herid @herid@qoto.org

#Canada can't have high-speed passenger rail, right?

It's not Europe, eh. We're spread out!

Except that half the country's population (18 million people+) live along the narrow corridor from Windsor to #Quebec City.

So why are we still relying on airplanes and low-speed, always-late diesel trains rather than hi-speed electric?

Map/chart via Marco Chitti.

The Covid bivalent vaccine booster works better than expected.

https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-bivalent-vaccine-booster-outperforms

"Twitter has an alarming rise of alt-right, anti vax and antisemitic users."

"There's this alternative called Mastod-"

"And it greatly disturbs me that one capricious man's inflated ego determines the rules."

"There's this federated option Mast-"

"Not to mention the incessant ads and desperate efforts to extract money from users makes Twitter almost unbearable."

"The non-profit Ma-"

"Welp, nothing to be done about Twitter I suppose, might as well stick it out on this hellhole."

'Ontarians will always access the healthcare they need with their OHIP card, not their credit card'

Doug Ford made this healthcare announcement today in a Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacy.

Shoppers Drug Mart is a shareholder in the private tele-health provider, MAPLE.

#Chutzpah #SubtleAsASledgeHammer
#WhosHeKidding
#WearAMask #SickPeopleInAPharmacy
#Onpoli #OHIP

https://www.getmaple.ca/for-you-family/pricing/

Indicative of how closely Prigozhin coordinates with the Presidential Administration (i.e. not acting independently): prison inmates Prigozhin recruits are only released after Putin signs a classified pardon decree, preserving some bureaucratic formalism.
https://www.mk.ru/politics/2023/01/09/yuristy-raskryli-podnogotnuyu-pomilovaniya-vagnerovcevuchastnikov-svo.html

It probably also wouldn't cost much to do a clean-energy version of this kind of fuckery. Why don't green groups do it? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/climate/climate-propane-influence-campaign.html

As @dfenton@twitter.com said on the pod, these kinds of ads are not as expensive as you think. It wouldn't take much for green groups to run their own, to counter this absolute flood of API nonsense. Why don't they? https://www.volts.wtf/p/lessons-from-a-life-in-progressive#details

Democracy dies awash in fossil fuel propaganda.

They gonna dig up the dead bodies and sell their gold teeth for Elon's cash flow.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/technology/twitter-user-names-elon-musk.html

The Submarines - You, Me, and the Bourgeoisie

https://youtu.be/bYvt0boSRXQ

#SongOfTheDay
#FavoriteMusic 56/

Tomorrow is my first day of class this semester at Duke University.

For my first year seminar I am asking the students to build and use an astrolabe. It is a great way to both get a physical understanding of the sky, and to really appreciate the sophistication of early astronomy.

The astrolabe was used for centuries to tell the time, navigate, etc. Now you can make and use one too by following the instructions here:

https://in-the-sky.org/astrolabe/index.php

#astronomy #astrodon #histodon #teaching

Peter Beinart writes,

"The problem isn’t that Republicans don’t win legislative victories. It’s that legislative victories can’t answer the party’s underlying discontent, which is less about government policy than about American culture. Democrats worry about voting rights, gun control, climate change and abortion — enormous challenges, but ones that congressional leaders can at least try to address."

#VotingRights #GunControl #ClimateChange #abortion #GOP

(1 of 2)

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/opinion/republicans-kevin-mccarthy-house.html

#Breaking #Poland's President Andrzej Duda says Warsaw is ready to send Leopard tanks to #Ukraine as part of an international coalition.

Jimmie Rodgers - Kisses Sweeter Than Wine

https://youtu.be/iulmZAz8XfY

#SongOfTheDay
#FavoriteMusic 55/

Strange how the Ontario government's approach to knowing that Bill 124 contributes to health worker shortages…is to appeal the court ruling which scrapped Bill 124.

It’s almost as if they want the health worker shortages to continue. 🙄

Doctor's voices

'It's like there was a Zoom call of all global public health officers and the agenda was:

1. Let's gaslight the public into believing the pandemic is over.
and
2. How to collapse universal health care step-by-step.'

Dr. Karen Pinder - Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia @DrKarenPinder

JUST NOW: The new House rules would:

-enable the #GOP to defund a criminal investigation into #Trump.

-defund Office of Congressional Ethics.

-enable a #Republican being investigated by FBI to investigate the investigators investigating him.

I'm voting NO on the rules package.