The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

[Mongrel]

Stevie Harper's endorsement of Pierre Poilievere is a rare gift to columnists (conservative ones, even), who get to write headlines like "Winner of one majority in five tries says Poilievre has what it takes." while gleefully pointing out Harper also faced some of the most ineffectual leaders the Liberals ever put up in an election.

For the Americans: It now seems all but certain that after two very confused waffling leaders in a row, the Tories are poised to choose a leader who is cancer and kryptonite in one package. He's embraced the Trump-style courting of lunatic grievance voters, only without the charisma or low cunning; all he did was sell vast quantities of highly-questionable if not outright fraudulent party memberships (which, to be fair is a Canadian leadership campaign tradition, regardless of party affiliation).

At least Maxime Bernier knew how to sell himself; Poilievre is a guy who's still trumpeting crypto after this spring's blowout, embracing anti-vaxxers in a country where they're overwhelmingly loathed, and happily endorsing the Ram Ranch Convoy in spite of their being both loathed AND a laughingstock. Swing for the fences, Pierre!

I don't necessarily want to celebrate the Tories completely self-immolating themselves, but they're letting a guy in who's going to keep them out of power for years.

[Büge]

Federally, at least.

[atog]

Federally, at least.

Alberta has Danielle Smith, purveyor of fine essential oils, ivermectin, and "cancer isn't real".

[Mongrel]

Not to mention traitor and sellout to the Wildrose Party, lmao.

Rachel Notley looking better every day, hee hee. Be nice to see adults in Alberta again... for a while anyway.

[Mongrel]

Headline: Stephen Harper’s endorsement shows no boost for Pierre Poilievre, new poll suggests

Stephen Harper’s endorsement of Pierre Poilievre for the Conservative Party leadership may have soured some voters on the Ottawa MP, a new poll suggests.

The former Conservative prime minister recently said Mr. Poilievre is his preferred choice, from a field of five candidates, for the party’s leadership.

But a new Nanos Research poll commissioned by The Globe and Mail says that Canadians are more than two times more likely to say Mr. Harper’s endorsement has given them a more negative impression of Mr. Poilievre than a more positive impression.

The research was based on a telephone and online survey of 1,038 people conducted between July 29 and Aug. 2 as part of an omnibus survey. The poll is considered accurate to plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

It found 35 per cent of respondents had a more negative impression of Mr. Poilievre because of the endorsement than the 14 per cent who were left with a more positive impression.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[Mongrel]

lmao Alberta

Essay awarded by Alberta government says immigration is ‘cultural suicide,’ women unequal to men

Alberta’s legislature awarded a prize to an essay that equated immigration to “cultural suicide” and argued women are “not exactly equal” to men in a contest championed and judged by an MLA who is now the province’s associate minister for the status of women.

"'not exactly equal'? Well, okay, the immigration thing sounds bad, but maybe this is one of those times when a semantic quibble is being exploited for rageclicks by a paper?"

The third-place essay, which focused on women’s ability to give birth, proposed rewarding Albertans for their “reproductive service” with cash and medals for those that have multiple children, echoing a policy from Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union.
[...]
The essay said “women are not exactly equal to men,” which its author described as a “biological reality” that was under attack. It also argued it is harmful to encourage women to enter traditionally male-dominated careers because it takes away from women’s role in the “preservation of our community, culture, and species.”

oh lol, nope ... okay yeah, lmao Alberta

The third-place essayist received $200 in merchandise from the legislative gift shop

PFFFFHAHA

[Friday]

racists and misogynists are obsessed with finding like actual physical differences and attacking them

it's why phrenology (pretending skulls are different to "prove" smaller brains) is so popular with shitheads because they think it gives them proof to back up their "women and blacks are just biologically dumber than white men" shit

And the more I learn about Canada in general the more I realize that its rep for being "nice" is not as accurate as I thought. No offense or anything. And yeah I know Alberta is, as someone put it, Texas North. I don't think of the rest of Canada as that bad.

[Mongrel]

I have always explained it as Canada is the nation-state equivalent of that nice-sounding neighbour who says you can borrow his lawnmower anytime, but when he sees yours conking out while you're moving your lawn, he runs off the porch to hide in his house and pretend no one's home.

[Mongrel]

Also being insufferably smug about "Not being the United States, neener neener nah nah", which is a literal concrete founding principal of Canada. Like no offence, but that has to be one of the lowest bars ever - something which was just as true, if not more so, in the 1860s when we COINCIDENTALLY (lol no) decided to give this independent country thing a go.

I mean, to be fair, that was because were also afraid of being invaded. Again. But still.

[Friday]

Don't worry, you cannot possibly offend me by shit talking America. Rather, you can absolutely offend me by praising it.

[Mongrel]

We all know which nation is the real Shithole Country.

[Friday]

In the end, only Newfoundlanders go to heaven.

[nosimpleway]

I assume you mean the giant dog breed

[Mongrel]

racists and misogynists are obsessed with finding like actual physical differences and attacking them

it's why phrenology (pretending skulls are different to "prove" smaller brains) is so popular with shitheads because they think it gives them proof to back up their "women and blacks are just biologically dumber than white men" shit.

Just to come back to this for a moment, I wonder how far we've come in tossing away an obsessive supposedly-progressive dogmatism about people being perfectly equal, for a healthier acceptance that differences exist, but that they are mostly minor, and no matter the magnitude, they should be addressed in a way which promotes a just society over some warped quixotic chase for perfect equality across all measures.

[Mongrel]

I assume you mean the giant dog breed

I think we can let the humans in.

They're white and rural, but somehow still some of the friendliest folk on the planet.

I guess part of that is living on a barely-hospitable rock whose people scrape by in relative poverty and with a declining population 90 years out every 100, and have been for half a millennium, just making a deliberate choice to come and live there willingly already makes you a bit of a minor hero.

[Büge]

Also you have to be a little bit crazy to live a half hour ahead of everyone else.

[atog]

racists and misogynists are obsessed with finding like actual physical differences and attacking them

it's why phrenology (pretending skulls are different to "prove" smaller brains) is so popular with shitheads because they think it gives them proof to back up their "women and blacks are just biologically dumber than white men" shit.

Just to come back to this for a moment, I wonder how far we've come in tossing away an obsessive supposedly-progressive dogmatism about people being perfectly equal, for a healthier acceptance that differences exist, but that they are mostly minor, and no matter the magnitude, they should be addressed in a way which promotes a just society over some warped quixotic chase for perfect equality across all measures.

Absolute rigorous equality has become the shifting, whispering goalposts of HR departments and sexist/racist management everywhere. It allows companies to shed mainly female employees when they can't meet grueling, family- and hygiene-unfriendly performance quotas or schedules. "We treat all employees equal...all employees are granted 2 90-second washroom breaks per 12 hour shift...but Ms. X repeatedly exceeded this time limit on multiple occasions, mostly towards the end of each month. Out of an abundance of fairness to her 99 male colleagues, we've asked her to clean out her desk."

As for racism, relatively recent work showing that different races have different rates and risk factor profiles for cardiovascular disease and cancers has been twisted to suggest they are innately more prone to this or that, when a large part of the risk factor profile for minorities of all types is poverty and inaccessibility to basic preventive care. The actual genetic and physiologic differences between say, heart disease in Blacks vs. whites are clinically significant, but small and by no means impervious to treatment. The big iffff, of course, is can they afford to miss work to pay or wait all day for a doctor, and will that doctor know about the differences, and also not be a blundering feckless racist nincompoop. And the answer to all of those is usually no.

[Büge]

[Büge]

[Mongrel]

The tory leadership campaign has been dragging on for agonizing months, finally crawling to its long-foreseen end last night. Surprising no one at all, they confirmed this fascist (and oh he very much is) idiot to lead them.



(he also unironically used the term "tar baby" in an actual house of commons debate.)



Basically elected by selling massive numbers of tory party memberships (a storied Canadian tradition of political fraud, across all parties) and sucking Ram Ranch dick during the mayonnaise insurrection back in January.

The 2.0 version of Maxime Bernier, basically. Great record for ex-Harper-era cabinet ministers, really. Bernier, Poilievre Jason Kenney.

Incidentally, Poilievre translates as "hair (of the) hare", but if you say it quick it sounds like "hairlip".