Comments for a sibilant intake of breath

Comment on Carney caving on Keystone by .

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 14:42:17 +0000

A series of federal and provincial announcements aimed at growing oil production over the last 12 months are fuelling the sense of optimism, including a new West Coast oil pipeline being developed by Alberta and Ottawa.

In addition, the federal government has wiped away certain environmental policies such as the oilpatch emissions cap, while speeding up the regulatory process to approve major projects and introducing new financial incentives for investors.

The Alberta government aims to double oilsands production to eight million barrels per day by 2035.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bakx-ymm-oilsands-expo-wti-wcs-fort-mcmurray-9.7360970

Comment on Automated facial recognition by .

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 16:14:22 +0000

Trial of live facial recognition in London stations leads to a false positive and no arrests

Freedom of information request finds six-month trial cost £320,000, used almost 100 police hours and led to just one – incorrect – alert

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/sep/29/trial-live-facial-recognition-cameras-london-stations-false-positive

Comment on Carney caving on Keystone by .

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 12:24:10 +0000

LNG Canada expansion gets go-ahead, as Carney set to highlight ‘historic investment’ in Canadian energy

Expansion of LNG Canada project would double exports from Kitimat, B.C., to overseas markets

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/carney-lng-canada-announcement-9.7361817

Comment on Open thread: the global nuclear arms race by .

Mon, 28 Sep 2026 14:58:30 +0000

An uncertain Tokyo would need to reassess many of its relationships, and it may seek closer ties with U.S. adversaries in ways that go against Washington’s interests. To reduce pressure on its northern flank and gain access to much-needed energy supplies, Japan would likely accommodate Russia by reducing support for Ukraine. Japan could also seek to improve its ties with the military junta in Myanmar to secure access to critical minerals and might even explore purchasing discounted Iranian oil. Most consequentially, absent U.S. leadership, Japan could pull back its support for Taiwan, leaving the island vulnerable to Chinese aggression.

If Japan felt it could no longer rely on U.S. extended deterrence, it would likely seek to develop nuclear weapons of its own. China, North Korea, and Russia, after all, each have large nuclear arsenals. Japan would feel compelled to make itself invulnerable to nuclear coercion. If Japan were to pursue nuclear arms, which it could do relatively quickly, South Korea would not be far behind, turning the region into a nuclear powder keg.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/japan/japan-giving-united-states-chance-asia

Comment on Unproductive investments that harm the world by .

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 15:53:05 +0000

There, Matthew Gaskell, a British psychologist and expert on gambling addiction, said that the bettors that companies are most interested in are, well, losers like me. Indeed, a modest set of very active losers account for a substantial amount of sportsbooks’ revenue, he said. (A 2024 study out of Connecticut found that 1.8% of problem gamblers in the state accounted for 51% of sports betting revenue.) And the companies have created sophisticated technology products designed to squeeze maximum engagement out of them, just as social media companies like Meta did years earlier with users of Facebook and Instagram, added Darragh McGee, a researcher at the University of Bath.

In fact, as The New York Times reported, DraftKings employs machine learning and data scientists to identify losing customers and entice them with promotions to keep them going — even if those are exactly the kinds of customers at risk of becoming addicts. DraftKings told the newspaper its promotions are geared toward users who spend a lot of time on the app and that the company “rejects any implication that its marketing practices are unfair or improperly targets customers.”

https://www.propublica.org/article/draftkings-sports-gambling-problem-vip-fanduel

Comment on Christian nationalism in America by .

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 15:09:26 +0000

“The Trump administration also contains many former employees—76 of them in total, as of June 2025—of the America First Policy Institute, or AFPI, which advocates for the Christianization of America, and whose sister organization, America First Works, has partnered with Jim Garlow’s Well Versed, a group that ministers to members of Congress, the United Nations, and the Israeli government ministries, according to AFPI chief government affairs officer Matthew Henderson. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins was the founding president and CEO of AFPI; others in leadership positions there include White-Cain, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin.

Still other Cabinet members not directly affiliated with the NAR nonetheless share its dominionist agenda. The loudest of these is Hegseth, whose spiritual adviser, Doug Wilson, explicitly advocates for repealing the Nineteenth Amendment. And Baptist News Global, an independent news outlet, found that donor funds the National Christian Foundation, Christian Community Foundation, and the Signatry—which contributed a total of $210 million to organizations that helped write Project 2025—also donate millions to NAR-affiliated groups, including $110,000 to the IFA. Meanwhile, the Center for Progressive Reform estimates that the Trump administration has enacted over half the policy suggestions contained within the Project 2025 initiative. “

Comment on Christian nationalism in America by .

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 15:02:20 +0000

Christian dominionist movements began decades before Trump was a twinkle in the GOP’s eye and will continue long after his passing. Earlier this year, a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, or PRRI, found that fully one-third of all Americans partially or completely agree with Christian nationalist beliefs like “The U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation” and “God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society.” Two-thirds of all white evangelical Protestants hold these views, as do 54 percent of all Hispanic Protestants. People with these beliefs are twice as likely as their nonsupremacist neighbors to support political violence, and they score far higher on the PRRI right-wing authoritarianism scale.

Scholars and journalists alike extensively documented Christian dominionism’s influence on Trump through his first term, its outsize role in the January 6 insurrection, and its elevation to power within Trump’s second Cabinet. Over the past two years, their warnings have been largely borne out. And, despite deep schisms over aid to Israel and the ongoing war in Iran, the beliefs that unite Christian dominionist factions pose an existential threat to American democracy.

https://newrepublic.com/article/215003/christian-dominionism-apocalypse-trump-administration

Comment on Some large language model pathologies by .

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 14:35:41 +0000

Pentagon Investigators Say Overreliance on Palantir AI Contributed to US Strike That Killed 123 Iranian Children

Two U.S. missiles hit an elementary school in Iran, killing over 150 people including 123 children on the first day of the Iran War. But Gizmodo notes that a new Bloomberg investigation cites U.S. officials involved in an unreleased internal Pentagon review who blame “a cascade of preventable failures that included an overreliance on an AI tool built by Palantir.”

https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/09/22/0614238/pentagon-investigators-say-overreliance-on-palantir-ai-contributed-to-us-strike-that-killed-123-iranian-children

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2026-iran-school-attack/

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2026-09-21/inside-u-s-kill-chain-that-destroyed-iranian-school

Comment on CO2-energy / climate justice contention on Indigenously-backed fossil fuel projects by .

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 14:31:44 +0000

Ottawa offers Indigenous groups along Trans Mountain route combined 15% equity

The proposal falls short of expectations, some Indigenous leaders say

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-ottawa-offers-first-nations-15-equity-stake-in-trans-mountain-pipeline/

Comment on Rivals: Experiential education on nuclear weapon proliferation by .

Sun, 20 Sep 2026 01:41:50 +0000

Saudi Arabia has tens of billions of dollars in fighter jets and war machinery, but it does not have any warfare experience to fight the Houthis, who have proved to be tough, resilient fighters. Pakistan’s forces, trained to deal with the constant menace of India, would be highly valuable on the frontline.

Analysts say that if Saudi Arabia decided to activate the Mecca pact to fight the Houthis, Pakistan would have no choice but to send in its troops, including thousands who are already deployed in Saudi Arabia for training. As well as being a defence partner, Pakistan is almost totally economically and geopolitically dependent on Saudi Arabia, which has recently given the country a lifesaving $8bn (£6bn) in funds and investments.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/19/pakistan-saudi-arabia-mecca-pact-joint-defence-agreement-houthis-yemen-conflict

Comment on Canada’s climate change record by .

Sat, 19 Sep 2026 19:58:57 +0000

Climate reckoning awaits as Canada falls further behind targets

Nathalie Hewa Dewage

Ahead of Parliament’s return for its fall session next week, a new analysis has added urgency to debates over Canada’s climate strategy — warning that the country is now more than 20 years behind meeting its 2030 climate targets.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2026/09/18/news/parliament-climate-target-report

Comment on Some large language model pathologies by .

Sat, 19 Sep 2026 19:43:29 +0000

“The near-miss is one of the more potent and consequential instances of a hallucinating AI ruining the reliability of a professional report. Since “hallucinating” became the Cambridge Dictionary’s word of the year in 2023, we’ve seen prominent examples of non-fiction authors, journalists, academic researchers, judges, doctors, police departments, corporate call centers, and more getting taken in by AI tools that simply make something up when their training data doesn’t provide sufficient context. And despite some adorable attempts at “do not hallucinate” prompts, some researchers suggest that it may be impossible to prevent LLMs from hallucinating altogether.”