Poor Len sees the Canadiens in his crystal ball... but dimly

Ed. here. National Hockey League playoffs begin in three weeks, roughly (geddit?), so I call on our National Sports (read: Hockey) Editor, Poor Len Canayen, to give us an assessment of how Canada's team, the Montréal Canadiens, are likely to do... if they make it that far.

Tank youse, Hed. I assure you that when the NHL's Northern (read: Canadian) Division playoffs start, les Canadiens seront là! At least, that's how the standings look this morning. The Habs are in 4th place, 4 points ahead of the Calgary Flames, but with a game in hand. If the order of finish at the end of this shortened season is the same then as now, the Canadiens will meet first-place Toronto in a match-up long dreamed of by frostback fans.

It's getting from here to there that's going to be the problem. Les Glorieux  have games tonight and tomorrow night, at le Centre Bell, against the Winnipeg Jets and the last-place Ottawa Senators. They face the Maple Leafs on Monday night. They need to win at least one of those game, and even against the Sens they face a challenge.

Why? Because the Habs are without five (count `em - 5) of their regular players.

Goalie Carey Price is recovering from a concussion. He has started working out at the gym but hasn't laced on the skates, and may be out until playoff time. That leaves Jake Allen to carry the load, with perhaps one start going to rookie backup Cayden Primeau. 

Allen has been playing well enough, except when he tries to handle the puck behind the net. It's lack of offence that's the problem. In the last four games, the Habs have scored a measly seven (count `em - 7) goals. They are the only team currently in a playoff position with a negative +/- goal count.

Where are the guys who are supposed to put the puck in the net? Brendan Gallagher, the heart and soul of la Sainte Flannelle, is nursing a broken thumb. He's skating but won't be available until the playoffs. Tomas "Tuna" Tatar, who normally plays on the other side of the first line, is day-to-day with a "lower body injury".  So is shifty speedster Paul Byron, also one of the key players on the penalty kill.

The fifth missing member is Jonathan Drouin, the superstar who never was. He has taken a leave of absence "for personal reasons". Clearly he needs some respite from the pressure that only Québécois playing in Montréal truly feel. We wish him well. The good news is that the Habs have finally been able to insert in the lineup rookie Cole Caulfield, just arrived from a great season in US college hockey. While he has yet to score in the two games he's appeared in, signs of greatness are there.

So... every game between now and end of the season is crucial, and every one looks like being a nail-biter. Getting into the playoffs will be a win for the wounded Canadiens. Don't look for more than that when they meet Austin Matthews & Co. (the Leafs). If they can win one or two games of that first series, that will be triumph enough. Bon match, les gars... et bonne chance!

MAGA rallies WILL be revived this year

Although the Montana Testicle Festivals will not resume this year (see previous post), Walt does have some good news about events which many of our readers have attended in the past, and will want to attend again, perhaps as soon as next month!

According to numerous sources, including Breitbart News, former President Donald Trump is planning to bring back his famous "Make America Great Again" political rallies.

Since their inception in 2015, Mr Trump’s record-setting political rallies have allowed his supporters to express their enthusiasm for his political agenda and his willingness to be politically incorrect. 

The former president is emerging as a focal point of opposition to the Biden-Harris radical leftest, one-world agenda, much more so than the RINOs who have tried to distance themselves from his political brand after the fake election of 2020. 

Even though he has not announced plans to run for president again in 2024, he said in a recent interview, "I am looking at it very seriously, beyond seriously." As a first step, he told podcaster Dan Bongino yesterday, President Trump confirmed he would do another political rally in the future. "We'll do one soon," he said. "They [his supporters] love the rallies." Indeed we do. Don't keep us waiting too long!

Montana Testicle Festival will not be revived this year

Walt regrets to advise that plans to restart the annual Testicle Festival, notorious for drinking, nudity, debauchery and tens of thousands of Rocky Mountain oysters, have come a cropper, due in part to concerns over holding a potential kung flu "super-spreader" event.

The festival ran at various locales in Montana for 35 years, ending with the 2017 event at Clinton, after two people were killed and seven injured when a man who had been kicked out of the event and put on a shuttle back to Missoula allegedly grabbed the wheel, causing the Jeep to roll. 

Over the years, the Testicle Festival generated more than its fair share of fights, drunken driving and fatal crashes. Captain Jim Kitchin of the Montana Highway Patrol was one of six troopers who responded to the fatal crash on the night of 5 August 2017. 

He told The Missoulian that from a traffic safety standpoint alone, he was glad when the proprietor of Rock Creek Lodge, where the festival was last held, had decided to pull the plug. "It saves my troopers a lot of heartache, not having to go out there and be pulling dead people off the road," he said. "I will applaud his decision not to do that anymore."

Where are we now?

I looked at this rather complex Venn diagram and under the "instersectionality" [Aha! Caught you using that buzzword! Ed.] of everything except "Gattaca", which I'd never heard of before. Turns out it's a movie, which appeared in 1997, while I was in darkest Africa. 

The summary on IMDb says (only): A genetically inferior man assumes the identity of a superior one in order to pursue his lifelong dream of space travel. Elsewhere, I read: The film Gattaca explores themes of genetic manipulation, freedom of self-determination, and eugenics, the practice of advocating for the genetic improvement of the human species through selective reproduction. 

Hmmm. "Selective reproduction". That would include sex-selective abortion, I suppose. I understand now why it's included in the diagram. Must get hold of a copy.

Triumphs of Biden's first 100 days: Canadians to snap up US shares; menthol cigarettes to be banned; and so much more!

Last night, before a joint session of Congress, the fraudulently elected President of the Paranoid States of America mounted a campaign-style attack on Ronald Reagan, whom he seems to think he beat last November. He also gave himself an hour-long pat on the back for all the big announcements he's made in the first 100 days of his presidensity.

Sleepy Joe bragged about plans to spend over a TRILLION dollars -- raised by mortgaging America's future -- to get the economy moving again, so Americans can all enjoy a cookout on July 4th.** Part of the money has been earmarked for the purchase of new printing presses, as the existing ones are already showing the strain of printing so many banknotes and cheques of diminishing value. 

Value is measured by the worth of the once-mighty greenback against other currencies. In November of 2020 it took 75 American cents to buy one lousy Canadian dollar. This morning, if you want a "loonie", it'll cost you nearly 82 cents in real money. You'll find out next time you go to Niagara Falls!

As surely as day follows night, more reckless government spending is followed by higher taxes. Mr Biden-Harris seems very happy to "tax the rich". Unfortunately raising capital gains tax will hit the small investor [like me with my 100 shares of Tesla. Ed.] just as much as the vile Koch Bros who helped get Sleepy Joe elected.

What Mr Biden-Harris apparently doesn't realize is that his proposed hikes to corporate and capital-gains taxes could compel family-owned US companies to sell their businesses, creating opportunities for foreigners -- especially those greedy Canucks -- to make cross-border acquisitions. 

Sleepy Joe's alleged plan would reverse President Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which slashed the top corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21% . The Biden-Harris plan will raise the rate back up to 28%.

The levy on long-term capital gains will rise to 39.6%, up from the current 20%. The unintended (?) consequence will be family-owned enterprises cashing out before the Biden-Harris shit-hammer crashes down. Smart, eh?

But wait (as Vince Offer used to say), there's more! The Biden-Harris administration is set to alienate millions of Americans who voted for them -- voters of the coloured persuasion (aka BIPOCs) -- by banning the sale of menthol cigarettes!

The Food and Drug Administration says that 19.5 million Americans, most of them younger and, errr, darker, smoke menthol cigarettes.  Among black smokers, 85.8% smoke menthols, compared with 28.7% of smokers of paler complexion.

Right on cue, the SJWs -- the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice, etc etc -- warned that the move to ban menthol cigarettes "would disproportionately impact communities of color, result in criminalization of the market, and exacerbate mass incarceration," according to a letter sent this week to HHS Secretary and Chief Prosecutor of Nuns Xavier Becerra.

The ACLU and other groups claim the ban on menthol smokes has the potential to create "large underground, illegal markets.... In addition, underground cigarette sales would be a massive law enforcement problem for states, counties, and cities, since all states treat unlicensed sale of tobacco products as a crime – usually as a felony punishable by imprisonment."

The letter goes on to say that "in the end, tobacco policy will no longer be the responsibility of regulators regulating, but police policing." Do they mean that the police, who aren't allowed to arrest black rioters and looters, are going to feel the collars of POCs selling smokes on street corners? 

Oh yes, sez the ACLU. "'Our experience with alcohol, opioid, and cannabis prohibition teaches us that that is a policy disaster waiting to happen, with Black and other communities of color bearing the brunt." Well, at least no-one will be able to accuse Biden-Harris of being soft on crime!

Footnote: Even CNN's Anderson Cooper noticed that Mr Biden-Harris barely mentioned the little problem at America's southern border, and clearly has no clue about what to do about it. See "Axelrod: Biden 'Didn't Offer a Solution' for His 'Biggest Problem' at the U.S.-Mexico Border" (referencing remarks by David Axelrod, former advisor to the Prez), Breitbart News, 29/1/21.

**Another footnote: Please sit down while you look at this little graph, scraped from the Economist, and consider its implications for your future.

VIDEO (for Catholics): Serious (and sad) thoughts for a Sunday

Dr Taylor Marshall discusses a recent statement by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, in which the prelate accuses the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church -- "heretical and depraved modernists" -- of trying to turn Holy Mother Church, the Bride of Christ, into a philanthropical organization like the Rotary Club or the United Nations.

   

Let us pray that God will intervene to protect His Church from Her enemies. Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil; May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; And do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen.

Footnote for the Catholic faithful: Have you been lazy... not paying attention to the crisis in the Church? If you understand and agree with what Archbishop Vigano, Archbishop Sheen, Dr Taylor and so many others are saying... if you are afraid for our Church... wake up and speak up! Copy the URL and send this to your pastor and to all others who are blindly following the leadership of Jorge Bergoglio into heresy and damnation.

Further viewing: Click here to hear Michael Matt, editor of The Remnant newspaper, discuss the upcoming Vatican conference mentioned by Dr Marshall in this video. How seriously (Mr Matt asks) should we be taking "Pope Francis the Globalist"? Really!

Canadian government budget statement

As a service to our Canadian readers, who may not have heard or understood the Liberal government's budget, released last week, we repost the statement released the next day by Chrystia Freeland, the lady in the tight red dress and also alleged Minister of Finance.

You're welcome.