Blackcap Blog

Published at 18:33 on 30 September 2026

The story is that passengers and crew foiled an attempt by a rogue copilot to crash the aircraft, by breaking into the cockpit, subduing the copilot, and resuming control of the plane (one of the passengers being a pilot). Netanyahu has already proclaimed it a foiled terrorist attack amid celebrations at Ben-Gurion Airport.

Some things about this story just seem strange to me right off the bat. Specifically, two big things.

Breaking into the Cockpit

Simply put, this should not have been possible. After the 9/11 attacks, new standards for hardened cockpit doors were developed. There has now been a quarter century in which to fully implement those standards. Said standards should have, perversely, acted to make an incident like this, a security breach from inside the cockpit itself, harder to foil. Yet somehow, they did not. Why? Was the door not properly locked (if so, why)? Was the door defective (if so, why was the plane allowed to fly)? Did the pilot unlock it as part of the struggle for control (the stories I have seen do not mention this)? Did some passengers have tools with which to force the doors (if so, why were they allowed to board with such tools)? And so on.

Resuming Control of the Plane

It was incredibly convenient that there was a pilot qualified to fly a passenger jet flying as a passenger on that flight. Maybe there is nothing amiss here. Pilots book seats on passenger jets all the time. In fact, they are more likely to do so than normal people, because as airline employees they are typically entitled to fly for free or at a significant discount. But again, it strikes me as, shall we say, curiously convenient.

Remember Who Is Celebrating

Namely, the Netanyahu regime, which is best described as a rogue regime. Because it is: it flouts international law, is committing genocide and ethnic cleansing, and is destabilizing its region of the world by launching wars of choice against other countries.

It would be totally in character for such a regime to stage a false-flag attack (complete with a “miracle” outcome to celebrate) for political purposes. I am not saying that is what happened, mind you, only that it might be, and this needs to be understood and investigated as a possible motive. If it is, and it is ruled out, fine. End speculation.

But so far this final aspect is missing from most coverage of the incident. It is if recent Israeli history is being swept into a memory hole.

Going Forward

Any investigation has to answer the above questions, and must not tiptoe around the false-flag possibility. The more it does that, the more believable it will be, and vice versa.

Update

This is probably the best coverage I have seen so far. It interviews a pilot who mentions that in addition to there being a way for the cockpit to be unlocked from the inside, there is a way to do it from the outside, via a code that the crew know. (And before you say it: Yes, he is Israeli, but he keeps politics out of it and sticks to the facts. He even mentions that it might not be terrorism; pilots have committed suicide/mass murder by deliberately crashing passenger planes at least twice already.)

In fact, it makes the current story all the more suspect. We’re being told that a plumber grabbed the controls and brought the plane under control before handing control to one of the off-duty pilots riding as a passenger. The pilot mentions that the sort of supersonic dive the plane was in would be very difficult to escape with the plane intact.

Published at 09:01 on 18 September 2026

Nobody knows what that means. There is currently no such thing as “associate membership.” There is nothing in the E.U. charter or any other written rules or regulations about this membership category. As things stand, you are either a member or you are a nonmember.

What it means would have to be decided. This is pretty much inescapable given the above.

It will take significant time to decide. The E.U. already has 27 members, and it would take a buy-in of most or all of them to agree to a second, more loosely-associated, membership category. Once such a category exists, other countries (possibly Turkey, which has been trying to join the E.U. for over a decade) can be expected to show interest in it. Other existing full members might show interest in the new category as a sort of “soft Brexit” option. Both are likely to create awkward situations. This is certain to become obvious early in the process of attempting to create such a category and cause the attempt to get bogged down in negotiations.

There will be time-consuming debate and negotiation inside Canada as well. E.U. membership typically means giving up a significant amount of control over things which are traditionally considered a key part of national sovereignty. This is often controversial. It was controversial enough inside one E.U. member state that said state decided to drop out of the E.U. and return to going it alone.

There is some precedent here. There are already a number of countries that use the Euro as their currency without being E.U. members (and vice versa), and some non-E.U. members are part of the visa-free Schengen area as well (and vice versa). It is already not a one-size-fits-all proposition to have tighter links (up to and including membership) to the E.U.

Whatever they are called, tighter links between Canada and the E.U. are coming. There is a great deal of alarm inside both Canada and Europe over the current trajectory the U.S.A. is on, and strong support within both Canada and Europe for closer relations between the two.

Ultimately, it is just a name. And, given some of the strong emotions any sort of so-called “membership” status is likely to stir up, and how other countries have links to the E.U. that fall short of self-proclaimed “membership,” it seems likely that the m-word will not be used to denote whatever Canada ends up with. (As a further plus, this would allow tighter relations to evolve incrementally and gradually.) On the other hand, perhaps I am wrong here; adopting the term will be useful simply to underscore to the USA and the rest of the world how seriously Canada and Europe take this realignment. Words serve to communicate feelings and meanings, after all.

My money is on gradualism. If it comes, adoption of the new terminology is most likely after the fact, i.e. to denote a mostly pre-existing status quo after a period of gradual tightening of relations.

Published at 21:17 on 2 September 2026

There is a lot of chatter about how we are in for a drought next year because we are in for an El Niño winter this year.

This is not necessarily so. In fact, it is not very likely in my view.

The strong correlation between El Niño and winter in this climate is with temperature, not precipitation: El Niño winters tend to be milder than average. So it is safe to bet that we are in for a milder than normal winter.

The correlation between El Niño and winter precipitation in this climate is not nearly so strong. Yes, our worst drought winters tend to be El Niño winters. No disagreement there. But that is the reverse of the correlation of interest: the correlation between A and B is not necessarily identical to the correlation between B and A.

In particular, the strongest El Niño events tend to be correlated with mild, wet winters in this region, not mild, dry ones. And the current El Niño is forecast to be exceptionally strong. Those drought winters? They tend to be correlated with normal to weak El Niño events, not the strongest ones.

Don’t take my word for it, here are the NOAA National Climate Data Center maps of temperature and precipitation anomalies of moderate-to-strong El Niño winters:

Source here.

It is likely that these milder than average conditions will result in higher than average snow levels, and thus a subpar ski season and a subpar snowpack in general. But that is a different thing from drought-level subpar snowpack. Other strong El Niño winters have generally not been drought winters, therefore I do not expect the coming winter to be one.

Finally, this does not mean no cold, snowy spells this winter.

First, the correlation between El Niño and winter conditions tends to be strongest in the latter part of the winter, after approximately New Year’s Day. It is not unusual for an El Niño winter to start with some early cold snaps.

Second, the correlation is between El Niño and milder average temperatures. It is entirely possible for there to be outlier events contrary to the general trend that determines an average; an overall warmer-than-average season can easily still feature a brief cold, snowy spell or two.

Third, our winters usually feature at least one cold, snowy spell in the lowlands. Snow-free, or nearly snow-free, winters like the past one are decidedly unusual. Even our mild winters usually feature at least some lowland snow.

So, to sum it up: Expect a milder-than-normal winter, but also expect some lowland snow. Do not expect a good ski season, but also do not expect a drought winter.

Published at 10:38 on 31 August 2026

My last post on this subject was titled “So It’s a Trade War… for Now;” I included those last two words for a reason. Trump is an agent of chaos and one of the attributes of the chaos he creates is instability and rapid change.

There is right now a lot of obsessing in Canadian media of Canada being in it for the long haul. In one sense, that is probably correct; the old world doesn’t exist any more. But the rhetoric tends to be simplistic and assume that means the USA and Canada will never ink another trade deal, at least not anytime soon.

On that I disagree, and I happen to land with California governor and likely primary presidential candidate Gavin Newsom. It is indeed highly likely Trump will TACO and negotiations will restart. Heck, for all we know negotiations may currently be going on right now, via back channels and out of the limelight.

Not only would it be absolutely like Trump for this sort of course change to happen, trade relations are like a large ship: it is simply not possible to nimbly execute a major course change. The USA and Canada are, like it or not, basically stuck trading with each other for the foreseeable future.

Trump will, of course, paint it as anything but a TACO. He will strut around and boast how it is the greatest and best trade agreement ever, and it was so all as a result of his genius. All the sturm und drang was just his mastery of four-dimensional political chess that you, as a mere common human being, are unable to perceive.

Carney will, of course, bite his tongue go along with it, because he cannot stop Trump being Trump, and (all other things being equal) a trade deal with the USA beats no deal with the USA.

In the long run, however, don’t expect the deal to last super-long. It will last for a while, then the USA will reveal that it was signed in pencil all along. Then there will be another trade war until another deal is hashed out. Rinse, lather, repeat. Again, the old pre-Trump world doesn’t exist any more.

As this process goes on, Canada should focus on gradually (it will have to be gradual, see above) steering the ship of trade policy in particular and policy in general to a different course.

Critical on the above is Canada getting serious about national defence. History has shown that when a more powerful nation starts making persistent noise about annexing a less-powerful neighbour, it is something best taken very seriously. Things like this need to be actualized, and need to be merely a start. It needs to be demonstrated, via the creation of undeniable facts on the ground, that any invasion of Canada will likely be difficult, prolonged, unpleasant, and bloody.

As for military war, so for trade war. Going forward, USA is going to be more of a bully than ever, and the best way to deal with a bully is to show strength and resolve. (Whatever trade deal Carney cuts with Trump, it will almost certainly be significantly better than if he had just caved and made the concessions Trump wanted.)

We are at one of those times in history where the best way to ensure peace is to prepare for war (trade and otherwise).

Published at 20:00 on 25 August 2026

These are my answers to the questions asked in this video.

Do you own a car?

Yes, a small pickup truck (19 year old Toyota Tacoma).

Why a car?

I like exploring wild places and there is not much transit service to the backwoods. I seldom use my vehicle for in-city trips (basically, only when transporting large, awkward items).

Rentals? Car share?

Used to, before I bought the truck. They can be a good option.

Is car-free living a sacrifice?

Mostly not. It saves a significant amount of money! And urban driving is often stressful and unpleasant. I lived without a personal motor vehicle for about 10 years. What made me return to car ownership was the desire to spend more time camping in the woods.

Cycling?

Yes. It is my default means of getting around. Has been for most of my life, since I was a child.

Transit?

Yes. Typically when the streets are icy and treacherous (which doesn’t happen often in Vancouver, but occasionally does). Or when the trip is unusually long or unusually late at night.

Kids?

Don’t have ’em. As a kid, we were in a suburban car-centric family, but once one car was in the shop and Dad had driven the other car to work and Mom decided to take us into Chicago for the day. Commuter rail to city buses, worked just fine. And this was in the 1970s, during the peak of the urban decay era.

Can you be a good urbanist and own a car?

Yes, I think so. Mostly giving up my interest in the outdoors would be, as Reece put it, living a less fulfilled life because of ideology.

Catalyzing experiences?

When I was about six years old, my family took a day trip into Chicago on a weekday (it must have been one of those teacher-training days when there is no school). On the return trip to the suburb we lived in, we got caught in traffic. I thought something was seriously wrong, but my parents explained that this was a normal thing called “rush hour” and most of the people I saw in the cars around me drove in traffic like this twice a day. It was at that point that I decided I wanted to have as little to do with car dependency as possible.

Why the pushback?

Most people grow up in car-dependent households and most people do not question the norms of the culture they grew up in. Plus North Americans are heavily propagandized that cars equal freedom. A logical examination of the facts often concludes the opposite, but again, most people do not question the norms of the culture they grow up in.

Published at 09:31 on 25 August 2026

I think the best way to think of the guy is as the Rush Limbaugh of the left. Or perhaps the Joe Rogan of the left. Both things that many Democrats have wished for, for many years. And now that they have it, they are complaining.

Of course he says things that sometimes don’t play well in Peoria. He’s an entertainer, out to entertain his audience. He’s not a politician, out to win office. And yes, he’s an entertainer, not a serious political analyst. Just like Limbaugh and Rogan.

He spends a huge chunk of most days, on average about seven hours, streaming on Twitch. He doesn’t have a script; it’s just one long stream-of-consciousness rant. So of course sometimes some things come out of his mouth that he probably shouldn’t have said. The only surprise is that it doesn’t happen even more often.

So far as the quote that is causing all the recent brouhaha, here it is:

If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone’s going to come around and take action, not against the State of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.

I don’t know how people don’t recognize how dangerous this predicament is, how dangerous this is for Jews.

You’re running around basically tying your entire identity to a country that inevitably will be seen as Jewish Isis, and you’re saying, as Jews, this is all we care about. You’re making antisemitism worse.

Not, overall, an explicit call for violence against Jews. Sure, if you parse it out and think about it, it does carry the at least the whiff of an assertion that if Jews stand by Israel, they deserve what is coming to them. But, critically, it stops short of explicitly saying that.

And yes, there is a bad history behind such insinuations. Hitler once said:

If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!

Still, if you leave a bundle of $100 bills on the dash of an unlocked car parked in a questionable neighbourhood, and come back some hours later to find it missing, saying that it was only to be expected that your money vanished is not the same thing as saying that you deserved it and the thief did nothing wrong.

This is, in other words, consistent with my thesis above that he is an entertainer who streams for a huge chunk of his waking hours and who sometimes (and inevitably) lets loose something that looks bad out of rhetorical context, and this case bad in historical context. Not so consistent with the one that he’s a left-wing extremist slavering for the blood of his adversaries, a latter-day Pol Pot or Mao Zedong.

Which is not to say that Abdul El-Sayed is wrong for distancing himself from Piker. The two are in entirely different businesses. Piker only has to sustain a loyal audience, and audiences need not represent the population as a whole. El-Sayed has to appeal to a swing state electorate, and, as Ronald Reagan (whatever you or I think of his politics, a highly successful politician) once observed: “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.” Publicly distancing himself, is, in other words, probably the optimal course of action for El-Sayed.

Published at 13:48 on 23 August 2026

Quebec nationalism has historically been identical to Quebec separatism, the quest for Quebec to become a fully separate and sovereign nation. This seems to be changing, most likely into some set of guarantees and protections for Quebec to exist within Canada as a distinct society.

On the latter point, as much as there has been controversy attached to that phrase, any honest assessment of the situation has to conclude that Quebec is already a distinct society, with its own unique majority language, legal traditions, religious proclivities, and history. It’s mostly arguing over how (and how much) to acknowledge this.

But I digress; back to the changing face of Quebec nationalism. The Parti Québécois has already announced that, if it wins the coming provincial elections, the new PQ government will not hold a sovereignty referendum, at least not so long as Donald Trump remains president of the USA.

It is not hard to understand why. As unpleasant as it is for Canada to have to confront Trump, it would be even worse for Quebec to have to do so alone. A united Canada is larger, more powerful, and more likely to prevail. A bigoted fascist government will have even less respect for Quebec than it does for English-speaking Canada (at least English-speaking Canada shares a common language and legal heritage).

It’s not just hypothetical, either. One of the reasons Carney walked away from the trade deal is that the Trump regime was insisting that Canada abandon its commitment to bilingualism and protections for the French language.

Published at 15:58 on 22 August 2026

So far as I can determine, these are the main rules of Democratic Party primary politics, according to that party’s ruling gerontocracy:

1. If a left candidate runs as an independent or in a third party, the left is at fault for splitting the electorate in the general.
2. If a left candidate runs within the Democratic Party via the primary process, the left is at fault for attempting a hostile takeover of the Democratic Party.
3. If a centrist candidate prevails in the primary but fails because of a lack of support from the left in the general, the left is at fault for failing to support the party’s candidate.
4. If a leftist candidate prevails in the primary but fails because of a lack of support from the centre in the general, the left is at fault for fielding a candidate with insufficient centrist appeal.

Published at 21:51 on 21 August 2026

This is Trump we are talking about negotiating with, so none of this is a surprise. And it also won’t be a surprise if, in a week or three, Trump goes into TACO mode, suddenly becomes a lot more reasonable, and a deal gets made after all.

Also, if Trump is being unreasonable (and I have no reason to doubt Carney’s assertion that he was), the best way to deal with it is the best way to deal with any bully: by showing strength. Whatever the short-run costs of that strategy will be, they will pale in comparison to the long-term costs of failing to show strength.

Published at 22:00 on 8 August 2026

Can’t really call it a “road trip” because a lot of ferry segments were involved. Per which, I learned about this site, which I found extremely useful when all sailings of interest were fully booked. I simply entered the list of timings and routes which were suitable, and within five minutes got texted that someone had cancelled their reservation on one, meaning it was now up for grabs.

I also managed to get in a full tour of one of the many limestone caves on Vancouver Island. This is something I have been wanting to do ever since learning some years ago that there were limestone caves on the Island. Riverbend Cave is not a particularly large cave, nor are its formations world-class, but what I found noteworthy was the great variety of them (this one cave contains most of the classic formation types, including some rare ones like boxwork and unusual ones like helictites). Plus it is a wild cave (no lighting or tourist trails), so you get a more authentic caving experience. There is sadly, as is often the case, some vandalism in the parts of the cave closest to the mouth, but after the first serious crawlway, everything is mostly intact, including a fair number of very nice soda straws. Finally, the limestone itself the cave is formed in is unusually attractive, with the appearance of a veined marble in many places.