Meanwhile in #Indonesia post election:
“The main concern about a government without opposition is the absence of checks and balances….experts are afraid that an unchallenged government would be rife with abuse of power, corruption and authoritarianism.”

John McWhorter: I’m a Columbia Professor. The Protests on My Campus Are Not Justice. What began as intelligent protest has become, in its uncompromising fury and its ceaselessness, a form of abuse. nytimes.com/2024/04/23/opi…

Bonnie Bewes paints in reverse. There are only a few people in the world using the techniques. #Muskoka muskokaregion.com/life/muskokas-…

No Bounce: Liberals’ hoped-for support surge in wake of under-40 targeted spending blitz has yet to materialize angusreid.org/budget-deficit…

Texas and California — states with the most Electoral College votes in presidential elections — accounted for almost 30% of total US goods exports to China last year. via ⁦Bloomberg⁩

Export prices of Chinese manufactured goods have fallen sharply. via ⁦Bloomberg⁩

Talks under way in Ottawa on curbing global plastics pollution - The Globe and Mail “Delegates from 174 countries are in Ottawa this week for the fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution, or INC-4 #EarthDay theglobeandmail.com/politics/artic…

On this day in 1897 Canadian war veteran, diplomat, Foreign & Prime Minister Lester B. #Pearson was born. While visiting the grave of this #Nobel Peace Prize laureate in Wakefield, Québec we recalled his wise words “ #Diplomacy is letting someone else have your way.” AMBCANADA

A group of 39 prominent biologists and philosophers has released the New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness, a document that states that there’s a “realistic possibility” of consciousness in many animals. Dan Falk reports: quantamagazine.org/insects-and-ot…

The UK is still exporting fewer goods than before Brexit, as the economy becomes more reliant on selling services to the rest of the world. via ⁦Bloomberg⁩

The rainy season is arriving at the Panama Canal as predicted, fueling hopes that a prominent trade chokepoint will clear up just in time for shipping’s busy time of year. The seven-day moving average of daily vessel crossings reached 25 last week. via ⁦Bloomberg⁩

Globe’s ⁦John Ibbitson⁩ : The Conservatives are now as popular as the Liberals with newcomers. There would be a certain irony if the Liberal Party’s wide-open immigration policies caused immigrant voters to contribute to its defeat. theglobeandmail.com/politics/opini…

Spain, roughly tied with Italy as the fertility laggards among major Western countries, has opted for more immigrants. In the late 1990s, scarcely 3 percent of residents in Spain were immigrants; today they account for more than 17 percen washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/…

Germany sees spike in Chinese and Russian espionage. Six suspected spies have been arrested in quick succession. Security services see links to the war against Ukraine, economic interests and a war on democracy. dw.com/en/germany-see…

This is so well written: Why a Dog’s Death Hits So Hard theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Continues to Surprise and hurts Trump more than Biden | AGF Perspectives perspectives.agf.com/robert-f-kenne…

This is a very perceptive observation.

'Trump is veering from rage to petulance, and from slumber to intimidation, in the courtroom because he’s the star of a lurid Manhattan reality show he isn’t producing or directing. He doesn’t control the narrative and others are writing the scripts. And some of the scripts say

On this day in 1918, The Red Baron was shot down during a dogfight with Canadians Wop May, Roy Brown and others.
Brown is credited by the RAF for shooting down the Baron, earning a bar on his DSC but some historians believe gunfire from the ground actually took the Baron down.

The switch from coal to natural gas (and, now the growth of renewables) has helped drive U.S. emissions down 15% since 2005.

But even with the green energy boost of the Inflation Reduction Act, we're still a long ways from our Paris Accords goals. Morning Joe