What's this? Paris Smokestacks in 2018?

Smoke rising from a factory as a truck loaded with cars crosses a bridge in Paris, France, Friday, Nov. 30, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Michel Euler (CTV)


What's this? Paris Smokestacks in 2018?

Canada has no smokestacks of its own?

Well, we need to get some if we're going to be seen to be serious about "climate change" -- the designated gorilla in the room -- even though, right now, we have to depend on Greta Thunberg to actually see it:

AnanovaNews: "I see carbon"

• “Greta Thunberg has the psychic power to see invisible carbon dioxide ... with the naked eye ... how it flows out of chimneys and turns the atmosphere into a rubbish tip.”
• From the book: ‘Scenes from the Heart’

Hmmmm.... "I see dead people [YouTube] "

• From the movie: The Sixth Sense

Still, it's good to see that the candidates have a common issue for which they can claim to have the solution, and it's good that We'll Always Have Paris [YouTube] to set the standard of what we hope not to be seen as.

But only the Cons are promising we won't have to pay (too much) for it:

CTV: Candidates defend climate plans as environment becomes top ballot issue

• It’s not going to be $100 a tonne, placed solely on the backs of the consumer, I can tell you that,” [Conservative Lisa Raitt] said.

I don't care if she is the designated speaker for Bozo the Clown [YouTube], she's just going to have to be more precise. Did she really say a tonne or did she say a ton?

Artha says:
tonne ~ noun    very rare
 1. a unit of weight equivalent to 1000 kilograms (2204.623 Pounds)

ton ~ noun    rare
 1. a United States unit of weight equivalent to 2000 pounds
 2. a British unit of weight equivalent to 2240 pounds

At any rate, I'm thinking now that my dentist might have been exaggerating a bit when he said a candy bar contains "tons" of sugar.

Is the confusion due to only Greta Thunberg being able to visualize clouds of carbon dioxide, not to mention multi tonnes (tons?) of the filthy stuff? But who will do the weighing, I wonder?  We need to be sure we get a whole Canadian tonne's (ton's) worth, eh?

Or could the Cons merely be exploiting an imaginary situation by spouting claptrap? Now there's a word seldom heard except at election time.

Here's another vague enticement -- well meaning, I'm sure:

CTV: Conservatives promise to bring back the public transit tax credit

I'm all for public transit, of course, but it won't fly. People don't like sitting thigh-to-thigh with strangers, except maybe in bars, after a few drinks. They prefer the loneliness of their status symbol wheels, and they will go in hock to buy electric, even if it does mean sending only somewhat less "carbon" into the atmosphere. If coal fuels the chargers, as Trump was hoping it would because the oil is needed for war, don't you know, it will be real, visible carbon filling the skies, not that C02 stuff that only psychics can see.

Amazing how the election took only a couple of days to start resembling a circus. Barnum always did know best where things are at:

CampaignLive: Fake news, guerrilla postings and PR: How Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus helped invent advertising

• [Barnum] coined terms like "there is no such thing as bad publicity" and "there’s a sucker born every minute," and wasn’t afraid to generate a little news—or just plain invent it--

Now, along comes Gargantua the Great operating in the person of Maxime Bernier who believes in "climate change" (which, of course, has been occurring since day one of the universe) but not the C02 factor. So he's odd man out as the clowns focus solely upon it.

Never fear, though.  One of his claims to fame is that he's  "A tough and determined competitor".  

Who could ask for more in the leader of a whole dang country?  Some of us, maybe.

Very few are likely to vote for "change", despite that the "man in the street" has his hand out begging for it.

Meanwhile back at the Big-Top:

CTV: No major party plans to balance the budget in the next four years

That's right. They promise to do it in five years. That's a Trudeau clown trick speshi-ality. Like promising our Native Peoples clean water by 2020 - and then revising the date to 2021 - which meant he'd have to be re-elected in order for the promise to be kept, if kept at all.

• We are firm on the commitment that the prime minister has made and we will get the work done,” [Jane] Philpott told reporters ...

Now that's she's ditched Trudeau and is running as an independent, Philpott says she's glad to be able to speak freely. If I lived in her riding, or in Jody Wilson-Raybould's, I'd be likely to vote Independent, but I don't and it won't prevent Trudeau from calling the shots again anyway.

But hey, everybody loves a clown (except people with inexplicable Coulrophobia).

It's some kind of a left-over from childhood, I guess, but although I think it might actually be advisable to be wary of clowns, what I developed as a child was baby elephant phobia, and I don't think there's a psychiatric term for that.

We were allowed to watch those little monsters eating straw outside the circus tent, and I very kindly reached down to move some straw closer to one of them, upon which that ingrate of an elephant tyke hit me so hard with its trunk it knocked me off my feet.

Lesson learned: Keep a wary eye on the elephant in the room. There's one or two in Trudeau's room, and he's very wary.

We're not like the United States, where there's little more choice than an elephant and a donkey, both of which give off a convincing whiff of manure, and neither of which appear to have any manners or credibility at all.

They don't have a whole bevy of clowns to vote for, and here we are, rife with them, each trying to outdo the other, though Trudeau's going to win simply because most people will decide to stick with the clown they know best, and the hoopla, from whatever source, is just that: hoopla!

Gargantua and Bozo can rage and thump their chests all they like, but Head Clown Justin has them beat by a "tonne" or maybe even a "ton".

Image from DigitalCommonswealth.org