runsmooth

1

Oh man, I still need to see that. Thank you for reminding me.

3

What anime is this?

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Virkkunen said the Commission will also establish a European co-ordination mechanism to ensure consistency as member states implement their own national age verification schemes, which currently vary significantly in approach and minimum age thresholds.
The app arrives as at least a dozen European countries, including the UK and Norway, have enacted or are actively considering legislation setting minimum age limits for social media, typically between 13 and 16 years.

Part of a global lobbying effort as Canada's governing party, the Liberal Party of Canada, is also discussing age verification simultaneously, as are a number of US states.

runsmooth @kopitalk.net 2w ago

I sympathize too, but these conditions have persisted for decades. People have sounded the alarm for decades.

Landowners get attention from legacy media, but it took a doctor who had to risk everything to sound the alarm for the people of Fort Chipewyan and beyond. Dr O'Connor faced complaints from his own College and defended himself. He must have felt like an island at that point.

In 2006, Dr. John O'Connor started raising concerns about disproportionately high rates of cancer in Fort Chipewyan, Alta., believing that nearby oilsands sites may have played a role.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-whistleblower-fort-chipewyan-john-o-connor-1.5943389

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runsmooth @kopitalk.net 3w ago

The US has slowly come alive to the issue of the world cutting them out of the conversation entirely with direct bilateral negotiations with Iran. This is the only way to forcefully inject the US back into the conversation. But as experts already point out, Iran has the home ground advantage. The US navy can maintain that position to block the strait, but antagonizing all of Asia will have consequences.

Asia's countries face serious shortages of gas and diesel - which is well known. If the US presents itself as not just the cause, but now the enforcer of this very precarious position, many US allies will be forced into a terrible choice: Loyalty or survival.

https://www.arabianbusiness.com/finance/economy/south-korea-seeks-to-move-26-stranded-vessels-through-strait-of-hormuz-during-ceasefire

runsmooth @kopitalk.net 3w ago

Canadians are being subjected to a new round of psychological operations on this very issue, and the Liberals are being lobbied to hell and back on the subject given how the news is pushing this.

We're not new to the issue either. In Calgary the public reaction to a mall's directory and map kiosk allegedly tracking age and gender data of people walking by was largely negative. American interests are trying to massage this back into the public consciousness.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4355444/chinook-mall-calgary-facial-recognition-technology/

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runsmooth @kopitalk.net 3w ago

I'm still in the camp that thinks this is a push by the ad and marketing companies to improve their targeting.

The world is savvy to invasions of privacy, and many users probably choose ad and tracking blockers of various kinds. I agree the kids need to be educated about this kind of targeting and manipulation, but I'm not sure another booze er...social media prohibition solves any problem.

As Citizen Lab points out, there's big money and serious players behind all that targeting and surveillance. Why contribute to it?

https://kopitalk.net/c/canada/p/364736/kids-groups-say-they-didnt-know-openai-was-behind-their-child-safety-coalition

https://citizenlab.ca/research/analysis-of-penlinks-ad-based-geolocation-surveillance-tech/

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runsmooth @kopitalk.net 3w ago

This is PR and American propaganda for the real sauce last month where Reddit, Meta, and Google basically assumed the proper position and voluntarily gave DHS info.

They suffered reputational damage, and this is their government compensation package: a promotional up-do.

https://gizmodo.com/reddit-meta-and-google-voluntarily-gave-dhs-info-of-anti-ice-users-report-says-2000722279

runsmooth @kopitalk.net 3w ago

Is anyone even going anymore? Anyone got the jet fuel to get there and back?

1

runsmooth @kopitalk.net 3w ago

I thought her family is Zionist. She spent her whole term as VP providing diplomatic protection for Israel, and in part served a meaningful role in one of the worst man made famines in human history and the destruction of Gaza. Maybe she's not explicitly genocidal, but her actions are what brought the world to this exact global mess. Whether one blames Trump or not, there's a sequence of actions taken to get here - I'm just saying Harris and the surrounding network is a part of that.

I suppose the world may be in the process of coming to terms that the Americans can no longer solve the issue internally. At some point, I wouldn't be surprised as more countries just negotiate directly with Iran, and without the US.

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runsmooth @kopitalk.net 3w ago

DNC re-affirms that money is power, and its commitment of the US to the Israel vs. Middle East conflict.

runsmooth @kopitalk.net 3w ago

For what it's worth, I tried as Portnoy suggested and searched for "quantum matrix and synapse". I found this curious Cloudflare blog post about a serverless, post-quantum Matrix homeserver. I'm not too familiar with the Cloudflare offerings though.

https://blog.cloudflare.com/serverless-matrix-homeserver-workers/

runsmooth @kopitalk.net 3w ago

He [Lt. David Collins] said CoreCivic “did not request our involvement” for any cases last year.
“Because no criminal investigations were initiated by the Sheriff’s Office, no reports were forwarded to the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office for consideration of charges,” he said.

Outsider Canadian here, but is this not your red flag - among many red flags - that the private prison facility is now a lawless zone and perhaps the Sheriff's office and prison operators are now shockingly open to criminal and civil liability? Under what authority would a Sheriff's office have to enter an understanding with a private company as far as who is responsible to investigate crimes?

In some jurisdictions, the police would act as basically an office holder when they decide when a piece of legislation was violated, and to lay charges against an individual. Police are agents or employees of the state when they are not exercising this special authority to charge people with offences. When the charge is laid, the prosecutors take over the file. But now you're saying that the police no longer want to use that special function - the reason why they exist - and they hand it to a private company with their own interests beyond the Justice System?

This isn't the Justice System any longer, this is collapse.

runsmooth @kopitalk.net 3w ago

I'd also point out for those wondering if a Public Corp can be seeded in the way I describe, I think there's a deep potential across Canada.

"Edmonton looks to sell, demolish old buildings due to $3-billion gap"

https://edmonton.citynews.ca/video/2026/04/08/edmonton-looks-to-sell-demolish-old-buildings-due-to-3-billion-gap/

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runsmooth @kopitalk.net 3w ago

TL;DR - Crown Corps don’t go far enough, get raided by politicians, and sometimes aren’t juiced enough to repel private interests.

I have some reservations about this in the sense that it doesn’t go far enough to solve some of the issues that are evergreen, but now are critical. I’m sure most would agree that there’s a lot of logic to have a public corp operate what are accepted Public Goods (transportation, healthcare, utilities). But simply creating a Crown Corps that holds the status of 100% state owned doesn’t solve some of the more prominent issues with these corporate vehicles.

I've said as much before, but I believe that the politician is both the most flexible and the weakest unit in the chain. Politicians are lobbied (possibly to the point of corruption), corporations with global shareholders have interests that go beyond the jurisdiction, and public corporations (Crown Corps) that become successful are targets of acquisition via…the Politician.

Drawing inspiration from the experience of Danielle Smith’s CorruptCare in Alberta, and the so-called “War Room” of Premier Jason Kenny’s years, I would want a fully autonomous Public Corp that is completely divorced from the politician, and focused solely on the provision of the Public Good in question with some hard baked fiduciary requirements: to focus on the targeted jurisdiction, to include stakeholder consultations (community, municipalities, interest groups), to have quarterly reports to a multidisciplinary committee of experts (economics, health, social workers, lawyers, emergency response, military, engineers, agriculture, aviation, environment, accountants etc.), and to respond to these stakeholders and experts in semi-regular town hall styled discussions. In this environment, the Office of the Ethics Commissioner would be free to engage in all discussions, and publicly weigh in on any issues that arise.

The government in question would simply seed the Public Corp by handing over property and be on a list of preferred service providers on the understanding that the Public Corp would operate in the public interest, and at a preferential rate like as if the property in question is completely undeveloped. In turn, the Public Corp would be essentially unbound, and allowed to develop property, invest, grow, make loans, and create other corporate entities, unfettered by the threat of hard baked backdoors where the politician may be tempted to raid the cookie jars of successful Crown Corps for money, install cronies, and peddle influence.

In exchange for this unusual arrangement, because the Politician is normally the interface for the public, the Public Corp makes some binding vows. Off the top of my head to never sell out to foreign interference or designated opposing forces should be an easy one. Another example is Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation. Besides the most elementary focuses on providing safe, reliable public transportation, MTR is bound to only make investments that are expected to bring returns on investment. We could also build in some kind of mechanism of greater punishment for anyone involved with the Public Corp that later is found to be stealing or involved in corruption.

We can also use the Scandinavian Model by basically having the Public Corp aim for 51% of the market.

Alberta nearly had that with its Alberta Health Services, but the UCP and Danielle Smith have destroyed it.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/article/alberta-doctors-say-leadership-lacking-amid-crisis-of-overcrowding-in-hospitals/

BC had something similar with its ICBC, but I understand some of ICBC’s success was just too tempting over the years.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/icbc-proposed-class-action-lawsuit-1.5483879