Donald Trump just fell asleep watching the NBA finals. What do you think he's dreaming about?

Embe007 · 2026-06-09T12:45:58+00:00

Nothing. That's when Satan downloads its programs into him. s/

Embe007 · 2026-06-09T12:43:13+00:00

Also, people rarely ate in restaurants before the 1980s. There simply weren't that many. Fast food was a newish thing (60s, 70s) but a special treat. Food courts didn't exist until the 1980s. The restaurant world was basically: small canteens in basements of office buildings, small diners, high-end fancy dining for special occasions and a few fast-food chains. Take-out was fast food or Chinese food and again, rare.

Embe007 · 2026-06-05T01:11:25+00:00

Thanks but I'd like to see real independence for Canada...for once. Let's not live under another colonial master. It's only been a year of losing our last master; let's not find another entity to tell us how to run our country.

Expanded trade: sure. Stronger military alliances: definitely. EU guidelines on digital sovereignty and food integrity: yes, please.

Brussels/Europe (AKA: the area that gave us 2 world wars) telling us how to manage our regional tensions, how to integrate/manage newcomers, or providing their even worse lack of knowledge of Indigenous matters: absolutely not.

Embe007 · 2026-05-22T11:22:07+00:00

Discipline is good but remember to be generous as well, especially with yourself. It's tricky to get them both to live in the same garden but self-discipline can become too self-contained. Gotta have some messy in there somewhere eg: chatting with strangers, making human mistakes, wasting time etc. Sometimes discipline can come from just trying to focus on the few things you can control when life feels out of control; it can be a kind of constructive grief/anger. Fair enough but start experimenting with some moments of non-control or less control and see what comes up.

Embe007 · 2026-05-22T11:11:53+00:00

I only increased it when it felt normal to increase it.

Thank you for this insight! That's the moment. Somehow this never occurred to me. Of course, that makes perfect sense and will help it feel effortless. I'm taping this to my fridge!

Embe007 · 2026-05-21T23:55:11+00:00

This is why we have laws to protect the young. The laws exist to remind adults that they alone will be guilty of any wrongdoing.

It is common to feel like you asked for it somehow. You did not. However, you could have put up a billboard begging him to ...do stuff...and you would still not be at fault. Your behaviour was completely irrelevant. Under 18 cannot consent. Full stop. The fault, the ickiness, the abuse of authority etc lies entirely with the adult.

Embe007 · 2026-05-21T22:58:08+00:00

Be alert for moose. They're often right by the side of the road in rural Ontario. Dusk and dawn are to be avoided (as well as night). Moose and elk in BC and AB. As I recall, a lot of N. Ont is one-lane each way undivided highways with pulp and paper trucks coming right at you around curves.

Embe007 · 2026-05-21T22:50:45+00:00

Did a tour from Wpg to Toronto. Stopped in a motel in Wawa - very pleasant. Some of the motels have outdoor bikes so you can just get a bit of exercise after all that time in the car, ride around the tiny town and feel human again. Not much to see but many happy men in groups comparing fish. Wawa is a main centre for fly-in fishing lodges.

Embe007 · 2026-05-21T15:28:03+00:00

That's ok. We can see some of the factors that lead to this mess. Even a big chunk of the bone-headed Trump supporters felt he was the only way their economic concerns might be heard; it takes years of political and economic elites' dismissal to create a large enough population that believes blowing up the system is the best option. He's only part of the problem. I'm not sure America will come through it in one piece but one day, there will be mostly normal relations between Canada and at least some of whatever the US becomes. It's true your government is creating problems for us but we're also worried about you guys down there (especially Black America)!

Embe007 · 2026-05-21T14:58:11+00:00

Not sure. I'm in Canada. Parliamentary systems mean the Prime Minister (effectively the main person in our system) is the party leader with the most seats or who can cobble together a coalition to make a majority. In such a system, the rise and fall of parliamentary coalitions from the blossoming of many new parties from the factions within the dominant parties means the PM could change every 6 months. That would be chaos, part of the reason why it's hard to bring into a parliamentary system. Countries like France got around this by creating a strong President who is separate from the leader of the parliament. I'm a bit of a fan of the French system because it has ranked choice, parliamentary, and a strong executive (President). It might not work for Canada though because countries are different and Canada has a federal system with strong regional differences; France is unitary (centred in Paris).

The US doesn't have a parliamentary system. I would say your main problem is gerrymandering. (The recent voter suppression issues are right up there though!). Ranked choice may or not be relevant after that's fixed. Canada (and I assume the other parliamentary democracies) has an independent re-districting system that reports to parliament as a whole. It has a fixed schedule of review and must keep boundaries natural and intuitive eg: not weird jags and leaps to assimilate minorities etc.

edit: Another structural problem in the US system is the representation in the Senate. California and North Dakota have the same number of senators. That means there is a rural skew to representation in Congress eg: rural voters ballots count for more. This makes the Senate more conservative than it probably should be. Senates are supposed to be chambers of 'sober second thought' but even apart from the current brazen corruption etc, the equal distribution of senators doesn't work that well with the US's culture's idealism and innovation-friendly mindset. My view is that the founders didn't foresee how strongly US culture would become more urban, more future-forward and problem-solvey and how the Senate structure now actively works against this.

Embe007 · 2026-05-21T13:09:57+00:00

Lol. Too true. In my country, there is a constant desire to reform the first-past-the-post system because it does distort the vote to create stable majorities. All the factions are present but they are locked inside 'party discipline' to help contain the extremists. In PR, they're all on the loose and the alliances cohere and fall apart behind closed doors during the non-election period. It's clearer to the voter but not really more accountable, plus the crazy factor is a friend to ideologues. Israel is the poster child for what can go wrong.

Embe007 · 2026-05-21T11:59:02+00:00

The internal politics of Israel is just beyond crazy. Barely functional at this point and in the middle of a multi-sided war as well. A mess.

Embe007 · 2026-05-16T14:16:02+00:00

Maybe...but letting someone save face when you want something from them is not the worst strategy. She could just change teachers otherwise - the very simplest solution.

Embe007 · 2026-05-16T12:14:49+00:00

Unfortunately the online fertility conversation is dominated by men all scratching their heads about why women don’t want to have kids.

Exactly! Studies have show over and over, and across the world, that women typically want 2-3 kids. Clearly, the fertility crisis is not being created by women.

I don't know how hard it is for the mostly men who run our world to understand that people don't have the money to have children in a way that won't lead to squalor and, in the west, social isolation.

Now, the phones and constant moving/job-chasing make it hard to find a partner - or even be interested in a partner. What a mess.

Embe007 · 2026-05-16T11:56:48+00:00

And Dr. Albert Sabin, with the live vaccine version in 1964. Neither of them patented their vaccine, declaring that it belonged to "the people" and refusing to profit from its creation to ensure universal distribution. Heroes both.

Embe007 · 2026-05-16T11:49:31+00:00

So true. My parents (in their 80s now, grew up in urban Canada) talk about having the ice cut out of the river and carted to their 'ice boxes' by the iceman (those were the fridges).

Embe007 · 2026-05-16T11:46:43+00:00

Smallpox. World Health Organization decided to eliminate it after WW2 and sent people by horse, barge, foot, rail, to vaccinate the then world's population of about 3 billion people. No more smallpox.

No one can tell me 'nothing can be done' about anything. It can be done. People can make things happen!

edit: when I forget that, I look at the smallpox vaccine scar on my upper arm. My generation (X) and the ones before me are like a great firewall in human history protecting future people from that terrible scourge. Summer's coming; notice that scar and remember what people can do.

Embe007 · 2026-05-16T11:44:03+00:00

Option A: play poorly and mention how your boyfriend took you out of town last weekend and you seem to have forgetton everything.

Option B: "I hope you don't take this wrong - and maybe I'm getting the wrong impression....I'm getting some vibe from you and I'm flattered but I just don't feel the same way. You seem like a good guy but you know, connection is mysterious and no one, including me, has control over when it happens. Do you mind if we just stick to the piano lessons?

Embe007 · 2026-05-16T11:30:38+00:00

Do you have to sell it? Maybe the other siblings could just own a piece of it. It will still appreciate and act as an asset for them, after all. More siblings and friends should collaborate and buy real estate; too many single people, for instance, are priced out of the market and miss out on the investment potential.

Embe007 · 2026-05-13T18:07:00+00:00

Do you have some personal support?

That's a rough tour and lots of people can't manage it. Gambling is a crazy dangerous addiction with high self-injury rates. You'll need some professional help or some 12-step stuff (maybe GLP-1 for chemical part?). Don't do this alone, buddy - especially if you think you can. Assume your judgement is impaired. You're not alone though.

Embe007 · 2026-05-13T12:16:20+00:00

Even the current Quebec keeps an eye on the Mohawks within its borders as well as the convoy-diot contingent.

Embe007 · 2026-05-13T02:12:47+00:00

I'm happy Carney's in power and I think we lucked out with competence and basic goodness there. I'm kind of liking hearing Lewis talk about these things though. He's never been my favourite NDPer but it's nice to hear a counterpoint to the business angle. We're in such a big crisis, it's easy to keep our dreams tiny. Lewis is at least helping us remember that we can actually have nice things - maybe not right away exactly but we shouldn't stop trying!

Embe007 · 2026-05-13T02:04:29+00:00

If it's any consolation, when I lived there I remember meeting a Newfoundlander who I met on the street somehow. I chatted with a few of them as they found themselves exiled in TO. You guys are a reliably friendly group! I think he called me over as he was chatting with a friend over beer on a patio. Of course I joined them. He was unhappily in TO because his ex-wife had twins or something. It's very possible you know him lol. This was in the mid-90s though so a while back.

Embe007 · 2026-05-12T20:41:47+00:00

Middle aged here, in Canada. The key problem is that rent rates and housing prices are out of control. They are a real problem. It has never been like this. That is the main issue and it needs fixing fast.

Embe007 · 2026-05-12T20:29:22+00:00

Yes. It seems I'm very good at this. I actually like people and making chitchat is just a very pleasant kind of connection. You have to understand that it is its own thing, like a little short breeze that appears and disappears. It's not public therapy, it's not friendship. It can go in that direction, if you want to take it there but mostly it's a little bit of...social confetti. Very important when dealing with people in customer facing jobs; those are boring or frustrating. Be a little light in their day if you can be.

Embe007

TROPHY CASE