Blayne Haggart

I'm someone who spends a lot of time thinking about LLMs, and I have no idea how they would improve the selection of targets in a war. Except for one obvious affordance - they offload accountability.

Tonight, two of the white nationalists I reported on in this piece showed up to attempt to intimidate me on a private night out at a small music venue.

I’ll have more to say tomorrow. I’m safe.

They also didn’t pay cover 🖕

This oped is really helpful in laying out the costs associated with continued uncertainty in Canada-US relations in a way that most opeds on the subject tend to elide. The next step is to recognize that we’re already stuck with this uncertainty, no matter the status of the USMCA.

Does this state of affairs suck? Yes, it certainly does. Does it place Canada in a near-impossible situation? Yes. But better to face reality and to start having a honest, hard national conversation, than to place misguided faith for a new USMCA to deliver what it can’t.

Canadians, and Canadian business, must get used to this new uncertain reality and its attendant costs, which are well laid out here. This starts by recognizing that concessions for a new USMCA can’t buy certainty, and that it’s impossible to replace the US market with other new trade deals.

Fifth, this is already the third time in 25 years that the US has unilaterally rewritten the N American governance bargain (post-9/11, Trump I, Trump II).

That’s all on top of the basic fact that this president is a liar whose word is worth less than nothing.
US treaties ain’t what they used to be.

Third, in a Great Power world, a diminished US will need to lean even more heavily on Canada for economic and physical security, raising the cost of getting out of line. Fourth, extreme US polarization means we can no longer count on policies and even treaties to persist across administrations.

This isn’t just a Trump problem for at least five reasons. First, the forces that created Trump won’t disappear if he were to die tomorrow. Second, US disregard for international law was building even before Trump. …

How Canada would survive without a U.S. trade deal If the trade agreement is cancelled, Canada will survive, but it will be costly. And even then, the U.S. will very likely remain our largest trading partner.

This oped is asking the right question, and provides a solid analysis. I’d add that the picture it paints of the consequences of continued uncertainty in Canada-US trade relations will hold even if the USMCA is renegotiated. Because the source of that uncertainty is structural.

Dennis Cometti hailed as 'the best of his kind' after death Dennis Cometti — who called a range of sports for the ABC, Seven and Nine and was lauded for his football commentary over 50-plus years in the industry — is remembered as "the best of his kind" after ...

Sad to hear of Dennis Cometti's passing. One of the great broadcasters, in footy or any sport. His grasp of metaphor and command of the English language was unmatched. Crucially, his play-by-play was often straight-up hilarious, worth the price of admission on its own.
www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03...

That's not my concern here. Bruce Arthur's an honest reporter/columnist. And the questions he's raising are being asked by a lot of Canadians.

These two principles cover about 90% of what Carney’s done over the past year.
The more interesting question: Is Carney’s appeasement + economics-only/transactional approach to relationship-building capable of securing greater Canadian independence?

Mark Carney’s Iran reaction raises doubts about what he stands for In this dangerous world, Canada needs to see clearly what we are dealing with. But we also need to remember who we are.

Is it that he’s raising doubts about what he stands for, or we don’t want to acknowledge what he stands for?
Because from where I sit, his actions have been remarkably consistent: economic transactions above all other concerns and don’t ever do anything to upset the US.

This should be the world's response...

PM Carney needs to come back to Canada and make his case for supporting Trump and Netanyahu to the Canadian people.
He is not a CEO. He is our democratically-elected representative. In this moment of global crisis he must explain his position and take direction from the people.

If you wouldn't ask murderers to make their case for why they didn't commit homicide, you should know better than to ask perpetrators of aggression to make the case of whether they violated international law.

It's not for Israel & the U.S. to decide if they violated int'l law 🤦‍♂️

Indefinite Book Club Hiatus Today in “Things that ‘AI’ has ruined”: No, I won’t be able to show up to your book club’s online/offline gathering, and the reason for this is simple: I, and li…

I get asked to show up to book clubs, online and offline. Here is why from now on the answer is always "no." If you think this might have something to do with "AI" ruining yet another thing for everyone, you're absolutely 100% correct.

whatever.scalzi.com/2026/03/03/i...

Why ‪@why.bsky.team‬ Until December of last year I was using LLMs as fancy autocomplete for coding. It was nice for scaffolding out boilerplate, or giving me a gut check on some things, or banging out some boring routine stuff. In the past two months Claude has written about 99% of my code. Things are changing. Fast

in case you ever wondered why bsky breaks all the fuckin time and is increasingly a pile of jank

bsky.app/profile/why....

#5DebutAlbums8589 Celebrating its 40th anniversary this month, the debut by Pet Shop Boys would become a smash on both sides of the Atlantic and launch the career of one of most influential pop acts of all time #MusicSky

SCOOP: Anthropic was among the AI companies that submitted a proposal earlier this year to compete in a $100 million Pentagon prize challenge to produce technology for voice-controlled, autonomous drone swarming, acc to people familiar w/ matter.

And everyone is running around praising them for being "ethical"

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

If you were Prime Minister and you issued a statement that *many* (including all national media) are taking to mean you support an illegal war started by the person who has been threatening your country, would you issue a clear, unambiguous statement that you do *not* support that war, or nah?

This Carney statement is puzzling. If, as he says, we must accept "the world as it is" – including the purported failure of previous diplomatic efforts and of the international order – then why call for a diplomatic solution, de-escalation, and respect for international law?

CP NewsAlert: Carney says support for U.S. strikes on Iran comes ‘with regret’ Prime Minister Mark Carney has endorsed the American and Israeli military strikes on Iran, but said that Canada would not get involved.

"Prime Minister Mark Carney says he supported Washington’s strikes on Iran “with regret” over the continued decline of the rules-based international order."

The rules-based international order declines when leaders like Carney fail to stand up for it. He's actively contributing to its decline.

UW announced departure from X (formerly known as Twitter) UW is no longer using X, formerly known as Twitter, which they announced in a post on Feb. 27.  Before this announcement, the university posted periodic updates about closures, safety alert systems, ...

Wonderful news: my university has announced it will stop using X. uwimprint.ca/uw-announced...

And no, this does not violate institutional neutrality, properly understood. Nothing about neutrality in communications requires a university to use any and all platforms.

30 years ago Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club accurately predicted that men under late capitalism, empty consumers who had come to think of themselves as “the middle children of history” with no great wars to fight, would eventually prank and shitpost their way into fascism.

As a human being you have the right to be able to understand the world. That is why education is so important.

Any technology that hinders your understanding (even if it seemingly gives you capabilities) is deeply in- and anti-humane.

World at War: Canada Must Speak Up On the first day of the Iran war, they bombed a school and murdered 165 children, seriously injuring 95 more.

On day one of the war 165 children were murdered in a terror bombing of a school.
At one time such an atrocity would result in widespread condemnation.
Not any more.
We remain silent at our peril.
My latest piece.
charlieangus.substack.com/p/world-at-w...

Carney lands in Australia ahead of planned speech to Australian parliament SYDNEY - Prime Minister Mark Carney has landed in Australia, where he is seeking more collaboration in trade and defence.

“Carney has not spoken with reporters in days, and his office cancelled a Monday press conference in India, following his meeting there with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”

This prime minister is not someone who is bothered by the need to explain himself to his constituents.

The prime minister has been remarkably consistent in his actions and policies over the past year. It’s time to move beyond the *idea* of Carney and start taking his policies seriously, subjecting them to a serious critique. Because the problems with Carney’s actions aren’t bugs. They’re features.

And so, instead of fulsome analyses of the Carney Doctrine (trade above all other national interests; don’t ever, ever do anything to offend Trump, no matter the costs to Canadians: see Musk’s CSAM platform; refusing to stand up for int’l law), we get weak exhortations for Carney to act more wisely.