Ayami Sato first woman to play on a professional Canadian men's baseball team

Kudos to Toronto for signing up - and actually playing - the first women to play for a professional men's baseball team in Canada. 

Just so you know, this was not the Toronto Blue Jays in Major League Baseball, mark you, but the Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball Club, the rather confusingly-named team in the Intercounty Baseball League.

Ayami Sato is widely regarded as the best female pitcher in the world, and is a six-time Women's Baseball World Cup champion with Japan. She struck out one and did not allow anyone on base in the first two innings of the Maple Leafs game against the Kitchener Panthers yesterday. The Leafs ultimately lost the game 6-5.

This is maybe not on the scale of Jackie Robinson's first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 (the first Black man to play in Major League Baseball), but it is nevertheless a pretty big step, and an inspiration for thousands of young Canadian girls who idolize Sato.

Every vote counts - we have proof!

Never scoff again when someone tells you that every vote counts. 

A recount in the Montreal area riding of Terrebonne yielded an almost unbelievable result: after the initial count found that the Bloc Québécois has won the riding by an ultra-slim margin of 44 votes, a recount found that, in fact, the Liberals scraped in by just one single vote! 

After the recount, Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné of the Bloc garnered 23,351 votes, while Liberal Tatiana Auguste registered 23,352, the closest result in recorded history. The swing gives the Liberals 170 seats in parliament, still two short of a majority.

The recount is a process that automatically clicks in when a result is within 0.01% of the total votes, considered the margin of potential error. Three other judicial recounts are underway in other close calls, but none of them give the Liberals a path to a majority.

This would probably have caused riots in the USA, so it's a testament to the robustness of the Canadian system that the revised result (and the recount itself) has been accepted with good grace. I wonder how Ms. Sinclair-Desgagnè is feeling today, though?

Alberta is rich, so why are they still whining?

I have never understood Alberta's vociferous and ongoing complaint that they are being unfairly targeted by Canada's equalization system.

Equalization was brought in to provide "reasonably comparable level of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation", i.e. to ensure that all Canadians benefit from all of Canada's advantages, and that those provinces that are richer (through accidents of geography, geology, etc) subsidize those that are poorer. It's not a perfect system, but it's surely a laudable goal.

Intra-provincial equalization payments are calculated according to a formula and, while you might quibble about some of the details, it is broadly designed to make sure that there are no egregiously have-not provinces, through no fault of their own.

But the big thing is, equalization is a federal program. The government of Alberta has not paid over a single cent to any other province, despite what Danielle Smith implies; all equalization payments come from federal coffers through federal taxes. If Albertans (as opposed to Alberta) can be said to have paid more than residents of other provinces, that is only insofar as Albertans have higher incomes than the national average. This doesn't make it unfair, except in the eyes of Danielle Smith and the Alberta First crowd.

Because the bottom lime is: Alberta is a rich province, both in absolute GDP and particularly in per capita terms. The province's own economic dashboard admits - nay, boasts - as much. They should expect to be paying more than Nova Scotia or Manitoba. They are not struggling, they are not unfairly treated. They are living in La La Land compared to most Canadians. And the rest of Canada is pretty sick of their constant whining.

Did UK get a good trade deal with USA?

Surprisingly, both for them and for the rest of the world, the UK became the first country to agree a tariff and trade deal with Donald Trump's USA.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been waxing lyrical about the deal, calling it "fantastic" and "historic". and even the BBC seems to think it a good deal and a "significant achievement" (for Starmer at least, even if not for the UK). 

Others, however, are not so sure. The Independent calls it "lipstick on a pig", and The Guardian is equally, well, guarded, likening it to "a bit part in Trump the Musical".

In some ways, a deal with the UK was low-hanging fruit for the Trump administration. For one thing, the US actually has a small surplus in its trade with the UK, which can therefore hardly be said to be taking advantage of the US. And the UK is desperate for a deal with pretty much ANYONE since leaving the EU and is therefore willing not to drive too hard a bargain. (Trump is also quite desperate for a deal, to make his wacko tariff policy look a little less dismal.) Plus, Starmer needs a win of any sort after a rather disastrous local council election.

Starmer kept up the deluge of flattery he has employed since he started dealing with Trump, which arguably is the only way to make a deal with the man, however much it may pain the flatterer. But he received some flattery back too. When Trump himself starts to compliment you, it's probably time to worry.

Anyway, what Starmer ended up with is a deal that leaves the UK only slightly worse off than before: a reduction on the 25% steel and aluminum tariffs, and a decrease on tariffs on cars from 25% to 10%, although only up to a certain quota, and still much higher than the previous 2.5% tariff. The deal increased UK access to US ethanol and beef (although why the UK wants US beef, laden with growth hormones as it is, is not clear). The US, for its part, wanted something on pharmaceuticals and technology and succeeded in that, although exactly what remains to be negotiated. The blanket 10% tariff on most UK goods entering the USA remains, though. This compares with an average tariff in 2023, for example. of just 3.3%.

So, even with its so-called "special relationship" with America, Britain still did not manage to get all the tariffs dropped, not even close. And, remember, this is not really a trade treaty at all, not like the recently-concluded free trade deal between India and the UK (which would require Congress' approval, and a lot more time). All this is happening outside of the official international trade channels, and it's not clear whether it needs to be approved by Congress or not (or whether Congress would in fact approve it). The deal, as even Trump admits, is not yet finalized, despite all the song and dance.

Being first to go is not always a good ploy. Other countries are certain to be deconstructing and analysing this deal, in an attempt to learn where points were gained and lost in the game. Because that's what this has turned into, a pretty high-stakes game. 

The UK is a much smaller trading partner with America than Canada, but this whole process gives a good idea of what to expect in future negotiations.

Actually, America does need Canada

Maybe it goes without saying, but a lot of the stuff Donald Trump says about Canada and Canadian-American trade is a load of cobblers. But if there's one thing that really gets my goat, it's his claim that America doesn't need Canadian goods. It doesn't need our oil, it doesn't need our cars, it doesn't need our lumber, etc, etc. "We don't need anything they have", he says, repeatedly.

If that were true, then why do American companies import $421 billion of good from Canada every year (2024 figure). The top few categories are: fuel, oil and derivatives; vehicles and auto parts; machinery, nuclear reactors and boilers; unspecified commodities; plastics; wood and wood products; aluminum; electrical equipment; aircraft and spacecraft(!); etc.

America could try doing without us, and that is Trump's stated goal, but it would be very tough.

New American Pope - what should we expect?

Robert Prevost, an American, is now Pope Leo XIV. He was born in Chicago, to parents of Spanish and French-Italian descent, but has spent most of his working life as a missionary in Peru and as a functionary and insider  in the Vatican, so he's actually not THAT American. An Italian newspaper calls him "the least American" of the US cardinals.

The significance of his Americanism is lost on no-one (including Donald Trump, who was quick to claim him as one of his own), although he has already proved himself critical of some of Trump's recent actions (including the deportations of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to an El Salvador jail, against a court order), and has specifically spoken about against JD Vance's "Catholic" justification of the same.

Indeed, some of the MAGA crowd are deeply suspicious of the new Pope. MAGA influencer Laura Loomer, not known for pulling her punches (or for common sense or truthfulness) calls Leo "anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, pro-open border, and a total Marxist like Pope Francis". Ryan Selkis calls him a "new woke pope".

His adoption of the name Leo, too, may or may not be significant. The previous Leo, Pope Leo XIII, who was around over a century ago, railed against the American "heracy" of the time, as he saw it, as they were attempting to align American politcal values and cultural ethos with traditional Roman Catholic tenets 3and historical practices. Sound familiar? Leo XIII was also known, ahead of his time, for his concern for workers and social issues, and his criticism of both laissez-faire capitalism and state-centric socialism. Maybe the new Pope sees himself as carrying on that work?

Anyway, new Pope. Should we be excited? Meh, probably not. Leo XIV came up through the Augustinian order, and he was made a cardinal by his predecessor Francis, so it seems likely that he will continue Francis' pastoral and slightly radical trajectory. But, as I have argued earlier, Popes these days are not that influential in the wider world, and we shouldn't really expect any concrete impacts on the world as a whole. 

World Junior Hockey players trial will help define "consent"

The ongoing trial of five members of the 2018 Canadian World Junior Hockey team is likely to be a watershed case in what constitutes consent and what constitutes sexual assault.

It is a particularly important case because the defendant, known as EM, then an awkward 20-year old university student, said and did some things that might have been construed as providing consent for the group sex that ensued. She was much the worse for alcohol, as were the young men, and admitted that she may have appeared permissive and compliant during the incident, even taking on the persona of a "porn star", but that she saw that as a kind of coping mechanism "just to get through" the ordeal. She has also testified that she tried to leave the room several times, sometimws in tears, but was persuaded, although not forced, to stay. 

There is apparently even video evidence of her saying that "it was all consensual" and that she "enjoyed it", although it is still not clear whether the video will be allowed as evidence.

But throughout the extended incident, she says that "I felt like I had no control", and was on "autopilot", almost separated from her body. She did what she did because she felt like she had no choice. Plus, she was so inebriated that she says, "I don't recall how I was acting", and "I don't know exactly what what I was doing". She was not even entirely sure she could identify which men were involved, because they "all looked the same" to her, and she actively misidentified a couple of them.

EM has a whole load more cross-examination to go through, having her credibility questioned, and I really don't envy her. (Court proceedings ended early yesterday, after EM broke down in tears several times.) I'm also glad I'm not on the jury. But the outcome of the trial will create an important precedent on what consent really means, and how much latitude women should be allowed in how they express it (or don't).

Where conflicts are concerned, don't believe everything (anything?) you see online

Deutsche Welle (DW) does a good job of fact-checking some of the more lurid political claims doing the rounds of the world's social media. Most recently it has looked into the videos being circulated by both Pakistan and India about their growing military spat over incursions into  and retailations over, Indian-held Kashmir.

Perhaps not surprisingly, DW concludes that almost all of the video propaganda being promoted by both sides is in fact false. 

For example, footage purporting to show Indian missiles raining down on Pakistan, shared at least 5 million times by outraged viewers, was in fact taken over 7 months ago and actually shows Iranian missiles hitting Israel. A picture showing a wrecked Fench-designed Rafale fighter plane was indeed Pakistani, but actually shows a Mirage 5 plane that crashed during training exercises three weeks ago. In some cases, video of purported Indian air attacks actually turns out to be footage from a popular video game!

There's an awful lot of fake photos and videos out there on the Internet, particularly in this age of AI. Where a war is involved, everything gets amped up a notch or two further, to the extent that it's pretty hard to trust anything you see online unless it comes directly from a highly reputable source. And even then it pays to be pretty sceptical.

Thus begins another major armed conflict in a time of renewed conflicts across the world.