What, terror offenses might get me sentenced to life in the UAE? That’s pretty serious, I don’t think I could handle that much heat.

That title could definitely be written better.

Well shit, now I feel like a bit of an ass. Sorry for the snark.

A whole screen of text and you didn’t even finish the first sentence of my comment, and don’t appear to have read the second to last one…

I mean, Russia would gain a country’s worth of land if Europe and America would just fuck off, so I’d say he has as much to gain as any given billionaire in America and Europe. And politically weakening your opponents by sowing division among their electorate seems like a relatively easy way to do it. Hell, there’s even a book about it.

Certainly, those billionaires have been pushing in the same direction, but I think they have help.

I just love the people who go crazy when the government passes a law that people are sure will be unconstitutional, and of course the latest time the Liberals did it Poilievre was all over it, then when says he will not only pass unconstitutional laws but will use the Notwithstanding clause to keep them, they are suspiciously silent.

Poilievre isn’t an idiot, for all his other failings. Just because he hasn’t outright said how far he’s willing to take things doesn’t mean he doesn’t have plans to. It has the potential to be very bad.

It was sarcasm, which seems to be harder to convey in text than any number of battery advancements.

Also, the battery pack for a cell phone 30 years ago was about the same volume and weight of an entire smartphone, with a capacity of about 500 mAh. They are also far cheaper if you account for inflation.

Batteries have improved incapacity by about a factor of 10 and the cost per watt-hour has reduced by about 99% in the last 30 year. All without a single advancement in the technology, apparently.

/s

I’ve never used one in my life, but I feel like it would have more impact in a language with writing rules such as Spanish’s.

And also the sexy agent thing.

Yeah, I’m not sure why so many adults try so desperately to forget what they were like as kids and teenagers. Rather than stop their biological urges, curb them or direct them towards safe release. Letting them figure it out on their own, and how else can they if you don’t actually teach them, is a recipe for disaster.

Two of the best ways to reduce teen pregnancy are sex education and easy access to contraceptives.

This could be the right time to use an interrobang.

Well, fascism does seem to love having enemies to distract their populace with. Here’s an article talking about it.

Saying “religion is the problem” when the problem crops up in many different areas regardless of which religions are present in an area or if religion isn’t present at all makes it seem like you might be focusing on the wrong thing. Nationalism, religion, strong ideologies, groups with deep emotional bonds and a sense of insularity are all susceptible to the same things - charismatic leaders can easily direct their attention and they have a tendency towards directing their hostility towards groups that don’t fit into their group.

So, tribalism. And if one tool won’t work, or is removed completely from access, those who wish to use tribalism to mobilize a large group to help them achieve their goals will just use the next one that is available to them. The tools are rarely what are important to them, but the results. So I don’t see how focusing on one tool, even a particularly well-suited tool, will solve the problem.

First, religions and the existence of God are two different things, just like the existence of the earth and the earth being flat are two different things. Likewise, the existence of religions is no guarantor of God’s existence, nor is there many flaws proof of his non-existence. And unknowns are facts we haven’t discovered or proven yet, much like germ theory, or fanciful ideas which haven’t been debunked, such as the idea that an imbalance of humors was the cause of disease.

I get what you’re saying, but saying people who choose to believe something that can’t be proven and hasn’t been disproven need psychotherapy is like saying the same for color preferences. Sometimes there is no right answer and people should be able to choose.

I don’t tell non-straight people they can’t have their pride parade, I don’t tell people they shouldn’t kiss or hold hands in public, I don’t tell religious people they can’t have public displays, either. What I object to is if any of those groups insist I join them, or insist I don’t.

Every terrible thing done under religion has been done without religion. None of them have happened without people (except for killing the different). Maybe people are the problem and religion is just one of many tools that can be used to harm other people. Tribalism exists in many forms, religion in its many flavors being just one of them.

As the saying goes, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”

I’m not sure that more loose cannons is the solution to the number we have now. I suppose if he was on a tight leash they could always threaten people to smarten up or they won’t hold him back.

I wouldn’t classify it was witty. Pithy, succinct, a truism, sure, but not particularly notable beyond who said it.

If I was looking for a witty saying by Voltaire, I would go with, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Note also that it’s value is not because it is witty, which I believe it is, but because of the content of the words. Unlike your words, which I can only hope was an attempt to be witty, yet also had no content.

I like Lewis, but he might be a little too angry to be in charge of missiles.