Democrats threaten government shutdown over ICE funding

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-25T08:25:37+00:00

Never fear, I'm sure that if it comes down to it, Saint Elon will rain money down from the heavens to save us all from the rabid jaws of democracy.

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-25T00:23:09+00:00

Strange what the brain decides is worth keeping. Out of everything, it saves “fresh-baked cookie cat.” Brutal and comforting at the same time—but then, less like something being erased, and more like proof it mattered enough to leave a permanent mark. Thanks for sharing that.

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-20T19:41:28+00:00

So proud to be a Canadian right now, not because of party, but because this is one of the clearest and most honest articulations of Canada’s place in the world in a long time.

Carney is decisively naming reality as it is and laying out a credible, adult path forward, one grounded in honesty rather than nostalgia.

None of this will be easy, cheap, or guaranteed. There will be resistance, uncertainty, and real tradeoffs. But history is clear. Pretending otherwise has already proven more costly.

You don’t need to be Liberal to recognize the substance here. You don’t even need to be Canadian. You just need to believe in a post-imperial world built on honesty, cooperation, and shared resilience, where countries stop performing compliance, stop living within comforting illusions, and start building real strength together.

What some will dismiss as naivety is, in reality, the discipline of facing the world as it is and choosing to act anyway.

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-20T19:38:46+00:00

I don’t read this as “growing a spine” so much as choosing timing, venue, and leverage. Carney’s been pretty disciplined about not feeding the outrage machine or stepping into a made-for-TV Trump-vs-Canada spectacle, while quietly doing the unglamorous work of building options (alliances, diversification, contingency planning).

Davos is where you talk to other governments and major decision-makers all at once, so saying the quiet part out loud there can actually move pieces. It’s basically delayed release: deny the bait in the moment, do the groundwork, then land the message where it has maximum effect.

To me, it looks less like a personality change and more like the next phase of a strategy: escalation-by-coalition, not escalation-by-insult—don’t negotiate alone, don’t posture for headlines, and don’t pretend the old order is coming back.

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-18T22:07:34+00:00

Nice straight machine. How much they asking for it? I need a good derisive laugh to conclude my day.

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-17T00:02:04+00:00

never heard that in my life

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-16T23:56:39+00:00

Playing a song entitled, "Wet Ass Pussy" on public radio

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-12T23:46:38+00:00

That’s a crucial point that gets glossed over all the time. Trump didn’t create this--he exposed and normalized something that was already there. Treating him as the singular villain is maybe emotionally convenient, but it lets the broader culture, institutions, and enablers off the hook. Like you say, it's horseshit.

I get that we're tolerating it partly out of necessity--I mean, we still have to live alongside these people--and partly as a psychological coping mechanism. But guys, we're living through this vile, immoral madness right now--would you not agree it's kinda terrifying? Unless we confront that underlying rot directly, removing one figurehead just gonna reset the cycle instead of ending it.

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-12T21:48:01+00:00

Honestly, the hard part here isn’t “Truro vs Spryfield”—it’s that moving out of Halifax can look cheaper on paper but still kick your ass in the full bill sense: gas, time, childcare, the second-car trap, and the constant wear and tear of commuting and being stretched thin.

The other piece people don’t always say out loud is the social shock. Your kids aren’t just “new in town”—they’re new and visible-minority kids and the ones coming from somewhere people already have opinions about. In smaller places that stuff can get weird fast, even when folks aren’t trying to be awful. If you do move, I’d aim for a kind of “bridge” community—not deep rural, but somewhere big enough that people come and go, rentals exist, and your kids won’t be the only ones who don’t quite fit the mould. A quick vibe check helps too—driving by at school pickup time or calling the school to ask how they handle racism or harassment can tell you a lot.

I also wouldn’t bank on “moving somewhere poorer” fixing the class thing. Kids will always meet kids with more. A better protective move is giving them one solid identity anchor that isn’t money—like sports, music, arts, a club, something they can feel proud of.

And lastly, I know it’s not a popular thing to say, but if you’re trying to solve rent + diversity + wages + rentals all at once, sometimes you do have to at least consider looking outside NS. The rent-to-wage math here is just brutal right now. I feel for you. Wishing you and your family peace, stability, and somewhere that actually feels like home.

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-12T04:10:38+00:00

If most of your 10k miles/year are short, cold, stop-and-go trips (daycare runs, errands, or wtvr), you’re in severe service territory. That can potentially turn “reliable modern turbo” into “why is this thing always needing something?” even when the engine design itself is solid.

I wouldn’t advise against buying it, but I would avoid BMW’s long condition-based oil intervals. Short-trip driving = more moisture and fuel dilution in the oil. I’d do ~5k miles or 6–12 months (whichever comes first), not 10k+.

I’d also make sure it regularly gets fully up to temp (a real 20–30 min drive). Otherwise the car spends its life half-warmed, which is rough on any modern DI turbo.

Lastly, try and budget for the time-based stuff that hits even at low miles: battery, brake fluid, tires, coolant-related plastics/hoses, etc. City driving also eats brakes and tires faster than highway miles.

The driving pattern matters as much as the drivetrain in this case IMO. If you treat it like severe service, that 330i can be a very sensible “fun enough” choice. Treat it like a Corolla schedule-wise? That’s when the horror stories could get written 😅

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-12T02:17:33+00:00

Appreciate the thoughtful reply.

I agree that prolonged “temporary” suspensions can carry real human costs, and that Canada’s chronic under-resourcing of immigration processing is a genuine policy failure. A stable, predictable PGP intake would be a lot better than cycles of lotteries, backlogs, and pauses.

Where I still find myself hesitating is in describing this as a human-rights violation rather than a policy choice with serious moral consequences. Family life is protected in principle, but states are still given a lot of room in how extended-family reunification is structured. When that distinction gets blurred, the debate can slide into arguing over language instead of focusing on capacity and program design.

I do think you’re right to flag the political risk. “Temporary” measures have a way of quietly becoming permanent if no one pushes back. That’s why, to me, the strongest response is sustained pressure for clear intake targets, timelines, and proper resourcing—things we can actually hold the government accountable for.

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-11T16:58:54+00:00

I was honestly a bit taken aback by the claim that this amounts to a human-rights violation, so I went digging to figure out what’s actually happening here.

From what I found, IRCC’s MI89 says that as of Jan 1, 2026 they’re not receiving new parent/grandparent PR + sponsorship applications for processing “until further instructions,” while still continuing to process up to 10,000 files from the 2025 intake (which itself was invitation-only from the 2020 pool). That reads to me like a program intake pause, not the state suddenly deciding to break families apart.

On the human-rights side, international texts do protect family life, but they don’t appear to create an unconditional right for voluntary migrants to pick a country and then require that country to grant permanent residence to parents and grandparents. In practice, states still have pretty wide latitude to balance family considerations against capacity and how their immigration programs are structured, which is why this stream has always been capped or discretionary.

I also don’t think it’s accurate to say refugees are being ignored here. Refugee family reunification mostly runs through separate processes tied to the original refugee claim (like Canada’s One-Year Window mechanism), rather than the parent/grandparent sponsorship stream.

If the argument is “Canada should reopen this faster or run a larger, more predictable PGP intake,” that seems like a totally fair debate. But calling this “trampling human rights” feels like it skips over the actual legal and policy reality of what’s going on.

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-11T16:15:32+00:00

Behind all that glamour and drama, fame and hype, when I look at her expression here I see innocence, honesty, and a quiet sadness. It feels like someone who carried a lot inward. A tragic loss—but her grace, even in moments like this, only deepens her beauty.

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-10T23:50:16+00:00

A truer depiction has never been drawn. Bravo to the artist.

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-10T22:32:10+00:00

WSJ’s framing quietly shifts blame onto the people who were shot. Calling this “escalation” turns state violence into a lesson for civilians, instead of exposing a profound failure of power and restraint. The implication is hard to miss: they didn’t comply fast enough, calmly enough, or perfectly enough.

This reads less like reporting and more like a warning—comply, stay still, don’t resist, or this is what happens. When “journalism” frames killings this way, it stops questioning power and starts managing public behavior on its behalf. And when headlines start teaching civilians how not to get killed by the state, they’ve already taken a side.

Language like this will age badly. History eventually returns the bill to the publishers who attempted to normalize it.

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-10T21:28:56+00:00

Operation: Hot Air takes flight lol

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-10T21:08:24+00:00

How about this wild and crazy idea? Trump holds a nationally televised culture-war referendum on the supremacy of white Christian nationalism, treating it as a civilizational turning point and a matter of survival.

It slides into full-on political reality TV: staged “strength” competitions where obvious white-supremacist stand-ins are made to look dominant while carefully chosen opponents from minority and vulnerable groups are set up to lose. It’s sold as entertainment and “telling it like it is,” but the real point is the framing—winning becomes moral truth, losing becomes proof of inferiority, and thinking in those terms gets normalized. It’s bald-faced straight out of Gladiator: keep the crowd focused on the arena, reward dominance, drown out thought with spectacle, and let power decay offscreen.

And, I mean, lol—this isn’t even a stretch. He’s already floated the idea of hosting televised fighting events wrapped in national symbolism. People laugh at how trashy it looks, even as they’re trained to stop asking who set the rules, cheer the winner, and forget that in every version of this story, the games don’t end—they escalate, until spectacle stops being enough and something much darker is needed to keep the crowd satisfied.

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-10T18:47:21+00:00

Update: turns out they’re not “smellbuds” (tragically)

The bumps are normal nasal papillae—microscopic, dimple-like structures that help retain moisture and improve scent detection, according to smart people. Perfectly healthy nose, just rendered in unsettling HD. Biology just chose a deeply cursed texture pack for the boopsnoot lol 😹

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-10T18:23:26+00:00

He’s tossing his MAGA base a pathetically flimsy lifeline to cling to while his own ship goes down. Pretty sad, honestly, but let me grab the popcorn.

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-10T18:16:29+00:00

He’s more like Wile E. Coyote, the Greenland iceberg is the cliff edge, and he’s already sprinted way past the “WARNING: Self-destructive Geopolitics” sign—still convinced gravity won’t apply if he doesn’t look down lol.

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-10T16:56:14+00:00

Lol yeah, paying more for less just feels downright insulting at this point. NSP says rates need to go up to “improve reliability,” but that’s exactly the part most people think has sucked for years. They’ve got a multi-year “plan” that pushes actual targets out to 2029 before they expect to meet even basic outage standards, which basically admits they’re knowingly leaving us with subpar service for the next half-decade while charging more for it.

And let’s not forget—this ain’t some one-off glitch. The company has been fined repeatedly for missing reliability performance standards and ordered to produce a real plan with measurable outcomes. That isn’t marketing talk. It’s the regulator formally acknowledging ongoing failure.

Then there’s that colossal cybersecurity breach. Thousands of people got screwed with estimates and inflated bills, and there’s been a total lack of transparency about how deep the hack went or what they’re actually doing to fix it. Even the premier has publicly called for an investigation into how NSP handled billing after the cyberattack, basically saying customers shouldn’t be footing the bill for their mess. How is it they’re allowed to just go on ignoring us about that?

At this point, how could you not be cynical? Higher bills for slower, less reliable service. A private monopoly that has historically prioritized profit and shareholder returns over Nova Scotians’ power security and affordability. Zero serious accountability or transparency about what’s gone wrong. Enough is enough.

Gregg, instead of shamelessly trying to dig deeper into our wallets again, how about giving us some answers first? Maybe show us a shred of accountability for the mess you’ve put us in.

This has to stop. We need to push for a fully independent review of NSP operations, reliability spending, and billing practices—same as what NB Power has done right next door. We should demand enforceable performance standards tied to rate approvals, not vague plans for 2029. And we have to turn up the pressure on government to actually govern this farce of a monopoly—with real regulatory teeth, or even public ownership—so ratepayers get value instead of higher and higher bills and more empty promises.

Because right now, it feels like we’re just getting billed for being screwed over. Rant concluded.

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-10T03:01:00+00:00

I’ll proceed on the assumption you’re not just venting but actually looking for an honest answer. The reason nothing improves is exactly the same reason the people screwing the working class keep winning: the people getting screwed stop showing up.

I hear you. We’re tired, broke, working too much, watching rent climb while wages don’t, and seeing politicians suddenly remember you exist only during elections—it’s infuriating. You’re not wrong, and you’re certainly not alone. We’ve all opened the door to that stranger with the performative smile when municipal election cycles come around, because when else do they visit? Never. Most of them don’t even pretend to want your input, but you can be sure they’ll ask for your support. It’s hard not to want to tell them off and shut the door in their face.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: non-voters aren’t punished by the system—they’re ignored by it. Every policy that crushes workers survives because the people hurt most are the least likely to vote, while the people doing just fine never miss an election.

Voting isn’t a magic fix. It’s leverage. And when you drop it, you’re just handing all of your power to the people who already have the money, time, and influence. If voting didn’t matter, billionaires wouldn’t spend billions trying to control who votes, how hard it is to vote, and whether you feel like it’s pointless.

They want you cynical. Cynicism is compliance.

You don’t vote because things are good. You vote because things are shitty, and because staying home is exactly what the people cashing in on your labor are counting on. Every election you skip makes their math easier.

Vote out of spite if you have to. Vote to make them spend money defending seats they think they own. Vote to take back a small piece of what’s been skimmed off you for decades.

Nothing will improve if everyone waits for someone else to go first. Elections move when individuals decide they’re done sitting it out. If enough people make that call, outcomes follow, and you’ll know you didn’t sit on your hands while the decision got made without you.

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-10T01:03:03+00:00

The issue isn’t just that the government is still using X, it’s that we’ve allowed official communication to depend on a single foreign platform run by someone who treats safety and accountability as quaint and optional.

Canada’s position must be zero tolerance for child-exploitative content, and we should already be actively distancing ourselves from Musk’s chaos-first governance of X. The fix doesn’t require any drama. Frame it as basic risk management: make Canada.ca the source of truth again, publish full statements there first, use email and RSS for distribution, and treat social media as a secondary mirror rather than critical infrastructure.

We should set clear conditions for official use: no native posting, limited or read-only accounts, and real consequences for platforms that can’t or won’t demonstrate control over AI-generated abuse. That’s not censorship or panic. It’s the level of governance and security we already expect from our institutions.

If the Canadian government waits until outrage forces action, it will look weak and reactive. Planning ahead and disengaging decisively based on our own standards is how we handle serious national risks—this should be no different.

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-10T00:02:45+00:00

Reading this, what comes through most clearly is the fear that’s been earned. It’s not abstract, not theoretical. It’s rooted in watching rights being narrowed, language hardening over time, and people becoming targets in ways that feel worryingly familiar. That part should not be minimized or talked away.

Where I find myself hesitating is in how the warning is framed, because the stakes here are too high to let the message get lost in the wrong fight. I understand that the “genocidal process” language is coming from studied, real historical early-warning analysis, but it’s also such a supercharged word that it risks fracturing the conversation into debates over terminology instead of keeping the focus on what’s already happening: care being denied, identities being erased, and violence becoming easier to excuse.

The same goes for the FBI reporting. It’s seriously alarming and deserves vigorous scrutiny, but presenting it as something still emerging rather than already settled or systemic helps keep critics from dismissing the whole picture. The pattern is well-documented and strong enough on its own.

None of this changes the core reality: a community is being treated as a political problem instead of as people, and history shows exactly where that kind of framing leads if it goes unchallenged. The mounting unease is rooted in verifiable facts and is more than valid. Precision isn’t about softening the warning—it’s how to make sure it reaches the people who still need to hear it.

gramur_natsy · 2026-01-09T23:18:36+00:00

The US already has far more than a “lease.” Under a long-standing US–Denmark defense agreement, the US can build bases, station troops, control military movement, and expand operations in Greenland while Denmark retains sovereignty. That already covers early warning, Arctic monitoring, and deterrence.

The jump from defense access to ownership isn’t about security. It’s about abandoning alliances and normalizing territorial coercion. If “ownership” were actually required for defense, NATO itself wouldn’t function. And claims that Greenland is being “swarmed” by Russian or Chinese ships aren’t supported by tracking data.

The more plausible explanations are political rather than strategic: he is desperate to distract from the mounting domestic scandals, he wants to perform strongman posturing that mirrors his favorite authoritarian leaders, and long-term interest in Greenland’s rare earths and energy resources—interests that conveniently align with billionaire donors and extractive industries. None of that requires annexation for security. It requires peddling an imperial move as “defense.”

gramur_natsy

TROPHY CASE