This just reminds me of the thing Google pulled not long ago asking users to submit pictures of their younger selves to generate their adult self at the baseball game with them.

Immediately thought it’d be stupid to do that since people are gonna work their ass off to bypass AI guardrails in any case including generating child porn, and lo and behold, few days later I find a tweet of someone calling out another person for creating AI-generated porn of their own daughter.

I am livid. I can not put my anger into words right now.

The “strong, Conservative woman” claims that her party doesn’t use the notwithstanding clause “unless the stakes warrant it.”

Right, because clearly the biggest threat in Alberta is trans people. Not lobby money from the oil and gas industry, not the rising cost of living, not the mental health and addictions crisis, it’s clearly a group that makes up 1% at max of the population of the province.

Calling herself a “strong woman” is so unbelievably rich when all she seems able to do is effortlessly punch down on the everyday person. Like awww, how cute, she’s fighting fucking Big Teacher and Big Hormones, fuck off. “Strength” in defending the status quo requires zero effort whatsoever as it simply means doing fuck all, and I will be unapologetic in saying that she is doing nothing but continuing women’s status as objects by acting as a mere chess piece for the male CEOs in oil and gas and other profitable industries that direct her and the UCP’s decisions through political donations.

Un-fucking-believable.

I mean, not really, even here in Alberta Calgary and Edmonton have some rather impressive TOD (Transit Oriented Development) projects.

The Bonnie Doon redevelopment in Edmonton along the Valley Line LRT, and Calgary’s long-term plans for the new Green Line for the Ctrain are great examples.

“No they won’t”

Right, because other unions didn’t come out in support for Air Canada flight attendants to help them with their win.

Clearly labour leaders, especially ones that oversee over 170,000 union members, will do nothing and learn nothing from what was accomplished with Air Canada.

I don’t buy that one bit.

Edit: I got the number wrong, whoops.

The separation referendum is being stalled by a referendum to stay within Canada, where the petition to start it has already received enough signatures to start the referendum at 456K signatures.

Polling for separation is laughably low. This is not something that will happen, and not something legally feasible because of Treaty rights, and other numerous legal barriers. Smith herself has admitted she herself does not support separation, but has felt backed into a corner by her base as she fears a party split handing the NDP a win next election cycle more than she does the referendum succeeding, as she sees the former as a far more likely scenario. This can already be seen with the variety of right-wing parties in Alberta as opposed to the province’s left-wing being much more unified behind one party. Basically all this is an issue that could solved by implementing proportional representation in the province.

The pushback is currently being coordinated, it has only been a week since the back-to-work order, I personally feel it is way too early to judge a lack of action, but regardless students have been pushing back in the meantime the labour movement sorts things out on their end.

I do appreciate being distinguished as an individual and not as a part of the government or the worst of the crowd that voted them in.

Except I am giving facts? The guy said that the NDP was in control of the province for a “long time” before Lougheed was premier. The Alberta NDP never held government before 2015, the Social Credit Party was the ruling party in Alberta for nearly 40 years before Lougheed was premier. This is something that can be easily found through a Google search. He also claimed that Lougheed ran on diversifying the economy, and did nothing to do so afterwards, which is also provably false. The Heritage Fund was founded by Lougheed’s government to save money for investment in sectors, and it was following premiers that squandered that fund to the infamy it holds today.

So in the midst of implying my intelligence is lacking by stating that the schoolboards here have somehow failed me because I made a simple comment he disagrees with, he also spouts outright misinformation. I gave facts. I gave facts about the current state of affairs in regards to the teacher’s strike in response to someone falsely accusing people here of doing nothing, followed up with my opinion on what can be done, and then was greeted by further insults by someone who was blanketing Conservative views on me from the start for the very nature of where I’m from because they met some people that hold those beliefs.

Me saying “the rest of country turns it’s brain off”, may have been a little more loaded than I realised, I will take accountability for that, honest mistake on my part.

Diversification of the economy is the biggest issue that Alberta needs to address. People here think they want oil and gas development because we’re a single-resource economy, but what they really want is stability and affordability just like anybody else across the country does. Alberta’s reliance on oil is a strength that became a debilitating weakness, and our own leaders, Lougheed to be specific, saw that as the case and wanted to diversify using the Heritage Fund to do so, but this was never picked up on again after the 1980s oil glut until the NDP came to power and tried attracting tech jobs.

As someone who vehemently supports the federal NDP, I genuinely think that Alberta is a prime example of the party’s failings with working-class people. Farmers are hurting, oil workers are hurting, and as a result everyone else who works other sectors is currently hurting because the province still isn’t doing too great. This isn’t going to be solved by pipelines, and yes, that is in the large part on us for having demanded them so much in the past.

However people are scared of the shift from oil because there’s literally a cultural connection to it here. That money in the time of Peter Lougheed brought the province insane prosperity, and a lot of that money generated was invested heavily into the arts and cultural staples here. People are fine with shifting away more than you’d think, they just want job security for the people that built the economy of this province that brought us that prosperity and cultural flourish through the transition so that they don’t get left behind like is nearly always the case when industries anywhere go bust.

When you promise and deliver for working-class people’s wallets, especially in a time of economic hardship like now, they will trust you more than Rebel News mouthpieces and such as they can see that you have cared and delivered for them, and as a result of that, will be more likely to listen to you on social issues such as trans rights, racial issues, immigration, and so on. The issue with the feds is that they always have the same mistake as most people here where they think another pipeline is how you address that, when it only makes Alberta’s boom-bust single-resource economy even worse.

The worst premiers we’ve had know how to signal economic populism, Smith pretends and postures that she’s fighting for the “Alberta Advantage”, and Ralph Klein absolutely gutted everything in the government under the guise he was getting rid of the province’s debt. As a result of controlling economic narratives, they have been able to control social narratives as well. If the provincial and federal NDP were to hammer economic points time and time over to Albertan voters in an effective manner, they will steal voters, and as a result, then be able to control social narratives.

Alright, so despite it being clear that you specifically are against this, but still have a single minor tidbit of information I disagree with, it’s then fine for me to call you a fucking idiot because “this is brought on by ourselves”, right?

Clearly people have the ability to distinguish the “good” Albertan if they’re literally out here asking to be called names, so why do they have a hard time distinguishing that I’m not someone who supports the stuff happening here when I’m clearly in support of unions by the nature of my comments, my profile description states I have certain instances blocked for transphobia, and my linkstack is on an instance that’s queer-friendly based on the domain name alone?

Because we all know how much Conservatives and the UCP support… reads notes, unions, trans people, and the marginalised.

I’d agree if my intelligence wasn’t insulted with people near immediately saying “oh, you’re just stupid because you’re Albertan” when they disagree with me because of a minor comment about tariffs.

YOU’RE making accusatory statements of me, THE ONUS IS ON YOU to prove it

WHEN DID I AT ALL SAY THIS, YOU ARE PUTTING WORDS IN MY MOUTH.

Also congrats on again blanketing Albertans as a whole. I can meet some jerks in Northern Ontario, and you won’t see me calling the entire province racist, but somehow that’s acceptable for you to do with Alberta.

Thanks, appreciate being casually called an asshole, racist, xenophobic prick based on where I was born.

Read my post and comment history and come back to me. Your “gotcha” is completely hot air and lacks substance.

Once again, you and everyone here is just hating on me for where I was born and raised, and not on my talking points.

Prove to me otherwise. You berated people here with insults and blanketed me as “just another stupid conservative Albertan” simply because I decided to say "hey, maybe it’s wrong to call Albertans “fucking pussies” when the facts of the matter are that unions and such are fighting back, but hey, advocating for unions, the biggest conservative talking point ever.

More insults without substantive solutions, more failing to address the root cause of issues, more adding to the negativity of the back and forth, and more dismissing people because “it’s so simple guys, just stop” as if that was a viable approach to anything.

Note how at no point did I insult the feds or voters elsewhere across the country, and yet all the responses insult not just the Alberta government, but Albertan voters, and Albertans in general, all while over-simplifying how to address the issues at hand and dismissing genuine concerns that people here have.

I’m not a Conservative, but when Liberals and the NDP treat people here like this, it’s not hard to see why they stick to the same each election cycle.

I worry they slipped

Maybe get your own facts right first before saying things like this? You literally claimed the NDP held the province before Lougheed did in another comment, which is painfully easy to disprove. You also claimed Lougheed’s Progressive Conservatives ditched the idea of diversifying the province’s economy when he literally set up the Heritage Fund as a means to save money for investment into other sectors of Alberta’s economy to do so.

I do not appreciate coming here with good intentions only to have someone insult my intelligence as they spew outright nonsense.

Also tariffs are only a detriment when they’re not strategically targeted. Canada has tariffs on American dairy because our domestic dairy industry would be destroyed with the influx of cheap milk from the U.S.A., where they literally pour the stuff down drains they have such excess of it. We need to protect our own domestic market, especially when it comes to essential goods like cooking oil.

Edit: Alright, upvote a guy who states literal false information that can be easily Googled, but downvote the guy who presents facts because he’s Albertan. Doesn’t matter if his politics aligns with the NDP or whatever, go off and downvote facts as “le epic own” because he’s from the boogeyman province. This hate is so forced and y’all oughta be ashamed of yourselves.

This is literally false, the NDP never held Alberta before 2015, the party that controlled Alberta before Lougheed’s Progressive Conservatives was the Social Credit Party, which came to power in the Depression era with the promise of Social Credit (an idea similar to that of UBI), which was then struck down by the courts as being unconstitutional as the program would have overrode federal jurisdiction.

The SoCreds were viscerally socially conservative, especially under Ernest Manning (father of Preston Manning), and Lougheed was incredibly progressive in comparison to the premiers before him; a literal Progressive Conservative where he was socially progressive, and fiscally conservative.

Editing this to add in the fact that Lougheed realised that oil wouldn’t be able to hold the province up forever, and thus started the Heritage Fund to save for further developing and diversifying the economy. This fund literally partly inspired Norway’s Government Pension Fund, showcasing that Lougheed was on the right path with what he’d done. You are defacing the best premier this province has ever had, and placing the faults of the Klein government and governments that followed onto Lougheed unjustly.

You’re blanketing the thoughts of an entire province’s population with those of a handful of people. There’s more than plenty people here that care about work issues elsewhere, it’s why a lot of people came here to begin with. My own family came out this way from Newfoundland because of a lack of job opportunities there at the time, and I know of others from Atlantic Canada, namely New Brunswick, who came this way because of a scarce job market out that way.

The very reason why there’s this to and fro negativity between Albertans and the rest of Canada is because the government doesn’t push for new job opportunities in Alberta that aren’t related to O&G. What are the feds doing for canola farmers? It is so easy to go out there and support our canola farmers through tariffs on olive oil and other cooking oils, as well as marketing campaigns to Canadian consumers, yet that doesn’t happen. How about supporting struggling sugar beet farmers, who are almost all based in Alberta and the only source of domestic sugar in Canada? It isn’t hard to develop frameworks for a domestic sugar market and develop a Domestic Sugar Policy like every other developed country, and yet we continue to screw over the people who literally feed us because it’s “not politically worthwhile”.

What about Danielle Smith teasing hydrogen vehicle manufacturing in Alberta? At no point did the feds say “yes, we support more jobs in Alberta, let’s get the ball rolling and work together on this”, leaving Smith backed into a corner of actually needing to do something. At no point have they talked about diversifying the economy in Alberta to help the province out of it’s woes, and at no point have they mentioned any programs to assist oil workers like those in my family who lost their jobs in finding new work, especially after they were left behind by the province like they were despite doing everything expected of them.

It is painfully easy to fall for someone who tells you how exceptional you are as they make your life worse when the opposite side hasn’t given you the support that you need. It’s also painfully easy to have disdain for the rest of the country as a result of that, but not everybody falls down that path.

Gee, thanks. If you ever wonder why people from my province dislike the rest of the country, look no further than the above.

Since teachers were ordered back to work, students have been staging walkouts, the AFL has stated support for the ATA strike stating that a full-on general strike is on the table, support for the UCP has dropped in the polls, and the NDP has made it clear they will fight on this front in the legislature and elsewhere…

…and yet still to the rest of the country we’re just the brunt of the joke where we’re just the idiotic, cowardly conservatives that continue to shoot ourselves in the foot because people can’t be bothered to learn the dynamics of how this province operates. All you need to do is look at the last provincial election to see the NDP’s performance improvement in comparison to when Kenny’s UCP was elected, especially when it comes to how they performed in Calgary.

I would appreciate people more if they bothered to learn why Alberta is the way it is, but I guess it’s so much more simple to simply switch the brain off and continue calling us hicksville or such simply because it’s always the “in” thing to do.

Edit: Downvotes despite literal facts being presented, people giving false history in the replies whilst claiming that others aren’t educated, and insults directed at Albertans even more despite an Albertan not having done so to either them or the feds. Way to prove a point.

The reason why glue traps in particular are horrible is because unlike snap traps, they aren’t an instant-kill, leaving the mice to unnecessarily suffer through starvation, often over multiple days.

There are documented cases of mice and rats self-cannibalising to escape glue traps, as well as cases where they break their own bones in the struggle to escape. It’s needless pain, even mouse trap enthusiasts are more often than not against glue traps because they see it as being needlessly cruel.

It’s easy to shit on PETA, but they have things right in this case.

Gotta say I’m impressed with this.

Glad that worker solidarity has been gaining more traction as of late.

This week was a more interesting one for me, as I worked on getting through albums I hadn’t listened to in full yet. Part of me wonders if my stats glitched because Doug and the Slugs and Voggue both have the same amount of listens as they did last week from the same albums.

New albums I listened to were Aquarium and Aquarius by Aqua (a guilty pleasure of mine), MEGAREX’s TECHCORE ESSENCE, Juggernaut.'s Siegfried, RYBERNETEQ’s HiTECH FRONTIER 01, CUTiE? 02, and Acceleration: ARCA out of memory. I also listened to Chilliwack’s Greatest Hits album, but it appears to have associated the songs with other releases they’re in, hence not showing up in my most played albums list.

What really looked cool this week was my artist evolution chart, which showcased the progress of my listens throughout the week:

As for my country stats, artist saturation is once again dominated by Japan, dwarfing the next most listened country 32 to 6.

However, like last week, if I change the stats from artists listened to to the amount of tracks listened to instead, the stats are pretty even between Canada and Japan, with Japan only beating Canada by two tracks. Also notable is the little blip of orange in Denmark showing my 25 listens to Aqua this week lol.