This deal doesn’t really sound great to me, at high level. So India gets Uranium, and Canada gets… a branch of an India AI firm, which is likely to aid in their surveillance / espionage in Canada. Those are seemingly the two big items in the ‘trade’.

Have heard Talarico speak twice now. Both times he had practically the same story, with practically the same intonation on words. Sounded very rehearsed, inauthentic to be honest.

I’m not an American, nor obviously am I from Texas, but I’ve heard of Crockett, and she’s had some decent exchanges in the house in the past from what I recall. I imagine, between the two, I’d have more confidence that she’d be a more vocal/active/progressive democrat – whereas Talarico almost feels like a Republican in Democrat clothing.

Canadian politicians “can’t” say that the USA is the largest security threat, because our market is so highly integrated, and the baby in charge would throw a pant shitting tantrum. Canadian politicans are often bad, but they’re not complete idiots on that front. Carney came so close that it was clear though, in his Davos speech. Spavor and Kovrig’s detention was largely the result of Canada detaining Meng, at the request of the USA. A request that was taken by the USA explicitly to sour relations between Canada and China – which worked for years, until just recently due to the shift in the US posture. So the USA overtly meddles in Canada’s relation with China to sow animosity and disadvantage Canada, but the USA ain’t a big threat huh?

Canada supports Ukraine. Both China and India have been trading with / supporting Russia throughout. Canada has significant trade with India. India has allegedly conducted assassinations on Canadian soil using the Bishnoi Gang as a proxy to go after political dissidents of Modi. Indian students were constantly in the news in the past few years, as the ‘foreign student’ programs were shown to involve significant fraud from that particular region, with an assumption that Canada will just accept the people once they’re in Canada – not exactly the actions of a friendly nation. Especially when a bunch of Bishnoi gang members / Indian foreign agents were likely in that mix too. One report at the time had noted that like 15% of the people from one of the fraud investigations, were shown to be known criminals who should never have been admitted. Even with that backdrop, we’re fine trading with India, I don’t see why we wouldn’t be fine trading with China.

There are risks in dealing with any large nation. But we’re literally next door to the most militaristic nation in history, which has gone authoritarian/fascist, and has made overtures of destroying Canada. Not just overtures, but they’re taking steps to try and achieve that goal by funding separatist movements and sowing discord through our USA-controlled media.

Carney’s Davos speech highlighted how Canada’s approaching trade, and it makes sense given our position in the world. We can’t dictate terms to super powers. We can’t demand that all our trading partners agree with everything we value, nor is it reasonable for Canada to try and dictate the foreign policy of foreign nations in terms of who they trade with, or the actions they take. We can work on smaller deals for specific goods, keeping value-based virtue signaling trade nonsense to a minimum.

Freeland is a relic of Trudeau’s “Virtue signaling” government approach, where the environment minister literally said shit like “Just lie often, lie loud enough, and people will believe you!”. Freelands prior negotiation of the CUSMA stuff was also really weird – in that the initial coverage before the deal listed various items that were ‘critical’ to get in the negotiations, which she failed to do, but they still ended up pretending like she’d done a great job. That again, was part of the Trudeau governments obfuscations – likely done in part because the Liberal brand required that they prop up all of their ‘star’ women candidates, regardless of performance. They moved that environment minister into a cushy high paying ambassador gig – just like they moved the woman who was responsible for the phoenix pay system fiasco into a high paying government gig as a reward for costing tax payers BILLIONS, rather than highlight that she was incompetent at her job. There’re good reasons Freeland didn’t win the Liberal leadership, and why that party’s now veered significantly away from the Trudeau style.

Whine about trade with China all you want. At the moment, they’re more consistent in their actions, leading to more predictable trading outcomes. And when you take a look at what the USA is doing to Minnesota, if you’re wanting to deny trade based on value mis-matches, we should likely also clip all trade with the USA. But that’s pretty much impossible at this point. So you gotta chill with the virtue signaling nonsense, and find win win situations where you can.

Washington: *declares Canada a 51st state, openly discusses annexation via economic warfare, routinely attempts to undermine Canadian sovereignty and overtly meddles/funds/supports groups seeking to dismantle Canada as a country (alberta separatists as an example).

Freeland: “But what about China? They might do something bad too!”

Sure Freeland, obviously, especially since our closest/most trusted trading partner has become hostile towards us, it’s really clear to almost every Canadian at this point that ANY foreign partner can go ‘bad’. But she and hers lead the country into an intolerable situation where we’re overly dependent on a singular, and now hostile, neighbour.

Her comments sorta feel like an Arsonist, mocking people trying to escape the building that’s been set ablaze with statements like “Why try to escape? The next building you enter might catch fire too!”

I’ve been to a Shen Yun performance before, it was pretty good, light entertainment – was a great date.

I’m not overly familiar with politics internal to China, but my impression is they’re sorta like Jehova witnesses over there, except the government also tries to stomp them out of existence fairly explicitly. But with more ties to pre-communist China culture (and Id ‘guess’ taiwan? idk).

Yes, sure, ok whatever. Art is a generally iterative process that builds on prior attempts, historically. Even Shakespeare’s plays ripped off themes from similar contemporary works. Your claim that we’d be left with a homogenous list of games is completely unfounded.

ID software put out the earliest “big” FPS games, and many FPS games since have ripped off ideas that were used by ID. Hell, the idea of Grappling hooks in Quake/FPS came primarily from the popularity of a Quake Mod called 3wave CTF that brought those things in. “Dur dur, they shouldn’t have made any other FPS games using those same popular elements, cause homogeny!!”.

I’ve said what I wanted to say about the game, and supported it with some data that outlines how popular features are ‘outside of just my own opinion’. I’m gonna stop bothering to discuss this with you at this point, as I really don’t see any reason to do so given your stance. If they leave everything as is, and you get your quirky game with bland features for exploration etc, and it sputters and dies, I hope you think back to this exchange.

Psh, Valheim’s what started the resurgence of indie survival crafting games. Not giving it it’s due is naive.

Like one of the few contenders still with some players is Enshrouded. Enshrouded’s steamchart 24 hour peak was 18k, with a 30 day avg of ~16k.

Valheim had a 24 hour peak of 30k, and a 30 day avg of ~23k.

Valheim came out in 2021. Enshrouded in 2024.

A game 3 years older, is still dominating the space. Even just based on those numbers, it’s pretty clear which one is the gold standard in the space – taking your opinion out of it, and my opinion out of it, the data that devs should be looking at is clear if they want the game to appeal to more players.

Honestly, seeing these players, as a Canadian, I’m even less interested in supporting the NHL in anyway shape or form.

I mean, I’d say I wasn’t going to go to any game in which an overt supporter of a fascist regime was going to play, as I didn’t want my cash going towards that sorta stuff… but I already don’t give a shit about hockey. And the idea of a ‘national’ league in which its two nations, that shit should get put in the past given their overtures of conquest.

AAaahahahahaha, as a non-American, I HOPE HE DOES THIS.

The demo’s promising, but the game is a weak entrant into the survival/exploration space at present imo.

Years ago, Valheim entered the genre and basically set the bar – and as far as I’ve seen few others have come close since to mimicking the same immersion/feeling as it managed. It should be so stupidly easy for a game dev to play valheim / look at valheim mods, and say “ok, that’s the floor we need to meet in terms of mechs and whatnot, and we gotta move forward from there!”.

Easy example: Windrose is often billed/marketed as an exploration game. And they did proc gen maps, which is great for exploration mechs as it keeps the terrain ‘new’ and prevents easy google-scumming to circumvent ‘exploration’ gameplay. If you look at valheim on this front, you’ll note that a lot of players play without the map even, as it’s more immersive for exploration to have to make your own landmarks / navigation methods (one of the most popular mods makes it so the minimap is only ‘visible’ when you go to your base/a specific buildable station).

Instead of going that route and leaning in to the sorts of things that the literal fanbase of this genre has been modding in to games of this sort for YEARs, Windrose provides you with the minimap, and marks every POI nearby for you to ensure you don’t just randomly stumble across new things – I mean, who’d want that sense of discovery/exploration in an exploration game anyhow, right? Their markers even have a counter for how many ‘chests’ are available at the POI, and how many you’ve found, so that you can be sure to fully complete the location. It’s stupid.

Still, it looks fairly good, base mechs for combat are ok. So I’m leaving it on my wishlist for now, but if it doesn’t change a bunch before EA/release, it’ll likely sputter and poof.

You may think the take is wrong, but it’s basically what Posobiec and them attempt to argue in “Unhumans”, a political ideology book that’s been lauded by Vance, Trump Jr, Carlson and so on. It is rather overtly what their more “intellectual” (debatable!) contingent paint as the ideological justification for their actions. What they describe there also explains what they’re “trying” to do with some of their other shenanigans, like the supreme courts overturning of women’s rights – or more specifically, why they wanted to push that down to the state level as part of their broader objectives.

That it gets implemented in a fear mongering way that attempts to rile up the uneducated common US idiot is a secondary ‘thing’ – as is the common US idiots take on it in the “They gonna fuck our kids/jobs!”. The ideology not matching the implementation isn’t a ‘new’ phenomenon, nor is it restricted to fascists – communism is an easy example on that front, where the ‘ideology’ rarely matches the implementation, even if you can ‘see’ elements of the ideology underpinning the movements justification for their actions.

I’ll take a stab at this rhetorical question, even though I’m not a right winger nor an American – just been reading up on their ‘theories’ and wackiness a bit.

From their ideological perspective, I imagine that the more nuanced response (ie. not the base’s “GAY BAD!”), would be that the issue of crime/outliers exist in any group, but that the existence of a trans-interest specific movement is dangerous to the broader community/stability. Do republican pedophile incestuous mayors exist? Yes. Are they lobbying to change how government treats them / trying to get more privileges and special treatment to support their pedophile incestuous mayor collective? No. So the ‘risk’ to society of a one off criminal, is far less than the risk of a collective movement intent on dismantling social norms in favour of norms specifically beneficial to their niche members, and generally detrimental to the interests of non-niche members.

It’s similar to Dave Chappelle’s comments, about how he knows/likes trans people he meets on an individual/personal level, but he hates the “trans community”. It’s the collective community that they take issue with, as it aims to dismantle what they consider the norms of social life / public interactions.

To try and frame their issue a bit differently using a recent example: most educated folks know about people with Tourette’s, even if they don’t fully understand the condition. But there’s a significant difference between understanding it / tolerating it within a limited context, and inviting someone with Tourette’s to sit within mic shot at the BAFTA’s and pretending everyone should be comfortable with it just because it’s a disability. Being at a black-tie type event, and hearing someone scream the N-word at a couple of black presenters is uncivilized, but it’s “tolerated” under the guise of these niche special interest groups. Just like everyone’s been forced to “tolerate” fent users collapsed all over the place in many metropolitan cities, under the guise of “drug user rights advocacy groups” – do people understand folks are addicted? Yes. Does that understanding make seeing them flopped out, shitting in public etc, a “civilized” experience? Nah.

Yeah, though I think the best current example is likely Trump’s speech, and how it gets translated into other languages. I recall non-english speakers being absolutely stunned when they saw literal translations of his speeches at first – cause, of course, all the translators would translate him sounding more “presidential” for official clips.

I’ve read that one too – not sure if it was the fault of the translators, but it had better structure to it. Like the ideas were still half baked nonsense, and the rhetoric was very blood and soil ish nationalist plonk. But it’s rhetoric/prose was more convincing/plausible.

But the American one is just… like it isn’t even consistent with its self… it’s just utter trash.

Yeah, but this breach is specifically about KYC, about financial industry stuff. The company that got porked, was the company the banks used for their KYC stuff.

That poor cat, are you forcing it to play EA games???

Animal Humane Society operates the primary animal cruelty reporting line in Minnesota: 612-772-9999 or report online at investigations@animalhumanesociety.org.

KYC is typically a due diligence process tied to regulated financial industry participants – the restaurant example has a much different function. Banks and FIs have much broader retention (and disclosure) obligations.

Here, let’s put it slightly differently. I’ll reference Canadian regulations/processes more, as those are the ones I’m most familiar with. If you’re a bank, you’re required to flag suspicious transactions related to the customer – and in order to know when those transactions are suspicious, you need some way of reviewing it within the context of the customer. You may even have an obligation to second guess / question / try and advise the customer ‘not’ to make a transaction, based on knowing your customer.

The most basic example of that, is where Credit Cards will decline payments / request a call if you try and make a purchase in a totally abnormal location – like you “know your customer” lives in Toronto, but suddenly see them spending money in Mexico? Or if they called you before they took a trip to mexico, that’d also go into a KYC type file to let people know to expect those sorts of charges and let em get processed. That’s tied to KYC.

The media will often run stories about seniors getting scammed, with the general message being “WHY DIDNT BANKS DO MORE TO PROTECT?”. Well, that’s KYC too. You gotta ‘know’ your senior members, and their spending habits to some extent, to find those outliers. You also need to be familiar with them enough to know whether its “normal” for them to come by and take out cash, and in what quantities and for what purpose, cause seniors will sometimes ‘show up’ with a person pressuring them to take out cash to ‘pay a bill’ (scammms galore!). All part of KYC due diligence.

Or the somewhat obvious elephant in the room – if you have a “personal” account member, who keeps receiving etransfers to his “jeevacation@gmail.com” account for some reason, you gotta look into it a bit and sort out what all those payments are related to, cause it isn’t a business account. And if you see anything suspicious, it gets reported to the authorities, where, most likely, Trump shits himself and Americans ignore the crimes.

idk. I’ve heard we can still consume pussy.

It’s worth a read.

Like it’s full of absolute horseshit and batshit takes on history. I spent the first couple chapters checking their citations / references. They were mostly misleading citations, and snippets of things, mashed very poorly into a shape that they then tried to wedge into their fascist manifesto. These shit heads literally quote twitter to try and prove points. At one point the author cites his own op ed. But like, even the stuff they’re trying to cite to support their arguments, if you want to pretend that twitter was viable as a ‘source’, they’re pointing at posts by ppl with 100k followers, which have just like 300 upvotes. So even in a captive audience that’s at least in theory ‘interested’ in the drivel these guys spout, only 0.3% of the people agree. They even include things like twitter post grammatical errors that botch the message.

A more concrete example: they claim at one point that Scott Adams (dilbert) was cancelled for saying (paraphrasing this): “Just one thing, that everyone agrees with: that you should avoid groups of people who hate you”. I mean, a quick search finds a bit of controversy related to Adams saying something more direct/overtly racist, like “White people should just stay away from black people”. He also had a history of similar such comments going back years and years before he lost a bunch of his distributors. But these neo fascists are just like “nononono, just look at this one thing, that we’ve totally reframed to try and make it less racist! Now pretend that single de-racist-ified comment was the only reason he lost work / people stopped wanting to see his stuff! See! Evil unhuman lefties!”.

It’s really something else to see this sort of drivel, lauded by these core right-wing figures, be so shittily constructed. Like the most basic checking of their assertions, makes it fall apart. Every page would be filled with corrections, edits, issues, etc if this had gone through any higher level peer review. In that alone, its worthwhile to read it to get a sense of just how rigorously the “elite” of the USA actually think about … anything.

So I just got finished reading Posobiec’s “Unhumans”, which’s a book with a forward by Bannon, and shout outs from Vance, Trump Jr, etc etc. If I remember right, Vance’s quote was along the lines of “Posobiec shows us what we need to do to counter the left”.

In the book they openly praise fascists and dictators, such as Spain’s Franco. They openly call anyone who doesn’t support fascists/dictators as unhumans, and basically call for unhumans to be killed “because that’s what they’d do to us!”. In their thinking, Donald is a ‘great man’ that upholds “human civilization”, and anyone against him in any way is an ‘unhuman’ looking to destroy civilization. Why shouldn’t the great people of the nation get to molest children, as they’re the reason we have civilization at all!

I think that book was published in 2023 or 2024. So the elite / upper class of the Republican party and of America more broadly, have been openly, vocally, and emphatically supporting Fascism and Dictators, as well as treating regular ‘citizens’ as enemies/threats that need to be stomped on, since before the election. JD Vance, the VP, and Trump Jr (so the trumps who maybe can read) openly support moving to a fascist dictatorship. Project 2025 was a more ‘operational’ plan, but these people have been openly broadcasting this stuff for a long time now. And Americans voted for them all the same, and haven’t revolted against it or anything.