i've been hoping to see something like this from russia for a while, to make it clear that they understand what's going on. american citizens are completely powerless to stop it, so they need to be focusing entirely on defending themselves.

i just want to point out, though, that first strike capabilities don't necessarily need to be nuclear. some of the conventional weapons out there now are more than capable of getting the job done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvKucpTckjA

no, it's nothing like that at all, it's just a cynical ploy to shift the blame from the banks to the jews. again.

rap news 25

i live in canada, where there's more or less a monopoly on lines in any given area. when i was in ottawa, it was rogers for cable and bell for dsl. i'm now in windsor, across the river from detroit, where cogeco owns all the cable lines.

it's kind of wasteful and stupid to suggest running competing lines side by side. but, our regulators have agreed that a monopoly is anti-competitive, so they've forced the line owners to rent the lines out to smaller companies. there are a few quirks to going with a smaller company, but one of the things they offer is cheaper access rates at lower speeds. ultimately, it just exposes how much of a rip-off the major carriers are: how else could a smaller company turn a profit by buying bandwidth from them, then undercutting them on it?

the process of moving down here and switching had me think a lot about it. is an internet line a public good? the analogy that keeps coming through my mind is public roads. we even have the language of an "information superhighway". there are some fringe opinions that disagree, but we mostly all agree that roads should be owned by the public and maintained collectively through taxation. one of the reasons we mostly all believe this is that it provides equal access for everybody. the idea that large companies could take over our roads and start charging us whatever they want for whatever access they advertise is inconceivably backwards to most of us.

it's one thing to stand up against this and argue that things are fine as they are, but the machinery of private property laws is staggered against us. should we not change our perception of what the internet is, it's inevitable that these sorts of changes will take place. what that means is that it's necessary to articulate an alternate vision of how internet lines are owned in order to maintain net neutrality.

i got into a lot of trouble in junior high school when i sieg hieled my english teacher for being excessively authoritarian. it was maybe a little over the top, but i'd consider it an acceptable means of ironic protest, and was certainly not intending to express any kind of racist feeling but rather to express my displeasure at being at the whim of an authoritarian overlord. these kinds of laws are hamfisted and don't work....

surreal.

i'm not going to bother trying to get the historical context in place, or explain why this is meaningless propaganda, but don't forget to boycott ford, ibm, exxon, volkswagon, siemens and bayer while you're at it.

i'm a fan of norm, but i'm not dumb enough to pay for cable, so i guess he's screwed.

he probably means he wants more knight rider fans.

what they can do is distract legitimate anger at failed economic policies away from the elites that they benefit and towards immigrants instead.

this is the chart i was looking for.

and i actually don't have an argument. it's the highest it's ever been.

i mean, i'm not trying to take away "living wage" arguments, the numbers still justify a boost, but the blunt truth is that tying it to inflation at it's peak point is really surprisingly progressive policy.

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Ontario-Minimum-Wage-inflation-adjusted-Minimum-Wage-inflation-adjusted-1024x576.png

i missed this.

have to say i never thought i'd see it. it'd be nice to get a bit of a boost first, but it's a structural fix to a never-ending problem. hope it sticks after the election.

http://news.ontario.ca/mol/en/2014/02/making-ontarios-minimum-wage-fair-and-predictable.html

i ride without one. i find they restrict my vision, and the fact is i'm petite enough that they hurt my neck.

i take other precautions, which include riding on the sidewalk and telling pedestrians to fuck off if they don't like it.

the bottom line is that if i end up thrown across three lanes of traffic and break my neck and rupture my liver, the fact that i didn't get a concussion isn't particularly relevant.

i'd rather spend my time being absolutely certain i don't get hit in the first place.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/neurosurgeons-claim-that-cycling-helmets-are-useless-is-highly-irresponsible-20140602-39d6o.html

listen...

i often deny it, but in truth i'm a grown up. i've been around long enough to see how things operate, and i've read a little plato which has helped me understand it a bit. corruption is something you have to live with if you want a liberal, representative government.

so, we can talk of minimizing it, then. fine. but, it's very hard for me to look at anybody on the right and conclude that i'm going to get a government dedicated to fighting corruption, when all i've ever seen from the right is endemic corruption.

...and it kind of doesn't even matter what they say, because i understand that it's built into their ideological understanding of government. they exist to facilitate people that invest in their party. the point is to sell as much off as they can, to ensure private sector profits. roads and hydro were an easy target last time. up next are hospitals and who knows what else...

yet, it's really at their core of their political support, this idea that they'll cut down on corruption, in opposition to all evidence that that's all they do. it's not even orwellian, it's just straight-up, in your face lying. generations of people keep falling for it, too. i don't know how far this goes back. burke, even, maybe? it might be the most successful lie in history.

see, if i were naive, i might think the ndp would cut down on it, but i'm not. at best, we might see union corruption instead of business corruption, but they have a lot of fences to mend before they can even get there. and, it's not clear they even want to.

so, i'd rather focus on issues. they're all corrupt. it's a function of the system. when we catch them, we should be strict, but we shouldn't pretend that it's a political issue that can be dealt with through policy or renewal.