Theme of the day: At least they didn't crash (except in New Orleans)

How it started:                                      How it going:

      

Credit to Randall Munroe and Reddit AI

So apparently US transportation secretary Duffy and his son-in-law's company introduced a new multi-million dollar AI upgrade to US air traffic control earlier this week. And on Friday afternoon, it crashed. At least they stopped the airlines from taking off so the planes didn't crash as well. The explanation of the problem from Duffy was, beats me! (shrug emoji)

You can’t bolt AI onto a broken foundation Friday’s ground stop was not an attack. It was a warning. On Friday, the FAA stopped every departure in the United States. A communication failure hit all 22 Centers that handle traffic above 18,000 feet, with about 3,100 aircraft in the air and bound for US airports. It was not a kinetic attack, and the FBI reportedly does not suspect a cyberattack. It was not a glitch either. There have been only three nationwide ground stops in history: 9/11, 2023 and now. This one started in Chicago, spread to every Center and overwhelmed systems along the way. It behaved like an attack. Three days earlier, the FAA had taken SMART, the AI traffic tool built by Boston-based Air Space Intelligence, to all 22 Centers under an $875 million contract. Duffy and the FAA had promised airlines a 90-day test. The rollout came after seven weeks, over objections from lawmakers and without the controllers’ union. Investigators will now look for a link. Whatever they find, the strategy is wrong. The FAA describes SMART as a cloud platform that “enhances existing” air traffic systems. It sits on top of the old ones, and the old ones are the problem. A 2023 assessment found 37 percent of FAA systems unsustainable. Some radios are more than 30 years old and analog. In 2025, controllers handling Newark lost contact with pilots when copper wiring failed. AI does not fix any of that. It adds complexity, new dependencies and new ways to fail, on top of a foundation that cannot stay online. The smartest prediction in the world is worthless when communications fail. Fix the foundation first. The new layer needs scrutiny too. The FAA has not said where SMART runs, and Air Space Intelligence says its own infrastructure is built on Amazon’s cloud. In a week when one provider’s outage hit 74 countries, a system that advises every Center should have its dependencies on the public record. So should the money. According to Politico, the FAA is negotiating an ownership stake in Air Space Intelligence, which would make the agency its customer, overseer and shareholder at once. Washington now wants another $30 billion. Before it gets a cent, someone should explain why the AI went nationwide before the radios were replaced. Lives are on the line. This needs competent people, not faster rollouts.

- Cash Flow Collective

Read on Substack

Just a few cartoons to enjoy

Sorry, I don't have much of a post tonight. I'm not feeling very well so I'll just go to bed a little earlier tonight. 

In the meantime, a few cartoons to enjoy:

The great thing about Trump is he refuses to go away. Republicans might try to edge away from him, but he will only hug them tighter. Like a virulent strain of antibiotic-resistant syphilis he has infected the GOP forever

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— Pat Bagley (@bagleycartoons.bsky.social) November 10, 2026 at 1:12 PM

 

Back in 1960, the comic strip Pogo alerted us to a Science journal prediction that the world would end on Friday, November 13, 2026. Because too many people.

I guess if it happens, we've had fun haven't we.

World Juniors Update, "Karma is a Bitch", Praise for Carney

Actually, its not really such a Terrible Map at all, is it.

World Juniors update

So on Wednesday, Canada confirmed it will NOT allow Russian teams into Canada for the World Juniors.
Trevor Connors at Yahoo Sports writes:

... With the tournament set to kick off on December 26 in Edmonton and Red Deer, the political tension surrounding Russia's involvement has reached a boiling point.
As reported by TSN's Gord Miller, the Canadian government has now formally communicated to both Hockey Canada and the IIHF that it will refuse to grant visas to any Russian players looking to participate in the upcoming World Juniors. On top of that, even Russian players who may already hold valid visas due to playing in the Canadian Hockey League have been deemed ineligible to take part, regardless of whether they would compete under a neutral banner.
...given the Canadian government's firm stance on visa denials, most observers now expect Russia to be unable to attend, which would likely result in Norway being reinstated to the event.
The broader implications here extend well beyond one tournament. The coordinated pushback from host nations, federations, and corporate sponsors signals that Russia's path back to international hockey remains blocked on multiple fronts, regardless of what CAS may have ruled. With the puck set to drop in just over a month, it appears all but certain that the 2027 World Juniors will proceed without Russian participation.

In a follow-up story on Wednesday, Connors writes

According to Russian hockey published Match.TV, the Russian Hockey Federation has appealed to the IIHF to have the 2027 World Junior Championships moved in order to facilitate Russian players....

🔼 The Russian side's expected next step will be a request to the IOC to ban any sports events in Canada indefinitely.

— KHL & EURO 🏒 TALK (@vorkywh24) November 11, 2026

"At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them"

Cartoon by Ingrid Rice 

Wednesday is Remembrance Day in Canada so I found some interesting posts to share about this day and what it still means to us all.

My title is from Laurence Binyon's 1914 poem For the Fallen
The last "big" war for Canada ended 80 years ago, and since then we have lost 800 to 900 soldiers in conflicts and in accidents, including most recently the terrible Wainwright fire.
The Veterans Affairs Canada website pages on Remembrance are really excellent. Here's a good pdf of this year's "newsletter" for schools - Canada Remembers Times, with some great stories.
Beautiful post here, based on a Veterans Affairs graphic

🇨🇦 🌺 Remembrance Day - Lest We Forget

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— 🇨🇦Demondawg’s minion 🇪🇸 (@demondawg2021.bsky.social) November 10, 2026 at 4:20 PM

Whodathunkit? Trump blames Democratic voters for Midterms loss! Plus predictions about Stephen Miller, and the latest on the World Juniors

Too many voters? Its just not fair!

So Trump finally found something about the Midterms to complain about - there were just too many Democratic voters!
Well, yeah.
And this may well become another purity test for MAGA. 

In a number of races, the Democrat got more votes in just the Early-Absentee-Mail vote than the Republican got from the EAM plus election day vote combined. 

That just shows how angry and fired-up Americans were, to vote in such massive numbers against these traitor Republicans. But Trump doesn't want to believe it, so he won't. Like "who won 2020?", the question "who won the Midterms?" may become the test that separates MAGA from everyone else. And now I anticipate Trump will do his worst to try to deny Democrats their congressional majorities in January.

Trump doesn't know it but since 2020, we've discovered the antidote to this BS.

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— 🗽LOLGOP🗽 (@lolgop.bsky.social) November 9, 2026 at 6:11 PM

Sigh.

Sunday Funday: Zingers about the Midterms, Interesting Posts, Funny Posts, Getting Old(er), Carney Hat-Trick, TrumpWatch, Animal Crackers

Good zingers about the Midterms and what's happened since

So here's what happened Saturday - which is, by the way, the anniversary of the Four Seasons Total Landscaping fiasco.
Trump sent out a post announcing his new press secretary, Dana White, the CEO of the UFC plus outriders, and they were all supposed to be big tough guys who would beat up the traitor press. 

BREAKING: Trump says he has offered UFC CEO Dana White the job of White House press secretary: “Dana will be a Press Secretary like none other. Dana, please take the job!”

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— Republicans Against Trumpism (@rpsagainsttrump.bsky.social) November 7, 2026 at 2:16 PM

What? Of course, he had never actually talked to Dana White at all. 

I suspect Trump jumped the gun because he wanted desperately to distract the Sunday shows from talking about the Midterms and Stephen Miller. 

Anyhoo, White immediately turned him down. 

But wait, there's more.

Turns out, there actually IS a Dana White already in Washington - Dana W. White was with the Heritage Society and Fox News before she was press secretary at the Pentagon.

He said Dana White UFC fighter for press secretary which was insane BUT folks are saying it could be the WRONG DANA WHITE and I’m dying

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— Heba Gowayed هبة جويد (@hebagowayed.bsky.social) November 7, 2026 at 8:56 PM

Now the internet suspects that THIS is the Dana White who was supposed to be asked to be Trump's press secretary. I guess he never met her either.
Nobody has 'fessed up to making a grotesque error, and apparently this Dana W. doesn't want the job either. But its too embarrassing now to even ask her.

Nicki Minaj it is then - UFC CEO Dana White declines Trump’s offer to become press secretary, source says edition.cnn.com/2026/11/07/p...

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— Eliot Higgins (@eliothiggins.bsky.social) November 7, 2026 at 4:07 PM

One might ask, who is actually presidenting the United States today? Well, I suspect probably Natalie...

 

Reactions Roundup: to Carney's budget, to the Mid-Terms, and to Stephen Fucking Miller

Just a collection of some good reactions to this week's events.

First, I think Canada appreciates Carney's budget
I don't think the negativity and catcalling from Poilievre and the trashtalking from Lewis will land with Canadians. Yes, there's corporate stuff in the budget, lots of it, but I believe that Canada needs economic development to support our social progress. and this budget represents both.
Evan Scrimshaw writes

...Carney’s budget was always going to be about boosting the growth, and finding new and better ways to do so. Some of them are re-announcements of commitments from the investor summits, some are changes to the tax consequences for the owners of successful new companies to not hoard their wealth in assets and actually pay any amount of cap gains taxes, instead of holding it all in shares that they never cash. But what matters from this budget is not any of that, at least for me - it’s the fact that Carney is using the proceeds of better than expected growth and the war in Iran to do a lot of good and progressive things that will help the people of Canada. And frankly, this is the best Canadian budget in many, many decades because of it.
...The anti-homelessness effort is government at its best, a real effort with a real goal to achieve a real outcome. The scale of the ambition is important, and a clear and discernible goal makes it likelier that even if the whole thing doesn’t happen, serious progress is made. The government obviously hasn’t met its target for eliminating all boil water advisories, but the promise being “eliminate all of them in 5 years” spurred a lot more action than a vague commitment to action at some point on some timeline.
Will the government eliminate it? Who knows, but even failing to achieve full elimination would result in the lives of thousands of Canadians getting better, and that is a worthy aspiration. The problem with Canada is that we’re often too focused on the specifics of a pledge, and too worried about the downside of failing to meet it, and forget to think about all the good we could do. This ambition is something that will help a lot of people, and that’s a good thing.
The Indigenous infrastructure announcement is big money at an important cause too. The problem with the boil water advisories is that successive governments have allowed First Nations communities to become decrepit wastelands, exacerbating all kinds of societal harm and sometimes even being completely unreachable for months at a time. Building the infrastructure to get to these communities, and building the infrastructure in these communities, will enable job creation and better health care and education. Imagine what will happen to Indigenous life expectancy when you can get something resembling 21st Century health care on reserve, or even at least get off reserve to get to a decent hospital.
And then there’s my personal favourite announcement, the $4B cultural fund announced and the tax break for artists. I joked on Twitter about whether the tax break applied to Professional Assholes with Substacks, but in reality Canada should be a country that takes our cultural sector seriously. We’ve spawned one of the biggest cultural hits of the year, we have authors and musicians and actors who routinely break through internationally, and using a small amount of money in the grand scheme of our budget for culture and art is a good thing....

Hey, Carney intends to end homelessness! A Worthwhile Canadian Initiative in our budget

Timothy Schmalz' Homeless Jesus statue 

About 40 years ago, the New Republic had a World's Most Boring Headline contest and the headline that won was "Worthwhile Canadian Initiative".

Hard to beat that, really.
So yes, I know, stories about today's Canadian Budget can look pretty dull.
But while most of the coverage is about what our taxes will be, it's more important to look at what the government will do with that money. 

And setting a goal to end homelessness in ten years is outstanding - life-changing, humane, and easily monitored to make sure Carney is succeeding. 

On CBC's At Issue, the panel talked about trade negotiations and the budget, mentioning the homelessness initiative. Althea Raj speculated that Carney's interest in homelessness may have been sparked by seeing the tents along Wellington Street as he drives to work.

Yes, but so what if it was? Have we reached such a point of blasé indifference that the sight of people huddled in doorways and tents lining the fences near so many Canadian city streets shouldn't affect us anymore? 

If Houston and Denver can do it, so can Canada.

Here we go! Some comments about what happens next

First, a few good comments about the US Mid-Terms results - we spent the last two years appalled and terrified, and today we saw the sun came out.

For one thing, the two largest cities in North America now have Democratic Socialist mayors - Zoltan in New York and Nithya in Los Angeles. And they're both great.

I can’t believe Los Angeles will finally have a mayor that knows what the inside of a bus/train looks like that’s not for a photo op 😭😭😭

— bottomfishers for Nithya Raman (@cahsrslut.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 7:07 PM

I don't think it succeeds anymore to use pejorative labels to undermine charismatic candidates, particularly with younger voters now. Socialist? What's that and who cares anyway?

🚨🚨 leftists born in the 1980s are now running Los Angeles and New York City 😭😭😭😭😭😭

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— Molly Knight (@mollyknight.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 7:05 PM

"Lawyer Up!" and enjoy the schadenfreude

America sent the Republicans a message:

Official statement from incoming chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform @robertgarcia.house.gov:

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— Oversight Dems (@oversightdemocrats.bsky.social) November 3, 2026 at 9:25 PM

Of course Trump solemnly told the New York Times that he would respect the election results, which means the whole gang in the Patel FBI and the Blanche DOJ will be flying all over the country trying to get the courts to overturn elections all over the country, between now and January 3.
As well, I fully expect that choosing a new Speaker and a new Senate Majority Leader will be a shitshow, because Hakeem Jefferies and Chuck Schumer will be following their usual script telling everyone just calm down and ease off and reconsider and reach across the aisle and think about the long-term interests of the party and all their usual BS.  A good percentage of the incoming House and Senate will just tell them "fuck that!"

So there is going to be a big fight about what the Dems will do.

But in the meantime, let's enjoy Tuesday night's schadenfreude.

Today's News: America decides the Midterms, and Canada decides between Europe and Trump

Waiting for the Midterm Results

If you think Trump hates America now, just wait till Nov 4th.

— Tea Pain (@teapainusa.bsky.social) November 2, 2026 at 4:26 PM

Scott Reid: "What Canada needs from these midterms is an absolute, complete drumming of the idea that you can go to economic war with Canada and have it work out well. We need that to be permanently politically radioactive."

- Scott Robertson

Read on Substack

Sunday Funday: Thriller + More Halloween, Interesting Posts, Funny Posts, Laughing about Politics, Carney Hat Trick, TrumpWatch, Animal Crackers

Thriller! 

In honour of Halloween, I have to post the Thriller videos I found.

First, the one and only original


Next, a group of 12-14-year-old dancers at Betsy Ross Arts and Design Academy in New Haven, Connecticut

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Betsy Ross Arts & Design Academy (@betsyrossarts)

Happy (mostly) Halloween!

I have collected quite a batch of Halloween cartoons so I thought I would post them tonight instead of waiting for my Sunday Funday column.  Enjoy!

"It just goes to show you, it's always something — if it’s not one thing, it's another."

(I made this cartoon using ChatGPT)

I really have to feel for our Prime Minister Mark Carney these days.
Canada had one hell of a summer didn't we, with a thousand wild-fires, and those Trump threats and tariffs, and US trade negotiations blowing up.
(On a side note, doesn't it feel like the World Cup and the Olympics were in the ancient past?)
So here we are finally in October.
And Carney finally gets Danielle Smith and her stupid referendum out of the way. Whew!
But now he finds he has to deal with egotistical temper tantrums from the new Quebec premier Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. Plus he must be worried that those white supremascists and residential school denialists in the new BC premier Lorne Doerkson's party will screw up economic development for BC First Nations.
And we all still have to listen to opposition leader Poilievre confuse painfully-dated Seinfeld references for sparkling repartee in Question Period.
Lord, give Carney strength!
Our Prime Minister must be starting to wonder if Canadian politics are always going to be like this.
The short answer is, likely yes!
Because it just goes to show you, it's always something — if it’s not one thing, it's another, as Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say.
But Carney isn't letting it get him down.

 

Today's Good Cartoons, plus Signs of the Apocalypse, Trade War Update, and Hooray for the Brewers!