Troy

How did you switch to Azerbaijan?

All this shows is that other countries (China, etc.) will have carte blanche if they have nukes. If they don’t, they’ll get them. Imagine a nuclear armed Venezuela going after their neighbours because conventional intervention is too risky suddenly. Blah.

Does it matter if they don’t honour the patents of the rest of the world?

The US is broken for many reasons.

The Canadian Supreme Court, by comparison (in fact all judges in Canada) are merit based appointments. So far we’ve managed to avoid political appointments, for the most part. Although current conservative rhetoric is starting to target the courts.

Most functioning western world countries do not have partisanship in their courts.

Depends on the city. And who you are. I’m a big white dude with a geophysics degree so the circles I run in tend to be coloured by that.

I lived in Edmonton a decade ago, and it was great as a young professional. However, because the city is full of oil money, you really have to work hard to impress anyone with your career there. They’re all like “yeah, whatever, everyone at this bar is throwing down $100s and you’re just one of them assholes”, so you have to be pretty self-aware to date there. But going to a “drink and draw” event at an art gallery will work wonders ;)

Currently in Winnipeg. The arts scene here is great. Met my long term partner here (online dating during COVID, even – “do you want to go on a socially distant walk in the park together?”). She is more hipster than I so I basically ride her coattails now in the art scene. We went “power couple” for our first two years – two houses because that’s how affordable it is.

I have lived, worked, or studied in seven provinces and three territories now. I joke with my friends from elsewhere that when I moved to Winnipeg, I bought a garage and it came with a free house. My quite decent three bedroom, finished basement, double garage was $286k.

Well, it’s cold in winter and very flat topographically, but whatever – I lived in Yellowknife so this is nothing ;)

Photo just outside Winnipeg on the frozen lake – hiking to find cool ice ridges. Just gotta lean into winter :)

Move to the prairies folks. Vancouver has no place to build new homes. Montreal is an island. Toronto has real and artificial constraints keeping the sprawl contained.

Move to Winnipeg. Regina. Edmonton. Whatever. Own a home like it is 1965. If they’re still too expensive, move to an even smaller city. The jobs are available.

Elected judges cannot ever truly be impartial judges. The Rule of Law in a democracy means that politicians are subject to the Law as much as anyone else. But electing judges turns them into politicians with the power to give themselves more power without checks and balances.

Basically it removes the independence of the judiciary, and in the process erodes democracy. Ironically.

Start the timer

Hey, maybe it is true and they’ve been using this location as their central reserve equivalent. Announcing this is clearly intended for the locals, to encourage them to storm the place so Israel doesn’t have to, regardless of whether it is true. Combined with their announcement that they won’t target it, it seems like they’re encouraging people to go there. But instead it was evacuated. If it is a safe spot with no gold, why would they evacuate it? Anyway, the mind games are interesting…

I can hear the spurs jangling. Can you?

Meow

The subset of doctors that overprescribe narcotics because they’re getting kickbacks from the drug companies? Fuck 'em. The rest are fine :)

I’m not aware of any bartenders selling narcotics (using the commonly assumed definition of the word) – unless you’re being intentionally obtuse by using the medical definitiion which would include alcohol. In particular, do you refer to your bartender as your narcotics dealer?

No. This is spin for some audience – although I don’t know who.

Everytime I hear the words “dark web”, I feel I’m listening to am radio news or something designed to scare pensioners. Oooh, spooky cybercrime.

That said, fuck narcotics dealers.

But how did it affect their stock price?

And even then, it would likely have to be repeated occupational exposure to cause issues, not a one-off dust event.

This isn’t cyanide or something

Not likely. Kazakhstan is the world’s number one producer of Uranium. So unless the plant requires enrichment in a way that only Russia can provide, I would presume they’d be their own provider.

Actually, that would be very Russia.

I don’t know a lot about KZ’s current politics, but I know a little. The article talks about Russian involvement, which is interesting, given that Kazakhstan largely imports their oil from Russia. Their attempts to build nuclear have usually been opposed by Russia. Trying to figure out the play here.

I suspect a lot of people are unhappy and are looking for solutions. They aren’t evaluating their solutions, just latching onto the first things that make them feel like change is possible.

Really? You love militants who would probably rather kill you than have a coffee with you?