Recent posts

#21

Off the Record / Re: Elon Musk: Always A Douche

Last post by crazy canuck - Today at 11:14:08 AM

I think his offer was to inseminate her, although it's not clear.

Then that is delusional.  You have already said you don't know anything about Taylor Swift, but she is currently dating one of America's most eligible bachelors and a Super Bowl champion from last year.  I'm pretty sure she's gonna pick her boyfriend over some overweight, frumpy, slightly insane, male, pretending he's an alpha.

#22

Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic

Last post by Barrister - Today at 11:13:11 AM

So yeah - I don't remember having any issue with bright colours for little boys clothes (with the proviso my youngest turns 11 next month, so it's been a little while).

But I know I'm not the first to note that it's kind of weird how absurdly gendered little kids clothes are.  Like girls clothes will invariably be pink, or pastels, probably with frills - and that's even before you get to whatever characters or images are on them.

Yeah it's true.

The parents I know with boys have them in lots of primary colours - bright reds, blues, yellows (one of them is, for some reason, kind of obsessed with yellow). So it might be an age thing where there's a crossover point. Or possibly a shop thing? I don't know if kids clothes have similar "identities" like clothes shops for adults do? Maybe it's the point when you move from specialist shops for kids to getting stuff from H&M etc and it suddenly becomes dressing a mini-me?

When my kids were younger we wound up colour-coding a lot of things for them - which included clothes.  One kid liked blue, second kid liked red - so when the third kid came along we just chose green as his colour.

#23

Off the Record / Re: 2024 US Presidential Elect...

Last post by DGuller - Today at 11:12:59 AM

It's like someone not knowing who Michael Jackson was in the 80s. Just in case, Dguller, he was a singer. Started off a black guy and end his career as an Asian woman.

That's not a good comparison.  Back then popular culture was a lot less fragmented.  You watched the news on TV, or read them in the newspapers.  Even if you had your interests, you were exposed enough to other people's interests because you can't go from 100% attention to 0% back to 100% story by story.  Now you can, there are a lot of news titles I scroll right past when I check the news on Google News or Apple News.  I'm sure a fair number of them had Swift's name in them, but there are lots of other names in other titles I skip as well.

#24

Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 11:11:05 AM

So yeah - I don't remember having any issue with bright colours for little boys clothes (with the proviso my youngest turns 11 next month, so it's been a little while).

But I know I'm not the first to note that it's kind of weird how absurdly gendered little kids clothes are.  Like girls clothes will invariably be pink, or pastels, probably with frills - and that's even before you get to whatever characters or images are on them.

Yeah it's true.

The parents I know with boys have them in lots of primary colours - bright reds, blues, yellows (one of them is, for some reason, kind of obsessed with yellow). So it might be an age thing where there's a crossover point. Or possibly a shop thing? I don't know if kids clothes have similar "identities" like clothes shops for adults do? Maybe it's the point when you move from specialist shops for kids to getting stuff from H&M etc and it suddenly becomes dressing a mini-me?

#25

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Barrister - Today at 11:10:16 AM

I agree that's my experience of government too from working in a firm that did a lot of work with HMG, to now working in a sector with a lot of comms with them. I don't know if it's the same way in Canada - or if this is just inertia, professionalised - but there is also a civil servant whose default position on every issue is that it's best solved by a consultation or another round of meetings with stakeholders (And FWIW again I think that's where I think there is corruption of a revolving door of civil service to consultancies and private funded civil society organisations trading on contacts made as a civil service and back...)

Hey, so my life of experience working in government is slightly different as my job is slightly more arms-reach from government, but the difference seems to be that A: we don't have any ministry that's quite so wide-ranging as Home Office (plus our federal system means the provinces typically have a lot of power) and B: we don't have quite the same tradition of senior civil servants just changing ministries every few years - here you tend to stay within your own home ministry for your career.

But the similarity absolutely is another round of consultations with stakeholders is always seen as a good idea...

#26

Off the Record / Re: 2024 US Presidential Elect...

Last post by HVC - Today at 11:09:09 AM

For me the Trumpiest moment was in the dog-eater colloquy when he basically said: I saw it on TV so it must be true. That's Trump in a nutshell, truth is meaningless, reality is defined by what and who is on TV.

Yeah. And I don't want to say we should ban people in real estate from politics but I do think that's part of it too. "Cosy", "characterful", "opportunity to put your stamp on it" - it's an entire sector of the economy based on lies What matters isn't the actual thing but how you sell it.

That combined with an old school Page Six view of the world and you get Trump.

Unfettered democracy

#27

Off the Record / Re: 2024 US Presidential Elect...

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 11:08:23 AM

For me the Trumpiest moment was in the dog-eater colloquy when he basically said: I saw it on TV so it must be true. That's Trump in a nutshell, truth is meaningless, reality is defined by what and who is on TV.

Yeah. And I don't want to say we should ban people in real estate from politics but I do think that's part of it too. "Cosy", "characterful", "opportunity to put your stamp on it" - it's an entire sector of the economy based on lies What matters isn't the actual thing but how you sell it.

That combined with an old school Page Six view of the world and you get Trump.

#28

Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic

Last post by Razgovory - Today at 11:05:57 AM

Do you ever wonder?

#29

Off the Record / Re: [Canada] Canadian Politics...

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 11:04:53 AM

I'd expect Russian money to be involved in supporting things like the Convoy folks, anti-vax folks, and those who think we need a Canadian MAGA movement.

That may or may not have infiltrated the Conservative right flank, but I expect the general pro-Ukraininan sentiment of the Canadian Prairies is going to act as a bit of a defense in that regard.

I never know on Russia - in part because you contrast the perception of what Russia has wrought in Western democracies, with the actual examples which are laughably transparent and Russia's competence in other areas (like fighting a war) and I feel there's a big gap.

My instinct is always that those "problems" to the extent we see them in Western democracies are more the call is coming from inside the house than Russia. But I think addressing them would probably also reduce any vulnerability to Russia.

But at the back of my head I also sort of wonder about say late Tsarist Russia which has lots of incompetence (again, in fighting a war, for example) and doesn't really manage to "do" anything with their various secret services. But at the same time from what I've read they are kind of everywhere as agents provocateurs or false flags in every radical, ultra conservative, anarchist, communist, discontented group of any kind across Europe at the end of the 19th century. I don't think they ever achieved much for the regime they were serving but, on the other hand, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is still an influence in the world.

It's maybe that that side of things and the incompetence are both ultimately that it's not a state great at coherent decision making and is pretty chaotic. But not for the first time I think Conrad's The Secret Agent is a hundred year old book that's weirdly of our time.

#30

Off the Record / Re: 2024 US Presidential Elect...

Last post by HVC - Today at 11:03:46 AM

It's like someone not knowing who Michael Jackson was in the 80s. Just in case, Dguller, he was a singer. Started off as a black guy and ended his career as an Asian woman.