My Dad ran their maintenance department for years. Later, my brother Rob took over.
My brother Randy and his partner Val live in the Coop now.
I post as there is a massive construction renovation happening. All units are getting new front and back decks. And I saw plenty of work being done on the roofs, siding with new insulation, windows and doors.
All good ➙ BUT it’s a mess while under construction.
It’s a massive complex.
I recall playing tag in the original construction site when we were kids. It opened 1971.
It’s a Trudeau era non-profit housing cooperative. In 2025 it might just be the best value housing in Calgary. Here are the benefits for tenants. This coop worked. Socialism at its best.
Here are a few photos of the mess in C block May 2025. 😀
Sometimes you really don’t want to see how the sausage is made. 😀
An international crisis. Trump uses the excuse to declare martial law in the USA.
He suspends civilian legal processes. Commander in Chief Trump and the U.S. Military are in charge.
It could happen.
The martial law concept in the United States is closely tied with the right of habeas corpus, which is in essence the right to a hearing on lawful imprisonment, or more broadly, the supervision of law enforcement by the judiciary.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Wednesday lent some support to calls to suspend habeas corpus as part of the administration’s immigration crackdown after aide Stephen Miller said the White House was considering the idea.
We know Trump wants to be a Royal like murdering dictator-for-life MBS in Saudi Arabia.
Trump’s first international visit?
To the nation of bin Laden. 15 of the 19 terrorists in 911 were from Saudi Arabia.
Is this really America First? It looks like Trump First.
You know Elon Musk would be 100% supportive of declaring martial law. He’s already openly emulating Hitler who did exactly this in Germany ➙ February 28, 1933, effectively suspended many constitutional rights, creating a state of emergency and giving the Nazis significant control.
Here’s the best discussion on this issue, I’ve seen. Timothy Snyder is an American historian who’s an expert in Tyranny.
Pierre Poilievre will run in a by-election in the most conservative riding in Canada ➙ Battle River-Crowfoot, Alberta.
I ASSuME he wants to stay opposition Party leader for the next 4-5 years.
Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
Is there any chance Quebec would vote for PP from Alberta in the next election?
In the rest-of-Canada, this ties Poilievre to Alberta premier Smith ➙ a right wing extremist who wants to be the 51st U.S. state. 😀
Canadians grew sick of Trudeau. And they’ll grow sick of Poilievre’s whining in the coming years. He’s already less popular than the Party, as was Trudeau.
No other Party wants to partner with the Cons in any future minority government.
Instead …
Elect a new leader from Quebec
Elect a fiscal conservative with creditability. (Someone like Mark Carney,)
Distance the Party platform from ReTrumplicanism which will be in the toilet by the 2026 midterms
Abandon populist social conservative trends. (The deplorable will vote Conservative anyway.)
Go back to conservative policies more in line with those of Preston Manning, back in the day
The worst of recent unsuccessful leaders was Andrew Scheer. I ranked him 0 / 100.
WORST case scenario would be replacing PP with someone like Scheer.
Tony Retrosi is a highly respected Gymnastics coach, educator, and leader.
He’s one of the Americans dismayed with the turn of Republican politicians to ReTrumplicanism. Angry, hateful, intolerant, near totalitarianism.
In 2025 you must parrot the low IQ Trump’s lies, or be banished from the GOP.
I was impressed with Tony summing up in this post:
a country should take care of its weakest members … children, disabled, sick, and elderly
healthcare is a right, not a privilege
higher education should be affordable
massive moral problem with a society where a handful of people can possess the majority of the wealth while there are people literally starving to death, freezing to death, or dying
companies should be required to pay their employees a decent, livable wage
don’t force religion on me or mine
LGBT people should have the SAME rights as everyone else
we NEED regulations to prevent cut corners, environmental destruction, tainted food/water, unsafe materials in consumable goods or medical equipment, etc.
systemic racism and misogyny in our society is much worse than many people think
enforcement of present firearms laws and enacting new, common sense gun regulations
I believe in so-called political correctness … social politeness
funding sustainable energy
women should be paid the same as men who do the same work, should have the same rights as men and should be free from abuse
Elections are often a choice between who’s least bad, and PP would be terrible in defending Canada against attacks by Trump. PP has no academic nor business credibility. He’s not well known outside MAGA USA who support him. His policies have been Trump-lite for years.
I’m quite sure he’d be a lightweight in international matters. Trump and his appointees would try to walk all over him.
So far, PP has refused to get top-secret clearance so officials with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) could share intelligence on foreign interference with him.
I’ll be voting for Mark Carney. Various roles at Goldman Sachs. Governor of the Bank of Canada. Governor of the Bank of England. United Nations (UN) special envoy for climate action and finance. Well known and respected as an economist.
He could have run for the Conservative Party leadership, legitimately. In 2012, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper asked Carney—who was then governor of the Bank of Canada—if he would join the Conservative government as minister of finance.
He completed the 2015 London Marathon in 3 hours, 31 minutes.
Actually, my current Conservative MP in Calgary Centre, Greg McLean, is very good. I won’t be disappointed if he is reelected. A loyal opposition is an important part of our Westminster-styleparliamentarydemocracy.
I wrote to tell him I had to vote against PP. No reply. 😀
Vancouver Island, where my Mom lives, will elect either NDP or Conservative representatives in 2025.
I’d vote to reelect Gord Johns of the NDP. Seems to me he’s been doing a terrific job.
If I was editing, I would have cut the length of the novel in half. Many threads did not contribute to the plot resolution.
I Am Pilgrim (2015) is the debut novel by former journalist and screenwriter Terry Hayes. …
“Pilgrim” is an American former intelligence agent known as the “Rider of the Blue” who later writes a book on forensic pathology. …
The “Saracen” is a Saudi who becomes radicalized by watching his father’s beheading. He later trains as a doctor and fights in the Soviet–Afghan War.
Pilgrim is recalled to the intelligence community who have detected a threat involving the Saracen, who has created a vaccine-resistant strain of the variola major virus. Smallpox.
Smallpox is estimated to have killed up to 300 million people in the 20th century and around 500 million people in the last 100 years of its existence.
Inoculation for smallpox appears to have started in China around the 1500s. In 1796, Edward Jenner introduced the modern smallpox vaccine.
unvaccinated and vaccinated twins
Officially, 2 live samples of variola major virus remain, one in the United States at the CDC in Atlanta, and one at the Vector Institute in Koltsovo, Russia.
Between 65 and 80% of survivors are marked with deep pitted scars (pockmarks), most prominent on the face.
I’m not smart enough to explain his thinking — but here’s a ChatGPT summary of the non-fiction tomb.
Main Focus: Nexus explores the intersection of technology, human evolution, and the future of societies, emphasizing the merging of biological and digital realms.
Technological Convergence: Harari examines how advancements in genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology are changing humanity’s relationship with itself and the world.
Human Enhancement: A central theme is the idea that humans may soon be able to enhance their biological and mental capacities through technology, leading to “post-human” forms of existence.
Ethical Implications: The book raises questions about the ethics of altering human biology, creating artificial life, and the consequences of tampering with the essence of what it means to be human.
Social and Economic Impact: Harari discusses how these technological advancements could lead to social divides, with some individuals or groups gaining access to powerful enhancements while others are left behind.
Surveillance and Control: A significant concern is the potential for increased surveillance and control over individuals’ minds and bodies, both by governments and corporations.
Evolution of Consciousness: Harari reflects on how human consciousness may evolve or change in response to these new technologies, as well as the philosophical questions surrounding free will and identity.
End of Homo Sapiens: The book suggests that humanity might be on the verge of an epochal shift, where Homo sapiens could be replaced by a new, technologically-enhanced species—either through natural evolution or deliberate engineering.
Uncertainty of the Future: Harari emphasizes the unpredictability of the future, acknowledging that the developments discussed could lead to both utopian and dystopian outcomes.
The American economy might never have been stronger relative to the rest of the world than in 2024.
BUT more and more of that money is going to the very rich. If that continues, you can project the States will be come some kind of oligarchy. Perhaps even a totalitarian state.
The Economist still ranks the USA as a ‘flawed democracy‘ in their annual Democracy Index. Only 29th on the list of democracies.
The full democracies 2023:
Norway
New Zealand
Iceland
Sweden
Finland
Denmark
Ireland
Switzerland
Netherlands
Taiwan
Luxembourg
Germany
Canada
Australia
Uruguay
Japan
Costa Rica
United Kingdom
I want to live in a full democracy where it’s easiest to get rid of leaders the majority don’t want. As Churchill said: “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.”
The full democracies tend to have a smaller gap between rich and poor.
Russians can’t get rid of Putin. Ali Hosseini Khamenei has been the leader of Iran since 1989. Iranians can’t get rid of him.
Americans should be wondering whether they can get rid of Musk or Trump.
It’s obvious that the top 1% buy American politicians who vote in their interest. This chart is from 2014. Things are much worse in 2024.
The original French lyrics were translated to English in 1906. Multiple English versions ensued, with Robert Stanley Weir‘s 1908 version (which was not a translation of the French lyrics) gaining the most popularity; the Weir lyrics eventually served as the basis for the official lyrics enacted by Parliament. Weir’s English-language lyrics have been revised three times, most recently when An Act to amend the National Anthem Act (gender) was enacted in 2018.
‘Gens du pays’, written by Gilles Vigneault and Gaston Rochon for the 1975 St-Jean-Baptiste celebrations on Mount Royal, Montreal is almost a national anthem in Quebec.
Rick McCharles 