.  It ranks in the bottom ten with respect to poverty, has one of the world’s largest birth rates (6 children per mother), and has a serious terrorist problem to boot. It […]

This is not going to end well. President elect Donald Trump has named a bankruptcy lawyer with precisely ZERO diplomatic experience, David Friedman, as the US ambassador to Israel and it is clear that his administration will move the US embassy to Jerusalem.  Mr. Friedman is an extremist whose views on the Israel-Palestine conflict are […]

As long promised, the Canadian government has announced its policy on dealing with Islamic State and other terrorist groups in Syria-Iraq.  Recall that while merely an opposition member Liberal leader Justin Trudeau was critical of the offensive mandate chosen by the Conservative government, mockingly referring to it as “whipping out our CF-18s”.  If elected, he […]

I bet some of you are wondering why this blog post is being written, in light of the title.  Surely, you are probably saying, there is no contest.  Iran meddles in the affairs of other countries, supports terrorist groups like Hamas and Hizballah and is trying to acquire nuclear weapons.  And then there is that […]