Right, so we all better just let the Russian regime take whatever it wants, such as Ukrainian territory, in this case. Or else they will use nuclear bombs. And it’ll be everyone else’s fault, because we didn’t want to let them take whatever they wanted.

Russia is totally the good guy here, and if we don’t let them do whatever they want, they’ll use nukes and we will deserve it.

Am I getting that right?

To the great surprise of no one.

Remember this is the man who, during the Covid pandemic, was handed a softball question from a reporter “What do you say to Americans who are scared… millions who are scared right now?” Basically set him up to provide a reassuring, caring response, to sound presidential for once in his life.

Except his response was: “I say that you’re a terrible reporter,” Trump snapped aggressively. “That’s what I say. I think that’s a very nasty question. You’re doing sensationalism.”

He’s a hateful, divisive, incompetent person who consistently reminds us how terrible humans being can be.

It seems to me that the Ukrainians themselves want to fight this invasion as well.

it might be Ukraine or their associates

Gotta stop you right there. Ukraine orchestrating this attack is not in the realm of possibility.

I agree with your other points, but given Putin's track record with things like this I think it's absolutely relevant to mention the very real likelihood that this was orchestrated by Russia and will be used to escalate. Of course you are right that time will tell. But I for one appreciate the reminder of Putin's history in this regard and to be on guard for how this awful event and the tragic lost lives of innocent victims will be used by the Putin regime for his own nefarious purposes.

But it's not exactly a threat is it? It's a very reasonable observation about how Ukrainian refugees might feel and behave.

Wouldn't you feel the same way? Your country gets invaded, you flee to a generous supporting friendly country. That country stops being supporting, and your chances to return home start to vanish. You didn't choose to be here. Now you're stuck in a foreign country that you feel could be doing more to fight injustice and give you a chance to return home.

He's the president of a democracy, not a mind controller. People will feel a certain way. He's simply observing this potential situation, as a warning to the allies not to slide into complacency.

A healthy city needs socioeconomic diversity. Not that long ago Montreal was known for cheap CoL allowing people of all walks of life to thrive. Putting aside the artists, students, and general eccentrics that contribute to the vibrant life of the city, we have to consider where the hell are our minimum wage workers going to live. I seriously don't understand how places like Vancouver do it. Does every coffee shop, fast food, retail etc worker commute 3hrs each way? What about the teachers, nurses, garbage collectors? Or do they all get paid way more and everything just costs a lot more?

There's a compromise possible and despite being a major city without lots of undeveloped land, there is still plenty of space reasonably close to the city where high density affordable housing could be. Doesn't have to be prime real estate right downtown. There just needs to be social will and courage to stand by the conviction that this is something good for the city. The truth is that like someone else said, the fine is too low and developers just see it as the cost of doing business.

I don't think it's fair to the other athletes who also worked super hard to make it to the Olympics. It's not a prestigious competition if it's full of cheaters.

Meanwhile cannabis beverages are required to have:

-Nutrition facts including calories, sugar, etc.

-Gigantic yellow warning with random health warning (e.g., don't use if pregnant)

-Huge red stop sign cannabis leaf logo

-KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN

-Big pain in the ass plastic childproof thing

None of these required on a can of beer.

From a harm reduction perspective, it's a massive failure. Many cannabis beverages have very low nearly zero calories, sugar-free. For your physical health they are almost certainly less harmful than alcohol and I know many people would enjoy them as an alternative to alcohol.

We have faced a similar failure in harm reduction strategy regarding vaping versus tobacco. I think in both cases it's a result of vested interests (tax revenue, lobbying, don't know) trumping what is best for people.

Good explanation.

The only way out without abandoning their convictions (be it of religion or of their own conception of masculinity) is to direct it towards hatred.

To expand on this, think of how homophobes are usually triggered. They don't like anything where the "gay agenda" is "shoved down our throats". Pride, rainbow flags, literally any time someone is openly gay in public. They have to "protect the children" from being exposed to this. Why? Because anything that normalizes homosexuality is yet another reminder of their identity crisis and insecurity. Anything that can keep homosexuality out of the public sphere is one less threat to their fragile identity.

Frankly homophobia should be classified as a mental illness and what these people need is therapy. But can you imagine!?! Gay conversion therapy, turning good god-fearing christians gay.

If I was on that instance and subscribed to this community, I wouldn't see these posts any more? If I wasn't paying attention would I even know it was gone?

There is a logic to this. Private developers will not make multi-year, large capital investments in something if they think that its value is guaranteed to decrease. That should be obvious.

And we desperately need to increase supply. For better or worse, we do still live in a capitalist society so its going to be up to the private sector to increase supply, with the govt providing an incentivizing role. The govt ever saying anything like "we need to bring house prices down" would paralyze private sector investment into building houses.

FWIW, in my esteemed position as an armchair big-social-problems-fixer, the solution is obvious: Govt investment/subsidies to convert downtown commercial real estate towers into condos. Instead of forcing people back to the office to salvage what's left of the real estate value for those empty towers. The owners get their handout, people can continue to work from home, it's good for the environment too! I dunno, I think it makes sense.

No but it's weird that I never see any comments supporting Ukraine from hexbear users. Like the country was invaded, there is evidence of massive human rights atrocities. It is beyond the pale that so many people would just coincidentally celebrate every piece of bad news for the people being invaded and spin everything negatively against them. One would expect some diversity of opinions from any reasonably large instance but hexbear users all act like pro-russian trolls.