The NDP is always wrong: That’s almost impressive - "Pierre Poilievre spent last weekend at the Conservative convention offering Canadians hope for a better and more affordable country after Justin Trudeau’s time as prime minister ends. Meanwhile, Trudeau’s Liberals are taking a well-deserved public opinion thrashing — the inevitable backlash against their failed policies and unwavering insistence that the miserable outcomes they have produced are in fact splendid results. The Liberal caucus is said to be frustrated, discouraged, angry and disillusioned... These days, the federal NDP is most notable for how weak it is. That it has any real plan, any intellectual coherence, any economic sanity, any vision for improving the country, or that it deserves any electoral success, no serious person can believe. Its criticisms of the federal government’s failures are wholly ineffective: the government survives only because of the NDP’s support. Party leader Jagmeet Singh often blames inequality, unaffordability or other outcomes he laments on bad Liberal and Conservative policies. He is evidently oblivious to the fact that it his party, not the Conservatives, that is propping up the Liberal government. The public is not fooled: as long as the NDP allows the Liberal agenda to continue it must share the blame. Whatever credibility the party had it surrendered by supporting the government, and whatever hope it has of restoring its credibility is frustrated by its leader’s singular inauthenticity. The term “champagne socialist” was coined to describe those who express political solidarity with the poor while themselves enjoying a luxurious lifestyle; Jagmeet Singh’s fondness for luxury watches and tailored suits has inspired the coining of the new term “Rolex socialist.” More than any previous NDP leader, Singh has made a name for himself by denouncing the creation of prosperity. Whatever song is playing, he belts out a constant, off-key note: the rich, the rich are to blame. One does not actually have to be “rich” to be castigated by the NDP, however: that someone owns a business earning profits or a property generating income is sufficient evidence they are greedy and oppressive — though his attempts to paint property investors as the scourge of the earth are undermined by the fact his wife owns a rental property in British Columbia. There is, of course, nothing wrong with wearing fancy clothes or being a landlord. It is the hypocrisy that is off-putting. On policy, the NDP has a long history of error. But its being so spectacularly and consistently wrong is a relatively new development. Singh’s immediate predecessor, Thomas Mulcair, got a few things right, including his opposition to raising top marginal income tax rates higher than 50 per cent. Even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the socialist Congressional representative from New York, recently landed on the right side of an important issue by pushing back against the Food and Drug Administration’s over-regulation of sunscreens, which leave Americans with products that provide worse protection against sunburn and skin cancer than European sunscreens. But Jagmeet Singh has yet to be on the right side of a policy debate. Things that worsen economic problems, Singh unfailingly insists must be expanded. Things that are not problems at all, he can be relied on to denounce as ruinous. Increased government spending is the antidote for inflation; the way to tackle housing affordability is to redistribute money to property owners; though grocery store costs are too high grocery store wages are too low; and so on. Under Singh’s leadership, the NDP’s extraordinary consistency in making errors is almost impressive: even a stopped clock is right twice a day; to be always in error requires serious effort. We may soon have to conclude that Singh carefully works out the correct policy solutions to the country’s economic problems (possibly by reading this page), then deliberately takes the opposite view"
Jagmeet Singh needs to go - "He’s also scored a bunch of policy goals on his own net, ones that undermine his party’s appeal with the voters — young, urban and working class — he needs to attract and retain. His latest was a suggestion that homeowners facing rising mortgage payments need some sort of federal support or subsidy, an idea that was pilloried by some of Canada’s biggest housing policy wonks on both the left and the right... he talked about how young lawyers like him could no longer afford to buy houses in Mississauga, as though the NDP’s stronghold was somehow rooted in the legal community. This is of a piece for the current iteration of the NDP in Ontario, whose leaders seem to think his party’s electoral strength lies among the urban professional crowd rather than the more traditional blue-collar and union member NDP base... At this point, letting him lead the party into the next election could be a suicide mission. Some models have the NDP winning fewer than 20 seats"
The problems you get when a workers' party becomes a SJWs' party. But the credulous will keep insisting they're still the former
Meme - "MEMES OF 2023
January Maegan Hall
February Chinese Balloon
March Silicon Valley Bank
April Bud Light
May Gorlock the Destroyer
June Titanic Submarine"
July Tiffany Gomas plane 'not real' meltdown
August Montgomery river dock fight"
This Morning 'vegetarian' dog embarrasses owner as it picks meat on live TV - "Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford met dog owner Lucy Carrington Palmer, who decided to put her Siberian Husky, called Storm, on a purely vegetarian diet after she was put off meat by the hot weather. Lucy herself isn't a vegetarian, with Ruth Langsford noting that she would have "put money" on her also being a veggie... the biggest test of Storm's loyalty was to come as the show presented her with a bowl of meat and a bowl of vegetarian food to pick from. And it backfired spectacularly as the pooch went straight for the meat, Lucy almost swearing in her annoyance... Scott then noted: "This is a dog acting naturally," as he later pointed out the harm of putting a dog on a purely veggie diet as they are "omnivores"... Lucy did later admit that she would adapt to her dog's needs – though we fear she won't be getting any treats today."
Daily Harvest Lentil Crumbles Recall Saga Has Rocked the Company - Bloomberg - "the company recalled a product—little balls of plant protein called French Lentil + Leek Crumbles—that made some people so ill, more than 130 ended up in the hospital, and some 40 of them had to have their gallbladders removed."
Beyond Meat (BYND), Impossible Foods Burgers Are Just Another Food Fad - Bloomberg - "Before Impossible had sold even a single burger, the company managed to raise $183 million. Pat also worked the circuit, including an actual TED Talk (technically, it was TEDMed) in 2015. Speaking in slightly more apocalyptic terms than Ethan, Pat referred to the “ongoing wildlife holocaust” caused by the world’s insatiable demand for meat, while an assistant sizzled an Impossible Burger onstage beside him. “I know it sounds insane to replace a deeply entrenched, trillion-dollar-a-year global industry,” he said, “but it has to be done.” Four years later, when the New Yorker profiled Impossible, Pat predicted his company would “take a double-digit portion of the beef market” by 2024 before sending it into a “death spiral.” Next he would target “the pork industry and the chicken industry and say, ‘You’re next!’ and they’ll go bankrupt even faster.” But Big Meat is still alive and well. After Beyond went public in 2019—at the time the most successful major initial public offering since the 2008 financial crisis—competitors rushed into the space, followed by a categorywide pandemic surge. Since then the industry has plunged. Supermarket sales of refrigerated plant-based meat plummeted 14% by volume for the 52 weeks ended Dec. 4, according to retail data company IRI. Orders of plant-based burgers at restaurants and other food-service outlets for the 12 months ended in November were down 9% from three years earlier, according to market researcher NPD Group. Beyond lost sales in almost every channel last quarter. Over the past year it laid off more than 20% of its workforce, lost more than half of its C-suite and halted projects including vegan hot dogs and the next alt-protein frontier of cell-cultured meat... Ethan pointed his finger at the actual meat industry for fake meat’s headwinds. “They are doing their very best today to suggest that our process is somehow unhealthy or that our products are full of chemicals,” he said. “These things are not true.” Whatever critiques the meat industry is lobbing are the same ones plenty of consumers are figuring out for themselves. Like fat-free Snackwell’s cookies or Lay’s olestra-laden WOW Chips—or any other glut-without-the-guilt food trend that periodically cycles in and out of the zeitgeist—the incremental benefits are eventually offset by concerns over what else might be in there... When industry watchers were still figuring out whether plant-based meat might pull an alt-milk-size disruption, many missed two key differences: lactose-intolerant consumers and milk’s primary use as an ingredient, not a main course. Many soy, almond and oat milk drinkers add it to their coffee because real milk simply isn’t an option. But they’re mostly not drinking it by the glass. Even predictions of a sales rebound for plant-based meat are dwarfed by what’s happening in dairy. Bloomberg Intelligence’s Jennifer Bartashus wrote in November that in the second half of 2023, “we expect plant-based dairy sales to rise 6-8% and meat alternatives 1-2%.” Beyond Meat’s current market capitalization is about $1 billion—down from its peak of more than $14 billion. Bringing costs down is the company’s priority as it pledges to finally become cash-flow positive in the second half of this year and tries to keep up its dwindling cash reserves."
Bella Ramsey and Halle Bailey crowned 'Most Beautiful Vegan Celebrities of 2023'
Telling.
Meme - "They mounted a vegan to the wall at my local butcher shop."
Australian mum refuses to get rid of her child’s nits because she’s vegan - ""My seven-year-old daughter is best friends with the girl next door, whose family are vegan. That’s fine; we respect their choice… my problem is that recently this otherwise delightful child was at our house and scratching furiously, and I discovered she was crawling with head lice." After mentioning the nits to the girls' mum, the mum said she was aware of them but didn't want to harm them as vegans don't kill living things. "She told me she was in the practice of combing the lice and nits into the garden where they had the best chance of survival," the poster continued, "and my jaw hit the floor."... she was actually a "monster" who was condemning the nits to a "slow and painful" death as they wouldn't be able to survive in the garden"
The Dad on X - "God: what are they doing down there?
Angel: they are making milk from almonds
God: what?! I gave them, like, 8 animals to get milk from
A: they dont like that milk
God: [mockingly] tHey DonT LiKe THat miLk *flips a table*"
Meme - "How vegans think animals die in the wild... *Deer in hospital bed with doctor and family*"
Vegan influencer starved to death: friends - "Vegan influencer Zhanna Samsonova has reportedly “died of starvation” after subsisting exclusively on a diet of exotic fruit in Malaysia, according to her friends and family. She was 39. The Russian national — who frequently promoted raw foods on social media where she was known to her millions of viewers on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram as Zhanna D’Art — reportedly died July 21 after finally seeking medical treatment during a tour in Southeast Asia... “A few months ago, in Sri Lanka, she already looked exhausted, with swollen legs oozing lymph,” one unidentified friend told Newsflash. “They sent her home to seek treatment. However, she ran away again. When I saw her in Phuket, I was horrified.” Her friend added, “I lived one floor above her and every day I feared finding her lifeless body in the morning. I convinced her to seek treatment, but she didn’t make it.”... A proponent of uncooked herbivorous fare, the Kasan native claimed she ate a “completely raw vegan diet” for the last four years, consuming just “fruits, sunflower seed sprouts, fruit smoothies, and juices.” Meanwhile, a friend claimed that for the last seven years, Samsonova had only eaten the giant, sweet jackfruit and durian, a spiky, mace-like fruit known for its custardy meat and noxious odor. “I see my body and mind transform every day,” Samsonova had gushed while describing her restrictive eating regimen. “I love my new me, and never move on to the habits that I used to use.” The food-influencer said her raw foods regimen was reportedly inspired by seeing “peers” who looked a lot older than their ages, which she attributed to their “junk food” diets... While a raw foods diet can have multiple health benefits — including weight loss, improved heart health and a lower risk of diabetes — there are downsides to this regimen, especially when not well planned, according to Healthline. These include deficiencies in calcium and Vitamin D, which are needed for strong bones. This can also lead to suboptimal B12 levels, which can result in anemia, nervous system damage, infertility, and, somewhat paradoxically, heart disease. A study published earlier this month in the Journal of Nutrition found that 100% of participants on a raw vegan diet ingested less than the recommended 2.4 mcg of vitamin B12 per day. Despite the potential downsides to Samsonova’s diet, many of her devoted followers refused to believe her eating choices led to her death, instead claiming that she was killed by chemicals in the fruit she ate... Samsonova wouldn’t be the first to starve to death from a raw foods diet. Last year, vegan Florida mother Sheila O’Leary, 38, was sentenced to life in prison after starving her 18-month-old son to death by feeding him only small amounts of fruits and vegetables."
Baby loses weight and vomits, doctors discover he was starving on almond milk diet
Study finds milk or egg present in one third of vegan products - "New research conducted by the UK’s Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) has found that one in three vegan-labelled products on sale in national grocery stores still contain milk or egg in their formula."
This is misleading, because it's about the possibility of trace allergens, not the recipe. This is a good way to kill the vegan industry, since it'll mean dedicated facilities will need to be set up, which will increase costs
Meme - PETA @peta: "A fish's life is just as valuable to them as yours is to you."
greg: "How come fish can eat other fish but we can't eat fish"
"PETA @peta blocked you"
Mum's 'terrifying' hack to stop kids from making mess slammed by furious parents - "She came up with the idea to dress up as the "leopard woman" to scare her kids into keeping the house clean - but other parents think it could "traumatise" them. The image shows a mum dressed in a leopard print morph suit as she vacuumed - while her kids are clearly upset. The caption reads: "A woman puts on this dress when she cleans her house. "And the reason is that she told her two children, who are terrified of her, that this 'leopard woman' is visiting our house to clean. "If you don't make the house dirty, she won't come back.""
Couple spends £50k transforming house into 1950s paradise with James Bond art - "A couple who are obsessed with the 1950s have renovated their home into an homage to the decade in a three-year project. Gemma and Dean Burton, 42, have forked out £50k to transform their three-bedroom property, collecting art work and furniture that pays tribute to the 1950s. The couple, from Higham Ferrers in Northamptonshire, have adorned their walls from floor to ceiling with pin up wallpaper and prints from the era, including James Bond posters. They also have jewellery from the 50s proudly displayed in cases around the house."
Diner tries to drink water from own bottle in Bugis coffee shop, gets stopped by staff - "A diner, surnamed Chen, shared with Shin Min Daily News that she was eating at a coffee shop along Queen Street at Bugis on Monday (July 10) and tried to drink from her own water bottle, but a staff member discouraged her... She explained that she was trying to take medicine for her ailments and wanted to wash it down with water from her bottle when a staff from the coffee shop approached her to warn her against doing so."
Why didn't the Aztecs invade Europe? - "The alien invasion is a familiar sci-fi trope. Usually, the plucky earthlings rally together and win the day with flag-waving and self-congratulations. But for history’s real-life alien invasion, there was no underdog story. It was a tale of genocide, pestilence, and enslavement. And it occurred when the Europeans ventured into the “New World.” But why was it the Spanish who invaded Mexico and not the other way around? Why didn’t the Aztecs land in London or the Mayans in Madrid? The answer largely centers on crops and cows... While the Americas had an abundance of high-yield crops (meaning dense in protein and calories), they often needed a very particular environment and were far more labor-intensive than Eurasian grasses. More importantly, tomatoes, squash, potatoes, and peppers cannot be stored as easily as dried grains. The only grain available in the Americas was maize, which is less nutrient-rich than the eight “founder crops” and requires a further processing stage called nixtamalization. In Eurasia, it was far easier for people to achieve a calorie surplus. This enabled larger populations and allowed for professionalization... Over several millennia, the people of Eurasia had developed a genetic immunity (or, at least, a resistance) to diseases like smallpox. Why? Because they lived in close proximity to livestock. In his 1997 book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond writes that there are only 14 big, herbivorous animals easily domesticated in the world. Of those, “Only five species became widespread and important around the world. Those Major Five of mammal domestication are the cow, sheep, goat, pig, and horse.” None of these animals were native to the Americas. Only one out of 14 — the llama/alpaca — was native to the Andes of South America. Having all the “Major Five” domesticated animal species gave Eurasia a huge advantage. As Diamond puts it, “they provided meat, milk products, fertilizer, land transport, leather, military assault vehicles, plow traction, and wool, as well as germs that killed previously unexposed peoples.”"
This ignores the role of a critical mass - why aborigines on Tasmania were less technologically advanced than those on the mainland
Plants perform quantum mechanics feats that scientists can only do at ultra-cold temperatures
Alberta's Coming Declaration of Independence? - "Increasing numbers of Albertans see recent efforts by Ottawa to destroy their economy as the culmination of a long train of abuses that began a century and a half ago. But why would Laurentian Canada kill the goose that lays the golden eggs that sustain transfer payments to Quebec? How irrational is that?... The conflict between Alberta and Laurentian Canada is not simply about economic exploitation. The histories and the mythologies of the two regions are antithetical. Laurentia has been conditioned by defeat: of the French by the English in 1759 at Quebec, of the Loyalists by the Patriots following the American Revolution. In contrast, the settlement of the Prairie West, despite Laurentian military victory in 1885 was, at least for settlers, akin to the triumph of pioneer virtue and grit familiar to American tales about the “winning of the west.” This is why Albertans have more culturally in common with their neighbours in Montana than with fellow citizens in Ontario and Quebec."
TikTok generation more likely to be fooled by fraudsters than the elderly - "The smartphone generation – those aged 20-29 – is supposedly tech-savvy enough to spot a fraudulent message from a mile away, but experts said their familiarity with technology made them more susceptible. Paul Davis, TSB’s director of fraud prevention, said: “If you’ve grown up with smartphones you’re more likely to be trusting of them – and there’s always a scam that could be convincing enough.”"
US Customs Wants Indians To Stop Carrying Cow Dung in Their Luggage - "the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials found a suitcase left behind with two cow dung cakes at Washington Dulles International Airport. The CBP officials were certainly not amused after finding the restricted items since they carry the risk of foot-and-mouth disease. The U.S. Department of Agriculture views it as a “worldwide concern” since the disease can spread rapidly... Surprisingly, cow dung is selling like hot cakes in the U.S.. Walmart too has listed cow manure on their website in the gardening section. In 2016, cow urine was being sold in the food aisle in the UK, which led to a backlash... After the outbreak of COVID-19 in India, some people have taken to using cow dung and cow urine as a cure for the virus — a claim which is not just unverified but also highly irresponsible. Last week, a member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party encouraged people to drink cow urine to ward off the virus. Doctors, however, have strongly advised against this practice."
Most gay couples aren't monogamous: Will straight couples go monogamish? - "The dirty little secret about gay marriage: Most gay couples are not monogamous. We have come to accept lately, partly thanks to Liza Mundy’s excellent recent cover story in the Atlantic and partly because we desperately need something to make the drooping institution of heterosexual marriage seem vibrant again, that gay marriage has something to teach us, that gay couples provide a model for marriages that are more egalitarian and less burdened by the old gender roles that are weighing marriage down these days. But the thorny part of the gay marriage experiment is sex, and more precisely, monogamous sex. Mundy writes about an old study from the ‘80s that found that gay couples were extremely likely to have had sex outside their relationship—82 percent did. That was before AIDS and the great matrimony craze in the gay community... In the fight for marriage equality, the gay rights movement has put forth couples that look like straight ones, together forever, loyal, sharing assets. But what no one wants to talk about is that they don’t necessarily represent the norm:
The Gay Couples Study out of San Francisco State University—which, in following over 500 gay couples over many years is the largest on-going study of its kind—has found that about half of all couples have sex with someone other than their partner, with their partner knowing"
From 2013
I love pretending to be an NPC in games
Meme - "wearing matching outfits with your best friend.
Japan *2 women posing*
Ireland *balaclava-clad paramilitaries*"
Japan Bans Oppenheimer: Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer," Dealing Blow to Film's Global Market - "Japanese authorities have not provided specific reasons for the ban, but industry insiders speculate that it may be due to concerns over the film's portrayal of the atomic bomb and its potential impact on public sentiment. Japan, having experienced the devastating effects of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, holds a unique perspective on nuclear weapons, and the wounds inflicted by those events still resonate deeply within the nation."
Early Version of Disney’s Mickey Mouse Will Soon Be Public Property - The New York Times - "This is a company that once forced a Florida day care center to remove an unauthorized Minnie Mouse mural. In 2006, Disney told a stonemason that carving Winnie the Pooh into a child’s gravestone would violate its copyright. The company pushed so hard for an extension of copyright protections in 1998 that the result was derisively nicknamed the Mickey Mouse Protection Act. For the first time, however, one of Disney’s marquee characters — Mickey himself — is set to enter the public domain. “Steamboat Willie,” the 1928 short film that introduced Mickey to the world, will lose copyright protection in the United States and a few other countries at the end of next year, prompting fans, copyright experts and potential Mickey grabbers to wonder: How is the notoriously litigious Disney going to respond?... Only one copyright is expiring. It covers the original version of Mickey Mouse as seen in “Steamboat Willie,” an eight-minute short with little plot. This nonspeaking Mickey has a rat-like nose, rudimentary eyes (no pupils) and a long tail. He can be naughty. In one “Steamboat Willie” scene, he torments a cat. In another, he uses a terrified goose as a trombone. Later versions of the character remain protected by copyrights, including the sweeter, rounder Mickey with red shorts and white gloves most familiar to audiences today. They will enter the public domain at different points over the coming decades... Boiled down, any public domain use of the original Mickey cannot be perceived as coming from Disney... Disney lawyers and lobbyists likely determined long ago that pressing Congress for another extension would fail. “That last one is held in such bad, bad odor,” Mr. Goldstein said. “I don’t think there was any option to try and extend further.” That means early versions of Popeye, King Kong, Donald Duck, Flash Gordon, Porky Pig and Superman will enter the public domain at various points over the next decade. If there is anything that Disney takes more seriously than intellectual property, it is public image. In 2020, a Disney affiliate charged an elementary school $250 for showing “The Lion King” without permission at a P.T.A. fund-raiser. The media storm that followed was so intense that Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, apologized and said he would make a personal donation... “They won’t be able to go after everyone,” Mr. Moss said. “Battle lines will have to be drawn.” Ms. Ginsburg said she was watching closely to see if Disney and other entertainment companies tried to apply trademark law as a substitute for or extension of copyright — as she put it, “apply a separate protection to get to the same place.” In a Supreme Court intellectual property case from 2003 involving 20th Century Fox, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, warned of using trademarks to generate “a species of mutant copyright law.”"
Unpaid internship opportunities are actually useful and you should apply to them. : cscareerquestions - "You can use them to practice your interview skills. If you get an offer just tell them that you can't work for them because you got accepted for a paid internship. Not only do you get back at exploitive companies by wasting their time, but you will also be able to practice what you're going to say when interviewing at a real company."
