jadero

I might still be apartment living in Saskatoon if there had been high density housing that met my needs.

Close enough to the river that going for a walk was more about walking along the river than getting there and back.

A reasonably safe place to keep a canoe or something close to the river.

Enough public toilets with hours of operation to support things like going fishing (or walking or running or canoeing or snowshoeing) at sunrise and sunset or even in the dark for stargazing.

On site or nearby shared shop space so I could maybe build a chair or a chest of drawers or a jewelry box. Or a canoe, even!

As long as the focus is on the lowest common denominator or, worse, basically warehousing people, high density housing will always be an uphill battle.

I don't get it. There are untold fields in which I haven't got the expertise to educate my kids. That includes all this gender stuff that is newer to me than the technology I struggle with. And that doesn't even consider actual methods of teaching! I've been an job-retraining instructor, but I can't help thinking that has little in common with getting school aged kids to make progress.

It's like finding a mechanical repair shop. You find the people who know what they're doing and how to do it, then pay them to do what you can't.

In the society we've built, we all have become dependent on expertise that we don't possess, so sometimes we just have to get out of the way. Not just when we know we don't have a clue or are feeling lazy or pressed for time, but even when it's hard to admit that someone might know more than us.

"Getting more votes" doesn't help in FPTP unless you actually get a plurality of the votes.

I disagree. When everyone votes for who they actually want, everyone, including the political strategists in charge of trying to figure out how their party can win, can see what the voters really want. Yes, they will still play nasty games, but at least it will be with an awareness that there are actually a lot of people who prefer different policies.

If everyone voted honestly, the biggest effect of the NDP would be to help the conservatives win more elections.

Possibly, at least initially. But maybe the conservative strategists would see that they are courting a smaller fringe than if they had courted the socially progressive. Maybe I'm wrong, but I've long thought that most policies and platforms in all parties were designed to lead to victory rather than to adhere to some principled ideology.

From the letter;

We call upon our community leaders to speak out against this protest and the potential harm it will bring to children both from the 2SLGBTQIA+ and Muslim communities, and the children who identify as being part of both communities.

[Emphasis mine]

Subtle, but it's there. To be clear, that phrasing leaves open the possibility that they don't actually accept their claims or identities as legitimate, but the modern use of "identify as" and similar constructs implies at least conditional acceptance of that claim.

Nope, it's 2023, where people seem to have forgotten how cheques work.

Most of your counterarguments have merit, but I take some exception to your apparent concept of productive use of an asset.

I have put substantial thought, years of planning, labour, and, yes, the profit obtained from my employment into the creation of this asset specifically to enable my chosen way of living and passing time. To say that this is not a productive use of an asset borders on insulting and has no more merit than the claim that a tree has no value until it's been converted to lumber.

But you have/had a job, which suggests that the house was really purchased as a capital asset in which to use to profit.

Umm, no. Shelter is a requirement, whether employed or not. Given that I have never changed where I live in order to take a job, my choices regarding shelter have always been independent of my choice of income generating activity. Just the opposite, in fact, given that I've had to change my shelter based on loss of income, but have never had to change my shelter when income increased.

That you can still derive benefit from it later in life is just a nice side benefit.

No that is just one of the actual reasons for making the housing choices I've made. I have never had a house so that I could work, but have always had to work in order to stay sheltered.

Another reason for my housing choices is related to hobbies. It's hard to do hobby manufacturing or host band rehearsals in a condo.

I suspect you're not moving to a location where there is no job market to free up the productive asset for younger people when you retire?

Why would that be necessary or desirable either individually or societally? I didn't choose my home for it's proximity to work. I didn't move when I changed jobs or when my employer moved to a different location. I developed my garden and built a shop for recreation and don't see how anyone will be served by pulling up stakes and moving somewhere else, especially given that my choice of housing had nothing to do with proximity to employment, but proximity to outdoor recreational activities.

Rentals would sort of work. One important thing I learned during the period of time we rented was that it left too many important decisions in the hands of people whose interests did not align with ours.

Okay, I think I see where you're coming from. You seem to think that any purchase of a capital asset for personal gain is an investment. That's tough to argue against, but, in that case, I would argue against your contention that "an investor is an investor is an investor." Not all investors have the same motives or the same impact on the market.

My grandparents, my parents, and I invested in our "homes", not in "housing". The plan was never about increasing value over time, but in being able to continue our lives with stable and affordable housing post retirement. Having nothing more than property taxes to worry about had a big impact on our ability to retire with "normal" jobs. We mostly ignored changes in prices, because we mostly didn't care, because our motives were not profit, but long term stability of lifestyle. We got our homes paid off around the time our kids needed help with postsecondary education. We got that out of the way in time to make any major renovations or purchases in advance of retirement. And we got those out of the way in time for our retirement.

This is different from those who acquire housing for rentals or "flipping". And neither are those people anything like those who invest in purely financial instruments that have housing and land at the foundation. What they mostly have in common is that they want, no need, to have the property continually increase in price, ideally faster than inflation.

That is a marked contrast with those who are "investing" in the place they live in and hope to continue living in through retirement. In that case, it doesn't matter how or even if prices change, because it will have little or no impact on their ability to continue with stable housing.

According to the article, the law is about spreading blasphemy. It doesn't say whether committing blasphemy is sufficient on its own, so the number of followers may have been instrumental in the charging, conviction, or sentencing.

It's also possible that it was merely showing that being famous is no protection.

Is there a way to stay on top of these kinds of things so that I can plan to show up at any counter protests? I'm working on a travel and accommodation budget for this kind of thing, but just because I'm retired doesn't mean traveling to something 150-300 km away can be done without some kind of planning.

Is there a way to follow what's going on so that I can plan to be at counter protests when this stuff happens? I need to travel anywhere from 150 to 300 km (one way), so I can't just show up on a whim.

I'm working on a travel and accommodation budget for this kind of thing, but just because I'm retired doesn't mean I can be 1.5-3 hours away from home without some kind of planning.

Sorry. If was a real writer instead of just an internet ranter, I would have either clarified the term or used different ones.

Open source software works something like Wikipedia. It's not perfect, but the fact that anyone can examine what's written and contribute means that eventually the errors get sorted out.

What I should probably have said is something more along the lines of "... one of the password manager apps that are frequently reviewed and audited for privacy, reliability, and correctness, like Bitwarden or KeePass. Both of those, and the vast majority of trustworthy password managers are available for virtually every platform."