Olympic chutzpah or hubris

Lyndsey Vonn is one of the most successful downhill skiers ever, and is looked on as almost god-like within the sport. Since her latest performance at the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, she can now add "most controversial" to her lengthy list of achievements.

Vonn is now 41 years old and has not raced competitively for years. But, for whatever reason - call it chutzpah, or call it hubris - she wanted more. Then, she suffered a ruptured ACL ligament during practice just 9 days before her Olympic race, which would have ruled most normal people out for months. Vonn, however, chose to race anyway, and wiped out spectacularly just 13 seconds into the race, resulting in a shattered leg and requiring her to be airlifted out of the ski resort.

Cue the controversy. Many people opined that she should have known better, and had no business taking part in a top level race with a torn ACL. Her fellow Olympic skiers, however, rushed to support her decision, arguing that she is a grown-ass woman and capable of making her own decisions, however inexplicable they may seem to the rest of us. One or two are even arguing that the crash was not due to the ruptured ACL at all, just a freak accident that could happen to anyone anytime, which seems like a bit of a stretch to me.

My first reaction was firmly in the former camp: "What the hell was she thinking?" But, on reflection, maybe her supporters are right too: it was her call, however ill-advised. Maybe she denied some young greenhorn a chance for their first Olympic experience in her solipsistic quest for vainglory. Maybe she disrupted the competition unnecessarily. But that was her right, arrogant and presumptuous though it may be.

Interestingly, there was another (similar but less dramatic) example of iffy decision-making later in the Games. Dutch speed skater Joep Jennemars was expected to medal, but was (accidentally) impeded during a crossover by a Chinese skater and noticeably slowed down, resulting in Wennemars missing out on the medals. The unfortunate Chinese skater was disqualified, but Wennemars was offered the chance to do the race again, on his own, half an hour later.

Wennemars could have declined - easy for me to say! - putting it down to experience. These things do happen in the sport; all speed skaters know that, and most have experienced it at some point in their careers (although not necessarily in an Olympic final!) But Wennemars chose to re-skate, without an opponent to pace himself against, and still tired after his first race. Predictably, his second race was even slower than his first, and everyone was left dissatisfied, especially Wennemars.

Should he have accepted the re-skate? Probably not. But it was his decision to make, and these are ultra-competitive people, remember, unwilling to accept "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune". They didn't get to the elevated levels they enjoy today by giving up, on anything. These are almost superhuman individuals, and they live by their own rules.

Why does Health Canada take so long to approve new drugs and procedures

Health Canada is always very slow to approve new drugs and procedures, but in this case they have been almost criminally dilatory. 

Canada has just approved the OraQuick HIV self-test, a ground-breaking at-home oral HIV test, that doesn't require any blood and delivers results in as little as 20 minutes. It was approved in the United States way back in 2012, recommended by the World Health Organization in 2016, and is currently in use in 60 countries. It doesn't take the place of a physician-administered boood test, but it is an easy and non-invasive initial assessment that might encourage a person to seek more official help on a timely basis.

So, why is Canada so late to the game? After all, HIV is still rife in Canada, especially among the Indigenous populations of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, even if it doesn't make headlines any more.

According to a prominent urban health scientist, suppliers needed proof that there was a market for the test in Canada (why should that be a consideration for technical approval?), and Health Canada needed assurance that it "reached its standards" (60 other countries seem happy that it is safe and efficacious). Neither of these excuses seem convincing or compelling reasons for 14 years of delay and procrastination for a valuable andncost-effective health procedure.

Trump has a hissy fit about new Canada-US bridge

Canada is the target of yet another late-night Trump outburst and, as usual, he is woefully poorly-informed and mistaken. 

This time he is taking issue with the new Gordie Howe International Bridge between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan. The US$4.7 billion (C$6.4 billion) bridge, that Trump himself fast-tracked, is now very close to completion and opening. The Windsor-Detroit crossing is the busiest international border between the two countries, and the new bridge will ease border snarl-ups, particularly as the ageing Ambassador Bridge is no longer up to dealing with such a volume of traffic.

According to Trump, though, "they own both the Canada and the United States side and, of course, built it with virtually no US content".  He further whined, "What does the United States of America get - absolutely NOTHING!" Well, nothing except improved trade infrastructure, for free! And finally, "I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them ... with all that we have given them we should own, perhaps, at least one half of this asset."

Prime Minister Carney had to phone the old man again to explain that, actually, Canada paid for the bridge in full, even though it is publicly owned jointly by both Canada and the state of Michigan under the Canada-Michigan Crossing Agreement. Canada is allowed under the agreement to use tolls collected from the bridge to offset its costs and, once the costs are fully recouped, subsequent toll revenue will be shared between Canada and Michigan. It has all been agreed amicably between the two parties; Trump has no need to involve himself, as Democratic Michigan lawmakers agreed. Furthermore, Carney patiently explained to Trump, the bridge was built by Canadian and American workers using Canadian and American steel.

And, anyway, what has the United States "given" Canada (apart from a headache)? The guy lives in his own fabricated little world, doesn't he? His ignorance is mind-boggling.

Bu could Trump actually stop the bridge from opening? Probably, either by revoking the previously-granted presidential permit, or by claiming a national security emergency. US presidential powers are ridiculously broad and deep, as we have seen, although it would put him in direct conflict with a US state, which would lead to some stiff legal challenges. Michigan officials have indicated that they will fight any attempts to stop the bridge opening, but legal challenges have never stopped Trump before....

UPDATE

It's no coincidence that, just mere hours before Trump's objectionable and unhinged post, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick met with American billionaire (and major Trump donor) Matthew Moroun, whose family has for decades owned and operated the old Ambassador Bridge crossing, the ageing facility that will be largely replaced by the beautiful new Gordie Howe Bridge.

Gordie Howe Bridge between Windsor and Detroit

Lutnick, who as we know is thick as thieves with Trump, then spoke with his boss by phone, and clearly passed on whatever incorrect story he was given by Moroun. The rest is sordid and embarrasssing history. It turns out that the Moroun family have made several attempts to get the Gordie Howe Bridge construction stopped over the last few years. This is just the latest. 

The fact that Lutnick and Trump will sink to these depths of corruption should surprise no-one. Because, make no mistake, corruption it most surely is.

Carney explains why he still considers himself a climate change leader

Apparently, Mark Carney still sees himself and Canada as a leader on climate change.

In an interview just a couple of days ago, one reporter put it to him starkly: "Along with cutting the EV mandate, you've cut the consumer carbon tax, weakened a commitment to the oil and gas emissions cap, you're exempting Alberta from clean-up energy regulations, and abandoned a promise to plant two billion trees. Do you still consider yourself a leader in climate change?" 

Yow, pretty damning stuff! How did Carney respond? "Absolutely, I consider Canada a leader on climate change, and I'm focussing on climate change results and solutions". Wow. I can feel the cognitive dissonance creeping over me as I write.

To his credit, Carney went on to enumerate what he sees as his justification for his claims, namely: tax relief and support for the entire EV production chain, incentives for consumers to adopt EVs, tightening (two-fold, he says) Canada's greenhouse gas emissions while giving the auto industry flexibility as to how they achieve that, and a plan (to be announced) to double the capacity of Canada's clean electricity system. He also said that the liquid natural gas (LNG) coming out of British Columbia, which he has been encouraging and facilitating, is among the cleanest LNG in the world (for what that's worth), and it is also being twinned with carbon capture and storage technology (albeit largely unproven and unbuilt).

So, credit where credit is due, the guy talks a good game. But let's not be fooled, what he is proposing and talking up is really not as effective or direct a solution to climate change as the various policies he has just abandoned (and even those were not sufficient). I have a lot of respect for Mr. Carney, and I believe he is doing a reasonably good job in most respects under very trying circumstances. But on the environment and climate change, he is absolutely guilty of pulling the wool over our eyes. (If you want to see what you actually need to do to make EVs a mainstream option, look no further than Norway.)

Southern America has turned into an Orwellian nightmare

Many Trump supporters, particularly in southern states like Texas, are starting to feel the effects of the constant ICE immigration raids. 

If you ask them, they say they still fully support Trump and his immigration and border security policies. But they are starting to understand just how reliant the southern US economy, especially the construction trade, is on immigrant labour. So, now they are starting to complain about the paramilitary-style ICE raids, which has half of the country in state of chronic low-level fear interspersed with acute panic attacks.

And guess what? It's bad for business. People who still call themselves Trump supporters are monitoring, and contributing to, online group chats which share ICE agent sightings, hurriedly hiding their workers away lest they be snatched and deported. They are erecting razor wire fences around their properties to keep the agents out. And yet they will still tell you they support Trump and his border control agenda. Somehow they have disconnected Trump and the ICE raids, and they insist that they know that Trump loves his country, much more than Biden ever did, yada yada.

What kind of a dystopian world are they living in? George Orwell would have had a ball with all this.

Why can't we make beer cans in Canada?

I remember early last year when Trump's tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel were brought in, and there were interviews on TV with Canadian brewers lamenting that the beer cans they imported from the USA were suddenly so much more expensive.

It made no sense to me. For one thing, if Canada produces most of America's aluminum, why do we even buy beer cans from America? Why don't we make our own beer cans with our own aluminum?

I never did find out why, and I've not really thought about it since, until I came across an article today talking about this very issue. It's been nearly a year, and Canadian brewers are still complaining about the cost of American beer cans. And we are still not producing our own beer cans with our own aluminum.

Even now, it's "nearly impossible" to find certain kinds of beer can made here in Canada. "There's actually no Canadian source for a truly Canadian-made tall can". Canada exports aluminum to the US, where it gets manufactured into a "can sheet", and then exported back to Canada to be made into actual cans. Ridiculous! But why?

The reason, it seems, comes down to economic efficiency. It makes sense to smelt the aluminum in Canada, particularly in Quebec, where most of our aluminum is mined, because Quebec has very cheap hydro electricity, and smelting is a very electricity-dependent activity. However, it makes more economic sense for the US to produce the can sheets because America has a much larger market it can sell can sheet to. It apparently does not make economic sense for a Canadian company to produce can sheet.

Given the effects of the Trump tariffs, though, it surprises me that it is STILL makes no economic sense. You'd think there would now be an economic case for a Canadian company to produce cans locally, say in Quebec. The demand from breweries across the whole country would surely be sufficient to enable huge economies of scale (we drink a lot of beer!) Yes, there are transportation costs to factor in, and this is one big country. But it just surprises me that no-one has even tried.

Yes, we do need (more) immigrants

Interesting. Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem (which always sounds like a pseudonym to me), at a speech he gave yesterday at the Empire Club of Canada, has specifically identified Canada's reduced immigration quotas as a source of disruption to the economy over the next few years.

Macklem said that economic growth and the labour market in Canada is being held back by several factors including US tariffs, artificial intelligence and declining fertility, but also alowed immigration. He explains, "that means fewer new consumers and workers in the economy, which lowers out economic potential". 

This is not the first time Macklem has referred to immigration as an economic boon. Back in October 2024, when Justin Trudeau was first starting to cut back immigration targets after sustained criticism from Conservatives, housing groups, etc, Macklem warned that immigration curbs would substantially impact the central bank's growth forecasts.

It's refreshing to see such an establishment figure telling it like it is on immigration, as Matk Carney follows in Trudeau's footsteps and continues to cut back on immigration targets (probably too much).

Another immigration issue hanging over Mr. Carney is the large number of undocumented immmigrants in Canada, estimated at anywhere from 200,000 and 2 million(!) He could follow the lead of Donald Trump in America and deport them by the hundreds of thousands. Or he could follow the lead of Spain, which has once again given permanent residence and eventual citizenship to half a million undocumented immigrants. Several other European countries have also gone this route, as has Canada at various times in the past.

So, treat them as a theat, or treat them as a potential aasset? Now would be a good time not to follow Trump.

Alberta demands more say on judicial appointments

Danielle Smith is on the warpath again. Yawn.

This time she is demanding - demanding, I say - that the province of Alberta have more say over the appointment of Alberta judges. The appointment of federal judges in Alberta, as in any province, is the constitutional responsibility of the federal government. She also wants a relaxation of the requirement for bilingualism in the higher echelons of the legal profession because, well, Albertans don't do bilingualism.

It's like she and her administration stay up at night thinking up new ways to nettle the federal government, the prettier the issue the better. It seems that her voting constituency, which contains a fair few Alberta separatists, expect it of her. But, man, is the rest of the country fed up with it!

So, this is a woman who has often complained about the juduciary not doing what she wants, indeed having the temerity to have different political opinions and worldviews to her. This is a woman who has openly stated that she would like to be able to politically vet judges, America-style (and look how well that system is going...) Alberta judges felt compelled to make a public complaint after that, calling on Smith to respect the independence of the judicial appointment system.

And she expects Ottawa to hand over more control? She's even gone full Trump, threatening to withold Alberta's funding of.the judicial system is she doesn't get what she wants. She may just as well have said she will impose tariffs if she doesn't get her way. This is Smith's idea of negotiation, collaboration. That kind of says it all. And anyway, it isntge federal government that pays the salaries of federal judges, so Smith is talking here about witholding funds for admin help, furniture, cellphones, etc, so it's a very small gun she is holding to Carney's head, although just her tone alone is nevertheless enough to put the government's back up. She probably didn't think the whole thing through.

Federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser has, quite rightly, dismissed Smith's "demands" out of hand, saying, "I'm planning to maintain the process that we have in place, that has independence, that has rigour, that has led to stellar candidates being appointed, including as recently in Alberta". A little mor tongue in cheek, Fraser says, "We welcome the feedback from representatives of the Alberta government ... it's been very helpful".

Is Mark Carney in the Epstein Files?

Well, here's a question I never thought to ask: is Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney mentioned in the Epstein files? It's not an unreasonable question - the files are a virtual who's who of men of influence, although not all of the mentions are necessarily incriminating.

The CBC has done the hard work for me. It turns out that Carney is mentioned quite a few times - particularly during the time of his tenure as Governor of the Bank of England - basically because he was an important figure in the financial world. The mentions are mainly references to events or articles that happen to involve Carney. However, none of the documents show any direct communications between Carney and Epstein, and certainly nothing salacious is even hinted at. 

Yes, there are fake photos circulating on the internet showing Carney on Epstein's private island - of course there are! - but they are just that, proven AI fakes. There are one or two real photos of Carney at an event in 2013 with Epstein's side-kick and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell - apparently his wife's sister went to school with Maxwell, and Maxwell was ubiquitous in the British social scene of the time - but Carney never had any dealings with her.

So, not a big surprise. Carney seems way too straight and buttoned up to be involved in any of Epstein's or Maxwell's schemes. Worth checking, though.

Dropping Canada's EV mandate illustrates the failings of our auto sector

The way I see it, Canada's decision to drop its electric vehicle (EV) mandate, widely expected to be announced in the next day or two, in favour of a new, less aggressive system of fuel efficiency standards and credits, represents a failure on the part of the Canadian auto industry - at the production, wholesale and retail levels - as well as, to some extent, the Canadian public.

It's not that the Trudeau-era policy is inherently a bad one, as Pierre Polievre and the CEOs of multiple automotive companies would have us think. Mark Carney would have supported it wholeheartedly at one time, just as he was a very vocal apologist of carbon taxes at one time. But Carney is pragmatic to a fault, and not fond of grand gestures and statements of principle (in the way that Trudeau was fond of them, to a fault).

But our automotive industry just did not put much effort into actively pursuing the policy. It just sat back and hoped it would happen of its own accord. And, while some members of the public (like me!) did the right thing - i.e. go electric - for its own sake, most others also sat back and waited for everybody else to do the right thing, which is never going to work. Then, when the Trudeau government started sending mixed messages on its environmental commitments, and when EV rebates were withdrawn, the driving public just threw up its hands and said, "well, what can we do?"

Carney, once a staunch environmentalist, has gradually dismantled (or at least scaled back) most of the progressive environmental initiatives of the previous administration. Scrapping the EV mandate is just another such, although one welcomed by the lazy domestic auto sector. Relying on tailpipe standards would be a return to the pre-EV mandate, pre-carbon tax status quo, which, you might remember, was not particularly effective in reducing our carbon emissions. There is talk of bringing back some EV rebates, but we must wait to see what that entails, just as we need to wait to see how stringent the tailpipe emission regulations will be. (We don't have a progressive US model to follow this time.)

Frankly, I'm not holding my breath.

UPDATE

The new Liberal EV policy, as expected, has scrapped a firm EV sales mandate, although it did restate non-enforceable (and still rather improbable) "goals" of 75% EVs by 2035 and 90% by 2040. This is still much more modest than the Trudeau-era goal of 100% by 2035.

To that end, the announcement details a return of incentive rebates of $5,000 for full battery EVs and $2,500 for plug-in hybrid EVs, although even that modest rebate is set to reduce each year until it reaches $2,000 for full EVs and $1,000 for PHEVs by 2030. The rebates also only apply to EVs with a sales value of below $50,000, unless it is a model that is made in Canada (which I guess is fair enough), and then only for imports from a country with which Canada has a free-trade agreement, which disqualifies those 49,000 Chinese EVs a year that Canada recently agreed to. So, pretty carefully-worded.

The package also includes $1.5 billion towards improving the country's EV fast-charging network, given that range anxiety is still perceived as a major barrier to consumers looking to switch to an electric vehicle.

It also installs new supports for Canadian auto workers as the transtion ramps up, including a "work-sharing grant" and a "workforce alliance", as well as committing $3 billion from the existing Strategic Response Fund and $100 million from the Regional Tariff Response Inititative to help accelerate investment in Canada's auto sector.

Interestingly, the main thrust of the new rules was supposed to be the implementation of more stringent tailpipe carbon emissions standards for Canadian vehicles, but we didn't get to find out about those - they will supposedly be outlined later this year, and will apply to model years 2027 to 2032. So, in a way, the bad news (for many people, and certainly for vehicle manufacturers) has been postponed, presumably lest it rain on Mr. Carney's EV parade. We are told it is supposed to "ultimately lead to emission reductions equivalent to 75% of all 2035 automobile sales falling into the EV category". Except, I'm not really sure what on earth that means (I'm not even sure the grammar is right!)

The auto sector has been generally welcoming of the new policy, although - shock horror! - the opposition Conservatives appear to disagree with pretty much everything in it.

Offshore wind farms may actually help wildlife

Detractors of wind power - the Donald Trumps of this world - and even environmentalists who would otherwise have been in favour, often claim that wind turbines, and especially offshore wind turbines, are deleterious, even downright dangerous, for wildlife and biodiversity. Opponents point to the disruption of the marine environment during construction (and decommissioning) of offshore wind turbines, the distraction of larger fish and whales due to the noise and vibration of the turbines, and the effects of electromagnetic fields around them, although the ramifications of many of these issues are still not well understood and proven.

But data from Europe over the last few years is starting to tell a different story. It turns out that European windfarms in the North Sea may actually be offering new areas of protection for marine wildlife, including some threatened species like great seals and North Sea cod. The huge underwater turbine towers can provide a home for some species, and reefs of marine life have begun to form (the construction of artificial reefs is also a possibility). They also provide protected areas where fishing vessels cannot access, thus reducing the risks of overfishing.

The jury is still out and more research and data is needed, but it is possible that the positive side effects of wind farms may outweigh the unfortunate negative ones.

That Hamas was able to return all hostages is amazing

The news that Israel had received the last of the Hamas hostages came while I was away on holiday. The body of Master Sgt Ran Gvili was retrieved from a cemetery over the Israel-imposed Yellow Line, but Hamas was able to give Israeli authorities details of how and where to find it.

And that's what I find extraordinary, not that Israel and Netanyahu (who is trying to take all the cedit for it) was able to get all 251 hostages back, but that Hamas was able to keep track of them all.

Bear in mind that almost all of the Gaza strip is a hellscape of rubble and collapsed buildings, subject, even now during the so-called ceasefire, to constant Israeli bombardment. How Hamas was able to keep the bodies, and to keep so many of them alive frankly, so that they could be returned to Israel, is nothing short of miraculous.

Billion of dollars of Canadian federal cheques remain uncashed

Here's a headscratcher: Canadians have left uncashed over $2 billion of cheques mailed out by the federal government.

$2,159,665,155 to be exact. That's a lot of money, particularly given that it was sent to some of the most needy in the country. For example, about $141 million was for the Canada Carbon Rebate, and nearly $43 million was for the Canada Child Benefit.

Only about 8.5% of total federal payments are sent out in the form of paper cheques - most are paid by direct deposit - but some agencies still issue large numbers of cheques. Government cheques never expire, and can be replaced if lost or damaged.

It does make you wonder what's going on, though. We keep being told that huge swathes of the Canadian population are struggling financially, and yet there is $2 billion of free money sloshing around out there, unclaimed, presumably sitting in a drawer or bag. Sure, many poorer people are not well financially-educated. But how hard is it to deposit a cheque into a bank?

Free solo climber completes Taipei skyscraper climb

There's no way I could have watched it live, even with a 10-second delay, but American daredevil Alex Honnold did indeed complete his "free solo" climb of the 101-storey Taipei 101 skyscraper yesterday.

This ridiculous feat, which you can see video snippets of, took him just an hour and a half, which equates to about a storey a minute. The building is a glass and metal monolith, with all sorts of overhangs and other tricky bits, and looks all but impossible to climb. Success was not necessarily assured. But there he was standing on the pinpoint pinnacle having to the crowds and not even looking tired. Crazy stuff.

Why doesn't the daytime moon look full?

I had a sudden panic today. The moon was way up in the sky, in the middle of the day, i.e. at the same time as the sun was also way up in the sky. So, I thought, wait. there's nothing in the way of the sun shining on the moon, so why doesn't the moon appear full?

Well, of course, I'm not the only one to wonder that. And, once it is explained, the answer is obvious.

Yes, the sun is high in the sky, but it is off to one side as we look at it from earth. The sun is therefore shining on one side of the moon as we look at it, and so only part of it reflects back to us here on earth. It would only appear full to us if the sun was shining on it straight on (from our perspective).

Phew! Thank god there's a reasonable explanation.

Trump has achived nothing for America and done Putin a big favour

Donald Trump left Davos, Switzerland, with a smile on is face. No-one else did.

That's because Trump thinks he has achieved something great for America, the "framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland", while everybody else is focussed on the damage he has done to the NATO alliance. "It's long-term deal", he says, that "everybody's very happy with". Right. Furthermore, "it'll be forever for Greenland at this point, forever", whatever the hell that means. Trump only spoke with NATO chief Mark Rutte; neither Greenland nor Denmark have had their say yet.

Ironically, Trump achieved next to nothing for America. When he blusters about, "It was an incredible time in Davos", and "We're getting everything we wanted - total security, total access to everything", everybody else knows that he didn't get anything America didn't already have, courtesy of an agreement from the 1950s that Trump seems blissfully unaware of. The US has always been able to place troops, bases and military hardware on the island. Nothing Trump has done has changed that. 

Details of Trump's much-vaunted "deal" remain sketchy and secretive, presumably because they are embarrassing to Trump. The TACO ("Trump Always Chickens Out") monicker has been resurrected, as the US appears to have blinked before Europe.

However, as has been said, the damage to NATO is done. As one professor put it, "NATO is based on shared values and trust. What is becoming very clear to European leaders, and to Canada as well, is that these values are not shared any more. And the trust is simply not there." EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas bemoaned the fact that Europe-US relation had "taken a big blow" over the past week.

Vladimir Putin wants more than anything else to destabilize the NATO alliance. Donald Trump has done that for him, without Putin needing to move a finger. As a Democratic congressman phrases it, "Putin is celebrating this misguided effort to extract meaningless concessions that were more about Trump's needs for an abstract win than American national interests".

Trump's claims about Chinese wind power are WAY off

President Trump is still droning on in his speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as I write this, already well over his allotted time. And, as expected, there's a lot to take exception to.

Just to take one example of his well-documented habit of citing "alternative facts" (aka "lies"), Trump was on his familiar hobby horse, criticising wind turbines, specifically Chinese wind turbines. He suggested that, although "China makes almost all of the windmills, and yet I haven't been able to find any wind farms in China".

Well, I guess he didn't look very hard. China is host to 11 of the largest 12 land-based windfarms in the world, headed up by Xinjiang Hami Wind Farm and Gansu Guazhou Wind Farm, which are an order of magnitude bigger than windfarms elsewhere in the world.

And China produces more wind power than any other country - a huge 992 terawatt hours in 2024. Second? The USA (despite Trump's best efforts to hobble the industry), which produced less than half as much.

Much else that Trump said during his rambling speech was misleading or just plain wrong. But Chinese wind power was definitely the wrong hill to choose to die on.

Carney should avoid Trump's "Board of Peace" like the plague

Hard on the heels of his provocative, inspiring and distinctly critical speech at Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is apparently seriously considering joining Donald Trump's "Board of Peace", which is supposed to help bring about a just and lasting peace in Gaza (and maybe elsewhere).

While the end goal may be laudable, Carney should have nothing to do with this latest Trump vanity project. The UN did endorse the idea, but what has ultimately emerged is a far cry from what was promised and voted on, in a classic bait-and-switch move by Trump. Indeed, the Board's charter doesn't even mention Gaza!

Just look at the other members of this invitation-only club thus far: USA, Belarus, Azerbaijan, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Argentina, Armenia, and of course Israel (yes, the fox is expected to regulate the hen coop). It's a strange assortment of (mainly authoritarian, as it happens) states. Putin has apparently been asked, and is maybe thinking about it, as are Egypt, Turkey, Thailand, Germany, UK, Paraguay, India, China, Ukraine, Kosovo, Slovenia and Croatia. France's Emmanuel Macron has, sensibly, already summarily refused to be involved in such a group, as have Sweden and Norway.

Mr. Carney should certainly not even consider paying $1 billion to become a "permanent" member of the Board, rather than just a three-year member. (How ridiculous is that? Just how long is Trump planning on stringing this out? What is the money for?). And, thankfully, it seems like he is not thinking about it.

But Carney should follow some of the more sensible countries in not touching the Trump-led Board - what The Guardian calls his "imperial court", and what Trump probably thinks of as an alternative to the United Nations - with a bargepole.

UPDATE

It looked like Carney is off the hook, as Donald Trump publicly withdraws his invitation to Canada to join his ridiculous Board of Peace.

Trump didn't give any specific reason for the disinvitation, but most likely it was a fit of pique over Carney's damning (and less than complimentary to Trump) Davos speech, and not anything more thoughtful and insightful than that. Either way, we should probably all breath a sigh of relief that Mr. Carney doesn't have to involve himself with this whole flawed Trump-dominated enterprise.

Carney outdoes himself at Davos

Well.

Mark Carney just made the speech of his life - "the most important speech in Canadian history", if you believe the National Observer; "Churchillian", say others; "perhaps the best speech ever at Davos", gushes a British commentator - and you can watch it on YouTube, or read it here. It earned a rare standing ovation at Davos.

Appearing at the Davos World Economic Forum, his 16-minute speech - which he actually wrote himself, no professional speech-writers here - laid out Canada's way forward as a middle power in a post-Trump world. And, while he never actually mentioned the word "America", "USA" or "Trump" once, it was very clear what he was talking about.

"The old order is not coming back", he intoned. "We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy. But from the fracture, we can build something better, stronger, and more just." There were many more quotables: "The end of a nice story and the beginning of a brutal reality"; "We're in a rupture, not a transition"; "When rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself"; "The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must"; "To hope that compliance will buy safety - it won't"; "If you are not at the table, you are on the menu"; "This is not sovereignty, it is the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination".

Referencing Thucydides and Václav Havel, Carney did indeed outdo himself. Yes, there was some bull in there too. For example, the claim that Canada has the "most educated population in the world" - where did that come from? And asserting "sustainable development" as one of Canada's core values is a bit strong coming from a man who has spent the last year walking back much of Canada's sustainability.

But kudos to Carney for a strong showing from a man who sometimes comes over as a bit "blah".

Spoof headlines or real?

Some of the headlines in today's paper looks like spoofs or satires, something The Onion or This Hour Has 22 Minutes might have come up with.

• Military models Canadian response to hypothetical American invasion
• Canada weighs sending soldiers to Greenland in face of U.S. threats
• US President ties Greenland threats to Nobel snub
• Trump invites Netanyahu to join his Board of Peace

Unfortunately, they are all too real. As a Globe and Mail editorial put it: "It is a time of unthinkable things, that move from impossibility to improbability to reality with disorienting and alarming speed".

Maybe cows are not all stupid

If you thought that cows were pretty stupid, well, you're probably right. But maybe not AS stupid as you thought.

It turns out that cows have joined the relatively exclusive club of tool-wielding animals, in the company of humans, chimpanzees, crows, and maybe humpback whales.

And before we get too excited, it's really only Veronika, a 13-year old Swiss Brown cow that lives on a farm in Austria, essentially as a pet. Veronika, over the years, has perfected her technique of using sticks or brushes to scratch herself in various places. It's not much maybe, but it's enough to get some animal behaviourists quite excited.

All those other cows? Yeah, pretty stupid.I 

The search for an Alzheimer's cure takes a different path

Oodles of money has been pumped into Alzheimer's Disease research over the years, and all we have to show for it is aducanumab, a controversial monoclonal antibody that targets amyloid plaques in the brain (approved on an accelerated schedule for use in the US, but not approved in Canada). The drug had inconsistent and contradictory clinical trial results, and faced significant debate over its effectiveness and widespread hesitation by doctors. Ultimately, it was withdrawn by its manufacturer, Biogen, when they realized they couldn't make any money from it.

Much of the difficulty in making any headway against Alzheimer's is because, thus far, the understanding that Alzheimer's is largely caused by clumps of a protein called beta-amyloid in the brain. This has been the conventional wisdom since the finding was published in a 2006 paper, and that is where almost all the effort towards a cure has been directed. Unfortunately, that paper was found to be based on fabricated data, and was retracted in 2024. Nearly 20 years wasted.

Since this retraction, research has opened up somewhat. Promising research right here in Toronto looks at beta-amyloid proteins not as a destructive abnormally-produced protein, but as part of the brain's immune system. The brain has its own immune system, just like the rest of the body and, when it encounters bacteria or trauma, it fights back, using beta-amyloid as a key contributor. Because the fat molecules making up the membranes of bacteria are very similar to the membranes of brain cells, the beya-amyloid can end up attacking the very brain cells it is supposed to be protecting, leading to chronic progressive loss of brain cell function, i.e. dementia.

This makes Alzheimer's (the most common type of dementia) not so much a disease of the brain as a disorder of the immune system within the brain, or an autoimmune disease. We do have steroid-based therapies against other autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. But this kind of therapy will not work for the brain, but targeting other immune-regulating pathways in the brain may lead to new and effective treatments for the disease.

Either way, though, the search for a cure is pretty much back to square one.

The US wind industry overcomes the MAGA blowhards

As has been reported repeatedly, here in this blog and elsewhere, Donald Trump (and, by extension, his administration, which blindly and unquestioningly follows whatever he says) hates wind turbines, particularly offshore wind turbines. He calls them "losers" and "the scam of the century". No-one is quite sure why he hates them so much - his convenient "national security" argument is far from convincing - but there are theories. 

Anyway, in pursuance of this irrational hate, Trump has issued several edicts banning various wind farm developments off the east coast of America, including some that were all but complete. The states and developers involved have taken recourse to the courts to try to rectify this, and to recoup some of the billions of dollars they have already sunk into these projects.

And they are winning.

Three separate federal judges, including one appointed by Trump, have ruled Trump's decrees illegal and allowed construction to resume on windfarms off the coasts of New England, New York and Virginia.

So, despite Congress stopping incentives and the Republican administration imposing a variety of roadblocks in the way of permitting, the wind industry persists against all odd

What does MAGA really believe about DEI?

An article on Martin Luther King Day includes a quote from a Trump White House spokesperson: "Everything President Trump does is in the best interest of the American people. That includes rolling back harmful DEI agendas, deporting dangerous criminal illegal aliens from American communities, or ensuring we are being honest about our country's great history."

Now there are any number of things wrong with that quote, both in principle, and in the practical way in which those beliefs are being acted on. But the thing that really stood out for me was the use of the word "harmful". In what way is the pursuit of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) considered actually harmful by the MAGA crowd?

Here's what MAGA believes about DEI, gleaned mainly from an AI query and a CNN article:

• DEI actively disadvantages White people and men, attempting to solve past discrimination by creating new forms of discirimination.
• DEI leads to hiring or promoting less qualified minority candidates, shifting the focus from merit to identity.
• DEI fosters resentment and focusses on differences, creating divisions, and turning people into victims and oppressors.
• DEI is redundant in today's post-racial world, where significant racial equality has already been achieved.
• DEI programs are costly, ineffective bureaucracies, filled with activists rather than genuine problem-solvers.
• DEi policies violate constitutional rights, particularly for educators and students, promoting specific ideologies and stifling free speech.

Of course, a lot of these points are merely twists on the arguments for DEI. And I do believe that they are, by and large, "straw men" arguments (intentionally misrepresented propositions), and that a good proportion of the people espousing them just don't like Black people. But I have no proof of that :)

Canada's Supreme Court takes on racial profiling - again

The Supreme Court of Canada is about to re-visit a case that most people thought had been long resolved and closed. 

The case revolves around the right of police officers to randomly stop drivers for document checks, even if there is no actual suspicion of anything illegal. Back in 1990, the Supreme Court ruled that such stops were legal because, although they appear to contravene the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Court ruled that it was a reasonable limit on individual freedoms in the interests of preserving safety on our roads. 

But the Supreme Court decision was far from unanimous, and it has been treated with legal skepticism ever since, mainly because it tends to lead to racial profiling. Yes, such random stops do sometimes yield results, e.g. someone driving after being suspended, etc. But they are clearly open to abuse, particularly racial abuse. 

(Interestingly, random police stops at fixed checkpoints, e.g. to deter drunk driving, are not being challenged. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld their legality. But what really is the difference? Are they not just as open to racial profiling?)

Now, I'm not really sure why police would distroportionately choose to stop Black people. Is it because of a perception that Blacks are more likely to break the law than Whites, either from personal experience or from underlying or systemic racism, knowingly or otherwise? But clearly it is a fact: research shows that Black people are around five times as likely as Whites to be targeted during such "random" stops.

Legal challenges in some  provinces, e.g. Quebec, have occasionally succeeded in striking down the 1990 decision. But governments, both in Quebec and federally, who insist that random stops are essential for road safety - even though there does not seem to be any compelling empirical evidence to prove that - want the matter decided once and for all by the highest court in the land, hence this week's Supreme Court case.

It will be interesting to see the Court's findings. My initial feeling was that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with random stops as a road safety strategy. And, God knows, Canads's roads are pretty scary these days, although the numbers of accidents and deaths being reported in Canada have come down significantly in recent decades, they seem to be on the rise again). And there is no obvious reason to me why Black people should be targeted so disproportionately, but clearly they are. 

So, given that, what is the remedy? Yes, we could say "no more random stops", a rather draconian solution, throwing the baby out with the proverbial bathwater. But is there really no middle way? I'm not saying that mandatory anti-racism training is the answer - that seems like a bit of a pie-in-the-sky / Kumbaya / Hail Mary kind of solution. But are there no other ideas? Surely, people have spend decades researching this stuff: have they come up with nothing?

Canada's EV deal with China is either the rock or the hard place

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, as is his wont, is portraying the deal negotiated by Prime Minister Mark Carney with China as disastrous for Ontario, Canada, and the universe as a whole.

Along with various union leaders in the automotive industry, Ford has been broadcasting histrionic warnings about Mr Carney's deal to anyone who will listen. The agreement allows the first 49,000 cheap Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) each year into Canada at a much reduced 6.1% tarriff (down from 100%), in return for much reduced Chinese tariffs on our exports of canola (15%, down from 84%), and the removal of other tariffs on Chinese imports of our canola meal, lobsters, crabs and peas.

Many analysts see this as a good deal for Canada - as good a deal as we are ever likely to get with an economic behemoth like China - and politicians in the Prairies (where the canola comes from) and in BC and the Maritimes (where the seafood comes from) see it as very good. Many Canadian car dealers too welcome the move, as do many consumer groups who see a chance for Canadians to get high quality electric vehicles at an affordable price. 

But Ford is fixated on the automotive implications, and specifically the Ontario automotive implications, of the deal, which he sees as all bad. He didn't mince words or hold back in his criticism of the Prime Minister and other premiers, even if his political and economic analysis was predictably naïve. Captain Canada is not big on nuance. He also accuses Mr. Carney of fomenting division between the provinces, something that he himself is guilty of on this and many other occasions.

But does he have a point? Is this "a self-inflicted wound", as one union leader put it? Does it give China "a foot in the door" of our automotive sector, and is that necessarily such a bad thing? Or is this just bull-in-a-china-shop Ford going off half-cocked as per usual?

49,000 EVs is not that many compared to the 264,000 EV (including plug-in hybrid electrics) already being sold in Canada. Compared to the 2 million or so total vehicle sales, it is peanuts (about 2½%). So, it's not really going to have an appreciable overall effect on Canada's car production in the short term, and nothing like the impact of American tariffs on cars in the medium to long term. Certainly, out of China's annual EV production, this hardly registers at all. And it hardly consitutes "flooding" the Canadian market, as Ford claims. 

Most of the motor vehicles sold in Canada are imported anyway. Most of them come from the USA (although much fewer than a year or two ago), the rest from Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and yes, China. (We were importing over 9,000 cars a year from China before we applied the 100% tariff at America's behest in late 2024). Only a small percentage - 9-13% - of cars sold in Canada are actually made in Canada. The rest of the cars built in Canada are exported, mainly to the US. Which is kind of ridiculous when you think about it.

There's also the expectation, baked into the deal, of future Chinese investment in Canadian-built EVs in the future, something Ford himself has been calling for. And it might just rejuvenate flagging EV sales in Canada since the government grant sweeteners were withdrawn, not in itself a bad thing.

But are they safe? Ford suggests not (although without evidence). In fact, several Chinese EVs were among the safest last year, according to the European New Car Assessment Program.

Mr. Ford's other contention is that Chinese EVs would be "spy cars". As he puts it, in his usual man-on-the-street demotic: "I don't trust what the Chinese put in these cars". Pierre Poilievre, the master of the empty sound-bite, calls them "roving surveillance operations". I'm not sure exactly what Ford and Poilievre think they will be able to do, but any Chinese cars imported will have to be authorized and certified by Transport Canada first. Until that happens, imported Chinese-built EVs will probably be limited to brands like Tesla and Polestar, which we already have. Chinese brands like BYD, Geely, Xiaomi, NIO and XPeng will follow later when authorized. (More recently, Ottawa has specifically announced that it will not allow the Chinese EVs to "spy" on Canadians, by ensuring they do not have the capability to transit information back to China.)

While the deal sets a price goal of $35,000 by 2035, it's unlikely that China's ultra-cheap EVs (like BYD's Seagull) will ever come to Canada, because it would be hard to make them fit Canada's safety and reliability requirements. Plus, selling ultra-cheap cars needs large volume to make it work, which the current deal does not allow for.

He also says he is convinced that any Chinese-made cars would not be allowed over the Canada-US border, although it's not clear on what basis he believes that. (Although no Chinese brands are sold in the US, over 100,000 Chinese-built cars from brands like Volvo, Buick, Lincoln and Tesla are imported from China to the US each year.)

Of course, how the Trump administration will react to the Canada-China deal, given that they expect everyone to follow their lead on Chinese tariffs (as we did over a year ago), is anyone's guess. Thus far, Trump himself has been suspiciously positive, saying, "That's what he should be doing ... If you can get a deal with China, you should do that, right?", and referring to the deal as a "good thing", even if his Trade Representative Jamieson Greer called it "problematic for Canada", and Transport Secretary Sean Duffy warned onimously "I think they'll look back at this decision and surely regret it", the kind of veiled threat that the US routinely deals in these days.

The Canadian movento strike a deal with China was apparently shared in advance with the Americans, including Greer, so no-one was taken by surprise.

This being the year we have to review/renegotiate the Canada United States Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), the stakes are particularly high. But given that we can no longer rely on the USA as being a sensible and reliable trade partner, what choice did Canada have but to look elsewhere? I don't relish dealing with China any more than the next guy, but what's a country to do? Least-worst option? Rock and a hard place?

WestJet bows to customer backlash

A viral 30-second TikTok video of a couple of people dealing with WestJet's new smaller-legroom plane layout seems to have been instrumental in pushing Westjet to reverse their policy.

WestJet had changed the layout of 22 of their Boeing 737s to have an extra row of seats in order, they say, to save customers money. Each economy class seat had a 28" pitch (the distance between one seat and the seat in front), compared to the usual North American  29" or 30" pitch. They were also made non-reclining, or with a "fixed recline design" in industry parlance.

They say that this kind of layout in common in Europe, but Canadians were having none of it, and there was a strong backlash from customers. In fact, so strong a backlash that WestJet reversed their decision and reverted to the old layout, saying " We saw that this was all trending in the wrong direction". 

And social media trends are what it's all about these days. So, here's a rare example of a commercial company bowing to the demands of customers.

Two different culinary worlds

A two Michelin-starred restaurant in the small town of Machynlleth in mid-Wales has been given a failing one-star food safety rating by the Food Standards Agency, which puts it below minimum legal operating standards.

The mandatory checks are to ensure that food is being handled and produced hygenically. The one-star rating means that "major improvement" is needed at the fancy restaurant, which charges almost £500 a head.

The chef is predictably outraged, and says he is not embarrassed by the rating, suggesting that the inspectors just don't understand his operations. "Just because our rules don't fit their rules, they're questioning it", he whines.

The worst part of all this, though, is the reaction of influential food critic Giles Coren. "The normal health and safety things, I think it's fair enough, don't really apply", Coren opined, concluding that the rules "should probably be modernised". Coren whittered on about the special nature of the restaurant: "He is cooking with fire ... he stands there on his leather apron, and it's roaring like fireworks". *Yawn*

The Chartered Insitute of Environmental Health confirms that the rules are not "optional, subjective or old-fashioned", and that "no dining experience, however unusual or exclusive, sits outside the law".

Has the Nobel Peace Prize outlived its usefulness?

Speaking of the Nobel Peace Prize, you have to wonder these days whether it is still relevant and legitimate, least of all useful. No less a personage than Lloyd Axworthy, Canadian one-time Peace Prize nominee, echoes my own sentiments.

The Nobel Peace Prize was inaugurated by Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, back in 1895, partly to assuage his own guilt at bringing such a destructive power into the world, and at the fortune he had amassed from the sale of armaments. So, you could say that the Prize was tainted from the get-go. But it was undeniably a worthy endeavour, with its mandate to honour those who have done the most to advance fraternity among nations, reduce standing armies, and promote peace through cooperation and dialogue.

There have been some very laudable winners over the decades, including Nelson Mandela, Liu Xiaobo, Dalai Lama, Andrei Sakharov, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Elie Wiesel, as well as a bunch of very worthy organizations like the International Peace Bureau, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces, etc.

However, the Prize has also seen its share of controversial recipients: Henry Kissinger in 1973, in the midst of America's war in Vietnam; Yasser Arafat in 1994, despite his deeply ambiguous legacy of violence; Abiy Ahmed in 2019, who then plunged Ethiopia into a very nasty civil war just a year later; even Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991, who seemed thoroughly deserving at the time, but whose brutal crackdown on the Myanmar's Rohingya minority decades later has drawn international condemnation. And now we have María Corina Machado, despite her support for sanctions and military intervention.

Several US Presidents have earned the accolade - Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama - some more deserving than others. There was a lot of debate about Obama's award, so early in his tenure, before he had achieved much of anything. And now, of course, Donald Trump is trying to lie, buy, bluster and batter his way into the annals. Nobel Laureate Machado has vowed to share her Prize with him, and the leaders of many other countries have promised to nominate him if he will only cut their countries some slack on trade. Under Trump, the Prize has become distinctly transactional.

Each year, when the Nobel Peace Prize nominees and winners are announced, it is met with more and more skepticism. It is hard for the Nobel Committee not to get caught up in global politics to some extent, and global politics is becoming increasingly messy, cynical and noxious. Has the Nobel Peace Prize lost its meaning, then, in a world where law, dialogue, morality and good-faith negotiations hold less and less sway?

Well, as the pragmatic Mr. Axworthy puts it: "Peacemaking has always been a grubby, imperfect business, conducted amid moral compromises and by flawed actors. To discard the ideal because its execution is imperfect would be to surrender entirely to the law of the jungle." Just so.

No, Machado can't "share" her Nobel Peace Prize with Donald Trump

Can Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado really "share" her Nobel Peace Prize with US President Donald Trump?

Well, of course she can't.

After the US's illegal invasion of Venezuela and abduction of President Maduro, Trump decided to install Vice President Delcy Rodriguez as his new puppet president in Venezuela. He dismissed Nobel Peace Prize winner and exiled opposition leader Machado out of hand as lacking "the support or the respect within the country".

But his tone began to change after the wily Machado offered to "share" her Nobel Prize with Trump, knowing full well that the Nobel Prize has been Trump's goal all along (despite his openly militaristic recent actions). He called the offer a "great honour", although he still hasn't contacted Machado as far as we know, and he certainly hasn't done anything about placing her in a presidential position. I think he just likes to be asked...

Whether Machado deserved the Prize in the first place is an open question, especially given her calls for sanctions and military intervention. She is just the latest in the lost of ambiguous prize recipients, as many are asking whether the Nobel Peace Prize has lost its way (or become too caught up in global politics) in recent years. Trump is definitely not going to help that trajectory.

But anyway, she definitely wouldn't be able to share her prize. The Nobel Committee has been very clear about that. They can award a shared prize, if they so choose, but once awarded, it cannot be revoked, shared or transferred. Which make sense when you think about it.

UPDATE

Well, it seems like she gave it to him anyway, regardless of all of the above.

These people!

UPDATE

And, just for good measure, I thought you might like to know when was the last time a Nobel Prize was gifted to someone else.

Turns out he last time this happened was in 1943, when Knut Hamsun, a notable Nazi sympathizer, gifted his 1920 Nobel Prize in Literature to ... Joseph Goebbels. Quite the precedent for Trump to follow.

Is there really an "affordability crisis"?

So, can this be true? I think it probably is. But, if it is, it flies in the face of pretty much everything that politicians have been telling us for years, and everything that most people firmly believe about their own circumstances.

Everyone seems to believe that, even now, prices are through the roof, that it is harder and harder to make ends meet, and that earnings are just not keeping pace with inflation. This is the whole "affordability crisis" or "cost-of-living crisis" that we keep hearing about, whether it be sheepishly from the governing party or with righteous outrage from the opposition

Thing is, though, it's not actually true. Canadian inflation has been hovering around the Bank of Canada's target of 2% for the last year or so, and is expected to fall even further by the end of the year, to around 1.8%. Yes, inflation was much higher from 2021 to 2024, peaking at over 8% in 2022, and we are still feeling the effects of that to some extent. But inflation, in Canada and many other countries around the world, has been effectively tamed.

More to the point, though, data from the Bank of Canada and Statistics Canada, the two most prestigious and reliable sources of financial data for the country, agree that households in every income group, age group and occupational group have seen their after-tax income grow faster than prices over most of the past decade. Net financial assets have also increased for households across all income groups, even when excluding house and pension assets appreciation. In short, we are richer than we have ever been. Data from multiple sources shows that our standard of living has in fact continuously improved recently.

So, why is the cost of living still the major preoccupation of a sizeable majority of Canadians (about 62%), and pretty much everywhere else in the world? Why do we perceive that things are worse than they are, and getting still worse?

Well, the important word there is "perceive". For example, multiple studies have found that consumers' perceptions of inflation are influenced more by prices going up than by prices going down, and most of all by the prices of frequently-purchased goods such as food and gasoline. Their perceptions are also influenced by the rise in house prices, even though inflation only measures the costs associated with housing (utilities, rent, mortgages) and not the price of houses themselves. (In fact, the increase in house prices should make us feel richer, if anything.)

The other thing that is happening is that people's expectations may be overly optimistic, particularly because, although income has grown faster than prices for most Canadians over the period since 2009, it hasn't exceeded prices by quite as much as it did in the preceeding period from 1995 and 2009. (This is a worldwide phenomenon, not just in Canada.) So, if people are comparing their situations with that of their parents, or with earlier in their careers, then they may be disappointed and perceive themselves to be falling behind, even if objectively their situations have actually improved.

Take another circumstance into consideration, namely the ubiquity of social media. Comparing ourselves with others, some of whom may be richer than us, alters our financial reference groups and consumption norms, distorting our perceptions of "normal" and "necessary" consumption and expenditure. For example, many people are buying bigger cars, fancier phones, and travelling abroad more, but if you feel you don't have the money to keep up with these trends, you may well blame the cost of living for not being able to achieve these unrealistic goals.

So, there is a mix of economics, psychology and sociology going on. But the bottom line is that, actually, life has never been so good. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Poilievre.

Meet the Canadian N.I.C.E. Agent

A short sketch on the Canadian improv comedy show This Hour Has 22 Minutes has gone viral - in Canada and America and even further afield.

Trent McClellan is the N.I.C.E. Agent, targeting American tourists, checking their phones (for baby photos), taking selfies, handing out candies, and scoring hugs.

It's two minutes of wwholesome Canadian fun, and it obviously appeals to many.

Danielle Smith apparently hasn't learned from history

I hadn't really thought about it before, but there are some fascinating parallels between Alberta's almost-certain secession referendum later this year and Britain's Brexit vote in 2016.

In those halcyon and naïve days - pre-COVID, pre-Trump, pre-Ukraine war, pre-AI, etc, etc - British Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron merely wanted to renegotiate Britain's relationship with the European Union (EU), mainly to placate a small but vocal majority of ultra-right wingers in his party. He thought that threatening to leave the EU would be a good bargaining tool, and thought, as most people did back then, that there was no way that Britons would be daft enough to actually vote to leave. It was certainly the last thing that Cameron himself wanted.

As we all now know, things didn't pan out quite as expected, largely due to an egregious misinformation campaign by the likes of Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. Britain voted narrowly to leave the EU, Johnson became Prime Minister for three wild and largely disastrous years, and Farage lay low for a while before reinventing himself, and is now odds-on favourite to become Britain's next disastrous Prime Minister. How quickly things can go pear-shaped!

Fast forward ten years, and the Canadian province of Alberta is threatening Albexit. Premier Danielle Smith says she is personally against it, and pretty much every serious economist and political analyst has warned that the consequences would be disastrous. All the polls suggest that support in Alberta for leaving Canada is low, around 20%, nothing like the level of support for secession in Quebec back in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

But Smith has for years been using the threat of separation as leverage to press the federal government for special treatment for Alberta, again largely to placate the hard right-wing hawks in her party. She has even made the process of starting a provincial referendum on the matter much easier than it used to be, hoping to squeeze still more concessions from Ottawa from the increased pressure. It now looks almost certain that a vote will in fact be held later this year.

Sound familiar? What could possibly go wrong?

Well, one thing that could go very wrong is Donald Trump, and Ms. Smith doesn't seem to have factored him into her calculations and machinations. America's most interventionist president has made no secret of his desire to annex Canada, and particularly to get his hands on Alberta's oil. It seems likely that the Trump administration would expend a lot of money and effort in any Alberta separation campaign. At the very least, Trump would probably declare any "stay" vote to be unfair and rigged, creating constitutional chaos and uncertainty. 

(Alberta separatists make no secret of the fact that that have already had several meetings with the US State Department, which, they say, is very supportive of Alberta's secession.)

Could this be Danielle Smith's Cameron moment? We (and Alberta) have to hope not. What is it they say? "Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

Agentic AI takes over from generative AI

We're only just starting to get our heads around what generative artificial intelligence (AI) is. Now we have to deal with "agentic AI".

While generative AI refers to a computer response to a single query using natural language processing, agentic AI uses sophisticated reasoning and iterative planning to solve much more complex multi-step problems. The idea is that AI serves as your agent to help you make better decisions, employing multiple data sources and third party applications to analyze challenges, develop strategies, and execute tasks, all with minimal human intervention. It learns from the results it achieves, and uses this feedback to improve future plans and actions.

Frankly it's what most people think AI is (or should be), although it's only very recently that AI has become sophisticated enough to deliver on this promise. Generative AI, by comparison, is really just a jumped-up search engine, based on single input prompts. For example, generative AI can used to create some marketing materials, but agentic AI can used to actually deploy these materials, track their performance, and adjust the marketing strategy accordingly.

Agentic AI is being increasingly employed by businesses to personalize customer service, streamline software development, and facilitate patient interactions. Another place it's being used (and this is what initially triggered my interest and concern) is in shopping and merchandizing. 

For example, Canadian shopping goliath Shopify has teamed up with Google and Microsoft to help shoppers find and buy its products more easily and even to help them make purchasing decisions. Shopify merchants can now sell directly through Google's Gemini app and the AI Mode of Google Search, as well as through Microsoft Copilot. Walmart and Mayfair have also recently set up similar agreements. Shopify is even setting up agentic plans with other ecommerce platforms, which will allow online stores throughout the world to sell through Shopify's catalogue, which already comprises billions of products. So, shoppers can buy multiple items from different places without ever leaving the initial AI conversation. Yikes! 

Analysts are saying that this has the potential to revolutionize online shopping and advertising. Sound familiar? The merchants stress that shoppers are in control of the whole process, and that they have the final call. 

But the agentic AI system can even complete checkout on a customer's behalf, based on pre-entered discount codes, loyalty credentials, billing options, and payment information. I do worry that this makes shopping a bit too easy, and I can easily see it spiralling out of control, or even becoming addictive. After all, it's the customer, not the AI, that has to pay the credit card bill at the end of the month. 

I don't have any evidence to back it up, but there just seems a lot that could go wrong with this developmemt.

Ontario moves to a more circular economy (but how does it work?)

As of January 1st this year, the collection of recycling in Ontario (the Blue Box Program) devolves from municipalities - Toronto in my case - to a not-for-profit organization called Circular Materials. In theory, this is a step towards a more circular, less wasteful, economy, but I am reserving judgement until I see how it works in practice.

The idea, so we are told, is not so much to outsource and privatize yet more city services, but to move to a model where the producers of all the packaging that gets recycled are the ones that pay for the recycling, a concept known as "extended producer responsibility" or EPR. Environmentalists are all in favour of EPR as it represents an extension of the "polluter.pays" principle. And it does make a lot of sense to me too, in principle at least. Plus. Circular Materials seem to be able to recycle a few more items than the old City-run program - toothpaste tubes, black plastic containers, nothing too crazy

The change is supposed to save Ontario's municipalities about $200 million a year (about $10 million in the case of the city of Toronto). Historically, under the municipality-operated recycling program, producers only funded about half of the costs, with the municipalities (i.e. taxpayers) paying the other half. Now, the organizations that produce the products and packaging will be responsible for operating and finding the entire program.

However, nothing I have read about it explains just how these cost are charged to the producing companies. It sounds like it would be a logistical nightmare. Does Circular Msterials somehow keep track of every paper, plastic and metal item that runs though its system and note down which producer was responsible for it? Surely not. But how else would it work?

Of course, the producers will no doubt recoup these additional costs through higher consumer prices - they're not charities after all - but the "producer pays" principle has been established, and in theory it is now in their interests to reduce their packaging in order to reduce costs. Except, in practice, as noted, they will probably just pass on the costs to us consumers anyway. But maybe consumers will become more picky about expensive over-packaged products, who knows?

Developing Venezuela won't be as simple as Trump thinks

Part of Donald Trump's back-of-an-envelope "plan" for Venezuela, such as it is, is that the big American oil companies like Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips should invest billions in upgrading the country's oil facilities and related infrastructure, to the tune of $100 billion, he says.

Unfortunately, he forgot to ask those companies if that was OK, and now they are showing themselves extremely leery of any such investment. Exxon CEO Darren Woods put it quite succinctly: "It's uninvestable."

Trump has tried to reassure them, insisting: "You have total safety. You're dealing with us directly and not deal with Venezuela at all. We don't want you to deal with Venezuela." But canny operators like Woods realize that it's not as simple as that, and after having had assets seized there twice already, they are understandbly reticent to do there again. They are probably also wondering whether they can trust Trump's America and more than they could Chávez and Maduro's Venezuela.

It seems quite likely that Trump will find himself bogged down for years or decades in the beleaguered South American country. And, frankly, I hope he does. I just feel sorry for the Venezuelan (and at least half of the American) people.

Russia's hypersonic missile strike, and what it means for the West

Russia has delivered another hypersonic Oreshnik missile strike on Lviv, Ukraine, which most Western countries are are calling out as an unacceptable escalation to the war and cause for major concern in Europe.

I say "most Western countries" because notably absent from the condemnations was the USA, which contented itself with a totally unrelated and, in the circumstances, almost laughable press release by the US Ambassador to NATO, hailing the '"tremendous progress toward a durable, enforceable peace" in Ukraine, adding that "President Trump wants peace in Ukraine". Well, how's that going guys? Talk about tone deaf. 

While the rest of Europe was busy condemning Russia's move and speculating on what it might means for NATO and the EU, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not even mention the Oreshnik strike when speaking to Mark Rutte.(Secretary-General of NATO), preferring to discuss Arctic security. Was he even aware of it? And there was nothing at all from the normally garrulous President Trump.

This is only the second time that Russia has employed its hypersonic missiles. The first was back in November 2024, when Russia's first ever use of the missisle merely targeted an apparently disused factory in Dnipro, and even that event attracted a huge outcry. This one targeted the city of Lviv, just an hour's drive from the Ukrainian border with Poland, and was part of a wider coordinated attack on Kyiv involving over 270 missiles and drones.

So, why is the use of the Oreshnik considered such an escalation? It's partly that Russia's hypersonic (faster than the speed of sound) missiles were developed during the Cold War to deliver a nuclear payload, even though this particular one carried conventional non-nuclear armaments. It's partly that it travels so fast that it is very hard to shoot down and protect against. It's partly that it is very expensive, and so for Russia to be using it they must want to send a very important message. It's partly that it is considered a medium range (600-1,000 miles), or even intermediate range (upto, or even in excess of, 3,000 miles), ballistic missile, with all the connotations for NATO and Europe that brings with it.

And it's partly that it's just a very nasty piece of work. It can rain down up to six independently-targetable "re-entry vehicles", each of which may contain four to six separate ordnances, each of which in turn can be pointed at separate targets. It travels at 8,000 mph (13,000 kph), and soars up above the atmosphere before turning down sharply towards its intended target, making it almost unstoppable by the air defence systems available to Ukraine. It's a fearsome weapon and its potential destructive power is immense, especially given the difficulty of defence against it.

And why now? Well, no-one really understands the mind of Vladimir Putin, any more than they do that of Donald Trump. Moscow's official line is that it is in response to Ukraine's targeting of Putin's residence late last year, even though the CIA has assessed that it was not actually targeting the residence at all. In reality, it is probably just Russia sabre-rattling at a time when one of its allies, Venezuela, is under attack by American forces, and a Russian-flagged tanker carrying Venezuelan oil was intercepted by the Americans in the Atlantic. 

This is especially likely given that this Oreshnik launch, like the one in 2024, carried only inert or "dummy" warheads according to Ukrainian officials. So, this was much more a warning of what Russia could do, to Ukraine and to others, rather than a strategic strike on infrastructure intended to do real damage.

Be that as it may, it seems like the Cold War may be back with a vengeance. And it's already warming up.

Some Republicans dare to cross Trump

It takes a fair amount of self-confidence and gumption for Republicans to vote against Donald Trump these days. So, when five GOP Senators voted with the Democrats yesterday, it was a notable and newsworthy event.

In a motion aimed at barring Trump from further military action in Venezuela without Congressional approval, the Senate (which has a 53-47 Republican majority, even including independents with the opposition) voted 52-47 in favour. Joining all the Democrats were Republican moderates Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, libertarian Rand Paul of Kentucky, populist Josh Hawley of Missouri, and centrist Todd Young of Indiana. Predictably, Trump lashed out, saying that they "should never be elected to office again" (these are member of his own party, the one that he is supposed to be leading).

Republicans asserted themselves on another vote too, also yesterday. The House passed legislation, by a substantial 230-196 margin, to extend expired health care subsidies for those who currently get coverage through the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"). No less than 17 Republican members voted with the Democrats, in spite of the best efforts of Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson over a period of months, and Trump's publicly-expressed opposition to the extension.

The chances of the war powers legislation actually becoming law is slim to none, well, none actually. First, it has to pass in the House of Representatives, where the Republicans have a majority of 218-213, with 4 seats currently vacant (why?). And, while that is maybe conceivable in the current environment, Trump can, and will, still veto it, which would require a two-thirds majority to break, which is a stretch.

As for the health care bill, it must go the other way, to the Senate, where a super-majority of 60 is required (again, why?), which is also a steep path although, these days, stranger things have happened.

Both the House vote on the war powers motion and the Senate vote on health care subsidies will be interesting to see nevertheless. It will give a glimpse into just how pissed off Republicans are at the way Trump and his group of willing lackeys have hijacked the party, and the extent of Trump's power over Congress. Could this be the start of the turn of the tide? We are used to seeing the Republicans vote as a unit behind Trump, mainly because they are shit-scared of crossing him. Are some of the more disaffected members starting to think "thus far and no further".

US pulls out of dozens of international agencies

This is rapidly turning into an American blog, it seems, but there is just so much to comment on in America these days. Every day there is some new outrage, often two or three. It's exhausting enough for a Canadian; imagine what it's like for an American. I don't comment here on even a small fraction of them and it's already overwhelming.

Yesterday, the USA announced it is withdrawing from a whole slew of international organizations, agencies, commissions and advisory panels, on the grounds that Mr. Trump doesn't think he gets enough out of them, or he objects to their focus on "woke" subjects like diversity, climate change and poverty. Trump has no interest in how the rest of the world is faring; he barely has any interest in how his own people are doing. He certainly does not want to spend any money on anything that doesn't have a positive return on investment for the United States of America

The USA has already suspended support for many international and United Nations (UN) agencies like the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA), the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the Paris Climate Accords (aka the Paris Agreement on Climate Change).

To that list, it is now adding another 66 organizations, about half of them affiliated with the United Nations: the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Carbon Free Energy Compact, the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the United Nations University, the International Cotton Advisory Committee, the International Tropical Timber Organization, the Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation, the Pan-American Institute for Geography and History, the International Law Commission, the Peacebuilding Commission, the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies, and the International Lead and Zinc Study Group, among many others. 

I've never heard of half of these organizations and have no idea what some of them do. I'm sure Trump doesn't either, but I'm sure their members do, and can explain and justify their existence. But, basically, anything with the word "international" or "cooperation" in it is now gone. Come to think of it, anything to do with science, facts or reason. In US government terms, it is a "Withdrawal from Wasteful, Ineffective or Harmful International Organizations", and they say they need no other justification to pull out than that the groups "no longer serve American interests".

And, of course, they are taking their money with them. As the richest country on earth, they have long been the largest contributors and financial mainstays of these organization, and the US's withdrawal may well mean that many of these august and well-meaning bodies may have to close down completely. The UN is currently looking to the courts to enforce what Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls the US's "legal obligation" to keep funding the groups. Good luck with that.

The Trump administration can't decide  whether it wants to curl up in its little shell and pursue isolationist policies, or to go full interventionist, so it has decided to do both. Nobody has a clue what they are doing any more, or why, or what they will do next.

Citing the Monroe Doctrine does not make Trump's Venezuela stunt right or legal

The Americans - well, let's be clearer: SOME Americans - are fond of invoking the Monroe Doctrine as a kind of all-encompassing justification for some of the most egregious foreign policy initiatives of the 20th and 21st centuries, including, most recently Trump's invasion of Venezuela and his threats to annex Greenland.

The problem is that the 1823 Monroe Doctrine (and the 1904 Roosevelt Corollary that followed it) was never very defensible, and Trump's willful misinterpretation of it (the Trump Corollary" or "Donroe Doctrine" as he calls it) moves it even further from a reasonable justification or vindication for problematic foreign policy. It was never a binding law, a legal principle to be followed, or a foundational tenet of US foreign policy; it was only ever a notional statement of intent, as applied to a very specific situation. In the modern world, it is indisputably an anachronism.

The Monroe Doctrine was formulated by the early American President James Monroe to promote regional stability at a time when many European colonies in the Caribbean and South America were declaring their independence. It was intended to prevent European powers from re-colonizing parts of the Americas, by presenting the United States as a kind of police force for countries in (very broadly speaking) their "backyard". It effectively unilaterally asserted the whole of the Western Hemisphere as America's rightful "sphere of influence". At the time, many newly-independent Latin-American nations welcomed Munroe's declaration as affirming their own freedoms, even though Munroe himself saw it as merely stamping out any threats to US "peace and safety", however improbable those were.

The Roosevelt Corollary expanded this vision of the US as an "international police force", and would serve as a pretext for any number of inexcusable American interventions, occupations and "gunboat diplomacy". 

The Trump Corollary, that prioritizes American-led efforts to combat mass migration, drug-trafficking, and the "hostile" ownership of key assets, moves even further from the original Monroe Doctrine, which itself was largely indefensible, effectively serving as an excuse or justification for American imperialism and good old-fashioned bullying. 

Mr. Trump essentially considers the whole of the Western Hemisphere to be de facto under American control. No amount of referencing of historical documents can possibly make that true or right.