Wideleft

Yes! I just happened to be walking North in my neighbourhood at 9:45 and did see it through the neighbour's large oak tree. It looked orange to me, but my eyeglass prescription and lens coatings can do weird things to light if I'm not looking directly at a light source. So quick, I wasn't sure what I saw. Asked on twitter if anyone else saw it and got a few "me too's".

Frightening look at Putin's overall ambitions and philosophy. Opinion: The man known as ‘Putin’s brain’ envisions the splitting of Europe — and the fall of China By David Von Drehle Columnist Yesterday at 4:47 p.m. EDT On the eve of his murderous invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a long and rambling discourse denying the existence of Ukraine and Ukrainians, a speech many Western analysts found strange and untethered. Strange, yes. Untethered, no. The analysis came directly from the works of a fascist prophet of maximal Russian empire named Aleksandr Dugin. Dugin’s intellectual influence over the Russian leader is well known to close students of the post-Soviet period, among whom Dugin, 60, is sometimes referred to as “Putin’s brain.” His work is also familiar to Europe’s “new right,” of which Dugin has been a leading figure for nearly three decades, and to America’s “alt-right.” Indeed, the Russian-born former wife of the white nationalist leader Richard Spencer, Nina Kouprianova, has translated some of Dugin’s work into English. But as the world watches with horror and disgust the indiscriminate bombing of Ukraine, a broader understanding is needed of Dugin’s deadly ideas. Russia has been running his playbook for the past 20 years, and it has brought us here, to the brink of another world war. A product of late-period Soviet decline, Dugin belongs to the long, dismal line of political theorists who invent a strong and glorious past — infused with mysticism and obedient to authority — to explain a failed present. The future lies in reclaiming this past from the liberal, commercial, cosmopolitan present (often represented by the Jewish people). Such thinkers had a heyday a century ago, in the European wreckage of World War I: Julius Evola, the mad monk of Italian fascism; Charles Maurras, the reactionary French nationalist; Charles Coughlin, the American radio ranter; and even the author of a German book called “Mein Kampf.” Dugin tells essentially the same story from a Russian point of view. Before modernity ruined everything, a spiritually motivated Russian people promised to unite Europe and Asia into one great empire, appropriately ruled by ethnic Russians. Alas, a competing sea-based empire of corrupt, money-grubbing individualists, led by the United States and Britain, thwarted Russia’s destiny and brought “Eurasia” — his term for the future Russian empire — low. In his magnum opus, “The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia,” published in 1997, Dugin mapped out the game plan in detail. Russian agents should foment racial, religious and sectional divisions within the United States while promoting the United States’ isolationist factions. (Sound familiar?) In Great Britain, the psy-ops effort should focus on exacerbating historic rifts with Continental Europe and separatist movements in Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Western Europe, meanwhile, should be drawn in Russia’s direction by the lure of natural resources: oil, gas and food. NATO would collapse from within. Putin has followed that counsel to the letter, and he must have felt things were going well when he saw window-smashing rioters in the corridors of the U.S. Congress, Britain’s Brexit from the European Union and Germany’s growing dependence on Russian natural gas. With the undermining of the West going so well, Putin has turned to the pages of Dugin’s text in which he declared: “Ukraine as an independent state with certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia,” and “without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics.” So what comes next, should Putin manage to “resolve” Russia’s “problem” in Ukraine? Dugin envisions a gradual dividing of Europe into zones of German and Russian influence, with Russia very much in charge thanks to its eventual stranglehold over Germany’s resource needs. As Great Britain crumbles and Russia picks up the pieces, the empire of Eurasia will ultimately stretch, in Dugin’s words, “from Dublin to Vladisvostok.” Putin’s double-dealing encroachments into the Middle East are influenced by Dugin’s idea of a Moscow-Tehran axis. (Israel’s government should wake up, smell the samovar and stop playing footsie with Russia.) His seduction of the nationalist government in New Delhi is a reflection of Dugin’s insistence that the Eurasian empire must extend to the Indian Ocean. As important as it is for Western decision-makers to take Dugin’s mystical megalomania seriously, it’s just as urgent for China’s Xi Jinping. Xi and Putin announced a partnership last month to cut the United States down to size. But according to Dugin, China, too, must fall. Russia’s ambitions in Asia will require “the territorial disintegration, splintering and the political and administrative partition of the [Chinese] state,” Dugin writes. Russia’s natural partner in the Far East, according to Dugin, is Japan. In a sense, Dugin’s 600-page doorstop can be boiled down to one idea: The wrong alliance won World War II. If only Hitler had not invaded Russia, Britain could have been broken. The United States would have remained at home, isolationist and divided, and Japan would have ruled the former China as Russia’s junior partner. Fascism from Ireland to the Pacific. Delusional? I sure hope so. But delusions become important when embraced by tyrants. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/22/alexander-dugin-author-putin-deady-playbook/

Anything can happen, I suppose, but I think there are 2 main reasons this is less likely to happen: The Trudeau cabinet is chock-full of capable women who are more interested in governing than in personal power. The only person interested in playing games (Wilson-Reybould) was dealt with long ago. Like him or hate him, Trudeau doesn't run his party like an authoritarian. Pallister and Selinger made major decisions without consulting with cabinet and that generated major friction.

Desperate times call for desperate measures and I'm looking forward to imminent infighting that will damage the PC party before the next election even happens. Think Selinger vs. Swan etc and how that set the NDP back for 2 election cycles.

Fort Whyte bye-election today. I am reasonably pessimistic that a centre/left split will see Khan getting elected. I would really like to see the Liberals getting official party status. Lamont is solid in the Legislature and I'd like to hear more from him.

We still play Nightmare once in a while. Additional "hosts" now available on YouTube.

How we used to do things or even how we do things now should never dictate that we simply accept the status quo. We don't use whale oil for lamps anymore and New York hasn't used natural gas street lights for more than 100 years. There is no magic switch that's going to change everything at once - that's why it's called transition.

The thing is, a lot of things can be true even when they conflict. It's also why calculating the costs of externalities is so difficult. Don't know why there's an assumption that I'm being contradictory. Heavy metal mining isn't the only kind of resource extraction that's brutal on the environment.

This is from the EPA, so it takes the various forms of power generation in the U.S. into account. Consider that even if the U.S. were to reach 50% adoption of EV's, there is zero chance that they would expand coal energy to help facilitate that. There is no appetite for coal and there are cleaner options that aren't natural gas either that can make up the difference. The nice thing about wind and solar is that it does not require centralized power plants, although there are some interesting solar facilities in production. Just think how much power could be produced if even 75% of South facing roofs in Winnipeg had solar installations. The key to all of this is energy storage and that technology is growing by leaps and bounds and has shown that there are innumerable ways to skin that cat. I highly recommend Nova's "Search For The Super Battery" that talks about all sorts of ways to store power at different scales (and is already 5 years old). https://www.pbs.org/video/search-super-battery-preview-plc6qv/

Myth #1: Electric vehicles are worse for the climate than gasoline cars because of the power plant emissions. FACT: Electric vehicles typically have a smaller carbon footprint than gasoline cars, even when accounting for the electricity used for charging. Electric vehicles (EVs) have no tailpipe emissions. Generating the electricity used to charge EVs, however, may create carbon pollution. The amount varies widely based on how local power is generated, e.g., using coal or natural gas, which emit carbon pollution, versus renewable resources like wind or solar, which do not. Even accounting for these electricity emissions, research shows that an EV is typically responsible for lower levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs) than an average new gasoline car. To the extent that more renewable energy sources like wind and solar are used to generate electricity, the total GHGs associated with EVs could be even lower. Learn more about electricity production in your area. EPA and DOE’s Beyond Tailpipe Emissions Calculator can help you estimate the greenhouse gas emissions associated with charging and driving an EV or a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) where you live. You can select an EV or PHEV model and type in your zip code to see the CO2 emissions and how they stack up against those associated with a gasoline car. Myth #5: Electric vehicles are worse for the climate than gasoline cars because of battery manufacturing. FACT: The greenhouse gas emissions associated with an electric vehicle over its lifetime are typically lower than those from an average gasoline-powered vehicle, even when accounting for manufacturing. Some studies have shown that making a typical electric vehicle (EV) can create more carbon pollution than making a gasoline car. This is because of the additional energy required to manufacture an EV’s battery. Still, over the lifetime of the vehicle, total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with manufacturing, charging, and driving an EV are typically lower than the total GHGs associated with a gasoline car. That’s because EVs have zero tailpipe emissions and are typically responsible for significantly fewer GHGs during operation (see Myth 1 above). For example, researchers at Argonne National Laboratory estimated emissions for both a gasoline car and an EV with a 300-mile electric range. In their estimates, while GHGs from EV manufacturing are higher (shown in blue below), total GHGs for the EV are still lower than those for the gasoline car. https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths

You're going to have to start citing sources if you want to be taken seriously. While cattle contribute methane to the atmosphere, no one has ever said that MOST methane comes from cattle. You can't complain about people "playing politics" when you are repeating ridiculous political talking points.

Should have stopped after the first sentence. COVID doesn't care about countries or provinces. Denmark is 81% fully vaxxed with 88% of those eligible been vaxxed at least once. 4,746,722 of 5,828,401 fully vaxxed. Manitoba is 82.4% fully vaxxed. *"Fully vaxxed" means 2 doses. Population density argument goes out the window when you consider that most of Manitoba lives in Winnipeg.

Squatters break into London mansion reportedly owned by Russian oligarch Return to menu By Karla Adam9:46 a.m. LONDON — Squatters early Monday broke into a mansion reportedly owned by a Russian oligarch, unfurled a Ukrainian flag and declared the property “liberated” and ready for refugees. The home is said to belong to Oleg Deripaska, an oil tycoon and metals billionaire who the British government says is worth $2.6 billion. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/14/russia-ukraine-war-putin-news-live-updates/#link-L7RCPG7WZVGVJDYCLLPVOTBDBQ

As a person with some empathy for others, it has much less to do with personal concern than concern about people on waiting lists for health care, the immunocompromised, those with long COVID, kids under 5, teachers, nurses, doctors, home care workers etc. Being "over it" isn't going to make it go away. Being over it is just going to extend the significant challenges the world is facing.

Denmark was first to "Freedom UP"

And Evraz, which is a major steel/pipeline supplier for Canadian pipelines is now under sanctions because it is 30% Russian owned.

Since when is anything done until the entire world is ready for it? Same person who complains that EV's aren't a solution because they can't be built fast enough ignores the reason they can't be built fast enough is due to high demand from consumers.

For what it's worth, the gas station owner in my very small home town doesn't think he'll be able to sell (he's well into retirement age) because the land his station has sat on for 60-70 years is toxic from years of gas and fuel spills. It would be best for Hydro to install a Level 3 charger anywhere in this town as everything is in walking distance.

A very timely article. How much does the fossil fuel industry actually get from taxpayers? That depends on who you ask, how they define a subsidy and what data is used to calculate the total — resulting in highly variable estimates. In Canada in 2020, estimates range from $4.5 billion (OECD) to $18 billion (Environmental Defence, including public financing to support pipelines) to $81 billion (IMF, including externalities), although most reports note that a lack of transparency makes complete and accurate calculations difficult. https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/fossil-fuel-subsidies-expaliner-1.6371411

And apparently, it's what makes Pierre a good "retail" politician according to some political analysts. It's quite sad, actually.

Based on the entire history of the Oil & Gas industry, I have serious doubts that this is mostly truthful. Also begs the question of what "best" means. Ease of extraction? Environmental Risk? Risk to Public Health? I'll put a $50 on number 1.

Soooo..... 10,000? What kind of trees are in or out. Any elephants in your future? Human life is a snap of the fingers in terms of life on Earth, by the way.

We're going to have to establish what "human survival" means in order to continue this discussion. 10 billion people? 1 billion? 50,000? What species (plant, animal and other) would you be willing to sacrifice to save humans?

We have to remember that most people drive less than 50 km in a day. Plugging in to a level 1 charger (about $1500 installed) overnight is more than enough for most people. I've commuted 200 km daily (round trip) for most of the last 15 years and I would still be fine with most EV ranges now. Too many people are discounting EV's because of trips they rarely take. Also, I've come around to thinking that EV range is not the issue - charging infrastructure is. Hydro runs to almost every population centre in Canada and there is no reason we can't have charging stations everywhere except for a lack of imagination and will. The Manitoba Government and Hydro are blowing a huge opportunity to become the monopoly that powers our vehicles and futureproof Hydro for the next few decades. There is no doubt in my mind that my next vehicle will be an EV.