Janet Bufton 🍁🌻
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janetbufton.ca
Janet Bufton 🍁🌻
@janetbufton.ca
3.2K followers 430 following 3.1K posts
Canadian mum, 3D liberal in Babylon
Writing collected at janetbufton.ca
diversity dynamism democracy Detroit Lions
Elbows up.
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janetbufton.ca
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A graphic of muscle strains. Grade 1 shows a red area on the muscle. Grade 2 shows a partial tear, with visible separation on either side of the tear. For the grade 3 tear, the muscle is completely torn, with the two halves separated.
November 29, 2025 at 4:59 PM
janetbufton.ca
We are habituated to the technocratic details of a budget mattering most—which taxes are raised/cut? Where is spending directed? What is regulated and how? When will the budget balance?

It's all now secondary to digging in hard to defend the open society.

open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/...
We are in a struggle against populism. That is the story of our age. It desires a closed society: closed to people, and goods, and ideas. It would impoverish us, then use the hatred and anger which results to target immigrants in ever more grievous ways. The open society has the ability to improve people’s lives in a way populism never will. But to do so, it must commit to its principles: rationality, transparency, sober policy-making and national responsibility. We need a tax policy which is geared to growth, an economic strategy which desires growth, and a political agenda which is prepared to face down the nativist complaints which get in the way of growth. That is how we will improve people’s lives. That is how we can kill populism. The Budget may have had some welcome policies, but on the core issue of our time it was an act of criminal negligence.
November 29, 2025 at 11:50 AM
janetbufton.ca
Let's go Blue Jays
A giant puppet of Domer, the OG mascot of the Sky Dome. He's dark green with a blue and yellow shell and he's a bit of a goober tbh. Wherever you go, his eyes follow you.
October 25, 2025 at 12:39 AM
janetbufton.ca
Tutu thanks you for your service.
A blue masked lovebird looks approvingly on efforts to free trade from his perch on a basket under a mirror.
October 23, 2025 at 9:28 PM
janetbufton.ca
Once @aragusea.bsky.social demystifies cassoulet you can do things like use turkey fat to make 15min meatless (not vegetarian) canned beans for a 3yo who only wants white beans (which matters for some reason) and the "bean sauce" that sticks to them when we fish them out of cassoulet. #foodsky
White beans in a skillet with what might approach cassoulet with meat and more time but is perfectly sufficient for Their Majesty Thing 2.
October 13, 2025 at 10:00 PM
janetbufton.ca
For want of partridgeberries, I'm making cranberry pickles.

Cranberries are more one-note than partridgeberries, though, and I wonder if anyone on #cookingsky #foodsky has experience substituing them and would recommend adding something like a little quince.
A bluish pot with a mixture of onions and cranberries and a wooden spoon sticking out. Some sugar and warm spices coat the berries and onions.
October 12, 2025 at 1:02 PM
janetbufton.ca
Mean Girls waiting in a car with Adam Smith for you to hop in and try to figure out how rich or poor people were over long stretches into the past by using grain prices while workers earned near subsistence wages.
October 9, 2025 at 10:21 AM
janetbufton.ca
Here is Tutu and he is not supposed to be on the bananas.
A blue masked lovebird sits on top of a bunch of bananas hanging from a banana stand. He is in front of a tile backsplash that kind of matches his body and the white trim that kind of matches his breast but his head is black and in front of the white trim so he's really not fooling anyone. He's a naughty bird not a master of disguise.
September 11, 2025 at 3:51 AM
janetbufton.ca
also a classic kid move
Two pages from Mo Willems' book Knuffle Bunny On the left page, a man stoops over a toddler in overalls. The caption says, "'Now, please don't get fussy,' said her daddy. "Well, she had no choice..." On fhe right page are two frames. In the left one, a man is holding the hand of a wailing toddler dragging her feet with a huge "WAAAA!" speech bubble. The caption says, "Trixie bawled." In the right frame, the man looks worried as he conforts himself to hold a toddler flopping over backwards above the sidewalk. The caption says, "She went boneless."
September 6, 2025 at 2:51 AM
janetbufton.ca
Here is the direction from the order about explicit sexual content.
Standards for School Library Materials 2. A school authority is required to implement the following Standards for the selection, availability, and access of school library materials: a. The school authority must not select for inclusion in a school library, or make available to any children or students in a school library, materials containing explicit sexual content.
August 30, 2025 at 12:40 PM
janetbufton.ca
Here is explicit sexual content as defined in the order.

(I can't imagine The Handmaid's Tale is excluded because the Commander ejaculates into and not onto Offred.)
d· 'explicit sexual content" means content containing a detailed and clear depiction of a sexual act. This includes, but is not limited to, a detailed and clear depiction of i. masturbation including touching of a person's own genitals or anus with a finger, artificial sexual organ or other substitute for a sexual organ, iii. penetration of the penis into the vagina or anus, iii. contact of a sexual nature between the genitalia, mouth, hand, finger or other body part with the clothed or unclothed genitalia, pubic area, buttocks, anus, or if the person is female, the breast, of another person, iv. ejaculation onto another person, or v. the use of artificial sexual organs or substitutes for sexual organs on the clothed or unclothed genitalia, pubic area, buttocks, anus, or if the person is female, the breast, of another person, but does not include non-sexual content, non-explicit sexual content or any depiction of any nature contained in religious texts or scriptures;
August 30, 2025 at 12:40 PM
janetbufton.ca
...he's a lot more confident than I am that domestic violence is automatically or will remain a non-starter.
And the simplest, one-line refutation of it is to look at the men who were arrested for offences in the various race riots that followed events at Southport last year. Of those men, a staggering 40% had been reported to the police for domestic violence. There is, in other words, probably no single group of people – not in Britain or anywhere else – who are more prone to violence against women than the people now standing outside the hotels denouncing refugees. This, rather than shouting Nazi, is the argument most likely to undermine the anti-refugee protests. We need to be using it in our leaflets, when we talk to people, and on our protests.
August 29, 2025 at 1:25 PM
janetbufton.ca
👀
Population panic – worries about “depopulation” linked to low birth rates – has become pervasive, with dire predictions in both the short and long term. Yet demographers like us – experts who explicitly study population size, composition, and structure – are generally not highly concerned. Why is this? It’s because we understand the strengths and limitations of population projections. Projections can accurately describe how populations will change if we know future birth, death, and migration rates. But demographers are well aware that they don’t have a crystal ball – we can’t fully anticipate economic shifts, political changes, global events, or how future generations will respond to their changing worlds. That’s why the farther we project from the present, the less accurate those projections are likely to be.
August 20, 2025 at 11:56 PM
janetbufton.ca
Some people worship wood.

isaiah-berlin.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/sites/defaul...
"If I find men who worship trees, not because they are symbols of fertility or because they are divine, with a mysterious life and powers of their own, or because this grove is sacred to Athena – but only because they are made of wood; and if when I ask them why they worship wood they say ‘Because it is wood’ and give no other answer; then I do not know what they mean. If they are human, they are not beings with whom I can communicate..." From Isaiah Berlin's The Pursuit of the Ideal.
August 18, 2025 at 5:51 PM
janetbufton.ca
yes also
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On asks what we still consider strange in 2025.
August 15, 2025 at 1:06 PM
janetbufton.ca
Ethnonationalists are more evil than you think, even if you think they are very bad indeed, if you think this👇(from the FT) is just them being stupid.

It's not stupid. It's coherent, scary, evil.

How bad do things need to get before editors demand their outlets understand/explain this?
1/
He begins telling me about how America’s biggest problem is “decades of mass immigration”. I point out that the US is, you know, a nation of immigrants, to which he responds: “It was originally founded by people of north-west European ancestry.” I note there were people there before them. “There were native Americans, and they lost out,” he replies. “Sucks for them.” This is an odd comment from the spokesperson of a party claiming one of its key beliefs to be that “indigenous people have an inseparable bond with their homeland and are its natural stewards” to make.
August 9, 2025 at 6:29 PM
janetbufton.ca
What is the origin of this "rule of thumb"?
in the United States and Europe alike, voters repeatedly said they wanted a slowdown in immigration. A rule of thumb is that whenever the foreign-born share of a population surges to somewhere around 15 percent, there is discontent. In the United States, the foreign-born share has tripled since 1970 and is now around 15 percent. The top estimate, 15.8 percent, would constitute the highest level of immigrants in America since at least 1850.
July 20, 2025 at 9:57 AM
janetbufton.ca
For people who don't want to spend their time doing this themselves, the patch signifies affiliation with or support for Russian invasion and occupation. But I'm not sure if there's a specific group that likes to use it.

www.bbc.com/news/world-e...
Screen grab from the CBC story covering the arrest of one of the accused with a black and white patch with Cyrillic writing. (this was still on Facebook when I looked) Caption is: "A photo from Raphaël Lagacé's Facebook profile posted 2021. It included a caption protesting the Liberals' gun control legislation. He is now charged with knowingly facilitating terrorist activity. Raphaël Lagacé/Facebook." Translation of the script on the patch from a page on which the patch is being sold, found by image search. Google thinks it says "polite people". A screengrab from the BBC story: "Polite men" Russian journalists less aligned with the Kremlin often use the phrase "polite men". According to centrist daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta, "'polite, armed men' are in charge of Crimea now". Describing them as Russian troops in the Russian media "is not the done thing, and even dangerous, too," prominent photojournalist Denis Sinyakov comments on independent website Colta.
July 14, 2025 at 10:12 AM
janetbufton.ca
I am going to lose my mind if the reporting does not continually point out that a trade agreement is also something he says he's going to do.

Canada already has a Trump-negotiated trade agreement as a bright flashing reminder that his agreements are not any more solid than his threats.
“Whatever Trump says is irrelevant, because that’s not what he’s going to end up doing. Do we like it? No. It’s a terrible way to do business. Do we have to accept it because that’s all there is? Yes,” said David Kotok, a strategic adviser at Cumberland Advisors. Some market strategists expect the bull market to endure. Trade policy should become less volatile later this year, as the administration cinches deals with U.S. trading partners, Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi, global head of equities for UBS financial services, told clients recently.
July 13, 2025 at 11:27 AM
janetbufton.ca
Redoing this to clarify that while Caplan is supportive of anti-DEI Trump allies, and attending and standing up for pro-eugenics, white nationalist friendly conferences, he is still not pro-*Trump*, so far as I know. Just no defender of liberalism.

(And Brennan is strongly anti-Trump.)
Deleted skeet by me: But for all his flaws, Brennan is not pro-Trump, unless I missed something. Maybe not everybody's favourite ally at the end of the day, but he's still a liberal and he didn't end up where Caplan did.
July 2, 2025 at 5:41 PM
janetbufton.ca
This part reminds me very much of @jacobtlevy.bsky.social's discussion in Political Libertarianism of particular public power, a force against which the hate-the-state libertarians have been, at *best*, useless.
At its best, an anti-state attitude is an insufficient guide for continuing the struggle for liberty and liberalism in the 21st century. At worst, it is a strategy that can (and has been) consciously manipulated to expand the scope of unaccountable private power, leaving individuals even less free than before. This is especially relevant given that state and corporate power have become enmeshed and increasingly complement—rather than check—each other, complicating the clean distinction between state and market on which the anti-state view rests.
June 3, 2025 at 2:01 PM
janetbufton.ca
Thinking of the anti-anti Trumpers who champion Haidt's crusade against kids using social media.
On Wednesday the State Department issued a cable to embassies and consulates advising them to halt student visa interviews "in preparation for an expansion of required social media screening and vetting." And on Friday, the department announced it would be starting this program with Harvard. *Even the lack of a public-facing social media presence would be used by the government as evidence against student applicants*, as it "may be reflective of evasiveness and call into question the applicant's credibility." (emphasis mine)
May 31, 2025 at 11:07 PM
janetbufton.ca
Does anyone still say, "Never again?" Or have we given up completely?
"Bystanders have no standing in this struggle. Neither side is listening to anything we say. It is their reality, not ours. The best we can do is send money to the agencies--Red Cross and Red Crescent-- to provide that girl and her family with food, clothing and water."
May 20, 2025 at 3:28 PM
janetbufton.ca
This is the most striking part of the whole piece to me because taking UATX at its word *requires a very limited way of thinking and a very limited scope of reading and listening*.

This must feel awful for her.
"I developed an appreciation for the sinking feeling I got when I suddenly realised I'd been limited in my thinking—an appreciation bolstered by the vigorous approach my classmates and professors brought to debates."
May 17, 2025 at 10:05 PM
janetbufton.ca
I realize this isn't why we're all going to get some mutated bird measles flu that we name after RFK but it feels related.
A grocery store shelf is filled with boxes of President's Choice brand beverages that purport to be for "immune support" "energy metabolism" and "gut health". Some alphonso mango drinks underneath the offending boxes are less sus.
May 16, 2025 at 7:15 PM