The US Versus Canada 16

It's time for another compilation of articles about the continuing frosty relationship between Canada and the US. At least the Gordie Howe bridge is finally open and the wildfire smoke has abated somehat, here at least. 

Trump’s New Tariffs Are Designed to Tear Canada Apart. "Washington can now reward some provinces and punish others. The political danger may be considerable."

Lessons We've Learned from Gordie Howe - Elbows Up and Beyond. "his new Canadian built and paid for Gordie Howe Bridge celebrates a Canadian icon who played all his hockey for American teams but was always one of ours."

As Wildfires Ravage Canada, A Trump Puppet From Michigan Is Now Threatening Canada To "Stop The Smoke" Or Else. LOL. "Toronto has the worst air on Earth this week. The north is burning, people are fleeing their homes by boat, and a Congressman from Michigan thinks the problem is that Canada won’t rake its forest."

Mark Carney won’t let Donald Trump see him sweat, but it comes at a cost (gift link). "Watch Mark Carney, not long ago thought to be a political novice, work a press scrum. We’re now used to the half-beat pause before the prime minister answers, the banker’s habit of restating the question in duller language, draining it of drama, and the refusal, almost physical, to take the bait. That composure can come across as a personality quirk but it’s more likely a construction. This week, a remarkable two-part Wall Street Journal (WSJ) investigation shows us what it was built to withstand."

Canada is taking an outsized role in the construction of the post-American world. "Mr. Carney is a continentalist, too – he just has a different continent in mind. But his ardent pursuit of the European connection is in the same counter-balancing mould, not only of Liberal leaders past, but of statesmen through the ages: calling the Old World back into our existence, to redress the balance of the New."

Trump's Threat to Canada is Deadly Serious. "A new report in the Daily Beast has revealed just how far the White House is willing to go to upend international law and to attack allies."

Midwestern Republicans blame Canada, level threats for drifting wildfire smoke. "'FINAL WARNING TO CANADA: Manage your forests to prevent these fires. American lungs are paying the price for Canadian inaction, year after year,' wrote a Michigan congressman running for governor."

Why this Toronto man is being flooded with requests from Americans about their Canadian ancestors (gift link). "The Canadian Citizenship Act has opened doors to foreign nationals who want to reclaim citizenship by descent. Archivists are suddenly in demand."

Featured Links - April 1, 2026

 Things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Note:  There are no April fool jokes in the post.

The rite of spring

• The broligarchy's war on journalism. "The capture of US media by Trump allies is accelerating and the UK is the next in line. Plus: the mystery money behind my old newspaper." The financial shenanigans described here are quite remarkable. If you read The Guardian or The Observer, you should read this. 
• When is an alien invasion not an alien invasion? "Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's alien invasion novel is a time capsule from the Cold War, and a reminder that the threat of nuclear annihilation isn't ancient history." A good review of one of my favourite books from the 1980s that places the book in a wider historical perspective. 
• Endgame for the Open Web. "Now, the centibillionaires have begun their final assault on the last, best parts of what's still open, and likely won't rest until they've either brought all of the independent and noncommercial parts of the Internet under their control, or destroyed them. Whether or not they succeed is going to be decided by decisions that we all make as a community in the coming months. Even though there have always been threats to openness on the web, the stakes have never been higher than they are this time."
• ‘Truly spectacular’ drug for sleeping sickness simplifies treatment, raising hopes for eradication. "European regulators greenlight new one-dose compound that could help African countries get rid of an ancient burden." 
• ‘Canadians don’t want to come here any more’: anger over Trump squeezes US border businesses. "Shops and restaurants once bustling with tourists now struggle for survival as Canadians think twice about crossing the border." It's not just anger over the tariffs; people do not want to deal with the increasingly obtrusive border searches and the risk of ending up in an ICE detention centre. 
• Computer finds flaw in major physics paper for first time (archive link). "A computer language designed to robustly verify mathematical theorems and expose logical flaws has been turned towards a physics paper – and spotted an error. The discovery raises questions about how many other papers may harbour similar issues."
• How to Home. From Recomendo: "a YouTube channel with excellent videos that demonstrate how to complete common household repairs, such as wiring switches, fixing faucet leaks, and threading wire through walls and ceilings. Unlike many DIY videos, these feature high-quality audio, are well-lit, and aren’t blurry."
• How Alberta’s Separatist Movement Could Shake North America. "The resentments, politics, and risks behind their push to leave Canada." The separatists in Alberta are a small minority, but they are very committed and have ties to the US right. 
• The Hunt for Mr. Deepfakes. "A Toronto-area pharmacist is accused of being the internet’s most prolific peddler of deepfake porn. He’s just the beginning."
• This Week’s Small, Furry and Wet Reminder, That Repair is Still Possible. "Some hope for humanity, brought to you by beavers, with no consultants, no ribbon cuttings, just the ancient art of fixing what we keep breaking." Today, the UK. Tomorrow the world!
• Silicon Valley Giants Finally Face the Music. "Is this the Big Tobacco moment for the tech bros?"
• America and Public Disorder. "You can learn more about the U.S. by traveling overseas and comparing, and five years of that has taught me we accept far too much public disorder. We are the world’s richest country, and yet our buses, parking lots, and city streets are filthy, chaotic, and threatening. Antisocial and abnormal behavior, open addiction, and mentally tortured people are common in almost every community regardless of size."
•  The life and times of Grateful Dead icon Bob Weir. "We salute the Grateful Dead original, who – in the last 30 years of his life – stepped out from Jerry Garcia’s considerable shadow to emerge as a guitar hero in his own right."

When Science Fiction Moved the Markets

A week ago, the markets had a bad day. The Dow dropped by about 800 points. In a blog post, Paul Krugman made the case that the cause was a science fiction story in the form of a fictional financial report from 2028. 

Last weekend Citrini Research released a report — on Substack! — titled The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis. The report, which rapidly went viral, laid out a scenario for economic and financial chaos caused by AI, written as if it were a retrospective published after the dire developments it projected. Although it’s always hard to know why financial markets move on any given day, the report may have played a role in Monday’s 800-point decline in the Dow. Science fiction moving markets? Why not?

There are two distinct questions about the huge reaction to a report that didn’t actually contain any news. It was just opinion, albeit cleverly presented. The first is whether the economic scenario the report laid out makes sense, to which the answer is no. The second is why investors are so on edge that such a report could elicit such an extreme reaction.

The report, which is really a rather dry science fiction story in disguise, makes the case that AI will completely disrupt the economy over the next few years. Not being a financial analyst, I can't comment on the accuracy of the report's predictions, but Krugman, a Nobel-prize-winning economist, doesn't think they make much sense. 

Still, the fact that the report might have contributed to a large and sudden (albeit temporary) market decline shows that there is widespread concern about the long-term effects of AI technology on the economy. 

It'll be interesting to see if the report makes it into any year's best science fiction anthologies next year.

Featured Links - February 25, 2026

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

The Ultra-Rich Are Different from You and Me. "Only the little people pay taxes, redux." We need to get back to the 1950s model of progressive taxation. 

11 steps to smarter Google account security. "Give yourself some added peace of mind by giving your Google account a thorough set of security reinforcements."

The state of dark mode. From the AskWoody newsletter, the state of dark mode in Windows 11 and some tips for enabling dark mode on some of the remaining features that don't yet support it. 

Some of the cracks had penetrated through': Chinese astronauts reveal new details about spacecraft that 'stranded' them in space last year. "Crew members of China's Shenzhou-20 mission recently detailed their reactions upon finding cracks in their spacecraft's viewport during the nation's first spaceflight emergency." 

'We almost did have a really terrible day.' NASA now says Boeing's 1st Starliner astronaut flight was a 'Type A mishap'. "This was a really challenging event in our recent history."

Lake Erie’s Storm Surges Become More Extreme (gift link). "Officials are designing new ways to protect the shorelines from sudden flooding and longer storm seasons."

The Perfect Storm. "When warnings are everywhere, and still no one moves."

Featured Links - November 18, 2025

Things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

The Scarborough Bluffs

• Loeb’s 3I/ATLAS “Anomalies” Explained. It's weird, but not 'that' weird. (I would love to be proved wrong on this, but I'm not holding my breath).
• Review: Playing the Short Game. How to Market & Sell Short Fiction. Review by Geoff Hart, technical writer/editor and author. 
• We could have healthier, more affordable lives through renewables and electrification. "Vested interests are spending $billions to prevent this."
• A Chinese AI model taught itself basic physics — what discoveries could it make? "A tool called AI-Newton can derive scientific laws from raw data, but is some way from developing human-like reasoning."
• The Big Shift in Cardiology to Atheroma and Inflammation. 'One A.I. company's tag line: "Creating A World Without Heart Attacks"'. This ties in to the idea that COVID-19 is a hematological disease that just happens to have a respiratory component.
• Workplace Surveillance Is Here, Counting Your Mouse Clicks and Bathroom Breaks. "Remote employees are being tracked and punished by invisible systems. Some workers are refusing to play along."
• Inside Canada’s shadowy crypto banking system that makes it easy to facilitate ‘an unlimited amount of crime’ (gift link). "Reporters went undercover to expose a growing crypto-to-cash industry that is openly flouting anti-money laundering measures."

Featured Links - November 4, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Autumn Leaves

My Non-Fossil Car Experience. "Very few EV drivers ever go back." Our next car will probably be a hybrid. I don't think we're ready for a full EV yet. 

Photoshop's biggest rival is now free, with one big exception. I'm going to have to download Affinity and have a good, hard look at it. I don't need the (mostly AI) subscription features for the limited editing I do. 

A Review of Grokipedia, Using Myself as Test Subject. John Scalzi explains why you shouldn't trust Grokipedia and LLMs in general. 

Why time feels like it’s speeding up, and how to slow the pace. "You’re not wrong to think time is running away from you. Experts explain the strange phenomenon and what to do about it." 

We’re Number Two! "How Trump ceded the future to China." In less than one year, the Trump regime has set the US into a decline that may take a generation to recover from, if recovery is possible at all. 

Please stop using NotebookLM as a note-taking app. "At its core, NotebookLM is a research assistant. Not a note-taking tool." Here's a contrast POV to the article I linked to last week. 

Can You Use a High-End TV as a Computer Monitor? "A high-end TV can be an affordable way to get more display real estate for your computer setup—but there are some essential considerations before you replace your monitor with a massive OLED or QD OLED TV."

Featured Links - October 21, 2025

Things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about. 

• Sportsnet gives viewers what they want after Brendon Little’s Game 5 meltdown in ALCS — the unvarnished truth (gift link). Even the broadcasters from the network owned by Rogers (who own the Blue Jays) were criticizing manager John Schneider's controversial eighth-inning call. 
• Not needed, not wanted. "PEC defaces Sir John A's building anyway." A story about a citizen's successful action against small-town bureaucracy.
• Mark Carney Is a Very Demanding Boss. "His elbows-up enthusiasm won him the election. Now he’s governing like a Bay Street exec." A long and detailed profile of Canada's new prime minister. It's not a puff piece but the contrast between him and Trump is stark. 
• The real (economic) AI apocalypse is nigh. Some economic pessimism from Cory Doctorow.
• A High-Tech Ankle Guard Is Helping NBA Players Stay in the Game. "BetterGuards has teamed up with the NBA Training Association to outfit players with its adaptive ankle brace. The pro ballers are avoiding serious injury while evaluating the stabilizing design."
• The Great Reckoning: What the West Should Learn from China. 'The economic historian Adam Tooze, reflecting on his recent, intense engagement with China, put it to me in July with characteristic directness: “China isn’t just an analytical problem,” he said. It is “the master key to understanding modernity.” Tooze called China “the biggest laboratory of organized modernizations there has ever been or ever will be at this level [of] organization.” It is a place where the industrial histories of the West now read like prefaces to something larger.'
• How we sharpened the James Webb telescope's vision from a million kilometers away. "We would be using Webb's highest-resolution mode, called the aperture masking interferometer or AMI for short. It's a tiny piece of precisely machined metal that slots into one of the telescope's cameras, enhancing its resolution. Our results on painstakingly testing and enhancing AMI are now released on the open-access archive arXiv in a pair of papers. We can finally present its first successful observations of stars, planets, moons and even black hole jets."
• Millions of Us Have Likely Lost Our Smell Without Even Realizing It. "The impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continue to be felt across the world, but some consequences are more noticeable than others. New research suggests a large proportion of people may have lost their sense of smell after catching COVID-19, without even realizing it."
• ‘What I do with my body is none of your business’: musician Beverly Glenn-Copeland on trans rights, cult stardom and living with dementia. "His music was ignored for decades. Now, at 81, he is collaborating with pop stars. He and his wife talk about his extraordinary life – and facing severe illness."
• Constipated? Here’s What Actually Works, According to Scientists. "New evidence-backed guidelines highlight the things most likely to help you stay regular in the bathroom."
• Beware “Evil Kerning”: How Hackers Trick You with Fake Email Addresses. Someone needs to write a browser plugin that displays URLs in a monospace font that cant be kerned.

Why Are the Markets So Complacent?

I have been expecting a major market correction, and possibly even a crash, for some time now; that is, ever since November 5th, 2024. It should be blindingly obvious to anyone with half a functioning brain that Trump and his MAGA cronies are going to steer the US into a major crisis or be faced with a polycrisis that overwhelms the US capability to respond, and the markets are finally going to notice. 

I'm not the only one who thinks this. See, for example, Paul Krugman's newsletter today, titled Why Aren't the Markets Freaking Out? Here are a couple of relevant quotes. 

My read of economic and financial history is that market pricing almost never takes into account the possibility of huge, disruptive events, even when the strong possibility of such events should be obvious. The usual pattern, instead, is one of market complacency until the last possible moment. That is, markets act as if everything is normal until it’s blindingly obvious that it isn’t.

Later: 

So if the conventional wisdom is that economic conditions will remain more or less normal despite highly abnormal policy, markets will remain calm until the illusion of normality becomes unsustainable. At that point market prices may “change violently.” The current technical term for this phenomenon is a “Wile E. Coyote moment” — the moment when the cartoon character, having run several steps off the edge of a cliff, looks down and realizes that there’s nothing supporting him. Only then, according to the laws of cartoon physics, does he fall.

You might ask why smart investors with long time horizons don’t foresee Wile E. Coyote moments and get very rich in the process. Some do. But for reasons that would take another long post to explain — maybe a primer one of these days — there never seem to be enough such investors to shake market complacency, no matter how unwarranted. It’s one thing to short a stock, but to short the entire market is a completely different beast.

And yes, he does provide receipts to back up his assertions. 

I think I will forward this column to my financial advisor.  

 

Featured Links - July 22, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Sunset along the 401

• Five days, 65 km, 86,000 steps — and one restless city: I walked all the way across Toronto. This is what I saw (archive link). I am waiting for the Eglinton Crosstown to open and plan to ride it across Toronto, perhaps with stops at some of the stations on the underground part of the line. 
• A Juicy Chronicle of the Fat Decades at Condé Nast (gift link). Empire of the Elite, by Michael M. Grynbaum, is a story of (mostly) insider-outsiders who helmed the glossiest American magazines in their heyday." I miss magazines and browsing the racks in stores like Lichtman's, now sadly defunct. 
• Why Did the Rich Pull Away from the Rest? 'This is Part I of Stone Center Senior Scholar Paul Krugman’s series “Understanding Inequality,” which originally appeared on his Substack newsletter.' This is an important series of articles and worth the time to read.
• Published Via Desktop. 'A list of programs from the all-too-brief golden era of desktop publishing that “didn’t make it.” The GUI’s killer app didn’t slay forever.' Out of the 10 programs listed in the article, I used two: Aldus PageMaker and Venture Publisher. 
• The Peptide Craze. "The Surge in Use of Off-Label and Non-FDA Approved Peptides." TANSTAAFL. 
• Terry Gilliam Reflects On ‘Brazil’ As Film Celebrates 40th Anniversary & The Challenges Of Getting Movies Made Today: “I Really Don’t Want Any More Fights” I really must rewatch Brazil; it's one of my favourite movies. 
• Alberta’s Book Ban Is a Blatant Act of Cultural Vandalism. "The push to sanitize school collections erases what literature is for: knowledge, discovery, the freedom to think." I am sad to see this happening in Canada. 
• The Em Dash Responds to the AI Allegations. "I would like to address the recent slander circulating on social media, in editorial Slack channels, and in the margins of otherwise decent Substack newsletters. Specifically, the baseless, libelous accusation that my usage is a telltale sign of artificial intelligence."
• Radical New Theory Rewrites the Story of the Earliest Universe. "A new theory promises to simplify our approach to the universe's earliest moments, but some cosmologists say further mathematical scrutiny is warranted." Simplification is good. 

The USA versus Canada 8

The relationship between Canada and the US is and contin
uing to change. It's clear that Prime Minister Mark Carney is determined to reduce Canadian dependence on the US and he seems to have the support of most Canadians and Parliament. Here are some articles covering what's happened over the last month. 

Request: I am curious to know how much of this is being reported in US media. I'd appreciate comments with links if you can provide them. 

Gordie Howe International Bridge between Detroit and Windsor

Nation-Building in the North from science fiction author and futurist, Karl Schroeder. "Canada is reconfiguring itself as a strategic global power. How does that work?" I hope that people in Carney's administration are reading Schroeder. (As an aside, the leader of the Bloc Quebecois reads Robert J. Sawyer.)

Republicans say tax retaliation proposal could be cut from Trump bill if international deal can be reached. "The provision would impose a progressive tax burden of up to 20 per cent on foreign investors’ U.S. income, raising concerns on Wall Street about the attractiveness of U.S. investments." If dividend income from US stocks held by Canadian investors starts getting taxed, there is going to be a big sell-off here. 

Trump's 'revenge tax' on other countries could hit U.S. "Tax that could hit Canadians comes with risk to U.S. revenue, investments."

American Climate Scientists Have a New Canadian Hero. "How McGill professor Juan Serpa created SUSAN, the online forum helping U.S. researchers protect their data from Trump."

Last Year's Move to Toronto And This Year's Politics (video and commentary) from historian and author, Timothy Snyder, one of the many academics who have moved from the US to Canada. 

The US Badly Needs Rare Minerals and Fresh Water. Guess Who Has Them? "As China tightens its grip on critical resources, Trump eyes Canada’s riches."

Canada Torches the Trump Umbilical Cord: Bill C-5 Passed, EU Trade/Security Partnership Signed, and Our Democratic Break From America Begins. "A Historic Pact with the EU Signals Canada’s Rise as a Sovereign Power—and a Sharp Rejection of Trump’s Tariff Bullying and War-First Chaos." Blundell can be a bit hyperbolic (a friend described him as 'shouty') but if you are interested in this subject, he's worth following. 

Fact Checking "Cosplay Kristi" Noem's Latest Canada Smear. "No, Governor Noem—Canada Isn't a Narco-State, Trudeau Never Worked With You, and Fentanyl Isn’t Flowing North."

Featured Links - June 23, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Flowers in our backyard

The MAGA Debt Bomb. "How Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” Turns America’s Fiscal Crisis Into a Weapon for Authoritarian Looting." The adults in the financial world are getting worried.

FEMA is unprepared for the next Hurricane Katrina, disaster experts warn. "Cuts, chaos, and climate change are converging to leave Americans more vulnerable to disaster than they were in 2005." 

How the Grateful Dead built the internet. "Before the the internet took over the world, psychedelic rock band The Grateful Dead were among the first – and most influential – forces at the dawn of online communication." Fascinating history showing how music an culture intersected with the early digital revolution, focusing mostly on The Well. I was never on The Well but made extensive use of rec.music.gdead on Usenet once I got onto the real internet in the early 90s. 

'They quit after a few hours': Farmers admit they can't find American workers. "In a deep dive focusing on one farmer who voted for Trump, 36-year-old J.J. Ficke of Kirk, Colorado, the Washington Post is reporting that he along with other farmers are facing possible ruination now that the round-up of immigrants have begun in earnest and promised helpis uncertain."

New study suggests Long COVID is now most common childhood chronic health problem. "In a summary of the study's findings geared to the general public and published on the JAMA Pediatrics Patient Page, three of the authors of the longer study state that Long COVID is common, and, based on the larger study's finding, estimate that up to 10 to 20 percent of children who have had COVID-19 — even "mild" or asymptomatic initial infections — develop Long COVID. This translates to about six million children with Long COVID, which, the authors explain, "is higher than the number of children with asthma, the most common chronic health problem in children."'

1 psychedelic psilocybin dose eases depression for years, study reveals. "Half a decade after receiving a psychedelic treatment for depression, two-thirds of patients in a new study remained in remission."

New theory proposes time has three dimensions, with space as a secondary effect. "Time, not space plus time, might be the single fundamental property in which all physical phenomena occur, according to a new theory by a University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist. The theory also argues that time comes in three dimensions rather than just the single one we experience as continual forward progression. Space emerges as a secondary manifestation."

Interview: Craig Federighi Opens Up About iPadOS, Its Multitasking Journey, and the iPad’s Essence. As a new iPad user, I found this quite fascinating. 

How should we respond to people “doing their own research?”. "It’s become a punchline—but it points to something broken in how we share health information."

Narrative Theory for Science Communication by author Mary Robinette Kowal. "In this workshop, we learn how to use the foundations of storytelling to help you be more successful with science communication. Pretty much every story, fictional or nonfictional, can be explained through a fairly simple organizational theory. Together, we learn how to use these tools to connect more effectively with your audiences."

Featured Links - April 28, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

North of the marina

Artificial Intelligence Solves One of Archaeology’s Greatest Puzzles. "AI is unlocking the secrets of the Nazca Lines, revealing 303 new geoglyphs in just six months and reshaping the future of archaeology."

I Study Measles. I’m Terrified We’re Headed for an Epidemic. "Fearing tens of thousands of measles cases in the United States is not an overreaction. It’s a scenario that recently played out elsewhere. Europe, where measles had also been largely eliminated, saw more than 80,000 cases in 2018, driving tens of thousands of hospitalizations and over 70 otherwise preventable deaths. Several countries lost their elimination status." While the outbreak in Texas has been getting news on US media, there are now over 1,000 cases in Ontario with more than 70 people hospitalized. Most are unvaccinated.

Beyond XX & XY—Human Sex And Gender Were Never A Simple Binary. "Humans are more complicated than most online experts think."

Trump is trashing electric vehicles. China is building cars the world wants. "China dominates global EV sales, while U.S. consumers risk getting stuck on an island of outdated technology."

Slate's Big Market Research Experiment. "A new automotive startup called Slate emerged from stealth mode this week and garnered a huge amount of attention for creating what many have been clamoring for — the sort of cheap, electric vehicle that is widespread in China. While Slate is getting lots of coverage and will probably rack up a huge number of $50 reservations in the coming days and weeks, whether that translates into actual sales will be a fascinating market research experiment."

Out of Service: How Wall Street Turned Fire Trucks, Fabric Stores, and Public Safety into Collateral. "Private equity rolls up America’s lifelines while BlackRock quietly funds the collapse with your retirement savings."

Hidden magma cap discovered at Yellowstone National Park. "The magma cap is critical for preventing eruptions at Yellowstone."

What’s the deal with seed oils? "The science and skepticism."

Bondi launches dubious ‘Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias’ in U.S. government. 'Trump administration officials could be focused on “anti-religion bias” within the government, but they’re instead focused only on “anti-Christian bias.”' Seems like Bondi missed the civics class lesson on separation of Church and State. 

'We learned so much that we didn't know': Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost moon lander mission was full of surprises. " Lessons learned and on-the-spot surprises from the first fully successful commercial lunar lander mission bolsters the chances of long-term robotic and human operations on the moon."

The USA versus Canada 6

Yet more about the still deteriorating relationship between Canada and the US. 

How to Save Canada. "We’re going to have to work hard—and fast—if we want to avoid becoming Trump’s fifty-first state."

The US Dollar Plummets While the Canadian Dollar Soars: What’s Driving the Shift? "USD/CAD Nears 1.3850 as Economic Fears and Trade/Bond Tensions Grip the US."

Trump’s chaotic rule means we need a growth strategy more than ever. Somebody tell our political leaders. "This week marked the realization among Donald Trump’s business supporters that the fantasy version of Mr. Trump they had been carrying around in their minds bore no relationship to reality."

Canadian university teachers warned against travelling to the United States. 'The Canadian Association of University Teachers released updated travel advice on Tuesday due to the “political landscape” created by President Donald Trump’s administration and reports of some Canadians encountering difficulties crossing the border. The association says academics who are from countries that have tense diplomatic relations with the United States, or who have themselves expressed negative views about the Trump administration, should be particularly cautious about U.S. travel. Its warning is particularly targeted to academics who identify as transgender or “whose research could be seen as being at odds with the position of the current U.S. administration.”'

California Governor urges Canadians to ignore Trump, come back for sand, sun and wine. "California estimates Canadians are the second-biggest international spenders for its tourism economy, and state tourism officials say visits by Canadians dropped 12 per cent in February compared with the same month last year." If you want California wine and you live in Ontario, you'll have to go the States to get it as the LCBO no longer carries it. 

Nearly 900,000 fewer people went to the U.S. in March as cross-border travel plummets. "Data shows one of worst year-over-year drops recorded outside of COVID-19 crisis."

Trade war starting to show up in higher prices on some grocery items. "Impact on grocery budgets softened by absence of counter-tariffs on many products." We may see higher prices on canned goods because of the US tariffs on Canadian aluminum. 

Liberals revive campaign pitch for centralized military procurement agency. "In the face of annexation threats from the Trump administration and a Canadian public increasingly demanding the federal government buy less from the United States, the Liberals have resurrected a previous campaign pitch to create a standalone defence procurement agency."

Carney’s Silent Power Move: Labeling Trump's America a "National Security Threat" Foreshadows Canada’s Possible Next Steps. "A move that may have flown under the media's radar should be sending shockwaves through the political landscape after the Trump Regime revived his 51st State bullshit yesterday,"

Featured Links - April 7, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

A floor-cleaning robot

•  Starliner’s flight to the space station was far wilder than most of us thought. "Hey, this is a very precarious situation we're in." This is probably the closest the space program has come to a disaster since Columbia was lost.
• Rewilding Death in the Appalachian Mountains. "A growing conservation burial movement is challenging the funeral industry’s environmental footprint while healing the land."
• A Note on Trade Deficits and Manufacturing, How trade deficits really work, from a real economist.
• Loomered. "Laura Loomer, an online right wing troll once driven from Trump’s side, has reemerged with a vengeance." The inmates have taken over the asylum.
• How to disable ACR on your TV (and why doing it makes such a big difference for privacy). "Smarter TV operating systems bring new privacy risks, with one major concern being automatic content recognition (ACR) - a feature that monitors your viewing habits."
• Inside arXiv—the Most Transformative Platform in All of Science. "Modern science wouldn’t exist without the online research repository known as arXiv. Three decades in, its creator still can’t let it go."
• Human bodies begin breaking down at two very precise ages. "A comprehensive study reveals some eye-opening insights about aging, focusing on exactly “when” things start to shift and how our bodies begin to break down, both inside and out."
• I visited the sprawling 'metroburb' where 'Severance' is filmed. "It's a 2 million-square-foot town under one roof."
• Digital hygiene. A good overview from AI researcher Andrei Karpathy. If you implement even some of what he suggests, you will be more secure online.
• Your data is unwell. "Sharing electronic medical records in Canada is a hassle – and, for some, a health risk. Tech companies and governments are looking for a fix to our patchwork of digital systems."
• COVID didn’t end. Its story just stopped being told. "That Canadians aren’t being supported through known complications of infection is a crisis of the moment, of 2025 – not 2020." The situation is much the same, or worse, in the US. 
• How I wrote the notes app of my dreams (no coding required). "The new phenomenon known as vibecoding lets you describe an app and have AI build it to your specifications. The results astounded me." 

The USA versus Canada 5

It's time for more posts about the hottest topic in Canadian news right now. It seems that Canada got off lighter than many people expected in Trumps tariff announcement, but now he's taking on the whole world. What a fucking mess!

• Prominent Yale professors flee Trump’s America for new roles at University of Toronto (archive link). "Philosophy Prof. Jason Stanley will be transferring in a few months, joining Timothy Snyder and Marci Shore." As the article points out, there are others coming north, and there will be many more. 
• Is Canada Treating Trump’s Annexation Threat Seriously Enough? "We can’t cling to the belief things will return to normal." If he goes after Greenland, then we'll know he's serious about Greenland.
• Environmental comeback of Great Lakes at risk with Canada and U.S. in tariff turmoil (gift link). "But the Trump administration’s combative stand on binational relations – coupled with deep job cuts to U.S. civil servants dedicated to Great Lakes initiatives – have strained the partnership and put the region’s hard-won environmental progress at risk." For example, the idiots in DOGE have laid off people from the lamprey control initiative. This is nightmare fuel, especially if you've ever seen a lamprey.
• Worthwhile Canadian Observations. "About a “boring” country that definitely isn’t." Some things about Canada that Americans should learn. 
• Canada’s New US Travel Warning: Leave Your Phone, Grab a Burner, and Maybe Skip the U.S. Altogether. "Canada’s government just updated its travel advisory for the U.S., and it’s not your usual “pack a sweater” memo. Immigration lawyers are advising Canadians to leave our smartphones at home, pick up a burner phone, and seriously consider staying north of the border. Why? Things south of the 49th are getting messy, and Canadians—along with a few other countries—are taking notice." Yes we are. I just read that traffic across the international bridge in Sault Ste. Marie was down 30 percent in March.
• Trump’s Big "Fentanyl" Lie About Canada Just Got Exposed— US Senators Are Lining Up For Canada on Tariff Day And Trump Is Furious. "Some US Senators Are Fighting to Stop His Fentanyl Tariffs—Here’s Why."

More on Disinformation

It's time for another post with links to articles about disinformation and misinformation. There's been a lot of it recently. 

Vitamin A and Measles: What the data show (and how to talk about it). "RFK Jr. and a new form of germ theory denialism." Bad information about diseases can kill. 

Madonna, Extreme Weather and Disinformation. "There is a connection." No, Madonna did not cause extreme weather in Brazil despite what some conspiracy theorists would have you believe.

Measles Is One Of The Most Contagious Diseases On Earth. "With the Trump administration suppressing public health information, here's what you need to know."

Bogeymen and Trojan Horses. "How to identify and call out Trump and Musk’s fascist tactics." The amount of disinformation spewing from the mouths of these two people is truly staggering. Knowing their tactics can help you avoid it.

The Emperor’s New Philosophy. "Of drunkards, lampposts and economic doctrines." How to understand what Trump is saying about the economy really means. 

Canada’s greatest vulnerability is disinformation, and we have no defence for it. (archive link) "Targeting our population with content normalizing the idea of absorbing Canada aims to destabilize our institutions and sap our will to resist. It exploits intergenerational conflict, denigrates our history and culture, and makes America seem like the land of endless opportunity. The aim, after a couple of years of bombarding social media and torquing its algorithms, is to make us believe joining the U.S. isn’t much of a leap."

As Pope Francis Ails, Outlandish Rumors Run Wild (gift link). "Audio, a photo, medical reports: The truth may be out there, but when it comes to the health of the pontiff, many people prefer more fanciful tales."

Featured Links - March 17, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Swan on the ice

• Anonymous sources: Starship will need a major rebuild after two consecutive failures. That much is obvious. The question is how long it will take. 
• The Magical Humanism of Sir Terry Pratchett. "Ten years mourning the loss of a great human". I have not read any of Pratchett's books, something which I may remedy one of these days.
• The Discworld on TV/Film,—Live-Action. I have seen three of the series mentioned in this article and enjoyed all of them. 
• How Worried Should We Be About the Economy? "A conversation with Neil Dutta." Two economists discuss the odds of a recession. 
• Blame Canada. An article from historian Timothy Snyder in which he talks about Trump's Big Lies about Canada. (Trump being Trump, there's more than one.) Snyder is always worth reading and this is especially so.
• Earth’s Orbit Is Filling Up With Junk. Greenhouse Gases Are Making the Problem Worse. "By the end of the century, a shrinking atmosphere could create a minefield for satellites."
• Inside Elon Musk’s ‘Digital Coup’. "Musk’s loyalists at DOGE have infiltrated dozens of federal agencies, pushed out tens of thousands of workers, and siphoned millions of people’s most sensitive data. The next step: Unleash the AI." A major investigation by Wired. 
• Pocket Casts is Now Free on Windows, Mac, and Web. The best podcast app has gotten even better and the price is right.
• Unraveling the mystery of high-temperature superconductors from first principles. "The mysteries of high-temperature superconductivity have not been fully solved—but we are now closer than ever to understanding them at their most fundamental level. This journey is just beginning, and I'm excited to see where it takes us next."
• Mapping the U.S.-Canada Energy Relationship. "The United States and Canada are each other’s largest energy trading partners as measured by the value of energy commodity trade, which in 2017 stood at U.S.$95 billion. The energy relationship between the two countries extends beyond just the trade of commodities, encompassing a variety of common, though not always identical, economic, security, and environmental priorities."

Featured Links - March 10, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Koerner Hall

• EFF creates a $20 device to detect cellular spying: Rayhunter. "Rayhunter monitors cell tower communications in real-time, alerting users when it spots suspicious activity like attempts to force phones onto less secure networks. When the device detects potential surveillance, it warns users to turn off their phones and saves detailed logs that can be analyzed by security experts."
• A new Android feature is scanning your photos for 'sensitive content' - how to stop it. "Google didn't tell Android users much about Android System SafetyCore before it hit their phones, and people are unhappy. Fortunately, you're not stuck with it." I can uninstall it, but it will probably come back with the next system update. Google should make use of this p
• New study reveals potential cause of a ‘drought’ in violent EF5 tornadoes. "A quirky aspect of the way we measure twisters helps explain why there hasn’t been a top-tier-rated tornado in 12 years." The article also discusses the impact of climate change on tornadoes. 
  
• 'In that moment, that was everything to me': Patient describes joy of regaining vision in 1 eye after new stem cell therapy. "A first-of-its-kind stem cell transplant has changed the life of a man who was left blind in one eye following a firework accident."
• Cory Doctorow writes science fiction to come to terms with his tech anxiety. "The Canadian journalist and writer discussed his latest novel Picks & Shovels on Bookends with Mattea Roach." If you haven't ready any of Cory's Martin Hench thrillers, you are in for a treat.
• Butter and Plant-Based Oils Intake and Mortality. "In this cohort study of 221 054 adults from 3 large cohorts, higher butter intake was associated with increased total and cancer mortality, while higher intake of plant-based oils was associated with lower total, cancer, and cardiovascular disease mortality."
• CyberPunk: How Black Women Are Hacking AI And Reprogramming The Future. "Artificial intelligence is running the world—whether we asked for it or not. It’s deciding who gets hired, who qualifies for a loan, even who gets flagged as a criminal. But let’s be real: AI has a bias problem, and that’s not by accident. When the people building the tech look the same, think the same, and move the same, the systems they create are just reflections of their worldviews. And that’s where Black women come in—not just to call it out, but to tear it down and rebuild it."
• Google AI Coding Tool Now Free, With 90x Copilot’s Output. "Google launches Gemini Code Assist for individuals, a free AI-coding assistant offering 90 times more code completions than GitHub Copilot."
• Long-term investors split with asset managers over climate risk. "Insurance groups and pension funds threaten to dump those ‘misaligned’ with retiree objectives."
  

Featured Links - February 3, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about. My apologies for the all-politics content this week but these articles are important. Maybe I'll do another post later in the week with some non-political content. 

Speeding towards the bridge

• I am nonbinary. The gender that no longer officially exists in the United States. A BlueSky thread by author Annalee Newitz about what it means to have your gender erased by your government.
• The End of North America. "Trump pulls the trigger on tariffs. .... And to think that many people imagined that Trump would be good for business."
• Did you hear about the Friday coup? "Elon Musk is in control." Where is the mainstream press? This should be being reported with 72-point, front-page headlines. Coup is not too strong a word. Study your history if you don't think so. 
• IT'S A COUP--Trump Moves to Completely Take Over Government. This is a long post and absolutely terrifying. 
• Letters from an American: February 1, 2025. The group that serves President Donald Trump is gutting the government both to get revenge against those who tried to hold him accountable before the law and to make sure he and his cronies will never again have to worry about legality."
• These Clowns are Economic Illiterates. "Trump treats tariffs like a toddler treats a new word, repeating it endlessly without grasping its meaning in his stained, clutching hands."
• The Logic of Destruction. "And how to resist it." An important read from the author of On Tyranny and On Freedom.
• List of products from the United States subject to 25 per cent tariffs effective February 4, 2025. "Effective February 4, 2025, the government is imposing 25 per cent tariffs on $30 billion in goods imported from the United States (U.S.)." It's a long list.
• The Big-Money Right-Wing Push to Upend the Constitution—and Kill Birthright Citizenship. "We’re in totally uncharted territory." But you don't need a flashlight to see where we are going. 

Featured Links - Septermber 3, 2027

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Summer flowers beginning to fade

• Minimal Influenza Virus Transmission from Touching Contaminated Face Masks: a Laboratory Study. "Somewhat reassuringly, today we've a study in Nature that suggests that concerns over viral transfer from touching a contaminated face mask may be overblown." If I could have gotten COVID by touching my mask, I'd have had it long ago. 
• Financialisation: a 21st century commercial determinant of health equity. " The aim of this Viewpoint is to expand the understanding of the commercial determinants of health to explicitly include the financial system and present key plausible pathways via which the financialisation of advanced economies influences public health and planetary health equity. The global public health community must pay close attention to these key commercial determinants of health. It is now crucial to reduce the power of financial actors and hold financial actors accountable."
• R.I.P. Journalist, Editor and Counterculture Enthusiast, Steve Silberman. I never met Steve Silberman but I have been reading him for years and have corresponded with him a bit here Mastodon. I always enjoyed reading what he had to say. I will miss seeing him his posts and I am sure  I won't be the only one.
• 2024 Dragon Awards Winners. These were awarded at DragonCon in Atlanta over the Labour Day Weekend. Starter Villain by John Scalzi won the Best Science Fiction Novel Award and is the next book on my TBR list.
• MAGA attacks on Kamala Harris' stepdaughter threaten to backfire on Donald Trump. "Ella Emhoff has triggered Trump's bitter bro fanbase — but an embrace of the incel vote could come back to hurt him. "
• 'Everything we found shattered our expectations': Archaeologists discover 1st astronomical observatory from ancient Egypt. "This first ancient Egyptian observatory discovered in modern times showcases advanced knowledge of astronomy and its profound link to the Egyptians' spiritual and ritualistic practices."
• String Theorists Accidentally Find a New Formula for Pi (archive.ph link). "Two physicists have come across infinitely many novel equations for pi while trying to develop a unifying theory of the fundamental forces."
• Is digital technology really swaying voters and undermining democracy? (archive.ph link) "Many fear that voters are being manipulated by political campaigns that use Facebook ads, TikTok and YouTube videos, but research reveals a more surprising story."