Erin

Canada could be called on to help defend Gulf states, says top military commander | CBC News The head of the Canadian Armed Forces says Canada may be called on to help defend Persian Gulf states from Iran's strikes as the U.S.-led offensive expands into a wider regional war.

There is a straight line between values-free "pragmatism" in making deals with human rights abusers and getting involved in an immoral and illegal war. A very short, very straight line.

www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

Graph with three sides, and a dot for each global city. Each side is for cars, public transit and active mobility. North American cities way down in the car corner…car dependent/dominated

STUDY: “The ABC of Mobility.”

Study of mode share (the % share of transportation trips that are by car, transit, walking, biking etc) relative to city size and income levels in almost 800 cities in 61 countries.

(check out those North American cities…yikes!)
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Canada ‘abandoning’ international law with support for U.S. strikes on Iran, say former diplomats Though Canada's approach to Iran has been 'well-aligned' with the United States for many years, Prime Minister Mark Carney's government has been reluctant to condemn any suspected violations of intern...

Canada ‘abandoning’ international law with support for U.S. strikes on Iran, say former diplomats www.hilltimes.com/story/2026/0...

I think about this Tony Benn speech much more than I used to

“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.”

James Baldwin

Looney Tunes brown dog Marc Antony holding tiny black and white kitten, Pussyfoot. Protecting. Loving. SHE IS HIS.

me with my last remaining scrap of sanity

When you always vote out of fear what you end up with is people like Carney and the Liberals who know how to exploit that fear to move the nation in the direction everyone feared when they voted

“In a world where preventive wars multiply and great powers act first and explain later, middle powers like Canada will someday wish they had defended the UN Charter when they still could.”

The world could be such a nice place if we allowed it. It's all so goddamn unnecessary. There's no need for any of it. It's so beautiful here. It should be so cool to be alive

Explicit support for an illegal war started by a country that is directly threatening us. This is beyond appeasement, it's total complicity.

Archives matter - but not to the Carney government. Canada has only ONE federal funding program for community archives, and they just killed it. Gone.

@wgreaves.bsky.social

www.canada.ca/en/library-a...

Seventy+ years later, it’s unfortunate that so many Winnipeggers’ measure of progress remains “cars.”

AI minister 'disappointed' by OpenAI meeting held in wake of Tumbler Ridge shooting | CBC News Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon says he was "disappointed" following a Tuesday meeting with senior officials from Open AI that was arranged after it was revealed that the killer in the m...

This scandal presents Carney and Solomon the perfect opportunity to pivot away from the AI boosterism that has defined this Liberal government to recalibrate their AI policy and start taking on the harms that have come of generative AI (and other digital tech).

I do not expect them to take it.

An image in muted colours showing vague aesthetic animated illustrations of a light-brown-skinned man with curly hair, Black woman with a short afro, and red-headed white woman sitting in various poses on, respectively, a reclined chair, a bench, and a stool, in front of and facing an abstract geometrical image, as if considering it and mid-discussion about it.

The People's Consultation on AI launched today! Whether you have in-depth expertise in AI issues, or don't consider yourself an "expert" but have firsthand experience with AI or its impacts and want to have your say, this is for you. Participate by March 15, 2026: www.peoplesaiconsultation.ca

Cats in Japanese Folklore and Culture From kawaii (cute) to kaibyo (supernatural)

Today in Japan it's National Cat Day. In Japan, cats say "nyan" rather than "meow" and today's date is 22/2 (ni ni ni) which sounds a bit like “nyan nyan nyan”. I don't need any excuse to celebrate cats & I've written about cats in #JapaneseFolklore & culture here:
open.substack.com/pub/curiouso...

Lucy to Charlie Brown; You have that on a 45!?!"

Relooted: the South African video game where players take back artefacts from western museums Creators say they’re offering Africans a ‘hopeful, utopian feeling’ of retrieving objects looted by colonial armies

Relooted: the South African video game where players take back artefacts from western museums

invisible signals that play music for anyone in the geographic proximity with specialized equipment is pretty far out technology if ya think about it

This is The Singing Resistance.

What began with a small group singing in freezing temperatures has grown into a movement in Minneapolis, where thousands are gathering to sing protest songs as a way to grieve, express fear, and find courage. #SingingResistance

This is so Minnesotan 💙

Survival of the stubborn: The little-known histories of Winnipeg’s holdout homes We all know Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest, often misquoted by stale memes and bad motivational posters and a certain hack reporter - those who last are those who adapt.

CTV Winnipeg aired a neat piece about "lonely houses" in Winnipeg and elsewhere. You can check out the video or written version at their website: www.ctvnews.ca/winnipeg/art...

Les patineurs
Claude A Simard
2000

Our friends in the south who regularly offer us medical staff and are such amiable hosts are in dire need, how can we offer aid until our government catches up to the compassionate actions of Canadians.

“Since one cannot know a radically better world
is not possible, are we not betraying everyone by
insisting on continuing to justify, and reproduce,
the mess we have today? And anyway, even if
we’re wrong, we might well get a lot closer.”

- David Graeber

Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts

You didn’t think all those concentration camps they want to build are only for immigrants, did you? (Gift article)

Yves & Serge & Victor - My Freedom Knows [France, Psych Folk] (1975) french fuzz

Yves & Serge & Victor - My Freedom Knows [France, Psych Folk] (1975) french fuzz
https://redd.it/1r1bqe2
https://youtu.be/nuCOpdMPSHM

Point of no return: a hellish ‘hothouse Earth’ getting closer, scientists say Continued global heating could set irreversible course by triggering climate tipping points, but most people unaware

The only biosphere in the known universe capable of supporting human life is being turned into a hell planet because most of Earth's governments refuse to stop trying to satisfy the insatiable greed of a plutocracy composed of people who already have more money than they could spend in 20 lifetimes.

Basically, your Charter right to free expression won’t apply downtown

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

2 Mexican Navy ships laden with humanitarian aid dock in Cuba as U.S. blockade sparks energy crisis Two Mexican Navy ships laden with humanitarian aid docked in Cuba on Thursday as a U.S. blockade deepens the island’s energy crisis.

Way to go Mexico!

www.ctvnews.ca/world/articl...