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Tuesday Miscellany, 9/8/26

Tuesday Miscellany, 9/8/26

Last updated on: September 8, 2026 at 10:26 am by Gene Veith

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Tuesday Miscellany, 9/8/26 2026-09-08T10:26:40-04:00 Gene Veith

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Our Vocation Day post preempted our customary Monday Miscellany, so we’ll do it on Tuesday this week. . . .

Should Ontario rename itself “America”? The coverup of research on puberty blockers. And 63% of religion books on Amazon are written by AI.

Should Ontario Rename Itself “America”?

As President Trump has resumed the shooting war with Iran, he has started a trade war with Canada, our second largest trading partner.

And to add a needless insult to a needless injury, President Trump signed an executive order changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America! Both Google Maps and Apple Maps–the tech lords wanting to stay on the president’s good side–obediently complied.

Fun fact: The Great Lake was not named after the Canadian province of Ontario. Rather, the province was named after the lake. “Lake Ontario,” the name deriving from the Iroquois word for “shining water,” has been named that since 1639, long before Canada became a nation.

So if Lake Ontario is now “Lake America” and the province is named after the lake, should the Prime Minister of Canada rename the province “America”? That way, “Make America Great Again” would mean “Make Canada Great Again.” If Donald Trump were the prime minister of Canada, I’m sure that’s what he would do.

I was curious by what authority the president of the United States has over geographical names–he also changed “The Gulf of Mexico” to “The Gulf of America”–so I looked into it.

What Trump has done is instruct the Department of the Interior, which includes an agency called the Board of Geographic Names, to update the Geographic Names Information System and to change agency maps, contracts, and other documents accordingly. Since the president is the head of the Executive Branch, so the reasoning goes, he can do that (although a legal site argues that the renaming is illegal on procedural grounds).

In any event, only the many agencies of the Executive Branch are obliged to use the new names. Internationally, they don’t apply. Canada and Mexico can use their own names for the bodies of water on their borders. Even states are under no obligation to use the new names. Nor are private businesses, organizations, or individuals.

President Trump has said that he is a nationalist and that people in other countries should likewise be nationalists, always pursuing their own national interests. I don’t see how either the shooting war or the trade war advances our national interest, but at least he has inspired nationalism among the Canadians, who despite their political differences are reportedly unified as never before against their southern neighbors.

UPDATE: And now President Trump is talking about changing the name of New Mexico to New America, picking up on a hoax as a good idea. And since he thinks he’s a greater president than George Washington, maybe he’ll change the name of our nation’s capital to Trumpington, D.C.

The Coverup of Research on Puberty Blockers

In 2014, the National Institute of Health, under President Obama, funded a $9.7 million study of puberty blockers in the treating of trans-identifying children.

But after the study was complete, the lead researcher, Los Angeles pediatrician Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, withheld publication.

In 2024, the Oversight Project, a conservative watchdog organization, sued for the release of the taxpayer funded research. Finally, the study has been released. The findings? Puberty blockers do nothing to improve the mental condition of the children subjected to them.

Douglas Napier summarizes the findings:

Mental health metrics remained essentially “stable,” which was a kinder way of saying that the serious mental health conditions of the patients before receiving these controversial treatments remained serious afterward. There was no evidence of the positive clinical gains that had been repeatedly asserted to justify these interventions on developing children. These children not only had to continue suffering from their unfortunate mental health issues; now these medical “professionals” just piled on with the resulting lifelong physical harms.

So why wasn’t this information released years ago? Napier quotes Dr. Olson-Kennedy, who said that she did not want the study “to be weaponized.” Clearly, the researchers wanted the study to provide evidence to support trans-gender treatments. When it did the opposite, they covered up the facts.

So much for “science.” So much for the integrity of the medical profession. In the meantime, as the study was locked away, countless more children were medically abused.

63% of Religion Books on Amazon Are Written by AI

A study has found that 63% of recent books in the category of “religion” sold on Amazon were generated by AI.

The AI detection company Originality.ai ran 2,034 books through their software and flagged nearly two-thirds of them, 1,272, as likely written by AI.

The study found that witchcraft is the biggest offender, with 78% being AI-generated. Then comes Hinduism with 76%. Buddhism comes in at 68%. Islam at 63%.

Among Christians, Catholicism leads with 63%. Protestantism is 53%. Orthodoxy is 51%.

The religions with the best scores are Mormonism at 42%; Atheism, 40%; and Satanism, 22%.

I am confident to the point of certainty that most of these AI-written books are self-published or published by shady operators taking advantage of Amazon’s self-publishing program. All anyone has to do is submit a manuscript, no questions asked, pay a fee, and Amazon will print it or turn it into an e-book, or both, then sell it. This makes selling AI-generated books easy.

Legitimate publishers sometimes get fooled, as we’ve reported, but the industry has taken a strong stand against AI-generated writing and their manuscripts go through an extensive editorial process that should catch most violators.

Easy self-publishing has been a way for some very good writers to find an audience. The new technology has allowed writers and readers to find each other apart from the “gatekeepers” of a publishing establishment. This has been a good thing, overall, and it’s a shame that AI is now bringing back the need for gatekeepers.

changing geographical names

President Donald Trump

puberty blockers

Religion books

transgender ideology

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