StillPaisleyCat

joined 2 years ago

Surprised by some of the comments here.

Whether or not the solution being proposed is the best or only one is the question.

Instead several users are taking any discussion as being anti-democratic.

The Chief Electoral Officer of Canada raised concerns about how these long ballots were impeding the democratic process, including by presenting barriers to accessibility by voters.

This has become an increasing problem, with former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s riding being targeted in 2019.

There seem to be two kinds of barriers:

  • physical barriers to finding and marking the ballot of their choice
  • becoming informed of the positions and intents of candidates when there are so many candidates that do not actually intend to serve as MPs.

The underlying issue seems to be that a small group of qualified voters in a targeted riding are nominating a very large number of candidates.

That is 60+ candidates put forward by the longest ballot group were all nominated by the same small number of voters.

Is this reasonable?

Democratic rights are balanced with responsibility under the Charter. Is it reasonable for a single voter to sign the nomination papers for 50 candidates or even 20.

Only being able to sign the papers for one candidate in one election period may be too limiting as not all candidates obtain enough signatures to be minor drop out later for other reasons.

Would limiting the right to sign nomination papers to 2 or 5 candidates be a reasonable balance under the Charter?

While this specific solution being proposed by this CPC member may be too restrictive, it seems worth a debate.

And perhaps the second issue of voters being able to reasonably obtain information about the intent and positions of candidates would be resolved if there were not so many nominated candidates.

The Rhinoceros party position that their candidates would resign if elected was well known so voters could make an informed choice. The current long ballot situation doesn’t offer that choice.

A proactive referral to the Supreme Court of Canada might be the best way to get an understanding of the balance of democratic rights. It would be best to have a read on what would be a reasonable limitation on both those who sign nominations and those who put themselves forward vs the responsibility to have accessible ballots with candidates who intend to serve before any changes to the the elections act is brought forward.

Check out altgrocery.ca for a list and map of farmers markets across Canada.

The reason WHO frames common risk factors and common chronic diseases is because persons with these risks, conditions and diseases often end up with more than one of these diseases.

e.g., WHO now considers obesity a disease in itself, but obesity is also a biological risk factor for cancer and diabetes.

There are a lot of interrelationships in the risks.

More, with these conditions, they are also more vulnerable to infectious diseases.

It’s important though to keep in mind that, as I note in another reply, these kinds of studies aren’t just about informing individuals’ choices.

They’re not about ‘blaming’ or ‘shaming’ individuals choices.

They are about understanding what are the underlying determinants of health and risk factors that are shaping health outcomes.

Back to the study in question, and the OP’s remark that they were surprised that people were eating that much processed meat daily…

If the protein sources that are most available and affordable are the most unhealthy, preprocessed ones, then consumers will buy and consume more of these than healthier ones.

And their preferences and consumption habits will be shaped by these experiences.

And that will affect overall health and life expectancy of the population.

I would argue that this is missing the point - and so, in fact, is the article reporting on the study.

What is important to keep in mind is that the benefit of this research is not primarily about ‘telling’ or ‘informing’ individuals so that they can make different food consumption decisions.

It’s more about how food environments are shaped to encourage healthy or unhealthy choices.

If eating that much processed meat daily or weekly increases cancer risks, what’s driving or nudging people towards that.

Is it barriers to availability, accessibility or affordability of healthier and palatable choices?

[–] StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

My point is that raising risks of getting hit by a car, or other accidental causes of injury and death beyond the individual’s control, is a deflection.

Cancer is the leading cause of death in Canada.

Full stop.

No one single risk factor is responsible for that. Building the evidence base to be able to both inform individual behaviour but also to inform food safety regulations is important.

[–] StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website 5 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Cancer is the leading cause of premature mortality and morbidity (death and disability) in Canada.

So, an accumulation of small risks, and avoidance of risks, have significant benefits at both the individual and population levels.

The general population needs to be aware that unhealthy eating is impacting their lives and quality of life.

Let’s stick to the peer reviewed science and evidence consensus.

WHO established the four behavioural common risk factors for the four major chronic noncommunicable diseases decades ago.

The kind of research synthesis in this article is about continuing to build the evidence on relative and absolute risks, and in some cases look at how these differences impact different populations more or less due to intersecting determinants.

Common risk factors

  • unhealthy diet
  • physical inactivity
  • tobacco use
  • harmful use of alcohol
  • air pollution added more recently

Major chronic noncommunicable diseases

  • cancer
  • cardiovascular diseases
  • diabetes
  • chronic respiratory diseases
[–] StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ooh.

While I have enjoyed working on the OG 1701 and the Delta in previous years, a change up will be a great.

Looking forward to doing other ships in future years!

Biovert is excellent.

[–] StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I feel as though the entire point of this was to make Canadians feel ashamed and discouraged on the day before our national holiday.

And in that Trump was successful. It’s brutal and bullying propaganda.

No success of realpolitik in negotiations can undo that.

The business community and media were calling the digital services tax an unforced error.

But the real unforced error is Carney getting played to do something destructive to national unity heading into Canada Day.

This is one of the few cases where his lack of political experience is showing. I’m wondering if his team will let him understand that and see the polling impact.

Cancelled by Disney but picked up by AMC for the US and Canada.

It’s been a long wait to see it in North America, but at least it will be available.

[–] StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I have sent you a DM.

Good luck. Great grandparents born in Canada can be enough. That would make your grandparents ok your mother’s side citizens. (There have been some retroactive corrections of women’s loss of citizenship in marriage.)

[–] StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Do you have a Canadian ancestor?

The 2023 Bjorkquist decision overturned the first generation limit to pass down citizenship. There is an Interim measure to accept applications for special grants of citizenship beyond one generation and there is a bill in Parliament to put in place a remedy to address the findings of the Superior Court of Ontario (which the federal government has not appealed).

 

In honour of Star Trek day, this month Simon & Schuster is offering 23 ebooks at discount prices.

Books from every era are represented. (A special shout out from me for the Diane Duane one.)

As usual, look for the discounts in the US, Canada and UK through the major ebook platforms.

Enjoy!

 

An interesting, deliberately thought provoking 🤔 question for a lazy long weekend Sunday morning…

Setting aside whether specific fans like specific ‘gimmicks’ (crossovers, musicals, bringing back Kirk or Khan) or tropes (transporter malfunctions), Space.com is posing the hypothesis that the proportion was too high in Strange New Worlds second season.

There’s no arguing that the season was successful in drawing in large audiences week after week. Taking a look back though, was there too much trippy-Trek(TM) dessert and not enough of a meaty main course? YMMV surely.

For my part, I can both agree that trippy Trek is something I’ve been wanting more of, and that I would have welcomed 2 or 3 more episodes were more grounded or gave the opportunity to see more of Una as a leader and dug into Ortegas backstory.

The 90s shows seemed to be bit embarrassed by trippyness, although Voyager found its pretext allowed even stern Janeway to pronounce ‘Weird is our business.’ One can argue that the high proportion in SNW is a feature, not a bug.

I’d still prefer a 12-15 episode season though.

 

Interesting extract from a longer /Film interview with in-demand director Roxann Dawson.

I appreciate how she speaks with respect for the shows of the new era.

 

Season-long prerelease reviews are an exception to this community’s rules about posting reviews. (The mods prefer our members to prefer to post their own episode reviews here.)

It seems that today’s the day that Paramount’s embargo on ‘spoiler free’ (in theory) season reviews for Lower Decks season 4 comes off, and the first pro reviews are now posted by some who have seen the screeners.

From Inverse:

  • each one of these 30-minute episodes is nearly perfect. Just as the USS Cerritos presents the workhorse of Starfleet, with Season 4, Lower Decks again proves it is the workhorse of the entire Star Trek franchise.

From SlashFilm - view with caution, a bit more spoilery

  • /Film Rating: 9 out of

Any to add to the list?

 

@Nmyownworld@startrek.website spotted Murf in the poster in the promotional announcement for Star Trek Day.

Nmyownworld’s mention on the Star Trek Day thread was great, but I thought it would be great to amplify it. So here is the image with the colour intensity dialed up a bit and Murf circled to be easier to spot.

StarTrek Prodigy Lives!!!

 

This is good news for assuring that SNW’s 3rd season production will move ahead after the strike.

Greenlighting a couple of extra episodes and a 4th season would make strategic sense, but I’m just not willing to give Paramount the benefit of the doubt on that.

 

For those not already aware, Michele Stokes a fan in the UK raised over $US 1200 through a GoFundMe to pay for a skywriter with a #SAVESTARTREKPRODIGY banner.

It flew midday today in LA. The ScreenRant article captures much of the social media including a few videos, and the reactions of the Hageman Brothers and @GoodAaron@startrek.website.

Michele Stokes is also the fan who started the change.org petition to Save Star Trek Prodigy. It’s been progressing slowly since it surpassed 30k signatures during SDCC, and is very close to 33k now. If you haven’t signed and are willing to deal with the platform (which is now monetized), Prodigy could still benefit from your support.

 

Working from the oral history in The Five Year Mission: The next 25 years, this is a fascinating deep dive that answers the question “How did a recycled cover of a 1998 song written for Rod Stewart, ‘Where My Heart Will Take Me’ aka ‘Faith of the Heart’ become the title music for Enterprise?”

Also, after resisting melodic scoring in all the 90s shows, it turns out this was the music Rick Berman liked?!!

“…I, for one, can tell you that I thought it was a great opening and I'm not alone in that. I don't think I'm in the majority, but I'm not alone."

And it seems the song does have its own subniche of supporters who share Berman’s view. (But not I.)

 

@GoodAaron@startrek.website has shared the news on Mastodon.

The GoFundMe has exceeded its goal. The organizer described it as follows:

The plan is to hire either a skywriter or sky banner to make passes over the offices of potential new homes for Star Trek Prodigy, namely Amazon, Netflix, etc. The more we're able to raise, the more streamers we'll be able to lobby and the louder we'll be able to shout about what an amazing show Star Trek Prodigy is - for fans of all ages.

 

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/1026553

Here’s something to fill some gaps in your viewing schedule. While not science fiction, this show could appeal to SNW fans and deserves a bigger audience.

SurrealEstate is a Canadian live-action supernatural drama with a light leavening of horror, produced for CTV Sci-Fi Channel, and picked up Syfy. The first season also ran on Hulu in the US after its linear run. It was canceled by Syfy US, then uncanceled when it got picked up by the Syfy channels in Europe.

It’s quirky, full of gentle ironic humour, in the way Canadian shows can be. Tim Rozon of Wynonna Earp stars along with Sarah Levy of Schitt’s Creek. Melanie Srofano (Captain Betel in SNW) directed two episodes in the first season and was reportedly back to do more.

Similar to SNW, SurrealEstate mainly episodic with light serialization coming from character arcs. It has a generally positive vibe, with a team of intriguing and diverse characters solving mysteries and clearing houses of supernatural detractions so that they can ‘achieve their true market value.’

From the season one promotional listing:

Real estate agent Luke Roman is the owner of The Roman Agency, a boutique residential real estate brokerage specializing in "metaphysically engaged" properties, also known as haunted houses. Luke has a special connection to the spiritual realm; he can not only sense the presence that might inhabit a client's house, he can often communicate and negotiate with it. Along with his team, Luke takes on the houses nobody else can or will.

If you haven’t seen season one, I firmly recommend catching it on demand on CTV (which is offering it currently offering it free to non-subscribers), on the Syfy app or on Hulu.

 

What can I say, all that pink and purple just seems to be meant to be together.

Credit again to Trek Core for their excellent TAS BlueRay screencap library.

Editing to add: love Barbie, pleased to see the movie out earning most of the comic heroes, always glad that TAS and Prodigy make themselves appealing across genders.

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