Metaneos

CBC News
Sounds like good advice, returning payroll back to local hands.

"A sustainable solution will take years and cost more than the $540 million the government expected to spend to resolve pay problems," the audit concluded. A stark assessment. I wouldn't be surprised if the government was off by billions. The longer the problems continue, the greater the price to fixing the system.
They can lose money trying to make this faulty system work, or they can return to a tried and true method. It should be an easy choice, but it's not likely to happen.

EarthSky

Update: Welp, I've already made changes to the spreadsheet I've been working with (and also edited the spacing in the posting). Take my numbers, and think of them as worse than I initially expected. I forgot to account for inertia. Of course, I was only doing this as an exercise for the brain. The numbers grow more and more dismaying, though. And these are just estimates, based on nothing more than news articles. I can't imagine the actual numbers, and what scientists and statisticians are finding. It's just awful.

Well, this was to be expected, right? If global warming is rising exponentially, then all that follows should match. Such should include climate change. We should be expecting stranger weather at an increased rate until normalization occurs, which should be decades after maximum warming.

The Earth has enough carbon to produce six degrees of warming in total, but we wish to keep it to two and a half degrees. However, we've already hit two degrees…

The Atlantic
My goodness. What is suggested in this report is how a changing climate can negatively effect our physiology, which could turn our own bodily systems against itself.
Only one factor fit the bill: climate. The places where the saigas died in May 2015 were extremely warm and humid. In fact, humidity levels were the highest ever seen the region since records began in 1948. The same pattern held for two earlier, and much smaller, die-offs from 1981 and 1988. When the temperature gets really hot, and the air gets really wet, saiga die. Climate is the trigger, Pasteurella is the bullet.

Made a comment at The Disaffected Lib. Reposted here for personal archival purposes, as I may build upon some of the themes within.
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Historically, people like Trump tend to be empire's second-to-last leaders. Leaders who lead their nations into stagnant and ruinous policies. Think Brezhnev. Mehmed V.
It's generally a series of unfortunate coincidences that lead to their installments, and it's usually a series of blundering events they create leading to their empire's decline.
Well, helping to lead to their empire's decline.
The political atmosphere which foster these sorts of leaders helps, too.
Trump crawled fully formed out of a membrane which was vomited onto the floor in the United States during the end of Age of Reagan. I really can't say it was inevitable that Trump would win election in the USA, but it was inevitable that someone much like Trump eventually would.
It's down to the momentum of history, I suppose, that it happened.

To rej…

Personality politics emerge as pipeline dispute pits Alberta against B.C.
"For Ms. Notley to tell British Columbia that somehow chasing the 20th century is the way for our future is not a good sign for her and her economy in Alberta," Weaver said. "Frankly, I think she should get with the program and embrace the 21st century as well." I've gotta agree with this. The tar sands have become a money pit, an economic black hole from which Canada needs to try escaping before they take down the entire economy. Back in 2009, Canada was spending $30 billion a year in subsidies so that the tar sands could generate a mere $10 billion in profit. That's, frankly, insane. That was when the price of crude was well over $100 per barrel. With prices falling dramatically to below $50 per barrel, that $10 billion in profit dried up rather quickly. And whatever profit was being generated fell just as much as the price of oil, which means Canada's now probably spending a…

The BC NDP almost broke through. It's another BC Liberal government, but only with the cooperation of the Green Party. If I had any say with the BC NDP, I'd counsel them that this is an opportunity rather than a setback. The BC NDP almost outright won. Just a few more seats. Just a few more. Furthermore, I'd counsel the BC NDP to put enormous pressure onto the BC Liberals/Green alliance. Offer nothing but poison pills to them. Push bills such as outright shutting down Site C and Kinder Morgen. Test the environmental bonafides of the Greens. See if they backpeddle on their claims to being an environmental political party simply to keep their alliance with the BC Liberals alive. Offer the Greens absolutely nothing but yes or no choices. And make sure that the BC electorate knows what happens if it goes the way of the BC NDP. Also, craft opposition bills to that are popular with the BC electorate that the BC Liberals have historically have had nothing to do with, such as indexin…