Shares of the mid-week: Our neighbour's house is burning edition
The awaiting sunny skies
Dr. Fauci Thinks Concerts & Live Performances Could Return This Fall - This is one of the things I am looking forward to the most once a majority of us are vaccinated and the pandemic slows down, having to miss both a Rammstein, and a Halsey with Chvrches show in 2020 myself. It’ll be strange being amongst the sweaty masses again but I’m ready for it.
The spy who poisoned my underpants
Poisoned Kremlin foe Alexei Navalny to return to Russia despite threats - In a follow up to the video I shared of him speaking to his own would-be-assassin, Navalny shows us all what courage and resilience looks like in his planned return to Russia on Sunday. Russia’s little tough guy leader, Vladimir Putin, now faces a tough choice: jail Navalny or try assassinating him for a third time and make him a martyr; or leave him alone and appear weak. Either way, it will be interesting to see how this story unfolds.
Reconstruction after the war (on drugs)
Mexico moves to create world’s largest legal cannabis market - Drugs have won the war on drugs. It’s time we accept that and start treating drug addiction as a health problem while lifting the drug trade out from underground so it can be effectively taxed and regulated. Drug cartels and gangs alike would then quickly find themselves out of business.
A record year of overdose deaths leaves untold tragedy - The pandemic has brought to light the harm that can be done when people both lose their community supports and are forced to get their drugs from more dangerous and risky sources. Imagine how many lives could be saved if we treated drugs abuse as a health and community matter instead of a criminal and personal responsibility matter?
Conservatives gone wild
Conservatives must reject Trumpism and address voter anger rather than stoking it, says strategist - The problem with the Conservative Party is if they reject Trumpism (i.e. white nationalism), they will alienate their base, while failing to reject it will guarantee they never win a majority government again. If Conservatives actually showed some leadership by rejecting conspiracy theories and far-right messaging from the beginning, like not joining in on yellow-vest rallies, or by rejecting interviews with far-right media like the Rebel, or by not pushing lies about voter-fraud or equalization, and instead implemented an economic plan that would actually help their base instead of inflame them, they would likely be in a better position today. But this is not who the Conservative Party is. They truly are the Canadian party of white nationalism.
Bonus: Canadian Conservatives, take note: de-Trumpification is coming and not just to the U.S. - David J. Climenhaga of the Rabble has a warning for Canadian Conservatives.
Bonus 2: Canada is not immune to Trumpism - Philippe J. Fournier of Maclean’s goes into the numbers to see what kind of support Trump gets here in Canada.
Vaccinating inmates protects us all. To say otherwise is just a cheap attempt to gain votes - The Conservatives just can’t help themselves but to ignore evidence and to dehumanize our fellow Canadians in another pathetic and cheap attempt to score points. Don’t be fooled by this. Conservatives don’t actually care about any of us.
Jason Kenney’s Inquiry Into ‘Anti-Alberta’ Activities Publishes Report Attacking Climate Change Science - This is the kind of nonsensical garbage that Alberta taxpayers are paying for. I still don’t know what Jason Kenney and the UCP’s endgame is, if there even is one, of trying to prove that Canada and the world is anti-Albertan. One thing I do know for sure is, conservatives will do anything it can to avoid accountability and responsibility for their actions.
Fascism in fashion
Parler’s amateur coding could come back to haunt Capitol Hill rioters - Parler is a hard lesson in the riskiness of quickly building an app for a large audience of racists without having the skilled workers to do so. When your ideology disregards science and intellectualism, the selection of competent people in your group is going to be pretty thin.
Bonus: Pirate Bay Founder Thinks Parler’s Inability to Stay Online Is ‘Embarrassing’ - The founder of the Pirate Bay calls out well-funded Parler for failing to find a way to keep operating, as his website continues to operate despite being targeted by corporations and governments throughout the world.
US police three times as likely to use force against leftwing protesters, data finds - Will this be enough to convince people that the police treat citizens differently not based on their threat to safety but based on their threat to traditional, white power structures? I won't hold my breath but I do hope this furthers the important conversation started by the BLM movement.
Keilar: GOP ignored their own warnings about Trump - We must not all forget that the violence and chaos that has followed Trump was predicted by... Republicans. Most of whom went on to not only enable Trump’s behavior, but to join in on it. These sycophants must now suffer the consequences for their craven and traitorous actions.
A bug's life
Earth losing roughly 1% to 2% of its insects annually, new studies suggest - When the insects go, small animals and most pollinating plants and crops will be next. From there, the large animals will go, and then humans to follow in what is looking more and more like a total collapse of the ecosystem and a man-made extinction event. Instead of trying to go to Mars, maybe humans should come together to try and fix our own home first?
Religion's responsibility
Dáil hears call for church assets to be seized if religious orders refuse to pay for abuse - The Catholic Church has been exploiting and abusing people for centuries. From these stories that keep coming out to my own childhood experience as an indoctrinated Christian despite my own uncles being sexually abused by church leaders when they were young, suffering seems to be an important and permanent component throughout Christianity. There is nothing redeeming in a system so rotten.