Do the Brits really.want to see the Bayeux Taoestry?

French President Emmanuel Macron has promised to loan the UK the famous thousand-year old Bayeaux Tapestry as a gesture of goodwill.

Politicians and local aurhorities are lauding the decision. Conservators and museum people, on the other hand, are warning that the tapestry is way too fragile to transport (and is, of course, irreplaceable).

My first thought was: why would Britain want to lionize a tapestry celebrating nearly two hundred years of conquest and oppression by a foreign force? Maybe the Brits are more broad-minded and urbane than I think, but my guess is that M. Macron is being overly optimistic 

Why is it alway men that engage in risky investing behaviour?

If you've ever wondered why it always seems to be guys that do all that investment in cryptocurrencies, meme stocks, sports gambling, even belief in Donald Trump and conspiracies theories, some new research purports to explain it (but fails, in my opinion).

The research, published in the journal Judgment and Decision Making (yes, that's the name of a scientific journal!), identifies something called the "confidence-information-distortion-confidence" cycle. This essentially says that, once men have an initial opinion on something - whether it be choosing a mortgage or insurance option, making investment decisions, choosing a financial advisor or going it alone - they tend to interpret any subsequent pieces of information, whether confirmatory or useful or relevant or not, as support for their initial assessment. Even if it shouldn't rationally affect their decision at all, each new item of information increases their confidence that their original opinion was right. 

You could just call it "conviction bias", rather than the pseudo-science gobbledygook this study chooses to employ. And it's hardly surprising or news, is it? More to the point, it doesn't really explain why men are more affected by this logic blindness than women. But it remains a fact that some 61% of cryptocurrency investors are men, high-risk stock trading tends to be a male province by a two-to-one ratio, and sports betting is male thing by a three-to-one margin.

A study explaining why women are more risk-averse might be more useful. I imagine it has its origins in evolutionary biology or child-rearing or something of that sort. These things usually do.

Robert Kennedy Jr. hauled over the coals on vaccines

The US Senate committee investigating the actions and decisions of Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. is riveting America, not least for Kennedy's completely unrepentant fixation on walking back decades - nay, centuries - of research and settled science on vaccination.

He doesn't say so in so many words, but it's clear that Kennedy wants to get rid of ALL vaccinations. For now, he is contenting himself with limiting some important vaccines, including the COVID vaccine (which he calls the "most deadly in history", despite its clear role in saving thousands, maybe millions, of lives) and the hepatitis B and RSV vaccines. The spectre of the spread of preventable diseases like polio and measles running rampant through America once again is by no means improbable. (Florida has already revealed plans to repeal ALL vaccine requirements for schoolchildren!)

Kennedy has already dismissed many members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including its director, as well as the entire panel of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), and replaced them with known antivaccine activists. He is promising many more sackings in the near future of anyone who disagrees with his own wacky beliefs (which is almost all mainstream scientists). Many more have voluntarily resigned their positions, unable to work in such an environment. Even his family members are calling for him to step down, calling him a threat to the health of Americans!

The White House (or at least Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller) has publicly defended Kennedy, who has come under fire from politicians on both sides of the political divide. Miller called RFK Jr. "a crown jewel of this administration", in spite of the growing howls for his removal. Trump himself has remained suspiciously quiet about it all, contenting himself with saying that Kennedy "means very well" (faint praise indeed), and that "I like the fact that he's different".(ridiculous and childish). Trump seems to dither between strongly supporting vaccines and not.

As with so much that is happening in the Trump administration, it's hard to look away. But it's a depressing and unedifying spectacle to see so much good work (and so many good people) being wilfully destroyed in this way.

Why does everyone now hate Keir Starmer?

Keir Starmer and the Labour Party won a landslide victory in the UK elections a year ago (411 out of the 650 seats available), largely as a result of general dissatisfaction with the Tories' sorry performance over the preceding decade plus. The country, it seemed, was willing to give him carte blanche to follow a new political direction.

But, as I noted just recently, Labour's popularity is now down around 20%, barely above that of the Conservatives, and well behind the far-right Reform UK, which would win with a healthy majority if an election were held today. Luckily, no such election is planned. 69% of voters now have an unfavourable opinion of Labour, and Starmer's net favourability rating has sunk to an all-time low of -46%. In fact, even among Labour voters, his approval rating is -26%.

Now, Starmer has lost one of his most loyal lieutenants, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, who resigned after details surfaced of her failure to pay the proper land tax on a new home, an egregious sin indeed.

And all this is in spite of what seem at face value to be a series of economic wins: trade deals with the US, India and the EU for example, reductions in NHS waiting lists, improvements to school services, etc.

So, how did Starmer manage to make such an almighty hash of it? Why is Starmer so unpopular?

Well, as is so often the case, cost of living issues are the main reason. Inflation is on the rise again, and the cost of electricity, gas and other fuels has risen even faster, with water and sewage costs increasing more than everything. These monthly bills are highly visible and top-of-mind for voters, and are a big influence on people's opinions. Cutting benefits for disabled people and winter fuel cuts didn't help the government's image either.

British business have also soured in Labour. Higher taxes on businesses are seen by many as "anti-growth", and limits imposed on immigration and foreign workers, as well as an arguably  laudable increase in the minimum wage and improved workers' rights, are all seen as increased burdens for small and medium-sized businesses in particular.

Ironically, in a country still reeling from the effects of the relatively flamboyant and bombastic Boris Johnson and even Nigel Farage, Starmer's lack of personality is also holding him back. You'd think the country would welcome a calm, thoughtful leader, but apparently his lack of charisma and his dull, plodding approach to politics is a distinct turn-off for many Britons. Many of his cabinet members are also not well-liked as personalities, and several (particularly Chancellor Rachel Reeves) are perceived as being out of their depths.

There were other contributing factors too - Starmer's initial reliance on, and subsequent sacking of, the unpopular advisor Sue Grey; the acceptance of free gifts ("freebiegate"); and others. After all, Starmer was supposed to be different from Boris and the others, right? 

Polling suggests that there are two types of Labour defectors: those who now prefer the Greens or Lib Dems - younger, predominantly female and better-educated, who largely feel that Labour under Starmer is too right-wing and "not Labour enough" - and those who have switched to Reform UK (really?!, yes!), who tend to be more working class and poorly-educated, and often Brexit leave voters, many of whose main complaint is that Labour has not controlled immigration well enough. 

Starmer's response to this has mainly been to lurch even further to the right on issues like immigration and trans rights, i.e. to chase those who have defected to Reform. But those same polls suggest that only 15% of those Reform defectors say they would consider voting Labour again, while nearly 60% of the defectors to the  Greens and Lib Dems say they might still vote Labour in the future. So, this seems like a bad choice on Starmer's part, and acting more like traditional Labour would probably help them more. It gets complicated, right?

So, predictably, there is no one underlying reason for Starmer's fall from grace, more of a perfect storm of minor factors, none the less damning for all that. What a mess!

Poilievre barking up the wrong tree on immigration

I had really hoped that we were over the gravelly, whining voice of Pierre Poilievre, complaining about every little thing the Liberals do. But it seems we are stuck with him in opposition for a while longer.

Some of the issues he has latched onto are clearly not winners, but Poilievre is willing to argue that black is white and fudge whatever statistics need fudging if he feels that it will pander to his right-wing base. One such issue is immigration.

Poilievre takes a tough stance on immigration, because that's what he thinks his base expects from him. Recently, he called for very hard caps on immigration, and specifically asserted that "We need more people leaving than coming for the next couple years". Even more recently he has called for the complete termination of the temporary foreign worker program, which industry and agriculture analysts say would be disastrous for the country.

But the point is that Poilievre is behind the times, and merely parroting talking points from his failed election bid that are no longer relevant or appropriate. After action taken by the Liberals, net immigration today is pretty much zero, and the Canadian population, once growing at a rapid and unsustainable clip, has already stopped growing. The uncontrolled influx of both overseas students and temporary foreign workers have already slowed to a much more manageable level.

Poilievre, as in his wont, is also misquoting some statistics on immigration, claiming that 105,000 temporary foreign workers have entered the country in just the first half of 2025, while the government's target was 83,000 for the full year. But in fact, most of that 105,000 were work permit renewals, and only 34,000 were new arrivals, well within the target. Similarly, new permits under the International Mobility Program, were well within targets, and not "out of control" as Poilievre claims. 

The Liberals are well into a program of reducing the numbers of temporary residents. According to Statistics Canada, population growth in the first quarter of 2025 was precisely zero, and the government's immigration plan is indeed for more people to leave Canada in 2025 than arrive. Poilievre is hopelessly out of touch.

Canada should be ready to circumvent Safe Third Country Agreement rules

Canada and America have long had a Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA), whereby two civilized countries that both have robust protections for refugees agree that aliens and fugitives must claim asylum in the first country they arrive in, whether that be Canada or America, and cannot just pass through America to get to Canada, or vice versa.

That has worked pretty well since the Agreement was struck in 2004. But America under Donald Trump is no longer a civilized country, at least as regards immigration and refugees. Refugees turned back at the US-Canada border now run a very real risk of being repatriated back to the country they are fleeing (or even some other country they have never lived in and have no links with). This may put them at risk of imprisonment or worse for their political views or their sexual identity or orientation, or physical danger from an abusive spouse, etc. This is particularly important given that gender-based asylum claims are rarely recognized in the USA.

Luckily, there is a provision under the STCA agreement that allows border agents some latitude in their decisions. For example, there is an escalation protocol that can be triggered when there is "credible evidence" that someone will face inhumane treatment in the US, or faces a serious possibility of being deported to face torture or death.

Up until now, these "safety valves"  have hardly ever been used. But Canadian border agents should be officially reminded of this option, and they should be much more ready to employ it, lest some of the most vulnerable refugees be left at the mercy of an uncaring and draconian American immigration system.

Lies, damned lie and canola statistics

Saskatchewan's populist premier Scott Moe has a vastly inflated idea of his, and his province's, importance. 

Speaking about China's imposition of punitive tariffs on Canadian canola oil exports - a counter-measure to Canada's punitive tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles - Moe claims that: "This $43 to $45 billion Canadian canola industry that we have [is] employing just over 200,000 people", and reminds us that a good chunk of Canadian canola, although by no means all, is grown in Saskatchewan.

This would make canola a much more important industry than automobile production, for example, which contributes about $19 billion to Canada's GDP, and directly employs about 118,000 people. Except Moe's figures are wildly (Trump-ly!) off.

Moe's figures for canola come from the Canola Council of Canada, which clearly also has an exaggerated idea of their own self-worth, not to mention something of an axe to grind. Their figure of $43.7 billion (Moe's "to 45 billion" is just poetic license) includes a grossly inflated estimate of canola's indirect benefits to the country, according to the Trillium Network for Advance Manufacturing, an Ontario-based think tank.

They point out that Statistics Canada, the same source that identified the $19.2 figure for vehicle production, has canola's contribution to the economy at about $5 billion, and employment at around 21,000.

Well, that's quite a different story from Mr. Moe's! "Lies, damned lies, and statistics", as Benjamin Disraeli would have it? Or "I can prove anything by statistics except the truth", as another British Prime Minister, George Canning, asserted?

Quebec proposed ban on public prayer is just daft

Listen, I'm an atheist. I've made no bones about that throughout this blog, even celebrated it at times. But even I know that Quebec's bill to ban all prayer in public is a bad idea.

It's no secret that François Legault's Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) party is stridently anti-religious, or pro-secularism as they might term it. They even have a Secularism Minister, Jean-François Roberge, in the Cabinet. They have already adopted a law requiring all immigrants to Quebec to "embrace the common culture" of the province, and have passed the contentious bill that would ban public workers from wearing any religious symbols in the course of their work (using the Charter's "notwithstanding clause" to avoid claims that it is unconstitutional).

This latest bill is another step down that road, and it too will require the use of the notwithstanding clause, because it too would be unconstitutional. 

It's also wrong-headed. For one thing, Legault has (accidentally or otherwise) admitted that, when he says he wants to ban prayer outdoors, he really wants to ban prayer outside of Montreal's Notre-Dame Basilica, where pro-Palestine Muslims have been holding public prayer meetings for months now. He has said he wants to send "a very clear message to Islamists".

Don't get me wrong, I think prayer is stupid, whether Christian or Muslim. To think that some putative God is listening intently when individuals pray is the ultimate in solipsism, and seems sadly deluded. But if that's really what people want to spend their time doing, well, knock yourself out, I say. Passing a law to ban it is so completely against the letter and the spirit of Canadian law that only Quebec (and maybe Alberta, for different reasons) would have the chutzpah to even try it.

Canada should take in Russian dissidents awaiting deportation from USA

A little-known corollary of Donald Trump's immigration crack-down is that some prominent Russian dissidents face deportation back to Russia, even though it is clearly understood that they would then be immediately imprisoned, possibly tortured, and maybe even killed.

Yulia Navalnaya (wife of Alexey Navalny, and a high-profile anti-Putin activist in her own right), and the equally high-profile Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin, all entered the USA legally under the CPB One program, and have been long awaiting a decision on their refugee petition. 

But Trump, in his single-minded anti-immigration push, has since terminated the CPB One program, and the three, along with many others ("several hundred opposition-minded Russians"), are being held in ICE detention centres before being deported back to Russia. Other much less important anti-Putin activists who have gone back to Russia are known to have received cursory trials and are currently languishing in prison, just like Navalny did for years before his untimely death.

Anyway, the three activists have officially called on Canada to take them in, to save them being deported to Russia. Surprisingly, there is no certainty that Canada will take them, perhaps the main stumbling block being the Safe Third Country Agreement that still exists between Canada and the US, despite the USA under Donald Trump being far from a safe place for refugees of any stripe. Exceptions and exemptions to the agreement are however possible, at the discretion of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, although the government has made no firm commitments so far.

Here's hoping that Canada shows more backbone than America, and agrees to take the three dissidents. There is a way to do it if there is a will.

McDonalds - Canadian owned?

As a vegetarian, I don't frequent McDonalds. I think I may have been in one, once in my life, mainly for the wifi. So, I hadn't realized that McDonalds restaurants in Canada are emblazoned with the by-line "Proudly locally owned and operated".

And look, they even have a little maple leaf on the logo!

But wait, McDonalds? It's an American company, no? In fact, it doesn't get much more American than McDonalds, does it? Oh, look, McDonalds in America, also say "Locally owned and operated".

So, what's the deal?.Canada-washing? Well, McDonalds restaurants are franchises. In fact, McDonalds Restaurants of Canada Ltd is a "master franchise" of McDonalds. So, yes, they are technically locally owned, I guess.

But really, it's pushing the issue a bit. I mean, it's still McDonalds, probably the most American thing you can think of, including apple pie (a weird version of which McDonalds also sells).

Trump's obsession with tariffs is tilting the world order

Trump's tariffs are wrong on so many levels it's hard to even encapsulate. But it's increasingly clear that they have fractured the tenuous relationships between many western (and other) nations, and weakened both the United States and its links with the rest of the world.

Who better, then, to take advantage of this unexpected geopolitical windfall than President Xi of China. No fool, Xi has been busy making hay while Trump has been busy making a fool of himself. A big part of that Chinese initiative is happening right now at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin, China.

Guests of honour at the meeting are Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, who, together with Xi, make an unholy trifecta of miscreants and renegades. But, let's remember, powerful miscreants and renegades. 

Trump's actions have pushed these unsavoury characters further and further into each others' orbits and interdependencies. They are already interconnected through the BRICS and BRICS+ groupings, but Trump's scattershot actions against the three can only serve to further cement their relationship, to the potential peril of the entire world.

China's spectacular military parade, marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two, in front of Putin, Kim Jong Un and over two dozen other heads of state, only adds insult to injury, and certainly puts Trump's own recent military parade in a lot of shade.

The global order is tilting alarmingly. All thanks to Donald Trump.

Orchid mantis - disguise not camouflage

Here's a video, apropos of nothing at all, of an orchid mantis, one of the world's most beautiful insects.

Looking for all the would like a beautiful pink orchid, the mantis actually attracts more pollen-seeking insects than even a regular orchid. The difference is that visiting insects never leave, gobbled up by the voracious mantis.

The Southeast Asian insect is not exactly camouflaged - it WANTS to be seen - but it's certainly in disguise.

Love what you've done to the place, Donnie!

Here's an illuminating image of what Donald Trump has done to the White House Oval Office (physically, I mean, rather than figuratively).

Each President leaves their own mark on the Oval Office, as their style and preferences dictate. This juxtaposed comparison of Joe Biden's and Donald Trump's styles speaks volumes. Out with the peaceful blues and understated ornamentation of the Biden era, and in with the golden bling and curlicues of Trump's imperial pretensions. Out with restraint, and in with clutter and excess.

Could two personalities (not to mention their political views and policies!) be any more dissimilar?

Finnish air force to phase out use of the swastika

It seems that the Finnish air force still uses the swastika symbol on some of its flags, although it is thinking of phasing them out in the near future. "Sometimes awkward situations can arise with foreign visitors", a spokesperson laconically comments. Well, I can imagine.

As it turns out, Finland's use of the swastika symbol predates (and is unrelated to) its adoption by Adolf Hitler's Nazi party in the 1920s. And of course the symbol itself goes back thousands of years, and has long been a symbol of well-being and luck in Indian cultures, and in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.

But whatever its history, the swastika is now forever associated with Nazism, and Finland is, rather belatedly, admitting that it's probably not worth the hassle to retain that particular part of its traditions.

US Court of Appeal delivers another slap in the face to Trump

The cat is among the pigeons.

The US Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit in Washington has delivered a 7-4 verdict that most of the tariffs that Donald Trump has imposed on most countries in the world (including Canada) are in fact illegal, upholding a May ruling of the Court of International Trade. Well, go figure!

The court, the majority of whose members happen to have been appointed by Democratic presidents past, ruled that Trump can not use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose "reciprocal" tariffs, because a US trade deficit, or even putative fentanyl coming in over the border, do not constitute the kinds of emergency the statute was designed for. The law does not even mention tariffs, and Trump's actions "exceed the authority" of the legislation, the court has found.

Well.

This does not affect the steel, aluminum, copper and automobile "sectoral" tariffs Trump has levied on Canada and some other countries, which were imposed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act. (Courts have generally ruled that Section 232 tariffs ARE legal and a valid delegation of Congress' power to the President, although only for genuine national security threats.) But it does affect the general 35% tariff on non-CUSMA goods Canada is currently subject to. 

This puts into doubt the very centrepiece of Trump's protectionist economic strategy, and a major pillar of his domestic and foreign policy. As with so many of Trump's actions, he is operating at or beyond the bounds of legality and constitutionality.

Trump's response? "ALL TARIFFS ARE STILL IN EFFECT! ... If allowed to stand, this decision would literally destroy the United States of America." Which, of course, is stupid - this decision would just return the United States of America to something closer to the status quo before he started messing with things - a perfectly functional and profitable country, richer and more powerful than any other country in the world. (This is all of a piece with Kristi Noem's claim that Los Angeles "would've burned down if left to the devices of the mayor and governor", and Peter Navarro's warning of "the end of the United States" if the tariffs are blocked. Untruths and exaggerations are the norm now in MAGA World, no-one expects anything different.)

Of course, a red-faced Trump immediately vowed to contest the ruling and will call on the much more Republican-friendly Supreme Court (many of whose members he appointed himself) to bail him out again. But you have to know that if they overturn this ruling, it will not be on legal basis, but a political one. God only knows what pressure Trump is putting on individual members of the Court right now. Watch for yet another 6-3 decision from them. 

UPDATE

In fact, Trump has now lost SIX major cases in just the last week, but he is not too concerned because he is relying on his pet Supreme Court justices to reverse any inconvenient rulings.

Are "washlet" bidet-style toilets actually better?

Apparently, 80% of Japanese households now have bidet-style "washlet" toilets, where toilet paper is replaced by a really complex system of bidet-style washing and drying.

The idea is not new, and certainly non-electric bidets have been around for CENTURIES. But Japan seems to have gone from a hole in the ground to ultra-sophisticated AI-enabled electric toilets in a very quick and comprehensive manner.

In addition to permanently heated seats, perfumed air deodorizers to cover up smells, and even white noise or muzak to cover up unwanted sounds, the system operates like an automatic bidet, with a nozzle that extends to shoot warmed water at the appropriate area, and then an air dryer that dries you. There is a whole multi-button control panel through which you can customize this process ad infinitum.

It seems like they have thought of pretty much everything to give you the perfect toilet experience, even if it doesn't sound particularly appetizing to my British/North American sensibilities. It's notable that the idea has not really taken off that much outside of Japan, although a surprising 10% of American toilets are now this style, ditto Europe, and an estimated 5% in China.

Washlets - actually a brand name of the most popular Toto bidet toilets, but now commonly used as a generic name, much like, well, Kleenex - are not without their critics, though. 

Some doctors warn that there is, ironically, actually an increased risk of bacterial infections from the use of warm water and the nozzle, although the manufacturers are at pains to refute this. Doctors (including Japanese doctors) also warn that there is a risk of over-washing and over-drying, which can remove the sedum that naturally lubricates the anus, and of increasing the naturally acidic pH of the anal region, leaving it open to dermatitis and bacterial infection. There are also many reports of chronic rectal bleeding and hemorrhoids. As one (Japanese) doctor put it, "It should be obvious that subjecting the anus and vagina to direct jets of warm water can create problems". If that is indeed the case, Japan as a nation has problems, even if under-reported.

What I wondered about, though, was whether washlets are actually as environmentally superior to toilet paper as they claim. The environmental problems associated with the production and bleaching of toilet paper are well documented, although recycled or bamboo-based toilet paper can help significantly. But all that water heating, air heating, seat heating. air perfuming, additional production carbon footprint, and water use? All of that can't be very environmental, can it? To say nothing of the added up-front cost and installation hassles.

The claims include that washlets use a much smaller volume of water and energy than what is needed to produce toilet paper, produce less waste for sewage systems and landfills, and (in the case of some more premium systems) incorporate water conserving and water recycling features. In fact, even the notoriously picky David Suzuki Foundation recommends them as a greener option than using toilet paper, as does Successfully Sustainable.

Still, I can't help but think that these analyses are not very scientific, and certainly not very specific or comprehensive. It's all very well saying that some bidet-style toilets only use 0.8 gallons of water for each clean, while one roll of toilet paper requires 37 gallons. But a roll of toilet paper contains anywhere from 150 to a 1,000 sheets, and even if you use 5 sheets every time you go (and I don't!), that's 30 to 200 uses out of every roll, which puts the water consumption of toilet paper used anywhere from 1.2 gallons to less than 0.2 gallons, i.e. much less than a bidet toilet.

And I for one use 100% recycled toilet paper (as should everyone!) How does a washlet compare with that environmentally?

Now, full disclosure, I'm not going to change to a washlet any time soon (and I'm a relatively early adopter, environmentally speaking). Call me old-fashioned and hidebound, but it just seems wrong on so many levels to me. But in terms of whether they're actually objectively "better", well, the jury is still out, I say. More work needed.

Britain willing to follow Reform UK into a new dark age

Nigel Farage's Trump-influenced far-right party Reform UK is going through a purple patch at the moment. Opinion polls show them with a comfortable lead: Reform 31%, Labour 20%, Conservatives 16%, Liberal Democrats 14%, Greens 10%.

According to other polls, 34% believe that Reform has a good long-term economic plan, and 38% think they have a good plan for changing Britain generally. But, crucially, over half say they are not confident in ANY of the parties. 

And there's the rub. The poll indications are not so much because the Reform Party and its policies are intrinsically that popular. It's more a function of disaffection with the other main parties. Labour came to power in last year's general election with a strong majority, after years of Conservative mismanagement, chaos and scandal. But Labour too has proved ineffectual, dithering and underwhelming since the election.

And, it has to be said, Farage talks a good game - embarrassingly extreme when you stop and think about what he is actually saying, but couched in appealing populist terms. Donald Trump has singlehandedly moved the Overton window so far, that much of Farage's schtick seems almost reasonable.

For example, clinging onto Trump's coattails as he drags America into a new dark age, Farage says that if elected, he will take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights and engage in a mass deportation of immigrants on a scale not even dreamt of since the days of Enoch Powell.

In fact, I'm not convinced that many of the 30-odd per cent of Britons who claim to be in favour of Reform UK actually know much about its policies. It's more of a knee-jerk pox-on-both-your-houses type reaction. And that's probably the most dangerous type of reaction. Brits should be careful what they wish for.

Israeli hospital strikes go beyond the pale (again)

Both Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli military have lost what little credibility they ever had with the double strike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis yesterday. The hospital was struck by not one by two Israeli missiles (UPDATE: or, as it now appears, at least FOUR times), killing 20, including at least four health workers and five journalists. The second strike came ten minutes after the first, apparently deliberately timed to hit journalists and rescue workers.

Netanyahu seems to think it was a "tragic mishap" - he might just as well have said "whoopsy, my bad!" - or presumably two tragic mishaps in quick succession. 

But the Israel Defense Forces had their own explanation, which they had obviously not bothered to burden Netanyahu with. According to them, the strikes took out six Hamas operatives, although, as usual, they offered no evidence for this. Separately, they also claimed that the strikes were actually to take out a Hamas camera they claimed (also without evidence) was maintained on the hospital roof.

So, they thought that the best way to destroy a camera was to bomb the whole hospital, twice, in full knowledge that there would be many civilian deaths and injuries? And they thought that the slim possibility of removing six hypothetical Hamas fighters was worth killing twenty civilians in a hospital (including medical personnel, ambulance drivers, etc) and maiming and injuring an unspecified number of others? What kind of calculus is that?

Both the IDF and Netanyahu have lied many times about both events and motives during this war. This is just the latest and most egregious example. In past Israelis conflicts, this is the kind of occurrence that has led to an international outcry and ultimately a ceasefire. However, there seems little likelihood of that happening this time.

Ford is all heart and no head in animal-testing question

Doug Ford has found himself a new cause célèbre to fixate on, not something he has ever expressed an interest in before, as far as I know. I guess he maybe sees it as a vote-winner?

The province of Ontario is to ban all testing on dogs and cats - "pets" as he calls them, in an attempt to play on the emotions - whether for cosmetics or medical research. "We're gonna catch you", warns Ford, who has decided that the practice is '"cruel" and cannot be allowed in his province.

This Paulian conversion seems to have happened overnight, after Ford was alerted to the use of young dogs in medical research at the Lawson Research Institute at St. Joseph's Health Care in London, Ontario, in pursuit of "groundbreaking research that has resulted in major strides in cardiac care and treatment".

The Institute uses dogs, mainly puppies, for tests. The puppies are then killed and their internal organs examined. As the Institute points out, all experiments are conducted under proper authorities and following all the relevant rules and regulations. Animal testing is only carried out when there are "no scientifically valid alternatives".

It also notes that both Health Canada and the US Food and Drugs Administration require "animal-tested protocols as proof-of-principle for efficacy and safety, before a new treatment can be used in human patients". So, I'm not sure how Ford's plan is going to work out.

There was a time when I would probably have applauded Ford's stance, and I would still applaud it in the case of cosmetics testing (Canada banned animal testing for cosmetics back in 2023). But as regards medical testing, my response is more muted and nuanced these days, now that my wife is suffering from an incurable neurodegenerative disease, and I have had several friends suffer from (and die from) various cancers and other medical conditions. As you get older your perspective changes.

The whole ethical issue of animal testing is of course a fraught one, and nothing like as simple and black-and-white as Ford makes it sound. On one side, the sentience of animals, the unreliability of predicting human outcomes, and the availability (in some cases) of alternatives. On the other, the contribution to medical advances, the similarities of animal physiology and responses to humans', and the minimization of overall suffering.

And then, of course, you get into which animals are ethically appropriate for testing - worms and fruit flies, mice and rats, dogs and cats, monkeys and primates? And what the animals are used for - non-invasive interventions, deliberate disease transference, organ harvesting, stress-testing until death? And then you get into the number of animals involved, the number of humans who might benefit, the value of the end product for humans, the difficulty of measuring animal pain and distress, the conditions animals are kept in, etc etc. 

The general rule on animal testing is to observe the so-called "three r's": replacement (use non-animal alternatives wherever possible), reduction (use the fewest animals possible), and refinement (try to improve experimental methods, housing and care to minimize pain and distress). Commonsense stuff, but not really a solution to all those tricky ethical dilemmas. 

We use much fewer animals (especially mammals) in research than we used to. But, at some point in the development of new drugs or procedures, testing on animals is a necessary evil (subject to to rigorous protocols and review by ethics committees, of course). And, contrary to what Mr. Ford says, these are not people's pets; these are animals raised for the very purpose (maybe you think that makes it even worse, but it needn't be). And if we don't test on animals, then we would need to test more on people, which of course has even greater ethical challenges.

Then, there is the narrative that animal testing is useless anyway because animals are too different from humans. There is a statistic doing the rounds of the internet, especially since Doug Ford's announcement, that 90% of drugs ultimately fail in human trials following animal tests (usually attributed to an NIH research study). But this, it turns out, is highly misleading for a whole host of reasons, ably explained on the Understanding Animal Research website, not the least of which is that it doesn't include the 40% of potential new drugs that are withdrawn completely during pre-human animal tests. In fact, animal tests are very good at predicting whether a drug will be safe in human tests.

The ethics of animal testing is not for the faint of heart. Kudos, in some ways, to Ford for jumping into the fray. But I get the impression, at least from the language he uses, that he is maybe only looking at one side of the equation (the emotive side, rather then the scientific side; heart, not head). Just wait till he, or someone close to him, gets diagnosed with cancer...

US Department of Defense may soon be the Department of War

And now, back to Trump...

Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are apparently planning to change the name of the Department of Defense, on the grounds that it's too, well, defensive.

Their preferred name - you might have guessed it - is the Department of War, the name it carried up until 1949. Per Mr. Trump: "I don't want to be defense only ... As the Department of War, we won everything, and I think we're going to have you go back to that." Hegseth: "That's coming soon, sir." 

The pair of them are insane. Do they have nothing better to do than sit around thinking this stuff up? Kids in a sandbox, or what?

There is much less excitement over the idea within the Pentagon itself and among former defense officials (who are more likely to speak publicly, given that their jobs are not on the line). As one commented, "Not only will this cost millions of dollars, it will have absolutely zero impact on Chinese or Russian calculations. Worse, it will be used by our enemies to portray the United States as warmongering and a threat to international stability". Which sounds about right.

UPDATE

Most recently, Trump has threatened the Democratic city of Chicago with the "Department of War", ia radical escalation of words on Truth Social, complete with AI-generated graphics to make it humorous (kind of).

Canadian study suggests that meat diet does nor cause cancer, it reduces it

A new study appears to fly in the face of the vast majority of previous studies that suggest a positive correlation between meat consumption and cancer and other serious health issues.

Most prior studies and meta-studies, like this large 2007 study, have concluded that "red and processed meat intake appears to be positively associated with risk of cancer of the colon and rectum, esophagus, liver, lung, and pancreas", although not other types of cancer. That's a pretty damning list, and this was a huge study of half a million Americans, published in PLoS Medicine journal (impact factor 9.9) and the US National Library of Medicine. 

It confirms what is now the conventional wisdom on the subject. The World Health Organization agrees with these findings, as does Harvard University's review of major US and European studies.

This new study, though, somehow "found no link between eating animal protein and higher death risk". In fact, it says, "higher animal protein intake was associated with lower cancer mortality, supporting its role in a balanced, health-promoting diet".

Wait, what? 

Now, this was a much smaller study (16,000 individuals), carried out by McMaster University in Canada, and published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism journal (which has a much lower impact factor of 2.6). But, still, how did they manage to come up with a finding so diametrically opposed to what masses of other studies have found?

If it was an American study, you might well conclude that Donald Trump or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. might have been interfering. But this is a Canadian study.

Way down towards the end of the article, though, it is mentioned that the research was funded by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA), an advocacy group for American beef producers. Coincidence? It says the NCBA "was not involved in the study design, data collection, and analysis or publication of the findings". But you really have to wonder.

It turns out, if you increase taxes, they probably won't leave

Some rich New Yorkers are warning that Zohran Mamdani's vow to increase taxes on the richest 1% (an additional 2% on those earning over $1 million a year) will lead to many millionaires moving out of the area, and the hollowing out of the city's tax base. Pierre Poilievre also raised this same spectre when the Liberals planned to raise the capital gains tax inclusion percentage last year. It's practically an article of faith among Conservatives.

But is there any reason to believe that that would really happen?

History, apparently, says otherwise. When New York raised income taxes on millionaires in 2021, the number of millionaires in the state actually increased by 21%. When New Jersey increased taxes on high earners in 2004, 37 millionaires did indeed leave the state, but by the end of the year, some 3,000 new millionaires became New Jersey taxpayers. Ditto with California's tax hike in 2005: the state's millionaire population grew by 30% over the next two years.

In fact, it turns out that the highest concentrations of millionaires are found in high-tax states and cities. Furthermore, millionaires seem to be less mobile than other people: only 2.4% of millionaires move across state lines each year, compared to 2.9% of the general population. And when they do move, they tend to move from one high-tax city to another, rather than to some tax haven.

That's partly because high-tax cities and states are actually nicer, pleasanter, more livable places to reside in - cleaner, safer, more vibrant. There's also a lot of inertia to overcome - moving cities and starting over from scratch in a new job, new home, new school for the kids, etc. etc, is a lot of hassle and upset.

Like most political articles of faith, this one is also based on no real data, just wishful thinking and deliberate panic-striking.

Trump discovers cultural revisionism

Donald Trump has clearly been poring over Great Dictators of History, and has realized that what he needs to do now is to clamp down on free expression in art. That's what all good dictators worth their salt do, isn't it?

With that in mind, he has called for a "comprehensive internal review" of eight Smithsonian museums. The official letter sent to the museums says it is to "ensure alignment with the President's directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions". The letter says that the White House will not "interfere with the day-to-day operations of curators or staff", although clearly that is exactly what the White House proposes to do.

A White House statement confirms, "President Trump will explore all options and avenues to get the Woke out of the Smithsonian and hold them accountable. He will start with the Smithsonian and then go from there." It calls out some of the institution's artwork, exhibitions, programs, even its online articles, for their focus on race, slavery, immigration and sexuality.

Trump's own social media posts lay it out with a bit more clarity: "The Museums throughout Washington, but all over the country are, essentially, the last remaining segment of WOKE", adding that they are "OUT OF CONTROL". He followed up with possibly the most stereotypically Trump post ever: "This Country cannot be WOKE, because WOKE is BROKE. We have the "HOTTEST" Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it, including in our Museums."

His interest in Washington's museums, which I am sure he has never actually visited, appears to have been piqued by an article in The Federalist (an alt-right website peddling all manner of conspiracy theories and extreme viewpoints) which concluded that the museums are filled with "wall-to-wall anti-American propaganda". For example, one work singled out for detailed attention is Rigoberto A. Gonzales' 2020 painting entitled "Refugees Crossing the Border Wall into South Texas", for obvious reasons. 

It's unfortunate, but one can't help but be put in mind of the Nazi war on modern or "degenerate" art in the 1930s. Trump, like any good dictator, is seeking to bend the art world to his own ideas of what American culture should be and show. It is cultural revisionism at its best (worst).

Gaza is officially experiencing a famine

It's hard to know how Israel can deny that it is causing starvation and famine in Gaza.

The International Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a partnership of UN agencies and NGOs and considered the global standard for food security analysis, officially confirmed that there is now a famine in Gaza City, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and that Deir-al-Balah and Khan Younis are also expected to meet to that designation by next month. At least half a million people, a quarter of the population of Gaza, are facing catastrophic level of hunger and are dying from malnutrition-related causes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's reaction? "The IPC report is an outright lie. Israel does not have a policy of starvation. Israel has a policy of preventing starvation." COGAT, the Israeli military agency responsible for distributing aid in the territory, calls the report "false and biased".

So, there you have it: no famine.

It's not like the Israelis can't see what is happening. They are right there, occupying most of the Gaza Strip, and supposedly transferring food aid. And it's not like the IPC is a rabid, radical organization, spewing out untrustworthy data and analysis. They have no axe to grind, and are not a mouthpiece of Hamas as some Israelis have tried to paint them. You can see photos and videos of starving and malnourished Palestinians on the Internet; are these all false too?

IPC famine determinations are rare. They have previously called famines in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017, and Sudan's Darfur region in 2024. That is the level of starvation being caused by Israel in Gaza, whatever Netanyahu thinks official Israeli policy is.

BC wants to be the next Norway

British Columbia says it wants to be like Norway. What it means by that is that it wants to be at the forefront of clean tech, while still pumping out fossil fuels, a fine balancing act indeed.

It's a balancing act that is close to the balancing act that characterizes Mark Carney's vision for Canada as a whole, but it's one that has BC's strong environmental movement in something like panic mode.

BC is pressing ahead with at least ten large new solar and wind projects, almost all of them joint ventures with Indigenous companies, and is building new transmission lines to share this clean energy with the province's resource-rich northlands.

But, at the same time, it is further developing its lucrative liquid natural gas (LNG) resources, with its first export terminal coming online and others in the planning or building phase, as well as a new gas transmission pipeline up to Prince George.

All of these large-scale projects easily fall into the definition of the large "nation-building" and "energy superpower" projects that Prime Minister Carney is trying to encourage with federal money. But the tension between fossil fuel development and sustainability is palpable. The sustainability part seems to be mainly for the domestic market, while the fossil fuels are mainly for export to the likes of Japan and South Korea, which see BC fossil fuels as slightly more sustainable than some of the available alternatives.

It's a fraught and frankly unconvincing argument - the old "transition fuels" justification that the oil and gas industry had been peddling for decades now - reliant on the increasing electrification of gas production (a bizarre juxtaposition in itself) and some stricter regulation around methane leaks.

This ability to hold two conflicting views simultaneously - a textbook definition of cognitive dissonance, with all of the psychological discomfort that involves - is not dissimilar to that of Norway, the undisputed world leader in electric vehicle take-up, with one of the cleanest power grids in the world, but at the same time a major oil and gas exporter. 

Norway, like BC, is unlikely to be able to achieve its ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets due to its continued fossil fuel production (its carbon emissions ARE coming down, although nothing like fast enough to meet its goals). But it manages to be able to keep both ideas in its mind without its metaphorical head bursting. Should we laud its efforts? Uncertain.

Gavin Newsom's parodies of Trump passing most Republicans by

I've not been following it particularly closely, but I was aware that California Governor (and potential Democrat presidential candidate for 2028) Gavin Newsom has been running a series of Trump parodies on Twitter.

Posting with idiosyncratic punctuation and capitalization (or, often, all caps), scattering nasty nicknames, and dealing with some rather bizarre and random subject matter - all hallmarks of Trump's social media presence on Truth Social - Newsom is pursuing a rather high-risk strategy, and risks alienating some of his own supporters in the process. But then we are not in an election race just yet, so maybe it doesn't really matter.

The way I see it, which I think is probably close to the way Mr. Newsom sees it, is that he is trying to show Republicans the kind of thing that Trump puts out on a daily basis on Truth Social, but divorced from the personality and the mythos that Trump carries with him, in an attempt to convey just how ridiculous and puerile many of Trump's utterances really are.

What's interesting, though, is that many in the MAGA world are taking them quite seriously, calling on Newsom to grow up and be more serious, with no apparent sense of irony. Trump junky Sean Hannity from Fox News bemoans Newsom's "performative confrontational style", adding that "maybe it wins you points with the loony radical base in your party", the pastiche element  apparently passing him by completely. Another Fox commentator begs, " You are making a fool of yourself. Stop it!" VP JD Vance complains that Newsom's efforts "ignores the fundamental genius of President Trump's political success, which is that he's authentic".

Mr. Newsom must be wetting himself when he reads these responses. Subtlety and irony are clearly not Republican attributes. As the Atlantic article author notes: "MAGA World is so close to getting it". But they're not quite there yet.

Foreign investors leery of buying into Canada

With all that's going on worldwide, but more specifically what's going on between Canada and the USA in terms of trade, tariffs and such like, it's perhaps not surprising that foreign investors might be a bit leery of putting more money into Canadian securities at the moment. The speed and scale of what's happening, though, is shocking.

In the first half of 2025, $22.6 billion has flowed out of Canadian stocks and bonds, according to Statistics Canada, reversing a trend of positive flows going back decades. Over the last 20 years or so, about $100 billion a year has poured into Canadian financial markets on average, so this is a huge turnaround, as the graph below shows.

What's doubly annoying is that all this is happening through no fault of our own. It's purely a function of what one man south of the border is doing (and doing TO us). 

But how does this square with the ever increasing stock market valuations across the world, including here in Canada? I don't really know, except to assume that it is Canadians that are propping up our own financial markets, by making record investments, regardless of all the doom and gloom around us. 

Now, this is probably not Canadian investors, with elbows up, supporting our beleaguered country when it needs it most. Players on the stock exchanges are rarely guided by such philanthropic motives; it's all about making money, and ethics typically do not get in the way of that. So, Canadian investors presumably see some profit to be had somewhere in the uncertain future. Interesting.

A huge supply of critical minerals is right under our feet

A study recently published in the journal Science has quantified for the first time the extent to which current mining operations in America are wasting other valuable minerals. And the amounts are astonishing.

The USA has extensive mining operations for iron, copper, gold, silver, and of course coal. The rock that contains these resources, though, is typically just ignored, wasted, abandoned as mountains of mine tailings. These tailings actually contain significant quantities of other minerals, some of which are almost as valuable as the main product, if not more so. Byproduct recovery could provide a reliable and cheap domestic source of many minerals, including so-called critical and rare earth minerals, that are currently imported from abroad.

For example, the study found that, across 54 active mines, there is enormous recovery potential of 70 critical minerals. In the case of lithium alone, one year of US mine waste could yield enough lithium to power 10 million electric vehicles. Now, EVs are not a major priority of the current administration, but Trump has flagged domestic critical mineral production as a general priority, and has even issued a controversial executive order that would allow critical mineral mining on currently protected federal lands.

At the moment, the US imports most of its lithium from Australia, Chile and China. The study shows that recovering just 4% of the available lithium from existing mining operations would more than offset current imports. It's a similar story with many other critical minerals like cobalt (mainly imported from the Democratic Republic of the Congo), nickel, manganese, germanium, etc.

In its usual chaotic way, the Trump administration has repealed and gutted large parts of Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, which would have prioritized critical mineral production and many of the clean tech industries that rely on them, while at the same time lamenting America's lack of extraction facilities for those same minerals. A solution is staring them right on the face. 

A similar situation almost certainly exists right here in Canada, which also has an extensive mining industry, and which also complains about having to import critical minerals from the likes of China and DRC. Byproduct recovery is the solution.

Trump delusional over his favourability ratings

Donald Trump, in one of his bizarre middle-of-the-night Truth Social tirades, claims a "59% APPROVAL RATING FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP, MASSIVE LEAD OVER THE DEMOCRATS" (his capitalization, in case you weren't sure).

Now, it's not clear where he found that particular figure, and it seems likely he just made it up to cheer himself up a bit. RealClear Polling tracks nearly 20 opinion polls, and their latest summary shows an average approval of 44% with 52% unfavourable. The individual favourability polls range from 40% to 51%, none of them coming anywhere close to 59%.

Moreover, graphs of Trump's favourable/unfavourable polling over time show steadily increasing unfavourable ratings (and an even more marked decline in favourable ratings) over the last 6+ months.

There has never been a president in history so consumed by his ratings. It must be galling to see it falling.

Maybe pescribed burns are not a panacea

As Canada slogs though another record-breaking wildfire season, there is a thought-provoking and timely article by a couple of respected professors about how Canada could learn from Australia's experience.

See, many people who are complaining about Canada's increasingly grim and out-of-control forest fires (including, as it happens, Donald Trump, who rarely misses an opportunity to disparage a liberal administration and to downplay the effects of climate change) blame poor forest management and, specifically, too little use of prescribed (or "hazard reduction") burns.

As the eminent profs point out, though, prescribed burns - which are usually talked of as a no-brainer solution to both Australia's and Canada's increasingly extreme wildfires - are perhaps not as scientifically affirmed as most of us think.

In fact, it turns out there is very little robust scientific evidence of the effectiveness of prescribed burns in reducing fire hazards. In some places, prescribed burns can help for a few years; but afterwards, the regrowing vegetation can be even more flammable than before and so actually increase fire risks, sometimes for many decades. It is not uncommon for extensive prescribed burns to be followed by disastrous uncontrollable fires.

It is also often claimed that prescribed burns must be the way to go because, both in Australia and in Canada, it's the traditional Indigenous way, and, of course, anything Indigenous must necessarily be environmentally sustainable, right? In fact, Indigenous prescribed burns are traditionally very small and localized, mainly used for hunting, promoting food growth, and clearing pathways, rather than for
"asset protection". Modern, state-directed prescribed burns, on the other hand, tend to be on a huge scale and very high intensity. 

Analysis of ice-cores in Australia show that there have been many mega-fires over the last 2,000 years, regardless of traditional Indigenous cultural policies. Also, industrial logging practices in both Australia and Western Canada are also closely associated with elevated flammability and more intense wildfires. Data from Australia suggests that more people die from respiratory problems after large prescribed burns than than after wildfires! Prescribed burns can also give people a false sense of security.

Food for thought, indeed, and a challenge to the conventional wisdom. Maybe "fighting fire with fire" is not such a no-brainer after all.

Wait, flight attendants don't get paid until the plane takes off?

Air Canada's flight attendants are in the midst of a rather nasty labour dispute between the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and Air Canada management over pay and unpaid work.

Some 10,000 flight attendants walked off the job after eight months of negotiations failed to yield any agreements between the sides. The government then promptly legislated them back to work, albeit using a rather suspect law calling for government action "to maintain or secure industrial peace". However, CUPE then refused to comply with the back-to-work legislation, putting things in a rather unprecedented state of affairs.

Now, I don't know how much flight attendants get paid, and whether they are indeed as underpaid as they claim. But Air Canada's offer of 38% over four years sounds pretty generous to me, and would make Air Canada's flight attendants the best paid in the country, although it was apparently not generous enough for CUPE. Specifically, CIUPE is saying that 8% in the first year is inadequate "because of inflation" - er, inflation is around 2%!

On the other issue of unpaid work, though, I think their case is stronger, even though this is an industry-wide issue. I think most people have been shocked to find out that flight attendants don't get paid until the plane is actually moving, nor after the plane stops moving moving at the end of the flight. So, when they have to stand there welcoming you aboard with that glazed smile on their faces; when they are playing tetris with your overhead bags; when they are sitting there bored stiff as take off is delayed for two hours for "operational issues"; or when the plane arrives early and there is no gate for it to stop at? Nope, they are not getting paid.

CUPE estimates that flight attendants typically work an average of 35 hours a week for free - almost a full week's work - so that the most junior flight attendants are effectively making less than the minimum hourly wage.

Now, you could argue that this is just the nature of the beast, and that the pay they receive during official paid time is sufficient to make up for this. Certainly, it is something they agree to when they take the job. But you have to admit that this is not a logical position. If flight attendants are dressed in uniforms and exposed to the stupid questions of passengers, then logically they should be being paid.

But this is not just an Air Canada problem: most airlines follow a similar procedure. According to an NPR article from early 2024, most airlines only pay their staff from the moment when the plane door are closed. The airlines typically justify this by arguing that they also have a "guarantee of minimum pay" mechanism, although from the description given, this really doesn't make up for the unpaid time, I wouldn't say.

Only one major North American airline, Delta Airlines, pays their flight attendants 50% of their regular hourly wage for a set 40-50 minutes of boarding. (Some argue that this is Delta's way of discouraging unionization - it is the only major North American airline whose flight attendants are not unionized.) As of earlier this year, Porter Airlines pays its flight staff for some, but not all, boarding time. Pascan Aviation, a small regional Quebec airline, is one of the very few airlines to pay staff 100% for their pre- and post-flight work.

Air Canada says it is offering an industry-leading package on ground pay as part of the current negotiations, which the union is still saying is not enough. Both the Conservatives and the NDP introduced bills during the last session of parliament that would correct this apparent oversight, but neither bill made it through Parliament before the prorogation and snap election earlier this year. And now, the governing Liberals have announced a "probe" into these allegations of unpaid work, which they find "deeply disturbing".

Most airlines, then, do not pay their flight attendants for anything outside of actually flying. As to whether that's a big deal or not, I'm not really sure. But unionized Air Canada staff sure think so. It's hard to know whether to be sympathetic or not. 

Either way, you have to think that, however this one turns out, WestJet,  Air Transat and others are queueing up right now for their own kick of the same can.

UPDATE

The deal struck between Air Canada and CUPE, as well as a pretty generous increase in pay, does indeed include a provision for ground pay: at least an hour of ground work paid at 50% of regular rates, rising incrementally to 70%. 

It is being hailed as industry-changing, although it's notable that when non-unionized Delta brought in a similar provision back in 2022, it did not result in an immediate rush by other unionized airlines to follow suit.

Of course, depending on your worldview, you could also see this as a bit of a scam. Airlines the world over have been operating under this model for decades, and neither the unions nor the employees have made that much of a stink about it heretofore. It's just how the job works. Was it really, then, all about leveraging public support, creating a sob-story narrative in support of a regular gimme-more-money labour dispute?

Do ridiculously long ballots make a mockery of our elections?

An operation called the Longest Ballot Committee has targeted Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre's by-election in the ultra-safe Conservative riding of Battle River-Crowfoot in Alberta after he managed to lose his old Carleton, Ontario, seat in the last election.

There are now some 216 candidate names on the Battle River-Crowfoot electoral ballot, 201 of which are spurious candidates generated by the Longest Ballot Committee, so they have had to change the polling rules to allow people to write in their choice of MP, rather than try and find them in a metre-long list of hundreds of candidates.

To be clear, the Longest Ballot Committee is not targeting Poilievre himself - they are not a partisan organization - but rather the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system. However, Poilievre does seem be taking it rather personally, and has spoken out vehemently against it, even though it is very unlikely to lead to him losing the by-election in this case. He calls the protest "a scam", "unfair" and "unjust" - none of which is actually true, I don't think, certainly no more so than a recently-elected MP giving up his seat and inviting in a man from the the other side of the country to take it instead.  Poilievre is calling for the system to be changed to disallow this kind of protest.

The Liberals too are making noises to the effect that maybe such protests should not be allowed. And some of the real independent candidates in Battle River-Crowfoot are also, understandably, crying foul. Interestingly, though, a recent Angus Reid poll shows that support for banning such protests is not that strong (47% to 34%) nationwide.

Do I object to it? I would prefer some kind of proportional representation system to our current FPTP system (which is essentially what the Longest Ballot Committee is agitating for), so it's not a bad thing that the Committee is - quite successfully - drawing attention to it. But it does make a bit of a mockery of the whole electoral system, which is already under stress and suffering from low voter turn-out.

I think on balance that I would prefer to see the candidate system tightened up a bit, so that a candidate would need more than 100 signatures to be able to stand, and so that the same 100 (or whatever number) signatures can't be used for multiple candidates, which is essentially what the Longest Ballot Committee relies on.

But, by the same token, we do also need to do something about the distorting FPTP system we have, which tends to yield strong party majorities, or near-majorities, from relatively small popular vote majorities, or even minorities.

This is the state of Trump's peacemaking initiatives

Donald Trump - yeah, I know, him again, I do hate having to talk about him so much - has this idea that tariffs and trade deals can fix everything, including intractable long-standing wars. That's why he has claimed repeatedly that he could bring peace between Ukraine and Russia "in 24 hours", even though nobody else believed it (correctly, as it turns out).

Trump, as so often, is wrong, of course. And this is becoming more and more clear.

Take, for example, Trump's "solution" to the ongoing conflict between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel militia. This war has been going on since 2022, and has quietly developed into one of the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Trump thought he could solve this horrible conflict by merely imposing some trade tariffs, and has promoted a peace process that gives the USA a partnership in DRC's minerals development, as though that was going to help. 

In fact, he still seems to think he has in fact "fixed it", and that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize as a consequence. But apparently someone forgot to tell DRC and Rwanda. Fighting between pro-government forces and M23 has continued with barely any let-up, and both sides say they will continue to fight as long as necessary. Hundreds of civilians have been massacred by M23 in just the last few days, well after the so-called "peace" was struck. So, not much of a peace at all.

It turns out that these "Trump-style transactional politics" left many issues unaddressed, and lacked any "enforceable commitments". The economic incentives the US put in place would take years to develop, and that's not going to help either party in the short term. 

Trump also claims to have made peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, two countries have feuded for years over the Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhchivan enclaves. His solution? Bilateral trade deals with both sides, from which the USA benefits most, and a transit route, named after Trump, but actually planned to be built with private capital. Sure, that might work for a while, but it doesn't sound like a long-term fix. Iran has also objected to the transit corridor, which adds a whole new dimension to the conflict. As a top Iranian advisor says, Trump "thinks the Caucasus is a piece of real estate he can lease for 99 years".

Another conflict Trump has stuck his oar into is between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, where territorial spats crop up with great regularity, only to be settled again for a while. After the last such flare-up, Trump has claimed to have settled the issue. He even managed to prevail on Pakistan to publicly call for Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution. India, however, denies that the ceasefire was brokered by the US, or that they responded to pressure from anyone, but that they negotiated the ceasefire themselves. Oops.

As for Russia-Ukraine, we've seen how that has gone. Trump pressured Ukraine into accepting a one-sided trade deal for its rare earth minerals, and has sanctioned India for buying Russian oil and thereby supporting the Russian war effort, but all that has had absolutely no effect on the ongoing war, which continues apace. So much for peace "in 24 hours".

Trump also plans on meeting Putin later this week with a view to ending the war, but he intends to do so without Ukraine's participation, i.e. he plans to agree with Russia how much of Ukraine it can carve off and then present Ukraine with a done deal, and somehow he expects that to work. "There will be some swapping and changes of land", he says blithely. Hardly anyone has positive expectations of the meeting, and most expect Putin to run rings around Trump, like last time (UPDATE: that's pretty much what happened. Trump pivoted overnight overnight from calling for a Russian ceasefire and punishing Russia if it continued fighting, to accepting most of Putin's territorial demands, and returning to his earlier "Zelenskyy can end this war if it wants to" rhetoric, all while stressing that it no longer goves Ukraine weapons, it SELLS them, and unexplicably calling the war "Biden's war"). Ukraine - and Europe and many other countries - has said, unsurprisingly and in no uncertain terms, that meeting Putin will not help, and that it will not cede any illegally-occupied Ukrainian land. Meanwhile, Russia continues to bomb the hell out of Ukraine.

As for Trump's simplistic, Israel-favouring solutions to the Gaza conflict, he's been saying for months now that a Gaza peace deal is just around the corner, but it never actually happens. Some of his solutions have been for the US to "take over" and "own" Gaza itself (against international law), or to move those pesky Palestinians out completely and redeveloped the whole area as the "Riviera of the Middle East". Hardly anyone takes such blather seriously.

Simply put, Trump's approach doesn't work. He is merely chasing financial gains for the USA, and does not really care about or understand the issues that the other parties are fighting over. Trump says he's "a tariff guy". Ok, but why would you think tariffs and business deals are the solution to everything?

As for being the great peacemaker, I'm assuming the Nobel Committee can see through Trump's bluster for what it is: naked self-aggrandisement.

UPDATE

During a high-level meeting with President Zelenskyy and other European leaders on the war in Ukraine this week, Trump made it clear that he truly believes that he has achieved lasting peace in these, and possibly other, wars: "If you look at the six deals that I settled this year, they were all at war. I didn't do any ceasefires. I don't think you need a ceasefire."

Now, it's not quite clear which particular six wars he is claiming to have ended, and it is more than telling that he just thinks of them - and accidentally referred to them - as "deals" rather than peace talks aimed at ending wars. His intention was mainly to downplay the strategic importance of ceasefires in ending wars (given that he has signally failed to get either side in the Ukraine-Russia conflict to agree to one), even though, as this article explains, most of the "deals" he is talking about did in fact involve (more or less successful) ceasefire arrangements.

But just imagine the chutzpah - the hubris - of a man who is keeping count of the wars he claims to have settled. It's hard to know if he really believes that he has singlehandedly ended these wars, or if he just thinks that if he keeps talking about them, he will eventually persuade people that they really happened.

This is where the USA is today

God. Here in Canada we agonize over statues of John A. McDonald or Egerton Ryerson, petrified [sic] that they might have been racists or not done all they could to abolish slavery or maybe had a hand in the abuse of the Indigenous people of their day (although the truth often turns out to be more complex).

In Trump's America, though, an explicitly pro-slavery Confederate statue is being given a $10 million restoration and re-erected in the nation's most prestigious military cemetery.

This is a statue of a tearful, fat, black female slave, cradling the child of her white Confederate master, as he goes off to war. Its official name is the "Arlington Confederate Monument", although Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insists on calling it the "reconciliation monument" because there is a recent US law preventing anything being named after the Confederacy, a dark period in American history. Hegseth want to reinstate the monument, with its overtly racist imagery and anti-US sentiments, at Arlington National Cemetery.

This is where the USA is today. John A. McDonald? Eat your heart out.

Not the Birnam Wood you know

If, like me, you neglected to read the blurb on the back and were expecting Eleanor Catton's Birnam Wood to be a reimagining of Macbeth, you will probably have received quite a shock. I try to read anything I can of Eleanor Catton's work, so I didn't really mind at all that it did not involve chopping down forests and soldiers disguised as trees.

Birnam Wood, in this case, refers to a counter-cultural market gardening project, a soi-disant "activist collective", on the South Island of New Zealand, and the story is very much a modern day affair. (I tend to think of Ms. Catton as Canadian but, although she was born in Canada and now lives in the UK, she was in fact brought up in New Zealand and has strong ties to that country - I imagine all three countries claim her.)

Some of the personalities involved in the collective are strong-minded and spiky, and there is some unresolved history behind some of them. Add in a mysterious, shady, tech-bro, American billionaire with a risky and illegal plan to secretly strip a national park area of billions (trillions?) of dollars in rare earth minerals and smuggle them out, and who surprisingly seems to want to invest big money in the collective (leading to some intense discussions on principles), and an ultra-radical freelance journalist and estranged collective member, and the stage is set for an unusual and quite interesting plot. In fact, it turns into quite a thriller.

But for me, the plot is secondary to Ms. Catton's fine prose, her often long and involved sentences, and her delicious turn of phrase. Just a few examples from early in the book:

"But over the course of his twenties, he had found himself increasingly at odds with the prevailing orthodoxies of the contemporary feminist left, which seemed to him to have abandoned the worthy goal of equality between the sexes in pursuit of either naked self-interest or revenge."

"She had feared, in lonely moments, that for her parents she existed merely as a kind of party trick, a dazzling proof of how well she had been parented, a living testament not to her own powers of conviction and discernment, but to theirs."

"Her favoured style of conversation was impassioned argument that bordered on seduction, and although it was distasteful, not to mention tactically unwise, to admit that one enjoyed flirtation, she never felt freer, or funnier, or more imaginatively potent, than when she was the only woman in the room."

Always a reliable read, Ms. Catton has triumphed again.

Are women who fish still fishermen?

On reading an article about lobster fishermen in Atlantic Canada, I was a little taken aback by the passing assertion that the preferred term for both men and women in the fishing industry is in fact ... "fishermen".

Not that this is such a revolutionary idea, and not that there are actually that many women in the fishing industry anyway. But it's certainly something I had never thought about. And apparently it's true.

If we're being politically correct, we say "humanity" instead of "mankind", "staff" for "manpower", "chair" for "chairman", and "firefighter" for 'fireman". But we still say "fisherman", mainly because there just aren't any good or obvious substitutes. 

"Fish harvester" is a bit of an awkward mouthful, even if Fisheries and Oceans Canada has officially adopted it. And "fisher" is a forest-dwelling carnivorous mammal found in the wilds of Canada, and anyway sounds just weird except in the biblical phrase "fisher of men". "Fish industry worker"? I said GOOD substitutes! "Fishwives"? Don't even go there!

And, anyway, as it turns out, if you ask any female person who fishes on either coast of Canada - and people have done just that - they will respond, to a man [sic], that they prefer to be called "fishermen", thank you very much. In fact they take strong exception to any attempts at political correctness. These are not bleeding-heart liberals or holier-than-thou intellectuals.

So, until the female fishermen themselves change their minds, we are probably stuck with "fisherman". Which begs the question: has anyone asked female board chairs what they would like to be called?