sbv

I've really been enjoying Wice recently. I'd call it synthwave, but I'm no expert. There's lots of synth. No vocals. Dramatic. It has a bit of a video game feel to it.

3,000 keyboard warriors of the Eurozone

What a pain.

The murderer of Ashley Noelle Arzaga has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years. He severely injured the woman who restrained him.

In June, Justice Sukhail Akhtar ruled that the stabbing amounted to an act of terrorism due to its links to so-called “incel” ideology, which stands for “involuntary celibate,” a fringe internet subculture dominated by men who blame women for their lack of sexual relations.

It’s believed to be the first time in Canada that a court has made a finding of incel-motivated terrorist activity.

Half of the people polled by Ipsos for the MNP survey say that to save money they are staying home more often and a third are socializing less. This is especially evident in younger Canadians and those with an income of less than $40,000, the survey said.

But wait, it gets worse:

Nearly half of respondents say they don’t believe they will be able to cover their living expenses over the next 12 months without going further into debt, up two percentage points from the previous quarter.

I'm guessing some of this debt includes student loans and car loans:

Credit card balances hit a record high of $107.4 billion in the second quarter, with average non-mortgage debt for consumers rising to $21,131, according to Equifax Canada

I'm always suspicious of this kind of poll. Every year or two we seem to get a poll saying our financial health is abysmal, but time passes and the rate of bankruptcies/insolvencies stays around the same. I guess this one is different because of the increasing cost of living.

The OAS bonus is being given to well-off seniors. As more and more affluent Boomers retire, that's going to put a strain on federal finances.

(Note that OAS is different from GIS, which is available to low income seniors)

Last year, the Liberals boosted OAS by 10 per cent for seniors 75 years and older, claiming it would help poorer senior citizens. That claim is nonsensical – if the government wished to help poor seniors, it already has a tailor-made program at hand: the Guaranteed Income Supplement. (The income cutoff point is much lower than for the OAS, just $21,456 for individuals.) Any OAS reform should start with scrapping that 10-per-cent increase and targeting those funds narrowly to low-income seniors who receive the GIS.

Last year, the federal government spent $69.4-billion on elderly benefits. That will jump to $101.3-billion in fiscal 2029.

Clawbacks of the benefit ($8,492 a year) start when an individual’s taxable income reaches $81,761 but even those making up to $134,626 receive reduced payments, or $137,331 for seniors over 75 whose OAS entitlement is increased by 10 per cent. For individuals who deferred receiving OAS in exchange for higher monthly payments, that ceiling is considerably higher, around $170,000. And those clawbacks are assessed on an individual, not a household. A household made up of two seniors eligible for the maximum OAS could have a combined income of about $340,000 and still receive a small monthly payment from Ottawa.

From the Citizen:

Police in Ottawa say they seized weapons and firearms after a fight which appeared to be linked to a soccer game broke out Saturday afternoon.

Police say they received multiple calls at about 2 p.m. reporting a “disturbance” on the 1800 block of Bank Street.

They say three people received minor injuries and refused treatment.

Videos circulating social media show a crowd of people running through clouds of smoke from what appear to be flares.

Police reported no arrests but say the investigation is ongoing.

Link to video.

“It feels like I’ve been working harder and harder and sliding backwards down the scale,” she says.

Making $50k in a small town and still "scraping by" is scary. Maybe I'm just old, but I'd hoped that kind of income would be enough for some kind of comfort.

[Wab] Kinew, speaking at the premiers’ conference in Halifax, said practising democracy is the best way to thank those who fought to defend it. “As someone who just went through an election recently, I’m very, very mindful of the sacrifices that the veterans of our great country have made so that each and every one of us can participate in this strong democracy.”

A lot of discourse focuses on the rights of Canadians: what the government owes us. Not enough space is given to the notion of duty: what we owe to each other, our communities and our country. Mr. Kinew’s excellent notion speaks to that sense of obligation, as opposed to a sense of entitlement.

A classic.

Privacy (for robot vacuums) isn't cheap. via the Verge.