The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - A Misunderstanding Now Could Be Catastrophic

Episode Date: September 27, 2022

Brian Stewart is with us again after a critical week in the war over Ukraine.  Threats and counter threats, especially ones involving nuclear weapons, have many people worried, including Brian. Also, today, how steps per day are important but so is the pace you do those steps.  Plus the amazing weight of ants.  That's right, the weight of ants!

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Ukraine. A misunderstanding could lead to a catastrophe. And hello once again. Welcome to Tuesday here on The Bridge. Brian Stewart is warming up in The Bridge bullpen with his latest thoughts on the situation in Ukraine after last week's comments, which were absolutely on the mark in terms of what was likely to unfold with Vladimir Putin. We're more than interested to hear what he has to say on this day. But also today, this will come up later in the program today,

two things that I think you might find interesting. I know that, you know, for the last two years, some of you have been focused on this issue of steps per day. And it's an interesting discussion and the number has changed back and forth. When we first started talking about it, it was kind of like 4,000 steps a day was the expected marker or the one that you were supposed to aim for. But of late, it's got closer, much closer to 10,000 steps a day. But steps are one thing. Pace is another. And that's what really makes the difference. So we're going to talk about that for a moment later on in today's

program. And also this question. Think about this one. If you were able to weigh all of the ants in the world, stay with me here, really, who makes this stuff up? If you were able to weigh all of the ants, those little insects, in the world, would they weigh more or less than all the birds and mammals combined? Well, some scientists have actually been working on this to try and determine which is the right answer. What do you think is the right answer? Is this a trick question? Maybe. We'll answer it for you later. But let's start with the situation in Ukraine. Because each morning we get up

these days we are hearing more things, more things about how Ukraine is moving on an offensive in certain areas, how the Russians have been with their backs against the wall and now trying to break out after losing much territory. New indications today that the Russians are massing for a new offensive.

All this as a result of the past month or two's stunning decline in the Russians' advance and the Russians' position in Ukraine. And in the last week after Vladimir Putin made his remarks about, I'm not bluffing when I'm talking about nuclear, and I'm going to bring all kinds of new troops up from the system, 300,000, to take on the Ukrainians. Well, those are major developments, all of which were in fact predicted last week at this time by our Brian Stewart. Brian, of course, the former foreign correspondent, former war correspondent, colleague of mine for the last 50 years. Somebody who I obviously not only call his friend, but I'm

extremely proud of his knowledge on all these kinds of subjects when it comes down to military conflict. Brian predicted all this was going to happen a week ago, and sure enough, 24 hours later, it did. All right. Let's get to Brian today because there are important questions to ask about the fallout from this past week and what's happening on the ground now and what could happen as we move forward. And one of those issues is about this keyword, misunderstanding, and how dangerous a misunderstanding at this point could be.

All right, enough from me. Let's start off with the first question to Brian Stewart for this week. Brian that uh your comments last week were were so on spot that within 24 hours it seemed that that Putin was um was reacting in kind to some of the things you said in the in his speech and the things he was saying but as aside from that uh this is why we depend on you to help guide us through all this. Last week when he raised this kind of nuclear threat again, saying I'm not bluffing, a lot of people, a lot of the experts and analysts were saying, yeah, he actually is bluffing. But I've been watching what the Americans have said,

Joe Biden, the Secretary of State have been saying, and they make it sound like they don't think he's bluffing because they're being very detailed in the kind of response that Russia should expect if, in fact, it ever used nuclear weapons. So what's going on here? Well, I think there are two approaches from the american side one is that more than anything else they want to make it very clear to the russians at all levels not just putin but down the kremlin and into the russian military that the americans will take them seriously if they start dropping hints that they might use nuclear weapons nobody's going to sit back and say oh well that's just the russians doing their thing ho-hum they're going to take it very seriously they're on guard all the time anyways so it's nothing particularly new but the worry here is that there'd be a misunderstanding that by sitting back and not reacting too strongly the russians may get the idea we we can really use this blackmail

full vote now uh but the other thing i think is the america domestic consumption as well the american administration does not want to be seen and accused of being seen as weak you know going weak at the knees by the opposition though in this case ironically it is the democrats who've been much firmer with moscow than the republicans in recent years firmer with Moscow than the Republicans in recent years. But I think those are the two things. But I think the Americans would say, and I think not only the Americans, but the Europeans are backing them up on this. We'll say, look, OK, the thing we have to know is that the Russians understand where we stand.

Because the last thing Europe needs is another war by miscalculation we had one in 1914 and it's been a nightmare ever since um so we want to make that clear and i think that's what's really happening and probably it's a good thing to do you don't want to leave a lot of question marks just floating in the air i noticed that the united nations, a Russian deputy foreign minister, gave a talk on the weekend, I believe, and said to the Americans, we want you to cool it. Let's all cool it. Let's not take this rhetoric too far. Well, it was a Russian president who was talking about not fooling around here, nuclear weapons, hinting at but the russians clearly are a little bit uh taken aback by just how strong the the american response has been you know maybe that's a good thing maybe

that's a good thing because we don't want loose words floating around in this situation exactly i mean i remember when two or three years ago when i was working on a documentary on the future of war, a number of the analysts that I talked to in London and Washington would bring this up, this misunderstanding issue, saying the greatest threat that could lead to another world conflict was a misunderstanding, whether it was on Taiwan or whether it was on, you know, on Ukraine. That misunderstanding is the greatest threat. Absolutely. I mean, in the Second World War, Hitler was convinced that Britain and France would not go to war because they hadn't made their warnings that they were going to go to war over Poland clear enough and firm enough and consistent enough uh so he missed he misunderstood

the british and the french then in the first world war very famously 1914 a historian has called it memorably the sleepwalkers he thought that all of the countries involved in world war one basically sleepwalked their way into the war but not listening to each other what other people were saying and not studying their words closely enough and not seeing what was going on and i think it's critical at this point that all the countries and not just in europe and the states but around the world everybody is watching very closely and and is aware of what is being said the other thing that putin mentioned last week that you'd forecast the

day before was this whole issue of uh of bringing troops up um you know signing up new uh recruits bringing those on reserve up upwards of 300 000 and ever since that was mentioned by putin people have been fleeing to airports roads highways getting highways getting out of Russia are clogged. Is this going to work? Well, it's certainly going to be a mess because almost everything Russia does bureaucratically does turn out to be a mess. And in fact, there are stories out of Moscow today saying that how the authorities are are strongly lecturing local authorities for having blown the initial announcement having said things like we're going to close the border they weren't going to close the border why did you say that they called up a one of those who called up

was 68 years old and diabetic was called into the military service and said what do you mean i'm not a i'm not a former soldier lots of people there's a pledge that would be for people with prior military experience lots of people being dragged in have had no experience so it's going to work but in its own fumbly way i mean i think the russians will come up with uh 16 perhaps maybe a hundred thousand000 soldiers given that have had maybe some military experience before, just enough to remember at least 30% of it. The rest will be given very, very brief training, and they will be sent to reinforce the units perhaps already in Russia, sorry, in Ukraine,

while the rest of them are sort of trained into new units to be brought in in the spring, because this is going to be a long business. But I think the first question that everybody's asking, well, look, you can't even supply the army you got in there, which wasn't nearly enough for the job. Your logistics were hopeless. Your morale was bad. Your resupply was terrible. And a lot of the training was clearly inadequate for the task.

And now you're going to take people, give them two weeks of basic and send them into a war they have no intention of winning. They don't want to be anywhere near. I think that's going to be a real mess. But somehow a lot of it will work its way out. It will probably get a late fall and winter of kind of a stabilized front, which Putin desperately needs now. He needs that front to stabilize. He can't take any more losses. But long term, I think it's putting more stress on Russian society.

I mean, the Russian society was prepared to go along with the war as long as they could be apathetic about it and not pay any attention to it, apart from the minority on the right and on the left. And I think it's going to supply, how are you going to feed, clothe, supply 300,000 when you can't even feed, clothe, and supply your army at the front, which was only 190,000? And I think the inefficiencies built into the system through a lot of corruption that runs through the Russian military. A lot of people have gotten out of service by corrupt acts. A lot of people have gotten out of service by corrupt acts. A lot of people have been dragged into service by corrupt acts. It's going to be a real mess. And I think the Russians are going to have to face up to a lot of their messes because they're having to apologize already on day two or three. I see Putin over the weekend fired yet another senior member of his military staff, the deputy defense chief, I think it was.

Yes. He must be running out of guys he can put in there. The heads are rolling pretty rapidly down the corridors of the Kremlin. This guy was the head of logistics. Now, if there's one military honor one had in the whole world, he wouldn't want to have as head of logistics for the Russian invasion because it's been a shambles from day one, seen not only by the outside world, but by Russians themselves.

Russian military analysts are quite open, as are the troops and then pointing to the inefficiencies. So this guy gets bumped off and in his place is put a real hardliner, the guy who was sort of led a Russian siege in Syria and then Mariupol. Very, very tough, ruthless reputation. So presumably he's going to be lopping heads off left, right and center to try and get this into some kind of order but uh it's probably beyond any one man it's probably beyond any one decade to sort out the mess that the russian logistical supply is in because so much of it is based upon inherent corruption running right through the system and lots and lots of supply problems like they're still supplying an army in the front on the railway.

I mean, it's like going back to the American Civil War and the First World War. It's a railway supply. And a lot of that is very efficiently organized. So he's got whoever it is, he's got a very hard task ahead, and I don't think one man's going to sort it out at all. All right. right well let's look on the other side of the fence now the ukrainian side because while everything looks

good all of the picture you've just painted over the last 10 minutes is pretty brutal on the russian side with the possible you know the possible outcome at the for the next few months being a stalemate um but for the ukrainians even they have the upper hand or certainly seem to have it at the moment on a lot of different fronts um not on the southern front in the war but in terms of morale and and all that uh what do they what must they do right now yes i think it's a good to turn to this because the world is full of its applause deserve an applause i should say for the for the Ukrainian army that has really performed quite spectacularly well. But the fact of the matter is we're facing when Putin brought in mobilization of conscripts and also declared

that he was basically Russia was seizing those four regions and adding them to Russia. Basically, that was the burning of the boats. That was Putin doubling down on his debt. It shows that he is prepared to pay any price, do anything to avoid even a minor loss in this war so far. And what he's done is to present a picture that Ukraine could never agree to. It could never agree to give up four regions. That's beyond anything even the weakest allies would ever ask of Ukraine. So we're facing a long war.

I mean, the British military expert, Michael Clark, who's very, very good on these things, says basically we're facing the first industrial scale war in several generations. We are seeing a war now which will run at least to spring, probably, maybe for years. And what Ukraine has to do and is just doing really now

is to get its head around the fact, OK, we can go on winning, but how do we maintain this? Sustainability is the number one conversation the West has to have. There's one word that the Ukrainians and the West should be pounding the table on every day is how do we sustain this effort? Two things. First of all, on the manpower front, Ukraine can bring up a lot of troops and it's going to have to. I mean, it's a 44 million strong country it could put a million people in arms if necessary could put more than that but it has to

have the training and it needs much more training than it's getting now uh western countries i think should be inviting in more and more ukrainian troops to their countryside the way the way the british are doing with can help, I should add, to train large numbers, 10,000 every few months to go back and train their own troops. So we need to have an army that's going to be equipped to fight for many, many months, in fact, possibly years, so it can rotate the troops. The problem Ukraine is facing now, similar somewhat to the Russian one, are the casualties are just horrific.

I don't think we really appreciate just how bloody this war has been. Yes, we all know the Russians have lost ferocious numbers, incredible numbers, but the Ukrainians too, Peter, have lost terrible amounts of manpower in the field. It's been said recently that Ukraine is losing up to 50 soldiers a day killed in the long front that faces the Russians. 50 soldiers a day. That means that every four days, Ukraine loses more men thanada lost in a dozen years in afghanistan uh those are the kind

of losses that this first war saw those terrible trench battles so what's got to do is get um better armaments so it's artillery and precision weapons can take out russian artillery and and stop the firing coming in it's got to be able to rotate units out of the front lines so they're not stuck there for three or four months on end. If there's one way to crumble any national army, it's to leave troops too long in the front lines. Famously, in the First World War, the French army mutinied only after its units weren't being rotated back for leave fast enough.

And that caused a mutiny in the French army. The Ukrainian army is nowhere near a mutiny, but it certainly has areas where morale is very low, where soldiers are saying we must get some break from this because we've been in the front lines now for three, four, five, six weeks. And that's more than you can ask any man or woman under this steady pounding of this artillery in the rocket fire and then we have to have i say we i think in the west generally

has to have again a industrialization of this war i mean western countries now that are supplying arms to ukraine are themselves starting to run short of ammunition and shells. The British have noticed that they're running short of shells as they send more and more into Ukraine. That means across the EU and in Britain and North America, I think more military industrial production is going to have to start up with Ukraine in mind. More weapons have to be sent.

More trainers will have to go to areas around Ukraine to train them. But it's going to be a long-term, very expensive, horrifying war unless there's a sudden breakout, which should break through in peace that nobody at the moment seems to be able to see or even spot. You know, our friend uh when i say that because you and i covered him for a long time bob ray the the uh who's now currently canada's ambassador of the united nations i heard him saying the other day i think it was on saturday

and this addresses your issue of how you know so many of these countries that are supporting ukraine is kind of caught in a bit of a trap. One, they are giving everything they can, or at least they say they are, and at the same time, they may well be running out of munitions themselves. But I heard Bob Ray saying this is the time, this is the moment where Canada has to go and unlock all those doors open all the armories they've got to see everything that they've got and they've got to give to ukraine everything they now can afford to give nothing in no one area in particular give them everything we've got

that we don't need and some of that well some of what we have in storage is you know second world war stuff but uh but that was what he it was like an open appeal it seemed more directed at his own government than anybody else but now's the time as one expects from bob ray those are very wise words and i think he's absolutely bang on and And I think a number of diplomats and military types around the West are giving the same message to their government. The time for giving a little bit here, a little bit there, bits and pieces the way the Germans have been doing, and then many others is over. Because this is a war that is big, it's industrial. It's going to last a long time. And I think there's a lot of things that Canada could do. Remember, everything's useful.

Winter clothing, enormously important for the winter coming up. Ukraine has a very harsh winter. How to survive in mud conditions, tentage, all sorts of rations are terribly important. Ukraine can't produce all of these themselves, obviously, in the time available. conditions, tentage, all sorts of rations are terribly important. Ukraine can't produce all of these themselves, obviously, in the time available. As you say, as Bob said, go through the warehouses. I'm sure you're going to find surprising stacks of stuff that are kept there for years on end. But believe it or not, in the 70s, I did a survey of Canadian warehouse holdings and found out we had torpedoes, torpedoes, 50,000 torpedoes.

No submarines. Or no working submarines. Fired in seven wars, you know. So there's lots of things that are there. And for heaven's sakes, get them moving. Just seeing them come in is enormously important for Ukrainian morale. And also, if those who are seeking really want a peace somehow agreement out of this, and everybody wants peace, of course, but we want one that is just and lasting, above all lasting,

it may even encourage peace. If Russia starts seeing the world really respond in this way, it will know that, you know, it's double down on the debt still isn't working. Despite everything, Europe, which Russia thought it would lose its nerve over this winter because of lack of fuel, Europe has lost its nerve. Its reserves of fuel or gas't lost its nerve its resort reserves of fuel is that our gas is actually going up um is soon the sooner russia sees the west is united on this and not going to give way is the sooner it's going to look around the rooms of the kremlin and say guys i think we're going nowhere on this we don't want another three or four years of this.

Let's, for heaven's sakes, get a deal somehow. And that might start the talks again. Don't expect the Ukrainians to cave because they have 20% of their country being held hostage. It's as if Canada had the whole Maritimes taken up and held hostage. And then people say, well, why don't you negotiate and leave it at that? It's not going to happen. So Russia has to see this resolved, this sustainability vow upheld in the West. And I think that's going to influence Putin probably more than anything. Last point.

You mentioned a word a couple of minutes ago that I'm going to mention again here. Because who was the great military strategist, the one who's considered the greatest of all, Klausowitz? What was his name? Klausowitz. Klausowitz. Klausowitz.

Yes, Klausowitz. Klausowitz and Napoleon agreed on this, that if there's one word that has resulted in the loss of conflicts and wars past, that word would be mud. Yeah, yeah. And that's what we're, you know, we're looking at the potential of mud being a big factor as we head into the winter. The famous soil of Ukraine, one'm the richest soil on earth but in winter in rainy weather it turns into just a an amazing

mud bath i i was in it a couple times and i was in a mud bath on the russian border too and it just sucks down all kind of vehicles that means you can only advance on the roads uh you know and the roads of course are now pinpointed by drones overhead and satellites the rest of it is very hard to advance down roads or they'll be knocked out by uh opposing fire so that tends to leave armies stuck in the mud literally i mean that's basically what they are stuck in the mud, literally. I mean, that's basically what they are, stuck in the mud. It's a good time to get troops out, maybe send them on leave and stuff like that. But the winter, the ground starts to firm up and then maneuver comes in. It becomes possible again.

And then you're into next spring, you know. And so it may be a long stalemate in the mud, stuck in the mud. Casualties will still be high. A lot of people are still going to get killed by rocket fire and artillery fire and the rest of it. But you're not going to see the kind of lightning advances you did see in the northern front. It's interesting because in some ways, the mud worked against the Russiansussians at the beginning of the war yeah it could work against the ukrainians at this stage in the war because it's the ukrainians are trying to be on the move right they know they've got very limited time now to to make moves before the mud really becomes master of the battlefield so to speak uh. Maybe weeks at the most, two or three weeks.

But they have to balance that against, you know, the casualties they're going to take. If they attack in the south, where the Russians are most dug in, those casualties are going to be extremely high. And just how much the gains can be made is open to debate. I'm sure the Ukrainians are sitting down with generals from around the West, the Pentagon and the rest,

looking at satellite imagery and maps and trying to figure out what can we do? There's one or two cities they might be able to pull off. There should be big headline stuff like Lehman up in the North. They seem to be able to surround that. That'll be a big headline story, but really the big advances will probably come to an end. Both armies will will face complete exhaustion anyways by that stage and we'll need a rest period okay we're gonna

leave it at that brian and uh i could talk to you all week on some of this stuff because your sense of history and your sense of what's happening now, married together, and we learn so much from it. So thank you once again, and we'll talk to you next Tuesday. My pleasure, Peter. Thanks. Brian Stewart, once again, as he always is on Tuesdays, as long as this conflict goes on and stays in the headlines, Brian will be with us to try and explain what's really going on at the present and what could be going on in the days and weeks ahead.

Karl von Clausewitz, that was the name that I was searching for. It kind of got half right. And who was Karl von Clausewitz? Well, he's regarded, as we both said, as one of the great military theorists that the world's

ever seen. And his books still, hundreds of years later, are looked upon as, you know, as

the defining moment in trying to analyze military tactics and maneuvers. He was, I looked this up to share with you, if you didn't already know, and I know a lot of you know this,

and we're saying, come on, Mansbridge, it's Clausewitz. Clausewitz was a professional combat soldier who was involved in numerous military campaigns, but he is famous primarily as a military theorist interested in the examination of war, utilizing the campaigns of Frederick the Great and Napoleon as frames of reference for his work. All right,

there you go. A little history, little current affairs right here there you go. A little history, a little current affairs, right here on the bridge. We're going to be back in a moment with those two issues I talked about earlier. They're both interesting, and at least one of them is important. We'll be right back after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Tuesday edition,

right here on Sirius XM, channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. And whichever method you've chosen, we're glad you're with us. All right. Before we go today, there are two end bits, as we call them here at The Bridge, that we want to share with you. Since the beginning of the pandemic, March 2020,

we have often talked to you about steps. I can remember the first time we talked about, you know, you got to do 4,000 steps a day, do them in your backyard, do them up and down your stairs, do them wherever you can, but do them because they're good for you. And as time moved on through the pandemic, there were different theories as to how many steps you should do every day, whether it is 4,000 or maybe it should be 6,000 or maybe it's 8,000, maybe it's 10,000. My theory has always been, no matter

how many you do, it's good for you. You should do at least 4,000. If you can do as many as 10, well, good for you. Scientists seem to have proven that anything over 9,800 steps a day probably doesn't make a lot of difference. But somewhere in that 4,000 to 10,000 block is a good place to be. Now, we've always talked about steps in terms of the number of steps. We've never talked about pace. Pace that you do

in those steps. And that my friends is what this story is about because new scientific studies have suggested the important thing here is not the number of steps but the pace at which you do those steps. In a new study that's been published and reviewed by the JAMA Inter Medicine and JAMA Neurology, both of which are acknowledged worldwide as important data points. And it's been commented on favorably by sports physicians

at places like Stanford University. Anyway, the new study, which looks at activity tracker data, in other words, you know all those things you can wear from a watch to a bell clip to you name it, that track your data. So this new study looked at the data from 78,500 people walking at a brisk pace for about 30 minutes a day. And if you do that, the study concludes that it led to a reduced risk of heart disease, cancer, dementia, and death, compared with walking a similar number of steps, but at a slower pace.

All steps help, but the brisker the pace, the better the help, right? So let me read a couple more things from this. Researchers found that every 2,000 additional steps a day lowered the risk of premature death, heart disease, and cancer by about 10%, up to 10,000 steps a day. That's similar to a study we mentioned, I think, last week or the week before. When it came to developing dementia, 9,800 steps per day was associated with a 50% reduced risk,

with a risk reduction of 25%, starting at about 3,800 steps a day. So that's the point. No matter how many steps a day you do, it's good. Obviously, the more you do, the better it is for you. So what's brisk? What's a brisk pace? When the researchers looked at the step rate per minute, of the highest 30 minutes of activity a day,

they found that participants whose average highest pace was a brisk walk, and a brisk walk, they conclude, is between 80 and 100 steps per minute. It's easy to check on that in terms of what you're doing. 80 to 100, that's considered brisk. They had better health outcomes compared with those who walked a similar amount each day, but at a slower pace. Brisk walkers had a 35% lower risk of dying, a 25% lower chance of developing heart disease or cancer, and a 30% lower risk of developing dementia compared with those whose average pace was slower. This is important.

A brisk pace for one person may not be a brisk pace for another, but what matters is the relative effort. At a light exercise intensity, a person can sing a song. I love this comparison. Listen to this. At a light exercise intensity, a person can sing a song while they're doing the light intensity workout. While at a moderate intensity, a person can easily carry a conversation but would struggle a bit to sing. At higher intensities, conversation becomes difficult, if not impossible.

Well, I'll tell you one thing. Even at a light intensity I couldn't sing a song because I can't sing, but you get the point. The key is to walk at an intensity that is manageable but also slightly pushes the boundaries of what is a comfortable pace so when you're comfortable doing your steps push it a little push it a little stronger even if you just push for 30 seconds or 60 seconds you can do these things at intervals you know it doesn't have to be like, I've got to go out there and walk briskly for half an hour. You could do a half hour walk and do, you know, five minutes brisk, five minutes normal, five minutes brisk, five minutes normal. You know, you understand a lot. I don't need to explain that

to you. But some of that's interesting, especially the singing conversational part. Right? Okay, here's the last part for today, the last end bit for today. A big tease was on in the headlines today on that one, or this one. So what we're doing here is we're weighing all the ants that are crawling around Earth. And we're weighing all the birds and mammals on Earth. And we're holding these two things up, if we could, and determining which weighs more. Well, you know I wouldn't have asked the question if the answer was obvious.

So maybe the answer is obvious because I asked the question. You're right. The weight of all those insects weighs more than all the birds and mammals on Earth. In fact, the weight is also equal to about one-fifth of the total weight of humans. Scientists say that the results just published last week in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences are conservative. Ants are present in nearly all ecosystems around the planet,

thanks to their extremely social nature. At the moment, there are more than 15,700 named species and subspecies, but there are many others not yet named. They've even estimated, I don't know who went out on this count, but they've even estimated the number of ants in the world. They counted ants through traps and leaf samples, and they've extrapolated their results into a worldwide total. I don't even know what this number is.

It's gazillions. It's 20 followed by 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 zeros. That's how many ants are said to be traveling different parts of our world today. And scientists say that's between 2 and 20 times higher than prior estimates. So they wanted to work out a total weight of all the ants. They concluded an estimated biomass of about 12 million tons of carbon. But carbon only makes up about half the dry weight of an ant, meaning that the total mass is likely even higher. Researchers found ants are not evenly distributed around the planet. Rather, they peak in the

tropics, highlighting the importance of those regions as the climate changes. They were also abundant in both forests and arid regions. All of these ants, of course, serve a crucial role in our ecosystems. The insects aerate the soil, spread seeds, break down organic material, and create habitats for other animals. They're also an important part of the food chain, scientists note, and can be more effective than pesticides for farmers. Well, there's something you know now

that your friends who haven't heard the bridge yet today don't know. All the ants in the world weigh more than all the birds and mammals combined. 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 20 followed by 15 zeros.

There's actually a name for that. But I can't find it. However, there you go. But I can't find it However There you go Who knew right Who knew Those ants Next time you look at an ant on the ground

Keep that in mind Alright that's it for this day Tomorrow Wednesday it is Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. Thursday is your turn, your mail, your thoughts. Send it in. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. And please, if you're going to send a letter,

please include where you're writing from. The Random Ranter will be back on Thursday as well. And the early indications are the rant this week is going to be something that's going to make some of our listeners, well, unhappy is not the right word, but challenging to the theory behind the ranter. We'll see what our just-a-guy ranter has to say this week. And Friday, of course, is Good Talk with Chantel Hébert and Bruce Anderson. The lineup is impressive. It's the bridge.

We're so glad you're with us. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.