Did you catch Ross Douthat's "column" in the NYT over the weekend? I read the free parts - headline and first three paragraphs. Good grief, what an asshole.
Canada, he opined, should "join the U.S.," he argued.
Like any self-respecting, resource-rich nation, with a decent national health care system and peaceful relations with 90-plus percent of the world would even consider joining Basket Case USA® for more than a second.
I lived in Montreal from 69 to 71 when I was a little kid...We lived halfway up Drummond St which was the street (at least at the time) where the steps up to Mount Royal Park were! It was either 69 or 70 that had one of the coldest snowiest winters on record....It was a fucking WONDERLAND and I still think back on those times almost with a mystical slant...so many foundational early memories there
i am thinking a lot about canada right now. mom is canadian and has had a bad couple months (she's sick, my special needs brother died over new years and she's not handling it well. she looks to have some kind of dementia...).
i have a canadian passport (as did my brother) but apparently my family is going to be buried around old orchard (north shore chicago suburbs) so i may have to forgo any montreal connections (my - very english/irish - grandparents are both buried in mont royal.)
It's Sunday 4:00 to 6:00 pm Chicago time. Open up a tab to wdcb.org/internet-stream for the 𝘔𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘰 𝘐𝘯𝘯, which is one of WDCB's best shows.
Here's WDCB's program description: "Host René Ávila carries a long tradition of Sunday afternoon Latin Jazz on WDCB into the future as he brings you along on a weekly trip to the 𝘔𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘰 𝘐𝘯𝘯. Tune in every Sunday from 4 - 6 pm for 2 hours of jazz with clave, as Ávila reaches back to the classic Afro-Cuban sounds of the '40s & '50s and explores Latin Jazz styles along the way to the current sounds of today."
I agree 100% Andrew, though I will say in Kim's defense that the scale of the clobbering was due mainly to the burgeoning Reform Party, which split the Conservative vote.
I still think the Trudeau-free Liberals are going to get shellacked like the Ontario party did in 2018, which reduced the Liberal members below the level for an official party and gave us Premier Doug Ford - who at the moment is probably going to skate to third majority when he calls a surprise/not surprise election in the spring.
I thought they should have left Trudeau in place to take the L and let the next person rebuild, but this is why I'm a bureaucrat and not a politician, LOL. Good luck to whoever takes the reins, they have their work cut out for them.
The question in my mind is whether PeePee's band of deplorables gets a majority or not. I know what the polls say now, but that could change once the election is actually underway. As a leader PeePee is a grievance-fueled douchebag and charisma void, but so was Stephen Harper and he won three successive elections.
I'm genuinely curious whether PeePee's embrace of the far-right fringes will help or hurt him. Harper kept a pretty tight rein on the fringe elements of the Cons while he was in charge but didn't get a majority government until 2011. I'm thinking there will be a resurgence of the Bloc Quebecois in Quebec that will keep them from a majority, but that might not be enough if the Liberals collapse in Ontario.
If Pierre Polyester wins it has to be a majority for him. If it isn't, especially with the supposed giant lead in the polls, the knives will probably be out for him.
"A generally well-meaning head of state finds himself increasingly unpopular and under pressure to resign and let someone else take the wheel before an upcoming election"
On one hand:
We have a POTUS who accomplished more than anyone expected him to do, was returning the country back onto the right track, and was respected on the world stage -- even though the RINOs cast shade at him every chance they could, justifiable (rarely) and most often out of spite for someone who has a "D" after their name -- and considered bipartisanship a key to effective leadership. One who was growing more unpopular as he ran for reelection, most likely due to:
* The gaslighting by the RINOs that Pres Biden is an incompetent leader that caused the increase in inflation (bullshit);
* The RINOs gaslighting about the increase in violent crime under his administration (bullshit);
* RINO gaslighting that Biden allowed 10s of millions criminals and those released from mental institutions invade the US via the southern border (bullshit);
* RINO gaslighting that Biden is a laughingstock on the world stage (bullshit);
* RINO gaslighting that Biden was ineffective as the Commander-in-Chief by constantly repeating how badly he failed in removing the US from Afghanistan (due to a timeframe that royally sucked when our expert dealmaker gave away the farm to the Taliban, see below). (bullshit);
* Losing support when he showed himself to be what he is: a tired, old man beaten down by the weight of the office; a man, who in all honesty, probably wouldn't last another four years in office;
* A POTUS who waited too long to remove himself from the campaign for the sake of his party and country.
OTOH:
* We have a POTUS-elect returning for a second chance to remake America in his image and one the Forefathers never envisioned;
* An incoming POTUS who has constantly put himself above the country and the Constitution;
* An incoming POTUS who wouldn't know the truth if it came up and introduced itself;
* An incoming POTUS who has never considered presiding over a liberal, democratic, unified country;
* An incoming POTUS who ran as a lark in 2016, and became the US' first transactional POTUS who saw the office as a way to make himself richer;
* An incoming POTUS who thinks that his tribe should rule in perpetuity, free and fair elections be damned;
* An incoming POTUS who plagiarizes:
"A variant of the phrase “Make America Great Again” first popularized by Republican Pres. Ronald Reagan, who used “Let’s Make America Great Again” as one of several slogans for his 1980 presidential campaign. Trump reportedly coined the phrase “Make America Great Again” in November 2012 [32 years after St Ronnie's 1980 campaign] https://www.britannica.com/topic/MAGA-movement
* An incoming POTUS who's hyperbole knows no bounds:
"The most recent talking point: that hundreds of millions of Americans not only support Trump, but love him.
* An incoming POTUS who considers himself a dealmaker with no equal (although he has no clue as to what constitutes a fair and equitable deal:
"designed to reduce US military occupation of troops from 14,000 to 4,500. Yet, it didn’t commit the Taliban to a ceasefire or to curtail their operations against Afghan forces.
Nor did it oblige the militia to engage in a genuine inter-Afghan dialogue. Similarly, it failed to take note of the fact that the Taliban had limited territorial control, mostly outside the main urban centres [sic]" https://www.visionofhumanity.org/trumps-perilous-approach-to-afghanistan/ [The negotiations cut out Pres Ghani or any representative of the legitimate government.]
-and-
"The deal set timelines for withdrawal and gave permission for the Taliban to attack U.S. troops if the timeline wasn’t met.
> Trump left the Biden-Harris administration with zero plans for an orderly withdrawal—only a dangerous, costly mess. Trump even bragged that the Biden-Harris administration “couldn’t stop the process” he started.
* An incoming POTUS who blames Pres Biden for the suicide bombing at the Kabul airport, even though the bomber was ISIS and released from an Afghan prison under Mooseballs Mussolini's perfect and beautiful deal:
"we were able to identify the Abbey Gate person-borne IED bomber as Abdul Rahman al-Logari, an [ISIS-K] member since 2016," said one Army official on the 12-person, joint supplemental review team.
* An incoming POTUS who thinks that religious conviction (in his case Pseudochristianity) can be put on and taken off as necessary;
* An incoming POTUS who thinks that anyone who doesn't agree with him 100% should be tried, convicted, and executed for disloyalty and a profound lack of patriotism;
* Etc... etc... etc...
-----
"Hell of a way to pass the baton to Chrystia Freeland whoever becomes the next Liberal leader by setting them up for failure thanks to in-house dysfunction!"
Why should the US have all the fun? Since we have a Congress that can't get its act together to save its ass, why shouldn't Canada enjoy a dysfunctional legislature, too? But our disability to legislate is a bit different than Canada's. Here, the RINOs have kicked the TradRepubs to the curb so they won't have to survive an internal civil war. Instead, the RINOs will face off against a dysfunctional Dem Party and a growing dissatisfaction of RINO asshattery. (If the US is to survive as a liberal democracy, the Dems need to grow a pair -- yesterday -- and become a true opposition party, inflicting political pain to the RINOs on every possible occasion. And they need to take the fight to a POTUS whose skin is thinner than a piece of paper, one who responds to criticism with threats.)
-----
"Even if it’s much cheaper, stronger and without all the stoner-proof packaging when bought off the street."
And this is a bad thing?
-----
"well-suited to running a G7 country, but he was smart enough to surround himself with much smarter people"
As opposed to the Fulvous Flatulence who surrounds himself with yes women/ yes men and whining little insects because he has no need for smarter "advisors," given that he is a well recognized, world renowned polymath -- possibly the smartest in all of human history.
No, Dr, I did read it all of it, I was just venting while riffing on Trudeau stepping away. In my mind, I believe (although pretty much no one gives a fuck about what I believe) that part of the equation was not wanting to rip his hair out and screaming from having to deal Mooseballs Mussolini and his trained attack Dachshunds.
My money's on Bannon. Musk is a rich coward who's never faced a single bit of adversity in his life. Two hits. The first to Musk, the second Musk on the floor.
I caught a little of a CBC broadcast with Trump spouting bullshit about the US "subsidizing" Canada to the tune of $100 billion a year. In fact, the US does have a trade deficit in goods of between $60 to $65 billion recently. But that does not include services, like banking, insurance, and consulting work. In that, Canada has about a $20 billion deficit, bring the US deficit down to $40 to $45 billion. But that is not a subsidy, its a matter of the US buying more from Canada than Canada does from the US.
Something the CBC broadcast did not mention was that by far the largest Canadian export is crude oil and other petroleum products, about 1/4 of the $400 billion+ bilateral trade with the US. The reason they export so much oil despite the US having their own surplus is that most US refineries are set up to process heavy crude, like older wells in the US and the Canadian tar sands produce. The oil obtained by the fracking boom is lighter and would require major retooling of US refineries. So the US exports even more of this fracked oil than we import heavy oil from Canada.
That fact alone wipes out any claim that we actually have a trade deficit with Canada. If we are exporting a barrel of oil to Europe or Asia for every barrel we import from Canada, we are getting paid back from Japan, India, China, or the EU for every barrel of oil we get from Canada. Essentially zeroing out the petroleum deficit with Canada. Which may effectively zero out any trade deficit with Canada since countries paying us for our oil they process from our lighter fracked oil are covering the cost of Canadian heavy oil imports. This system is quicker and cheaper than modifying US refineries to handle fracked oil.
I've been trying to understand why I feel the particular flavor of distressed that I do right now. I think it's because we can no longer discuss the lessons we should be learning from any kind of disaster without the worst chucklefucks coming out of the woodwork to wreck everything.
One of the things that was posted on Bluesky in the wake of newspapers running lots of "Bluesky is an echo chamber" stories is, I think, helpful to keep in mind here as a reflection of larger society.
Twitter, as it now is, is a place where people insist they are debating. That's the self-serving claim of the people that run it and that think they should use it. However, the fact that this is what they see it as means that they don't actually do anything about the things they are debating- even agreeing they exist, for instance. If you go on there and say "the fires in California are because of climate change" the "debate" that follows will be about the reality of climate change, not about anything that can be done about it.
It's arguing for the sake of it, and refusing as a point of pride to ever actually accept objective reality. It's debate like debate club is debate- it's there not to actually accomplish anything besides allowing for an argument (and that's granting Twitter its own flattering self-image rather than mentioning the ten to fifteen seconds it takes for any point of debate to become a string of slurs and memes.)
The wider world is like this.
Republicans are the Twitter party. They will refuse to ever even accept that things exist about which something can be done, instead preferring to deny over and over again because that's the debate they'd prefer to have.
People who are not Republicans are like the Bluesky posters- still willing to accept a shared reality and debate productively about what can be done to fix problems.
If Trump annexes Canada, will he start a public works project to have it raked?
Did you catch Ross Douthat's "column" in the NYT over the weekend? I read the free parts - headline and first three paragraphs. Good grief, what an asshole.
Canada, he opined, should "join the U.S.," he argued.
Like any self-respecting, resource-rich nation, with a decent national health care system and peaceful relations with 90-plus percent of the world would even consider joining Basket Case USA® for more than a second.
I lived in Montreal from 69 to 71 when I was a little kid...We lived halfway up Drummond St which was the street (at least at the time) where the steps up to Mount Royal Park were! It was either 69 or 70 that had one of the coldest snowiest winters on record....It was a fucking WONDERLAND and I still think back on those times almost with a mystical slant...so many foundational early memories there
I almost feel sorry for dishy men like Jacinda Ardern‘s hubby. They seem painfully aware of the taboo (tapu) of their allure in public.
i am thinking a lot about canada right now. mom is canadian and has had a bad couple months (she's sick, my special needs brother died over new years and she's not handling it well. she looks to have some kind of dementia...).
i have a canadian passport (as did my brother) but apparently my family is going to be buried around old orchard (north shore chicago suburbs) so i may have to forgo any montreal connections (my - very english/irish - grandparents are both buried in mont royal.)
it's been a very sad holiday this year.
So now I want to know more about Justin AND his Father.
DO NOT let Sir change the name of Hudson Bay!!!!
From "Girl with the Dogs", Vanessa is giving Odette a clip-down before her deivery date:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVvRzQbPZNU&ab_channel=GirlWithTheDogs2
It's Sunday 4:00 to 6:00 pm Chicago time. Open up a tab to wdcb.org/internet-stream for the 𝘔𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘰 𝘐𝘯𝘯, which is one of WDCB's best shows.
Here's WDCB's program description: "Host René Ávila carries a long tradition of Sunday afternoon Latin Jazz on WDCB into the future as he brings you along on a weekly trip to the 𝘔𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘰 𝘐𝘯𝘯. Tune in every Sunday from 4 - 6 pm for 2 hours of jazz with clave, as Ávila reaches back to the classic Afro-Cuban sounds of the '40s & '50s and explores Latin Jazz styles along the way to the current sounds of today."
For streaming difficulties: https://wdcb.org/streaming-support or https://radio.garden/listen/wdcb-90-9-fm-jazz/XbnzAyO0
𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦’𝘴 𝘢 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵-𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘵𝘦 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘪𝘨 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘶𝘱 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘒𝘪𝘮 𝘊𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘭, 𝘊𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘥𝘢’𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳. 𝘊𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘭, 𝘢 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘔𝘶𝘭𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘺 𝘴𝘬𝘦𝘥𝘢𝘥𝘥𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥𝘶𝘭𝘦, 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘺’𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘧𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘦 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘭𝘺 𝘢 𝘥𝘰𝘻𝘦𝘯 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘤𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘫𝘰𝘣 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘣𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 1993 𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥’𝘷𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘱𝘰𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘴.
I agree 100% Andrew, though I will say in Kim's defense that the scale of the clobbering was due mainly to the burgeoning Reform Party, which split the Conservative vote.
I still think the Trudeau-free Liberals are going to get shellacked like the Ontario party did in 2018, which reduced the Liberal members below the level for an official party and gave us Premier Doug Ford - who at the moment is probably going to skate to third majority when he calls a surprise/not surprise election in the spring.
I thought they should have left Trudeau in place to take the L and let the next person rebuild, but this is why I'm a bureaucrat and not a politician, LOL. Good luck to whoever takes the reins, they have their work cut out for them.
The question in my mind is whether PeePee's band of deplorables gets a majority or not. I know what the polls say now, but that could change once the election is actually underway. As a leader PeePee is a grievance-fueled douchebag and charisma void, but so was Stephen Harper and he won three successive elections.
I'm genuinely curious whether PeePee's embrace of the far-right fringes will help or hurt him. Harper kept a pretty tight rein on the fringe elements of the Cons while he was in charge but didn't get a majority government until 2011. I'm thinking there will be a resurgence of the Bloc Quebecois in Quebec that will keep them from a majority, but that might not be enough if the Liberals collapse in Ontario.
If Pierre Polyester wins it has to be a majority for him. If it isn't, especially with the supposed giant lead in the polls, the knives will probably be out for him.
It will be. I hate it ... but it will be.
"A generally well-meaning head of state finds himself increasingly unpopular and under pressure to resign and let someone else take the wheel before an upcoming election"
On one hand:
We have a POTUS who accomplished more than anyone expected him to do, was returning the country back onto the right track, and was respected on the world stage -- even though the RINOs cast shade at him every chance they could, justifiable (rarely) and most often out of spite for someone who has a "D" after their name -- and considered bipartisanship a key to effective leadership. One who was growing more unpopular as he ran for reelection, most likely due to:
* The gaslighting by the RINOs that Pres Biden is an incompetent leader that caused the increase in inflation (bullshit);
* The RINOs gaslighting about the increase in violent crime under his administration (bullshit);
* RINO gaslighting that Biden allowed 10s of millions criminals and those released from mental institutions invade the US via the southern border (bullshit);
* RINO gaslighting that Biden is a laughingstock on the world stage (bullshit);
* RINO gaslighting that Biden was ineffective as the Commander-in-Chief by constantly repeating how badly he failed in removing the US from Afghanistan (due to a timeframe that royally sucked when our expert dealmaker gave away the farm to the Taliban, see below). (bullshit);
* Losing support when he showed himself to be what he is: a tired, old man beaten down by the weight of the office; a man, who in all honesty, probably wouldn't last another four years in office;
* A POTUS who waited too long to remove himself from the campaign for the sake of his party and country.
OTOH:
* We have a POTUS-elect returning for a second chance to remake America in his image and one the Forefathers never envisioned;
* An incoming POTUS who has constantly put himself above the country and the Constitution;
* An incoming POTUS who wouldn't know the truth if it came up and introduced itself;
* An incoming POTUS who has never considered presiding over a liberal, democratic, unified country;
* An incoming POTUS who ran as a lark in 2016, and became the US' first transactional POTUS who saw the office as a way to make himself richer;
* An incoming POTUS who thinks that his tribe should rule in perpetuity, free and fair elections be damned;
* An incoming POTUS who plagiarizes:
"A variant of the phrase “Make America Great Again” first popularized by Republican Pres. Ronald Reagan, who used “Let’s Make America Great Again” as one of several slogans for his 1980 presidential campaign. Trump reportedly coined the phrase “Make America Great Again” in November 2012 [32 years after St Ronnie's 1980 campaign] https://www.britannica.com/topic/MAGA-movement
* An incoming POTUS who's hyperbole knows no bounds:
"The most recent talking point: that hundreds of millions of Americans not only support Trump, but love him.
“When I walk into that courtroom, I know I will have the love of 200 million Americans behind me,” Trump said April 13 during a rally in Pennsylvania, “and I will be fighting for the freedom of 325 million Americans.”" https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/23/trump-claims-200-million-americans-love-him-how-many-actually-do/;
* An incoming POTUS who considers himself a dealmaker with no equal (although he has no clue as to what constitutes a fair and equitable deal:
"designed to reduce US military occupation of troops from 14,000 to 4,500. Yet, it didn’t commit the Taliban to a ceasefire or to curtail their operations against Afghan forces.
Nor did it oblige the militia to engage in a genuine inter-Afghan dialogue. Similarly, it failed to take note of the fact that the Taliban had limited territorial control, mostly outside the main urban centres [sic]" https://www.visionofhumanity.org/trumps-perilous-approach-to-afghanistan/ [The negotiations cut out Pres Ghani or any representative of the legitimate government.]
-and-
"The deal set timelines for withdrawal and gave permission for the Taliban to attack U.S. troops if the timeline wasn’t met.
> Trump left the Biden-Harris administration with zero plans for an orderly withdrawal—only a dangerous, costly mess. Trump even bragged that the Biden-Harris administration “couldn’t stop the process” he started.
> Trump’s own former national security advisor admits that Trump bears responsibility for the challenges of the withdrawal." https://dpo.org/news/fact-check-trump-gave-taliban-everything-they-wanted-laid-groundwork-for-afghanistan-challenge/;
* An incoming POTUS who blames Pres Biden for the suicide bombing at the Kabul airport, even though the bomber was ISIS and released from an Afghan prison under Mooseballs Mussolini's perfect and beautiful deal:
"we were able to identify the Abbey Gate person-borne IED bomber as Abdul Rahman al-Logari, an [ISIS-K] member since 2016," said one Army official on the 12-person, joint supplemental review team.
Al-Logari was one of thousands of ISIS-K members the Taliban released from a pair of detention centers" https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3741245/kabul-airport-attack-review-reaffirms-initial-findings-identifies-attacker/
* An incoming POTUS who thinks that religious conviction (in his case Pseudochristianity) can be put on and taken off as necessary;
* An incoming POTUS who thinks that anyone who doesn't agree with him 100% should be tried, convicted, and executed for disloyalty and a profound lack of patriotism;
* Etc... etc... etc...
-----
"Hell of a way to pass the baton to Chrystia Freeland whoever becomes the next Liberal leader by setting them up for failure thanks to in-house dysfunction!"
Why should the US have all the fun? Since we have a Congress that can't get its act together to save its ass, why shouldn't Canada enjoy a dysfunctional legislature, too? But our disability to legislate is a bit different than Canada's. Here, the RINOs have kicked the TradRepubs to the curb so they won't have to survive an internal civil war. Instead, the RINOs will face off against a dysfunctional Dem Party and a growing dissatisfaction of RINO asshattery. (If the US is to survive as a liberal democracy, the Dems need to grow a pair -- yesterday -- and become a true opposition party, inflicting political pain to the RINOs on every possible occasion. And they need to take the fight to a POTUS whose skin is thinner than a piece of paper, one who responds to criticism with threats.)
-----
"Even if it’s much cheaper, stronger and without all the stoner-proof packaging when bought off the street."
And this is a bad thing?
-----
"well-suited to running a G7 country, but he was smart enough to surround himself with much smarter people"
As opposed to the Fulvous Flatulence who surrounds himself with yes women/ yes men and whining little insects because he has no need for smarter "advisors," given that he is a well recognized, world renowned polymath -- possibly the smartest in all of human history.
fnord
tl;dr?
No, Dr, I did read it all of it, I was just venting while riffing on Trudeau stepping away. In my mind, I believe (although pretty much no one gives a fuck about what I believe) that part of the equation was not wanting to rip his hair out and screaming from having to deal Mooseballs Mussolini and his trained attack Dachshunds.
fnord
A lovely, lovely thing about Los Angels.
From Cat.
https://thiscat.substack.com/p/los-angeles
Steve Bannon, a racist and evil person calls Musk "racist and evil."
What a weird world when I can agree with a racist and evil person.
They can resolve their differences with a cage match. I'll bring the popcorn.
Death Match 2025!
My money is on Musk- if I had to bet. I am sure Musk could make life hell for Bannon if he really wanted to.
My money's on Bannon. Musk is a rich coward who's never faced a single bit of adversity in his life. Two hits. The first to Musk, the second Musk on the floor.
pot kettle black or something
Sort of like Chappelle's black White Supremacist?
Sort of. Whenever I think I've seen everything, I soon learn better.
As my dear departed Mother would say: "A pox on both their houses."
I caught a little of a CBC broadcast with Trump spouting bullshit about the US "subsidizing" Canada to the tune of $100 billion a year. In fact, the US does have a trade deficit in goods of between $60 to $65 billion recently. But that does not include services, like banking, insurance, and consulting work. In that, Canada has about a $20 billion deficit, bring the US deficit down to $40 to $45 billion. But that is not a subsidy, its a matter of the US buying more from Canada than Canada does from the US.
Something the CBC broadcast did not mention was that by far the largest Canadian export is crude oil and other petroleum products, about 1/4 of the $400 billion+ bilateral trade with the US. The reason they export so much oil despite the US having their own surplus is that most US refineries are set up to process heavy crude, like older wells in the US and the Canadian tar sands produce. The oil obtained by the fracking boom is lighter and would require major retooling of US refineries. So the US exports even more of this fracked oil than we import heavy oil from Canada.
That fact alone wipes out any claim that we actually have a trade deficit with Canada. If we are exporting a barrel of oil to Europe or Asia for every barrel we import from Canada, we are getting paid back from Japan, India, China, or the EU for every barrel of oil we get from Canada. Essentially zeroing out the petroleum deficit with Canada. Which may effectively zero out any trade deficit with Canada since countries paying us for our oil they process from our lighter fracked oil are covering the cost of Canadian heavy oil imports. This system is quicker and cheaper than modifying US refineries to handle fracked oil.
The problem here is that cult ears close after the first sentence.
Police detain 2 people at Vice President Harris’ Brentwood home during curfew hours | KTLA
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/police-detain-2-people-at-vice-president-harris-brentwood-home-during-curfew-hours/
Sounds too early to speculate since they have been released.
It's never too early to speculate.
I think they were looking to steal yard gnomes.
I can understand this. I went through period back in high school where we stole pink flamingoes.
The 1960s/70s?
Early 70's.
I am damned glad that police got to them before they got to VP Harris.
I guess they didn't see any of her interviews. Otherwise, they'd know she's armed.
I was hoping it was beloved children's comedy duo the Chuckle Brothers but then I remembered.
RIP Barry.
"Oh dear, oh dear."
Pretty sure she's in DC, don't know where Doug is.
"Technology Connections
@techconnectify.bsky.social
I've been trying to understand why I feel the particular flavor of distressed that I do right now. I think it's because we can no longer discuss the lessons we should be learning from any kind of disaster without the worst chucklefucks coming out of the woodwork to wreck everything.
12 January 2025 at 17:04"
https://bsky.app/profile/techconnectify.bsky.social/post/3lfklxwxjk22c
One of the things that was posted on Bluesky in the wake of newspapers running lots of "Bluesky is an echo chamber" stories is, I think, helpful to keep in mind here as a reflection of larger society.
Twitter, as it now is, is a place where people insist they are debating. That's the self-serving claim of the people that run it and that think they should use it. However, the fact that this is what they see it as means that they don't actually do anything about the things they are debating- even agreeing they exist, for instance. If you go on there and say "the fires in California are because of climate change" the "debate" that follows will be about the reality of climate change, not about anything that can be done about it.
It's arguing for the sake of it, and refusing as a point of pride to ever actually accept objective reality. It's debate like debate club is debate- it's there not to actually accomplish anything besides allowing for an argument (and that's granting Twitter its own flattering self-image rather than mentioning the ten to fifteen seconds it takes for any point of debate to become a string of slurs and memes.)
The wider world is like this.
Republicans are the Twitter party. They will refuse to ever even accept that things exist about which something can be done, instead preferring to deny over and over again because that's the debate they'd prefer to have.
People who are not Republicans are like the Bluesky posters- still willing to accept a shared reality and debate productively about what can be done to fix problems.
Those Rethugs indignantly making the "...you MADE me!" argument can't spell or define the term "forensic".
I think the "You MADE me" schtick starts at about two or three years old. I'm sure that explains something about those fuckheads.
Well, the God of the Christians is "you MADE me!" personified as a deity...
Too entirely accurate.