Curious wanderer

I would be multi-talented but my procrastination makes me just a dilettante

[Curious wanderer @neoublie2]

@GenevaTradeLaw This growing refrain of releasing the deal makes me very suspicious of its origins and question if people really know how trade negotiation works. This seems to be more politically driven than wanting to improve trade negotiation with the US since it offers no benefit to Canada

[Tom Parkin @TomPark1n]

Not true

Instead of CANDU tech and a completely sovereign Canadian supply chain. Ford is buying nuclear generation technology from Westinghouse USA that requires fuel Trump can block because it’s only enriched in New Mexico

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

A timeline of one man's cunning inheritance tax scheme.

2008: Buy a thousand acres in Oxfordshire. Tell The Times that dodging inheritance tax is the critical thing. Scheme live.

2009 to 2018: Do absolutely nothing. A villager farms it on contract. Flawless.

2019: The villager retires. Rather than hire another one, decide to farm a thousand acres yourself, having never grown anything.

Also 2019: Invite a film crew.

2020: Rain for nine weeks. Profit on a thousand acres: £144.

2021: Broadcast the £144 to the largest streaming platform on earth, thereby informing the entire planet that farmland makes nothing.

2021: Open a farm shop. Acquire a queue down a lane and the undivided attention of West Oxfordshire District Council.

2022: Restaurant refused. Enforcement notice. Six weeks to take a barn apart.

2023: Lose the appeal. Lose it again.

May 2024: Accidentally get English planning law rewritten. Lawyers name it Clarkson's Clause.

August 2024: Open a pub selling only British food. Sell your own sausage at 74p against 18p imported, and eat the difference on every plate.

October 2024: The Chancellor caps agricultural property relief at a million. Scheme dead.

November 2024: Stand on a platform in Westminster in front of thirteen thousand farmers, drawing maximum national attention to the exact tax break you were supposedly hiding behind.

July 2025: Go down with TB. First calf ever born on the farm destroyed, pregnant with twins. Gate padlocked.

23 December 2025: Government retreats. The threshold goes from one million to two and a half. Five million for a couple.

March 2026: Farm declared clear.

July 2026: Drive four hundred miles to Scotland and buy more cows.

Eighteen years.

Planning law changed. Agricultural degree applications climbing. Cited in the Commons more times than most ministers manage. Half the estates that were going to be caught by the tax are no longer caught by it.

He was accused of buying a farm to dodge inheritance tax, and then spent eighteen months getting the relief raised for everybody else's.

Worst tax dodger in British history.

Best thing to happen to British farming in fifty years.

[Curious wanderer @neoublie2]

@Dred_Tory @ThomasHall17 When even Rex Murphy praised him, you get a sense that Bob Rae had potential to be an effective federal premier.

[Curious wanderer @neoublie2]

@Dred_Tory Still baffling why the Liberal party machinery courted him, though seeing the CPC attack his inability to connect with voters only to turn around and complain when Trudeau was successful at it was entertaining.

[Stephen McIntyre @ClimateAudit]

actually you've got the present dispute in regard to auto parts exactly backwards. The true story is both bizarre and interesting.

First, US placed a 25% tariff on non-USMCA compliant auto content as well as a 25% tariff on autos that didn't qualify for USMCA. Ostensibly plugging China backdoor. Canada then adopted exactly the same rule.

It turns out that the reciprocal policies had much more impact on US because Canada auto manufacturing was much more compliant with USMCA requirements. The largest impact on was on several US manufacturers who were not USMCA compliant, whereas Canada was USMCA compliant. Also on a few US manufacturers who had a lot of non-USMCA content, whereas Canada was more or less entirely USMCA compliant.

In some cases, application of the reciprocal 25% tariff on non-USMCA parts by "US" manufacturers resulted in these models becoming uneconomic in the Canadian market. Where Detroit brands - other than light trucks - are becoming almost invisible anyway.

In other words, you've got the present stage of the dispute exactly backwards. Trump administration is trying to protect exports to Canada of US manufacturers who use so much Chinese and other Asian content that they don't qualify for USMCA. It's US, not Canada, that is trying to backdoor Chinese and Asian content.

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb]

Bessent, with his brilliant treasury fix, looks like a doctor attempting to cure a patient's pancreatic cancer with a combination of potent tranquilizers and yoga-style meditation.

[Curious wanderer @neoublie2]

@Dred_Tory I just remembered it was from a tourist information package for visiting Ottawa.

[Curious wanderer @neoublie2]

@Dred_Tory Suggests evidence Carney Liberals is getting pressure to expedite a deal at any cost from those who feel the economic damage is too much. It is not a response to the CPC surrogates who vascillate between "Carney is not tough enough" and "Carney should play nice".

[Curious wanderer @neoublie2]

@Dred_Tory Not to mention the gleeful joy of his base in cruelly hating and mocking boomers completely oblivious to the fact that the voting bloc kept Harper's ministry in power for almost a decade. Surefire way to win is to disparage one of the most powerful voter constituencies.

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb]

Finally, a health-exercise study that is statistically sophisticated, & conditions gains in fitness to current baseline.
And, not surprisingly, no *conditional* U/J shape. The current 180m/week recommendation make 0 sense: gains accrue up to 14h/week!

[Curious wanderer @neoublie2]

@Dred_Tory @GenevaTradeLaw Indeed, rhis is a regrettable sophomoric error for someone like Tombe.

[Curious wanderer @neoublie2]

@Dred_Tory MAGA have happily posted vids of Bessent justifying trade and geopolitical belligerence b/c current trade with allies are national security threats that should be disrupted then managed. Logical for allies to view that approach as a national security to their own sovereignty.

[Curious wanderer @neoublie2]

@Dred_Tory I can tell who is terminally online in that thread by the ludicrous notion that there is a pro Hamas caucus in the LPC (without any proof) & using a sound bite from his Ireland speech referring to his grandparents ancestral home as "being back home" of his anti-Canadianness.

[Mike Schreiner @MikeSchreiner]

Doug Ford wants to break all the rules to hand public land on Lake Muskoka to a private developer, no local input, no planning laws. 1,400 units, 3 hotels, one bay being sold off to the highest bidder.

https://t.co/y35jk1Edmy

[Curious wanderer @neoublie2]

@MarkBourrie Reminds me of the shenanigans at Meech Lake over the years.

[TrainDev @TrainDev1]

@MuhammadLila Story is wrong. They detached the engines to rescue a foreman, then the engines shutdown because they coupled back onto their consist too hard after not being able to see it. They had to be rescued by a hi-rail, which then caught fire and had to run the three miles.

[Sol Mamakwa @solmamakwa]

This is near Armstrong, Ontario.

When will the Canadian National Railway Company make a statement about this incident?

[Curious wanderer @neoublie2]

@Dred_Tory '06-15: How arrogant to call ppl stupid who repeatedly supported the CPC!
Them Now: Ppl are stupid for backing Carney and the LPC.

Let's also ignore many votes moved from CPC to LPC once Carney replaced JT who was leading the LPC to a crushing defeat. Voters fault obviously.