A nip is basically a warning bite versus a real "fuck off" bite

Conservativism predates fascism by 100-200 years, does it not?

It's neat hearing how Rowena communicates with her gaze/stare. I didn't know cats could do that. It makes me want to experiment with putting cat treats on a shelf in plain sight of a cat and seeing if with a little training they would use gazing to communicate desire for treats. My last cat knew where the door was (to go outside on a leash) and that the cat treats were in the coffee table. They would hang around, paw at, and gaze/meow at me while adjacent to one of those objects to communicate their desire, either to go out or for treats. Whereas it's obvious that cats have memory for location (e.g., food, litter), communicating with gaze really intrigues me

How disappointing and shameful. It'd be nice to see our country on the right side of history

“how a dictator behaves”

Israel trying to take the moral high ground - LMFAO

At least six doctors and healthcare workers were suspended at Toronto’s SickKids hospital for social media posts supporting Palestinians while doctors at St. Michael’s around the corner were allowed to share an hour-long lecture about Israel to staff and students.

Another half dozen physicians were removed from their roles assessing medical students’ residency applications at Queen’s University because they signed a petition calling for a ceasefire.

According to Ge, physicians and students making posts about Palestine are also being accused of creating a lack of safety for Jewish patients, despite no patient complaints.

“For someone to accuse someone else in the profession that there’s a concern for patient safety is…a grave and significant and severe concern,” he said.

“It is being disproportionately used in a very malicious way now to call into question people’s competency, without an appropriate look at [whether there is] actual concern for patient safety and [whether there is] true bias.”

This is purely speculation on my part, but I think the Canadian Medical Association, the group which represents Canadian physicians, is interested in maintaining a shortage of physicians and, for example, would vehemently oppose graduating 5-10% more physicians starting now as a means of filling the physician gap. Their motivation is to keep existing physicians in very high demand so that they can maximize compensation and job security.

I think the ultimate problem (neoliberalism) is that there are too many people in positions of power that are trying to profiteer off of a system that's intended to provide a public service (e.g., privatization of healthcare, hospital inaccessibility in rural communities, the large number of Canadians without a primary care provider)

I have no problems with the departure of a newspaper editor who censors criticism of Israel while Israel commits genocide. The paper's owner, however, caught my intrigue. A billionaire who's pro-Palestine, owns a newspaper, and has largely respected the editorial independence of that newspaper -- seems like a rare breed of billionaire

The headline of the article is misleading, and I think this person said it best:

Bueckert said the language the federal government chose is "so vague that anyone can project onto it what they want to think."

I took a little look into this and based on that I think you are correct that Service Ontario was already significantly privatized prior to this move (which I'll admit I wasn't aware of), but it has not always been completely private.

Here are excerpts from a 2014 post from OPSEU (https://opseu.org/information/general/serviceontario-the-straight-facts/9956/):

The McGuinty government likes to claim that two-thirds of ServiceOntario is already privatized. While two-thirds of ServiceOntario’s retail counters are privately run, claiming that two-thirds of ServiceOntario is already privatized is a gross oversimplification. This claim ignores the publicly run backbone of the organization. The components of ServiceOntario directly operated by the province include:

• 87 public counters across Ontario
• 9 contact centers that answer 10 million calls annually
• Online services handling close to 10 million transactions annually
• Mailrooms processing 22 million items annually

ServiceOntario employs about 2400 people that are direct employees of the province. OPSEU represents approximately 1850 of those employees.

That's creepy af

I was introduced to Wayne Brady through Chappelle's Show :) I like his coming out, and the thoughtful message he gave. As a wealthy, middle-aged Black celebrity and comic, I think he may be quite influential in opening others' minds and hearts. Also, I'm glad there's a text summary here, because I'd never visit TT