For their anti-immigrant, white nationalist post about 100 million deportations, DHS stole the artwork of a non-white foreigner: Japanese illustrator Hiroshi Nagai. Apparently no white Americans were available to design an image. View Nagai's work here: hiroshinagai.com/contents.html

We did the #NYD #PolarBearDip for this week’s #HiddenHistory of #swont but I don’t have the link, so… here’s the one we did last year about Guy Lombardo: www.cbc.ca/listen/live-... #cdnhist #NYE2025 Wishing you all an enjoyable & safe transition into 2026!

Can't believe the final shot of Stranger Things was Millie Bobby Brown breaking the fourth wall to say "Guess now it's time for some...𝘯𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘳 things 😎" and then doing finger guns into the camera (can't believe how cool it was, I mean).

Auld Lang Syne is about goodbyes, endings, and beginnings, which might be why it came to mind for Dr. William Fraser Tolmie as he paddled the great #ColumbiaRiver one day in May 1833. #cdnhist #bcHist #oregon buttondown.com/leftcoastdis...

One of my favourite parts of this whole Narduar joins the Order of Canada business is that he was alphabetized under "S" for Serviette: www.gg.ca/en/appointme...

This is the technology our schools are encouraging our children to use.

"Israel has damaged 145 cultural sites across Gaza since 7 October 2023." "For the people of Gaza, these cultural sites weren't just landmarks or of mere archaeological value – they were a collective memory, a livelihood and a heritage." #Gaza #Palestine #Israel #Genocide #Military

As the year draws to a close, I’m signing off 2025 with a magical find! An ancient amber bear. Carved some 10,000 years ago, it washed up on a beach at Fanø, Denmark, from a submerged Mesolithic settlement in the North Sea. ✨ Happy New Year all! ✨ National Museum of Denmark 📷 by me #Archaeology

There should be an inquest EVERY TIME someone is killed by a driver. What were the causes? What can we change to make sure this particular set of circumstances doesn't happen again? Infuriating that they're just shrugging about a child's death. #BCPoli

Auld Lang Syne is about goodbyes, endings, and beginnings, which might be why it came to mind for Dr. William Fraser Tolmie as he paddled the great #ColumbiaRiver one day in May 1833. #cdnhist #bcHist #oregon buttondown.com/leftcoastdis...

Eby "plans to spend $162 ­million to expand the ­Malahat ­highway through Goldstream Park, despite ­protests by First Nations... who recommend investing in frequent and affordable ­transit instead” @toddlitman.bsky.social www.timescolonist.com/opinion/comm... #bcpoli #yyj #Nanaimo #VancouverIsland

With a few days left in the year, I’m just 5 paid subscribers away from being able to go to the federal NDP convention in Winnipeg in March. Who wants to help me cross the finish line? www.readtheorchard.org

The Maple does such great reporting, it's well worth supporting. This is just one of the many in-depth articles they published in 2025: www.readthemaple.com/canadas-arms...

My latest Left Coast Dispatch. 'Old Long Since'. buttondown.com/leftcoastdis...

All recreational drugs should be legal and regulated by the government. Public campaigns on how to use them safely, for those who wish to. Support, not punishment, for addiction. More research into the benefits, especially of psychedelics. Immediate release of possession/distribution inmates.

The wikipedia entries for much of BC history are pretty sad. Ive known this for years, but today I looked up a very well known fur trade figure who worked in the US and BC. The entries for his US time are quite fulsome, and then it basically says “also he lived in Victoria for 40 years.” #bcHist

What this piece doesn't mention (they rarely do) is that you have to hide in Canada for 14 days to make your claim. And so you live underground, while anyone who helps you could be arrested for human trafficking.

Today at work I saw a pileated woodpecker and two eagles grappling with each other. Good stuff.

Monster Magpie Inkcaps (Coprinopsis picea, I presume) in the mountains of Mallorca. #FungiFriends

Ok but what if we bet our whole economy on it? Is that good?

You FUCKED UP, your LEFTY politics have ALIENATED the BILLIONAIRES who run the CHILD BONE EXTRACTION FACTORIES and now they will do a MASS EXODUS from your STATE or CITY. Don’t CRY to ME when you no longer see their CHILD CATCHING VANS in your STATE or CITY, YOU IDIOT

"Excess fuel supplies, a hardware backlog and a more competitive alternative bode ill for LNG market incumbents. A crash is looming." I'm used to making forecasts a few years ahead. But things are moving fast now. I wrote this story in Sept and now Reuters is running with the same message

“I stopped watching when Rick left.” I have died DEAD. RIP, me. 😵😂

Update: One year after @ubcmedicine.bsky.social SPPH violated my academic freedom for speaking out about the genocide in Gaza. Grievance filed in Feb. '25. Later amended to include an outrageous allegation that my posters somehow constitute "hate speech." 1/2

Chico Bon Bon, Monkey with a Toolbelt is my new favourite show to watch with the kid. Very funny, good problem solving plots.

Researchers discover rare breed of Canadian tuxedo cat #DumbWeek

The Atlantic has updated their article to correct some of Frum's mistakes. However they didn't correct his denialist stuff. I work 50 meters from a lab where they recently identified a body recovered from a GPR search. A child who died at residential school, and was finally returned to their family.

Took the kid to the Lego exhibit at the Sidney Museum. Some pretty impressive brick work!

Watching David Eby’s sit down on GlobalBC and gobsmacked by how clearly he is speaking about reconciliation only being possible through partnerships on resource projects and not through the assertion of our inherent rights. The tactic and threat of economic reconciliation is at the forefront.

Good! An early insight of human centered design is that it was possible to reduce airplane crashes by introducing tactile switches and toggle that did not create confusion or require people to take their eyes away from their core tasks donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-origin...

In 2021, CPS arrested an innocent 12-year Black child. A group of kids had allegedly stolen ~$60 worth of ice cream in Ogden. After, all that child wanted from the officer in question was an apology. The officer wouldn’t apologize. CPS made a statement citing their "regret" for the incident. 4/

This piece in the Globe and Mail by Christina Sharpe gave me shivers. I can’t cry, so my physical reaction to something so true, clear, and frightening (to me as visible and vocal Black woman) is from my nervous system. www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/47bbb5b... 1/

My roommate loves sweet Thai chili sauce. So every year for Christmas at least one member of their family gets them a bottle of…sriracha. They do not like sriracha. This happens each year. So we have a cupboard full of unopened sriracha bottles.

Christmas concert on the Red Pheasant Reserve (acrylic on canvas): “Sometimes, people say I have painted too many winter scenes, but nobody says the Group of Seven painted too many landscapes.” - Allen Sapp (Cree) Gonnor Collection

Jo Ann Allen Boyce Dies at 84; She was one of the Clinton 12, a group of Black students who faced white mobs when desegregating a Tennessee high school in 1956 www.nytimes.com/2025/12/13/u...

“And why is the carpet all wet, Todd!?” “I don’t know, Margo!”

tree time

“Even if you don’t use the safe bike and roll network, there are thousands and thousands of your neighbours that do. …a huge thank you to Victoria’s councils — 5 of them — who have made it possible for so many people to bike or roll around our city safely & efficiently. You have changed my life.”

Cladonia lichen with Polytrichum piliferum moss looking kinda like a giant cactus and palm trees. The lichen is approx 3cm high. #lichen #fungi #fungifriends #moss #bryophyte

Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humor, and like enough to consent.

Covered Bridge in Winter Maud Lewis c. 1967

Happy Birthday to our lord and saviour, Jimmy Buffett youtu.be/znYIYM24wR4?...

“‘Christmas Rose’ from Victoria, BC” Item PDP09563. BC Archives.

A very happy Christmas from our house to yours, Bluesky pals (wishing us all peace on earth, if not on the roof).

“Oh yeah? More like the three wise guys, I’d say.”

Happy Birthday to our lord and saviour, Jimmy Buffett youtu.be/znYIYM24wR4?...

john waters' 1995 christmas card with steve buscemi as him