I would be more concerned about his actual far-right / white supremacist tweets, as well as use of symbols from such movements. And very outspoken support for far-right groups, including AfD which in some regions in Germany is classified as a anti-constitutional far-right extremist groups, by court decisions based on constitutional writings specifically made to avoid getting a Nazi party to reappear.

I was a bit surprised too, but it makes strategic sense. Air travel is still reliant on refined fossil fuels, which is both dependent on world politics (even if Canada has some extraction of raw oil), and will face restrictions or taxation if climate policy required to meet Paris Agreement targets are actually enacted. Like France banning short-distance flights in favor of TGV trains. Battery technology for air travel is still range limited, and biofuels are expensive and limited in supply. Investing in rail is a way to hedge your bets to stay relevant.

Also, they are a large operator of long-distance passenger traffic in Canada. Using their expertise, customer relations and organisation could be useful.

Whatsapp is popular i Europe, sure. But especially in privacy-conscious Germany, Signal (with a better security record, and seemingly less problematic ownership) seems to be a quite popular choice.

I have rain when commuting at most 5 days a month. Why would that affect commuting? Maybe add a few minutes riding time, bring you rain gear and perhaps woolen garments if it's cold also. Of course you have mudguards and good lights anyway. It's not a big hassle - people in the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and such are not made of sugar.

We don't have temperatures over 30 degrees often (yet, it depends on how the more ignorant parts of the world population keep doing climate-stupid stuff), but I have been riding in such temperatures. You drink a more, possibly pour water over yourself if really hot. Take a shower when you have arrived - most places of employment have a shower somewhere. On the way back, stopping at a nearby lake for a short swim is nice, too. The trains usually work, also.

Why would that be weird? Unlike your desk or office light, parking space for a private motor vehicle is certainly not something you need to get your job done. Only - perhaps - for getting to the job, which is usually something you pay yourself.

And yes, of course we try to discourage driving. Better for everyone - less congestion, less costs for widening roads, better air quality ... and employees switching to riding instead of driving usually have less sick days, which is probably of interest to employers. Also, usually less risk of getting stuck in traffic.

If it's provided directly by the employer, the taxable value is based on the price of commercial indoor or on-street parking in the neighborhood. Which can vary quite a lot between urban and rural, for example.

In a normal city (from my European perspective), most employees can get to work by transit or cycling. Many, if not all, do. And if parking is hard to find, there tends to be an equilibrium where some changes from driving to other transportation (or working from home), freeing parking space. There price of parking may also affect modal choice - since a few years, free parking at work is considered an employment benefit at least in Sweden, and should be paid tax for. Which kind of makes sense - a free transit pass would probably incur the same taxation. So parking at work may cost similar to commercial parking facilities.

But US cities are not as well-provisioned with transit and cycling networks, as I understand?

Interestingly, UK shifting to renewables and cutting fossil gas usage, is directly bad for Russia too: Beside the positive climate impact from lower consumption, It means the UK can export more fossil gas from the Northern Sea fields to mainland countries still dependent on fossil gas (like Germany and Austria). Which makes it easier for them cutting Russian gas exports (which will occur now when the gas transit agreement through Ukraine ends) - and cutting Russian income to the invasion finances.

I still hope the whole of Europe rapidly phase out fossil gas, also for climate reasons.

Well, I realise the US has rather horrible motor vehicles too, but yes? Two bad ideas does not make one of them good.

Yes, it sounds rather light-handed with 25 USD for something that may account for a whole year of CO2 emissions on a sustainable level (1 ton / year) [1]. It's a bit better in the EU - here 18 years old may have the chance to win one month of free rail travel (with an Interrail pass). Discovering neighbor countries (which EU likes for integration) and learning more sustainable habits - trains in EU have quite low climate impact in general.

[1] A good tool to check emissions is the Flight Emissions Map: https://www.flightemissionmap....

Why would you do that, except very early participation in what is in many ways (at least for Bitcoin) a pyramid scheme?

Lend-lease also helped quite a bit, with lots of US shipments to the USSR.

Matrix is not a bad replacement - especially as it's open standards / open source / open API, distributed and quite easy to bridge to other systems (including IRC). Closed ecosystems, where one company uses technical and legal means to keep information within their system, with their chosen apps, ads and user-data-mining, are much worse. Like Facebook, whatsapp and a bunch of others.

(and sure, Russia is a dictatorship, rapidly going totalitarian. No wonder the start restricting anything enabling opposing thought)

Better explanation: That the Republican party has moved from a conservative party, to a far-right anti-intellectual and in many ways anti-democratic MAGA mess.
So much, that even many traditional conservatives switch to and endorse less far-right options.

And sure, some don't like the close connections between autocratic regimes and alt-right / GOP.

From an European perspective, this sounds more like a commentary on the unequal access to healthcare over there in the US. In Sweden, you pay at most 1200 SEK (around 120 USD) per year for prescription drugs. Doctor and hospital visits normally cost 100-400 SEK (10-40 USD) each, but also have a separate price cap of 1200 SEK.

Granted; the system is not perfect (a small number of experimental drugs or very rare drugs may not yet be covered), but the total cost for all citizen seems to be far lower, with far less bureaucracy. Has some other side benefits too, like not risking your healthcare coverage if you change jobs.