The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Was it a joke? A troll?  Or the truth?  Donald Trump's Canada Obsession.

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

He must love baiting Canada and Trudeau. Trump was at it again in a with a new post.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Tuesday. Donald Trump's Canada obsession. Is he joking? Is it a troll? Or is And hello there, welcome to Tuesdays. Peter Mansbridge here, this is The Bridge. And as mentioned yesterday, today's going to be kind of a collection of stuff. In some ways, an in-bit episode. Lots of, you know, stacks of stories over the last couple of months that I've never gotten to. You know, they're, what would you say, they're mildly interesting, at least.

To some, they're probably more than mildly interesting. We're going to start with something, though, that should probably be interesting to everybody. You know, Trump was at it again last night, the president-elect of the United States. Still, what, five or six weeks to go before he's inaugurated in Washington. But that doesn't stop him. He's been traveling the world. He's been making all kinds of appointments, or appointments still to be vetted and approved by the U.S. Senate. But he loves to, you know, hit social media in the middle of the night. His social media, Truth Social. But then he gets picked up, you know, often.

And he was at it again last night. He has this thing about Canada, right? You heard that in the meeting, the Mar-a-Lago dinner with Justin Trudeau 10 days ago, he talked about Canada as the 51st state, but it was a joke. Of course it was a joke. I don't know. I've never bought the joke line. You know, I guess there's three options here. They could be joking, could be trolling just to get people, you know I guess there's three options here they could be joking could be trolling just to get

people you know excited and mad or whatever or he could actually be serious I mean let's face it there are Americans who for years have looked fondly at Canada, hey, they love Canadians, they love Canada, but boy, would they like to have it. And why not? You know, while the debate here rages about whether we're broken or not, the fact of the matter is, there's a lot going for this place. Right? And there is.

We've got all the water. We've got all the water. We've got lots of water. We've got oil and gas and we've got minerals in the ground. You know, gold, silver, uranium. You know, you name it,

we got it. And in some cases, they don't got it. But one way of getting it would be the 51st state or the 51st and the 52nd state because Americans recognize that there's a difference in our country. We're a great country of diversity, and that diversity spreads to political thought.

And they like to look at it as saying, well, you know, the West is conservative or Republican, and the East is more liberal or democratic. So here was Trump's post last night at midnight. Filed this, I guess it was just after midnight, 12. What's that say, 12.06 a.m.? It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the great state of Canada.

I look forward to seeing the governor again soon so that we may continue our in-depth talks on tariffs and trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all. DJT Could be a troll. I don't know. D.J.T. Could be a troll. I don't know. I said last week I thought it was serious. I said in the buzz on the weekend I thought it was serious.

I still think it's serious. Remember, this is the guy who tried to get Greenland the last time he was president. Okay. Moving on. I'll leave that one with you. I'm sure you'll think about that. Maybe we'll talk about it again this week. Good talk with Chantel and Bruce on Friday.

We'll see. I've been thinking a lot about coffee lately. You know, listen, I'm 76 years old. I've been a coffee drinker since, I don't know, my teens. But suddenly, in the last, I don't know, six months, I've really, I haven't quit coffee, but it is no longer a daily part of my routine. And this just sort of happened.

I didn't sort of think it through saying, I'm going to stop drinking coffee. I just stopped drinking coffee. It was something about the taste. I've been a decaf coffee drinker for 20 years, maybe even 30 years. My doctor said, you really should go to decaf. I think the main reason was I have atrial fibrillation. And he saw a connection for me. Everybody's different on this. He saw a connection for me on decaf coffee and atrial fib. So I switched to decaf, and the atrial fib didn't disappear.

It doesn't disappear, but it was much less noticeable. So I've tried all kinds of different decaf for the taste strangely enough the one that I find the easiest to deal with is for me personally is Timmy's Tim Horton's decaf

medium decaf double milk, please. That's me at the window. Anyway, I'm off it now. I'm basically, you know, I might have coffee once a week. And I'm not quite sure why this has happened, but it's happened. I don't feel any different as a result of it, but I don't know. Maybe it's better for me. Maybe it's not.

But as a result, I picked up this piece in the Telegraph the other day, the British newspaper, the Telegraph. And the headline is, what happens to your body when you take a sip of coffee? It's all about our caffeine fix. And so you're going, British newspaper? Why are they talking about coffee? Well, things have changed. You know the old assumption we always had that, you know, Brits drink tea. They don't drink coffee. Well, listen, they both have caffeine, and the UK is a nation fueled by caffeine. They drink about 100 million cups of tea a day.

100 million cups of tea a day. 100 million cups. But they also drink a lot of coffee. Somewhere around, I think, 95 million cups of coffee a day. So they're basically equal in tea and coffee. So the question that the Telegraph wanted to try to determine was, what happens to your body when you take a sip of caffeine? So they tracked it. Okay, this is a fairly lengthy report in the Telegraph, and you can find it by going to their health section. But I'll read parts of it.

It starts off with a sort of blanket statement. For those of us who require a caffeine fix to get out of bed in the morning, reaching for the cafeteria or teapot is second nature. In terms of what happens from then, caffeine's effects will naturally depend on how much you consume and the type of person you are. So best to read the timings in this article as a guide rather than an exact timetable. As a general rule, the average half-life of caffeine in the body is roughly between five and six hours for healthy adults. The important thing to stress is that there is quite a lot of variation in the individual response to coffee. Some of that might be genetic, and there may also be gender differences in the way we break down coffee as well.

So these are just kind of the average breakdown of it, right? It doesn't necessarily mean exactly to you. So you have your morning coffee. It's roughly eight in the morning. And according to the article, there are a few things more pleasing in life than the first sips of coffee, which seemingly make you feel more awake by the second. However, that immediate alteration in your mood is likely to be a placebo rather than a biological change, especially if you're in the routine of consuming caffeine every morning. What you're feeling at this stage, says one of the experts, is only likely to be a psychological effect. This is where things get interesting.

It takes approximately 20 minutes for caffeine to be absorbed into your bloodstream. So by now you should be starting to feel the positive effects. So it's, you know, you had your coffee at 8, 20 after 8, you get an energy boost. Your heart rate increases. Says one of the professors looking at this, the first thing you experience is an increase in heart rate. If you're in a low state of arousal, it will give you a slight lift, which is why many people come to rely on their cup of coffee in the morning.

It's also why people with heart conditions such as arrhythmia are advised to avoid drinking a strong morning pick-me-up. Okay, within 20 minutes, your mental performance has already improved. You will feel more alert, switched on, and able to tackle tasks. The flow of coffee into the bloodstream causes adrenaline to be released, activating your fight or flight mode. This can actually sharpen your vision too, which probably explains why the morning spreadsheets feel easier after a flat white or two.

I don't know, those spreadsheets never look good to me. 8.30 is the first thing where your body actually makes a determination that you need to go somewhere. And that somewhere is the little room with the porcelain. Caffeine is a diuretic, so around half an hour after your morning cup, you may feel the need to go to that room. This can happen as quickly, say the experts, as five minutes after you've drunk it. However, a study has found that a small cup has no links to dehydration,

meaning those who consume coffee in moderate amounts don't need to overcompensate with extra water. People who have bladder or prostate problems might want to be more careful when they have a cup of coffee, as the diuretic effect could be more potent. That's number one. Number two, as they say, happens about 90 minutes after your first drink of coffee

because you've stimulated the bowel. And this is a good thing, right? This is a good thing right this is a good thing say the doctors because it moves along the waste in your system and this happens with decaf coffee as well it's a substance within coffee itself say the experts rather than the caffeine that causes the rumblings but don't assume it's a substance within coffee itself, say the experts, rather than the caffeine that causes the rumblings. But don't assume it's a negative consequence. Coffee drinking has been associated with a lower risk of colorectal cancer,

and one view is because of its effect on gut motility, say the experts. Coffee's also been shown to lower the risk of type 2 diabetes. There's a Harvard study to back that up. By 11 in the morning, three hours after your initial hit, you have what's called the dreaded crash. You've powered through your morning meeting, blitzed through your inbox, and even found time to water your rather sorry-looking desk plant. You feel invincible, that is, until you start to feel an aching tiredness creeping in. This, my friends, is the caffeine slump. Now, that's when some hit the percolator for a second cup.

I never did that. I was a one-cup-a-day guy when I was drinking coffee. That's it. That's all. So apparently you end up craving it for the next hour, between the three and four hours. Now, as I said, this goes on and on, this column. But there's some interesting stuff in there about coffee, something so many of us have found to be a part of our life.

But apparently, there comes a time for some of us when we say, you know what? I'm done. I'm done on that coffee thing. I haven't quite figured out what to replace it with. I've always had an orange juice in the morning, and my doctor tells me it's more sugar in orange juice than a lot of other things we think there's a lot

of sugar in. So be careful. You know, there's not one orange in a glass of orange juice. There's like four or five. And that's a lot of sugar. I've had apple juice. I've had pineapple juice. I've tried a number of different juices, but man, I always go back to orange juice. Love orange juice. Okay, something different. Give me a different end bit, Peter. Here's one.

There's an interesting thing going on in Philadelphia. I don't know whether you've seen this there's been the odd story on it if you have any affection for stories about big ships remember last week we talked about and I received a lot of letters from some of you

who have the equal fascination with the story of the Titanic, and it's not all about Leonardo DiCaprio. I had the fascination long before that movie, which was a fantastic movie. I remember interviewing James Cameron and being, you know, totally excited about the opportunity to talk to him about the Titanic and other things.

Anyway, this is an interesting story because as large as the Titanic was and as fast as it was supposed to be, until it had a little accident, this story is about the ship that set the record for crossing the Atlantic. It was a passenger liner, ocean liner. It was the SS United States. So this was around roughly 1950 that it was built and hit the water. And to get that name, the SS United States, it obviously had to be a pretty special ship.

As I said, it set the speed record for crossing the Atlantic. But about 30 years ago, it was retired. So that was after it had lived a good life on the seas for almost half a century. But then the decision was made, we're going to tie it up, and eventually it'll end up in a scrap heap somewhere. So where'd they send it?

They sent it to Philadelphia. They put it in the harbor there. And it's basically become this rusted-out shell. You know, it was the state-of-the-art ocean liner of its day. It was fast. It was built to last. Its sealed tight compartments were never going to leak. That's just what they said about the Titanic too. The idea was that there were, I think on the Titanic there were at least a dozen of these compartments.

And the idea was if one of them sprang a leak, it would be held. They were watertight. It would be held to that compartment. And the buoyancy in the other 11 would keep the ship afloat. The problem was when it hit that iceberg, it went all along the side of the ship, and every one of the compartments ended up leaking. And it was just a matter of time, right?

A couple of hours, and she was heading to the bottom. Not so with the SS of the United States. It was built to last. And last it has. As I said, it's been tied up at that pier in Philadelphia for the last 30 years. It's 1,000 feet long. Okay, what's 1,000 feet?

Three football fields, roughly. That's a big ship. Only two stacks, Titanic had four. One of them was a fake. But the SSUS has just two, but longer than the Titanic. So the decision was made as this thing rusted out that they were going to either send it to salvage or try to figure out another solution. Well, the other solution came along as an area in Florida on the Gulf of Mexico paid $10 million to buy the SS United States, have it sent down to that area

where they would deliberately sink it and create a reef off the coast that could be used for divers, and it would become basically a tourist thing. So there's just one issue here. How do you get it from Philadelphia to Florida? The thing is rusted out. It looks awful. It's a terrible eyesore. All the paint's peeled and it's rusted and it doesn't look good at all.

So it was supposed to be gone by now. It's not gone, still tied up. And there are issues. There are issues about whether it's seaworthy enough to get down the coast of the U.S. And does the Coast Guard and the other agencies that are responsible for stuff like this, do they want it to happen?

Apparently there's some deep concern. There's also concern. You remember last year how that ship hit the bridge in that area of the U.S.? And I think they've just opened up the bridge again. You know, held back traffic and all kinds of stuff. They're concerned about the height of the SS United States going under the bridges that cross the waters near Philadelphia. They're so concerned because apparently there's only a couple of feet clearance

between the top of those stacks and the bridges. Now, they obviously had to get it in there somehow, so they must have been able to figure this out. Anyway, they're having new investigations, and the thing's being delayed yet again about whether or not it's moving down there. And some are now thinking it's never going to get there. It's going to end up in a scrap heap. Which, you know, if you believe in these great ships of our time,

then you believe, or you want to believe, that something magical is going to happen for the SS United States, which has a proud history as an ocean liner. It was built as an ocean liner, but it was in the time of the Cold War. And there was a real conviction and belief that there was going to be another war. And one of the things about war in those days, more conventional, obviously, than the conflicts of today, was how quickly you could move troops to the combat zone. And the assumption was if there was a Cold War, or if the Cold War turned hot, it was going to turn hot in Europe again.

And so Americans would have to get troops to Europe. And so it had already been determined that if that was the case, the SS United States was going to be the one that carried American troops back into conflict. But that did not happen. So there's your little history about the SS United States. We've got more, lots more end bits, but you know what?

We're first going to take this break. We'll be back right after this. And welcome back. Peter Mansbridge here with the Tuesday episode of The Bridge. And it's kind of a holiday episode. We're taking it easy this month. Or we're trying. So it's what we call an in-bits edition. Lots of different stories piled up over time,

and the plan was always to use them as kind of like fillers in programs. But I can't remember the last time we needed a filler in a program with a feature interview or a discussion with Janice Stein or a good talk. Certainly, I don't think we've ever had a filler in a good talk. Except me, I'm kind of the filler in good talk. Chantel and Bruce do all the heavy hitting and I'm just a filler. I'm the one who's saying, no, no, no, he's not joking. He actually means it when he says that.

Moving on. Here's a little piece I found interesting in Bloomberg News. The headline is, Paris to replace parking spaces with trees. Now, we know about the environmental impact, the upside, the plus side of trees, more trees. And that's obviously the motive behind this. But listen to this. Paris's new climate plan promises to drop speed limits, repurpose traffic lanes.

Hello, Doug Ford. Remove 60,000 parking spots and create urban oases to combat extreme heat. Fergus O'Sullivan writes in Bloomberg, by 2030, Paris will have removed 60,000 parking spaces. That's a lot of parking spaces in downtown Paris, or sort of the main area of central Paris. 60,000 parking spaces.

Replace them with trees. That's one of the goals in the French capital's new 2024-2030 climate plan, which was just released a couple of weeks ago. Paris has already received much international attention for the steps it has taken to reduce carbon emissions in recent years. Under the heading faster, fairer, more local, this new plan pledges to extend that progress, delivering a city that's greener, more resilient against extreme weather, more pedestrian-friendly, and freer of cars. To reach this goal, Paris promises to establish 300 hectares of new green space by 2030,

with 10% in place by 2026. Removing parking spaces will be a major component of this. If you've been to Paris, then you know the roadways around the inner core. So the article says, for example, the many curbside spots

that flank streets can be replaced with relative ease by lines of trees planted in beds that also aid storm water absorption. The creation of oasis squares in each of Paris' 20 arrondissements will add other green areas where trees and shade structures such as gazebos offer residents respite from the sun and help lower surrounding air temperatures.

Okay. So when next you go to Paris, don't rent a car. There's nowhere to park it. Well, when you tell a story about France, you obviously have to next tell a story about Britain. So here's a little quickie. This comes from a website called wordsmarts.com.

Wordsmarts.com wordsmarts.com And the headline is, Why do the British spell, and they could say, Why do the British and Canadians, the 51st state, that's us. Why do Brits spell color with an O-U?

You know the answer to that? I vaguely remember this. I'm pretty sure I was taught this at school. But that, of course, was a very long time ago. The backstory to this is interesting. When the United States of America declared independence from England, it was sort of like a bad breakup. Americans got rid of reminders of their past life,

such as, you know, king, queen. And they got rid of a taste for jellied eels. It was also the start of a linguistic divide between British and American English, marked by different spellings. We see this schism most clearly today in words like honor. Right? We spell it H-O-N-O-U-R. They spell it H-O-N-O-R.

Same with favorite, the O-U. The English language as a whole developed in large part by borrowing words from other languages. Okay, English were the great borrowers. Take the word color. It was adopted from French, where it's spelled couleur. Often the British retained seemingly superfluous vowels from the original language, not because they served a practical purpose, but rather as a nod to the world's etymology. I think that's the word.

Prior to the 18th century, spelling wasn't standardized. If your reader could understand the meaning of your words, it didn't matter so much if you spelled defense with a C or with an S. However, American Noah Webster, and we know him, of course, because he was the founder of the Webster's Dictionary. Noah was a prominent advocate for standardizing spelling and also for efforts to differentiate American English from the English spoken elsewhere. One method to accomplish both goals was to simplify the spelling by removing what he thought were extra letters and changing letters to match phonetic pronunciations. In 1806, he published a compendious dictionary of the English language, which eliminated the U from words such as honor,

the K from words such as public. I didn't know that. Public used to be spelled with a K at the end. And the double L in words such as traveled. It also changed the CE in words such as defense to SE. However, like anything else in the English language, there are exceptions to the rule. Take the word glamour. It originated in Scotland and didn't appear in Webster's dictionary until after Mr. Webster's

spelling efforts had passed. Lexographers kept the OU since there was no longer a concerted effort to get rid of those superfluous vowels en masse. Now listen, aren't you glad I told you all that? Of course, you're sitting there going, I knew that. Of course I knew that. You just spent five minutes telling me something I already knew. Why do I do that? Because they're coming after our OUs.

Don't you think if we're the 51st state, they're going to take our OUs away? Could be. You'll be sorry. Because he's not joking. Okay. Okay. Two more. The Telegraph. We go back to the Telegraph.

We go back to the Telegraph again. Another good piece in their health column. Four exercises that could reduce your dementia risk. Okay. Okay. It's official. Frequent exercise gives you protection from dementia. After following more than 10,000 participants in their 50s for 16 years,

that's a long study, researchers at the University of the Andes in Colombia determined that those who exercise regularly were 10% less likely to have developed dementia by their 70s than those who had never exercised at all. And there's ways of breaking this down. It doesn't have to be every day. Researchers also found that weekend warriors,

those who only exercise on Saturdays and Sundays, benefited as much as people who exercised every day of the week. There was even some suggestion that they might have slightly more protection from dementia, but there isn't enough evidence to call it either way, said the lead researcher. So let me talk about the four things. These are the four exercises that could have an impact for you.

First, an hour or two a week of aerobic exercises. All right? Just an hour or two a week. And aerobic can be a lot of different things. All right? It can also include jogging swimming

riding your bike at least two sessions a week roughly one hour each if you prefer to exercise in short bursts every day 20 minutes a day

is deemed a safer amount. Second area, yoga, Pilates, or Tai Chi. One class on a weekend. Yoga as a form of exercise, says this article in the Telegraph, could be especially protective for women. One 2022 study found that a 12-week course of yoga protected women's brains from gray matter atrophy, a key part of what changes in the brain when someone has dementia. Pilates and Tai Chi, meanwhile, have shown to protect against dementia by lowering stress and anxiety and lifting mood, with Tai Chi also improving cognitive function and skills

like time management and decision-making in older people at risk of dementia. Okay. Number three. Back to our old walking. Remember in the middle of the, well, it wasn't even the middle, it was near the beginning of the pandemic when we were all kind of locked up and trying to find ways to stay healthy. And we talked about 4,000 steps a day.

That was the number initially, right, that we talked about. So in this, in these four exercises, or four exercise regimes that you could look at, to slow down the risk of dementia, 4,000 steps or 40 minutes a day of walking. Let me read a little part of this, because I know a lot of you are interested in this one. We're well used to hearing that 10,000 steps a day is the minimum that we need for physical and mental health. One 2022 study found that people aged between 40 and 79, who count at least 9,800 steps every day, were almost half as likely to develop dementia than those who walk very little. But a study from the LSE, the London School of Economics, published last year found that just 5,000 to 6,000 steps a day is enough to feel the majority of the benefit that comes with movement.

That's often more feasible for people who are busy, says one of the lead researchers. The same 2022 study also found that those who walked just under 4,000 steps every day were still 25% less likely to develop dementia. Walking 4,000 steps takes just over 60 minutes at a slow pace of 2 miles an hour, while it would take an hour and 40 minutes to walk 6,000 steps at the same speed. Faster walkers who stride at a pace of five miles an hour could complete 4,000 steps in 40 minutes or 6,000 steps in an hour. You need a calculator to follow this.

Okay, here's your fourth and final one. Lifting weights, 45 minutes twice a week. Most research into the effects of exercise on dementia risk, and particularly the benefits of weekend warrior workout styles, is focused on aerobic exercise. While less is known about the effects of strength training on dementia risk, some early research has suggested that heading to the weight rack at the gym could be particularly protective for older people at risk of the disease.

A study of the University of Sydney in Australia found that six months of lifting weights could slow or even halt degeneration in the areas of the brain associated with Alzheimer's disease. The participants in the study, who were aged 55 and over, had been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, completed a total of just 90 minutes of strength training each week over two to three sessions. If lifting weights is your preferred form of exercise, half an hour, three times a week, or twice a week for 45 minutes could be enough to protect yourself from dementia. That's interesting, right?

So I know that I'm going to re-look at just exactly what I'm doing, how often I'm doing it. Okay, we have one very short one to close out this special holiday edition of the Tuesday, the bridge, and bits, etc. As we all get ready to become the 51st state. Here you go. The headline in the Daily Mail, scientists reveal which creature will rule earth should all humans die. Seven or eight billion of us suddenly were gone. Which creature will rule earth if we're not here? As I said, this is a short story, and the answer comes right away.

So if you've got your fingers on the buzzers, you can hit the buzzer now and tell me what your answer is, because I'm going to reveal the real story right now. Octopuses are the species that are most likely to take over the world after humans, scientists say. World-leading experts claim the eight-limbed creatures are primed to become the dominant force on Earth should humanity die out. In the event of a wipeout through either wars or climate change, the marine invertebrates are said to possess the physical and mental attributes necessary to evolve into the next civilization-building species. I liked them better when they were just calamari. Professor Tim Colson of the University of Oxford said their dexterity, curiosity, ability to communicate with each other,

and a supreme intelligence means they could create complex tools to build a vast Atlantis-like civilization underwater. And although the octopus is unlikely to develop into a full land animal, it was clever enough to extend its time out of the water to develop new methods of hunting, says the professor. And Professor Coulson isn't just some guy who kind of hides away in an office in Oxford dreaming these things up he is one of the world's leading zoologists and biologists

and has advised governments he says the cephalopods I think that's the pronunciation were now in the pole position cephalopods, I think that's the pronunciation, were now in the pole position to colonize the world in the event humanity dies out. Now, don't ever say you don't learn anything from listening to the bridge, because now you know it. Octopuses.

I always thought the plural of octopus was octopus, but it. Octopuses. I always thought the plural of octopus was octopus, but it's octopuses. And you now know that they are poised. They are in the pole position, as Professor Coulson says, to take over the world. Well, they won't take over the world before we run out this week on the bridge. Tomorrow, it's our encore edition. I'm going to play back yesterday's edition on Syria with Dr. Janice Stein.

It was a terrific program. And while this story is changing literally by the hour, we try to deal with the main blocks of it yesterday, and I think it's well worth an encore edition this week. Thursday will be your turn with the question being, what is a politician? Okay, last week it was, what is a journalist? This is in your view in a changing world. What now is your view of what a politician is?

You send your answer to the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. Have it in by 6 p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow. Include your name, the location you're writing from, and please keep your answers short. Looking forward to that. The 51st State Edition of the Thursday Your Turn program and the Random Ranter.

Wonder what he'll talk about this week. Maybe he'll talk about the 51st State. Maybe he'll get in line. We'll find out. And Friday, of course, is a good talk with Chantal and Bruce. That's it for today. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you again tomorrow on the Encore Edition,

Thursday on your turn. Bye for now.