Facts prove USA is smartest country in the world!

As we all know, the very pinnacle of academic achievement is the Ph. D., or the “Doctor Phil” as it is known in the UK. Bearing in mind the maxim of the famous Prussian war theorist Carl von Clausewitz that war is just the continuation of politics by other means, I got to thinking, it’s not necessarily the side with the most guns and bombs that will win, unless they also have the most brain-power. After doing a little google research, I am pleased to report that the good-guys in the coming war, America and her NATO allies, have way more brain-power than the current axis of evil. On the list of Ph. Ds graduated by country, USA is first, with five NATO allies ranking in the top ten. Russia comes in at 14th, and Putin’s partners in the Axis of Evil don’t even make the list! That looks like a slam-dunk to me! A no-brainer! Suck on that, Putin! But hold the victory parade. After all, we in the civilized world have a lot of highly educated folks who’s education may not bring much to the game once politics continues by other means. Maybe we should use a different metric… how about global distribution of STEM degrees, on the off-chance that science, technology, engineering, and math might be more relevant than a PhD in sociology or political science. Whoa! Check out that chart! China may lag in producing social scientists discovering new genders, but holy heck, China alone has almost four times as many STEM grads as the USA! Toss Russia and Iran into the mix and the Axis of Evil has a five-fold advantage over the Nations of Virtue! Maybe we should think twice about rushing into a war with them.

Artificial Intelligence is dumber than you are

Why not try a hands-free search and use your voice to chat with our AI bot! That’s a prompt that’s been coming up as I’m logging into my laptop. I have yet to have that chat, as I have zero desire to converse with an AI chatbot. I do dozens of searches every day, and dumb non-AI platforms are perfectly adequate for my needs. Besides, I’d feel like a complete dorkshit sitting here talking to my computer. If you have to have a conversation, that’s what people are for, not chatbots. Then there’s the matter of the extravagant energy consumption of Artificial Intelligence applications. A simple question, such as “how did Canada vote at the UN today?” can use 30 times the energy as your standard non-AI search. And the non-AI search will be more reliable because it’s not smart enough to make stuff up. If you think 30 times next to nothing is still nothing, you’d be wrong. All the big players are trying to find long term deals for cheap electricity. Alberta is offering cheap energy and tax breaks specifically to lure the industry to that province. This is a massive increase on the demand side, at the same time as we’re hoping to transition to electric vehicles. We have nowhere near the generating capacity or the grid to make either one of those dreams into reality, let alone both at the same time! In my view, reducing carbon emissions is a greater good than talking to chatbots.

A hundred pictures of Jesus and a stash of gay porn

A hundred pictures of Jesus and a stash of gay porn; Grampa's secrets revealed. Grampa Bernie was a big deal at the Knights of Columbus. He was such a devoted catholic he must have had at least a hundred pictures of Jesus hanging from every wall in every room of that downtown two-storey red brick he and his wife had bought new back in the... thirties? Forties? The dude's been dead for 30 years, so where-ever he reads this blog I'm sure he's having a good laugh.We're loading up my truck with basement detritus when one of the cousins comes out with a stack of magazines. "I didn't know they had naked wrestling in the Olympics."I took a look.Whoa! They might call it wrestling, honey, but that ain't the Olympics...I've never been much of a porn consumer, gay or otherwise, but I'm guessing nude wrestling magazines from the 40's and 50's would attract a decent dollar in the collector market. Way more than the old Time and Life magazines.Crazy how you can walk through the remnants of an up-standing citizen's life when they're gone and discover that they were way more than you thought. Bernie was indeed a respected and upstanding citizen. He was also a gay porn aficionado. And somebody in that house had a very healthy appetite for pills and booze...But enough about that.Bernie comes alive in that nursing home. In fact, it took mere weeks to find a new love! That revelation was initially received with good humour by the extended family. "Oh how lovely that he has some companionship in his twilight years" and all that sort of thing.Then he bought the bitch a thousand dollar fur coat!..WELL HOLY THUNDERIN' JEEZUS IF THAT WASN'T THE END OF THE WORLD!!!She was obviously a tramp and a gold-digger and by God if this was gonna be the way he carries on there would not be a red cent left over for anybody when the old coot kicked the bucket!Unfortunately the last months of Grampa Bernie's life were consumed with frantic family desperately running interference between him and the gold-digger.He dropped dead half way through a Leafs game on CBC one Saturday night.As many of us wish we could when the Leafs are playing on Saturday night.I suppose you could say his dreams came true!In spite of the machinations of his heirs, the new gal got to keep the coat.

The solidarity among living things

The main thing I saw today was many thousands of sandhill cranes heading south. They came by in batches of several dozen at a time. The hummingbirds have departed as of a week or two ago. We’ve still got the buzzards hanging around, at least some of them. They’re like the geese; some migrate and some don’t. I suspect that as the climate continues to warm up, the population of migratory birds will diminish. After all, why fly two or four or six thousand miles each way if you don’t have to? Here’s another thing I saw - a fly crawling into my Mott’s Caesar. Then again, I’m not sure if I actually “saw” it, or just thought I saw it. Once you’ve had a couple Caesars and a toke, it’s hard to tell. I did a visual inspection and then took a cautious sip, and concluded there was in fact no fly in my drink. So imagine my surprise when, a half hour later, a thoroughly Caesar-soaked fly crawled out of the can! I helped it along a little; after all, it’s a living thing and, insofar as possible, it’s my duty as a fellow living thing to do what I can to facilitate its living longer. Last I saw, it was test-buzzing its wings in preparation to fly again. Solidarity of living things!

Mysteries of the "deep state"

As you know, the folks who run America’s democracy theatre have a big event coming up in a few weeks; the election. You know the main characters; in the red corner, the Black Hat, Donald J Trump. And in the blue corner, the White Hat, Kamala. Due to the limited intelligence of the average American voter, the script-writers like to keep things simple enough that your typical WWE enthusiast can follow the action. Polls tell us the race is too close to call. In order to shake things up, the brain trust running the White Hat’s campaign sent her out on a media blitz recently. I’ve seen the Opra interview, the 60 Minutes interview, and her appearances on Colbert and The View. Sending Kamala out to meet the people has been, in my opinion, a tragic mistake. The woman has exposed herself as a complete airhead. “So what will be your policy priorities, Kamala?” “Well… before I address that, I just want to say how much I love the American people. I grew up in a middle class home, and you know, ambition and work ethic! I love the American people because we have dreams… we have aspirations… we work hard… we have dreams…” Other than that, and badmouthing Trump, she ain’t got nuthin! Meanwhile, what’s the Black Hat up to? As we know, Trump is a bad guy who can’t wait to end democracy in America. What do you expect from a Putin fanboy? And he’s ready to stab Ukraine in the back! Who can even imagine such an outrage? Ukraine, the plucky little country fighting Putin so democracy can survive, not just in Ukraine, but all over the world! And Trump wants to pull the plug on our support for this bravest of all democratic nations! And let’s not forget that Trump’s number one backer is the odious Elon Musk, the world’s richest man! The man who bought liberal, freedom-loving Twitter, and turned it into a hate-spewing fascist propaganda organ! There you have the broad outlines of the narrative, the plot, so to speak, for the Big Show. Now let me step back for a moment and play theatre critic. Aside from being the world’s richest man, and an enthusiastic promoter of far-right conspiracy theories, who is Elon Musk? Why, he’s the beneficiary of $hundreds of billions in financial support from the US government for his various deep-state-adjacent enterprises. Like Space-X. If you suspect NASA was privatized and Elon ended up with it, you wouldn’t be wrong. Which brings me to the Atlantic Council. That’s the “intellectual” think-tank arm of NATO. It is funded by the US government and a gaggle of defence contractors. It is 100% committed to the doctrine of American exceptionalism and is a “deep state” creature through and through. Every year, on the occasion of the UNGA shindig in NYC, the Atlantic Council celebrates a few world leaders for their service to Empire by bestowing upon them the “Global Citizen Award.” This year, one of the recipients of the Global Citizen Award was PM of Italy, Georgia Meloni. If you recall, when she was elected, the mainstream media couldn’t give you enough scare stories about how she was the reincarnation of Mussolini! Pro-Putin and anti-American! Fortunately, on winning the election, she came to her senses and soon embraced the urgency of standing with Ukraine for as long as it takes. And who presented her the award? None other than that anti-establishment rebel, Elon Musk! Yup, the same guy bankrolling Donald Trump, the anti-establishment once-and-future swamp-drainer! Wow! Well, clearly this two-horse race could go either way. Luckily for freedom, democracy, and human rights, these two diametrically opposed candidates can agree on one crucial thing; they both 100% support Israel, no matter what.

US-NATO betrayal of Ukraine will bring serious blowback

Zelensky has unveiled his secret "Victory Plan." Here it is folks… drum roll please! Lot’s more billions and lots more weapons and also a few hundred thousand volunteers, ‘cause he’s pretty much out of Ukrainians. We’ve been hearing this tune for two and a half years. Victory is always just beyond reach. With a few more months and a few more billions, victory is assured! Rinse & repeat. Unfortunately for Zelly, his pleas to his handlers in DC will fall on deaf ears. The entire Washington establishment has written off the Ukraine gambit now that the Holy Land is in play. They won’t come right out and say so, but everybody sees what’s going on. Zelly has joined the ranks of those the esteemed war criminal Henry Kissinger was talking about when he candidly opined that being America’s enemy was dangerous, but being America’s friend was deadly. Noriega. Saddam. Kaddafi. Shame about those half million dead Ukrainians and their destroyed country. But we gave you two and a half years and you blew it. We got bigger fish to fry, and Iran is a big fish! I have a hunch there’ll be blowback over the betrayal of Ukraine.

Indian Summer

Not sure if “Indian summer” is a phrase you’re still allowed in the age of Woke. Regardless, we had the perfect Indian summer Saturday in these parts today. Sunshine all day and T-shirt and shorts temperatures. First weekend in October means it’s Pumpkinfest in Port Elgin. That’s only a hop and a skip from Falling Downs, plus we get to stop off at Tuggies on the Rez for cheap gas and cheap smokes. The Pumpkinfest is allegedly about the giant vegetables that arrive at what was originally the Port Elgin fall fair. Fall fairs are a big deal in rural Ontario. Every two-bit hick-town has one. Even former two-bit hick-towns that have long since become suburbs of Toronto still have them. I’m looking at you, Orangeville and Shelburne. But I digress. We don’t go to Port Elgin for the two-ton pumpkins. We go for the car show. It comes two or three weeks after the Concours at Cobble Beach. That one is ten minutes down the road, and we’ve been a few times. Fifty bucks to get in the gate. A lot of world-class stuff that arrived in hundred thousand dollar trailers with quarter million tow vehicles. Who doesn’t want to spend fifty bucks to see an actual original Bugatti? The Pumpkinfest car show, on the other hand, is all stuff the owners drove there. The town blocks off a few blocks of the downtown for a day. You won’t see any Bugattis, but you’ve got the entire catalogue of North American iron, plus a good sampling of European stuff. And it’s absolutely free! So we wander around downtown Port Elgin for an hour and a half, with Bruno in tow. You can’t imagine how many people want to stop and tell you how beautiful this runt Italian mastiff is. It’s non stop. When Bruno had his fill of strangers wanting to touch him, we motored down the Lake Huron shore to Kincardine, for lunch at the Erie Belle, where they promote themselves as the “House of Fish & Chips.” I was a fan long before the gluten thing reared its ugly head, and I am happy to report the Erie Belle has gluten-free fish & chips that will rival anything you ever had. We’re on the patio with Bruno catching the shade under the table, when a gaggle of millennials comes in and settles into the far end of the patio. There’s eight of them, and they’re engaged in a quite lively conversation. This has no bearing on us whatsoever. We’re at least forty feet away. But about ten minutes in, the Farm Manager remarks that none of them appear to have their phones out. What? How is such a thing even conceivable? I was seated with my back to them, but as we were leaving I went over to check them out. I thought at least a few might have their phones flat on the table in front of them, but no! Who can imagine such a thing?! Eight millennials gathered round a table on a restaurant patio, and not a phone in sight? There is hope for humanity!