🔗 Articles: Wed 28.Feb.2024
WashPo: Elizabeth Becker: Jim McDermott left Congress. Then he had to leave the country.
He made a radical leap from a comfortable retirement in the United States to a stone cottage in rural France for reasons that are suddenly timely for friends and former colleagues in D.C. who are facing the possibility that a vengeful Donald Trump could win the presidential election.
In private conversations with McDermott, they wonder how to gauge the seriousness of Trump’s increasingly dire threats to the country’s democratic underpinnings and, potentially, to them and their families. “I get calls from my friends now who say they are scared to do what I did but are scared to stay.”
He tells them: “If you can afford it, buy a second home in France, or Spain, or Portugal, wherever … a second home that could become a safe house,” he said.
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These were his passions during his years in Congress. He didn’t realize how deeply he felt about a nation’s responsibility for the health of its people until he came to this village, where, under the French system, health care is taken for granted, like clean water and a working sewer system.
“It was like I walked through an invisible door. Now I saw and felt what it’s like to live in a community where everyone can go to the doctor. Where children aren’t massacred by gun violence. It changes everything.”
Globe: Ottawa reviewing Indigenous contracting program linked to ArriveCan contractors, Hajdu says
While much of the focus on ArriveCan has centred around GCStrategies, the two-person IT staffing company that received $19.1-million to work on the app for cross-border travellers, concerns have also been expressed about Dalian Enterprises, which received $7.9-million.
Dalian presents itself as an Indigenous-owned company and regularly wins federal contracts under a procurement program that promotes Indigenous businesses. Dalian has also said it has just two staff members. It often operates in joint ventures with Coradix, a larger company that does not bill itself as Indigenous.
Dalian and Coradix have received more than $400-million in federal contract work over the past decade.
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A 2021 research report (PDF) by the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business urged the government to address “predatory practices” with the set-aside targets.
“Phantom joint ventures, where an Indigenous partner is used as a front by a non-Indigenous business to obtain a contract set-aside, corrodes the integrity of an Indigenous procurement policy,” the council report stated.
CBC: Winnipeg Jets not in ‘crisis’ despite low ticket sales: NHL commissioner
“I believe that this is a strong NHL market. I believe that ownership has made extraordinary commitments to the Jets, to this arena, to the downtown area, involving hundreds of millions of dollars,” he said.
“I’m not sure why people are now speculating that somehow they’re not going to be here.”
TorStar: Second Toronto cop admits guilt in ‘mistaken identity’ case
With a second Toronto police officer taking responsibility for a “mistaken identity” arrest that involved a knee to the neck, tasering and detention of her son, and another officer disciplined at a station level, Christine Stought-O’Gilvie stood before a row of assembled media in the lobby of police headquarters and delivered a request of all officers.
“Please, treat them with dignity,” Stought-O’Gilvie, a teacher with the Toronto District School Board, said Tuesday morning, addressing Toronto police over their treatment of young Black men, like her son.
Newsweek: Scientists Demonstrate Simple Method to Reduce Microplastics in Your Tap Water
In their study, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters, the team, led by Zhanjun Li and Eddy Zeng, collected samples of hard tap water from Guangzhou, China, and spiked them with different amounts of nano- and microplastics. The samples were than boiled for five minutes and allowed to cool before the team measured the amount of free-floating plastic present in each sample.
Hard water is rich in minerals and produces small quantities of a chalky substance called limescale, aka calcium carbonate, when it is boiled. If you live in an area with hard water you will recognize this as the white scum floating on the top of your tea and coffee. In fact, as the water boils, this white scum encapsulates the plastic particles, separating them from the rest of the liquid.
If this liquid is then poured through a simple filter, like a coffee filter, the floating limescale, along with the encapsulated plastics, can be separated from the rest of the liquid. In fact, using this method removed up to 90 percent of the free floating micro- and nanoplastics present in the water.
City AM: Octopus Energy chief Greg Jackson: The world isn’t ready for China’s clean energy tidal wave
Bickering amongst policymakers and industry is setting the UK way behind China in the drive towards clean energy, the head of one of the UK’s largest energy providers has said.
Speaking to City A.M. at London’s International Energy Week conference earlier this week, Octopus Energy chief executive Greg Jackson said the UK’s journey to 2030 and beyond will continue to be hampered until activity is prioritised over endless discussion.
“What we need to do is just learn that we need to stop mucking around and bickering about the details and get on with it, or we will be subsumed,” he said.
“The scale of the transition and the countries that are just getting on with it, including obviously China, is astonishing.
We are not ready — very few people are ready — for the tidal wave of innovation that’s going to come out of China in clean energy
Greg Jacksonnone
Guardian: Shock of the old: 11 vintage cigarette ads
In the days when smoking was advertised everywhere, the sell was often genuinely bizarre: from dancing polar bears to Ronald Reagan to recommendations from friendly doctors.
CBC: Comedian, Curb your Enthusiasm star Richard Lewis dead at 76
Singer Billy Joel has said he was referring to Lewis when he sang in My Life, of an old friend who “bought a ticket to the West Coast / Now he gives them a standup routine in L.A.”
CBC: First Nations praise ruling ‘forcing’ Crown to protect interests
Michell says a victory at B.C.’s Court of Appeal this week could change that dynamic for good: forcing the Crown to deal directly with the interests of two First Nations that have been fighting for years to undo the Kenney Dam’s damage to their fish stocks.
“The problem is that we were always dealing with Rio Tinto – a company – and their bottom line is water is where they make their profit through electricity sales,” Michell told the CBC.
CBC: Danielle Smith’s dim view of wind and solar becomes murky policy
They loomed over the landscape along the Crowsnest Highway, the 57 hulking wind turbines of the Cowley Ridge Wind Farm. This was the first commercial wind farm anywhere in Canada, erected in 1993 before being decommissioned eight years ago, replaced by a more efficient TransAlta-owned project Cowley Ridge Wind Farm.
With the Alberta government now declaring a ban on any new wind turbines within 35 kilometres of whatever the province deems “pristine viewscapes,” would this be allowed? Would Canada’s pioneering renewable energy project be kosher under Premier Danielle Smith’s new regime?
“My inability to answer that question is the problem here,” said Evan Wilson, policy vice-president with the Canadian Renewable Energy Association, in an interview Wednesday.
Scripting News (Dave Winer): Safari change
I use Safari on my iPad. The software just updated, and they widened the width of icons in the browser chrome. This knocked three of my links over into the menu, out of easy reach. Why did they feel they could change something so basic? After using the iPad for 14 freaking years, why shake up this tiny little corner of the system? What’s the possible benefit. Or maybe this is just a bug and they’ll fix it? This is the kind of thing that makes me put off updating. Yeah I know it sounds small, but I really use my freaking iPad. It isn’t just for watching movies. I can’t tell you how many iPads I’ve bought. It’s ridiculous. Come on Apple, I’m a customer not a slave.
Can’t argue with this. Happens all the time.
Last Updated: 28.Feb.2024 23:48 EST