Toadfish Monastery

I'm sure of it... and likely to be held in highest esteem by those who love the sound of loud diesel trucks and two-stroke dirt bikes.

Last _{plenty of BRAAAAP-heads out here} Post

premature

All his tech buddies with soon be giving a certain amount of their defense budget to Palmer Luckey and his ilk soon, I think. This warning video seems to have been used as a business model by these jerks:

Last _{no longer science fiction} Post

It's entirely possible.

America may prove a tough nut to crack down on completely, as the population is rather well-armed. Unfortunately, the best armed are mostly rooting for the dicks in power at the moment, but they're also rather allergic to government overreach and may change their tune.

Last _{personally planning to spend 3% of GDP on defense this year} Post

It's the massive and highly personalized information control systems that really scare me. Mass media in the past has always been subject to oligarchic control, but it's not just controlling the message now, it's having control of the entire network of individual messages, movements, buying habits, (and depending on your app choices) menstrual cycles, sexual encounters, sleep cycles, biometric data, heart rate, emotional state etc. etc. etc.

In the old times, ferreting out dissenters required networks of informants. Now, AI can sieve through the entire population and fairly reliably parse out anyone who does not fully endorse a regime. It's not 1984 Big Brother tactics, because governments don't need to run the surveillance systems. We pay thousands of dollars per year to stay under the constant watch of the latest surveillance devices. Governments, or anyone else, can simply pay the brokers for the data. Then the only real question is Where's Daddy?

Of course, having the majority of tech leaders in your pocket makes it all a little easier....

Last _{sticking to my flip phone} Post

Sex in a canoe

(old Canadian joke - because it's f*cking near water)

I think there's quite a lineup now..

But it's not a funny joke. It may be a killing joke.

Quote from: Swatopluk on January 28, 2025, 09:56:48 AMEngineers from Italy

The don't make them like they used to, do they??

Not only that, but we do have our own provinces and territories which are as distinct in culture and political character as US states are, so it would really be the 51 - 63rd states. Alberta would likely vote red*, the rest would likely vote blue*.

My province, the third largest by area and population, is larger than California, Oregon and Washington put together, albeit with only 5 million people in it.

And good luck trying to assimilate Quebec!

A Trumpwar^TM would likely be able to roll through the prairies due to the terrain, sparse population and a more-MAGA-than-average population in Alberta and Saskatchewan, but would find BC a tough and mountainous nut to crack. Given the political alignment of the Left Coast, it's conceivable that a few Pacific states could move their allegiances northward.

Overall, there would be a lot of popular resistance. Canadian identity is defined largely as NOT American... not loud, not rude, not greedy, not power-hungry, not as willing to destroy one's fellow humans and the environment in the scramble to the top (unfortunately, we're not as well-armed, except criminals with smuggled American guns). 


*American color schemes. By Canadian colour schemes, Alberta reliably votes blue (Conservative). I have voted green in the past and lean orange more recently.  I dislike blue team politics; the red team talks a good game but is inevitably corrupt and can't be taken at their word.  The federal greens have melted down in recent years and I wouldn't get anywhere near them.

We should be putting this up as a billboard on our side of every border crossing (censored to remain respectable for anyone outside of Australia):

Not that....  but it could be worse, one of the roads nearby is named after Adolf!


Last _{I haven't identified Benito Blvd or Stalin Street nearby, yet} Post

The Canadian dollar hasn't been doing so well of late. It's a pretty typical pattern; it will sit near-parity with the US dollar for a while, then take prolonged deep dives before occasionally surfacing again.

I guess that's what you get when you name your currency after the loon!

Our two-dollar coin instead features a polar bear, which are also able to undertake impressive dives:
https://oceanwide-expeditions.com/blog/polar-bear-sets-impressive-new-diving-record

I'm certain by halfway through the second Trump presidency, even our 5 dollar bill won't have two good legs to stand on!


(this is certainly a deep-dive Canadian joke - the punchline would be largely considered blasphemous against our cultural identity and might get me cancelled  up here)

Aye, but it's not supposed to be a particularly large mushroom....

As drawn by a friend of mine:

You cannot view this attachment.


Last _{the road I live on sounds like a reference to Trump (including relevant tones) and his preferred substances of abuse*} Post


_{*should anyone try to puzzle that out, just PM me the answer. I still cling to relative internet anonymity.}

Designed a Christmas card this year for the amusement (or to the chagrin) of my friends and family.

I don't have a colour printer, so I cooked it down to pdf so it was easily printable at a copy centre, and easy to email or post for a DIY Christmas card experience.

1) Print
2) Fold top to bottom, printed side out
3) Fold right to left with main text inside
4) Get the theme music to the original 1966 "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" in your head:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hj3U18FHgQ
5) Enjoy!

It should probably be noted that as far as I knew, the regional Canadian meaning of "ginch" as underwear was the only definition. I've just learned that it has even more vulgar connotations that don't fit the context of the card!

Feel free to pass this along or use it next Christmas if you're into this kind of juvenile potty humour.

Had to visit the emergency department today for something tangentially related to a sinus infection (change of symptoms in a respiratory illness I thought I was recovering from - most visibly and visibility reducing was a nasty, gooey case of conjunctivitis that had my eye glued shut most of last night). May be a bacterial secondary infection, so I got handed some amoxicillin.


How do you park in a roundabout?

At a tangent to the curb.