Goldbugs have a lot of nostalgia for the Gilded Age, so they put the face value it where it would have been in 1896.

It’s just a suggestion.

Quebec is also where I learned the phrase “No cop, no stop.”

But I think they were arrested for not saying arrêt.

Some of them are flying the Confederate flag in Alberta!

Historically Europe (and the British Empire) sided with the confederacy because they saw a united USA as a potential industrial rival, whereas the south was more of a resource colony. Interestingly there was a major class divide in Europe where the working classes were anti-slavery and therefore anti-confederate wheras the upper classes saw the confederate cause being in their interest. There’s a book about this called A Cause for All Nations by Don Doyle.

My understanding is that nowadays the confederate flag is used by people outside the USA who are on the fascist end of the spectrum for whom Nazi or fascist symbols are too extreme (or just illegal) in their countries.

He ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed. That’s for sure. I think the world is gonna roll him. The ice is getting pretty thin, the water’s warm. Do you think he can swim?

I think I’m beginning to understand how Trudeau keeps winning.

Probably had CTE TBH.

I always heard “Canada is three mining companies standing on eachother’s shoulders in a trechcoat.”

Although that one applies equally to Australia.

It’s cool that you’re in the well-insulated house business. But we’re still cooking the planet and jet aircraft are bad.

As the country lost its connections to the British it became more easily influenced by the Americans.

Not very often I see someone characterizing the British as the good guys.

Tim Hortons invasion

We already have bad coffee and stale donuts down here.

Separately Canada has an Ambassador to the UN.

Do you think he and the consul-general room together?

By the way, the building that he’s moving into is literally part of “Billianare’s Row.” It’s the swankiest of the swanky ultra-tall-and-narrow “every apartment is a penthouse” building built along central park in recent years. I guarantee you there are cheaper places to live in Manhattan.

One thing that’s crazy is during 2008 Canada was one of the only countries where were no housing busts or bank failures. It was explained at the time that they didn’t deregulate like the US did in the 90s, and didn’t go crazy with Eurodollar and derivative speculation like the European banks.

The takeaway was that in Canada banking is still a boring business managed by professional adults, overseen by stern but fair regulators who would ensure that things don’t get out of hand.

So what the hell happened? Seemed like the Canadian government and finance people took the lesson that they missed out on a hell of a party and they’re going to have their own housing bubble with blackjack and whatnot.

Why does Canada need a consul general in New York City? It’s not capital of any government. It’'s not very far from Canada, so Canadians in need of consular services could probably find someplace more convenient. The whole thing seems like a way to grift the Canadian taxpayers into swanky Manhattan digs for some well-connected asshole.

This is true. The idea that housing-as-asset is a gift to middle-class elderly is a false promise. The middle class elderly will have all their assets stripped by the old-age industry regardless of how their home appreciated while they owned it.

And before SpaceX the cost to do anything in space was extremely prohibitive.

As opposed to now…

With SpaceX they created re-usable rocket components

Nobody had done that before? Wasn’t the promise that they would do few quick checks, refuel, and send it back up same day?

Before SpaceX the U.S. was reliant on Russia’s soyuz to get us to and from the space station.

Nasa had do use Soyuz because crew dragon was late. SpaceX won the contract then underdelivered a late product. Basically exactly what ULA or Boeing would have done.

Wanna talk about Artemis?

Interesting how most of the points about how “nobody wants to live here” boil down to the housing crisis.

It’s a bit like that old joke about the trendy restaurant: “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded!”

shit conscription is evil

This is kinda a weird take. War is evil but conscription is a universal aspect of every total war. Every country on earth reserves the right to conscript its citizens in the case of national emergency.

I think they’re trying to kill a large fraction and force the rest across the border to Egypt, so they can take Gaza for themselves. They feel a lot of time pressure so they’re doing whatever they can do to get the situation on the ground as bad as possible as quickly as possible. They want to go in and shoot up Rafah but they’re under too much pressure to slow-walk that. So cutting off all aid and letting famine “do the job” for them makes sense from their twisted worldview.

I think just like with USS Liberty the “screwup” was leaving survivors. I think their intent was to kill everyone then blame Hamas, not letting any journos get too close to the burnt out vehicles.

At first it felt like the IDF was speedrunning the war on terror. They had their Abu-graibs on pretty much the first day. Now it’s clear that this always was a campaign of hate from the very beginning. Their purpose in Gaza is to terrorize the civilian population.

Nobody was surprised when the Russians immediately started torturing and murdering civilians in Ukraine. But we are shocked that the IDF behave exactly the same way because – quite frankly – we were lied to about the nature of the Israeli state.