@kjo I like where you're headed -- it *almost* works. 😃

@Armchaircouch I'm not familiar with that particular vehicle, but if you have the tools (including jacks & jack-stands long enough for your truck), and the patience, it should be relatively painless.

Shocks sometimes put up a good fight coming off (I once watched a mechanic use a cutting torch to get the set off one of my old cars).

If you get that far and get stuck, then you can still take it to a shop at that point. (You can even drive it without shocks, briefly.)

Give it a shot!

@danielbsmith Hypocrisy is stirred into this, for sure.

But to me hypocrisy is a little different -- it's usually defined as doing what a person is accusing someone else of.

What I'm getting is that they're doing the very thing they're being accused of in the way they deny it.

It's like almost like a self-fulfilling accusation.

It's remarkable to me how consistently conservatives' attempts to refute accusations of prejudice, antagonism and spite end up instead providing further evidence of their accuracy.

Is there an English word which describes someone becoming more like what they're being accused of, even in the denial of the accusation?

#politics
#religion

@factivist_0207 I find myself perpetually trying to understand how a group like this gains traction.

As soon as I saw their stuff, I wrote it off. And everyone I was close to online did too. But their extremist, antagonist, conspiracy theory-addled agenda is finding a bizarre level of resonance.

And it is finding receptive hearts and minds in Canada, too, including my own parents.

To me, it boils down to unbridled prejudice, which is used to form "flash-flood" allegiances.

Anger and hatred are different emotions, but they are connected. Anger is one of the easiest emotions to provoke, and once provoked can be easily directed at a target. All it takes is naming a scapegoat, and the cancer starts.

Unfortunately what this breaks is far from easy to repair.

For example, a populist politician seeding doubt into politics undermines trust in the entire system, not just the part he's calling out. He undermines confidence in leadership, which includes his own.

There's no clearer example of insta-hypocrisy than a person accusing anyone else of virtue-signalling.

(Yes I recognise the implicit irony of this post.)

@AngryCanadianGamer @Kaysymmetry It is profoundly shocking.

But I want to add this: the voices that are speaking out now against this injustice are the ones we need to elevate.

The dismal "reasoning" behind this governmental decision (eg "it's just a legislative tool" and "other governments have done this") is being exposed.

It may not be enough; populist fear-mongering conspiracy theories may hold sway, at least for the time being. But ultimately we cannot allow hollow prejudice to prevail.

@Kaysymmetry This is a manufactured controversy, exploiting parents' misgivings and chronic lack of connection with their children and education.

So not only is it weaponising these misgivings, it's pandering to parents to try to get their will to align politically with the politicians.

If parents want to be involved in their children's lives, they don't need the heaviest-handed legislative action available to the government to do so.

That is just bizarre. And ultimately horrifying.

Wow, everything's better with a subwoofer! I've wanted one for nearly 30yrs. Finally got serious about it, and found a good used one for a reasonable price.

I'm just trying not to regret not doing this earlier.

@feloneouscat It was a polarising design in 2019. If it was released then, it would have had some kind of effect.

The aesthetic design has aged badly, and it isn't even in owner's hands yet. The picture painted of its engineering is worse. So I'm confident that the majority of potential owners' enthusiasm for that vehicle has, shall we say, wavered.

The oddly sideways good news in that piece is that the Hummer EV is also facing setbacks. To me, that is another mammoth engineering catastrophe.

@corlin I've been watching timelapse videos of plants growing. One of the most fascinating to me is peppers -- they change colour in place. In timelapse, it looks like the colour is just washing right through them.

(Skip forward to 2:25 if you want to just see what I mean.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRS80BqZ0dc&t=179s

@ecksmc A weird thought -- could this change the global water cycle for the better?

Just thinking about the energy required to move a modern airliner across long distances, and how many there are at any given time, could we be looking at a way to get even a little water cycling back through desert regions?

That'd be interesting. I need to look into this more.

@MakerWerks Perhaps. Poor entrepreneurs. So many great ideas don't have a chance, or go right off the rails, because they just weren't thought through enough.

Recently I heard "visionary" defined as a direct, decisive, dominance-oriented leader. Like: "Of course he can't see the big picture! He's a visionary!"

I realised that I disagree with that definition with my whole self. If someone can't see -- indeed isn't even trying to see -- the big picture, they're not a visionary to me.

To me, a visionary is someone with a 360-degree view: opportunities, benefits, costs, challenges, unintended consequences...who still fosters a specific call to action.

@Airborne_Frog I just died of shock!

(Or maybe that's misinformation.)

(Which I should have posted on X-Twitter.)

(If I still had an account there.)

@Klaatu_Veratta_Nectarine I'm grateful to hear that. There is a heightened acceptance of culture-war politics here in Canada, especially among our conservatives.

We're going to have to go through a similar pain before we arrive at a similar conclusion, I'm afraid.

@Klaatu_Veratta_Nectarine Is it possible that people are realising they're getting played by the outrage industry?

Or do people not really enjoy being the centre of international attention for antagonising LGBTQ+ folks?

Or is it just that fighting culture wars is exhausting, expensive and ultimately has no pay-off?

Whatever it is, I hope there are some larger, lasting lessons being learned here.

@LiminalLil That's mostly the way I go too. And my hope is that *if* there's an actual cry for help nested somewhere in their intentions, it will be picked up by someone who is better-suited.