It's ironic that the 13th amendment to the US Constitution still allows forced labour for those convicted of crimes:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

But let's call it what it is: Trump and his administration want to impose tariffs, and he is using whatever pathway available to him to impose them, even if hypocritical, morally discredible, or of question legality...

The title of the article on the BBC page currently reads:

Streeting backs under-16s social media ban as government consultation concludes

And a quote from the article:

There is no consensus among the wider scientific community that screen time overall is harmful to children.

Sea level at geological time scale is wild. Hundreds of metres.

I find it fascinating since we live during such a short period on the geological time scale.

Driven mostly by glaciation effects, but thermal expansion of sea water is also significant. These effects can be partially offset in places by isostatic rebound (plates are floating, so reducing ice mass on continents allows them to rebound or rise, lowering apparent sea level, relative to the land).

There's a lot less ice left, since the sea level has already risen >110m since the last glacial maximum (~20000 years ago), and has been quite stable for the past ~6500 years. This stability has been influential in the placement of human settlements along coastlines and river deltas.

Its fun that ice shelf melt doesn't change sea level, the same way the melting ice cube in a glass of water doesn't, but ice on land does. This is why the focus is generally on Antarctic and Greenland.

Together, the Antarctic & Greenland ice sheet could cause almost 68m of sea level rise, converting this unsinkable aircraft carrier to more of a stationary submarine?

Carney put forward a thesis about the state of the world in his speech, then Trump stepped up and proved Carney's point...

This is indeed a good speech. I often see of critique from both sides of our political discourse about some of his actions (security, climate change, neoliberalism, etc.), but I'm proud to have a smart, thoughtful, and well respected leader representing our country on the world stage. This is a tricky needle to thread, but hopefully one that can lead to continued peace & restored prosperity for all of us.

We didn't ask for this, but we need to make the best of the current situation.

And to be clear, as a Canadian, I still view our southern neighbours as friends (excluding a few notable individuals), who are going through a difficult time. One that many of us saw coming from 1.609km away, but sometimes you can't tell a friend their love interest is a psychopathic narsicist, because they're too infatuated to listen or see it. They have to learn for themselves...

Unfortunately, in this case, we're all being dragged along for the ride.

It's fascinating to me that a group of individuals in another country read some history novels and think they understand Canada and Canadians today - to the point they suggest actively interfering in the domestic politics and elections through intelligence operations and the like.

They have cause and effect backward.

Canadians generally view Americans as friends, long time allies, and we generally respect (and appreciate the differences between our countries (things like maternity leave, gun laws / safety, and public healthcare)... But, we don't generally hold hard feelings against the Americans, especially the average individual - at least until they make overt threats against us, like in this article. It's the Americans like the authors of this post causing the problem.

Can we quit the aggressive stupidity, and move forward in a respectful way to build a prosperous future for all of us?

I understand the frustration, but this is a major gamble. “Different” can easily be worse, with potentially irreversible consequences. Voting alone isn’t enough, especially given the options, but neither is rolling the dice. Citizens aren’t powerless when they get involved, organize, and actively push for better solutions together.

Even if this was an economically sound proposal, the next X45 magnitude solar flare might be a nasty surprise for reliability metrics...

Edit: at some point, this would also likely contribute to Kessler Syndrome, but at least we'd have chat bots.

This led me down a rabbit hole where I found some invisible pink unicorns.

"Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of great spiritual power. We know this because they are capable of being invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can't see them." 🤣

Feels like this is probably aimed at climate agreements, but it’s similar to the 'sovereignty act', intended to grant broad powers without saying exactly what the law would change.

This kind of law only creates more legal uncertainty (bad for business as well!) and wastes money on court fights, when we could be doing something constructive. Like paying teachers to educate our children.

Yeah definitely a difference there. Rural is also often further travel distances - so that's a thing as well.

Snow clearing is pretty good in the city (generally), and the studs work well on the ice. Hardest biking days are usually 12-24h after a snowfall when its not fresh, but just a mess to ride through.

I started winter bike commuting last year, and it was great. Studded winter tires, bar mitts, and warm shoes; helmet / goggles are great. Very little "traffic" on my ~40min commute.

I start getting cold toes below -22C or so, so maybe I need some better boots, but honestly, the people who say you can't bike in the winter have probably either never tried it, or are dressed inappropriately. Summer is definitely more forgiving if you get a flat tire though.

It's not for everyone, because there's some fitness requirement, and equipment isn't cheap (but neither are cars), but I'm stoked to get ~70-80 minutes of exercise daily on my way to/from work.