VIDEO: The Habs in another winter of discontent

Ed. here. Walt's favourite hockey team, the Montréal Canadiens, are enjoying (we hope) a week off ahead of the phoney-baloney NHL All-Star Game. So this is a good time for our National Sports (As Long As It's Hockey) Editor, Poor Len Canayen, to analyse how the Habs are doing, a little more than halfway through the season. Over to you, Len.

Tank youse, Hed. Don't forget dat I already did a mid-season analysis, not dat long ago. But since you're paying (right?), I do have a few more thoughts. Let's start with this.

  

For years now, Brendan Gallagher, although he's never worn the "C", has been the heart and soul of les Glorieux. No one works harder. No one takes more punishment. No one gets fewer calls from the refs. But for three years now he's been playing for a team which is in rebuild mode, not expected to play better than .500 hockey, let alone make the playoffs. 

Brendan's getting older, too. He has a lot of hard miles on the chassis and simply isn't able to do the things he used to do. In recent weeks, his frustration has led to some late-game penalties, a couple of which have cost his team the game. What you saw here is the latest and worst. I was shocked... really! Even Mme Len put down her knitting to take notice.

The Habs won that game, 4-2. Usually the the final score in way too many Habs' games is 3-2... one way or another. No team in the NHL has had more one-goal games, overtime games or shootouts. They  have played 49 games, with 33 to go. They have a record of 20-21-8, which can be read as one game under .500. 

They are tied in points with the Sabres at 48 but Buffalo has two more wins, leaving les Glorieux in seventh place in the Atlantic Conference. Overall, the Habs are ahead of only the Senators and Bluejackets in the Eastern Conference and the Wild, Blackhawks, Ducks and Sharks in the West. 

The chief lesson to be learned from the stats is that what the Canadiens lack is the ability to put the puck in the net. Their goal differential is -39, worst in the East and ahead of only three teams in the West. In spite of the odd flash of brilliance, their power play ranks 19th at 19.88%, a full 10 percentage points behind the Lightning. Their penalty kill is 29th at 73.53% -- not a good number for a young team that takes a lot of penalties. 

There are some bright spots. After a slow start to the season, Cole Caufield is rounding into form, although he needs to get over an understandable reluctance to go into the corners. Captain Nick Suzuki improves every year. Although he's still inconsistent at the faceoff dot, he has proven himself a true leader. Sean Monaham has managed to stay healthy and regained his confidence, to the point where he's suddenly become real trade bait.

On the defensive side, Mike Matheson is having his best season ever, often deserving a star in those tight games. The surprise of the year is D-man Jayden "Apple" Struble, who's come out of nowhere to be one of the three best in bleu-blanc-et-rouge. Unfortunately I can name only one more -- Kaiden Guhle -- who I wouldn't trade. The team also needs an experienced defence/PK coach.

In goal,  Samuel "Monty" Montembeault, who seemed last year like a perennial backup, has been good, and on some nights brilliant. And why not, with the defence allowing opponents almost 40 shots per game. The dilemma for Montréal's management is whether to trade Jake Allen or Cayden Primeau. Ièm not convinced that young Primeau is ever going to be more than a journeyman goaltender.

In October and November there was talk, amongst us fans, that the Habs might make the playoffs earlier than expected, i.e. this year,  But fans have to understand that rebuilds take time. You can't go from last to first in just a couple of years. 

Say what you like about Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton. They have a plan and it's working out, slowly but surely. Coach Martinuting it well. St. Louis is a terrific teacher and communicator, and has fully embraced recent changes to how hockey should be played. The future isn't brilliant, but it's bright enough. And fans should rememer that the future extends beyond June of 2024.

Blowback from "Best Real Name" award

Ed. here. An assiduous reader disagrees with Walt's choice of Chun In-bum as Best Real Name of 2024. (See yesterday's post.)

First, she thinks the award is premature, given that there are 11 months to go before we welcome in a new year and a new, greater America. (Didja get the political point there?)

Secondly, she says that Chun In-bum ought not to be eligible for the award, because it's not an "English" name, meaning it probably means sometehing un-funny in Korean, and is only funny to us because it sounds like... well... "funny" is in the mind of the reader/hearer.

We take issue with that assertion. To us, "Chun In-bum" just sounds funny. And, believe it or not, "Bum" is not an uncommon name in Korea. There was a story during the Vietnam War about the Korean Foreign Minister, whose name made Americans laugh. It was Lee Bum Suk.. Embarrassed TV bingo-callers (newscasters who read off the Autocue) tried to soften it up a bit by pronouncing it as "Lee Boom Sook", but Mr Lee made it clear that, no, it was "Lee Bum Suck".

OK, forget the Korean names. Our reader wants a nice American name? Walt has one for ya, taken from p. 144 of An American Company: the Tragedy of United Fruit, by Thomas P. McCann, a former PR executive of the company. (Crown Publishers, New York, 1976). 

"One of the company's supervisors, who later rose to become an Assistant Manager of one of the tropical divisions, was a Texan named Remington Patterson Coon. His friends called him Pat."    

The author does not mention Mr Coon's race, but given his position in one of the great imperialist American companies, we'll guess he was white. Anyway, his name is not entered in this year's contest. Further nominations are welcome.

Wally award for Best Real Name

Agent 3 has forwarded us the link to "Kim Jong-Un rips up plan to reunify Korea, raising fears of all-out war", which appeared in the MSN feed of The Daily Telegraph earlier today.

We are posting the link so you skeptics out there can check out the following quote, should you think Walt made up the name which gets the coveted Wally Award for Best Real Name of the Year 2024.

 Experts such as Chun In-bum, a retired general who once commanded South Korea’s special forces, believe Kim could engage in more limited military aggression now that he has taken the “significant” step to reject the historic common bond between North and South.

Even though we haven't reached the end of January, that looks like a sure winner to me. Congratulations to Agent 3 for having spotted it. Your cheque is in the mail.

A new soubriquet: Soupy Joe

Canadian court calls out Trudeau for Freedom Convoy suppression

Yesterday was a big news day, not just in the Excited States of America but to the north of the World's Longest Open Border (TM). Those who participated in or supported the Freedom Convoy were finally vindicated when Mr Justice Richard Mosley of the Federal Court of Canada ruled that Prime Minister Just In (from Jamaica) Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act to shut down the trucker protests against vaccine mandates and other lockdown measures unconstitutional. 

The lawsuit was brought against Canuckistan's Liberal misgovernment by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Constitution Foundation, and other individuals concerned about the loss of freedom of speech, not to mention fines imposed by liberal judges and the confiscation (without notice or appeal) of their bank accounts.

The plaintiffs did not seek damages or reparations -- although claims for such may follow yesterday's ruling -- but a declaratory judgment confirming that Blackie McBlackface and his minions were wrong, wrong, wrong!

They argued before you can invoke the Emergencies Act, you have to have an emergency. The truckers' protests, they said, did not meet the legal threshold for the government to use the powers granted under the Act, which had never been used since its enactment in 1988, as a replacement for the War Mesures Act, a means of combatting terrorism. 

The invocationt of the Act by "Little Potato" (as the Chinese call M Trudeau) -- reportedly at the urging of Senile Joe Biden hisself -- allowed the federal government to arrest the leaders of the Freedom Convoy, freeze bank accounts of protesters, and seize donations by supporters of the protest, including many American citizens and organizations.

The Act states that, for the government to declare a public emergency, there must be "threats to the security of Canada that are so serious as to be a national emergency." Was there such an emergency? In February of 2023 the Whitewash Commission presided over by Mr Justice Paul Rouleau -- a Liberal appointee -- found "with reluctance" that the threshold had been met. After all, Blackie had gone into hiding at an undisclosed location -- not Jamaica but somewhere in the Gatineau hills -- so he must have thought it was a real threat.

On the contrary, Mr Justice Mosley said, "I have concluded that the decision to issue the Proclamation does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness – justification, transparency and intelligibility – and was not justified in relation to the relevant factual and legal constraints that were required to be taken into consideration.

"The potential for serious violence, or being unable to say that there was no potential for serious violence was, of course, a valid reason for concern. But in my view, it did not satisfy the test required to invoke the Act."

The judge went on to say that the actions from the government also "infringed" on the rights guaranteed to Canadian citizens under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. "It is declared that the Regulations infringed section 2(b) of the Charter and declared that the Order infringed section 8 of the Charter and that neither infringement was justified under section 1."

Prime Minister McBlackface was unavailable for comment yesterday, but the state-owned Canadian Broadcorping Castration reported that the lovely and fragrant Deputy Prime Minister said during a cabinet meeting in Montréal that the government intends to appeal the ruling.

The case will almost certainly go to the Federal Court of Appeal and likely beyond that to the Supreme Court of Canada. But the decision of Mr Justice Mosley -- like Mr Justic Rouleau, a Liberal appointee -- will be hard for Trudeau’s minions to dismantle. 

Further reading: 

"Turns out bouncy castles aren’t a national emergency after all", by Andrew Lawton, 24/1/24 

"Was the Freedom Convoy a threat to Canada's national security?", WWW 28/11/22

The Skinny Lady hasn't sung yet

Here's a FACT that Mitch McConnell, Chris Christie, David Frum, CNN, MSNBC, Chris Sununu, and all the anti-Trumpers (including, sadly, Walt's Agent 2) can't deny. President Donald J. Trump won the New Hampshire Republican primary.

And the corollary... Despite having spent over $30 million in donations from big business and the Establishment, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley garnered something like 44% of the votes against 55% for Mr. Trump.

Yet somehow, Ms Haley (née Nimarata Hikki Randhawa) insisted in her un-concession speech that somehow she had won, and would follow up her triumph with a win in South Carolina in a month's time.

Let's see now. Ms Haley ran third (of the main contenders) in Iowa, and second (of two) in New Hampshire. Putting it another way, she was last in Iowa, last in New Hampshire, and now she expects to finish first in South Carolina. Really?

There hasn't been much polling in Ms Haley's home state yet, but state polls taken before the Iowa caucuses, showed her trailing President Trump by 30 percentage points, give or take. The Donald enjoys very strong support there, and has been endorsed by prominent South Carolina politicians including Senators Tim Scott and Lindsey Graham.

Here's another FACT. If you exclude all the disaffected Republicans (including NH Governor Chris Sununu), Democrats and independents who voted for Ms Haley, President Trump's margin was at least double the 11% of the total vote. President Trump now owns the Republican Party, and has all but clinched the GOP nomination for thee 2024 presidential election.

Last night, talking of Ms Haley (although he didn't mention her by name), he said, "She's doing... a speech like she won. She didn't win. She lost." 

After last night's result, Americans can now look forward -- with anticipation or fear, take your  pick -- to a rematch of the stolen 2020 contest. The people and organizations mentioned in the first paragraph -- including Ms Haley -- insist that such a contest will be close. 

Before the NH polls closed yesterday, President Brandon puffed up his hollow chest and boasted that he was the only one who had beaten Mr Trump before, and he would do so again. The Democrats have even printed up T-shirts bearing that message. Walt sez: Oh yeah? Care to put some money on it? Lifetime pct .989.

This article is a HOAX, but worth reading anyway!

Ed. here. Let's get the "hoax" part out of the way. Thanks to Agent 5 for passing along this article, but checking reveals that Dr Emanuel Tanay (March 5, 1928 – August 5, 2014), a Holocaust survivor, was not German, but Polish-American physician and forensic psychiatrist. (Source: Wikipedia). The following article has been attributed to him, but is most likely a mash-up, based on his book Passport to Life with comments on the situation in Canada, UK, and Australia  added recently. 

A German's View on Islam

Dr. Emanuel Tanay was a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist. A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. 

When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. "Very few people were true Nazis," he said, "but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. 

"I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.

"We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is a religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

"The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. 

"It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers. The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous. 

"Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China 's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

"The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet. And who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery? Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace-loving'? 

"History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun."

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.

What do statistics tell us: not later than 2051 France will have more Muslims than Christians, The Netherlands to follow just a couple of years later, Belgium probably by the year 2060, and Germany already has over 8 million Muslims which is to say, 10% of its population and every week new ones coming from war-torn countries. 

Mosques are mushrooming all over the E. U. receiving construction permits on a daily basis. Go and ask for a church construction permit not even as far as Saudi- Arabia, just start asking in Turkey and you'll feel a hard kick in your butt. 

Now Islamic prayers have been introduced in Toronto and other public schools in Ontario, and in Ottawa too, while the Lord's Prayer was removed (due to being so offensive?). The Islamic way may be peaceful for the time being in our country... until the fanatics move in.

In Australia, and indeed in many countries around the world, many of the most commonly consumed food items have the halal emblem on them. Just look at the back of some of the most popular chocolate bars, and at other food items in your local supermarket. Food on aircraft have the halal emblem just to appease the privileged minority who are now rapidly expanding within the nation's shores. Why? Because they dare in the name of God. 

In the UK, the Muslim communities refuse to integrate and there are now dozens of no-go zones within major cities across the country that the police force dare not intrude upon. Sharia law prevails there, because the Muslim community in those areas refuse to acknowledge British law.

As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts -- the fanatics who threaten our way of life, in the name of God. Anyone who doubts that the issue is serious is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. Let us hope that thousands world-wide read this, think about it, and pass it on before it's too late!