Can you quantify why you don’t like Mozilla?

I understand why someone might find Firefox itself subpar in some cases, but I’d like to hear what your issues with the organization are.

Hello there, fellow Ontarian!

In seriousness, Ford is a great example of my point because he talks to how people feel. It doesn’t matter that it’s bullshit at best or whitewashing of his latest grift at worst, he’s at least acknowledging enough voters’ concerns and fears, and while tossing a bauble here or there (eg, booze in corner stores, buck a beer) to look like he’s doing something for the common person.

His opposition doesn’t do this. Stiles gets ignored, and Crombie just seems like a weak Ford impersonator.

The polticial left needs to do better. Yes that would probably mean getting called socialist, but since that’ll happen anyway they may as well own it.

Maybe, just maybe, liberal democracies need to do a better job solving problems for constituents and less time fellating billionaires.

That might help.

I mean, when I see a right-wing populist telling me they can fix all my problems, I know they’re a lying, opportunistic piece of shit, but I can also see the appeal because at least they’re saying that there’s problems and that they’ll do something, which is more than milquetoast centrists will do.

Yes.

They’re hoping for a Reichstag Fire moment where they can win control during the chaos.

What a craven, gaslighting piece of shit.

Ah, the Oracle clause.

Way to go, Bibi. Putting all of Israel and every member of the Jewish diaspora at risk just to save your corrupt political skin.

Oh, and killing tens of thousands of innocent people.

Betcha Elon “free speech absolutist” Musk has a lot to say about this. Any minute now.

…crickets…

Hear me out, but aren’t these people supposed to be professional?

Wondering whether “happy” or “angry” variants of a person will show up should stop being a thing around sixteen to eighteen years of age.

Maybe thes story should read: “Trump grossly unfit for office and the Republican party is so badly broken that they can’t manage to replace him”?

The Econoline (and maybe the Transit) seems to be the vehicle of choice for people who actually work.

No, it’s because enforcement is a joke, not licensing.

One of the things that’s hard for a European to understand is how shoddy and capricious law enforcement in North America can be. You know those lovely conditional speed limits that Germany has? No way that works in North America because the police won’t do anything except sit in their interceptors on the last two days of they month doing speed traps.

Swerve, fail to signal, brake-check, basically drive like you’re Bumblebee in Michael Bay’s Transformers 2, that’s fine. Just stay below the speed limit on the last two days of the month.

Aren’t most trucks equipped with interlocks that prevent travelling at speed when the bed isn’t fully lowered?

Don’t they have enough money yet?!

Are they not, ever, going to be satisfied? Does a tiny little modicum of restraint upset them that much?

(don’t answer that!)

Disclosure: I’m Canadian, I didn’t catch that this was a US story. In Canada a lot of people who received our equivalent of COVID relief used that money to invest, which made our housing crisis that much worse.

Nope, they weren’t

To quote their own R&D lead: "Pfizer’s head of vaccine and research and development, Kathrin Jansen, had said on November 8 that they “were never part of the Warp Speed”. They did receive a large initial order, but they didn’t partake of Warp Speed for R&D. They did, however, get funding from European governments.

Moderna was the only completely successful recipient of Warp Speed funding. AstraZeneca was the other one, but their offering had issues with blood clotting.

Demonizing and downplaying and sowing doubt on the credibility of public health did incredible damage. One of the reasons the US suffered as badly as it did is because the Trump admin treated it like a PR attack on Trump, instead of like a legitimate crisis, which it was.

Trump’s failure is commonly assumed to have killed almost half-million people. And that’s just Trump’s response to COVID, turning vaccine hesitancy into a mainstream right-wing shibboleth is going to be a gift that keeps giving.

Warp speed also didn’t really help that much. Of the recipients, only Moderna’s was successful, and Pfizer wasn’t part of the program. And that’s before we get into insider trading allegations and how it didn’t coordinate with anyone internationally.

A lot of people used pandemic relief funds to invest, notably in real estate. As the market returns to reality, those people are finding they’re massively overextended.

The pandemic kind of wallpapered over it, but at the time we were looking down the tubes at a recession and a trade war, and Trump had by that point gotten rid of most of the competent cabinet that kept him in check.

If a 2008 crisis hit, it would have been bad.

People tend to forget how badly he fucked up the pandemic response. Imagine his cronies instead of Bush and Obama’s people in '08. We’d be in a depression by now.

Ah, Usenet syndrome.

“Duped” is doing some heavy lifting in that sentence.