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You go away for a few days!!!

So North Korea has decided that there's isn't enough tention in the world, that we need to push that button a little harder.  You know that things are bad when the US president will not talk about it!  The fact that B2 bombers are in Korea tells you something.  What is missing from all this is a sense of what is going on in the hermit kingdom?  Is the new president playing is grandfather's game and if so why moving so fast to the full confrontation mode.

In other news the French government is modifying its new income tax laws so that the courts can approve, but bottom line is that income in excess of Euro 1 million will be effectively confiscated by the state -- taxed at 75%.  Of course the law of unintended consequence applies here -- French footballers who earn considerably more than Euro 1 million are threatening to leave the country.

In other news (really all that stuff was an excuse to talk Canadian stuff) it looks like TansCanada pipeline is confident of getting approval to change the use (and direction) of its east west pipelines.  The impact is that Quebec and the Eastern provinces would get Alberta crude instead of buying expensive European crude (about $20 per barrel cheaper!).  Separatist must really really hate this outcome, one minister what even quoted as saying the Quebecers prefer more expensive Europe oil (to be told to shut the &$%-up a few hours later)

Here in Quebec the bullshit continues; the latest is to nominated Gilles Duceppe (ex-leader of the Block Quebecois -- a Federal separatist party that died at the previous election of irrelevance).  Anyway GD got the job of heading a commission to see if the labor training business should be Federal or Provincial -- the kicker here is that everyone involved is a "strong separatist"; the commission has been set up to see how the labour training process should be run, by people that have already indicated that the province alone should be responsable of such training (although they are not wrong), but that the Federal government should pay for it -- no questions asked!

Oh the hypocrisy of governments -- but really what's pissing everybody off is that these 5 individuals are going to get paid for 24 months to produce conclusions they have already drawn.  Moreover, the objective of the exercise (avowed in fact) is to get the Quebec population in a pro-independence mood.  Governments are slow at adapting to change, but information is quick and the old games of hiding your true intention from the public -- especially one that can be reminded of your position via videoclips is becoming virtually impossible.  Within hours of being nominated these individuals that had claimed (in press conference no less) of their open-mindedness as to the whole problem were shown to preach the exact opposite just a few weeks earlier.

The king of the videoclip remains Jon Stuart of the Daily Show, Quebecers that don't understand (or care about the rest of North America) have generally been unaware of this phenomena -- it has for the past few months been hitting Montreal's shores with hilarious consequences, such as a journalist being challenged on his facts to have same journalist play the very damaging clip on his iPhone to the politician... hilarious I tell you

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