suds

Gold is no different than anything else. It will go to 'zero' when there's absolutely no demand for it. It has behaved as a currency and store of wealth for the last 2500 years which is good enough for me and most central banks. Be honest now, if you had to choose between bitcoin not backed by anything other than what get rich quick enthusiasts were willing to pay for it, or a gold backed crypto issued by the Perth Mint and backed by the Australian government.... which would it be? If you chose bitcoin it wouldn't surprise me because i have to believe most people are in the crypto game to make a killing. You can win big and you can lose big. I don't know enough to answer your other questions as the details provided in most cases are at best rather sketchy.

There are cryptocurrencies that are backed by physical gold unlike bitcoin which is backed by nothing and is the reason for the wild price fluctuations. Those cryptocurrencies backed by gold (or some other stable underlying asset) are sometimes referred to as 'stablecoins'. A gold backed cryptocurrency utilizing blockchain technology is worthy of serious consideration. Why gold in particular? Mainly because the price of gold is priced according to the USD, interest rates, inflation, supply and demand, and world geo-politics. In effect, a gold backed cryptocurrency would become a derivative of the underlying gold asset. Russia has plans for a ruble gold backed stablecoin, and China for its own yuan gold backed digital currency. For those who claim 'you can't eat gold' well i have news for you. In 2008 Zimbabwe with hyperinflation running rampant, gold was the only means to buy bread. 1 loaf of bread was had for .1 g of gold panned by Zimbabweans from nearby rivers. Today in Venezuela where the socialists have turned the bolivar into a national laughingstock, gold along with currencies such as the USD and peso are routinely accepted as barter for goods and services.

Even with all the funding in world, mental illness issues are not going to be resolved overnight. Stricter background checks are not going to prevent anyone from acquiring a firearm if they're determined to get their hands on one. So what other alternatives are there to protect kids in school from mass shootings other than making a school's front door the front line of defense? What's more important.... children's safety or optics?

Better background checks and controls might help, but let's not forget there are over 400 million privately owned firearms in circulation and a wide open southern border where a T-72 tank could be easily smuggled in. If I was a parent i'd like to see one school entrance for entering and exiting along with the hiring of armed ex-police or military to monitor the one entrance. Arming teachers might not be a good idea. Let's keep the number of guns in the schools to a minimum.

So let me get this straight now. This 'Celsius' is not allowing holders of bitcoin to withdrawal (cash in) their bitcoin for real money? Unregulated and not backed by the CIDC? How is this not a ponzi scheme??

If people don't feel safe where they live it's going to take a lot for big government to 'convince' them to give up their guns. This is where democrats have it all backwards.

You can't blame low turnout for the results when the polling was so accurate. For myself it was a first for mail in voting.

Is it true you and jbander are among the last 8 or 9 misguided souls still watching CNN? I could almost swear on it.

If you are a 'patriot' and love your country so much, why do you support those who so radically want to change it? And why are so many including african americans, hispanics, asians, and young people, abandoning the democrats like a sinking ship? The majority of americans don't agree on how the democrats are handling the economy, inflation, the border, crime, and education. Convince me on why americans should vote democrat.

Biden hasn't acted as a moderate and has only made the country even more divisive. It's unlikely he will finish his first term. Trump should should sit out 2024 and give some other republican a shot. They have a number of good candidates. The nuttiness has to end.

I'm pretty sure that Musk is aware that 'free speech' is not absolute. As long as he could come up with a few common sense rules that all users were aware of and THAT APPLIED EQUALLY TO EVERYONE, i'd be happy with that.

I think you're taking me a little too literally.

Marxism originally pitted the working class against the capitalists with the working class as the oppressed and the capitalists as the oppressors. Race or gender was never a factor to be considered. Neo marxism (today's marxism) incorporates class, gender, and race, as being intersecting systems of oppression. With the old marxism, capitalism had to be replaced. With the new marxism which also now incorporates critical theory and feminism (among other things) pretty much everything has to go. The goal of replacing existing power structures to free those from the circumstances that enslave them haven't changed, but the tactics have.

Can we agree that CRT should not be taught to young students? Can we agree that it's underlying ideology is marxism that simply replaces 'class' with 'race'? And can we agree that CRT by definition is inherently racist? No-one knows the extent to which CRT is being taught in schools. What we do know is the extremes the left can push an idea once it gets in their heads.

I can see little sense in going any further with this, so i will apologize for butting into your little slugfest and will butt out. Carry on.

Thanks for your trouble except there's no mention of CRT anywhere. I've no problem with teachers discussing racism with young children or teaching about america's racist past. Absolutely none. CRT claims that racism is systemic and institutionalized in america as opposed to individual prejudice. I don't know about you but i wouldn't know where to begin trying to explain this to a 5 year old. It might go something like this.... "if you're not white, you're oppressed, and you were screwed the minute you were born. And you see that white child over there... they're the oppressor." Well good luck with that. I would prefer extending to them the vision of MLK that CRT soundly rejects. Obviously racism whether in Canada or the US (or basically any country) is still a problem that has to be addressed. I don't have all the answers, but teaching CRT to young children has the possibility of making things a lot worse.

Have any opinions/studies at professional levels been presented to see how teaching CRT (or gender identity) may affect extremely young students emotionally and socially? None that i can find which in itself is somewhat interesting. Experts it seems are a dime a dozen but how many are psychologists for example? Being an 'educator' doesn't mean you qualify. What are the proponents hoping to gain by teaching such complex things to K-3 students if not for indoctrination? Where is the science?

How is it even remotely possible to ascertain the truth when only one side of an argument is heard? We need Democrats to hold Republicans in check, and Republicans to hold Democrats in check. Same for Liberals and Conservatives, and the politically aligned news media. "When government actors are allowed to decide which opinions can be expressed and which cannot, an open, vibrant and diverse society quickly breaks down. Similarly, when our court system is used to silence those who oppose powerful actors, we all lose the opportunity to hear all sides of an issue and come to our own conclusions. Freedom of expression is the right to speak, BUT ALSO THE RIGHT TO HEAR. It is almost impossible to imagine how a democracy could work without the protection of those most basic rights and freedoms, and yet-in Canada-they continue to be under attack in many ways." .... Canadian Civil Liberties Association. DISINFORMATION = THE NEW CENSORSHIP

If plan B doesn't work out he can always go to plan C and build his own social media platform. He can then start from scratch and build it the way he wants and hire nobody but free speech enthusiasts. How hard can it be compared to colonizing mars?

Musk is 'registered as an independent and is a political moderate'. If not his politics, what is it then? The left either wants total control over all social media or is against free speech. Or both. I would place my trust with Musk more than I would Trudeau or the Biden administration.

Good for Elon Musk! You can't help but admire the guy. If the deal goes through it will be in good hands.

Biden and Putin both have to go. Biden's weakness is mostly responsible for Russia invading Ukraine and if China ever gets around to invading Taiwan. Why argue about it?

According to Pew Research Center, 31% of all U.S. adults claim they regularly get their news on facebook, 22% get their news on You Tube, and 13% on twitter. It's common knowledge that at least facebook and twitter suppressed the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story (which implicated Joe Biden). They did it by such means as not allowing the story to be shared with others. The point is that you don't require total coordinated cooperation from media outlets, government institutions, and political parties, to sway presidential elections which are usually fairly close. If the story hadn't been suppressed could Trump have won? That we'll never know. https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2021/09/20/news-consumption-across-social-media-in-2021/

Russia with 6000 nukes invades a much smaller sovereign country that voluntarily gave up their nukes. If God is with the one with the 6000 nukes He must be playing a joke on us.

How would you compare US states to Canadian provinces? Or better yet, how would you compare US federalism to Canadian federalism?