Monthly Archives: February 2023

In the time of New Normal, here are some thoughts on where we are and the usual ramblings at month end (i.e. the Feb 2023 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)

Posted on February 28, 2023 | Comments Off on In the time of New Normal, here are some thoughts on where we are and the usual ramblings at month end (i.e. the Feb 2023 edition of my not-a-newsletter newsletter)



It’s been a weird winter. Most of the time I’ve gone outside and had to remind myself it was February, a month I associate with bone chilling cold and excessive snow. We did get some of the white stuff and some cold this last week, but I suspect it may not last long. It doesn’t seem normal, but we live in a time of New Normals.

Part of what’s driving the New Normal is — you guessed it —  COVID-19. Are we in a pandemic, are we not in a pandemic? I think the answer depends on where you live and who you are. For example, if you live in Nova Scotia, you see the province keeping good track of what is happening still with this dashboard. The government of Canada has good tracking too. Meanwhile in Ontario, you can still find the data, but this page feels like the provincial government has moved on or wants to move on. (I feel that way when I see them lump COVID-19 and Flu data together, as if to say: COVID-19 is just normal now, like the flu is normal).

This doesn’t mean COVID-19 is going away: we are still seeing new variants occurring, for instance. But as we can see in things like the wastewater signal data, the disease is on something of a decline.

I’m not surprised: this wastewater signal data aligns with the hospitalization data I track each week too. For more data that confirms this, you can see a lot over at the Toronto Star, here.

So in the times of New Normal, COVID-19 is around, and it is a serious disease, especially if you get long COVID. (And yes, long COVID is a real thing that doctors are working hard on.) People are still dying from it. Yet despite all that, the behavior of most people is shifting towards the way things were before the pandemic.  We used to talk a lot about restaurants closing a year ago: that has really stopped since then. There’s lots of discussion about forcing workers back to the office: let’s see. There are still many of instances of people wearing masks, but it is more and more the exception, despite what some people may say on Twitter.

Speaking of masks, a badly communicated study from the Cochrane review came out and indicated that masks and other measures were not effective. I was glad to see that places like Vox took the time to show the problems with that study. That didn’t stop hair brained pieces from convervative writers saying mask mandates don’t work. Look, I don’t know what to tell you if you think that. Washing your hands, masking, avoiding crowds and vaccinations are all things you can do to reduce the risk from infectious diseases like COVID-19, influenza, and so much more.  If you want to live freer and incur greater risk of dying from a disease, by all means. But you are only kidding yourself if you think public health measures are ineffective.

I think you are also kidding yourself if you think people will/should continue to wear masks all the time and avoid crowds. Yes, it would cut down on infectious diseases significantly. I mean, the flu basically disappeared during the depth of the pandemic. But I just don’t see that happening, because people are …well, people.

As for me, I have my own new Normal. (Likely you do too.) I engage with crowds now, but selectively (restaurants, yes; cinemas and performances, no). I’ve mostly abandoned shopping in stores: I’m an online shopper now. I still haven’t got back to the gym: I need to figure out a better way to get in shape without getting diseases on the regularly from heavy breathing all about. I went into the office: I don’t felt like I missed much, though I enjoyed talking to my manager face to face and I found reading easy on the subway.

I hope we can all find new and better Normals. Perhaps it could be the four day work week. Or a decline in inflation, finally, eventually (I hope). Or an end to the war in Ukraine (now a year old). I’d like to make some predictions on when we get to these new normals, but I am terrible at predicting, so I will leave that to the Times, which has them for 2023. (Let’s check back next year to see how well they did.)

AI continues to be a hot topic, with countless articles being written about it each week. The opposite of hot is crypto, with the SEC in the US driving stakes through the hearts of whatever firms still exist. NFTs are also dying: a year ago they were so hot, now they are decidedly not, according to Google Trends. The latest loss they took was against Hermes.

Speaking of losers, Scott Adams continues to demonstrate he is one with his latest racist tirade that has caused newspapers to abandon his Dilbert cartoon. I don’t know what happened to that guy, but then again who knows what happens to guys like him and Kanye and even Musk.

On a lighter note, there’s been lots of talk last month about the owl Flaco who escaped from the Zoo in New York and who is now living apparently his best life in Central Park. Love that for him.

Celebrity news: The Grammy’s also occurred this February. Fans of Beyonce were saying she was robbed…I dunno. She seems to be holding up fine. So too is Rihanna, who dazzled at the SuperBowl but also left her fans thinking that they might NEVER see another album from her, which got them upset. People were also upset about Marie Kondo, who has admitted she has slacked off since she had kids. I say: good for her. Also, people, we need to stop getting upset. For instance, Kareem Abdul Jabbar did not get upset when LeBron James passed his monumental scoring record. Be like Kareem.

Finally, it’s easy to think winter is over, but we have a way to go, still. Try and get out and enjoy it while you can. I know that can be hard in parts of the country like Ottawa where the canal has not frozen over enough to skate on. Try and make the best of it. Dress warmly.

Soon the snowdrops will appear and spring will be following right behind. Stay well in these times of the New Normal.

 

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A quick peek on what Philippe Starck is up to

Posted on February 27, 2023 | Comments Off on A quick peek on what Philippe Starck is up to

If you love the work of Philippe Starck as much as I, then I recommend you head over to Uncreate and search on his name (or click here). It turns out he’s still doing cool stuff. Not surprising.

For example, this is cool: B&B Italia x Philippe Starck Outdoor Sofa. It reminds me of the great furniture he did for hotels like the Royalton in the 80s:

And this LaCie Blade Runner Hard Drive reminded me of how at the names of his older furniture often were borrowed from Philip K. Dick novels:

Love it! I wish I could find one of those hard drives. They look awesome.

Speaking of awesome looking, check out this, the Aeklys by Starck Payment Ring:

Finally these Phillippe Starck Log Knives are very gift worthy:

Nice to see one of my favorite designers is still creative, and creative in many different ways.

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How great Japanese artists can make you better at art (and much more)

Posted on February 26, 2023 | Comments Off on How great Japanese artists can make you better at art (and much more)


Ok, maybe this lesson on “How to Paint Like Hayao Miyazaki” will not result in work of his stature, but it was interesting to see how basic his technique is. Great work, simple approach.

Here’s a piece on much much older drawing lessons from Katsushika Hokusai Who Famously Painted The Great Wave off Kanagawa. The lessons themselves are online. You can get a sample of them, here: Japanese – Quick Lessons in Simplified Drawings. Old but still relevant.

As for other tools (some NSFW) that can help you draw and paint, there’s Figurosity, Figure drawing poses and gesture drawing tools. There is Magic Poser Web. Give intro Line of Action a visit. Lastly, here’s 20 Artistic Prompts to Get You Through a Creative Slump.

Speaking of NSFW, here’s a good online lesson on Drawing with Charcoal in Craftsy, that I found really good.

Need more help? Here’s a good exercise from Austin Kleon:  The 30-minute noticing workout.

Here’s a wealth of  Watercolour lessons for anyone who wants to go that way.

This article on Netherlands-based designer Teun Zwets who makes storage from residual or waste materials is inspirational, I thought. Look at how beautiful they are.

Maybe making art from discarded things is a good inspiration for you, too.

Need more inspiration? Read this, which has famous artists talking about how to be an artist.

Now get to work.

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It’s Saturday. Here’s a handful of good pieces on great artists

Posted on February 25, 2023 | Comments Off on It’s Saturday. Here’s a handful of good pieces on great artists

First up: can art save your life? The artist Robert Moore thinks so. Good artist, good piece. Relatedly but sad, the well known Canadian artist, Mendelson Joe, has died. He wrote about it on his web site, here. RIP, good sir.

On a lighter note, here’s a funny story on the Italian futurists and pasta. Elsewhere in Europe, mystery artists! This is a good story on one such sculpturor from Amsterdam. And this piece highlights the mysterious artist Invader as he unleashes his art on Paris and the world.

Back in Canada, here’s a good story on one of my favorite contemporary Canadian artist, Peter Harris, over at CTV News. Down in the US, this is a terrible story on how San Francisco gallerist Collier Gwin was arrested for hosing down an unhoused woman in front of his gallery. Meanwhile over in Japan comes a wonderful story on what Kazuo Oga thinks about when he thinks about backgrounds.

I love Marcel Duchamp. Here’s a piece on his work, Network of Stoppages. Speaking of Duchamp, here’s an art book on Marcel Duchamp from Hauser& Wirth. As for other old artists, painter Jonah Kinigstein who lived until almost 100 and stayed figurative when the art world went abstract. Hang in there, artists.

I don’t want to forget to bring up this sharp commentary on the great Anselm Keifer, who is always a challenging artist.


Finally these are stunning: Miniature Ships Sail Atop Asya Kozina’s Extravagant Baroque Wigs of White Ships. Thanks to Collosal for this. Aslo from Collosal: Ruby Silvious garments (seen above).

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Things I can’t live without – Bernie Michalik edition

Posted on February 24, 2023 | Comments Off on Things I can’t live without – Bernie Michalik edition

So I came across this section of New York magazine called The Strategist which asks people: what can’t you live without? They wonder “what famous people add to their carts. Not the JAR brooch and Louis XV chair but the hair spray and the electric toothbrush.” I enjoyed this one in particular on Rhiannon Giddens Favorite Things, but it also got me thinking: what can’t I live without? If I lost everything and was told by insurers to go out and replace things, what are the things I really miss that I would go out a get right away? That led me to come up with this list. It’s not my answers to the Proust Questionnaire, but it was much fun to do and equally revealing. Here goes:

Roots leather goods. I’ve bought a number of Roots leather goods over the decades and they truly last a lifetime. I have a tan leather jacket that just gets better year after year and a weekender bag like the one below which is perfect for short trips. Get something classic from Roots and it will serve you for life.


Large Banff Bag Cervino | Roots US – $598 US

New Balance Shoes. For a long time I’ve been a fan of New Balance for running. Great shoe maker, I thought, but typically not very fashionable. I changed my mind when I saw the 327 models shown: a great shoe that’s also very stylish. I have them in Black on Black and they’re great, but New Balance has a wide selection of color combos. Perfect for being out and about.

327 – New Balance – $99 USD

Apple Products. I really can’t live without my Macbook, my iPhone, or my Apple Watch. I am inseparable from them, literally. I’d still have a Shuffle too if Apple still made them. I’m fortunate enough to get a Macbook Air and an iPhone 11 from work, but I would get them again even if I did not. To go with that I have the Apple Watch Series 8: the health features alone make it great. Like Roots or New Balance, there is not just ONE product from this company I rely on: there are MANY.

Apple Watch Series 8 – Apple (CA) – $529 CAN

IKEA French Press Coffee Maker: I love this thing. I have a small one that makes me my afternoon coffee and it’s the perfect thing to get me through my day. I will generally use a drip coffee maker in the morning to make a large pot of coffee, but this makes a better cup of coffee, I believe. Maybe I need two of them.

Pro tip: get a small wooden spoon with a flat end on an angle if you can: it makes cleanup super easy. Another tip: IKEA sells coffee for the press and I think it’s pretty good.

UPPHETTA French press coffee maker – $14.99 US

Lodge Cast Iron: recently I got over my hang up with cast iron and started cooking with again. I am so glad I did: food just comes out better in cast iron, I think. And taking care of it is less trouble than I thought. I am a fan of Lodge cast iron in particular and I have a number of their pieces, including this skillet with the hot handle holder (the holder is very useful – trust me).

12 Inch Cast Iron Skillet with Handle Holder – $29.95 US

J. Stark Bags and travel cases: I love my Roots weekender bag. When I am travelling, I’ll fill it with travel bags from J Stark. Plus I’ll use their Sentinel backpack and store it under my seat with all my valuables. Not only is it great for travel, but I can use it once I get on the ground. (Not to mention using it when I return.)  I love the quality of their goods: plus the people that run it are really fine people. If you can get to Charleston, drop by. Meanwhile, visit their site to see what they have to offer (a lot!).

Sentinel Backpack in Navy Heavyweight Canvas  – $195 US

Grado SR80x Prestige Series Headphones: I have not stopped using Grados since I bought my first pair of 60s many years ago. I’ve tried more expensive ones, but as someone who uses them mostly with an iPhone (and formerly an iTouch), the 80s are the ones I find suit me best. In Canada you can get them at Bay Bloor radio and other fine places.

 

Grado SR80x Prestige Series Headphones – $189 CAN

Pilot v-pen Fountain pen: I love pens. Pens of all sorts. However when it comes to writing cards or notes or even cheques, I am a huge fan of these disposable fountain pens from Pilot. Sure, they aren’t Mont Blanc, but you can get 10 for just under $18 at Amazon! I also have found very few problems with leaking, and I also find they work better than cheap fountain pens elsewhere. I usually get mine at Deserres because I like to support local art stores, but you can find them everywhere.

V-Pen – Fountain pen – $2-4 US, depending on where you get them.

Muji Notebooks: I use Muji notebooks to go with my Pilot Pens. I have them in all shapes and sizes, but this particular one shown I love. I get one out every work day and write down whatever I need to capture quickly and focus on. But honestly they have a notebook for every use.

Double Ringed Plain Notebook – $2.90 US

The Lenovo Smart Clock with Google Assistant: I depend upon Google Assistant more than I care to say. And while Google has their own devices, if I had to have only one such device, I would pick this one. I have one near me at all times when I work at home: it’s a one stop shop for quick information and tasks.

Lenovo Smart Clock – $79 US.

I am sure if I sat her more I could come up with more items and even services.  There’s many things I have that I can’t do without, but I would be worse off  without the things on this list.

What things are on your list?

 

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Crime stopper tips if you are buying goods from Kijiji or Facebook Marketplace

Posted on February 23, 2023 | Comments Off on Crime stopper tips if you are buying goods from Kijiji or Facebook Marketplace


Chances are if you buy goods from Kijiji or Facebook Marketplace you will be fine. Most stories I know of have been positive. Still, you are taking a risk buying or selling goods to strangers. To reduce the risks, read this: Toronto police warn of thefts involving Kijiji and Facebook Marketplace sales.

I would not recommend large cash transactions either. If you are about to meet a thief who knows exactly how much you are bringing to your exchange point, that is a recipe for disaster.

Stay safe, shop well. Good luck!

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The grimness of being a veterinarian

Posted on February 22, 2023 | Comments Off on The grimness of being a veterinarian

This piece in Slate on veterinarians is very good and very grim: Our Business Is Killing. It’s all about the centrality of euthanasia when it comes to being a vet, and how that responsibility — killing animals effectively — takes a huge hit on all the humans involved.

Being a vet is a great thing and it can bring much happiness to people and pets. But anyone considering choosing that profession should read that Slate piece first.

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The Louvre’s Mona Lisa problem

Posted on February 22, 2023 | Comments Off on The Louvre’s Mona Lisa problem

The Louvre has two problems with the Mona Lisa. 1) It’s too hard to see:
Looking for Elbow Room, Louvre Limits Daily Visitors to 30,000 and 2) it’s too delicate to take out of the museum: The Mona Lisa Will Not Be Going on Tour After All, the Louvre Says.

Sadly you could paint a fake Mona Lisa and no one would know, since it is so hard to see it if you are in the Louvre. Maybe that’s what they should do! Seriously I don’t know what the solution is: people have it on their bucket list of things to so (and I can only imagine it is worse now in the heyday of social media).

Needless to say, billionaires like the fictitious one in Knives Out: Glass Onion could not do what was portrayed there. 🙂 Want to see the painting: take your chances and battle the crowds in Paris.

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Two good pieces on two good pieces from IKEA

Posted on February 21, 2023 | Comments Off on Two good pieces on two good pieces from IKEA

 

Here’s a good piece on how the ubiquitous IKEA Råskog trolley (seen above) has become famous as the TBR (to be read) cart on social media. Move over bedside table: IKEA is bringing on competition.

That trolley is old and good. What’s new and good from IKEA is the  VINDSTYRKA smart sensor (seen below) which monitors air quality inside your home:

It’s interesting that IKEA continue to make forays into home devices that are not necessarily furniture (e.g., home speakers). I for one am here for that.

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Be more than your role(s) in life

Posted on February 20, 2023 | Comments Off on Be more than your role(s) in life


We all play roles in life. We start off as someone’s child. Then we become students. Later on we take on work roles and community roles. Roles help us know what is expected of us and what we should do. But roles limit us as well.

In thinking about your role, this quote from Hunter S. Thompson on the blog NITCH is a good one to ponder as you head into the week:

We do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES. But don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that we can’t BE firemen, bankers, or doctors…but that we must make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal… Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life.”

William Makepeace Thackeray had another good quote: “Whatever you are, be a good one.” So whatever roles you are playing, play them well. But don’t define your life by that role, and don’t limit your striving to be just that role. If you limit yourself that way, you may become lost if the role disappears or you tire of it. Decide to live for more than just your roles, and your life will be richer and have more meaning.

 

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On blogging/writing online in 2023 (how I write now)

Posted on February 19, 2023 | Comments Off on On blogging/writing online in 2023 (how I write now)


Over two years ago I sat down and wrote: On blogging/writing online in 2020 (how I write now). What has changed?

Well since then, I’ve surpass my goal of 1,000,000 hits (now at 1,031,207 hits). I wasn’t sure if I could achieve it when I posted that in December of 2020, but just over 10 months later, I managed to make that milestone. I wrote about it, here: Some reflections on reaching one million views on my blog today.

I never did start a separate newsletter on places like Substack, though many others did, I am glad to say. All my newsletter writing within this blog can be found here.

I continue to sit down every Saturday morning and review interesting things I’ve found on the Internet and saved in Pocket. I still take 3-4 hours to write about these things and schedule them to be posted throughout the week. I am sure there is a better way to do this, but if so, it escapes me.

I still enjoy this writing time, too. I have the same routine of getting up on Saturday morning and grabbing some breakfast and a coffee before I craft my posts. Perhaps the only minor change is that I used to take images from Unsplash.com to illustrate things, now they come mainly from pixabay.

Sometimes I find I have more things to say and I could stay at my desk all day, banging out posts. Other times it can feel like a job, and I ask myself: why am I doing this? Mostly though I find it a good hobby and a creative way to think about things and express them in this unique format.

Will I continue to write here? I think so. Maybe some day I will see that no one is reading my posts and I will stop. (That’s kinda happened with my cooking blog.) I used to even fret when I would publish something here and only 3 or 4 people would read it. But recently I have checked my stats and it is gratifying to see posts that get a few reads every day or so have 300, 400, 500 or more reads over the years. It makes me think my writing has some benefit.

To all of you who have read my blog posts and interacted with them in some positive way: thank you! It’s always appreciated. I would like to include you in the group of smart people I know, even if we haven’t met.

(Top Photo by Daffa Z on Unsplash. Bottom photo from Pixabay.)

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Everything old is new again, musically (think Sony Walkmans, for one)

Posted on February 18, 2023 | Comments Off on Everything old is new again, musically (think Sony Walkmans, for one)

Everything old is new again. That’s what I thought when I saw that Bay Bloor Radio in Toronto is still selling Sony Walkmans. It’s true. (You can see more of Sony’s line, here .)

Speaking of old to new, I see that the great tumblr known as Tuneage is still going strong. It is getting close to 20 years old, and despite that, it still is recommending great music to listen to. I recommend you check it out.

Also old to new is this: The Smithsonian Will Restore Hundreds of the World’s Oldest Sound Recording. Kudos to the Smithsonian for doing that.

Sadly some thing are going from old to passed on instead of from old to new. Namely old rock legends like David Crosby and Tom Verlaine. That’s a depressing thing to think ona. What’s even more depressing is this piece that shows how many more rock legends are in their late 70s and early 80s and will likely die soon.

Love the music you want, in the format you can get it in, as often as you can, be it new or old.

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That 70s music post. On Harry Styles, Yacht Rock, and more

Posted on February 17, 2023 | Comments Off on That 70s music post. On Harry Styles, Yacht Rock, and more


I have a confession: I have always hated the music from the 70s. If the music of the 60s was revolutionary and the music of the 80s was new wave and punk, the sounds of the 70s were dominated by excessive overproduced smoothness. What started musically in the 60s metastasized in the 70s until the spike of punk put an end to it. I was glad for that.

Lately, I have had a change of heart (ear?) and started to revisit and soften my stand towards that old 70s music. Maybe it was the Bee Gees documentary I recently watched that got me thinking. Or the notion that many of the bands I loved in the 80s got their start in the 70s, or that for every bad disco song there were songs from Bowie and Springsteen. Perhaps it was listening to just the good yacht rock artists like Hall and Oates, Robert Palmer, George Benson, and more. Whatever the cause, the more I listened to it, the more I thought I had thrown the baby out with the bath water, music-wise.

It also helped that I, along with many other people,  have been bopping along to Harry Styles and his music. There’s elements to his songs that reminds me of the best of the 70s. You could easily slide his songs into a Yacht Rock playlist and hardly notice the jump in time that occurs between those hits and his.

in fact you could take Harry S (seen below) and place him alongside Robin Zander of Cheap Trick or any of the androgynous rockers of the 70s and he would fit right in:

Now I don’t think Styles is going to lead to a great revisiting of the music of that era, other than for people like me. But who knows? Maybe the music as it was from back then will return for a spell. That would be golden.

For more on Yacht Rock, click here. Spotify users can click on the playlist above. Image of Styles from The New York Times.

 

 

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What’s new in Toronto?? Ha! (Feb 2023 edition)

Posted on February 16, 2023 | Comments Off on What’s new in Toronto?? Ha! (Feb 2023 edition)

What’s new in Toronto, you ask? Well, where to start?? Let’s start by the Mayor resigning hastily last Friday after getting caught up in a sex scandal! It’s almost enough to distract one from the current scandal brewing around the premier’s pay for play stag and doe party he had for his daughter and developers. Unlike the mayor, he has not resigned…yet. Stay tuned.

For year’s John Tory tried to successfully lead in Toronto politics. He finally got his chance the year he won the Mayor’s job. In his first term he was a welcome change from the craziness of Rob Ford. I thought he worked hard during the pandemic in his second term. But recently things were souring on him, from his strong support for the police, to his seeking strong mayor powers,  to his treatment of the homeless, to his second salary at Rogers. In the end you could say his fate was either tragic or pathetic, depending on how you felt about the man.

(For more on Tory, see this piece by Ed Keenan, one of my favorite Toronto journalists.)

Relatedly, the Globe had a recent piece on Tory’s strong mayor bid. Who knows what will happen with that now. What a mess.

Speaking of messes, Toronto has been having a mess of issues lately. There are issues with the city budget, with a large part of it going to the the police. To add to that, there were additional police expenditures on top of that after a recent wave of violence on the TTC. It was so bad on the TTC lately that someone posted fake ads on the subway shaming the TTC over lack of safety. It doesn’t help that you barely see anyone working at the TTC these days unless you enter the front of a bus or a streetcar. Lack of official presence leads to disturbances and worse, I believe.

As for housing and homes,  City of Toronto provided an update on COVID-19 Shelter Transition and Relocation. It has not gone down too well. The city is also trying to provide more affordable housing, but like many cities, is struggling. You know there is a problem when organized crime figures out an angle on housing sales. Arresting those guys IS a good use of the police. A bad use of the city’s resources is trying to get rid of this park art.

Finally, Hazel McCallion, Mississauga’s “Hurricane” has died. Lots of people had good things to say about her. Reading that piece, I’m not sure sure.

Eglinton/Metrolinx: the confusing debacle that is my neighborhood continues. Metrolinx first says it has no idea when they will be done. Then they hint that the Eglinton Crosstown LRT could finally open this summer. But then there is this. So who knows? It’s drives me crazy.

Metrolinx seem determined to get everyone in the city to hate them. Not wanting to limit their maddening decisions to my area in midtown, they infuriated many by ripping out a beautiful bunch of trees downtown. Amazing.

Food, etc.: not everything about Toronto is bad. At least the food scene is getting better. One of my favorite places in Toronto, The Senator, finally reopened. The daughter looks great. Piquette looks good too. Here’s a piece on a hip new vegan place. I am even seeing new Starbucks popping up everywhere after the pandemic mass closures.

So Toronto is not entirely hopeless. Out of towners, come and stay at one of these beautiful boutique hotels. Eat good food. None of it is near Eglinton so you’ll be fine. 🙂 Sigh.

Finally: in my last Toronto update in December, I wrote about how Toronto was transitioning and I was hoping it was in a positive way. Now I am not so sure. Let’s check in again in a few months.

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On Fake quitting, real layoffs, and worker unhappiness

Posted on February 15, 2023 | Comments Off on On Fake quitting, real layoffs, and worker unhappiness

It’s been a tumultuous time when it comes to the current workplace, or at least business writers think so. From quiet quitting to the Great Resignation, writers can’t stop coining terms about pseudo quitting. So we have pieces on quit quitting, on rage applying and my new favorite, calibrated contributing. Even places like the WSJ join in with this piece on High-Earning Men Who Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours. It’s as if readers of business magazines and websites can not get enough pieces on worker unhappiness.

That was before times though. Now workers, at least IT workers, have something to be truly unhappy about: being laid off.  You can read about it everywhere, from the Verge to the New York Times. It seemed like every IT company was suddenly shedding workers, from Facebook/Meta, to Microsoft, to Salesforce, to Google……even IBM, which had a decent year compared to the rest of the list. The reasons for the layoffs were varied. Facebook/Meta continues to have a bad business model. Others like Microsoft went on a hiring bender and the layoffs are almost a hangover. There’s also been talk that some of the companies were just following the others and trying to look tough or something. One tech company that did not lay anyone off: Apple.

Layoffs suck. If you get caught up in a layoff program, you can find many guides as to what to do. Here is one layoff guide: What to do before during and after getting laid off.

If you only pay attention to the tech job market, you may guess it applies to the job market in general. But if you read this, Mass Layoffs or Hiring Boom? What’s Actually Happening in the Jobs Market, you get a different picture. The job market is a jumble now due to the fallout of the pandemic. I suspect it is going to take another year to settle down.

In the meantime, good luck with your work. Things aren’t as bad as they may appear. Despite all the think pieces and the tech layoffs. Stay positive.

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On Cup of Jo, Paul Simon, the arc of a love affair, and how everyone can see your blown apart

Posted on February 14, 2023 | 3 comments

I was sad to see that Joanne Goddard, the creator of the blog Cup of Jo, had decided to separate from her husband, Alex. She wrote about it, here: Some Personal News.

I’ve been a big fan of her blog since before she even met Alex around this time in 2007. Over the last decade and a half you can see the arc of their love affair from The Very First Emails Alex and she Sent to Each Other (We Were Nervous!), to stories of their First Date to having kids to…well, now. She and her team have written about many things, but that story, that arc, has always been part of the blog. And now it’s over.

It’s odd to live out loud in public. I get why some people do it, but I think it can be extra painful when things go badly. I think people have learned that after years of social media. Even now for people who are out there, it’s more a persona that is on display than their real self. You need to keep your real self tucked away, I think.

Like her, Paul Simon is another person who has lived out loud in public. On his album Hearts on Bones, he writes about the start of his love affair with Carrie Fisher; on his next album Graceland, he writes about the end. On the song Hearts and Bones, he uses the phrase “arc of a love affair” and on the song Graceland he writes about how “everyone can see you’re blown apart”. That resonates for many of us who’ve been through it.

I have gained much from following her and her blog over the years. I am sure she may feel blown apart, now that the arc of her love affair is ending. I hope soon enough she feels more better, more positive, as time passes.

Blogging was once a big part of social media. A big part of telling our stories. We’ve moved on in many ways, from the social media we use to the way we use it. Regardless, we will continue to tell stories, for ourselves and for others. And the best of stories will remain, whether they are happy or sad.

 

 

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Fake beaches! Fake lawyers! ChatGPT! and more (what I find interesting in AI, Feb 2023)

Posted on February 13, 2023 | Comments Off on Fake beaches! Fake lawyers! ChatGPT! and more (what I find interesting in AI, Feb 2023)


There is so much being written about AI that I decided to blog about it separately from other tech. Plus AI is so much more than just tech. It touches on education, art, the law, medicine…pretty much anything you can think of. Let me show you.

Education: there’s been lots said about how students can (are?) using ChatGPT to cheat on tests. This piece argues that this is a good time to reassess education as a result. Meanwhile, this Princeton Student built GPTZero to detect AI-written essays, so I suspect some people will also just want to crack down on the use of AI. Will that stop the use of AI? I doubt it. Already companies like Microsoft are looking to add AI technology to software like Word. Expect AI to flood and overwhelm education, just like calculators once did.

Art: artists have been adversely affected by AI for awhile. Some artists decided to rise up against it by creating anti-AI protest work. You can read about that, here. It’s tough for artists to push back on AI abuses: they don’t have enough clout. One org that will not have a problem with clout is Getty Images. They’ve already started to fight back against AI with a lawsuit. Good.

Is AI doing art a bad thing? I’ve read many people saying it will cause illustrators and other professional artists to lose their jobs. Austin Kleon has an interesting take on that. I think he is missing the point for some artists, but it’s worth reading.

Work: beside artists losing their jobs, others could as well. The NYPost did a piece on how ChatGPT could make this list of jobs obsolete . That may be shocking to some, but for people like me who have been in IT for some time, it’s just a fact that technology takes away work. Many of us embrace that, so that when AI tools come along and do coding, we say “Yay!”. In my experience, humans just move on to provide business value in different ways.

The law: one place I wish people would be more cautious with using AI is in the law. For instance, we had this happen: an AI robot lawyer was set to argue in court. Real lawyers shut it down. I get it: lawyers are expensive and AI can help some people, but that’s not the way to do it. Another example is this, where you have AI generating wills. Needless to say, it has a way to go.  An even worse example: Developers Created AI to Generate Police Sketches. Experts Are Horrified. Police are often the worse abusers of AI and other technology, sadly.

Medicine: AI can help with medicine, as this shows. Again, like the law, doctors need to be careful. But that seems more promising.

The future and the present: if you want an idea of where AI is going, I recommend this piece in technologyreview and this piece in WaPo.

Meanwhile in the present Microsoft and Google will be battling it out in this year. Microsoft is in the lead so far, but reading this, I am reminded of the many pitfalls ahead: Microsoft’s new AI Prometheus didn’t want to talk about the Holocaust. Yikes. As for Google, reading this blogpost of theirs on new AI tool Bard had me thinking it would be a contender. Instead it was such a debacle even Googlers were complaining about it! I am sure they will get it right, but holy smokes.

Finally: this what AI thinks about Toronto. Ha! As for that beach I mentioned, you will want to read here:  This beach does not exist.

(Image above: ChatGPT logo from Wikipedia)

 

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On the importance of down/transition days during vacation

Posted on February 12, 2023 | Comments Off on On the importance of down/transition days during vacation


If you are going away on vacation from work, make sure you have some down/transition days at the start and end of it. At the end of vacation, having a day off between vacation and starting work will make it easier to begin your work day. Likewise at the start of your vacation, having an easy day after work but before travelling should make it less stressful and tiring for you.

I did not do this on a recent vacation I was on. I went from a busy week at work and home right into travelling for my vacation. I still went out after arriving at my destination and it was enjoyable, but I was also exhausted by the end of the evening. Likewise I arrived home on a Sunday evening and went to work the next morning. Again I managed it, but it was hard to shift from vacation mode to work mode. In both cases, a down day at the start and end of my vacation would have been good.

As well, have some down days in your vacation. It’s tempting to schedule non-stop activities for your whole time away. If you can manage it, fine. But try and have some low key days mixed in there. You may find your overall vacation more enjoyable that way. I did.

It’s tempting to sprint your way through from work to vacation and back to work. For short trips, that may be fine. For longer trip, pace yourself and give yourself permission to do low key days, especially at the beginning and end.

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For people whose mental health affects their home’s cleanliness (and vice versa)

Posted on February 11, 2023 | Comments Off on For people whose mental health affects their home’s cleanliness (and vice versa)


The New York Times has a good piece exploring the link between mental health and messy homes — as well as and how to deal with it — here, Why Clearing Clutter Can Feel Impossible.

For some people, a chaotic home can lead to more mental health problems which can lead to more chaos. The spiral needs to be broken. That article can help.

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Short Novels To Stay Up All Night Reading (Hey you can sleep in tomorrow)

Posted on February 10, 2023 | Comments Off on Short Novels To Stay Up All Night Reading (Hey you can sleep in tomorrow)

Do you like staying up late (or worse, have insomnia)? Do you like to read? Do you not care if you are tired the next day? Then you need this list of20 Short Novels To Stay Up All Night Reading. It is

…a list of novels you can read overnight—compelling enough that you won’t be lured by sleep, but short enough that once you finish, you’ll still have enough time to clock some hours before you have to go to work. If you can sleep, that is.

Fun! Don’t blame me if you are tired the next day. You were warned! 🙂

 

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My notes and tips on travel before the pandemic, during the pandemic and now in 2023

Posted on February 9, 2023 | Comments Off on My notes and tips on travel before the pandemic, during the pandemic and now in 2023


Travel has changed in the time before, during, and “after” the pandemic. I noticed many differences in 2021, 2022, and 2023. Here’s what I jotted down during my trips in the hopes you and I may find it useful in the future:

  • Masks: last year everyone wore masks during travel, save for when they ate. There were a few idiots who resisted, but mostly people stayed masked. Not now. In 2023, a few people wore masks, but not many. They are no longer mandatory anywhere going to Canada to the US. I think I would have been comfortable wearing a mask in 2023, but I did not.
  • Testing: in the middle of the pandemic you had to get tested before you departed and when you returned. You had to upload that information as well as your vaccine status into various travel apps if you were using them. So far this year you don’t have to do any of that.
  • Bags: baggage continues to be a problem. Expect to pay for all non carry on luggage. Once you could use the kiosk to get your luggage tag. Now some if not all airlines insist you go to a staffer who will weigh your bag and may charge you regardless of its weight. (Remember when lighter bags were free?) As a result people have these smaller roller bags that fit overhead. But now there are more of these bags than there are spaces for them, airlines are making some travellers check their bags (for free for now) at the gate. (This can be a problem if you have only a short time to get to your connecting flight.) Small carry on bags continue to be free for now but you want to insure they fit under the seat: you may get to your seat to find you cannot squeeze it in over you.
  • Boarding passes: you can print your boarding pass at home, but consider doing it at the airport. My printer wasn’t good enough to print the code on it: luckily you can download a QR code in some apps and use that. I did. (Consider taking a screen grab of that QR code: you can show that picture to get through, which is less trouble than displaying it via the app.)
  • Fees/services: Airlines continue to ever slice and dice their service and charge you for everything. (See my bag comment above. Also you can pay to change your seat, get a bigger seat, etc.) The levels of service are ridiculous also. Once you just had first class and economy. Then business class. Now there can be five or more classes. Very classy! 🙂  Pretty soon you might pay by the square footage you take up. As for food, I was surprised how little was available even on 2 hour flights. Consider bringing food onboard: you can’t be certain you’ll get much more than almonds and water.
  • Variability: on my recent trip I was on four different types of planes while travelling to the US. One flight had wide seats that had entertainment (TV, music, movies, games) on them (bring headphones and something to charge your phone). Others had tiny seats I could barely fit into and no entertainment. Other variations: the airline moved me from one seat to another. They kept me in an aisle, but I was surprised to see I moved in the time I had printed my boarding pass. So keep an eye out for that. Of course check for gate changes too.
  • Apps: one thing that is getting better are the airline apps. Get the airline app for the airline you will be travelling on. They will have lots of helpful info in it, including your boarding pass, where your plane is (is it at the gate or on the way), your seat and gate, etc.
  • Security: security seems better…maybe because there are more agents than the worst of the pandemic. Try and have empty pockets before you get to the bins to dump your stuff. Take out your computer and put it in a separate bin with your electronics. Take off all your coats and sweaters, even boots and belts and watches and anything with a hint of metal. I like to have no liquids on me whatsoever, and take an empty bottle to get water later.
  • Canadian customs: still not great but better. In 2022 it was very slow. In 2023 it was very fast. They got rid of the desks the staff sat at and had many of them prepared to deal with you quickly. Not sure that will continue, but it was good to experience this time.
  • Declarations: For people who haven’t travelled in awhile, you no longer have to fill out a declaration card in Toronto. Instead you go to this goofy machine in the custom area, insert your passport, wait for it to take a bad photo of you, and then gets you to declare, upon which it spits out a declaration sheet you give to Canadian customs. (If the machine isn’t automatically reading your passport just go to another one quickly. I’ve had a few bad machines.) As of now the amount you are allowed for under a week but more than a day or two is $800. I still remember the days it was $200.
  • US customs: if you go to the US regularly, get a Nexus card. It makes a huge difference. Otherwise after you get through security, you will need to go through the slow process of going through US customs. Before you get to an agent, know where you are going, why you are going there (business, vacation), the address of where you are staying and  how you know the people you are staying with. One women ahead of me did not know this and kept changing her answer and this got her into a lot of trouble. Be brief, polite and consistent.

(I said “after” the pandemic because it feels like we are through the pandemic in February 2023, even though our problems from COVID-19 are not done.)

P.S. BlogTO recently did a piece on what it’s like to fly on the new planes from Porter Airlines, and the service described was similar to what I experienced for several of the planes, down to this:

Ok, some of the planes had more room than this (thank god), but airlines need to back off a bit. Anyway you can see why I try to get an aisle seat. 🙂

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The rise and fall of the iPod

Posted on February 8, 2023 | 2 comments

Last week I wrote about the Lisa and the rise of the Macintosh. While I was doing that, I came across this list of iPod models, which included these fun facts:

iPods …were once the largest generator of revenue for Apple Computer. After the introduction of the iPhone, the iOS-based iPod touch was the last remaining model of the product line until it was discontinued on May 10, 2022.

It’s remarkable that something that was once the leading generator of revenue is now dead. Blame the iPhone. More accurately, blame streaming. Whatever the real reason, a once great set of products are now gone.

I loved all the iPods I had, from the smallest Shuffle to an iPod Touch that was all but an iPhone. Of all the technologies that I’ve owned, they were among my favorites. Thanks for the songs and the memories, iPod.

(Image of 1st gen iPod Shuffle in its packaging. Via Wikipedia.)

 

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Emily is in Paris…why aren’t you?

Posted on February 7, 2023 | Comments Off on Emily is in Paris…why aren’t you?


Let’s agree: we should all be like Emily and go to Paris. If you nod your head yes but wonder where to go when you get there, then Food & Wine has the answers. Well, answers to your questions about food and wine, such as which Paris wine bars you need to see or what are the best Paris cafes for experiencing the city’s history, or even what are the most iconic Paris restaurants to visit on your next trip. You may have other questions, like where to stay or what to see, but if you are like me, you want to figure out the food first. 🙂

As for poor Emily, many American expatriates in Paris wish Emily Cooper Would Go Home. I say leave that show to those young and outside of Paris who harbour fantasies about living her life. It’s a fairy tale of a show and best watched as one.

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You had a month. Here’s the 13 work tips you now need.

Posted on February 6, 2023 | Comments Off on You had a month. Here’s the 13 work tips you now need.


Normally I like to give tips for the new year in January, but in some ways you need work tips in February. In January you are still transitioning from the holidays and work may seem fresh: in February you are reminded of the difficulties you have with your job.

If that sounds right to you, I have 13 work tips for the new year. Is there anything radically new there? Not really. But sometimes what we need is a common sense set of reminders. Have you set your goals for the year? Do you know your priorities? Things like that.

Here’s a test for you. If you say, I know that! I know my goals! Great: so write them down. Same for your priorities. How productive you are. Et cetera. If you find you cannot write them down, you know now what to think about and what to work on for a less stressful and more successful work year.

Good luck!

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Is El = Yahweh, and other links for amateur Biblical scholars

Posted on February 5, 2023 | Comments Off on Is El = Yahweh, and other links for amateur Biblical scholars

I’ve been interested in the history of the Bible and older religions for some time. That online research led me to a site by an actual Biblical scholar who has a site devoted to Biblical Contradictions. So there’s some good stuff there on specific things I’m interested in, like does Yahweh = El, found here and here. There’s other good pieces there, including some sections based on the Documentary Hypothesis.  You can find them here Yahwist Source (J), here Elohist (E), here the Deuteronomist  (D) and here Priestly Writer (P).

Like much concerning Biblical study, there are many areas of disagreement, including that of the Documentary hypothesis. Keep that in mind whenever you read anything that sounds too definitive. That said, I found the Contradictions site well done and worth a review.

 

 

 

 

 

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Whatever happened to Pascal (the programming language)

Posted on February 4, 2023 | Comments Off on Whatever happened to Pascal (the programming language)

In reading and writing about The Lisa computer yesterday, I was reminded of the Pascal programming language. As part of the development of the Lisa, one of the engineers (Larry Tesler), who was working on the user interface…

 …created an object-oriented variant of Pascal, called “Clascal,” that would be used for the Lisa Toolkit application programming interfaces. Later, by working with Pascal creator Niklaus Wirth, Clascal would evolve into the official Object Pascal.

Likely very few if any devs think about Pascal these days. Even I don’t think about it much. But back in the 70s and 80s it was a big deal. As Wikipedia explains:

Pascal became very successful in the 1970s, notably on the burgeoning minicomputer market. Compilers were also available for many microcomputers as the field emerged in the late 1970s. It was widely used as a teaching language in university-level programming courses in the 1980s, and also used in production settings for writing commercial software during the same period. It was displaced by the C programming language during the late 1980s and early 1990s as UNIX-based systems became popular, and especially with the release of C++.

When I was studying computer science in the early 80s, Pascal was an integral part of the curriculum. Once I started working at IBM, I moved on to develop software in other languages, but I had expected it to become a big deal in the field. Instead, C and then variant languages like C++ and Java went on to dominate computer programming. I’m not sure why. My belief at the time was universities had to pay big bucks for operating systems and Pascal compilers but they did not have to pay anything for Unix and C, and that’s what caused the switch. I can’t believe they switched from Pascal to C because C was a better language.

Forty years later, if you search for the top 20 programming languages, Pascal is towards the bottom of this list from IEEE, somewhere between Lisp and Fortran.  It’s very much a niche language in 2022 and it has been for some time.

For more on Pascal, I recommend the Wikipedia article: it’s extensive. If you want to play around with it, there’s a free version of it you can download.

(Image is an Apple Lisa 2 screenshot.  Photo Courtesy of David T. Craig. Computer History Museum Object ID 500004666)

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It’s Lisa’s 40th birthday. Let’s celebrate!

Posted on February 3, 2023 | Comments Off on It’s Lisa’s 40th birthday. Let’s celebrate!


The great Lisa has just turned 40! Apple’s Lisa, that is. To celebrate, the Computer History Museum (CHM) has done two great things. First, they have released the source code to the Lisa software. You can find it here. Second, they have published this extensive history on the ground breaking machine, The Lisa: Apple’s Most Influential Failure.

Like the NeXT computer, the Lisa computer was a machine that tried to do too much too soon. And while it was not the success that Apple had hoped, it did lead to great success later.  That definitely comes across in that CHM piece.

It’s fascinating to compare the picture above with the one below (both from CHM). In the one above you can see the original Lisa (1) with “Twiggy” floppy drive that was unreliable and ditched in the later models, seen below. You can also see how the machine on the left (the original Macintosh) would come to take over from the machine on the right (the Lisa 2). It has many of the same features but at a much reduced price.

When you think of Apple computers, you likely think of one of more of those found in this List of Macintosh models. While not a Mac, the Lisa was the precursor of all those machines that came later, starting with the original Mac. It was the birth of a new form of personal computing.

Happy birthday, Lisa! You deserve to be celebrated.

For more on this, see this Hackday piece on  Open-Sourcing The Lisa Mac’s Bigger Sister.

 

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All the exciting things happening in space in 2023. Read this and mark your calendar!

Posted on February 2, 2023 | Comments Off on All the exciting things happening in space in 2023. Read this and mark your calendar!

If you interested in space as I am, then get out your calendar and mark down 2023’s top astronomical events so you don’t miss any of them. As WaPo says, “With opportunities to wish upon shooting stars, and to see a Super Blue Moon and the Ring of Fire eclipse, 2023 is bursting” with things to keep an eye out for.

One thing in particular is lunar exploration. First up is, NASA’s Artemis mission. As the Verge explains, an Orion spacecraft that is part of that mission has recently returned and safely splashed down into the Pacific Ocean after a recent trip. A good start! And Artemis promises great things in the future. Not only is it part of NASA’s plan to return visits to the Moon, it’s part of NASA’s plan to never leave. The dream of space colonization could become a reality.

And it’s not just the Americans that are interested in going and staying on the moon. The Chinese are too. Who knows what will take place in the next 10-20 years? It’s all very promising.

With all this space travel, this should keep not just government agencies busy, but private companies too. Case in point: After doubling launch record in 2022, can SpaceX take another step up in 2023?

Heck, even you can get involved. Don’t believe me? Then read this: NASA Wants You to Help Study Planets Around Other Stars.

Meanwhile back on Earth, there’s a lot of interest in tracking asteroids coming close to us. NASA and others are getting a handle on tracking the big ones. The smaller ones are much harder. Here’s a piece on one such asteroid 2023bu that recently blew by us. (See the arrow in the photo above pointing to it.)

For my last space piece I want to highlight, this is a worthwhile read on why some people have an issue with the latest space telescope being named after James Webb. You can find many such pieces arguing back and forth on the matter. I think both sides have worthwhile points. I’ll let you make up your own mind.

Not space related, but fun is this piece on how bees actually play — yes play! — with little wooden balls!

Finally, for people interested in physics, this is a good piece discussing where it is headed. One such. direction is the study of dark matter and dark energy.  Here’s a good piece on a dark energy experiment that recently won a big prize. We need more such experiments if we are ever to solve the mystery of dark energy and matter.

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The crucial fact to remember when it comes to Debt Ceiling discussions in the USA

Posted on February 1, 2023 | Comments Off on The crucial fact to remember when it comes to Debt Ceiling discussions in the USA

There’s a great quote in this piece on how the Republicans demand spending cuts to lift the debt limit. They won’t say what to cut. It’s this:

“If you exempted defense, veterans, Social Security and Medicare spending, you’d have to cut everything else by 85%,” said Marc Goldwein, an expert at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a think tank that advocates for reducing red ink. “It’s possible as a mathematical proposition. But the question is: Is it possible as a policy proposition? And the answer is no.”

The crucial fact is this: the US government is an Insurance Company with an Army. (From Paul Krugman’s blog of over 11 years ago,) That leave any one governing with really two choices: cut the insurance or cut military spending if you want to make significant reductions in the budget. If you cut the insurance, good luck getting reelected. And while I think they could easily still dominate the world with a much smaller military, good luck as well persuading many American voters of that.

Some Republican politicians love to imagine they can reduce government spending significantly during these Debt Ceiling discussions. All the best with that. (Even Mitch McConnell is moving on this time.)

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