- 17 Posts
- 18 Comments
Yes, and also a bit like Spanish moss. Took the photo in late October in Ontario, Canada; info which helps narrow down the genus, at least.
3·8 months agoLegally, the question is whether the removal of separated bike lanes in Toronto meets the criteria set by the Supreme Court of Canada, originally in 2002 and again this summer, for legislation that is either clearly unconstitutional or “was passed in bad faith or an abuse of power.” Unfortunately, our laws allow the provincial government to interfere in municipal affairs however it wants, even street by street. Toronto does not enjoy the same powers of self-governance as most large cities in the developed world so Ford’s decision is neither unconstitutional, nor an abuse of power, at least in the formal legal sense.
If the City of Toronto or a third party sued the province over the removal of bike lanes, in theory the decision would depend on whether Ford acted in ‘bad faith’, which effectively means that provincial courts will make a subjective claim about the intent of the law/lawmakers. This subjective interpretation of the facts is due to the vague wording of the Supreme Court’s decision, which SC Justice Rowe warned against in his 2024 dissent.
However, recent judicial history and the court’s piecemeal decision-making suggests that Ford would succeed in court. Only a few years ago, both the Ontario Court of Appeal and SC upheld the provincial government’s right to interfere in the city’s municipal election and halve the number of city councilors during the election itself. They justified his interference in our local self-governance by noting his constitutional right to do so, ignoring the question of bad faith entirely (much less the legitimacy of our democratic process). There’s simply no reason to believe these same justices would rule differently today.
Those of us who support bike lanes must find other ways to address this interference, not from within the system itself.
41·9 months agoSpare a thought for the users with accounts who upload content to IA for you to enjoy.
3·10 months agoYou are correct: the ruling simply affirms the plaintiff’s claim against IA.
Any out-of-copyright and non-copyright items, as well as items with permissive terms (e.g., Creative Commons licenses) will still be available on IA. Previously, the plaintiff Hachette offered a deal that IA rejected, in which IA would be allowed to make digital copies of Hachette texts that are either out-of-print titles, or titles for which digital copies have never been produced.
Right now, it’s up to Hachette and the other publishers affected in the case whether that offer is still available.
edited: hyphens.
I definitely don’t like the obnoxious copyright system in the USA, but what the IA did seems obviously wrong.
The publisher-plaintiffs did not prove the “obvious wrong” in this case, however US-based courts have a curious standard when it comes to the application of Fair Use doctrine. This case ultimately rested on the fourth, most significantly-weighted Fair Use standard in US-based courts: whether IA’s digital lending harmed publisher sales during the 3-month period of unlimited digital lending.
Unfortunately, when it comes to this standard, the publisher-plaintiffs are not required to prove harm, rather only assert that harm has occurred. If they were required to prove harm they’d have to reveal sales figures for the 27 works under consideration–publishers will do anything to conceal this information and US-based courts defer to them. Therefore, IA was required to prove a negative claim–that digital lending did not hurt sales–without access to the empirical data (which in other legal contexts is shared during the discovery phase) required to prove this claim. IA offered the next best argument (see pp. 44-62 of the case document to check for yourself), but the data was deemed insufficient by the court.
In other words, on the most important test of Fair Use doctrine, which this entire case ultimately pivoted upon, IA was expected to defend itself with one arm tied behind its back. That’s not ‘fair’ and the publishers did not prove ‘obvious’ harm, but the US-based courts are increasingly uninterested in these things.
edited: page numbers on linked court document.
2·10 months agoWhat an experience!
The F-22 impressed us. In this photo, it is flying over the lake, which when compared to objects in the foreground shows how big it is. In the second photo, it flew vertically upward, was suspended for a moment to light off two flares, and briefly dropped line a stone before pulling out again. Dramatic stuff. These redditors have a bit more context on the significance of it flying here.
We were inspired by your recent photos. We’ll post more.
2·2 years agoI spent a lot of time writing this brief explanation of the complex dynamics surrounding this country’s fiscal and monetary policy, and why I think the Liberal government doesn’t have the expertise to “get 'er done.” That you think I was defending this government, and the general tone of your reply, shows that it was a complete waste of my time trying to share something I’ve learned.
I won’t make that mistake again.
Holy shit, you’re the goverment. You can print money.
Honestly (and unfortunately) our political leaders do not have the financial literacy or expertise to understand contemporary monetary policy or how our economy works. Frankly, most people do not understand this system because it is made to be intentionally complex and opaque. Nobody has the objective, overall view on all of the interrelated actors/factors that comprise this system. It’s hard for people to accept the fact that our own governments do not fully understand how our economies work, but it’s a fact. This is not just a Trudeau problem.
For example, in a process that is both possible and maddeningly complicated (at least in my understanding, which is barely adequate enough to type out here), the Treasury can collaborate with the Bank of Canada to adjust its target reserve funds rate, mitigate the knock-on effects to its Tax and Loan accounts to protect its reserve positions, adopt a non-neutral monetary financing policy (and get the Feds to mitigate the consequences, if they can, to our foreign relations, which would be severe) or use other tricks, increase the monetary financing rate to pre-1982 rates (e.g., around 20-25%), get the BoC to ‘print’ what economists call ‘high-powered money’ and follow Canada’s somewhat unique process of indirectly funding government deficit spending (in this case to to build low-cost housing), all the while trying to balance out the liabilities and fighting like hell against run-away inflation.
Do you understand those steps, the benefits/risks of each, how they relate to one another, and how to implement them? Again, I only barely understand the approach I’ve tried to summarize above, each aspect of which economists of various ideological stripes may/will reject as totally unworkable. I’m certain that I’ve missed critical steps/considerations; I’m just not smart enough to know what I don’t yet know. You can bet Chrystia Freeland, our Minister of Finance, doesn’t understand this process. I bet there isn’t a single member of the Conservative Party of Canada caucus who understands this process. I doubt there’s more than a handful of MPs in Parliament who could even credibly describe the relationship and interrelations between the government and the Bank of Canada, much less how to accomplish the above scenario.
Our government simply does not have the technical expertise required to fix this problem.
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This broadcast is not official. Here’s a RadioReference forum post with the technical details re: how someone can monitor the TETRA system that TTC uses to communicate across its network. This broadcastify feed is picking up the signal from the Birchmount location/frequency.
“We have new people whose life experiences have been radically different than ours. And so for those of us who have been here for decades or a long time, it gives us an insight into how people lived in other parts of the world, and now they’re with us and we want to learn about them. So we are one united community.”
This is such a positive take from someone in leadership re: new immigration to their community. It can be difficult to manage unexpected population growth and the federal/provincial governments offer poor support to growing communities across Canada. Mr. Morrison and his neighbours deserve lots of credit and respect for welcoming new neighbours who’ve been through a lot. They sound like good people.
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Also: that’s a hammered shield lichen (Parmelia sulcata) in the bottom-left corner.