Molotov Mocktail
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molotov-mocktail.bsky.social
Molotov Mocktail
@molotov-mocktail.bsky.social
44 followers 120 following 27 posts
Drifted here from @colbycramden over at x.com where I've left a metric tonne of fair to middlin' media generated during Manitoba's Pallister/Stefanson Milton Friedman era, as well as federal Liberal love notes & covid memorabilia.
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kathrynmathias.bsky.social
And you could add the fact Canadians were called nasty for not buying American products or travelling there. We're (Cdns are) nastier, in his mind, than Maxwell
August 10, 2025 at 2:12 PM
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bencollins.bsky.social
Kinda hard to see a free and fair 2028 election where she doesn’t win by a lot.
acyn.bsky.social Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · Apr 12
AOC: How can anyone possibly make an objective vote on healthcare, energy, or war when their personal wealth is tied up in pharmaceutical, oil and gas, or defense company stock?
April 12, 2025 at 11:04 PM
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heathermoandco.bsky.social
There’s an almost overwhelming barrage of fakery online. Especially during elections. The political right has a vast ecosystem of online manipulation. So to help people out, here are some terms that are important to know. This is from an article I wrote in Oct 2022, published Jan/23. #CdnDisinfo
First, let’s define a few terms: Bots: Automated accounts where the frequency and content of tweets are controlled by software. Often used to act as accelerants of messaging. This can be malicious in the form of manipulation, i.e. spreading disinformation, amplifying divisive propaganda; or useful in the form of alerts about natural disasters; or benign in the form of tweeting out routine marketing of everyday products. Trolls: Online false identities, assumed by individuals acting alone, or as part of an organized group (for example, a troll factory, where individuals are paid to be deception agents online). Their intent is to spread malicious content, attack individuals and be disruptive. The human handler of troll accounts can manage many accounts at once. (A distinction can be drawn between individuals acting on their own and paid trolls). Cyborgs: Accounts that are partially automated combined with human handlers. For example a factory troll can manage more accounts when the accounts are partially automated. Bots can take over and continue tweeting while the human handler is offline or engaged with other accounts in the roster. Software is used for the automated portion of these accounts. Sock puppet account: Anonymous accounts with default profile image. The term has also come to mean the misleading use of an online identity, often used to bypass removal by a social media company like Twitter. Sock puppet accounts often post praise of their other account(s) while posing as an entirely separate third party individual. Backing: When large numbers of inauthentic accounts “back” the account of an authentic user, making them appear as though they are more influential and increasing the size of their megaphone. This, in turn, encourages legitimate users to follow and pushes the account higher in the ranking. Boost: When bots and troll factory accounts are used to artificially amplify tweets. This can be done to help get a hashtag to trend or to promote a particular desired narrative. The boosted tweets will then become prioritized by Twitter’s algorithms and receive higher ranking, thus becoming more visible to people exploring a hashtag, regardless of whether or not the person is following the account that put out the tweet. (Genuine users can also encourage followers to “boost” a message, but as this is authentic, it has different connotations than adversarial use of boosting, employing thousands of bots). Brigading: Coordinated abusive engagement. For example, coordinated mass reporting of a particular account with the goal of having the account silenced, sidelined or removed. It is similar to swarming, where large numbers of coordinated malicious accounts flood a target account with abusive replies and quote tweets in an effort to attract others to join in the swarming and overwhelm the user of the target account. Swarming has a few meanings, including “bot swarming” when large numbers of bots all tweet versions of the same content in a coordinated fashion to give the impression that many people are agreeing and saying similar things. CIB (Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour): Facebook defines CIBs as such: “Influence operations as coordinated efforts to manipulate public debate for a strategic goal where fake accounts are central to the operation.” Misinformation: False information, accidentally spread, where the person spreading the false information is unaware of its falsehood. Disinformation: False information, deliberately spread with intent to deceive. Malinformation: Factual information, spread with malicious context meant to mislead or inflict harm. Hacked emails or photos, “revenge porn”, doxxing, phishing, are all examples of malinformation. Propaganda: Can be true or false. It can contain elements of disinformation and malinformation. But its ultimate purpose is to influence and manipulate. Marc Owen Jones, an associate professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa University and author of Digital Authoritarianism in the Middle East & Political Repression in Bahrain, prefers to use the term deception as a catchall to include elements of disinformation, malinformation and propaganda. “I think [the term] ‘deception’ is important, because ‘deception’ carries the mode of delivery, as well as the content itself….Deception is more about the means of delivery, which can tell us a lot about the intent as well. If someone is spreading a message with a thousand fake accounts, their intention is not good. Or their intention is to do something that is not transparent.”
April 13, 2025 at 4:40 PM
molotov-mocktail.bsky.social
@steveboots.bsky.social
molotov-mocktail.bsky.social Molotov Mocktail @molotov-mocktail.bsky.social · Apr 13
“…it's the Liberals who are attempting to bring American-style politics to our country," said Conservative Party of Canada spokesperson Sam Lilly”
Handing out complementary fact-based buttons is a sinister MAGA-esque conspiracy on par with election denialism?
April 13, 2025 at 6:57 PM
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georgetakei.bsky.social
Art of the Deal!
A tweet by Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank ) posted 14 hours ago features a cartoon by "BLOPER." The cartoon shows three men in a meeting room. One man is pointing at a chart with a fluctuating line that sharply drops, saying, "It was at this point, gentlemen, that the President decided it was his plan all along to reverse course." The other two men are seated at a table, listening.
April 13, 2025 at 4:01 PM
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kyivindependent.com
⚡️Russian attacks on Kherson kill 3, injure 2.

Shelling in the city center killed a 62-year-old woman, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said. Two other Kherson residents, a 48-year-old man and a 68-year-old woman, died in the hospital after being injured in drone attacks.
Russian attacks on Kherson kill 3, injure 2
Shelling in the city center killed a 62-year-old woman, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said. Two other Kherson residents, a 48-year-old man and a 68-year-old woman, died in the hospital after being injur...
kyivindependent.com
April 13, 2025 at 6:33 PM
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kelseyhightower.com
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." - President Lyndon B. Johnson
April 11, 2025 at 8:44 PM
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mark-ungrin.bsky.social
Interesting. Word-finding issues? Cognitive impairment? Pretty sure that impacted the leaders' debates in our last provincial election. Statistically you'd expect to see some, given the prevalence & high risk activities.

Maybe if it affects enough politicians they'll finally do something about it.
mark-ungrin.bsky.social Mark Ungrin @mark-ungrin.bsky.social · Nov 25
From populists on the right, but also from establishment figures desperate to bury their responsibility, there's an ongoing push to bury the harms of COVID.

Long COVID alone costs 7M life-years (QALYs) and on the order of a trillion dollars a year in the OECD.
www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issue...
1. While a precise estimate of long COVID prevalence is still emerging, current research suggests that up to 10-30% of people who contracted COVID-19 exhibit symptoms corresponding to long COVID in the weeks and months following acute infection. Across OECD countries at a minimum, this would represent upwards of 39 million people who had or are currently living with long COVID. Sustainable investment in long COVID research is crucial to inform health and social care resource allocation. As the evidence base grows, developing standardised measures of symptoms and functional impact to support a more precise definition that enables the disaggregation of levels of long COVID severity could be useful to better understand the condition, assess its impact, and to tailor care and support. 3. Long COVID can severely limit people’s ability to undertake basic activities of daily life and can dramatically hamper quality of life. More than 7 million quality-adjusted life years may be lost annually across OECD countries due to the condition. Studies from across a range of OECD countries suggest that one sixth to more than one-third of people may have persistent cognitive symptoms, often lasting more than 12 weeks, after a COVID-19 infection. 4. Even conservative estimates of long COVID prevalence would indicate that long COVID may be reducing the workforce by nearly 3 million workers across OECD countries, amounting to an economic cost of at least $141 billion USD from lost wages alone. Moreover, even among those who were able to return to the labour force, a significant proportion reported needing to reduce the number of hours they worked, compared to before their infection. 5. The economic and social welfare costs of long COVID are dramatic: Even excluding the direct costs of health care, long COVID is likely costing OECD countries as much as $864 billion $1.04 trillion USD per year due to reductions in quality of life and labour force participation. The limitations in activities experienced by long COVID patients, including dropping out or reducing their participation in the labour force, as well as direct medical care costs, can have dramatic implications on their financial well-being. Costs to health and social protection systems may also be high over time. 6. Long COVID could further exacerbate inequalities: The COVID-19 pandemic brought attention to longstanding socioeconomic and demographic inequalities in health. Evidence from some countries suggests that certain groups – including populations with lower education attainment, and those living in more deprived areas – may be at risk of developing long COVID, and of experiencing more severe symptoms. 7. Patients have played a critical role in bringing attention and action to long COVID: Throughout the pandemic, countries deprioritized many key aspects of person-centred care in exchange for rapidly implementing policies intended to contain the virus. While the need for rapid action was clear, the lack of patient voice in the process was notable. In contrast, patients and patient groups have been at the forefront of advocating for both a recognition of long COVID as a legitimate condition, in articulating their care and support needs, and in spearheading research into the condition. In many cases, countries have responded by actively working together with patient groups to disseminate information and develop patient-centred support services.
April 11, 2025 at 8:58 PM
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sarahkendzior.bsky.social
www.thelastamericanroadtrip.com
quote from THE LAST AMERICAN ROAD TRIP book
April 11, 2025 at 11:40 PM
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acyn.bsky.social
The President and his umbrella attempt to board Air Force One
April 11, 2025 at 11:41 PM
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bugster202.bsky.social
About two hours after a tweet saying it's a great time to buy. #insidetrading
April 11, 2025 at 10:17 PM
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michaelmackay.bsky.social
Trump is a liar. Russia was invading Ukraine and breaking ceasefires every day he occupied the White House the first time. Trump did nothing to stop it.

Here are my tweets from April 11th on each of those years.

Trump is Putin's puppet. Russia is a terrorist state.
April 11, 2025 at 4:44 PM
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chrismurphyct.bsky.social
April 9, 2025 at 6:59 PM
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maddow.bsky.social
"The Mississippi Library Commission ordered the deletion of two research collections that might violate state law, a memo obtained by Mississippi Today shows.

"One of the now deleted collections focused on 'race relations' and the other on 'gender studies'...”

mississippitoday.org/2025/04/08/m...
Mississippi libraries ordered to delete academic research in response to state laws - Mississippi Today
The two research collections state officials ordered for deletion included material from professional journals, conference papers, books, student dissertations, periodicals and newspaper articles.
mississippitoday.org
April 10, 2025 at 7:13 PM
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maddow.bsky.social
"Our parents are actively fighting for our country for us to be able to have these rights..."

www.military.com/daily-news/2...
April 11, 2025 at 6:11 PM
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mark-carney.bsky.social
We're building something big here. Thank you, Victoria. #CanadaStrong
April 7, 2025 at 10:15 PM
molotov-mocktail.bsky.social
Canadian taxpayers are vexed and puzzled at how the official opposition's party leadership race so mysteriously produced this whiner, who in 2022 secured 22,993 of the approx 33,800 electoral points up for grabs.
#StephenHarper 's food taster needs a good long holiday – at his own party's expense.
davidhamer1951.bsky.social David Hamer @davidhamer1951.bsky.social · Apr 7
#ElbowsUp🇨🇦
Let’s place piffleswipe Pierre Poilievre gently into the dustbin of history and drive on with the adult leadership of Prime Minister Mark Carney.
🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁
April 7, 2025 at 9:43 PM
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trumpwatchdog.bsky.social
Just so no one forgets: FOX News had to cough up $787 million for lying to the public.
April 7, 2025 at 5:58 PM
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maddow.bsky.social
Well this seems like a fantastic plan.

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/h...
April 7, 2025 at 1:41 AM
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georgetakei.bsky.social
Where is our humanity?
April 6, 2025 at 9:26 PM
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warrior-patticakes.bsky.social
Fuck defunding.

I'm screaming, "ABOLISH DOGE!"

I get it... They have to do what they can within their means, but fuck. Can we just get rid of them all already?

The whole place is one big dumpster fire of inefficiency. It's a shell company for F'elon to rob us blind.
April 7, 2025 at 4:44 AM
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sethabramson.bsky.social
April 6, 2025 at 6:28 AM
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dougaldlamont.bsky.social
Great job, @theglobeandmail.com and a big shout out to David Rosenberg for their trenchant financial insight.

Good thing past performance is not an indicator of future results.
April 6, 2025 at 9:05 PM
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theguardian.com
Israel killed 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers one by one, says UN
Israel killed 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers one by one, says UN
Workers on a mission to help colleagues were buried in mass grave in southern Gaza, says humanitarian office Fifteen Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, including at least one United Nations employee, were killed by Israeli forces “one by one” and buried in a mass grave eight days ago in southern Gaza, the UN has said. According to the UN humanitarian affairs office (Ocha), the Palestinian Red Crescent and civil defence workers were on a mission to rescue colleagues who had been shot at earlier in the day, when their clearly marked vehicles came under heavy Israeli fire in Rafah city’s Tel al-Sultan. A Red Crescent official in Gaza said that there was evidence of at least one person being detained and killed, as the body of one of the dead had been found with his hands tied. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
March 31, 2025 at 2:42 PM
molotov-mocktail.bsky.social
Essential reading. #OrbanPlaybook
chrismurphyct.bsky.social Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · Apr 3
Those trying to understand the tariffs as economic policy are dangerously naive.

No, the tariffs are a tool to collapse our democracy. A means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief.

1/ A 🧵 to explain his plan and how we fight back.
April 5, 2025 at 2:11 AM