Posts in International
Words Worth Noting - September 25, 2025

After noting that French Canadians put up passively with the Stamp Act “Carlton had to deal with the problem of the law: the French liked the swiftness and low cost of court access under the French system, but it was a different law, governed by French precedent, which was irritating in itself and practically incomprehensible to the administration in Quebec and difficult to obtain. The substitution of English criminal law had been popular with the public, as it instituted habeas corpus and put an end to the rack and interrogation under torture. London sent legal officers to go back to make a recommendation, and this issue dragged on for a few years, but Carlton became convinced that Quebec needed to devise its own Civil Code, to keep what was familiar, incite pride, and emancipate the province from recourse to French precedents.”

Conrad Black Rise to Greatness: The History of Canada from the Vikings to the Present

Words Worth Noting - September 24, 2025

“In 1870, the Prussian army had captured the French emperor, Napoleon III, who followed Charles X, Metternich, and Louis-Philippe into exile in London.”

Conrad Black Rise to Greatness: The History of Canada from the Vikings to the Present [but he does not take what I consider to be the obvious point that all these continentals who sneer at the English-speaking world flee to it when in trouble, knowing it is the true and only home of liberty]

Words Worth Noting - September 18, 2025

“Montcalm had brought artillery, and within six days had partly smashed the fort [“Fort William Henry, on Lake George” in August 1757], which, after a respectable fight, surrendered. Montcalm allowed the British to retire, leaving an officer behind as a prisoner for security, and with a guaranty not to return to the area for 18 months. Montcalm took all the stores in artillery and arms, and promised to return the wounded as they recovered the ability to travel. This did not conform to the Indian notion of how to treat defeated enemies, especially the notion of it they entertained after getting well into the spirit issue, both authorized and looted. The Indians chased after the retreating British, killing 200 and capturing 500. Montcalm personally led the parties of retribution to compel the Indians to honor his promises, and he got back all but about 200 prisoners, who were killed or dragged off by the Indians, including the boiling and eating of an English soldier in a public ceremony near Montreal.”

Conrad Black Rise to Greatness: The History of Canada from the Vikings to the Present [file it under “vibrant”]

Words Worth Noting - September 17, 2025

“Nigel Farage stood up in the House of Commons yesterday to ask how many British troops will be promised to Ukraine. A reasonable question. He was dismissed as being a ‘Putin apologist’ by both Conservatives and Labour. The uniparty are still two cheeks of the same ugly old arse.”

A post on X from someone I am not familiar with on March 4, 2025 [https://x.com/darrengrimes_/status/1896864773389869349] and yes, it bends my rule about vulgarity in public discourse but it’s funny and apposite enough to deserve it.

Words Worth Noting - September 12, 2025

“Far more renowned than Strabo in his time was Dio Chrysostom – Dio of the Golden Mouth (A.D. 40-120)... Dio left behind him eighty orations. For us today they contain more wind than meat; they suffer from empty amplification, deceptive analogies, and rhetorical tricks; they stretch half an idea to half a hundred pages... ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said the honest Trajan, ‘but I love you as myself.’... Probably what drew people to him was not his fine Attic Greek, but the courage of his denunciations. Almost alone in pagan antiquity he condemned prostitution; and few writers of his time so openly attacked the institution of slavery. (He was a bit vexed, however, when he found that his slaves had run away.)”

Will Durant Caesar and Christ

Carney's enemies inside his own head

In my latest Loonie Politics column I say the reason Mark Carney can’t pull us back from the left-wing idiocies of Justin Trudeau is that he holds substantially the same views and doesn’t even know it.