More good journalism to kick off your weekend: Emphasis added:

Yager is the architect of Alberta’s strategy for dealing with the province’s growing oil and gas liabilities, including pipelines and orphaned wells, a problem that he once called a “giant stinking pile of sh*t.” The Alberta government paid Yager more than C$250,000 for the strategy, while he simultaneously served as AER director, a special advisor to Premier Danielle Smith, and ran an oil and gas consulting company.

and

Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) board chair Duncan Au wrote that he and his fellow board directors were satisfied that no “conflict or apparent conflict” exists.

https://www.theenergymix.com/alberta-landowner-alleges-mafia-style-meeting-demands-as-energy-regulators-ethics-investigation-stalls/ by @JEmphatically

#ABPoli #Alberta #journalism

Hahahahahahaha is this black hat or white hat hacking?

(the number for the US White House comes up as "Epstein Island")

https://mastodon.social/@jeffjarvis/116303605675826379

#USPol #hacking

Friendly reminder: last year I built FediMod FIRES, a protocol and reference server implementation for sharing moderation data.

I haven't yet been able to get anyone to adopt it or even signal intent to adopt. But regularly I see people complaining about the lack of data sharing when it comes to moderation, especially for combating spam, scams, and harassment. The tool is there, please use it!

Whilst I'm not actively working on FediMod FIRES this quarter, I did apply in November for a grant to continue that work, and last I heard a few weeks ago is that the grant made it to the next stage, so I may have some money again to fund development.

It's not 1.0.0 yet, because I decided it needed more work for me to be happy to call it that, but it is usable!

Installation is also super simple for data producers, literally two commands on debian or ubuntu boxes.

Learn more: https://fires.fedimod.org/manuals/reference-server/

#moderation #fediblock #administration

This is too good not to share.

After ten years of silence on YouTube, Bette Midler has released an absolute banger of a protest song, just in time for #NoKingsDay.

A rewrite of a Woody Guthrie song, and it hops!

https://youtu.be/U5VXwncNvTo

#USPol
#BetteMidler #NoKingsDay3

RE: https://mastodon.social/@indivisibleteam/116304025088851693

A comment for those who are frustrated with #NoKings one-day mass #protests and would like to see Americans seriously shutting things down for weeks or months, as successful protesters have done in other nations: I understand — and sympathize with — your frustration and exasperation, but you are NOT going to get better results by dismissing what IS happening as useless or counterproductive. Work with what you have, and keep encouraging further steps.

Also: I keep seeing comments that state or imply that the root problem with American protesting is lack of courage. Our history does not support that at all. Antislavery activists in 1855 might have been tempted to offer the same explanation for slow progress, but if so, they would have completely misjudged what the country would look like in 1865.

So if not cowardice, what IS the issue? I believe that just as for so many other problems with the #USA, the issue is American #exceptionalism, and in particular, acceptance of an elaborately fraudulent pseudo-democracy as the real thing. Americans are slowly shaking off a quarter of a millennium of faith in a traditional framework of laws and conventions. It's hard to see that this framework impedes, rather than aids, progress toward genuine reform — but we ARE starting to see it, and our enemies dread what might happen thereafter. They fear that 2036 might be as different from 2026 as 1865 was from 1855 — or even more so.

I can't find high enough praise for this article today in The Tyee (on Fedi: @thetyee) https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2026/03/27/Human-Cost-Failing-Name-COVID-Airborne/

How is it possible for hospitals, nursing homes and other health-care employers to allow respiratory PPE that doesn’t fit the legal standard previously set for protecting workers against an airborne hazard?

Simple. They just fail to explicitly state the virus is airborne.

🤯 💣 💥

1/n 🧵

#COVIDIsAirborne #SARSCoV2 #COVID #COVID19 #SafeWorkplace #workplaceSafety #WorkSafeBC #CDNPoli #PublicHealth