Alain Sherter of CBS MoneyWatch and the AP report on the disturbing resurgence of debtor’s prisons in America. Though it is technically no longer legal to jail people for failure to pay their debts, the debt-collection industry has figured out how to game the courts to create a series of jail-able offenses related to nonpayment. These are largely legal tricks by which debt-collectors get court orders regarding debtors with which the debtors find difficult to comply, resulting in jail for violation of the court order, often over trifling sums.
TODAY is the day the Trudeau Government promised to introduce electoral reform legislation.
But instead of showing real leadership by improving Canadian democracy, Mr. Trudeau didn’t even allow the consultation to run its course but unilaterally overruled:
• his own Liberal Party, which overwhelmingly supported adopting electoral reform, and
• all the Canadians from coast to coast to coast who voted for parties that promised #ElectoralReform, and
• Canadians who watched the ERRE Committee hearings with experts in Ottawa and some who participated via Twitter, and
• Canadians who did research and attended information nights, and
• Canadians who hosted their own DIY ERRE Consultations, and
• Canadians who attended MP ERRE Town Halls, and
• Canadians who spoke to the ERRE Committee on its tour, and
• Canadians who engaged with Maryam Monsef on her tour, and
• Canadians who made written #ERRE submissions, and
• 383,074 Canadians who completed the mydemocracy survey in spite of its shortcomings
• 130,452 Canadians who signed the e-616 Parliamentary Petition
In his defense, Mr. Trudeau said, “It was my decision to make.”
Apparently, Mr. Trudeau has forgotten Canada is supposed to be a representative democracy. This was not his decision to make.
We elect our representatives because we agree with the promises they make about how they will govern. This is not acceptable.
Although I have seen these little spring wildflowers before, I only learned their name the other day from a woman I met on the Ring Trail in Elmira (where I took these photographs.)
I think they look a lot like land bound water lilies.
is a perennial, herbaceousflowering plant native to eastern North America. It is the only species in the genusSanguinaria, included in the family Papaveraceae, and most closely related to Eomecon of eastern Asia.Sanguinaria canadensis is also known as bloodwort,[1]redroot,[1]red puccoon,[1] and sometimes pauson. It has also been known as tetterwort,[1] although that name is also used to refer to Chelidonium majus. Plants are variable in leaf and flower shape and have in the past been separated out as different subspecies due to these variable shapes. Currently most taxonomic treatments include these different forms in one highly variable species. In bloodroot, the juice is red and poisonous.[2]
I only ever recall seeing small snail shells but these are large… if I had picked one up it would have filled my palm. Since they were around the SWM pond on the floodplain, I am guessing these are aquatic snail shells, but its hard to tell… the Internet is insistent on telling me how to kill slugs and snails but doesn’t seem to care about which, or where they are. They look most like the Giant African snails (presumably an invasive species. Maybe somebody’s aquarium got dumped and they proliferated.
If these large shells are from freshwater snails, what I have learned is that the animals must have died, as snails don’t leave their shells when they’re alive.
