Also known as kicking the can down the road.

If you don’t fail a kid in elementary school they’re gonna fail in high school. If you don’t fail them in high school they’re gonna fail in university or in life in general.

Life has consequences for making mistakes and not learning from them. If we try to shelter children from their mistakes and bad habits then we raise adults who are poorly equipped for handling the challenges of life.

When I was in first year of university I met so many nice, seemingly-well-adjusted people who hit a brick wall with their coursework. I believe around a third of my peers failed to graduate at all in their programs. Many dropped out or transferred to other departments or other universities.

But here’s the thing: my peers had already been subject to a rigorous selection process to get in (only about 10% of applicants were admitted). If you had put all applicants through the rigours of the coursework far more would have failed.

The really tragic part of this whole story is when you factor in the degrees of the consequences for failure. In elementary school the consequences for failure would be very low. Children who are older than their peers tend to outperform them anyway. In university, however, the consequences for failure are very high (thousands of dollars wasted on failed courses that need to be repeated).

The consequences for failure outside of school (real life as they call it) are even higher: unemployment, homelessness, incarceration, and even violence and death.

They did mention being a driving instructor. Driving (and teaching students to drive) all day every day is going to put a lot more wear on the tires than a typical driver.

I felt the same way when I first got online in the mid-90s. I thought it was gonna bring all people together. Seems pretty quaint at this point!

Things are obviously pretty bad right now but for me the jury’s still out. It could be really good a hundred years from now!

Yeah. Sometimes I think people are so used to media (TV, movies, video games) and the distancing effect of being in a vehicle (looking out a window at people) that they’re actually capable of travelling to another country without actually believing that they are there in person.

Apart from stories like this, there are countless other stories of clueless travellers who walk around treating locals like NPCs, not really realizing how annoying and offensive they are. These big blowback stories are just the tip of the iceberg on that whole genre of stupidity.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Thailand’s lèse majesté laws are very strict. The government treats insults to the monarchy as a harm to the entire country.

Just don’t do it! If you’re not a Thai person then what business do you have with the monarchy anyway?

Just don’t wear an American flag on anything and you’ll be fine!

They don’t replace each other. Aircraft carriers didn’t replace battleships. It simply made battleships non-viable without a replacement.

What it led to was smaller ships such as corvettes, destroyers, and cruisers taking over the role of battleships but still never replacing them in raw firepower.

That’s what APCs and lighter infantry vehicles are for. They’re not going away. It’s main battle tanks (the ones that cost millions of dollars) that are going away.

Moving troops around in safety is going to be extremely challenging but that’s because of enemy drones, not enemy tanks. Drones can fly recon around a moving personnel carrier just as easily as planes fly recon around an aircraft carrier.

For the price of one tank with cope cages you could buy thousands of drones instead. Tanks are not cost effective anymore. They’re the land equivalent of battleships in an era of aircraft carriers.

The land equivalent of an aircraft carrier is a soldier with a couple of drones in a backpack.

Blowing up Putin would be nice but it’s not a guarantee the war would end. It would lead to a power struggle in the Kremlin, no doubt, but there are loads of hawks in that regime and many are much more extreme than even Putin.

Of course, a more extreme war hawk might end up benefitting Ukraine by hastening the collapse of Russia. Or it might lead to nuclear war. It’s really hard to predict exactly what will happen.

With friends like these…

Like seriously, you can’t make this stuff up, folks! The schoolyard bully who beats you up after class and continues to insist that he’s your best friend! Not only that, he tells all the teachers that actually he’s the victim and you’re the bully!

How many of you out there knew someone like that? Made you count down the days until you were outta there for good so you’d never have to see his face again! I wish we (Canadians) could get the hell out of this toxic high school we’ve suddenly found ourselves in…

That’s good, though I still feel uncomfortable about it!

Am I paranoid for worrying that the US might order flights from Canada to Mexico to be diverted to a US airport so that ICE can look for “illegals and DEI folk”?

How are people getting to Mexico from Canada without going through the US? You’d have to take one heck of a convoluted flight path to avoid US airspace. Can you actually fly over the US direct to Mexico from Canada without going through US customs?

That’s not gonna work. The prime minister and the rest of the government MPs will escape before they can be captured.

That’s what Napoleon tried to do when he invaded Russia. I predict similar results.

Drive across the border… then what? Canada is vast. A million soldiers is not a lot compared to this landscape. Even if you only consider the 100 mile strip of land along the border. It’s a vast area to occupy…. and then do what with it?

Given the U.S.’s recent experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, countries far smaller and with far fewer resources (natural and industrial) than Canada, I like our (Canada’s) chances!

Plus our military may be small but it’s elite, composed of professional soldiers extremely well-versed in US (and NATO) operations and tactics. If Middle Eastern countries with largely irregular forces can give the U.S. migraines using guerrilla tactics, we can do the same with far better results.

A United Earth? Or an Orwellian tristate world?

Succulent Chinese Meal guy passed away not too long ago.

I’ve tried many different beers. Loved some, hated others. I do not drink Budweiser, I drink Canadian and European beer.

I’ve never had a beer in my life that tasted better when warm. If I want a warm drink I’ll drink coffee or tea.

Ice cream also tastes a lot stronger when warm. I doubt many people prefer warm ice cream.

I much prefer smaller beer cans (330ml or 355ml) over the 500ml and up. I find that I do not drink a beer fast enough for the large can. Having the last 1/3 of the beer be warm and flat is a major turn off!