Dearche

While I agree that 400mil is really pushing it, the arguments for it is less than unconvincing. The issue is that most pre-COVID estimates (from Japanese, to Russian, even several inner Chinese ones) hover around 800-900mil. And it's a well known fact that for that the entire time they did the Zero COVID stuff, the crematories were running at eight times normal, burning 24/7 spewing black smoke from their chimnies the entire time with countless witness reports, the numbers actually add up that their population halved in those short years. It's hard to discount math, but...frankly as someone who trusts numbers to tell things as they are, even I find it difficult to believe.

But the economic numbers? They're shit. Anything that says otherwise is 99% government propaganda. You can tell from all the pictures of defunct economic activities being actively scrubbed from the internet that there's truth to it. Hong Kong is practically a ghost town nowadays. A decade ago, people were practically shoulder to shoulder on every major street during the day, but now, a few natives walking down the biggest streets without a single foreign-born in sight. No cars, no open businesses. Nothing.

There is no evidence to support that the Chinese economy is doing well on any measure. Many of the biggest Chinese companies have either left, or went bankrupt. Tencent and a few other tech giants are basically the only ones left, and that's because they make most of their money from foreign customers. Big businesses that rely exclusively on local customers are gone or have downsized massively. Tell me, what happened to Evergrand, one of the three biggest companies in China, and one of the top 20 in the world?

And I don't see why you are so argumentative on US's current weaknesses. I agreed there, and yet you can't help but attack me on that point despite completely agreeing on it? Seriously? Pick your battles and bring some data to back it up if you think I'm wrong.

That would be convincing if they didn't tear down every men's support systems. A few years back, they tore down the nation's only men's rape clinic, despite the fact that there was strong evidence that a quarter of all rape victims were actually men. Today, there are zero resources for male rape victims because just mentioning it often invites violence.

I think this is the key thing to remember about those that commit crimes. The penalty is never in their minds when they're considering committing a crime. Either they're presuming that they'll get away scott-free, or that the alternative of not committing the crime is worse than any penalty that could come.

Find me a single person who debates if they'll get two years or five for doing something. Most criminals are completely unaware of what the penalties are in the first place. It could be life for anything worse than shoplifting, and they'll still do it because the penalty was never in their minds in the first place. This is why putting the entire burden of crime prevention on punishments don't work.

Not saying that punishments don't work, but they don't prevent serious crimes in the first place, only minor ones. Punishments only deal with criminals by preventing them from having any opportunities to commit crimes because they're in jail. It's having people be in a good enough position in life that the prospect of ANY jail time enough of a detriment to avoid committing the crime. Having too much to lose is a far better way to prevent crime than guarantee the destruction of a life when you're already destroying their life via other means.

Either way, people who commit violent crimes are never thinking about the punishment before doing so. It's only those that do minor ones like speeding that think about it. Though that said, if you get jail time for speeding, maybe people would actually stop doing 80 in a 40 school zone.

Honestly, it's only a few countries that can do much to fight things. Canada due to how critical our outputs are for them is one, though we're going to suffer a ton for the ordeal (still worth it IMO), Mexico as well for the same reasons, but the EU and China are basically it for being able to make any notable impact.

In fact, this is actually the best time for China to stand up to the US, because of their imploding economy and population (some estimates put it as low as 400million), they won't have the international power to do much in a decade, like how little influence Russia has now. Not to mention that the EU's been declining for a while now, though they feel like they might be in a resurgence since Russia kicked them in the asses before Trump started backing a dump truck of salt their way.

If this happened just a few years later, the US's relative position in the world would've been twice as strong, so we're lucky it's happening now since the rest of the world has the power to resist effectively. But thanks to Trump, all nations that have strong trade relations with the US will have no choice but to diversify in the fear of Trump doing this sort of stuff for the next four years (or more if he amends the constitution for a third term like what Putin did).

You can only feel for the little guys like the Philippines that gets their entire industries rocked by the US tidal wave when they're so poor that all they can do is beg and hope the US realizes that they're too poor to give Trump anything at all.

In my experience, most issues that feel like a minority issue at best, but overall is a general negative to the entire nation and probably not that great for the people advocating it themselves, there's a high chance of it being Russian psyops.

I mean, they've uncovered quite a bit of evidence that Brexit was exactly that even.

Right. Thanks for reminding me that he has announced it. Unfortunately I can't find any information to confirm if he went through with the cancellation or not because nobody's reporting on it since that announcement.

Hopefully it was fully cancelled, but frankly I just can't trust Ford to not fold on something like this.

While this is a worrying number, it isn't significant. Last I heard, Quebec separatists numbered greater than this by a lot.

25% means nothing in practical terms, but it is enough that such ideas need to be dissuaded from spreading, and frankly the best way is to find a way to push public spending in Alberta. Federal funding towards such an initiative that can't be embezzled or cheated would be nice, though it's hard to think of something that can't be diverted considering how slimy their premier is.

This isn't entirely true. If you check the numbers, the number of cases have steadily been going up over the last decade, which sharp rises especially the last few years. And until this year, this has only been an issue for a single month before all cases disappear for the year. But for the first time, not only are the cases several times our yearly average, but it's been going on for far longer than even last year.

We are in the middle of an outbreak, though admittedly mostly on a technical sense so far. But trends are a terrifying thing, since this year we have over 800 cases when last year it didn't reach 150, and we had a total of 16 cases for the four years before that, combined. This is across the entire nation, not just Ontario. This year alone, we have more than four times as many cases as we have the five years before it combined.

We have exceeded the greatest outbreak as far back as I can find data (about 30 years), and only the second time in that many years have we exceeded 250 cases in a single year, and we tripled that number.

This no COVID19, but this isn't something to simply ignore either.

While I don't like the idea of students being suspended for having stupid parents, at the same time a certain amount of protection needs to be done for those students who's families are doing everything they can to protect them.

When anti-vaxxors create an epidemic for a virus that we had eradicated a half century ago, my sympathy goes far down, especially since while most people who gets measles recover quickly without any serious issues, it is still a virus that kills and maims a notable percentage of those that get it. Not to mention that not getting the measles vaccine means that they didn't get the MMR vaccine specifically, which covers mumps and rubella as well, all of which are highly contagious to the point that just being in the same room that someone infect was in two hours earlier can cause one go catch it.

It is true that for most people, these are mild viruses, but for the minority, they cause lifetime disabilities. It makes no sense to take such a risk when the prevention is not only free to all Ontarians, but the only side effect is suffering from a sore arm for a day or two from a vaccine three generations of people have been taking without problems. This is not about a procedure with limited proof that there are no side effects, but instead on the level that declaring soap usage might bring more harm than good.

Yup. Gotta love it when the guy tries to call out Carney on doing what several Conservative premiers have done over and over these last few months without being questioned by media. Hell, Smith did a meet and greet in Florida just last week, and Ford gives more interviews to Fox News than any Canadian outlets it seems.

I've been hearing some calls for California independence, but frankly it's a very recent thing as far as I know. The movement is probably weaker than the Alberta separation movement, and that thing is so weak modern Quebecan separation feels more likely.

As much as I'd like to, fully disengaging with the US, even only on trade, is simply impossible. Even if we were at a shooting war with each other, we'd probably still be trading because stopping entirely just isn't realistic. Hell, Ukraine still trades with Russia right now.

We will always trade with the US unless if one of us somehow ceases to exist. That doesn't mean that we can't diversify though. We are far too reliant on the US for trade, as that puts us at their mercy on quite a few issues. It's the entire reason why Alberta sells them oil far below world market prices, because we don't sell oil to anybody else, so the US gets to dictate prices, and they say that they won't buy unless if we give them 30% off on everything.