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Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 12:15 pm
by Mongrel
So... looks like the PQ have opted for Trump lite... As much as I'm anti-separatist, I'd rather see the PQ as it used to be rather than it evolving into a purely reactionary, nativist party.

Well Zed, d'you think Lisée has a shot in 2018?

Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 6:10 pm
by François
Nah, not unless something earth-shaking happens. He's running a weakened, divided party that has essentially devoted itself to its own irrelevance. At this point Couillard could be caught on video having sex with three small dogs and a raccoon, while privatizing the school system and letting a mafia-owned shell company take it over, and giving away the northern half of the province to the first corporation that'll take it; people who vote Libéral would still vote Libéral because voting Libéral is what they do.

Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 6:18 pm
by IGNORE ME
How crazy!

Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2016 2:26 am
by Mongrel
This is a global trend of course, but here in Canada it's now "official" per the stats: More babies born to women over 40 than to women under 20

Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2016 4:11 pm
by Mongrel
There's crass and then there's this:

Image

holy shit fuck this guy

Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2016 3:22 am
by Mongrel

Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2016 8:21 am
by François
Yeah, Danny-boy isn't a fan of anyone investigating his buddies. Brings back unpleasant memories.

Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2016 2:30 am
by Büge

Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2016 2:24 pm
by Mongrel
It's like watching the Illinois Nazi Speech being given unironically by someone who didn't understand they were watching a comedy. "Well? What're you gonna do about it, whitey?"

Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 2:25 pm
by Spooky Skeleton
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comme ... coronation

Matt...


WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS GUY TALKING ABOUT?

Like, can everyone over 50 just die already and stop fantasizing about their crowned mommy and daddy spanking people they don't like nightly?

Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 3:08 pm
by Mongrel
That was comically incoherent and totally ridiculous. The section where he gushes that coronations are like some kind of rapture was a special kind of hilarity.

And that's speaking as someone who honestly thinks that modern constitutional monarchies are superior to modern republics as a form of government.

Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 6:45 pm
by Spooky Skeleton
I'm honestly apathetic towards it other than the fact that I think the British governmental structure is superior to the American Republican system.

What astounds me is that this clearly ex-pat imbecile, thinks for a second that anyone under 40 gives 2 FLYING SHITS about whether we are ruled by some foreign Queen on paper.

NO ONE CARES.

If you told 80% of Canada tomorrow that the Monarchy was out and then told them the next day it was back in, no one would bat an eyelash.

WHO CARES?

It's like arguing over whether we should have a national anthem or not at this point. No one wants to storm the Governor General's house and cut their head off.

People in the UK sort of have more of a reason to want to abolish it because it costs them a bunch of money. But over here, what does it do that's negative? NOTHING. There is no Canadian Republican movement. It's like thinking there's a war on Christmas or something.

I think the monarchy is stupid and old fashioned, but do I want it done away with? NOPE. What for? It's not hurting anything. I laugh at people who still care about it and act all interested when the royal family has a baby or does something or whatever. But I just yawn and go sort of glassy eyed and wait for them to change the subject. I'm not secretly fantasizing about being like the Americans and having a president.

Ooh, Matt, think about it; instead of having a PRIME MINISTER we could have a PRESIDENT who was exactly the same in every way except in title because we'd probably just keep the British system and just change all the names. What a golden era of nothing changing at all we'd be living in then!

Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 9:15 pm
by Mongrel
Well exactly! It's a more or less irrelevant bit of ceremony.

Which is actually part of why I approve of it, precisely because that ceremony and pagentry and the whole idea of "a king" appeals all the wrong sorts of idiot. Having a ceremonial figurehead channels those impulses into something pretty harmless.

Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2016 2:08 am
by Büge
Mongrel wrote:Which is actually part of why I approve of it, precisely because that ceremony and pagentry and the whole idea of "a king" appeals all the wrong sorts of idiot. Having a ceremonial figurehead channels those impulses into something pretty harmless.


Funny, I just finished reading Guards! Guards! and Men at Arms, and a running theme through those books is about monarchy and the people who desire it.

Not rulership of a monarchy, mind you. Just the desire to live in a world with an absolute ruler.

Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2016 2:43 am
by Destynova
I am kinda of surprised that Vimes didn't tip Ventrinari out the window after the whole 'You need us.' speech. Terrible accident, lost his footing.

Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2016 5:43 am
by Mongrel
I think that in less solid democracies having a ceremonial ruler also provides genuinely functional stability... like Thailand is a good example of that system working out. While you're trying to keep a creaky or transitional or growing democracy on an even keel.

But once you have the stability that's no reason to throw it out. It honestly doesn't cost all that much even if you're the one paying for it.

There's just something funny about the way people think and act that's different when they have a king or queen or whatever. I think really it's because a monarchy in the modern sense is based around the concept that a constitutional monarchy is supposed to be fundamentally apolitical (even if the actual monarch has slight leanings because they're still human), and so mentally the government is framed as impartial and responsible to everyone, as befits an institution meant to transcend the lives of it's charges. Meanwhile politicians can scheme like they always do, but not only have you placed a cap on their potential authority - there will always be someone bigger - but they also seem so much more transient and superficial than they do in a Republican system. Politicians come and go, parties rise and fall, but the monarchy is eternal.

Even if you think the idea of a king is silly or an atavistic regression on a personal level, we can still acknowledge that strange security blanket effect it has on such a society. So what if it's silly if it works? Myself, I think that's a positive effect and one worth paying for. Not too much mind you, but a couple families living in luxury as sacrificial lambs for the fishbowl era is not a particularly expensive proposition.

Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2017 3:00 pm
by Mongrel
Incidentally, FYI to the non-Canadians, 2017 is our 150th anniversary (and also the 50th anniversary of one of the best and coolest years we ever had).

Should be interesting goings on this year.

Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2017 4:00 pm
by Büge
Also also, we can get free yearly passes to all Canadian National Parks as part of the 150th anniversary. :D

Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2017 5:11 pm
by Mongrel
Whoa dang!

Re: The Winter Up There Must Give People Brain Freeze

Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2017 11:22 pm
by Mongrel
On top of everything else, some assholes just shot up a mosque in Quebec City.