Canada's Carney called out for 'utilizing' British spelling

'z' forms are generally used for writing for an international audience, it hasn't really caught on more generally than that.

I've been here for more than a decade and can never figure out the formatting syntax.

Also, with respect to the metric/imperial systems of measurement… officially the government is all metric, but due to the history of it all there will be a bunch of regulations that say things like “the toilet must be at least 228.6mm away from the wall” because the pre-metric standard was 9 inches.

And a final one for the prairies: in the 1800s there was the Dominion Land Survey, which carved us up into 1 mile x 1 mile squares. They did a truly impressive job of it. However, the edges of these squares is where the road allowances are, which means that despite the speed limit being in km/h, you are almost certainly going to be travelling N miles down the highway to get to your destination.

Oh! Didn't know! Is there regional variation in that?

I was forced to unlearn centre when we moved to America in my second grade. But everyone–from Virginia to New Jersey to California–was cool with me keeping analyse and defence.

Ludicrous! Absolutely ludicrous! :)

(Yeah, but somebody doesn’t know that.)

So they complained about Obama "destroying presidential norms"

Conservatives have had best showing at a federal election in decades. 41.3% of the popular vote. Over 3.1 million CPC voters in Ontario alone.

This is definitely true and Phil Knight of Nike fame even said that without the opportunity to join his slave workforce in Vietnam, those people would be worse off.

Globalization is about benefiting capital in rich countries, any benefits to people poor countries is an unintended side-effect.

> I can agree that globalization can be bad for labor in rich countries.

It may seem that way if you restrict your view to say, China, but it's more complicated than that, and there's more to the world than the "developed world" than Asia.

For instance: IIRC, Africa has had problems with local producers getting run out of business by Chinese knock-offs (e.g. https://www.dw.com/en/how-nigeria-lost-its-textile-market-to...), without the "benefit" of foreign sweatshop employment you've seen in Asia.

My understanding is protectionism would probably be better for Africa, as cheap imports block development of local industry and agriculture, trapping it a low level of development.

Edit: And maybe the problem is worse than I understood: https://www.semafor.com/article/11/13/2025/chinas-everything...:

> China is now competing head-on not just against other advanced economies but the most vulnerable ones. In effect, it is blocking the ladder to prosperity for countries in the Global South.

> Indonesia lost 250,000 jobs in its backbone textile industry between 2022 and 2024 because of a deluge of Chinese imports, according to the Indonesia Fiber and Filament Yarn Producer Association — and another half-million may now be at risk....

> In Thailand, the Chinese export tsunami has precipitated a crisis among smaller firms making car parts, electrical equipment, and consumer goods, stoking fears of deindustrialization. Village-based cottage industries are particularly at risk; for example, makers of hand-painted ceramic “rooster” bowls have been idled en masse by Chinese fakes that sell for one fifth of the price.

> China’s exports to Southeast Asia are now larger than those to the US. Malaysia’s semiconductor industry, a key growth-engine, is feeling the pressure. Electronics manufacturers in the Philippines are struggling. Vietnam has erected tariff barriers to Chinese hot-rolled coil steel products....

> Yet China keeps piling on the trade pressure. Africa is the new hotspot for Chinese exports: In September, Chinese shipments to the continent surged 56% year-on-year. In the same month, shipments to Latin America were up 15.2%. Some of China’s exports to emerging economies, particularly in Asia, are being rerouted to the US to get around US tariffs, but they also compete with local manufacturers in those firms’ home markets, while displacing their overseas sales.

Trump might portrait things that way, but that doesn't mean we need to analyse anything involving him that way.

> Wealth inequality dropped after the Gilded Age and post-WW2 until the 1970s (in the US); [...]

Well, if you take on a more global perspective: global inequality absolutely skyrocketed until the 1970s and has only gradually been climbing down since then. Numerically, the biggest contributor was Mao strangling the Chinese economy (and people) until his death, and then Deng Xiaoping took over and relaxed the grip around their throats. But outsourcing and container shipping and lower tariffs helped a lot, too. Not just in relation with China, but for everyone on the globe.

I'm sick of portraying the era until the 1970s as some kind of golden age. It was the nadir for most people on the globe in terms of equality, not the zenith.

It is worth noting, polls aside, that the Carney election both finished off the NDP, and resulted in Conservative Poilievre losing his seat. And recently, Conservatives have started crossing the floor to join Carney. Justin Trudeau was popular with Liberals. Carney is generally popular.

The timing of the last election was perfect for Carney when there was a window where the whole country was going WTF with Trump and PP was still railing against various "woke" grievances and mentioning Trudeau by name. The fact that he wasn't turfed after not only losing the election that was his to win, but also losing his seat, is everything wrong with the myopic federal Conservative Party (whose core members refuse to "compromise" with the rest of the country).

There is a real generational tilt happening and young Canadians no longer defaulting to left leaning ways of thinking (not that they ever were as much as people thought).

Quote:

The spelling with -re was popularized in Britain by Johnson's dictionary (following Bailey's), though -er is older and was used by Shakespeare, Milton, and Pope.

At the same time, it Etymonline traces the origin to Old French (14th century) which had it as centre.

Just because Milton, Pope and Shakespeare wrote "center" doesn't mean it was a good idea. The latter couldn't spell his own name the same way twice!