What I hadn't expected to find in digging around the family tree was the information in the 1912 Queen's University Yearbook that my very dignified, always in a suit, professional engineer grandfather went through university carrying the nickname "Freak".

It's a good day when the shuffle function provides a few @ronsexsmith.bsky.social songs in a short time. It's older, but given the news recently, "Wishing Wells" hit home (again). Beautiful, catchy melody with some lyrics that remind me to push back. youtu.be/E4TmcJCzNk4

Happy Thursday, Canada 🍁

Food for thought in the F-35 vs Gripen debate, specifically on the industrial benefit. There is $3 million Canadian content per airplane, which doesn't sound like much but it’s on every single airplane built. Given the number built and the number still planned, that’s $9,300,000,000.

Canada Post is required to do 2 things. 1. Deliver mail to every address in Canada, & 2. Be financially self sustaining. Until a government decides whether Canada post is a public service or a self supporting company, it can't be fixed, because it can't do both at the same time.

Do you suppose the rapture happened today, and everyone is still here, because it turns out people are awful?

now is the autumnal equinox of our discontent

Watching "Yellowstone". In the pantheon of American television shows, where the main characters are terrible people, I can't decide if this is "Succession" with a lot of guns, or "Sons of Anarchy" with better scenery and clothes.

If at any point in my life, much less in retirement, you had told me I would spend a Friday evening teaching a Nun/PhD student to ride a bicycle, I might have been skeptical.

Poilievre promises Battle River-Crowfoot if elected they will never see him again

The global phenomenon of “bikelash” has become one of the biggest barriers to implementing interventions that make our streets more liveable, accessible and sustainable. So how do we best manage it as advocates for change? Here are eight strategies we recently presented at the Velo-city Conference.🧵

I may have just experienced a miracle...

There is just no precedent in recent world history of an advanced industrialized country sabotaging its own scientific establishment, and destroying the base of scientific knowledge necessary for basic policymaking. An avowedly, actively anti-knowledge regime.

Pierre Poilievre is whingeing about trade policy and proposing an alternative plan(without details). He seems to have forgotten he's running in a byelection, not a general.

I don't know who Graeme Barber is, but we saw him on the bike earlier, and anyone doing an Ironman in the 80 to 84 age group deserves some recognition ... Live Results Today for Graeme Barber in the IRONMAN Canada - Ottawa. Check it out! rtrt.me/ulink/IRMA/I...

The city is such a great place when you replace people in cars with just people...

Short one today... 25 km ... as I get back on the road bike post op. It's pretty great that we can ride this far, and much further if we want, and have all but about 100 meters be on dedicated cycling infrastructure.

Had a cataract lens replacement last week. Turns out the faint sepia tones I have seen in so many movies and shows the last few years had nothing to do with how they were filmed.

I'm all in favor of transportation alternatives, including things like the electric scooters scattered around the city, but blocking sidewalks (at Lisgar and Metcalfe) for hours at a time really doesn't help the reputation or acceptance... @arieltroster.com

The Giro Aerohead time trial helmet looks ridiculous... until you see it in use live, like on today's ITT at the Tour de France. Then it looks like a bullet (despite Vingegaard's performance being less than perfect).

I want to make a personal request to those of you who use a bike for transportation purposes to start taking more photos and posting them. You can do so much by showing even the most mundane errands with a bike to educate and inspire others. They're often more effective than words. 📸

Summer Solstice. The longest day of the year and, as of 1042 pm tonight, we'll be closer to the year 2050 than we are to the year 2000, a year that was a milestone and synonymous with "the future" at one time.

@marksutcliffe.bsky.social Lansdowne 2.0 is a bad idea.. Literally good money after bad, and waste of limited taxpayer dollars when so much else needs doing Stop. substack.com/@neilsara/note…

Special guests in town. We stopped to make sure they felt welcome while on our way to the grocery store.

@mark-carney.bsky.social ‬ … With a Canada Post Strike just a few days away it's time for the government to provide some clarity. Canada Post, and its employees, are in an impossible position. There is a fundamental conflict between the mandate and and the structure.

“An analysis of more than 350,000 posts on X related to the election, gathered since the snap poll was announced in March, revealed a network of co-ordinated accounts pushing content to boost Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and tarnish his counterpart, the Liberal’s Mark Carney.”

Former PM Stephen Harper says, "Pierre is only one with a plan..." and yet the Conservatives are still the party that has not released a costed platform. Maybe there is a plan, and we're just not allowed to see it, but maybe Harper and #PierrePoilievreIsLyingToYou

Oh lord... Poilievre just recited one of his television commercials as a closing argument. An ability to spout rote answers om cue is not good enough for a PM.

I swear Poilievre has ten short talks. What comes out of his mouth when someone pulls the string in his back is limited to one of these ten. Two years on its wearing thin Plus, he's a rude little prick.

The remnants of the convoy idiots who are still on Wellington in front of Parliament Hill every day have pivoted, but not with any original thought. They've just installed a "F@#k Carney" flag in place of the one naming Trudeau.

Paraphrased from my friend Katherine "A reminder that elections are not like private cars that will deliver you to exactly the destination you want in comfort. Elections are a public bus. Pick the candidate who will get you closest to where you want to go & get on board."

“After many years of covering election campaigns in Canada, USA and Europe, the Conservative Party of Canada is the most outwardly aggressive and uncivilized that I’ve witnessed. It’s on par with Viktor Orbán in Hungary and the Republican Party in the USA.” canadianjournalist.ca/poilievre-ca...

Ship of Theseus time. I keep thinking I'd like a new bike, and then I realized that the only bits on the bike, other than the frame, that are as old as the bike are the seat post, handlebars and brake levers/shifters. So, I guess it is newish?

Perfect 🤣🎯

Just to get it on the record now, I confidently predict that if the Conservatives lose the election, they will blame anyone and anything other than their positions and policies.

When it comes to defence spending, it is worth noting that everything @pierrepoilievremp.bsky.social promised in his campaign launch speech are things the Liberals have already done.

Thank you, Tom Power, for this morning's quote from the CBC Q interview with Sandra Oh ... "Times don't change by themselves." That sentiment echoes well beyond the interview and felt particularly timely this morning.

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." —FDR, 1937

From @deadder.bsky.social. A picture is worth its weight in rare earth minerals... a lot more than 1000 words.

As it did again tonight in Canada, vote splitting on the left regulary hands the right a win they haven't earned and don't deserve.

What would a TV ad promoting alternatives to driving look like? What if people who love cycling and progressive transportation reclaimed ideas like freedom, independence and even patriotism? We decided to give it a shot. Check out our new video, "America, It's Just Like Riding a Bike."

Nothing illustrates Poilievre's credibility on Defence quite like going to Iqaluit to talk about Northern defence while the current explicit threat is coming from the South.

Just answered a 10-minute phone survey about voting intentions in the Canadian federal election. I was asked how important six issues were in deciding my vote. All six fell under either Provincial or Municipal jurisdictions.

I've been a Canadian voter for 50 years. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything so blatantly corrupt as getting a $200 cheque from a sitting government in the middle of an election campaign. Doug Ford does not deserve another win.

So, hear me out, just for shits and giggles… 1. Liberals elect a new party leader who becomes PM. 2. Trudeau resigns as party leader, but stays on as an MP. 3. New PM appoints Trudeau to Cabinet as Minister of Trade. 4. News coverage allows us to see the elderly golfer’s head explode.

My wife didn't bring her glasses to the grocery store today, so she had me check that a product was Canadian before putting it in the cart. Another shopper overheard and promptly checked everything in his cart. Keep it going.

I spent decades in a minor role in the Armed Forces reserve. I typically wore the uniform for a few hours, once a week, & the ethic was no petitions, no election lawn signs, etc. That ethic continued after I left the Reserves. I just signed this... actionnetwork.org/petitions/pl...

We HAVE to pass legislation banning foreign ownership of media & communications organizations. Back to pre-Harper rules. Postmedia et al will scream: THIS IS ATTACK ON FREEDOM OF THE PRESS! Ignore them. We said it would threaten our sovereignty & it did. We HAVE to do this. Without a doubt.

Apparently my $200 cheque from Doug Ford's Conservative government is in the mail, but my vote cannot be bought because of... The Ontario Science Centre Ontario Place The Green Belt The 413 A tunnel under the 401 (WTAF!?)