Aristides

I know, I have grand kids. That’s why I mentioned toys, they are one of the worst examples.

Go to more biodegradable packaging where possible. Many things such as toys used to come in cardboard boxes What we can’t do by choice will have to be done by legislation. We can’t get rid of them completely because they do many essential things. Get rid of or at least reduce the non essential uses to a minimum.

Straws and bags are no longer used. You have to start somewhere. Be nice if people took a little responsibility for their own behaviour instead of using others as an excuse not to.

You don’t have to recycle plastic if you aren’t using it FFS. It’s always someone else with you guys.

You asked what I did with straws. I told you. You seem happy with plies of plastic garbage lying around because you don’t seem interested in doing anything about it.

No, I don’t ever remember that as an excuse to change from paper to plastic. More revisionist history. I don’t know where you live but we have ditched plastic bags as well. I carry a couple of cloth ones in each vehicle.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/investing/2025/04/21/us-exceptionalism-faces-challenges-amid-steepening-of-us-treasury-yield-curve-portfolio-manger/ https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/21/boeing-investors-brace-for-fallout-from-trump-tariffs

The fundamentals are a 122% federal debt to GDP ratio and Republicans want to cut taxes while running trillion dollar deficits.

I rarely have occasion to use a straw but it doesn't matter now because they are not plastic. I do put plastics in recycling if that's what you are asking. I used to use plastic grocery bags as kitchen garbage bin liners but now that we have composting for kitchen waste, I no longer need plastic bags for garbage bags in kitchen bins or garbage cans because nothing wet goes in my garbage. A bunch more plastic not going into land fills.

No the 500 million number didn't come from Chat GTP, came from the National Parks Service. the weight calculation came from Chat GTP. One straw weights 0.42 grams, 500 million straws would weigh 0.42 X 500,000,000=210,000,000 grams or 210,000 kg or 210 metric tons. Straws are used for a lot of things other than just fast foods, among other things, hospitals go through tons of them. While the 500 million may be debatable, we go through a shit ton of them regardless. I wonder what chance we have of not destroying our environment when there is such resistance to changing something as simple as a straw.

Chat GPT says the 500 million plastic straws that the US uses each day equals 210 metric tons of plastic that is going into land fills and the environment every day. From straws alone and that's just the US.

I went to the poling station at 0900 on Sunday. In and out in ten minutes. A steady trickle of people but not busy at all. A friend who went to the same place on Friday waited over an hour.

If people lose trust in US securities, they will go broke. That would also mean a world wide recession if not an outright depression.

It’s all about trust and the US is no longer trusted.

The CAD is up again today even thought the BoC rate is 2.75% compared to the Fed's 4.5%. It isn't so much about Canada going up but Trump tanking confidence in the USD. The Yen, Euro, Pound, CAD, AUSD, etc are all up compared to the USD for that reason.

The carnage continues. https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/investing/2025/04/21/stocks-sink-with-the-us-dollars-value-as-investors-retreat-further-from-the-united-states/ With the world losing confidence in the US as a safe haven, interest rates will have to be kept high in order to attract investors to finance US debt. The US will shortly have to roll over 10 trillion in dept at 4.5% that was borrowed at 2%. This will add 200 billion to debt servicing costs alone, which will have to be financed with further borrowing because Republicans don't believe in paying taxes to support living within their means.

As Popes go, he was a pretty good one. RIP.

He opposed it for the same reason many others did, because it allowed people to be deported who had just been charged and not convicted. Republicans don't believe in due process and a charged person getting their day in court.