"Taxes are not everything. They are not even the most important thing. What matters is what you get for them, what kind of institutions they sustain, and whether the government raising them is interested in building a province or dismantling a country."
Fighting words from the inimitable Dr. Tedds.
That's a good reason not to travel there, but not really a primary reason not to buy their stuff up there. At least I've never met anyone who says they are avoiding buying Pringles or whatever because of ICE.
Anyway, listen to environmental journalist Ann Jones' podcast What The Duck; it's very fun and the new series on animals accused of crime is, well, wild.
Apparently in the 16th century, an ecclesiastical court in St. Julian, France, exiled weevils from heaven in response to damages done to local vineyards.
Hot take from an actual economics professor: every federal politician currently fighting over who is "badly educated on economics" has a record of bad economic policy. The credential war is a diversion.
New post on Dead For Tax Reasons. #cdnpoli
deadfortaxreasons.wordpress.com/2026/04/20/f...
The First WORLD FENCING LEAGUE is happening April 25th!!! I'M GEEKING!!!
Japanese engineers developed this "Sword Tip Visualisation" tracking technology specifically for this event that will make it so much easier for the average person to see what's going on!
I MUST WATCH THIS ENTIRE TOURNAMENT
Another voice raising concerns over Alberta's plan to redraw the electoral map, with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association saying the UCP's plan "casts a doubt over the equity and fairness of Alberta’s electoral process."
Yep, I've talked to people working in a few different sectors and they've all told some variation of the story that their reach and traffic through X has dropped significantly over the last couple of years, not to mention click-through being at times lower in raw numbers than BlueSky or Mastodon.
An embroidery hoop containing a sewn aerial view landscape. It depicts an apple orchard in bloom in the centre, allotments to the left and sheep in their field at the bottom. Train tracks go past the top of the orchard and allotment.
Sewn train tracks past an apple orchard (to the left).
An angled view of a sewn vegetable allotment surrounded by rough land, trees and with train tracks to the left.
An angled view of embroidered bushes and paths going through them leading to an orchard, allotment and fields.
'A simple (perfect) life' - my spring landscape is finally finished! An apple orchard in bloom, old railway, sheep with their lambs and an allotment being prepared for growing :) Zoom in to see all the other tiny details too... I think this might be my favourite aerial embroidery I've ever done!
I had an opportunity recently to make a submission to the People’s Consultation on AI, a Canadian grassroots response to a chaotic gov consultation. I focused on 2 points and this was one - if there’s no space for rejection, consultation is performance.
www.peoplesaiconsultation.ca/wp-content/u...
Right, people have in fact noticed that the big AI companies aren’t actually doing anything to ameliorate the social impacts they keep talking about.
This, but also I think he's manufacturing consent for surrendering even more of our domestic policy-making ability to the US under the guise of maintaining free trade access to the US market. There won't be much of a country left if they just bend to whatever the US wants in CUSMA talks.
Can't wait to hear him recognize that Palantir is a threat to democracy and sovereignty, and that Canada will pivot away from deals and partnerships with them and their allied corporations. I'm at the edge of my seat. Any day now.
the roadmap to technological fascism is both terrifying and deeply insufferable
our wannabe overlords are evil, and dangerous, and also total dweebs
Canada’s elbows-elevated ambition to secure digital & technological sovereignty faces a lot of practical hurdles.
But, at a minimum, it requires disentangling government and public services from at least this one company. If they continue to operate here, everything else is just hand-waving.
Which, incidentally, is exactly what the Manitoba government already did before Lewis started talking about it.
Source? I've seen several written communications about this and some video clips and I've never seen him claim that Safeway is actually doing this in Canada right now, only that it's happening online & elsewhere and that we should get ahead of the problem.
The last year in Canadian politics has been defined by the debates we haven't had on this and other issues, notably Canada's response to the US threat. What some have called a post-politics moment has actually been the absence of non-conservative perspectives. Hopefully that's about to change.
As someone who worked on Bay Street and for a number of blue chip corporations, seeing this worldview so openly layered over a country is giving me hives.
Listen to Conor. Corporate values driving national values and policy choices isn't good. For Canada or the human beings who live here.
Fun how the Conservatives are quick to complain about this particular strategy, but they don't seem to mind that we have a system where a government can form a majority with, say, the 24.2% of the eligible electorate that voted for Harper in 2011.
He's been in power for 25% of the maximum possible length of this mandate. At this point, if he were concerned with the country's democratic health, we should be seeing actions or plans that address governance and social policy. The closest we've gotten is some controversial hate speech legislation.
A chaotic and untrustworthy information environment, a state that cedes its will to govern to private interests, failing public services, and a democratic system that does not strive to include the electorate - these are precisely how you disengage the electorate over the long term.
A good overview of why some see Carney's government allowing a continued slide from democracy into authoritarianism. It's not that he's authoritarian; it's that he's allowing the ongoing erosion of democratic norms and institutions, and transferring their power to private industry. #cdnpoli #canada
Also, talk to people who aren't into politics about it, and be open and loud about your opposition.
Alternatively, you can find an unaligned group that is doing something to fight the UCP's overall agenda, like Forever Canadian, AB Resistance, or others.
Basically - find a group that is doing something against the UCP, and join them to bring them more energy and capacity.
One thing you can do is get in touch with the local riding association for the ANDP (assuming they're second-place in the riding) and either help what they're doing, or get them doing more. If there's no local riding association, someone needs to start it, and that could be you.
This is a major line being crossed by Alberta's UCP government. Throwing out the work of an independent boundaries committee is authoritarian and extremely anti-democratic.
It's hard to articulate the level of anger & rage I have about watching this happen. I first saw weev doxx people I love *TWENTY* years ago. I spoke to founders of multiple social networks about the risk of these people over 15 years ago. I wrote about it all a dozen+ years ago. They let it happen.
As if Google wasn't bad enough already, they're just increasing the scope of what they consider it acceptable for them to alter and manipulate. And political states continue to be asleep at the wheel on decades-old tech governance problems, let alone modern issues.
There is a reason that we do not have MLAs decide on electoral boundaries. Tossing out the Electoral Boundaries Commission and replacing it with a UCP-dominated committee is not just a bad idea. It is really bad for democracy. Ask the US, ask Hungary. This is not normal!
