Sometimes, I want to comment on topics without doing a full piece.
According to Trump tariffs on Canada and Mexico, at 25 percent, except on energy, which will be 10 percent, start tomorrow. Along with the 20 percent tariff on China, the cost to the US is likely to about 1 percent of GDP. Canada could lose as much as six percent.
Expect retaliation from both countries. Some of it will be sub-Federal; the Ontario Prime Minister has said he’ll raise prices for electricity sent to New York state, for example. Sorry folks, I know most of you didn’t vote for Trump, but…
As I’ve written before, I think tariffs are good for Canada. We’ll take a substantial hit, but moving manufacturing to Canada, buying Canadian, and diversifying our export partners are all things we should have done years ago. Hopefully, we’ll cancel NAFTA/USMCA: There’s no point in having treaties with the US, because they never obey them.
Israel’s stopped aid to Gaza again. Israel never met its obligations, lied that Hamas has refused to continue the truce, and is preparing for war again. Not entirely a surprise, but still a disappointment. Meanwhile, they’ve occupied a big chunk of Syria. At least Hamas hasn’t embarrassed themselves the way Hezbollah has; they still have some hostages, and they’ve called Israel out regarding their violations, even if the Western press lies about the facts repeatedly.
Trump, Vance, and Zelensky’s Press conference blew up. Commenters are apportioning blame in various ways; I don’t much care. The bottom line is that the US caused that war because everything came from the Maidan coup, which was engineered by the US. Absent that, the sequence of events never happens. Victoria Nuland ran Ukraine as a personal fiefdom for almost a decade. The US and UK convinced Ukraine to keep fighting when they had a generous peace offer on the table, and the result, we have probably a million and a half dead, and Ukraine effectively shattered. To then turn around and act as if Ukraine owes America, rather than the other way around is to act in complete defiance of actual history, and without the least shred of honor.
Here we have Victoria Nuland in 2016, openly testifying before Congress about just how deep the US was in running Ukraine’s government after the 2014 coup.
She laid it all out: US advisors embedded in 12 Ukrainian ministries, American-trained police in 18 cities, the US Treasury… pic.twitter.com/BPQ66UO0Lp— Richard (@ricwe123) February 28, 2025
For what it’s worth, not that Zelensky will do it, but the best course of action, in my mind, would be to ask China to mediate. China is the only country in the world which has actual, significant leverage over Russia, and Xi has repeatedly said he’d be willing to send peacekeepers. Plus, if China makes any deals with Ukraine, they’ll at least get actual rebuilding, roads, ports, hospitals, and so on, out of it.
In the larger picture, the US is in irreversible decline. Cut out the noise and the smaller events. The US can’t afford NATO any more. Just as the collapse of the Warsaw Pact was a sign of Russia’s decline, so is the ending of NATO. US carrier groups no longer have a full set of supporting ships — America can’t make them run any more. America’s flagship aircraft builder can’t make reliable planes any more. Trump is starting a crypto reserve. Social benefits are being slashed, yet again, in massive ways. America is behind in 80 percent of techs, and at the same time, launching a concerted attack on research universities. It couldn’t build enough weapons and ammunition to fully support Ukraine, and in a real war against China or Russia, they would run out of munitions in about two weeks, then get the shit kicked out of them. They’re also destroying the WTO and other agreements created by it. They’re dismantling their Empire because, simply, they can’t afford it any more.
America’s done. It’s still dangerous, but the decline is terminal. Everyone else needs to negotiate this decline, seek new alliances and trade partners, and take advantage of the end of enforced neoliberalism, and “free” trade to re-industrialize, and make their countries better able to grow the food they need and manufacture the goods they need.
Why are there no beggars in China? There used to be, now visitors report there aren’t. I can’t speak to the accuracy of the below, but if it’s correct, it seems the government decided to send them to their native towns and gave the towns enough money to give them jobs and homes.
🇨🇳 Many foreigners are curious about why there are no homeless people in China. Tbh, even as a Chinese, I find it somewhat unbelievable. It feels as if, overnight, the beggars and homeless people who used to wander the streets and ask passersby for money have all disappeared.… pic.twitter.com/dI5GhCQwD8
— 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘦 (@OopsGuess) February 26, 2025
In more “Trump officials are malevolent children” news:
Boston Globe reports antics of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at Vermont/Quebec library that sits on Canada-U.S. border. She repeatedly stepped over taped boundary marker in middle of the library, referring to Canada as the “51st State” every time she stood in Canada. pic.twitter.com/vFBOFzHhmA
— Steven Chase (@stevenchase) March 3, 2025
Ordinary Americans visiting Canada are advised to pretend not to be American or to constantly say, “I didn’t vote for him.” Pull this sort of stunt in the wrong place, on the other hand, and you’ll be lucky not to wind up in the hospital. The idea that most Canadians aren’t proud of Canada is an American/Trumpian delusion.
Finally, I remind you that amidst all the noise there are only three big issues: The end of the American era, the rise of China, and environmental issues (which is about more than just climate).
Au revoir from Canada.
NR
What’s really crazy about Trump breaking the USMCA is that <he negotiated it himself during his last term in office. So now he’s claiming that the U.S. is getting screwed under… his own agreement.
Of course, it’s a lie. Trump and his rich cronies are using tariffs as a backdoor method of implementing a national sales tax so they can get big tax breaks at the expense of the rest of the country. That’s his real goal here.
Mark Level
Glad to see a new post here, & just a few comments & questions:
1. First 3 paragraphs. I’m glad that Canada can effectively retaliate, on many levels. Btw, I saw a headline some 2 weeks back at YTube, didn’t open the story, but apparently even before the Comedian’s blow-up in the Oval Office, EUrope started to side more with Canada, and for the cheap gas they can’t get since Biden blew up Nordstream, they are buying cheaper LNG gas from Canada than U.S. It’s called the “free market” folks!!
2. 4th paragraph: Israel violates every agreement it makes (or is forced to make), then shrieks “Anti-Semitism” when there is any criticism. This morning I spent 10-15 minutes online trying to find out if Israel released the 2nd set of 600+ hostages/ “prisoners” it was bound to after Hamas’ 2nd hostage release. Netanyahoo claimed an (imaginary) insult by Hamas and has refused to do so. I saw one source saying Hamas would not negotiate with them until old terms were met, another claiming they would be released in 5-6 days. Nobody knows, evidently– unless another reader here does? On one news site recently I heard in the first set of releases a 34-year old man had been released who had been a prisoner since his childhood. He has gray hair.
Oh, editing mistake Ian, ” . . . and is preparing for war again. Not entirely a surprise but still a disappointment. Meanwhile they’ve occupied a big chunk of Israel.” I’m guessing you mean Western Syria, up to Mount Hermon? Or perhaps the West Bank?
3. The Zelensky debacle: Trump rightly called him out for weaponizing the “Russiagate” bullshite, but his biggest 2 faux pas were 1) refusing to kiss the ring when J.D. Vance demanded he give “thanks” to the Overlords, & 2) saying there could be no Peace negotiations with Putin, coz Putin is el Diablo. The 2nd is substantive. Aaron Mate on “Monday Mourning” this a.m. w/ Katie Halper demolished the Z claim’s that Putin violated prisoner swaps they made, the last time Z. & P. negotiated face-to-face. (Before the SMO). Zelensky’s habitually as much a liar as Blinken, Biden or Trump, of course, that’s noblesse oblige for the ruling class. Also funny that Vance called Z-man “Mister President” and Z called him “J.D.” Casual dress (a black track-suit with a Nationalist/Nazi insignia on one breast) didn’t go over well in the circumstances either.
4. Z will never ask China to mediate. He’s still playing a role (resolute Churchill, in Che Guevara Cosplay garb) that doesn’t lend itself to smart strategy or any strategy beyond blustering & demands. Looks like the Euro-Elites are united to prop up the war for maybe a year longer and get another 100,000 Ukie fighters & mercenaries killed. (Are there many Europeans who’ll take the pay to walk into a meat-grinder? Color me skeptical.) That’s the longest, I’d guess, they can sustain the failure. The German soldiers revolted to end WW I; I guess modern troops aren’t smart or independent enough to do so. Shocked to see Ireland & Spain lining up with the fools. The late great historian Evan S. Connell included a wonderful essay on the Children’s Crusade (there were actually 3, all disasters) in his book The Aztec Treasure House. This will be a remake of that, as farce.
5. American Decline: all the signs are clear. The Dems only excel at (absurd) narrative spin, the R’s like Noem only do so at trolling the (G)Libs. Which is about as hard as shooting fish in a barrel. There is no actual legislating, just letting real President Elon (Ketamine Kid) Musk blow shit up. Already people in deeply Red states started calling out their representatives, loudly, for gutting Medicare. The pols just insulted the audiences, which erupted in catcalls, & walked out . . . Expect big gains for the D’s and a majority in Congress, probably the Senate too, when they will . . . do nothing, as they did in Obama’s first term when they had solid majorities. (Okay, they might try to join Europe in a renewed war on Russia?)
6. During my original 6 month trip across Mexico & Central America (as far as renewing a visa in Costa Rica so I could pick coffee in Nicaragua for 2 more weeks) I’d see many Americans who had Maple Leaf flags on their backpacks. And in later trips, several summers, to Mexico, the same.
different clue
@NR,
That is certainly one of his big goals here. Another big goal might be abolition of the IRS and any income taxes it currently collects. That way, the US government can be deprived so deeply of money that the only way it can avoid this carefully engineered bankruptcy will be to sell all the Public Lands of all categories ( all 1.2 million square miles of them), all the objects in all the Smithsonian Museums and the National Gallery, every mile of every Federal Interstate Highway, etc. to rich private buyers.
Sell off all the TVA dams and lands, all the BPA assets, all the CVA assets, every Federal Reclamation District Dam, and pretend to have the authority to sell every Indian Reservation to private buyers. Armed Indians and armed sympathisers might be able to kill every such buyer or buyer’s agent who comes to take possession so totally and so thoroughly that Hegseth’s maganazified New Model Army will declare the Indian Wars back on and active again. Then all the boat-person Americans in America will have to decide . . . are they pro-MAGAnazi? Or pro-Indian? That might afford Canada an opportunity to ship vast quantities of insurgency-type weapons to the Indian Side of whatever Indian Wars the Maganazi Musk Administration is able to create. And Mexico might be able to ship vast quantities of such weapons over the southern border to the same sorts of Indian Defenders. And maybe smaller quantities of weapons can come in over the Caribbean.
We live in historic times, eh?
Another reason the Musk ( trump-vance) Administration is provoking Canada to this extent, as well as other countries, is to turn Canada into a genuine enemy from Canada’s own viewpoint. The point of that would be to get Canada to seal its borders against American political refugees ( perhaps out of concern that some of them might be secret MAGAnazi agents) to the point where not one political refugee American is let into Canada. This would help the New MAGAnazi Regime turn America into a ” North Korea” from which there will be no escape.
Not to say the MAGAnazi Musk Administration will necessarily succeed, but those are among their several plans and goals.
And no . . . a Harris Administration would not have done its own version of these same things.
mago
Don’t know why a comment I recently posted about zelensky and other matters got 86’d, and I don’t much care.
However, the great Z and all the adulation tossed his way over the past 3 years is a sorry mess and sham.
Of course the evil VN is a major manipulator; of course the evil empire is at the root of the Ukrainian conflict. Doesn’t make their puppet a good guy. There are no good guys in this Shakespearian drama.
Then there’s the current drivers of destruction: an obviously deranged president with his unelected ketamine addled manipulator swinging the wrecking ball here there and everywhere (and man oh man am I ever screwed along with countless others if he gets his way.)
The Middle East, China, Russia the chihuahuas along with Mexico and Canada and just about every other state and planetary inhabitants, human and animal alike are affected and maybe screwed blue, over under sideways and down.
The wealthy, too but they just don’t know it yet. They’ll find out one fine day . . .
In the meantime in between time, ain’t we got fun?
See you on the other side of crypto hell. . .
Daniil Adamov
The homeless seem to have largely disappeared from public view in Russia as well: they were ubiquitous twenty years ago, but I don’t remember when I last saw a bomzh, and that impression is widespread. Of course, they still exist (two million of them by some accounts), but there is much more in the way of homeless shelters and various other public and private social initiatives to help them now. I’d also guess that economic changes since the 90s mean that fewer people end up on the streets, while many of those who were there in the 90s and the early Putin years will have died there by now. Also, of course, we’re following the West’s lead in making the more modern of our urban environments inhospitable to them (though not to a Californian degree yet).
Revelo
Re crypto: I believe Trump is engineering the biggest rug pull in history. Instead of a government crypto reserve, insiders (including Trump himself) will use the hype to sell out high to suckers. They have several years of milking this scheme before it becomes obvious there will never be a government bailout and hence crypto is worthless other than as a means for facilitating crime and money laundering, and then the next administration will drop the hammer and end that one use case for crypto and eventually crypto will suffer the same fate as beanie babies
Jefferson Hamilton
The IRS does not keep the USG from bankruptcy. Taxes do not keep the USG from bankruptcy. The USG cannot, currently, even go bankrupt.
This is not to say, however, that these things will not be CLAIMED, and thus (absolutely false) claim used to justify mass selloffs of whatever public assets still remain, in the name of “fiscal responsibility.” That I find all too plausible.
Feral Finster
When we hear that “all” Ukrainian aid was halted, what exactly does that mean? Presumably weapons, but what about Starlink? ELINT? AWACS coverage? Sheep-dipped crews to repair(or fly) the F-16s and man the Patriot batteries?
Weapons can be substituted. Money is notoriously fungible, but expertise and information are not.
Let’s see whether the whole Zelenskii kerfluffle is just a way to make the little twerp put on a suit.
@Daniil: When I lived in Ukraine, bomzhi were ubiquitous. The area central Kiev train station at night was like a giant alcoholic colony.
The wise were careful to cultivate local bomzharyi as a source of information.
We had one, Zhenya, that we tried to take care of. I pulled him aside when he was blind drunk and wandering through traffic and got him tucked in before he got his fool self killed.
KT Chong
Yesterday China responded to Trump’s latest tariff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YKO_HTDB-Q‘
I know the English translations seem fairly mind. However: I know Mandarin and Chinese culture, and I can tell you that his statements are alarmingly and uncharacteristically aggressive coming from China. They are even rude. Those are fighting words. Those are like: “I’ve tried to be nice and gentleman about it, but now I am giving you one last warning before I kill you, I kill your father, I kill your mother, I kill your children, I kill your whole family.”
Oakchair
it’s dismantling its Empire because, simply, it can’t afford it any more.
——
At some level China has learned that having an Empire is rather than being beneficial but harmful to a country. China may have internalized this concept in part because it’s government is less about enriching the military oligarchs and spreading ideology. The goal of the western ruling class isn’t national prosperity but oligarch power and wealth. They viewed the trillions spent replacing the Taliban with the Taliban as a huge succus. They not only got lot’s of money, grants but had two decades of opioid production. Religion is no longer the opioid of the masses, opioids and pharmaceuticals are.
Anytime someone goes on about how bad and tyrannical China is I can’t help but shake my head and think come back after China spends a decade bombing and destroying half a dozen + countries.
Over at NC there was a post about how America is now a net importer of agriculture goods. 50 billion in 2024 up from around 35 billion in 2023.
Romania arrested the 2024 president election winner after they canceled the elections. In a long enough timeline everything that could go wrong will.
Curt Kastens
If I were in charge of Iran I would say to the US leadership, OK you say that you are concerned about our nuclear weapons program. We say that we are concerned about you (the US military) attacking Iran to cause a revolt that will overthrow us. Well if you are not lying to the world about your concerns the following deal should be acceptable to you.
The deal will be a hostage exchange. Each country will send 24,000 unarmed members of its military to the other country to serve as hostages. Each month 1,000 hostages can come home and 1000 new hostages will be sent to replace them. If the US or Israel (the original 51st state) attack Iran then we can execute the hostages and it will not be a war crime because this will have been spelled out as a legal judicial killing by a treaty signed by both nations. If Iran detonates a nuclear device outside of Iranian borders then the US can execute the Iranian hostges.
All the hostages have to be held in a prisoner of war camp that would have met the standards of WW2. All prisoners (hostages) must be well fed with access to medical care, and adequate access to exercise. And naturally no prisoners shall be subject to torture. No prisoner shall be held for more than 2 years. If weather conditions or other unforseen circumstances make it impossible for a prisoner ot fly back to his native land upon the complition of his/her 2 year assignment both nations must agree that the weather conditions or other unforseen circumstances make travel dangerous.
if the simulation stimulation director agrees with me that this is a good idea (plan) he/she/it/they should send Trump and Vance and Starmer and Macron all to the doctor for shots of penicillin. I am not explicitly insuating that they all have syphillis. But I am implicitly imp lying that they all have an eye infection.
different clue
Here is a picture titled: ” Elon Musk and his family flying Air Force One, just like a President would do”. That’s because he is the ‘real’ President.
https://www.reddit.com/r/popculture/comments/1j3hism/elon_musk_and_his_family_flying_air_force_one/
To break the Musk/ trump-vance Administration, one has to break Musk itself. But how do millions of little people break the Musk personally and financially? Will enough people boycott and protest Tesla to drive it into liquidation? Will enough people cancel their twitterX, Starlink, etc. subscriptions to exterminate these two business entities? Etc. Etc.?
Because that’s the only way I can think of for people to break and destroy Musk in order to break and destroy the Musk Administration.
Ian Welsh
He’s losing a lot of Tesla customers, but the big hits are likely to come from foreign governments targeting his business. In particular, China and the EU.
Mel
From what I see on globalsouth.com, Trump has bumped the tariff on imports from China, so the USA price of China-manufactured Teslas just jumped 20%.
mago
With any luck the Good Ship Lollipop commandeered by the Muskrat will meet a Titanic fate without us commoners drowning along with it. Not holding my breath waiting for karma to kick in. . .
miss jenkins
If I were Iran I’d be worried about Russia’s true intentions. They’ve already seen how Putin allowed Israel to do what it wanted in Syria. And now this:
Israel invited to Russia’s May 9 parade, while ‘unfriendly’ nations excluded
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/s1i0exzsjx
https://www.jns.org/russia-invites-israel-to-may-9-event-us-eu-unwelcome/
Russia will not isolate ‘Israel. ‘Israel’ is holocausting an entire people yet they don’t even warrant a mention on Russia’s ‘unfriendly list.’
Russia is allegedly a Christian nation but if you peruse TASS you will see nary a mention of the historical significance of Palestine to the Christian religion, nor will you see mentioned the fact that 40 percent of the Palestinians being holocausted are Christian.
It’s also interesting to note that Russia only invited Mahmoud Abbas of the thoroughly corrupt PA.
No Hamas?
Most Palestinians believe the PA has been operating largely in the interest of ‘Israel’ for a long time now. This is what in fact gave rise to Hamas.
Ultimately – if you a part of the resistance – Russia should not be trusted.
There is still too much Jewish Zionist power controlling the country.
The fact that Russia has “Holocaust” Denial Laws on the books is a huge tell. You are subject to jail in Russia if you dare to question any aspect of the Jewish Establishment narrative of the the events surrounding WWII.
So, the international Jewish establishment’s IHRA definiton of Jewish history is as sacrosanct as Russia’s own history.
Russia and China should be perpetually condemning the genocidal ‘Israel’ and isolating it from the international scene entirely.
Treating ‘Israel’ as the genocidal pariah that it is doesn’t equate to support for the maniacal US regime. The maniacal US regime obviously won’t condemn ‘Israel’ because it has become entirely owned and occupied by the Zionist establishment and all its various tentacles.
———
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOOuGRf1hG0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq2QFvWFUC0
bruce wilder
On X-twitter, Musk’s skylink satellites, doomed anyway by Chinese 6G, are plunging to earth at an increasing rate and damaging the ozone layer by spewing aluminum oxide in the process.
I presume that Trump will crucify his good friend when the time comes, because that’s what good friends do.
In my book, getting someone to fight a war they cannot win is the most dishonorable thing imaginable. That, at least, is not Trump’s sin, though he has many more.
Trumpian chaos and transactionalism seems as good a weapon against the neoliberal mindset (“rules-based international order”) as any on offer. I am personally very uncomfortable finding myself on the same “side” as Tucker Carlson let alone authoritarian leaders-for-life like Putin and Xi. But, here we are. Coked-up Z-man is a bad joke.
I see a lot written about Russia’s motives or goals, much of it groundless and shaped to fit an “appeasement” narrative that passed its sell-by date 50 years ago. I don’t see much on the goals or methods of Nuland, Blinken, Kara Kallas, Crystia Friedland.
Lebensraum seems to me to be the long way round — what’s the point? what stops Europe from an alliance with Russia? are they that stupid? apparently.
different clue
@K T Chong,
If the PRC representative in the video piece means Trump and all his family literally and personally, any number of Americans would quietly welcome that outcome.
If he means ” America in general”, then I suppose Americans in general can only brace for what will be coming. Because Trump and his people and his entire support base are the kind of people who will hear this and think it means that Trump simply hasn’t threatened China hard enough or scared it into obedience enough. So Trump will just ” try harder” along the same line as now.
Trump and the Trumpists live in a headspace beneath good and evil. He and they are not immoral or even amoral. They are submoral. They are just humanoid simple behavior machines.
As Ian Welsh recently wrote in another context, ” oh well . . . “
miss jenkins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz_42pckM7w&t=192s
It’s kinda funny watching Trudea. On the one hand, it’s good to see he and Canada coming together to fight.
Unfortunately,
‘As a number of books on Canada’s intelligence agencies note, Canadian-Israeli intelligence relations date back decades.
Canada’s ambassador to Israel in the mid-1990s, Norman Spector, described “very close cooperation” between the Canadian and Israeli spy agencies and admitted there was a CSIS operative working for him at the Canadian embassy in Tel Aviv.
In his 1990 book, Official Secrets: The Story Behind the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Richard Cléroux noted, “Mossad agents are located in every major [Canadian] city, working closely with CSIS, to protect El Al aircraft and airline installations and watching PLO political activities, especially those of Arab and Iranian students. Israelis are CSIS’s prime source of information on a number of suspected terrorists and spies.” CSIS also passes information to Mossad.
As reported in Washington Report in 1998, Spector said Mossad’s relationship to CSIS “goes beyond information sharing. There are joint operations.”
Although he did not elaborate, it is public knowledge that Mossad agents have used Canadian passports to carry out numerous foreign assassinations. “A member of an Israeli hit squad that mistakenly killed a Moroccan waiter in Norway in 1973 had posed as a Canadian,” reported Canadian Jewish News. In 1974 some 50 blank Canadian passports disappeared from a vault at the Canadian embassy in Vienna. The next year a Mossad team in Cyprus was seized “after a hotel bombing in which a Palestinian guerrilla leader was killed. The passport used by one of the Israeli hitmen had a number that revealed it to be from among the 50 stolen in Vienna.”
Until 1997, the repeated use of Canadian cover by Israeli agents received little attention. That changed when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to a Hamas offer for a 30-year truce (relayed by Jordan’s King Hussein) by trying to kill Khalid Meshal, then chairman of Hamas’s political bureau. The Israeli agents, who were captured after dropping poison in Meshal’s ear, entered Jordan on Canadian passports.’
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/jailing-anti-war-activists-just-one-way-government-supports-israel
Trudeau’s government now faces a third lawsuit arising from its contempt for the victims of Israel’s genocide
The first arises from Canada’s sale of arms to Israel.
The second arises from Canada’s failure to prevent genocide under Article 1 of the Genocide Convention…
https://x.com/dimitrilascaris/status/1892326432983896122
———–
Meanwhile, back in the USS, er, the US:
THIRD Barnard Student EXPELLED After U.S. Department of Justice Announces It Will Investigate Columbia
https://x.com/ColumbiaBDS/status/1896586564597432375
different clue
Musk Incorporated must die that America might live.
I see on reddit two heartening signs of some tentative first steps emerging in that direction.
https://www.reddit.com/r/popculturechat/comments/1j3nr29/elon_musk_loses_111_billion_more_than_bill_gates/
and . . .
https://www.reddit.com/r/london/comments/1j3mlyr/more_anti_elon_leyton_high_rd_bus_stop/
So Elon Musk has lost ” 100 billion dollars” so far? Good. One hundred billion down.
Four hundred billion more to go.
Musk delenda est.
miss jenkins
So much for ‘Anglo Imperialism’
Turns out the Israeli Ambassador decides what you see on the BBC:
https://x.com/davidgriffith17/status/1893933393181606263
Dan
Regarding Noem’s childishness: no one has done more to bolster Canadian nationalism than the US, going all the way back to our War of Independence lol