I have been prepping my home for the last five hours and I'm exhausted. Couldn't really do it sooner because I was working. My family always make me feel bad when there is cat hair or dust somewhere. Is it okay to put the bar a little lower? Would it be okay to just do less? What are your own standards about cleaning?

Alberta’s election agency announced Monday it has approved a proposed referendum question on the province separating from Canada.

The question seeks a yes or no answer to: “Do you agree that the province of Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state?”

Elections Alberta says the proponent — the Alberta Prosperity Project and its chief executive officer, Mitch Sylvestre — have until early January to appoint a financial officer for its petition campaign, after which signature collection can begin.

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China’s Economic Miracle Was Built on Mass Displacement. If you think the CCP will treat foreigners better than its own people, when it extends its power over you, please think again: Dimon Liu's warning to Canadian Parliament, warns Dimon Liu Dimon Liu, a China-born, Washington, D.C.-based democracy advocate who testified in Parliament to the Canada’s House of Commons committee on International Human Rights on December 8, 2025, about the human cost of China’s economic rise.

Liu argues that the Canadian government should tighten scrutiny of high-risk trade and investment, and ensure Canada’s foreign policy does not inadvertently reward coercion.

Liu also warns that the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] could gain leverage over Canadians and treat them as it has done to its own subjugated population—an implied message to Prime Minister Mark Carney, who has pledged to engage China as a strategic partner without making that position clear to Canadians during his election campaign.

...

If you have ever wondered how China managed to grow so fast in such a short time, Charles Li, former CEO of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, has the answers for you. He listed 4 reasons: 1) cheapest land, 2) cheapest labor, 3) cheapest capital, and 4) disregard of environmental costs ... “The cheapest land” because the CCP government took the land from the farmers at little to no compensation. “The cheapest labor,” because these farmers, without land to farm, were forced to find work in urban areas at very low wages ...

One well known incident of eviction occurred in November 2017. Cai Qi, now the second most powerful man in China after Xi Jinping, was a municipal official in Beijing. He evicted tens of thousands into Beijing’s harsh winter, with only days, or just moments of notice. Cai Qi made famous a term, “low-end population” (低端人口), and exposed CCP’s contempt of rural migrants it treats as second class citizens.

“The cheapest capital” is acquired through predatory banking practices, and through the stock markets, first to rake in the savings of the Chinese people; and later international investments by listing opaque, and state owned enterprises in leading stock markets around the world.

Chinese Communist officials often laud their system as superior. The essayist Qin Hui has written that the Chinese communist government enjoys a human rights abuse advantage. This is true. By abusing its own people so brutally, the CCP regime has created an image of success, which will prove to be a mirage.

Housing:

Say you have 2 homes (both are villas) (one is a normal home and the other is a vacation home (like a beach home probably)

Status/power: (tho within your own country so for my case that would be egypt)

Major general plus a tin factory business that even exports abroad from egypt if I'm not wrong

And say your distant family owns a resort too

So is that rich/upper class within egypt?

Also being able to go to 5 star resorts in egypt

(would this be rich)?

Housing:

Say you have 2 homes (both are villas) (one is a normal home and the other is a vacation home (like a beach home probably)

Status/power: (tho within your own country so for my case that would be egypt)

Major general plus a tin factory business that even exports abroad from egypt if I'm not wrong

And say your distant family owns a resort too

So is that rich/upper class within egypt?

Also being able to go to 5 star resorts in egypt

(would this be rich)?

For more than two weeks, Orlov’s death, first rumoured online on 9 December, was the subject of intense speculation and debate. Kremlin-linked Russian news websites and independent outlets soon reported that Orlov was not killed on the battlefield in Ukraine, but was ambushed and shot at his home in Russian-annexed Crimea by Moscow’s own security services.

On Monday, Astra, an anti-war outlet operating in exile, published CCTV footage that it said showed the moments before Orlov was killed, with a group of armed Russian servicemen arriving outside his house, followed by the sound of gunshots. Astra reported that an ambulance only arrived to collect Orlov’s body six hours later.

Analysts say Orlov’s death reflects a broader, increasingly visible crackdown by the Kremlin on renegade ultranationalist figures and semi-autonomous armed groups as a result of the Wagner mutiny.

For much of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion, the Russian state tolerated – and at times encouraged – radical formations that could mobilise fighters quickly and project uncompromising zeal. Units such as Española were useful militarily and ideologically, embodying a raw, street-level patriotism that complemented official propaganda.

Washington accused of ‘coercion and intimidation’ after five Europeans behind campaign to regulate US tech giants targeted

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the European Union have accused Washington of “coercion and intimidation”, after the US imposed a visa ban on five prominent European figures who have been at heart of the campaign to introduce laws regulating American tech giants.

The visa bans were imposed on Tuesday on Thierry Breton, a former EU commissioner and one of the architects of the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA), and four anti-disinformation campaigners, including two in Germany and two in the UK.

The move also targeted Imran Ahmed, the British chief executive of the US-based Center for Countering Digital Hate; Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of the German non-profit HateAid; and Clare Melford, co-founder of the Global Disinformation Index.

Justifying the visa bans, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, wrote on X: “For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organised efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose. The Trump administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship.”

It seems so simple. So basic of an idea that you wonder why it has not been implemented yet.

It is involuntary care.

As communities across the province grapple with street disorder and a sense of insecurity, involuntary care is seen by many as a solution. Politicians of all stripes have offered it up to concerned residents and businesses as a path forward.

The problem is it is unlikely to be what people are expecting. The expectation is that it will be a panacea; the reality will be quite different.

What would america be like if instead of a Cheeto being in the White House there was a dorito?

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/16332720

Merry Creamyshits

Grassy Mountain is a defunct coal strip mine trying, like a phoenix, to rise from the rubble on the eastern slopes of Alberta’s Rockies.

The mine is owned by Northback Holdings Corp., part of Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart’s business empire.

Rinehart knows well the time-tested technique of “Heads you win, tails we flip again” for keeping her dream of a mine alive.

As you might remember, the “old” proposal, which seems very similar to this one, failed the test of a joint federal-provincial review. The reasons for the panel’s rejection were not trivial.

According to Northback, this new flip is the answer to all the issues of selenium contamination, high water use, impacts to a threatened cutthroat trout population and reclamation of a hole where a mountain once stood. All this with glib promises of economic development. Selenium, released during mining, becomes increasingly concentrated in the tissues of organisms as it moves up the food chain and leads to fish deformities and reproductive failure in exposed fish communities.

Couple of drunk ass Christmas owls. Aunt Hooters over there can barely keep her inebriated eyes open and Uncle Ruffles behind her keeps whispering to her while staring at me. Owlmas is ruined.

As Yukon continues to deal with a prolonged spell of extreme cold, emergency officials are advising people to be prepared in case of a power outage.

On Tuesday, the territory's energy minister issued a statement saying the territory's power grid was under "significant strain," and suggested the potential for rolling blackouts in Whitehorse if the system were to buckle under that strain.

Minister Ted Laking said that the territory reached an all-time record peak demand of 123 megawatts on Monday. He said the territory’s grid can produce about 140 megawatts, "in ideal conditions."

Cross-posted

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday revealed details of the latest US-backed 20-point plan to end the war in Ukraine, saying it has been sent to Moscow for feedback. Zelensky gave a point-by-point briefing to journalists in Kyiv, including details on the creation of demilitarised zones.

The organization that represents some of America's largest spirits producers is calling for the NSLC to remove a policy that gives preferential markup to Nova Scotian spirit products.

In a recent 77-page report sent to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States outlined trade barriers they face in different countries.

The Canada section covers six pages, where the barriers include the ban on selling American alcohol in most provinces and preferential markups on local spirits in Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, P.E.I., Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

It's unclear why the council — which did not respond to an interview request — thinks the other provinces have something to do with the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation.

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On December 31, several dozen international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) expect to find out whether Israel will permit them to operate in the Gaza Strip. Most of these humanitarian actors have been present on the ground for years, with mandatory accreditation from Israeli authorities.

In a joint statement published on December 17 with more than 200 international and Palestinian organizations, United Nations agencies warned that their exclusion would have "a catastrophic impact on access to essential and basic services" needed by some two million Palestinians surviving amid ruins, winter floods and a fragile ceasefire after two years of a devastating war waged by the Israeli army following the Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023.

The new directives require international NGOs to submit lists of their Palestinian staff, who are then subject to security vetting, and to refrain from any activity deemed to "delegitimize the State of Israel" – a criterion considered vague and politicized by humanitarian workers and diplomats. If vetoed, an NGO loses the right to have international staff in Gaza or to bring in aid – a ban already affecting dozens of organizations whose status has been in limbo since March. Israeli authorities defended the move as a means to exclude any "hostile" actors. NGOs see it as the politicization of humanitarian assistance and a drastic tightening of working conditions.

Despite representing just 8% of the world’s population, the region accounts for nearly one-third of global homicides.

Breaking Latin America’s Cycle of Low Growth and Violence

North and Sub-Saharran Africa are poorer than Latin America but have much less murder going on. What's going on in Latin America?