So this poor traveller at least had sufficient mobility left to be able to drag himself out of the airplane, undignified as that is. What would have happened if he didn't? Don't they have procedures for e.g. unresponsive patients?
And trying to blame a subcontractor doesn't cut it. The passenger was an Air Canada customer and Air Canada should have resolved the issue one way or another without forcing a disabled man to drag himself out of an airplane like an extra in The Walking Dead.
Changing zoning laws to facilitate the construction of more than single family homes is great, but I hope they also allow for mixed-use buildings by default. A development that doesn't have e.g. a place to buy milk and eggs within walking distance is still car dependent.
Blaming the victim is very easy to do when you don't fear that the next victim could be you.
Require vehicle safety standards to test for pedestrian and cyclist survivability first and foremost.
Require a commercial license to drive large and/or heavy vehicles such as pickup trucks. Take it away when a driver gets caught driving unsafely.
Require vehicles to provide better visibility through the windshield, like Europe does.
Design street lanes to be narrow and winding, so that drivers intuitively choose to drive at speeds that are safe for people outside the vehicle. Raise pedestrian crossings at the same level as the sidewalk so that drivers habitually slow down when they see a crossing.
In other words, value the safety of the people outside the vehicle above the speed and convenience of the drivers.
I do not approve of burning holy books, but I think it should be legal.
What people shouldn't do and what should be banned are different things. I don't want to live in a place where what is not mandatory is banned. There has to be some room for freedom of expression, even for people expressing ideas we dislike.
Burning a symbol to upset people is a shitty thing to do, but it should not be illegal.
Assaulting people, whether they burned a symbol you like or not, is a shitty thing to do that should remain illegal.
And yes, some people in my country have burned symbols that represent people like me recently. Nobody from my community assaulted the people who did it in response. Just the way it should be.
I used to judge overweight people. Now I understand that I was an asshole.
I have gained 25Kg in the past three years for no apparent reason. I eat the same kind of food, I exercise regularly... yet something is slightly off and my weight continues to slowly creep up.
People talk about calories in, calories out. What is missing from that argument is something as obvious as hunger: in the real world, over the long term, people eat until they are satisfied and no sooner than that. "Count your calories" means "Go hungry every meal". You can soldier on for a few months or a year, but eventually you will simply eat until you are no longer hungry.
If your hormones are slightly off and you feel a little too hungry for how much energy you actually need, you will slowly gain weight. Healthy people don't feel hungry every meal, that's simply not how they maintain a healthy weight.
That is why drugs like Wegovy are so important. They slightly adjust your sense of hunger so that it matches the amount of energy you actually need. Being overweight is in itself a chronic disease with all sorts of complications, from hypertension and diabetes to heart disease and joint problems. We need to stop judging people who suffer from it and start treating them now that we finally can.
A carbon tax does a better job at incentivizing low-carbon alternatives at all scales, from trains and more efficient airplanes down to e-bikes.
We should disincentivize antisocial behavior rather than ban specific technologies. If rental e-scooters left in the middle of the sidewalk are a problem, require rental companies to provide parking where the e-scooter must be docked at the end of the journey, for example.
As long as e-scooters are primarily replacing car trips, they are a net benefit to society. Let's iron out the wrinkles instead of an outright ban.
I'm all for letting people wear whatever they want. What is the harm?
Here in Canada I've seen police officers wearing turbans. Works for me. Nude beaches? Sure thing. I've seen people in my neighborhood wearing Saudi-style niqabs and Afghan-style burqas.
Who am I to tell people what they should or shouldn't wear? How could it be my business?
I'm also for people burning the Qur'an if they so please. Or the bible, or the rainbow flag, or the national flag if that's how they want to protest. Ideas are there to be challenged.
I draw the line at threatening or harming people.
Governments should not be allowed to burn books.
Private citizens should be allowed to burn any books they own.
Neither governments nor private citizens should be allowed to harm or threaten people who burn their own damn books.
Example: you can purchase a dozen copies of "On The Origin of Species", burn them, and I will very happily not threaten to behead you. Easy.
We need any help we can get to net zero carbon emissions, and lab-grown meat is one of the many things that moves the needle in the right direction. Not everybody is going to ride a bicycle and switch to a vegan diet, so the more low-carbon alternatives we make available, the better.