Today's News: Just some updates on the Sask wildfires and on the ICE protests, plus saying goodbye to Brian Wilson

 First, yes I feel this way too:

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Just when my frenzied mind feels that it’s about to explode from the barrage of dystopian news, some well-balanced optimist posts a video clip of a chipper goofball dog bouncily trotting along a sun-lit path in happy abandon, and I am momentarily restored to well-being.

- Joanne Pettis

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Newsom's speech: "The rule of law is giving way to the rule of Don"

California governor Gavin Newsom gave a powerful speech to California tonight, and to the nation:

 

 

Wow! "You are the antidote to fear. What Donald Trump wants is your fealty, your silence, to be complicit in this moment. Do not give into him"

The Mayor of LA has issued a curfew tonight — not because the citizens are out of control BUT BECAUSE THE PRESIDENT IS.

— Randi Mayem Singer (@rmayemsinger.bsky.social) June 10, 2025 at 7:28 PM

California, never change!

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Carney is moving fast and fixing things

The motto of Facebook used to be "move fast and break things".  But really, folks -- that sounds cute but it doesn't actually work out very well, as XKCD says (above) and as Elon has now found out.

In Canada, PM Mark Carney is moving fast and fixing things - in the last two weeks, the Carney government has announced a new student jobs program, the One Canadian Economy bills, improvements to citizenship by descent, the Strong Borders Act, middle-class tax cut, GST relief for new home buyers, and provincial agreements to build more homes.

Monday Carney announced a generational investment in Canada:

We will invest in new submarines, aircraft, ships, armed vehicles, artillery, radar, and drones — equipment that for too long, Canada has let age and deteriorate.

And we’ll rebuild with Canadian steel, Canadian aluminum, and Canadian workers. pic.twitter.com/wg0iFIf60b

— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) June 9, 2025

"Mark my words, we're making history"

“Say it loud, Carney’s here….” 👇👇👇🇨🇦#canada #markcarney @MarkJCarney @liberal_party #NeverPoilievre pic.twitter.com/Zt06nfcosk

— Bev 🇨🇦 (@Garnet_2203) June 9, 2025

Monday funny stuff: TrumpWatch, AmericaWatch, some Canada posts, other odds and sods, some beautiful stuff, and Animal Crackers

This week in TrumpWatch:

Remember what happened to Anwar Sadat at his parade in 1981?!?! #Resist #NoKings #TACO #DeportElon ✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼

— So Cal Beer Guy (@socalbeerman.bsky.social) June 7, 2025 at 12:51 PM

And now, I will be posting AmericaWatch too -- another regular feature on the funny side of 

America's decline and fall...

True.

- #Francesk🇨🇦

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Never again should anyone be amazed that Jim Jones was able to get his followers to drink the poison.

— Brad (@BraddrofliT) June 7, 2025

Tin soldiers and Trump is coming...

...but back in the day, Nixon was a lot scarier than Trump:

LAPD Chief McDonnell when asked if National Guard is needed: “This thing has gotten out of control.” Everything Trump touches...

— Wajahat Ali (@wajali.bsky.social) June 8, 2025 at 11:30 PM

There is a basic innocence here with this protest, it isn't "organized":

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Skateboarding dude. Hero of the day. It has to be this kid! He stood all alone while LAPD took shots at him. Kid stood his ground and danced a bit, which pissed off the Nazis more! They tear gassed him. Finally the kid walked slowly away, turning just once to give them the finger! Respect. ✊

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— MadGreek 🧿 (@madgreek2024.bsky.social) June 8, 2025 at 11:41 PM

“Tasted a little tear gas— tasted like fascism”

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— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) June 7, 2025 at 10:40 PM

Los Angeles stands up to ICE

Photo credit: Eric Thayer, Associated Press

Reading the LA Times coverage about the people of Los Angeles tonight, I needed to do a post about their courage. 

Its not surprising that people are organizing to oppose what ICE and Homeland Security are doing to US cities.

A good summary here:

John William Evans / The Old Rascal’s Journal

Battle For LA
The population of Los Angeles County in 2023 was 9.63 million. Los Angeles County's Hispanic or Latino population was estimated to be 4.8 million. Los Angeles County has the largest Hispanic/Latino population in the United States. It was also estimated that there were around 951,000 undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles County alone.
It’s always smart to know if you’re going to go to war with somebody what the opposing force looks like. Well, it looks pretty big to me.
I’m going to take a leap of faith here and say most of the LA Latino community do not like being shoved around and harassed by ICE thugs or other federal law enforcement officers. I’m going to take another leap of faith and say there are many non Latino members of the LA community who also don’t like seeing their community turned into a war zone. Actually, the amount of resistance I’m seeing already confirms these suspicions.
So … Trump and his war mongers Tom Holman, Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller and others want to go to war with LA. Miller has even called the protesters protesting recent ICE raids “insurrectionists.”
Remember, just a few days ago LA citizens were just living their normal everyday existence in an already complex, chaotic, culturally diverse metropolitan community. There’s a lot going on in LA to put it mildly. But people love it and it’s THEIR community. There’s no other place else like it in the world.
So in marches ICE and a community that was churning along and nowhere near the level of violence that ICE has brought with them is now on the precipice of full scale riots and war.
Let’s not forget. LA is no stranger to riots. Remember the Rodney King riots? Those riots resulted in over 60 deaths, thousands of injuries, and an estimated $1 billion in property damage. Or you can go all the way back to the Watts riots in 1965. Those, too, resulted in significant loss of life, injuries, and widespread property damage. Lots of other smaller eruptions of civil unrest lay between and after those two historical events in LA.
And our own federal government wants to provide the spark that sets off something like that again?!? Somebody better get a grip. Somebody better be asking where this all ends. What have we got ourselves into?
BECAUSE THIS IS NUTS! This is not the way to handle what little bit of a problem we had with illegal immigration. Most people KNOW the vast majority of these people were no problem at all. They came here to work and work they did. A recent study found they produced 63 million dollars of income to our economy more than it costs us to have them here. Stephen Miller quashed that government report, btw. He sure didn’t want any of us seeing that after telling us all these years, immigrants cost us all this money.
I sure hope the legislature, the courts, ANYBODY can stop this runaway administration soon. If not I can’t even imagine how bad things may become.

This is straight up authoritarian playbook shit. Trump is going to deploy our troops on our streets against our people. And he’s not going to stop with one protest in one city. Trump is going to invoke the Insurrection Act. And that will be a point of no return.

- JoJoFromJerz

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Remembering June 6

Remembering the Canadians at Juno Beach:

The Canadians, many of them volunteers, pushed furthest inland today. Allies matter. You don't win wars without friends. pic.twitter.com/VBc32DGWKN

— alex kershaw (@kershaw_alex) June 6, 2025

Here's what D-Day means:

“If you think the world is selfish and rotten, go to the cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer overlooking Omaha Beach. See what one group of men did for another on D-Day, June 6th, 1944.” — Andy Rooney pic.twitter.com/yd1VNqoGe7

— Christopher Hale (@chrisjollyhale) June 6, 2025

A cloudy morning. The smell of saltwater. Waves crashing on the hull of the landing boats.

Soldiers quiet – carrying the weight of Europe on their shoulders.

We remember the brave heroes who risked everything when they landed on Juno Beach 81 years ago. pic.twitter.com/Tccx2usQg0

— Canadian Army (@CanadianArmy) June 6, 2025

What happens to our Strong Borders Act if we ever elect a Canadian Trump?

Because we almost did.

I don't think Canadians have yet realized how lucky we are. 

Only a coincidental confluence of unforeseen and extraordinary events in the six months between November 2024 to April 2025 prevented the election of Pierre Poilievre as our Prime Minister. 

So now the Carney government we are happy to support has introduced the Strong Borders Act (Bill C-2)

Canada’s new government just introduced the Strong Borders Act — focused on safety, security, and integrity. It strengthens: 🔹 Border inspections 🔹 Coast Guard patrols & intel 🔹 Immigration + asylum systems 🔹 Anti-money laundering rules 🔹 Canada Post’s authority to stop crime by mail

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— Chris Bittle (@chrisbittle.bsky.social) June 3, 2025 at 2:44 PM

Despite some on-line freaking-out, I think likely its all going to be just fine as long as (big-L or small-l) Liberals are leading government.
But I wonder what happens when (big-C or small-c) Conservatives get elected again -- as they inevitably will someday, either under Poilievre or, more likely, Doug Ford. 

And I'm not the only one who is concerned.
Because of course its not just Carney or even Poilievre or Ford themselves that we need to worry about -- it is the license a bill like the Strong Borders Act could give to their deputies and department heads and security troopers and Coast Guard officers and Information Technology dweebs and RCMP constables and police officers and all the rest who could go overboard when they implement the new Strong Borders powers and policies. 
In the name of carrying out Trump's agenda, we are already seeing this kind of zealous, excessive, immoral overreach in the United States -- remember that Trump has passed very little legislation yet, so in theory his government should still be operating mostly under the same laws and regulations he inherited from Biden. 

But Trump hired people like Stephen Miller and Pam Bondi and Kash Patel and Dan Bongino and Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem and Tulsi Gabbard and Tom Holman, and he unleashed the J6 rioters and the Proud Boys, and all of them are now, enthusiastically and excessively, storm-trooping around the streets, roughing people up, and tossing innocent people into prisons without lawyers or trials 

They all think they are "just following orders" -- Trump's blizzard of Executive Orders . These actually do not have the force of law at all, but they have been interpreted as such - and now American law enforcement is running wild in the streets - this is, after all, the nation that invented Gitmo, Abu Gharib, and Bagram.

And no, I don't think that under a Carney government we would seriously risk having our RCMP or the Canadian Border Services Agency or municipal police forces or CSIS think they can abuse the new authority they will get under the new Strong Borders Act.
But under a prime minister with fewer scruples -- someone who might also hire people without ethics or morals precisely because they have no ethics or morals - maybe it could happen here too.

Events now in the United States are horrifying:

Masked men with AR-15’s mounting suppressors to pick up cooks at a Mexican restaurant? This has nothing to do with detaining immigrants. It’s to terrorize us.

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— Fred Wellman (@fpwellman.bsky.social) June 4, 2025 at 1:29 PM

The latest in "Elbows Up"

Canadians salute (the president also known as) TACO, Ole YamTits, Orange Shitgibbon, Man-Baby, Tiny Hands, Diaper Don, Mushroom Dick, Toupe'd Fucktrumpet, Trumplesthinskin, Diaper Don, Grifter-in-Chief, Don the Con, DonOld, the Lyin' King, Rug-wearing Thundermugget, Farty-seven, The Orange Shitler, That Orange Fuck:

 

The underlying theme of Carney's meeting yesterday with the Premiers was Canada's new "Elbows Up" economy - where we decrease dependence on the United States by ramping up our trade and cultural relationship with Europe and Asia. 

So I wanted to do a post tonight on the latest "Elbows Up" news - it isn't as active as it was in March and April, but there are still some great stories being told.

   

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Good reads about big events: Carney and the Premiers; Election post-mortem; Ukraine Spider's Web; the GIGO of AI

Carney and the Premiers 

Complete press conference is here and the communique is here.

“We’re united, we’re going to build together, and we’re going to build for all—we’re going to build for all Canadians. That’s what came out of this meeting,” says PM Carney at a news conference in Saskatoon following his meeting with provincial and territorial premiers.#cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/LceAqXCHWi

— CPAC (@CPAC_TV) June 2, 2025

I've never seen such an upbeat, unified, First Minister presser in my life. PM Carney might be a magician. Lots of work to do, but he seems to have put all oars in the water, prepared to paddle hard upstream. Even Smith sounds only slightly boorish and small. #cdnpoli

— Steve Valeriote (@stevev68.bsky.social) June 2, 2025 at 3:58 PM

The premiers and I want to make Canada a global energy superpower and build the strongest economy in the G7.   We’re working together to break down trade barriers across the country and get big, nation-building projects off the ground faster.

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— Mark Carney (@mark-carney.bsky.social) June 2, 2025 at 2:42 PM

Weekend funny stuff -- Trump Watch, The Passing Scene, Animal Crackers

Trump Watch: 

Trump Watch is a regular feature now, mainly to collect the funny death-wishes I see all the time, and also to highlight other funny Trump stuff - there's just so much of it!

Narrator: He would continue to confuse “transgenic” and “transgender” for the rest of his days, which many hoped would be few.

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— George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) May 31, 2025 at 10:01 PM

And on a side note:

#writingcommunity #amwriting #booksky #writersky #twrpsky #writers #authors #mysterywriters #transgendermice

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— Rebecca Lee Smith (@becca1130.bsky.social) May 31, 2025 at 5:30 PM

Updates of the week: Prairie wild fires; TACO Trump tariffs; Trudeau's shoes; and Poilievre is still unpopular

Prairie wildfires update 

 Media are doing a good job covering the wildfires now. The Weather Network piece reports on wind directions around the threatened communities. 

Here is another report on the urgency of the evacuations in Manitoba:

 

More background here: 

Cole Bennett / Cole.notCole

BREAKING: 2,000 Residents Stranded as Wildfire Closes In on Pukatawagan, Manitoba
A fast-moving wildfire is now burning less than 1 km from Pukatawagan, home to Mathias Colomb Cree Nation, where approximately 2,000 people are currently stranded. The community has no summer road access and is normally only reachable by train or air both of which are now cut off...

Caitlyn Gowriluk / CBC News

'Pray for rain,' Manitoba premier says as thousands more flee out-of-control wildfires across province
Wab Kinew urges Manitobans to be calm as crews battle unprecedented fires across all parts of the province
...It's a situation Manitoba has never seen before, as large-scale wildfires burn in every region of the province at the same time, Kinew said at a Friday afternoon news conference, calling the current situation a "serious inflection point," particularly for some of Manitoba's larger northern communities.
"As we head into the weekend, pray for rain. We haven't seen rain in the forecast yet. That could really help — sustained rainfall, in particular," he said. "But in the absence of that, the past few days have been very challenging, and that may continue."
The premier said the wind is expected to soon shift to some "unhelpful directions" for the spread of the fires, which is likely to directly threaten the northwest city of Flin Flon and pose challenges for other communities, including the First Nations communities of Pukatawagan, in northwestern Manitoba, and Tataskweyak to the east. ...He expected Manitoba to reach about 17,000 wildfire evacuees in total later Friday.
The effort to help Manitoba battle its out-of-control wildfires — which already included crews and resources from a number of other provinces and territories — is now also being bolstered by 100 more firefighters and 25 logistics managers from the U.S., Kinew said.
"We cannot thank other jurisdictions enough," he said. "It really does just underline how serious this situation is."...

"Telling the truth is a revolutionary act"

One of the signs of the apocolypse is when speaking the truth is not required or even expected. The United States has now reached this point:

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

Nations have never been strangers to official lies -- the US even started wars with lies like the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and the Weapons of Mass Descruction panic, while in Canada the lies about Indigenous communities caused untold damage to generations of children - but at least in the past we were ashamed of them.

The lies we hear today are so pervasive, so widespread, they are a complete denial of reality. 

And the need to push back, to remember the truth and to tell it, has never been more urgent. 

For example, here is pushback against Alberta separatists:

Memo to Alberta's federalists and anti-separatists: stop accepting Danielle Smith's premise that the province has been screwed over by Ottawa. It's time for more facts and fewer feelings. #cdnpoli #abpoli www.nationalobserver.com/2025/05/29/o...

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— Max Fawcett (@maxfawcett.bsky.social) May 29, 2025 at 9:01 AM

Alberta separatism isn't getting more popular, but those who support it are getting louder. If separatist voices dominate the conversation, the damage to investor confidence, attracting talent, and civic life will be enormous. Love Canada? Say it loudly. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

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— Corey Hogan 🇨🇦 (@coreyhogan.ca) May 29, 2025 at 9:30 AM

It was an awful Wednesday for Trump - the TACO slur, the Musk and Miller scandal, the Pope dis, and his tariffs are toast

hopefully we're entering the "then suddenly" phase of regime collapse

— 🍅🥔🫐🌽 hoopy frood 🌶️ 🥑🍫🌵 (@huwupy.kawaii.social) May 28, 2025 at 9:01 PM

Lots of "holy shit" moments on Wednesday: 

TACO Wednesday! 

Trump was told about Wall Street's TACO nickname (Trump Always Chickens Out) during a press conference and, once he figured out it was an insult, he absolutely lost his shit:

Reporter: Wall Street analysts have a new term called the TACO trade.. Saying Trump always chickens out on tariffs…   Trump: I kick out? Reporter: Chicken out.

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— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) May 28, 2025 at 11:13 AM

I think no one on his staff had dared to tell him about the Financial Times' "TACO" branding before - maybe they just hoped it wouldn't come up:

Today’s hero who tossed out the TACO bomb! 👏👏

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— Morgan J Freeman (@mjfree.bsky.social) May 28, 2025 at 9:11 PM

Wildfires across the northern Prairies tonight

It has been a terrible fire day in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba with thousands of people now evacuating:

 

Manitoba is in the worst situation.  

The Manitoba Fire View page is here. 

The Saskatchewan Active Incidents page is here. 

The Alberta Wildfire Status page is here.

Alberta Focus – Swan Hills / Edith Lake Fire (SWF076) #ABFire
• Out of control, ≈3 600 ha, 7–8 km N of town
• 1 300 evacuees to Whitecourt (80 km) after May 26 order
• 25–32 °C, RH low, gusts 45 km/h → Red-Flag through May 29
• Crews hitting SE flank with helis, tankers &… pic.twitter.com/j8wyfRs4Pf

— FireMap.live 🔥🌎 (@disaster_db) May 29, 2025

Yesterday, @NOAA's #GOESWest captured the smoke and heat signatures of multiple large #wildfires burning across Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Canada. Two of the largest fires still burning include the #CampFire and #ShoeFire. #GOES18 pic.twitter.com/N8fTctlQrh

— NOAA Satellites (@NOAASatellites) May 28, 2025

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Red Cross advice and donations, from their Facebook page tonight: