Geoff Budden

I wrote a little novel during the pandemic and finally got around to self-publishing it. It’s a medieval adventure/rebellion story, set on the south Mediterranean coast, with a few battles and a journey. There’s a free sample if you want to check it out! amazon.com/Shield-Brighte…

You will live on the AI slop farm. You’ll have 10,000 acres and your front door will lead directly to a small 8x8 foot swamp. Three horses will drink from the water, with decapitated jockeys on their backs. One of your horses will be the longest horse in the world. Your fences will kind of veer off into the grass from time to time. There’s three shutters on some of your windows and a shutter to the left of your front door. You have no driveway and you own no Gucci bags. You are happy.

My coworker used to take the long way home every night. Two extra bus stops, more walking, more money, more time. One day I asked her why she didn’t just take the shortcut alley behind our building. She laughed and said, “Oh, because a guy followed me there once and told me he could ‘do whatever he wanted’ and no one would hear me scream.” So now, every night, she calls a male friend and pretends she’s on the phone with her “boyfriend.” Sometimes she even laughs loudly and says things like, “Yeah, I’ll see you in five minutes, babe,” even when she’s completely alone. Not because she wants attention. Not because she’s dramatic. Because sounding “taken” and “protected” is safer than sounding like a woman by herself. Men cannot even begin to understand the calculations women make every day just to get home alive.

This is terrifying, possibly the most dangerous moment for the world since the Cuban Missile Crisis

It also puts the sport itself at an increased risk of corrupted games. Baseball, which from the 1880s through the 1920s, had serious issues with fixed games, should know this.

@DrAnneBurke1 It’s excellent!

Every child who grew up in Canada in the 70s and 80s saw this film multiple times - a snow day classic.

“… third case of a grandson killing their nan that courts in Newfoundland and Labrador have seen this week.”

🧵

Shouldn’t the police, pursuant to the CAHWCA, also be investigating Canadian citizens or permanent residents fighting in the genocide and war crimes-committing IDF?

@davidzelcer @bruce_arthur The last time sports gambling was as ubiquitous as it is now, a World Series was thrown With present salaries that exact scenario is unlikely to reoccur (the Black Sox players, with good reason, hated & felt cheated by their owner) but we’re already seeing the corruption of games

@bruce_arthur I hate betting ads during sports telecasts. They shouldn’t be allowed. And it’s embedded right into the hockey coverage.

You know gamblers are sending death threats and abuse to athletes after losing bets? Well now they can do that to everyone, including war reporters! It’s almost like Gamergate, except it’s a whole industry

BREAKING: US official resigns from intel post over Iran war, citing capture of US foreign policy by Israel and Israel lobby

@newtgingrich Evergreen

Terrific work by Mr Martinez and his colleagues. “Although it was defeated this time, the Ford government has repeatedly shown that it is prepared to disregard the spirit of the Charter and silence voices it disagrees with - especially where Palestine is concerned.”

“It appears that if people find a Banksy added to their wall, most of them call Sotheby’s rather than the police…. The question of where the artist’s work sits in the legal landscape is an interesting one…” reuters.com/investigates/s…

I was asked just before Shabbat to provide a personal statement which a lawyer will draft into an affidavit to block the Zionist request for an injunction to block the Al Quds Day rally in Toronto tomorrow. Because this is one of my communities here, I want to share here what I wrote: _ _ _ I am Rabbi David Mivasair, a 74-year-old retired Canadian rabbi currently residing in Hamilton, Ontario. I served for nearly 25 years as the spiritual leader of two Vancouver synagogues, as a spiritual care provider for the Fraser Health Authority in British Columbia and the chaplain of the largest homeless shelter in British Columbia about fifteen years ago. I am a member of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association. I also hold a Master of Social Work degree and was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Divinity. I have lived in Israel for four years and have returned a number of times to support the work on the ground there for peace and justice for everyone living in that land. I speak, read and write Hebrew and have been directly, personally involved with Israel and Palestine for well over fifty years. I am very aware of real antisemitism in our society. And, I am very aware of the intentional misuse of accusations of antisemitism for political reasons in our society as well. I am directly, personally familiar with the Al Quds Day rally in Toronto. I was a speaker at the Al Quds Day rally on April 15, 2023. I was invited by the organizers to speak at the rally as a rabbi, as exactly who I am. I am a Jew, a rabbi and, at this time in my life, I am an anti-Zionist, which is a perfectly legitimate position for anyone to hold on the question of Israel and Palestine. When I spoke at the Al Quds Day rally in 2023, other rabbis spoke there as well, as they do every year. Like me, they are also anti-Zionist Jews. None of us are anti-Jewish or antisemitic in any way. That is a preposterous proposition. Zionist organizations promote the belief that the Al Quds Day rally is antisemitic in order to shut down the public expression of completely legitimate political speech. There is absolutely no danger to any Jews anywhere because of what is said and done at the Al Quds Day rally. No one there expresses any intention to hurt any Jews in any way. There is no advocacy of violence. At the Al Quds Day rally there are calls for the elimination of the State of Israel. I myself make those calls. The State of Israel is a thoroughly racist endeavor which was founded on the expulsion and elimination of the majority of the Palestinian population of Palestine in 1948. It continues at the present to enforce on Palestinians over whom it rules a regime which most objective observers agree is accurately described as apartheid. And even at this very time, the State of Israel is conducting war crimes and what is determined by most experts to be a genocide against Palestinians. Calls for the elimination of the State of Israel are calls for it to be replaced by a state in which all are equal, just as in Canada. The elimination of the State of Israel is not synonymous with the elimination of or any harm to the Jewish population in Israel or any Jews anywhere in any way. It is simply the call for Jews in Israel to end their regime of ethnically-based domination and extreme inequality. Any claim of feeling fear by any Jews with regard to Al Quds Day, if it is in fact sincere and real, is because of their own intense identification with the State of Israel and their feeling that they will be harmed if the State of Israel ceases to exist. People feel fear for many reasons. Not all fear, which is a subjective emotion, actually correlates to any real threat. The feelings of fear expressed by some Jews regarding the Al Quds Day rally have no basis in anything at all that anyone says or does at that rally. Those feelings are simply their feelings. That does not mean that there is any actual, external reason for them to feel fear. Although there is strong rhetoric against the State of Israel, there is absolutely no threat to Jews. Claims by some Jews to feel fear need to be assessed in light of the reality that there is in fact no threat or danger to them. The subjective feelings of some people are not a basis on which to deny the charter rights of others.

@outsidetheboxNL @SandraCobena_ @TheAegeanMaco What I find frustrating is that the law she is seeking to enact already exists in practice, as any lawyer with criminal law experience will conform. She must know that.

@GeoffBudden @SandraCobena_ @TheAegeanMaco That may end up being the primary argument against Cobena's proposed provision. I believe, though, it is sound, similar in some respects to the rarely used, but needed, "Whistleblower Provision" protecting innocent parties.

🚨BREAKING: I officially tabled the Stand on Guard Act. This bill would clarify the legal standard for self-defence to add a clear presumption that when someone knowingly and unlawfully enters your home, the force you thought necessary to defend yourself and your family is presumed to be reasonable, unless the facts show otherwise. Your home should be your safe place, not the place where the law turns against you for protecting the people you love. #cdnpoli

@OrinKerr Remembering an 80s evening spent waiting for my friend in a bar called “Beers Of The World” while my friend was a block away in a bar called “International Beers”, waiting for me. My Gen Z kids find that story hilarious. The past is indeed a foreign country.

One underappreciated difference between life today and life in the 20th century: In the past, we often did not know where other people were and had no easy way to find them.

@outsidetheboxNL @SandraCobena_ @TheAegeanMaco How many people are you aware of who have been persecuted for simple self-defence in their homes?

@SandraCobena_ @TheAegeanMaco A very needed Bill. The changes it proposes will prevent many people from being persecuted legally and financially for simple self-defense in their home.

@kaebee23 One of the great tragedies of our history. My great-grandfather was also at the front that year, but thankfully he wasn’t on either the Southern Cross or the Newfoundland. You are right, we need to remember these brave and hardworking men

This time of year makes me think of Sam, and all the hardworking Newfoundlanders who have been lost at sea, just trying to feed their families.

“ ‘It’s certainly a very important development and one that will deliver some measure of justice to many of our clients,” said Budden, whose firm represents more than 200 of the claimants.”

200 years ago today in Trinity 🧵 : the seal hunt begins, as five schooners sail “for the Ice.” Once they arrive at the ice pack moving south with the Labrador current the dangerous, bloody work of slaughtering seals for oil and fur will begin.