SpankyMcFarland

The US used to lead on renewables. Now China is pulling away. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/30/climate/china-clean-energy-power.html

DSTs are only going to become more common around the world. Governments have been remarkably patient about the shenanigans of American high-tech firms partly because of the benefits their products have brought but their patience has run out. Facebook, Google and the rest have wiped out the revenue from local tax-paying media companies, replacing them with complex arrangements that squirrelled money away in havens like Ireland, the Caymans and Luxembourg. Trump shouting at Canada isn’t going to stem the tide.

Generally speaking, a foreign bombing campaign rallies people around the flag and whatever regime is in charge, eg Britain, the Soviet Union, Vietnam. When foreign forces tried to end the French Revolution they made Napoleon a hero.

Yes, we’re negotiating with Trump and his team, not all of America. They described it as caving.

Canada ‘caved’ - this is the thuggish mentality we have to negotiate with. Really classy people. They hate us when we bargain with them and despise us when we compromise. So it looks like we will have to postpone DSTs because of our geography but rest assured they’re only going to become more common in the rest of the world and will make it to our shores eventually. In a digital age, governments can’t afford not to have them.

Now he has added the abolition of supply management to his list of demands. Has anybody explained to him that the US: has a big surplus in dairy products with Canada and an enormous surplus in agricultural produce overall (nobody buys more of their eggs than we do); subsidizes its own farmers; and employs thousands of undocumented workers to milk its cows, meaning that Trump effectively wants us to accept the proceeds of crime.

That’s a design flaw in the forum. Most sites like this can do that.

One problem with politicians being landlords is that they are at risk of conflicts of interest. They shouldn’t be involved in any legislation relating to domestic property, esp. tenants’ rights, or any policy discussions on planning, zoning etc. It’s a bad look for anybody to be writing laws that may be benefit themselves and a serious faux pas in the midst of a housing crisis. In this case we are talking about the actual housing minister concealing assets. Couldn’t make it up.

Can somebody correct the spelling of the person’s name in the thread title? It’s Mamdani with an ‘n’.

Voters are desperate for change which is why they can vote for a right-wing populist in one election and a left-wing candidate in the next. What they didn’t want was the status quo offered by the Democratic establishment - a disgraced, elderly politician backed by millions of dollars, much from right-wing sources. Mamdani sounded fairly out there on some proposals but he ran an energetic campaign, hardly surprising given the fact that he was literally half the age of his opponent. The Dems should have two priorities - to sweep away the gerontocracy and start listening to voters. https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/jun/29/does-zohran-mamdani-new-york-primary-victory-offer-roadmap-for-democrats

If you’re talking internationally, not in remotely the same way. Trump is actively destroying the bonds that tie the West together.

Have you seen the extraordinary lengths to which US tech companies abroad go to avoid paying tax? When it comes to multinationals, the international tax system has broken down. Where Facebook etc are actually paying tax at this stage has become a bewilderingly complex and opaque matter which is why so many countries have run out of patience and are speaking together on this: if you make money here, you pay tax here. It’s very simple, really.

Let me try to make this clear. I am not defending Bitcoin or encouraging anybody to buy it. Bitcoin is far more dangerous than a mere Ponzi scheme. It’s more like a global cult that empowers criminals. Look at the way Trump and Co have gotten involved in crypto. There’s a potential disaster heading our way.

China is going to see some serious problems in the next few decades but the achievements of its entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists will continue to astound the world and it has a lot more of them than anybody else does. Frankly, I can’t see the West keeping up. The last thing we need are people like Trump dividing us from within.

Strictly speaking, a Ponzi scheme has particular criteria that Bitcoin doesn’t have. Madoff ran a Ponzi scheme where the money from new investors was used to keep the scheme going as Charles Ponzi did. In a classic Ponzi scheme there is one person controlling the scam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme Bitcoin is different from that and in some ways more dangerous.

Unfortunately, there’s a particular species of landlord on the make that sees politics as merely a convenient step on their real (estate) career path. I would prefer our politicians to be in mutual funds or blind trusts and own no property other than their primary residence and maybe a flat in Ottawa and a cabin in the woods. Why can’t more follow the spirit of de Gaulle’s example? https://telegrafi.com/en/presidenti-de-gaulle-dhe-faturat/

I can assure you it’s not that controversial outside the US any more. Most people around the world would agree with the proposition that if you are making a huge income in a country you should be paying a fair level of tax on same in that country.

The problem is global and is eliciting a global response. Many countries have noticed that foreign high tech firms have used the internet to make huge profits from ads etc. while paying little to no tax locally because of tax residence jiggery-pokery, quite unlike the local media businesses they have wiped out. Digital services taxes are simply a rational way to make everyone pay their fair share. To say that the cost of the tax will be passed onto the consumer and should therefore be abandoned is weak beer indeed. That could be claimed of any corporate tax and is hardly a serious argument for giving up on taxing companies. The high tech billionaires have pressured Trump to pressure us to give up on this. They may succeed in Canada but not elsewhere over the longer term. Voters can see what is happening and they simply won’t put up with it no matter what the tax accountants say.

Apparently, Jews, Arab Christians, Arab Muslims and the followers of Samaritanism have all got some lineage connecting them to the Canaanite remains found in local archeological sites. Obviously, there’s been a fair amount of admixture in most of these populations over the years: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-near-eastern-world/jews-and-arabs-descended-from-canaanites/#%3A~%3Atext%3DAfter examining the DNA of%2Clink to the modern populations. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/canaanite-bible-ancient-dna-lebanon-genetics-archaeology The obvious caveats here include: the research papers underlying these claims by Reich and others are incomprehensible to me; DNA research is a rapidly moving field which has to be integrated with other evidence etc. As a North American, I always feel a bit weird getting involved in these blood and soil arguments out foreign. My ancestral links to my own land are not even wafer thin.

I don’t think Bitcoin qualifies as a Ponzi scheme technically speaking. For example, there are no false promises to invest the money pouring in. Furthermore, its value does not reside entirely in its astronomical stock price. Like QAnon it’s a symptom of a deeper alienation among many people, esp. the young. As I hope I have made clear, ordinary people should not be ‘investing’ in it at this stage. One thing it certainly does share with Ponzi schemes of the past - the constant possibility of collapse.

I thought you guys considered the CBC irrelevant? Now it’s picking our leaders. After any defeat, esp. one as dramatic as this, there should be a prompt and frank review of what went wrong. Of course, all campaigns are flawed but it’s easier than usual to find the mistakes in this one. Poilievre put himself front and centre despite being unpopular with many Canadians, and even Tory politicians, and failed to adapt style and content when circumstances changed out of all recognition. When negative messaging was enough so was he but once the wind changed he looked completely at sea.

Come on now, do you believe any of that should take the best part of a year more? The time for straight, honest, open talk about the Tory defeat is now. He lost the election and in Australia he would have been gone in days at most after that. As I pointed out, Canadian parties tend to be way too deferential to their leaders and it’s high time we dumped that overboard.

The Tories have a persistent problem with tone. Since Mulroney they have rarely had a leader for long who looks like they’re enjoying themselves and can crack a joke or two. There were obvious messages to be pushing for the last ten years on fiscal prudence, corruption etc. but they couldn’t seem to do it with a smile. Then Poilievre doubled down on the creepy MAGA-esque stuff like crypto and convoys, and a level of snark suitable for here that actively repels many independent voters who might otherwise give his party a hearing. Perhaps such doom and gloom reflects where we are headed as a country but thank goodness it’s not a winning formula yet. And why are they going to wait so long to review his leadership? Do it now and get some honest discussion going. He blew a massive lead for reasons obvious to everybody else and deserves a heap of robust criticism. It’s like JT’s very long goodbye or Jean Chretien’s for that mattter. Canadian parties need to wake up and do the necessary in a much more timely fashion. I’m not saying get rid of him necessarily but at least have the talk and put the issue to bed.

In most conflicts one can see reprehensible acts committed by both sides. Gaza is no different. Pointing them out does not mean one supports either side.

Northern Ireland consists of six of the nine counties of the historic province of Ulster. The other three - Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan - are in the Republic of Ireland.