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Blen

@blenblanchard.bsky.social
196 followers 142 following 733 posts
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Tom Flood @tomflood.bsky.social · 8h
Here is Aly Van Wyck-Smart being arrested today. 🎥 dani3lp3rry
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Max Fawcett @maxfawcett.bsky.social · 13h
Incredibly on-brand for these folks to complain about carbon capture and storage damaging drinking water when they've said the sum total of sweet fuck all about the impact of fracking and tailings ponds on said drinking water.
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Blen @blenblanchard.bsky.social · 11h
“Tech experts quickly explained that the “bots” that had been taken offline by the Yandex strike were actually bot crawlers, also known as web crawlers... A widely circulated chart… did indeed show a drop in traffic… both the company’s web crawlers & search index requests were disrupted…”
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Blen @blenblanchard.bsky.social · 16h
Formerly the Merchants of Green Coffee building.
Google maps view of Merchants if Green CoffeeAerial view of fire
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David Moscrop @davidmoscrop.com · 16h
We're listening...
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Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Toronto bike lane removal. When your infrastructure project has huge police protection and the contractors hide the logos on their trucks and gear, you are in the wrong.
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Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project @occrp.org · 14/10/2026
Bank of America Fined $1.21B Over AML Failures
buff.ly
Bank of America Fined $1.21B Over AML Failures
U.S. regulators imposed more than $1.21 billion in penalties on Bank of America over failures in its anti-money laundering controls and apparent sanctions violations. The bank admitted to willfully violating...
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Alex Cosh @alex.readthemaple.com · 14/10/2026
NEW: A newly declassified report reveals that the CIA was actively involved in resettling Nazis in Canada and that a leading CIA officer in charge of resettlement operations was later the CIA’s representative in Ottawa. Latest from @taylornoakes.com www.readthemaple.com/declassified...
readthemaple.com
Declassified Report Shows How CIA Resettled Nazis In Canada
A leading CIA officer in charge of resettlement was later posted to Ottawa.
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Steffani Cameron 🇨🇦 @snarkysteff.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
If you need proof of how much of a grudge Canadians hold, and how long, even the new show “Below” is accurate that you can’t find a “rum and Coke” in Newfoundland ‘cos they’re in their 3rd decade of boycotting Coke after Coke closed a factory there. Anyhow, Canadians are not returning to Vegas.
cbc.ca
Canadians are staying away from Las Vegas — and it's becoming a Nevada election issue | CBC News
Canadian travel to Las Vegas continues to crater as President Donald Trump's near-daily insults to the country drag on, and the resulting economic slump in Sin City has become a major midterm election...
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Blen @blenblanchard.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
“Those 2 schools, plus the North York location, which is a campus of the Brampton East location, accounted for one-fifth of the nearly $1 billion in provincial OSAP grants that went to all career colleges that year.” This scandal is wild.
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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Trump and Musk are doing everything they can to try and force Ukraine to surrender to Putin while Musk spends over $300 million to try and buy the midterm elections to maintain total power. The American government under Republicans are on the side of evil. Vote them out.
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Shawn Micallef @shawnmicallef.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
I don't understand the Chow campaign. Watching 3 debates so far, there are so many times she could fire back with her record, but doesn't. The format is part of it (I'd personally be terrible at it) but the broader campaign is like that too.
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John Lorinc @johnlorinc.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
New from me on @spacing: in Paris, there are bikes & cycling infrastructure everywhere & no traffic jams. Here, we’ve had to resort to civil disobedience to defend the few lanes we have. spacing.ca/toronto/2026...
spacing.ca
London, Paris, Toronto: A tale of three biking cities - Spacing Toronto
I spent some time in the past couple of weeks in London and Paris, and there’s an emerging point of contrast between these two alpha-cities that has become impossible to ignore. Similar in size, popul...
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Blen @blenblanchard.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Interesting tactic to blame the target of baseless speculations. The burden of proof usually should be on the accuser but this is the speculative “prove me wrong” discourse that the right always wades in.
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Observing The City @observingthecity.ca · 14/10/2026
Construction trucks leaving Bloor and Islington area after being successfully deterred from starting work on removing bike lanes in Toronto by a large protest.
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David Shepherd @dshepyeg.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Mitch Sylvestre: "I went to the US...I actually met with the Premier that very day & told them that we were going there to talk..." Premier's Office: "The Premier is not affiliated with these individuals' activities & has no knowledge of these alleged meetings." #abpoli
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Blen @blenblanchard.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
There has been a good door-knocking effort on the progressive side. Could have paid off. Still good to see an increase in voter turnout.
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Greenb3ar @greenb3ar.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Okay the best political ad of the year is here from LA-DSA
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Blen @blenblanchard.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Interesting to see all parties involved openly marketing their distain for the people they employ & the people that play their games, assuming that IP slop is all that matters.
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The Lever @levernews.com · 12/10/2026
Walmart says it prices products, not people. But one of its patents describes technology that could raise the price of mayonnaise after you put tuna in your cart — because its system predicts you’re making tuna salad.
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Sam Bagenstos @sbagen.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
This story makes it sound like the major problem is that the Trump Admin did this w/in 60 days of an election. Yes, that's a real abuse. But the major problem is they're basically threatening to denaturalize an opposition legislator, based on racist insinuations. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/12/u...
nytimes.com
Federal Agents Search Home of Rep. Ilhan Omar (Gift Article)
The search takes place within the 60-day window of the midterm elections, when the Justice Department has historically avoided such investigative steps related to political candidates.
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Ilhan Omar @ilhanmn.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.
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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 11/10/2026
Elon just blasted his home address to his 240 million followers along with his order number and last 4 of his Amex charge card while shilling grok bot. Someone else canceled his order.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
The targeting of one data center is proving a really useful natural experiment showing which sites and ideologies are an echo chamber of Russian propaganda
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 11/10/2026
Standard 'this is not peer-reviewed yet' warning, but this looks v fascinating: air pollution deaths for data centres, off-grid-gas vs grid-connecting consumption They found grid power for xAI's Colossus sites is *WORSE* in absolute terms (!) www.preprints.org/manuscript/2... lnkd.in/p/eE2wQyzW
Grid power vs. on-site gas turbines: two AI data centers 12 km apart, two very different pollution maps. Our new preprint led by Harshit Gujral compares two Memphis data centers just 12 km apart: one modeled on grid power, the other running on its own on-site gas turbines.  At the same 240 MW demand:
⚡ Grid: ~10.8 PM2.5-attributable deaths per year, 94% of them 250+ km away
🏭 On-site gas: ~3.7 deaths per year, 82% of them within 50 km. 
At real-world scale, the order flips. The on-site facility is about 4x larger, with an estimated 11.4 deaths per year vs. 8.1. Nearly half of that burden falls on low-income, high-people-of-color neighborhoods.  Grid power spreads the harm. On-site power concentrates it next door. 
With 43 behind-the-meter data centers planned in the US (only 4 are operating today), health impacts belong in siting and permitting decisions before they’re made, not after.
📄 https://lnkd.in/gKUVrfzH
#AI #Datacenters #AirQuality #PublicHealth #EnvironmentalJustice Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public HealthHarvard Data Science Initiative4. Discussion
This study makes three contributions. First, it extends the emerging concern around datacenter
scale and proximity to urban populations by showing that the location of the electricity generation
serving these facilities is itself a public-health consideration [1,6,31].
Second, the two-scenario comparison distinguishes the implications of electricity-supply pathway
from those of datacenter size: in the hypothetical matched-demand scenario, the modeled grid-supply
pathway produced greater additional exposure to PM2.5 and consequently greater excess annual
mortality that affects a large geographical area, whereas the BTM pathway concentrated mortality
closer to the datacenter. Moreover, in the real-world scenario, C2’s substantially greater capacity
produced greater absolute regional and near-site excess exposure to PM2.5 and excess mortality under
the specified operating assumptions. The generation-weighted sensitivity substantially reduced the
estimated grid-related mortality burden but did not change the matched-demand ordering or the much
greater near-site concentration of the BTM burden (Sec 3.4). Thus, the magnitude of the grid-related
burden is specific to how the electricity-system response is represented and, for the primary analysis,
to the 2023 TVA marginal generation response. It should not be generalized to regions with different
marginal generation mixes.
Third, the equity analysis shows that these spatial differences can translate into different population distributions of burden, with the largest BTM-attributable mortality share occurring in the
low-income, high-people-of-color stratum. These findings show why electricity demand or emissions
intensity alone cannot describe the health implications of datacenter power
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Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
This eventual outcome has long been obvious to any good-faith observer of the right's supposed concerns about free speech. Me in 2017: www.insidehighered.com/advice/2017/...
Weaponizing Free Speech
By targeting the comments of presumably left-wing professors, the right is using free speech as part of their long-term strategy of delegitimizing higher education itself, writes Victor Ray.
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Jordan Roberts @corruptario.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Ford has bankrupted Ontario's hospitals in total secrecy. They needed a cone of silence to start and finish this bust out. They got it, and succeeded. ijb.utoronto.ca/ijb-updates/...
ijb.utoronto.ca
Project Redacted: Ontario Ministry of Health refuses to share externally-commissioned review of hospital finances  - Investigative Journalism Bureau
Editor’s note: Project Redacted is an ongoing series from the Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) documenting how information paid for by the public, and held in the public interest, is kept from th...
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Barney Panofsky's Best Intentions @mynamesnotgordy.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Local man says after eight years of the current government's fumbling and inaction people can believe he's fighting hard to make things better.
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Corey Brickley * Blight's Hollow Dot Com @coreybrickley.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Its kinda wild seeing corporate management just obliterating the gates that keep them relevant ; namely the assurance that customers are getting quality products made with all the resources and institutional knowledge a corporation entails
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Siddhant Adlakha @siddhantadlakha.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
I really don't like some of the things this movie does:
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Walter Chaw @mangiotto.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
BREAKING: Prominent heads of cannibalistic death cults, angling for the apocalypse, don't like how public executions say the quiet part out loud.
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alix e. harrow @alixeharrow.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
the year is 2030 and i no longer consume anything that isn't personalized to me. every game, every book, every movie extends to the limits of my own imagination and no further. i haven't been surprised in five years. i cry softly, in bewilderment, if i see a word i don't know
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Shawn Micallef @shawnmicallef.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
On this meh election of low enthusiasm. “Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you."
thestar.com
Shawn Micallef: Feeling a little ‘meh’ about Toronto’s election? There’s a reason to vote anyway
It feels like Toronto is sighing a collective “meh” when it comes to this election. There’s no fire in the electorate, no passion, no spark. Unenthusiasm across the city.
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Nick Hune-Brown @nickhunebrown.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Must read
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Barney Panofsky's Best Intentions @mynamesnotgordy.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Local woman says if referendum results show none of the problems she invented are a concern of the majority of voters then she will then work hard to look for new problems.
cbc.ca
‘Not as long as I’m premier’: Danielle Smith rules out 2nd separation referendum if Albertans vote to remain | CBC News
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was definitive Friday when asked whether she’d commit to not holding another referendum on Alberta separation should a majority of Albertans vote to remain in Canada on ...
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Heavy sigh.
“An unreleased, non-frontier research model was meant to fill out a practice copy of a government form,” Anthropic said in its blog post. “When the copy failed to load or the model closed it by mistake, the model instead navigated to the website where the real form is normally hosted and submitted the form there.”
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Blen @blenblanchard.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
“On Sept. 24, the agency’s Ontario Firearms Smuggling Enforcement Team (OFSET) executed a search warrant at the suspect’s Brampton residence. Authorities seized three non-restricted firearms, one prohibited suppressor attached to one of the firearms, digital devices and ammunition.”
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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Zelenskyy says Trump has betrayed Ukraine.
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment. www.nber.org/papers/w35854
Taxing Entrepreneurial Wealth: Evidence from
Norway, 2021-2025
Marius A. K. Ring
WORKING PAPER 35854|
DOl 10.3386/w35854
ISSUE DATE October 2026
Whether imposing higher taxes on business owners adversely affects business activity by constraining investment and inducing capitalist flight is a central question in the ongoing debate on how to tax the ultra wealthy. To shed new light, I exploit a series of related Norwegian reforms during 2021-2024 that increased dividend tax rates, removed migration-related capital gains tax loopholes, and nearly doubled the effective marginal tax rate on business wealth. These reforms spurred international debate and, allegedly, an "exodus" of Norwegian billionaires (Financial Times,
2023). While I document clear effects on migration, these responses are concentrated among the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution and mostly confined to 2022 and 2023. My results indicate that at most 100 individuals left due to the reforms. I find no evidence of significant outmigration or reduced inflows of startup founders or inventors. I estimate that absent any outmigration, wealth tax revenues would have increased by 75% from 2021 to 2024. Reform-driven outmigration lowers the revenue gain to 71.5%. My findings further show that outmigrating owners' firms remain economically active and do not reduce investment. In a broader set of analyses, I examine whether business outcomes are affected, regardless of whether owners outmigrate, since firms may reduce investment both due to liquidity constraints or distortions to owners' savings decisions. I compare firms owned by Norwegian individuals subject to the wealth tax with firms owned by foreigners and other tax-exempt entities. By merging historical ownership data from Orbis with the Norwegian shareholder register, I perform these analyses on both Norwegian and foreign-domiciled firms.
Across settings, I find no evidence that Norwegian-owned firms pay out more dividends or invest less after the reforms,…
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Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
NEW: Footage from Thursdays shooting shows an ICE agent in a construction vest brandishing a rifle. His name is Brenden Cuni. Federal judges have found multiple arrests involving Cuni unlawful. He has been accused of repeatedly Tasing a handcuffed man and tackling a pregnant woman in Minneapolis.
wired.com
ICE Agent at NYC Shooting Has History of Alleged Violence and Illegal Arrests
Brenden Cuni, an ICE supervisor, has been accused of excessive force and tackling a pregnant woman to the ground. Several of his arrests were later found to be unlawful in federal court.
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Adam Bonin @adambonin.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
There's a Paul Reubens estate auction later this month and holy cow it includes some of the Penny claymations.
juliensauctions.com
Paul Reubens | “Penny” - Original Claymation “Penny Playing with Dolls” Scene from “Pee-wee's Playhouse”
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Jonas Goonface @jonasgoonface.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
🎃Halloween Hobo Horror🎃
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Siddhant Adlakha @siddhantadlakha.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Cool
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Blen @blenblanchard.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
“He told TorontoToday that if elected, he would want Olivia Chow to serve as one of his ‘main advisors,’ saying the two have similar platforms but differ on some issues… Asked why he chose ‘the real Chow for mayor,’ he had a succinct answer. ‘Because I’m the realest.’”
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Quillipede @quillipede.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
This problem goes back way further than LLMs. All kinds of technology *could* allow for us to gain in leisure time; but the way we've structured our society instead means that we continue to work as much as capital can force us to work, while producing more than we actually need (unsustainably).
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Eva Wasney @evawasney.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
The small Transcona nature preserve, which is surrounded by industrial warehouses and car dealerships, is facing extensive restoration after an Amazon-hired contractor drove heavy equipment through the park this summer. My latest for @thenarwhal.ca 🌾
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Brendan Kennedy @bkstar.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
This decision was only made public in a Friday night edition of CodeNews, a government newsletter about changes to the building code for industry stakeholders. Critics fear it could clear the way for triple-bunking to become a permanent fixture of provincial jails. www.thestar.com/news/investi...
thestar.com
The Ford government quietly changed its building code, clearing the way for more triple-bunking in Ontario’s overcrowded jails
Ontario quietly eliminated minimum sleep-area rules for jails, clearing the way for triple-bunking in overcrowded facilities.
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Scott Santens @scottsantens.com · 07/10/2026
Yes, when it comes to UBI, it's about understanding it as power to the People to say No, where it's a fight we must have and win, to make sure we create a floor underneath everyone to protect everyone financially, and where as a dividend we make sure that everyone benefits financially.
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More Perfect Union @moreperfectunion.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
At least $260 billion in data center projects have been cancelled so far this year due to local organizing and opposition, according to Heatmap. heatmap.news/daily/260-bi...
heatmap.news
Exclusive: Data Center Cancellations Top $260 Billion in 2026
Local opposition has exacted a much higher cost for developers than has been previously understood, according to new Heatmap Pro survey of public records and financial information.
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