Yeah, formal recognition is just a baby step. Only the bare minimum for acknowledging Palestine as a state. I'll be surprised if anything other than this happens. Maybe we'll get a stern rebuke or a tut-tut soon.
The formal recognition is only possible during a UN general assembly, which next happens in September. That's why world leaders keep stating their intention to recognize Palestine in September, at the next session of the UNGA.
Yeah, no shit we should buy them. We desperately needed to replace the F-18s 10 years ago. Now, we have waffled on this purchase for so long that we are out of time for choosing another vendor. We don't have a functional air force that can meet our NATO and NORAD committments right now, and it's not like we can fix that by just going down to Fighters R Us and picking up a few Gripens either. Procurements take years to iron out the details, and years more for the manufacturer to build.
This is a terrible time to be without a military. Russia has already started acting on its territorial claims, and China is building up to be able to go after theirs. We need a functional airforce now, not in another 5 to 10 years. It has been often suggested that we only take the first batch delivered to use as a stop gap while we shop for something else for the bulk of the fleet, but I really don't think we're up for the logistical capacity required to run two different fighters yet. Maybe of the CAF grows considerably, that would be possible. I think purely from an operational standpoint we are stuck with the F-35, so to make it more appealing from a political view, Canada should play hardball with Lockheed-Martin and get the Israeli deal, where they do their own depot-level maintenance and have some parts manufacturing in country.
This reminds me of when Paul Martin tried to drop $13B on DND to make a splash ahead of an election. But they have the same problem now as they did then: there aren't enough employees to create the contracts to spend that kind of money in time to have delivery by March 31st. Even if you got a contract or two out, can a manufacturer churn out billions in product that fast without having to first build more infrastructure? Can services be procured without hiring and training enough people first? Didn't fly for Martin either. The investment only paid dividends by the time Harper was in office, so guess who the CAF rank and file was grateful to.
Yeah, we're pretty close. Put a stronger front bumper and a DRL module on an American car, and it's about the same. But we also aren't that different from Europe either. Build a Canadian car with a weaker roof, rear bumper, and child seat anchors, while beefing up the side impact ratings, and adding ESC, AEB, ACC features as standard and you have a European car. Maybe we can agree to take the best of all standards and agree to make them that way. Seems the best way to open things up without just arbitrarily agreeing to adopt another country's standards wholesale in an attempt to get some market share. We have enough problems with that as is.
Yeah, I looked them up out of curiosity after posting. They look pretty similar. In CanUS, most LATCH seats use a lap belt with clips on either end to connect to the anchors. This lets you slip it between the upper and lower parts of the seat more easily. Looks like ISOFIX is designed so the seat latches right to the anchors, and there is a removable part of the seat that exposes the anchors. The top tether in Europe usually goes to a roof while it is usually on the bottom of the rear part of the seat in CanUS. I think the Euro implementation would likely minimize installation issues, which was the whole point of both standards. To get the lap belt tight enough is a real pain, so they get installed wrong a lot over here. Apparently there are LATCH car seats that also connect directly to the seat anchors, but I have never seen one. Seema like it would be rougher on the interior given how we hide the anchors over here, but it would probably result in fewer bad installs.
I know one of the problems is the clips we use for attaching car seats for small children. Since they don't match what we use, we'd probably have to switch to European car seats too. No idea which is safer or why we have the differences, but I'd bet there are lots of little safety things that don't line up between countries. I'm not sure I'm willing to give up our autonomy in this regard just so we can have more products. While I think Europe would probably have better standards than the US, I don't like the idea of relying on any other countries to determine what is safe enough for Canadians to use.
Because the UN General Assembly takes summer holidays too. No matter how eager Carney may be to declare it, he still has to wait for the UNGA to resume in September.
Shit, didn't have to read past the first comment to find the first name that popped into my head. Agreed, he would be terrible. And yet, I have a feeling I'd still watch the shit out of it.
Yeah, it just sucks that we are all paying about an extra 3% more on everything we buy to cover the interchange fees charged on credit transactions, even if we pay cash. It's built into all the pricing. Years back, there were places that would discount a price by 3% if you paid cash, but I haven't seen that in years. Best we can do now is get a cash back card to recover some of the loss. The annual fee cards usually get you more back, so if you use a credit card for everything you can, you might be further ahead.
Sadly, its numbers are comparable to Hyundai's Ioniq 6, which might be the best EV on the market right now. Seems a lot of EVs are tanking in sales now.
Hugh's line is it, anyway?