"Right now they’re eating a lot of sedges, which are a plant with high moisture content in it, because they’re trying to get their stomachs working again."

"It’s not like they’re ferociously hungry and are looking to eat the first person that comes by."

Said Andy McMullen, founder of Bearwise, "an organization specializing in bear safety training," quoted in "Black Bear Fatally Mauls Uranium Contractor in Northern Canada/The attack, at a remote uranium mining site in northern Saskatchewan, was only the fourth fatal black bear encounter in the province’s recorded history, officials said" (NYT).

Another McMullen quote: "Here in Canada, unless you’re in downtown Toronto, you’re in bear country."

"This day is historic in Alberta history. It’s the first step to the next step — we’ve gotten by Round 3 and now we’re in the Stanley Cup final."

Said Mitch Sylvestre, head of Stay Free Alberta, at the Elections Alberta office today, with 7 trucks to delivering what is said to be almost 302,000 signatures — 178,000 signatures are needed to trigger a vote.

Quoted in "Alberta separatist group submits signatures for referendum on leaving Canada" (MSN). 

Daniel Béland, a McGill University poli sci professor, said: "Right now, support for independence in Alberta is rather low. Less than 30% and much lower if we only focus on hard-core supporters...."

"They provided $0 to deal with the ongoing genocide of MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+."

Canada's New Democratic Party Member of Parliament Leah Gazan:

NDP MP Leah Gazan: "They provided $0 to deal with the ongoing genocide of MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+,"pic.twitter.com/9KXxlKUuf0

— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) April 8, 2026

"Mid-Lent is like punk rock — it was against the established order. We still do it because it’s really cool that our grandparents did it."

"Today, we don’t have to observe Lent, but they had to, and so Mid-Lent was a form of resistance."

Said Nicolas Harvey, 39, a high school history teacher, quoted in "Halfway Through Lent, a Small Quebec Island Celebrates With Masks and Jigs/Few islanders still observe Lent, but they cling to a tradition once seen as defying the all-powerful Roman Catholic Church" (NYT).

I'm out of gift links for the month or I would give you one. There are lots of nice photos of these islanders of the  St. Lawrence River.

Is it odd to carry on the traditional rebellion when you're no longer subject to the authority that inspired the rebellion? Or is it actually typical of our annual festivities? (I'm thinking of Halloween, Christmas, and the 4th of July.) 

"One out of every 20 deaths in Canada is now caused by the government’s assisted suicide program."

"What’s even more shocking is how fast the deaths are approved."

Trump sought to influence Bill Maher and he's now going to complain that he didn't get as much favorable press/comedy as he thinks — or pretends to think — he deserves.

"Sometimes in life you waste time! T.V. Host Bill Maher asked to have dinner with me through one of his friends, also a friend of mine, and I agreed," said Trump (at Truth Social).

He came into the famed Oval Office much different than I thought he would be. He was extremely nervous, had ZERO confidence in himself and, to soothe his nerves, immediately, within seconds, asked for a "Vodka Tonic." He said to me, "I’ve never felt like this before, I’m actually scared." In one respect, it was somewhat endearing!"

Trump seems to enjoy diminishing Maher, but I suspect Maher adopted this "little me" pose to disarm Trump. Obviously, Maher was bullshitting. There's no one who has never been scared. It's a joke. He's a comedian. And so is Trump.

Trump continues:

"President Trump Gaggles with Press on Air Force One En Route Palm Beach, FL, Jan. 31, 2026."

I'm going to pick through the transcript and will update in about an hour. Meantime, you can pick over the text and pull out your favorite highlights

ADDED: From the YouTube transcript:

"I think the museum staying in North Bay will help them from making foolish choices, like what they did to us, you know. It should never be repeated again."

Said Annette Dionne — born in North Bay, Ontario — quoted in "Annette Dionne, Last of the Celebrated Quintuplets, Dies at 91/She was the first to crawl, the first to cut a tooth, the first to recognize her name, and the last to die. And, like her sisters, she resented being exploited as part of a global sensation" (NYT).

Imagine being one of 5 babies and then also to be famous, all your life, for just that. It's a puzzle of distinction and indistinction.

From the Wikipedia article for North Bay: "The Dionne Quintuplets... had a tremendous impact on tourism in the area. For a province struggling against economic strangulation they were as valuable a resource as gold, nickel, pulpwood or hydro power. They saved an entire region from bankruptcy. They launched Northern Ontario's flourishing tourist industry. At their peak they represented a $500 million asset. North Bay and the surrounding area lived off this legacy well into the 1960s. Many visitors to the area discovered lakes and summer retreats that were easily accessible, and the businesses thrived on the tourist dollars."

"The bear ran so close to her 10-year son, Alvarez, that he 'even felt its fur,' she said, 'but it was going after somebody else.'"

From "Grizzly bear attack in British Columbia seriously injures 3 schoolchildren/Teachers used bear spray and a bear banger to drive the animal away, according to Canadian authorities. A parent said one teacher bore 'the whole brunt of it'" (WaPo).

“A Fish Falls From the Sky and Sparks a Brush Fire in British Columbia.”

“Officials say a flying osprey dropped its catch, which then struck power lines, causing sparks that ignited dry grass.”

NYT. 

"This is, like, utter chaos that Trump started. Utter chaos. I understand that you want to make product in your country, but you also need to trade."

Said Pauline Ridley, the union chairwoman at KB components, quoted in "Canadians Fear Trump’s Tariffs Will Create a ‘Ghost Town’ in Ontario/President Trump’s tariffs on auto parts are already causing job losses in Windsor, Ontario, the heart of an industry that makes components for vehicles bound for the United States" (NYT).

"Suggestions that the number of people wanting to separate is growing worries me.... [Premier Danielle Smith] is manipulating the people of this province..."

"... into believing that we should seriously look at separating. It is just ludicrous. Not all of us think like that. I absolutely disagree."

Said Kathleen Sokvitne, a citizen of Calgary, Alberta, quoted in "'We're Canadians': Some Albertans divided about separation in cross-province checkup/Republican Party of Alberta leader says membership has doubled since the federal election" (CBC).

For the annals of Things I Asked Grok:

1. What does "checkup" mean in this Canadian newspaper headline...? 

2. In the US, we'd just say "poll," right? (Or "survey") 

3. If Alberta became the 51st state, there would be a lot of odd language and spelling quirks that might make Albertans feel/seem like outsiders. 

In preparation for Alberta's joining us as the 51st state, I'm listening to Millennial Moron explain the Canadian love for Kraft Dinner Language (AKA K.D. Lang).

And it's great that Bob Dylan went on to become a popular musician in his own right. Some commenter over there says "This is the single most Canadian bit of humor I think I might have ever seen." I don't know, but I want to find out. Join us, Alberta! 

We'll give you more gold/Than your apron can hold.

Now, maybe you think I'm getting ahead of myself, and I am. I lived through the arrival of the 49th state and the 50th state, and — I was a kid — I just thought new states would be joining us every year or so. Alaska and Hawaii clamored to join the coolest place on earth, and I thought everyone else would just be piling in. Why wouldn't they?! Why didn't they? Here it is, 66 years later and not one new entrant. So it would really warm my heart — I literally had tears in my eyes — if Alberta would come on in.

I was reading "Should Alberta Become the 51st State? The Case for Secession, Statehood, and a Freer Western Canada" by Rod D. Martin. Excerpt:

"I look forward to meeting the new Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney. I very much want to work with him, but cannot understand one simple TRUTH..."

"Why is America subsidizing Canada by $200 Billion Dollars a year, in addition to giving them FREE Military Protection, and many other things? We don’t need their Cars, we don’t need their Energy, we don’t need their Lumber, we don’t need ANYTHING they have, other than their friendship, which hopefully we will always maintain. They, on the other hand, need EVERYTHING from us! The Prime Minister will be arriving shortly and that will be, most likely, my only question of consequence."

Writes Trump on Truth Social.

President Trump Participates in a Bilateral Meeting with the Prime Minister of Canada, May 6, 2025 https://t.co/GE1pY6Dws7

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 6, 2025

"From 25% in favor to 5 to 10% against.... It will be bad for America. It'll be bad for the world. So that was a foreign policy failure. He gets an F on that one."

"Canada — he gets an F. Sorry, sorry, I don't see any alternative. Please write to me and tell me if you're a Canadian or if you're American why he deserves better than an F ? Why should he have intruded on an election that was going to help the United States, going to help the world, going to help the economy? Why should he have intruded and turn the election around and turned it against the interests of the United States? So I don't see any justification — any justification — for that."

Said Alan Dershowitz, grading Trump on his first 100 days.

I'll bring up my question from yesterday: Does Trump know what he is doing? What if you had to argue that Trump knew what he was doing, that the seeming fiasco of the Canadian election was, in fact, exactly what Trump had in mind, a step in his genius plan?

ADDED: For the Annals of Things I Asked Grok (after quoting Alan Dershowitz):

Tell me the best justification. Maybe Trump is a genius and this is a multi-step process that he is seeing from a higher angle. Give him an A and explain why. 

Grok's answer here.

FROM THE COMMENTS: New Yorker takes the assignment seriously:

"The predecessor who now inspires Trump in vivid oil paint served only one term, dying shortly after he left office in 1849."

"But in four years Polk nearly doubled the territory of the U.S. On the northern border, Polk’s supporters rallied around the expansionist slogan '54°40’ or Fight,' demanding the U.S. take over the entire Pacific Northwest up to that latitude, then the southern boundary of Russian Alaska, even if it meant going to war with Britain. Instead, in 1846 Polk negotiated a treaty that established the U.S.’s northern border at the 49th parallel. In the Southwest, Polk annexed Texas and fought the Mexican-American War, which ended in Mexico ceding more than 500,000 square miles to the U.S., including all of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming, in exchange for $15 million. It was 'one of the largest land grabs in world history,' said historian Hampton Sides... 'He wanted it all, and he got it all in one term....' In terms of personality, Polk and Trump have little in common, Sides said. Despite his aggressive foreign policy, Polk 'was not this blustering, loud, bully of a person. He was morose, a kind of dark guy.' Polk was also known 'for being quite honest…He wasn’t this erratic, crazy person who was constantly throwing people off guard....'"

From "The Painting That Explains Trump’s Foreign Policy/James K. Polk expanded the U.S. more than any other president. Now his portrait hangs in the Oval Office, a signal that President Trump’s ambition to take over Canada, Greenland and other territory is more than just talk" (Wall Street Journal).

Is absorbing Canada "a real thing"?

🚨Update: Secretary Marco Rubio: Canada becoming a US state is a real possibility! “If you balance out our trade, Canada will cease to exist as a country!”pic.twitter.com/UUPArryP32

— US Homeland Security News (@defense_civil25) February 21, 2025

"[Chantal] Kreviazuk, who is from Winnipeg, Manitoba, also wrote the phrase 'that only us command' with mascara on her left hand."

"She posted a picture of that on her Instagram with emojis of a Canadian flag and a flexed muscle. 'I just put it on there so if I ever had a moment and I kind of froze, I would be able to look at my hand and see it,' Kreviazuk said. 'I’d love to see people sort of get inspired and catch the fire and say their heart more in their art. ... Sometimes you just got to speak the truth in your art and it’s awesome. That’s what it should be about.'..."

From "Singer of Canadian anthem at 4 Nations Face-Off changes lyric to protest Trump’s 51st state remarks" (AP).

The official lyrics begin: "O Canada! Our home and native land! True patriot love in all of us command."

That is, the homeland commands true patriot love in all of us.

The changed lyric was "O Canada! Our home and native land! True patriot love that only us command."

So it is no longer the homeland commanding love. It is "only us" commanding love. There are several problems (aside from the problem of changing the words of the anthem):

"It wasn’t planned. That wasn’t two coaches throwing guys over and saying 'This is happening' — none of that happened. That was as organic as it gets."

Said Jon Cooper, the coach for Canada, quoted in The London Times:

Here's the video at YouTube. Judge for yourself. Political theater? Is this about Trump — Trump and his tariffs and his fifty-oneness?

Meanwhile, Trump himself was at The Daytona 500 and — with his lovely tiny little granddaughter — the sports-related masculine political theater was not brutishly macho but nobly patriarchal:

ADDED: The oversized MAGA hat emphasizes the tininess of the granddaughter, and it made me think of this image of Elon Musk in a giant hat:

pic.twitter.com/nhRCtyA3wj

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 7, 2025

You can see the hat as it is — large — or you can perceive the optical illusion that Musk is a tiny person, a child. Musk famously tweeted: "I love @realDonaldTrump as much as a straight man can love another man." And I've been thinking the love is a boy's love for the father he never had. Musk real father was — as Musk tells it — "a terrible human being" who has done "almost every evil thing you could possibly think of." The giant hat is a bid to be seen as a boy, to be loved by a father.

"Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, after speaking twice by telephone with Mr. Trump, said the tariffs would be postponed by 30 days as the two countries negotiate a border deal."

"That announcement came hours after Mexico negotiated a similar delay, and agreed to send thousands of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to curb drug smuggling and illegal immigration.... After their call — which Mr. Trump described as 'very good' — Mr. Trudeau announced the delay in a social media post. As part of the agreement, he said, Canada would help form a 'Canada- U.S. Joint Strike Force to combat organized crime, fentanyl and money laundering.' 'I have also signed a new intelligence directive on organized crime and fentanyl and we will be backing it with $200 million,' Mr. Trudeau said...."

The NYT reports.

Another success.