Dearche

This isn't much better than capitulation. Going back on your counter-move just to a promise to have a "talk", that's the same stuff that Putin's been trying with Ukraine: Pull back your troops from Russian occupied territory, and Russia will promise to talk.

Ford's given them exactly what they want just for the sake of having a face-to-face. What he should've done would be to say that he was willing to put withdrawing the surcharge on the table as an initial proposal on his side of the talks.

I don't care that we can just put up the surcharge again, Ford just showed the US that he's got a weak spine and can be bullied into withdrawing all measures at the slightest sign of agreement. Not even a promise of an agreement.

If the RCMP paid for it, or it was done during work hours, then it belongs to the RCMP. It's like someone at Intel developing a new chip at work as a side project, then complaining that he doesn't own the IP for it since it wasn't his main project.

Stepping down can sometimes be the real power move in politics, and for a politician that had quite few power moves for such a long tenure, this was one of Trudeau's.

And between the potential leaders, Carney is the only one that has a clear vision for the future on top of a plan to make it happen. While I don't agree with half of the stuff he's about, that's a million times better than a man more interested in causing division amongst Canadians when faced with an external threat, spineless coward that flip flops depending on what he things gets him political points, or people who have zero chance of gaining enough seats to make a serious change.

The government has already admitted that there's been evidence of tampering for over a decade now by China, though how significant of a swing that has isn't known. I'd like to think it was quite minor, but who really knows.

On the other hand, Russia is pretty famous for its botnet attacks on the US elections for a while now, basically early AI based attacks. Their fingerprints are all over twitter during the last several elections, not to mention the biggest driver of quite a few conspiracy theories.

This isn't a case of "very likely", but rather practically guaranteed. The question is whether the countermeasures will be effective enough or not.

Frankly, alcohol is expensive and a hassle to bother with, and that's before the fact that my body doesn't handle it very well lately.

Sure, it tastes alright, but that's just alright compared to a nice cup of coffee, tea, or juice, which is all easier and faster to get, you can drink it anywhere and as much as you want, and generally tastes better. Why wouldn't it taste better when most recent alcoholic beverages are trying to copy the flavour of normally non-alcoholic drinks?

Modern society is generations away from being under the pressures of hard, painful, and dreary work where you need a depressant to forget how difficult your work day has been, and the current youth's not only forgotten why people needed such drinks in the past, but are even detached from the customs to drink such even from a traditional standpoint.

Not to mention that they have weed and vapes if they want to feel like some "badass deviants" as well.

The average person no longer feels the pressure to rely on alcohol they did in the past, not personal or peer in variety, so it's no wonder that sobriety is becoming the norm.

I explicitly stated that I don't approve of Israel's actions. I think both sides are in the wrong, and neither deserve support due to their actions.

It's quite hard to call them anti-terrorists when they let Hamas control their open-air prison. And I mean, how isn't firing rockets at your neighbours' population centres anything but terrorism?

While I'm not a fan of the fact that so much of Palestine is pro-terrorism, going as far as arresting someone for protesting for the lives of a population in an abuse of authority. Suppressing dissenting opinions in itself is a direct attack on the freedom of expression.