It’s like a game of snakes and ladders.
Economist- The world’s richest countries in 2023
“He knew ‘something was up’ when the island’s many birds disappeared.”
This is worth stressing. Stand on Rockall, and you’re standing on the only piece of land for hundreds of miles in every direction, in some of the tallest seas in the world. (In 2000, oceanographers recorded individual waves up to 29 metres tall over the Rockall Trough.)
So you’d be mad to try?
Hamas or E-Bike?
We report. You decide.
Sun- What looked like a bomb blast on TTC subway was actually an e-bike battery
The potential for this being much worse was off the charts. An e-bike battery problem on the subway that caused an extensive fire is believed to be a first in the underground. However, there have been many reports of electric battery fires in other venues, from homes to parking garages to even on a cargo ship.
This inferno that had potential to kill is just not something one would expect while riding the TTC subway. Or at least to have one start this way.
Looking Back…
Dave Barry- 2023 year in review
It was a year of reckoning, a year in which humanity finally began to understand that it faces an existential threat, a threat unlike any we have ever faced before, a threat that will wreak havoc on our fragile planet if we fail to stop it — and it may already be too late.
We are referring, of course, to pickleball.
Let Me Explain
Y2Kyoto: Disappointment Abounds
As this year draws to a close…
…it is worth noting that over the last 12 months — and contrary to predictions and headlines, including claims about “the warmest year ever” — polar bears have not been reported dying, starving, or eating each other in large numbers, or relentlessly attacking people. On top of that, summer sea ice coverage in the Arctic has stalled for the last 17 years, not melted out in a death spiral of rotten ice.
But take heart! All is not lost!
h/t PaulHarveyPageTwo, roaddog
7.6 Japan Earthquake
A powerful earthquake struck central Japan on Monday, triggering warnings for residents to evacuate some areas on its west coast, destroying buildings, knocking out power to thousands of homes and disrupting travel to the region.
The quake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.6 triggered waves of around 1 metre along parts of the Sea of Japan coast, with authorities saying larger waves could follow.
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) issued tsunami warnings for the coastal prefectures of Ishikawa, Niigata and Toyama. A major tsunami warning – the first since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that struck northeastern Japan – was initially issued for Ishikawa but later downgraded.
Photos and video at #Japan. (Some may be old, exploited for clickbait)
And the winner is…
Op-Ed: Ruthless, reckless, damaging: the Hon. Steven Guilbeault is MLI’s Policy-maker of the year. Pipeline Online would agree.
The Libranos: Business As Usual
The system is working as designed.
A vast “financial underworld” is operating in Canada whose members commit fraud and other financial crimes without punishment, corroding communities, undermining democratic institutions and even the country’s prosperity, the authors of a new book say.
That’s because elected leaders at all levels are enabling and emboldening financial criminals by failing to fight them or even try to hamper their lawbreaking efforts, according to the co-authors of Dirty Money: Financial Crime in Canada.
“Canada is a preferred destination to launder ill-gotten gains with impunity,” say Jamie Ferrill and Christian Leuprecht, the co-editors of Dirty Money. They also wrote some of its 16 chapters. […]
One chapter examines the mysterious workings of the country’s super-secret financial intelligence agency, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, known as FINTRAC.
Katarzyna McNaughton, a visiting post-doctoral fellow at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ont., reveals that FINTRAC produces and delivers a large volume of proactive disclosures about potential major financial crimes to police agencies.
However, the intelligence disclosures often sit unused or acted upon inside police services because investigators are already overwhelmed with their own mountain of cases, McNaughton writes, quoting an unidentified former FINTRAC worker as her source.
(h/t David M)
Today In Islam
How Hamas brainwashes children. Aid money builds nice mansions for Hamas. A rally for the Houthi. Meet the world’s most influential Muslim.
A New Year On Turtle Island
Blackie’s Canada: Renaming everything must continue (CBC).
Dementia Joe’s America: The best of Joe Biden. A reckoning approaches. The pitfalls of benevolence. And indigenous science.
There Goes The Narrative News: Colonies have a favourable opinion of their colonizer.
Your morning memes. HAPPY NEW YEAR!
January 1, 2024: Reader Tips
Welcome to a new year, everyone! While 2024 may generally be the craziest year we’ve experienced in some time, here’s hoping your personal lives are relatively happy and prosperous.
We start off this new year with a lovely song entitled Never Enough from The Greatest Showman.
Do share how you are celebrating the ending of 2023 and welcoming in the new one!
A Cover, of a Cover, of a Cover
The Children Are Our Future
And that’s why y’all should be taking notes on how to ride out a blizzard in a homemade truck camper.
Happy New Year!
The Show Must Go On
EUGYPPIUS- The Year the Pandemic Ended: A Retrospective
Once a show has run its course, there is no saving it. You can cut ticket prices and hire cut-rate actors, you can promise new sideshows and free beer, but these measures are but life support. Sooner or later the acrobats are swinging and the magicians are stuffing flea-ridden rabbits into worn top-hats and the elephants are balancing precariously on balls before empty stands, and it is time to fold up the tables and the tents, lead the animals back into their cages, hitch the wagons to their teams and seek business elsewhere. Thus the Covid Circus in the Federal Republic of Germany finally folded up shop and left town in 2023.
O, Sweet Saint Of San Andreas
A hostile crowd formed around officers who chased down an armed robbery suspect on the edge of the Union Square neighborhood, San Francisco police said Friday.
The confrontation occurred about 11 p.m. Dec. 21 in the 200 block of Ellis Street at Mason Street.
Police said a man wearing a balaclava jumped over a counter, brandished a firearm and ran off with cash.
Officers saw a person who matched the suspect’s description running from the scene and arrested a man with a loaded firearm after a brief struggle.
During the arrest, an antagonistic crowd formed around the officers and suspect, police said. Officers were able to transport the man to a secure location for their own safety and the safety of the suspect.
Full interview with Scott Moe on Saskatchewan’s year in energy
Saskatchewan’s Year in Energy: Premier Scott Moe, 2023: Full Interview
If you didn’t have a chance to see this interview posted in four pieces before, here is the full year-end interview between Premier Scott Moe and Pipeline Online editor and owner Brian Zinchuk
Also, Premier Scott Moe’s social media folks posted the Pipeline Online story about the carbon tax on Saturday:
Saskatchewan families can say so long to paying the carbon tax on home heating beginning on Monday!https://t.co/y2ZC7fLaSN
— Scott Moe (@PremierScottMoe) December 30, 2023
That bill there is directly from my father’s Jan. 2023 bill, when the carbon tax was still $50 per tonne. In April, it’ll be $80 a tonne. Without getting into too much detail, the shop that was connect to his natural gas is no longer. Thank God.
It was rather entertaining to read some of the comments, like suggesting my 80-year-old father should pay for upgrading the heating on his home (with only his meager CPP and OAS). Because every 80 year old will see a return in 10 years on such an investment. Certainly.
Another suggested he must be in a high income bracket – nothing could be further from the truth. Or that Trudeau’s climate action cheques must be enough to compensate.
True believers, those.
Anyhow, happy new year, everyone! And if you live in Saskatchewan and have SaskEnergy or SaskPower for home heating, happy no more carbon tax, on that, at least, year!
Whatsisname’s Britain
Where the foxes caper unmolested, the government packs your school lunch and “There were clashes in Camberwell after a protest related to tensions in the Eritrean community, the force added.”.
2024 Predictions
It’s the last day of what was clearly a very bizarre year. Please share your predictions for what you think will happen in 2024!
From Kate: Before you weigh in, first review your 2023 Predictions.