They don't realize they've already gone too far and even if they manage to make the provinces cave and buy US booze again the consumers will take over the boycott in their own hands.
They should worry more about the % of their market shares they may never be able to recover after all this.
It's time to set the record straight.
#TheVampireLestat debuts June 7 on AMC and AMC+.
youtu.be/7c7JFMTBeVk
Cover art for Louise Penny's The Black Wolf, Canada, 2025 (Political thriller)
#28 in 2026. (5/🧵) 📚💙⚡ Penny moves from mystery to political thriller territory with her latest Gamache. Solid overall, and Trump's 2024 election made a plot plausible and almost prescient that would have been far-fetched before, but she remains at her finest in the more traditional crime fiction.
It echoes what Mark Carney said a while ago. He’s different to deal with away from his camera and social media performance, but it’s still not very easy in private. And also that we don’t get to choose the American administration but have no choice to deal with those Americans have put there.
A very high probability with present day Americans even though it's true also the Russians never have our best interests in mind when they hammer on that nail over and over and over to further undermine trust in collective defence.
She sure is. I haven’t read her YA books published as a teenager, but her urban fantasy as Kate Griffins is also really good, and her Claire North output is already an impressive and diverse body of works
I love North. Reynolds has some really good ones, including a few perhaps more in the vein of HY like Chasm City, the Prefect books, and broader space operas like the Revelation Space sequence, and many good stand alone. I’m partial to House of Suns, Chasm City and to Eversion.
Montage of covers for the following: Putin, his life and time by Philip Short (Uk, 2022, Political biography) The Black Wolf (Armand Gamache #20) by Louise Penny (Québec-Canada, 2025, Mystery/Political thriller) Slow Gods by Claire North (UK, 2025, Space Opera) Halcyon Years by Alastair Reynolds (UK, 2025, Space Opera Noir/crime fiction)
Good Monday Stephen. I'm finishing the Canadian thriller The Black Wolf by Louise Penny, Slow Gods by Claire North and progressing more slowly through Philip Short's Putin biography. I'll soon start on Halcyon Years, the latest novel of Alastair Reynolds. #Booksky #AmReading #MondayReads
Few care for apologies from Americans. We got that and "America’s back" from Biden, and look how you paid us for welcoming you back to the table.
We’ll judge you on what you do to fix things and your success in this endeavour, not on promises and words.
Own up fully to what happened, don’t let 90 million not vote, stop seeing us all as background extras and the US as the heroic lead protagonist, and most of all fix your country or divide it into smaller ones if you can’t reconcile your visions of the USA enough to function anymore as one Republic
The US might be too polarized for this by now, but the Democrats sure could use some of that spirit to choose the most electable candidate for each seat. Put out the fire fascists started in the basement before arguing over the fabric for new drapes.
There was some grumbling about values and purity tests, but in the end to go through what is possibly our biggest national challenge since WWII you can‘t afford to reject anyone who’s willing to temporarily shelve ideological differences to put their shoulder to the wheel for the country
That’s the "all hands on deck" spirit you see to a degree in Canada right now, with Mark Carney opening the door to a defecting Nunavut MP from the socialist NDP and not long after to a "Maple MAGA" it’s easiest to describe as a Canadian Marjorie Taylor Greene from the industrial heart of Ontario.
It was for the most part embarrassing to monarchs as they were publicly accused of having offended the God from which their divine right to rule came and undermined their power.
For ordinary Catholic it’s mostly an invitation to make amend.
Excommunication is just saying "you have sinned and can’t partake in communion and other sacraments until you confess and expiate those sins".
It’s not the "you’re kicked out and will go to Hell » sentence many non Catholics seem to think it is.
Carney’s most quotable comment and jab at Trump might be "I know you have busy lives and don’t need daily interruptions from me". 😂.
the old relationship is truly dead, the desire for very close ties destroyed. Trust in that regard will not return in a foreseeable future, and it's the kind of things that tends to be passed to the next generations.
It will be asymmetrical of course. Some nations will be more open to it than others. In the case of Canada for instance, I think it's already too late. I do not mean a hostile climate and virtual cold war will remain for very long once Trump's gone, but I think at the policy level
"ah well, the US is back to its old self so let's go back to the world as it was.".
No political party in the western world will be able to campaign on "closer ties to the US" and expect to win in the upcoming decade would be my guess.
are now engaging in nation (and networks, and alliances) building endeavours which are meant to reduce reliance on the US as the so-called "leader of the free world". This demands sacrifices, changes of perspective. By January 2029 there won't be any appetite to shelve all this to say
of the US in the world, I suspect it this won't really happen in a foreseeable future. It's gone. Americans underestimate right now how fast and brutally the world is changing outside the US. The tables have been upended. There's going to be massive resistance to going back. A lot of countries
It might depend what you mean by trust exactly. I think the world will start re-engaging with the USA normally much faster than that if a new administration returns to the traditional way of conducting trade and diplomacy.
However, if by trust you mean a return to the pre-Trump role and standing
For her regular readers imagine Catherine doing a space opera with the vibes of "New British Space Opera" she reads a lot, but also paying homage to the old fashioned masters of SF she grew up on like Vance, Bayley, Stapledon, and doing it in a very Claire North way in style and sensibilities/themes
Montage of the covers for: Putin: his life and time by Philip Short (UK, 2022, Biography) The Black Wolf (Chef Inspecteur Gamache #20) by Louise Penny (Québec-Canada, 2025, political thriller/crime fiction) Slow Gods by Claire North (UK, 2025, Space Opera sci-fi)
Good Sunday Womble. As it happens, I'm also in the middle of the very enjoyable Slow Gods, and as April shows (again) today it is a cruel coldhearted month it's a perfect time to progress in Putin's biography by Philip Short. I'm also halfway in Louise Penny's latest Gamache, The Black Wolf. 📚💙
That would lead to rather epic and tumultuous sessions of the NAC (behind closed doors, alas). Being trapped and cornered by the US into vetoing a request under article 5 is a bit of a nightmare scenario for the alliance, but I guess they anticipated it might get to that eventually.
I was reminded of that recently reading an history of NATO that covered well the Reagan/Gorbachev years.
As one of those lib X (but not in the US) I got to say at 14-16 y.o. Reagan and Thatcher (and Mulroney and Kohl) were easy magnets for hatred, but studying him and the US system in political science around 1990, and through history books, you form a far more nuanced picture of the man and his legacy
Cover for the bande dessinée En direct de la gaffe by Franquin/Delporte, Belgium, 1974
#27 in 2026. (4/🧵) 📚💙. A classic Gaston album from the mid-70s, with a bit unusually a lot of written stories with boards of comics (bande dessinées) in between. Still missing a few classic later characters, but with it's a good period for this series.
He could. Renouncing catholicism and denying the authority of the pope is apostasy, one of the sins that result in latae sententiae, ie: automatic excommunications. He just can't brag about having been excommunicated by the Vatican as they rarely do anymore now they've automated the whole process
Cover for A Grave for a Thief by Douglas Skelton (UK, 2024). It's the third novel in the Company of Rogues historical mystery/adventure series, set in 1716 England
26th book read in 2026. (3/🧵) 📚💙⏳ 📚💙⚡ Back to Skelton's Jonas Flynt & Company of rogues. Less of a crime mystery (but still with plenty of mystery) and more historical adventure, but just as great as the previous two in the series. Jonas is joined by a really fun, shady new character in this one