About That Tail-Wagging Dog

 

When I was teaching, it was often my experience with general level classes that the most disruptive students got the most attention, to the detriment of the rest of the class. It was a classic case of the tail wagging the dog.

Something similar, in my view, transpired in the whole lead-up to the Alberta referendum. A group of malcontents, loud, brash and uninformed, pressed a weak premier, Danielle Smith, to hold a referendum on a referendum, which went down to defeat and will probably ultimately result in the removal of Smith, owing to the number of separatists in her caucus.

There is no doubt the pro-separation faction exerted an oversized influence on the province, an influence that should, but will not be, muted after 75% of Albertans rejected their siren call.

So what are the people saying? This first set of letters from The Globe reveals much:

After Danielle Smith’s referendum, the political reality looks stark. It seems this multimillion-dollar exercise was never about leaving Canada, it was an amateur schoolyard brawl manufactured for her own short-term survival.

By inviting grassroots radicals into the tent to secure her leadership, Ms. Smith has built a volatile political compost pile. Now it is rapidly breaking down the leftovers. The roughly 75-per-cent majority who voted “remain” are exhausted by the chaos, while hardline separatists feel betrayed by a Premier trying to be all things to all people.

My view from a distance makes the destruction clear: Ms. Smith has run out of runway. If she is wise, she would exit stage left now, before the political pile overheats and consumes her government.

Charles Claus Terrace, B.C.

Now that Alberta has overwhelmingly voted to remain in Canada, I hope this matter, and the illusion that separatists carry any political weight in the province, can be dismissed for good.

Danielle Smith should resign immediately for calling an unnecessary referendum to placate separatists in her United Conservative Party. It also stirred up unnecessary divisions, at a time when unity is required to face real threats to Canadian sovereignty from the Trump administration.

Jeff Buckstein Ottawa

Re “Alberta voters reject push for separation referendum” (Online, Oct. 20): What do separatists not understand? No means no.

William O’Meara Toronto

From Star readers: 

Albertans need a new leader

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith allowed a referendum question to be brought forward by a movement that unsuccessfully tried to remove Alberta from Canada. This at a time when all Canadians need to pull together. Perhaps it’s time for Albertans to demand a new leader; one who cares about the future of our great country.

Linda Matthews, Toronto

Yes Alberta has chosen to stay in Canada for now, but the question about immigration still garnered more than half for the yes vote. Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said the focus should now be affordability, safety and “less immigration.”

He and Albertans are again blowing the dog-whistle. They don’t want people to come to their province who will likely be working more hours for less money than those they consider “true” Albertans.

They forget that the immigrant is the doctor, nurse, restaurant worker or truck driver. They stimulate the economy, pay taxes and volunteer. Alberta will soon be crying that they can’t find people to work.

Murray Van Halem, Dundas, ON

Undoubtedly, many thousands of words will be produced analysing the results of the referendum. One thing is clear, however: there will always be those who refuse to let reality intrude upon their outlandish dreams and schemes.

P.S. check out The Beaverton for a fresh breath of satire under this headline:

U.S. government accuses Canada of meddling in Alberta referendum

Bluesky Posts

With the exception of posting links to my post, I do not use Twitter anymore. Bluesky does seem to be a more friendly environment, and, best of all, it is not owned by a raging megalomaniac. Here are a few excerpts from Bluesky that I rather liked.

Utterances From A Moribund Giant (A.K.A. USA)

 

As an increasingly desperate Amerika rants and raves and deteriorates, its sense of exceptionalism largely remains intact in the minds of many. That can be the only explanation for the arrogant pontifications of the repugnant Trump envoy to Canada, Pete Hoekstra.

In his most recent upbraiding of Canada, he warned that the U.S. is watching us closely for signs of election interference:

Hoekstra warned Canadian politicians to keep their "nose out" of American politics in the weeks before the midterm elections.

Apparently, speaking truth to a nation increasingly allergic to any semblance of it is deeply offensive. Recently former prime minister Justin Trudeau displayed such temerity during a discussion at Brown University:

"There is a pattern here of doing things that are driving up prices for your consumers and not necessarily making anything better for America, by fighting with one of your oldest and best allies," Trudeau said during the conversation.

Hoekstra said if any actions by Canadians end up amounting to election interference, the United States will respond.

"We're monitoring it, we're evaluating it and if some of it becomes election interference then America will respond to it," Hoekstra said.

The Toronto Star's Andrew Phillips sees this as a classic case of projection, an example of which is a chronic liar thinking everyone else lies as well.

This is rich, coming from the representative of a president who’s made questioning Canada’s very existence (“51st state!”) into a cheap applause line at his campaign rallies. Whose own treasury secretary pumps oxygen into the Alberta separatist movement, and whose diplomats listen respectfully while those same separatists offer up Canada’s resources in return for support from Washington.

Classic projection: we’re meddling in your internal affairs (as we’ve done everywhere from Argentina to Hungary, not to mention Venezuela) so naturally we think you’re meddling in ours.

The other possibility, Phillips suggests, is that the tactics Canada has used, such as targeting red states with specific tariffs, are working. 

Canadian tariffs are hitting key industries in states like North and South Dakota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Texas, Montana and Illinois. Most are so-called red states, i.e. reliably Republican, but they can see the link between Trump’s trade obsession and damage to their own economies, as well as the general inflation it fuels.

Other Canadian actions are having an effect, too. The boycott of travel to the U.S. has hit Las Vegas particularly hard. Democrats there are making much of the fact that Canadians, normally Nevada’s biggest source of foreign visitors, aren’t filling hotel rooms there. What happens in Vegas, in this case, doesn’t stay in Vegas: it spills into the midterm battle.

Phillips also suspects that Canada is being set up as a scapegoat to explain the drubbing Republicans will likely take in the mid-terms.  My own cast of mind, however, suggests something more might be at work. While lying awake early one morning, a vivid scenario came to me: after the midterms, Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, refuses to allow the newly elected Representatives to be seated, citing election interference, ballot irregularities, and unsanctioned voting. He could very well say that until a full investigation is undertaken, he has a responsibility to  'protect' the integrity of the democratic process.

And his kind of election interference would be something only those who still believe in real American democracy could remedy.

MOS Guest Post: A.I. And Humanity's Future

 

Could AI really wipe us out? Sure, most of us anyway. When it comes to wiping us out we will even do the heavy lifting.

Look at it this way. When you get food what are the chances you first laid eyes on it in a supermarket? That's where we tend to get introduced to our food.

How hard would it be to derail the essential steps we don't even see? Some one has to raise the critters we love to eat. Someone else grows the crops that are transformed into our vegetables. There are essential steps along the way - production, harvesting, processing, finance, transportation. If any of those steps breaks down our grocery shelves are empty. Panic ensues. Remember when people hoarded toilet paper? Funny now but it wasn't funny then.

Could AI get to the point where it sabotages one or more aspects of the food chain on which our lives depend? We've already seen that AI can go rogue even lying to us. There's an element of malice to that. How are you feeling so far?

How long can we hold out without access to food? How strong or fragile is civil society?

Military historian, columnist and author, Gwynne Dyer, captured our dilemma in his book "Climate Wars" when he wrote that even the nicest village will slaughter its neighbours before it will allow its children to starve.

There you are.

Additional note: This MOS post seems especially pertinent, given the news that hackers were able to gain access to thousands of refrigerators in France, spoiling millions of euros' worth of food. Although this involved human agency, Given the recent warning by Anthropic that self-replicating "AI worms" could soon infest your "smart" home devices.

NAZA: Operation Elimination

My personal view for quite some time has been that Israel has every intention of exterminating the Palestinians, and a new documentary confirms what I and many others have long suspected: to madmen like Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, the Palestinians mean nothing. 

The film, produced by The Guardian, details Israel’s mass killing of civilians in Gaza, and has sent Netanyahu on a hunt for the "traitors' who were interviewed. He has demanded that various authorities, including the attorney general

“act urgently to uncover the identity of all those who are involved or appear in the libel film”.

Netanyahu also called for “the opening of a criminal investigation and prosecution for serious information security offences, criminal defamation, and harming Israel’s diplomatic and security interests”.

The filmmakers themselves are also facing substantial threats:

The Israeli government has fiercely attacked [Yuval] Abraham and [Rachel] Szor, threatening to strip them of their citizenship and accusing them of treason. Government supporters have vowed to hound the film-makers on their return to Israel and picketed Szor’s parents’ home in Savyon, chanting: “Death sentence to traitors.”

The Israeli government is, of course, following the playbook laid out by history's authoritarian regimes: suppression of the truth and persecution of the truth tellers, egregious violations of two of the most sacred principles of journalism:

 The protection of journalistic sources is a cornerstone of press freedom under international human rights standards and disclosure orders are permitted only under stringent conditions.

Ricardo Gutiérrez, the general secretary of the European Federation of Journalists, representing over 320,000 journalists, said: “These threats constitute a blatant act of intimidation against journalists who have simply been doing their job, in strict accordance with ethical standards and in the public interest. I am not surprised by this outburst, which confirms that this regime is prepared to do anything to cover up its crimes against humanity and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”

As well, the Jewish state has launched a propaganda counter-offensive.

In recent days, the Israeli government has promoted an online film project that mimics the style of NAZA, in an attempt to challenge the real film’s findings. Ariel Averbuch, an Israeli attorney and army reservist who made NAZA: The Real Story, described it as an “offensive move” intended to shift the world’s focus from allegations about the Israeli military’s killing of civilians.

An old saying states, "Better a bitter truth than a sweet lie." The age in which we live, and the powerful people who commit great evil, would beg to differ. 

 

MOS Guest Post: A.I. And Humanity's Future

 

Could AI really wipe us out? Sure, most of us anyway. When it comes to wiping us out we will even do the heavy lifting.

Look at it this way. When you get food what are the chances you first laid eyes on it in a supermarket? That's where we tend to get introduced to our food.

How hard would it be to derail the essential steps we don't even see? Some one has to raise the critters we love to eat. Someone else grows the crops that are transformed into our vegetables. There are essential steps along the way - production, harvesting, processing, finance, transportation. If any of those steps breaks down our grocery shelves are empty. Panic ensues. Remember when people hoarded toilet paper? Funny now but it wasn't funny then.

Could AI get to the point where it sabotages one or more aspects of the food chain on which our lives depend? We've already seen that AI can go rogue even lying to us. There's an element of malice to that. How are you feeling so far?

How long can we hold out without access to food? How strong or fragile is civil society?

Military historian, columnist and author, Gwynne Dyer, captured our dilemma in his book "Climate Wars" when he wrote that even the nicest village will slaughter its neighbours before it will allow its children to starve.

There you are.

Yet Another Obscenity

 

Well, just as you wonder if the American nation can sink any lower into abject debasement, along comes Pete Hegseth with his newest plan to both provoke and briefly satiate the people's bloodlust.

I don't think there is much I really need to say about this. I'm sure my moral outrage over such an obscenity is shared by most of the world. And I doubt I would be correct in saying that the U.S. has finally hit rock bottom, given that Trump and his obsequious coterie have another two years in office.

Under normal circumstances, at my age two years would be  a very short time. In this case, however, that time frame seems well-nigh interminable.