D. Audy 🇨🇦

Listening to the other six G7 leaders today, they all very much disagreed with Trump and Bessent on this.

pre approved by Downing Street that had worries Ottawa might use the King in ways that could prove detrimental to the UK’s interests.

I would expect probably much the same as on their last meeting on a state visit last year, ie: not much at all. Charles is too conscious of the poor state of the relationships between the UK, Canada, Australia vs the US. Even when he came to Ottawa last year virtually every word he said had been

Reading media from several countries is always wise, and often illuminating.

Their full statements and the press conference are on cpac.ca

(but it’s a NATO activity held every two years by Norway, they could have signalled they wanted in).

Even that won’t last if they have their way. See for instance the war the US GAFAM have been waging on Canada’s medias. They grabbed all their ad revenues while massively profiting from their content, and when a law made them share revenues they just banned linking to Canadian media content.

Their loss. Your "just the documented facts unadorned and straight to the point" approach is infinitely more valuable than this!

Looking at the reactions of Macron, Merz and Carney the G7 now looks very much like the G6 versus two.

They also reiterated their collective and individual determination to protect Greenland/Danemark’s sovereignty from any power that would threaten it.

So in short, no, the US wasn’t invited.

comment that Norway trusts the US to see to its own self interest.

That’s a demonstration of the commitment of Germany, Canada, the Nordics and the Baltic states to Arctic defence, in part for the sake of the US. Asked if they still trusted the US there was an awkward silence and laughs before they said a lukewarm "yes", perhaps best summed up by PM Støre’s

My pleasure.

Støre’s reply that Norway trusts the US to act in its own self-interest was pretty priceless.

The full press conference, mostly in English with bits in German and French is on CPAC.ca

At the joint press conference in Norway with Merz, Mark Carney and the Norwegian PM they hinted there would be a G7 minus one/CoW common front coming on this issue.

The silence then laughs before they answered a mitigated "yes" to "do they still trust the US in the arctic?" was rather telling.

You can sense a bit the era of writing in a slightly more sexist attitude by Sharpe, and with Cornwell's views of British imperialism and the upper classes not being quite yet as present as they become in more recent books.

this first story having all the trademarks of the later books in style and characterization, but also with all the details of Sharpe's earlier exploits and encounters mapped out and thus matching perfectly the expanded stories of the prequels.

This comfirms for me that reading chronologically is a much better experience, but I'm particularly impressed by how remarkably smooth the transition is between novels from the early 80s, interstitial novels from the late 80s, prequels from the 2000s. It's quite amazingly consistent, with

Covert art for Bernard Cornwell's 1981 (UK) historical military fiction Sharpe's Eagle, the first novel of his Sharpe series, but now the 8th in chronological series order.

#Fridayreads #Booksky Back to Richard Sharpe for the 8th novel in a chronological read-through. It's actually his first Sharpe novel, published decades before the prequels and interstitial novels I've read so far. This was the first I had read in the 90s, in publication order, before dropping out.

Cover art for The Black Wolf (Canada, 2025), the crime fiction thriller by Louise Penny

New purchase. To be read in April, most likely. I stayed away from spoilers, but I've overheard this one despite being written ahead of the US 2024 election has uncanny ressemblance to events of 2025. Louise's one of the best crime fiction writers in the country. 📚💙⚡

The Devil's Road finally has an end in sight. Or, perhaps, a beginning.

#TheVampireLestat debuts June 7 on AMC and AMC+.

And this is also part of expanding, along with our allies the Nordics, NATO’s focus on Arctic Defence, and Arctic development.

We’re not looking to increase integration with the US, we’re working to decrease it.

There’s already a 60/40 treaty of continental defence. These investments are part of expanding our 40% participation in NORAD, and affirming 🇨🇦 sovereignty over the area to nations that don’t fully acknowledge it, like Russia, China… and the USA. So no, those new military bases are not to share.

Yup. Saying "coalition" is a face saving lie. Other nations are sending ships to deal with Hormuz, but like France have specified they‘re not coming at the US’ biding or to participate in their war.

A silent RFK Jr, the dream! Here in Canada the Health Minister pretty much told us not to listen anymore to anything coming from him or the CDC or FDA (A 180º turn from the days of Fauci at the CDC).

RFK Jr is now *this* close to figuring out what foreskins are for.

The worst is that the 250th anniversary is going to a complete personality cult shit show in which foreign dignitaries will be used as props. He’s already depositing trademarks.

On some days I tell myself we’re stronger this, so is the King, and maybe we should just sit back and laugh it all off.

Exactly the feeling in Canada as well. And among the British, Australians etc. It’s really a pity the UK government isn’t on the same page as the people the King stands for, and there’s little doubt the monarch thinks the same as us, if he could express his opinion.

As many non-Americans now think, the Americans no longer can be trusted to take responsibly enough the duties being citizens of a superpower that can singlehandedly steer the world entail. The only solution is to work to create new checks and balance on that American power, and China’s, Russia’s

returns to by then will never be the one they turned their back on and betrayed. The 30-ish% who voted against this would like the world to see them as the "true Americans" but the world won’t forget the 30% who voted for him and 40% who didn’t care enough about what the US does in the world to vote