Worshipping the Golden Calf of Artificial Intelligence

Have you noticed embedded pro-AI propaganda has infiltrated the entire media spectrum? I see dozens of ads daily for something called "AI training." For a fee, the gullible will be "trained" to use a tool that Big Tech has made impossible to avoid, training or no training. AI will give us "abundance." Yup. All we gotta do is clear the decks to make room for all the data centres required to spin all that abundance. Picture a hundred thousand robotic Rumpelstilkins in a giant warehouse, spinning data into gold! Picture tens of millions of robotic Rumpies in thousands of giant warehouses all across the land. Picture electic bills going through the roof in cities and towns clear across the land as power is prioritized for the data centres. Picture electricity grids collapsing because their mid-20th century specs are no match for data centre power demand in 2025 and beyond. Picture toiling in darkness and cooking over a wood fire while the data centres monopolize the power supply. Abundance my ass!

Reading the Globe & Mail's Ukraine coverage as black humour

I have long marvelled at the ability of the Globe's stable of wise men to plaster a happy face on the utter catastrophe that has befallen Ukraine. It has been beyond obvious, since at least the disastrous '23 "offensive," that this war is lost. The US lost, NATO lost, and Ukraine lost the most of all. Regardless, in the two-plus years since, almost every day sees another expert opining in the pages of the Globe, that the path to victory for Ukraine remains open. You gotta be kidding, I think to myself. I have come to the conclusion they are doing exactly that. Kidding. Pulling your leg. Joshin' you... As an example, take Mark MacKinnon's half-pager on A3 of today's paper. Mark is speculating as to how Trump's "28 point peace plan" might be recieved by Zelensky. He argues that in early '22, Zelly didn't throw in the towel when he was taking on Putin all by himself, so no way is he gonna cave when he's got Europe and Canada behind him! I know! You just want to shake your head and mumble, or perhaps shout, "get the fuck outta here!" While it's true Mark has been an indefatiguable cheerleader for Ukraine, he's not a stupid person. We know he's limited to NATO talking points. He knows we know neither Europe nor Canada have anything to offer Ukraine that could change the outcome of the war. So what's he talking about? He's joshin' us. He's pulling our legs.

More powerful than an Aztec death whistle

We took a trip down south over the weekend so we could spend some time with our grand-daughter and her parents. The parents are highly educated overachievers. They are also the practitioners of something called "gentle parenting." I, personally, have always been a practitioner of something called "gentle, but let's not overdo it" parenting. We took Mom and Dad and Baby Bean to a nice family breakfast joint. Baby Bean is a supremely confident and well-adjusted almost three. From time to time, she chooses to advocate for herself by unleashing, quite deliberately, a sound that is best described as a cross between a Stuka dive-bomber and an air-raid siren. More frightening than an Aztec death whistle. The air-raid death whistle didn't last more than 15 seconds before her father tossed her over his shoulder and exited the restaurant. So much for gentle parenting. God bless parents everywhere who recognize the fact that children need limits.

95 year-old Richard Falk deemed potential security threat by Canada

The retired Princeton prof was en route to a conference in Ottawa put on by a coalition of pro-Palestinian groups. According to the editorial values espoused by legacy Canadian media, to be pro-Palestine means you're anti-Israel, which makes you, by default, a Jew-hating anti-semite. And we don't want those types thinking they can just waltz across the border to spread Jew-hate on the pretext of attending a conference of anti-semites! So good on those alert Canadian border guards who picked up the phone when Irv Cotler called and ordered them to make an example of the 95yo retired academic. Apparently Irv still has schlep. Falk got a friendly soviet-style welcome with a four hour "examination of his papers" on his arrival. Let that be a lesson to all who imagine they can hide their Jew-hate by pretending they care about Palestinians.

Kanye West back on meds

There is a headline at the Jerusalem Post today that will bring tears of joy to the many Kanye fans in the Holy Land who have been distraught over allegedly antisemitic remarks attributed to the notorious rapper. "Kanye West meets Rabbi Pinto to make ammends for antisemitic statements." Yup, Ye is over in Israel grovelling for forgivness. "I meant no harm, Rabbi. When I said I loved Adolf Hitler I was talking about Adolph Lu Hitler, the famous Indian rapper and politician. I really love Jews, so please forgive me so I can get my career back."

Canada awakes from World Series fever dream

For a few short but glorious weeks the hopes of this great nation were fully invested in a couple dozen (mostly) American millionaires who get paid to play baseball. That's over now. Time to snap out of the trance. Back to reality! I see where our Banker-in-charge paid a visit to Chairman Xi to extend an olive branch of sorts. Sorry about that Two Michaels stuff... let's get the Canada-China relationship back on track! Fair enough. Makes sense now that we're desperate to expand our trade relationships beyond the USA. Remember, it was Ottawa's toadying to US dictats that derailed the Canada-China relationship to begin with. A couple of days after the photo-op with Xi, Carney sends his Defence Minister to Manila to sign a defence deal with the government of Bongbong Marcos, so we can help Phillipines "deter Chinese aggression." How stupid is that? In the first place, whoever came up with that moronic headline should be aware that the US has nine military bases in the Phillipines. Even a complete idiot should be able to figure out that if those nine US bases fail to deter Chinese aggression, a defence deal with Canada is utterly pointless. So why bother? I'll tell you why. Because even as our leaders loudly proclaim their defiance of Trump, they don't want to piss him off too much. That leads to embarrassments like having to apologize to Trump for that 75 million TV ad Doug Ford invested our tax dollars in. Hence the need to signal our continued allegience to the American Empire with empty gestures like the Phillipines deal.

Canada keen to commit half a trillion dollars to obsolete weapons

The Globe & Mail had a full-page fluffer yesterday re: Carney's historic choice; which foreign-built attack submarine should Canada buy? There is of course another possible answer; let's not buy any! Parse the Globe story and you'll find who the preferred target of those new submarines will be; Russia. We are told the lifetime costs of this pending contract will be north of $100 millions. Here's a thought. Ukraine, with no navy to speak of, has pretty much shut down Russia's Black Sea Fleet. How? With drones. Drones are the future of warfare. Only fools would commit billions to buying submarines that can be destroyed with low-cost drones. Same is true for our other RCN boondoggle, the "Surface Combatant Program." That's pencilled in at over $300 billion. Any one of our new billion dollar frigates can be sent to the bottom by a determined adversary with relatively simple and cheap technology. We're up to $400 billions here. Throw in the F-35 deal and the NORAD "Golden Dome" and we're heading towards a trillion right smartly. This is going to choke off social spending for the next fifty years. That's the spending that makes Canada a decent place to live, or it used to, back when we could afford it. That was before Russia started threatening our democracy though, so we have no choice.