To each their own. I don’t live in the boonies but I’d like to retire there with some nice land to work on etc.

It was more about the “we need both” parts.

Though, dismissing the some half of the country that lives in rural areas is kind of why politics is what it is I guess.

You don’t understand how minimal maintenance on roads is less expensive than the equipment and personnel to drive through it on a frequent basis?

That’s worrying indictment of the education system.

We’re almost complete opposites; I go pretty frequently but have never gotten groceries there.

Absolutely both are needed. I struggle to understand how people think a rural area with 5 minute drives between homes could be connected to a public transit network that is timely and not astronomically expensive.

La Grotto del Fromaggio on the Drive. Don’t do the subway thing of just cramming as much as you can, they’ve got suggestions and I’d follow them.

Helene very likely did this too, though scientists have been unable to retrieve some of the latest data on sea-surface temperatures because Helene knocked out a key federal facility, the National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, N.C.

Reminds me of that great Simpsons moment:

“Oh Lisa, there’s no record of a hurricane ever hitting Springfield.”

“Yes, but the records only go back to 1978 when the hall of records was mysteriously blown away!”

(Aired back in '96.)

I think it’s a rose by any other name. As a political name, I think you are right. As a policy, I think it is broadly popular.

Think of Obamacare. It is basically unchanged and now, fairly popular as more have experienced it instead of conservative misinformation. At the beginning, like the carbon tax, it was broadly popular in all but name.

Now, people will absolutely vote based on their misunderstanding of the situation. (This is a program wherein most Canadian citizens get money from the government but more than half of us don’t think we got it and of those who do understand they received it, a sizeable proportion has no idea it has to do with carbon rebates.)

If you took the exact same policy, branded the cheques “Poilievre’s Policies Payback to Canadians” or whatever, it would (minus the chicanery) be broadly popular.

So sure, the name of a thing is unpopular but the thing itself is popular. Your call which you think is more important I guess?

Okay but it does seem odd to claim it’s unpopular when the unpopularity is based on misunderstanding. (Also, would you say trump is unpopular despite his legions of rabid marks fans?)

Let’s go back to Obamacare, which when polled absent the name, was wildly popular. But Obamacare with the name was unpopular.

So, would you say Obamacare was popular, unpopular or complicated? And do you see how this applies to the Carbon Tax, which suffers from the same issue?

Ehhhhhh, I dunno. I mean, it’d be weird to argue donald trump isn’t popular, despite thr majority of folks having an unfavourable opinion of him.

I also think this is sort of like Obamacare which was famously incredibly popular with folks, including Republican voters, as long as you didn’t use the word Obamacare. If you loom at that abacus polling I linked earlier, you’ll note that most folks don’t even seem to realize the cheques they’ve received have anything to do with the carbon tax and many don’t understand they’re getting more than they pay in…

I don’t know about loser but I do think you’re setting yourself for an unpleasant wake-up at some point.

Spend your youth jerking it, playing video games and never going through the learnings, experiences, joys and heartbreaks of relationships, if you realize in a dozen years that there is a gaping partner/meaning/joy void in your life, it’ll be much harder to fix. Believe me, dating does not get easier in middle age. Especially if you don’t want kids.

It’s sort of like any other drug, easy and appealing alternative to life’s difficulties in the moment but consistent use tends to lead to serious problems down the road.

That being said, if you’re 26 and haven’t been on a date, I imagine there are bigger issues than a preference for video games and waifus. I suspect the women with whom you have a chance aren’t attractive enough for you so it leads to this spiral. And frankly, lowering your standards sucks and lifting yourself up to meet others’ standards is a lot of work.

Don’t really have an answer but those are my middle aged thoughts. I’m old, balding, don’t want kids and haven’t seriously dated for a couple of years as I’m adjusting to this new reality. But goddamn I am happy I spent my late 20s sleeping with a lot of fun folks and in a few meaningful relationships. I grew every time I fell in love, cherish some of the crazy times and know I’m a better person for it all. Those experiences and memories are big motivators for getting into better shape, working on myself etc so that when I’m ready, I can aim for another of those awesome fun relationships.

A plurality of Canadians don’t support it.

Though, given that most don’t realize they are receiving the benefits from it, this seems more a messaging issue than a policy one.

But this is kind of the issue. Any environmental legislation is going to have to battle through conservative disinformation. The alternative is the conservative’s plan which seems to “screw it, that’s somebody else’s problem. Specifically, the next generation’s.”

https://abacusdata.ca/carbon-tax-pollution-pricing-carbon-action-incentive-payment-abacus-data-polling/

Despicable Walz, clearly he doesn’t think a woman can do his job.

“Isn’t watching unvarnished propaganda funded by an elderly Australian coal magnate kinda weird?”

Probably invited to everyone else’s birthday but not mean ol’ Tim Walz’s.

I think you’ve got most of it pretty well outlined here. A couple minor additions/thoughts:

Lemmys communist leanings are probably self reinforcing. If you’re a moderate/mainstream leftie but think communism is a but silly, well noting so will get you “yelled at” by those disproportionately loud voices. It gets tiring, so I imagine the mainstream/moderates learn to avoid communism adjacent threads/questions etc.

There also may be an age thing. I have less time and inclination to argue with randoms online than when I was younger. And when I was younger I had much more extreme (and in retrospect some embarrassing) views.

Questions/comments about communism that aren’t positive get a lot of downvotes here.

“Ha, these two were deeply in love and had a marriage stronger than money! What losers!” Fairly hard to make the claim the joke is at their expense.

This might be a language thing though? The phrase at their expense tends to mean that whomever is the butt of the joke. In this case, the four audience marriages are the butt of the joke as they are not as in love as the deceased.

I don’t know if you’re old enough to have spoken at funerals. There are jokes you tell while doing so, usually framed like this wherein you’re praising the deceased (usually a common memory, like their cooking) and comparing yourself or the crowd unfavourably.

Now, I’m not sure it was appropriate or wise for trump to try this at a fundraiser but it seems disingenuous to say he was making fun of the deceased, which is how most English readers would interpret the headline.

It’s inappropriate etc but it’s not exactly making fun of the dead.

I try to think about these things from a “what would a median/swing voter think if they read this AND knew the context.” I firmly believe that misleading headlines etc have helped trump by making it harder for those in the middle to trust media outlets.

Fair enough!