voluble

joined 9 months ago
 

An Alberta woman was denied a medically assisted death in Vancouver this past Sunday after an interim injunction was granted in B.C. Supreme Court barely 24 hours before she was scheduled to die.

According to court documents, the woman was approved for medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in July by Vancouver MAiD provider Dr. Ellen Wiebe after her own doctors in southern Alberta wouldn't approve it.

Wiebe was scheduled to conduct the death at 8 p.m. on Oct. 27 at the Willow Reproductive Health Centre.

The injunction application and civil claim were filed by the woman's common-law spouse. Both names have been ordered anonymized by the court.

In the documents, the husband argues that his wife's condition — akathisia — does not qualify her for assisted death.

CBC News · Posted: Oct 30, 2024 6:24 PM MDT

[–] voluble@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Could be. Even then, it's still so odd. He's in this political win-win situation, where he has an advantage if Trudeau stays on, and he has an advantage if the Liberals make a last-minute change and roll into the election (that we all know is lingering) with an untested newbie.

Although, the CPC and Poilievre didn't earn this excellent spot on the chessboard by any strategic triumph, so maybe it's not so surprising that he appears to have no idea how to work the pieces.

[–] voluble@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Giving the highest possible benefit of the doubt - what could Poilievre's angle possibly be by saying this? What does he think it gains him?

Wouldn't a better political move be to say something like "run whoever you want. x, y, and z policies are what matter and that's what our party is going to fight for"? I mean, even if it's a lie, wouldn't that be a much more politically savvy thing to say? Off the top of my head I can think of 3 or 4 other angles to take that seem a lot better than "the Liberals have a moral responsibility to keep their current leader". That's like, high school debate level shit.

Poilievre has been on Parliament Hill for 20 years. I'm just continually baffled by what appear to me to be obvious blunders in a game he should know very well. Is there something I'm missing?

edit: Is it possible that this is an ego thing for Poilievre? Is there some thread here that, he wanted to be the one to take down Trudeau, and if internal Liberal party operations accomplish that instead, that takes away some kind of marquee victory that Poilievre wanted for himself?

[–] voluble@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Not sure where you are, but where I live, college and community radio stations are still old school, and very worth listening to. Most if not all now stream online too, so, they're around if you're looking for that hit of the olden times.

[–] voluble@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Nice!

Been hunting for an old tube state radio ever since I heard one last year - it blew my fucking mind how deep, rich, and punchy FM radio came through on that little thing. I couldn't believe how good it sounded.

[–] voluble@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 weeks ago
[–] voluble@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I don't want to call anyone out individually. But I have come across accounts with 7-8k comments in the span of a few months. I don't really think it's worth reporting them, and don't have the time or energy to research and block them individually, I'd just rather have them automatically muted on my end via a tool or plugin.

I assumed this would be something I'd have to program myself, just wasn't sure if it was clearly not possible or practical for one reason or another.

 

I'm seeing a lot of users on my preferred instance with <1yr old accounts, that have thousands of posts and comments. Whether these accounts are people with nothing better to do than post mindlessly 24/7, or are bots pushing some narrative, it doesn't make a difference, I'd rather not see what they're posting, because chances are, it's hogwash. It would be nice to be able to filter out these highly active accounts, based on a set variable of max posts per day, and/or comments per day. Any account that exceeds that variable is filtered out, and any account below it is allowed.

Does anyone have insight on whether or not this sort of filtering is possible to achieve on Lemmy? Is anyone else interested in having this sort of functionality?

Edit: I'm not trying to throw shade on active users. I appreciate active users. I'm looking to block users with AI image generated profile photos and have on average 10+ posts per day and 20+ comments per day. Those accounts seem suspicious to me.

[–] voluble@lemmy.ca 30 points 2 weeks ago

It's not obscure, but, for me, Wikipedia is the ultimate example of the old internet that still persists today.

Free to use, no account required, ad free, non-corporate, multilingual, heavily biased toward text, simple and utilitarian design. Hyperlinks concatenate relevant pieces of information, which serve as the means to navigate the site. The code is very simple (seriously, view the page source of a wikipiedia article). It's based on the human desire to learn and share knowledge with others, and has remained resilient to corruption by commercial interests that pervert that desire for monetary gain. It's a beautiful thing.

[–] voluble@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It would be nice if the current Election Interference Commission was initiated 7 years ago, after the PM was first briefed on election interference. Instead they sat on numerous subsequent briefings, and allowed 2 federal elections to take place (one of which they themselves called) where the issue was unresolved, and it remains unresolved today.

What could they have done differently? I don't know, I'm not an elected policymaker. All I see is the result, where, there's this ominous list of compromised parliamentarians that, from the outside, it doesn't seem like there is anything being done about. A provably compromised MP is still sitting in the House. There doesn't appear to be any consequence or even disincentive for foreign nations to interfere in Canadian politics. A Canadian citizen was murdered on Canadian soil by the Indian government, and all it has resulted in are meek discussions and shuffling around of ambassadors. This is a very bad situation for Canadian sovereignty.

The solutions might not be straightforward, but we should be demanding that our government do better. It's not a partisan thing.

[–] voluble@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

So these are two different things right? Election interference is one thing, but MPs being compromised by a foreign government is another different thing.

They're not always different. The Han Dong case is an example where they're intertwined. We know for a fact that Han Dong's nomination for Liberal candidate in the safe Liberal riding of Don Valley North was influenced by Chinese government pressure on Canadian citizens. It doesn't properly fall into Elections Canada's purview. The Liberals only ejected him from their party once it became publicly known that his candidacy was influenced by China. Somehow, he's still a sitting MP.

I don't think it should be left up to the leader of the party to make a call on what to do. Liberals w/ Han Dong (and possibly others, we don't know), and Conservatives, with their leader not even being briefed. There needs to be some other system or mechanism to address foreign compromise that doesn't rely on the whim of party leaders who have proven that they'll choose to deal or not deal with interference issues depending on how it might benefit or harm their party.

If RCMP investigations get bound up, and information sealed away for instances of interference that ultimately don't end up being criminal (like in Han Dong's case), something should still be done to remove them from Parliament, or censure / warn them, as the circumstance dictates. It seems to me that the secrecy of active investigations functionally acts to shield foreign influence operations from being exposed and properly responded to.

I know what you mean when you say that the government shouldn't be relied on to investigate itself. At the same time, I think they are the only body right now that can put effective mechanisms in place to deal with this issue. The fact that neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives are trustworthy enough to do this, is neither here nor there. Government should be doing something, and a responsible government that worked for the people would have started 7 years ago.

My hope is that the Election Interference Commission provides sound recommendations that are actionable before the next federal election. However, we're in a situation where the next federal election could be any day now. This is all happening too late, and I can't see how that's anybody but the Liberals' fault.

[–] voluble@lemmy.ca 0 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

Two elections have passed since the PM was briefed on election interference, and he knew about the issue for years before Poilievre was leader of the CPC. The fact that they're talking about Poilievre at all seems to me to be an abdication of responsibility.

[–] voluble@lemmy.ca 0 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Hours of logjammed question periods of Poilievre saying "release the names" and Liberals saying "get the clearance". Liberals are framing the issue around Poilievre's obstinance, in the house, and now in testimony to the Foreign Interference Commission. It's not honest.

 

A new parliamentary report paints a stark picture of foreign interference in Canadian politics, characterizing the government's response as a 'serious failure' that could impact the country for years to come.

Link to the report (pdf)

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