Vital piece of investigative reporting from Sky. They've uncovered the X algorithm which feeds users extremist right wing material from the moment they join the site. It is a far-right radicalisation engine, by design. news.sky.com/story/the-x-...

The Reddit community r/Democrats has a conspicuous absence of any news about Zohran Mamdani today. But that's by design. The moderators have rules that ban people from talking about democratic socialists. www.reddit.com/r/democrats/

A root problem with the immigration proposal -- using permanent immigrants rather than temporaries to fulfil the "nation-building" goals of the larger budget -- is that Canada's main immigration pathways, Express Entry and PNP, select for FAR too high skill/education levels for our economic needs

The thing that is most depressing about this graph is how much Americans loved President Bush after 9/11. No wonder so many people thought it was an inside job. Nothing beats a domestic terror attack to make people love the president.

Oil is the most Lovecraftian thing that actually exists.

There is a meaning to the fact that Dreher cites here and it's this: religious pluralism is great! Qualified people can become leaders in our society without having to abandon or dissemble about their religious faith! Score one for pluralistic liberalism over laïcité or ethno-religious nationalism!

Canadians long imagined ourselves as global leaders, as moral exemplars. But in a moment where the US has retreated from aid, cooperation and multilateralism, we are meekly following the trend.

"the revolt of the bosses" is a good way of framing the elite reaction to woke 1. what's particularly interesting is that this isn't a reaction to an attack on profits--it's a reaction to changes in workplace culture-- which is to say, the psychic wage of hierarchy

Canadians long imagined ourselves as global leaders, as moral exemplars. But in a moment where the US has retreated from aid, cooperation and multilateralism, we are meekly following the trend.

This chart is shocking, though it's impressive they included it despite what it reveals

I don’t object to cuts to Canada’s international spending per se I object to the capricious, callous and dismissive way it’s being done I get this is feminized, wooly stuff. Not like hard, tangible economics, or hanging out with private equity talking billion dollar deals

Does anyone if the Tri-Council has actually sent data to Parliament's Science and Research Committee yesterday? By my reckoning, the committee's motion on October 20 requested 25 years of data by yesterday...

Sorry if I didn't respond to your email today, I've spend the last four hours changing all my website passwords. Apparently "Louvre" was not a great choice

Some great resources here thinking about the political limits of "rights" discourses

There is much more to say about the attack on independent research being organized by Conservatives in Ottawa, but the thing I find most shocking is that Steven Pinker, after seeing his critiques empower the right-wing project to destroy US research dominance, is beating the same drum in Canada

Personal threats against diplomats. Rogue state.

While it's clear that some MPs on the Parliamentary Science and Research Committee are pursuing a Trump-style attack on research independence and university autonomy, it's important to be nuanced in critiques of the committee's request for data from the Tri-Council 1/5

Sorry if I didn't respond to your email today, I've spend the last four hours changing all my website passwords. Apparently "Louvre" was not a great choice

When someone uses a bullshit machine to generate a 10 TB shotgun spray of racist ignorance, in an explicit effort to undermine one of the last remaining sources of reliable knowledge online, it's probably best not to lend the project legitimacy by working to make some of it less wrong

(This is pointed at inc, not Scalzi but) the response when a for-profit company publishes things about you that are untrue is to sue them for libel, not invest resources in helping to whitewash a bad faith attempt to both-sides human knowledge

While it's clear that some MPs on the Parliamentary Science and Research Committee are pursuing a Trump-style attack on research independence and university autonomy, it's important to be nuanced in critiques of the committee's request for data from the Tri-Council 1/5

There is much more to say about the attack on independent research being organized by Conservatives in Ottawa, but the thing I find most shocking is that Steven Pinker, after seeing his critiques empower the right-wing project to destroy US research dominance, is beating the same drum in Canada

The Canadian Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Research is launching a US-style attack on EDI in Tri-Council funding. As part of this attack, they are demanding disclosure of confidential demographic info + reviewer comments of all Canadian researchers who have applied b/w 2000-2025.

Incisive review of Danielewski's latest As someone who loves House of Leaves and The Familiar, it makes the novel's strengths clear while also providing me reason enough to skip it

"Parent watching their child ride on a merry-go-round" x.com/dailyportalz...

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE SECOND INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE OVER ZOOM TO MEET MORE OF THE TEAM UNFORTUNATELY, YOU HAVE NOT BEEN SUCCESSFUL ON THIS OCCASION, BUT WE HOPE YOU'LL APPLY FOR FUTURE POSITIONS WITH THE VAMPIRE

And look folks, I don't think Platner *is* a Nazi. But we are living through a pretty vivid experiment in what happens when you are tolerant of "just fooling around" and "just-asking-questions" pussy-footing around with racist language, tropes and symbols. Turns out words and signs have consequences

Following your principles wherever they take you—& in particular being willing to break with the social groups with which they were once associated—is a rare thing worth lauding when the principles are good or even just defensible

Look I'm Canadian. I have no dog here. But lots of people want to make the Platner discourse about US liberals versus the US left, but in my feed it seems to be a pretty thin performance of conflict between consequentialist and moralist approach to politics

Watch out for Ea Nasir this Halloween!

Help! The Aged! #turnacharityintoahorrormovie

hi, wreck expert here! this is not funny, two vast and trunkless legs of stone only do this when they’re in extreme distress.

if you believe that a better world is possible, you may be tarred as a doomer, because achieving a better world involves calling attention to what is wrong with this one. your very optimism is called pessimism, particularly by people for whom the current world is more than comfortable.

Boy, North Carolina Republicans sure don't want the attached story to circulate. I sure hope that this stupid threat from their spokesperson doesn't boomerang on them and have a lot more people read and share the story, which once again, is conveniently attached below. That would be a shame.

Three different things that are actually all the same thing. www.pbump.net/o/these-are-...

Reminded me to post this BOO-lean operator visualization fav for spooky season 🎃 👻

Apple Mail users: annoyed by Outlook spamy 'reactions'? I made a tool to prohibit ppl from reacting to your emails. Drag it into your applications folder; click then enable it in System Settings (it's not notarized); enable in Mail settings->Extensions. files.michae.lv/apps/badreaction.zip

the Sudan Solidarity Collective has partners in El Fashir distributing aid. give what you can bsky.app/profile/nisr...

From the late 19th century to 1920s, American corporations invented "americanness" and forced it on immigrants, in part to reduce labour mobilisation and unrest. Ford famously paid bonuses if immigrants could prove they had become American. Assimilation was a tool of union busting.

Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.

Horse, elephant, giraffe

These 5 people could caucus with the Democrats, giving them a majority & firmly opposing the fascism, any time. It might be nice for an enterprising journalist to ask them why they keep not doing this every day as the crimes & corruption continue & John Thune refuses to fulfill his oath of office.

Man this game does not pull its punches

wait, a kinship terminology angle in the news? anthropologists, it's your chance to get that public-facing opinion piece out

Gosh it sure is gratifying teaching a course for the fourth or fifth time and finally (finally!) feeling the pieces come together in a coherent way. Learning what can be left aside, what needs emphasizing, how to best order the pieces, what needs repeating, examples, exercises to use.

You know it's funny, I mostly think Marx is wrong about the labour theory of value (I don't think there is an objective point from which "real" value can be measured). But his articulation of capital as a motive, habit or disposition that people are pushed to inhabit is incredibly compelling

Courage from the most surprising places