Surly Hamiltonian

Interested in Hamilton and Ontario politics and economy. And Ontario sunshine salary disclosure data.

[Surly Hamiltonian @SurlyHamilton]

Kind of surprised no one has looked at the number of Covid deaths in Ontario by municipality. I'm wondering if it is because so many Ontario journalists are based in Toronto.

[World of Statistics @stats_feed]

🏟️ Homicide rate per 100k across the 16 host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup:

🇺🇸 Kansas City — 28
🇲🇽 Monterrey — 23
🇺🇸 Atlanta — 20
🇺🇸 Philadelphia — 20
🇲🇽 Guadalajara — 17
🇺🇸 Houston — 13.8
🇺🇸 Dallas — 13.6
🇲🇽 Mexico City — 11
🇺🇸 Los Angeles — 9.9
🇺🇸 Boston — 8.3
🇺🇸 Seattle — 7.7
🇺🇸 Miami — 5.8
🇺🇸 San Francisco — 4.5
🇺🇸 New York City — 4.5
🇨🇦 Toronto — 3.1
🇨🇦 Vancouver — 1.91

Sources: FBI Crime Data Explorer / city police depts (2024) · INEGI & Fiscalía General de Justicia de Nuevo León / Jalisco Cómo Vamos (Mexico) · Statistics Canada, “Homicide trends in Canada, 2024”

[Rachel @tolstoybb]

This account is great btw. I used to only hate the police and teachers, but now I hate firefighters just as much.

[Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion]

This is excellent. Inclusionary zoning is a poison pill that kills housing supply and raises rents for people at all income levels. Get rid of it!!

[Jake Landau (He/Him) 🇨🇦🇵🇸🇻🇪🇺🇦 @JakeLandauTO]

Because He-Man wasn't even super popular in its time! It was a second-rate cartoon that didn't really hold much cultural cache. Transformers is the only artifact of that era which has survived, and did so through radical reinvention over pandering to nostalgia.

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

The housing NIMBYs and the datacenter NIMBYs are all the same people

Hate tech, hate prosperity, subsidize demand, block all supply, be surprised when everyone ends up poor with no jobs

[Joe Bernstein @Bernstein]

Every other city after winning a sports title: That was awesome. I hope we do it again

New York writers after winning an NBA title: it was as if humanity rediscovered its hidden social potentiality, rescuing a lost Weltanschauung from the depths of neoliberal anomie

[Ryan Phillips @RumorsandRants]

One of the craziest sports statistics I've ever seen:

The Spurs led for 72% of the NBA Finals. They lost in five games.

[Tablesalt 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @Tablesalt13]

Its not lost on me

that Justin Trudeau picked a fight with the USA and Donald Trump, then retired

and then IMMEDIATELY went to the USA to date their women, drink out of their plastic straws and cheer on Team USA.

[Surly Hamiltonian @SurlyHamilton]

@TomPark1n Jeez, lopsided

[Gregory Brew @gbrew24]

This was widely rumored during the war, but has now been publicly confirmed:

Qatar struck a deal with Iran, shutting down gas production, in exchange for an agreement that Iran would refrain from further strikes on Ras Laffan. https://t.co/Ccb7dYdkBY

[Jermaine Wilson | CP24/CTV News @Jerrmainewilson]

The cost of game day snacks adds up quickly. A hot dog, drink and bag of chips (combo) inside Toronto Stadium cost $32.49 ahead of Canada’s World Cup opener. #FIFAWorldCup #WeAreToronto

[Hochtouren Dresden @Hochtouren]

gemächlich gleitet die Gierseilfähre in Kurort #Rathen in der Abendsonne über die Elbe, nur angetrieben von der Elbströmung und gesteuert von der Ruderstellung; sie hängt an einem langen Stahlseil welches mit gelben Bojen markiert ist; sie kann 311 Menschen pro Fahrt befördern

[Criminalsimpsons @Criminalsimpson]

OPEN WIDE FOR SOME SOCCER!!!!⚽️

[nxthompson @nxthompson]

This is wild—and likely a sign of things to come as we transition to a web that is optimized for bots more than humans. https://t.co/5sb1cFlBQO

[Ben Rabidoux @BenRabidoux]

Rental market check: Asking rents in Q1 were down in most parts of the country, up in parts of the prairies and Halifax

[Surly Hamiltonian @SurlyHamilton]

Tipping is getting out of control

[Vinnie Sullivan @VinnieSull1van]

🪓: The last person to be beheaded in England was Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, who was executed at Tower Hill in London on April 9, 1747, for his involvement in the Jacobite rising.

Tower Hill was not used for regular people, but prisoners of the upper classes. Also, those who'd committed major crimes. That's why historians estimate that approximately 125 people were executed on Tower Hill over a span of nearly 400 years. While somewhere like Tyburn is estimated to be 50,000 or more.

Believe it or not, beheading was a privilege mostly saved for nobles and the wealthy as many other forms of Execution were graphically torturous. From disembowelled to being burnt alive, you'd consider yourself lucky if you were faced with the axe (depending on the skill of executioner).

Executioners were officially employed by the local sheriff or county gaol, but it was highly customary for the condemned person to pay them a tip. This payment, known as "greasing the palm," was a bribe given to encourage the headsman or hangman to perform a quick, clean, and painless death.

The pictures below show illustrations of the historic beheadings, myself, and a group on one of my @PubHistoryTours stood by the spot that marks (roughly) where the executions took place and the spot itself. ⏳️

[Epic Maps 🗺️ @theepicmap]

USA air quality: 2005 vs 2018

[Surly Hamiltonian @SurlyHamilton]

@homicide_canada That's a lot

[Ben Woodfinden @BenWoodfinden]

The new GG's installation speech was a decent example of something that keeps bothering me. Arbour told young Canadians "don't underestimate how lucky you are to grow up here" and described a country "pretty well on the way" to being perfect. Canada is still, on the whole, a good country. But that is a very particular perspective. It is the perspective of people for whom Canada works.

And there's a growing tendency among those people who are comfortable, credentialled, institutionally secure to treat any honest reckoning with where the country is falling short as a kind of disloyalty. Mention that the economy is sclerotic, housing is broken or that the healthcare system isn't delivering or that living standards have stagnated, and you're either being unpatriotic or importing MAGA talking points.

The effect is to make criticism of real problems socially impermissible among exactly the people with the power to address them.