Comes from the Latin pellagra, meaning, well, pellagra, the end stage manifestation of severe niacin deficiency, once widespread due to crop failures and war, now widespread due to austerity programs and war.
Get fucked, Peepee and the rest of the industrio-fascist shills.
The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze
Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze
Placeholder for something witty that doesn't make me sound like an asshole
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Mongrel
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Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze
For the non-Canadians: Following the brief use of the Emergencies Act (the closest thing we currently have to an invocation of martial law) in February to eject the Ram Ranch Resistance convoy from Ottawa, there's a mandatory post-facto inquiry into whether its use was justified. This is now just wrapping up after about two weeks mainly consisting of various politicians' text messages being read, which were all pretty much reflections of their public statements of the time, except with more snark.
So the outcome has been an unsurprising "Uh I guess so, maybe, probably-ish, sorta, since we fucked up so badly in the first place. Hard to say." which doesn't really matter anyway because the inquiry doesn't have the power to indict anyone in this case. So call it... an early Airing of Grievances. (my opinion: On paper it wasn't, but in effect it was, because the symbolic nature of invoking the act gave everyone involved a swift kick in the pants).
But it did result in this masterpiece trending in a way it never did back in March.
So the outcome has been an unsurprising "Uh I guess so, maybe, probably-ish, sorta, since we fucked up so badly in the first place. Hard to say." which doesn't really matter anyway because the inquiry doesn't have the power to indict anyone in this case. So call it... an early Airing of Grievances. (my opinion: On paper it wasn't, but in effect it was, because the symbolic nature of invoking the act gave everyone involved a swift kick in the pants).
But it did result in this masterpiece trending in a way it never did back in March.
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Mongrel
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Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze
Absolutely WILD story came out late yesterday.
So there's a charitable org, the Muslim Association of Canada; only one of several large Muslim charities. Nothing especially unusual about them, they run some mosques and schools, their main trouble had that the taxman has had a long-running investigation into whether their charitable status should be revoked because they maybe more corporation than charity.
So what's the big story? For several years they've been receiving anonymous emails with large dumps of internal government documents and email records internal to a long running second investigation between both the taxman and the federal cops (i.e. the mounties), into whether or not the MAC was using its profits and financial access to fund Muslim terrorist groups.
The email dumps were very detailed, describing a long-running investigation with its ups, downs, and internal politics. The mountie faction seemed determined to pin something - anything on the MAC - even if they had to fake evidence, while some of the government's financial investigators pushed back against this, stating there was little evidence of any support for terrorism. There were long, compelling conversations. The MAC was supposedly riddled with paid informers working to create "evidence" for the mounties, and whom the MAC's governance board was told to watch out for. Records of bank transfers show the informers being paid over $300,000 into offshore accounts, with the amusing footnote that after the informers had been paid, they lost their investigative zeal. Big scandal, sounds like there usual no good cop shit, etc.
But then it gets REAL WEIRD
The MAC went to the press with all this, showing them the email records they'd received, specifically the Globe. The Globe isn't always the greatest paper but they do have a pretty good record of being diligent with their investigations, and a story this huge, which could bring down a big chunk of the senior mountie leadership and potentially a number of public servants, deserved extreme scrutiny before going to press.
What the Globe found was that the entire investigation, over several years, may have been entirely fabricated by a leaker who never existed, for some unknown reason.
Names of the police and public staff involved were all publicly available information, as were their positions and many of these didn't match what they were assigned to according to the leaks. Copies of official government documents included in the leaks were apparent forgeries not fully matching the actual documents normally used. The warrants mentioned in the leak simply do not exist, even as sealed records or otherwise protected by the usual "operational/national security" excuse and there is literally no legal means our judiciary possesses which can enable them to deny the existence of a warrant entirely, there's no record of the financial transfers from any source, never mind just the cops, email addresses don't match those actually used by the employees involved, not even one specific informer is ever NAMED by the leaker in spite of them being the crux of the leaks and the org not even being all that large, in fact, nothing in any leaked documents reveals anything internal to any branch of the civil service or mounties which was inaccessible to the public.
So now we've either got a Dan Brown/QAnon level conspiracy where vast segments of the civil service and federal cops cooperated for years with a level of secrecy and efficiency vastly in excess of anything any Canadian civil servant has EVER previously managed (we are bad spies, okay? Like we fucking suck at this shit), planned with this level of secrecy in advance, with not even initial records of the legal requests required to set something like that up in the first place, and dozens of civil servants working a secret second job for months or even years with not even the tiniest of records of this, using a parallel IT network of which there is no trace, government paperwork filed using unnecessarily-forged forms, and a raft of ephemeral informers, all for an at-best modestly consequential investigation into a mid-size charity's possible financial supports for terrorism.
Just... we're talking about a level of forethought, determination, and talent I've never seen so much as a tenth of from these actors, and only half of them are even presented as malicious, yet even the ones presented in a vary favourable light as decent people fighting against corrupt law enforcement not only say they weren't involved, but show they were doing very different work and were sometimes not even available on the dates of some of the emails.
OR, and this seems to be the real truth of the matter, someone's been telling pork pies for years for who-the-fuck knows what reason, with creativity, deft use of publicly-available information, and possibly (probably?) enough experience in the civil service, to spin a yarn for the ages... just to scare a basically random-ass charitable org into thinking there's a vast government conspiracy out to get them? A lone shit-disturber? A person or group looking to embarrass the mounties or the government? Could it be a foreign intel op... what purpose would that even serve? Never mind Canadian actors, there's not many FOREIGN intel agencies with the skill to pull this off and none who have that skill have a reason to do so. It's not like fucking Mossad is out here trying to discredit the RCMP, unless something weirder than I can imagine is going on.
What the fuck man, what the fuck.
I feel like there's a very personal angle to this that's going to be uncovered eventually (or not), like this was someone's passion project. Somebody, somewhere, really wanted to make the mounties look really bad, to scare the shit out of a Muslim org, or both. To which I'd say... the mounties at least don't need the help, really? They're doing fine making themselves look fucking awful all on their own?
So there's a charitable org, the Muslim Association of Canada; only one of several large Muslim charities. Nothing especially unusual about them, they run some mosques and schools, their main trouble had that the taxman has had a long-running investigation into whether their charitable status should be revoked because they maybe more corporation than charity.
So what's the big story? For several years they've been receiving anonymous emails with large dumps of internal government documents and email records internal to a long running second investigation between both the taxman and the federal cops (i.e. the mounties), into whether or not the MAC was using its profits and financial access to fund Muslim terrorist groups.
The email dumps were very detailed, describing a long-running investigation with its ups, downs, and internal politics. The mountie faction seemed determined to pin something - anything on the MAC - even if they had to fake evidence, while some of the government's financial investigators pushed back against this, stating there was little evidence of any support for terrorism. There were long, compelling conversations. The MAC was supposedly riddled with paid informers working to create "evidence" for the mounties, and whom the MAC's governance board was told to watch out for. Records of bank transfers show the informers being paid over $300,000 into offshore accounts, with the amusing footnote that after the informers had been paid, they lost their investigative zeal. Big scandal, sounds like there usual no good cop shit, etc.
But then it gets REAL WEIRD
The MAC went to the press with all this, showing them the email records they'd received, specifically the Globe. The Globe isn't always the greatest paper but they do have a pretty good record of being diligent with their investigations, and a story this huge, which could bring down a big chunk of the senior mountie leadership and potentially a number of public servants, deserved extreme scrutiny before going to press.
What the Globe found was that the entire investigation, over several years, may have been entirely fabricated by a leaker who never existed, for some unknown reason.
Names of the police and public staff involved were all publicly available information, as were their positions and many of these didn't match what they were assigned to according to the leaks. Copies of official government documents included in the leaks were apparent forgeries not fully matching the actual documents normally used. The warrants mentioned in the leak simply do not exist, even as sealed records or otherwise protected by the usual "operational/national security" excuse and there is literally no legal means our judiciary possesses which can enable them to deny the existence of a warrant entirely, there's no record of the financial transfers from any source, never mind just the cops, email addresses don't match those actually used by the employees involved, not even one specific informer is ever NAMED by the leaker in spite of them being the crux of the leaks and the org not even being all that large, in fact, nothing in any leaked documents reveals anything internal to any branch of the civil service or mounties which was inaccessible to the public.
So now we've either got a Dan Brown/QAnon level conspiracy where vast segments of the civil service and federal cops cooperated for years with a level of secrecy and efficiency vastly in excess of anything any Canadian civil servant has EVER previously managed (we are bad spies, okay? Like we fucking suck at this shit), planned with this level of secrecy in advance, with not even initial records of the legal requests required to set something like that up in the first place, and dozens of civil servants working a secret second job for months or even years with not even the tiniest of records of this, using a parallel IT network of which there is no trace, government paperwork filed using unnecessarily-forged forms, and a raft of ephemeral informers, all for an at-best modestly consequential investigation into a mid-size charity's possible financial supports for terrorism.
Just... we're talking about a level of forethought, determination, and talent I've never seen so much as a tenth of from these actors, and only half of them are even presented as malicious, yet even the ones presented in a vary favourable light as decent people fighting against corrupt law enforcement not only say they weren't involved, but show they were doing very different work and were sometimes not even available on the dates of some of the emails.
OR, and this seems to be the real truth of the matter, someone's been telling pork pies for years for who-the-fuck knows what reason, with creativity, deft use of publicly-available information, and possibly (probably?) enough experience in the civil service, to spin a yarn for the ages... just to scare a basically random-ass charitable org into thinking there's a vast government conspiracy out to get them? A lone shit-disturber? A person or group looking to embarrass the mounties or the government? Could it be a foreign intel op... what purpose would that even serve? Never mind Canadian actors, there's not many FOREIGN intel agencies with the skill to pull this off and none who have that skill have a reason to do so. It's not like fucking Mossad is out here trying to discredit the RCMP, unless something weirder than I can imagine is going on.
What the fuck man, what the fuck.
I feel like there's a very personal angle to this that's going to be uncovered eventually (or not), like this was someone's passion project. Somebody, somewhere, really wanted to make the mounties look really bad, to scare the shit out of a Muslim org, or both. To which I'd say... the mounties at least don't need the help, really? They're doing fine making themselves look fucking awful all on their own?
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Mongrel
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Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze
The MP for Kitchener Centre is running a petition to extend to transgender and nonbinary people the right to claim asylum in Canada, regardless of country of origin. It specifically names the US and the UK.
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Mongrel
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Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze
Something of a bombshell story for Toronto: John Tory's been having an affair with a staffer and is resigning immediately. Our jar of mayonnaise in a suit had at least a little spice in him, I suppose. Resigned only three hours after the story broke, even.
Crazy time for the mayor to resign as we're on the cusp of the budget and the city is in general at something of a crossroads in many ways in terms of development. New election will have to go through after we had one just last fall. Maybe Gil Penalosa will get his chance after all? A fella can hope.
EDIT:
Crazy time for the mayor to resign as we're on the cusp of the budget and the city is in general at something of a crossroads in many ways in terms of development. New election will have to go through after we had one just last fall. Maybe Gil Penalosa will get his chance after all? A fella can hope.
EDIT:
Tory Men And Big Pleasures:
Mayor Stiffs Staff, Then Stiffs Voters
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Mongrel
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Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze
This is, and I am not kidding, arguably the cleverest statement any American President has ever made to Canadians:
Slagging the Leafs. That's fucking brilliant. Automatic jump of about three notches in the estimation of every Canadian - even us dumbasses in Toronto!
Biden says Canada and the United States share one heart, no two nations are more closely aligned than our two nations. Then I think he just said "I like all the (NHL) teams except the Leafs."
Slagging the Leafs. That's fucking brilliant. Automatic jump of about three notches in the estimation of every Canadian - even us dumbasses in Toronto!
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Mongrel
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Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze
Canada announces plans to place King Charles on $20 bill, coins
Nooooo! Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Well, that's one way to get people to go to a cashless economy... but I also hate the idea of a totally cashless economy! >:[
Nooooo! Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Well, that's one way to get people to go to a cashless economy... but I also hate the idea of a totally cashless economy! >:[
Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze
In b4 thousands of mock-ups of twennies with Chucky of slasher fame
Placeholder for something witty that doesn't make me sound like an asshole
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Mongrel
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Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze
Ontario couple assaulted outside liqour store over "Suspected Bud Light Purchase".
Just another reminder that, yeah, we got 'em up here too.
Just another reminder that, yeah, we got 'em up here too.
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Mongrel
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Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze
Provincial election in Alberta already heating up (and I don't mean the fact that Alberta & BC are both on fire right now, with wildfire season having started early) and it's the usual question of late: A gang of psychopaths expressly aiming to murder as many of their constituents as possible versus someone who will raise taxes a bit (still lower than any other province).
Alberta Conservative candidate caught comparing trans kids to "poop in chocolate chip cookie batter"
I mean, it's the USP under Danielle Steel and half controlled by a dedicated emerging Alberta Taliban, so, no surprises here. Or more simply "It's Alberta". But it's going to be interesting to see just how dogmatic and stupid Calgary voters can be (Edmonton is a labour town/NPD turf and the rural areas are already lost, lost, lost). And Calgary can be very very stupid at times.
Alberta Conservative candidate caught comparing trans kids to "poop in chocolate chip cookie batter"
I mean, it's the USP under Danielle Steel and half controlled by a dedicated emerging Alberta Taliban, so, no surprises here. Or more simply "It's Alberta". But it's going to be interesting to see just how dogmatic and stupid Calgary voters can be (Edmonton is a labour town/NPD turf and the rural areas are already lost, lost, lost). And Calgary can be very very stupid at times.
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Mongrel
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Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze
Legit bombshell: David Johnston resigning as head of closed-doors probe into Chinese interference in Canadian elections
For the Americans here: It's gradually been revealed that Canada is actually the number one international target for election interference by various intelligence arms of the Chinese government (unclear if they consider Taiwan to be "domestic" in this calculus, or if they just prefer to try and influence Taiwanese elections openly, as they're usually seen to do). Canadian politicians have been directly targeted with intel ops, vote buying, direct personal threats (!), and in a couple of cases outright recruitment or support as fifth columnist candidates. I think most Canadians have been aware of this for years, as little stories here and there came out all the time, but few realized the extent or scale of what's been going on.
Obviously this is extremely bad, and the Trudeau gang has made a huge mess in dealing with this. I don't think it's so much that any senior liberals are on the take, it's just they're too afraid of economic retaliation or even kidnapping of Canadians in China for Chinese foreign agents and scheme being busted. Which is a real concern! We've had multiple instances of this already! But secondary to, you know, the subversion of our entire system of (mostly, lol) democratic governance.
Johnston was extremely respected before this, but regardless of whether or not he's actually in the tank he was always the wrong man to appoint for this due to his close ties to the Trudeau family (IMO he was never a corruption risk, but he certainly is a bias risk). Resigning is the right thing to do.
So hopefully we're gonna have a real public inquiry. And presumably a shitstorm with China after that, but fuck 'em.
For the Americans here: It's gradually been revealed that Canada is actually the number one international target for election interference by various intelligence arms of the Chinese government (unclear if they consider Taiwan to be "domestic" in this calculus, or if they just prefer to try and influence Taiwanese elections openly, as they're usually seen to do). Canadian politicians have been directly targeted with intel ops, vote buying, direct personal threats (!), and in a couple of cases outright recruitment or support as fifth columnist candidates. I think most Canadians have been aware of this for years, as little stories here and there came out all the time, but few realized the extent or scale of what's been going on.
Obviously this is extremely bad, and the Trudeau gang has made a huge mess in dealing with this. I don't think it's so much that any senior liberals are on the take, it's just they're too afraid of economic retaliation or even kidnapping of Canadians in China for Chinese foreign agents and scheme being busted. Which is a real concern! We've had multiple instances of this already! But secondary to, you know, the subversion of our entire system of (mostly, lol) democratic governance.
Johnston was extremely respected before this, but regardless of whether or not he's actually in the tank he was always the wrong man to appoint for this due to his close ties to the Trudeau family (IMO he was never a corruption risk, but he certainly is a bias risk). Resigning is the right thing to do.
So hopefully we're gonna have a real public inquiry. And presumably a shitstorm with China after that, but fuck 'em.
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Mongrel
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Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze
Supreme Court Justice Russell Brown just resigned, prior to the inquiry into his "conduct".
(tl;dr, he was caught with his pants down being a massive sleazy creeper while down in Arizona - a marine actually had to chase him away from creeping on both a mother AND her daughter. In Public.)
Bet you'll never guess his political affiliation! Where "never" means "immediately".
(tl;dr, he was caught with his pants down being a massive sleazy creeper while down in Arizona - a marine actually had to chase him away from creeping on both a mother AND her daughter. In Public.)
Bet you'll never guess his political affiliation! Where "never" means "immediately".
Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze
Mongrel wrote:Bet you'll never guess his political affiliation! Where "never" means "immediately".
Why, is being a sexual predator a partisan thing up there?
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Mongrel
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Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze
Thad wrote:Mongrel wrote:Bet you'll never guess his political affiliation! Where "never" means "immediately".
Why, is being a sexual predator a partisan thing up there?
Only to the degree it is everywhere else.
Can we not pretend that the political affiliation whose worldview is based on an entitlement mindset - essentially a slavers mindset - that the world is there for them to own, and that other people are property rather than individuals with rights or agency, hasn't also fostered a disproportionate share of the world's predators and actively promoted predation as part of their ideology?
All of them? No, of course not. A majority? Yes, absolutely.
Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze
The affiliation whose worldview is based on an entitlement mindset is men.
Dude, I've seen you bothsides votes that were literally 99% partisan, but you're seriously going to claim that being a sex pest is such a one-sided problem that you can "immediately guess" someone's political affiliation based on that information alone? Come on.
Dude, I've seen you bothsides votes that were literally 99% partisan, but you're seriously going to claim that being a sex pest is such a one-sided problem that you can "immediately guess" someone's political affiliation based on that information alone? Come on.
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Mongrel
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Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze
And yet here I am thinking that you're the one bothsidering this. There's sex pests everywhere, but only one "side" that's meaningfully and actively campaigning on expanding the legality of mens' ability to be sex pests in the first place, and putting candidates and appointees in posts to try and make that happen (among other things).
I also think a three year old post from a very different world (and administration) as your reference point is not the slam dunk you think it is.
I also think a three year old post from a very different world (and administration) as your reference point is not the slam dunk you think it is.
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Mongrel
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Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze
London ON man, Bubba Christopher, arrested and charged with criminal harassment after sneaking into a hospital and taking a selfie - with the terminally ill father of a woman he's been harassing online for weeks for supporting a Pride event.
There's people who DEFINITELY need a criminal record, and this guy is one of them.
There's people who DEFINITELY need a criminal record, and this guy is one of them.
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