Catching up with the news: "Maîtres Chez Nous", wildfire update, and some good news stories

I think we have a new slogan to add to "Elbows Up".

And this one comes with a fist - Maîtres Chez Nous.
It happened on Monday, during Prime Minister Carney's press conference at the Churchill Falls announcement

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The Churchill Falls project is very very big news for Canada, and it came together at the right time.

Sunday Funday: Cartoon Cavalcade, Interesting posts, Funny posts, Getting Old(er), Carney Hat-Trick, TrumpWatch, Animal Crackers

This week's Cartoon Cavalcade

About the Canada-US tariff negotiations:

More comments: what Canadians are saying about the trade negotiations, Americans, Pete Hoekstra, and Poilievre. Plus a wildfire update

About the trade deal negotiations

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Wesley Wark writes Get a trade deal, get ready to give away our sovereignty? Or, what’s with the leaks?

...As always with high stakes talks, especially where few official details are provided, there will be leakers lurking. The media love them, but rarely question their motives...
The leaks may not be necessarily true or even very definitive, but leakers will hope, or perhaps have been authorized to hope, that they might push the negotiation in some favourable direction. Leakers are not white knights.
They are definitely not to be trusted, even if you are reading this stuff over breakfast (does any Canadian demographic still do that?). I have no idea where the leaks come from, or what authenticity they have, or what the leak story might be tomorrow.
But consider that there are certainly elements within the Canadian defence establishment who would love to see the Carney government forced to relinquish its Canada-first defence industrial strategy, its skepticism about the F-35 purchase, its reluctance to go all in on Trump’s fabulist Golden Dome missile system, or even its determination to buy radar planes with significant Canadian elements (the Saab Golden Eye, based on a Bombardier commercial jet), in favour of the latest U.S. product from Boeing. That’s leak as putsch pressure.
And there are certainly Americans who might well imagine that they can bully Canada into making grand concessions in defence and economic security—really concessions of national sovereignty-- in order to avoid more tariff pain and try to get the Canada-US trading relationship back on some steady plane.
And a further thought, in a different direction. Maybe there are even, among these three Canadian leakers, some motive to try to raise public resistance to any such defence and economic security give-away so that the Carney team can simply say—our public won’t go there, sorry Donald....

Today's Comments: about Carney, Americans, Trump's decoy plane, the coming crash(es), the Jays, and Blake Tierney. Plus wildfire update

I'm reading some interesting comments today:

Talking about Carney

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Tom Mulcair writes Stop the handwringing. PM Carney is outmanoeuvering Trump on trade

Prime Minister Mark Carney has been consistent since he arrived on the scene: no deal is better than a bad deal.
But with an approaching deadline, Canada is fast becoming the hand-wringing capital of the world.
What if Trump won’t sign? What if we do and it’s not perfect?

Tariff update, Catering Cart roundup, and some Eclipse posts. Plus thanks to the Penticton Sikh Temple

First, an update on those tariff negotiations 

I think Canada is getting angry.

You won't like us when we're angry...

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Here is Ralph Goodale on the consequences of implementing Trump's new tariffs: "The Americans would make a very grave mistake if they underestimate the determination of the Canadian people."

Wednesday Updates: Wildcard dreams, some interesting reads, plus wildfire update

Wildcard Dreams

It has been done before, so maybe our Jays can do it again!
CBC's Geoff Nixon writes From last place to the post-season? Here's how the 2026 Blue Jays could pull it off

Prime Minister Mark Carney says "you've got to believe" the Toronto Blue Jays can still make the playoffs. But can they, really?
...According to Elias Sports Bureau, the official statistician of Major League Baseball (MLB), there are just two teams that have stood at 58-63 through 121 games — the same record the Jays have right now — that went on to make the playoffs in the wild-card era: The 2024 Detroit Tigers and the 2009 Minnesota Twins.
Randy Robles of Elias Sports Bureau believes "there's some hope" for the Jays, noting that if there ever was a year for a struggling team to still have a chance, it would be this one, when so many American League teams have been playing so poorly.
Toronto has begun to claw its way to a better record, claiming series wins against the Washington Nationals, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Houston Astros and the Philadelphia Phillies in the past couple of weeks.
That winning trend has to continue for the team to have a shot at the post-season: "They gotta get to .500," Robles told CBC News, referring to the point when a team has won as many games as it has lost.
The Texas Rangers, the team currently sitting in the third wild-card spot the Jays are vying for, was only one game above the .500 mark prior to Tuesday's matchups.
All the teams seeking to take the Rangers' spot — Toronto included — currently have losing records.
Summing up the challenge the Blue Jays face in climbing the standings, Toronto Star baseball columnist Mike Wilner saw a certain parity in the teams involved in the wild-card fight.
"Every team in front of the Blue Jays kind of stinks," Wilner told CBC News. "The problem is, the Blue Jays kind of stink, too."...

Yeah, well, not so much lately, buddy!

Look up! Look Waaaaay Up! Plus catching up with the news, and a wildfires update

Set your alarm clocks for Wednesday, August 12 and look up. 

Look waaaaaay up.

In the morning, a planet alignment:

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In the afternoon, a solar eclipse -- with totality in Greenland, Iceland and Spain, and a partial eclipse in eastern Canada:

 

Today's wildfires update, plus Sunday Funday

Wildfires Update
The situation Saturday in BC

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Saturday Cartoons, plus Canadians as hobbits, some Trump v Canada, and another Wildfires Update

This week's Cartoon Collection

Today's News: Carney working, Trump flailing, Covid stories, Wildfires update

So Trump called Canadians "nasty" but Carney didn't rise to the bait.

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In fact, it sounds like Carney has decided the time is right to push Trump harder:

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Canadians? Nasty? Why yes, yes we are!!!

So on Wednesday this happened:

Trump: "Canada is nasty. They're nasty."

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) August 5, 2026 at 3:22 PM

He ain't seen nuthin' yet!

 

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Americans hate him too

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Wednesday Updates: Nobody wants Poilievre's job. Plus Carney success stories, Trump fantasy stories, wildfires update, and its Venn Day.

Looks like Poilievre has a job that no one else wants. 

CTV News reports on a new Nanos poll:

There is “no obvious challenger” among Conservative politicians in Canada to Prime Minister Mark Carney, according to a new Nanos Research poll commissioned by CTV News.
The poll, which surveyed Canadians randomly by phone and online between July 28 to 30, provided a list of Conservative politicians and asked which would have a chance to defeat Carney if they were leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.
According to the poll, 16 per cent said former prime minister Stephen Harper, while current Official Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre received 15 per cent of the vote. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, meanwhile, sits at 11 per cent.
But 33 per cent of Canadians surveyed said “none can defeat” Carney.
Other notable Conservatives, including Peter MacKay, Rona Ambrose, Danielle Smith, Jean Charest and Lisa Raitt, each received less than 10 of the votes respectively, while Jason Kenney, Mark Mulroney, Erin O’Toole, Andrew Scheer, Leslyn Lewis, Tim Houston, Jamil Jivani and Caroline Elliott each received five per cent or less.
Speaking to CTV News, Nanos Research founder and chief data scientist Nik Nanos says there is both “good news and bad news” in the polling for Poilievre.
“Only 15 per cent of Canadians think that he (does) have a chance to defeat Mark Carney, so he’s not seen as a prime minister or a close challenger. That’s the bad news,” Nanos said. “The good news is (there) doesn’t seem to be anyone in the bushes, the shadows, in the wings that people identify as a real alternative to Pierre Poilievre.”...

Catching Up with the News: Trump fails in Iran and in Spain, plus a wildfire update and the final Commonwealth Games update

Cartoon roundup about Trump's Iran quagmire

Sunday Funday: Some good posts and some funny posts, plus Carney Hat Trick, TrumpWatch, Animal Crackers, and Commonwealth Games Update

First, some good posts

Clearest image ever taken of Venus. (Infrared) By Japan's Akatsuki spacecraft 🔥

- Curiosity

Read on Substack

Which way do you read this image? People whose native language runs from left to right on the page - English, eg - tend to see, in Hokusai’s iconic image, an enormous rolling wave. The dominant feeling is the relentlessness of nature. But if your language runs from right to left - like Japanese - you might focus on the human drama: a handful of people afloat in narrow, flimsy boats, at imminent risk of being overwhelmed.

- Christopher Harding

Read on Substack

Catching up with the American Fantasia. Plus today's Commonwealth Games update

Here are a few cartoons I found about Trump's crazy fantasies:

Trump's fantasy world is getting worse every day. 

It's harder to keep up with all the fantasy stories that Trump seems to believe sincerely - everything from how he won the 2020 election, to how Dr. Fauci killed millions of Americans with the Covid virus he developed in a Chinese lab, how evil democrats are all communists who destroyed his fabulous Reflecting Pool, and so on and so one.
I know all politicians have their blind spots. But this is way beyond that, isn't it.
Here are some good comments: