American isolationism, v. 2025. The US could really use a FDR right now.

He's only been here for a few months but he's already done more to erode permanently the US-Canada relationship and the image of the US in Canada than all past American ambassadors combined, GWB's Celluci and Johnson's Butterworth included.

Current reads: 💙📚 #Booksky

I know it must be early Monday somewhere

Something special today at BF! Raging Against the Machine: Comics and Generative AI “Art” (Interlude) – Read @tomhumberstone.com Tom Humberstone’s Comic ‘I’m a Luddite! (And So Can You!)’ on AI Art, Luddism and Activism Here at BF. www.brokenfrontier.com/raging-again... #NoToAIArt

Good Morning Blue Sky! Hope you’re all ok? Today I’m currently reading a great horror anthology Roots of My Fears edited by Gemma Amor. What are you reading at the moment?

Banning @stephenking.bsky.social books from libraries has proved to be a TERRIBLE idea. A Stillson clone runs the US, their Congress is full of clowns set on killing everyone, idiots fear vaccines more than the plague and now 37% of Americans think rabies shots are a no-no because "dog autism" 🙄

#87 for 2025. Jim Eldridge - Murder at the Fitzwilliam (🇬🇧). First in a series of museum-themed Victorian whodunnit. Very classic. A tad too cosy for my taste and taking some liberties with period accuracy, but a fun, light romp with a sympathetic couple of PI and Egyptologist. 💙📚⏳ 💙📚⚡

#86 for 2025. James Lee Burke - Lay Down My Sword and Shield. 💙📚⏳ In 1971 a political novel of awakening for a young, drifting Korea War veteran, Democrat candidate and criminal lawyer. Now reads as historical fiction about the dark, hard realities of '68 Texas. Excellent start to what later turns

The utterly lovely & wonderful Emma Newman is having a rotten year & could really do with some help. So if you can, go read her books (they're awesome!), donate to her emergency fund, or share the love. Review: fantasy-faction.com/2025/planetf... 💙📚🪐 #FantasyFaction #SFFbookRecommenfation #SciFi

Those defence deals are coming so fast it’s hard to keep track. Arctic radar system with Australia, deals with Saab in Sweden, CAE, Finland, Latvia, Ukraine, now this. And an announcement 🇨🇦 means to sign a deal with either Germany or s. Korea for a fleet of arctic nuclear submarines within months.

It’s amateur hour again. This has to be the most embarrassing diplomatic corps in US history.

ReArm Europe, talks in Sweden, deal with Finland, Defence-focused visits to Latvia, Poland, Kiev. It makes my peace-loving heart weep to see us forced to rebuild ourselves into a military power, but the post WWII order is all but dead. We pride ourselves on our pragmatism. Si vis pacem para bellum

This kind of Sunday. “All Flags Are False” - E.K. “It’s a rag. It’s just a rag.” legendarypinkdots1.bandcamp.com/track/all-fl...

This is a catastrophe for many, including indie musicians who for many years had gone back to DIY and selling directly to their fans via sites like Bandcamp. For many it’s the loss of their biggest market and revenues, and touring the US has also become a huge gamble for bands. What a mess.

But Putin really wants peace, right?

That letter from a Maine senator to Canadian legislators to “invite” four provinces to secede and outlining conditions to join the US shows not only peak American arrogance but also an unbelievable degree of disconnection from reality for a legislator. This is some serious banana republic shit.

Keeping commerce fair and honest, American style.

That's an interesting unforeseen plot twist. I wonder if the list won't get longer today. "Un pour tous et tous pour un".

Ambassador from hostile nation that violated our free-trade agreement by imposing illegal and unconstitutional tariffs on us and that keeps talking about annexing us claims *WE* are the ones putting the relationship in jeopardy by refusing to simply capitulate to their agression. That sure is a take

#81 lu en 2025. L'Œil du Goupil, une enquête de Léandre Lafforgue - Sylvain Larue. Excellent premier tome d'une série policière historique qui en compte maintenant plusieurs. Larue est un spécialiste des affaires criminelles historiques et ça se voit immédiatement dans la qualité de sa recherche

12 Août. Journée "J'achète Québécois" où on encourage tous les lecteurs à l'achat d'un livre local. Mon choix pour cette année, un policier apparement plutôt loufoque. 💙📚

#80 for 2025. Edward Wilson (🇬🇧) The Envoy (2008). A fascinating old fashioned cold war thriller, in the spirit of Deighton or le Carré. Set mostly in 1956 it focusses not on the KGB but on the H-bomb saga and the tense and difficult US-UK relationship, mixing history with pure fiction 📚💙⚡

1/ - Trade Policy in 2025 - Step 1. Donald Trump invents threatened new tariff rates on your country based on some combination of the trade balance, vibes, personal grievance, vibes, how much he likes you, vibes, or a Peter Navarro formula so stupid it made Lesotho enemy #1. Also vibes.

Hmmm... depending on what "it" in "when it makes sense" is supposed to stand for, it could take a very long time before talking to the American wannabe monarch again meets the "makes sense" condition.

It feels a bit surreal to see this as a hot debate in 2025 but Canada finds itself in a situation recalling the UK with the H bomb in the 50s: is it time to have our own nuclear deterrent and join France and the UK, because we can no longer trust the US any more for Defence than we can for Trade?

Also notable. He mentioned speaking first to our "closest allies", name France, the UK, the European Union" - omits including the United States. That's almost unprecedented in Canadian diplomacy.

Good Morning Blue Sky! Hope you’re all ok? Today I’m currently reading and enjoying The Needfire by M K Hardy for a touch of the gothic. What are you reading at the moment?

Nope Mr. MAGAmbassador.. boycotts aren't 🇨🇦 being "mean and nasty" to fascists and "showing a bad attitude". Canadians being nasty to fascists was dropping live grenades in the coat pockets of those we captured to watch them blow up, but the Geneva Convention (and our moms) no longer let us do that.

#73 for 2025. John Connolly (🇮🇪) - The Killing Kind (2001) Well, that escalated fast. Every Dead Thing was a promising but somewhat overloaded debut, but this got fine tuned by book 2 and this third Parker thriller really packs a punch. Grim, gruesome, twisted, violent, atmospheric yet... fun 💙📚⚡

#72 for 2025. Christian Cameron (🇨🇦) - The Venetian Heretic (The Adventure of the Red Mask). I haven't (yet) read enough of phokion.bsky.social‬ 's long bibliography to confidently say this is his best novel, but I love historical mysteries enough to say this is an awesome contribution⏳📚💙 ⚡📚 🧵

In which a security expert suggests it might be time to acknowledge this is an economic war and place Canadian treaties with the US, such as Five-Eyes and NORAD, under “review”. Can’t trust on mutual Defence a nation that treats you as an enemy on trade. www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...

The what now? 2025 in Absurdistan: where every day feels scripted by Eugene Ionesco.

#69 for 2025. Dan Simmons - Hyperion. First reread for me since 1989. Ambitious, literate space opera with echoes of Chaucer, Keats, Haldeman, Anderson, Gibson, Herbert etc. Dated in some of its cultural biases, prescient in other ways - and still impressive in scope and very readable in 2025 🪐📚💙

Lovelies, here's a shiny new episode of Starship Alexandria for you (and anywhere you listen to podcasts). @aptshadow.bsky.social and I discuss Top Ten by Alan Moore, Gene Ha and Zander Cannon. starshipalexandria.com/episode-4-to...

The new episode of Starship Alexandria is out now! We discuss the graphic novels Top Ten. In the patron-only bonus we also talk about The Fifth Element.

#68 for 2025. Michael Connelly. Nightshade (Stilwell #1). Chronologically I still have 12 novels to read before this one, but it's a new series, so.... I cheated. Nightshade is what happens if you mix Connelly's distinctive style of police procedural and a "small town' mystery. ⚡📚💙

Good Morning Blue Sky! Hope you’re all ok? Today I’m currently reading the end of a great series Heart of the Wyrd Wood by RJ Barker. What are you reading at the moment?

It's Canada Day/Fête du Canada today. To celebrate it's time to go local and start this historical mystery novel by Canadian (🇨🇦) author Christian Cameron, which comes on a wave of praise from readers/reviewers. I've really enjoyed his Tom Swan serials. 💙📚⏳ 💙📚⚡

Those ad campaigns to lure Canadians back to the US and undermining our collective efforts to put pressure to end this trade war is hardly a way to show “love”. If you won’t fight your government, don’t hinder those who do States/cities that do this deserve to be put on a very long term black list

#65 for 2025. Mark Ellis (🇬🇧) The Embassy Murders (DCI Frank Merlin #1) A great main character in Merlin, fun acolytes, a very twisted mystery set in pre-Blitz 1940 London, a ton of atmosphere, "Defeatist" US diplomats and shady politics aplenty add up to a great historical crime fiction novel⚡💙📚⏳

His Royal Majesty the Not-A-King-but-Americans-let-him-act-like-one has thrown a tantrum again. At this point it’s royally tedious. « A blatant and direct attack on our country ». …..righhhhhhhht. More made up « emergencies ». 🙄🥱 www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

#64 for 2025. Bernard Cornwell (🇬🇧) - Sharpe's Trafalgar. The one set at sea. It may not reach the literary height of O'Brian and his lyrical descriptions of the nautical life, but Cornwell outshines even the master and commander of the genre in the naval battle scenes that close this novel ⏳📚💙

The European Union/Canada Defence and Security Partnership Pact is now official. Not a substitute to NATO, more like an extra or complement, and a meaningful step to try keep that alliance alive if (when?) the US eventually leaves it. It also helps reduce our reliance on and vulnerability to the US

One more sign that trade wars *are* wars. On must look back to WWII for the last time Canada moved this fast on so many fronts. It will be a very different country in a few years. It's reassuring to see we can come together and adapt this fast, even though historically arm races rarely bred peace

Washington will be *so* pleased. "…  the most far reaching of its kind that the EU has ever signed with a third country. It will open up new avenues for joint work on crisis management, military mobility, maritime security, cyber and cyber threats, and defence industrial co-operation."

#63 for 2025. Adrian Tchaikovsky - Shroud (2025). A dark (literally), claustrophobic and thrilling First Contact story on a hostile moon. @aptshadow.bsky.social revisits pet themes from a new perspective with all his storytelling flair. One of his best, I think 🪐📚💙

#62 for 2025. James Lee Burke - The Neon Rain. Southern noir from the late 80s introducing the Dave Robicheaux character. Set in underworld of New Orleans, it's brutal, raw yet engaging. I'm curious to see where Burke took this long series as this first one was a great read. ⚡📚💙

A voice of wisdom. Former Prime Minister (and former Foreign Affairs minister, among many other positions) enjoins world leaders coming to the G7 summit in Alberta, Canada to simply ignore any theatrics and diversions Trump may be up to while there. Issues to be discussed are too important.

#60 for 2025: Never Flinch, by Stephen King. A little over plotted and threatening to burst at the seams but nonetheless a very entertaining story with Holly and the gang, set in an America so divided by everything not even baseball for charity can't go without some red vs blue mayhem 📚💙⚡