Again, I know the de Lesseps family line. But see this bit?

Oh yeah, the de Lesseps family are a huge deal in 19th/early 20th century France. But I’m not sure how he’s related to them, and I’m wondering if there isn’t something a bit shady going on with his connection....

Random question: does anyone know anything about the countess’s ex-husband’s pedigree? I know he’s descended from one of the developers of the Suez Canal, but I’ve been trying to figure out their exact relation.

This wasn’t a Pyrrhic victory. For Assad, the thousands of deaths and untold human suffering in East Aleppo isn’t a “cost” to be factored into the value of retaking the city. He’s a murderous dictator who shows no compunction at slaughtering his own countrymen en masse. In fact, the more people that were killed by…

So I guess this is the point where Syria becomes the tolerant, multi-confessional, secular, democratic state that dozens of Assad apologists/Russian disinformation stooges have been assuring me for months that it will be.

Oh, I know. This story just broke in the states a few days ago, though — I think it’s a really telling illustration of the difference between the US and Canadian views of healthcare.

It’s extremely dangerous!

Exactly.

Letting your kid go to bed with what later turns out to be a broken arm is legitimately something that I would hope a mandatory reporter would flag as concerning. Think about how much pain that poor kid must have been — or what would have happened if he’d rolled on it in his sleep.

Oh, obviously. I just had to add in a bit of American self-hatred.

It’s hard to express how much I am not exaggerating:

we do not “engage in an economic cost/benefit analysis to see whether the children receive medical treatment”

I asked you a follow-up question, because I felt like your argument was eliding over some important contextual details. You decided to go off the rails at that point. Again, it’s disappointing.

I’m sorry you’re not interested in having a civil discussion of this. How disappointing.

Would you say that about mandatory reporters, too?

Here’s the incredibly frustrating part about a 20-week ban to me: it would be a reasonable compromise (with the sort of special circumstances allowances for women’s health and safety/fetal abnormalities that this bill lacks).... if it were part of a completely different medico-legal system.

You take the north wing, I’ll take the south wing. We’ll meet in the solarium to discuss it further over.

Welcome to misery, friend.

Granted this one is nicer than most, but a certain point, all French houses over a couple hundred years old and with more than four bedrooms are considered châteaux... or at least, marketed as such to foreign buyers. Trust me. If you don’t care where you’re living, you can buy one for much less than the average price…

Sad, sad troll.