• 3 Posts
  • 121 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 15th, 2023

help-circle

  • Canadaland focuses on Canada, so Jesse tries to ask questions that are relevant to Canadians

    journalism is supposed to be about distributing factual information

    I have a friend in Canada that I know is trying to figure out if he should send his daughter to public school (eventually, she is still quite young) where she could face anti-Semitic treatment from peers/teachers, or Jewish day school where she could be murdered by extremists. (I think he was already more inclined towards public schools)

    His concern is because of the increase in attacks on centers of Jewish community (eg schools & synagogues) in Canada. The increase in those attacks is because of Israel’s disproportionate response to the Oct 7th attacks.

    The question of Israel’s accountability is probably quite relevant to him.


  • I agree it’s strange and possibly inappropriate that the fact check was a text document, not a podcast.

    But I really don’t think he was acting as a mouthpiece the way you’re accusing him. He repeatedly asked about the head of the Israeli military characterizing events as Jewish terrorism.

    I think it’s important to ask what responsibility Israel has for the safety of Jewish Canadians when hatecrimes rise as a result of Israeli military operations.







  • That’s pretty much my understanding too, but I’d like to point out that conscripted labor is pretty analogous to a tax. My contemplation on the subject:

    I think equitable taxes are good when the revenue is used for things that benefit society.

    I don’t know how equitably the labour was conscripted.

    I don’t think enormous pyramids are good for society, but on the other hand I don’t know how ancient Egyptian workers would have felt about the topic.

    I suspect that the Pharoahs weren’t very concerned about how the workers felt about the topic.




  • I think that the classic objection to rail transit is

    What about the last mile?!

    I think that that objection can be almost entirely adressed (on both ends of the ride) with close integration with [e-]bikes/scooters

    But it gets cold!

    So… pedal?

    But it rains and snows!

    Yes, and we’re Canadians with rain and snow gear.

    What about in a blizzard? Well, what do you do in a blizzard right now? Stay home, or risk getting stuck in the cold right?

    Range and charging!

    Right, but when the battery is flat, it’s still a bicycle…






  • I agree that the government should govern not politick, but isn’t it a bit naive to think you can make lasting change without politicking?

    I wonder if it’s useful to look at “governing”, and “politicking” as either end of a spectrum with “leading” as the sweet spot.

    Just my two cents though.



  • It’s really telling that Chinese EVs (like imported Teslas) were basically considered fine until the prospect of them being affordable to the middle class arose. That’s when we started hearing about labour abuses and fires that only happen with * cheap Chinese* batteries.

    It’s not like Tesla has a stellar reputation for quality and reliability. They started powerwall as a way to offload bad/ prematurely failing batteries. Don’t get me wrong, powerwall is a good idea. But pretending like BYD is going to have terrible batteries and that’s why we need tariffs is bad.

    China has labour and human rights abuses (eg genocide of Uyghers in Xinjiang [cultural genocide is still genocide]). Imo Canada is doing a better job of reconciling with its history/present of cultural genocide than China is. Canada’s TFW program probably results in lots of horrible abuses that we don’t hear about, but i think this program may be on its way out too. These issues don’t only apply to EVs though.

    The only things that’re EV specific are lithium batteries and automotive manufacturing.

    EV tariffs are protectionism: We want to protect domestic automotive (and para-automotive) manufacturing capabilities, and our investments in EVs/green tech.

    I don’t think 100% tariffs can be justified on EVs alone.