The Government They Voted For

Gradually Then Suddenly Great Moments In Socialism nannystate New Governor 30 Comments

Globe & Mail, June 1st: As Canada faces crippling debt, it must do the unpopular thing and cut elderly benefits…

Blacklocks, June 9th.;

Parliament spends more than $14 billion a year on Old Age Security for pensioners with household incomes over $60,000, records show. A federally-funded research group has petitioned cabinet to tighten income testing for seniors: “It’s appropriate to ask retirees with six-figure incomes to accept fewer taxpayer dollars.”

Are you feeling softened yet?

Critical Shovel Theory

Science We Are All Treaty People 18 Comments

“Neutrality is a luxury that archaeologists are not afforded and they cannot be apolitical in the face of politics,” she wrote….

Five years of national angst and anger over the “discovery” of “graves” at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School was driven by an archeological report by a self-proclaimed activist archeologist and critical theory advocate Sarah Beaulieu. Her PhD thesis, completed in 2019, glorified her social warrior/critical theory credentials.

In her thesis, Archaeology of Internment at the Morrissey WWI Camp, insight into Beaulieu’s philosophy is revealed in chapter two under the headings “Critical Theory” and “Applications of Critical Theory within Modern Conflict Archaeology.”

Critical theory, she explained, has a dual purpose: exposing ideologies (or regimes/governments) that justify oppression and forcing a commitment from the “practitioner” (in this case Beaulieu) to act against the oppression once it has been exposed.

“Through the application of critical theory, researchers gain an understanding of how certain groups have become exploited. This understanding allows the researcher to use this knowledge and critique gained through research to strive to end such oppressive forces,” wrote Beaulieu, a professor at Fraser Valley University.

“Critical archaeologists thus take part in an emancipatory archaeology to serve marginalized societal groups and challenge the dominant class.”

I’ve linked to the archived page, but if you have a couple of bucks to spare, consider subscribing to the National Post. They’re the only ones with the cajones to take these hoax mongers on, and it costs nearly nothing.

I, For One, Welcome Our New Self-Driving Overlords

AI 5 Comments

More, from @DavidSacks

While I’m no fan of socialism or arbitrary confiscations of wealth, I can see why Bernie Sanders’ proposal (for the government to take a 50% stake in AI companies) resonates, including with many on the right.

The CEOs of the leading AI labs have told us repeatedly that they will cause massive job loss. This is not a story that I believe, nor does the data bear it out, but this is what they have told us. Similarly, they have hyped the risks of AI without putting an equal or greater emphasis on the benefits or readily available mitigations.

Conservatives have another fear. The employees of the leading labs claim to be philanthropic, but what we’ve seen is massive enrichment of NGOs advancing an agenda at odds with traditional values, fueling a revolution against our cities and communities. Soros-maxxing is not charity in our book.

Anthropic and OpenAI have established themselves as Public Benefit Corporations. What could be more in the public benefit than using half the wealth generated by these companies (which trained for free on the collective knowledge of humanity) to pay down the national debt? There is no ideological bias in that philanthropy.

Dario and Sam have begun to walk back their claims of massive job loss, but the damage to public trust is done, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. I could almost support the Sanders proposal as a stupidity tax.
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Circling The Drain, Literally

entitlement generation Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing nannystate 5 Comments

There’s a simple solution for alleged funding problems for sewer and water networks: have the user pay, just like they do for internet. If usage fees cover repairs as well as future upgrades and expansion, bottlenecks won’t occur. Municipal governments, on the other hand, prefer to wait for “others”, namely provincial and federal taxpayers, to pony up for things they don’t want to charge local voters for.

She said municipalities largely rely on property taxes and user fees for revenue, which account for roughly one-tenth of total government revenues in Canada despite them being responsible for a majority of core local infrastructure.

“We know what we need to do,” she said. “The concern is we don’t have the fiscal capacity to do it at the speed and scale that housing targets require.”

Just How Much Damage Can Seattle’s Socialist Mayor Do Before She Leaves Office?

Baiting The Left Democrats 25 Comments

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