You love to see it.

I was discussing the same thing with a friend just this morning. This isn’t anything new. It’s just where other administrations know the phrase soft power and were able to use it effectively, Trump is a blunt and stupid human who doesn’t know anything as complex as modern diplomacy.

In that way, I unironically think that Trump may be the best thing to happen. He’s taken the mask off. The world can’t ignore it anymore or pretend it isn’t happening so long as they still get their iphones every year. It’s a kick in the pants for all of us.

Sadly, your father was absolutely correct. I like to think things have improved.

Now if you add a sliver of curiosity toward learning rudimentary French from the ROC

Technically we (rest of Canada) should already have rudimentary French since (at least when I was highschool) it was a core curriculum until the 9th grade, after which we had the choice to drop it or keep taking it as an elective. I stupidly chose not to continue, but still have the ability to understand about half of what I read or hear.

The problem in the ROC is the same problem that I have with my Portuguese; we simply don’t speak it enough after highschool to maintain that base level of knowledge. It’s something that I think most of us can dig up with some effort, but it doesn’t flow off the tongue unless you’re using it on a regular basis.

It’s still a long way to go. But it feels like we’re doing a decent job of preventing destabilization from happening.

If Trump’s hope is that hurting the economy somehow makes people switch to the Conservatives who will lick his mushroom and eventually hand over the keys, he’s not aware of how much of a laughingstock P.P. Poppinfresh has become the moment Trudeau announced his resignation.

We have our share of Maple Maga to be sure, but they are both fewer in number, and mostly confined to two inbred provinces that constantly share their populations back and forth like kissing cousins.

I think Trump was not expecting the reaction he got when he hit us.

What Trump can or can’t do is absolutely meaningless to him. He doesn’t care. Chaos is the point.

I think Ontario has already paused the Export tax unfortunately. But I would absolutely call his bluff. An attack on Canada would mean a full-blown article 5 crisis before Trump has all of the cards that he wants. While he might be that stupid. Others in his administration aren’t.

Just in case, a good show from Carney would be to deploy the military to the area because of an increased threat of terrorism.

Yep. Nothing fishy at all here. Nosiree.

In before Poppinfresh goes on the stump to call Trudeau a thief of government property.

Those are all very fair points. I just haven’t seen much evidence of our better nature winning out lately.

I don’t think we can change our base responses, to be honest.

I think throughout history we’ve shown that we can mask our tribal responses to maintain a veneer of civilisation. But that at the end of the day, that’s all it is. It’s a mask waiting for permission from someone like Trump to be cast aside.

I agree with you about tribalism being our greatest weakness. In fact I firmly believe that that is the ultimate answer to the Drake Equation. Their are no species capable of interstellar travel because the Great Filter of tribalism prevents any society from reaching the globalism necessary to ultimately achieve it. As an Archaeology major (a long long time ago, to be fair), the very tribalism that allowed us to dominate this world, is the same tribalism that will keep us ultimately from leaving it.

“Parties” are inevitable just by simple human nature. It’s the same reason cliques exist in highschool; We gravitate towards people we agree with and eventually (either purposefully or not) begin to align our decision making.

It’s a “block party”! </dadjoke>

I’ll show myself out.

Ah. My bad. Got overexcited and skipped to the end. Sorry about that.

New Orleans is Sinking by The Tragically Hip

I live in a different city and often find myself wishing for my mother’s Portuguese Salted Cod Casserole. It was out typical sunday family dinner when I still lived in the same city as them. Not a cultural tradition, just because it was my favourite dish.

But the nature of it ensures that I’ll never ever ever have the patience to do it myself, considering that step one is soaking the dried salted cod in cold water that you repeatedly replace for up to 48 hours in order to get the salt out.

The US and Canada will never be the same again

As a Canadian I think, if we can weather the storm without Cheetolini going full “annex” mode, we’ll come out the other end better; more diversified and secure in trade relationships, and stronger on the world stage.

You end up with noise that’s hard to remove

I respectfully disagree. As long as you have control over your exposure triangle, you can have far more quality control than any phone sensor.

Maybe I’m just old school, but actual proper physical glass lenses with optical zoom will always perform better than tiny lenses that fake just about everything digitally.

It is indeed dangerous to rely on any one country for too much

Cries in Canadian