Patrick Foster 🇨🇦

That's it for me for a while. Good luck everyone.

I’m so sick of people.

PW: What's to love about tax law? Christians: Well, tax law is how we create our country. That's how we build our society. That's how we create the communities that we want to live in and the lifestyle that we want to share with our neighbours. That's how: with tax law. PW: I guess the goal [of tax policy] is to generate the largest amount of revenue with the smallest amount of grief? And to send social signals while you're at it. Is that right? Christians: I don't think so. Tax is not about raising maximum revenue. Tax is about deciding what society you're trying to build and what portions of that society need to be made public, and what can be left to private interests which then need to profit. So we have decided in Canada, as a country, that basic minimum healthcare cannot be a for-profit enterprise. It has to be a public enterprise in order to make sure that it works for everybody to a certain basic level. So tax is about making those decisions: are we going to privatize everything and everyone pays for their own health care, security, roads, insurance, fire department etc. And if they can't pay, then too bad? Or are we going to have a certain minimum, and that minimum is going to be provided in a public way that harmonizes across the communities that we have. And that's what tax is about. It's not about extracting revenue at all. It's about creating revenue. It's about creating a market. It's about investing in a community. So I just object to the whole idea that tax is about extracting something from me, because what tax is doing is creating a market for me to be able to thrive. Not just me, but all of my neighbours, as well.

All alt text is in first pic

This is probably the right way to think about taxes - how we signal our values and build our society

paulwells.substack.com/p/the-q-and-...

I’m a single issue voter and my issue is STOP FUCKING FIGHTING EACH OTHER AND FOCUS.

Feels like it’s time for a sequel, though.

I liked it better as books. The LARPing is less compelling.

These are great books, and you should buy them.

I seriously think the Social Internet is 21st century cigarettes. Complete with secondary smoke causing a lot of harm in nonusers.

Weak.

That’s the part that makes me most insane. How can you normalize this?

I’d dearly like to ascribe this to malice, but I think there’s a better than average chance a not very old graphic designer rearranged to colours to make them pop against the background with zero clue anyone else uses RWB in their flag, let alone /those guys/.

Back in a week.

I used to date the Rokeby Venus.

Top shelf.

A friend just asked me what I do to stay hopeful and I told him one of my favorite strategies…I stay hopeful by remembering that no one has any idea what the fuck is going to happen, so as long as we don’t know, we gotta do what we can.

If you’re looking for a great SF adventure, this is your pick this week.

As a guy who sets type for a living, that is correct.

Book giveaway for Condition of War: A Central Corps Novel by Elizabeth Bonesteel May 28-Jun 18, 2025 Enter to win one of 5 free copies available. Giveaway dates from May 28-Jun 18, 2025. Enter for a chance to win a signed paperback copy of CONDITION OF W...

She's out in a week, so I did the giveaway thing. 5 paperbacks, US and Canada. #sff #goodreads

www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sho...

Yeah, not wildly confident. And yet… ever hopeful.

They were spoiled for choice, really.

Fingers crossed for the new guy, whoever he ends up being.

Same. Apparently there's an early draft of Goldeneye written for him; he would have been great to watch.

Dalton was so good in that. He deserved one more (good) swing at Bond.

Sandbaggers is a good choice.

Repost w/ the five shows you would be happy to rewatch over and over again for the rest of your life, as your sole TV diet.

- 30 Rock
- Deep Space Nine
- Doctor Who
- Rick Steves’ Europe
- The West Wing

Was rewatching ‘Ghost Protocol’ and realized how much the last two film badly need a sequence like ‘breaking into the Kremlin’ or ‘swap the codes in the Burj Kalifa’. The stunts are amazing, but that can’t be all.

Just so. And very thin.
Fun, but there’s no _there_ there.

I miss when the set pieces were clockwork spy things and not ‘look what this old man has the nerve to do.’ Not that it’s not impressive, it’s just as fun. One crazy thing is a delight; several, less so.

They did a fine job of that on their own.

(Don’t get me wrong: they were entertaining, but nowhere near as clever as earlier ones.)

A poster looking out to sea. In the distance, almost hidden by clouds, enormous shapes in the sky. In the foreground at the left, a man and an octopus thing in a space helmet are looking out to sea. At the top of the image it says ‘love death + robots’ and ‘Golgotha’.

Once more for the evening crowd, the new series of Love Death + Robots launched today, and it features an adaptation of my story ‘Golgotha’. It has a cool poster.