There’s more herding in swing state polls than at a sheep farm in the Scottish Highlands - "if pollsters are doing honest work, we should see a lot more “outliers” than we do — even if people love to complain about them on Twitter. In our database as of this afternoon’s model run, there were 249 polls in the seven battleground states that met Silver Bulletin standards and did at least some of their fieldwork in October. How many of them showed the race in either direction within 2.5 percentage points, close enough that you could basically call it a tie? Well, 193 of them did, or 78 percent. That’s way more than you should get in theory — even if the candidates are actually exactly tied in all seven states, which they almost certainly aren’t. There’s more detail on this in the table below. Using this margin of error formula, I calculated the likelihood that a poll should show the race within ±2.5 points. This depends greatly on the sample size. For a poll of 400 people, the smallest sample size in our October swing state database, the chances that it will hit this close to the mark are only about 40 percent. For the largest sample, 5686 voters, it’s almost 95 percent instead. But most state polls are toward the lower end of this range, surveying between 600 and 1200 voters. All told, we’d expect 55 percent of the polls to show a result within 2.5 points in a tied race. Instead, almost 80 percent of them did. How unlikely is that? Based on a binomial distribution — which assumes that all polls are independent of one another, which theoretically they should be — it’s realllllllllllllly unlikely. Specifically, the odds are 1 in 9.5 trillion against at least this many polls showing such a close margin. The problems are most acute in Wisconsin, where there have been major polling errors in the past and pollsters seem terrified of going out on a limb. There, 33 of 36 polls — more than 90 percent — have had the race within 2.5 points. In theory, there’s just a 1 in 2.8 million chance that so many polls would show the Badger State so close. In Pennsylvania, which is the most likely tipping-point state — so weighing in there is tantamount to weighing in on the Electoral College — the problems are nearly as bad. There, 42 of 47 polls show the Trump-Harris margin within 2.5 points — about a 300,000 to 1 “coincidence”. Arizona, Georgia and Michigan are less bad — though that’s partly because polls there have usually been showing leads for Trump, Trump and Harris respectively, so if pollsters are trying to match the consensus, a stray Trump +3 in Arizona or Harris +3 in Michigan won’t stand out so much. This is a clear-as-day example of what we call herding: the tendency of some polling firms to move with the flock by file-drawering (not publishing) results that don’t match the consensus or torturing their turnout models until they do. Some pollsters, like the New York Times/Siena College, don’t do this, and are proud to own their work even when it differs from the polling averages. But others like Redfield & Wilton do. Here are the numbers for the polling firms that released at least eight swing state polls in October:"... By contrast, the most highly-rated polling firms like the Washington Post show much less evidence of herding. YouGov has actually had fewer close polls than you’d expect, although that’s partly because they’ve tended to be one of Harris’s best pollsters, so their surveys often gravitate toward numbers like Harris +3 rather than showing a tie. Our pollster ratings actually include a penalty for herding: polls that consistently match numbers from other recently published polls in a way that is highly statistically improbable see their ratings downgraded... The irony, as I wrote in 2014, is that although herding may make individual polls more accurate, they actually make polling averages less accurate. Polling averages are supposed to aggregate independent opinions — that’s literally one of the preconditions for the wisdom of crowds working in James Surowiecki’s classic book by that name. And from pollsters like Redfield & Wilton, we aren’t getting an independent opinion — in fact, we aren’t really getting an opinion at all. In this election, the incentives are doubly bad, because the polling averages in the swing states are close to zero — so a pollster can both herd toward the consensus and avoid taking a stand that there’s a ~50/50 chance they’ll later be criticized for by publishing a steady stream of Harris +1s, Trump +1s and ties"
Markos Moulitsas on X - "I know plenty of polling, including my own, that doesn’t look like the public polling, and won’t be publicly released. And it just confirms that the aggregators are being fed by shit data, and their results are shit."
Meme - "Why Fonts Matter, 2022 edition.
WELCOME TO 'THE CLIT' / WELCOME TO 'THE CUT'
FOREST RECREATION AREA"
Amusingly, iFunny recognised it as "The Clit"
Meme - @ratlimit: "apologies for my phrasing. instead of "my partner", which has connotations of ownership, I am trying to update my language to "a partner to me" (PTM). credit to my PTM for calling me out on this"
masha @MashaParty: "i love this! my lovemate calls me their PFN (Person For Now) to recognize that while i'm in their life today, they don't owe me a tomorrow. it really makes me grateful for every day i have with them"
Singapore woman’s suicide amidst legal battle raises concerns over legal system - "A Singaporean woman, Geno Ong, posted a suicide note before taking her own life, accusing Raymond Ng of financially ruining her through multiple lawsuits. Ong said her legal fees had become unbearable. Ng expressed sadness but denied responsibility, stating the lawsuits were for defamation.
On 6 September 2024, Singaporean woman Geno Ong, also known by her Facebook alias “Mai Siao Siao,” tragically took her own life after posting an emotional note on her Facebook page. Ong accused businessman Raymond Ng, associated with the group “Healing the Divide,” of financially devastating her through multiple lawsuits. She claimed that her legal fees, which had ballooned to nearly S$100,000, had left her unable to continue defending herself. Ong’s Facebook post detailed the severe psychological and physical toll the lawsuits had taken on her, recounting sleepless nights, anxiety, and deteriorating health. She also accused Ng and his wife, Iris Koh, of targeting average Singaporeans with frivolous lawsuits to drain their financial resources. Ong’s note has raised serious concerns about the pressures of prolonged legal battles and the potential misuse of the legal system to financially exhaust individuals... Notably, Cheng and Raymond Ng are also currently embroiled in their own defamation suits against each other over social media posts, adding to the public focus on how litigation can be used in personal disputes... Ng explained that the lawsuits he had filed against Ong were based on serious defamation allegations she had made, particularly those involving government officers from the Ministry of Health (MOH), Ministry of Manpower (MOM), and the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS). Ng claimed that Ong had falsely accused him of criminal activities and spread rumours that he was being targeted by authorities. He emphasized that his legal actions were intended to protect his reputation and seek justice, not to cause harm. Ng also revealed that despite offering Ong opportunities to settle the matter out of court or provide evidence for her claims, she had refused to engage in meaningful dialogue or mediation. He noted that her continued defamation had left him no choice but to pursue legal action. “By killing herself, she also attempted to blackmail the legal system into her own sense of justice. She can just anyhow defame anyone, and when she is naturally sued for defamation, she retaliates by killing herself.”... Under Singapore law, defamation does not require proof of actual damage to reputation"
When defamation law is intentionally loose, there's collateral damage
Ford government absolutely should put limits on bike lanes. - "Whether in Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, London or elsewhere in the province, the number one issue I hear about in any decent sized town is how bad traffic is becoming. There very much is a war on the car being carried out by councils and urban planners. They seem determined to ensure driving becomes insufferable to the point where people give up out of frustration. There isn’t a revolt against the existence of bike lanes but rather against bike lanes above all else. The line I hear time and again is that people support bike lanes where they make sense but now they are being put where they don’t make sense. As an example, in Toronto there was a compromise several years ago to put bike lanes on Yonge St., north of Bloor St., rather than putting them on Avenue Rd. Those bike lanes have reduced Yonge to one lane in each direction, snarled traffic and made passage for emergency vehicles precarious at best. Now, council has just approved more than 100 km of additional bike lanes, including putting them on Avenue Rd., the area they voted not to place them in the past. Bike lanes don’t just populate downtown streets where they might make sense but are now in suburban areas where few people use them. The entire bike lane issue has gotten out of control. If the Ford government were to come out with rules to limit the rampant expansion of bike lanes, to limit them to areas where they make sense, it would be incredibly popular politically. Councils aren’t listening to their citizens, they are listening to a highly organized cycling lobby and ignoring or demonizing anyone who drives a car."
Meme - Not Inkless🟠 @InklessPW: "this is the heart of Jessica's riding -- it has become a sh*thole of vacant storefronts thanks in part to the Yonge St bike lanes that are mostly used by illegal e-cycles"
Jessica Bell @JessicaBellTO: "Bike lanes are part of the solution to our massive traffic congestion problems because bike lanes make it easier for more people to quickly and safely get from A to B. We are organizing a bike rally with cyclists, health and road safety advocates..."
To Democrats, 'democracy' means rule by . . . THEM - "Democracy in America: What is it? Whatever it is, we know that it is under siege. Barely a moment goes by without tocsins sounding about various threats to “our democracy.” It used to be that the biggest, baddest threat to “our democracy” was Donald Trump. Then a curious thing happened. When it comes to “threats to our democracy,” Trump seems to have been overshadowed somewhat by a new threat: the Constitution... The limits on federal power set forth in the Constitution make it a bulwark against many sorts of abuse, including that most constant temptation of democracies, the tyranny of the majority. Yet Americans now find their lives directed by a jumble of agencies far removed from the legislature and staffed by bureaucrats who make and enforce a vast network of rules that govern nearly every aspect of our lives. Woodrow Wilson, a standard-bearer for an earlier incarnation of the progressive juggernaut, welcomed such an arrangement. “The bulk of mankind,” he noted sadly, “is rigidly unphilosophical, and nowadays the bulk of mankind votes.” What to do? The solution was to shift real power out of elected bodies and into the hands of the right sort of people, enlightened people, progressive people — people, that is to say, like Woodrow Wilson. Many commentators have noted the profoundly undemocratic maneuver by which Joe Biden was erased and Kamala Harris installed as the Democratic presidential nominee. After all, nearly 15 million people voted for Joe Biden in the Democratic primary. He won, hands down, because certain high-level Democrats made sure that other candidates — including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — were shunted to one side. They had done the same thing to Bernie Sanders years before. All, of course, in the name of “democracy.” Which brings me to the distinction between “democracy” and what Democrats like to call “our democracy.” The latter poaches on the authority and prestige of the former. But honestly parsed, the phrase “our democracy” really means “rule by Democrats.” It used to be that the left accorded a certain latitude to opposing views. That’s all over now. Every issue is an existential emergency for which the left’s shock troops are willing to go to the wall. Every loss demands that people scream at the sky. We win or we threaten to burn everything down. At least since Trump’s victory in 2016, the dominant attitude has been that only the left is allowed to win. Any conservative victory is by definition illegitimate, a blow to “our democracy.”"
'I'm pleased it is being used for people's safety': QR code inventor relishes its role in tackling Covid - "The eureka moment that helped Masahiro Hara perfect the Quick Response, or QR code, sprang from a lunchtime game of Go more than a quarter of a century ago... As an employee of the automotive components firm Denso Wave, Hara had been fielding requests from factories to come up with a better way to manage their inventories of an ever-expanding range of parts. Workers wanted a less labour-intensive way to store more information, including kana and kanji characters, but the barcodes then in use could hold only 20 or so alphanumeric characters of information each. In some cases, a single box of components carried as many as 10 barcodes that had to be read individually... the two-dimensional patterns of tiny black and white squares, which can handle 200 times more information than a standard barcode, have revolutionised the way we shop, travel and access websites... it was the development of smartphone cameras that brought the QR code into widespread use, with in-built apps allowing people to quickly scan arrays of dots to access websites and claim discount coupons. Hara, 63, said he was “amazed” when cashless payments using the code caught on in China. “I never thought it would be used as a form of money.”... Denso Wave’s decision to keep the code’s patents open from the outset – in part to encourage other firms to take the technology further – has fuelled its ubiquity"
The Chinese émigrés leaving the pressures of home for laid back Chiang Mai - "Chiang Mai, a tourist hotspot popular with backpackers and nature-lovers, has become an unlikely second home for thousands of new Chinese émigrés. More than 110,000 Chinese nationals applied for long-term visas in Thailand between January and September in 2022, nearly the total number for 2019. Nearly half of the members of Thailand’s “elite card” visa scheme, which offers long term residency rights for a fee starting at 900,000 Thai Baht (£19,400) are Chinese. Thousands of them are settling in Chiang Mai, attracted by the city’s laid back atmosphere and permissive social environment – with or without the legalised marijuana. Cannabis has never been freely available in the People’s Republic of China. But it was not so long ago that China’s big cities were replete with independent bookstores, cinemas and social spaces where like-minded people could meet openly to discuss topics such as feminism, LGBT issues, philosophy and anything else that might interest them. While certain topics were always forbidden, the country’s intelligentsia navigated these red lines with relative ease. But after more than a decade of increasingly iron-fisted rule by Xi Jinping, few, if any, of these spaces remain. So it is that Nowhere Bookstore opened in Chiang Mai in November 2023, after the launch of its sister shop in Taipei the previous year. Founded by Zhang Jieping, a mainland-born journalist who is now based at Harvard University, the small space stocks material on topics that would be impossible to discuss openly in China, such as the 2022 white paper protests and the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. “There are many books that you can’t see or buy in mainland China,” says a young designer from Guangzhou who seized the opportunity to visit the shop while on holiday in Thailand, saying that she otherwise has to rely on the “fragmented information” of the Chinese internet. As well as selling books, Nowhere also hosts Chinese-language events on wide-ranging topics for the growing Chinese community in Chiang Mai. At a recent event, the 62-year-old writer Zheng Shiping spoke about spending his retirement years in exile. Zheng started his career as a policeman in the 1980s but quit the force after Tiananmen Square massacre, and went on to become a renowned poet and writer, working under the pen name Ye Fu. He arrived in Thailand at the end of 2019, having heard from doctors in Wuhan, the capital of his home province of Hubei, about a virus that was spreading dangerously fast in the city. “Thailand is certainly not as safe as the US, Europe or Japan,” he says, acutely aware of the fate of Gui Minhai, a Swedish bookseller who was kidnapped from Thailand in 2015, reappearing months later in Chinese custody, an incident which spooked dissidents in Thailand. “But it’s still basically a country with free speech. It basically protects human rights”. Zheng is part of an older cabal of expats who have established a retirement village-meets-arts community in a suburb of Chiang Mai. Unlike the millennial transplants, this older generation was forged in China’s more liberal era of the 1980s, and have a more political perspective about the country’s trajectory. “We were hopeful, a generation of people who made great sacrifices and efforts, but ultimately failed,” says Zheng. “Young Chinese today are more desperate than we were then. In the next few years, they will be unemployed, their lives will be in crisis, and their rights as human beings will diminish little by little.” For Du Yinghong, an artist, part of the reason he emigrated was because he believes that “art is dead” in his home country. “It’s spiritually unsatisfying, materially unsatisfying,” he says. As well as the low cost of living in Thailand, Du was attracted to the country’s Buddhism. Thailand is thought to be home to the second-largest number of Buddhists in the world after China, and as a share of the population, it is far more prevalent in Thailand, with 90% of adults claiming adherence to the faith, according to Pew Research Centre. “Chinese Buddhism is Buddhism in quotation marks,” says Du, aged 48. “There is no real Buddhism in China, there is no real Christianity, there is no real Islam … it’s all fake. Of course, there are a lot of really devout people in China, good people, but what they do, or believe in, it’s in a specific kind of political environment, it doesn’t allow you to have real faith”. Many of the Chinese in Thailand say that they are attracted to the idea of a less consumerist, more peaceful lifestyle, informed by Thailand’s Buddhist principles. With the highest rate of inequality in east and south-east Asia, Thailand’s appeal may be informed more by the fact that the low cost of living allows relatively wealthy Chinese to have a slower pace of life in Chiang Mai than they could afford in Chongqing
What if ‘ghosting’ people isn’t just rude, but psychologically harmful? - "In the 1920s, ghosting a close friend would indeed have been shocking. Ghosting as a social move was pretty much unheard of into the 2000s. Remember that 2003 episode of Sex and the City where Carrie is outraged that Jack Berger breaks up with her via Post-it note? “I’m sorry. I can’t. Don’t hate me,” says the offending scrap of paper. “Today, that would be seen as almost respectful,” says a young woman I often talk to about modern dating. “At least he said something.” Today, ghosting is all too common, especially in the world of online dating. According to a recent study from the University of Vienna, ghosting has become “notorious” as the go-to method for ending a connection that began on a dating app. Another study this year by Forbes found that “a staggering 76% of respondents have either ghosted or been ghosted in the context of dating.”... “It’s disrespectful, mean, and downright rude,” says Bumble, which recently gained kudos for allegedly “banning ghosting”. “No ghosting on Bumble!” the dating app announced on its website – though on closer inspection it seems that Bumble has not so much banned ghosting as it has encouraged users to report it when one of their matches has failed to show up for an agreed-upon, in-person date. After which, the company claims, “a human moderator will then fact-check the information before taking action.” That sounds complicated and difficult to prove, and one wonders how many users will actually be banned by Bumble for failure to appear. It’s also ironic that a dating app is promising to ban behavior it helped to foster. And ghosting doesn’t only refer to being a no-show at a date, but to abruptly ending a conversation or even a relationship that has lasted for weeks or months, even years. Social media is awash in videos of people expressing their frustration at being ghosted by people they’ve been dating both casually and seriously... A recent study from the University of Georgia says that researchers were surprised to find that over half the participants in its survey on ghosting and dating said that they had also been ghosted by a friend – which felt “just as bad” as being ghosted by a romantic partner, or even worse. And in their professional lives, people are now routinely being ghosted in work situations involving hiring, pitching, networking and more."
Man stabbed himself to death separating frozen burgers - "It took police more than a month after Barry Griffiths died to seal off his flat in Llandrindod Wells after a post-mortem revealed that he died from a stab wound, during which time some evidence had been lost. An inquest at Pontypridd Coroner's Court on Monday (September 16) heard that the investigation later found that there was no evidence that anyone else was involved in the death of the 57-year-old, whose body was found on July 4, 2023 after concerns were raised that he hadn't been seen for more than a week. Area coroner Patricia Morgan concluded that Mr Griffiths, who had restricted use of one arm following a stroke, most likely died from an accident while preparing frozen food for cooking."
richard on X - "the geniuses at the LAPD noticed a medical diagnostic clinic had high energy usage so they raided it for no reason and a cop had his gun looney tunes style stolen from him by powerful magnets."
LAPD raid goes bad after gun allegedly sucked onto MRI machine - "An officer with the Los Angeles Police Department found out the hard way that you can’t take metal near an MRI machine after their rifle flew out of their hands and became attached to the machine during a pot raid gone bad, according to a federal lawsuit filed last week. The incident’s details were described in a lawsuit filed by the owners of a Los Angeles medical imaging center, who allege that their business was wrongly targeted by LAPD during a raid in October 2023 The lawsuit was first reported on by Law360.com. The owners of NoHo Diagnostic Center are suing the LAPD, the city of Los Angeles and multiple police officers, alleging they violated the business owners’ constitutional rights and demanding an unspecified amount in damages. Officers allegedly raided the diagnostic center, located in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles, thinking it was a front for an illegal cannabis cultivation facility, pointing to higher-than-usual energy use and the “distinct odor” of cannabis plants, according to the lawsuit. Officers raided the facility on Oct. 18, 2023, and detained the lone female employee while they searched the business, the lawsuit said. However, they didn’t find a single cannabis plant and only saw a typical medical facility with rooms used for conducting x-rays, ultrasounds, CT scans and MRIs, the owners said. The officers then released the employee and told her to call a manager, the lawsuit said, while they continued to wander around various rooms of the facility. The plaintiffs say the officers’ behavior was “nothing short of a disorganized circus, with no apparent rules, procedures, or even a hint of coordination.” At one point, an officer walked into an MRI room, past a sign warning that metal was prohibited inside, with his rifle “dangling… in his right hand, with an unsecured strap,” the lawsuit said. The MRI machine’s magnetic force then allegedly sucked his rifle across the room, pinning it against the machine... An officer then allegedly pulled a sealed emergency release button that shut the MRI machine down, deactivating it, evaporating thousands of liters of helium gas and damaging the machine in the process. The officer then grabbed his rifle and left the room, leaving behind a magazine filled with bullets on the office floor"
Richard Hanania on X - "These lists of the most Democratic and Republican names for both sexes are funny."
James Lippens on X - "Damn people just saddle their kids with these dogshit names"
How Republican or Democratic is your name? - The Washington Post
Meme - Edward Kmett @kmett: "A coworker and I were talking about the proper way to kill children in a food court once, in the wake of 9/11, and had mall security called on us. The ensuing awkward explanation of unix process terminology with a jittery mall-cop has lived rent-free in my head ever since."
neural nets. @cneuralnetwork: "never studying OS again"
Contents
9.4 Process Primitives
9.4.1 Having Children
9.4.2 Watching Your Children Die.
9.4.3 Running New Programs
9.4.4 A Bit of History vfork()
9.45 Killing Yourself
9.4.6 Killing Others
9.4.7 Dumping Core"
Bill Ackman on X - "I don’t know whether Eric Adams @ericadamsfornyc is guilty or innocent. He does, however, deserve the presumption of innocence. I do know that Eric loudly spoke the truth on the migrant problem in NYC and what the consequences would be for New Yorkers and the country. Doing so required bravery, as sharing these views publicly as a Democratic mayor did not win him any friends in the Party or with the Biden/Harris administration. Having witnessed the weaponization of our country’s prosecutorial resources, sadly I have to say I am that much more skeptical when indictments are announced against someone whose views are not welcomed by the party in charge. One would hope that in our political system, indictments would only be brought in cases where the probability of conviction is very high as it is beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty. Sadly, I am less confident that the system works that way any more."
Bill Ackman on X - "In short, the case against @ericadamsfornyc Eric Adams is comprised of two main charges. That is, he purportedly received airline and hotel room upgrades, and in exchange he pressured the @FDNY to accelerate the temporary certification of occupancy of a newly constructed building. The value of the ‘graft’ is calculated to be $123,000, but we all know that the face amount of airline tickets and the rack rate of hotel rooms are fictional numbers. Empty airline seats and hotel rooms expire every day which is why upgrades are available often for free or for nominal cost. In one case, Adams is accused of paying ‘only’ $600 for a $7,000 suite and pictures of the ‘suite’ are included in the complaint. Knowing something about nice hotel rooms and a lot about the hotel business, I can tell you that $600 is much closer to a fair estimate of value for that room than $7,000 and an upgrade to that room would not be anything other than ordinary course for a hotelier. I would be surprised based on the photos if that room ever achieved the purported $7,000 rack rate. The hotel room examples and their photos on their own call into question the credibility of the other allegations in the case. Can anyone think of an example of a bribery charge brought against a sitting politician based on airline or hotel room upgrades? I have flown on many DC/NYC shuttles where one or more House or Senate members is sitting in the first row of first or business class and I am sure they didn’t pay extra for their ticket. If anything I have assumed that those seats are chosen for the politicians for security reasons. If airline upgrades are graft, then we should be able to arrest and empty out the Congress and start over which might be good for our democracy. I am sure the @X community has some photos of their favorite politicians in the front of the plane. The other charge is that Adams received ‘straw’ campaign donations, that is, donations that were funneled through individuals to conceal the fact that they were from foreign nationals who reimbursed the straw men for their out of pocket donations. This charge was by no means proven in the complaint. That is for a jury and a judge to determine. I am not trying to minimize in any way our election laws and the strict rules on gifts for government employees. I simply and strongly believe that a man is innocent until proven guilty and that the Mayor deserves this presumption of innocence unless and until he is proven guilty."
Richard Hanania on X - "Blacks have now made up less than 2% of NYC mayors throughout history but 100% of those who have been indicted while serving."
Stephen Fleming on X - "True story: Caterpillar parked a trailer outside a local trade show. I went in, sat down in the simulator seat, and had a great time driving a simulated bulldozer. Full throttle bouncing over berms, etc. Until the PR rep came in and freaked out. I wasn’t playing a simulator. I was remotely operating a real bulldozer at their training grounds fifty miles away, and I damn near destroyed it. Oops…"
Canada’s Conservatives are crushing Justin Trudeau - "When Mr Poilievre won the leadership of the party in September 2022, the Conservatives were tied with the Liberals, led by Justin Trudeau, the prime minister. Today the Conservatives have a 17-point lead (see chart). The party has not polled this well since 1988. Many of Mr Poilievre’s plans are still foggy, but he has built his popularity on a pair of issues that bother swathes of the electorate: inflation and a drum-tight housing market strained by millions of immigrants. He couples this with a well-honed pitch to young voters and relentless hard-hat-heavy signals that he feels for working people’s troubles. That Mr Trudeau has a net personal approval rating of minus 35 helps, too... Thanks in large part to this issue, the Conservatives now lead by 15 percentage points among voters aged 18 to 35, a sharp reversal of traditional patterns. That lead opened up once Mr Poilievre began to attack Mr Trudeau over the 66% rise in house prices since the Liberals were elected in 2015. That year there was an unprecedented increase in first-time voters. Many were attracted to Mr Trudeau’s promise to legalise marijuana use and to bring down carbon emissions. Young voters now care a lot more about moving out of their parents’ basements and eventually buying a home... he told a blue-chip audience of bosses earlier this year that he is not interested in meeting them for lunch at plush private clubs and would rather talk to workers on factory floors. His “daily obsession” as prime minister would be, he said, “about what is good for the working class of people in this country”. He would ban his ministers from attending the elite gabfests in the Swiss resort of Davos. Pin-striped Tories, with nowhere else to go, are sticking with him... A survey of private-union members by Abacus Data, a pollster, suggests that 43% back the Conservatives compared with 24% for the Liberals. “The centre of Conservative gravity is no longer the entrepreneur,” says Sean Speer, a policy adviser to the last Conservative government. “It’s the wage earner.”"
Richard Hanania on X - "“Hot Mom Drop Off.” A European can never understand the culture of Florida State University."
Shades of Grey - The Joy of Painting S2E4 - "After a meeting with a colorblind friend Bob does a whole painting in grey to show us that everyone can paint."
Do You Need a Guard Llama? - "The cuddly, four-hooved animal that shares an ancestor with the camel, alpaca, vicuna, and guanaco has a growing reputation as a good guardian of property and livestock. Yes, guard llamas are a real thing. “Llamas are well-equipped with offensive weapons,” says Ken Kalish of Carma Llama Rescue in Park Rapids, MN. “They will approach a predator as though they are curious, as though they want to smell it. Once they get close enough, they strike.”"
Meme - "Cartoons led me to believe Id have more sandwiches topped with an olive on a toothpick in my life."
GG ends Quebec trip when reporters notice she can't speak French - "More than three years after vowing to learn French, Governor General Mary Simon abruptly cut short a visit to Quebec City after local media noticed that she wasn’t able to say much more than, “Hello, how are you?”... Although Simon is Canada’s first-ever Indigenous governor general, she was also the first Canadian-born holder of the office not to speak both official languages. And that hasn’t happened for quite some time. The last Governor General without a working knowledge of French would have served during the pre-1950s era, when the position was reserved entirely for British nobility. In Simon’s first speech as Governor General, she expressed a commitment to add “Canada’s other official language, French” to her repertoire... Simon’s lack of French has been a major point of contention among Francophones. The Commissioner of Official Languages was barraged with complaints following Simon’s appointment. An Angus Reid Institute survey from the time found a plurality of French-speaking Quebecers opposed her appointment... Two French-language advocacy groups are also championing a Charter challenge seeking to have Simon’s appointment annulled. The groups Justice Pour le Québec and Association De Défense Des Droits Individuels Et Collectifs Du Québec (ADDICQ) have argued that Simon’s appointment is a violation of the Charter guarantee for French and English to have “equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all institutions of the Parliament and government of Canada.” Although the federal government has attempted to have the case quashed, last month a Quebec judge ruled that it will proceed to a hearing."
Mary Simon hits back at 'personal attacks' of her French - "Gov. Gen. Mary Simon insists her lack of French language proficiency does not hinder her ability to represent Canadians, after several Quebec politicians this week criticized her for not yet being fluent in the language, three years after her appointment."
Naturally people were trying to claim that speaking an indigenous language was better than being able to speak French, or that French was not necessary for the job, or saying that everyone should have to learn an indigenous language, or that adults can't learn new languages