Large amounts of ketamine can make anyone feel like they rule the world. When should Americans start worrying about Elon Musk’s regular use? Shayla Love reported in March: Spend time with one of The Atlantic’s most-read stories of 2025:

NUTRITION SCIENCE’S MOST PREPOSTEROUS RESULT Studies show a mysterious health benefit to ice cream. Scientists don’t want to talk about it 🐉🦋 archive.md/F9UUu www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have withdrawn from the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines, with Finland and Poland set to follow.

🟡 The Internat'l Rescue Committee has published its 2026 Emergency Watchlist: 1. Sudan 2. Occupied Palestinian territory 3. South Sudan 4. Ethiopia 5. Haiti 6. Myanmar 7. Democratic Republic of the Congo 8. Mali 9. Burkina Faso 10. Lebanon The IRC ranks countries using a data-driven risk model...

Altogether, 70 percent of Canadians live in clusters that could be efficiently served by a trio of fast, frequent rail spines.

Canada is vast, but its population is concentrated in 3 key areas. Half of Canadians (≈ 18 million) live within 50 km of the Quebec City-Windsor corridor, 1,000 km of which is to be served by new Alto high-speed project.

What happens when govt defunds hospitals? “Ontario recorded the highest number of wait-list deaths: 10,634 including more than 9,100 diagnostic-scan deaths where patients died before reaching the point of receiving or being scheduled for surgery” Make it easier to sell us for-profit clinics #ONpoli

@planningtoronto.bsky.social you might be interested in this. 👇

Denmark lost more troops per capita in the post 9/11 war on Afghanistan. Saying they “are not a good ally” because they won’t surrender their territories to the US is lunacy. We are betraying our allies to satisfy the whims of a would-be Emperor for whom the US is not enough.

I thought looking at the 2023 documents that maybe just maybe they were actually going to use the pandemic funding as they said they would but then 2024 rolled around and nope.

As explained by @henrikbechmann.bsky.social, it's partly because Toronto's "revenues" and "expenses" are not just external revenues and expenses, but also include internal cash transfers between divisions, or to/from capital and reserves. This muddies things. More here: medium.com/@henrikbechm...

An important chart to understand as Toronto heads into next year's budget process. We'll hear that the budget is barely balanced, the situation is precarious, the same as we have heard for the last 5 years, despite the City actually posting billions in surplus except in 2023. Why?

Here's a new chart for the City of Toronto, comparing the City's audited budget variance surpluses with its internal "Operating Surplus Report" variances. I'm calling it "provisional" though because the last few years of data are so crazy that I thought I'd better hold my breath on it for a while.

Good morning! For @defector.com, I wrote about what @rachelreidwrites.bsky.social's "Game Changers" books, and the resulting TV show, have meant to me as a lifelong hockey fan with an increasingly... complicated... relationship to the men's pro game.

Niche request: In the spirit of Scott Hunter, I am asking for what I want, which is for someone to acknowledge the sheer excellence of my late grandfather's shade for Kerry Fraser.

In case you need a positive reminder: How effective is protesting? According to historians and political scientists: very www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Deceased crows in Chatham-Kent tested positive for avian flu https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/chatham-kent-dead-crows-avian-flu-9.7027637 More news → CanadaHealthwatch.ca 🍁

Here are a couple of updated charts for the City of Toronto. First, actual vs budget variances for revenues, expenses, and surpluses. You can't convince me that these large "favourable" variances are not deliberate. The surpluses are distributed by regulation to reserves and capital investments.

Maybe this potentially life-saving info ought not to be hidden behind the Toronto Star's paywall, so here is the key takeaway: there's a panel at each end of each subway station with a large red button to cut power (you have to break the glass) and an emergency phone to contact transit control.

I've seen this before and it's absolutely true.

Who’s behind the deep-pocketed private equity firm that’s bought into Therme? A new player has joined the Ontario Place melodrama — a mega-investor with billions to spend, writes @johnlorinc.bsky.social. #TOpoli #ONpoli spacing.ca/toronto/2025...

Merry Christmas everyone! And happy holidays. I appreciate you all. (image from laurajaenart.com/top-15-chris...)

Greta Thunberg arrested for holding a sign opposing genocide. When peaceful protest is a crime, democracy is in deep trouble. Happening under a Labour Government.

The private credit explosion continues: According to the Financial Times, “private credit firms snapped up nearly 14 times as much consumer debt this year as in 2024, piling into riskier areas such as credit cards and buy now, pay later debt.” This shift raises interesting questions, ... 1 of 4

Btw, why the western analytical community and the Pentagon, etc, are all trying to say Ukraine’s big problem is that they have not drafted all their people and sent them to the front, is because they are trying to shift responsibility away from their own terrible failures.

This Christmas, Don’t Talk about Politics open.substack.com/pub/gracebla...

“If you work in or around the insurance industry, you’re probably already feeling theimpacts of accelerating climate breakdown.Why are so few people talking openly about the true scale of the risks we’re facing or how to respond?” @climatemajority.bsky.social Film: Joseph Harrington, Jack Bernadin

New from me: The storied fiddler Ashley MacIsaac wanted to play a show at a Nova Scotia First Nation. It got cancelled because Google's AI search summary incorrectly called him a sex offender. Now he's worried for his safety www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/arti...

An illuminating and fascinating insider's view (from a Ukraine general) of the transformation of the Ukraine war, and the plans for the future. "We are not afraid of Russia". phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/phillips-o...

Using the same tactic that gained her notoriety in the first place, Greta Thunberg has been arrested in the UK. The notion that such a peaceful tactic has become an arrestable offense in a democracy like the Uk is really concerning. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

TTC ridership declined in 2025 compared to last year. The recently released 2026 draft budget shows that, by the end of 2025, the transit agency expects to complete 414 million rides. That’s 5.9 million fewer rides than last year and 25 million short of the TTC’s January forecast for 2025.

'Radical' is (colloquially) a relative term. Relative to the positions of the autocrats, milquetoast Dems are definitely radical. Historically of course Dems are more mainstream, current Reps are far far far outer space radical/extreme.

Virtuoso doesn't even begin to cover it. music.youtube.com/watch?v=vdxF...

American food safety could be headed for a breakdown www.statnews.com/2025/12/22/a... via @statnews.com

Russian Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov died after a bomb under his car detonated. In the heart of Moscow. It’s a mystery who’s responsible. #NowhereisSafe

Trump has named Louisiana governor Jeff Landry as his special envoy for Greenland, underscoring his determination to take control of the resources rich island from Denmark, the FT reports.

Basic income is the most effective core policy to save the people, save the country, and save the market economy in a future society where jobs are disappearing and polarization is severe Lee Jae-myung President, South Korea

At the time, Canadian politics was not suffering from a lack of options. It was suffering from exhaustion. Voters were not searching for novelty. They were searching for relief. My latest on #cdnpoli: abacusdata.ca/from-carney...

Trump appointed Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry as his new “Special Envoy” to Greenland. Landry is a supporter of Trump's plan to take over Greenland.

uh oh.

This is WILD. Power goes out in San Francisco and the robot cars, needing the lights to "self" drive, all stop at once, blocking streets and emergency vehicles - which are needed more than ever in a black out! We knew AI causes power outages. Turns out it also makes them worse by being stupid.

This is a modern day Klan rally. Religious extremism at its most toxic and exactly the kind of dangerous fundamentalism that the US used to claim to free other countries from. Darkness.

Turn on CC auto-translate. Really good!

i realize doug won't see this but it still felt nice