Who decides what price is reasonable tho?
Canadians Are Cheapskates. Just Look at 24 Sussex | The Walrus
https://sh.itjust.works/post/57165293
Canadians Are Cheapskates. Just Look at 24 Sussex | The Walrus - sh.itjust.works
This week saw the news that Rideau Cottage, “temporary” home of the prime
minister, is “inadequate.” The house is small and insufficiently secure for a
head of government. While I’m not inclined to argue that politicians ought to be
living large at taxpayer expense as a rule, I’m embarrassed that the country
routinely wrings its hands over where the prime minister lives and how he
travels. Politicians need certain tools to do the job of governing a
contemporary mass state. Debates about housing or travel, such as they are,
don’t reflect serious disagreements over public policy or even our shared or
disputed values. Instead, they’re occasions for nitpicking, pettiness, and
supreme displays of insecurity. They’re silly and bad for us. Today, Prime
Minister Mark Carney is living at Rideau Cottage, just as Justin Trudeau did
before him. He’s there because the official residence of the prime minister, 24
Sussex Drive, is a mess. It’s literally uninhabitable. The good news is that, in
February 2024, the home was declared rodent and asbestos free. The bad news is
that’s a declaration one hopes a G7 country wouldn’t have to make. It’s the sort
of thing that ought to be implicit. Does your head of government live in a house
full of carcinogens and rat droppings? Of course not! Why would you even ask?
For a long time, Canada did have to ask the question, and the answer speaks to a
national smallness that ought to be understood as a big shame.
Hegseth Makes Troops Prove “Sincerely Held” Faith in Latest Beard Crackdown
https://sh.itjust.works/post/57165201
Hegseth Makes Troops Prove “Sincerely Held” Faith in Latest Beard Crackdown - sh.itjust.works
The latest edict from beard-obsessed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth adds strict
new regulations to his crusade on facial hair, which rights groups have
characterized as an attack on troops’ civil liberties. In a March 11 memo,
Hegseth, who has made grooming and appearances a central focus in his time at
the helm of the U.S. military, raised the bar to qualify for a religious
exemption to his blanket ban on beards. The guidelines lay out a strict new
process by which service members may apply for a religious exemption and subject
those who’ve already received one to a reevaluation, arguing they need to ensure
their religious beliefs are “sincerely held” and have a genuine conflict with
the grooming standards. Service members who have spoken against Hegseth’s focus
on grooming standards say his restrictions on beards are exclusionary to people
from religious communities that require adherents to follow specific tenets of
faith around beards, hair, and other grooming matters. Sikhs, for example, who
have served in the U.S. military since at least World War I, are required by
their faith not to cut the hair on their head, to keep a beard, and to wrap
their long hair in a turban. Members of many schools of Muslim tradition
likewise have rules around beards and hair length.
You just know SNL is gonna have a skit tonight on this.
Justice department seeks to dismiss charges against ex-officers over Breonna Taylor's raid
https://sh.itjust.works/post/57165112
Justice department seeks to dismiss charges against ex-officers over Breonna Taylor's raid - sh.itjust.works
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked a federal judge to dismiss charges
against two former police officers involved in the raid that resulted in the
fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor, a black woman, in her home. Former detective
Joshua Jaynes and former sergeant Kyle Meany were alleged to have used false
information to obtain a search warrant to enter Taylor’s home in March 2020.
Prosecutors asked the court to dismiss misdemeanour charges against the
Louisville officers, which were initially more severe felony counts, but later
downgraded by a judge. In a post on social media, Taylor’s mother, Tamika
Palmer, said she was extremely disappointed in US President Donald Trump and the
DOJ. The request comes just a week after the six-year anniversary of Taylor’s
death.
Top US Fema official claims to have teleported to a Waffle House before
https://sh.itjust.works/post/57165081
Top US Fema official claims to have teleported to a Waffle House before - sh.itjust.works
A far-right conspiracy theorist turned high-ranking official at the US Federal
Emergency Management Agency (Fema) claims to have once teleported to a Waffle
House. Gregg Phillips, who in December was appointed to lead Fema’s office of
response and recovery, has spoken on “multiple podcasts” about being teleported
against his will, CNN reported on Friday. On a January 2025 podcast appearance,
Phillips claimed that his car was “lifted up” while he was driving and
transported 40 miles (65km) away into a ditch near a church. And in another
instance on the same episode, Phillips said he was teleported 50 miles away to a
Waffle House in Rome, Georgia, CNN detailed in a deep dive into Phillips’ past
public statements. “I was with my boys one time, and I was telling them I was
gonna go to Waffle House and get Waffle House. And I ended up at a Waffle House
– this was in Georgia, and I end up at a Waffle House like 50 miles away from
where I was,” Phillips said on the podcast Onward, co-hosted by rightwing
activist Catherine Engelbrecht. But Phillips did warn about the dangers of
teleportation. “Teleporting is no fun,” he said “You know it’s happening, but
you can’t do anything about it, and so you just go, you just go with the ride.
And wow, what just an incredible adventure it all was.”
Record deaths in US immigration custody expose systemic failures
https://sh.itjust.works/post/57165021
Arizona desert town breaks record for hottest March temperature in US history
https://sh.itjust.works/post/57164962
Arizona desert town breaks record for hottest March temperature in US history - sh.itjust.works
A small community in the Arizona desert has broken a record for the highest
March temperature ever recorded in the US, as the south-west bakes in a
blistering late-winter heatwave. The astonishing temperature was recorded just
outside Martinez Lake, Arizona, which reached 110F (43.3C) on Thursday,
according to the National Weather Service (NWS). The community is about 145
miles (233km) west of Phoenix and sits on the Arizona-California border, in the
Yuma desert. The previous record of 108F (42.2C) had been set in Rio Grande
City, Texas, in 1954 and was tied on Wednesday by the tiny desert community of
North Shore, California.
‘It’s stupid’: why western carmakers’ retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance
https://sh.itjust.works/post/57164952
‘It’s stupid’: why western carmakers’ retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance - sh.itjust.works
By the 1980s, Detroit’s once titanic carmakers were being upended by rivals from
Japan. Ford, General Motors and Chrysler had grown rich selling gas guzzlers,
but when oil prices rose and suddenly cheap, fuel-efficient Japanese models
looked attractive, they were unprepared. The collapse in sales led to hundreds
of thousands of job losses in the automotive heartland of the US. Now western
car manufacturers are making what one former boss calls a similar “profound
strategic mistake” as they pull back from electric vehicles (EVs) and refocus on
the combustion engine just as oil prices are soaring once again. Experts say the
industry’s future – and that of tens of millions of jobs – could be on the line.
This time, however, the threat is from China. Cheap, well-made electric cars
from brands such as BYD and Leapmotor are finding buyers across Europe. BYD
overtook Tesla as the world’s biggest EV seller this year. Chinese marques are
fast seizing the market share once dominated by the likes of Volkswagen, Ford,
Peugeot and Renault. In the US, the pullback has been even more severe. Donald
Trump has in effect wiped out the country’s electrification push by cancelling
tax credits for consumers and dismantling exhaust emissions rules, which he
calls a scam.
US and Israel’s war on Iran is a disaster for the environment, analysis shows
https://sh.itjust.works/post/57164776
US and Israel’s war on Iran is a disaster for the environment, analysis shows - sh.itjust.works
The US-Israel war on Iran is a disaster for the climate, according to an
analysis that finds it is draining the global carbon budget faster than 84
countries combined. As warplanes, drones and missiles kill thousands of people,
level infrastructure and turn the Middle East into a gigantic environmental
sacrifice zone, the first analysis of the climate cost has found the conflict
led to 5m tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in its first 14 days. The analysis,
shared exclusively with the Guardian, adds another layer on to reporting of the
catastrophic environmental harm being caused by attacks on fossil fuel
infrastructure, military bases, civilian areas and ships at sea. “Every missile
strike is another downpayment on a hotter, more unstable planet, and none of it
makes anyone safer,” said Patrick Bigger, a research director at the Climate and
Community Institute and a co-author of the analysis.
