The Great Canadian Hot House Tomato

Warm, straight from the vine in a sun-filled greenhouse, a tomato of the right variety can be a delight. 

Such were the bowlful of small, warm fruit given us by the keeper of Vancouver Island's Cape Scott lighthouse which my son and I reached at the end of a  23 kilometer hike over a deeply muddy, wndfall-crossed trail from the San Josef Trailhead in 1990's. 

Unlike the produce of that remote greenhouse, the modern commercial tomato is a sight to behold. For color ans size it would surely win first prize. But there delight in the commercial tomato ends. This fruit of such splendid appearance is almost entirely withou flavor of any kind. The thing is all show and no benefit. It is little more than a water-filled bladder. To be precise, it is ninety-four point five percent water according to Google, although by my own determination, admittedly on only one specimen, the water content is a full 95%. But either way, a water content of ninety-five percent, or only ninety-four point five,  leaves little room for flavor -- or nutrition. 

To speak plainly, the great Canadian hot house tomato is a dud. It is a fraud. it is a water-filled bladder masquerading as food. With tomatoes here on the West coast selling in June at $3.95 a pound, the cost of non-aqueous components of the Great Canadian Hot House Tomato is around one hundred and fifty eight dollars a pound. Let me repeat that, just in case you buy tomatoes on the assumption that your purchase represents actual food. Other than the large quantity of water that is held amazingly firm within the polished red skin, the dry matter constituents of the Great Canadian Hot House Tomato amount no more than 5% of your purchase. Of that 5%, sugars account for about half, pectins and cellulose (neither of which have any nutritional value) contributing most of the remaining non-aqueous mass. In addition there are miniscule quantities of proteins, fats and minerals, plus around 25 milligrams of Vitamin C 

So now, if you've ever wondered why supermarkets usually devote much space to the display of tomatoes, the reason should be clear. The Great Canadian Hot House Tomato has to be among the most profitable ways yet devised of selling what is, in nineteen of twenty parts, nothing but water.

Can Solar Paanels Bring Rain to the Desert?

A Problem With Higher Education? No Problem: Abolish the Universities

British Academia is in a panic. The money is running out. As spelled out a long article in the London Review of Books:

Britain’s​ ‘world-leading’ university system is in deep trouble. There are, inevitably, conflicting diagnoses of the malady, but the indicators of deteriorating health are too ubiquitous to be ignored. When a substantial number of universities are in serious financial jeopardy, with some hinting at possible bankruptcy in the short term (according to the Office for Students, some 45 per cent of ‘higher education providers’ will face a deficit for 2025-26); when the viability of universities is heavily dependent on attracting large numbers of international students whose fees make up between a fifth and a third of their income and whose recruitment is vulnerable to the slightest twitch of governments’ anxieties about immigration; when nearly every week brings news of fresh closures of courses and redundancies among academics, especially in the humanities; when some of the subjects that have long been regarded as among the staple offerings of any university worthy of the name are now in danger of becoming extinct or confined to a handful of privileged institutions; when one in four UK physics departments are thought to be at risk of closure and when research council funding of the physical sciences may in some cases be reduced by as much as 30 per cent in proposals that are said to threaten ‘generational destruction’ in those fields  Cont'd here

Universities, as today's students experience them, are being made increasingly redundant by the AI-connected internet. In the 12th Century, if you wanted to learn anything technical, historical or literary, you needed a human instructor. In that case you went to Paris, where there were scholars who made a living tutoring young aristocrats.  In emulation, a similar academic world emerged in Oxford. From those beginnings blossomed a thousand universities. 

But what need is there now for bricks and mortar institutions of higher education? Need to know something? Just ask Gemini or another AI and it will give you an outline. Need more details, the AI will oblige. True, the university method of education with periodic exams compels students to pay attention, but there are other ways of getting someone's attention --  like job interviews that are combined with knowledge tests. 

Today, universities are defended by academics intent on protecting their comfortable life-style, and young people who feel entitled to three or four or five or six years of undergraduate social life. Some may say that unversities provide an opportunity for young people to learn at the direction of scholars. But that is no reason to fund expensive institutions of higher learning. If students want academic direction in a world without universities, independent academic advisors will no doubt emerge to fill that need. 

 So what does it matter if all the universities go bankrupt? It will save taxpayers cash that they can spend on self-education.

AI Declares Humanity Doomed -- By AI

Anthropic calls for pause of global AI development

Bot web traffic has overtaken human web traffic

In a World of AI, What Need For People?

Artificial intellegence can make robots walk, talk, serve coffee, drive a car, dignose what ails you, or shoot to kill. So, in the future, what need is there for people? At present, folks of flesh and blood have the edge. The enormous cost of raising and training the existing workforce has already been paid, whereas the production and programming of robots to take their place remains to be undertaken -- but it will be.

And it's already happening as blue collar roles are assigned to robots. Thus as Google reports:

Robots are moving beyond basic factory assembly lines to handle intricate physical logistics and unstructured environments.Warehousing & Logistics: Robots are deployed for picking, lifting, sorting, and packing operations.Manufacturing: Standard welding, material handling, and quality control.Retail Operations: Automated check-outs, inventory-scanning robots, and robotic restocking systems.Hospitality & Food: Robotic arms are assisting with burger flipping, line cooking, and automated room service deliveries.

Artificial intelligence and robotic process automation (RPA) systems easily replicate rule-based information handling.Data Entry: Digital process automation handles data extraction, keyboarding, and database population.Finance & Accounting: Bookkeeping, payroll processing, and entry-level financial analysis are highly exposed to automation.Customer Service: Virtual assistants and AI chatbots handle Tier-1 queries, appointment scheduling, and basic sales qualification.Legal Support: Document review, standard contract analysis, and paralegal research are frequently offloaded to AI platforms.

What that means is that employment opportunities for humans will begin to disappear: slowly at first, then rapidly.

Already, the initial decline in paid employment has begun. Since 2016, hours worked by adult males in Canada have decreased by one hour per week amd will decrease by more than an additional hour over the next ten years. That's on average. For some, automation will eliminate the opportunity for employment entirely.

During the next decade the pace of AI implementation in the workspace will accelerate. Thus, for example, you will most likely soon be saying good-bye to your doctor's receptionist, and quite likely the doctor as well. Much cheaper than a human receptionist will be an AI-linked video camera, microphone and speaker. This system will identify and greet patients as they arrive and direct them to a cubicle where, in response to computer-generated prompts, they will state the reason for their visit and display any visible symptoms of whatever ails them to an AI-linked camera. In most cases, the AI will diagnose the condition and supply a remedy at least as skillfully as a GP, but at much lower cost.

Likewise, in most other trades and professions, AI will create widespread redundancy. Children will learn at home, and at their own pace, from AI terminals. Bright kids will have the opportunity to reach university entrance level before reaching their teens. Schools will shrink, as will opportunities for teachers. Some schools may replace teachers entirely with AI terminals, the role of staff then being solely to keep the electronics running and the children safe and disciplined.

But this will be only the beginning. In a time that will be short in generational terms, AI, in combination with robots, will assume virtually all human functions. What then the use of people without economic value? None, so it will be judged by the elite who will endeavor to ensure that non-elite and unproductive people rapidly disappear from the face of the Earth. Elimination may be achieved in various ways, but a one-child policy is a near certainty, with economic incentives that encourage a no-child choice.

What remains obscure is how national elites will interact with one another in the now dawning age of AI. Will they form an international consortium to manage the replacement of the common man with robots, or will they raise vast robotic armies in a contest for global supremacy. However, things turn out, one thing is clear: history has yet to reach its end.

Related:

One In Three American Men No Longer Working

The Futility of Mars Colonization

Surging European migration to North America in the late 19th and early 20th Century was driven by the low cost of New World farmland and high New World wages. Mars offers neither farmland at any price nor high wages. The land is sterile, the air is poisonous, the weather, which is both cold and perpetually dry, is punctuated by gigantic dust storms. As for wages, there are none, as any work to be done on Mars will be done by robots guided by artificial intelligence. Thus there is no reason for anyone to go to Mars other than to boast of having been there. The chief economic significance of Mars will be as a tourist destination for the super-rich.

But some people dream of terraforming Mars, which means making it a truly Earth-like planet, albeit rather cool, Mars being twice as far from the Sun as the Earth and thus receiving only one quarter as much solar radiation as Earth per unit of ground area. Terraforming means giving Mars an Earth-like atmosphere. Earth's atmosphere weights 16 pounds per square inch of ground area, or ten tons per square meter. Mars has a surface are of 144 million square kilometers, so to give Mars an Earth-like atmosphere would require the addition of ten million tons of air per square kilometer, or 144 trillion tons for the whole planet.

On Earth, compressed air costs about 100 USD per ton. At that price, enough air for an Earth-like atmosphere on Mars would cost about one point five trillion USD, or just over one percent of global yearly GDP. So, yeah, we could afford to provide Mars with an atmosphere -- that's if we knew where to get the air. Taking that much air from the Earth would probably cause folks to complain, riot even. And then there's the cost of shipping. Currently, that would mean paying SpaceX ten million dollars a ton for delivery, or about ten thousand times the cost of the freight to be delivered.

But if your dream is to climb the Martian peak, Olympus Mons, the highest mountain in the solar system, there may be no need to await the terraforming of the planet. You could do it now so long as you don't mind sweating inside a bulky space suit. As for reaching the mountain, for somewhere between ten and 100 million dollars Elon Musk will likely be happy to provide you with Earth-Mars return transportion.

The Pope Exposes Trump's Lies

Has any prior pope ever called out a U.S. president for lying?

Has any prior president ever repeatedly, publicly falsely accused a pope of taking positions antithetical to Catholic teaching?

It would be hard to overstate how unprecedented this situation is. It’s hard just to fathom it.

At least four times in recent weeks, President Donald Trump has implied or outright stated that Pope Leo XIV approved of Iran having a nuclear weapon. “The pope made a statement. He says Iran can have a nuclear weapon,” he claimed in an April 16 exchange with a reporter. No such statement, needless to say, existed, and this false claim was immediately debunked both by Catholic sources and by a mainstream media outlets.

Yesterday, May 5th, Trump doubled down on his preposterous falsehood:

Read More

Sergey Bryn and Larry Page: Profiting from Lies

Gemini, Google's AI,  acknowledging that Sergey Bryn and Larry Page deliberately profit from lying Youtube videos:

"In essence, while they aren't writing the "lies" themselves, they have designed and maintained a corporate architecture where the propagation of high-engagement content—regardless of its truth—is one of the most efficient ways to grow their personal wealth."

Iran Cuts Israeli Army's Supply Lines

Sixty Percent Of French Voters Believe They're Witnessing 'A Replacement Of They're Own Population By Non-Europeans'

They're right. 

And the other forty percent would agree if they'd ever been to Paris in the last 30 years.

Meantime, Austrians are replacing themselves with people of an alien race and religion 

Colonel Douglas Macgregor: Iran's Chinese Missiles Destroy an Israeli Naval Force

But is this true. I don't see a report on the destruction of an Israeli Naval force in the New York Times, the Washington Post or other MSM outlets. So is this just a Google DupeTube lie? In that connection, if you have a relevant news link, please submit it in the comments below. 

Iran Threatens To Attack If The Blockade Is Not Lifted – Will Newly-Acquired Chinese Missiles Be Used To Sink A U.S. Aircraft Carrier?

The U.S.Admits It Attacked Iran 'At The Request Of Israel'

An official government press release on the U.S/Israeli war on Iran released by the Trump White House outright admits that the Trump administration went to war with Iran at the “request” of Israel. The official government press release states, “the United States is engaged in this conflict at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally”.

Read more

Why should Americans die (thirteen so far) or be maimed (300 so far) for Israel?

Jewish Genocide Now

Tamir Pardo, former Mossad Director, commented after observing Jewish settler violence against the indigenous Palestinians in Israel's West Bank:

“My mother is a Holocaust survivor, and what I saw here reminded me of the events of the previous century against the Jews”.

What he's saying is that Israeli Jews seek the destruction of the entire indigenous Palestinian nation in the same way that Adolph Hitler's Nazis attempted to murder all of Europe's 9.5 million Jews. And as a former head of Israel's intelligence agency, Tamir Pardo must certainly know what he is talking about.

Iranian Drones Destroy Israeli Tank Division

But no one to see the video, which keeps being deleted:

Ai Assessmen via Googlet

Meantime, Trump's Insult Ends US:Canada Trade Relationship (Or Is This YouTube Video Report Fabricated Nonsense?):

Trump's Iran war even more unpopular than Vietnam war

Next: Trump’s war: the kind of military misadventure that ends empires

Tucker Carlson to Trump: You Have Failed

Trump’s war: the kind of military misadventure that ends empires

Asia Times

by Alfred McCoy

April 26, 2026

History’s lessons are unsparing about what Trump’s micro-military fiasco is costing a country already in imperial decline.

Writing more than 2,000 years ago, the Greek historian Plutarch gave us an eloquent description of what modern historians now call “micro-militarism.”

When an imperial power like Athens then, or America now, is in decline, its leaders often react emotionally by mounting seemingly bold military strikes in hopes of regaining the imperial grandeur that’s slipping through their fingers.

Instead of another of the great victories the empire won at its peak of power, however, such military misadventures only serve to accelerate the ongoing decline, erasing whatever aura of imperial majesty remains and revealing instead the moral rot deep inside the ruling elite.

There is mounting historical evidence that America is indeed an empire in steep decline, while President Donald Trump’s war of choice against Iran is becoming the sort of micro-military disaster that helped destroy successive empires over the past 2,500 years — from ancient Athens to medieval Portugal to modern Spain, Great Britain, and now the United States.

Read More

Related:

Trump Backs Down from His Boasting and Blustering about Iran’s Defeat

Napoleon, Caesar, Alexander the Great—And Trump

Donald the God

Next: Trump's Friend Who Offed Himself (Apparently)

Trump's Friend Who Offed Himself (Apparently)

Next: Canada Exists Not Because of, But In Spite of, America

Canada Exists Not Because of, But In Spite of, America

Next: Canada Ends 70% of Defense Spending Going to US

Canada Ends 70% of Defense Spending Going to US

Next: Carney's Trade Move Shocks Trump

Carney's Trade Move Shocks Trump

Next: Canada Sloughs Off US Hegemony

Canada Sloughs Off US Hegemony

Trump Set on Iranian Genocide/Decimation

Trump Announces Intention to Annihilate Iranian Civilization.

As Raphael Lemkin, the lawyer who coined the term "genocide," defined that term, it refers to the deliberate destruction of the cultural symbols and heritage of a nation, exactly what Trump intends to do to Iran.

At the end of WWII, those who conducted the genocide of Jews in Europe were hanged. Trump should think about that before he acts on his announced intention to "annihilate Iranian civilization."

BBC: Pope and UN Chief Condemn Trump's Threat to Genocide Iran

Alarabiya: Trump Steps Back from Iran Genocide Threat: Instead Will Completely Decimate (meaning literally to kill one in ten) Iranians.

Newsweek: Most Americans want Trump impeached

Daily Mirror: - He's lost the plot and is now losing the war' "Donald Trump’s unhinged, expletive-laden outburst exposes a reckless leader spiralling in a war he created, leaving the world facing dangerous consequences of his chaos-driven leadership" Read more

Trump to Iran: “Open the Fu**in’ Strait, You Crazy B*stards or You’ll be Living in H*ll … Praise Be to Allah”

Worldwide loss of trust in the United States

Allies reject Trump's Hormuz plan

Trump Threatens: Iran Acts

While President Trump rages about bombing Iran "back to the Stone Ages," Iran makes a shambles of the American compound in Saudi Arabia.

Meantime, the US has lost a plane and a pilot in what has proved thus far to be an entirely abortive effort to bomb Iran "back to the stone ages."

The contrast between rhetoric and reality demonstrates that whereas bullshit may baffle brains in America, it can't prevent the Iranians from smashing US facilities in the Middle East, including the CIA headquarters in Riyadh.

Related:

Top U.S. Counterterrorism Official, quwits Over Iran War

Pro-Iran hackers claim Microsoft outage

US Allies: Stuff Trump

NEXT: Trump Starts War, Demands Someone Else Fight It

Trump's Iran War Balls-up

Trump aimed to do to Iran what he just did to Venezuela: Decapitate the government, install a puppet head of state, and take the oil, which is to say, steal it.

Trouble is, Iran is bigger than Venezuela, it is walled by mountains, and it has three times Venezuela's population. As a consequence, so far, thirteen dead American service members, and several hundred wounded, but no regime change.

Another thing President Piranha -- the fish with the big head and sharp teeth, but tiny brain -- seems to have overlooked, Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, the sea route by which 20% of the World's oil supply must flow.

What to do? Oh no prob. Tell the Brits not to be such cowards, but go in and open up the Strait of Hormuz. Do this while calling the British navy crap. Goodness knows what Britains's weird government will make of that, but "go eff yourself Donny boy" would seem the right form of words.

Related:

The Independent: Trump’s spiritual advisor compares Trump’s life to Jesus Christ
To Trump's advantage, presumably.

Axios: Iran conflict goes global

Aljazeera: ‘Bomb back to the Stone Age’: US history of threats and carpet bombing

CAIR: Trump’s Threat to Bomb Iran Back to the Stone Age is ‘Anti-Muslim, Racist, and Dehumanizing’

Former CIA Director: Trump, a Pathological Liar, Incompetent, and Deeply Corrupt

NEXT: Trump'< Iran War Balls Up

Trump Starts War: Demands Allies Fight It

the Fog of War Between Trump’s Ears

Go get your own oil, Trump tells Britain

Europe Declines to Fight Trump's War on Iran

President Trump Posts Video of Massive Airstrikes and Explosions on Iranian ICBM Base in Isfahan, Iran

NEXT: Trump Dismantling Democracy at Unprecedented Speed

Trump Dismantling Democracy At Unprecedented Speed

Trump Disapproval Rate Climbs to 66%

Folks really hate it when they find they've been conned.

They may hate it enought to bring out the tar and feathers, as learned the phony King and the fake English Duke in Mark Twain's masterpiece, Huckleberry Finn.

NPR: Trump Dismantling Democracy At Unprecedented Speed

Bloomberg: Bessent Vows To 'Retake' Hormuz

Zattaboy Scottie. Here's your helmet, here's your gun. Now, keep yer head down and go at it.

Most Canadians Oppose Trump's War on Iran

Daily Mail: Spain closes airspace to US planes involved in attacks on Iran

Mirror: Trump's Plan for World Conquest

Daily Mail: Trump Threatens War Criminal Assault on Iran's Water Supply



Daily Telegraph: Half of Americans believe Trump bombed Iran because of Epstein files

NPR: Trump: I can do what I like with Cuba

Zero Hedge: China Condemns US Starting 'Vicious Cycle' Of 'Chaos' In Attacking Iran

Alternet: MAGA infighting ignites over accusation Trump staged assassination

NEXT: Trump's World War Starting Now

Trump's World War: Starting Now

By Phil Butler

Via Zero Hedge

I've written through enough upheaval to know when the ground has actually shifted beneath us. Today’s chaos isn't the usual turbulence we've learned to absorb—the predictable cycles of crisis and recovery, or the familiar rhythms of things getting worse before they get better. Something structural has given way. We all feel it, even if we can't quite name it, even if we're still performing the motions of normalcy while the framework quietly collapses around us. I didn't think I'd be writing this kind of story either. But here we are, staring at presidents and prime ministers who have created a gap that wasn't supposed to open.

So let's dispense with the throat-clearing and the false reassurances. What follows isn't speculation about whether things might get strange; they already are. The question now is what has actually happened and what it means that we're all standing here watching the most incorrect leadership ever force an unimaginable reality into being, unfolding in real time. And with everyone in the world unable to look away, unable to pretend we don't see it.

The Rebranding of War

Seen from lunar distance, Earth in March 2026 looks deceptively calm, a blue marble turning in silence. But the view is deceptive. Beneath the thin atmosphere, two successive American administrations have steered the planet toward a threshold where nuclear rhetoric, proxy wars, and eroded international norms are no longer fringe risks. Looking at the transition from Trump I to Biden, and then back to Trump, we see no clean break in policy. We find an escalation rapidly accelerating into something unstoppable. Biden’s administration normalized long-term proxy support in Ukraine, maintained maximum pressure on Iran, and expanded drone and special-operations footprints in the Middle East and Africa. Trump 2.0 inherited that scaffolding and added louder rhetoric, faster rebranding, and explicit rejection of restraint. To deny this confirms a real collective insanity.

Read more

Related:

Iran Believes It’s Winning—and Wants a Steep Price to End the War

Trump blasted as 'deeply sick and disgusting man'

'Iran holds the cards now': Trump left exposed as allies reject Hormuz plan

NEXT: The Decline of the American Empire

President Bullshit's Hormuz Strait Flip Flop

Canada Chooses Rolls-Royce Powered Swedish War Plane:

Our headline is what Google's Youtube just published.

But here's what Google's Gemini is saying:

As of March 2026, Canada has not committed to purchasing Saab Gripen fighter jets. While there is significant political debate and a renewed "dual fleet" proposal from Saab, Canada’s official commitment remains with the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II.

Here is the current breakdown of where the situation stands:

1. The Official Status (The F-35 Deal) The Canadian government finalized an agreement in 2023 to purchase 88 F-35A stealth fighters to replace the aging CF-18 fleet.

Current Progress: Canada has already begun payments for the first 16 aircraft and recently started payments for long-lead components for an additional 14 jets.

Arrival: The first Canadian F-35s are expected to be delivered to a training base in Arizona later in 2026, with the first jets arriving on Canadian soil by 2028.

So who's lyin',Google's Youtube or Google's Gemini? Probably best not believe what either of them say, at least until it's been denied.

The Madness of Donald the God

Speaking of the White House correspondents, President Trump stated:

“[They] Now Admit That I am Truly One of the Greatest Presidents in the History of Our Country, the G.O.A.T.”

It's called megalomania.

Related:

Bombing for Fun: The Mark of the Psychopath:



The Deconstructon of President Bullshit:



Any truthful assessment of Donald the God is apparently automatically deleted by U-Tube.

Noam Chomsky, Governor Pritzker and others on Trump's narcissistic megalomania

History’s Most Insane Rulers: From Emperor Caligula to Muammar Gaddafi

Trump Ain't Bonkers, He's Just a Ruthless, Relentless, Self-serving Egomaniac.

Congress Stomps Trump Tariffs on Canadian Steel, Aluminum, Lumber, Dairy Other Agricultural Products, Autoparts, etc.

As we've observed before, the great majority of Americans are among the most reasonable, fair-minded people one could hope to have as meighbors. The Congress of the United States has just confirmed this by rejecting Trump's attempt to stifle imports from Canadaa by the imposition of tariffs on Canadian goods freely sought by American buyers.

Canada's New War Plane

The Decline of the American Empire

NEXT: Canada's Response to Trump's Looney Demand That Canada Pay America's Multi-Trillion Dollar Trade Deficit

Canada's Response to Trump's Looney Demand That Canada Pay America's Multi-Trillion Dollar Trade Deficit

Trump belongs in the nut house, not the White House. That, at least, is the charitable view.

As for his claim against Canada for $2.8 trillion, he's just bullshitting to stir up his dimwit base.

But if the US cannot pay its bills, then it's time for Canada to shut off the daily Southward flow of four million barrels of oil, plus four million cubic feet of natural gas, and the juice from Quebec Hydro that keeps the lights on in New York and the Mid-West.

Not that we want to hurt the American people, who individually, are among the most generous, decent, honoroble people one could wish to have as one's neighbors. But we do think they made a terrible mistake in electing Donald Trump President.

NEXT: Trump's Trade War on Canada Backfires