Quinn MacDonald

Onto the meaty bit.

Any new motions related to the proposed budget... Mayor Alto is unusually taking chair's liberty to propose items first.

[whoa nelly it's juicy...]

Moving onto recommendation 1: Approve direct-award grants and other grants as outlined in Appendix A.

This lists direct-award and one-time grants.

How to Advocate for Trans Rights in Your Community Want to push back against the bigoted attacks targeting trans and gender-nonconforming people? Here are specific ways you can help—with your time, money, and everyday actions.

Unprompted by anything specific… worth noting that WIRED’s ASME award nominated package, “How To Win a Fight,” includes a piece on how to advocate for your trans and nonbinary neighbors:

www.wired.com/story/how-to...

not a new insight, but: beyond parody.

All I can think about is Jeff Bezos saying that he slashed jobs at the Washington Post — including those of foreign correspondents in the Middle East — based on "the data," and a few weeks later a whole war breaks out in the Middle East that these laid off folks would have covered as true experts.

Moving to the Director of Finance's overview.

5.02% tax increase for the police initially, but now it's 5.24% following the Province's decision on previously not-approved costs. City's own tax lift is 5.42%, bringing the total tax lift (City + VicPD updated) = 10.66%.

Reminder to #yyjpoli that Victoria Council is resuming its budget deliberations today at 1 PM - soon!

The first two items pertain to policing costs, and the third item brings us back to the City's revenues and costs.

Will be interested to see last minute changes in response to BC's $ decisions. h

Cities lose so much in property tax generation, cost of utility construction and lost transit fare revenue by refusing to allow density in most of the city

👀👀

The Trump Administration is Testing Conversion Therapy By Medically Experimenting on Trans People in Prisons The Bureau of Prisons is subjecting trans people to conversion therapy and denying them care with the goal of helping them "recover." It's trying to prove dangerous conversion practices can work.

Recently became aware of the work @transitics.substack.com is doing. Impressive stuff here on Trump's prison policy.

transitics.substack.com/p/the-trump-...

Surviving on Trump's Dangerous Planet Yet another war, and yet another argument for an end to oil

The #oilandgas crisis Trump just created is not like previous price spikes. Oil and #LNG importing countries can *rapidly* shift to #wind and #solar and heat pumps and e-bikes and electric buses and . . . This is not 1973. billmckibben.substack.com/p/surviving-... @billmckibben.bsky.social

Dow Asks Texas to Legalize Plastic Pollution From Its Seadrift Complex - Inside Climate News Facing multiple lawsuits, Dow requests an “unprecedented” permit amendment to authorize its discharge of polyethylene pellets into coastal waters.

Dow seeks permission from Texas regulators to dump plastic pollution into waters. Great reporting from @dylanbaddour.bsky.social

insideclimatenews.org/news/0203202...

at what point does the US end up facing massive boycotts of international sports lol

Palestine, and the middle east more broadly, being this universally accepted exception for the international rules based order turned out to be a major entry point for rotting out the whole thing. That’s crazy. I wonder if there were any people trying to sound the alarm on that.

As Italy approves a decree to reimburse gas plants for carbon costs and gas prices jump 80%, it’s worth recalling that in 2018 both Italian and Spanish power prices were tightly linked to gas. Since then, Spain has largely decoupled, mainly thanks to renewables. Italy hasn’t.

China’s latest energy data offers a signal worth paying attention to. In 2025, emissions from energy and industry fell by 0.3%, modest, but notable, even as total energy consumption rose by 3.5%.

The key driver? A continued surge in solar power capacity.

‘We’ll run out of food this week’: Israel’s Iran war brings new Gaza siege Israel has closed all crossings into Gaza, threatening to plunge 2 million people into a new hunger crisis

This is also going a bit under the radar with everyone distracted.

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Israel launches new attacks on Tehran and Beirut, as US embassy in Riyadh hit by two drones Israel says it is hitting

Israel has used the cover of the Iran War to launch a ground invasion of “strategic parts of Lebanon”.

All part of the plan.

“VicPD wants less public scrutiny, even as they demand more public money.”

Cst WEBER drove his police car onto the sidewalk to cut off the [redacted] path, and observed that [redacted] changed his path onto the roadway. Cst WEBER, lights and sirens still activated, positioned his police vehicle perpendicular to the roadway to block the [redacted] path as well as to stop vehicles behind him. Cst WEBER's car was stationary and in park, when [redacted] t-boned Cst WEBER's driver side door. [redacted] fell off [redacted] Cst WEBER got out of his vehicle, and took hold [redacted] throwing him to the ground, where other police units joined him and placed [redacted] in handcuffs.

Cst WEBER drove his police car onto the sidewalk to cut off the [redacted] Cst WEBER, lights and sirens still activated, positioned his police vehicle perpendicular to the roadway to block the [redacted] as well as to stop vehicles behind him. Cst WEBER's car was stationary and in park, when [redacted] Cst WEBER got out of his vehicle, and [redacted] where other police units joined him and [redacted]

The heavy-handed redaction is a recent trend. Compare what VicPD released for this old report in 2024 vs. 2025. In the 2024 FOI, we learned an officer cut off someone on a scooter, forcing them to crash. They then threw the person to the ground. In the new FOI, VicPD withheld all that information.

VicPD doesn’t want you to know they’re probably still hitting people with police cars — Needs More Spikes Is VicPD still using police cars to hit people? Probably, but VicPD’s increasing secrecy means we can’t know for sure.

Through a new FOI, we can see that at least one VicPD officer used a police car as a weapon in 2024. But VicPD won’t release any details. It’s part of an increasing trend of secrecy, led by VicPD, to limit public scrutiny of their actions. www.needsmorespikes.com/blog/vicpd-s... #yyj #cdnfoi 🧵

Why permanent DST makes sense for B.C. In summer 2019, the Province conducted a public engagement on time observance that saw participation from a record 223,000 people, with 93% supporting adopting year-round DST. Similarly, across all industry groups and nearly all occupational groups, support for year-round DST observance was higher than 90%. Evidence suggests there are many benefits to ending the seasonal time change, including: • more consistency and fewer disruptions to sleep patterns, school schedules, and daily routines • more usable light in the evenings in winter, allowing more leisure time, participation in outdoor activities and consumer activity • reduced administrative burden for small businesses and service providers, who may require less system reprogramming, schedule shifts and operational resets every spring and fall • more consistency for planning across transportation and technology services. How the change will be made The Interpretation Amendment Act, which is the legal framework that enables the Province to adopt permanent DST, became law in 2019. At the time, government chose not to bring it into force in order to coordinate timing with neighbouring U.S. states in the same time zone. Recent actions from the U.S. have shifted how B.C. approaches decisions that merit alignment, including on time zones. Making this change now reflects the current preferences and needs of British Columbians and helps ensure the province is well‐positioned to thrive, even when circumstances across the border evolve. Regulation will bring the amendments into effect after March 8. Government will work closely with organizations, small businesses, and public-sector partners between March and November 2026 to ensure a smooth, well-coordinated transition to permanent DST.

Seven years after passing legislation to make it possible, BC will make the shift to permanent Daylight Saving Time this year

On March 8, clocks will spring ahead for the last time

There will be no time change in November

BC will be on Pacific Time (PT) #bcpoli

New: Premier David Eby announces that B.C. is moving to permanent Daylight Saving Time.

This Sunday, March 8, will be last time change for most of B.C.

Just last week the German government gutted the heating law which was supposed to drive a transition away from gas.

The timing could not have been worse: Gas prices are up 50% today and this crisis could worsen significantly. This will happen again and again and the consumer pays the price.

Glad people are talking about this.

"The Iranian #RedCrescent is literally listing the sites being hit: Khatam al-Anbiya, Motahari Hospital, and their own Tehran HQ.

201 dead and 747 injured in 24 hours. You don't "pave a path to peace" by bombing the people who treat the wounded. This is a war on survival.

#Iran #WarOfAggression

Members of Canada's military may have been involved in planning U.S. strikes on Iran, retired general says | CBC News A retired Canadian major-general says personnel on exchange with U.S. Central Command were likely involved in planning and targeting airstrikes on Iran unless Ottawa explicitly barred participation. A...

“It is highly likely that members of the Canadian military, on exchange with the United States, were involved in the planning and co-ordinating of airstrikes on Iran, says a former senior Canadian general”

By the Israeli's own admission, recent negotiations were a ruse and there was never interest in a deal. Iran, per Oman, was willing to swear off enriched uranium stockpiling, which is essentially what America wants.

The point of the war is to wage war.

“.. a fresh stagflationary wind blowing through the global economy ..”

ai is a rhetorical technology.

when it produces a list of permissible targets, its value is not producing targets but producing permission