Michael H Vickers

@guardtheleaf.bsky.social Check out this latest syrupy Facebook ad from California tourism from the World Series.

The comments ALL positive; they must be deleting a lot of skeptical ones. 🙄
www.facebook.com/share/1D2L2W...

Is there a way to keep improving transit in Ottawa without forcing federal public service workers back to the office? Because it seems that there's a view that this is their main function - propping up the LRT.

Cons won't stop at 🏳️‍⚧️ people.

Sure, getting rid of the loophole that the LBC has exploited would remove this irritant, but it does nothing to address the failure in Canada's political system that it seeks to highlight.

...governments like Italy (don't we already kinda have those?), that we have no tradition or mechanism for genuine coalition governing (things can change), people won't accept not directly electing their local MP (how many really factor the local candidate vs party in their vote decision?)...

...so. The polite orderliness of elections, while both old-line parties operate frequently in bad faith, is evidence of the rot. Maybe we need a bit of anarchy to really unsettle things.

This sounds rather like the excuses given for why we can't abandon FPTP - that we'll have unstable minority...

...spirit is electoral law - eg In and Out Scandal, Robocalls Scandal, (Un)Fair Elections Act, etc - but rarely get more than a slap on the wrist.

Why should Canadians unaffiliated with a party be kept out of the fun? Our FPTP electoral system already breeds cynicism in the electorate (& rightly...

While I agree that the Longest Ballot Committee's campaign is disruption to highlight the need for electoral reform has been ineffective, can we really pick and choose which practices we approve? Political parties - Cons in particular - dabble in all manner of behaviour contrary to the letter and...

Except that under the Lansdowne scheme ALL of the taxes generated at Lansdowne go only to servicing the debt the City has incurred at Lansdowne.

Can anyone else get the same deal, so that their property taxes only go to fix their street or neighbourhood? Nope.

While the WHO ended the emergency phase in 2023,their messaging is that "The COVID-19 Pandemic is not over yet."
www.who.int/southeastasi...

Not sure there's agreement that the latest variants are less dangerous, just that most people have at least some immunity and there are somewhat effective treatments, whereas in 2020 nobody had immunity, there was no vaccine and no proven treatments. But it's still infecting people, causing damage

Graph showing number of deaths from covid for different world regions, from January 2020 to March 2023.

Deaths didn't really start to level out until April 2022 (when I got it for the first time) and didn't plateau until about March 2023. So while the earliest period of restrictions and no vaccine in 2020 feels like "during COVID", there were several more significant variants causing renewed lockdowns

It's only been 5 years. Influenza has been around for 100+. Shamefully tuberculosis we know what to do, but it continues to kill and disable millions each year because we don't put resources into treating and eliminating it. With COVID we have no effective treatment, and no path to elimination.

Timmy's was always kinda meh, but it's been giga-meh since private equity has been busy the last few years enshittifying it. Lousier food, mainly TFW employees, dirtier stores, etc. - to suck every last penny out of it.

Ironic after Stella Luna drove Sharpfle Waffle out of that spot in Hintonburg because they had a clause in their lease, no other snacky places allowed, or something.

So so those National Guard troops are really just pre-positioned to provide disaster relief. Right?

Maybe tell your billboard driver not to park in the bike lane. 🙄

‘Incredibly disingenuous:’ Ottawa councillor questions health minister on crime stats discrepancy Somerset Ward Coun. Ariel Troster questioned Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones Tuesday about a discrepancy with crime statistics the province said it used to justify closing the supervised consumpt...

Great job by my colleague @arieltroster.com today holding Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones to account on the now-suspect justification for the forced closure of a safe injection site in Ottawa's downtown. www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/artic...

Good on @arieltroster.com for taking Jones to task for her BS stats. Not that it makes any difference to what the FordCons do. But at least they got reporters asking Douggie about it.

Can Canada also be a refuge for American scientists in exile?

Tax billionaires until they are no longer billionaires?

And so?... More resources for workplaces and schools to clean indoor air? Reverse federal RTO diktat?

Do you still have the Porsche?

Woman hit by pickup truck downtown dies | CBC News A woman in her 20s who was critically injured when she was hit by a pickup truck Monday afternoon near a crosswalk at Elgin Street and Laurier Avenue W. has died.

This Friday, July 11 at 6 p.m. the #Ottbike and #Ottwalk community will place ghost shoes in Marion Dewar Plaza City Hall to mark another senseless death from road violence, stupid red tape, and dangerous infrastructure.
All are welcome.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Not trans.

Then you're voting for more MAGA.

What Bondi said has got to be one of the most Gilead-like things an AG could say in response to this kind of an attack.

I just assumed that the Charge were another team OSEG had invented to justify the City's continued support of the Lansdowne white elephant. But turns out it, and the other PWHL teams, are all owned by a US billionaire.

So he can Lucy-pull the puck on us Charlie Brown's anytime.

So why are City taxpayers building a new arena, ostensibly in part for them?

I'm sure that Menard, Troster, Kavanagh and maybe King and Brockington, would also support a revisit. But the rest seem to be fully in OSEG's pocket, no matter how sketchy the voodoo economics of Lansdowne Part Deux are. 🙄