Music fan, sports fan (Go Boston!) and mother of three wonderful children who are now all adults! I use she/her pronouns.
Ottawa, Canada
Joined March 2010
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Patricia Williams retweeted
🚨 Democrats win both houses of Congress. Quickie rundown on the effects for foreigners who don't follow US politics that closely, on what changes and what doesn't:
1) Domestic politics: Significant effect. Democrats can block Trump nominees -- including judges. Tonight's result might have prevented a 6-3 or 7-2 lock on the Supreme Court for another generation. Democrats can block his bills. Heck, they can even pass bills if there are topics where Trump wants to play ball with them. Don't hold your breath on the latter. Likeliest result is legislative inertia and constant conflict between White House and Congress. Most immmediate change: new investigations into (waves hands) ... everything we've witnessed over the last two years. Tonight's result also opens up a 2028 path for an I-told-you-so Republican -- on the war and on the alliance with big tech. Like DeSantis and maybe others.
2) Foreign affairs. Memo to Planet Earth: Here is where the legions of Trump haters around the world are likeliest to be disappointed. Tariffs? War? Threats to annex other countries? The US constitution, in theory, gives Congress control of these things like trade and war and presidential abuses. In practice, the founders did not anticipate the impossibility of cobbling together a 67% veto-proof majority on just about any contentious topic, let alone on impeaching and removing a president who ignores the constitution. So the president does what the president does. But I'll end with a caveat: Democrats now have the power to investigate. To hold hearings on things like: Why did Trump turn on Ukraine? What role did Kushner and Witkoff play? What do business owners hurt by tariffs have to say? Any whistleblowers out there with details on who's been insider trading war plans on betting markets? Hey -- why did a corrupt foreign businessmen get a pardon? Two years of this. Creates heat -- and heat means power, in this case limited power over foreign policy.
3) Investigate or legislate? Why not both. It's received wisdom that voters only care about bread-and-butter issues -- like health care and gas prices -- and investigations will be branded as witch hunts, certainly by the president. But polls show voters absolutely, deeply, do care about corruption right now. And if Democrats have any political skill in them, they'll be capable of holding those investigations, and of linking corruption to the same bread-and-butter issues that infuriate voters. "You hate that data center? That health policy? That tax policy? Here -- we're about to hold hearings with ballroom donors from such and such an industry who bought pardons/the status quo."
4) 2028 will be hell. I expect congressional investigations will turn up many, many potential crimes. Trump will pardon everyone he can. Democrats will transfer boxes of evidence to state AGs -- whatever they're allowed to. And within about three or four months, Donald Trump is going to realize he must do everything in his power to keep his friends in charge of the Justice Department and the FBI after 2028. Everything. And the extent to which he will go to achieve that is going to be the political story of next year.
And now I'm gonna get my morning coffee in Ankara, Turkey.
Patricia Williams retweeted
Objectively, no other prominent politician has spoken like this about technology in education -- even though this has been a major local issue nationwide this year
He framed the NYC schools decision to block AI tools for a year in similar terms
Google is trying to use its monopoly power to force AI into our public schools.
No corporation should have the power to dictate how we teach our children.
Our public schools exist to serve students, not to grow the profit margins of Big Tech.
nytimes.com/2026/11/03/us/go…
Patricia Williams retweeted
Namibia is the only country in the world with a female President, Vice President, and Speaker of the National Assembly.
Patricia Williams retweeted
Grace Bussell is a famous name in Western Australia for becoming the nation's youngest heroine; her picture splashed across newspapers around the world. Most West Aussies have been told the story, either at school or when they're holidaying in the Margaret River region...
In December 1876, a 16-year-old Grace Bussell rode her horse down a steep coastal slope and straight into the violent surf of Western Australia.
A steamship was sinking, and people were struggling to survive in the waves.
The SS Georgette had developed a leak while traveling along Australia’s southwestern coast. Lifeboats had been launched, but one overturned, drowning seven people. The damaged vessel eventually drifted toward the rocks at Calgardup Bay.
A Noongar stockman named Sam Isaacs spotted the disaster. He traveled roughly 20 kilometers to alert the Bussell family, then returned with Grace, who volunteered to help.
What followed was an extraordinary rescue.
Grace and Sam rode their horses into the breaking waves, approaching passengers trapped in the surf. Desperate survivors grabbed the horses’ manes, saddles and tails, clinging to whatever they could reach as the riders guided them toward shore.
The rescue effort lasted hours.
Approximately 50 people survived the wreck, with Grace and Sam playing crucial roles in bringing those stranded in the surf to safety.
Grace became a national heroine. Newspapers celebrated the teenage girl who had ridden into the sea. She received a silver medal from the Royal Humane Society and a gold watch.
Sam Isaacs also received a bravery medal, but his was bronze.
As an Aboriginal man in colonial Australia, his contribution received considerably less public attention, even though he had discovered the wreck, raised the alarm and risked his life in the same dangerous waters.
Grace later married, raised seven children and died in 1935.
Her name lives on in Western Australian place names, including Gracetown.
Sam’s contribution took much longer to receive comparable recognition.
The rescue itself was remarkable enough: a teenage girl and an Aboriginal stockman riding horses into the ocean to save strangers.
But the story also reveals how differently two people could be remembered for the same extraordinary act of courage.
#archaeohistories
Patricia Williams retweeted
Whelp, called it. Coercive dependence via bundling.
Capitalism's response to people not actually wanting their products is always, always the creation & enforcement of coercive dependence, including via state regulation. That's the whole business model.
Google is now threatening America's schools, saying they will turn off their core search functions if schools choose to entirely block AI.
nytimes.com/2026/11/03/us/go…
Patricia Williams retweeted
Privatizing airports benefits no one but rich investors. The NDP and the labour movement are united in the fight ahead.
Patricia Williams retweeted
This New Lines piece lays out how astonishingly bigoted the campaign against El-Sayed has been. Has anyone called on Rogers to disavow these ads? newlinesmag.com/reportage/mi…
Patricia Williams retweeted
The victim described her attacker. She said he had a gap between his front teeth.
Thomas McGowan did not.
They convicted him anyway, and he served twenty-three years.
Dallas County, Texas, 1985. A woman was raped and robbed in her home.
Thomas McGowan was arrested. He was identified by the victim through a photographic array and then a line-up.
He was convicted and sentenced to life.
The identification process was the problem, and the record on it is now well documented: his photograph had been presented in a way that made him stand out, and the victim's identification had been reinforced between the procedures rather than tested by them.
He said it was not him. He said it for twenty-three years.
In 2008 DNA testing conducted by the Dallas County District Attorney's office cleared him completely.
He walked out at the age of forty-nine.
Now — the reason he is the last post on this Thursday.
Dallas County is the single most important jurisdiction in the history of American exoneration, and the reason is an accident.
The county had, for decades, sent biological evidence to a private laboratory that kept it rather than destroying it.
In most American counties, that evidence is gone — destroyed on a schedule, after an appeal window, in a warehouse clear-out.
In Dallas, it was still in a box.
When District Attorney Craig Watkins took office in 2007 and opened the files to testing, that preserved evidence produced exoneration after exoneration — more than any other county in the United States.
So Thomas McGowan got his life back because of a filing policy at a private lab.
Not because Dallas was fairer than anywhere else. Dallas was not fairer. Dallas just kept the boxes.
And that is the thought to take to bed. Every county that threw its boxes away has the same number of innocent men.
They simply have no way left of finding out who they are.
Patricia Williams retweeted
A guy working at Starbucks wrote a horror movie, turned down $2 million to change one character in it, and that movie has now made $522 million.
His name is Curry Barker. The whole movie cost $750,000 to shoot, so the companies offering him $2 million were offering almost three times his entire budget for one rewrite. All they wanted was for the creepy main guy to become a hero.
He said no, and it wasn't even the first time he'd walked away from easy money.
A producer named James Harris had found him through a short he posted on YouTube called The Chair, and Harris wanted to fund a feature version of it. People already loved The Chair, so that was the safe move. Curry asked if he could pitch a different idea instead, one he hadn't been able to stop thinking about. Harris liked it and put the money behind that one.
That's how a guy on Starbucks shifts ends up with a $750,000 budget. His first feature, Milk & Serial, cost $800. He spent a year trying to get distributors to take it, then put it on YouTube for free. By the time Harris came calling, Curry already had work out there that anyone could watch.
The rewrite money came while they were shopping the script around. In the movie, Bear wishes that a woman would love him more than anyone in the world, and the wish goes horribly wrong. The companies wanted the audience on Bear's side. Curry told them he wasn't going to turn Bear into a guy who does everything right, because Bear's bad wish is what wrecks everyone's life, and that's the whole movie. They were offering $2 million to take the scary part out of a horror film.
Netflix wanted it too, straight to streaming, and he went with theaters. It opened to $17.2 million, then made 39% more its second weekend, which basically never happens unless it's Christmas. That's what it looks like when people walk out of a theater and text all their friends.
Since then A24 hired him to direct a new Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Universal signed him to an eight-figure deal. Within a few weeks of the movie coming out, one studio offered him $10 million for his next original movie before he'd even told them what it was about, five times what he'd been offered to water this one down.
26 years old. A YouTuber who wrote a horror script at his coffee shop job.
He shot it for $750,000. It made $522 million.
Then he reportedly turned down $2 million to change the ending.
Curry Barker started out making horror shorts for YouTube. His first feature, he put online for free.
His second, Obsession, sold at the Toronto film festival for $16.2 million. A24, Neon and Netflix wanted it too.
It became the highest-grossing movie ever made for under $1 million. This Halloween, its main character was one of the most-searched costumes in America. Now A24 has him directing a new Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
What he says got him there:
1. Make the idea that won't leave you alone. "I have ideas all the time and I write them in my notes. But when you have an idea that you just can't stop thinking about, that's when you should make it."
2. Read the comments. "YouTube taught me through the comments that people are really smart."
3. Keep it small. His budget: "seven hundred and fifty thousand, max."
4. Don't sell the part that makes it yours. He reportedly passed on $2 million to make the villain a hero.
In the video below, he explains the idea behind the movie. Listen for what he says you have to earn.
Try this: pick the one idea you keep coming back to, and put a rough version in front of people this month.
Here's the lesson. You don't need permission anymore. You need proof people want it.
Would you have taken the $2 million?
I post one money story like this every day.
Patricia Williams retweeted
Since Ronald Lauder, the sole heir to the Esteé Lauder Companies, stated last month, "I am still a Zionist today, I still love Israel, I will do everything I can to help it succeed," here is a list of all the brands owned by the genocide-enabling cosmetics company. 1/
Patricia Williams retweeted
🚨 Israel orders complete closure of Gaza crossing with Egypt, blocking aid and commercial goods
A senior Palestinian source involved in negotiations told Drop Site News that Israeli authorities informed the UN and Egyptian committee on Monday evening of a decision to impose a “complete and comprehensive closure” of the Rafah crossing, blocking humanitarian aid, commercial shipments, food, fuel and cooking gas entering Gaza through the Egyptian route.
According to the source, Israel cited alleged smuggling and “interference by government bodies in the Gaza Strip” as reasons for the closure.
🔸 The Egyptian route handles approximately 50–60 trucks daily, accounting for “nearly half of the daily supplies entering the Gaza Strip,” the source said, adding that “fuel and gas come entirely through this route.”
🔸 Under the October 2025 ceasefire agreement, 600 aid trucks are supposed to enter Gaza daily, but Israel has severely restricted deliveries, allowing an average of only around 200 trucks per day.
🔸 The closure comes as Palestinians across Gaza face the onset of winter in makeshift tents and heavily damaged homes, with worsening food insecurity compounded by cuts to World Food Programme assistance.
🔸 The source warned that the shutdown could have “direct repercussions on the humanitarian situation and market stability,” driving up prices for fuel, cooking gas, food and other essential goods.
Patricia Williams retweeted
"I remember learning about renowned American journalist Edward R. Murrow in college 16 years ago and even watching his award-winning documentary Harvest of Shame – a film that offered a close-up, unvarnished look at the crippling poverty and exploitative conditions faced by American farmers in 1960. And gosh, now to be here, years later, winning the Edward R. Murrow Award with my team – it's hard to believe how it's all come back full circle like this. It really is an honor – to be affiliated, in the tiniest way, with this celebrated American journalist who believed in the power of raw, truthful storytelling at any cost." - @yelmjouie
Patricia Williams retweeted
The UCP gerrymandering feels like a canary in the Canadian democratic coal mine
It's cheating. It's rigging the game to favour one party's fortunes over another, and it could be the whole ball game. A distorted process. A big jump in hybrid ridings (some ridiculous). #yeg and #yyc votes are diluted further. #yql is especially screwed.
edmontonjournal.com/news/pol…
Patricia Williams retweeted
Good morning.
According to the U.S. Tennis Association, there is no record of Vivek Ramaswamy being a “nationally ranked junior tennis player.”
And then there’s the ad which connects to the Dept of Homeland Security’s corruption scandal: youtu.be/SzgQWv71a2E?is=b3Rc…
Patricia Williams retweeted
The indomitable girl who captured him was waiting for him thirty years later
On September 21, 1965, a 17-year-old Vietnamese girl named Nguyễn Thị Kim Lai was photographed escorting an enormous American airman through the countryside. His hands were tied behind his back. His head was bowed. She was carrying a rifle.
His name was William Andrew Robinson. He was 22, a helicopter mechanic and flight engineer in the US Air Force. The previous day his helicopter had been shot down during a mission to rescue another American airman.
Kim Lai was tiny. She weighed 37 kilograms. She had only finished seventh grade before joining the local militia. Her home province, Hà Tĩnh, was being bombed relentlessly by American aircraft.
According to her recollection, she discovered Robinson hiding among the rocks in a forest. Frightened by his enormous size, she fired three warning shots. He surrendered. Other militia members arrived and tied his hands.
A photographer named Phan Thoan captured the extraordinary contrast between the two.
The photograph became famous throughout Vietnam. It appeared on postage stamps. A celebrated Vietnamese poet wrote a poem about it. The image travelled around the world, becoming a symbol of a small country resisting a superpower.
Robinson was taken to prison.
He spent 2,703 days in captivity. Seven years, four months and twenty-three days. Much of it in isolation, enduring brutal conditions and torture. He was finally released on February 12, 1973.
Kim Lai became a nurse. She married, had three children and eventually became a grandmother.
Thirty years after their first encounter, in September 1995, she was playing with her grandchildren at a neighbour's house when someone came to tell her that foreigners were looking for her.
She returned home.
Standing there was William Andrew Robinson.
He had come back to Vietnam with a Japanese documentary crew. He had apparently wanted to find her for years but had never been able to afford the journey.
She recognised him immediately.
According to her recollection, he approached and embraced her before she could greet him.
They talked about their lives. Their families. Everything that had happened since those few minutes in a Vietnamese forest.
They even returned to the place where he had been captured.
Robinson reportedly expressed the hope that there would never be another photograph like theirs.
There is another photograph of them, taken during that reunion.
She is looking up at him. Smiling. He is standing beside her, still towering over her. No handcuffs. No rifle.
With no US government throwing away the youth of its own citizens to forcefully decide the future of Vietnam both can stand tall side by side.
Patricia Williams retweeted
Peter Peter talks about being “lucky enough to work on a phenomenon” like Heated Rivalry and being so “happy that it I didn't fail”:
"When you're on the singer songwriter side for 15 years, I had highs and lows. And now I collaborated with someone, and I was lucky enough to work on a phenomenon. So, it was like, 'Okay, what the hell just happened with my life?' You know?"
"I wouldn't say that it was easy, it wasn't easy. It was an insane amount of work. But sometimes you work for three years on an album and now I work for about—well more than seven weeks because I started drafting before and just doodling here and there. But yeah, it's a massive slap in the face."
"I knew that the show would touch people. I knew that it wouldn't fail on that point. But like, especially when I love a show or whatever, it never goes like this—like a phenomenon—when I put so much love into something."
"So I had no expectations on going so global. And I thank also Jacob and Brendon and Milan [Records] for that, because now the music is celebrated. And it was requested. That was the surprising element!"
"When I thought I was done because I delivered the thing and the show was aired. I was like, 'Now I'm a free man. I will just like wander on the street and stuff'."
"But then on Instagram, I received messages and messages about like, 'Oh, they couldn't Shazam me.' So they had to, like I don't know, do some weird research to find me."
"Then when I saw the reaction of everybody, I remember thinking we have an identity. We have a persona as a team. That was the first time that I was working as a team."
"And I didn't have really an ego in that. I wanted to be a good worker for the show and a good artist, of course. I didn't want to just do that like a robot or anything. No, as I said, I put a lot of heart into it, so I was happy that it I didn't fail."
🗣️ Peter Peter at the SOCAN Awards, October 26, 2026
🎥 youtube.com/watch?v=MciyNJwV…
✍🏼 transcription by @heatedrivalnews
Patricia Williams retweeted
Horrific. Unforgivable.
