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National Post Publishes Correction
Posted August 9, 2019 by bigcitylib
BOOYAH! JOB DONE! The Natty Post corrects in response to this story:Editor’s note: In the original article, Michael Rogers intended to say “early evolutionary ancestors” instead of Neanderthals when speaking about the agricultural revolutio…
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How Canadian is this scandal, really?
Posted July 13, 2020 by Anonymous
So I guess the Globe and Mail thinks we’re supposed to be outraged now that prominent Canadians have raised money for an outstanding charity?
What a typically Canadian scandal this is.
I guess only non-entities like me are ever supposed to raise money for charities – over the years I have given a few bucks to the Saskatoon Food Bank and the Canadian Wildlife Federation, and I went door-to-door for the Heart and Stroke Foundation, and for Diabetes Canada.
So as far as the Globe and Mail is concerned, that’s OK as long as I never achieve any public prominence or get active in politics years after.
Because hey, how dare people like Katie Telford and Seamus O’Regan, back in 2010, years before they were involved in politics, volunteer to work on creating artworks in developing countries, to support a charity then called Free The Children which later morphed into WE Charity and then later still got money from the feds to run a gigantic volunteer effort to give Canadian university students some support during COVID summer.
Can’t have that. This corruption must be STOPPED I tell you! And The Globe and Mail is ON IT!
I guess if I ever do become a cabinet minister or something, I’ll have to make very very sure that I never never have anything to do with any decisions around funding for, say, the Heart and Stroke Foundation. After all, I could be charged with having an awful and corrupt conflict of interest, I guess.
What I learned about Canadian politics this week: charities that administer services to young people bear a level of scrutiny that a pipeline company given billions from the Alberta taxpayer for Keystone (which will never be built) doesn’t have to face#cdnpoli
— DJ Chocolate Milk (@DJChocolateMLK) July 11, 2020
I would think that sometime next week, or maybe the week after, we will start seeing news stories with Conservatives and NDP expressing deep deep concern for the horrible situation of Canadian post-secondary students, with lots of hand wringing about what in the world they are going to do for money to pay tuition this fall. Somehow, its all going to be Trudeau’s fault again of course.
Oh gag me with a spoon.
Trudeau’s Canada Student Service Grant idea was a good one, innovative and useful, another Trudeau success.
Oh, can’t have that. Not during a Conservative leadership campaign, when they were all just desperate to knock the Liberals off their perch at a time when Trudeau is so popular across Canada and around the world. It had to be trashed, and trashed it has been.
Of course they had to trash an outstanding Canadian children’s charity while they were at it, but can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.
So what can be done now? Well, nothing. I might be wrong but I think its too late to fix it this summer.
Trudeau should just expand CERB eligibility to anyone who intends to go to school in the fall. Move the Student Service Grant funds into the CERB budget, and let students claim the benefit for July and August, and just be done with it. I think they would each get about $4,000, which would be something.
And he can urge them to volunteer somewhere, too. Maybe the service grant program can continue in the fall and winter, when government staff will have the time to run it.
Ending this post on a more cheerful note, here’s some funny:
REASONS TO NOT WEAR A FACE MASK pic.twitter.com/Ah75mzSF24
— Brittlestar (@brittlestar) July 10, 2020
This is how the evolution of the desk works pic.twitter.com/1NcmZ17epV
— I Didn’t Know That (@lDidNotKnowThat) July 12, 2020
— NotHereForYourBS🇨🇦🇬🇧🏴🦄🌈📚🎧☕️ (@1peculiarchik) July 13, 2020
You need this. We all need this. #LoveWins#FreshTweets @thegoodgodabove TY
— Southern Sister Resister (@ResisterSis20) July 10, 2020
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‘That’s the Way It Is’: Trump’s Dismissal of Hurricane Laura and Climate Crisis Echoes Remarks on COVID-19 Deaths
Posted September 1, 2020 by Sharon Kelly
Read time: 11 mins
At an August 30 briefing in Orange, Texas, during a visit to tour damage from Hurricane Laura, President Trump answered a question about climate change and hurricanes. Texas has had big storms for a long time, he said, and “that’s the way it is.”
The phrase carried echoes of his remarks on COVID-19 — made at a time when the coronavirus had killed over 156,000 and infected over 4.7 million in the U.S. — that the virus’s death toll “is what it is.”
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UK Climate Diplomacy Staff Cut Again as Post-Brexit Links to Trump and US Deniers Strengthen
Posted November 24, 2016 by Anonymous
Read time: 3 minsWith Donald Trump set to become the President of the United States, the international climate change political scenery has shifted.
The president-elect’s stance on “quitting” the Paris Agreement seems to have softened in recent day…
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Lost years
Posted May 12, 2020 by Anonymous
Well, I think we have all realized now there is not going to be any “normal” anymore.
The hysterical “reopen, damn it!” marches across the continent were a cry of despair against the inevitable, but now I think the truth is sinking in.
There is going to be a new Depression across North America.
Here’s a thread about what we are facing:
Because they’re competing with the other shop across the street, they cut prices to keep their share of the market. And they often operate while servicing debt. Most businesses need to keep all of the balls in the air just to survive. That time is over.— Paul Doroshenko, Q.C. (@PaulDoroshenko) May 11, 2020
The entrepreneurs have no capital. Their capital is gone. They can’t start new businesses. A handful will survive but with drastically reduced ability to invest. They will suffer in survival mode.
So will there be any jobs?— Paul Doroshenko, Q.C. (@PaulDoroshenko) May 11, 2020
In 25 years the businesses on the street will be completely different. Many of those once apparently solid companies will fail within the next 12 months. Expect nothing but grim news.
If you have a job, cherish it. If you have a secure government job, keep it.— Paul Doroshenko, Q.C. (@PaulDoroshenko) May 11, 2020
We must (this is an imperative) pick ourselves up and keep going. We owe that to ourselves, our families and our fellow occupant of planet earth.
Hold on. Stay strong. Better days will come and they’re worth living for.— Paul Doroshenko, Q.C. (@PaulDoroshenko) May 11, 2020
Trump’s mismanagement – his ignorance about testing, plus his inept and corrupt support programs –will result in successive waves of Covid outbreaks across the US all summer and fall, each one killing thousands more. Everyone will just try to stay home as much as possible, so the US economy will continue to decline. Meanwhile the US government will bankrupt itself as it fights a losing battle to try to shore up the stock markets, the only economic measure Trump thinks is important.
In nine months, Biden will take over, but by then it will be too late for the thousands of businesses and bars and restaurants that will go bankrupt by next fall, after a few miserable months of trying to reopen. The companies that survive will be the ones that continue to have their employees work from home. So the downtown office towers will be empty and the owners of commercial real estate will be going bankrupt too, not to mention everyone from window washers to the people who water office plants. Farmers across the US will be watching their restaurant markets disappear, and they won’t be able to find immigrant workers to pick their crops.
Canada’s economy won’t crash as badly, I don’t think — our more effective and better run federal support programs will cushion the blow a little better for us – but still, its not going to be pretty. The US border won’t be reopening for a long time yet, and our biggest trading partner won’t be buying nearly as much as they used to. Tourism will be a disaster, our oil and gas industries are in free fall, and we don’t know who will be buying all our agricultural exports anymore either.
If we can avoid another Great Depression, we will be lucky, I think.
Back in 1973, journalist Barry Broadfood published Ten Lost Years – he interviewed hundreds of people about their experiences during the Great Depression and put it all into a book, and for many Canadians, it was the first time we had ever really heard about what happened to ordinary people in Canada during the 1930s, that awful time.
I have been thinking about that book a lot lately.
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Campaigners Demand Court Shuts Down Ecuador’s Oil Pipelines After Spill
Posted August 12, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 4 mins
Communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon are calling for an end to “violence against Indigenous peoples and nature” as a trial into a devastating oil spill resumes today.
The Kichwa and Shuar tribes launched a lawsuit against the government and state-owned oil company Petroecuador in April after two pipelines ruptured. Around 27,000 Indigenous people already isolated by COVID-19 were left with little or no access to freshwater and fishing after more than 15,000 barrels of crude oil gushed into the Rivers Coca and Napa and downriver to Peru.
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How Charles Koch Is Buying Credibility With Academic Investments
Posted September 12, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 7 minsIn 1996, Richard Fink, an executive at Koch Industries and a top advisor to Charles Koch, outlined a three-tiered strategy for getting the petrochemical industrialist’s free-market ideas out into the world: through academia, think tank…
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On Stephen Miller and Glue Eating
Posted October 15, 2018 by bigcitylib
There has been much ridicule directed at Trump adviser Stephen Miller for an alleged childhood habit of drying glue on his arm, and then eating it . Obviously, I disagree with the guy’s politics but many people don’t realize that glue i…
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Saturday Stories: COVID files
Posted June 13, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
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| Dr. Stephan Kamholz – Chair of Medicine at Maimonides Medical Center, died of COVID19 on June 11th, 2020. May his memory be a blessing |
Sharon Begley and Helen Branswell, in STAT, spoke with 11 epidemiologists to explore what we need to ensure such that we don’t screw up dealing with COVID’s inevitable second wave.
Tomas Pueyo, in Medium, on whether we should all be striving to respond more like Sweden?
Jonathan Corum and Carl Zimmer, in The New York Times, with a coronavirus vaccine tracker.
Siddhartha Mukherjee, in The New York Times, moderates a discussion about whether or not a coronavirus vaccine can be produced in record time
Rachel R. Hardeman, Eduardo M. Medina, and Rhea W. Boyd, in The New England Journal of Medicine, discuss stolen breaths and racial inequities in medicine.
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We’ve got a goddamn plan!
Posted August 22, 2020 by Anonymous
Chrystia Freeland is going to be a great Finance minister.
The first thing she will have to do it get a grip on the pro-Morneau leaks from her department.
Like the one this week about Trudeau Chief of Staff Katie Telford’s husband Ron Silver phoning up to see if the Finance Department would change some part of the pandemic benefit programs to benefit his employer:
The most bonkers part about this story isn’t the content itself (though it’s a legit thing). It’s that very few people could have provided the info. And the fact that they chose to, which burns (if indirectly) the PMO, is kinda … wow.
Someone is not happy with the boss. https://t.co/NVTk3eHOdo
— Matt Gurney (@mattgurney) August 21, 2020
At Routine Proceedings, Dale Smith writes:
For the past two weeks, as the leaks about Bill Morneau started coming out in advance of his departure, we also saw a number of warnings over social media about Liberals being their own worst enemies and that now was really not a good time for a civil war within the party. The fact that there were anonymous leaks to both VICE and the National Post about this incident shows that someone is suddenly awfully keen to talk, hoping to possibly embarrass PMO in some way, and considering that the leakers are showing how virtuous they were in standing up to Silver might make one assume that those leakers are loyalists of Morneau who are trying to, if not burnish his reputation, then certainly tarnish his detractors. I do wonder if this is a limited screw-you to Trudeau, because I haven’t yet seen camps loyal to Chrystia Freeland and François-Philippe Champagne forming and trying to oust Trudeau so that one of them can take over just yet. That said, this year has proven to be full of surprises, so we’ll see.
I don’t expect Freeland will have any difficulty with the Finance bureaucrats. Listen to her putting down David Akin for being annoyed on behalf of the opposition parties who are being forced to put up or shut up:
Global News reporter David Akin asks Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland why she hasn’t tabled a budget yet
I mean she has been Finance Minister for
48 Hours!
Plenty of time according to Akin #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/rEqbEm2LLH
— G.T. Lem (@gtlem) August 20, 2020
The next thing Freeland will do is get to work on Trudeau’s grand plan for Canada. I do believe there is an untold and unnoticed (by the WE-obsessed Canadian media) story of the Moreau resignation: Trudeau intends to use the COVID crisis to greatly improve Canada’s social welfare system. Moreau wouldn’t do it, but Freeland will.
I think the Morneau resignation, whether forced or not, provided an opportunity for Trudeau to make changes to Canada that he has long wanted to make — I wondered if Morneau was resisting these changes, and THAT, as much as the WE issue, was why he had to leave.
Here’s Trudeau using a reporter’s question about government pandemic support to talk about his plans:
A winning message from @JustinTrudeau . If the opposition parties want to force an election this fall, this is the Liberal plan they will be objecting to. https://t.co/RTckSWqjIL
— Cathie from Canada 🇨🇦 😷🏳️🌈 (@CathieCanada) August 22, 2020
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On The Existence of Street Pianos In Toronto Community Centers
Posted January 18, 2020 by bigcitylib
I used to be totally against them. It was always some no-talent eight year old plinking out a ghastly version of Chopsticks and you can’t tell them they suck or STFU! because their parents will get upset and report you to the facility staff becau…
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Saturday Stories: Herd Immunity Is Up To Us, #SchoolsBeforeBars, Another Pandemic, And The American Dumpster Fire
Posted July 18, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
James Hamblin, in The Atlantic, with an explainer on how herd immunity might only require 20% of us to be immune (whether by vaccine or infection) if we are diligent with our behaviours.
Paul Krugman, in The New York Times, on how the rush to open bars before schools threatens our kids’ education.
Ed Yong, in The Atlantic, considers what might happen were we to be facing another pandemic before we’ve figured out how to deal with COVID
Helen Branswell, in STAT, on how to fix the American dumpster fire that is their response to COVID to date.
U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Levi Riendeau / Public domain
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- Saturday Stories: Is It Airborne?, Exhausted Experts, Sweden, Cancer During COVID, And Schools
- Saturday Stories: No Heroes In Science, Selflessness, School Reopening, And Vaccine Developments
- Saturday Stories: Peer Review, #Masks4All, Talking To Kids, And The Public Health Of Protests
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Hoboken, New Jersey Sues Oil Industry for Climate Impacts From its ‘Deceptive Actions’
Posted September 2, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 5 mins
New Jersey has now joined the wave of lawsuits seeking to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for climate impacts. The city of Hoboken today filed a case against major oil and gas companies and the American Petroleum Institute (API), a powerful industry trade group which has played a major role in promoting “uncertainty” about climate science.
The lawsuit seeks to recover costs associated with climate impacts like extreme flooding and sea level rise. Like other climate liability lawsuits targeting fossil fuel companies, Hoboken’s suit alleges that the oil and gas companies and their lobbying group not only knew early on about the climate harms resulting from their products, but actively engaged in campaigns of deception to undermine climate science and avoid policy responses.
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Fire Bill Morneau
Posted October 22, 2017 by bigcitylib
He’s a fuck-up, a total 5 alarm fuck-up, fucking up a simple slam-dunk “tax fairness” issue like this. Bye bye idiot-stick! Kick his ass so far, Justin, that it doesn’t land until 2018. That is all.
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Saturday Stories: This week in COVID19
Posted May 16, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
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| Mary Agyeiwaa Agyapong, UK RN, 28 years old, died from COVID April 12th. May her memory be a blessing. |
Peter Piot, one of the scientists who discovered Ebola, in Science, with his thoughts on COVID, both as an expert and as a survivor.
Erin Bromage, on her own blog, gives you some advice about your risks in various locations once your location’s physical distancing rules are relaxed.
Lois Parshley, in Vox, on the long term complications COVID confers to some of its survivors.
Helen Branswell, in STAT, on how yes, cats can catch SARS-CoV2 and that while infected, spew piles of virus and infect other cats. Unclear right now if they can infect people
Kevin Roose, in The New York Times, wonders what happens if we get a COVID19 vaccine but 50% of the population refuses to take it?
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Big Oil Faces Mounting Legal Battles Over Climate Threats to its New England Oil Terminals
Posted August 13, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 5 mins
A New England-based environmental law group is taking major oil companies to court, claiming the firms have failed to adapt some of their petroleum storage terminals to withstand increasingly severe storm and flooding events worsened by the climate crisis.
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Oil Industry’s Shift to Plastics in Question as Report Warns $400 Billion in Stranded Assets Possible
Posted September 14, 2020 by Sharon Kelly
Read time: 11 minsOff Africa’s eastern coast, north of Madagascar, lies Aldabra Atoll, a cluster of coral islands that surround a tropical lagoon.
Aldabra is a UN World Heritage Site that’s home to a stunning array of wildlife, including tens of thous…
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On Dr. Jordan Peterson: The True And Real Story
Posted January 14, 2019 by bigcitylib
He’s a con artist. He’s got a book, he’s got a speaking tour, and when’s he’s not flogging the book he’s flogging his daughter’s all meat diet to get his army of fan-boys Manly for the next battle in the Culture Wars. Real intellectual…
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Trump is unwell
Posted June 14, 2020 by Anonymous
After yesterday’s West Point debacle – the water glass, the inability to say “McArthur”, the ramp, the tweet ABOUT the ramp – #TrumpIsUnwell is trending this morning on twitter.
Along with all the jokes, there is this:
The media’s failure to meaningfully cover Trump’s cognitive and physical decline after obsessing about Hillary’s health is evidence of open misogyny at this point.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) June 14, 2020
Personally, I believe that Trump has a minor stroke last November – remember the fast and unscheduled “tour” of Walter Reed? – and he still has impairments on his right side.
On a lighter note, #ObamaDay is also trending twitter:
You’d think Republicans would be more worried about protecting the Constitution.
It’s the only thing preventing Barack Obama from being president again.#ObamaDayJune14th
— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) June 14, 2020
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IDEAS THAT MATTER: The COVID Crisis–Are The Youths Trying to Kill Us?
Posted August 22, 2020 by bigcitylib
I have often felt sad over the state of The Youths. What with robots coming for their jobs and Climate Change, their future seems lacking. But by the time its obvious that their lives will be a dystopian dead-end I will myself be retired an…
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Life In Scarborough: The Plague Journal, Day I
Posted March 12, 2020 by bigcitylib
This evening at the local Metro I saw something resembling “panic buying”. Not quite at that point. Nobody got violent. More like the kind of lineups you see before the Superbowl or a long-weekend. Except everyone, everyone, was…
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Messenger of the gods
Posted July 19, 2020 by Anonymous
The last time Comet NEOWISE was visible in our sky, Stonehenge had not yet been built.Comets used to be seen as messengers of the gods, sent to tell us something important. This time, maybe its just “wear a mask and keep your distance!”
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Latest Youth Climate Lawsuit Filed Against 33 European Countries Over Human Rights
Posted September 3, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 7 mins
Six young people from Portugal have filed an unprecedented climate change lawsuit against almost all of Europe, targeting 33 European nations for failing to take adequate action on the climate crisis that they say threatens their human rights.
It is the latest in a series of legal actions brought by young people around the world demanding urgent climate action to protect their fundamental rights and safeguard their futures.
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Jason Kenney’s Alberta Victory: An Analysis
Posted October 28, 2017 by bigcitylib
The knock against Jason Kenney is he is almost 50 and still unmarried. Is he hiding an “artistic streak”? PS. Just try to jam that pipeline down BC’s throat, tar-miner. There will be hell to pay.That is all.
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#ObamaGreat
Posted May 17, 2020 by Anonymous
Here are Obama’s two addresses tonight to the HBCU and high school 2020 graduating classes.
#ObamaGreat and #ObamaWasBetterAtEverything are now trending around the world.
Congratulations to the HBCU Class of 2020! Michelle and I are so proud of you. As you set out to change the world, we’ll be the wind at your back. Can’t wait to see what you achieve. https://t.co/PCsjkJJTXi— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) May 16, 2020
Congrats to the high school Class of 2020, as well as to the teachers, coaches, and most of all, parents and family who’ve guided you along the way. Thanks for letting me be part of your big day! pic.twitter.com/RjYvHs2BhC— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) May 17, 2020
And here is what people think about the guy America has got instead:
This is brutal— Eleven Films (@Eleven_Films) May 16, 2020
The contrast is enough to break your heart.
I’m all for a Space Force if we use it to launch every fucking member of this criminal administration straight the fuck into the sun— Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) May 15, 2020
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Canada’s Trans Mountain Pipeline Inches Forward, But Opposition Intensifies
Posted August 14, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 12 mins
Late one night this past April, four people on off-road vehicles drove into a small, Indigenous village near the town of Blue River in British Columbia, Canada. It was dark and the vehicles drove through deep snow, smashing through wooden signs and barriers that guarded the village of tiny houses, erected in the path of a long-distance oil pipeline that runs from Alberta to the Pacific Coast.
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‘Unplanned Gas Release’ at Controversial Gas Facility in Weymouth, South of Boston
Posted September 15, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 6 minsThe standard, pre-operational testing of a new natural gas compressor station in the Massachusetts community of Weymouth, south of Boston, had barely begun last week when a gasket failure prompted an emergency shutdown of the facility …
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Toronto The Unready
Posted January 27, 2019 by bigcitylib
WTF happened? Did the dispatcher pass out just before the storm hit? Did the plow-guy bust a leg trying to smuggle a hooker into the barracks through a back window? Or did they stop at VP and say Fuck it its Scarborough lets turn arou…
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Saturday Stories: COVID And Kids With Disabilities, Racist Statues, COVID Death Mysteries, And Virus Hunters
Posted June 20, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
Hallie Levine, in The New York Times, on how children with disabilities are being left behind while the rest of country slowly reopens.
James Stout, in Popular Mechanics, explains how to use science to topple a racist statue.
Joel Achenbach, Karin Brulliard and Ariana Eunjung Cha, in The Washington Post, on what we do and don’t understand about who lives and dies with COVID.
Maryn McKenna, in Smithsonian Magazine, on some of the world’s foremost virus hunters.
Photo By Quidster4040 at English Wikipedia, CC BY 4.0, Link
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U.S. LNG Industry’s Business Model Doesn’t Work
Posted August 25, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 8 mins
In mid-July, Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette signed an order authorizing the export of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, from a proposed $10 billion terminal and gas pipline project in Oregon. The news release accompanying Brouillette’s order hailed the approval as having “profound economic, energy security, and environmental implications, both at home and abroad.”
Although the project, known as the Jordan Cove LNG terminal, has struggled to obtain state permits and faces vocal opposition from tribes and others, this consistent Trump administration refrain has not changed. The Obama administration made similar claims about natural gas production and energy security, jobs, and the environment, when it oversaw a rapid expansion of the LNG export industry.
President Obama and President Trump were on the same page about LNG exports. They also share something else in common: They were both dead wrong.
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Life In Scarborough: The Plague Journal, Day II
Posted March 13, 2020 by bigcitylib
Visited The Elsy (LCBO) today. I notice that while they’re knifing each other over toilet paper at the Walmart across the parking lot, here everything is calm. People believe that Water and wipes are essential, booze some kind of peripheral…
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Saturday Stories: COVID Orphans, A Must Read Piece, The Currency of Risk, And COVID19 Vaccine Side Effects
Posted July 25, 2020 by Yoni Freedhoff
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| Dr. Anna DeForest |
John Woodrow Cox, in the Washington Post, with a heartbreaking story about 3 coronavirus orphans.
Anna DeForest, in The New England Journal of Medicine, with what I would describe as an absolutely must read piece highlighting the crushing devastation COVID is wreaking on front-line physicians.
Maggie Koerth, in Five Thirty Eight, explains how every decision is a risk, and how every risk is a decision.
Hilda Bastian, in Wired, explains why there needs to be frank transparency around any possible COVID19 side effects even if they’re minor.
Related Stories
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Trump EPA Chief Lays Out Vision for Agency Critics Warn Would Create ‘Apocalyptic, Devastated Planet’
Posted September 4, 2020 by guest
Read time: 4 mins
By Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams. Originally published on Common Dreams under CC BY–SA 3.0 US.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler is under fire for a Thursday speech laying out a vision for the agency that critics warn would unleash untold environmental devastation should it come to pass.
Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, delivered the remarks at the Nixon Library in southern California to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the EPA. The agency was established under the Nixon administration.
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Life In Scarborough: The Bus Drivers of Scarborough
Posted November 17, 2017 by bigcitylib
The lady bus driver on the bus today was wearing a nose-ring. And the TTC let her drive the bus like that. She was a white chick so it couldn’t be a religious accommodation thing. But people will get on her bus and see her nose-ring a…
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Thinking about the future of Canadian food
Posted May 23, 2020 by Anonymous
CNN has a big story tonight about the future of the US food supply – with more questions than answers:
“We don’t know what the food-service sector will look like,” said Jaime Chamberlain, a fresh-produce importer based in Nogales, Arizona. When the pandemic largely shut down the US in mid-March, “I lost about 96 percent of my food-service contracts from one day to the next. That is an incredible hit to my business.”
Now, Chamberlain asks, “Are people going to go back to cruise lines? Will they go to a restaurant that seats 100 people? Will that restaurant be able to operate with the same amount of seating? Maybe there’ll be no more conventions for 1,000 people… I think people are going to be very reluctant.”
Burkett, speaking by phone from his Mississippi farm, shares those and other worries, and not just on his own account.“As a farmer, the dilemma I’ve got right now, is we don’t have a market. I’ve got crops going to be there to harvest, and I don’t know if we’ll have someone to sell to or not.” In a few weeks, Burkett said he will have more than 120,000 ears of sweet corn to harvest — all meant to go to restaurants that may or may not need them. “My biggest fear is the fear of how long this is going to last. I have to decide now what I’m going to plant in the fall. I’ve got to order seeds, get the ground ready,” Burkett said. He’s decided, for example, to go ahead and plant seedless watermelons, so they’ll be ready to sell this fall to the New Orleans school system — and he’ll have to hope the schools are open.
Canada is going to be having similar problems, because nobody knows what is going to happen.
COVID19 has upended the world, and given Trump’s mismanagement in America, which will bleed over into Canada too, we are going to be on our own for a long time, I think.
For us here in the west, the main issue I think is going to be food — growing it, and importing it. The food production and distribution and processing chains are in shambles and its going to get worse.
Yes, we are planting a garden this spring after years of not bothering. And yes, we have arranged for weekly vegetable deliveries from the local market garden. And yes, I am hoarding jars so I can freeze and can vegetables and fruit for the first time in a long time. And yes, we know a guy who knows a guy who can get us a side of beef the next time they are culling their herd.
But its not going to be enough.
Especially if the meat plants keep on having to close down because the virus is running rampant through their facilities. Wait till it gets into the fish plants, and into the fruit and vegetable processing lines.
Has anybody yet figured out the safest ways to seed, fertilize, harvest, and process our Canadian crops this summer? Will we also have to figure out how to get our Saskatchewan grain to flour mills in Ontario, and move BC apples to the food processors in Quebec, instead of following the usual north-south shipping lanes, selling our food south while eating food imported from the US?
And hey, funny thing, hoocouldanoode? – but maybe it would have been a good thing to keep the Canadian Wheat Board around for just such an emergency, because the Canadian government could tell them what to do and they sorta had to do it – unlike the grain companies who will happily make a pile of money shipping all our grain production to China or wherever even if Canadians need the bread.
Our remaining other marketing boards might well turn out to be useful for the next few years, too – we will need the eggs, and the milk.
Basically, in the long term, I think Canada will have to get more self-sufficient, both in terms of what we produce, and how we sell it. It won’t be as “efficient” as the globalized food production and distribution system our food producers have spent the last 50 years developing. But at least in a Canada-focused national system, Canadians would be the first in line.
But its going to be a painful time while we sort it out.
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More funny stuff
Posted August 14, 2020 by Anonymous
One of the things I love about Twitter is the funny people on it:
I ate a box of Thin Mints, didn’t get thinner. I don’t think they work 😡
— Hear Me Roar (@Stop_Trump20) August 12, 2020
Tucker Carlson thinks it’s cool to mispronounce Kamala Harris’s name.
Hmmm. What sounds like “Tucker”?
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) August 12, 2020
Check me out guest hosting @JimmyKimmelLive tonight 🤯 pic.twitter.com/4vVsbT579x
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) August 12, 2020
A priest, a minster, and a rabbit walk into a bar. The rabbit says, “I think I’m a typo.”
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) August 6, 2020
If you voted for trump because “he’s not a politician”, then I hope your next colonoscopy is done by a plumber.
— Mo Bella🌊 🌊 🌊 🌊#VoteBlueToSaveAmerica (@Mocraig13) August 6, 2020
Feeding 10 dogs at once is like going through Game of Thones every single day with the plots and betrayals and double-crosses and backbiting and frontbiting and dominance and submission and a finale that feels rushed and leaves everyone dissatisfied.
— William K. Wolfrum (@Wolfrum) August 5, 2020
They catch the fish and then let it go. They don’t want to eat the fish, they just want to make it late for something.
— mitch hedberg (@mitchhedbot) July 31, 2020
— Scrappy McBuckyball (@ScrotieMcB) August 14, 2020
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The US Oil and Gas Industry’s Methane Problem Is Catching up With It
Posted September 16, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 13 minsFor years, the oil and gas industry has been able to downplay, or outright ignore, the problem of methane. Methane is an invisible gas, and lax state and federal regulations in the U.S. have allowed oil and gas producers to self-repor…
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Flying Today
Posted January 29, 2019 by bigcitylib
Horrible behavior but it wouldn’t have happened 50 yrs ago because everyone would have had enough leg room. I flew Air Canada Rouge (@AirCanadaRouge) in 2018 and it was like being crew on a WWI submarine. Something has to change.
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Funny stuff
Posted June 21, 2020 by Anonymous
OK, here’s some funny stuff I collected over the last while — particularly enjoyed the last one:
My spouse is “attending” a virtual conference for the next few days. To help simulate the real thing, I’ll set out a picked-over tray of mini-muffins, soggy cut fruit, and some weak coffee, and then whisk them away just as he approaches the table.
— Erin Conwell (@erconwell) June 19, 2020
Had a bit more #LifeCommentary fun with my friend’s dog, Sooty. He’s fabulously bonkers. https://t.co/iLwRCv76xZ
— Nick Heath (@nickheathsport) June 15, 2020
This talented pupper doing an amazing obstacle run pic.twitter.com/3l4bYkgp0e
— Back To Nature (@backt0nature) June 20, 2020
Even bears have their Felix Ungers. https://t.co/36E68JPeMJ
— Neil (@NPSusa) June 20, 2020
— Fátima Ma. Alvarado.💙💛🇻🇦🇳🇮📿 (@Falvarado1974) June 19, 2020
This is quite possibly the greatest commercial I’ve ever seen… pic.twitter.com/t3oxiJrUr3
— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) June 17, 2020
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Climate Deniers on Front Line of Battle Over Pennsylvania Joining Cap-and-Trade Program to Slash Carbon Pollution
Posted August 26, 2020 by Anonymous
Read time: 6 mins
Pennsylvania, traditionally a battleground state in electoral politics, is currently embroiled in a battle over the state potentially joining a regional program to curb carbon pollution from the power sector. That program, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), has seen carbon dioxide emissions from power plants slashed by 47 percent over 10 years while generating over $3 billion in revenue. Participating states have then used that revenue to invest in energy efficiency and clean energy programs.
Environmental advocates say Pennsylvania’s participation in RGGI would be a “game-changer,” but climate science deniers and other fossil fuel allies claim it would be too costly and kill jobs in a state where the coal and fracked gas industries have long dominated the energy landscape.
