A sixth man, Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech — who was among those with close ties to the Muscat government — currently awaits trial on charges that he masterminded the Caruana Galizia hit.

Getting closer…

I guess that’s why you pay your soldiers.

In the early summer of 2024, months before the opposition launched Operation Deterrence of Aggression, a mobile application began circulating among a group of Syrian army officers. It carried an innocuous name: STFD-686, a string of letters standing for Syria Trust for Development.

…

The STFD-686 app operated with disarming simplicity. It offered the promise of financial aid, requiring only that the victim fill out a few personal details. It asked innocent questions: “What kind of assistance are you expecting?” and “Tell us more about your financial situation.”

…

Determining officers’ ranks made it possible for the app’s operators to identify those in sensitive positions, such as battalion commanders and communications officers, while knowing their exact place of service allowed for the construction of live maps of force deployments. It gave the operators behind the app and the website the ability to chart both strongholds and gaps in the Syrian army’s defensive lines. The most crucial point was the combination of the two pieces of information: Disclosing that “officer X” was stationed at “location Y” was tantamount to handing the enemy the army’s entire operating manual, especially on fluid fronts like those in Idlib and Sweida.

education in Québec is heavily subsidized by Québec taxpayers. It’s only natural that the Québécois get their money’s worth by paying less.

University education is heavily subsidized in all provinces. I’m not sure about the exact tuition fees in each province, but this article suggests they’re similar.

Quebec is a net recipient of equalization payments from taxpayers in other provinces, so that argument suggests students from elsewhere deserve a similar level of cheap access.

And foreign students also make up a significant portion of university funding in all provinces. I’m not sure how that would factor into the “we paid for it” argument.

And as far as French goes, if anyone intends on graduating in Québec and staying for work should learn the local language.

I’m not against this. I don’t know what it would look like in practice, and it would be weird for anglophone universities, but it seems similar to other language requirements Quebec has.

Trolling aside, yeah, being able to explain a concept in everyday terms takes careful thought and discipline. I’m consistently impressed by the people who write Simple articles on Wikipedia. I wish there were more of those articles.

This CBC piece is veeeery similar to a story Canadaland released earlier this week.

They interview the person the new MP harassed. She does a good job explaining the impact Chartrand’s harassment had on her.

I didn’t see a link to it in the CBC piece.

Is the point of Wikipedia to provide everyone with information, or to allow editors to spew jargon into opaque articles that are only accessible to experts?

I think it’s the former. There are very few topics that can’t be explained simply, if the author is willing to consider their audience. Best of all, absolutely nothing is lost when an expert reads a well written article.

There’s a core problem that many Wikipedia articles are hard for a layperson to read and understand. The statement about reading level is one way to express this.

The Simple version of articles shows humans can produce readable text. But there aren’t enough Simple articles, and the Simple articles are often incomplete.

I don’t think AI should be solely trusted with summarization/translation, but it might have a place in the editing cycle.

Parker says the Green party and NDP in Ontario and nationally have put forward practical solutions to tackle different aspects of housing and why it’s become unaffordable, including building non-profit housing on public lands, implementing vacant home taxes and using inclusionary zoning, which require private developers to include a certain percentage of affordable units within new, multi-unit housing developments.

Those all sound fine. The article doesn’t dig too deeply into what those solutions would actually look like, but I don’t think anyone would disagree that starting with them is a good idea.

Inclusionary zoning is interesting. The City of Ottawa has been doing that for a while (not really, but there are affordability requirements that builders will agree to in order to get zoning exemptions), and I haven’t seen any stats or anecdotes saying it makes a difference or helps anyone.

Maybe they exist and I missed them. I hope that’s the case.

Aren’t non-primary residences already taxed in that way?

Minimally, requiring bids to be in the open would go a long way. And price history to be included in listings. And taxing sale profit as income.

There are so many little things that could lower prices.

When asked, Carney did not disagree with Robertson either. The Walrus has a really interesting analysis of Carneys explanation.

I would summarize it as “young Canadians may find it easier to buy houses over time” - but that doesn’t mean soon. Nor does it mean they intend to push market prices down, rather they may be trying to stabilize market prices and hope salaries catch up, thanks to inflation.

I believe we’ve discussed this a few times, and I think we’ve drawn different conclusions from similar evidence.

Suffice to say: I really hope Canadians see a substantial improvement in housing costs before the next election.

It’s more about how we see ourselves. Do we build strong services and utilities for our own population, or do we keep shoveling money and opportunity to our incumbents?

We used to have a pretty strong telecom industry. We had decent manufacturing and ship building, if you go far enough back. If there’s decent infrastructure, tax codes, and investment incentives maybe we could have those again.

It feels like Carney is interpreting his mandate as reinforcing the status quo when it comes to winners and losers in the current economy.

When his housing minister was asked if house prices need to come down, he replied:

“No. I think that we need to deliver more supply, make sure the market is stable. It’s a huge part of our economy,” said Robertson on his way to the first meeting of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new cabinet

So they are planning to maintain current prices, but there may be more choice, and they are promising to build some affordable housing (for sale? Rent? Who runs it? How affordable will it be?).

The next day, after his final news conference of the campaign, Carney stopped by a cafe in Newmarket. There, he was approached by a woman who said she was a realtor, and who urged him to get rid of the Liberals’ increase to the capital gains tax. It was causing investors a lot of problems, she told him.

“I got rid of it. I know it was a dumb idea. As soon as they did, I was like, ‘This is a stupid idea,’” Carney told her. “And I’m sorry about that, but I wasn’t there so I couldn’t prevent it. But now I can.”

le sigh

“I decided I launched [sic] these tools in the first place as a project to build the tool that could be use by LEAs [law enforcement agencies] and PIs [private investigators.]”

According to the developer, they’ve provided the tool to cops in Portugal, Belgium, and “other countries in Europe.” They told 404 Media that the website is meant for private investigators, journalists, and cops.

It sounds like they’re actively peddling it to cops.

We see ourselves as a progressive country. It’s an absolute embarrassment that we invite people into our country and then treat them like this. If Canadians can’t/won’t so the work, then we should ensure that the people who come in to fill those jobs have the same protections that a successful worker world have.

My kids aren’t really interested in the movies I like. They actively avoid the music I listen to. I’ve gotten them copies of the books I love and they give up after a few pages. They get bored with the games I played as a kid.

My dad loves Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the Whole Earth Catalog, and Bruce Springsteen. I do not. If he wills me his copies, I will keep some out of guilt and then my kids will have to throw them away.

Yeah - I’m totally for full, real, actual ownership of digital stuff, and we should be able to give it away.

But I’d be surprised if my kids would be interested in more than a tiny fraction of it. Or anyone else, for that matter.

I’m trying to curate a few hundred photos for my kids. I’ve written a couple of bios of relatives. I’d like to record something like a story for them. If they want to trash it, that’s fine, but at least there will be something meaningful for them if they want it.

Assuming it survives the climate wars. 🫠

Doesn’t archive.org provide that?