What do you feel about AI?
Advanced artificial intelligence is being rapidly deployed, making knowledgeable people nervous about how it may change almost everything in our world. These are things that should concern us about AI.…
Norman Farrell
Electric vehicles
Additional facts regarding Mr. Farrell’s and Mr. McCutcheon’s posts on EVs. Where is the EV market booming? SE Asia expects to distribute 23 million units. The UK loves EVs. Europe…
Promising, troubling, and terrifying
MIT Technology Review’s annual list of ten breakthrough technologies includes innovations that appear entirely beneficial, but others carry the potential for serious harm.
The Ancient One – AKA Kennewick Man
Knute “Mossback” Berger is a Seattle-based writer and commentator whose videos appear on Western Washington’s PBS station, KCTS-TV. His focus is the Pacific Northwest, and although some stories are rooted…
Electric Vehicles – Trends and Insights
Because Carney’s Liberal government is working to promote fossil-fuel production. Canadians should not expect it to encourage sales of affordable electric vehicles—or the transition away from gasoline. That is unfortunate.
Suivez le français
Canadians might follow the French, if the country were not so dedicated to the burning of fossil fuels.
Will humans stay in control?
Technical capability is advancing faster than public understanding, democratic oversight, or agreement about who should bear the risks. The danger is not science itself. It is the willingness to deploy…
Curtailing CEO pay
A typical casual worker at American McDonald's may average 20 hours a week at $14 an hour. The person would have to labour for more than fourteen centuries to equal…
Alternative energy solutions
Hydropower is dispatchable. It is generally reliable, can increase or decrease generation quickly, and can be shut down and restarted with relative ease. Provided the facilities are properly maintained, the…
Privatizing public services
A. Reader is back again with another informative post. This particular contributor sends me much useful information. I always appreciate the person's work. The latest piece follows the separator.
Crude sacrifices
Prime Minister Mark Carney has caused his government to serve oil barons rather than the people who elected it. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith made that choice long ago. Now British…
Carney, Smith and Eby’s climate betrayal
Governments acknowledge climate science, then pursue policies that directly contradict it. They transfer public wealth to immensely profitable corporations, encourage greater fossil-fuel dependence, and leave ordinary people to bear the…
What we pretend not to see
I recently stumbled across an American website: A Moveable Feed from buttondown.com. It promises to deliver "Blunt, funny takes on today’s biggest stories from a recovering DC insider." This week,…
RCMP’s decades-old Tommy Douglas files remain secret
The RCMP was particularly suspicious of people associated with peace movements—and of political leaders willing to speak openly with people across the political spectrum. In the eyes of Canada’s security…
Megasize credit unions have policies, not memories
From 1956 through 1958, I attended Stillwater Elementary, a small schoolhouse twenty-two kilometres south of Powell River. Its three rooms accommodated six grades, and children were summoned to class by…
Remembering the Freedom Riders
I do not know Mel Lehan personally, but I have been aware of his altruistic activism for many years. His Facebook posts are usually both entertaining and informative. Recently, he…
Vacation home in south of France
Many years ago, our valued friends Jacquie and Lorne began searching for a vacation home. They explored possibilities in several parts of North America and Europe before deciding that the…
Buying unsellable luxury condos better than building affordable housing for just-plain-folks
A comment on my last article is too good to not feature as a separate post. It was submitted by Loopholes Uber Alles, which I suspect just might be a…
Government housing policy wrong again
Erick Villagomez teaches architecture and urban design at UBC's School of Community and Regional Planning. His work examines how cities are shaped by often-invisible systems that influence power, equity, and…
LNG: unclean energy
The following was published as a letter in Victoria’s Times Colonist newspaper Re: “B.C. premier visiting China to pitch LNG project as province’s ‘really big fish,’ ” June 27. While…