Alberta to vote on whether to stay a part of Canada

Good news!

"The Canadian province of Alberta, a major supplier of oil and natural gas to the U.S., will vote next month on a possible referendum that could break up the country ..."

Alberta to vote on whether to stay a part of Canada - YouTube

Canada wants to become an ‘associate member’ of the EU.

Good luck with that! The EU is no panacea (aske the UK)!

"Prime Minister Mark Carney is accelerating a strategic pivot to Europe. After holding private conversations with almost every major European leader on how to more deeply plug Canada into the European Union, he instructed his team to scope out the most ambitious possibilities short of full membership in Europe’s 27-nation club.

In effect, President Trump’s threat to make Canada the 51st state has pushed America’s northern neighbor so close to Europe that leaders have begun to half-in-jest dub it the EU’s newest member."

The Wall Street Journal What's news

12 countries (EU, Canada, and UK) announce boycott of goods from settlements. Really!

Maybe another bad move by the new British Prime Minister Burnham!

What kind of deplorable foreign interference into the internal affairs of the only democracy in the Middle EAst is this? Bullies (Canada & EU) against a small country!

"Twelve countries (11 European countries and Canada) today announced that they will boycott products made by Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The joint move reflects a new low-point in relations between Israel and Europe over the situation in Gaza and the territories.

Britain led the announcement, with Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband declaring that the UK had "taken a central role" in formulating the sanctions. The announcement by the list of countries, some of which have already taken the step and some of which have only declared their willingness to do so, was made following a failure to move forward with sanctions at the EU level due to the position of pro-Israeli countries. ..."

12 countries announce boycott of goods from settlements - Globes "Eleven European countries and Canada will boycott goods from Jewish settlements beyond the ‘green line.'"

Comparing Business Investment per Worker In Canada and the United States, 2007–2024

Bad news! This blog post is delayed. The study was published in mid July 2026.

And now Canada's PM Carney wants a carnage with the US over bilateral trade? If you are in a glass houses don't throw stones!

"Comparing Business Investment per Worker In Canada and the United States, 2007–2024

• Economists have warned of Canada’s weak business investment, particularly compared to the United States. This should concern Canadians as strong business investment is key to higher incomes, greater economic prosperity, and improved living standards.
• Real ($2017) non-residential business investment per worker in the United States exceeded that of Canada in every year from 2007 to 2024:
  Canada’s business investment declined by $852 per worker from $17,345 to $16,493 while US investment grew by $11,203 per worker from $19,352 to $30,555.
• The gap between Canada and the United States increased significantly after 2014 as real business investment began to decline in Canada.
  In 2014, Canada invested about 87 cents per worker for every dollar invested in the United States; in 2024, investment was 54 cents for every US dollar.
• In 2014, three Canadian provinces had significantly higher real business investment per worker than the United States ($23,263):
  Alberta ($56,401),
  Newfoundland & Labrador ($53,779), and
  Saskatchewan ($48,715)
  By 2024, real US business investment per worker ($30,555) exceeded that of any Canadian province except Saskatchewan ($33,386).
  ..."

Comparing Business Investment per Worker In Canada and the United States, 2007–2024 | Fraser Institute

Chart of the day

Is Canada falling behind the US in terms of living standards? Gap in living standards between Canada and the U.S. has more than doubled from 1999-2024; U.S. now $23,757 higher than Canada

And Canada wants to engage in a trade war with President Trump?

 

Drones with tiny spikes landing on and travel with and monitor the routes of Arctic icebergs

Amazing stuff! The possibilities of applying drones are limitless or the sky is the limit! 😊

Make drones land almost anywhere!

"Microspines are one of many ways to enable robots to latch onto surfaces like walls and ceilings. Now roboticists in Canada are using the mini spikes to get drones to land on a more challenging, remote surface: icebergs.

Like a spider, the Ice Dart can land on and latch onto steep, slippery surfaces such as icebergs and glaciers—an increasingly useful capability as activity in the Arctic increases. The drone can grip onto icy slopes of nearly 60 degrees, which is way beyond what most humans could manage without special equipment.

In a recent study, researchers explained how they developed the Ice Dart drone with a special landing gear that absorbs the impact of a hard landing while holding the drone in place with tiny spines that penetrate and grip the ice. ...

The researchers were motivated by a desire to allow drones to land almost anywhere in the world, since the availability of safe landing sites is one of the primary limitations on where and how drones can operate. The researchers already have a history of developing drones that can land on fast-moving trucks as well as trailers, boats, and steep roofs. ..."

Arctic Iceberg Drones Turn Sheer Ice Into Landing Pads - IEEE Spectrum "Using its spiny feet, Ice Dart can latch on to glaciers and drifting icebergs, allowing for long-term monitoring"

The Ice Dart: Landing on Steep Ice Using Spiny Feet, Dissipative Landing Gear, and Reverse Thrust (no public access)

Canada’s illegal immigration pipeline across the northern border of the US

Compared to the massive illegal immigration that was reported while the senile, demented and lifetime pathological 46th President was in office the reporting about the illegal immigration across the northern border was sparse.

I bet there was much more illegal immigration across the northern border then is generally known. The numbers of apprehensions by the US Border Patrol appear to be very low possibly indicating a large number of unaccounted illegal border crossings.

"American independent journalist Tayler Hansen has created an internet stir with videos documenting a side of America's illegal immigration problem that received comparatively little attention during the [46th President] years. ..."

"... From fiscal year 2019 through fiscal 2024, Border Patrol apprehensions along the northern border increased, with sharp increases in 2023 and 2024. Apprehensions subsequently decreased in fiscal year 2025 and have generally remained consistent at these reduced levels as of April 2026, according to CBP’s publicly reported data. ..."

NORTHERN EXPOSURE: Inside Canada’s illegal immigration pipeline to America | Blaze Media (behind paywall) "Independent journalist Tayler Hansen infiltrated networks moving migrants from Canada into the United States."

NORTHERN BORDER SECURITY: Additional Actions Needed to Ensure Sufficient CBP Staffing and Improve Performance Measurement

Figure 1: Monthly U.S. Border Patrol Apprehensions Along the Northern Border Between Ports of Entry, Fiscal Year 2019 Through the Second Quarter of Fiscal Year 2025

At least 50% of 6-12 grade students are believed to use AI for homework and about 68% of teachers use AI to assist them in Canada

So what! The situation is probably similar in other countries too!

The claimed "decline in students’ critical thinking skills" is most like a myth or it may be an indication that teachers need to be retrained!

The revolution of primary education due to AI has only began! Finally, more personalized and self guided education for children will be possible!

"Survey of Canadian Grades 6-12 Teachers on AI Use

• Survey results show that a majority of Canadian teachers in grades 6–12 polled are using AI in their teaching, believe a large share of students are using AI for homework, perceive declines in students’ critical thinking skills, and report a lack of school AI policies and training.
• Nearly all teachers (95.6%) surveyed believe at least some of their students use AI for homework, and 42.2% believe more than half do. Of those students perceived to use AI, teachers believe that more than half (55.9%) use it to do their work for them.
• Compared to five years ago, 83.6% of teachers polled report a decline in students’ critical thinking skills, and 72.9% report that current students’ in-class writing and analytical skills are worse.
• More than three-quarters (78.6%) of teachers surveyed say that some of their students’ in-class work is lower quality than their take-home work, and 90.9% of those teachers said this difference has been increasing over time.
• A majority of teachers polled (67.7%) are using AI to assist in their teaching, and 68.4% of those teachers are using it frequently (at least weekly).
• Only 49.3% of teachers surveyed say their school or school board has provided AI training for in-class lessons and materials, while 63.6% report no training on instructing students to use AI reasonably, and 64.7% report no training to identify students using AI.
• Only 34.8% of teachers polled say their school has a policy regarding staff AI use, and 42.3% for student AI use.

..."

Survey of Canadian Grades 6-12 Teachers on AI Use | Fraser Institute

Trump's Trade War with Canada Is Pointess | National Review. Really!

Are we detecting here Trump Derangement Syndrome at the NR? This piece was written by the "The Editors" of NR!

Perhaps, the Canadians were for too long free riders and enjoyed great American leniency for many decades?

Perhaps, serious damage in the US-CA relation was also done during the administration of the foolish Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau?

"... However, for the U.S. to be in the middle of a poisonous brawl with Canada (Canada!) takes a degree of foolhardiness that would once have been inconceivable. ..."

Trump's Trade War with Canada Is Pointess | National Review

BRUTAL: JD Vance Goes Absolutely Scorched Earth On Canada As Trade War Intensifies

Well said! Bravo Vice President Vance!

(394) BRUTAL: JD Vance Goes Absolutely Scorched Earth On Canada As Trade War Intensifies - YouTube

‘Arrogant, backstabbing people’: Peter Navarro slams Canada’s trade negotiators

Very recommendable! So Canada's Prime Minister Carney suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome! What, the Chinese are better treated than Americans?

(392) ‘Arrogant, backstabbing people’: Peter Navarro slams Canada’s trade negotiators - YouTube

Are the U.S. and Canada spiraling toward a full-blown trade war?

Bad news! Whatever happened to the North American free trade zone (aka NAFTA) since 1994? Apparently, since then Canada has violated free trade principles in many ways by keeping certain US products banned or heavily regulated and so on.

Are we having here two old men in a contest of wills?

"After weeks of marathon talks between U.S. and Canadian trade officials, an agreement was almost in sight. Then, late on Friday, the talks collapsed at the 11th hour. Tariffs of 50% on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods went into effect, and Ottawa said it will respond with dollar-for-dollar levies on Sept. 8."

The Wall Street Journal What's news

Mark Carney (age 61) and Donald Trump (age 80) (Source)

Niger Signs $1.9 Billion Oil Refinery Deal with a Canadian company & Drilling Begins at Kafra Oil Well

Good news!

Niger will become one of the major oil producers in Africa.

(518) Niger Signs $1.9 Billion Oil Refinery Deal & Drilling Begins at Kafra Oil Well | Firstpost Africa - YouTube

V-Simba: Unleashing the Architectural Potential of RL in Visual Continuous Control

This could be an interesting new paper by Aaron Courville and his team!

From the abstract:

"Improving sample efficiency remains a core challenge in reinforcement learning (RL), especially in real-world settings like robotics, where data collection is costly.

This challenge is pronounced in visual RL, where high-dimensional inputs often obscure learning signals.

While prior work in visual RL has focused on algorithmic solutions, such as better dynamics models or exploration strategies,

recent advances in state-based RL show that architectural design alone can lead to significant gains in sample efficiency.

This raises an important question: Can these architectural principles transfer to visual RL?

In response, we introduce V-Simba, a simple yet effective visual RL architecture inspired by the Simba architecture from state-based RL.

Built on top of Soft Actor-Critic (SAC) with data augmentation, V-Simba modifies the architecture by adding normalization layers to stabilize training and using pointwise convolutions to reduce computation.

Despite its simplicity, V-Simba matches or outperforms the state-of-the-art methods across the DMC, Adroit, and Meta-World benchmarks, while being more computationally efficient than DrQ-v2. ..."

[2608.07870] V-Simba: Unleashing the Architectural Potential of RL in Visual Continuous Control

The average Canadian family spent 42% of its income on taxes in 2025 - which is more than they spent on housing, food, and clothing combined.

Bad news! This overtaxation of Canadian citizens has been going on for too many years!

"Taxes versus the Necessities of Life: The Canadian Consumer Tax Index, 2026 Edition

• The Canadian Consumer Tax Index tracks the total tax bill of the average Canadian family from 1961 to 2025. Including all types of taxes, that bill has increased by 2,928% since 1961.
• Taxes have grown much more rapidly than any other single expenditure for the average Canadian family: expenditures on shelter increased by 2,349%, food by 952%, and clothing by 526% from 1961 to 2025.
• The 2,928% increase in the tax bill has also greatly outpaced the increase in the Consumer Price Index (946%), which measures the average price that consumers pay for food, shelter, clothing, transportation, health and personal care, education, and other items.
• The average Canadian family now spends more of its income on taxes (41.9%) than it does on basic necessities such as food, shelter, and clothing combined (36.0%). By comparison, 33.5% of the average family’s income went to pay taxes in 1961 while 56.5% went to basic necessities.
• In 2025, the average Canadian family earned an income of $121,111 and paid total taxes equaling $50,721 (41.9%). In 1961, the average family had an income of $5,000 and paid a total tax bill of $1,675 (33.5%).

..."

Taxes versus the Necessities of Life: The Canadian Consumer Tax Index, 2026 Edition | Fraser Institute

Business investment in Canada barely enough to offset depreciation since 2018

Bad news!

"... 

• Canada’s stagnant productivity performance over the past decade is tied to weak investment in non-residential assets such as factories, plants, machinery, equipment, and intellectual property.
• While there is some understanding of the country’s weak national performance in attracting investment, the performance of individual provinces is less well known and is important for an understanding of the current tensions within the country.
• Between 2018 and 2025, three provinces experienced an average annual decline in the overall value of their non-residential assets, meaning that the current levels of investment were insufficient to offset the depreciation (i.e., wear and tear) of existing assets.
• Alberta (-1.05%), Newfoundland & Labrador (-0.67 percent), and Saskatchewan (-0.44 percent) all recorded average annual real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) declines in the value of the stock of non-residential assets like plants, machinery, equipment, and intellectual property. Put simply, the stock of these assets was worth less in 2025 than it was in 2018 (inflation-adjusted).
• Over the same period, the nation as a whole recorded markedly weak growth in the stock of non-residential assets (0.99 percent), on an average annual basis.

..."

Business investment in Canada barely enough to offset depreciation since 2018 with actual declines in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador

How Scottish Dissent Built American Liberty

Recommendable, but a long essay! How religion influenced classical liberalism!

"June is the usual month for the convening of Presbyterian assemblies, but the jewel in the crown of Presbyterian reforms, replacing bishops with lengthy committee meetings, seems less impressive today than it did in 1560 when the Scots held their first General Assembly. In fact, the June assemblies have genuine significance for the history of the Americans, which can be seen in two national holidays separated by forty-eight hours.

Canada went first on July 1 with Canada Day.

America followed with the Fourth of July. ...

The case of Presbyterians in the United States is easier because of the familiar trope that the American Revolution was a “Presbyterian rebellion.” King George III used that phrase to complain about both Presbyterians and revolution, but it was a widely accepted way to make sense of American independence. George III was echoing James VI/I who had declared roughly 170 years prior, “No bishop, no king,” in response to Presbyterian efforts to reform the Church of Scotland. ...

Presbyterian church government, by challenging the rule of bishops, led inevitably to the repudiation of the monarchy. Presbyterians’ long history of complaining (from at least 1560 to 1690) partly explains the British interpretation of the American Revolution as a Presbyterian rebellion. ...

That description actually fails to capture the work of Presbyterian clerics in the American Founding. John Witherspoon, a Scottish Presbyterian who came to America in 1768 to lead the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University), was a political moderate who saw political independence as a means to preserve the advantages colonists already enjoyed. Some Scots brought to the colonies convictions forged by the likes of John Knox or Samuel Rutherford. Witherspoon’s politics ran instead in grooves cut by Scottish philosophers like Francis Hutcheson and Thomas Reid.  ..."

How Scottish Dissent Built American Liberty – D. G. Hart

Health-care costs for typical Canadian family will reach over $21,000 this year. Really!

Sometimes middle of the road think tanks use disinformation or are misleading! Did the Fraser Institute miss the point? Most likely!

Sensationalism is not helpful!

This subject of the true cost of government run healthcare has been known and covered for decades! It is an old hat, but reminding does not hurt.

$21,000 (Canadian dollar?) seems to be awfully high as if some miscalculation occurred. General government revenues includes personal and business taxes and other taxes.

Caveat: I did not read the entire study.

"The Price of Public Health Care Insurance, 2026

• Canadians often misunderstand the true cost of our public health care system. This occurs partly because Canadians do not incur direct expenses for their use of health care, and partly because Canadians cannot readily determine the value of their contribution to public health care insurance.
• In 2026, preliminary estimates suggest the average payment for public health care insurance ranges from $6,464 to $21,115 for six common Canadian family types, depending on the type of family.

..."

"... Furthermore, health care in Canada is financed through general government revenues rather than through a dedicated tax, which blurs the true dollar cost of the service. ...

However, the reality is that these premiums cover just a fraction of the cost of health care and are paid into general revenue from which health care is funded. ..."

The Price of Public Health Care Insurance, 2026 | Fraser Institute

Increasing geographical trade with non-U.S. markets in China and India could significantly decrease Canada’s reliance on the U.S. Really!

How many times has this been demanded or tried in the past several decades! What is the definition of insanity? Just kidding!

The issue and awareness of the high economic dependence of Canada on the US goes back at least to the 1960s as far as I remember.

Caveat: I did not read neither the article nor the study.

Opportunities to Diversify Canada’s Trade | Fraser Institute

Mexican President Sheinbaum says she will attend World Cup final Sunday after invitation from Trump and negotiate NAFTA

Good news!

World Cup diplomacy for free trade by President Trump! The Art of the Deal! Very clever!

"... The presumption is they [Sheinbaum & Carney] will sit together. And if they do, the meeting would mark their first since December, following months of verbal sparring, according to CBS News. ..."

Mexican President Sheinbaum says she will attend World Cup final Sunday after invitation from Trump | Just The News "Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney attending the match will come amidst tense negotiations to extend the trilateral North ​American trade agreement among the U.S., Canada and Mexico."

President Claudia Sheinbaum wears the presidential sash during her swearing-in ceremony as Mexico's new president in Mexico City, October 1 2024