Includes the text of the decision. Must finish workout first before I read it.

Turns out there’s an economic cost to everyone hating us.

Check out my first post for @activehist.bsky.social where I write about using the archival sources from the @westernuhistory.bsky.social dept in the classroom. activehistory.ca/blog/2026/02...

All of this (including the earlier colourful language)

Tariffs are like magic. They lead people to buy American, without raising the price of foreign goods, and they also raise enormous revenue from foreigners. They fund childcare and deficit reduction and tariff rebates and they smell nice. -- The NY Fed* * This message approved by White House Comms

I knew the "urbanists just don't understand that not everyone can ride a bike!" people were acting in bad faith but it's wild having them still saying it to me when I'm like "yeah, it literally me - my chronic illness causes fatigue and unpredictable dizziness. I still want bike lanes."

Nearly every casual conversation with my colleagues eventually turns to AI and ends with a fiftysomething faculty member saying "well, fortunately I won't be around to see where this ends up". Morale is...not great

The small craft gallery at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic is a gorgeous backdrop for a public lecture. Here, Dan Conlin brings the facts and the stories about pirates, then and now. Great talk!

We are proud to see our city setting the standard for the rest of our state. Our community relies not just on roads, but pedestrian & cycling infrastructure to reach their jobs & schools safely. That's why we believe the East Bay Bike Path should be managed as essential transit infrastructure. 1/2

Next level Family Day holiday skate...no one does outdoor public square skating like Montreal.

I suppose there are Halifax ducks that are not at the Kearney Lake dam. But there was an almost omnously large number there. When there are more than a hundred, you wonder "can I rely on their peaceable nature?"

Fingers and toes crossed. Last year's tax filing processes were a mess. This year's MIGHT be better www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/330b5b5...

Sometimes, a filter brings out the best

Can confirm. My American friends and family—all educated people who pay reasonable attention to the world around them—know about Canada’s reactions to the current US situation from me and me only. And sometimes I still have to remind them.

The AI bros (who clearly don't understand AI) in the comments are hilarious. "ask stupid questions, get stupid answers". LLMs have no concept of how intelligent a question is, and they certainly were not designed to deliberately give stupid responses if they deem your question too stupid. 1/?

PSA: my mother was right. You should always hold the railing. Fell down a set of icy stairs last night and am down one butt cheek and one elbow this am. Did not know the butt could develop a goose egg.

Every flood and fire closes off the opportunity to know our past Every historian has had a brilliant idea for research that turns out not to be possible because some city hall or church has burned down or had a flood Monuments come and go. But lost archives? That's our history erased

The great thing about taxes? Small monthly payment gets you cool, useful stuff. It's like, dunno, a subscription for some of the nice features of living in a city? Gotta say I'd rather have the premium subscription than the free version

Rail cut, dusk, snow

Every council and arguably every human organization needs someone that can just look at the most beyond-reproach people and say "that math doesn't math" That's my councillor. 🥲

Add lots of fibre to your diet, yes. Exercise, no alcohol, low fat diet. Sure, you'll feel great! Most of us cancer patients can find ways to blame ourselves. (Those binges as an undergrad. Those years at a desk.) But how different are we from our peers? Bad luck is real. Blame is useless.

Just my usual fangirling for @sproudfoot.bsky.social's writing. "A game of co-operation chicken" is spot on as a description of this moment in federal politics. From share.google/QnPIBEIMPNR1... Paywalled, but here's the nub.

Agreed. It's hard to imagine a voting system so flawless that a one-vote win would not require a do-over. The do-over (a by-election) seems to me just a reasonable, did-we-get-it-right, verification procedure.

Great reflection on being in "cahoots" - a term which, regrettably, does not occur in the statute (I'm guessing)

The whole "everything is perimenopause" turn has a lot to answer for

I have written. Just a little piece, 700 words, editor will probably take it to 600. But it has been a couple of years. I was afraid my cancer drug was giving me the "So what's" with a side of "Don't wanna." Brain fog. But it turns out the brain is still there. ☺️

Continuing another thread of this: this dialectical process, whether you look at it as the rococo filigree of legislative noodling or as a long process of tailoring law to the body of reality, that @stillots1.bsky.social and I are discussing is viewed with horror by the political rationalist.

Anyone wanting to reduce the complexity of the tax code, they are many, suffers a fundamental misunderstanding. You won’t make it less complicated, you just make us start as and we will immediately. A tax code can’t be substantially simpler than the commerce & wealth it taxes! That’s reality for ya!

Are you related for Customs purposes? One way the tariffable value of an import can be determined is by transaction price But only if the parties to the transaction aren't related And "related" is defined in the Income Tax act, plus a few other ways. All are traces of evasion schemes, I bet.

I love tariff schedules. They remind me of how much humans like to make up complex and subtle classifications. Import duty on car seats, 6%. On aircraft seats, 0%. From chapter 96 of the Customs Tariff. www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/trade-commer... The origins www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/trade-commer...

Yes, I *do* have a favourite neighbourhood tree. The sticky snow is giving big Japanese brush work vibes

The thing that’s lost on these tech dicks is that people want to feel a connection to the creators as much as they want to be entertained. The magic of human creativity is 90% one’s motivation for reading, seeing, watching, or listening. The fact that AI bros haven’t considered that is… telling.

Road not Lake. Road not Lake. Road not Lake. Halisky folks will likely know the mistake I made this morning, and my resolution to avoid that same mistake in the future #nshealth

I spoke to a neighbour yesterday and learned about their politics when they opened with "Mark Carney isn't even Canadian: he flies home every night to New York." They thought themselves well-informed because they watch CPAC and believe member & witness statements... Critical media literacy now!

President rolls back Surgeon General's finding that cigarettes cause lung cancer. Ends regulation that prohibits smoking in restaurants. "Everyone hates it," federal agency head says. (That's how today's story about US environmental regulation sounds to me) share.google/pdAXTK6bHqNl...

Voluntary taxation - that's the tax you pay when you buy certain treats. But is sugar just a treat? To mark the upcoming chocolate holiday, here's a vintage Tillotson blog on sugar taxes, past and present. Black-Market Gumdrops share.google/mgsETgQ0RCxm...

Perfect questioning. The defender of "white culture" can't say what it is or why he things it's being "erased" (Hint: that's because "white culture" doesn't exist, except as a marker of a position in racist politics)

What women on the left already knew before the files came out is that men can imagine a world of class consciousness (Chomsky), a universe more expansive than ever before known (Hawking), a world where you can live forever (Attia) but not a world where women are fully human.

sufferers of common decency are my target demo

When I read this kind of "go slow" talk from municipal council, it reminds me that when I came to Dalhousie in 1993, the telephones in faculty offices were still dial rather than touch tone. I wondered how far back in time I had gone. Dials had disappeared from normal use maybe 10 years before?

To mark the upcoming chocolate holiday, here's a vintage Tillotson blog on sugar taxes, past and present. In it, you'll read the reason future finance minister JL Ilsley suggested in the House a marginal rate of **100%** on very high incomes! Black-Market Gumdrops share.google/mgsETgQ0RCxm...

In theory, those trees are green In reality, blacks and whites

Halifax's Pier 2, circa 1928. Immigrant train pulling out, steam engine puffing. From the National Revenue Review, September 1928 (published by Dept of National Revenue) For @sschwinghamer.bsky.social and anyone curious about the old #Halifax waterfront

Seligman on income tax, 1911: "It may appear to some that too much attention has been paid to the historical side of the subject." No, he says. Let's study the shift from "uncompromising hostility to ... virtual acquiescence." This book lay at the foundation of my research. Fun to revisit it!

Kindly asking american publications to hire normal canadians to write about canada

A #Halifax sight Horses snacking in the snow - downtown

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! In today’s episode David and Paul Sagar explore the ideas of two late-twentieth-century thinkers - Bernard Williams and Judith Shklar. Is the fundamental political question about how to achieve the best or is it about how to avoid the worst? Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

Cuba / WSJ: "The speed with which conditions on the island have deteriorated has surprised analysts and some U.S. officials. Concerns are growing that without a clear plan for stabilization, the crisis could drag on for years and exact a heavy toll on ordinary Cubans ..."