While the underlying issue swirling around the UK courts’ confusion of gender vs. sex, male vs. female is just as confusing to me and I have no clear answers for that, the Blahaj admin’s move is I think the right one.

That instance prides itself as being a safe-space for LGBTQ+ folks, so explicitly allowing behaviour that does not recognize its users’ identities, is reasonable grounds for defederation.

Many saw the move as a revival of the party’s identity, and some even speculated that the Liberal government might fall and the NDP could mount a breakthrough campaign.

Even as I saw the government forcibly end the workers’ strike and the NDP break the confidence agreement over it, I saw it at the time more as political maneuvering, than an actual revival of the party. I wanted Singh and MPs to stand with striking workers literally rather than just figuratively. They say a lot of nice words like “we will fight for you”, but are always light on details about what they would do if they were in power, and we have not seen concrete action taken yet either (I get that legislature wise that’s not entirely their fault).

The Gaza/Free Palestine problem is also an Achilles’ heel wedge issue destroying the party as well. Canada and by extension the NDP can do little about that besides posturing, while it is both in International courts and being massively funded by the US. Most of our energy should be on problems we can solve rather than those we can’t, and we shouldn’t shun people completely because they don’t come with picture-perfect views on one issue or another, since that is what gets exploited by bad-faith actors and trolls.

I have real hope in the BCNDP, ABNDP, SKNDP and MBNDP for having actual ideas to solve actual issues of inequality, homeless and the housing crisis, healthcare. The ONDP is on the right track but still quite irrelevant…, and Singh seems to be following in their path rather than Western NDP style which I think we need some aspects of again. Tommy Douglas, a prominent Saskatchewan CCF leader and Premier after all.

An appropriate sentence for Secretary Duffy would be prison until he’s watched every video on the Not Just Bikes channel.

Stand clear of the closing doors, please!

I had very recently come across a reactionary content left-wing YouTube channel, reacting to Rachel Maddow of MSNBC reacting to Elon Musk’s interview… I thought that was pretty bizarre. (link).

It was a 30 second intro segment, then a 8 minute clip of the Maddow show, followed by a 1 minute outro commentary segment.

Nice job Mr. WhiskeyLeaks.

Musk, Trump and the rest of the Republican leaders have been trying their very best to sink the ship of America.

“Unfortunately being used by a spy” does not sound as reasonable as you think it does…

“I’m working well with Canada. We’re doing very well,” Trump said, adding he didn’t think it was “appropriate” for him to weigh in on the Canadian election, despite seeming to do exactly that.

He really can’t help himself, can he? Well, thanks bud for helping Carney’s case at this critical moment.

Just like Carney’s strategy to handle the USA, Canada should only entertain a partnership with China when we are treated as equals, rather than a subordinate.

I feel bad for female-presenting people having experienced being treated worse than their male peers. I didn’t grow up religious or anything, but I can sense where I could be perpetuating that hidden misogyny myself.

For example: In work and social life, I’ll give my phone number away to people I meet. But I’m not interested in relationships, so I’m far less likely to give it to women, since I don’t want to give anyone the impression I’m making romantic advances by doing that.

I’m pretty sure for men that aren’t outright misogynist jerks or bullies, it’s stuff like that where they feel as if they might be viewed as awkward providing professional favours to women when they wouldn’t think twice about it for their male peers. That leads to those experiences that women find themselves unable to receive those opportunities to get ahead in their career, or aren’t listened to, or have to advocate their position more when career advancement seems to fall more naturally to men.

Let’s put an end to antisemitism by – putting a star symbol highlighting the profile of every confirmed Jew or Israeli? Where have I heard this before…

I love how the “convincing the problem is magically solved” step is not between the reversing the stupid decision and making one, as one might put it logically. Yet, it explains Trump’s Republican regime perfectly.

I’m not an admin, so I can’t stop you from doing that. I’m not sure why you’re asking for my permission.

As someone who is good at reading between the lines of Japanese news reporting, here’s my translation of a Japanese news source on what is being discussed in tariff negotiations:

アメリカ側は日本車の安全基準を見直すことなど要求を並べてきましたが、日本車にかかる関税25％を引き下げるつもりがあるのかなど、日本との交渉の方針は確認できなかったということです。

(Translation: The American side lined up requests to review Japanese automobile safety standards, but there was no confirmation of whether there was intent to drop the 25% automobile tariffs, and no indication of where the negotiations with Japan would lead.)

また日本への輸出を拡大したい農産物の品目に牛肉やコメ、魚介類、じゃがいもなどを列挙し、関税以外の障壁や制約を取り除くことも求めてきました。

(Additionally, the US negotiators rattled off a list of products they requested to expand their exports to Japan of as well as to remove regulations/non-tariff barriers. This included beef, rice, seafood and potatoes.)

赤沢大臣はこうした指摘に「優先順位をつけて示してほしい」と述べたということです。

(In response to these pointers, Minister Akazawa stated “We would like these requests ranked by priority”.)

So all in all, the US side seems to spend their time listing a bunch of grievances, the Japan side lending an ear to their concerns, but not sure where the give-and-take part of the negotiations is here.

Sorry, left my donut at home. Gotta go back and get it.

forgets to return to the office

You should read this on why seemingly arbitrary, but nuanced moderation is needed to have a friendly space online.

There exist instances that have more of a free-speech “focus”, but despite that most instances cannot tolerate intolerance, harassment, trolling, illegal or borderline illegal stuff. There is generally more tolerance for disagreement on Lemmy than other forums, where unpopular takes are heavily downvoted instead of removed.

A common sequence of events that happens with trolls or flamebaiters:

• Troll says something unpopular, but not rule breaking (comment downvoted but not removed by mods)
• Several other people respond/rebut
• Troll continues a long back-and-forth argument that gets nowhere, or resorts to ad hominems, slurs or personal attacks (rule-breaking)
• comments get reported
• Mods remove the entire thread including the initial comment, and give out a community ban
• Troll decries censorship of the initial not rule-breaking comment, when it was the follow up that was the problem.

So yeah, it’s to keep out the jerks. Behave well, think of others as you speak, then you will find yourself able to say more than in places with professed free-speech absolutism. If you don’t like that, start your own instance so that no one can moderate you in your own space, and watch the jerks, trolls and spammers roll in after a while.

Reddit… Let’s not go there, 'tis a silly place.

The commenters on average feel more real on Lemmy, so i’ve been here 2 years plus and hardly needed to look back.

We have great examples from a certain country, to show that “allowing unlimited money in politics = free speech” is bad. There will be disingenuous ‘slippery slope’ arguments to it but the types of campaigns that this rule is meant to stop is clearly defined and limited.

Flirting with the law here… this photo is legal because it is blank, but just an FYI for anyone here that it is illegal to take or publish photos or videos of a marked ballot under Election Law in Canada.