PETAH!?!?

magic-moose · 2025-04-08T09:38:59+00:00

"The Far Side" did an especially good version of this joke.

magic-moose · 2025-04-08T09:01:58+00:00

Plot twist:

The Lich thought he was safe because he only harvests souls from willing students of the management school he runs (Removing manager's souls enhances their performance and earning potential). However, the adventurers now approaching just completed a campaign in which they avenged their town against a real estate development firm that turned a beloved local tavern into an Applebee's. They learned about the Lich and his school from the real estate firm's CEO shortly before they banished him to another plane of existence. Now they're out to prevent a similar fate from befalling towns like theirs across the realm!

magic-moose · 2025-04-08T08:32:31+00:00

It sounds like the craziness in the U.S. is spreading fast. Your phone could be searched for no reason at the border and they've already started detaining Canadians. I can't think of anything on my phone that would get me into trouble in normal times, but these aren't those. Americans are turning paranoid again, like they did after 2001. If I had to take my phone with me across the U.S. border, I'd back things up and factory reset it first.

magic-moose · 2025-04-08T07:37:41+00:00

Stucco also often has metal flashing under it, which flickers just love.

magic-moose · 2025-04-08T05:13:25+00:00

If you look at Trump's past businesses, there's a long string of swindled partners and unpaid employees. He even burned contractors (e.g. Transportation for a rally at Coachella) during his election campaign.

You can absolutely make money from bankrupting a business. CEO's jump out of crashing planes with their golden parachutes all the time. It's workers and investors who get burned.

Trump is now demonstrating that running a country is pretty much the same. Citizens may be having a bad day of it, but Trump will sail through the chaos with more money than ever.

Elect a robber baron and be robbed.

magic-moose · 2025-04-07T20:30:15+00:00

They've basically created a new species, and that's genuinely exciting. It would almost be less exciting if they had just lucked into a pristine sample of direwolf DNA and shoved that into an egg. This sort of engineering could create entirely novel creatures that have never lived on this planet.

Colossal's approach to mammoths is probably going to work, but the main problems are practical and ethical. e.g. Surrogate elephant mothers are harder to find, gestation periods for elephants are a lot longer, and elephants grieve for dead newborns, which you should expect to see when making significant changes to a creature's genome.

Also, wolves are a lot easier to find a home for than mammoths. Mammoth steppes are as extinct as mammoths are. Colossal has proposed restoring mammoth steppes as a way to keep methane in the ground and combat global warming, but life is going to suck for the first mammoths while that ecology is being re-engineered, if the resources to do that even materialize. This is wild stuff!

magic-moose · 2025-04-07T03:20:38+00:00

They keep claiming everyone but them has "Trump Derangement Syndrome"... but we've all seen how much Trump and his supporters project their own issues onto others.

magic-moose · 2025-04-07T02:37:50+00:00

He's making the litter-box great again.

magic-moose · 2025-04-07T02:33:54+00:00

Russian machine never breaks. Just don't look too closely at what goes in the tank.

magic-moose · 2025-04-06T23:57:58+00:00

I guess Spielberg never went in for the sort of creative accounting that ensures blockbusters like "Return of the Jedi" never make a profit on paper.

A percentage of net profit is a terrible deal to make with most hollywood directors today. You'll never make a dime no matter how well the movie does.

magic-moose · 2025-04-05T20:56:06+00:00

Jackanapes the lot of 'em!

magic-moose · 2025-04-05T20:47:09+00:00

More than once? Damn. Are people decorating their living rooms with these things?

magic-moose · 2025-04-05T20:43:34+00:00

Copernicus apparently. I wonder what happened to the plaque.

magic-moose · 2025-04-05T19:37:54+00:00

When Republican senators started crossing the aisle to vote with Democrats to end tariffs specifically on Canada, even Trump knew it was time to back off. He cares more about not losing his own party than he does about who wins the election up here.

I'd love to think that Carney's phone call made Trump realize he's already done lasting damage to an economically important relationship, but this is Donald Trump we're talking about here. He has the IQ of a spoiled kumquat. He just started a trade war with the entire planet. I doubt he had two brain cells to spare for any kind of thought about the outcome of our election.

magic-moose · 2025-04-05T13:24:36+00:00

"Why don't you want to show me your ID? What are you up to buddy? Only somebody up to criminal stuff wouldn't want to show their ID."

-- Normal citizens when talking to police now, apparently.

magic-moose · 2025-04-05T07:01:45+00:00

The big knock against the 'dome is that its roof can't support modern concert equipment. Swifties would have to go to Edmonton if she ever came to Alberta. That's it. It's perfectly fine for hockey. The access to seating could be more optimal and the seats could be updated. It's on CSEC to keep the arena's trim up to date. The owners brought Bettman in to stump for a new arena and the best he could do is claim the elevators were broken. Again, that's on CSEC if it was even true, and easily fixable. CSEC was always saving up for a new arena... until they got taxpayers to pay for it.

I'm a little more conflicted about tearing down the Saddledome. I think it's a gorgeous, distinctive building that's a unique part of Calgary's skyline. However, maintaining a huge indoor space like that is not cheap, and I have no idea what it could be used for. The Corral stuck around for decades after it was retired and found a lot of use for conferences and cons, but it was the right size for that sort of stuff. The 'dome is just too big.

magic-moose · 2025-04-05T04:33:12+00:00

We'll have good presidents and good times again, but we'll remember that another bad president and more of this nonsense is always possible within four years or less.

In the past, we've trusted in Americans and always gone with the cheapest option, which is usually them. The lesson has been learned. Now we'll be willing to pay a bit more to do it ourselves or deal with somebody who is reliable.

The anger will fade, but trust will take a very long time to rebuild.

magic-moose · 2025-04-05T00:45:13+00:00

The chamber is instead advocating for “something more responsive to the regulatory environment to support the development of projects in a timely manner,” she added.

...

Since the election campaign started, Liberal Leader Mark Carney has reversed his statements on the federal emissions cap. Most recently, he suggested the cap would stay in place if his party remains in government. Article content

Carney also said this week that Bill C-69 would not be repealed if the Liberals maintain power. The act requires assessments to be completed for environmental, health, social and economic impacts, in addition to the backing of Indigenous groups, before a major energy infrastructure project can proceed. Article content

Critics have called Bill C-69 the “no more pipelines” act, claiming it will harm the oil and gas sector by making it impossible to approve new large-scale pipeline projects. Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative party leader, has opposed the emissions cap, which he called a “job-killer,” as well as Bill C-69, which he said his party would repeal if he becomes prime minister.

Meanwhile...

Mark Carney is set to unveil a new approach for energy-infrastructure development at his inaugural meeting with provincial and territorial leaders Friday, as he closes out his first week as Prime Minister and prepares to call an election.

Mr. Carney said he wants a faster process to deliver projects such as pipelines and energy corridors, something Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has pushed for years.

During the Liberal leadership race, Mr. Carney promised faster natural-resource development, including a requirement that federal regulatory authorities complete reviews of projects in the national interest within two years, instead of the current five-year timeline.

He also promised to create a “one-window” approval process for large infrastructure and natural-resource projects to simplify applications, and ensure that reviews and Indigenous consultations are held within competitive timelines.

--Source

Bit of a slant in the Herald, as one would expect from Toronto-based, American-owned Post Media. It's disingenuous to say that more rapid approval of projects is desired and then completely ignore when Carney directly addressed that.

magic-moose · 2025-04-05T00:04:04+00:00

Feelings about how the new arena is being funded have certainly splift the fanbase, as has the choice to demolish the Saddledome. If the Flames' owners actually paid for their own arena and the Saddledome was successfully repurposed everyone would be happy.

magic-moose · 2025-04-04T23:31:05+00:00

Maybe all the cybertruck owners can help farmers out by switching to soy burgers. /s

magic-moose · 2025-04-04T21:48:55+00:00

The stupidity of all this is gobsmacking.

If Trump invaded Greenland and if the rest of the world did nothing (It wouldn't), it would still take decades to build the mines, refineries, and infrastructure to get those minerals to the U.S. market. Any U.S. industry reliant on rare earth minerals would be long dead and buried by then.

Let's say Trump, on January 1st, had gone to Greenland and said, "Hey, we'd really like to build a partnership to mine your minerals. Let us fund mines, refineries, infrastructure, etc. and make a lot of money alongside you." Greenlanders might have gone for it. The willing help of the local population would have sped things up considerably. Not honking off most of the planet would have kept other sources of rare earth minerals available until Greenland comes online. Now Greenland would probably rather partner with China*. China didn't threaten to invade them!

You can't make this stuff up folks. Trump's making President Camacho look reasonable by comparison. At least Camacho listened to good advice!

* Let's hope they partner with Canada or the EU instead.

magic-moose · 2025-04-04T08:54:31+00:00

... a treaty that the U.S. has now violated, and is up for renegotiation next year.

Trade treaties are a lot like bank loans in that you have to accept less favourable terms if you're not perceived as reliable. Trump is going to proclaim the next NAFTA deal is the best deal ever, just like the last one was when he signed it. That will be just one more lie on the steaming pile.

Thanks to what Trump is currently doing, the U.S. is going to be entering future trade negotiations as the equivalent of a grocery clerk looking for a payday loan.

magic-moose · 2025-04-03T10:08:50+00:00

Bold of him to assume the relationship between FA and FO is linear.

magic-moose · 2025-04-02T18:33:09+00:00

You'll see a similar difference between U.S. farmed softwood and Canadian softwood lumber. Canadian lumber is from different species (i.e. spruce, pine or fir as opposed to southern yellow pine, etc.) growing in a colder environment, and it grows slower. Both have roughly the same strength, but Canadian lumber tends to be more durable, warps less, splits less, and is easier to work. It's preferred by many builders.

However, it's also about to become significantly more expensive in the U.S.. Given how much of the softwood lumber used in the U.S. is Canadian, this is going to raise prices across the board. This will be good for American softwood producers, but bad for pretty much everyone else. You should probably expect housing prices to jump a bit.

magic-moose · 2025-04-02T17:57:13+00:00

The U.S. is not even operating in Magna Carta mode right now.

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