Though data clearly demonstrate that the rainfall and heat statistics in southern California are well within predictable and historical norms for arid Southern California, Jerry Brown continues to attribute his state’s disasters to a failure of people like President Trump to heed his ever-more-frantic claims.

He’d taken the left's best shots and was still standing, leaving them just the cold comfort of a possible Hail Mary from Robert Mueller’s special-counsel report. Just before their star candidates are consumed by bids for the Democrat 2020 nomination to fight Trump. 

The 20th anniversary of The National Post was a bittersweet event for anyone who loves journalism. On the one hand there was an outpouring of nostalgia for a singular moment in Canadian journalism.

In case you missed the memo, please turn your Twitter Madness Metre ® to Khashoggi. Yes, the all-consuming bonfire of the inanities this week is the brutal murder of Washington Post scribbler Jamal Khashoggi by what appears to be a Saudi hit squad in the nation’s embassy in Turkey.

For a nation that fetishizes fake virtue, Canada’s rollout of legalized marijuana on Wednesday might have been the Parnassus of self absorption. The blanket coverage by the domestic press of the first stores opening suggested something akin to a PCP D-Day in its scope and gravity.

When it comes to guarding its self-interest, Quebec is the maestro in Canada’s orchestra. For much of the time since the 1995 Referendum barely failed, the province has played a passive/ aggressive symphony.

These have to be nervous times for staff at Rogers Sportsnet as longtime executive Scott Moore skedaddled this week. Moore, Sportsnet’s president, announced his departure just as the NHL season got going. And it’s clear that Rogers’ 12-year deal with the NHL, valued at $5.2 billion, is likely a significant reason he’s pulling up stakes.

Barack Obama must be so proud. The cultural mosh pit POTUS 44 set in motion when elected in 2008 has persevered despite the election of Donald Trump, his arch-nemesis, over Barry’s presumed heir, Hillary Clinton.

Perhaps you remember the 2005 documentary film The Aristocrats? In it, comedians tell their versions of a vile joke about the entertainment biz. The permutations of the joke are endless, and each is more depraved than the last.

The irony is rich. Former president Barack Obama has decided the situation in America is so grave (translation: his friends aren’t in charge) that he must go public about the secretive, clandestine Donald Trump presidency.

There was much noisy theatre at the commencement of the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings before the U.S. Senate. Women in Handmaids Tale garb. Shouting protesters. A Parkland shooting victim’s father mysteriously approaching the candidate out of the blue.

At best, Donald Trump has a postal-code standard when it comes to the truth. If he feels he’s in the neighbourhood of a fact, that’s usually good enough for the Bombastic One.

These are nervous times for the Grievance Industry of the Left in America. Despite the noisy efforts of the partisan liberal media, Hollywood’s woke prophets and Maxine Watters’ strenuous calls for mob action, its hold on assumed voting blocks seems to be eroding. 

Let’s play a little game. It’s called Whose Statue Gets Taken Down?

Sometimes, only your best friends will tell you.

And sometimes, only a federal cabin minister will tell you. In this case, it’s Liberal Seamus O’Regan, Minister of Veterans Affairs, who wants you to know that, “immigrants are better at creating new businesses and new jobs than Canadian-born people. Simple.”

The headline in the National Geographic was a grabber. “Australia Goes Dry”. The magazine was sitting in a basket at my friends’ home in Toronto, so I decided to leaf through the story, because his daughter and my son were going there shortly. “How bad is it?” I wondered. 

Donald Trump’s Spinal Tap Tour of NATO/ Britain (with backing vocals from Russian president Vladimir Putin) was about as tumultuous as you’d expect. After Trump made NATO his backing band, he allowed Putin to plug into his sense of grievance over the Mueller probe. The U.S. president conflated his “collusion” outrage with Putin’s annoyance at getting caught out hacking the DNC computers.

Led by their virtuous prime minister, Canadians have no self-esteem issues. A Canadian ending a romance says, “This isn’t about me. This is about you.” 

A Canadian talking about himself to a stranger says, “But enough about me. Let’s talk about my career.”

So it is with the latest self-effacement game. Canadians miffed with President Trump’s bracing assessment of Canadians as partners have decided that they will boycott American holidays, American products, American culture. It’s a trade tantrum.