maporita

Cuando el peso estaba a los 5.000 al dólar todos los uribistas dijeron que era por culpa de Petro. Ahora quedan en silencio.

I've been a fan of "Trova" and it's many offshoots ever since I first heard a song by Silvio Rodriguez when I was starting to learn Spanish. I've been hooked every since and to this day it remains my favorite genre. I've been lucky enough to see some artists live (recently saw Inti-Illimani and Quilapayún in Medellin). I think it's high time for the same movement in English music. Unfortunately (maybe this is just me getting old) but it seems much of modern music is either bland and boring or else just plain anti-social, glorifying violence and misogyny.

One of the saddest social commentaries in the US was how country music got co-opted by the right, and the beautiful and powerful songs of protest of the past turned into soulless ballads of today extolling "muh freedum".

Those are countries that care about free speech. They would also allow burning the bible or the Torah .. it's not just the Koran. The inference in the headline is flawed.

You can drink beer and wine (not sure about spirits) in parks in Quebec as long as you have food. Some people just bring a few packets of chips or cookies to comply. But the police are relaxed about it (at least in Montreal)

High inflation is worse for workers than high interest rates since wage hikes always lag price rises. This round of inflation was brought to us by poor economic decisions .. pumping billions of dollars into the economy without raising taxes, as well as the Ukraine war. It wasn't caused by corporate greed, as some claim. The BoC is doing absolutely the right thing. If they don't raise rates now they only kick the can down the road when the pain would be far worse.

It seems like the US is scrambling and scratching to find whatever can break the deadlock. A better option would be to simply allow Ukraine to join NATO and bring them under NATO's security umbrella. This strategy comes with the risk of escalation but as long as NATO troops have clear rules of engagement, and are explicitly forbidden from launching any attack at Russia itself, I don't see how Russia can claim their intervention as an "existential threat" ((although they will anyway since that was the initial justification for the invasion).

It ends with Russia losing. As long as NATO makes it explicitly clear they will not attack Russian territory nor violate Russian sovereignty Russia has no basis to escalate beyond Ukraine. A nuclear war between Russia and NATO would result in the total destruction of Russia (and everything else of course). Russia wouldn't start one unless they felt their existence was threatened.

In Israel the right-wing government is currently using the same argument to try to muzzle the supreme court so it can push through legislation. It's always a bad idea. Anytime we Democrats remove these mechanisms it always comes back to bite us. In 2013 Harry Reid led a vote to reduce the Senate supermajority requirement for bench appointments from 60 votes to a simple majority. The direct result of that was the Republicans removing the supermajority requirement for the Supreme Court which culminated in the mess we have today.

The founding fathers built in these safeguards to force us to seek compromises. The alternative is rule by the extremes which is what we see today.

Apart from a front end language like Python it's always good to know basic SQL. A lot of engineering software uses some sort of relational database and it's handy to be able to query the data source directly. If you're going to be doing any kind of data analysis then look at R also.

"Vested interests create “checks and balances” primarily to make political systems non-responsive to demands for social reform.".

It is thanks to checks and balances that we don't currently have a dictator Trump running this country. Anyone who thinks checks and balances are a bad idea need only take a cursory glance at the world over the past few years to realize we would be far worse off without them. From Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil to Boris Johnson in the UK, would be autocrats were thwarted in their quest to remain in office by these same checks and balances.

I think we should let the Ukrainian military decide what weapons they need.