Terrible. Stiles caved to pressure from an Apartheid government currently engaged in acts of genocide during a war escalated by a terrorist attack by Hamas. Stiles doesn’t want an MPP willing to speak out against a foreign government openly waging an asymmetrical war in response to a terrorist attack. Having humanity doesn’t poll well in Ontario, perhaps?
#BREAKING: MPP Sarah Jama has been removed from the Ontario NDP caucus, leader Marit Stiles announces #onpoli
All the terrible people who support a government bombing hospitals and refugee camps while committing the war crime of genocide by attacking an entire civilian population to turn their homes into “islands of ruin”, really don’t like these tweets.
If the response to a terrorist attack is genocide, who are the bad guys? Trick question, there’s no good guys in that conflict. And people pointing it out are not the ones creating the terrible war killing thousands of innocent people.
Since I made my statement, Israel has bombed refugee camps, UN schools, hospitals, airports & the Rafah border crossing between Gaza & Egypt. The unspeakable destruction continues, & represents collective punishment against all Gazans in retaliation for attacks by Hamas. 3/
I restate my call for an immediate ceasefire by Israeli forces, and for the immediate restoration of food, water, fuel, and electricity to Gaza. I applaud the many elected officials in Canada who have joined this call in recent days, and I hope even more of you will speak out. 5/
2 Catholic school administrators did damage to their city’s reputation by discouraging teachers and then parents from allowing their kids to attend a welcoming and inclusive space at a corporate sponsored event in their city. Homophobes and transphobes have been siding with the traditionally homophobic and hate-mongering church school system, even after the Pope told Catholics to soften their stance against homosexuality in recent months.
This is utter bulls**t. You make a judgment by by excluding only one event at this festival. Parents and kids sign permission forms to go to ANY event off of school grounds- therefore, you negatively italicize the 🌈Rainbow Tent🌈as something ‘different’ something ‘sinful’. 🤬 pic.twitter.com/zGjlgjZTYB
— Layton Burton 🏳️🌈 (@laytonburton61) May 26, 2023
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And an unrelated story from Saskatoon: A cement truck driver struck and killed a mother in front of her children. MSM screwed up their articles about it by not even mentioning that there was a driver of the truck involved, let alone what charges were laid if any.
A self-driving cement truck killed a teacher?@TheStarPhoenix fix your effing headline. A *driver* in a cement truck was involved in crushing her to death. @ThiaJamesSP https://t.co/l3SAkUob6w
— John "Saskboy" Klein (@JohnKleinRegina) May 26, 2023
The following was given as a presentation to the Unitarian Fellowship of Regina. I enjoyed my time this morning after being invited to speak about Electric Vehicles.
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Most adults in Regina have driven a car before, but fewer than 1 in 100 have an electric vehicle. As a driver, why would you want to drive an EV, instead of a gas vehicle? There is a long list of reasons to do it, while the reasons not to are shrinking as the years go by. At the end of my talk, I promise you’ll know more about EVs, and can use this knowledge to save money, reduce pollution, and help others to resist the disinformation campaign to keep EVs mysterious and less-used than their petroleum burning cousins.
The first thing to know about EVs is that they were the original motor car. Gas cars came later, and didn’t have as much appeal to many people, because they were less convenient. You had to crank start them, for instance, and find fuel for them. Electricity was more easily available. Battery technology was heavy, however. You couldn’t go on the long, convenient trips that people expect from their automobiles now. So as electric starters came into being, gas cars took over. The prevalence of fuel stations had expanded too, making travel by gasoline more convenient.
Technology has flipped this situation again though. With improved batteries, the more simple and efficient electric vehicle is again on top for technology and convenience. Most Regina homes have a driveway or garage with electricity, so you can fill up at home, on an ordinary 120V outlet like your gas vehicle’s block heater uses. There are long-range EV from many manufacturers like Hyundai, Kia, Tesla, GM, Ford, and others. There are also convenient filling stations for EVs across the province, and the charging network is getting better each year. There are apps like Plugshare.com that show you where virtually every charger is located.
So that’s where things stand for the moment.
Why should you trust my opinion about this? In comparison to 99% of other Saskatchewanians, I’m an expert in EVs. I’ve owned an EV since 2017. I’ve managed a fleet of two other EVs for Regina Car Share Co-operative. I took a borrowed EV on a 6100km vacation road trip this summer to Ottawa and back to Regina. I’ve driven 4 makes of EVs, and I’ve been given rides in every sort of production Tesla model. And I’m confident in the technology gaining wider market share so I’ve invested in 4 different EV-specific automakers too.
I’ve spent a decade and a half working to build alternative transportation to the predominant privately owned automobile that has misshapen our city. What do I mean by that? How have cars misshapen Regina? Practically every community project revolves around parking cars, whether it’s an event, or even the construction of a new building. We’ve placed less emphasis on public transportation for generations, and it shows in how we think about, build, and move ourselves around our city. It’s difficult to exist in Regina without access to a car.
In 2007 I learned about car sharing, and with a few dozen other Reginans we formed the Regina Car Share Co-operative the following year. We’ve held several of our AGMs in the basement of the Unitarian Centre, over the years. The idea is to have cars available to people for hourly rentals, 24 hours a day, using the Internet to book time with them. This reduces the cost of using a vehicle. Most people pay for a vehicle even when it sits idle in their driveway. Insurance is a daily cost we tend to overlook. People pay for carsharing vehicles mostly when they’re driving them, instead of while they’re asleep. We’ve managed to add 2 EVs to Regina Car Share Co-op’s fleet, as electric vehicles are less costly to maintain and to recharge. They also don’t need oil changes, which saves hassle and expense while maintaining a fleet of vehicles.
I mentioned that there’s a disinformation campaign keeping the electric car from widespread adoption despite its advantages over the more common gasoline vehicles. Regina City Council got a taste of some of it in past years when it turned down free EV chargers from Sun Country Highway. Council was given some unusually high cost estimates for installation, to dissuade it from accepting the chargers. It didn’t take the gift. Now the City has an electric pickup truck, and could have charged it on that free hardware.
In early 2021 a city Councillor pitched the idea of preventing fossil fuel companies from advertising on city-owned property. The Premier of Saskatchewan, whose party happens to take large donations from fossil fuel and advertising companies, responded angrily. Ward 6 Councillor Dan LeBlanc lost his job at a law firm in the organized backlash. As you can see, there is big money, and powerful people behind keeping us stuck on gas powered transportation, so you have to be skeptical of negative things you hear about EVs. That’s not to say they’re perfect, they certainly have their faults, but stacked up against gas burning vehicles, they’re better in most ways.
Have you heard of problems regarding EVs? What are some of them? Let’s address those ideas:
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Winter, battery recycling, slow charging time, range, cost, limited servicing options, conflict minerals, pollution shifting, etc.
What makes an EV cost less to operate than an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicle? Physics. An electric motor is far more efficient than an ICE. For each unit of energy you put into an electric motor, you go further and produce less waste heat compared to any ICE. Energy is expensive, and in most cases in Saskatchewan it’s produced from dirty sources. However, Saskatchewan’s electrical grid is only 40% coal powered right now, and that figure is dropping this decade, approaching 0%. Even on today’s fossil fueled grid, SaskPower confirms EVs charged by it produce 30% fewer emissions than if they came from the tailpipe of a similar vehicle.
The cost comparison when you look at electricity vs. fuel, is stark. In April 2022 I took a trip to Moose Jaw in my EV, and it used $3.33 of electricity for the entire round trip. With gas at about $1.55/L it’s more like $24 for that same trip if I burned gas. It used to be about 4-5 times less expensive to use electricity instead of gas, but with the price of gas much higher, it’s more like 7-9 times less expensive.
Now you have a sense of how much money you’d be saving if you switched from driving a gas-burning car to an EV. A back-of-the-napkin calculation would be to think what you spent on gasoline in the last month, divide that number by 7, and apply the result to your next power bill instead.
If you charge it using SaskPower’s electricity instead of a solar array at home, you’d be producing at least 30% fewer emissions, with no tailpipe emissions inside Regina.
And if you share some of these bits of experience with people replacing their cars, they may have a greater opportunity to save money, and reduce emissions than if they stroll into an auto dealer ready to accept outdated gas technology that will cost them more to operate while making more pollution than they would with an EV car or truck.
There are things going on. From absurd numbers of kids home sick from school, to the Grey Cup going on today in Regina.
The most vocal civilian critic of the SaskParty’s support of abusive religious schools (who were teaching dinosaurs were around with Creationist people), had their home vandalized with bible verse graffiti. They fled, and their home was torched, killing some of their pets and destroying their belongings! A fundraiser is attempting to help them. I’d like to see it exceed their goal, to show that the governing party’s thugs can’t chase good people away.
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Doug Ford in Ontario kicked an ant hill and almost got bit. He legislated workers back to work with the Notwithstanding Clause in the Charter, overriding their Charter right to collective bargaining. He caved when he saw a general strike was imminent. The fines were so big, the unions had to fight to the mat and beyond to win.
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The US election looks like the Democrats will take the Senate and the Republicans the House. Fingers crossed that the GQP doesn’t take a majority in the House, so it won’t be tied up with stupidity for quite as long. The counting and recounting is taking quite some time, and there’s a runoff in Georgia again between Walker and Warnock this time. Walker is a complete idiot, so he’s got a chance.
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Russia just launched missiles into Poland the other day, a dangerous escalation of their war against Ukraine. There are Russia supporters claiming this was disinformation, and that Russia didn’t launch an attack, even accidentally, on Poland.
If you’re old enough, and into American odd news, you’ll remember Jerry Falwell saying he thought the purple Teletubbie was gay. His son carried on in the family tradition of spreading religious themed bigotry and hatred of queer people.
"Christian" Trumpers who pretend they're so perfect, and pious, and cast a scornful eye, hurtful words, and legions of religious bigots upon the LGBTQ+ community, have themselves lived non-heteronormative sexual lives. https://t.co/qX81yac26F
There’s no problem if the Falwells’ amplified, vocal hypocrisy didn’t hurt other people while they had their fun. Or were they blackmailed?
The story isn't that Jerry Falwell Jr's wife had sex with someone other than him, it's that the guy she was having sex with had photos of her and then Michael Cohen somehow got the photos and then Falwell suddenly and unexpectedly endorsed Donald Trump. https://t.co/oOeHNjM5mD
Reuters: “Giancarlo Granda says his sexual relationship with the Falwells began when he was 20. He says he had sex with Becki Falwell while Jerry Falwell Jr, head of Liberty University and a staunch supporter of President Trump, looked on.”
Macel Falwell, widow of Jerry Sr., has written about how her late husband's ministry was hurt by the sex scandals of Swaggart and Bakker which tarnished all televangelists. She added that they were saved because Jerry Jr. came in and took over Liberty University.
What’s with Saskatchewan generating unkind Conservative politicians named Brad? Brad “Bumpkin” “Two Finger” Trost threw together some stock images into a meme against people in love being married.
Something inadvertantly hilarious about would-be CPC leader Brad Trost using 2 stiff fingers to oppose gay marriage pic.twitter.com/Yuch53fccQ
The Trans Pacific Partnership is a trade agreement intended to remove red tape for international trade, so if someone overseas can provide a product at a better price than a local producer, the market decides instead of national or regional pride, or even Health Canada regulations. Congrats, your milk could soon have banned hormones in it.
I wrote this on October 1, 2015, but never finished it:
Let’s examine the Conservative’s campaign thus far:
It began with them showing ads where men are being drowned, as an example of how they’ll protect us, but no one else will.
In the middle it had one of their candidates quit for being caught pissing into a coffee mug in a stranger’s kitchen (before dumping it and replacing the mug into the sink).
The PM suggested women with religious headwear may not be allowed to work in the public service, reminding me of the RCMP turban furor of decades ago.
That seems oh so long ago, as the yoke of Conservative oppression has lifted, and the yoke of Liberal oppression ;) settles into place instead.
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff 