Notices by Harold Jarche (harold@mastodon.social)

"It really dampens protests if you kill a few." — President Richard Nixon

https://www.netflix.com/title/81756795

Paul Parker, recording clerk for Quakers in Britain, said: “No-one has been arrested in a Quaker meeting house in living memory.

“This aggressive violation of our place of worship and the forceful removal of young people holding a protest group meeting clearly shows what happens when a society criminalises protest.

“Freedom of speech, assembly, and fair trials are an essential part of free public debate which underpins democracy."

https://www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news/quakers-condemn-police-raid-on-westminster-meeting-house

#democracy

"The head of Elections Canada says he has been in touch with social media platforms in an effort to address concerns about misinformation as Canada wades into an election campaign."

I highly doubt they contacted the hundreds of Mastodon admins, because ... there was no need. Vive le Fediverse libre!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/elections-canada-misinformation-social-media-1.7491567

#CdnPoli

"We [USA] have arrived at the part of the dystopian thriller where our neighbors to the North are advising their citizens stay out of America for fear of serious human rights violations, & because America “is a threat to our very right to exist as an independent democratic nation.”

Unfortunately, Canada is right. The US govt is a lawless, abusive, authoritarian regime—& it will only get worse. I wouldn’t recommend coming here to anyone at the moment."

https://www.mind-war.com/p/what-lies-beneath-is-there-an-american

#CdnPoli #USPol

"Elon Musk was born in 1971 in Johannesburg, and McGreal discusses Musk’s grandfather, Joshua Haldeman, who immigrated to South Africa in 1950 when apartheid became “in many ways reminiscent of the Nazi Nuremberg laws against Jews in the 1930s. They have very similar echoes in stripping Black people of the right to work in certain places, their movements, controlling them, confining them to areas.”

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/2/11/elon_musk_was_raised_under_racist

#USPolitics

"This Sunday’s show asks: What do you think about Canada becoming the 51st state?

Hanomansing emphasized that 100 NPR stations will simulcast the episode, and that this is a chance for Canadians’ voices to be heard by Americans.

The Venn diagram of NPR listeners and Trump supporters are two circles separated by a million miles. Just like Pierre Poilievre, Trump also wants to defund public broadcasters."

https://cultmtl.com/2025/02/canadian-media-stop-normalizing-trumps-51st-state-propaganda/

#CdnPoli

"This mass surrender is craven in every aspect. These aren't companies facing existential threats. They're not staring down bankruptcy. They're profitable giants choosing to fold because standing up might require effort or -God forbid- acknowledging that in a polarised world, their stock prices can never be entirely insulated from reality. They're abandoning commitments not because they must but because courage is less convenient &less comfortable than impotent cowardice"
https://www.theindex.media/this-is-the-age-of-the-coward-2/

It is seriously time for Canada to apply for EU membership.

#CdnPoli

“You will not achieve an informed public simply by making sure that high quality content is publicly available and presuming that credibility is enough while you wait for people to come find it. You have to understand the networked nature of the information war we’re in, actively be there when people are looking, and blanket the information ecosystem with the information people need to make informed decisions.” —danah boyd

https://jarche.com/2022/01/the-balance-between-emotion-and-logic-in-the-digital-age/

#PKMastery #media #misinformation #SocialMedia

Note that Apple Intelligence on Mac OS does not work when language is set to English (Canada)
#AppleIntelligence

How to run a food bank. There is not a food shortage but rather a distribution problem. This food bank distributed 84% fresh food one week.

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6617089

I have been with Fastmail for many years. Great service in my experience. Get off the google and others and check it out.

https://www.fastmail.com/

@blogdiva we play cribbage here and our board dates from the 1950s. Made by those nasty ACME dudes :)

"In fact, you could argue that much of the F*ck Trudeau movement — designed to give rise to the far right in Canada — emerged from exploitation of the resistance against pandemic restrictions. This cause was aided tremendously when (less than two months after the end of the trucker convoy) Elon Musk acquired Twitter and turned the platform into a far-right social network where misinformation and hate speech are allowed to live and spread unchecked."

https://cultmtl.com/2025/01/anger-towards-justin-trudeau-always-comes-back-to-the-pandemic/
#CdnPoli

I wonder how many US veterans voted for Trump?
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/11/21/musk-ramaswamy-proposal-slash-spending-could-include-va-medical-services.html

"Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and many have no emergency savings—they are one crisis from homelessness. A job loss or an unexpected illness and they are where I am. They are on edge, driving bigger and faster and louder cars—a society speeding along as it disintegrates."

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a62875397/homelessness-in-america/

@carnage4life So basically you say that most people are lazy, which is probably correct. But is that what we should be striving for in our society? Convenience has a price.
https://jarche.com/2017/09/a-convenience-truth/

"Canada Post has framed this narrative that they are losing money…

I believe it’s unfair that the crown corporation can state that it has lost $3B since 2018 when in actual fact it has invested that $3B into new sorting plants, new vehicles to replace their aging fleet, as well as new equipment and technology all over the country!

The only thing that Canada Post has not invested in during that same time period is their workers… "

https://www.rankandfile.ca/canada-post-false-narratives/

Brandolini's Law is going to sink us. There is just too much BS

https://sketchplanations.com/the-bs-asymmetry-principle

Pluralistic: #Bluesky and enshittification

"I will never again devote my energies to building up an audience on a platform whose management can sever my relationship to that audience at will." —Cory Doctorow 2024-11-02

+1

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/ulysses-pact/