Also: that’s a hammered shield lichen (Parmelia sulcata) in the bottom-left corner.

Yes, and also a bit like Spanish moss. Took the photo in late October in Ontario, Canada; info which helps narrow down the genus, at least.

Legally, the question is whether the removal of separated bike lanes in Toronto meets the criteria set by the Supreme Court of Canada, originally in 2002 and again this summer, for legislation that is either clearly unconstitutional or “was passed in bad faith or an abuse of power.” Unfortunately, our laws allow the provincial government to interfere in municipal affairs however it wants, even street by street. Toronto does not enjoy the same powers of self-governance as most large cities in the developed world so Ford’s decision is neither unconstitutional, nor an abuse of power, at least in the formal legal sense.

If the City of Toronto or a third party sued the province over the removal of bike lanes, in theory the decision would depend on whether Ford acted in ‘bad faith’, which effectively means that provincial courts will make a subjective claim about the intent of the law/lawmakers. This subjective interpretation of the facts is due to the vague wording of the Supreme Court’s decision, which SC Justice Rowe warned against in his 2024 dissent.

However, recent judicial history and the court’s piecemeal decision-making suggests that Ford would succeed in court. Only a few years ago, both the Ontario Court of Appeal and SC upheld the provincial government’s right to interfere in the city’s municipal election and halve the number of city councilors during the election itself. They justified his interference in our local self-governance by noting his constitutional right to do so, ignoring the question of bad faith entirely (much less the legitimacy of our democratic process). There’s simply no reason to believe these same justices would rule differently today.

Those of us who support bike lanes must find other ways to address this interference, not from within the system itself.

You are correct: the ruling simply affirms the plaintiff’s claim against IA.

Any out-of-copyright and non-copyright items, as well as items with permissive terms (e.g., Creative Commons licenses) will still be available on IA. Previously, the plaintiff Hachette offered a deal that IA rejected, in which IA would be allowed to make digital copies of Hachette texts that are either out-of-print titles, or titles for which digital copies have never been produced.

Right now, it’s up to Hachette and the other publishers affected in the case whether that offer is still available.

edited: hyphens.

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Remember his cover of ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ by Guns n’ Roses?

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“We have new people whose life experiences have been radically different than ours. And so for those of us who have been here for decades or a long time, it gives us an insight into how people lived in other parts of the world, and now they’re with us and we want to learn about them. So we are one united community.”

This is such a positive take from someone in leadership re: new immigration to their community. It can be difficult to manage unexpected population growth and the federal/provincial governments offer poor support to growing communities across Canada. Mr. Morrison and his neighbours deserve lots of credit and respect for welcoming new neighbours who’ve been through a lot. They sound like good people.

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Just a reminder that many former government staff, ex-elected officials, family members and acquaintances of current politicians, etc. are now lobbyists and/or investors in the commercial cannabis sector. For example, Smitherman (CEO of CCC) worked for 4 decades in Ontario politics before becoming a lobbyist. As the retailer quoted in this article says, these politically-connected producers are the intended beneficiaries of pricing changes, not the retailers or customers.

Unfortunately, this is standard business practice in Canada: now that they have achieved market dominance over less-connected peers, they look to the government to help protect their profits, which they will use to purchase struggling competitors to further consolidate the industry and allow them to raise wholesale prices in the future. Once only 2-3 major producers remain in the country, they will have spent two decades lobbying the government and can look forward to protectionist government intervention, price collusion, and guaranteed profits, not unlike Rogers/Bell/Telus enjoy today.

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Swiss technology company that focuses on privacy products. Initially funded by a Swiss startup capital firm and now uses a subscription model. ProtonMail is not open source or non-profit, but the product they offer is privacy. Switzerland also has strict privacy laws and resists state-based information requests. Best option is to run one’s own email client server, but simple folks like me don’t have the skills to do so. (FWIW, I use ProtonMail and think it works great.)

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You are welcome at the https://lemmy.ca/c/art community. Currently, most submissions are people’s artworks, but what you describe is also seems relevant to the community and I’d post content too if there’s interest in it!

“In my view, a lot of the general associations we have with drinking in public are negative, like drunkenness in public, drinking and driving, like drunken hoodlums, all of these things — which make the news, but aren’t necessarily the only way people consume alcohol in public.”

Dr. Malleck quoted here gets close to the source of the problem, which is classism.

Most mayors, city councilors, etc. are doing well financially and they own their own houses (as well as cottages, investment properties, etc.), so the idea of going to a public park to drink outside with friends seems unusual to them. They view public parks as community spaces, but only within their personal perspectives as homeowners, and therefore what is allowed in parks is restricted to class-based moral sensibilities. It’s easy for Councilor So-and-So to bring her laptop to her backyard garden patio for another Zoom meeting. The line worker who just wants to sit outside with her family after 12 hours inside sorting chicken meat for Councilor So-and-So’s BBQ that weekend… she was an afterthought when it comes to these kinds of public space bylaws.

This disconnect between how municipal leaders and many apartment/condo-dwelling constituents live also explains the conflicts during the pandemic when people wanted to leave the isolation of their apartments for fresh air, but homeowner leaders (with their backyards, cottage retreats, ‘working’ holidays, etc.) told them to go back inside and threatened them with fines.

We do we have these bylaws? Ignorance rooted in class.

Just wanted to add that The Verge article quotes from the source document, but does not include its links, etc. Here’s a hyperlinked version, including some specific open source resources, which the author calls ‘third faction’ content: https://www.semianalysis.com/p/google-we-have-no-moat-and-neither