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[Ghills]

I was reading this thread, and thought to myself "Oh, this is silly." so I left. Then I found myself on the front page of general discussion, and I thought "Oh, let's check Ameripol!" So I click the link and find myself back here, and for a moment I think I've finally lost my mind.

misko, are you feeling alright? We don't have any thread by that name. Sit down and have some coffee.

Lol you guys.

Guess how many women are on the Senate panel working on healthcare? zero.

Now guess their reason for not including women. Identity politics.

What makes me grind my teeth is that TRUMP WON ON IDENTITY POLITICS. Just like Bush! All that stuff about 'he's the kind of guy I can trust', 'I'd have a beer with him', 'he seems like a good guy', etc. Republicans have been actively playing identity politics since the late 90s and complaining that their opponents are the ones doing it. The hypocrisy is breath-taking.

[smjjames]

I was reading this thread, and thought to myself "Oh, this is silly." so I left. Then I found myself on the front page of general discussion, and I thought "Oh, let's check Ameripol!" So I click the link and find myself back here, and for a moment I think I've finally lost my mind.

misko, are you feeling alright? We don't have any thread by that name. Sit down and have some coffee.

Lol you guys.

Guess how many women are on the Senate panel working on healthcare? zero.

Now guess their reason for not including women. Identity politics.

What makes me grind my teeth is that TRUMP WON ON IDENTITY POLITICS. Just like Bush! All that stuff about 'he's the kind of guy I can trust', 'I'd have a beer with him', 'he seems like a good guy', etc. Republicans have been actively playing identity politics since the late 90s and complaining that their opponents are the ones doing it. The hypocrisy is breath-taking.

Plus the fact that Republicans like to slam Democrats for running on identity politics and fault them for doing so, which is where I found it to be hypocritical. Besides, it's not gender/identity politics to consider treating roughly half of your population the same as the other half.

[redwallzyl]

welcome to the world of the the republican party. leave sanity at the door.

[Aklyon]

The tea vs coffee debate is as polarizing as politics.  Myself I prefer liquid candy Dr Pepper.

I flummox everyone by preferring hot chocolate.

Ah, so you are the third member of this pic?

[Playergamer]

fucking heathen.

hot cocoa with "toppings" is sinful.

[Starver]

The tea vs coffee debate is as polarizing as politics.  Myself I prefer liquid candy Dr Pepper.

I flummox everyone by preferring hot chocolate.

Just gimme something with aspartame and/or acesulfame in it. Maxes and Zeroes of all kinds. (But especially Dr Pepper Zero...)

[Neonivek]

Right now Canada is really worried about a LOT of ways the US is trying to screw us over.

Softwood lumber, for example, has been the major topic FOREVER!

[smjjames]

Heh, I had just read the BBC article on that a bit ago.

How much coal do we import anyway? We have enough to be self reliant on coal if we were forced to.

They seem to be looking at industries in Oregon, which is rather specific. I guess Oregon and British Columbia are competitors or something?

@neonivek: Yeah, the softwood thing has been going on for decades, but apparently Trump decided to escalate it now, and it's threatening to turn into a mini trade war. Who'd have thought we'd get into a trade war with Canada of all places.

@Ispil: I'd expect Trump to order companies to 'DRILL, BABY, DRILL!' and 'PUMP, BABY, PUMP' (okay, that one sounds unintentionally erotic) if that were the case.

[Neonivek]

@neonivek: Yeah, the softwood thing has been going on for decades, but apparently Trump decided to escalate it now, and it's threatening to turn into a mini trade war. Who'd have thought we'd get into a trade war with Canada of all places.

Trump is a business man. The idea of letting someone have an advantage in trade they compete in, even slightly, would be aghast.

[Playergamer]

@neonivek: Yeah, the softwood thing has been going on for decades, but apparently Trump decided to escalate it now, and it's threatening to turn into a mini trade war. Who'd have thought we'd get into a trade war with Canada of all places.

Trump is a business man. The idea of letting someone have an advantage in trade they compete in, even slightly, would be aghast.

it's all in his masterplan. he hits canada with the repay debts CB, then annexes. under budget, ahead of schedule.

[scriver]

depends on what you mean by "coffee".

There's that black disgusting stuff Americans typically drink, and then there's espresso-based european / Australian type of coffee. If you think coffee is mud go get a coffee from a cafe in Australia sometimes. That sort of stuff is generally less bitter than e.g. a hot chocolate, and is far more creamy/smooth.

What is considered a normal coffee in Australia is so far above percolator-style coffee you see in American shows/movies, that there's literally 0% market share for the American style coffee here (well you can buy a percolator for your home, but no commercial place actually serves that shit). Even truck drivers etc here are sucking down what would be considered the gourmet stuff in the USA.

Lol, those nancy arse southern Europeans couldn't do good coffee if their tiny Napoleon-complex'd backs depended on it. Real people drink their coffee black as far, hot as a cauldron, and strong enough to keep a fire in your belly warm during the long winter nights.

[McTraveller]

I've still got a long-shot hope that the health care reform will separate basic care from catastrophic care from chronic care from end-of-life care, and also break the link between employment and health care.

The individual mandate nonsense is good evidence of just how messed up the health care system in the world is - if the only way to have people afford health care is to force everyone to pay for it (this is what all the Euro countries do, incidentally) there is something seriously wrong.

[martinuzz]

I don't see what's wrong with solidarity. The whole everybody pays the same for (basic) healthcare coverage thing basically means the healthy support the sick, which is no more than humane. It worked very well for decades, until healthcare and insurance were sold out to the open market, and they started scaring us with it becoming unaffordable over time, because more old people.

EDIT: don't get me wrong, when I say 'worked well for decades'. It's still functional, but insurance prices are rising more than they should.

[McTraveller]

Right - it does work for solidarity, and I think that's laudable.  From that standpoint, I'd much rather have true universal healthcare rather than have the strange system we have now.

But figuring out how much each person pays is always going to be a sticky point - do you pay in proportion to your probable received benefit? The same percentage of your income? The same fixed amount per person?

How do you prevent the healthcare providers from simply extracting the most money possible if everyone is mandated to pay?  The "at least 80% of premiums must be used for care" doesn't do anything there - it just shifts the money from the insurance people to the providers, who you better bet are going to keep prices as high as possible.

It doesn't help that our system does absolutely nothing to help increase supply of health care but instead makes it more and more difficult to increase supply.

[sluissa]

Interesting. If he were to go through with it, it would hit the US coal market rather hard. Taking $467 million out of an already-dying coal industry is sure to cause lots of problems.

Considering that Canada's already been phasing coal out for anything but industrial (steel production) use, and has its own mines, it probably wouldn't hurt Canada much at all to do so. Especially since Trudeau accelerated Canada's coal phase-out.



I'm curious who would have it worse- the US for having its import rate of crude oil shrunk, or Canada for not exporting crude oil to the US, in a hypothetical Canada-cuts-off-US-from-crude-oil situation. Considering the US imports half of its supply of crude oil from Canada, and Canada exports 97% of its crude oil supply to the US, it's a matter of the US losing all that oil or Canada losing 13% of its exports.

It's almost as if suddenly slamming the doors to free trade shut causes economic issues...

Who'd have thought? Well, apparently not Trump, nor the supporters that think this kind of thing is a good idea. Though of course those guys would, I'd imagine, then go on to blame Canada for not taking tariffs up the arse without fighting back.

Frickin' go for it. Oil prices skyrocket. Tesla stocks soar. Elon gets us to Mars on schedule. Other car companies get the idea and start making their own comparable electrics. Solar and Wind suddenly aren't simply close to the same price as oil/fossil, but significantly cheaper even in relatively short term views. Protests from out of work oil and coal workers push US and Canada to institute a UBI. Frickin' golden age shit here.

Or... I mean... everything could fall apart. Either way, win.