buffaloseven

As a Manitoban, I think Wab will probably do a pretty good job. The NDP were likely on track for a win after 2 terms of the Progressive Conservatives, but it can’t be understated how much the piss-poor handling of the pandemic and health care over the last 4 years was driving people to kick the PC’s to the curb. Two generally well-liked Liberal party candidates (very small party here in Mantioba) lost their seats, very likely due to strategic voting just to ensure the PCs got out.

I look forward to the different perspective Wab will bring to the table, and when I looked through the elected MLAs of the NDP this year, I see a very diverse group of people, which will be very refreshing after looking at – 95% of the time – rich middle-aged white people.

It’s amazing how Facebook managed to be the AOL that AOL never quite got too.

Governments are slow to respond, but it’s hard to envision a future where they don’t all migrate to running their own Fediverse servers. It’s easy, especially if all you want to do is run a locked-down one and post info for dissemination, and you have total control (which gov’ts love). Easy to use, no platform lock-in, data is portable all over the place. The idea that our social infrastructure has become dependent on lunatic tech billionaires is nuts, and the sooner we can contribute to, but not depend on, those networks the better.

Just a friendly FYI that the Almanacs have essentially no skill in seasonal forecasting and rely on vagaries and generalities to try and convince readers that the wide net the cast to try and capture chance is actually skill.

Even physical sciences based forecasts can struggle to hit 50-60% skill on seasonal forecasts. Even in the highlights posted here:

• Of course the Canadian Prairies and NW Ontario will be cold; they’re some of the coldest places in North America in winter, often even colder than many parts of the Arctic as the northwest flow along the western flank of the Polar Vortex helps to funnel some of the coldest air on the planet in Siberia across the pole and through the Canadian Arctic southwards through the Prairies.
• Newfoundland and Labrador routinely get blasts of bitterly cold Arctic air from northern Quebec and Baffin Island as passing lows lift northwards into Baffin Island and occlude into the Polar Vortex, but it’s softened by the relatively warm waters of the adjacent Atlantic waters. Of course they won’t be as cold as the land-locked continental regions to the west.
• B.C., especially the western half of it, is among the warmest places in Canada in winter with the cold air routinely kept at bay by a relatively mild onshore flow from the Pacific. The exception is when a particularly strong Arctic outbreak develops over western Canada and a potent high develops over the Rockies which provides a strong surface outflow that drives the Arctic air over the Rockies and out through the coast.

This “forecast” literally just describes essentially every winter in Canada. The fact this pseudoscience that is demonstrably unskilled gets so much visibility each year.