...there's no big deal about mentioning it here: Canada has a sub somewhere near North Korea.

A bit of background: A couple of weeks ago, the leader of Ontario's relatively-right-wing party, the Progressive Conservatives (yeah, I know - what a name) resigned because of allegations of sexual impropriety. This means the PC party needs a new leader, less than six months before the next general election.

Guess who's tossed his hat into the ring? Doug Ford, brother of deceased Toronto ex-mayor Rob Ford. (Yes, that Rob Ford.) And he's taken more than a few pages from Trump's playbook...

As of this posting, his opponents are Christine Elliott (who's tried to grab the brass ring twice so far and failed both times), and Caroline Mulroney (who's never run for office before this election but has name recognition as the daughter of a former Prime Minister).

The centrist Liberal party was doing poorly in the opinion polls, but with an opponent in disarray (nobody thinks the left-wing New Democratic Party has a chance), they might win another term in Government after all.

Whoever said that politics is a good spectator sport should be happy to be watching this race. I have to live with the result.

Over in DW General, the thread "Truly there are no new ideas under the sun" linked to another forum, and I found the following line:

Quote:The reason it's a Shaker/Master power is because it also effects everyone who can hear it. Is there a big fight? Play something from Avengers, and everyone who can hear it not only fights as a unit, they do so in time with the music.

At Strange Cafe - okay, "Henna Cafe" - in Tokyo, coffee is brewed by a robot.

Who else is thinking "early Boomer"?

It's February 2 - the day that (at least in North America) we look at whether groundhogs see their shadows and use that as a basis for how much longer winter will last.

Of the three groundhogs I know about, Punxsutawney Phil and Wiarton Willie saw their shadows, and Shubenacadie Sam tried to make a break for it and get out of the whole mess.

So... more snow, anyone?

Check Your Drinking

An online survey, where one can compare one's alcohol intake to the average Canadian. (I haven't taken it yet; I'm still at work as I post this.)

When the survey asks for a dollar amount, they're asking in Canadian dollars. I don't know whether the site's available outside of Canada.

The annotations, made by Matt Kwong (who is not an American), include explanatory notes and fact-checking.

Read Trump's state of the union speech, annotated

This isn't the way this usually works, but let me just offer a quick welcome here to nefastocipa, an Italian fan of GURPS IST.  Stefano, I'd answer your private message, but you turned off receiving private messages!

So, we got to see a "super blue blood moon" in North America this morning.

My free-association / punning mind thought "if one is a blue blood, one is nobility, so a super blue blood must be royalty - probably a princess"... and I started thinking of the "super blue blood" moon as the "Usagi moon".

And I've had the original anime's opening theme stuck in my head ever since.