SpankyMcFarland

The consideration of the whole person applying to med school (in addition to performance on the MCAT as well which is a difficult exam) has become a large activity in and of itself in this country. While well-intentioned, it has had some undesirable effects. Students naturally want to brush up on their volunteer activities and say the right things at the interview; claiming a desire to help underprivileged communities in rural Canada is generally a better line than wanting to make millions in Toronto with as little call as possible. However, sometimes this rather generous presentation of oneself can be believed, internalized and carried through life. Thus, years later when, say, a foreign doctor applies for a residency position in their specialty and claims they did so because they need a job and no other program would take them, ie, the unvarnished truth, offence might actually be taken. The expectation is that the crude facts will be massaged a little. Medicine is a profession requiring people of diverse personality types. There is a need for those who empathize and are scholarly but there also jobs that on occasion require immediate, drastic action. Like soldiers, pilots and successful politicians, surgeons have to be both confident and decisive. Indeed, some of the traits they must have overlap with those of sociopaths but we certainly wouldn’t want to screen them out of the med school application process. For this and many other reasons, some countries have systems that focus almost entirely on the academic merit of applicants. I suspect this would alter the composition of med school classes in several ways and increase the percentage of students of Chinese origin. A debate for another day.

Patel went too far with his announcement about the killer being in custody. The head of the FBI needs to be very careful with such claims. People are depending on that person to be conservative in any statement they make. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/11/kash-patel-charlie-kirk-shooting-fbi-00559165

For politicians down there, genuine, spontaneous encounters with random members of the public are going to become less frequent. In the short term their handlers will like that but over time it will undercut their credibility. If nobody can meet them, maybe they’re all AI-generated or at the very least immune to the concerns of ordinary people?

I can’t see how Americans are going to escape from political violence. They can protect their politicians better but that comes with its own costs. Unfortunately, we may have to consider how we keep this plague south of the border.

And no sooner do I mention Mandy than he is gone: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/11/keir-starmer-sacks-peter-mandelson-over-jeffrey-epstein-revelations

If I were in their shoes I’d have been worried the first day I took to the podium. In truth I’d probably have stayed sitting and passed on the whole project. I think I just want to highlight the admirable risks politicians run, especially in the US. I don’t think we give them enough credit for that. They are brave people.

They’re up already, probably haven’t slept all night. I’d say most of them aren’t out having a good time. As AI looms larger politically for the next generation, in-person meets will be an indispensable oral exam that candidates can’t fake. For a guy as big as Kirk, though, maybe more indoor events with scanning and airport-style pat downs will become the norm?

I know the alleged distance of the shooter from Kirk that I’ve heard - something like 500-600 feet? - is not impressive for skilled marksmen but it must be a sobering matter for any public speaker to consider.

In Newfoundland there’s a genuine reluctance to fly off the handle when arguing politics perhaps because the person you’re talking to is usually a relative or in-law of some sort even if you don’t know it. As a CFA I’m sometimes mistaken for kin but the same courtesy is extended to visibly foreign people as well. A ceiling exists on how wound up you can get on any abstract matter of policy before people start looking at you funny which is a blessing in these fractious times.

It’s a horrible dilemma for politicians. A robust level of security stifles their contact with the public and stops them doing their job properly. Kirk insisted on meeting young people without too much restriction. If a country is to stay truly free they will have to take these daunting risks.

Just shocking. I had assumed he was just injured at first. I see the suspect arrested earlier has been released. Let’s hope they catch the shooter soon. I don’t think they have yet?

Deeply worrying. I’m hoping this is more spillover from a massive drone armada heading to Ukraine than a deliberate attack on Poland. Russia could drag the continent into war. Madness.

The signature looks authentic for a start. The language is consistent with Trump too. I’m happy to wait and see how this plays out. Time will reveal more than any amount of speculation at the moment.

I saw a Republican politician call the authorship of the letter into question. He was then asked whether he would request an investigation into his own allegation and declined to do so which says quite a bit. The letter looks authentic. It’s hard to see how or why somebody would have forged such a document back then when they could easily have been detected. It’s also highly unlikely the estate would have allowed the book to be tampered with more recently. That’s the last thing the lawyers would want.

For the most part, Trump‘s political career has been characterized by capitalizing on enormous good luck late in life. Thus The Apprentice transformed a washed-up bankrupt into America’s favourite big shot who moved with his audience to the Republican Party. One thing he couldn’t change was his previous lifestyle as a louche, amoral womanizer which fit poorly with the values of the Christian MAGA crowd. This is where the luck ran out. Back in the Nineties, people tolerated age-inappropriate heterosexual relationships and borderline criminality in that regard better than they do now. What the birthday book illustrates yet again is that those around Epstein, including Trump, had a clear idea of what he was up to and were OK with it. At this stage the best case scenario for him is that the evidence confirming this is going to accumulate, nothing more damning emerges and Republican voters move on to the next story.

Here’s another politician struggling to survive the Epstein scandal, Peter Mandelson, the UK’s ambassador to the US. On this occasion it’s probably helpful to him that he’s gay and presumably wasn’t involved in Epstein’s core activities. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/10/mandelson-more-very-embarrassing-details-of-epstein-friendship-to-come

I’ll bring a Māori round and you can explain it all to him in person.

I had a choice between the two and opted for this country. One of my better decisions.

They get some of the credit and fully deserve it. Most courses on the history of public health also feature this guy:

Rule two with Trump is never defend him. Rule one? You need to ask? Just talk to the good people at Deutsche Bank.

He’s going to make anybody defending him look like a fool in the end.

After such a damning revelation, it’s hard to believe Trump will pursue his defamation lawsuit against the WSJ through discovery to the bitter end but given the speed at which he is destroying norms down there and bending the rules to his will, never say never with this shyster. The problem for Republicans is that there will a steady drip of revelations about the friendship between Trump and Epstein and others too. It’s going to sap their energy. DeSantis or Haley would have saved them from all this - if they could have won the election of course,

Conservatives are supposed to be realistic but not on this issue. Anyway, I would be very surprised if PP really stood by this if he ever sees power. It’s only meat for the more gullible section of the base. Reform, yes, but complete abolition? He’s not that daft.

Every political party contains diverse opinions and stamping out dissent wouldn’t be a good idea.

London, Ontario? London, UK has many hardships of its own. Getting around it is a pain for starters. I went to the National Gallery in London last year. It was almost as uncomfortably crowded as the multiple tube trains that brought me there, not quite as bad as the Sistine Chapel but not far off. I won’t be going back. Life has become a lot easier in locations like Thunder Bay which is a substantial enough place. The Internet, Amazon deliveries, TV apps and, for the fortunate, remote working have made life less deprived than it used to be. There’s a pleasure to not being hemmed in by crowds or traffic that many people don’t even know they are missing out on. As I say, we don’t even seem to want to talk about where we are all literally heading in this country. How ghastly will Greater Toronto and Vancouver be if they are to be our final collective destination? I see this reticence with young people in particular. They don’t want to articulate where they want to end up, at least with me. Perhaps they aren’t consciously aware of the centripetal forces pulling them inward?