West_of_West

“This shit’s chess, it ain’t checkers”

Some would say the internet was made to say Nazi on.

I’d go befriend my brother. I like that dude.

If you are the head of a state you don’t get the luxury of personal convictions. You should always be acting in the interest of the state.

Realpolitik says the best interests of Canada are to try to get Trump to walk back steel and aluminium tariffs buying time while to diversify exports and institute “Buy Canadian”

So the PM should let his personal life dictate state actions?

They’re waterproof for a reason

Won’t anyone think of the politicians!?! They can’t ensure a sinecure position by willy nilly throwing money at basic societal needs!

“It is I, LeVance!”

… which begs the question. How do Americans pronounce them?

Edit: boo eey

Credit where it is due. My parents are willing to question things. And that is half the battle.

My parents actually went the other way. They were very conservative while I was growing up until my mid twenties, and nowadays they are the complete opposite.

When they were conservative, I generally didn’t bring up politics, but if it came up I didn’t argue. I would just say I thought something was mean spirited and just shrug if they tried to argue. I think I accidentally psychologically fucked with them. I think being mean was against a core value of theirs and me repeating that idea slightly tweaked their thought process.

Eventually I started hearing the “mean spirited” comment from them as a reason they disliked a policy or conservative person. And they now vote for liberal or labour parties.

I really enjoyed Cracked in its internet heyday. It was at times funny and others poignant. Somewhere I would have wanted to publish. Technically it still exists… but it is not the same.

I’m in a minority, but I enjoyed the soft reboot that was season 9. Maube it was because I saw it years later, or maybe I mentally divorced it from the main series, but I think it could have stood given a bit more time.

BC has put a big effort to lower barriers to US and other foreign doctors. Also increase doctor pay. Apparently there has been a decent uptick.

I enjoyed the light hearted narrator in a dark world aspect of Black Tongue Thief. And I would recommend it, if that is appealing.

I think I’d caution some people on Leiber. He’s a good writer, and important in fantasy Canon. And I am enjoying him.

But he is writing during the 1950s to 80s, so there is some inherent misogyny. He tries to make powerful women characters, but it doesn’t quite work. I think he was pushing boundaries in the 60s, but a modern reader with modern conceptions may not enjoy his work.

The Mosaic Effect is about the CCP setting up an underground and parallel state in Vancouver/Canada. So if that’s your thing, yeah read it.

I finished The Black Tongue Thief a few days ago so I’ve bounced around a few books. But I seem to have settled on Swords & Deviltry by Fritz Leiber and The Mosaic Effect by McGregor and Mitchell

We care about the environment, but if you could commute an hour and a half to go on MS Teams that’d be greeeat.

Right! I was looking for a brief distraction from an awkward work moment. Not a mix of sadness and wholesomeness

It was all over the BC online forums when the province banned short term rentals outside primary residence.

There were op eds, bad studies, lying companies etc. Here a few from quick internet search

A crappy study trying to gaslight people. This was all over. https://www.biv.com/news/real-estate/airbnbs-dont-cause-residential-rent-increases-conference-board-8273746

Air bnb makes the argument they aren’t responsible https://www.airbnb.ca/e/closerlook

Arguing it lowers costs https://news.ncsu.edu/2024/10/airbnb-and-housing-costs/

But the land lords told us Airbnb doesn’t effect rental prices and actually let’s people afford homes!