by Sean Orr | Everybody’s talking: The Magic of Kellie Leitch’s Batshit, Beautiful Campaign Video. While we can marvel at the incredibly poor choices the producers took in this video, there’s a part of me that thinks it might be a trap to get the internet worked up in a tizzy. And it worked. It’s like they took a page from that bizarre Breitbart-Spicer interview, or Christine O’Donnell’s famous I’m not a witch clip. Leitch was trending on Facebook by the end of the day. That’s no accident.

But maybe it goes deeper. Maybe it proves we are living in a simulation:

The implicit dread logic is plain. If we are among the simulated minds, then we exist in order to be stimulated minds: we exist in order for the controllers to run experiments. Until recently, our simulation, the Matrix within which we were unknowingly imprisoned, seemed in reasonably sound hands. Terrible things did happen as the cold-blooded, unemotional machines that ran it experimented with the effects of traumatic events—wars, plagues, “Gilligan’s Island”—on hyper-emotionalized programs such as us. And yet the basic logic of the enfolding program seemed sound. Things pinned down did not suddenly drift toward the ceiling; cats did not go to Westminster; Donald Trump did not get elected President; the movie that won Best Picture was the movie that won Best Picture. Now everything has gone haywire, and anything can happen.

Hey, it could even snow in Vancouver in March and nobody will talk about why. Like, is it climate change? Is it because arctic outflow is disrupting the jet stream?

But back to the wacky world of conservative politics: Kevin O’Leary says he can’t be bought, sets $50,000 fundraiser minimum. Again, the natural reaction here is to be baffled. Baffled that we are talking about a guy who got shut-down by a 14 year old girl. Baffled by a guy who called a Pulitzer winning journalist a left-wing nut bar on Fox News CBC. Baffled by a guy who says he doesn’t wear pants because the CBC is run by women.

But – and I’ve clearly been watching too much Hannibal – this is his design. The global elites are no longer lurking in the shadows. They are now mocking us out in the open.

It’s strategic neglect: How Global Elites Profit from Unaffordability.

They’ve convinced us that poverty is inevitable and too expensive to tackle. As Charles Demers illuminates, it’s a conscious political choice.

They know that facts don’t matter.

They ruined everything and they don’t care.

My indictment of boomers may seem overbroad, but the thesis is quite specific: the unusual prevalence of sociopathy in an unusually large generation. How does that disorder manifest? Improvidence is reflected in low levels of savings and high levels of bankruptcy. Deceit shows up as a distaste for facts, a subject on display in everything from Enron’s quarterly reports to daily press briefings. Interpersonal failures and unbridled hostility appeared in unusually high levels of divorce and crime from the 1970s to early 1990s.

They make up shit like the ‘alt-left‘ to discredit a growing dissatisfaction with establishment politics.

They give us the lie of conscious consumerism and we lap it up:

Making series of small, ethical purchasing decisions while ignoring the structural incentives for companies’ unsustainable business models won’t change the world as quickly as we want. It just makes us feel better about ourselves.

They destroy mainstream media with “sycophantic corporate journalism” and blame it on the internet. They stash their money in offshore tax shelters and the CRA gives them amnesty.

They mock the turnout of a six hour-long rally on a Tuesday afternoon: Wayne Moriarty: Even Pyrrhus would have given up on Trump protest.

I agree, but for a very different reason. There were multiple people trying to engage in debate with a very small pro-Trump contingent. These people don’t want debate. They want to make you upset and it worked. You got upset and they won. They are net-reactionaries. They don’t care about anything and they know that you care about everything. They have already won. Just whisper in their ear “It’s going to be ok” and walk away.

And if you’re best move is to shout “Love trumps hate,” then well…you’re just letting them win. And if the public continues to buy the developer’s notion that the protests are nothing to do with him, they’re just not even playing the game. Also, the “stickie wall” was bereft of any critique of Neo-liberalism.

But I guess this is the future that liberals want.

And this might be the best thing to come out of it:

And the Rebel guy just got lectured by police about winding up the crowd #TrumpVancouver pic.twitter.com/0UnhuwMMly

— Bethany Lindsay ??? (@bethanylindsay) February 28, 2017

Related: The Toronto Sun Fell For An Obvious Hoax About Paid Anti-Trump Protesters.

Young Workers on the Front Lines of Vancouver’s Opioid Crisis Are Burning Out. This is what happens when what should be essential services are provided by an ad-hoc hotel association filling a vacuum created by multiple levels of government. It’s related to everything I’ve said above. Austerity is class war.

And when they’re not busy dismantling the social safety net for 16 years they’re “giving back“; The BC Liberals are accusing the NDP of espionage while doing it themselves: NDP allege B.C. Liberal staffer spied on public youth meeting. Maybe this seems silly, but the fact that the Liberals actually have a plan to hang-up on the media is really worrying.

And now they’re getting investigated by Elections BC. Shit, meet fan.

Oh, and they put the intern who impersonated John Horgan on the public payroll.

Cute video is cute: The Christy Clark Video Game. I assume they only had 30 seconds because that video could be 5 minutes long.

A False Creek full of dolphins and orcas could soon be reality, says conservation group. I’m sure the condo owners will just complain about all the noise.

RIP: Offbeat Vancouver gallery Hot Art Wet City closing at end of month

Honour bound: Strong women, strong music supporting Atira Women’s Resource Society.