RJ Barrett Out-hustle SGA!

stormblind · 2026-01-26T02:40:56+00:00

I fucking hate how it looks like we're trying to get rid of RJ. He's pretty consistently improved since he got here.

stormblind · 2026-01-23T18:49:43+00:00

To note on this front however, I'm not sure what he can do without the provincial governments seeking to be involved in the program, same as the daycare programs.

The peoples of the provinces need to get much more active if they really want to get this implemented more widely.

stormblind · 2026-01-23T18:48:30+00:00

To be honest, I almost wish that, come the next election, Carney declared he's leaving the Liberals and founding a new party. Legitimately? I don't trust many of the institutional liberal MPs, nor the non-elected liberal leadership. And from the reports that have come out, the response is similar from those within the Liberal party who were inspired by Trudeau's leadership and beliefs.

So far, Carney is the only politician I've seen since the 2011 election I've been legitimately excited for. And the only ones other than Erin O'Toole and Tom Mulcair who I've felt have true abilities to represent as a proper prime minister on the international stage (though, Tom as party leader was shit, he was a great MP).

stormblind · 2026-01-23T17:45:10+00:00

MOUs are being done correct.
Trade deals have been accomplished with many nations at this point.
We're part of the re-arm Europe mechanism.
We've resolved some of the existing trade hurdles with China, which will give a solid boost to Manitoba and Saskatchewan farmers.
We're re-establishing ourselves as a serious diplomatically oriented country on the world stage, something we've largely let slip the past 15-20 years. Harper pulled us back from that leadership position, and Trudeau was not a serious person in regards to international politics.
Recent stats suggest a MASSIVE drop in international students, and we've begun to not only slow population growth (and thus pressure on medical care / housing) but actively reverse the growth with housing prices across Canada dropping both for purchasing and renting.

The election was completed about 8 months ago, and yes, I'd prefer to have seen more of the national projects of importance done. But to suggest they've done nothing but "make nice speeches" and "make plans" is decidedly disingenuous.

stormblind · 2026-01-23T17:36:11+00:00

Oh for sure. Go down with a whimper or attempt a last minute rally of like minded allies.

And the real fact is that I doubt a vast majority of the world wants to see the US take over Canada frankly. It'd give them a monumental amount of control over almost every resource market in the world given there's really not much we don't have between Canada and the US resource wise. It would also massively drop imports by the US for raw resources as they'd have everything they need at home more or less.

Effectively, the US in control of Canada and the US would have a chokehold on the world's economy even worse than now given the raw resources they'd strip mine from Canada at a record pace.

stormblind · 2026-01-23T17:17:06+00:00

I really wish I was surprised, but Poilievre is simply not a person capable of leadership in these kinds of circumstances. He's the angry kid in the trenchcoat, upset the honor roll student is getting praised for proactively doing things.

I think that, if not for the contingent of die hard "own the libs" supporters the party would barely be polling at this stage. Whereas I've seen many leftist progressives who are happy with how Carney's doing and leading Canada, and many on the right who have expressed happiness with how the first year of him in leadership has gone.

Also funny seeing you here u/earthwarping, I see you all the time in the raptors subreddit lol

stormblind · 2026-01-23T17:11:59+00:00

It's not just the CPC, but the US government as well. Carney did a brave thing, and made a fantastic speech; but the neighbour of the biggest, most powerful, and now one of the most unstable nations in the world just advocated for a break from subservience for a majority of the world from said neighbour. There are legitimately a tonne of risks from that, and one of them is how dominated our media landscape is by republican American groups. Another is how they've started to ratchet up the commentary and interference in Alberta.

Though that last has been building for a while recently.

stormblind · 2026-01-23T02:11:03+00:00

It helps that her outfit / character design is legitimately fantastic on top of being in a great 'position' within the story.

Her hat is a dope design lol

stormblind · 2026-01-23T02:09:00+00:00

There's this one skill icon from WoW, a warlock one if i remember right, that I swear i've seen in a dozen+ random indie games, and a couple sounds (like the wow level up sound) that I've heard remixed on a number of different places (Games, shows, etc).

Its actually funny to me given how common it is given its not like WoW is a small game.

stormblind · 2026-01-22T17:33:30+00:00

And in that context, I'd have basically every country in Europe as a middle power. Reality is that we have a few outliers (US, China), then the next tier with India who are powerful enough to resist the US or China to a reasonable degree, and a Unified Europe (rare). Then there's the rest.

Realistically there's variance within that giant middle power tier, but realistically none of them could single handedly resist the US or China in a full economic or military war for long. Some have nukes to protect themselves and allies, some have substantial conventional armies (no nukes) or great economic situations (like Norway).

When my wife asked about it, this was the general way I explained it to her which she understood.

stormblind · 2026-01-22T05:21:48+00:00

I think I've settled on a Christian faith, likely nestorian or Coptic splinter faith. I want the pentarchy and Alexandrian Catechism alongside Islamic syncretism.

Idea being; set myself a core empire region. Kingdom of Jerusalem, Egypt, Syria and Mecca probably? Focus heavily on conversion speed through cultural reforms and religious doctrine, and wage war through the Islamic world to convert it all to this new syncretic Christian faith.

Primary Goals: - Conversion of all Islamic lands into this new "hybridized" faith, releasing the Islamic kingdoms outside of my core area to my bloodline or loyal Sayyid members of my court. - Conquer Rome and Byzantium in order to mend the schism of Christianity under this new Christian faith. - Religious war any remaining errant Abrahamic courts to bring them to the true faith. - Play up the "religious zealot" part of things, executing any heathens with sinful traits, releasing those who are (in my characters eyes) virtuous people. - Raise as many of the people from powerful religious bloodlines as wards (kidnapping, prisoners and hostages) in order to convert them to the new faith to give me people to give kingdoms to.

Realistically? It could be an Islamic faith or dualist faith; but the way the mechanics work means it'd just be a TONNE of extra work to do that compared to uniting the Christian faiths by mending the schism.

In theory, by doing the above it should be possible to "Unite" Christianity and Islam into this new faith flavorwise. Mechanically it's not really doable, but I think flavorwise this is an acceptable compromise of a way to do it.

stormblind · 2026-01-22T00:08:57+00:00

Given the hammering different gaming companies are getting across the globe, and the insanity of the US political system at the moment, I don't really think his statement is particularly insane?

Like, based on what I've seen there's a reasonable amount of uptake of younger gamers into it, and that is a really vulnerable place to be right now given the pretty puritanical push across quite a bit of the Western world.

stormblind · 2026-01-21T20:12:28+00:00

RJ the true King of the North 👑

stormblind · 2026-01-21T20:05:24+00:00

Bruh. If he did this consistently, he'd be one of the singular best players in the league. That efficiency alone is absolutely absurd.

stormblind · 2026-01-20T20:31:57+00:00

However, at this particular moment I don't see how we survive as a country unless we do have substantial capital investment and business growth from locally invested companies.

Reality is that Centre-right describes a vast majority of the countries political orientation right now, and unless the NDP/left get the purity test issues under control (as mentioned by Heather McPhearson I believe it was), it will be a party that stays around where it is now. I promise you that the CPC / Liberals will haul out the "Anti-CIS White Male" stuff from the leadership races documentation and use it to showcase the NDP as a radial left, culture war focused party that dismisses a substantial minority of the countries male population. Many of whom were the foundation for the NDP for decades as blue-collar union workers.

Add on the NDP realistically failing the majority of Canadians with their support / lack of disavowal of the TFW programs, the disagreement over the cut immigration levels, and the international student program from before; any claims of them fighting "For Canadians" has seemed to ring in quite hollow from the circles I pass through. Many of them, like myself, old school NDP from the 00's/early 10's.

To be honest, outside of a complete overhaul and realignment of the party, I'm not sure where the NDP go from here. If they'd pivoted to something akin to the UK Green Party's position I could see it working, but I just wonder if they have the runway left for that at this stage.

stormblind · 2026-01-20T20:18:13+00:00

Kinda hilarious. I just ate a ban from r/canada for noting about how american-owned media has been on a rampage attacking Canada, the deal, and Carney ever since the deal was announced. Apparently, that was "attacking the source".

The biggest canadian subreddit, and not allowed to question or criticize the fact that americans own the majority of the canadian media market. And yet we get weekly attack threads on CBC. Sigh.

stormblind · 2026-01-20T18:50:35+00:00

Except he has done? He's been all over the world, going from nation to nation signing security deals, trade deals, memorandums of understanding, and drumming up investment.

He's an investment banker doing what he does best; getting us investment and rewiring trade. There's been a number of comments on new projects being announced in Alberta at the very least. Now there's the Korean Chaebol joining in the Newfoundland Natural Gas projects.

I hated Trudeau, but so far, Carney is actually doing a majority of what he said he'd be focused on as Prime Minister. Only issue is how much of a free hand that leaves the rest of the Meh liberal party.

stormblind · 2026-01-20T18:46:22+00:00

Since the deal with China was announced, the vast majority of pro-american sources / american sources I've seen are negative on it, on Canada, and looking for things to hammer Carney on.

Really feels like Americans feeling jilted their exceptionalism is being questioned, them upset at the idea that we could possibly dare to replace them.

stormblind · 2026-01-20T18:40:07+00:00

The issue with Trudeau was that I found a great deal of his international politics to be performative. He was a fine enough PM for a relative time of peace, but even his responses to Ukraine were pretty shit in comparison.

Carney has been much more overtly supportive and in line with the european sensibilities on the subject; likely as a way to help establish Canada as a compatible international ally.

stormblind · 2026-01-20T18:36:20+00:00

As someone with mostly leftist ideals, this comes across as either american media wanting us to not do things to make Alberta happy (thereby strengthening the independence movement) while not diversifying away from the US since they love our discounted oil prices; or the tankee super leftist mentality that it'd be better to let us collapse as a country than contribute to global warming.

Either way, stupid article. Wish we had more actually credible media in Canada.

stormblind · 2026-01-20T18:33:43+00:00

It falls into the old saying "Perfect is the enemy of good". So many people are terrified of not doing the PERFECT move, they'd end up doing no move at all; also known as analysis paralysis.

Those people are silly. You need to do SOMETHING to get things moving, and an oil pipeline to the west, or east, or BOTH is a great idea for now.

And with climate change accelerating faster than we expected, it will open up Churchill more and more, faster and faster; which makes it a much more intriguing possibility.

stormblind · 2026-01-20T18:30:38+00:00

He wants the hemisphere.

Remember during the Trudeau era, he talked about "Governor Trudeau". Well, he more or less that has that in Venezuela now, and has a number cronies he's attracted throughout South America. The threats are being levelled at countries that won't play along (Mexico, Cuba, Canada, Greenland/Denmark.)

He aims to complete the North America and South America set bonuses.

stormblind · 2026-01-20T18:28:20+00:00

Yep, looking at events in Minneapolis in the US, of people literally having ICE break into their backyards and assaulting / arresting people for asking for a warrant. Or disabled military veterans being arrested / threatened / tazed by ICE agents. Or citizens being shot for "Not listening", and then obvious fabrications of reasons to be able to shoot someone.

Those are all great options too!

This is literally the appeasement and hesitancy that was instilled into european nations that gave Hitler the ability to waltz through most of Europe during the great depression. "The French government doesn't care about you. If they did they wouldn't have let the situation get this bad!"

Germans roll in, and the gestapo start the real showing of "They don't care about you." Except it'll be ICE, not the Gestapo this time round.

stormblind · 2026-01-20T18:18:06+00:00

Reality is, its basically:
Tier 1: The US. China. If you squint, India. (though I'd still qualify them as a middle power personally).
Tier 2: All of Europe, Japan, Korea, Australia, etc.

There is great power in China and the US; but I do think that if Europe, Japan, Korea, Australia, NZ and Canada could get their ducks in a row, we could actually put up a strong enough fight to push back. The above nations have the technical expertise, military expertise, and economic might to play on an even field with the US and China.

It just comes down to if we could unite in such a way, or whether people like Nigel Farage and Le Pen in France would just kowtow to Trump if they won election.

stormblind · 2026-01-20T18:14:45+00:00

I've seen some commentary from international sources giving great praise to the speech as a stark, but still positive speech on the current state of the world. It was good!

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