Doo-doo rising; what's next for the deranged occupant of the Offal Orifice

OMG did you see what autocomplete just did? I swear I wrote "Oval Office," and look how it came out?! Maybe the AI apps that are always looking over your shoulder these days are smarter than I thought! Anyway, it's getting all-too-obvious that Donny J is well down the Alzheimer Highway. In fact, I'm pretty sure he was in that convoy of black SUVs that passed me at very high speed not too long ago. Lake America? I mean... the level of imbecility on display here is off the charts! It's obviously playing on his mind double-plus big-time that the Towelheads 'o Terror have embarrassed the greatest military the world has ever seen! I'm surprised there isn't more alarm afoot re the obvious cognitive impairment of the leader of the Free World. Given all the headwinds bearing down on the flailing and failing American Empire at this moment, the Commander-in-Chief finds the time for a juvenile PR stunt to rename Lake Ontario!? It's hard to see happy endings emerging from the disaster Trump and Bibi triggered with their war. Sometimes Karma just gotta run her course.

For a quarter billion $ I'd kiss Carney's ass too

There was a remarkabley obsequious oped in the Globe today penned by a trio of young "entrepreneurs" who are pee-your-pants ecstatic about Carney's so-called AI strategy. The title of their article gives the game away; "This is our time: Canada's national AI strategy is an incredible step forward." Yup, not only is Canada a latent energy superpower and a latent quantum computing superpower, we are also an AI powerhouse, and indeed, a potential AI superpower. We invented that shit after all! All we have to do is capitalize on our imaginary advantages, and these clowns assert that Canada is destined to become one the the top three AI powers alongside China and USA, thanks to Carney's inspired vision and decisive actions. Really? How does the editorial staff at the Globe, assuming they still have any, let such utter tosh go out under their brand? Here's just one wee issue; Canada produces approx 18,000 STEM postgrads a year. China graduates about 750,000. Oh, and they're not dumbing down their curriculumn so lazy kids can feel better about themselves. But somehow we're gona rule the world of AI? Get the fuck outta here! The young entrepreneurs in question did mention in passing that their AI startup scored almost a quarter billion in government funding in fiscal year 2025. Hmm...

Please allow Master Tailor Mark Carney to fit you a bespoke AI straightjacket

I see where PM Carney has decreed that all Canadians "should" become devotees of artificial intelligence. In fact, he proposes to offer "free" AI literacy courses to all Canadians, using their own tax dollars. Sounds like a great deal to me! This looks to me like a continuation of the "get aboard or get left behind" mantra that the AI grift machine has been promoting. It's pretty pathetic when the PM of your country is writing Scam Altman talking points into his policies... SHAME!!!

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!

Top headlines waiting for me at Google News this morning

By golly, that Artificial Intelligence stuff is amazing, isn't it? Google uses AI to personalize the stories the aggregator selects for us, according to our interests. Here's the top five headlines waiting for me when I fired up the laptop this morning.

1. Paul Manafort's lawyers conclude case without calling any witnesses - The Guardian
2. Ex-Trump official admits he "possibly" pocketed money from president's inauguration committee - Global News
3. Defence for Paul Manafort rests without calling witnesses at bank fraud trial - CBC News
4. Manafort defence rests without calling witnesses - CNN
5. Defence rests in Paul Manafort fraud trial without calling any witnesses - Daily Mail

They totally nailed it! I've been totally obsessed with the Manafort trial. 

The insights of Google's AI bots following me around the web are utterly uncanny! Why, just last night I had a dream where Manafort's defence team had Bad Vlad himself squirming in the witness stand...

Or not.

Here's a big ole scoop 'o irony for ya

Clicked on Google News this morning and found these two headlines in close proximity:

From the National Post, Conrad Black: Thirty years of climate hysterics being proven wrong over and over again, and just an inch or so away, we get this from CTV News; Amid extreme heat, 33 die in Quebec.

Which I think proves that artificial intelligence, as manifest in the Google News algorithms that create their home page, has both an appreciation for irony and a mischievous sense of fun!


There you go; artificial intelligence is nothing to be afraid of!

Using the future to explain the past; a reply to Barry Lando

Barry Lando has an essay on view at Counterpunch wherein he lays asunder the claim that American manufacturing jobs have been decimated by free trade agreements.

Nope, it hasn't been free trade at all, Lando assures us. It's been robots!

I don't want to dismiss Lando's argument altogether, because he does grapple with an odious truth. Going forward, many manufacturing jobs will be displaced by robots, AI, and so on.

But that's going forward.

That doesn't explain what happened under the original US-Canada Free Trade Agreement or the subsequent North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Hey, I was there waving bye-bye to the jobs, and it wasn't robots taking them.

Here's a story that claims more than 5 million US manufacturing jobs were lost between '97 and 2014. Now I admit the source is perhaps a little too union-friendly for mainstream tastes, but nevertheless that's a lot of jobs lost.

When jobs from Canada or the US end up in Mexico and China it's not because the Chinese and Mexican robots work cheaper than the Canadian or American ones.