OCC oversteps its authority in trying to force banks to take on controversial customers

A US banking regulator that glories in the splendidly anachronistic name the of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has ruled that nine banks, including two Canadian banks, are guilty of practices and policies that denied or limited access to financial services because of political or religious beliefs. 

Canada's Toronto Dominion Bank and the Bank of Montreal were among the nine, which also included many of the heavy hitters in American banking like JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, US Bancorp and Capital One.

The review was demanded, predictably enough, by Donald Trump, and, predictably enough, he received the answer he wanted. No penalties were announced for the perceived transgressions, but the OCC say they are "assessing further regulatory and supervisory changes" to prevent these issues from happening again.

So, what kind of thing are we talking about here? Who is being discriminated against and denied access to their rights? 

Well, as you might imagine, they are almost all on the right fringes of the Republican Party. Examples include a non-profit espousing extreme anti-abortion views, a company producing MAGA merchandise, that kind of thing. In some cases, particular industry sectors are involved, like oil and gas exploration, coal mining and coal-powered plants, firearms and ammunition manufacturing, digital asset activities, etc, which contravene the banks' own ethical policies. It apparently amounts to a tiny number of individuals and companies ("a limited number of historical interactions") out of the many millions of accounts the banks maintain.

From the banks' point of view, though, in distancing themselves from some of the more controversial loan applicants, they are just trying to manage their legal, financial and reputational risk, which they are well within their rights to do.

The OCC's "irrefutable evidence" that the banks have "denied, debanked and discriminated against customers and lawful businesses", then, seems to tar the banks with a very broad brush, and ignores their own right to pick their customers and protect their own corporate brands. If anything, you could argue that the report merely reflects the political stance of the OCC (or maybe Mr. Trump).

The OCC contends that banks are using the concept of reputational risk as a shield to deny services to customers based on subjective, non-financial criteria. The banks, on the other hand, argue that managing reputational risk is a critical part of safe and sound operations. A potential client's public persona or controversial industry ties can lead to concrete legal, compliance and financial liabilities. Banks should not be forced to take on relationships with risky or controversial customers they do not trust.

Increase in Ontario electricity costs driven by nuclear power

Ontario's electricity rates are going up again after the latest agreement with ratepayer and industry groups. This time there is no hiding the fact that it is expensive nuclear power that is driving the increases.

For years, the Ontario government has maintained the convenient fiction that it has been renewable energy that has driven costs up. As renewables - whether hydro, wind or solar - are now among the cheapest electricity generation options, that is no longer going to fly.

Refurbishment of outdated nuclear plants and additional maintenance costs on others are the main drivers for this latest increase. Nuclear costs from 2027 to 2031 are projected to be almost double those from 2022 to 2026. A much smaller increase will result from refurbishment to some hydro dams. The report notes, however, that hydro costs are less than a quarter of nuclear costs per megawatt of power produced.

The nuclear lobby is still very powerful [sic] in Ontario, exemplified by all those full-page ads in major newspapers. But it is, and has always been, an expensive option. I doubt many people will be paying attention to news reports like this one, but if they were, they would have a better understanding of just how expensive.

Did America withold missile warnings from Ukraine?

As Russia's illegal war in Ukraine approaches the five year mark, it continues to hit hapless Ukraine with a nightly barrage of drone and missile attacks. It also continues to hit Ukrainian energy and infrastructure targets, despite President Trump's claims of the existence of an "energy ceasefire", which no-one else seems to know anything about.

Even more worrying, the latest strikes arrived before any early warning alarms were enabled, as it appears that no early warning was received by Ukraine from its "partners", which essentially means the USA in this context. Ukraine has various partnerships with European countries for weapons production and missile defence, but for ballistic missile warnings and defence it is apparently almost entirely dependent on the USA.

This is not a situation I was aware of - I naively assumed that Ukraine had its own early warning system - and it immediately raises a bunch of questions: Did Trump order warnings to be deliberately withheld (consistent with his recent diatribes against Ukraine and Zelenskyy, and his renewed support of the aggressor, Russia)? Why does Ukraine not have its own early warning system? Is this not something that the "coalition of the willing" could help fund? Why are British and European warnings not available to Ukraine? Surely they have the technical know-how?

This comes hard on the heels of unexplained restrictions on Ukraine's battlefield use of Elon Musk-owned and US-made Starlink communication terminals, which are essential to Ukraine's drone missions. And, of course, hard on the heels of Trump's recent controversial phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Coincidence?

Trump insists that the US did not withold any warnings, and the official Ukrainian response is that it was just a "failure", suggesting it was due to weather conditions or some sort of miscommunication, rather than a deliberate decision not to share an alert. 

Am I guilty of conspiracy theories to suggest deliberate American actions? I know I'm not the only one, and I know that Trump is definitely capable of much worse.

How much of the world's problems are attributable to Trump?

It occurred to me to wonder just how much of the current global economic malaise affecting the world can be attributed directly to just one man. 

That man, of course, is Donald Trump. His misguided ideas and policies have clearly had a negative effect, not just on the USA, but, because the US is such a big player in the global economy (nothing to do with Trump - he inherited the globe's strongest economy) on the whole world. In order to squeeze a little bit more wealth for what is already by far the wealthiest country in the world, Trump has been willing to bazooka the economies of almost every other country, not realizing that the hit to globalized trade will come around to bite the US too.

It's hard to pin down figures, although many organizations have tried. These figures are quite old now, but Bloomberg is projecting a $2 trillion hit to the global economy by 2027 as a result of Trump's tariffs: the OECD has pared its initial projections for 2026 global growth by 0.2% (which might not sound like much, but over a $100 trillion worldwide economy, it is quite substantial); the WTO has cut its growth projections by as much a 0.6%.

It's not just about GDP, though. Massive job losses are underway; major supply chains have been disrupted; the stock markets are only being kept aloft by (probably ill-advised) AI fever; inflation is creeping up in many countries (including the US); business confidence has been shaken, with a direct effect on investment; and on it goes. 

And it's not just about tariffs, either. Trump's unnecessary and ill-advised war against  has done more to increase the price of oil than Putin's war in Ukraine ever did, bringing with it negative effects on global trade, inflation, etc, to say nothing of the increased instability in energy markets caused by Trump's invasion of Venezuela, his apparently personal vendetta against Canada, his shot in the arm for Russia's oil industry (against his own official US policy and all international efforts), etc, etc.

And it doesn't even end there. Global climate change initiatives have foundered, partly because of the economic pressure countries are feeling, and partly because of America's pull-back from climate action of any kind, and its boosting of the environmentally-damaging oil and gas industries. Democracy has also taken a hit worldwide, as right-wing populists across the globe see the "success" of Trump's anti-democratic push in the USA, which has fueled and emboldened their own dictatorial aspirations.

There's much more and NONE of it is good. All of this will take many years, probably decades, to fix.

USA goes out on a limb over ICC

The 2026 Nobel Peace Prize has been won, not by Donald Trump (shock! horror!), but by the South African judge Navi Pillay, for her indefatigable work with the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, and as a staunch defender of the international rule of law.

The Trump administration is, of course, apopeplectic, not just for the snub to their Glorious Leader, but also because of Ms. Pillay's and the ICC's votes against best American buddy Israel, and its characterization the Israeli war in Gaza as genocide and accusing it of multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

Just hours after the Nobel announcement, Marco Rubio announced sanctions on the ICC, preventing American companies from providing services to it (a largely symbolic gesture), calling it a "rogue court". He says, "we will dismantle the ICC - brick by brick, if necessary", and went further to threaten other countries (i.e. most of the world) that continue to support the organization: "Nations that refuse to reject the ICC's false authority while relying on US assistance are likely to come under increased scrutiny".

A fiesty Ms. Pillay clapped back in no uncertain terms: "Clearly, the fact that he [Trump] never got the Nobel Prize, and never will, is an indictment agaist him ... He doesn't like someone or their ideas, then he goes out to sanction, punish, forcibly deport, wrongfully invade, and arrest leaders of other countries. These are threats to international law." Ouch.

Ms. Pillay has the wholehearted backing of most of the civilized world, with the notable exception of the United States, Israel and a few other maverick states that have been the victims of the ICC and ICJ's decisions over the years, and which have therefore never been official member of the international courts (the US signed the Rome Statute establishing the court, but has never ratified it). 

But then, of course, it depends on your definition of "civilized". The USA is now so far from civilized norms, and has lost so much respect in international circles, that it's hard to see a way back. They are so far out on a limb there's no limb there any more.

The second Chow - is he a plant?

There's a second Chow on the ballot form for the upcoming Toronto mayoralty election.

Braeden is an unknown guy off the street, with no real platform or campaign, one of 53 names on the busy ballot. Because Toronto lists the candidates in alphabetical order (unlike many jurisductions, which list the names in random order or include thumbnail pictures to avoid any confusion), he actually appears just above incumbent Mayor Olivia Chow, who is in a tight race for re-election.

My theory is that the guy is a plant or a decoy installed by Ms. Chow's main rival, Brad Bradford, in the hopes of syphoning off a few of Chow's votes by inattentive voters. (The race is close enough that it could make the difference.) I figure that Bradford, who was our local councillor for four years, would not be above that kind of stunt: I would not trust the guy even if I could throw him. 

It will be interesting to know if my theory is correct, or if we ever find out.

The Myth of the Deal

President Trump has struck a deal! Yay. And it's the "best deal ever". Again. If Americans are not thoroughly over this stuff by now, then I despair of them.

This time he has stuck a "deal" with Russia to import large quantities of embargoed Russian diesel, despite his signing into law just last month new sanctions on Russian oil and gas. Quite where President Putin is going to find all this diesel to export to the US is another mystery: Russia is already suffering from severe fuel shortages internally after an extended barrage of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil depots and processing facilities.

Details of the "deal" are predictably sparse. It was after all a more or less random suggestion during a phone call on a completely unrelated subject. Trump doesn't involve himself in the tedious details of making his "deals" somehow work. 

Reactions from both the right and the left of the political divide have been almost universally condemnatory, particularly as the sanctions bill was passed so recently and with such fanfare. Analysts say that the amounts involved are not likely to have a significant effect on diesel prices, so Trump may not even get the cost-of-living boost he so desperately needs before the US mid-terms

I put the word "deal" in quotes throughout because these are not really deals at all, just Trump expressing his aspirations and flexing his (or rather America's) muscles. How many times has he announced a deal with Iran, or Ukraine, or Canada for that matter, only to have it changed/scrapped/reversed. 

I truly believe that he just likes hearing himself say "I made a deal"; the content and the wisdom of the agreement is entirely secondary or even moot. This is not the Art of the Deal, it's the Myth of the Deal.

New White House Press Secretary looks familiar

That Mr. Trump has just appointed a new White House Press Secretary, Katie Zacharia.

She looks kind of familiar. You don't think he has a type, do you?

Why is the bond market in rurmoil?

I keep reading articles about bonds without really understanding them. "Spiralling chaos from the bond market", we are told, "yields and bond prices move in inverse directions", "sharp increases in yields have produced losses for many fixed-income investors", "bond market fears are reaching fever pitch", yada yada.

Clearly, all this is a big deal for financial types, so I figure it behooves me to find out what it all means.

I mean, I get the basics: when you buy a bond you are making a loan to a company or government for a specific period of time, after which you expect to get your full principal back. The company or government can then use this money to fund projects, operations or infrastructure. In return, the company or government pays you iterest at a predetermined rate (the "coupon rate") every six months. It is thus a fixed income investment, much like a bank deposit.

Alternatively, you might look to sell the bonds before their natural expiry date, in which  you might get more or less than you originally invested, depending on how the market values that bond at the time. (You get to keep any interest earned to date of course.) So, you can look on a bond investment as pretty safe interest stream, or as a more speculative asset that might (or might not) appreciate in value.

After this, things get a little murkier. What affects the market value of a bond? The actual market price of a bond depend on the issuer's credit quality, the time left until maturity, and the interest rate it carries (compared to other interest rates in the market). 

But bond prices are also affected by changes in  interest rates in the market as a whole. When interest rates go up (e.g. when the central bank announces an increase in its index rate, such as at a time of high inflation),.bond prices tend to fall to equalize the bond's interest rate with the prevailing rates in the market. Conversely when general interest rates fall, bond prices in the market tend to rise. 

The coupon rate of a bond is also affected by the credit rating of the issuing.corporation or government, and the time to maturity. An issuer with a poor credit rating has a greater risk of default (i.e. not being able to pay back the principal at maturity), so it must attract investors with a higher coupon interest rate. Also, bonds with a long maturity date are more exposed to interest rate and inflation risks for an extended period, and so must offer a higher coupon rate to attract investors.

So, what is causing all the turmoil in today's bond market? In recent months, bond yields (basically the inteeat rates they offer) have been rising, which in turn pushed the price of bonds down. The increase in yields is widely believed to be a result of a whole complex cocktail of factors: strong economic growth expectations, high inflation worries (which causes investors to require their interest rates to compensate for their loss of purchasing power), high government borrowing, high funding levels for AI development (with all the uncertainty that entails), and general uncertainty about the rationality of the US government and the Federal Reserve's ability to function independently and rationally.

Almost all of this relates directly to the USA, but America's influence is so strong that is repercussions on the bond market are being felt worldwide.

Except, of course, it's not even that simple (of course it's not!) There are others who believe that a different cocktail of factors is responsible: some suggest that bond rates merely reflect nominal GDP growth in the US; some that they are directly related to oil prices; some geel that they are more dependant on announcements from the US Federal Reserve than anything else. None of these suggestions hold water on their own.

But, whatever the cause, it's undeniable that bond ownership is changing. Long-term holder like pension finds and central banks have increasingly abandoned bonds, like rats from a sinkimg ship. The vacuum has been at least partially filled by hedge funds, which are buying and selling bonds aggressively, but on a much more short-term basis.

Where all this will end is anyone's guess. But it probably won't be pretty.

Nuclear fusion no closer to a working model, but generating lots of spagghetti

I have always been, and I remain, skeptical about the dramatic claims made by nuclear fusion energy developers. From time to time, a glowing announcement appears in the news promising unlimited cheap energy just around the corner, merely because some company or other has managed to squeeze a little bit more energy out of a hot mess of plasma, usually neglecting to mention that they are still decades away (if ever) from making it cost-effective or sustainable.

The latest such announcement comes from BC company General Fusion Group Ltd. Accompanying the article is a photo of the inside of the General Fusion lab where the fusion beast is being tamed.

It's a scene of such disorder and messiness that it's hard to take seriously. There are huge knots of pipes and cables, random canisters and frames, all jammed into a small room It's certainly not the sleek, gleaming machinery of Star Trek, more like a Heath Robinson construction.

Now, of course, I know nothing about the subject, and this is clearly still early days in the research. Maybe eventually all that spaghetti will be hidden inside a neat brushed-steel box with multicoloured lights and switches and dials. But right now it has the look of a school science experiment, and does not inspire confidence.

Revelations of separatist leaders' deals with America rattles Albertans

As Quebec votes in a separatist government (albeit only a minority government, with a much weaker mandate than was widely expected), Alberta's secession movement also receives another set-back.

Revelations in the Globe and Mail show that some major Alberta separatist leaders have been cozying up to the US Republican Party, which, given current relations between Canada and the USA, has many Albertans pretty worried and upset.

The Globe's report details how, unbeknown to most rank-and-file would-be separatists, movement leaders have met with Republican representatives in Washington and in Calgary and have even discussed potential deals granting the US access to Alberta's land, water, oil and precious metals in return for American assistance in their secession plans. 

This is a bridge too far from most Albertans, and organizations like the Alberta Prosperity Project and Stay Free Alberta are deperately trying to limit the damage of the revelations. Some Albertans - less than a quarter, according to most polls - have a beef with Canada (or they think they do), and believe it is is Alberta's interests, in one way or another, to separate. Hardly any Albertans want to become the 51st state of America.

Trump's AI rebranding just more smoke and mirrors

As a new CNN/SSRS survey concludes that the vast majority of Americans are very concerned about AI and the way it's being developed, President Donald Trump has a solution: rename it.

The CNN survey found that 88% of Americans would be concerned rather than happy if AI were to surpass human intelligence (which it probably already has), 87% are concerned at all the data centr1es being constructed for AI, 82% think that AI is being developed too quickly, and 81% believe that it will change our way of life.(well, duh). Furthermore, 71% think that the government is not doing enough to regulate AI development, including 85% of Democrats and 63% of Republicans.

In the face of that, Mr. Trump, whose only concern seems to be whether the USA is developing it faster than China, has decided that artificial intelligence (AI) should henceforth be called super intelligence (SI). Bizarrely, he has even issued an executive order to that effect, which he considers to be "morally binding", although he can only force the compliance of government agencies.

Even more bizarrely, some of the more pusillanimous tech leaders seem to be humouring him on this, despite the fact that "super intelligence" already has a very specific meaning within the industry (meaning the point where AI exceeds the cognitive abilities of humans in virtually all aspects of thinking). Elon Musk, not generally known for his attention to morality, says he will rename his AI company SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI. Actually, he is the only one...

Obviously, Trump's order will have zero effect on the AI industry and its regulation. Like his other renaming stunts, it is just another attempt to distract Americans' attention from some of the worse developments happening under his watch, and to make it look as though he is being proactive on an issue of concern without actually doing anything at all, the old smoke and mirrors routine. As usual, an extraordinary percentage of Americans will be fooled by it.

Christa Pike on life support is the mother of all ironies

I'm sure everyone has heard about the "failed execution" of Christa Pike in Tennessee this last week. 

Incidentally, "failed execution" is different from "botched execution". In a "botched execution", something went wrong with the lethal injection procedure, but the person died regardless. This apparently happens as often as 8% of the time, which seems extraordinary to me. In a "failed execution", on the other hand, the person does not even die, a much rarer event but far from unprecedented, as some news outlets are suggesting (this is the second time this year it has happened in Tennessee alone). 

Christa Pike is very much alive as we speak, although in a pretty bad way, unconscious and intubated on a ventilator to keep her alive. She survived two doses of a lethal pentabarbitol injection, the capital punishment method of choice in Tennessee and a few other US states. It's not entirely clear why the lethal injection failed, but some commentators suggest that her vein may have burst (twice!) and the pentabarbitol spilled out into the surrounding tissues (she complained of a burning sensation at one point, which supports this theory).

If one attempt fails, a second is called for. There is, however, no protocol on what to do if the second attempt also fails, as in this case. So, a very ill Ms. Pike was summarily whisked out of there and away from the press, and is currently being maintained on life support at an off-site medical facility.

The fact that she is now receiving "life-saving medical care" has to be the mother of all ironies. Ms. Pike's lawyer is calling her treatment "chemical torture", and is calling for her death sentence to be commuted. Her conviction of killing a classmate 32 years ago, at the age of 18, was controversial in the first place, partly because of her age at the time of the crime, and partly because of her history of severe childhood abuse.

So, what's next? The Tennessee prisons chief has resigned, and the state Governor has halted any new executions and called for an independent inquiry into the situation. And Ms. Pike? Who knows? She's now a cause célèbre for some.

Has Samuel Alito left his retirement too late?

US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito - a man whose extreme right-ring political views make even Donald Trump look like a moderate, and who has presided over many of the Supreme Court's most politically-motivated and legally suspect decisions in recent years - is considering imminent retirement. 

The controversial 76-year old, who has been on the Supreme Court bench for over 20 years, is a strong Trump-backer, and most people assume that his decision to retire is being timed specifically to allow Trump to nominate another MAGA conservative to the court, thus cementing the court's conservative bias for many years to come.

But has he left it too late? If the Democrats swing both the House of Representatives (almost certain) and the Senate (more than possible) in the upcoming November mid-term elections, they have made no bones about their intention to block any Trump nominees to the Court, as is their right.

How much time does he have? The mid-terms are on 3rd November 2026, just a month away. However, any newly elected Senators will not actually take office until 3rd January 2027. So, that's actually tons of time for Alito and Trump to pull off their caper.

The case for replacing diesel in heavy-duty trucking

As diesel prices reach record levels, and the idiot-in-chief in the White House threatens to ban American diesel exports to the international market, it's never been clearer just how much we still rely on diesel for the transportation of goods. Almost completely, in fact - 97%.of the largest Class B tractor trailers run on diesel, although the figure for commercial trucks as a whole is about 76%.

So, what's the deal? We see lots of electric cars on the roads these days, but when was the last time you saw an electric truck? Why has the take-up of alternative-fuel trucks been so poor?

The main types of alternative fuels available for heavy-duty transportation are:

• Renewable diesel - made from fats and oils, which can be used directly in current trucks with no engine modification. It can reduce carbon intensity by as much as 68% compared to traditional diesel, but it remains relatively expensive. Incentives like California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard are starting to change that and adoption is increasing rapidly in such jurisductions.
• Natural gas (methane) - compressed natural gas offers a more stable price compared to diesel, but it is still a fossil fuel, albeit a bit cleaner than diesel. Renewable natural gas is sourced from landfills, animal waste and other organic matter, and is a net zero, or even carbon-negative, fuel, but it remains relatively expensive. They both offer diesel-like performance and good range, but require specialized engines (renewable natural gas fuel is compatible with engines designed for compressed natural gas). Natural gas is the most widely-used alternative fuel today, and there is already a reasonable network of filling stations, although it needs to be expanded if take-up is to improve.
• Electric batteries - offer zero tailpipe emissions and lower energy costs compared to diesel, but charging infrastructure is still lacking, and range, battery weight and initial purchase cost are also limitations (although all of these factors are in the process of improving). The sustainability impact also depends on the emissions profile of the electricity being used to charge them.
• Biodiesel - made from animal fats and vegetable oils, biodiesel is often blended with conventional diesel, with which it is completely compatible. It's performance in cold weather poses a challenge (it turns to gel and can harm engines), so most manufacturers do not support blends above 20%, although new technical advancements are overcoming even that drawback. Biodiesel can reduce carbon intensity by 73% compared to conventional diesel.

The main reason for diesel's continuing dominance in heavy-duty haulage is inertia, but its high energy density, strong pulling power, and the durability and reliable ignition of its engines make changes of any kind difficult. Furthermore, we are currently in a period of retrenchment, mainly thanks to Donald Trump and his ilk, and environmental concerns are not top of mind right now.

But, in this era of spiking diesel prices, the cost-benefit calculations for alternative fuels are starting to change, particularly for renewable natural gas and renewable diesel (the cost of electric trucks still makes them prohibitively expensive). By some analysis, electric trucks are expected to become economically competitive with diesel in the early 2030s. Donald Trump may have inadvertently given alternative fuels a shot in the arm.

Is AI really an existential threat?

I don't remember reading the word "existential" so frequently since I made my Basics of Philosophy hobby website many years ago. Just recently, though, it seems to be ubiquitous, usually in the same sentence as AI or artificial intelligence. "AI could pose existential risk to humanity, UN rights chief warns". "Is the AI existential threat real?". "Breaking down the dire warnings about the technology's existential risk". Etc, etc.

Much of this has been galvanized by the online parting shot by 27-year old Anthropic junior researcher Jacob Coxon as he quit his plum job with one of the leading AI companies: "The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade." His comments gained still more attention when current (and more senior) Anthropic employee Evan Hubinger confirmed on X: "We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally believe it is >10% within the next decade." That's quite an admission from one of the leading lights in AI development. Bill Gates is slightly more circumspect, predicting just a billion deaths from AI in a recent interview.

This is not new, of course. The "Godfather of AI" Geoffrey Hinton has been warning us about this stuff for years. Isaac Asimov was cautioning us back in the 1940s! What is new is that the current crop of warnings are coming from the developers themselves. So, we should probably take it seriously, don't you think? After all, it's not often that the ambitious tech bros behind companies like Anthropic and OpenAI agree on anything.

There have now been many instances of AI models breaking out of their test environments, something they are not supposed to be able to do, but one in particular has people worried. In July, literally hundreds of OpenAI agents escaped human control and their so-called "sandbox" in July and hacked into the secure systems of a billion-dollar tech company called Hugging Face and other organizations, including the Australian government. It's now becoming increasingly clear that OpenAI employees warned that such a thing might happen and that security was being skimped, but upper management insisted they press on regardless so that new AI models could be released on time.

In the wake of this and other such unplanned breakouts, almost all of the major American AI development companies have come out to warn that severe regulation is needed before it is too late. (See the list of over a hundred signatories at the end of this document, and yes, it includes OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Google, and a virtual who's who of AI development.) Parallel to that, 1,386 "frontier" AI employees penned their own warning letter, urging the US government to work with other nations to "deliberately pace" automated AI development and to address emerging risks. 

Leading experts openly admit that they don't know how to control future highly capable AI systems, known as "artificial superintelligence" or ASI. Some argue that it may actually be impossible or too late, and that the genie is already out of the proverbial bottle. The concern is that AI technology is progressing at such a breakneck pace that "we would no longer be able to detect them or stop them". This could happen within a few short years, or even months.

China too is wrestling with burgeoning AI usage, albeit with less fanfare. The government is worried that unfettered growth in AI usage is undermining human relationships (and thus, potentially, population growth!), depriving people of their better judgement (people are getting lazy and less able to come to grips with challenges on their own), and even constraining artistic endeavours (an estimated 90% of the popular Chinese online "microdramas" are now produced by AI). There is maybe less apocalyptic talk in China, but the government is nevertheless moving to impose new regulations and guidelines on its use and misuse.

Senate negotiators in the US are already debating legislation that would put the responsibility on tech companies to design safe AI products and establishing a "duty of care", but it's unclear how useful such legislation might be in practical terms. Other legislation in the works would require AI companies to build in a "kill switch" to their AI developments which the government could order to be triggered.

Unfortunately, the US government is effectively controlled by one man, Donald Trump, and he derides all calls for AI regulations as a "hoax" and a "scam". All he cares about is AI's potential as the "Greatest Economic Development in History", and the imperative that America must beat China to it. Regulation is a dirty word in his mind. 

As for AI presenting an "existential threat"? Pshaw! Existential schmexistential.

Pope Leo checks his progressivism at the shrine door

Pope Leo XIV has the reputation of being a pretty progressive Pope. But, lest we forget, that's not actually saying much. Official Catholic doctrine, which he has to more or less follow whether he likes it or not, is still ineluctably stuck in the distant past, and nowhere more so than on moral issues like abortion, euthanasia and medical assiatance in dying (MAID).

At the moment, he is in Lourdes, a pilgrimage site synonymous with miracles, orthodoxy and retrogressive Catholic tradition. At the same time, he is in France - forward-looking, liberal, fiercely secular France. So, I guess he felt the need to make a statement to the remaining faithful. It's his job after all.

In particular, he has made a strong statement agaist MAID, especially given France's 2024 decision to make abortion a constitutional right, and last month's decision to also make medical assistance in dying a legal right. France is far from the first country to do so, although the list is still relatively short, consisting of the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and, of course, Canada. (13 American states have also passed legislation allowing it.)

Leo's take on all this? Well, after the now obligatory condemnation of centuries of Catholic Church sexual abuse, his broadside against MAID went like this: "It is impossible to regard causing death as something normal. What is legal is not necessarily moral." Furthermore, "It is precisely in the name of this inalienable dignity of the human person that we must reject the temptation to cause death under the guise of false compassion."

So, there you have it: MAID is "false compassion". Try telling that to the thousands of people who have had their life sentences of constant pain and anguish commuted by access to MAID in those forward-thinking countries where it is legal. Try telling that to their families. Try telling them what is moral and what is compassionate.

Like many a Pope before him, Leo has fallen back on the tried and trusted Catholic doctrine that "daddy knows best". Brought up in the faith, he is convinced that the orthodoxy, however outdated, is the only way to think. 

It would be interesting, though, to know what he really thinks. He is clearly a thoughtful guy, with an underlying penchant for progressivism. Does he believe what he says, or is he just toeing the line?

The wacky world of BC politics

We sometimes think that Ontario provincial politics is pretty wacky, but it's certainly got nothing on the strange goings-on in British Columbia politics. Stay with me here.

The BC Liberals dominated BC politics from more than a decade, from 2001 to 2017, when there left-wing NDP under John Horgan and then David Eby came to power, and the NDP has domination ever since. The BC Conservative Party spent the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s in the political wilderness, with zero seats.

In 2022, former BC Liberal cabinet minister John Rustad was booted out of the party for questioning climate science. He crossed the floor and joined the Conservative Party in 2023, soon becoming party leader (he was the only Conservative with a seat in parliament for one thing). The Liberal Party basically disbanded and renamed itself BC United, although it was short-lived.

Rustad was initially lauded for growing the BC Conservatives from less than 2% of the vote to Official Opposition status (mind you, they still lost by a long chalk to David Eby's NDP). By 2025, though, Rustad's abrasive style made him very unpopular. Several Conservative MPs defected, and Rustad eventually resigned his leadership amid a party revolt.

In May 2026, Kerry-Lynne Findlay took over the leadership of the Conservatives, but she was even more unpopular and scandal-prone than Rustad. Conservative MP after Conservative MP resigned, many of them joing a new party, CentreBC, looking to distance themselves from Findlay's hard right stance, and Findlay herself ejected a few more. With the party in freefall, Findlay eventually resigned as leader on 20 September 2026.

With an election cynically called by Eby for 24 October to take advantage of the Conservative disarray, the BC Conservative Party is now desperately trying to reinvent itself. Many (but not all) of those who defected or were ejected are now moving back, rather shamefacedly, to the Conservative Party under new leader Lorne Doerksen.

And now, just for added confusion, the ex-leader of the BC Green Party, Andrew Weaver, will be running in the upcoming election ... for the conservative CentreBC party! Wacky doesn't even cover it!

AI mathematical proof not without its detractors

OpenAI has solved one of the thorniest mathematical problems still left unsolved. And not everyone is happy about it.

The Navier-Stokes Problem was one of the $1 million Millennium Prize Problems established by the Clay Mathematics Institute in 2000. Without going into too much technical detail that would be way above my pay-grade anyway, the problem concerns a set of equations used to describe the flow of fluids. While the equations are already in regular use in everyday applications in physics and engineering, scientists don't really understand how or why they work, knowledge that would allow them to be used much more extensively in a wider range of applications. In order to do that, they need to understand scenarios where the equations break down or stop working, and that is the essence of the Navier-Stokes Problem.

Some scientists have welcomed the AI proof and see it as the start of a new golden age of mathematical advances. Others are a bit nonplussed that, while the proof is generally considered to be correct, the 166-page manucript is written in such opaque and obscure terms that no-one really actually understands it. It may take months or years more work to interpret it in a way that humans can understand and actually use. "The paper is not written for humans", as one mathematician put it. "It's a terribly written paper", says another. "Virtually unreadable", bemoans another.

But it gets murkier. Two mathematicians claim they were getting very close to a proof, and that the OpenAI proof uses their preparatory work. They accuse OpenAI of rushing out a muddled and poorly-argued paper in order to steal the accolades. 

Well, it wouldn't be AI if it weren't controversial, right?

UPDATE

Since then, Open AI has released literally hundreds of AI-generated proofs to all manner of mathematical problems, this has human mathematicians riled up. The purported proofs are all presumably couched in the opaque and incomprehensible language as the Navier-Stokes proof, and will take mathematicians years to untangle and verify.

"Releasing over 700 files at once is not a demonstration of scholarship, but a demonstration of power", carps the Association for Human Mathematics. "We reject OpenAI's assertion that this release advances out subject, and we urge mathematicians and the public to view the value of this publication model with due skepticism".

The colourful history of Saint Pierre and Miquelon

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and French President Emmanual Macron had a meeting the other day. It took place, not in Paris, not in Montreal, not even in New York, where they will both be in just a few days time for a UN General Assembly meeting, but in Saint Pierre and Miquelon.

Saint Pierre and Miquelon (Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon in French) is a self-governing territory of France, home to some 6,000 French citizens. But it's nowhere near France; it's a tiny archipelago of islands, just 20km off the coast of the Burin Peninsula in southern Newfoundland (so, not even anywhere near Quebec). It's a weird anomaly: part of the European Union, but not part of the Schengen area or the European customs territory. It's currency is the euro, but it's also part of the Atlantic Canada Cooperation Commission.

How did such a thing arise? Well, the history of Saint Pierre Poilievre and Miquelon is as checkered and singular as it's current status. Originally inhabited by the indigenous Beothuk like the rest of Newfoundland, it was first claimed by Portuguese explorers in 1520, then by the French explorer Jacques Cartier in 1536. But it was not permanently settled (and named) by Europeans until 1670, at which time 12 French fishermen lived there. By the early 18th century French colonists had abandoned the islands completely, and they were ceded to Britain as part of the 1813 Treaty of Utrecht.

After the Seven year War and the 1763 Treaty of Paris, all of New France was ceded to Britain and Spain, but Saint Pierre and Miquelon, for some reason, went the other way and was ceded to France. In 1778, after France joined the American Revolutionary War against Britain,  French settlements on the islands were burned by the British, and the few French settlers there deported back to France. A British colony was established in 1793, but this was in turn burned by French forces in 1796. The islands were brought back under French control with the 1802 Treaty of Amiens, but retaken by Britain just a year later. They were returned yet again to France in 1815 under the Treaty of Paris, and gradually resettled by Breton, Norman and Basque settlers.

During American Prohibition in the 1920s, Saint Pierre and Miquelon became an important part of the smuggling network of alcohol from Canada to the United States, but it was plunged into economic depression once again after Prohibition ended in 1933. It was briefly under the control of the pro-Nazi Vichy regime, before being liberated by the Free French forces in 1941. The colony officially became a French Overseas Territory in 1946, after the Second World War, and finally acquired the status of "territorial collectivity" in 1985.

All this to-ing and fro-ing over a few tiny, bare, rocky islands, boasting just a thin layer of peat in places to soften the unforgiving landscape, and a harsh subpolar oceanic climate! The islands today are heavily subsidized by France, and the only real industry is fishing (and the filming of the CBC police procedural television series Saint Pierre!) It is hoped to develop its nascent tourist industry, and the islands' colourful history may yet become one of its greatest assets.

Canada looks to the east to replace the south

Canada's - or, more specifically, Mark Carney's - push for closer relations with the European Union makes perfect sense given what is happening with Canada-US trade relations.

While it's still not clear what "associate membership" of the EU might mean, or whether the 28-member bloc would even agree to what Ursula von der Leyen is proposing, Canada could certainly do a lot worse than to align itself closer with the EU (and some of the more civilized parts of Asia, Australasia, etc).

But wait, doesn't Canada already have a free trade agreement with the European Union? Well, kind of. The EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, thankfully abbreviated to CETA, was officially signed in October 2016, and entered into "provisional application" in September 2017. CETA eliminates duties on 99% of all tariff lines between the EU and Canada.

Which begs the question of what "provisional application" actually means. The full treaty required the official ratification of all 27 EU member states, which, as you might imagine, is a difficult thing to achieve. Currently, 17 of the 27 EU countries have ratified the agreement, with 10 countries still holding out nearly a decade later: Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland and Slovenia. Of these, France and Italy are probably the most important. Opposition by these hold-out countries largely focusses on: the dispute settlement system; its impact on national sovereignty, agricultural and commercial interests; food safety; consumer and worker rights; public services; and environmental and sustainable development.

Notwithstanding those reservations, the agreement is effectively in force now, and has been for the last decade. So, it's hard to know what else Canada wants from the EU (and vice versa). Ms. Von der Leyen has talked about an "Alliance for the Future", covering defence, energy, technology, critical minerals and the Arctic. This clearly goes much further than the current trade agreement. Carney has also talked about a "unique alliance" that extends beyond a conventional free trade deal.

But Mr. Carney has stressed that he is not looking to become a full member of the EU, with all the incumbent duties and costs (and some potential loss of national sovereignty and independence). The "associate member" status - which currently does not exist - presumably reflects this compromise.

Either way, it seems to be annoying the hell out of Donald Trump, so that's something. He calls it a "hostile act" done with "bad intentions" (nothing is "done" as yet), and is clearly rattled by the project of Canada taking its business and its loyalties elsewhere.

Is privatizing Canada's airports a good idea?

Mark Carney's latest announcement is about privatizing Canada's four biggest airports: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary. Under this plan, the federal government would retain ownership of the underlying land and assets, but the day-to-day operation of the aiports would be opened up to private investors.

The theory is that airline customers would benefit from improved services and infrastructure, and the government would receive a large cash influx which can then be used to improve some of the smaller regional airports around the country, which are currently underfunded. It's being presented as a win-win scenario.

Seem too good to be true? Well, maybe. But studies do seem to show that, when airports are privatized, they do tend to be glowed up, the number of routes flying into them increases (including from low-cost carriers), and cancellations go down, soften drastically. These improvements are particularly noticeable where airports are acquired by private equity funds.

Is this a slam-dunk, then? Well, Canada's case is definitely not the same as parts of Europe and Asia, where distance are smaller and populations denser. But, when Australia privatized its airports, it too saw substantial improvements, and Australia is much more similar to Canada in its geography and demographics.

Some costs will definitely go up, though, for ticketing, parking and food. Private companies expect a profit after all, and investment funds in particular expect big profits (8-12%). Experience shows that, after privatization, most airports will put a price on baggage carts, for example, and pick-ups and drop-offs by private vehicles (and, by extension, ride-hailing services) will be charged sometimes quite onerous fees. 

The Canadian Labour Congress has pointed out that Australia's experience resulted in significantly higher fees imposed on travellers, as well as some substantial job losses as airports look to economize and rationalize their operations. Also, while the government may benefit from a one-time infusion of cash, it will be giving up a steady public income of around $525 million a year from rents and other fees.

The International Air Transport Association, which represents 370 of the world's airlines, has also registered its opposition to Mr. Carney's privatization plan, on the grounds that experience shows that the increased costs will be passed on to airlines, which will in turn Kass those costs on to travellers, so air fares will go up. Carney says that "the evidence shows travel costs go down over time", but that is not borne out by the recent experiences of Australia and Britain.

So, slam-dunk may be an exaggeration, but some advantages do exist. Whether they outweigh the drawbacks depends very much on your point of view. But you should definitely be prepared for higher air fares.

What Donald Trump knows about interest rates (not much)

Just one more indication of how little Donald Trump knows (or cares) about economics: after the US Federal Reserve finally had the cojones to raise interest rates, in direct opposition to Trump's frantic exhortations to drastically reduce interest rates, Trump tore the whole organization off a strip. His rationale? "Interest Rates in the United States should 1% or less, because we are the Best Credit in the World - BY FAR."

Setting aside the fact that he is living is a fantasy world, and that the US's credit rating is actually AA+ according to most rating agencies, compared to the AAA rating of countries like Canada, Australia and many European countries (see graphic below), that is not the point.

Credit ratings are not what drives interest rates, Mr. Trump.

The Fed - under new Trump appointee Kevin Warsh, who was widely expected not to have the gall to stand up to  - voted unanimously to increase interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point to 3.75-4.00%, and warned that it would probably raise them again next month. HIS rationale? The plain fact is that inflation is too high and has been for too long."

Now that is a sensible rationale. And for that the US President blustered, "The board is very hostile. They're very political. They're doing the wrong thing. They're a bunch of politicians. They're raising rates to make Trump do as bad as they can possibly do."

Ah, so interest rates are actually all about Donald Trump! Now I get it.

International trade is weird

As expected, Donald Trump has levied some more tariffs on Canada, in response to Canada's counter-tariffs to Trump's earlier tariffs. I know, it sounds like a kid's game, doesn't it?

The new tariffs, generally speaking, are in the sectors of dairy products, alcoholic beverages and motorcycles, a pretty random-seeming mixed bag, although I'm sure some thought has gone into them (albeit not by Trump).

When you think about it, though, some of the products are pretty surprising. "Molasses products, including invert and cane molasses"? We export molasses to the USA? We don't have any sugar production, apart from maybe final refining. Why are we exporting molasses, and to the US of all places?

Ditto rum and tequila. Don't we import them from Mexico, and probably from the USA? What are we doing exporting them to America?

And, for that matter, motorcycles. We export motorcycles to the land of the Harley Davidson?

International trade is weird.

Clancy trial ends in a travesty of justice

The Lindsay Clancy trial has captivated the media and the viewing public for weeks. The trial was televised - a weird concept for me; this is NOT entertainment! - although the jurors' deliberations were not. (Maybe they should have been if this is really to be reality TV.)

In the end, it was those jury deliberations that provided the big story, because 11 of the 12 jurors voted to acquit Ms. Clancy on the grounds that postpartum psychosis clouded her judgement and made her not criminally responsible. One juror, even after extensive debate, voted against the majority and, because a jury verdict needs to be unanimous in this kind of criminal trial, the jury was therefore hung, and the judge had no choice but to declare a mistrial. Seven weeks of work on the part of many people wasted just like that.

Thing is, though, now that the trial is over. other jury members are offering a glimpse of what actually happened behind those closed doors. It tutns out that the dissenting juror, who is charitably described as "arrogant", actually admitted to the other jurors that "he had reasonable doubt", which is all that is needed to trigger a vote for acquittal. But, in spite of that, the maverick juror insisted that "I'm still not going to say that she's not guilty by reason of insanity".

So, the holdout juror seems to have misunderstood the way the law works, and nothing the judge or the other jurors could say could change his mind. What a travesty! If that juror ever becomes publicly known, he should probably watch his back. He should also be banned from ever serving on a jury again.

If there are more sanctions to announce, why weren't they announced before?

Every now and then, I read about a new sanction that is being brought to bear on one of the world's pariah states. The latest such is Canada, France and the UK are sanctioning Israel in a small way by banning the import of goods from the illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. 

My first thought was "What? We buy things from the occupied West Bank? They can actually grow things there?" My second thought, though, was "Why the hell did we not impose these sanctions before?"

It's the same with Russia. Canada and most of the civilized Western world has imposed various sanctions on Russia since its invasion, and its ongoing bombing, of Ukraine. As recently as June of this year - four-and-a-half years into the war - Canada imposed new sanctions on 162 "people, entities and vessels". 

Which raises the questions of "why now?" If these are legitimate sanction targets in relation to Russia's illegal war, why were they not sanctioned four years ago? Why were the earlier sanctions not designed to include all possible targets, for maximum effect? Why wait until now to announce a few more piecemeal sanctions? Was it just for the sake of having something to announce, to be seen to be doing something?

It does seem to be more about playing politics than a serious attempt to bring about a halt to the war. And I'm not saying that only Canada is guilty of this - all countries seem to be doing it.

What carnivore diet devotees get wrong

I've been vegetarian for about forty-five years, as has my wife, for a bunch of different reasons, and it doesn't seem to have done us much harm. Vegetarianism and veganism weren't common practices back in the '80s, but they are much more mainstream and accepted now. 

That said, the trendy diet du jour is still the carnivore, Paleo or "caveman" diet. It's particularly popular with men, especially middle-aged men, who see it as connected to traditional ideas of physical strength and ruggedness. This is best personified by the American influencer and internet personality Brian Johnson, aka the Liver King. Now, Johnson has since been outed, and his physique turns out to have been mainly created by anabolic steroid use, not consumption of raw meat and internal organs. But the idea of the meat-based "ancestral diet" persists.

Turns out, though, the whole caveman premise is also largely spurious. 

Animal bones and stone tools obviously survive over time while plant matter decomposes quickly. So, the traditional fossil record gives a skewed impression of the Paleolithic diet, "biased towards the hunting record". Modern archaeology, on the other hand, makes use of isotope analysis of nitrogen, carbon, zinc and sulphur, and analysis of dental enamel, bone collagen and plant remains, as well as DNA analysis of food particles left on ancient teeth.

This more modern archaeological analysis shows that Paleolithic humans were more gatherers than hunters, relying more on plant foods like acorns, fruits, oats and nuts, supplement by occasional meat. Plus, there was no single Paleolithic diet: different populations obviously ate what was available to them.

This is backed up by more recent ethnographic evidence from modern hunter-gatherer populations, which mainly eatnplant foods (a much more reliable and more easily acquired source than meat). The closest thing to a carnivorous diet is that of the Inuit of the Arctic, who have no choice but to rely on a diet largely bereft of plants (although even they eat whatever plant foods they can, from lichen to berries). The Inuit, though, have undergone genetic adaptations over the millennia to cope with this excessively meat-based diet, which would be very unhealthy for other humans.

Modern would-be paleoliths are not even eating the same foods as their ancestral models, and typically don't consume brains, internal organs, bone marrow, etc. Human bodies are now genetically adapted to eating modern foods, which generally means an agricultural diet, including dairy. We have more amylase enzymes and have evolved to be able to digest dairy products throughout adulthood (although this varies from population to population), and are better suited to a higher starch diet than our ancient forebears.

So, attempting to "revert" to some semi-mythical Stone Age diet might not be the best for our modern biologies. Cutting out entire food groups is never going to be a good solution, and the ancestral diet was actually incredibly diverse and varied, high in plant fibre, and included many more types of microbes than we typically ingest today. And, anyway, just because our ancestors did something, doesn't mean that's what they WANTED to do; they would probably have loved the reliable access and varied foods we have today.

Extending gas tax relief is a cynical exercise in populism

The Carney government, which for the longest time liked to call itself "Canada's new government" in order to distance it from the old Trudeau-led Liberal government, continues to show just how distant it is from Trudeau-era philosophies, particularly where the environment is concerned.

Mr. Carney's latest transgression is to extend the tax cut on gasoline, aviation fuel and diesel that it brought in in April of this year, and which was supposed to die an ignominious death this week. Now we are stuck with it until the end of March 2027 at least.

It's a conservative-inspired populist sop, advertised as a cost-of-living/affordability measure designed to help poorer people cope with the increased costs caused by Trump's war in Iraq.

But it takes a good chunk of government money to finance this kind of feel-good measure.. Esimates are that the tax cut will cost the government (and therefore the country) about $5.3 billion. That's more than the entire annual budget of the Correctional Services of Canada, more than the Department of Agriculture's annual budget, and the Department of Natural Resources'. It's more than what Ottawa plans to invest in its critical minerals strategy, slightly less than is budgeted for "trade diversification and infrastructure strategies" over five years, and a bit less than its investment in defence industrial strategy over five years.

You get the idea: it's a lot of money. And this is not some kind of tax reform measure, funded by tax increases or spending cuts elesewhere. This is just out-of-pocket spending that the country can ill afford. It goes straight on to our deficit and our national debt. It is lowering the cost of filling up your gas-guzzler SUV by borrowing and topping up the national debt. 

It works like a carbon tax in reverse: the more you drive, the more you save. If you can't afford a car and use public transit, or if you are environmentally responsible and drive an electric car (like me), you get no benefit at all, but pay for the debt servicing costs anyway out of your taxes.

This is no less cynical than the "temporary" gas tax cut Ontario Premier Doug Ford instituted back in 2022, which of course is now permanent. It is a similarly cynical populist move, just on a bigger scale.

There was a time when Mark Carney was a committed environmentalist, particularly active on climate change issues, but those days are long gone. This move will enable an increase in fossil fuel use, and an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Carney knows that, and went ahead anyway, because he likes the power and wants to stay as Prime Minister. Of course, he would say, like Doug Ford, that he is saving the man in the street money, but it will certainly not trickle down to the poorest of the poor. 

And anyway, at what cost to the environment does it come. It's interesting that it was announced at the same time as the government issued (rather secretively) its latest Changing Climate Report, which concludes that Canadians are feeling the effects of climate change - from floods, wildfires and heatwaves to vanishing glaciers and melting permafrost - much more, and much more seriously, than projected just a decade ago, and that those trends are likely to be much more pronounced in the future. Since 1970, it notes, Canada has warmed nearly twice every as fast as the global average, and the Canadian Arctic three times as fast.

The report makes grim reading. And the Prime Minister's response? Let's just make it worse.

You might want to boycott Chevron

Most major oil companies are unwilling to touch Venezuelen oil with a proverbial bargepole. Not so Chevron.

America's second largest oil company has been in Venezuela since 1923, navigating or conveniently ignoring all of the many varieties of bad stuff that have happened there over the decades. Now, in response to Donald Trump's call for private development of the mess that is Venezuela's oil industry, Chevron is the only US oil company to step forward, not back.

The other companies, preferring not to be associated with Venezuela, are eschewing the country for sound financial reasons: most analysts think it will take many years of serious investment before Venezuelan oil will be profitable for them. Plus, the US government is insisting on taking a 20% cut (finders fee?)

But you have to think too that they are all too conscious of the reputational risk involved. After all, the US's involvement arose through an invasion. Trump would have us call it a "deal", because everything is a deal to him. But the reality is, America invaded Venezuela, kidnapped its elected leader (who is even now languishing in an American jail), and intimated and browbeat the interim government into granting the US de facto control over its huge oil reserves.

This, then, is blood money, spoils of war. Most sensible companies would want to distance themselves from that. But Chevron? They're all in. Now, you might want to boycott Chevron-owned gas stations: Chevron, Texaco, Caltex. I don't know whether that is already an ongoing campaign, but if it isn't, it should be. Me, I have an electric car, otherwise I would be there too.

UPDATE

Turns out, there are various other reasons to boycott Chevron notwithstanding its Venezuelan connections: its profiteering from the ongoing genocide in Palestine; its price-gouging activities; its dumping of toxic waste in developing countries; and of course its egregious carbon footprint and greenwashing strategies.

What if the Democrats won Congress?

I have been trying to figure out how, if at all, a Democrat clean sweep in November's mid-term elections would change anything. I think none answer may be: not much.

Under Donald Trump, US policy, both at home and abroad, has been concentrated to an unprecedented degree one one man ruling through presidential decree and executive order. The courts have managed to rein some of his excesses, although the largely Trump-appointed Supreme Court has mainly protected him, other than in a few high-profile cases. Congress, on the either hand, has had very little influence on things and, even were the Democrats to control it, I'm not sure that would make much difference.

There has been a swing in American opinion, and there is a good chance that Democrats could win a slim majority in the House of Representatives, and maybe in the Senate too. It's by no means a foregone conclusion, but the chance is there, should the American people choose to seize it. This is true notwithstanding the likely efforts of the Trump administration to interfere in the elections by intimidating voters, seizing ballots, or denying the outcome of inconvenient election results, and past drives to gerrymander electoral districts, ban postal votes, etc.

But, if Democrats controlled Congress, what would change? There would, of course, be a strong symbolic effect, as it would be seen as a widespread repudiation of Trump and his policy. There is some congressional legislation in process, and Democrats could block any ongoing Republican nonsense, and even introduce somenchanges of their own, so that's something. But Trump could easily veto such initiatives, and the chances of Democrats swinging two-thirds of the vote (to veto the veto) are slim to none. The setting of the federal budget and the regular raising of federal debt ceiling may be about all they can influence to any great degree. Trump has already pushed through most of what he wants to achieve congressionally (e.g. his Big Beautiful Bill) in the first half of his term.

Democratic control of Congress could also dictate the terms and the make-up of committees, but the practical impact of those are very limited. Another attempt to impeach Trump is pretty unlikely.

One element I had not thought about is that, if the Democrats were to win Congress on November 3rd, some of the older Republican Supreme Court judges would probably be "encouraged" to retire before the new Congress would be sworn in in mid-January, so that Trump could appoint some younger for right candidates to extend the conservative majority for many years to come.

All in all, not a very edifying prospect. Tariffs would continue (insofar as the courts allow them), ICE detentions and enforced immigrant deportations would continue. All of the innumerable Trump executive orders would remain in place. Foreign policy would remain one of thoughtless aggrandisement and spite.

In the American political system, the President has way too much power. Yes, technically the President is directly elected, but if they then strike out on a completely different radical (arguably insane) path, there is little the electorate or an elected Congress can do about it. They need to fix that.

Yes, the mid-terms are important, but don't expect them to change the chaos of the Trump administration in any material way. As independent observers like GIS note, "the outcome of 2026 national elections will likely not significantly shift national policies or the direction of American foreign policy". Ouch!

"Your entire nation has a lower GDP than Texas"

"Your entire nation has a lower GDP than Texas". Not Donald Trump this time, but US Representative Brandon Gill of, well, Texas.

And his point? Er, not sure.

Canada goose 1 : American Eagle 0

I should know better than to respond to Trump's nocturnal ramblings on social media. But worth mentioning that I already dealt with this one long before it even happened.

In this episode... Trump has cherry-picked part of a photo sequence by a Canadian photographer of an encounter in Burlington, Ontario between a bald eagle (symbol of America) and a Canada goose (kind of a symbol of Canada, for our sins).

The photo seems to show the eagle dominating and savaging the goose. The rest of the photo sequence, though, shows very different outcome: after a protracted scuffle, the goose survives, rallies and threatens back against the shocked eagle. As I posted many months earlier, a different cherry-picked photo from the same sequence shows the goose rampant and a rather sorry-looking eagle.

Be careful with your source material Mr. Trump (or Ms. Harp, or whoever comes up with this guff).

Meet the ultra-cute leaf sheep

Part 52 in my series of cute and improbable animals, meet the leaf sheep.

You probably guessed that it's not a sheep at all. In fact, it's a kind of tiny sea slug (about the size of a gain of rice), Latin name costasiella kurashimae. It lives in shallow tropical waters near Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines. 

Unusually, it absorbs chloroplasts from algae and uses sunlight to generate energy in a process similar to photosynthesis (actually called kleptoplasty). It is also a hermaphrodite, possessing both male and female reproductive organs, although it does need another leaf sheep in order to reproduce.

Most of all, though, it is impossibly cute, with those tiny cartoon eyes, little horns and succulent-luke leaves branching off its back.

Does Canada have any alternatives to retaliatory tariffs?

As Canada invokes dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs on the USA, one can't help but lament how Canada is getting dragged into Trump's own silliness. On both sides of the border, prices will go up, plants will close, and jobs will be lost. As one journalist put it, this is "fighting stupid with stupid". Protesting that "we didn't start it" doesn't change that.

I mean, think about it: Canada now has tariffs on the same exports to the US as the US has tariffs on its exports to Canada. How daft is that? We may as well just keep those products and use them here in Canada, rather than making them more expensive, exporting them to the USA, and then importing the same products back again from the USA (after they have made them more expensive). Franz Kafka would have had a field day with this stuff.

There again, what choice do we have? Doing nothing would signal surrender, and give Trump carte blanche to extend or ramp up his tariffs. Hardly anyone is advocating that.

Some - including the Alberta Federation of Labour, much to many people's surprise - have suggested levying export taxes on our exports to the US. After all, that would put the financial burden on American importers, not Canadian exporters, right? The problem is, export  taxes raise the prices for importers, who would probably then look eslewhere for their imports. It would reduce the attractiveness of, and demand for, Canadian products, and probably result in scaled-back production and job layoffs. 

Predictably, others - the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, for one - have strongly counselled against such a move. Oh, and export taxes are also explicitly prohibited under the CUSMA/USCMA agreement with the US (although, arguably, Trump has flouted the spirit if not the letter of that agreement many times).

Which leaves us with retaliatory tariffs, or some other non-tariff option. BC Premier David Eby has called on Mr. Carney to consider other strategies, like reconsidering the plan to buy American F-35 fighter jets, and to levy export taxes on exports of coal to the US, but only in adddition to retaliatory tariffs, which he says he fully supports.

Canada nonplussed by Trump's threat to change Lake Ontario name

Family overseas are asking us how Canadians feel about Donald Trump threatening to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America. (Could he not think of anything more creative?) Well, the word that springs to mind is "nonplussed". Generally speaking, we have learned to ignore Trump's bloviations and his childish outbursts as much as possible.

Besides, he just can't do it. Even a US president can't unilaterally change the name of a bi-national lake. Any change he proposes (assuming he is serious, which is far from clear) would only apply to US federal government publications and maps. The current name is recognized internationally and appears in federal legislation on both sides of the border.

Lake Ontario - an Indigenous name that predates either country, incidentally - is governed jointly by Canada and the USA, through a whole series of treaties, commissions and bi-national agreements. To change the name, Trump would first need to go through the US Board on Geographical Names. Assuming he could cajole, browbeat and threaten them to go along with his childish prank, it would then need to be ratified by the Geographical Names Board of Canada and Ontario's Ministry of Natural Rreources and Forestry and Indigenous Communities, which is consulted on culturally significant names.

So, not going to happen. 

Mr. Trump may be able to force the US government to change the name on its own maps and reports. But then, US government maps will be wrong and everyone else's will be right. How does that constitute a win, even by Trump's warped standards? You can just imagine government functionaries rolling their eyes, as they consider the prospect of all that extra work just to accommodate another Trump hissy fit.

Doug Ford tries to out-Trump Trump

It's pretty instructive to see Ontario Premier Doug Ford's contribution to the ongoing debate on American tariffs and their perpetrator, Donald Trump.

Following up on "He can kiss my ass as far as I'm concerned", Ford called Trump a "loser", a "dictator", a "bully" and the "king of bankruptcies". Ouch! Then, "I have more courage, more brains in my baby toe than he has in his whole body". Kapow! 

Predictably, Trump fired back very much in the same vein, calling Ford "the less charismatic, intelligent and overall unimpressive brother of the late, great Rob Ford". Zhang! And, to cap it all, he says he is "giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontatio to Lake America in that we don't expect to doing much business with Ontario any longer". So there!

Ford: "You think an insult from him hurts me? Well, bring it on buddy, I am read ready. Bring it on!" Kraak!

The next day, in a CNN interview, Ford admitted that, "Things got a little heated, it got a little personal yesterday". Yuh think?

They're two of a kind, aren't they? Neither of them have any filters or any off switch. Neither considers consequences or engages brain before speaking. How either of them got to where they are today is a mystery. They are supposed to be leaders of large and important regions, and they continue to talk like naughty schoolkids. I'm embarrassed by the pair of them.

Also like Trump, though, the more daft things he says and does, the more Ford's support increases (although while that was true at one time, Trump has shown that there are limits to this kind of counter-intuitive popularity bump - his popularity is now at an all-time low).

Canada-US trade talks fall through

Well, the Canada-USA trade talks fell apart at the eleventh-plus hour.

Prime Minister Mark Carney blamed the Americans for "last-minute changes in US proposed terms [that] were unfair, uneconomic and called into question the reliability of any deal". That sounds about right from past experience.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, of course, blamed the Canadians for "new demands and walk-backs of other commitments by Canada [that] have upended the careful balance reached in the past days". That sounds less convincing.

So, the 50% Section 338 tariffs on about $28 billion of Canada's exports to the US (about 5% of total exports) are set to go ahead forthwith. That sounds pretty bad, but an RBC analysis estimates the fallout at just 0.4% of Canada's GDP, and a separate Capital Economics study puts it at 0.6% of GDP. So, not good, but not disastrous, in the scheme of things. The burden would not fall evenly on the economy, though, with apparel and electrical goods being most badly affected (20% of production and jobs in those sectors could be hurt).

Canada has vowed to retaliate "dollar for dollar", Trump has vowed to up the ante should Canada retaliate, and we now have an all-out open-ended trade war. And we haven't even started negotiation on the renewal or otherwise of the CUSMA/USMCA free trade agreement!

But, I'll tell you what, it actually pretty good to be standing up to the bully to our south. The only other country that has stood up for itself in this way is China. Although, granted we are much more in a David and Goliath situation.

Elbows up, anyone?