Theoretical question - would it be possible to get so gassed up that if you peed in the pool you’d make everyone else test positive?

Ahh, the US-Russia summit in Geneva in June 2021.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose countries hold 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons, agreed at a June summit in Geneva to embark on an integrated bilateral ‘Strategic Stability Dialogue’ to lay the groundwork for future arms control and risk reduction measures.

Reuters - U.S. and Russia say they held ‘substantive’ arms control talks in Geneva

Simpler times.

This seems interesting. What’s the context here?

How? What country is going to jump at the chance to take in a 70 year old immigrant?

Cheers! Always happy to talk cheese haha.

I believe it should be declared on the ingredient list on the packaging, if the cheese uses pasteurized or unpasteurized milk. Cheeses using unpasteurized milk are very difficult to find where I am (not a big city, but not a small city). Even specialist cheese shops don’t often have them on-hand, but I always ask. Not sure on your jurisdiction, but it can be worth doing a web search for local cheesemakers in your area. There might be a little business making something excellent that probably never sees a grocery store shelf. Definitely that’s the case in Western Canada.

Good question. To my knowledge, no. Acid producing bacteria that are active in the cheesemaking process make for an environment that’s hostile to pathogens. I found this FDA report that looked into contamination in raw milk cheeses that were aged for a minimum of 60 days. By the looks of it, I’m not sure raw milk cheese is any less safe than eating a Subway meatball sub, but, I’m not a scientist.

France and Italy have found a way to work it out so that people aren’t buckling over left & right, so I think their systems would be worth examining from a policy perspective.

It’s true, for the most part, the cheese market in this country is a flavour dystopia. I’d argue it’s not directly the fault of cheesemakers, and I don’t think there’s some widespread national ignorance about what good cheese tastes like. I think it has a lot to do with our rules around raw milk.

In Canada, raw milk is more difficult to obtain than bulk heroin, and that guarantees that our cheese will be boring. It actually even affects imported cheese too, Camembert being an excellent example. Pasteurized milk Camembert (which is all you can buy here) is bitter, tastes like glue, and is not even worth eating. Raw milk Camembert is mindbogglingly complex and profound.

So, this regulatory fact folds into a pre-existing Canadian inferiority complex - we assume the cheese made here must be bland, so there’s no real market for premium offerings. Give this system of rules and expectations decades to develop, and here we are.

Today, there are some excellent artisan cheeses made locally. They’re not available in grocery stores, and they’re very expensive. If those cheeses were more affordable and available, nobody would even consider buying the mass market stuff that fills store shelves currently.

That’s all to say that, I don’t think the solution necessarily needs to come from outside, or that there’s even a quick and easy fix. We have to change the system of rules that brought us here. Maybe things would improve if we subsidized small, artisan cheese producers like some provinces do with their craft breweries and distilleries. Especially since cheese can have a short shelf life and wastage is more-or-less guaranteed.

PS - I don’t know if you’ve ventured into Oka cheese from Quebec at all - it’s got pretty decent flavour and is widely available. Worth a try if you haven’t had it!

Maybe it’s my lack of imagination, but I can’t imagine a dispute between those two nations that would be justified in any way at this time. Likewise, I can’t see how the relationship could degrade to point where war was the only feasible option.

World being configured as it is today, I don’t see a reason to point a gun at anybody, for any reason.

While we enjoy that luxury, it’s the perfect time to: talk with someone who you disagree with on a fundamental level. Get to know them as a fellow human being. Listen to their life experiences, & share your life experiences with them. Discuss deep questions openly and honestly. Don’t be afraid. Be honest, be sincere.

I agree - if there is a big-picture target for growth, it’s so important that there are strong lines of communication and collaboration between citizens, cities, provinces, and the federal government if it’s going to work.

To the poster above you - Trickle-down is a thoroughly shitty “¯_(ツ)_/¯”-style policy. But so is any decree from above that lacks clear objectives, regularly measured outcomes, and checkpoints with the citizens. Our system is struggling right now when we reach checkpoint moments. Discussions get railroaded into these ‘oh that’s racist’ or ‘oh we should have 0 immigration’ polarities. Discussing these things is worthwhile & good.

Interesting.

I’m not an expert on the matter, but to my eyes, taxes on alcohol and tobacco are set arbitrarily. It would be nice to see those funds enveloped for specific programs & a layer of transparency on how the numbers are determined. Canada taxes spirits at ~$13/ litre of absolute alcohol. We ought to wonder - why exactly that number? Is that too much, or not enough, from a healthcare outcome standpoint?

I feel like as a country, we should be pragmatic more broadly. Not just about tobacco, but about anything a person could enjoy, extending to the black market. Determine the things that people will consume no matter what the taxation, social, or regulatory structures are. Quantify the costs of the consumption of those things openly and honestly, and create systems to build those costs into the price of the thing consumed.

I think we’re running aground on that right now, because federal & provincial tax on enjoyable things is set at a rate that isn’t indexed to the costs incurred by the enjoyment of those things.

Personally I enjoy Nicotine, and I would like to know that the price I pay for it is fair to the base of taxpayers who fund our healthcare system. It doesn’t stop at Nicotine though, of course.

Just to provide a counterpoint here.

I’m left leaning on most issues, and I don’t think the current parliamentary composition is a good thing at all. The Liberals have a comfortable minority, and have an explicit agreement with the NDP that props them up. This means the Liberals simply do what they were going to do anyway, and the NDP rattles their sabres about cost of living and pharmacare and dental care, to no real effect. Liberals are not effectively kept in check, and real progressive policy issues that could materially benefit Canadians aren’t being put forward.

I don’t like it, and I don’t think it serves the plurality of Canadian citizen views - we’re in a bad place and I don’t see how anyone who isn’t already a Liberal voter could love it.

I agree on the point that minority governments on the whole are a good thing for the country. Parties should be kept in check. I feel like my tax dollars are fairly spent when politicians are obligated to negotiate and develop consensus. All this incessant posturing in the House is a waste of every citizen’s time and money. But minority governments also lead to blood-boiling accidental absurdities like the BQ holding the reins on matters of national interest.

I have to say that I’m tired of the fear narrative that gets reeled out around elections in this country. No major party has a view to radically transform Canada. In the grand scheme of things, the three major parties are moderate, and I’m not convinced that any of them are literally dangerous. And so, the bland fruit that grows from the tree of our national politics, while not lethally poisonous, is not necessarily nutritious either.

electoral reform

If only some fresh party leader would make that a key promise of their platform. Surely they would use their majority government to make good on that promise.

Even though I align with the party on most of their platform, I cannot vote for the LPC under any circumstances, due to their history of broken promises, scandals, ethics violations, horrible handle on foreign policy, blatant disregard for demographics that brought them Parliamentary majorities, lack of a constructive, modern vision for the nation, lack of sincerity, the list goes on and on.

In light of all that, what is it about this particular moment that has Liberals getting their knives out? Of all the times to question a leader, why now exactly? Is this a polling thing? Am I out of the loop?

One variable that I think doesn’t get looked at seriously is class size and school funding. Ask any North American teacher, and you’ll get a grim assessment on the trajectory of schooling since the 90’s. When teachers have more students than they can handle, it’s no surprise that things get out of hand.

I’d argue that part of the solution is more teachers per student. This enables better relationships between faculty and students, and better opportunities for mentorship. Build more schools, hire more teachers, pay them well, make school a place where teachers want to be, and where kids can thrive.

But reforming the existing system is a hot potato that neither the left nor right wants to hold, so, here we are. The system itself is degraded to the point that it doesn’t have the resources to self-correct. We need vision, wisdom, funding, and leadership, to steer things in a new direction. I think that would go a long way in preventing a misguided kid from fermenting the idea that murdering people, or their own classmates, is an answer to their problems.

I don’t mean to paint school shootings as simply a rebellion against a malfunctioning system, but, we really need to look at the system and make sure it’s serving the students that have no choice but to be there.

I see your point. On the other hand, chaos is a powerful terror tactic. If you’re a dissident, not knowing what angle you could be engaged from is stifling.

Also, people need to eat and drink daily. Poisoning is a horrible threat with multiple daily reminders.

To all the people in this thread saying this was probably an accident:

Imagine you’re an operator inside a totalitarian regime, and you want someone assassinated. Maybe this person isn’t themself a critical target, your objective is to instill fear in a particular department to increase compliance on a morally abhorrent skunkworks project. You already know everything about this person, of course including details of their personal life and hobbies. Hey they’re a mushroom hunter. Mycotoxins are readily available and can be lethal in small, undetectable doses. Not difficult to figure out what happens from there. Everyone who knows Vitaly knows, hey he wouldn’t pick and eat a poisonous mushroom. The message is sent to the people who you want to hear it.

Was accidentally poisoned with sodium nitrite once. Can’t imagine it would be a pleasant way to go.

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I think when companies that originally offered something unique and desirable get large enough, they necessarily lose touch with what made them indispensable. Dollar signs lead to a notion of growth that summons a many-tentacled cocaine-caked Moloch of feature creep, tech bandwagon hopping, information siloing, data harvesting, advertiser worshiping, and corporate evil that is, at best, indifferent to user experience, but more typically actively antagonistic to it.