Wednesday, May 11, 2022

Today's News: Reality bites

First, this:
 
Such good news and a great game. Our son says that four out of five times, the team that wins Game 5 also wins the series! 

On to today's news: 
There seem to be more people all the time who think that if they don't like society they can just create their own - here's an interesting observation:
The difference between the "reality-based community" and the "make your own adventure" community was identified in an October 17, 2004 New York Times article by Ron Suskind titled "Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush". 
Suskind didn't identify his source but it was likely Bush strategist Karl Rove. describing how the Bush - Cheney administration thought they could invade Iraq and "win" just because the US was a Superpower On A Mission From God: 
  The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do. 
It was chilling to read this at the time, and realize that the Bush administration didn't see any limits in what it could do. 
But eventually, reality bites.
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Tuesday, May 10, 2022

Today's News: The stupid, it burns!


Evan Scrimshaw sent out a newsletter tonight talking about Skippy and the Conservative so-called "debate" last week and its worth quoting from: 
 ... It's a busted ideology and a party infected by more than just bad opinions but stupidity at its core. 
To save Canadian conservatism, you first have to be willing to have an honest conversation about its main ill. It’s not the pro-lifers or the social conservatives or the fact that the debate last week was impolite and loud. 
 Conservatism’s real ill in Canada is that it’s so fucking stupid. And until they fix that, they’re done for.
Here's the kind of quality governance that Canada is getting from Conservative MPs these days:
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Monday, May 09, 2022

Today's news: One of those days

Yes, it was Mother's Day. And lots of political tweets that relate: I am SO GLAD Margaret Atwood is speaking out: I also looked for recent editorial cartoons about the re-criminalizing abortion in the US -- the ones I found weren't particularly funny, because its no laughing matter.  But here's a few that I liked: 
(Washington Post)




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Sunday, May 08, 2022

Today's news: Just some weekend stuff

No particular theme today - so let's get going! 

Too late, Candice - that ship has sailed:
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Saturday, May 07, 2022

Today's News: Children of Ukraine

Mother's Day is coming up so here are some photos I have been collecting showing some of the children in Ukraine: Here is a beautiful photo of children playing with bubbles, in central Lviv on April 7:
Mauricio Lima for The New York Times 


This is Hassan, a brave 11-year-old boy who journeyed a thousand kilometres in March by himself to get to his family in Slovakia - his mother had to remain in southeast Ukraine to look after his grandmother who cannot travel, but she sent Hassan to safety.
Finally, this sweet little angel child. I don't know where this photo was taken but I first saw it in early March:

Here's an unusual follow-up: And of course, from the Oval Office:
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Friday, May 06, 2022

Today's News: Skippy will just wave his magic wand!

Lots of comments tonight about the first Conservative debate -- apparently not an "official" debate though I'm not sure why that mattered. 
The big loser was, I think, Patrick Brown -- this would have been his first opportunity to introduce himself to the CPC members and the nation, because outside of Ontario nobody knows who he is. But he was too busy to show up. 
Comparing the only two candidates who mattered, I think Poilievre bested Charest. 
Charest did an good job, I thought, explaining how he could implement policies within the complexities of provincial and federal politics. But his actual experience running a party and a province was criticized as "elitist". 
On the other hand, Poilievre's utter lack of any management or leadership experience didn't seem to concern this audience at all - as Poilievre described it, when he tackles problems and controversies, he will only need to wave his magic wand and everything will be fixed with "simple and direct" processes that he will invent whenever he needs them.
Easy peasy!  
Mr. Charest was met with boos that nearly drowned out his comments when he criticized Mr. Poilievre for supporting the trucker protests, that shuttered downtown Ottawa for most of February and prompted intermittent closings at several border crossings. 
Mr. Poilievre “supported an illegal blockade,” Mr. Charest said. “You cannot make laws and break laws.” 
“The average trucker has more integrity in his pinky finger than you had in your entire scandal-plagued Liberal cabinet,” Mr. Poilievre said in response, referring to Mr. Charest’s time as Quebec Premier. 
The Globe also noted recent fundraising totals of the candidates: 
So far, Mr. Poilievre has attracted the largest crowds and the most cash. Newly released fundraising numbers show that by the end of March, Mr. Poilievre had raised $545,298 from 3,336 donors. Following close behind is Mr. Charest, who raised $490,088 but from just 572 donors. 
At $225,751, Ms. Lewis fell well short in the total cash raised but attracted far more donors than Mr. Charest with 1,456 people contributing to her campaign. 
By the end of March, Mr. Brown raised $115,775 from 73 donors; Mr. Aitchison raised $90,945 from 70 people; and Mr. Baber $53,987 from 475 donors.

 
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Thursday, May 05, 2022

Today's News: Fuddle Duddle



Today turned out to be the perfect day for this old cartoon

 
Trudeau dropped the f-bomb when he apparently got fed up with stupid Conservative conspiracy theories about a Canadian Forces surveillance plane that flew over Ottawa on Feb 10, during the Trucker Insurrection  - just proving how very very mean Trudeau really was to those poor poor truckers, I guess. 
It's all so stupid it makes me tired to even write about it so I can imagine how pissed off Trudeau is to put up with the constant catcalls and meaningless smear tactics from the Conservatives. He snapped. I don't blame him.
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Wednesday, May 04, 2022

Today's News: "Abortion is a fundamental right"

(Photo of Supreme Court protest today, by Jabin Botsford, WashPost)

Today lots of comments and discussions about how the United States is criminalizing abortion again.
I'm not sure which Justice the Washington Post Editorial Board is trying to speak to with this strong editorial, but I think perhaps it was for precisely this reason that the draft decision was leaked, in time to get one of the Justices to reverse course: 
 ....If the justices embrace the sweeping document, they will deal a grievous blow to freedom in the United States — and to the legitimacy of the court itself.
...the draft ruling’s dreadful reasoning and extreme potential consequences are far more concerning than what the leak says about the court’s internal dynamics. 
Written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., the document would declare Roe “egregiously wrong,” obliterate its guarantees of reproductive choice and empower lawmakers to abridge at will this long-held right.
...The court’s legitimacy rests on the notion that it follows the law, not the personal or ideological preferences of the justices who happen to serve on it at any given time. 
Americans rely on the court to exercise care and restraint against making sharp turns that might suddenly declare their everyday choices and activities unprotected or illegal. Over the course of nearly half a century, the court not only issued Roe but upheld its bedrock principles against later challenges. Throughout, the original 1973 decision enjoyed broad and unwavering public support. 
What brought the court to its current precipice was not a fundamental shift in American values regarding abortion. It was the shameless legislative maneuvering of Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who jammed three Trump-nominated justices onto the court.
...Justice Alito’s draft claims that the court’s ruling would not imply that other constitutional rights, such as same-sex marriage or access to contraception, are in jeopardy. 
But given the brazen abandon with which he would discard abortion rights, his assurances ring hollow. He would inaugurate a terrifying new era in which Americans would lose faith in the court, distrust its members and suspect that what is the law today will not be tomorrow. 
They would justifiably fear that rights will be swept away because a heedless conservative fringe now controls the judiciary. 
I'm not sure Kavanaugh or Barrett or Alito or Thomas are intelligent enough to understand what they are doing but maybe Gorsuch can be convinced.
Here in Canada, Freeland made a strong statement in the House:
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Tuesday, May 03, 2022

Today's News: It's the end of choice in America

A draft SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe V Wade on a 5-4 vote leaked tonight, and of course we saw the usual pearl-clutching toonight about how unseemly it is to leak a draft Supreme Court decisions:
Digby writes: 
The Republicans are having a fit about this Supreme Court draft decision overturning Roe. 
Needless to say, it’s not about the decision itself. It’s about the leak. 
You’d think there would be dancing in the streets but no. They’re freaking out. 
The left is neither surprised nor upset - we all knew this was going to happen as soon as Trump appointed anti-abortion judges to replace Kennedy and Ginsburg. 
I'm only surprised it took 18 months after Barrett was confirmed to get an abortion case to the Supreme Court - I thought it wouldn't take more than a year. 
Of course, Alito also throws in some gratuitous questioning about the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. So I guess that's next: Anyone who wasn't considered a person with rights back in 1776 should be afraid -- And by the way, birth control isn't in the Constitution either. Neither is Social Security. Or disability rights:
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Monday, May 02, 2022

"The conversation must include apology. But it must not stop there"

Tonight I wanted to conclude my coverage of the visit to Saskatchewan by the Archbishop of Canterbury the Reverend Justin Welby, and his apology for the residential schools. Rev. Welby spoke in Prince Albert yesterday, and here are some excerpts from his talk: 
 I am sorry that the Church was not there for you when we should have been your greatest friends. 
And even if we were powerless, and I will come back to that, we should have been willing to suffer alongside you. That is better than nothing. 
 I am sorry that the Church belittled your spirituality, denigrated and undermined your culture, traditions and above all your languages, and abused your rights. 
And I am sorry that an eagerness to share the good news of Jesus Christ we committed an indefensible sin of the arrogant assumption that we ‘brought God to you’ rather than understanding and seeking to listen. 
I’m not sure who has more right to be offended - the God who was already here, or you who knew that God..... 
I hope that what I have said may be the beginning of the beginning of a deeper conversation in words and action. The conversation must include apology but it must not stop there. 
In humility, in deep sadness, I end as I began: by apologising unreservedly and unqualifiedly, and saying again to you that even where I cannot change things, I will do everything I can to stand alongside and continue to learn from you.

Good coverage generally of his visit, but I was most affected by Leanne Sanders' detailed story in APTN News.  She noted:
Welby expressed his remorse for what they went through.
“I am sorry. I am more sorry than I can say. I am ashamed, I am horrified,” Welby said. 
“The grace shown by the survivors is so extraordinary. The graciousness. One came up to me this morning and said I slept well last night. I felt the lifting of the burden. It’s only the first step in a very long journey, but it was a great blessing to me,” Welby said. 
“It was a very gracious step to say that to me.”
This photo shows Rev. Welby speaking with Rev. Helen Northcutt of the Anglican Diocese of Edmonton, a residential school survivor. (photo by Jeff D'Andrea/paNOW Staff)
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A few zingers and a little truth

Just a few miscellaneous but somewhat funny tweets today: XKCD had a contest for cute-sounding scientific names:
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Sunday, May 01, 2022

Today's News: A long time coming

Today the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby arrived in Saskatchewan, to apologize for the Anglican Church role in Canadian residential schools. 
The official photo is above and I'm sorry that I couldn't find a list of the Chiefs, Elders and others in this group.  Archbishop Welby is fourth from the left and I think Elder Dennis Sanderson is beside him, third from the left 
Welby visited James Smith Cree Nation along with Chakastaypasin Band of the Cree Nation and Peter Chapman Band. and tomorrow he will visit an Indigenous Gathering at the Prince Albert Exhibition at 2 p.m. after Sunday services at the St. Alban’s Anglican Cathedral:
Here are some of his words of apology: 
 “I am sorry. I am more sorry than I can say,” Welby said. “I am ashamed. I am horrified. I ask myself, where does that come from — that evil. It has nothing, nothing to do with Christ.”
It has been a long time coming.
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Saturday, April 30, 2022

Saturday stuff: funny, and of course dogs!

First up, boy is this ever true! Now that spring is here, the rabbits from the nearby park are making their evening circuts through our cul-de-sac and our dogs are going NUTS! Maybe you saw this already, but its worth seeing again:
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Today's news: TGIF

As John Oliver says, just a few things to wrap up the week: 

First up, so to speak, wasn't it great that the Mets pitched a no-hitter today -- I loved this tweet about it:
Yes, indeed. I do love that Pfizer glow! 
Next, there was an interesting piece on Ask A Manager this week about people noticing a significant increase in hostile, grumpy and rude behaviour lately -- check out the jerks in downtown Ottawa, for example.  
Commenters were blaming the anxiety about Covid, disruptions to schools and workplaces and family gatherings and everybody's social life going down the tubes. Yes, I know what they mean, I haven't been a ray of fucking sunshine myself either. 
Here's some of the Ask A Manager comments:
 ...there is a really weird level of – I don’t know – grandiosity and entitlement and prickliness and lack of empathy – that is grinding a lot of us down
.....something about the Covid-19 calamity caused certain people to be rendered incapable of self-regulating and to become the absolute worst, most despicable and harmful version of themselves. These outraged individuals of course have found each other, and formed a coalition; from that point forward they have lived in an evil echo chamber where they’ve incubated a grossly inflated sense of entitlement and collectively demanded extreme consequences that are wildly disproportionate to the situation at hand.... 
 ...There has been a definite increase in what I’d call incoherent anger. People are just MAD. At me, at the system, at everything, and too often I just happen to be the last straw for their fraying nerves. A big part of it is that everything takes forever these days. Every process I can think of has slowed down dramatically, and that is hard to deal with, especially when you’re already living on the margins.... 
...I have colleagues at libraries nearby who have had to call the police because grown adults have had complete meltdowns around mask/distancing policy [and] the person began yelling, threatening, cursing at, and physically intimidating the librarians..I had one patron yell that the Library “should have never even closed down, because we are supposed to serve EVERYONE and NOT EVERYONE believes in the pandemic.” (Yes, really, he used those exact words).... 
...Controversial, angry, divisive posts generate the most clicks and page views, and so the algorithms push those to the top of the feeds. It is not a bug. It is a feature. There’s money to be made by painting everyone who’s not you as an “other”, and blaming all your problems on “them”. You’ll keep clicking to get that rush of being right and being better than “those people”. It’s a vicious cycle that corrodes civility and the social contract. Why be polite to those who obviously don’t deserve it? Someone called it “irritainment”. It’s more dangerous than that...
... people came out of lockdown “feral.” I’ve noticed a general rudeness/impatience/unhelpfulness everywhere I look whether it’s at work or at the supermarket.... Perhaps we are all just burnt-out from 2 years of pandemic related anxiety, 2 years of realizing some of our fellow humans don’t care who lives and who dies as long as they get to do what they want, on top of 6+ years of noxious political turmoil..
But I am hopeful that maybe soon we can get our equilibrium back.  
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Friday, April 29, 2022

Today's News: Explaining Norway to a duck

I think Elon Musk may finally be meeting his comeuppance. 
He's used to people telling him how brilliant he is: But for all Twitter's faults, it doesn't flatter people.  Adoring tech-bros and greedy investors can get all fluttery when Musk invents subways and buses but Twitter reveals a person's essential personality very quickly - as demonstrated by Bret Stephens and Mark Hamill and Dolly Parton and J. K. Rowling and many more.
For the last couple of days, Twitter's main character has been Elon Musk. 
And the Twitter verdict isn't a flattering one.  "Sadly ill-informed" is one of the kinder takes. All in all, explaining Twitter to Musk is like trying to explain Norway to a duck:
Here's some recent Musk antics: It still not clear whether Musk is actually going ahead with the Twitter purchase deal or not. But as Josh Marshall notes: "My own sense is that the guy will likely rue the day he purchased Twitter." 
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