Sunday, March 31, 2024

Random Round-up: from the Sask Easter Bunny, to the Trudeau Liberals, the RCMP, Boeing, the eclipse, and even wigs

For Easter, here is the Craig Baird Saskatchewan Easter Bunny:

I recently found several good articles that are worth sharing: 
Evan Scrimshaw pleads with the Trudeau Liberals to smarten up --Jurisdiction's False Sanctimony and stop pretending they can get reelected by blaming provincial Conservative premiers:
...I want this government to be re-elected. Not all that many people seem to be agreeing with me. They were down 18% in Abacus over the weekend, there’s been polls with them in third place in Quebec in recent times, and the Tories just copped a 19 point swing in Durham. Every time we think the bottom has been hit there’s a new low, and the only thing that keeps this government from falling to fourth place in seats is the NDP is led by the human equivalent of using a croissant as a dildo.
For all the spilled ink about the media’s role in all of this, at the end of the day that’s not an answer to making this better for the government it’s just an answer to feeling better when the government get fucked. You know what’s going to feel even worse than your smug certainty about how everybody voting for Poilievre is stupider than you? When Pierre Poilievre wins 250 seats and we have to spend the 2025-29 Parliament arguing about whether the Liberal Party should bother to exist.
... I want the Liberals to focus on solutions and not just handwaving away responsibility. I want a Liberal government, and if that’s not possible I want as many Liberal MPs so that a Poilievre government can be as short as possible. But yelling about the media would make me more popular, because we definitely have our priorities straight.
The left have to decide whether they want to win elections and save the Liberal Party from its current malaise or whether they want to lose safe in the comfort of smug sanctimony. Denying reality ends in a Conservative landslide.
Moving on, at Wesley Wark's newsletter, A Natterjack Sighting! Or, the RCMP questions itself after the Freedom Convoy informs us about recent RCMP reporting on why they did so poorly in anticipating and dealing with the Freedom Convoy and the border blockades two years ago. Though the Natterjack report has some useful details, Wark notes that it "failed to grapple with the inadequacy of RCMP threat assessments"
Another RCMP report is the topic of discussion by David Moscrop In An RCMP Report Warns That Canada Faces Major Threats in the Coming Years. No Kidding. and by Max Fawcett Truth, lies, and that RCMP report. Moscrop writes:
...The report warns of various crises shaping life in Canada now and in the years to come, including climate change and extreme weather, political polarization, geopolitical conflict, an increasingly polluted information space, and economic decline — not the least of which is the fact that home ownership is increasingly out of reach for so many of the country’s younger population.
According to the report “The coming period of recession will also accelerate the decline in living standards that the younger generations have already witnessed compared to earlier generations.” A growing wealth gap has long been a gathering storm, and that storm is now making landfall in full-effect. It will bring nasty outcomes...
Everyone is talking about this The American Prospect article by Maureen Tkacik - Suicide Mission: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane 
 At his Pluralistic blog, Cory Doctorow summarizes : 
 ...Boeing's war on "brilliance" did its work: after everyone who understood how to make a safe aircraft was forced out of the company, financialized CEOs were able to cut corners on safety, triple the share-price, scoop up billions in government subsidies and bailouts, all without those pesky "phenomenally talented assholes" pointing out that they were going get (lots of) people killed....That's what "profits before people" means, after all: sacrificing human lives to make yourself richer. It's the foundational tenet of the conservative movement, though that impulse is often checked by other factors, like human decency. It's only when sociopaths get a sustained run at leadership that you see what they really want.  
Moving on, here is a good New York Times interactive article Maps of the April 8 Eclipse  
And finally, a funny piece from the Washington Post: Quiz: Can you spot which of these actors is wearing a wig?

1 comment:

e.a.f. said...

the easter bunny certainly was large. how many chocolates did it deliver?

Ah, national security and the RCMP. I'd prefer the country did not leave our national security to the RCMP. They aren't organized enough to deal with something that important
We have CISIS, but really can't figure out what they do besides not much. The hearings regarding foreign interferance in our elections is a good start, but then the federal government needs to follow up. I'd suggest Canada have a department which deals with foreign influence and interferance in our country. We might also really get our act together and beef up our military. We need to meet our obligations to NATO and we might want to give some thought and action to the artic. Then some one might want to consider what would happen if Trump is elected and Americans decide to leave for Canada and Mexico or if the Americans decide to have a civil war or something like it. What would we do if it spilled over into Canada. We have floated along for a good 40 years not doing much to enhance our military. The world has changed and we need to be in a position to defend our country and the other nato countries. We could start by paying the military more, yes and increase taxes if necessary. That billionaire list came out this weekend. There is enough money rolling around, just tax it and increase the military budget by several billion a year instead of cutting their budget.