They don’t seem very sad that he died

Tremendous piece from a Winnipegger coming home after some time away... Funny how this speaks to me.

A little Saturday column: about taking the uncommon opportunity to see one’s home with fresh eyes, finding it both more beautiful and more barren at the same time. www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/2025/0...

they are, in fact, allowed to do that

1939

Exactly. It wasn’t anything extreme. It was a relatively mild political critique (“MAGA is using this to score political points”). If even *that* results in immediate censorship pressure from a state entity… it’s a very bad place

excited for this trend to continue when 30 years from now Nick Fuentes takes a principled stance against the policies of President Triple Hitler, a clone containing the souls of three Hitlers in a single body

I’d like to re-up this proposal

One takeaway for Canadians watching what’s happening in the United States right now is that we need to put more pressure on governments / parties to strengthen democratic institutions and the fourth estate You can also defend democracy by supporting the work of journalists and civil society groups

wonder if there will be any self-reflection there, haha just kidding of course there won’t be

BREAKING: Trump says he is designating “Antifa” as a “major terrorist organization.” Such a step being taken this way would be concerning enough, given what it actually is, but, given that Trump sees “Antifa” hiding in every corner of opposition, this could be an extremely alarming escalation.

Reporting on Jimmy Kimmel getting purged should make clear Disney did this *after* the FCC chair explicitly threatened them

1. Yes, from a purely legal perspective, Trump's new $15 billion lawsuit against the NYT is a joke. But this lawsuit, and others like it, have a real impact on the news coverage you read about powerful people. The purpose is to send a message and discourage critical reporting.

We're witnessing the most aggressive, fanatical crackdown on free speech in my lifetime. The speed and breadth of government censorship and private sector and nonprofit capitulation has been astonishing. As has the lack of urgency/silence from people who've long claimed to care about this stuff.

Absolutely shameful by WaPo.

Sorry we stormed your place of work, threw you in a dingy pit, tied you up, made you lick water out of dog bowls, and forced you to sleep on a concrete floor. On the plus side, you can come back any time!

I think this point is far more important than we realize. The fact that we consume completely different media showing us completely different things is a huge driver of division.

Great profile of my pal Stacey Soldier by @doubleemmartin.bsky.social . The line about “hold the door open” for people to follow you is a perfect insight into how I’ve always known Stacey to operate. www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews...

There’s also this guy on Twitter who is trying to get an army officer fired for sharing Kirk statements without comment, and I am fascinated by how they refuse to see the disconnect in “Charlie was a hero and you’re a monster for accurately quoting him”

Looked at my data collections for state-backed activity. If the report were a picture:

I mean Jesus. This is full-on Nazi shit. Not coded. Not subtle. bsky.app/profile/pale...

The paper wanted pics of me in Ukraine, but I don’t have many that aren’t with other people. I sent them this, but just realized since the cover doesn’t include my caption that this was a long-abandoned 19th Century mill, it kinda looks like I’m smiling happily in a bombed building, heh

Watching all these centrist pundits stress the “civility” of Charlie Kirk’s style without addressing the ugliness of his substance is giving me a renewed appreciation of how the civil, polite White Citizens’ Councils conned the same crowd into thinking they were distinct from the cruder Klan.

Melissa is a gifted writer. Such a poignant piece and column to be able to read her firsthand experiences in Ukraine

internet culture desks aren't just for cute meme trend stories. ever since gamergate, understanding how and why info moves online is critical to seeing how we got *here*

I’m back from 2.5 years in Ukraine. It’s bittersweet, and a little strange. Still not sure whether it’s Winnipeg, or me, that’s more changed. A column in Saturday’s paper, online now. www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews...

I will be opening a new Ukrainian restaurant in Winnipeg. The menu will be burgers, pizza, sushi and tom yum soup. Those who know will understand, everyone else will be very confused

Of course I understand the gravity, but it is darkly amusing to see the reaction over ~15 drones in Poland when in Kyiv, that’s considered a relief of a quiet night

another of the things I will keep saying is that we have an elite impunity problem and nothing will improve until and unless we change that

“Pathogen lives in people. If person is vaccinated, pathogen can’t live. If enough people vaccinated, not enough places for pathogen to live to keep spreading.” Herd immunity is the easiest medical concept in the world to grasp, so if you don’t, you’re choosing not to and doing it to gain points.

We used to call this stupidity. There were smart people and stupid people and we let the smart people do the things they were good at and the stupid people were taken care of and didn't need to worry about what the smart people were doing. But now we let the stupid people think they're smart.

Finally read that Wired surrogate piece. Random thoughts: author did an incredible job. The woman who contracted the surrogate is one of the stupidest, most malicious people ever featured in a story. And I can’t get over the miserable sense that these people are winning. archive.ph/2025.09.03-2...

Reunited and it feels so good 🇨🇦

Uhhh my flight just landed in Amsterdam, I was not expecting to see these series of posts, what exactly is the… the situation

Just crossed the border into Poland, the first big step of a long journey home to Winnipeg. People ask me what I’m looking forward to most. The only thing that comes to mind is being able to sleep soundly, without a minimum 10% of my brain being alert to a missile attack the whole night.

One week left in Ukraine and then I head home. I’m so sad I can hardly stand it. Falling in love (with place and people) is such a problem

I continue to think Americans who do not support open fascism are really under reacting to the moment

I've said this many times over the years, but the panic created by the 24-hour news cycle, made worse by the internet, and sent into overdrive by algorithmic social media has done untold damage to society Generations of people living in unprecedented fear of historically safe times

In a targeted strike on a media tent. Oh my God.

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.

ChatGPT sent a guy into a delusional spiral believing he’d invented a new form of math, would make millions, and was possibly being watched by state security. Don’t use these things in any deep way. If you have a human brain, you are not immune. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/t...

In Gaza, Palestinians who fear being killed or seriously injured during rushes to obtain aid are being forced to pay exorbitant fees to take out money to buy food. “We’re put through unending torment to get the simplest of things.”

This morning I watched my fella sleep gently, while reading about how Donald Trump wants to force Ukraine to just give away his home, where he grew up, where his family live + his ancestors are buried — a place Russian troops have not set foot in. The word “disgust” does not begin to cover it.

The MAGA armchair diplomats frame this as Zelenskyy trying to hang onto power. They never understand that Zelenskyy legally cannot agree to this — and if in some imaginary timeline he agreed to it on a Monday, Ukrainians would run him out of office by the Tuesday morning.

To elaborate a bit on why inviting Putin to Alaska for talks on ending the war without Zelensky (or European allies) represents, among many other things, the death of US diplomacy 🧵1/

I’ve been quiet everywhere lately just because I am, but for the record I like Bluesky way more than the old place, am happier to read and have discussions here, and hope we all stay

These VOA newscasters and reporters were given visas because there weren't experienced broadcast journalists in the US with native level skills in such languages as Bambara, Lao or Georgian. But since Kari Lake wiped out nearly all VOA's 48 language services there are indeed no jobs for them now.

Many such cases.

the rabid snort-laughter I just laughed

95% of cultural controversies are just people digging deep on social media to find one goofy post, then using that to fuel their own rage-bait post, which gets a bigger reaction than the thing the controversy was supposedly about, which is then used to validate claims of “controversy”