Why the Washington Post is "choosing" not to endorse a presidental candidate

While one multibillionaire, Elon Musk, continues to make a fool of himself appearing as a trained pet at Donald Trump's rallies, another multibillionaire, Jeff Bezos, has waded into the fray too, although he has tried his best to hide it.

The Washington Post has decided, for the first time in 30 years, not to endorse one or other of the US presidential candidates. But this wasn't an editorial decision, it was a decision handed down by the paper's new owner, one Jeff Bezos.

According to sources within the newspaper, an endorsement for Kamala Harris had been written and drafted ready, but was put on hold at the last minute and not published. Some.staffers and reporters have laid the blame squarely at Bezos' feet, and many others are disgusted at this "stab in the back", this "insult" to staff and readers.

Essentially, this was Bezos bottling out. His companies have billions of dollars worth of contracts with the federal government, and he does not want to be accused of partisanship, particularly if a certain vindictive ex-president wins the race. Trump's disgraceful behaviour has been effective once again, and he will see this as an invitation to further intimidate the US press in the future.

UPDATE

A very similar thing seems to have happened at the Los Angeles Times, as billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong overruled an editorial intention to endorse Kamala Harris.

This time, though, according to the owner's activist daughter at least, the reasoning was different, and clearer. It was over Harris's continued support and arming of Israel. Probably also at the back if his mind, though, was the figure of a vindictive, avenging Trump.

Either way, this is not how things are supposed to work on a free and open country.

First Nations childcare deal creating divisions among Indigenous bands

The Assembly of First Nations has voted to reject a huge $47.8 billion childcare agreement with the Canadian federal government.

267 of the 414 chiefs represented at the meeting (64%) voted against the offer, presumably on the grounds that they think they can get more. That's a lot of money to turn down. The money is to allow First Nations to set up and run their own child welfare service.

The debate has turned quite acrimonious, setting band against band, with some chiefs vowing to cut ties with those who are refusing the deal, and going it alone. As one chief opined, "I will not gamble with $47.8 billion that could change the lives of our future generations because my ego tells me I can do better". Ouch.

And gambling is right. Any day now could see a snap election, and then it won't be the free-spending Liberals in power, but the stingy Conservatives. If I were them, I'd take the money and run.

Xi and Putin's new world order dance routine

What's with the weird pose by Chinese President Xi and Russian President Putin at a photo op at the BRICS summit at Kazan recently?

As Putin outlined his "vision of a new democratic world order" [sic] to the expander BRICS delegates, this photo really stands out to me. Was it just coincidence that they were both digging in their jacket pockets at the same time? Was it part of a dance routine? A nod to Napoleon Bonaparte? Is it maybe some new kind of salute? Will we all have do this in the new world order? I'd like to know.

Ontario medical school announcement addresses a non-existent problem

The Ford government made a big splashy campaign-style announcement yesterday that it would be slashing the number of out-of-province students attending Ontario's six medical schools, with 95% of the spots being reserved for Ontario students.

This is clearly Doug Ford jumping on the runaway bandwagon of Pierre Poilievre's anti-immigrant sentiment. Ford said in the announcement that he had been told that 18% of Ontario's college and university students were international students, although it later transpired that that figure relates to graduate students, and is anyway nothing to do with medical sudents in particular.

The thing is, only 0.3% of undergraduate medical students in Ontario are actually international students. This amounts to all of 11 students out of 3,732 in the academic year 2022-23, and three of those were from the US. This number for 2023-24 was down to 10. Three of the six Ontario medical schools had no foreign students at all.

Granted, about 12% of medical school students were from other Canadian provinces, and this would be capped at 5% under Ford's new rules, but I'm not sure that is what Ford's supporters would have gleaned from the announcement (nor am I sure that is a problem that necessarily needs fixing).

Either way, none of this is going to address in any meaningful way Ontario's housing crises or the family medicine doctors shortage (which in fact, might get slightly worse as a result of this announcement). What we really need is more medical schools, and more money pumped into the training system (although, to be fair, two new medical schools, at Toronto Metropolitan University amd York University, have been separately announced).

 But, anyway, Ford got some useful sound-bites and media coverage out of it.

How many Russians are dying in Ukraine, and how do Russians feel about it?

While the US election and the ongoing Israeli war against the Arab world sucks up all the oxygen in the world news, it's sometimes hard to remember that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is also still going on in the background.

Now almost three years old, that war has settled into something of a stalemate, although in recent weeks and months Russia has started to make more progress, even if painfully slowly. The map of Russian gains in Ukraine does not seem to have changed a whole lot over the last couple of years but, while a year ago Ukraine seemed to be clawing back small parcels of territory, today the small gains are mainly going Russia's way.

But what really stuck me listening to one of the Economist's excellent briefings on the situation in Ukraine was the statistic that Russia is losing 1,200 soldiers a day for the bare metres of land they have been able to gain. That's staggering figure. The Guardian's figure is around 1,000 in Russian losses each day, but the shock remains. Estimates of total deaths throughout the war are in the range of 115,000 to 160,000, which means that current losses are higher than ever.

Now, sure, Russia is a big country with a population of around 144 millon, but that is still a lot of bad news arriving into the country each and every day, and it makes you wonder how long the Russian people can stomach it, for the sake of Valdimir Putin's personal legacy (and little else). 

For now, Russia is managing to find replacements for the thousands dying on the front lines by basically throwing money at it: the upfront payment for new recruits is now up to 3 million roubles (about C$42,000), and the monthly minimum wage is up to the equivalent of C$3,150, about four times the average salary in Russia. Plus, of course, they are sending in North Korean troops.

But already, Russians are much less gung-ho about the war than they were. Contrary to official polls in Russia, some independent polling has shown that as many as 84% want Russia to concentrate more on domestic affairs rather than on a useless war, and 63%  want to see a peace treaty with mutual concessions. Not that they have much control over the country's policies...

Many Arab-Americans will vote for Trump (don't ask me why)

More bizarro stuff from America. A YouGov poll of Arab-Americans shows that that demographic intends to turn out in force for the upcoming presidential elections, and that they are likely to vote in slightly greater numbers for Donald Trump than for Kamala Harris. They also apparently consider the situation in the Middle East to be more important than any domestic issues like the economy, immigration, affordability, etc.

It seems that they are so cross with Joe Biden and the Democrats for continuing to support and arm Israel in the Gaza/Lebanon conflict that they will vote for literally anyone else. So, they would vote for Donald Trump, who is even more pro-Israel than Kamala Harris, and who is campaigning on a promise of mass deportations of immigrants living in the USA.

Here's a quote from a Muslim iman at a Trump rally in Novi, Michigan: "We as Muslims stand with President Trump because he promises peace not war". It's mind-boggling stuff. Are they really that naive and uninformed?

Look at it another way, if you like: if you don't like Kamala Harris' policies on Israel, she is a reasonable person and she MAY be open to change; Donald Trump, on the other hand, will NOT change.

There are many things about this election that seem to us outsIders to make absolutely no sense, but this is a real headscratcher. Now, maybe these people are just grandstanding for the sake of the poll in an attempt to shake up the Democrats' policies, and maybe wiser heads will prevail on the day. But don't count on it.

Why would Transnistria even bother seceding from Moldova?

As the little East European country of Moldova goes to the polls in a general election in which the pro-Europe incumbent party is hoping to consolidate power and make membership of the EU a reality, it is fighting against Russian electoral meddling and disinformation. Like Russia doesn't have anything better to do right now...

One of the hot issues in Moldova is the would-be breakaway region of Transnistria, a tiny isolated sliver of land on the Moldovan border with Ukraine. It has remained defiantly pro-Russian, even as Moldova, like most of the rest of the region, looks westward toward Europe as a way of extricating itself from Russian dominance. It usually hosts some 1,500 Russian troops, and remains a persistent thorn in Moldova's side.

Transnistria wants to be independent of Moldova. It even went to war over it briefly in 1992, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It has its own constitution, flag, national anthem, and coat of arms. But pretty much nobody considers it an independent state (apart possibly from Russia), and it is internationally recognized as just another part of Moldova. Moldova has warned, though, that if Russia defeats and annexes Ukraine, little Transnistria is likely to be the next Ukraine, which would give it a platform to invade Moldova.

The thing that gets me, though, is that Transnistria is TINY. It has a population of about 400,000 and an area of around 4,000 square kilometres. That makes it significantly smaller than the city of Toronto and MUCH less populated. It would be the equivalent of, say, the city of Saskatoon wanting to secede from Canada.

It's not even THAT Russian. Ethnically, it's population is split about evenly between Russians, Ukrainians and Moldovan/Romanians, although almost half have duel Russian citizenship. 

So, why would it be so vociferous about wanting to split from Moldova? Does it really want to declare its vassalage to Russia, after all that went down during its time in the USSR? Maybe Moldova is not the best state to belong to, but it can't possibly be worse than being an entirely insignificant part of the Russian Empire. The whole thing seems bizarre to me.

UPDATE

Well, Moldova barely managed to avoid a very awkward situation by narrowly voting to continue its commitment to joining the EU, by a 50.46% to 49.54% margin in a referendum, alongside the elections, which were so close they are going to a second round of voting next month.

UPDATE UPDATE

And let's not forget that neighbouring Georgia is also going through a similar existential election, which is also effectively a referendum on whether the country should cleave closer to Europe or fall back into Russia's orbit. Four out of five Georgians apparently support joining the EU, but the increasingly authoritarian and divisive incumbent president has tried to frame the election as a choice between peace with Russia and war with Russia, a framing that is particularly poignant since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

Well, Georgia has gone over to the dark side, as it gave a decisive electoral victory to the ruling, Russia-appeasing "Georgian Dream" party. And it wasn't even that close.

Higher electricity production and costs in pursuit of an AI delusion

If, like me, younare deeply suspicious of artificial intelligence (AI) and the current infatuation with it, you might have read the latest news from Ontario's power system operator with some alarm and despondency.

AI is the flavour of the year this year. It is an ingredient in pretty much everything, even things that might seem to have no relationship with information technology. I'm pretty sure that some of the things that claim to be "AI-enhanced" or whatever are actually just using regular old fashioned computer analysis, not actually machine learning, but still...

In fact, AI, in the face of all the claims and ambitions for it, seems to me to be somewhat underperforming. It hasn't revolutionized healthcare; it hasn't cured world poverty; it hasn't really done much at all in concrete terms. Like 5G cell service, AI is a technology that is being pursued at breakneck speed, without a whole lot of compelling reason, largely just because it's there and it's trendy.

As we have come to understand too, AI is also a huge power hog. All those data centres, all that computing power, all the cooling requirements, they require an unprecedented amount of electricity.

Now, Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) has issued a report saying that it expects electricity demand in the province to grow by 75% by 2050. Industrial electricity demand is predicted to rise by 58% by 2035. I'm not sure we should necessarily believe self-serving predictions from the supply industry itself, but it is clear that some level of demand increase is to be expected.

Now, to be fair, this is not just as a result of Ontario's AI ambitions. It is also a result of the general electrification of life, from electric cars to heat pumps. But AI considerations are front and centre of the report.

All that, in itself, is not necessarily such a bad thing. The problem arises in that Premier Doug Ford and his current crop of Conservative lackeys can not be relied on to make sensible decisions about energy production in the province. Ford has a record of favouring gas and nuclear plants, despite the fact that water, wind, solar and battery storage are much cheaper, faster, and cleaner options these days. But logic, clear thinking and progressive ideas are not Ford's strong suits. 

So, we, the taxpayers, could be saddled with decades of higher costs and polluted air as a result of AI pretensions that amount to little more than jumping on the bandwagon and a bad case of FOMO.

Supply management system is inherently wasteful

If, like me, Canada's dairy supply management system - which is designed to control output of dairy products, keep prices stable and, theoretically at least, protect Canadian farmers' jobs - makes little or no sense, then you might be further bewildered by the news, based on the Dairy Farmers of Canada's own figures, that 7% of all milk produced is dumped, unceremoniously thrown away, as a result of the system.

Since 2012, between 6.8 and 10 billion litres of raw milk, representing about 7% of total production, and worth at least $6.7 billion, has just been tipped down the drain, ostensibly to avoid "costly surpluses" as the Canadian Dairy Commission says. That would be enough to supply over 4 million people annually. 

The disposed milk, which is in fact a costly surplus however you slice it, also led to the release of 8.4 million tonnes of greenhouse gases (equivalent to the emissions of about 350,000 has-powered cars).

Part of the reason for this dumping is that quotas have not been properly adjusted to the changing diets of many Canadians today, who may drink less milk or prefer plant-based alternatives.

And yet, here we have Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet arm-twisting the Liberal government into protecting the controversial supply management system during international trade negotiations, effectively setting it in stone. Most of our trade partners, not to mention our own agricultural sector, hate the system, which they see as indefensible government meddling, possibly even illegal under international trade rules. Several of our "allies" have taken offence at it, and New Zealand is currently taking Canada to court over it. And yet we still have it, and some are even looking to strengthen it.

Reflections on conservatism

A good part of the ideology of Conservatism revolves around resisting change. The name itself tells you that - it's nothing to do with  conserving nature or biodiversity or anything as positive as that; it's about conserving the past. 

A few snippets from current and recent political campaigns makes this painfully obvious, and gives an idea of what more thoughtful progressive parties are up against.

Take the Trump campaign in America, for instance. Here's a typical quote from a Trump supporter: "It's slowly slipping away from us. Anyone that's a Trump supporter wants an old America back, the best America back." Here's another (in reference to electic cars): "I don't trust them. I want it to be the way it always was, with a good old-fashioned car." As though nothing has improved over the life of this 82- year old Michigan voter...

Canada's Pierre Poilievre, with his particular penchant for overstatement and exaggeration (for political effect), is only evoking the conservative hankering for "the good old days" when he calls the country's carbon tax an "existential threat to our economy and our way of life", that will surely lead to "mass hunger and malnutrition", even, somehow, to "nuclear winter". I would assume that he doesn't actually believe this stuff, but he knows that it will appeal to his change-resistant political base.

"Traditional family values" is also a recurrent conservative article of faith, although many conservatives might be hard-pressed  to say what exactly that means. In practice, it seems to mean opposition to expressions of individuality in sexuality (even though individualism is supposed to another core conservative tenet) and to anything vaguely connected to LGBTQ issues, trans rights, a liberal sex education, and support for what have become known recently as "parents' rights" or "parental rights" (the right to force kids to follow parent's rules and values).

The largely Conservative-led Brexit movement in the UK also relied on a hankering for a return to the old glory days of a resplendant British Empire (like cutting ties with all of Europe was somehow going to achieve that!), with slogans like "we want our country back", "take back control", "make Britain white again", etc. Most of it was disingenuous, misleading and hopelessly idealistic, but it deliberately and shamelessly leveraged a (largely spurious) nostalgia for better past times. It also demonstrated how Conservatives ARE actually willing to change things, but only in the service of undoing progressive advances and returning to more old-fashioned ways of doing things.

Anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe is just another example of this denial of change. White Europeans in France Germany, Austria, Italy and many other places see their countries changing, and one of the most obvious manifestations of that is the colour of people's faces and the language they speak. Thus, the burgeoning hard- right parties are openly (and quite successfully) running on platforms of drastic immigration reforms and even the repatriation of existing immigrants. This, regardless of the fact that much of their economies, and much of their ability to weather turbulent economic times, relies on immigrant labour, particularly as birth rates in western countries continues to tank and populations skew ever older. *Sigh*

Change is sometimes hard, granted. But burying your head in the sand and pretending that the past was better than the present, or some envisioned future, is surely a poor response. That way, we would still have slavery, capital punishment, hymns instead of pop music, a coal-dominated power system, and unadulterated patriarchy. Change - constant change, even - is hard but necessary. Just don't expect a Conservative government of any stripe to provide that.

Chronic medical conditions set to explode in coming years

There's a rather extraordinary chart in today's paper showing the expected growth of chronic medical conditions in Ontario over the next 20 years.

So, everything is going up. But over twenty years, with the population expected to continue increasing dramatically and the average age of the population also continuing its upward trend, maybe you would expect everything to go up. What's extraordinary is the AMOUNT certain conditions are expected to increase by. 

According to forecasts, Ontario's population is expected to increase by about 39% over the next 23 years, which gives us a pretty good benchmarks against which to compare other forecasts. According to the Dalla Lana School of Public Health report, though, Renal Failure is expected to increase by an astounding 361.5%, Hearing Loss by 224.1%, Osteoporosis by 123.5%, Cancer by 120.6%, Dementia by 119.4%, Diabetes by 119.7%, etc, etc. 

These are huge increases which will put our already ailing healthcare system into a cardiac arrest of its own. These figures are just for Ontario, but you can expect the rest of the country to go along the same lines. 

And what's with the Renal Failure stat? What are we doing to our kidneys that will lead to such an explosion of failures in the next twenty years? Well, Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is apparently largely caused by other chronic contitions, like diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity, all of which are also on the increase. But 361.5%? Yow!

Is the end of truth the end of democracy?

Here's just one example among very many of the post-truth world we live in today.

At a boat parade in Jupiter, Florida, in support of Donald Trump (yes, I know, a boat parade!), some of the boats were openly displaying swastikas and neo-Nazi insignia and changing racist slogans. When there was an outcry from Democrats about it, Trump campaign officials merely claimed, with no evidence offered or attempted, that it was a "false flag event" by "liberal activists". 

This, in spite of the positive identifications of known members of the Order of the Black Sun and the Goyim Defense League (yes, these are the names of real neo-Nazi organizations!)

This kind of spurious but effective shut-down has now become the first line of defence and attack, almost a knee-jerk reaction to any potential set-back. There is no longer any attempt at making the argument convincing, or at least partially true. It is enough to provide social media with an alternative talking point, and to parry and negate any potential political damage.

So, if all that's needed to shut down a legitimate protest is a barefaced, unfounded lie, then what is the value - what is the point - of any protest, any debate? Given that the majority of Trump's election campaign at this point is based on random unsubstantiated claims and outright lies, often, it seems, conjured on the spur of the moment, what is the point of even trying to refute them?

Trump's supporters will apparently believe pretty much anything he tells them, either out of ignorance or out of willful suspension of disbelief, there seems to be no legitimate way he can be stopped from lying. Many other populists, from Netanyahu to Orbán to Erdoğan to Modi to Poilievre, have taken this approach, often with great success. Most of them have taken their lead from Trump, who has single-handledly moved the Overton window on what is considered politically acceptable. 

Another corollary of this epidemic of lies is that people who tell the truth are often not believed, because the automatic assumption is that they are just lying. So, when Kamala Harris corrects Trump's wild assertions about a tanking US economy, pointing out (correctly) that the American economy has never been stronger - inflation is down, consumer demand is strong, employment and wages are up, new business starts are up, stock markets are in record territory, etc, etc, a booming economy by any definition - Trump supporters just ignore it as more partisan extreme-left lies, because that's what Trump has told them to think. So, a huge proportion of voters are not even looking at the whole picture, content to muddle along in their town little silo.

Is this, then, the end of democracy as we know it? If voters are not basing their decisions on reality, what value does an election actually hold?

Another bizarre Trump town hall

Donald Trump's presidential campaign just jeeps getting weirder. At a town hall event in Oaks, Pennsylvania (no, I've never heard of it either), a couple of audience members fainted due to excessive heat in the hall. Trump too was clearly feeling the heat but, rather than cancelling the whole thing, he decided to turn it into a rather listless dance party, calling for music to be played for the final 40 minutes of the meeting.

"Who the hell wants more questions?", he quipped, "Let's just listen to music". And he proceeded to do just that, requesting a bizarre mix of music to be played instead, ranging from "Ave Maria" to a medley of songs by artists who have specifically called him out for using their music for his own political purposes, including Sinéad O'Connor and Guns n Roses.

Throughout, Trump stood there, bobbing his head, swaying gently, occasionally doing his familiar grandad dance. Many among the bemused audience started to leave, but the old guy seemed to be enjoying himself.

A Trump spokesperson commented on Twitter (sorry, X) that "something very special is happening in Pennsylvania". Well, he certainly got that right.

Support for Trump increases in Canada - wait, what?

Canadians regularly poo-poo Americans and their creepy love affair with Donald Trump. We often smugly assure ourselves that it could never happen here. I do it regularly in these very posts.

But then Trump-Lite, in the form of Pierre Poilievre, turns up, and all bets are off. And now, an Environics poll has looked at Canadians' attitudes to Trump, and it is shocking to see just how those attitudes have changed in the four years since 2020.

Canadians are still MUCH more likely to prefer Democratic nominee Kamala Harris to Donald Trump, by a landslide margin of 60% to 21%. So, things haven't got THAT bad. But that 21% was 15% back in 2020, and the support for the Democrats was 67% not 60% (with Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee). So, there has been a significant shift.

Perhaps even more worrying is the breakdown of that Canadian support for Trump. It's no surprise that Conservatives are much more likely to prefer Trump than Liberals, NDP or Bloc Québécois (44%, compared to 8%, 6% and 7% respectively), and support for Kamala Harris is, unexpectedly, centred on progressive Canadians (Bloc 89%, Liberals 85%, NDP 82%, compared to a measly 36% among Conservatives).

But it is notable that support for Trump is much higher among younger Canadians: 28% for 18-34 year olds and 27% among 35-54 years olds, compared to just 13% among those over 55 (the cohort in which I am proud to number myself). I don't know any of these people, and neither does my 29-year old university-educated daughter, but clearly they exist.

Even more stark is the gender split, with 36% of Canadian men between 18-34 years old preferring Trump to Harris. That 36% was just 24% among the same demographic (young men) in 2020. Combine that with Canadian party affiliation, and we see that 48% of young male Conservatives would support Donald Trump, a truly scary statistic.

Call it the Poilievre Effect, put it down to discontent with prices and the housing situation. Explain it however you like, but it is a real thing. If Donald Trump were running in Canada today, he would still lose embarrassingly, but his star would appear to be in the ascendancy.

What really caused the Liberals' slide from grace?

Jeffrey Simpson's analysis of "the long slide of the Trudeau Liberals", which he neatly categorizes under "the four i's" - incumbency, inflation, immigration and identity - is interesting enough as far as it goes, but simplistic and insufficient.

A simple thought experiment suffices to refute much of it. Imagine if, instead of Justin Trudeau and the Liberals, Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives had been in power for the last nine years.

They would still be suffering from the incumbency curse - few governments survive more than three consecutive elections, and none since the very different world of more than a century ago. The longer you stay in power, the more people you upset: that's just the way it is, across the globe.

The spike in inflation is not a specifically Canadian thing, and not controllable by individal governments. Pretty much every country in the world has been affected by inflation in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and other geopolitical vagaries. Poilievre and the Conservatives would have been affected by it too, and any protestations that the Liberals made it worse than it should have been is little more than political grandstanding.

Immigration is a big one in the list of four factors, and who would have expected that just a few short years ago, when Canadians were unreservedly pro-immigration (I have my own views on that too). Inflation has also been a strong determinant on this issue, and it can be argued that the Liberals dropped the ball to some extent by poor regulation of immigration policies. But if Poilievre had been in charge, it's quite possible that he would have pushed things too far in the other direction: we NEED immigration to keep our economy afloat, that much is incontrovertible, although the exact level needed is a tough call.

And finally, by "identity", Mr. Simpson means that the Liberals used to be the party of patriotism. I think it's many years since the Conservatives donned that mantle. But, anyway, I'm not wholly convinced that patriotism is a huge vote-winner in Canada, nor that the Trudeau Liberals have been specifically instrumental in abandoning it.

Anyway, an interesting piece. I'm just not sure I go along with most of it.

Some long-held scientific truths are being challenged

An interesting article in today's Globe and Mail describes how some long-held scientific beliefs, particularly in the human fields of psychology, sociology and economics, are being challenged, and successfully.

For example, if has long been held that making more money does not in fact make people any happier. This is supposed to be scientifically proven, and the paper's principal author, Daniel Kahneman, went on to earn a Nobel Prize and a Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work. But a young fellow at the University of Pennsylvania published a paper in 2021 refuting that finding, and explaining why. So, it turns out that, generally speaking, more money does indeed make you more happy. Which is kind of what I always thought...

Other long-held scientific theories are also starting to topple. For example, the idea that forcing yourself to smile (e.g. by biting on a pen top) actually makes you feel better and happier - more recent data suggests that any such effect is negligible and not significant. 

In the same way, it turns out that: listening to Mozart doesn't actually make you smarter, despite some "scientific" evidence that assures us it does; posing as Superman doesn't actually make you behave more confidently; your ability to resist eating a marshmallow (delayed gratification) as a kid does not lead to success as an adult; etc.

If the results of a scientific experiment cannot be repeated and validated, then it's no longer good or definitive science. Some of the disproven spurious science was merely the result of innocent mistakes or sloppy methodology; some of the data may have been deliberately manipulated. Either way, if the results cannot be replicated, the science cannot stand.

The article, however, encourages the authors of two contradictory papers  on a subject to collaborate - "adversarial collaboration", in the jargon - rather then just butting heads, becoming sworn enemies, and never speaking to each other ever again. That way, the issue can be resolved once and for all, and better science can emerge.

Do we need a new Category 6 for unprecedented hurricanes?

As Hurricane Milton barrels toward the Gulf Coast of Florida, it has picked up speed with unprecedented rapidity (there's that "unprecedented" word again), growing from a Category 2 to Category 5 hurricane in just a few hours as it passes over the (unprecedented) warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

In fact, there is now talk of the need to establish a new category, Category 6. Currently, Category 5 is the highest level, and is defined by winds of over 156 mph (251 kph), i.e. 157 mph to infinity. Milton is currently expected to reach wind speeds of over 180 mph (290 kph). If it surpasses 192 mph (309 kph), it will be in the rarefied company of just 5 hurricanes and typhoon since 1980.

Would there be any real point in establishing a new Category 6? Possibly not. Some say that wind speeds alone do not convey the possible destructive effects of storm surge and inland flooding (some of the worst damage from the recent Hurricane Helene occurred when it had already been downgraded to a tropical storm).

Would it be a useful tool for conveying the possibly severity of the storm to an increasingly blasé populace? Maybe.

LNG is (much) worse for the environment than we thought

A new peer-reviewed study has definitively put paid to the convenient fiction employed by fossil fuel proponents that liquid natural gas (LNG) is a "good thing", because it represents a "brdge fuel" that will allow us to gradually wean ourselves (and other countries) off "dirty fuels" like coal and oil.

It's a fiction you hear often, particularly from Western Canada and the oil states of the US and the Middle East. It never did ring true to me, and now we have some strong evidence to the contrary.

The long-awaited Cornell University study, published in the Energy Science and Engineering journal, actually concludes that LNG is even worse than coal as regards climate change. 33% worse in fact, in terms of its 20-year global warming potential. Even over 100 years (which downplays the warming potential of methane, and might be considered a more "forgiving" scale), LNG's carbon footprint still exceeds that of coal. 

Part of the reason for this is that LNG needs to be supercooled to convert it to to liquid form, and then transported in large tankers to market.

So, whatever British Columbia and Alberta might tell you, LNG is not a climate solution, nor even a temporary bridge fuel. It is a dangerous distraction from serious climate action, and should not be given preferential treatment.

Israel's offensive approach to international relations

As usual, Israel's reaction to UN chief António Guterres failure to do exactly what Israel wants is excessive, combative and tone-deaf.

It seems that Guterres did not condemn Iran strongly enough or quickly enough (he actually did condemn it the next day, as it happens). But Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz summarily declared Guterres persona non grata, banning the top diplomat from visiting Israel, and saying that "anyone who cannot unequivocably Iran's heinous attacks on Israel, as nearly all the countries of the world has done, does not deserve to set foot on Israeli soil".

Israel has never been a big fan of the UN, which has regularly castigated it for its illegal occupation of parts of Palestine and its apartheid treatment of Palestinians. As always, it calls any  criticism of the state of Israel "antisemitism", even when it's not, because it (quite rightly) sees that as the quickest and easiest way to shut down the conversation and get what it wants. 

Israel is a very young state, but that is no reason to use childish temper tantrums as a political tactic. Right now, you'd think that it needs all the support it can get, but accommodation and compromise is not the Israeli way. Its allegations of antisemitism and prejudice are, by and large, red herrings.

Given its approach to foreign relations, it's no big surprise that Israel has so few friends, and what friends it does have are grudging ones, largely due to the threats of being labelled antisemitic.

What is this "nuclear warming"?

I don't pick up on every piece of drivel that emanates from Donald Trump's filthy mouth - many others are doing that - but some of it is just so weird it's actually fascinating (in a depressing kind of way).

Take, for example, "nuclear warming". First introduced by Trump back in April 2023, in an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News, Trump asserted, "When I listen to people talk about global warming, that the ocean will rise in the next 300 years by one eighth of an inch, and they talk about how this is our big problem. Our big problem is nuclear warming, but nobody even talks about it." Well, there's a good reason for that...

He mentioned it again in what critics are calling "the dumbest climate conversation of all time", an "interview" of sorts between Trump and fellow weirdo Elon Musk in August 2024. At one point in this epic of gobbledygook, Trump offered up, "The one thing that I don't understand is that people talk about global warming, or they talk about climate change, but they never talk about nuclear warming". 

Now, granted, this was the same interview in which Trump mused about rising sea levels creating more ocean-front property, and Musk suggested that the only compelling reason to ditch fossil fuels is that they will one day run out. So, we are not exactly looking at mainstream climate science here. But what is this "nuclear warming"? It was never quite explained.

Trump revisited the concept once again at the beginning of September, warming to his theme, so to speak. At a rally in New York, he first poo-poo'd global warming: "When people talk about global warming, I say the ocean is going to go down [sic] 100th of an inch within the next 400 years. That's not our problem. Our problem is nuclear warming, and we better be smart, and we better have smart people at the top who know how to deal. Because these people don't know how to deal."

So, there's a clue, right? Is this nuclear warming something to do with card games, and we need smart people who can deal well? It's still not very clear to me, and I would very much like to understand. Maybe it's related to Pierre Poilievre's dystopian vision of the Liberals' carbon tax leading to a "nuclear winter"?

The carbon emissions of passenger vehicles

Leafing through a Guide to Responsible Investing magazine, I came across an article by Kelly Hirsch of VanCity Investment Management which made me think. The article is mainly about how green hydrogen can help in decarbonizing transportation, but what really struck me was her brief analysis of the carbon emissions of the transportation sector.

The transportation sector accounts for about 25% of Canada's emissions (cf. 29% in USA, and just 12.9% globally). Of that, road transportation accounts for about 74% (the rest being from marine transport and aviation). And, of that, passenger vehicles (cars, motorcycles, buses) account for 60%, with the rest being from road freight, i.e. trucking.

So, doing the math, passenger vehicle transportation therefore accounts for 25% x 74% x 60% = 11% of total carbon emissions in Canada (and a little bit more in the USA). Now, you could see that as a significant amount, but it is actually much less than I was expecting. With all the fuss we make about electric cars and hybrids and gas-guzzlers, that whole sector only accounts for about a tenth of our emissions?

I don't know where Ms. Hirsch obtained her figures, but I have no reason to suspect them. And I love my electric car, but I will probably read news articles about reducing carbon emissions from cars slightly differently henceforth.

Taliban (hilariously) responds to allegations of gender discrimination

The Taliban's response to criticism is priceless. 

Four countries - Canada, Australia, Germany and the Netherlands - with the support of at least 20 other countries, are starting legal proceedings against the Taliban for violating the UN convention on women, to which Afghanistan is technically a party. The writ says, in part, "We condemn the gross and systematic human rights violations and abuses in Afghanistan, particularly the gender-based discrimination against women and girls". It also says, for what it's worth, that they do not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of the country.

Since seizing power in 2021, the Taliban has barred girls from education beyond 6th grade, banned them from public spaces and most jobs, and forbidden them from showing their bare faces and raising their voices in public.

Nothing daunted, a Taliban spokesperson - sorry, spokesMAN - responded, "It is absurd to accuse the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan of human rights and gender discrimination". They purport to genuinely believe that human rights are protected in Afghanistan and that nobody faces discrimination. They believe that, because their actions are in line with (their interpretation of) Islamic Sharia law, they can't possibly be wrong.

It's quite shocking to see the extent to which they are in denial, and the extent to which their religion has warped them. That is, if they truly do believe what they say.

Only Doug Ford would see a 401 tunnel as a solution

Doug Ford must have been thinking that it's been way too long since he came up with something contentious, silly and terminally impractical. He did try recently, with his scheme to throw lots of money at corner shop keepers to stock Ford's favourite product, alcohol, but that was not one of his best. Then, there was his bright idea to ban the installation of new bikes lanes, save in exceptional circumstances. This latest one, though, is a doozy.

Yesterday, Ford announced that he wants to build a multi-lane tunnel the entire length of Highway 401's busiest stretch, from Mississauga/Brampton to Scarborough/Markham. At over 50 km in length, this would make it the longest tunnel in the world (over twice as long as the current record-holder in Norway), and almost certainly the most expensive. Ford specifically stipulated that it should be toll-free - he doesn't like to put any restrictions on our God-given right to drive.

In fact, Ford is not really sure how much it would cost, even approximately. Boston's "Big Dig", the only North American project even vaguely comparable, cost well over $20 billion (in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation), nearly 3 times the original estimate, and it took 25 years (plus nearly 10 years of planning) and was plagued with overruns, leaks and collapses. "That's not going to happen here. We're experts at tunnelling", Ford assured us. This from the man overseeing the (ongoing, and disastrous) Eglinton Crosstown Light Rail project...

So, Ford wants to tie up Toronto's construction and maintenance resources for more than a generation - during most of which time he himself will be comfortably retired, likely even dead - and saddle Ontario's tax-payers with an unprecedented cost that the government (and the tax-payers) clearly can't afford. Regardless, in his usual gung-ho cowabunga style, Ford blustered, "I'll tell you one thing, we're getting this tunnel built" (regardless of feasibility?).

Of course, right now we're only at the feasility study stage (or even the dream stage, you might say), and nobody, possibly excepting Ford, actually expects this thing to take off. Or at least, so they hope. 

If Ford had bothered to ask a traffic expert or two before opening his mouth, he would know that decades of traffic research has shown that widening highways or adding new lanes only encourages more driving and new low-density suburban housing, resulting in just as much congestion within a year or less - it may sound counter-intuitive, but it's called the "induced travel effect" and it's a well-known thing - and at great cost to the public purse. The Katy Freeway near Houston is a good example - it has been expanded and expanded to 26 lanes in some places, and is still congested.

The 401 is one of the world's busiest highways. It is 18 lanes wide at its widest, and it still gets gridlocked regularly. Everyone would admit there is a problem, and some serious solutions have been put forward, e.g. invest some substantial money in attractive public transit, impose road tolls, buy back the nearby 407 roll road, etc. No-one would suggest building a tunnel. No-one but Doug Ford, that is.

While it makes almost no sense in any practical way, the point of Ford's announcement (and the one about stopping new bike lanes) is not to make meaningful and sensible changes to the province's infrastructure - it is all about posturing for a possible early election, and galvanizing his base electorate: suburban drivers. Doug Ford doesn't care about the province's roads and finances; he just wants to be elected again.

Poilievre and Singh nearly come to blows in Parliament

There were some heated words exchanged during Question Period in Canada's Parliament yesterday. You might think that is not unusual, but in this case the words were between the two main opposition parties, and Question Period is quite specifically designated as a time for the opposition parties to put questions to the government of the day.

In the thick of it was - you might have guessed! - attack dog Pierre Poilievre, leader of the official opposition Conservative Party. This time, Poilievre went well beyond his brief, repeatedly needling NDP leader Jagmeet Singh - disregarding warnings from the Speaker of the House - for, as Poilievre sees it, going back on his word to cut loose from the NDP's de facto coalition arrangement with the Liberals.

In fact, Singh has always said that he was tearing up the semi-official arrangement, but that he reserved the right to vote whichever way he thought best on individual matters. Poilievre, however, desperately wants an election while his party is doing well in the polls, and is livid that the NDP (and the Bloc Quebecois, for whom Poilievre also had words) are not playing his game in supporting a vote of no-confidince in the government.

As we know, both Poilievre and Singh are combative individuals with some anger issues, and when Poilievre referred to the NDP leader as "sell-out Singh" and called him "a fake, a phony, and a fraud" - which amounts to pretty unparliamentary language in Canada - Singh was on his feet and challenging Poilievre. He may actually have been calling Poilievre out for a fight, although it's hard to know because the Speaker quickly switched off the microphones. Phrases like "I'm right here, bro!" and "Say it to my face!" and "Do it!" were apparently overheard.

Anyway, the episode gradually played itself out, with the Speaker acting as referee (or adult) while the boys yelled at each other. The Liberals were probably quite happy to be spectators rather than participants.

But Pierre Poilievre is getting increasingly out of hand with his name calling and his insults. The man needs to be taken down a peg or two. He is probably taking his cues from ex-President Donald Trump, whom he increasingly resembles, not least in his hubris. But Trump is not a role model that is appropriate to Canada's parliamentary democracy. 

I get it that Poilievre is an "angry young man" and passionate about his politics, but he need to temper his temper, and have some respect for the parliamentary model and for his political opponents.

A disturbing tale from a French village

As if one bizzarro story yesterday - exploding pagers in Lebanon! - were not enough, there was the sensational French rape trial.

A court listened to distressing details of how, over a period of ten years in the sleepy medieval village of Mazan in southwestern France, 71-year old Dominique Pelicot drugged his 72-year old wife of 50 years, Gisèle, and invited in up to 70 men to rape and abuse her, while he videotaped it all.

Pelicot, along with other 50 co-defendants in the case who were all accused of raping Mme Pelicot, freely admitted, "I am a rapist, like the others in this room", and that "I loved her well for 40 years, and badly for 10". 

Gisèle, meanwhile, has become something of a feminist icon and a symbol of resilience and courage for speaking out about her abusive husband. She is suffering from weight loss, hair loss and memory loss as a result of the drugs her husband has been feeding her, a husband of whom she says, "I trusted him completely". She was met with spontaneous applause as she exited the court room yesterday.

It is a lurid and disturbing story, and really makes you wonder what happens behind closed doors as you look at your apparently affable and civilized neighbours. It's hard to believe that the village of Mazan will ever quite be the same.

Hezbollah pager explosions just one more horrific event in a nasty war

In a scene straight out of Black Mirror or some speculative fiction novel, thousands of pagers across Lebanon simultaneously exploded yesterday, killing at least 9 people (including a young girl) and wounding over 2,700 others.

In the ongoing horror story that is the Middle East, this is one of the most dramatic and horrifying incidents yet. Israel has not yet owned up to the attack, but who else can we look to?

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah switched to using 1970s-style pagers (aka "beepers") for communications because it was too easy for Israel to trace cellphone calls and users. However, according to the New York Times at least, explosive material was hidden in the Taiwan-made (or possibly Hungary-made and Israeli-owned) Gold Apollo pagers before they were imported into Lebanon. The material was implanted next to the battery with a switch that could be remotely triggered.

So, this mass terrorist attack was planned by Israel long ago, although the exact timing of the pager order is not yet clear. I have not seen anything suggesting that it constitutes a crime against humanity, but I can well believe that will follow. Everyone else is still in shock. It has certainly cemented Israel's status as a global pariah.

UPDATE

The next day, a second wave of explosions, this time targeting long-discontinued walkie-talkies, shook Beirut and other Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon, killing 20 and injuring 450. Many of the victims were attending funeral services for victims of Tuesday's pager explosions.

It's hard not to admire Israel's ingenuity with this "new phase" of their war against Arab countries in the Middle East. But it's also hard not to be sickened by it.

How did the carbon tax become such poisonous politics in Canada

How did the carbon tax become such poisonous politics in Canada? There was a time when it was quite the popular idea. Most Canadians apparently STILL want out governments to do something about climate change, but they don't seem to like the idea that it will cost them money.

The latest development on this front is that the NDP - once the strongest supporter of climate action, including a carbon tax - has decided that support for a Canadian climate tax is no longer politically palatable, and should be done away with. They still want to do SOMETHING to combat climate change, they're just not sure what yet. This is coming from the federal NDP (which seems to have completely lost its way under Jagmeet Singh), and the BC NDP under David Eby (likewise). (BC, under its then Liberal government, established Canada's first ever carbon tax back in 2008, and it has been quite successful ever since. Wab Kinew, Manitoba's new NDP premier has also made it clear he would like to see the carbon tax gone. 

(The Conservatives have never made any pretence about caring about climate change, so they are not relevant to this particular conversation.)

So, how did this turnaround happen?

Tony Keller in the Globe and Mail has a theory, and it seems as good as any. Essentially, it boils down to transparency and visibility. The carbon tax is relatively visible: you can SEE the price of gas increase as the tax increases. This should be a good thing, you would think. Indeed, that is the whole point of a carbon tax: people need to see the real cost of their oil and gas fixation, otherwise they will never change their behaviour. But it turns out that people don't like to actually see things costing them more, and this seems to apply even when they are receiving a (poorly publicized) rebate to offset those higher costs.

Interestingly, Quebec - which has the only cap-and-trade system in Canada, rather than a consumer carbon tax - is just about the only province where people are not complaining. Their prices are still higher as a result of their particular climate change solution (and they don't even receive a government rebate), but it's not so clear and obvious. Ignorance is bliss, I guess?

So, faced with the prospect of voter unrest, this new generation of politicians chooses pragmatism over principle, abandoning long-held beliefs in the forlorn hope of earning a few more votes. (But who is going to respect a party that bends and sways in whatever political breeze happens to be blowing?) To their credit, the Liberals are the only major party - sorry, Green Party! - that seems willing to stick to their principles, come what may, and look where that has left them!

So, rather than choosing a more fuel-efficient car as the price of carbon increases, it seems people are more likely to look to a different government instead, a less pro-carbon tax one that will save them a few bucks here and there. Or not: they don't seem to understand that, without a carbon tax, they will also have to forego their countervailing quarterly rebate.

And the Conservatives, and now the NDP, seem willing to humour them in their delusion. Neither party has yet offered a viable and effective alternative to putting a price on carbon, but that doesn't seem to worry them. They are way too busy fixating on power, and how to get it. They are so anxious to be seen to be pandering to their core constituency that they are willing to sell their soul in the process.

There is no pain-free, cost-free way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but the carbon tax we have is the closest thing to that. And if Mr. Singh is concerned that "working people" (what ever he means by that) are bearing too much of the burden of it, he is wrong and should know better: low-income households are net beneficiaries of the carbon tax and its related rebate, and it is higher-income households that, because of their lifestyle, actually do bear a net cost.

Poilievre speaks in slogans and catchphrases

Increasingly, as the prospect of an early federal election looms ever larger, Pierre Polievre talks in slogans, soundbites, and reductive catchphrases. He manages to work them into pretty much every sentence he utters, often several in one sentence.

"Axe the tax", "spike the hike", "build the homes", "fix the budget", "stop the crime", "bring it home", "Canada is broken", "carbon tax election",  "common sense Conservatives". On and on it goes. He never says "election" without saying "carbon tax election". He never says "Conservatives" without qualifying it as "common sense Conservatives". He never says ANYTHING without adding "axe the tax", usually accompanied by " build the homes, fix the budget, and stop the crime", like some kind of crazy nursery rhyme. Dum-de-dum-de-dum...

Three-word phrases are his bread and butter. This is politics for five-year olds. But this is how he has somehow managed to hoodwink a goodly proportion of the Canadian electorate, and to achieve a twenty-point lead in the polls. 

Essentially, it's Marketing 101: keep it simple and repeat it often. But it's also Politics for Dummies. Much like Donald Trump, Poilievre seems to be aiming at the lowest common denominator: the less-educated, less-discerning, resentful underclass.

But it's very much marketing, not politics. He has managed to get to this position without having to really explain his own policies - if indeed he has any - in any detail. It's one thing to bluster and rage and oppose, and entirely another to have coherent and practical replacement policies. Ask any Democrat in America; they have seen the effects of simplistic populism at first hand.

Unfortunately, simplistic populism works pretty well, particularly on the right of the political spectrum.

Ontario's ban on solar farms on agricultural land is typically short-sighted

Once again, Doug Ford is following Danielle Smith's lead - he would dearly like to be seen as just as stridently right wing and populist as the Alberta Premier. This time, he is looking to ban ground-mounted solar panels on prime agricultural farmland in Ontario, particularly in specialty crop areas, and other energy projects being considered on such land will require an input assessment and municipal permission (but wasn't that always the case?)

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture professes itself all in favour of the move, which they see as a no-brainer and long overdue. The solar industry, on the other hand, obviously opposes it, warning that billions in potential investment could go elsewhere if the ban goes ahead, like with the similar announcement back in 2009, and with Alberta's more recent embargo on renewable projects.

At first glance, this seems like a prime example of a "global environmentalist vs. local environmentalist" dichotomy - local environmentalists prioritize land protection and stewardship, looking to protect biodiversity and local habitats (although intensively-farmed agricultural land is really not that useful for either of those things), while global environmentalists are more concerned with greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that all other issues pale into insignificance in comparison.

But, as usual, the issue is really not as black-and-white as it might appear, and a compromise position is readily available. The idea of agrivoltaics has been around for years. Solar arrays and crops can actually be mutually beneficial. For example, shade from solar panels can lead to more efficient water usage and protect crops and animals from the sun during the heat of the day. It maximizes the productivity of the land and creates a whole new income stream for hard-pressed farmers.

The Ford government continues to lurch from one extreme to another, with no reasoned strategy in sight. The first thing they did on being elected was to summarily cancel 750 renewable projects, incurring millions of dollars in costs and setting Ontario's climate change ambitions back years. In between, they have seemed to lend their support to electric vehicles and battery technology. Now, we've come full circle and renewable energy is back in the "bad" column. 

Elon Musk's response to Taylor Swift says it all

Kamala Harris finally got her all-important endorsement from Taylor Swift. I know it's a sad reflection of modern society, but Ms. Swift - like it or not, and whether she likes it or not - has an iron-clad grip over the beliefs and opinions of millions of Swifties. Arguably, it is the next thing to a cult, one of the largest and most influential in recent history. But, what she says makes a difference.

What she actually said was: "I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I'm voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos." 

A clear, reasoned assessment if ever I saw one. And, in a nod to Trump's running mate, JD Vance, she signed off as "Childless Cat Lady", complete with a photo of her and her cat.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, has the celebrity backing of one, Elon Musk. Musk's response to Taylor Swift's endorsement is telling: "Fine Taylor ... you win ... I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life". Like so many of Musk's attempts at humour, it falls flat, but with a slightly disturbing edge to it.

Setting aside his autism, and the difficulty some autistic people have with reading the room and judging their tone, Musk's flippant response is emblematic of the glaring difference between the Republican and Democratic camps in today's politics. "Civil, reasoned and compassionate vs. boorish, irrational and rapacious" may be one way to characterize it.

UPDATE

Donald Trump himself managed a response on a similar level of gravitas and sobriety: "I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT". Um, OK, thanks for that considered comment, Donny. How mature was that?!

UPDATE UPDATE

Nothing daunted, Musk followed up with another equally off-colour "joke" after a possible second assassination attempt on Trump (although it turns out the gunman did not fire any shots and never actually had a line of sight on Trump): "And no-one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala".

After a tsunami of complaints, Musk deleted the post. But, really, the guy is impossible.

Delay on sentencing Trump is political however you slice it

A New York judge has just ruled that ex-President Trump will not be sentenced until just after the November US election in the hush money case. Way back in May, Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, but the sentencing was delayed. 

Sentencing was originally scheduled for September 18th, but the worthy justice, in his his wisdom, decided it should be delayed.

Judge Juan Merchan argued that he made this decision to avoid any appearance of affecting the outcome of the presidential race. But in doing so, he has ... affected the outcome of the presidential race.

Granted, the judge was between a rock and a hard place, and anything he did would attract condemnation from one side or the other. Was this the right decision? Who can say? Even if Trump were to campaign from behind bars, his rabid supporters would still vote for him; in fact, it may even have given his campaign a boost.

However much Judge Merchan might try to justify it, it ends up being a political decision. In his ruling, the judge asserted that "the Court is a fair, inpartial and apolitical institution" (ha! try telling the Supreme Court that!) But at this point in the election run-up, EVERYTHING is political.

Singh pulls out of supply-and-confidence agreement and no-one understands why

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has ended the supply-and-confidence power-sharing agreement with the Liberals a year early, paving the way for an early federal election in Canada, an election that seems to destined to go in a disastrous landslide to Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives. More to the point, an election that will see the NDP do as badly, if not worse than in the last one, at least according to the polls. 

The supply-and-confidence agreement, has allowed the NDP to steer Liberal policy distinctly leftward over the past two or three years. It has propped up Justin Trudeau's sagging government, but it has also given the NDP more influence over national policy than it has ever had, and allowed it to pass some landmark policies, an opportunity it would never otherwise - as the perennial third-place party - have had.

But now, just days after Poilievre publicly called on "Sellout Singh" to abandon the agreement early and allow for a "carbon tax election", as he insists on calling it, Singh has done just that, for reasons that no-one really seems to understand. Maybe Poilievre's adoption of Trump-style name-calling is having an effect.

Saying that "the Liberals have let people down" and that they "will always cave to corporate greed", he has opened the door for Poilievre, whose caving to corporate greed knows no bounds. Singh has also abandoned any hopes of pushing through any other pieces of legislation the NDP might have hoped for in the remaining months of the agreement, which was originally expected to continue until June 2025. 

Singh's announcement suggested that he thought the NDP stood a better chance of defeating the Conservatives in an election than the Liberals - "they cannot stop the Conservatives, but we can" - which is wishful thinking of epic proportions given recent polls showing the Conservatives at 41%, the L8berals at 27%, and the NDP at just 14%.

Now, every parliamentary issue becomes a confidence vote - Poilievre is desperate for an election while he is polling well. It's still possible that the NDP could prop up the Liberals in such a vote, supply-and-confidence or no supply-and-confidence, as could the Bloc Québécois. But it has put everything on much shakier ground than before. And for what?

It's a head-scratcher on the level of the BC Liberals recent bewildering decision to throw their lot in with the BC Conservatives, with whom they seem to have little or nothing in common. It has also led to a huge backlash within the NDP party, with increasing calls for Singh's resignation, and jibes that he has sold his soul to Poilievre and offered him the country on a silver platter.

It's certainly a week for inexplicable surprise political decisions.

The fraught issue of regulation of e-bikes

I've often wondered what are the actual rules around e-bikes. They are ubiquitous in Toronto these days and, given that many of them use roads, bike lanes and sidewalks almost interchangeably, it's hard to know what they are supposed to be doing. Suffice to say, I'm pretty sure they are not following what rules do exist.

A pretty comprehensive article in the Globe tries to tackle the subject and, yes, it's complicated. While provinces and municipalities are keen to encourage e-bikes as a way of addressing traffic problems and climate change, it's hard to do that while also ensuring the safety of pedestrians, regular cyclists, e-bikers and even car-drivers.

There are so many different types of e-bikes available these days that the line between bike, e-bike and motorbike is pretty blurry. And the rules governing them are a patchwork of provincial and municipal laws. And, to make things worse, there is next to no enforcement of the rules anyway.

One distinction is between e-bikes on which the motor plays merely a supporting role and most of the power is provided by pedalling (sometimes referred to as "pedelecs"), and ones where pedalling is optional or entirely unnecessary. Some e-bikes may have pedals that are completely inoperable and just for show, designed to ensure they are classed as bikes and not motorbikes (which have much more onerous regulations and licensing requirements, as well as insurance implications). Some e-bikes may have speed limiters, where the motor cuts out when a certain speed is reached, but most don't.

The laws and bylaws governing e-bikes try to take all this heterogeneity into account, but that ends up making things very complicated. For example, in Toronto, e-bikes that are limited to 32 km/h capability are allowed in paint-only bike lanes (i.e. those that are not physically separated from the road by a curbstones or other barrier) but prohibited in separated ones, the (perfectly reasonable) theory being that passing other cyclists is easier and safer on the paint-only lanes. But do you think anyone is even aware of these arcane bylaws?

Also, e-bikes that require some muscular power (i.e pedalling) are allowed on all bikeways in Toronto, providing they weigh less than 40 kg. Again, you can see the logic here - especially given that some actually weigh in at over 100 kg - but it is completely unenforceable. 

And all e-bikes are technically banned from riding on sidewalks, but is anyone really going to ticket a food courier riding on the sidewalk of a fast, dangerous arterial road which has no bike lane, when that they are merely prioritizing their own safety? Presupposing that anyone is even trying to police them.

British Columbia's rules are even more complex. Its Motor Vehicle Act defines e-bikes according to their power rating, 200 or 250 watts depending on the rider's age, and a speed capacity of less than 32 km/h. If an e-bike exceeds these parameters, then they are technically subject to motor vehicle licensing and other rules like a full-blown motor cycle. How is that going to be enforced?

Electric kick scooters (like a kid's scooter but with a motor, sometimes referred to as "micromobility") are a whole other issue, and a whole other risk factor for pedestrians, drivers and cyclists. These require no physical exertion (apart from balance), but they are nimble, portable .... and fast. Some are rated at 40 km/h or more - I was talking to a guy recently who maintained his scooter did 80km/h! -  although Ontario's laws limit them to 24 km/h on roads. Well, that's not going to happen!

You can't fault provinces and municipalities for trying to regulate e-bikes and micromobility. They are increasingly popular, and are an increasing hazard, and accidents and complaints about them are proliferating. And, of course, they are a good match with jurisdictions' climate change goals and traffic management issues. But to call it the Wild West is putting it mildly.

The author of the article suggests a way forward that tries to balance safety and safety conduct with the encouragement of further growth in e-bikes. First, food delivery couriers need to be specifically regulated (with the onus on the app/company): riders need to be properly trained, bikes should be monitored to ensure they are in good working order and meet all applicable rules, safe charging stations and secure overnight parking facilities should be mandated, etc.

Second, provinces should provide funded cycling education in schools (as already happens in BC) as well as for any adults who want it. Motorists should also have their driver education extended to include dealing with bikes and e-bikes.

Third, governments should standardize their e-bike definitions, and implement a system that allows for easy identification of e-bikes and whether or not they should be covered by licensing laws.

And cities should re-double their efforts to build cycling infrastructure. Toronto, for example, has bike lanes on only 4% of its roads, lagging well behind leaders like Vancouver and Montreal.

All sensible suggestions. But since when did sensible suggestions becomes the basis for government policy?

How do we feel about Canada's prohibitive tariffs on cheap Chinese EVs?

I've been avoiding commenting on - even thinking about - Canada's new 100% tariff sucharge on imported Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), as well as a 25% tariff on Chinese steel and aluminum. That's because it's complicated, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it on balance. 

Given that we are following the Americans' identical move (and a lesser tariff increase by the European Union), we ought to be on pretty firm ground, but I still feel like we're not. The main stated goal of the move is to protect Canada's home-grown EV industry and its high-paying, high-skilled jobs, but it brings with it a bunch of other not-so-desirable baggage.

First off, let's get one thing out of the way: is it even legal under the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules? Surely, we can't just go around slapping tariffs on specific countries willy nilly, can we? China will certainly argue that we can't, and the WTO will definitely be one of their first ports of call.

Well, legal scholars think that Canada can maybe justify itself to the WTO, although it's not a particularly straightforward argument. Section 53 of Canada's own Custom Tariff Act, while rarely used, should cover our internal laws on the matter, but what about international law? 

The argument would be that China is itself breaking WTO rules by subsidizing its exports rhrough its system of "state capitalism". It is argued that Canada is justified in acting unilaterally over this, even in the absence of a WTO panel adjudication, because the WTO's broken dispute settlement system would take years to come to a decision.

Furthermore, the WTO Agreement allows member states to depart from binding obligations if their "essential security interests" are threatened because of war or "other emergency in international relations". Apparently, it can be argued that China's massively subsidized exports and its aggressive policy of exporting excess capacity in order to make itself into the dominant global supplier would qualify as an "emergency in international relations", or at least that's the theory.

Both arguments seem a bit tenuous to me, but "the experts" seem convinced.

That aside, are Canada's actions worth the pain that China will certainly inflict in retaliation? There is little doubt that it will retaliate - it has still to retaliate against the USA, which instituted its tariff change earlier, but little Canada is much more vulnerable than the USA. The most likely form of retaliation is for China to pick a sector like Canada's agricultural exports and block market access, much as they are doing with the EU. Exactly how that could play out remains to be seen, but China could make life quite uncomfortable for Canadians.

And then there is the issue of how this affects Canada's climate change commitments. Environmentalists warn that, if Canada is to stand any chance of achieving its ambitious climate change goals, then one plank of that has to be making EVs more affordable and more mainstream, not just expensive luxury items that only wealthy households can afford. Doubling the price of affordable Chinese EVs is not the way to do that, and the new tariffs will effectively slow down Canada's transition to electric vehicles.

Environmental groups like Clean Energy Canada and Environmental Defense have come out strongly against the tariff, despite the admitted benefits to the Canadian sustainable vehicle industry. And I can appreciate where they are coming from.

Even government officials admit that Canadian-made EVs will be substantially more expensive than Chinese imports - even Chinese imports with a 100% import tariff - if only because Canadian workers get paid a reasonable wage, vehicle safety rules are much more stringent, and we have to follow local labour and environmental regulations. 

Because that is another charge laid against Chinese EVs: China's power grid is still very carbon-intensive compared to Canada's (and increasing, despite China's huge investments in renewable energy), so we should not be encouraging products manufactured with a large carbon footprint. True, but even EVs produced in a coal-powered environment are still greener than gas-powered cars over the vehicle's lifetime. And it is kind of hard to knowingly start down the slippery slope of protectionism...

Like I said, it gets complicated; you can twist yourself into knots over this stuff.

Immigration not all to blame for Canada's economic woes

The federal Liberal government has been shamed and browbeaten into taking action on immigration, and more specifically on the temporary foreign worker system, which, at least at a cursory glance, does seem to have run out of hand in the last few years.

The Liberals, always very much pro-immigration, has seen the wisdom (political, if not economic) of scaling back the ambitious Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program that it brought in a couple of years ago, when post-pandemic labour shortages were the main issue. It's an(other) embarrassing u-turn for the Liberals, but I'm kind of past caring about them right now.

The new rules disallow the hiring of low-wage TFWs in areas where unemployment is over 6%, except in the areas of agriculture, fisheries, construction and healthcare (which is actually where most TFWs are). Also, employers will be limited to 10% of TFWs out of their total workforce, down from the current 20%, and TFWs will be limited to one-year contracts, down from the current two years.

Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives have latched on to the immigration issue as an effective wedge, and much of their improved polling has come from the way they have changed Canadians' views on immigration. Housing crisis? Blame the immigrants. Inflation? Immigration. Healthcare crunch? Unemployment? Yup, yup. 

Just a couple of years ago, public support in Canada for immigration numbers was at an all-time high. Today, an increasing number of Canadians are questioning immigration levels, a change almost entirely due to Polievre's constant hammering away at the issue and his dog-whistle politics.

There is an alternative viewpoint, though, and it is being doggedly put forward by a small not-for-profit Migrant Workers Alliance for Change and its director Syed Hussan. Most recently, and in direct response to the government's announcements, he was interviewed on CBC NewsNight, and what he says actually makes a lot of sense.

Among his points:

• Immigrants, and specifically TFWs are being used as a convenient political scapegoat for all manner of economic ills that are much more complex than just the immigration aspect.
• TFWs make up about 60,000 people out of Canada's 42 million - they alone are just not able to influence the country's housing situation. (This number could actually be around 83,000 out of the 2.8 million non-permanent residents according to federal data, but the point stands.)
• Most TFWs live in employer-controlled housing anyway, and so are not even competing with the local populace on single-family homes, etc.
• Cutting the already small number of TFWs will have a negligible effect on the unemployment rate of immigrants in general, which is always higher than that among the general population due to systemic racism issues, accreditation of foreign qualifications, etc.
• Most TFWs are in agriculture, fisheries, domestic work, construction and care work, all of which are specifically excluded from the new announcement (because, for various reasons, we need them).
• TFWs, particularly during and after the pandemic, have been instrumental in keeping the Canadian economy's head above water.
• Reducing the numbers of TFW will not improve the living and working conditions they are suffering, conditions that a UN report recently called "a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery".

Hmm. Food for thought.

Toronto's trams are the slowest in the world - or are they?

Toronto's streetcars (trams) have been a subject of controversy forever. Personally, I quite like them, and I think people would be shocked at how bad Toronto's traffic could get without them (they hold multiple times more passengers than buses). We've had a glimpse of that from time to time when construction projects necessitate bus replacements (an increasingly common occurrence). They are also preferable environmentally. Many people, though - mainly car drivers, to be fair - viscerally hate them, and blame them for all sort of evils.

Anyway, be that as it may, a new study of tram systems around the world has found that, while Toronto scores well on service frequency (departures per hour per direction), it comes in dead last on network speed. Essentially, Toronto has the slowest trams in the world, and by quite a large margin.

Toronto's streetcars are about three time slower than those of Utrecht, and twice as slow as cities like London, Göteborg, Stockholm and Sydney. 

Now, to be fair, Utrecht is a relatively small city, but London? Hold on, though, London doesn't have trams! Or it didn't last time I was there. When I checked, it turns out that "Trams run in parts of South London between Wimledon, Croydon, Beckenham and New Addington". Oh, so not in the busy central part of the city, then? Well, of course they will run faster!

Stockholm and Sydney, though, fair comparison, right? Well, maybe. But Stockholm's figures are from 2017 and Sydney's are from 2016, while Toronto's figures are from 2024. So, not really an apples-to-apples comparison in an increasingly busy world. 

Toronto's streetcar system may indeed be bad, although a comparison factoring in dollar investment may be more illuminating, given Toronto's notoriously underfunded public transit system. But I think that BlogTO could have done a better job of offering some perspective rather than just a blanket condemnation.

Why would RFK Jr. endorse Donald Trump?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., scion of the most famous Democrat family in US history, son of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy, is now apparently a Republican.

He was a Democrat for most of his life, albeit a rather flaky unrepresentative one. He stood as a candidate for the Democratic presidential candidate last year, but dropped out when it became clear that he had no path to winning the nomination, and declared he would stand as an independent presidential candidate, calling the Democracts "the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big money".

He seemed to attract voters disaffected by both traditional main parties ("double-haters"), as well as mavericks who liked his espousal of anti-vaccine and other conspiracy theories. At one point, he was polling at 14-16%, enough to present a major disruption to the two main parties, although that gradually fell away to low single digits (as little as 2% according to some polls), especially after Kamala Harris' assumption of the Democratic candidacy.

Then, when he didn't see "a realistic path to victory" (that phrase again) that way either, he threw his weight behind Donald Trump, at a rally in Arizona, earning himself the undying contempt of the Democratic Party and his own ardently Democratic family. His own sister called it a "betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear". He says he will withdraw his name from 10 battleground states where his presence on the ballot might detract from Trump's (although it is already too late to withdraw from the crucial swing states of Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin).

Trump, who had once called RFK "more LIBERAL than anyone running as a Democrat", a "Democrat plant", and "totally Anti-Gun, an Extreme Environmentalist who makes the New Green Scammers look Conservative, a Big Time Taxer, and Open Border Advocate, and Anti-Military/Vet", now sees him as "phenomenal" and "brilliant". 

RFK, for his part, says he has "the certainty that this is what I'm meant to do", and credits the main reasons for his extraordinary volte face as his belief in free speech, the war in Ukraine, and "the war on children". But just a few short months ago, he was slamming Trump for his record: "His lockdowns during Covid. His atrocious environmental record. His cozy relationship with corporate America ... support for the war machine ... service to the billionaire class". 

He has called Trump "a terrible human being" and "probably a sociopath" and "unhinged" and "barely coherent". As recently as May 2024, RFK said that "under no circumstances" would he join Trump on a presidential ticket. But now, all of a sudden, he's the potential saviour of the United States? Hmm. What gives?

This has all the hallmarks of "the art of the deal". RFK is apparently interested in a position in Trump's cabinet, maybe as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, where he can bring his anti-vax crusade to bear. And that would be enough for him to sacrifice decades of his family's values (and at least some of his own)? I'm tempted to wonder whether any money or other financial favours changed hands - I wouldn't put it past either party - but there is no evidence of such that I have heard about.

It's hard to know what to make of RFK Jr., and the extent to which his flakiness is a result of the brain parasite he suffered from over a decade ago, which caused severe memory loss and brain fog. But he has certainly not done his political legacy any favours over the last year or so. Certainly, he adds a whole new level of "weird" to the Republican transition team.

As to whether his move will have any actual political repercussions in November's crucial presidential election, that remains to be seen. Some maintain that his defection will make little or no practical difference, although intuitively you would think that Trump would be the main beneficiary.

Right now, we're just waiting for the next tipping point in this highly eventful presidential campaign.