Evacuating Eden

...They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,

Through Eden took their solitary way.

- John Milton, Paradise Lost

I was going to do a post tonight on the Harris and Walz interviews, but the situation with Hurricane Milton is just too dire. Those poor people -- how many thousands are having to leave the homes they love, their own Eden?

Here are some of the tweets I saw tonight about this disaster:

NBC6's @JohnMoralesTV is the longest tenured TV meteorologist in south Florida. When he gets this serious, this emotional, on the air, viewers pay attention: pic.twitter.com/iiECZ8KaHx

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) October 7, 2024

The National Hurricane Center has increased the storm surge forecast to 10-15 feet for Tampa Bay.

This could flood tens of thousands of homes and cause over $10 billion in damage.@NWSTampaBay: "If Milton stays on its course this will be the most powerful hurricane to hit Tampa… pic.twitter.com/o3p1XNM4HQ

— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) October 7, 2024

Today's News: Truanons and Nuremberg 2.0 and understanding the damn question

So on Saturday this happened:

Angus Reid reposts a doctored video that misquotes the PM as if it's reality and we're supposed to accept his company's poll results are believable? I have a bridge to sell you if you believe a single thing that company puts out in future. pic.twitter.com/BLh6wn16bw

— Jean (@CdnJean) October 5, 2024

Of course, Reid had to withdraw his tweet -- he "didn't realize" he had been suckered by a doctored Trudeau video. 

I guess jumping to conclusions based on lies is the kind of thoughtful decision-making Canadians can expect from esteemed business leaders now?

Long Reads: The rise of stupidity; The analytic failures of the Russia-Ukraine War; and how presidential polls are always wrong

Last night I posted some long threads; tonight, I have several interesting "long reads" on topics I have frequently discussed on this blog:

   

The Stupid, It Burns!

Substack writer Black Cloud Six writes The New Normal: Living in the Age of Stupidity

Black Cloud describes this as "perhaps the most critical issue of our generation: the rise of stupidity."

He continues:

... Unfortunately, the entry of Donald Trump into the US political arena accelerated the tendency to accept all opinions—no matter how ridiculous or grounded in conspiracy—as being equal. Social media has magnified this tendency, as bizarre opinions and theories find validation among like-minded groups. How else can we explain the resurgence of Flat Earth conspiracies, chemtrails, "gang stalkers," and, most consequentially, anti-vaccine rhetoric?

...The last six months have shown just how fast this tendency is spreading. In what other reality could a major candidate’s claim that immigrants were eating pets not be disqualifying? Recently, the Premier of Alberta promised to "look into" chemtrails and raised questions with the US Department of Defense. That this is a fringe, lunatic conspiracy theory didn’t seem to matter. After all, aren’t all opinions valid? This trend has real-world consequences, which became evident when the province announced amendments to its Bill of Rights, which included overt anti-vaccine rhetoric. In virtually every sphere, conspiracies, falsehoods, and outright lies have entered mainstream discourse.

That traditional media gives a pass to such views and helps platform them isn’t helping. Conduct that would have been utterly disqualifying 20 years ago is now "normal," and views that would never have been discussed in public are now being mainstreamed. There may be eye-rolling when discussing flat earthers or the idea that migrants are eating pets, but it's not a lie if large numbers of people believe it, right? After all, it's the media's duty to entertain diverse voices and share both sides, even when one side is clearly ludicrous. The problem is that accepting such views has real-world consequences, as the folks in Springfield, Ohio, or those dealing with the latest whooping cough outbreak can tell you.

Long threads: best baseball announcers, North Carolina angels, hopeful happenings, boys will be boys, and some really big things

Here are some long threads that I liked. 

This is a lengthy post because I am including many of the tweets from these threads -- a reader told me once that people who aren't on X anymore aren't allowed to read their posts now. 

So first up, with the baseball post-season underway, here is a long thread about great baseball moments as described by great baseball commentators - such masters at creating verbal pictures. And at the best in my time was, of course, Vin Scully.

Want to add an embedded version of this one, whose excellence @TylerKepner rightly flagged, so everyone can listen here: The whole ninth inning of Vin Scully calling Sandy Koufax's perfect game Sept. 9, 1965 is eight minutes of free-flowing, off-the-cuff poetry. Vin was magical. pic.twitter.com/QVbDLPbdkj

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) October 4, 2024

Today's Comment: Boomers "are the most coddled political constituency"

In his column tonight, Bribes (Between The Lines Of Age) The LPC's Correct Tactical Choice, Evan Scrimshaw is writing about the Liberal decision to vote against the Bloc motion to raise Old Age Security and he gives us this gem of a paragraph. 

I have seldom read anything clearer or more direct about how we boomers are distorting politics:

The old and the soon to be old are the most coddled political constituency. God Forbid we tell the boomers that their McMansions might see a triplex down the street, but the young had to sacrifice years of their lives to stop a virus that mostly didn’t affect them. Our benefit is a government that refuses to say they want lower house prices, because once again God forbid we dare anger the old. It’s nice to see the Liberals get that the old should be the ones to swallow an imperfect set of options for once.

He is, of course, correct -- boomers bought our first houses 50 years ago, and we paid less for them than what most cars cost today.  Now houses cost 10 times more, which freezes millions of young people out of the housing market. 

Scrimshaw continues to discuss how these younger voters might be turned back into Liberal voters:

...What the government needs to do from here is clear, at least to me. They need to lean into the framework of generational equity, they need to accept that many childless young are fucked right now, and use the fall to set up a 2025 budget that addresses their concerns.

...And this is at least a wedge issue where the Tories are on the wrong side and the Liberals are on the right one, and where the public actually believes it’s a live issue. The problem with the abortion rhetoric is that Canadians don’t think Poilievre would actually roll back rights. Here, we have a unanimous CPC vote we can use as proof.

Summing it up:

The Liberals refusing to vote for another wealth transfer to boomers is the smartest thing they’ve done in years

— Evan Scrimshaw (@EScrimshaw) October 3, 2024

And on a side note:

UNPRECEDENTED: Aging boomer retires to free up job for someone youngerhttps://t.co/q3re3QZbzD #biden #kamala pic.twitter.com/Gmf0povNLm

— The Beaverton (@TheBeaverton) July 21, 2024

If Kamala because the nominee this is the most Gen X way to do it with a supremely qualified Xer being kept at bay for years and then a boomer dropping the job on them with no warning.

— Cake or Death (@Johngcole) July 21, 2024

Busy busy busy! Here's some stuff about Trudeau, the Jack Smith report, the US election, the Russia-Ukraine War

I have a feeling that things are going to just be crazy for the next five weeks. 

Tonight I am reading about a whole bunch of things -- the pressure on Trudeau to do something something, the Jack Smith bombshell report, the dark underside of the US election, sane-washing Trump, the Russia-Ukraine war -- and it is, I have to say, impossible to pick just one thing to talk about. 

So here are some posts, some links and some commentary. 

Pressure on Trudeau to do something something 

Trudeau did an interesting interview on the podcast of MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith  

And Paul Wells has covered it in a substack post: "Delivering the absolute best future" Justin Trudeau wants an election about his values 

Here are some excerpts:

...what drives Justin Trudeau? “Understanding that we are in a moment in this world where everything is changing. The way we work, the way AI works, the way geopolitics happens, the pressures on everything: The world is in a massive pivot moment right now. And we don’t know what the biggest issue is going to be.”

Here Trudeau is arguing that good instincts are better, in a storm, than easy remedies. ... “We don’t know what crises are going to hit the world. We only know there are going to be [crises]. And the question [is]: who has the capacity to respond?”

...“I do tend to get wrapped up in the long term,” he volunteers. This makes him brood about “the danger of squandering that lead we have, over so many of our competitors around the world — whether it’s on the environment and the green economy, whether it’s on child care and a responsible safety net, whether it’s on all sorts of different things.” If Canadians did something to blow that — “like electing a Conservative government that wants to bring us back to some past that never actually existed” — they would be jeopardizing “everything that we have been able to build that’s going to make the future so good for so many.”

Today's News: "A damning non-answer"

WALZ: Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election? VANCE: Tim, I'm focused on the future WALZ: That's a damning non-answer

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.bsky.social) October 1, 2024 at 8:41 PM

Wallace: JD Vance was still unable to say that Trump lost the election in 2020. And in that moment, I think everything that he did for 88 minutes was lost and wiped out by that inability to tell the truth pic.twitter.com/hgbbDDY9W9

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 2, 2024

https://t.co/8G0fPr4Q3v

— Daily Trix (@DailyTrix) October 2, 2024

If anyone is wondering where J.D. Vance actually came from, check out Jamieson Foser's column tonight None of us should even know who JD Vance is How did this meritless husk of a man end up in a vice presidential debate?

...the guy is a deeply racist and sexist autocrat on the cusp of power — and he got here in large part because some of the most powerful and influential people in academia, news media, entertainment, and tech saw something in him they were desperate to promote. Merit didn’t have anything to do with it...

Lots of stuff here about where Vance came from and why the New York Times loved him. 

On a completely irrelevant side note:

I really 💕 how JD Vance matched his lipstick with his tie. pic.twitter.com/ypq8YRG59s

— Ana Navarro-Cárdenas (@ananavarro) October 2, 2024

Today's News: Remembering for Orange Shirt Day

The Scream, by Kent Monkman 

 

The RCMP came in. My mom was trembling. The rcmp took me from my mother's lap. (I believe it is called abuction today. ) They took me to the airport. I don't remember, may be we walked to the airport. I would not see my parents for another 10 months.

— Kudlak (@InuitRose54) September 29, 2024

Today we observe, not “celebrate”, Orange Shirt Day. It is our Remembrance Day. This day represents many lost children and widespread intergenerational trauma for our communities. Its a time to learn and reflect. #EveryChildMatters pic.twitter.com/gMJPqJ2pFA

— Robyn Michaud, M.Ed. (@GiwedinAnangKwe) September 30, 2024

Some music to enjoy

We saw Jelly Roll on SNL and this song is remarkable:

"Nobody walks through these doors on a winning streak"    

I loved this too!

 

My husband saw a presentation from Playing For Change one year at Million Dollar Round Table -- a fascinating story:

Finally, Kris Kristofferson died yesterday:

Today's News: Hurricane Helene

This is terrible. We're been following the Hurricane Helene stories - its hard to imagine what these people are going through:

At least 56 dead and millions without power after Helene's deadly march across U.S. southeast https://t.co/C0l6mQTPxo

— CTV Saskatoon (@ctvsaskatoon) September 29, 2024

Mind blowing to see two hurricanes, #HurricaneJohn on the left (west coast of Mexico), and #HurricaneHelene (Big Bend region of Florida) on the right, both making landfall at nearly the same time. #Helene #Johnpic.twitter.com/5nf644NKi8

— Dylan Raines (@RainesOfEarth) September 27, 2024

Happy Saturday! Here's some fun stuff about politics, golf, librarian spies, getting older, and cool maps

First, just a glance at politics:

WHO DID THIS?? 🦇 pic.twitter.com/ihJmPT8fmQ

— Christine Pelosi (@sfpelosi) September 13, 2024

Poilievre and the "sore winner syndrome"

I'm trying to think whether there was any time in modern history that Canadians elected a Prime Minister they didn't actually like. 

Conservatives seem to have a pattern of finding unlikeable leaders -- Diefenbaker, Stanfield, Scheer come to mind -- but in our recent history, only those Tory leaders who appeared personable on TV were ever elected to lead a government - like Clark, Mulroney, Harper the kitten whisperer. 

(Yes, I know Diefenbaker was PM in the early 1960s, but as soon as people started seeing him on TV, he lost to Pearson.)

And Poilievre definitely falls into the "unlikeable" category, even in spite of his makeover, to anyone who catches Question Period on TV.

Cult Mtl's Matthew Renfrew writes Poilievre’s poor favourability will cost the Conservatives come election time

A new study by the Angus Reid Institute has found that net favourability of Pierre Poilievre has reached its lowest point in over a year, at -16%. Just 36% of Canadians have a positive opinion of the Conservative Party of Canada leader.

A previous study by Léger also found that, while the Conservatives are leading in the polls, just 26% of Canadians believe Pierre Poilievre is the best choice for prime minister.

The fact remains that Pierre Poilievre is just not that likeable. He rubs most Canadians the wrong way and a large majority don’t want to see him become prime minister.

As a result, support for the Conservatives will decrease as the election approaches, and as more light is shed on right-wing foreign interference scandals.

Toronto Star's Susan Delacourt writes Pierre Poilievre acts as if there’s power in being unlikeable. It’s not a good look

...Conservatives appear to be trying everything this fall to turn their poll lead into eventual election victory, with the exception of one force in politics — likeability.

Nothing in Pierre Poilievre’s repertoire in the Commons the past two weeks has been aimed at making people like him, beyond those who already do. He insults, he taunts, he name-calls, he sneers — all the things that parents tell their children not to do if they want to make and keep friends.

It may be making his base happy, but it is doing nothing to present a positive picture of what he would be like in power.

...Poilievre seems pretty certain that the next election will give him a majority, and not require that he work with any other parties in the House. He’s burning his bridges with the Bloc and the NDP, if any such bridges ever existed.

... About a month or so ago, I started to notice increasing mention of Poilievre’s lack of likeability in the political commentary, even among those who are not fans of the Trudeau Liberals. ...

I’ve heard this privately from some Conservatives too, who roll their eyes at what they see as unnecessary vindictiveness from a party that continues to bounce along at the top of the polls. Is this sore-winner syndrome? And what will that look like if they really do end up winners after the next election? More enemies’ lists? More paranoia about the media and the bureaucracy?

...Poilievre didn’t have a good week when Parliament resumed this month, failing to win in a Manitoba byelection and falling short in a bid to rally opposition leaders to bring down the government. He tried to pull that off with taunts and name-calling. Amazing that didn’t work.

Perhaps Poilievre is operating on the principle that nice guys finish last.

Roundup: Trudeau wins today; Scrimshaw writes a Trudeau speech; Rothkopf on the stunning Harris campaign

Unsurprising that Trudeau won the non-confidence vote. Parliamentary reporter Dale Smith describes the House of Commons today: 

Overall, the day started out stupid, and got progressively worse as it went on.

I expect we'll see more of these days this fall!

I saw a couple of postscripts to the Colbert interview:

🚨"Perhaps he'd be happier if I accepted all expenses paid trip to Florida to appear at an anti-abortion church...because that's what he @PierrePoilievre allows of his own members...he cannot protect women's rights from the members of his own caucus!" #PierrePoilievreisLying pic.twitter.com/ECMMGMXLjB

— Carleton Deserves Better (@Carleton4Change) September 25, 2024

And I thought this was pretty good, too:

Thoughtful piece. pic.twitter.com/Dth5qvESO7

— David Hamer 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇨🇦 (@DavidHamer_1951) September 25, 2024

Remembering Ebony, our brown-eyed girl

Just six weeks ago, we lost our Molly, and today we lost our Ebony too. 

We got Ebony as a rescue when she was three or four, and we had shared our lives with her for almost 14 years. 

She was a Labrador, a little on the small side but such a happy warrior -- I picked this photo for this post because it shows her protecting her chewstick, with her tail blurred because it was wagging -- it so often was! 

Ebony has been gradually declining for a couple of years - deaf, mostly blind, her joints getting worse with arthritis. The only good thing about it was that, because of the deafness, she was no longer terrified of thunder and fireworks!  But going up and down the stairs, and going outside, was harder and harder, and she kept falling more often, and painkilling drugs weren't enough anymore. 

Finally, today, she just couldn't walk at all, and we realized we had to let her go.

 

She was our brown-eyed girl - it was the song I used to sing to her. 

...Standing in the sunlight laughing 

Hiding 'hind a rainbow's wall 

Slipping and sliding 

All along the waterfall with you 

My brown-eyed girl 

You, my brown-eyed girl 

Do you remember when we used to sing?

Trudeau knocks it out of the park

Trudeau was on Stephen Colbert tonight and the Conservatives are furious -- how dare he demonstrate his popularity, his interview chops, and his international standing so easily, when he is supposed to be crawling into the Parliamentary press gallery and whining about the confidence vote and grovelling about how awful the Liberal situation is...

PM Trudeau was just on Stephen Colbert and he knocked it out of the park like I’ve never seen him before. What a massive win. It made my Canadian heart sing & it’ll give Cons heart attacks & head explosions. If this is the JT coming in the next election it’ll be an LPC majority.

— Stephano Barberis (@HelloStephano) September 24, 2024

Here's the clip that Colbert has released already:

🇨🇦 Justin Trudeau standing on business at the Colbert show 👀‼️ pic.twitter.com/19WNk5B4ye

— DREE LEGEND🇨🇦🇨🇩 (@DreeLegend) September 24, 2024

Here's the whole interview bootleg copy:

Justin Trudeau interviewed by Steven Colbert.
For everyone who was unable to see it.
Hoping CBS allows this to stay up.
See threat for each segment
🧵 pic.twitter.com/EPprOIeumw

— sonofabench (@therealmrbench) September 24, 2024

Segment Three
Justin Trudeau Steven Colbert pic.twitter.com/dOc4sq03BR

— sonofabench (@therealmrbench) September 24, 2024