Karen Flick

[Jason Kenney 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇮🇱 @jkenney]

This whole sordid incident highlights a big problem for Canadian conservatives.

The trolling and mockery of people at a Canadian cadet camp (including a teenager) by Hegseth started with posts from alt right Canadian "influencers," following a now familiar pattern.

It doesn't take these anger merchants of the Canadian right very long to figure out that there is a *much* bigger market for their bile in the United States.

The US is 8x our population, but polling suggests that the percentage of Americans who are tuned into MAGA style populism is at least 4 times greater than Canada.

So by producing content that appeals to the MAGA base, right wing Canadian content producers have a huge incentive to speak to an adjacent American market that is orders of magnitude larger than their accessible audience in Canada. That gets monetized through higher engagement numbers, and if they're really lucky, invitations to appear on MAGA media outlets that build their brand.

One way of doing so is content that mocks Canada. That appeals both to the small cohort of perennially angry hard right populists in Canada, plus the much larger number of Americans prone to believe that Canada is a socialist dystopia under the thrall of the Chinese Communist Party, etc.

The Hegseth post followed a similar pattern. Right wing Canadian quisling posts mockery of Canada, it ricochets around the US online right, gets on the radar screen of a social media staffer in the Trump Administration, and voila: a post from the Secretary of War body shaming young cadets in Vernon, BC. High fives all round!

In this case the US traction came from the "Pleb Reporter" account of libertarian live streamer Nick Belanger, who was one of the Maga North / Alberta separatist content producers given free red carpet treatment at the @CPC_HQ Convention earlier this year.

One prominent Conservative MP (who should know better) said he was "proud to welcome these content creators, these citizen journalists who serve to uphold the truth" to the Convention.

If that is really the attitude of the Conservative Party towards these unpatriotic anger merchants, it should get used to a very, very long run in opposition.

Fortunately, it doesn't have to be this way. A positive, patriotic conservatism that focuses on the concerns of the broad mainstream rather than these marginal voices of division can win back the confidence of Canadians.

[Karen Flick @Karen_Flick]

@calgarytransit 1.5 hours to get from downtown to Dalhousie. That’s not service.

[Karen Flick @Karen_Flick]

@calgarytransit @elleajay Which station? I haven’t heard one.

[Karen Flick @Karen_Flick]

@calgarytransit You have displays on the platforms, why aren’t you using them to notify people?

[Karen Flick @Karen_Flick]

@calgarytransit Your drivers need to give clear and loud instructions. They are not.

[Karen Flick @Karen_Flick]

@calgarytransit this is why these leaning bars are not a great idea. Who needs this in rush hour.

[Karen Flick @Karen_Flick]

@calgarytransit And your message boards contain no information.

[Karen Flick @Karen_Flick]

@calgarytransit Can you 4 car trains? Service is ridiculous.

[Ashley Herd @Managermethod]

Glad Harrison Butker said the quiet part out loud so others can see how selfish attempts to take away from others’ moments are received.
Even more glad his mother didn’t listen to advice like this when she was graduating Smith College and becoming a physicist in oncology.

[Emma Graney 🇦🇺🤷🏻‍♀️🇨🇦 @EmmaLGraney]

It will cost at least $6.4-billion to tackle selenium contamination from Teck Resources’ Elk Valley coal mines, according to a new report – far exceeding a $1.9-billion security bond required by the B.C. government to cover cleanup costs. #bcpoli #ableg https://t.co/5LZbXEi9ON

[Yashar Ali 🐘 @yashar]

Full performance of Fast Car by Tracy Chapman with Luke Combs at the Grammys.

Her smile at the beginning is the best.

[Canadian Medical Association @CMA_Docs]

Medical practices are a safe place for children, youth and families to explore options around gender- affirming treatments.

Children and youth have the right to the appropriate medical care, at the appropriate time, and this should not be denied to them.

[corblund @CorbLund]

Reason #58 that new coal mines in Alberta aren't economically or ecologically defensible. Not to mention we're in a brutal drought around here. Water is serious business.

[Jon Meddings @JMeddings]

This deserves a longer answer. I'm creating a short thread.

Under the NDP and with Carl Amrhein as deputy we created a workforce planning committee.

Included, medical schools, AHS, CPSA, AH and had strong technical subcommittee (for data) and a strategy committee. /1

[disordered @disorderedyyc]

UCP in 2019:
The NDP are "fearmongering about blackouts and price spikes" on our decision to return to an energy only market.

UCP in 2023:
The near blackouts and prices spikes are the fault of the NDP.

#ableg #abpoli #cdnpoli

[Karen Flick @Karen_Flick]

@calgarytransit That morning ride in from the northwest was ridiculous. Time to bring back 4 car trains. When that many on, there is nothing to hold on to!

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Caffè Dante in Milan does gelato 🍦 a bit differently

[📹 deliciousmartha]
https://t.co/mxLKa3Pm0V

[#WOMENSART @womensart1]

Iconic anti-war poster, originally by Lorraine Schneider, 1966 #WomensArt

[Trung Phan @TrungTPhan]

The U2 x Las Vegas Sphere show took two years to create and will make ~$270m.

In Fall 2021, the band was approached to open the $2.3B mega-structure (with a capacity of 18k).

Willie Williams — U2’s creative director since the early 1980s — initially thought it was a “terrible idea”.

Why? U2’s iconic tours have been breakthrough custom sets from Zoo TV in the early 1990s (pioneering giant screens on stage) to the 360 Tour of late 2000s (360-degree stage for stadium shows).

They weren’t keen to build an act around the Sphere’s requirements, especially one with the most ambitious audio-visual specs ever: 

▫️160k+ speakers
▫️366ft tall x 516ft wide (9 floors)
▫️Largest LED screen ever (160k sq ft)

However, the idea of a residency — instead of a moving tour — appealed to U2 because of COVID travel uncertainty.

One major obstacle was that dome-shaped buildings are typically awful for audio, per Variety.

The Sphere solved the issue with its 167k speakers including one in each seat. Effectively, every person is “getting studio-quality sound” according to James Dolan (owner of NY Knicks, NY Rangers, MSG and the man behind the Sphere). 

Meanwhile, the visuals were a collaboration with the world’s top creatives (Es Devlin, Marco Brambilla, John Gerrard and long-time producer Brian Eno).

The amount of data created to fill the LED screen is mind-boggling, per Wallpaper:

▫️ there are 268,435,456 pixels…
▫️ …which is equal to 72 HD TVs
▫️ … which is equal to 12k screen resolution 
▫️ …which means “every minute of content produced for Sphere is the equivalent of one hour of streaming television”

“With all the big stuff I’ve done for U2 and anyone else, we don’t start with the equipment, we start with the idea, and then figure out what we need to realize that idea,” Williams tells Variety. “And sometimes it involves big video, sometimes it doesn’t. Whereas here, the only given we had going in was the building — and a building that didn’t exist, and in fact isn’t finished now. So it was odd starting a show with hardware and with a space rather than the other way around.”

Here’s some napkin math for “U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere”:

▫️25 dates x 18,000 per show x $600 per ticket (range is $400 to $1400) = $270 million

The entire U2 team — Williams, Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Bram van den Berg (who is subbing in for the injured Larry Mullen Jr) — clearly made a risky bet.

But the viral clips and buzz from opening night show it has paid off big time.

[Karen Flick @Karen_Flick]

@Dancingsock16 It’s photoshopped