Canada once again proves to be a menace to American national security and their biggest pain in the butt (but what your soldiers do with their their bums sounds more like a ”you” problem America) How does a country manage to be the most threatening and most pathetically laughable on the same day?

First book read in January 2006 (🧵) Moving Pitt to Special Branch sure changed the tone of the series, but this novel is a superior effort from Perry. Great Victorian thriller with political overtones, solid historical background, fun character work especially with Gracie and Narraway 💙📚⚡💙📚⏳

The US “openly flaunting international law sends a signal to all of us that every president and every prime minister is potentially a target of US military action. There doesn’t seem to be any constraints on what the Trump administration would consider.” — former Canadian ambassador to Venezuela

The Canadian government is now promoting tourism with ads showing the PM playing guide in front of tanks at the War Museum. 2026 already feels much like the sequel to 2025, eh.

And it’s a wrap. A great reading year, but truly 2025 for everything else you won’t be missed.

Final round of favourites from my 2025 reads. Tough year for Canada, but we are ending it stronger, and more confident if not exactly more hopeful. Madness of Crowds in my favourite Penny read this year. A timely and dark tale tackling the dangers of polarization in society. 💙📚

And more of my 2025 favourites reads. - It could have been Alien Clay which I also read and loved, but in the end I gave the edge to his (literally) very dark, and tense, Shroud. Tchaikovsky never disappoints but even for him that's really special one. 💙📚

A few more of my favourites: "Historical" reads in 2025 - Baranger: Paris in 1907. Great historical fiction, great crime fiction. If only it was a series... - Cameron (🇨🇦) : An Englishman in Venice. Great mystery, fun cast, Venice really comes to life, and Cameron promises many more of them 💙📚

A first few of my 2025 favourite reads, in no particular order: - The US would be a much better place with more S.A. Cosbys, not just as a writer (but that too) -From a promising debut Connolly's Charlie Parker novels fast skyrocketed to greatness. Of his first 4, this third one was my favourite💙📚

The proof boycotts can have very tangible effects. The worst may be yet to come as this made consumers discover and appreciate the Canadian spirits or turn to UK/Ireland ones. When the trade war is over US distillers may find much of their market share has evaporated and consumers set in new habits

A lot of Orwell, some Sinclair Lewis, Fahrenheit 451, The Stand, the Dead Zone, the Handmaid‘s Tale, and now Hunger Games and The Long Walk. There’s like a theme. It looks like the USA is great again at something….

#118 for 2025. Émile Zola - Le Docteur Pascal (Les Rougon-Macquart, Histoire naturelle et sociale d'une famille sous le second empire, 1893). It took me almost four years, but I've now completed my read-through of this insanely ambitious 3 million words monument of 19th century literature 💙📚⏳

The Cold War is back, except with climate change it‘s definitely on the warm-ish side. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/15/w...

The most honest analysis I can give you. Pls read, pls share. Ukraine Is Being Pushed Toward a Deal That Ignores the Core Issue: Russia’s Ongoing Aggression and the Erosion of International Law www.onestnetwork.com/post/ukraine...

And… done. A shorter title would have been more exciting news, but eh…. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In the defence of Time Magazine, few souls in Canada still think of checking first if it’s not the Beaverton when faced with an outrageous and outlandish Ambassador Hoekstra declaration. Yesterday’s satire is today’s reality and tomorrow’s massive understatement with this US administration.

Can’t wait to see the back of this insufferable gaslighting troll.

#108 read in 2025. Émile Zola (🇫🇷) - La Débâcle. Snapshots from the Franco-Prussian war, the debacle of the Second Empire and la Commune's horrifying insurrection of 1871 and one of Zola's literary masterpieces. One of the most powerful novels about war and the beauty and horror of human nature ⏳📚💙

The sort of interest and respect you expect from a serious nation that wants a long lasting mutually profitable military and industrial relationship with a reliable ally. If that decision was in the hands of ordinary Canadians, that deal would already be signed and the US and their F-35 can rot

#103 lu en 2025. Au coeur même de la Révolution Française avec une enquête sur des meurtres (fictifs) par le jeune gendarme et protégé de La Fayette Victor Dauterive. Portes ose avec brio arrimer son mystère romanesque très près de la Grande Histoire et mettre en scène plusieurs joueurs clé 💙📚⚡ 💙📚⏳

Personally I still have very fond memories of studying in school the exploits of Marxus and Engelus to end the class struggle in Rome and topple the villainous Julius Caesar and send him to the Guillotinus, invented by Astérix le Gaulois. The sickle of Panoramix and the Hammer of Obélix triumphed!

#102 read in 2025. Michael Connelly - Dark Sacred Night. Working from seeds carefully planted in Two Kinds of Truth Connelly brings Ballard and Bosch together. Very interesting and well developed pairing that is the substantial main dish, as the mystery itself is a bit thinner than usual. 💙📚⚡

Not so long ago a US ambassador yelling at a Canadian trade official at a diplomatic event in Ottawa and in front of our Minister for Foreign Affairs using fuck/fucking/fucker would have been cause for a recall home. Now? Everyone just sigh, keep calm and carry on, while thinking “🤬 Americans…”

Imagine that, punishing your biggest trade partner AND further taxing your own citizens and corporations for the malevolent crime of reminding Americans of the own words of Ronald Reagan, then pretending those words are “fake” ‘cause the alternative is calling Reagan extreme left!

#101 read in 2025. Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe's Rifles. From 88, the first prequel to be written but 7th novel in the timeline and first Napoleonic war campaign. Classic Cornwell with a fun adventure set during the English retreat in Spain in 1809. Has all one's expect from Sharpe. ⏳💙📚

His royal anus King Donald XLVII is mighty pissed off. Or maybe it’s just Friday.

I suppose someone already thought of searching Mar-a-Lago and the Oval office for any new bling-bling of suspicious provenance this morning?

Having failed to secure the Peace Prize, Mister Trump goes all in for the Nobel of Economics.

Can one die from laughing too hard? 🤔 😂🤣 "The people of Canada will love us again," Trump said, with Carney looking on during an impromptu news conference ahead of their meeting. "Most of them still do, I think — they love us."

It's a pink day, not an orange day. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It will still be a shit show, possibly a pretty bad one this time.

Good morning Blue Sky! Hope you’re all ok? Today I’m currently reading and hugely enjoying them plenty When There Are Wolves Again by EJ Swift. What are you reading at the moment?

The Canadian Secretary of State for Defence Procurement: "While the US still remains an ally, Canada along other mid-range military powers like the United Kingdom and Australia needs to step up and accept again a larger role in word affairs".

America as seen from the Canadian media www.lapresse.ca/actualites/c...

Something should check if Satan’s fine. Québec, Ottawa, Ontario aligning their ducks to finish the Northern Corridor that would allow us to massively increase our capacity to export critical minerals to the UK/EU markets instead of the US means a non zero chance Hell is about to freeze over.

Congrats. We lost to the best. news.sky.com/story/englan...

Say the US have turned into a total madhouse without saying it’s turned into a madhouse…. 😂 "After the hot air, treacherous escalators, and humidity of the United Nations week in New York, Taoiseach Micheál Martin made a brief foray into the calm and cool sanity of the far north"

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...