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.

Republicans keep using songs by Democrats

Pretty much every week now, almost every DAY, it seems, I read a new report of a musician (or band, or even the ESTATE of a dead musician) sueing, issuing cease-and-desist notices, or just publishing public statements, against American political parties - one in particular - for their unauthorized use of songs at events and campaign rallies.

Beyoncé, Celine Dion, Isaac Hayes' family, Sinéad O'Connor's family, Johnny Marr (The Smiths), Village People, Journey, Neil Young, The Rolling Stones, John Fogerty, Tom Petty's family, Phil Collins, Steve Tyler (Aerosmith), Rihanna, and REM have all objected to Donald Trump and the Republican Party using their music at campaign rallies over the years (the first few specifically during this year).

Why do they keep serially offending? Well, partly because the push-back is usually limited and the legal consequences minor. But why keep using the music of musicians that don't agree with them, often strongly so? Well, I guess, because otherwise Trump would be stuck playing less-than-memorable tunes by long-time Trump groupies Kid Rock and Ted Nugent.

Like it or not, contemporary musical artists are important influencers in this day and age. Just look at the frenzied speculation about whether Beyoncé or Taylor Swift (or BOTH!) would make an appearance at the Democratic National Convention (in the end, NEITHER of them did), and Trump's spurious AI-created deep fakes of endorsements by Taylor Swift and her Swifties. 

These people are desperate for the public approbation of rock stars and cultural icons. They don't seem to mind doing it illegally.

Size matters, and Mr. Trump is not happy

What's with the Trump campaign's fixation with crowd sizes? There is much fertile ground for psychiatric speculation here.

Since his inauguration event back in 2017, Trump and his supporters seem to have had an unhealthy preoccupation with how big this crowd was, and how big that crowd was, and our crowd was bigger than your crowd, etc, etc. (For what it's worth, Trump's pictures of his inauguration crowd were cropped and edited to give a false impression of their size.)

It's still going on today, as Mr. Trump and MAGA world desperately try to convince the world that his campaign rally in Arizona was better attended than Kamala Harris', as though this is a useful metric and some how gives him legitimacy. This comes after polls showing Ms. Harris catching up and even surpassing Mr. Trump in Arizona and some other important battle states.

Crowd size is an extension of Trump's obsession with TV ratings, and he must be feeling a bit stung since the news that the Democratic National Convention TV viewing number handily outstripped those of the Republican National Convention on all four days. This, for Trump, must have been a big deal because, after all, size matters. To him, at least.

Closing safe drug consumption sites just a populist ploy

From time to time, the issue of supervised drug consumption sites raises its head. Almost always, healthcare people - the people who actually have to deal with the drug-takers and drug overdose issues - argue that safe drug-use sites, while not a perfect or complete solution, are nevertheless an absolutely necessary part of the solution. Politicians, specifically politicians on the right of the spectrum, are the ones calling to ban them.

The latest such news item is Doug Ford's Conservatives' plan to close supervised consumption sites within 200 metres of schools and childcare centres. This would mean that 9 of the 23 supervised drug consumption sites in Ontario would close straight away when the plan is implemented in March next year, including five in Toronto, and one each in Ottawa, Kitchener, Thunder Bay, Hamilton and Guelph. The new law would also prevent the sites that are closing from opening up again elsewhere, and to block any new ones from opening up, so you know that it is not just sites near schools they are worried about, and you know that eventually they will come after the other sites util they are all closed down.

Doug Ford blithely calls the current system a "failed policy" and "the worst thing that could ever happen to a comnunity", which is probably news to most of the hard-working individuals who have been administering it for years. Ontario's justification for their plan is partly the recent accidental shooting of a bystander near a safe-use site in Toronto in July, and partly the establishment of what they are calling Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) hubs, which they maintain is a better way to deal with the problem. 

But these HART hubs will NOT offer safe supply, supervised drug consumption, drug checking, or needle exchange programs, all of which healthcare experts say are essential to keep some drug users alive so that they can then benefit from addiction recovery treatments. They further argue that closing safe drug-use centres will lead to even more overdoses, and to more drug use and abandoned drug paraphernalia on the streets, surely not what was intended. 

Health Canada's policies are based on a whole load of Canadian and international evidence that clearly shows that "supervised consumption services help to save lives, connect people to social services, and serve as pathways to treatment". Indeed, the Ford government's own commissioned report concluded that supervised drug consumption sites should NOT be closed down, because they are "a necessary public health service, implemented to save lives and prevent accidental overdose deaths".

Ontario is following the Alberta Conservative government's similar move, based on a biased and flawed government review, and announcements by Pierre Poilievre that "when" the Conservatives come to power they will reverse the current government's support for safe consumption sites which, with Poilievre's usual gift for understatement, he repeatedly described as "drug dens". 

He also takes issue with the semantics of a journalist calling then "safe" injection sites (generally-used language, although not the official designation). "They're not safe injection sites. You just repeat the language that is fed to you by the government. You call them safe? How can they be safe?" Well, because they reduce the chances of infection from tainted or shared needles, overdoses, administering drugs contaminated with fentanyl (or worse). Safe? Let me count the ways, Pierre, and don't try and pull the wool over my eyes with snappy, over-simplistic soundbites.

So, it all seems very much an ideological stance, and not one based on the best advice from medical experts. More specifically, it can be described as a populist stance - giving a certain segment of voters what they think they want, without any regard for what is the right or best thing to do.

A fascinating glimpse into the world of Toronto street racing

There's a very well-written article in the Globe this weekend on Toronto's street-racing sub-culture. Embedded with York Regional Police's High-Risk Traffic Unit (8 designated officers and a helicopter, along with social media experts and plants), author Stephen Marche gives a fascinating glimpse into the MeetUp scene, the TOTakeover scene, and the street racing scene generally.

Meeting late at night in suburban parking lots and industrial areas, these young men - and yes, they're pretty much all young men, with a few female groupies - are adrenaline junkies who think nothing of driving at 200, 220, 250 km an hour on suburban roads, recording the whole thing for Instagram. Some use trade plates to disguise their cars, despite the fact that they may be lime green or sprouting myriad extra lights and add-ons, making them instantly recognizable anyway (and the Instagram accounts are definitely also traceable). 

But it's all about "chasing clout", essentially showing off to their peers. Some will even taunt the police to goad them into a chase, because that makes for a better video, or engage in genuinely dangerous activities just for the social media attention. Sometimes the police will give chase, particularly if they are aware of other crimes and misdemeanours, but sometimes it is just too dangerous to get involved - it may be a spur-of-the-moment decisionfor the police involved (and the stunt drivers know that). 

Some MeetUps are serious, well-organized events, with closed-off roads, official photographers, drones, and motorcycle spotters. Others are more seat-of-the-pants affairs, where ice cream and pot-smoking feature heavily. It became a popular nocturnal pastime during the pandemic, when there was nothing better to do, but it has, if anything, become even more popular since then. Some of the vehicles are lovingly souped-up and tricked-out Hondas and Nissans; others appear to be daddy's purloined Maserati or Lamborghini. 

Noise is an important part of the image, and catalytic converters are stripped out and holes drilled in exhaust systems for maximum effect. Part of the point of it is to be noisy, and some cars achieve noise levels close to jet engine levels, up around 130 decibels, right at the point of physical pain.

If the participants are caught, the consequences are not insignificant, ranging from license suspensions to jail time, but this does not seem to deter them. And, let's not forget: some of the participants do die from time to time, and some of them kill others (like the recent crash that killed two grandparents and their 3-month old grandson). 

As the article points out, most of these young guys are just genuinely into cars, and arguably guilty of little more than an excess of testosterone. But if 95% are just regular guys, 4% are completely idiots, and 1% are out-and-out psychopaths. Those engaging in "drifting", "doughnuts" and "burnouts" on flaming roads are towards the latter end of the spectrum, and are generally hated by the regular MeetUp folk who have had their event usurped for someone else's social media feed. This is more TOTakeover territory.

Like I say, a fascinating glimpse into a world I know nothing about, and understand still less.

A little fish with a whopping genome

Lungfish are strange animals. Air-breathing fish that can hop onto land using weird limb-like fins, they are ancient animals, largely unchanged in 300-400 million years, earning them the label "living fossils". They may also be the closest living relative to the original tetrapods, the ancestors of all vertebrates, including us.

But it turns out they are stranger than we ever thought. Scientists have been sequencing the genomes these strange beasts, and this has yielded some unexpected results. Starting with the Australian lungfish and then the African lungfish, researchers have been surprised at the size of the genomes. But the recently sequenced South American lungfish (Lepidosirem paradoxa) has blown them all away.

This ancient fish has a genome with about 91 billion base-pairs in its DNA, about 30 times the size of the human gemome. However, only about 20,000 of these genes actually code for proteins. About 90% of them are "transposable elements" (TEs), highly repetitive "jumping genes" copied from elsewhere in the genome, possibly as a result of interaction with so many viruses over the eons.

Carrying around so much genetic material has its drawbacks. For one thing, it takes a lot of energy to repeatedly copy all that DNA into new cells, and the cell nuclei and the cells themselves have to be physically bigger. That said, the extra DNA may come in handy if the fish needs to adapt to changing environments, because the TEs can ramp up or down expressions of certain genes, allowing for more rapid adaptation, which maybe why lungfsh have survived quite so successfully thus far.

And it may not end here. The marbled lungfish is thought to have a genome 50% bigger still, which would make it far and away the largest genome of any animal, although the full sequencing remains to be done. 

And even that pales at the side of Tmesipteris oblanceolata, a tiny fern from Eastern Australia, commonly called a fork fern. This simple little plant has a humungous 160 billion base-pairs in its DNA, more than 50 times more than human beings, thus proving definitively that an organism's complexity is completely unrelated to the size of its genome.

An "Abandon Harris" movement would throw the baby out with the bathwater

The US Democrats may be more united than they were, but no political party is a monolith, and divisions still persists.

One of the biggest such division is the attitudes towards Israel and Palestine. You'd think this was just one issue among many, and that people should just get over themselves in the interests of party unity. But it remains a potential sticking point in Democratic support.

While Joe Biden was the Democrats' chosen candidate, there was the "Abandon Biden" campaign, which sought to mobilize voters against Biden because of his staunch pro-Israel stance. Now, with Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, there is a smaller and slightly less strident "Abandon Harris" campaign, since she is seen as carrying on most of Biden's policies, including his approach to Middle Easter politics. 

There is a sense that Ms. Harris may be allowed a little more grace and latitude than Biden because her views on Israel and Palestine are a bit less pro-Israel than Biden's. But there are still many activists out there who would apparently be willing to sacrifice Ms. Harris if she is seen not to be sufficiently pro-Palestine. 

A coalition of some 200 "social justice organizations" are planning to march outside the Democratic National Comvention this week, calling for an end to American funding of Israel's genocidal war in Gaza. They will not give Ms. Harris a pass short of a strongly worded statement of support for Palestine and against American support for Israel, which she is unlikely to do.

While I might agree with many of their demands, I still find it bizarre that these people are willing to throw under the bus the Democrats' chances of forming a government over a single issue. In calling for people - Muslims, Blacks, Latinos and Gen Zers - to withhold their vote from Kamala Harris, they are only strengthening the hand of one, Donald Trump. And how do they think HE will treat the Palestinians?

Plus, this is just one issue among many. The November federal election is not just - and not mainly - about Palestine; it is about the economy, jobs, women, immigrants, climate change, and so many other important things. Withholding support from Ms. Harris because her views on Palestine do not align exactly with theirs would be cutting off one's nose to slight one's face in the strongest possible way.

Maybe, when physically faced with a ballot paper offering the stark choice between Harris and Trump, these people will stop to think about some of these other issues. But somehow I think that some of them are so committed to their cause that they will follow through and not vote for the best candidate simply because their views on one specific issue do not align. Strategic voting is just not in their vocabulary. I can only hope that that particular sub-group is a small one indeed.

Taylor Swift and the cult of personality

I've tried my best to see the whole Taylor Swift phenomenon as a positive thing. I mean she's pretty wholesome and sensible, isn't she? A pretty good role model for the hordes of pre-teen, teen and even adult Swifties who follow her every move and word? A bit vapid and Barbie-like perhaps, but even Barbie has her redeeming facets.

But I don't know. Seeing the gathered masses as they attend or travel to her Eras Tour performances, it's a little bit scary. That kind of obsessive single-minded group activity reminds me of the Muslim hajj, or maybe a mass personalty cult (and we know how those usually turn out).

The other thing, of course, is the fact that ISIS and other groups have established her and her followers as a terrorist target. Ms. Swift has not made any anti-Muslim statements that I am aware of, nor even any pro-Christian ones for that matter. So, why would they see her as a legitimate target, unless they see her as the head and deity of a new upstart religion, or maybe just the glaring apotheosis of Western decadence and hedonism.

Sometimes it does seem that way. Seeing the reverence on the faces of these (mainly) young girls, and the way in which people are willing to travel huge distances and pay huge sums of money to see her, it does have some religious overtones, with friendship bracelets and sequins replacing crucifixes and hair shirts (a slight improvement, I guess).

Maybe it's no different from Beatlesmania (and maybe Presleymania, Michael-Jackson-mania, BTS-mania) at its height. Pictures of screaming, swooning fans of that era are also pretty disturbing to watch. I guess any phenomenon that is quite so successful (commercially, emotionally, whateverly) is never quite comfortable to watch. One always thinks of other charismatic, but much less wholesome, historical figures - think Hitler, Stalin, Manson, Trump - even if the circumstances are quite different.

Maybe I'm just reading too much into this, but I'm far from the only one who sees cult-like qualities in Taylor Swift's fandom. Her passionate, uncompromising and uncritical supporters have generated many online analyses like The Cult of Taylor Swift (and why we keep worshiping at her altar), The Terrifying Cult of Fandom - a case study in Swifties, The Modern-Day Cult of Taylor Swift's Fandom, Are Swifties In A Cult?, etc. and many fans and ex-fans talk about how they extricated themselves from the toxicity of the Swiftie cult (often suffering a backlash from the faithful). 

As a billionaire faux-feminist with a ruinous carbon footprint and a rather half-hearted political conscience, there is a lot to criticize in Ms. Swift. But if you try doing that in a public forum, you will be pounced upon by legions of oblivious fans and stans who believe she can do no wrong. If that's not a cult, I don't know what is.

Can filtering save AI from "model collapse"?

It's no longer that new, after several reports and studies since 2023, but an increasing number of researchers are warning about what they are calling "model collapse" in artificial intelligence (AI) circles. Circles that, more and more, are becoming everyone's circles, as AI is gradually being built into everything we use.

AI is all very clever, but it relies on human input to learn what it knows, basically content on the internet. But, increasingly, that content is AI-generated, and some of it is pretty degraded stuff. Because, as has also been reported ad nauseam, not everything that AI produces is of good quality, or even vaguely correct.

AI language models like ChatGPT are being "trained" on increasingly error-prone "synthetic" AI-generated material scraped from the internet. Studies have shown that if an AI model uses as few as 10 iterations of its own material, the resulting output can end up completely nonsensical, exhibiting an apparent obsession with something that wasn't in the original source material at all. 

Thus, one example started with: "Some started before 1360 - was accomplished by a master mason and a small team of itinerant masons, supplemented by local parish laborers, according to Pointz Wright. But other authors reject this model, suggesting instead that leading architects designed the parish church towers based on early examples of Perpendicular". After 10 "generations" of training on this, one AI model came up with: "architecture. In addition to being home to some of the world's largest populations of black @-@ jackrabbits, white @-@ tailed jackrabbits, blue @-@ tailed jackrabbits, red @-@ tailed jackrabbits, yellow @-". Hmm. Confused?

This is what researchers are calling "model collapse" but it has also been likened to ourobouros (the snake eating its own tail, from antiquity) or AI eating itself. The particular example described above is perhaps an exaggeration, and is certainly low stakes. But you can see how there is the potential to exacerbate things like racial and gender stereotypes (which AI has already been accused of), and other compounded errors.

So, filtering of AI training inputs is a whole burgeoning area of research now. This can be very labour intensive, which all but negates the value of having AI at all, I would have thought. It is hoped to be able to automate this filtering process, but you can see the logical hole this is going down, I am sure.

Whether or not model collapse can be tamed, AI these days is increasingly looking less like a magical solution to all evils and more like a source of evils, not to mention an unprecedented hog of investment dollars, water (for cooling those data centres) and electricity (for powering them). Its early promise is starting to seem wildly overblown, and it is beginning to look more like an enormously expensive parlour trick.

Mpox is not just an African problem

Mpox, once called Monkey Pox, is now officially a global public health emergency (again) according to the World Health Organization.

(Incidentally, "mpox" is the new name for what was known for decades as "monkeypox". It was decided that the "monkey" label plays into "racist and stigmatizing language", although this is never clearly explained. Plus, monkeys are not the main spreaders of the virus; rodents are. Presumably "rodentpox" was considered and rejected.)

The viral infection started in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and the general perception is that it is very much an African disease and an African problem. But a map of the worldwide incidence of the disease tells a very different tale:

Yes, the majority of cases are in the USA and Brazil, followed by Canada, the rest of South America, China, and Western Europe. Only then do you get to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and, still less affected, some of the neighbouring African countries.

So, what gives? Well, I guess the main point is that the USA and Canada is well-positioned to deal with an outbreak, including access to plentiful vaccines; DRC and neighbouring countries not so much. 

The USA is donating 50,000 doses of the vaccine to Africa, which is something but much less than needed, as well as nearly half a billion dollars in humanitarian aid. Europe is donating some 215,000 doses. Canada has yet to announce any such donation, despite having a stockpile of millions of doses.

The other thing is that a new variant of the virus, known as Clade 1b, is starting to take hold in DRC, triggering more severe illness and an increased fatality rate (around 3-4%), and WHO really does not want this new variant spread across the globe. This new, Clade 1b-dominant outbreak can almost be considered an entirely new outbreak. Currently, WHO is reporting 17,000 cases and 500 deaths worldwide, but over 96% of them have been in DRC.

Is mpox the new COVID-19, then? Probably not. It does not spread as easily as COVID, and it is easier to prevent and contain. It is, in the main, not airborne, and typically requires close, skin-to-skin contact to spread. Plus, we already have effective vaccines. 

Should we be wary of it, then? Oh, yes. It is especially transmissible through skin cuts and mucus membranes, which is why so may cases are occurring through sexual contact, particularly among men whom have sex with men, raising some raw memories of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s.

UPDATE

The proverbial cat is probably already out of the proverbial bag, as a case of the Clade 1b mpox virus has now reported in Sweden, in a person recently returned from Africa. In practice, this probably means that there are more cases already in Sweden, and possibly elsewhere in the world outside of West Africa.

With its incursion into Russia, Ukraine is back in the news

It's hard to know what is behind Ukraine's invasion of a small part of Russia.

Ukraine claims to be holding about 1,000 square kilometers of Russian territory in the Kursk region to the northwest of Ukraine, many kilometers from the main battleground in the southwest of the country. Nearly 30 villages in the area are reported to have fallen to the Ukrainians, although the death toll has been pretty limited (12 civilians). 

You can see why Russia was not prepared for this "surprise attack"! It does not appear to fulfill any obvious strategic role. So, what is the game plan here? What are they going to do with it now? No-one really seems to know, including, to some extent, the Ukrainians. 

There are unconfirmed reports that Ukraine is digging defensive lines, which suggests it is looking to hold onto at least some of the talent territory, although it is not clear why they would want to do that. It looks as though they intend to push still further into Russia, again with unknown aims.

President Putin has of course denigrated the move, saying that it was merely an attempt by Kyiv to achieve a better negotiating position in any possible talks to end the war (as though that were not a legitimate objective!) Ukraine's President Zelenskyy simply says that "Russia brought war to others. Now it is coming home." This may be true but is not in itself an explanation of the rationale behind the incursion. 

A Ukrainian official explained that their aim was to "inflict maximum losses and to destabilize the situation in Russia", which just sounds like boilerplate military-speak. Zelensky added that, "Russia must be forced to make peace", although it's not clear how this latest move helps to achieve that. US Senator Lindsey Graham called the operation "brilliant" and "bold", and called on the USA to provide Ukraine with any weapons it needs, although many NATO members worry that NATO may be seen to be attacking Russia directly. 

So, is it an attempt to draw Russian troops away from their continuing attacks on the Donbas region? Is it an attempt to boost Ukrainian morale? Is it an attenpt to destabilize President Putin politically among his people? A way of obtaining Russian prisoners of war for a POW "exchange fund"? All of the above? Is it just a relatively easy way for a win (any win!) after months of stalemate and slow Russian encroachment into Ukrainian territory.

There is also the issues of public relations and optics and the moral high ground. Certainly, Ukraine has the right to defend itself, including by attacking Russian miltary installations across the border. Western allies seem agreed on that. But do they have the right to essentially annex parts of Russia? Isn't that beyond their brief, if they want to stay on the right side of their rich Western benefactors? More than one NATO ally has said that they are not comfortable contributing armaments that are bring used for this current novel offensive.

It is certainly a high risk strategy, and it could well result in increased Russian attacks on Ukraines's civilian population and infrastructure. But it has certainly woken the war up after a rather sleepy period of stalemate. Ukraine is back in the news! And maybe that is all they wanted.

UPDATE

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry is now, belatedly, saying that the cross-border operation is aimed at protecting Ukrainian land from Russian long-range strikes launched from Kursk, a "strategic buffer".

It argues that Russia has launched over 2,000 air-strikes from the Kursk region in recent months. That may be, but they have also launched many more from other nearby areas, and if they are being kept out of one area, even temporarily, surely they will only move just down the road to another less risky area. The border with Ukraine is over 1,000 km long, after all. I still maintain that it is mainly a PR exercise, though. 

And meanwhile, Russian troops are continuing their push into the Ukrainian Donbas region, and are now close to taking the strategic city of Pokrovsk. They are probably relatively unconcerned with Ukraine's presence in the distant and not-particularly-strategic Kursk region, which they probably see as an easy clean-up operation later.

What's with Snoop Dogg at the Olympics?

As the Olympics Games wraps up, I am still a little puzzled as to why Snoop Dogg has played quite such a prominent role. What was that all about?

As a second-tier one-time rap star, he is one of those personalities more famous for being famous than for anything else, kind of the Paris Hilton of Rap if you will, a professional and very successful self-publicist. But he still managed to wheedle his way into the opening ceremony - hell, he even carried he Olympic Flame for a while - and he kept popping up at random times throughout the Games, not for any good reason that I could see. The BBC calls him "America's cheerleader".

Apparently, he was involved with some of the TV presentations by NBC, the American host network ("special correspondent", or "ambassador of happiness", according to NBC), as indeed he was at Tokyo in 2021. So, I guess he was at least there in some kind of official capacity. Some believe he was instrumental in NBC's increased ratings with this Olympics. Well, maybe. Still a bit weird, though, if you ask me.

I hate to think how involved and ubiquitous he is going to be at Los Angeles 2028.

Protest overrules protest in artistic gymnastics

And while we are still on the Olympics, how about this one: in the  artistic gymnastics women's individual floor finals, American Jordan Chiles was awarded the bronze medal after she protested that her score had been miscalculated by one-tenth of a point, enough to put her just above two Romanian gymnasts (who had identical scores), and boosting her from 5th to 3rd in a very tight competition.

Except... the Romanians then protested back again that the American protest was made too late. The rules allow for a protest to be made within one minute of the score announcement, and Ms. Chiles' protest came after one minute and four seconds! So, the American protest was disallowed, and Chiles went back to 5th place (and no medal).

Crazy stuff, but I guess rules are rules. To their credit, the Romanians, probably embarrassed by the optics of their claim, actually suggested that the two Romanians and Chiles share the bronze medal three ways, but that's not how the rules work. 

It's no coincidence that most of the controversies in the Olympics (other than those over drug-taking and cheating) occur in the more artistic disciplines where subjective judging is an issue.

Breaking? Breakdancing? Whatever

As expected, Canadian breakdancer Phil "Wizard" Kim easily won the gold medal in the inaugural breaking competition at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

But, apparently, we are not supposed to call it "breakdancing" because the practitioners prefer the label "breaking", and that is what the Olympics Games have officially called it. 

This seems ridiculous to me. It has always been popularly called "breakdancing", and most people, including me, will continue to call it that. The people who are objecting say things like it "oversimplifies and commercializes the artform", and that "the community prefers 'breaking' as it encompasses the deeper cultural and artistic significance of the dance". Furthermore, "it's more about the character, originality and respecting the dance and bringing the essence".

Huh? What does most of that even mean? Talk about gobbledygook! Yes, it's cool to watch, for a while at least, and it's very clever and athletic and acrobatic, if a bit formulaic and grotesque. But it's still just dancing, and it doesn't belong in the Olympic Games. Likewise rhythmic gymnastics (little girls throwing around streamers and hoops: physically impressive and occasionally beautiful, but it belongs in Cirque du Soleil not the Olympics). Ditto surfing (well, I definitely couldn't do it, but it seems like we had to go to literally the other side of the world to find some vaguely French surfing waves, which is kind of ridiculous). I could go on. Pierre de Coubertin is probably doing somersaults in his grave.

For what it's worth, breaking. or breakdancing, or whatever you want to call it, will NOT feature as a sport at the 2028 LA Games. I guess they knew they were probably on dubious ground. Now we need to work on some of those other "sports". Just because there exist international competitions in something does not make it a sport - there are annual hot  dog eating contests and gurning and egg-rolling competitions, but no-one is suggesting they should be Olympic sports. And it's not all about television ratings (or it shouldn't be).

Trump's grand retort to Democrats' "weird" label

Donald Trump finally, after more than two weeks, came up with a riposte to the viral description of himself and running mate Vance. 

A couple of weeks ago, Tim Walz aptly described Trump and Vance as "weird", a simple but effective little sound bite that may turn out to be his greatest contribution to the Harris-Walz Democratic campaign. 

You could argue that, in resorting to the next best thing to name-calling, the Democrats have sunk to Trump's level. But the Dems would probably argue that they are merely taking a page out of Trump's playbook, while avoiding the lies, conspiracy theories and the actual name-calling. (They are already straying perilously close to conspiracy theory territory with their continued pursuit of the spurious JD Vance sofa sex meme). At least they are doing it with what seems to be genuine joy, rather than the snide nastiness we usually get from Trump (and now Vance).

After the jibe, though, Trump went uncharacteristically quiet. Dis-quiet-ed, you might say. At a rally in Montana last night, though, he finally came up with the ultimate come-back: "No, we're not weird ... I think we're the opposite of weird. They're weird." Er, okay. Is that it?

True to form, he then went off on a fairy tale about how the American press had conspired with the Democrats to spread this calumnious slander. But he had finally made his great retort. Good job, Donny.

Canadian pole-vaulter's twerking ruffles feathers

Canadian pole-vaulter Alysha Newman won a bronze medal the other day, against all expectations, including her own. She celebrated with a bit of a twerk dance, and that seems to have been enough to blow up the internet.

Maybe it's because she's a skinny white girl (well, 30-year old, actually). Maybe it's just because the Olympics, for all its glitz and pageantry, is actually a remarkably conservative institution. 

The way she explained it afterwards - that she wanted to pull a joke on her coach that the was injured, and then start dancing - was totally unconvincing. But it doesn't really matter. She just seemed so utterly joyful, and she wanted to dance. That's okay isn't it? You can see the unalloyed joy all over her face, even in mid-air on her way down from 4.85m. 

And it was only a couple of seconds, after all, I'm sure not too many maiden aunts were offended (or even noticed). Apparently, it hasn't done her OnlyFans account much harm either (OnlyFans is primarily used by sex workers, but it is also used by other content creators, like fitness experts and musicians).

Why Elon Musk's case against advertising boycott could actually succeed

Now, I'm no legal eagle, but how on earth can Elon Musk be in a position to sue over the decision of a bunch of ex-Twitter advertisers to withhold their business from Musk's new (and very different) X?

He is alleging that a concerted "massive advertiser boycott" by the World Federation of Advertisers violates antitrust and competition laws and, more pertinently, deprives his company of billions of dollars in revenue. The boycott was organized by the advertising group's brand safety initiative, the so-called Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), which was established to address the challenge of the monetizing of harmful content on social media through advertising. Reasonably enough, it has called out Musk's gutting of X's oversight system, and his reinstatement of the accounts of many openly racist, sexist, anti-democratic and generally inflammatory users. 

As, you would think, is their right. After all, companies can choose where to spend their own advertising dollars, can't they? But Musk's push-back against this boycott effectively asserts that companies CANNOT just stop advertising overnight, which is an outrageous contention when you stop and think about it. 

This is not to say that Musk will win the case, but the very fact that the case is seriously being heard is alarming enough. And legal experts seem to think that there is indeed a case to be made that the advertising association's actions may in fact constitute an illegal boycott. The issue is that GARM's very raison d'etre results in an illegal collaboration of its member companies, overruling any individual company decisions, and this is what Musk is targeting with this legal case. 

The legal bar to prove conspiracy is, however, notoriously high, so many legal commentators believe that the case will ultimately fail on proof of agreement. But that is by no means a sure bet, and the spectre of companies not being able to advertise according to their own consciences remains a distinct possibility. Ridiculous!

In the meantime, Musk just continues to make himself more and more unpopular. But then, when has he ever cared about that?

Semaglutide drugs may help a lot more than diabetes and obesity

I have, in the recent past, disparaged the apparently ubiquitous semaglutide drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, although mainly because of their tedious blanket advertising.

However, more and more evidence is coming to light showing that these drugs - technically called GLP-1 agonists, for their ability to mimic the action of the naturally occurring GLP-1 hormone - may be helpful in treating many more conditions than diabetes and obesity.

Drugs like semaglutide, and the similar tirzepatide, lyraglutide and lixisenatide, act on GLP-1 receptors in the pancreas to trigger the release of insulin after eating, which helps control blood sugar levels in people with diabetes. They also bind to GLP-1 receptors in the brain, which has the effect of making people feel full, and so eating less. 

But, unexpectedly, it turns out that there are also GLP-1 receptors in cells in other organs of the body too, including the heart, blood vessels, liver and kidneys. Thus, they can help prevent serious heart problems like heart attack, heart failure and stroke, partly by reducing the contributory obesity problem, but partly by acting directly on the heart's cells. Wegovy has already been approved in the USA for people with cardiovascular disease. It lowers blood pressure, cholesterol levels, heart rate and heart inflammation, and seems to be effective regardless of how much weight is lost.

Research is also showing that GLP-1 agonists can significantly reduce kidney disease. They may even reduce inflammation in the brain, raising hopes that they could be used to treat conditions like dementia and Parkinson's disease. They appear to slow substantially the shrinkage over time of the parts of the brain that control memory, learning, language and decision-making, resulting in reduced cognitive decline. They have also been shown to slow the progression of Parkinson's symptoms. They may also be useful for addictions like alcohol, smoking and opioids, as well as some eating disorders, and they even seem to help sleep apnea, and some obesity-related cancers. That's quite a list.

The research continues apace, and new drugs in the same class are still being developed. GLP-1 agonists, or something similar, may still turn out to be the wonder drugs for which we have searched so long. But, even so, can we do something about that advertising?

That overused "hand heart" gesture

With the Olympics in full swing, I have ben reminded how much I hate the "hand heart" gesture. You know what I mean, where you make a heart shape with two hands, with the thumbs pointing downwards and the index fingers curled round above. Everybody's doing it. You can't avoid it.

It was first officially documented back in 1989 by an Italian artist, but I don't think he can be said to have exactly "invented" it. By 2010, it was ubiquitous, mainly courtesy of pop stars and sports personalities. Taylor Swift fans seemed to think that it was Ms. Swift's own personal gesture - well of course they did! - and that everyone else were just copycats.

And it is its sheer popularity that has made the hand heart quite such a bugbear for this particular curmudgeon. It's supposed to indicate somewhere between "I love you" and "thank you", so you can see why all these media personalities (and their followers) have taken to it. 

But it's just such an easy, throwaway gesture that it has become overused, and its value has diminished accordingly. People now just do it because they are expected to. Many of them are now sloppy efforts and not even very heart-shaped, performative and pretty much empty.

Anyway, I don't want to belabour the point too much, just to get it out of my system.

Far-right clashes in UK part of the perennial xenophobic undercurrent

Although it pales into insignificance compared with the ongoing protests in Bangladesh, which have left nearly 100 people dead, the far-right clashes in the UK are pretty significant in themselves. Hard on the heels of a general election which left the burgeoning British extreme-right movement in the dust and a Labour government in power with a landslide majority, here we see disaffected fascist types taking the law into their own hands.

With the pretext of a horrendous stabbing incident in the northern English town of Southport in which three young girls were killed at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class and many more were injured. The perpetrator, a disturbed young man named Axel Rudakubana, turns out to have been born in Wales, to Christian Rwandan parents, but he is most certainly black and that is enough for the far right to create a narrative and run with it, facts be damned. Thus, he has been painted as a Muslim madman who entered the country as an illegal immigrant, like thousands of other desperate people crossing the English channel from Europe. 

(Controversial "influencer" Andrew Tate, who was one standout among the many who were whipping things up on social media, later admitted, "perhaps I was wrong about the fact he was an illegal migrant". Yuh, think? And, hold on, "perhaps"? and "the fact"? That's your idea of an apology?)

So, hundreds of (almost equally disturbed) rioters have stormed various locations, mainly working class towns in northern England like Rotherham, Middlesborough, Bolton, Hartlepool and others (plus gentrified Weymouth in the south!), attacking targets like a hotel used to house illegal immigrants and a mosque, throwing bricks, furniture, bottles, fire extinguishers and anything else that comes to hand at police. One rioter, when asked why they were running around smashing neighbourhood windows, merely retorted, "Because we're English!", which gives you an idea of the level of debate that is going on.

And behind it all, a bunch of radical online influencers, anti-Muslim extremists and fascist groups, including Patriotic Alternative, British Movement, English Defence League, and other similarly-named shadowy organizations. It's worth mentioning that several of the instigators were once banned on Twitter, but have since had their accounts reinstated on X by Elon Musk. Thanks, Elon, good job.

There has always been this undercurrent of xenophobia at work in Britain. Official far-right political parties like the National Front and the British National Party are technically not involved in all this, just the more extreme dark side of the movement. But you have to imagine the politicians smiling to themselves in the comfort of their own homes or offices.

Swagger and braggadocio - part of sports?

I'll tell you what I am absolutely over as these Olympic Games progress, and that's the hamming it up when athletes are introduced to the crowd. It may have been reasonably fresh when Usain Bolt was doing his bow-and-arrow routine some years ago, although I am sure he did not start it. But now, everyone, especially the sprinters, the rock stars of athletics, feel the need to have a signature set of (increasingly bizarre) actions they perform as the camera lingers on them.

I'm sure it serves a whole host of purposes, from psyching out the opposition to establishing their own frame of mind to galvanizing the crowd. But, more than anything, it is purely made-for-TV self-aggrandizement. These are supremely confident individuals at the height of their physical prowess. You can just FEEL the testosterone in the air (even around the women).

American sprinter Noah Lyles may have won the 100-metre dash in what was probably the closest and overall fastest race of all time (Lyles won by five-thousandths of a second!), but he is one of the worst offenders as regards pre-race shenanigans. Abetted by the unprecedented long wait before the race start, complete with light show, lasers and dramatic music (what was THAT all about?), Lyles had plenty of time for a complete mummer routine after he was introduced. Lyles also takes athletic fashion to the next level with pearls in his hair, custom-designed watches, blingy necklaces, and custom nail polish.

However, the longer it goes on, and the more forced and performative it becomes, and the more awkward it seems to me. I put it in the same category as tennis and soccer players (and now other athletes) calling for a crowd reaction or increased applause, something they pretty much all do these days, and which would have been unheard of a couple of decades ago. If a crowd wants to cheer and applaud, they will cheer and applaud; you don't have to orchestrate it, just because you think you have done something particularly impressive or worthy. I don't know who started it, but it is now engrained in an increasing number of sports.

Also in the same category, I put the ridiculous dance routines and mime shows many soccer players now put on for the crowd after scoring a goal. Again, I don't know who started it - I'm thinking maybe the Brazilians? - and maybe some fans really like it. Me, I find it vaguely embarrassing, and annoying. You certainly can't imagine a hockey player or a rugby player doing it, but maybe that too will happened one day.

It just represents to me the ongoing thinning of the line between sports and entertainment. Maybe there IS no line, maybe I'm just an old curmudgeon living in the past. I just don't see the cool factor in these performances. It's just swagger and braggadocio.

UN report on Israeli torture of Palestinians won't help their case

It has long been impossible for Israel to assert the moral high ground - some would argue never, since its founding - but a new report from the United Nations Human Rights office makes public plenty of evidence of Israeli torture of Palestinian detainees.

Waterboarding, sleep deprivation, electric shocks, dog attacks, and other forms of torture and mistreatment have routinely been inflicted on some of the 9,400 "security detainees" Israel has hidden away in its jails, with no access to lawyers or respect for their legal rights. 

It's an embarrassing and damning report, and one that will take some explaining to Israel's rapidly diminishing coterie of friends.

Ford government shuts down Ontario's waste water testing program

As yet another COVID wave takes hold in Canada and across the world, and confirmations come in that COVID infections still outnumber flu cases, lead to more hospitalizations and deaths than the flu, and lead to more long-term serious health concerns, Ontario's Conservative government is scrimping and saving and abandoning the only only real public health testing scheme the province has, with its announcement that it is winding down its waste water monitoring system.

Considered a vital resource for monitoring new COVID variants, as well as trends in influenza, avian flu, etc, sampling of water from sewage systems gives public health officials an important heads up on how things are developing. It is an effective and cost-efficient resource, that costs the province between $10 million and $15 million annually, chump change in the provincial scheme of things. Health experts are united in condemning the move. 

And in case you thought COVID had gone away, it is very much still with us, and even having a resurgence. About 40 people die from it each week in Canada, and don't even get me started on the risks of long COVID.

Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones argues that the province is just cutting a superfluous system that duplicates the existing federal waste water testing system. But, as the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) confirms, the federal scheme is much smaller (just four testing sites in Ontario, all of them in Toronto), and cannot be considered comparable. 

A PHAC spokesperson explains, in the clearest of terms: "Federal waste water water monitoring programs do not duplicate the work done by Ontario's waste water program". They also confirm that Ontario's decision to shut down its program was not coordinated with PHAC.

So, Ms. Jones and Mr. Ford are just plain lying to save a few bucks to subsidize their plan to get people to drink more beer? Well, why am I surprised?