Elizabeth Stregger

Proposed higher education cuts will subordinate New Brunswick As Susan Holt’s Liberal Government announces devastating cuts to the province's post-secondary education sector, universities and colleges across the region

"Holt has claimed to reverse course on the STU-UNB merger plans and Mount Allison privatization scheme, but that may be little more than sleight of hand to distract from the real target: a classic neoliberal transfer of wealth from the public sector to the private."

NEW piece on NB Holt debacle.

Higher education on the chopping block in New Brunswick New Brunswick’s universities are under threat. The province’s Liberal government is eyeing a 10 percent budget cut while freezing tuition, putting thriving institutions like Mount Allison and UNB at r...

The Liberal government of NB is proposing to sabotage our thriving higher ed sector.

It's hard to tell if this is incompetence, malice, or neoliberal disaster capitalism.

Regardless, it's not too late to turn back.

@kristiallain.bsky.social and I explain for @canadiandimension.bsky.social.

Mt. A faculty union president calls proposed go’vt cuts ‘preposterous’ & ‘ludicrous’ The President of the Mount Allison Faculty Association (MAFA) says she agrees with MLA Megan Mitton that the government’s proposals for cutting university and college budgets are ludicrous. &…

More on New Brunswick's proposals to slash higher ed:

“I think the government is grabbing at ideas without any serious study as to how this will work or how viable it will be,” said Geoff Martin, a Mt. A. politics professor who serves as MAFA’s executive director.

warktimes.com/2026/02/26/m...

What a delight to see behind the scenes at @gaspereaupress.bsky.social in Sackville! Congrats and looking forward to your spring releases.

Green MLA calls government proposals — including privatizing Mt. A. — ‘ridiculous,’ ‘shocking’ and ‘outlandish’ Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton is speaking out against the New Brunswick government’s suggestions for cuts to universities and colleges. “I think the idea of privatizing Mount Allison is ju…

MLA Megan Mitton: "I would almost think that it wasn’t real because some of the things it mentions are so outlandish."

The article by Bruce Wark includes a link to the list of ideas from the government: warktimes.com/wp-content/u...

warktimes.com/2026/02/24/g...

A medium-brown dog wearing a colourwork cowl and a leash on a wintery walk. The colourwork is a partially improvised pattern in blue, turquoise, cranberry, and yellow.

#ShowMeYourKnits this week is Animals, including animals in knitwear.

Our dog, Fennel, definitely wants a sweater this winter. She’s been borrowing our cowls for a bit of warmth. We put her cowl-lar on for walks. She especially likes colourwork and brioche.

The vibe is very "just some ideas for discussion" to make everyone accept something less terrible from the list of bad ideas. But the discussion is demoralizing.

I have so much gratitude for the unions, especially student unions, responding to the government in a respectful tone.

Holt Liberals look at merging, privatizing some universities | CBC News Fredericton’s St. Thomas University could cease to exist and Sackville’s Mount Allison University could be privatized under scenarios the Holt government is considering for cuts to post-secondary educ...

Flabbergasted by the higher education budget proposals from the Liberals. Seriously, did they brainstorm with ChatGPT?? Make the #1 ranked undergraduate university a private institution? That is a thing in the US, but in Canada that category is kinda... religious colleges. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Meta Director of AI Safety Allows AI Agent to Accidentally Delete Her Inbox Meta Superintelligence Labs’ director of alignment called it a “rookie mistake.”

NEW: Meta’s director of AI safety, supposedly the person at the company who is working to make sure that powerful AI tools don’t go rogue and act against human interests, had to scramble to stop an AI agent from deleting her inbox against her wishes...

Seven Billion Reasons for Facebook to Abandon its Face Recognition Meta’s analysis that it can avoid scrutiny by releasing a privacy invasive product during a time of political crisis is craven and morally bankrupt. It is also dead wrong.

Now more than ever, people have seen the real-world risk of invasive face recognition technology. We won’t lose focus. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

From Sources to Data: Designing a Database for the Humanities and Social Sciences with nodegoat This lesson teaches you how to use the nodegoat software to build a relational database for research in the humanities.

Just published! 🎉

A new translation of @cosovschi.bsky.social's lesson:

doi.org/10.46430/phe...

We’re grateful to Silvia Stoyanova for their translation.

Thank you to Felix Vanden Borre + Maneesha Sane for their reviews, and to Laura Alice Chapot for editing.

Always! Alt-text makes communication better!

Thank you! It’s one of my favourite sweaters. I love the #ShowMeYourKnits prompts because I revisit my older projects!

Vivaldi takes a stand: keep browsing human | Vivaldi Browser Browsing should push you to explore, chase ideas, and make your own decisions. It should light up your brain. Vivaldi is taking a stand. We choose humans over hype, and we will not turn the joy of…

Oh, yay! I just switched over to using Vivaldi, but I’m happy to be able to recommend Firefox again. (Vivaldi has a lot of customizable components and will be a bit much for some folks.) Love their statement on search: vivaldi.com/blog/keep-ex...

Anyone have recommendations for ways to do card-sorting / collection structure activities digitally? We had sticky notes in person, and I need to follow up online.

MS Visio seemed like it should work, but it’s so irritating! The canvas keeps expanding and it’s responsive in all the wrong ways.

Nice! It’s called “little bee” stitch in the Beekeeper Cardigan by @oliveknits.bsky.social www.oliveknits.com/product/beek...

Person with short hair and glasses wearing a gray sweater in an office. Their cardigan has a highly textured stitch pattern. There is a very colourful print on the office wall. The pattern is a heavily modified Beekeeper by Marie Greene.

Close up of a textured gray cardigan: there are small pools of bluish and yellowish stitches. Pattern: Beekeeper by Marie Greene

#ShowMeYourKnits theme this week is gray. My favourite grays are weird neutrals that I can wear around bright colours.

This gray yarn from @indigodragonfly.bsky.social has interesting blue and yellow undertones. It kept the knitting interesting!

So cool! I’ve also been looking into garter stitch and short rows in Woolly Wormhead’s book: woollywormhead.com/short-row-co...

Thanks! It's a very cool design and I had fun making it.

"Spicy garter stitch" is a good phrase!

A garter stitch shawl hanging from a dead birch tree in a green room. The shawl has a centre cast on and radiates out to a crescent shape. It is knit in wide stripes of dark colours and finished with an icord edge.

#ShowMeYourKnits prompt this week is garter stitch.

@ambahobrien.bsky.social plays with garter stitch in unusual ways. This is her Astria shawl. My yarn is a dark and moody set of miniskeins by @gobsmackedyarn.bsky.social

I just fixed a few snags in this shawl from all the wear it gets! 🧶

Love Data Week: Accessible Data for Everyone How do you format a dataset so it can be understood by a blind person, deaf person, or other disabled individual? This question is increasingly relevant given new requirements from...

I developed a new workshop, "Accessible Data for Everyone," for Love Data Week 2026. It's about making data accessible to people with disabilities.

Anyone is welcome to sign up. The class is on Feb 10 at 2pm PST online. Register here: libcal.caltech.edu/event/16205574

Perfect timing for an upcoming guest lecture on epistemic injustice (and algorithms and AI). This whole issue of Kula looks excellent: kula.uvic.ca/index.php/ku...
Great to be reading Sam Popowich again!

Brioche from the Roots Up - The Patterns and the Videos — bristol ivy Tier One: A set of six patterns, each exclusive pattern written with both the "how" AND the "why" of brioche. Throughout the course of the patterns, you'll learn single-color brioche flat, single-colo...

Deiknunai Mitts are one of the patterns in Bristol Ivy’s Brioche From the Roots Up class. It’s so good - I really learned how to understand the fabric and fix mistakes. www.bristolivy.com/brioche-from...

Five years later, I’m even starting to play with my own design ideas for brioche!

Brown and blue brioche fingerless mittens on a desk. The person is wearing one mitten to show off the thumb gusset. The other is laid flat on a notebook, highlighting the brioche pattern with increases and decreases. The person has a forearm tattoo with three triangles (the shape known as flying geese in quilting) and is playing with a pad of sticky notes.

#ShowMeYourKnits prompt this week is helping hands! Fingerless mittens are an essential piece my librarian gear.

This are my Deiknunai Mitts by @bristolivy.bsky.social in yarn by @indigodragonfly.bsky.social

I made them in 2021 and wear them so often. Do you have fave brioche mitts?

Soft Trails Sweater | Digital Hand-Knitting Pattern | Fingering Weight  – Stolen Stitches From Stolen Stitches, Carol Feller's top-down, lace-work sweater is knit in amazing single-ply, wooden spun Blasta Light. Shaped beautifully with short-rows!

Nice! I’m knitting a sweater with drop shoulders and some mesh too. Very different, but similar coziness! Mine is Soft Trails by @stolenstitches.bsky.social stolenstitches.com/products/sof...

Frogging old wips is so satisfying! I found some very crumpled knits (and swirly interchangeable cables) too. What are you going to reuse the yarn for?

Thank you! I love everything about these (fingerless mitts, pattern by @deswasralph.bsky.social and yarn by @botanicalfibres.bsky.social ). It was fun to look through my WIPs and choose the projects that I want to finish.

It looks great as a vest! What a smart idea for using up your scraps. And then it’s also full of memories of past projects! 💚

Thanks! It is a beautiful shade at the cusp between green and yellow. The yarn is by Emma @botanicalfibres.bsky.social - she uses natural dyes and is a lovely human! I love her yarn in textured stitches.