Good reads about big events: Carney and the Premiers; Election post-mortem; Ukraine Spider's Web; the GIGO of AI

Carney and the Premiers 

Complete press conference is here and the communique is here.

“We’re united, we’re going to build together, and we’re going to build for all—we’re going to build for all Canadians. That’s what came out of this meeting,” says PM Carney at a news conference in Saskatoon following his meeting with provincial and territorial premiers.#cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/LceAqXCHWi

— CPAC (@CPAC_TV) June 2, 2025

I've never seen such an upbeat, unified, First Minister presser in my life. PM Carney might be a magician. Lots of work to do, but he seems to have put all oars in the water, prepared to paddle hard upstream. Even Smith sounds only slightly boorish and small. #cdnpoli

— Steve Valeriote (@stevev68.bsky.social) June 2, 2025 at 3:58 PM

The premiers and I want to make Canada a global energy superpower and build the strongest economy in the G7.   We’re working together to break down trade barriers across the country and get big, nation-building projects off the ground faster.

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— Mark Carney (@mark-carney.bsky.social) June 2, 2025 at 2:42 PM

Weekend funny stuff -- Trump Watch, The Passing Scene, Animal Crackers

Trump Watch: 

Trump Watch is a regular feature now, mainly to collect the funny death-wishes I see all the time, and also to highlight other funny Trump stuff - there's just so much of it!

Narrator: He would continue to confuse “transgenic” and “transgender” for the rest of his days, which many hoped would be few.

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— George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) May 31, 2025 at 10:01 PM

And on a side note:

#writingcommunity #amwriting #booksky #writersky #twrpsky #writers #authors #mysterywriters #transgendermice

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— Rebecca Lee Smith (@becca1130.bsky.social) May 31, 2025 at 5:30 PM

Updates of the week: Prairie wild fires; TACO Trump tariffs; Trudeau's shoes; and Poilievre is still unpopular

Prairie wildfires update 

 Media are doing a good job covering the wildfires now. The Weather Network piece reports on wind directions around the threatened communities. 

Here is another report on the urgency of the evacuations in Manitoba:

 

More background here: 

Cole Bennett / Cole.notCole

BREAKING: 2,000 Residents Stranded as Wildfire Closes In on Pukatawagan, Manitoba
A fast-moving wildfire is now burning less than 1 km from Pukatawagan, home to Mathias Colomb Cree Nation, where approximately 2,000 people are currently stranded. The community has no summer road access and is normally only reachable by train or air both of which are now cut off...

Caitlyn Gowriluk / CBC News

'Pray for rain,' Manitoba premier says as thousands more flee out-of-control wildfires across province
Wab Kinew urges Manitobans to be calm as crews battle unprecedented fires across all parts of the province
...It's a situation Manitoba has never seen before, as large-scale wildfires burn in every region of the province at the same time, Kinew said at a Friday afternoon news conference, calling the current situation a "serious inflection point," particularly for some of Manitoba's larger northern communities.
"As we head into the weekend, pray for rain. We haven't seen rain in the forecast yet. That could really help — sustained rainfall, in particular," he said. "But in the absence of that, the past few days have been very challenging, and that may continue."
The premier said the wind is expected to soon shift to some "unhelpful directions" for the spread of the fires, which is likely to directly threaten the northwest city of Flin Flon and pose challenges for other communities, including the First Nations communities of Pukatawagan, in northwestern Manitoba, and Tataskweyak to the east. ...He expected Manitoba to reach about 17,000 wildfire evacuees in total later Friday.
The effort to help Manitoba battle its out-of-control wildfires — which already included crews and resources from a number of other provinces and territories — is now also being bolstered by 100 more firefighters and 25 logistics managers from the U.S., Kinew said.
"We cannot thank other jurisdictions enough," he said. "It really does just underline how serious this situation is."...

"Telling the truth is a revolutionary act"

One of the signs of the apocolypse is when speaking the truth is not required or even expected. The United States has now reached this point:

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

Nations have never been strangers to official lies -- the US even started wars with lies like the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and the Weapons of Mass Descruction panic, while in Canada the lies about Indigenous communities caused untold damage to generations of children - but at least in the past we were ashamed of them.

The lies we hear today are so pervasive, so widespread, they are a complete denial of reality. 

And the need to push back, to remember the truth and to tell it, has never been more urgent. 

For example, here is pushback against Alberta separatists:

Memo to Alberta's federalists and anti-separatists: stop accepting Danielle Smith's premise that the province has been screwed over by Ottawa. It's time for more facts and fewer feelings. #cdnpoli #abpoli www.nationalobserver.com/2025/05/29/o...

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— Max Fawcett (@maxfawcett.bsky.social) May 29, 2025 at 9:01 AM

Alberta separatism isn't getting more popular, but those who support it are getting louder. If separatist voices dominate the conversation, the damage to investor confidence, attracting talent, and civic life will be enormous. Love Canada? Say it loudly. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

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— Corey Hogan 🇨🇦 (@coreyhogan.ca) May 29, 2025 at 9:30 AM

It was an awful Wednesday for Trump - the TACO slur, the Musk and Miller scandal, the Pope dis, and his tariffs are toast

hopefully we're entering the "then suddenly" phase of regime collapse

— 🍅🥔🫐🌽 hoopy frood 🌶️ 🥑🍫🌵 (@huwupy.kawaii.social) May 28, 2025 at 9:01 PM

Lots of "holy shit" moments on Wednesday: 

TACO Wednesday! 

Trump was told about Wall Street's TACO nickname (Trump Always Chickens Out) during a press conference and, once he figured out it was an insult, he absolutely lost his shit:

Reporter: Wall Street analysts have a new term called the TACO trade.. Saying Trump always chickens out on tariffs…   Trump: I kick out? Reporter: Chicken out.

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— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) May 28, 2025 at 11:13 AM

I think no one on his staff had dared to tell him about the Financial Times' "TACO" branding before - maybe they just hoped it wouldn't come up:

Today’s hero who tossed out the TACO bomb! 👏👏

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— Morgan J Freeman (@mjfree.bsky.social) May 28, 2025 at 9:11 PM

Wildfires across the northern Prairies tonight

It has been a terrible fire day in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba with thousands of people now evacuating:

 

Manitoba is in the worst situation.  

The Manitoba Fire View page is here. 

The Saskatchewan Active Incidents page is here. 

The Alberta Wildfire Status page is here.

Alberta Focus – Swan Hills / Edith Lake Fire (SWF076) #ABFire
• Out of control, ≈3 600 ha, 7–8 km N of town
• 1 300 evacuees to Whitecourt (80 km) after May 26 order
• 25–32 °C, RH low, gusts 45 km/h → Red-Flag through May 29
• Crews hitting SE flank with helis, tankers &… pic.twitter.com/j8wyfRs4Pf

— FireMap.live 🔥🌎 (@disaster_db) May 29, 2025

Yesterday, @NOAA's #GOESWest captured the smoke and heat signatures of multiple large #wildfires burning across Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Canada. Two of the largest fires still burning include the #CampFire and #ShoeFire. #GOES18 pic.twitter.com/N8fTctlQrh

— NOAA Satellites (@NOAASatellites) May 28, 2025

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Red Cross advice and donations, from their Facebook page tonight:

The King's Speech: "Canada has what the world needs and defends the values that the world respects"

 

 “Today, Canada faces another critical moment. Democracy, pluralism, the rule of law, self-determination, and freedom are values which Canadians hold dear, and ones which the government is determined to protect.”
—King Charles III, delivering the Speech from the Throne

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— The Globe and Mail (@theglobeandmail.com) May 27, 2025 at 8:00 PM

Here is a gift link to this excellent Shannon Proudfoot column - it really gives you a feeling of what it was like to be there in the Senate chamber. The whole piece is well worth reading, but here are a couple of excerpts:
Shannon Proudfoot / The Globe and Mail (gift link)

King Charles delivers soaring poetry and gristly prose in Throne Speech to giddy Senate
...Once the royal couple entered, in a procession along with Prime Minister Mark Carney and various dignitaries, the whole room changed, the amorphous buzz of excitement narrowing into a collective beam of attention fixated on them.
“This is my 20th visit to Canada, spread over the course of more than half a century, and my first as sovereign,” the King said. “As I’ve said before, every time I come to Canada, a little more of Canada seeps into my bloodstream, and from there straight to my heart.”
At this, an audible, visible ripple of something warm and eager – approval, elation, gratitude? – rolled across the crowd. When you’ve spent months listening to a mad king say he wants to take over your country or at least destroy it, it’s heartening to hear a decent king say something different.
...with his final line, Charles earned his second audible murmur of appreciation from the Red Chamber, the collective emotional bookend to his opener about Canada living more in his bloodstream and heart with each visit he’s made to our shores.
“As the anthem reminds us,” the King of Canada said for the whole world to hear, “the true north is indeed strong and free.”

Today's Quotes - Carney promises "We will prevail" & King Charles is cheered "Rock on,🤴Chuck!🍻"

There were a  couple of memorable quotes in today's news. 

The first one was in the speech that Prime Minister Carney gave in the House:

Hey, I'm starting to love ChatGPT -- just tell it to print a little poster based on Carney's "We will prevail" with Craig Baird's July beaver, and the picture at the top is what I get!   

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The second was in a Bluesky post - cheers for King Charles!

Generally speaking, I couldn't care less about Royal visits, but if King Charles delivering the Throne Speech helps bolster Canadian sovereignty and royally piss off Donald Trump, then rock on, 🤴 Chuck. 🍻

— Edge O. Erin (@edgeoerin.com) May 26, 2025 at 12:41 PM

The Throne Speech is Tuesday, and King Charles and Queen Camilla are already in country for it - and Charles is even wearing a tan suit? I wonder if he remembers how the White House press lost their collective minds when Obama wore a tan suit?

King Charles heads to Canada in show of support for realm eyed by Trump reut.rs/3Z0a5kS

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— Reuters (@reuters.com) May 26, 2025 at 12:10 AM

The American press are viewing this Royal Visit as a total dis against Trump, and I am here for it!

King Charles is preparing to deliver an historic speech to Canada's parliament tomorrow, to give Ottawa a highly public show of support — and remind Donald Trump who the head of state is. But the British monarch's strategy isn't without risk.

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— POLITICO Europe (@politico.eu) May 26, 2025 at 7:47 AM

Weekend funny stuff: Some posts from here and there, TrumpWatch, Animal Crackers

I'm using the Monty Python picture here because this year marks the 50th anniversary of the release of Monty Python and the Holy Grail -- and the Knights Who Say Ni! will never be forgotten!

Tonight I have just a few funny posts, my new "TrumpWatch" feature, and, of course, Animal Crackers.

Starting with this:

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This is really neat:

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Today's News: My response to the Carney push-backs (Plus, Sunshiny's excellent Mandate Letter tweet thread)

So the usual suspects are whining about PM Mark Carney tonight -- there seem to be three "push-backs" underway. 

The first pushback is about Carney's mandate letter. 

If you haven't seen it already, at the end of this post I have reposted Sunshiny's excellent tweet thread analyzing what the letter means.

But getting back to the critics, the complaints I am seeing are that Carney's priorities are either too specific or not specific enough -- the Carney mandate letter doesn't provide detailed lists of expectations for each government department; neither does it explain in detail exactly how each department should interpret the overall Canadian mandates within its own sphere.

But maybe Carney expects Cabinet ministers and their newly-appointed Chiefs of Staff to figure these things out for themselves? Like heads of departments always do in every office in every business and corporation across the country?
The CBC At Issue panel said the mandate letter sounded suspiciously "corporate".  Well, of course it does. Carney is a corporate kind of guy and that's why Canada voted for him.

Which leads me to the second pushback -- that Carney says he has a mandate to carry out his agenda but critics say really he doesn't. 

Because, I guess, he didn't quite get a majority government? So somehow that means Canada doesn't actually support what Carney wants to do?
But for the first time since 2015, the Liberals were supported by a plurality of Canadian voters, with MPs elected from every region. This seems like a pretty broad and deep mandate to me. 

Regardless of whether every single Canadian who voted Liberal actually supported every single plank on the entire Liberal platform, the Carney mandate letter provides us with a good place to start.

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The third pushback is some bitching about Carney's management style -- supposedly, Carney is too much of a hands-on manager but also his office is chaotic.

Hmmm....I wonder where these stories are coming from?  I have a sneaking suspicion there might be a opposition leader office trying to distract from its own internal chaos by whispering about how awful the other guy is.

Harvard, keep your Elbows Up!

So the Trump administration is trying to wreak its vengence on Harvard for lèse-majesté -- they wouldn't knuckle under to the Orange King and his MAGA knuckle-draggers.  

Searching for excuses to deport anyone brown, the Trump administration has seized on last spring's pro-Palestinian protests at universities to target international university students and kick them out of the country - they're highly visible, outspoken, easy to find, easy to target, non-violent, and MAGA hates them anyway for their supposed "elitism".

This is some authoritarian shit. Noem said since Harvard won’t give her disciplinary records on students, she’s terminating their foreign exchange student program immediately, and ordered that foreign students must transfer to other schools or have visas revoked. pic.twitter.com/oV3TXVVb1x

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) May 22, 2025

Associated Press reporters Collin Binkley and Michael Casey / Toronto Star (gift link) provide a broader context:

Trump administration bars Harvard from enrolling foreign students
The Secretary of Homeland Security accused Harvard of “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.”
...The Trump administration’s clash with Harvard, the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, has intensified since it became the first to openly defy White House demands for changes at elite schools it has criticized as hotbeds of liberalism and antisemitism. The federal government has cut $2.6 billion in federal grants to Harvard, forcing it to self-fund much of its sprawling research operation. President Donald Trump has said he wants to strip the university of its tax-exempt status.
The administration has demanded records of campus protests
The threat to Harvard’s international enrollment stems from an April 16 request from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who demanded that it provide information about foreign students that might implicate them in violence or protests that could lead to their deportation.
In a letter to Harvard on Thursday, Noem said the school’s sanction is “the unfortunate result of Harvard’s failure to comply with simple reporting requirements.” It bars Harvard from hosting international students for the upcoming 2025-26 school year.
Noem said Harvard can regain its ability to host foreign students if it produces a trove of records on foreign students within 72 hours. Her updated request demands all records, including audio or video footage, of foreign students participating in protests or dangerous activity on campus.
“This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” Noem said in a statement.
The action revoked Harvard’s certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, which gives the school the ability to sponsor international students to get their visas and attend school in the United States.
Harvard President Alan Garber earlier this month said the university has made changes to its governance over the past year and a half, including a broad strategy to combat antisemitism, but warned it would not budge on its “its core, legally-protected principles” over fears of retaliation. He said he wasn’t aware of evidence to support the administration’s allegation that its international students were “more prone to disruption, violence, or other misconduct than any other students.”
Students in Harvard College Democrats said the Trump administration is playing with students’ lives to push a radical agenda and to quiet dissent. “Trump’s attack on international students is text book authoritarianism — Harvard must continue to hold the line,” the group said in a statement.
The administration drew condemnation from free speech groups, including the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which said Noem is demanding a “surveillance state.”
“This sweeping fishing expedition reaches protected expression and must be flatly rejected,” the group said in a statement.
The revocation opens a new front in a closely watched battle
Many of Harvard’s punishments have come through a federal antisemitism task force that says the university failed to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence amid a nationwide wave of pro-Palestinian protests.
Homeland Security officials echoed those concerns in their Thursday announcement. It offered examples, including a recent internal report at Harvard, finding that many Jewish students reported facing discrimination or bias on campus.
It also tapped into concerns that congressional Republicans have raised about ties between U.S. universities and China. Homeland Security officials said Harvard provided training to the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps as recently as 2024. As evidence, it provided a link to a Fox News article, which in turn cited a letter from House Republicans.
Asked for comment on the alleged coordination with the Chinese Communist Party, a Harvard spokesperson said the university will be responding to the House Republicans’ letter.
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, called the latest action an “illegal, small-minded” overreach.
“I worry that this is sending a very chilling effect to international students looking to come to America for education,” he said.
The Trump administration has leveraged the system for tracking international students’ legal status as part of its broader attempts to crack down on higher education. What was once a largely administrative database has become a tool of enforcement, as immigration officials revoked students’ legal status directly in the system.
Those efforts were challenged in court, leading to restorations of status and a nationwide injunction blocking the administration from pursuing further terminations.

Canada needs to tell Alberta we love her....

Here's a snap I took on the Icefields Parkway, during one of our many great vacations in Alberta:

We loved those vacations, and we love Alberta.

I know that Wexit, AKA Alberta Separation Referendum, is just getting started and I know the percentages now favour that Albertans will want to stay in Canada.

Alberta - Support For Alberta and Saskatchewan Forming An Independent Nation: Oppose: 63% Support: 30% Leger / May 12, 2025 / n=1000 / Online

— Polling Canada (@canadianpolling.bsky.social) May 20, 2025 at 7:04 AM

So does this mean Wexit is something the rest of Canada doesn't actually need to worry much about?

Well, maybe. 

But there are no guarantees, and I'm seeing a flood of social media hate-posts now talking about how Alberta can hardly wait to leave. 

I just read an interesting piece by Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo, about what Democrats are doing wrong in trying to refute the Republican and Trump lies, and it struck me that Canadians need to be aware of these issues too. 

Here's what Marshall said: 

...The overriding problem Democrats have today is a general belief that they’re not effective at fighting for what they believe in or what the country needs to be protected from. 

There’s a related, but secondary issue that they worry that Dems are most focused on issues that are obscure or not connected to the lives of the great majority of people struggling to make ends meet. 

That lack of fight is shattering for self-identified Democrats as well as highly damaging for genuine independents and low-information voters who genuinely flip from party to party from election to election. That is overwhelmingly the challenge Democrats have right now... 

Applying this wisdom to Canada, I think we need to take Alberta seriously, even if we don't yet think Alberta Separatism is worth worrying about. 

We need to speak up, to tell Alberta that we love them and we want them to stay.

Just Keep On Truckin'

I started assembling a post tonight about all the ways that America is sliding into a lawless authoritarian pit, but I couldn't finish it -- because yes, we know that already and there's just about nothing anybody can do, really. So all we can do is to keep on truckin'. 

Here's a post about some of the better news I read today:

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there's a house on my street that leaves their Christmas lights up year-round. Not just until February or March like the procrastinators. ALL year. The neighborhood association has sent letters. People complain. But every night, those tiny white lights outline the small house like a constellation. Last week, when I saw him during morning walk, I finally asked why. "My daughter is autistic," the man said. "The lights help her find her way home from the bus stop. They're her North Star." Now I get angry at anyone who complains about them. Some rules are meant to be broken indefinitely.

- Darshak Rana

Read on Substack

Just a bunch of random stuff - hockey downs and ups; Carney learns us some economics; fun with mis-pronouncing words; Pope Leo disses the Vances; Biden's awful diagnosis; and the Battle Hymn Updated

OK, I think I can safely say now that we are finished with winter -- it's planting season for the flower pots, too.  So for now, here's just a random selection of interesting stuff I saw today: 

 First, we watched Toronto lose - doom and gloom all around! 

They just couldn't seem to play like a team tonight, even though they pulled together all season. Maybe they annoyed the hockey gods somehow?  

And it was just as sad to see the Jets lose on Saturday. So thank heavens Edmonton made it through, and we still have a Canadian team to cheer for.

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— The Globe and Mail (@theglobeandmail.com) May 18, 2025 at 9:42 PM

Leafs are a fascinating psychological study. Their fans even more so.

— Andrew Coyne 🇺🇦🇮🇱🇬🇪🇲🇩 (@acoyne) May 19, 2025

Weekend funny stuff: Cartoons, insult comics, Poilievre slogans, super cows and other funny posts, plus some good Animal Crackers

Just some funny stuff to enjoy this weekend, starting with some good cartoons:

Next, I do love the insult comics of the internet:

JoJoFromJerz / Are you f'ng kidding me?

It Was the Darkest of Times, It Was the Dumbest of Times.
The stupid burns…
Let’s not sugarcoat shit—we are being held hostage by the dumbest dumbfucks who ever dumbed. Not just dumb—like, “oops, I microwaved a fork” dumb, or “I tried to charge my phone in the toaster” dumb or “I thought Bluetooth was a dental condition” dumb, but cosmically, generationally, ‘you must be this tall to ride democracy’ dumb. Every day, we all wake up and have to share a country with people whose brains look like they were assembled by a team of blindfolded squirrels high on Four Loko, using blueprints they found in a box of expired Pop-Tarts.
But it’s not just that they’re stupid—it’s that their stupidity is blasted from every rooftop, tattooed on their faces, and woven so deep into our national fabric it’s like we’re all being waterboarded with Mountain Dew Code Red.