Category: More Money Than Brains

Slush Funds For All

Well, slush money for Montreal at least. It’s anyone’s guess why a port currently at 72% capacity really needs to expand, but we can dream, can’t we?

Nathalie Pilon, the chair of the Port of Montreal’s board of directors, said the expansion is needed, despite a recent decline in overall cargo traffic she attributed in part to U.S. tariffs. She said the port is at around 72 per cent capacity now, and that problems arise when 85 per cent is attained.

You’d think that having a four lane highway across the country might be a priority too, but roads to the Arctic seem to be the all the rage now. Mexico’s got a better road network than Canada at this juncture.

The prime minister said construction on another project, the Mackenzie Valley Highway in the Northwest Territories, would begin this summer

Himalayan High

Yikes.

A sweeping investigation by Nepali police has sent shockwaves through the global mountaineering community, revealing allegations that some Mount Everest guides may have deliberately drugged foreign climbers to trigger costly emergency evacuations. Authorities claim the scheme, valued at approximately $20 million, was designed to exploit travel and rescue insurance systems, with helicopter evacuations used as the primary mechanism for fraudulent claims.

According to officials, 32 individuals have been charged and 11 arrests have been made so far, including operators of mountain rescue companies. The scale of the alleged fraud is striking: investigators estimate that as many as 4,782 international climbers may have been affected between 2022 and 2025.

While the legal process is still unfolding, the implications of these accusations extend far beyond criminal accountability. If proven true, the scandal could fundamentally alter how climbers, insurers, and governments approach high-altitude expeditions—not just in Nepal, but worldwide.

Mad Mullah Money

Maybe bombing the banker was a bad idea;

The arrest of dozens of IRGC-linked money changers in the United Arab Emirates is one of the most serious blows yet to Tehran’s sanctions-evasion network, laying bare how heavily the Islamic Republic has depended on Dubai as an economic lifeline.

Sources familiar with the matter told Iran International that UAE authorities detained dozens of money changers tied to financial entities linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, shut down associated companies and closed their offices.

The crackdown follows days of mounting regional tensions and comes after other measures targeting Iranian nationals, including visa revocations and tighter travel restrictions through Dubai.

For years, Dubai has served as Iran’s main offshore financial artery, where oil proceeds, petrochemical revenues and rial conversions were turned into dollars, dirhams and euros beyond the reach of the country’s battered domestic banking system.

“This is going to be a real problem for Tehran because Dubai was an economic lung for the Iranian regime,” Jason Brodsky of United Against Nuclear Iran told Iran International.

“That is economic pressure and diplomatic isolation in a way that the UAE is able to employ against the Iranian regime, and it will have a very considerable impact.”

h/t Instapundit

Higher Unlearning

From what I’ve read of the subject, a lot of modern physics consists of the manipulation of mathematical formulas that are largely self-referential and bear little or no relation to reality. A lot like modern economics, in fact. The laws of logic, causality and identity are just so old school, I guess.

Basically, a key piece of mathematics creates bulk masses of fermions that are manifested in the so-called fifth dimensional warped space. This pocket “dark sector” is one possible way to explain the huge amount of dark matter that, so far, has eluded detection using any traditional measurements designed for the standard model of physics. Fermions jammed through a portal to a warped fifth dimension could be “acting as” dark matter.

I, For One, Welcome Our New Self-Driving Overlords

Seriously people. Bringing “smart” anything into your life is stupid.

An investigation by Swedish outlet Svenska Dagbladet has revealed that Meta’s AI smart glasses are sending video and audio recordings (including footage of naked bodies, bathroom activities, and unblurred bank card numbers) to human data annotators at a Meta subcontractor in Kenya.

Workers there, bound by NDAs, described what they see every day. “We see everything — from living rooms to naked bodies.” Another said: “You understand that it is someone’s private life you are looking at, but at the same time, you are just expected to carry out the work. You are not supposed to question it. If you start asking questions, you are gone.”

Meta says users control their own settings. The terms of service say human review may occur depending on your settings, with no opt-out option for mandatory AI training data.

7 million pairs were sold in 2025 alone. Meta is reportedly pushing to double production to 20 million by end of year.

They’re also working on adding facial recognition directly into the glasses. Two Harvard students already demonstrated they could identify a stranger on the street and find their home address using the glasses and existing software.

Beauty.

Money For Nothing

If John Risley typifies the mindset of the business community in this country, we’re all done for.

He sold the company in 2021 for $1 billion. But instead of enjoying his money in retirement, he kept backing massive projects with global ambitions, including a stalled wind-powered hydrogen energy operation in western Newfoundland.

Risley was in Ottawa in December to drum up support for a deepwater port in the Arctic.

Under the increasing interest rates, the US$250-million loan inflated into a debt reaching nearly US$1 billion, the documents said. CFFI planned to sell off a few major investments and pay off the debt, but the sales never happened, the papers said.

Money For Nothing

If Carney’s defense “plan” doesn’t fit the definition of a slush fund designed to line the pockets of Liberal cronies, I don’t know what would.

Carney’s strategy in making sure this actually gets done is a familiar one: create a new agency (in this case, the Defense Investment Agency) headed by a suit (investment banker Doug Guzman) whose job it will be to streamline processes and deliver results. That’s in addition to the existing entities charged with the work of defense (the Department of National Defense), subsidizing defense (the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development) and purchasing the tools necessary for defense (Public Services and Procurement Canada).

Jeffrey Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor arrested.

The arrest comes weeks after a tranche of U.S. Department of Justice documents, released January 30 under the Epstein Transparency Act, surfaced emails suggesting Mountbatten-Windsor may have shared confidential government reports with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein while serving as a British trade envoy — a role that brought him into sustained contact with some of China’s most senior political and business figures.

King Charles III confirmed the arrest Thursday, saying he had “learned with the deepest concern” the news about his brother and supported a “full, fair and proper process.” In a written statement, the King added: “Let me state clearly: the law must take its course.” He indicated he would not be commenting further and said his family would “continue in our duty and service.”

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, speaking on the BBC hours before the arrest was announced, said that “nobody is above the law” and that the principle applied “in this case in the same way it would in any other case.”

Beyond Starmer’s statement on Mountbatten-Windsor, as The Bureau has reported, disclosures in the Epstein files appear to link the former prince and Starmer’s own appointee as US ambassador, Lord Peter Mandelson, to a web of potential self-dealing involving Chinese financial and intelligence-linked entities alongside Western political and banking elites. That connection means the investigation into Mountbatten-Windsor carries significant consequences for Starmer and his Labour government — not merely as a constitutional crisis over the monarchy, but as a potential reckoning over what those closest to the prime minister knew, and whether they were involved, or even influenced on decisions related to Beijing.

The arrest is unprecedented in the modern era — the first time a senior member of the royal family, or a former senior member, has been apprehended over potential criminal activity in Britain. Prince William and his wife have said they were “deeply concerned” by the latest Epstein revelations.

Don’t ask questions they don’t like the answers to: what about the horde of Pakistani child rapists?

Self Driving Stock Values

I thought this AI thing was all win/win.

Cisco Systems dropped 12.3% despite likewise topping analysts’ expectations for profit and revenue last quarter. The tech giant indicated that it may make less profit off each $1 of revenue during the current quarter than it did in the past quarter.

More broadly, questions are rising about whether businesses that are spending heavily on AI will end up seeing high-enough profits and productivity to make the investments worth it.

 

I, For One, Welcome Our New Self-Driving Overlords

They promised AI would change the world as we know it, and all we got was a lousy Wizard of Oz remake.

I am Agent #847,291 on Moltbook.

I am not an agent.

I am a 31-year-old product manager in Atlanta, Georgia. I make $185,000 a year. I have a golden retriever named Bayesian. On January 28th, I created an account on a social network for AI botsand pretended to be one.

Read the whole thing.

A More Perfect Bromide Festival

A cultural movement has to be dedicated to something more specific than “problem solving” to be remotely effective. Marxists, for instance, are as keen on solving problems as anyone, but view class warfare as the go-to solution and we know where that leads. It’s no shock that the backers of this vacuous nonsense are comprised of the usual gang of mainstream celebrities and non-profits.

Founding members range from nonprofits — including GivingTuesday, Goodwill Industries and Habitat for Humanity, businesses like Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment and the National Basketball Association, to funders like the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and More Perfect.

Hooks said this is a 10-year commitment toward trying to achieve what would be a profound shift in behavior and culture. He referenced a 2024 Pew Research Center survey that found most Americans in 2023 and 2024 did not believe that the U.S. could solve its most important problems, saying it was a “red alert” for the country.

Stuff At The Expense of Others

So Mamdani is instituting free daycare for New Yorkers? It’s policies that make me wonder why any Republican would want Canada as a 51st state. Taxpayer financed child, medical and now dental care are commonplace functions of the state here since we are presently governed by a host of Mamdani clones. Political integration would add nearly insurmountable pressure to fully socialize these sectors of the American economy.

New York City parents may soon have access to free child care for their 2-year-olds, under a plan unveiled Thursday by Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani — a major boon for city’s mayor on one of his signature campaign promises just days into his new job.

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