Local Lotuslandian Stuff...

NotAllOfOurBorderIsOnA

ParallelLineVille

A couple of good pieces in The Tyee the last couple of days...

First, Andrew Macleod wrote about how BC Premier David Eby is thinking of slapping tariffs on US'ian coal that is being shipped overseas from Roberts Bank after it arrives there by rail.

 

Interestingly, the coal from Montana and Wyoming only transits through Lotusland because American west coast ports won't touch it. 

Doubly interestingly, Eby's plan, which would need support from the Feds, appears to have evolved from an original idea of applying the carbon tax to the shipments from... wait for it...John Rustad. 

Triply interestingly, Eby appears to have at least of kinda/sorta acknowledged that Rustad's idea was a decent one. Imagine that!

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Second. Jenn St. Dennis wrote about how an astroturf group front by home grown tech grifters wants to set up a DOGE-type deal in Canada:

In Canada, a group of tech CEOs has come up with a political public relations effort called Build Canada...

{snip}

 ...So far, Build Canada’s website offers a series of short policy statements calling for 110,000 jobs to be cut from the federal public service over four years, AI to be used in government services, interprovincial trade barriers to come down and the federal government to step in to compel provinces and municipalities to allow autonomous vehicles and delivery robots. There are also calls for immigration for humanitarian reasons to be sharply curtailed in favour of higher-income and highly skilled immigrants, and to fund content creators to tell inspiring stories about Canada...

 {snippety}

...But Build Canada is connected to another website called Canada Spends that looks a lot like the DOGE.gov website...

{snippety doo-dah}

...Just like the DOGE website, Canada Spends offers a series of boxes containing random information about government spending; and like DOGE.gov, clicking on the box takes you to a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that (Elon) Musk bought in 2022...

It is the kind of thing that, until recently, would have been viewed as laughable by 99% of Canadians.

Now, with the algorithmic outrage engines fully engaged in all of the social media boiler rooms in all of our worlds, that may no longer be the case.



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