Martin Grasdal 🍁

@mgrasdal.bsky.social

1709 Followers 1663 Following

Old IT guy, nearing retirement. Living proof that a degree in Engl. Lit & Philosophy is far from useless. Lover of fiction (including sci-fi & fantasy), history, classics, etc,. Classical music lover.

A poster advertising a 1967 film version of James Joyce's Ulysses, directed by Joseph Strick. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(1967_film)
Screenshot of Twitter post from the Israeli Ambassador to Canada. The text reads STATEMENT BY AMBASSADOR IDDO MOED: “Friendship should never be controversial.” At Calgary Stampede with a 6-person tech delegation, I reconnected with Albertan friends old and new, and saw firsthand the growing strength of the Israel–Alberta partnership. But it’s unacceptable for hate to creep and fester into a space built on hospitality, undermining the respect and empathy that should define it.
Shaded relief map of North America showing the distribution of various types of land cover. Of note, is the large swaths of green in Canada showing the continuous boreal forest biome (approximately 280 million hectares) that comprises much of Northern Canada. Source: https://infographic.tv/map-jakub-marians-land-cover-map-of-north-america-2000x2460/
Pierre Poilievre, looking disheveled and possibly drunk or high, exiting a graffiti riddled trailer that is a breeding ground for right-wing nutjobs.
Pierre Poilievre at the 2023 Stampede. Wearing a black cowboy hat, he is posing for a picture standing between a man and a woman. The man is wearing a green Straight Pride t-shirt.
Guernica. 1937. Pablo Picasso. Museo Reina SofĂ­a in Madrid. Picture portrays in black, white, and grey the suffering, violence, and chaos created the by the bombing of Guernica, a town in the Basque region of Spain, in 1937 by fascists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(Picasso)
A picture of Bonnie Raitt and her band at the end of her concert on June 23 at the Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton. Not the first time she has played this venue. She's been coming to Edmonton for many years. I hope she comes for many more.
Mr. Anderson, an author of the separatist “Free Alberta Strategy” who seems to grow more obnoxious by the day, continued: “If you don’t like the policy Naheed, explain why to Albertans and run your election campaign on it. We’ll beat you fair and square. But don’t whine to Ottawa and ask them to oversee and interfere in our provincial affairs. Grow a spine dude …”
Finance Minister Jason Nixon explained that the legislation states either a reduction in gas taxes or a rebate are acceptable ways to protect Alberta taxpayers from paying for services provided by government. I paraphrase.
A picture of a clear sky at twilight with dark low mountains in the foreground. Above the mountains in a darkening sky a sliver of the moon is visible. A single star, Venus, appears down and to the right of the moon. As the sky darkens later, Jupiter will become visible to the right of Venus at the 4 o'clock position.
Picture of a church on the top of a hill nestled among various buildings. In the background, the light from a setting sun is filtered by clouds, creating a contrast of lighter and darker rays of light.
A section from a panel of tiles displayed at Casa de Pilatos in Seville,Spain.
The new arrivals injected life into the Spanish economy. By filling labor shortages, they allowed existing businesses to expand to serve more customers, which, in turn, created the need for even more workers. The migrants were also, of course, consumers, who bought goods and services. Many also started their own businesses. Rather than harming native-born workers, the immigration surge seems to have helped them. The unemployment rate for native-born Spaniards has plummeted while incomes have risen by double digits; the poorest workers experienced the largest increase. A report from the Bank of Spain estimates that a quarter of the rise in the country’s per capita GDP from 2022 to 2024 could be attributed to immigrants.
Around 700,000 Albertans signed citizen-led petitions pertaining to Alberta's spot in Canada. About 400,000 signed the Forever Canadian petition which was seeking a legislature vote on if Alberta should stay in Confederation. Pro-separatist group Stay Free Alberta said it has collected around 300,000 signatures, though these haven't been verified by Elections Alberta. The petition asks for a separatist referendum question. The future of that campaign is now in doubt after a judge ruled earlier this month that Alberta's chief electoral officer made an error in law when he approved the citizen initiative petition.
Even the separatists, the people Smith meant to appease, hated it. Because the vote is both vague and not binding, many saw it as a betrayal of their efforts. One prominent separatist leader said Smith “looked every Albertan in the eye and lied to their faces”, calling her “the most dishonest and corrupt leader in my lifetime.” Another wrote that Smith had “betrayed” her base.
Trump's mocking of clean energy has helped China dominate the future of green technology. While Trump has mocked renewable energy, pushing us to be more dependent on oil. China became the world's #1 producer of solar panels. China has also become the world’s #1 producer of batteries and the world’s #1 producer of electric vehicles. These are the industries of the next century. China built them. We argued about windmills.
Arthur Green, Mr Ellis's spokesman, did not acknowledge questions about when the RCMP deputy provided the government with the information about separatists and foreign interference, how the information was communicated, whether the minister is satisfied with the RCMP's assessment, or why neither the Mounties nor Alberta disseminated the information publicly.
Picture of George Bush delivering a speech on the aircraft carrier, USS Lincoln, on May 1, 2003, proclaiming the end of major combat operations in Iraq. Behind him a banner reads, "Mission Accomplished".
“The existence of parliamentary consensus, such as a unanimous vote on any measure, cannot serve as justification for a violation of a Charter right,” the appeal court said in a summary of its decision. Three conservative-led provinces, Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan, supported Quebec in court. The provinces all argued that the Supreme Court should defer to legislatures on questions of voters’ effective representation. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association was an intervener at the Supreme Court. Anaïs Bussières McNicoll, a director at the association, said that while the Quebec situation isn’t gerrymandering, elected officials drawing electoral maps is a clear sign of apparent bias.
Cover of The Norse Myths by Kevin Crossley-Holland, published in 1980 by Andre Deutsch.
Screenshot of profile of Bluesky account called Space (@redditspaceviewes.bsky.social). Profile picture is an astronaut on a moon walk. Background is an image of a galaxy.
Recommendation 5: In the circumstance that the Legislative Assembly of Alberta finds that it cannot concur in the proposals of the majority of the Electoral Boundaries Commission in its final report to remove two electoral divisions from areas outside of the Cities of Edmonton and Calgary, the majority of the Commission recommends that the Assembly make amendments to the Electoral Divisions Act, increasing the number of electoral divisions from 89 to 91 for the next general election, and restore the two electoral divisions that this Commission has removed. The rest of the province as we propose must be maintained to the extent possible. This would need to be studied by an all-party Select Special Committee or other equivalent Legislative Committee in accordance with its Standing Orders. However, restoration of the two electoral divisions should: a) have no impact on any electoral division in Airdrie or containing territory south of Airdrie’s southernmost border, with the exception of Drumheller-Stettler; b) have no impact on any electoral division north of the North Saskatchewan River in Edmonton; c) result in all electoral divisions south of the North Saskatchewan River in Edmonton reverting to the map outlined in the interim report, with the possible exception of including Nisku in Edmonton-South East if the all-party committee wishes to restore Leduc and Beaumont being in the same electoral division; and d) consider restoring an electoral division mostly consisting of Clearwater County and western Mountain View County as an electoral division with s. 15(2) status under the Act.
Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP
Picture of the end of the Kathleen Edwards concert. Band is walking off. Kathleen is saying her final good bye to the audience.
In an interview with CBC News in Dallas, Texas, Ford said such a deal would undermine Ontario autoworkers. "It's unacceptable. It's everything against what the federal government told the auto workers here in Ontario," Ford said. "We can't have cheap Chinese parts and kits coming over to be assembled," he said. "We're dead against this."
Front page of the Edmonton Journal, showing an expensive full-page ad featuring a picture of Danielle Smith, a caption claiming that the UCP is doing great things for the city, and a request to fill out a UCP survey. The Edmonton Journal is a fucking rag.
Picture shows a copy of The Concept of Law by H.L.A Hart. The price tag reads 11.25 from the U of C bookstore.
Picture of me holding my 60s era Conn 8D horn, which was made as part of the last production run in the Elkhart factory before moving production to Texas. American craftsmanship at its finest, when such things mattered more.
Screen shot of Clearsky.app showing the accounts blocked by Yanqui go home (@armitags27.bsky.social). Among the accounts are mine and @mitchellab.bsky.social.
Screensho from clearsky.app that shows the users blocked by another Bluesky user. The user blocked just before me is Michael Stipe of R.E.M. (one of my favorite bands) fame.
View of a steep ski run (Highway 16) at Marmot Basin in Jasper National Park. The ski run is covered in a fresh layer of snow. Weather is snowy and overcast.
A representation of score showing colour discrimination. My Just Noticeable Difference (JND) score is 0.0064. The lower number the better. The average score is 0.0253. But this is a game, not a lab score. Still, fairly content with this score. Here's a link explaining the game/test. https://www.keithcirkel.co.uk/too-much-color/ Anyway, very cool.
Manning has responded by calling Rath’s comments “highly inaccurate,” and telling The Tyee that Rath’s appearances on CBC and other media create an impression that “western secession is mainly being pushed by an ill-informed group of cowboy yahoos.
view from the top of the Knob chair lift at Marmot Basin ski resort in Jasper National Park.
CrĂ´teau said Canadians should keep in mind that Trump's comments have "real human implications." "We hear a lot about the geopolitical situation, and it seems very kind of far away, but it has real impacts on people and on their feeling of safety and well-being."
"You get out your Fascism for Dummies book for the 15 things you do, and we tried to include as many of them as we could in the most artful way possible,” GIlroy tells The Hollywood Reporter. “How were we supposed to know that this clown car in Washington was going to basically use the same book that we used? So I don’t think it’s prescience so much as the sad familiarity of fascism."
Photo of Jill Stein sitting at a dinner table with Vladimir Putin and Mike Flynn in 2015. Mike Flynn was paid 45K to attend the Moscow Gala dinner.
Graphic showing the distribution of media sources preferred by leavers or remainers. The question is "When it comes to the issue of a potential referendum and Alberta separation, where would you say most of the information you learn about this issue comes from?" There are 4 columns, from left to right: Media Source, All Alberta, Leave, Remain. Mainstream Media sources: Alberta, 56%; Leave, 28%; Stay, 71% Social Media: Alberta, 43%; Leave, 37%; Stay, 45% Conversations with Friends and Family: Alberta,31%; Leave, 45%; Stay 28% Alternative Media Sources: Alberta, 28%; Leave, 50%; Remain, 18% Events hosted by Alberta Prosperity Project: Alberta, 8%; Leave, 23%, Stay, 1%
View of a long, steep ski run. White snow capped mountains in the distance, contrasting with a deep azure blue sky.
Top of the Knob chair lift at Marmot Basin in Jasper National Park.
View from the top of Eagle chair lift at Marmot Basin in Jasper National Park. An empty string of chairs on the lift is visible in the foreground. In the background is a broad mountain valley. The town of Jasper is visible at the bottom of the valley.
Early morning view from the top of the Eagle Express chair lift at Marmot Basin ski hill in Jasper National park in Alberta, Canada. View shows an empty, snow covered ski run overlooking a broad mountain valley. In the distance, you can make out the townsite of Jasper, Alberta. Ski conditions are great. Lots of snow. Weather is overcast, but visibility on the mountain is good. Temperature is around -10 C.
Picture shows the cover of the 1959 album, Back to Back, featuring Duke Ellington and Jonny Hodges. Some fantastic playing.
HSBC projects that even if OpenAI is making $200 billion by 2030, it would still need a staggering $207 billion in funding to stay afloat. As OpenAI scales, so does its costs. Its expensive frontier models like Sora 2 and GPT-5 cost millions of dollars a day to run, requiring enormous amounts of compute. These models are given away at cost in attempts to drive adoption, create lock-in, and essentially alter human behavior. You can think of it similarly to Spotify, which spent well over a decade completely unprofitable until it had basically re-written the way humans consume music and how labels distribute music. OpenAI is trying to achieve a similar result on a far, far larger, and potentially far more damaging scale. Spotify collapsing wouldn't have had any impact on the global economy. But, if we get to a point where it seems the economics of "AI" and LLMs simply don't work — it could have a similar impact on markets to the dot com bubble or the credit crunch. There's simply so much invested in these companies and initiatives right now, that inability to service the debt would trigger a wave of instability.
The Borg Queen, played by Alice Krige, from the Star Trek franchises,
View of the northern lights in a residential district in Edmonton, Alberta.
There have been real and appalling scandals in the BBC’s recent history. This is not one of them. Any sane political/media environment would treat it as what it is: a minor, to the point of trivial embarrassment. Instead the reaction has been hysterical. The edit in question was clearly a mistake. It was unfair to Trump because it gave the impression of his saying something that he did not. But how much does it matter? Did the edit fundamentally mislead the viewer about the events of that period and Trump’s role within them? Can anyone credibly claim that the overall subject and critique of the documentary was not based in truth and fact? 1) Donald Trump lied about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and continues to lie about it until this day. In so doing he introduced a toxin into American politics which will take a generation to exorcise. 2) Trump did incite the mob on January 6th. Put simply, had he not lied about the election, they would never have been there in the first place. The conclusion that Trump was instrumental in that violence is borne out from the impeachment House and Senate votes, which though below the threshold of conviction were bipartisan, and the subsequent Congressional inquiry into the events of the riots which set Trump’s role out in meticulous detail. Trump then proceeded to make clear how un-seriously he took the violence by pardoning everyone involved, many of whom have spoken to the authorities and explicitly said that the only reason they were there that day and did what they did was because of Trump. These aren’t opinions, these are facts and if the BBC cannot robustly defend itself on that basis then it is truly lost.
Picture of Jeremy MacKenzie, founder of the racist groups, Diaglon and the Second Sons, posing with Pierre Poilievre. Both have a fist raised to shoulder height and bothe are grinning. MacKenzie's left hand in PP's back. They look like they are great friends.
Schow said he’d refer details to Justice Minister Mickey Amery, who will bring in the bill. Amery wasn’t at the briefing. “As a voter, I think it’s important that people have been able to go to the ballot box and have a general understanding about the candidates and what they represent,” Schow said. “We’ve seen instances in the past where the message has been a little bit unclear, to say the least, and we’re taking steps to bring clarity and transparency to the election process.”
The homepage of https://clearsky.app showng the top 5 blocked accounts in descending order. JD Vance Whitehouse-47 Jessie Singal Nowbreezing Brianna Wu
List of the top 20 accounts shown on @clearsky.app that have been blocked in the past 24 hours. Almost all of them are official US government accounts that appeared on Bluesky within the past day or two. At the top of the list is the @whitehouse-47.bsky.social followed by accounts for DHS, Defense, HHS, State, Commerce, and others.
Picture of 4 notorious asshats. From left to right, Jordan Peterson, Danielle Smith, Tucker Carlson, and Conrad Black.
A National Lampoon cover from January, 1973, showing a dog with a gun pointed at its head. The caption reads, "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog". For the back story on this iconic cover and the sad fate of the model, Cheeseface, see https://www.sevendaysvt.com/news/who-shot-mr-cheeseface-the-vermont-demise-of-a-famous-mutt-23671435/
Crowd of protesters at rally to support teachers and public education on October 5, 2025 at the Alberta Legislature grounds. Was a very good turnout. Lots of people came with signs .
Rally for public education to support teachers at the provincial legislature in Edmonton, Alberta on Oct.5, 2025.
The transaction will be funded by a combination of cash from each of PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners as well as roll-over of PIF’s existing stake in EA, constituting an equity investment of approximately $36 billion, and $20 billion of debt financing fully and solely committed by JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., $18 billion of which is expected to be funded at close. Each of PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners plan to fund the equity component of the financing entirely from capital under their respective control.
View of Upper Arrow Lake on a sunny day at the Galena Bay Ferry dock.
View of the lake and mountains from the Upper Arrow Lake Ferry.
Pileated woodpecker on a branch of a tree.
The New Yorker magazine cover for Sept. 29, 2025. A tiny hand emerges from a big suit. The hand grasps a TV remote with a thumb hovered over a button. The other button on the remote read Power Mute Pause Stop Stifle Silence Shun Sack Banish Oust Muzzle Axe Dimiss Torment Deport