JamisonM

I thank you for the reply and I don't dispute the deterioration of of local journalism and its negative effects. I thank you for the links and I will read them. (Some of this research I am familiar with is pretty iffy, the civic engagement -> local journalism link feels very compelling but the actual research is pretty thin, but it is a very hard area to study!)

I do dispute the notion expressed by the parent to my reply that there "used to be a thing called "investigative journalism", largely snuffed out now" which I stand by my position is a baffling statement. You can look at the homepage of ProPublica every day and read things that would never have any hope of seeing the light of day 15 or more years ago and are important stories.

And I really do think the fact remains that the ethical standards of the "days of yore" were garbage, modern reporters would break the shit out of news that the good ole boys would let go from the 50's all the way well into the 80's.

I am constantly baffled at the sweeping statements that get made about modern journalism.

In the "days of yore" the quality of journalism was higher? Journalists regularly omitted things from reporting that was widely known to support popular political narratives or their own ideas of what good outcomes would be, "for the good of the country".

Investigative journalism is alive and probably better than ever before despite being less profitable than wildly irresponsible opinion masquerading as journalism.

Look at the Pulizer Won by the Boston Globe for 2021, lifesaving investigative journalism that is expensive and difficult- and exactly the sort of thing that the Golden Age would have never dug up.

I think this is a bit of a mischaracterization of my position but I do think you are arguing in good faith. I don't have a low view of the public or democratic processes, I have a high view of it!

I look at the American political system and imagine a version of it where the president was the president but did not in fact operate the executive, that person's only job was the power of the veto - it seems like a nightmare.

The idea that a PM has some incentive to manufacture a crisis is true I suppose, but that is a very high-risk strategy. Real-world experience indicates that popular support is a product of good economic conditions and the rare exceptions to these instances (i.e. GWB post-9/11) stand out because they are very extraordinary. (And usually end very badly!) Every political body at every level has the power to manufacture a crisis and benefit from it, but that isn't very effective because the electorate understands that they have the power to address the crisis, or prevent it in the first place so the existence of that dynamic doesn't prove much of anything from my perspective.

The non-use of the powers of the GG is an essential part of the structure of the governments of Canada & Australia and of course it is a political act, the bias towards the parliament is intentional, the parliament is supreme.

I feel it is self-evident that the new dynamic created by an elected GG would be worse. If you have a person at the head of government whose only job is to say no to things and resolve constitutional disputes they are left with only those tools to differentiate themselves from other candidates.

That creates an incentive system for this person to veto and manufacture constitutional strife in order to create a profile for themselves. It is a role built specifically for political arsonists.

But you are also experiencing the best commodity prices of your lifetime, right?

For me personally up in the Canadian prairies if wheat stays at $12 a bushel it is just not a big deal if urea is $1100/mt, even at 8 or 9 dollars a bushel an average crop will be much more profitable than a few seasons ago.

I would say that characterizing the supply/demand mismatch caused by a once in a century pandemic as a showcase of why activism is often bad is not a very well considered perspective.

6 months from now if fertilizer prices are essentially normal and food supplies are just fine will you reconsider this view?

It would be an absolutely negligible quantity compared to agricultural use.

There is nothing mysterious going on here, natural gas ramped down and is ramping up too late to meet the demand and as it is challenging to store it is very vulnerable to production/consumption mismatches.

If you gave an elected official outside of parliament the power to veto legislation they would have a lot more power than the governor general now wields in practice.

While royal assent is technically a power held by a GG they don't actually wield it in practice, once that power were given to an elected office then the elections would become about the use of that power and the role would be very different.

Telling someone that they are confused about what a web browser is looks pretty clearly like an insult to me.

Do I misunderstand this issue when if say: "The loss of 8GW of nuclear electricity generation created new renewables projects immediately that would not have been constructed if that generation capacity was not lost."

To me, regardless of the change in energy mix in the meantime, every extra GW of other renewables would have decommissioned coal generation by some significant factor (maybe not the full 8GW less coal, but quite a bit). Instead those renewables were replacing missing nuclear capacity. The only way I see that decommissioning nuclear didn't result in more coal burning to meet the country's needs would be if it was immediately followed by a huge investment that would have otherwise not occurred.

ETA: Looking again at the link hard coal + lignite 45.5GW in 2011, 43.5GW today - not great! Relative decline is good but climate change demands absolute declines more substantial than this.

> Long gone are days where people / governments make decisions based on any objective facts and pragmatic cost/ benefit/ risk analysis.

There are governments choosing to build nuclear right now, despite its general unpopularity in many circles so I don't know that such days are "long gone".

And how could anyone sell another nuclear plant to France when the Flamanville 3rd reactor is 5X++ over budget and 8 years behind schedule? It is hard to win any rational cost/benefit/risk analysis when you have to fight a well-deserved reputation of being absurdly expensive and very high risk!

Rebranding might help, but there are some places where these bridges are simply burnt and the industry won't be getting back in, which is unfortunate but also kind of deserved in a way.

I see this from the Canadian context and Canada is in the process of buying/building a new SMR and has more in the pipeline with funding lined up. Canada still has some coal to phase out, and the lure of the idea of small reactors for remote communities will always make is popular with Canadian technocrats - if not the public.

China is building a lot of plants now too, they will want to sell that technology and build for others.

I can understand why COP wouldn't be keen to have prominent nuclear stuff in the public areas, nuclear isn't very popular with the general public. But the host country is commissioning new plants right now, they obviously see it as a viable option, so it has a seat at the table at COP26.

I haven't heard a peep about global minimum taxes as it relates to COP26, maybe you are confused about the G20 meeting that just happened?

Here is a recent article rather than the linked statement by a lobby group:

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/nuclear-power-s-awkward-role-in-...

This provides a lot more information and context about what is actually happening as well as what the "green zone" is (as opposed to the "blue zone")... as well as maybe a bit of unnecessary editorializing too!

(I would add that the HN link name is misleading here, what applications for what that were rejected is not clear and it is misleading to imply that there is no representation for nuclear energy at COP26.)

Seems wild to me to assert that a settlement is not a contract. What is the basis for this?

"Pathological scapegoating" of the guy that has literally said "No, that’s okay. That’s all right. You got your freedoms".

As a hockey fan what I see is that at least 4 NHL players have had their careers badly harmed or ended by COVID-19, that's not a very big pool of people, of which only some small proportion have been infected - that has changed my perception of the risk dynamics significantly.

I think the evidence available today contradicts this position. Vaccine immunity is much better than naturally acquired immunity, and natural immunity plus vaccine immunity is much better still.

I mean, there was never an intervention in the USA comparable to the lockdown in China - right? Is there an instance where 50 million Americans couldn't travel to a neighbouring city without suffering criminal penalties?

Thanks!

Isn't using J1939 just an example of them embracing an industry standard? That stuff is everywhere now, right?

> ..modern pesticides, designed to kill everything by contact (including predators) instead of to deter the plant eaters..

This is not an accurate statement, obviously modern pesticides are not as targeted as would be optimal but they are most certainly not designed to kill everything by contact. For example I will apply Coragen later in the season when I need Grasshopper control, despite greater expense, because it is much less harmful to bees than more cost-effective options.

I wouldn't assume they have a good legal team, its a penny stock with a market cap that is almost eclipsed by the fines they are facing from Alberta regulators.

I believe the reference here is to the same loan guarantee that became famous when Solyndra went bankrupt. It secured Tesla's early days, without it the company most certainly wouldn't exist.

"For example, when inflation has been low in the recent past, workers might not demand raises as they would in a world where inflation was high; after all, their existing paychecks go pretty much as far as they used to. You don’t need some theory involving inflation expectations to get there."

Isn't what is described here /actually/ a theory about inflation expectations?

Literally this mechanism that recent inflation creates the expectation of more inflation and that drives behaviour that generates further inflation.. and no one is sure how to turn that back around without a crushing recession. Isn't that the conventional wisdom this article is allegedly skewering?

If other countries want to subsidize export products take the free money and devote your resources to other things is, I think, an excellent vision.

Being romantic about particular industries is not a good vision I think.

(Also the argument that applied pesticides are on the surface of plants/produce only is incorrect as a blanket statement. There are many systemic insecticides on the market and they are usually preferable due to duration of protection.)

This is the first time I have heard this endogenous pesticide argument and I gotta say, it seems extraordinary! Is there some solid evidence for this?

My understanding is that the fuel efficiency was the feature that made them an attractive design for a race-to-the-bottom travel market.

Getting out of the heavily subsidized airline industry is an unalloyed good, if Canada simply doesn't participate in the production and reaps the benefits of heavily subsidized international products the country wins.

I have no love for the RCMP, but I don't understand what this has to do with entrapment related to the FLQ crisis. Sorry I asked.