i refuse to concede the point that i'm being offensive in any way. people just aren't thinking clearly.

nobody thinks we should let in every single refugee everywhere, no matter what, right? there has to be some criteria. if you reject this statement, you're just not thinking clearly. if i propose the criteria of religion, why is that so much more horrible than some other criteria?

there has to be some criteria for rejection, right?

and, listen: i don't want to live in a religious society. i'll reiterate what i've stated repeatedly: if you're a right-wing christian and you want to bring in more religious people, we're pretty diametrically opposed to begin with. i can dream about deporting christians, right? it's the hippies that don't understand what they're doing that piss me off.

see, and here's the thing, with myself, anyways: religion is really the only criteria i'd propose. i don't care what colour people are or what language they speak. i think we need to be careful about bringing in refugees with low education levels, but i'd actually propose that as a proxy for religion: the points system may be a little strict for refugees, but we should be making more of an effort than we are to determine utility. i don't care if they're queer or not, but i'll point out that queer refugees should have a high priority level in religious societies, which is at the crux of my point. it's really only religion - and, any religion - that i think ought to be a stopping point.

and, you're free to disagree with me.

but, this isn't and shouldn't be seen as some taboo. a religion is not a phenotype. it's a choice that reflects a character. and, i don't have a problem telling people that make this choice that i'm deeply uncomfortable with their character, and strongly apprehensive about welcoming them into my community.

in the end, he decided to fight a terminal cancer that essentially nobody beats. he had a giant tumor in his head: no fucking chance to beat it at all.

the doctors made it clear as day.

so, the realist that i am, i suggested that he spend his remaining months doing the things he always wanted. he always wanted to go on a deep sea fishing trip up north, for example.

i was excommunicated, for the reason that i accepted the diagnosis. he was going to beat it, and didn't need the negativity.

three lobotomies and countless painful chemo & radiation treatments later, he died clinically retarded, after being bed-ridden for months.

he did not accept his fate until the last moments, and it's not clear if he understood it or not.

there's a lesson, there.

i don't want to say that i didn't learn anything from him, because i did.

see, he was a very stupid man. and, very stupid men make large numbers of mistakes over the course of their lives.

he worked hard his whole life and gained nothing from it - there is a valuable lesson to be learned, there. namely, don't waste your life working.

he did much of it for his children, who didn't want what he gave them. another valuable lesson: don't have kids.

he married thrice, and was miserable in all three of the relationships. lesson: don't get married.

kids don't learn in a vacuum. in the long run, i was actually probably better off.

it may not be clear, so let me be explicit: i actually don't even have a driver's license.

i don't mean to say that it was suspended or whatever. what i mean to say is that i never learned how to drive.

there was a complex of factors underlying this. a part of it was that my dad was really insistent on it, and i was at the age where i was pushing back against parental control. my dad was neither an educated person nor an intelligent one. he didn't understand why i was spending so much time doing homework, instead of trying to get a driver's license and go after girls. so, a big part of it was a fuck you to his macho attitude and the broader society that he spoke for and represented.

i'll have you know that i never learned how to ice skate, either - which in canada is unusual. it's even more unusual, considering that my father was drafted into the ontario hockey league, which is one of the top junior leagues in the country.

but, a bigger part of it was that i was a strong climate activist as a teenager and felt a strong moral imperative to avoid fossil fuels as much as possible. i never bothered to learn how to drive because i never had any intent of driving.

today, i'm 36 years old, and i've never driven a car, despite ample opportunity to do so.

i've told myself in the past that i'd revisit this if there were ever serious opportunities for electric vehicles, but i've actually changed my mind since then. the environmental impact of the automobile industry is not merely limited to carbon emissions. i think that it would be very hard to find me a vehicle that i would feel comfortable enough using for me to finally learn how to operate it.

thanks, fair.

http://fair.org/home/right-wing-foundation-scary-nuke-maps-drive-narrative-on-north-korea-threat/

the most important part of reciprocal altruism is not the altruism part, but the reciprocal part. what that means is that you should only be altruistic with those that are willing and able to reciprocate. being altruistic with those that will not or cannot reciprocate is the definition of stupidity - it is just a net loss of resources that will in the end harm the individual's ability to reproduce.

mexico has demonstrated time and again that it will not reciprocate. it will not allow it's workers to organize. it will not address it's issues of corruption. it takes, but it does not give back.

attempts at altruism should consequently be withdrawn, as there is no reciprocity in it. rather, outreaches towards co-operation should be exceedingly shrewd, with the attempt to coerce a shift towards a more altruistic mindset from the mexicans.

this is, after all, the root of the problem - the mexicans will not reform their institutions so that they are comparable to the ones in the united states and canada. this was the point of bringing the mexicans in - it was to create a pool of cheap labour to evade laws in canada and the united states. so, it's not like the mexicans are solely at fault, here - mexico is what it is because of american capital. but, if we are to behave in our self-interest, what that means is pushing back against this and tying our co-operation to mexican reform.

we're the ones being played for idiots - and by both of them.

and, it's because that's what we're broadcasting.

Mexican government sources tell CBC News one condition is non-negotiable for Pena Nieto — when Mexico sits down with the United States, Canada must be at the table.

yeah. no shit.

we should reject this ridiculous demand by the mexicans, which is meant to treat our negotiating team like the fools they've up to now behaved as, and instead insist on removing mexico from the discussions and reverting to a bilateral agreement.

canada and mexico not only do not have the same interests, in context, but have interests that are diametrically opposed to each other. our relationships with the united states are the exact opposites of themselves: we export and they import. so, this is not a situation of convergence.

the representative from mexico should not take it upon himself to speak for the interests of other nations, and should be publicly rebuked for doing so.

canada needs to ensure that it remains an independent voice here and is looking out for it's idiosyncrasies, first and foremost. we need to co-operate with mexico because it is in our self-interest to do so, not because it make us feel warm and fuzzy - and we need to assert that self-interest at every opportunity.

nafta was supposed to be a deal between canada and the united states. the mexicans were added at the last minute, at the request of the united states. canada should have never agreed to this in the first place, and should keep it's distance at the current time.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mexico-nafta-strategy-1.4090182

i'll always be a punk at heart.

and, i can relate to what they called "indie rock" in the 80s and most of the 90s. but, the indie rock culture switched over in the late 90s to something i never developed a remote interest in. i mean, it had to. everybody that was any good got bought up by the labels. "indie rock" was supposed to sound like sonic youth, but everybody that sounded like sonic youth had major record deals. so, if indie rock was to remain indie, it had no choice but to change. and, i'm not sitting around holding grudges.

it's just that what it morphed into is fucking boring - by design. i'm a serious musician, i always was. i'm not interested in music as a fashion statement, or the reduction of sound to a talking point. but, that's what "indie rock" turned into, because it had no other outlet for itself as an independent form.

of course, the independent rock sound has changed a lot in the last 20 years. what i'm describing went through it's phase of (limited) relevance and dissipated like everything else. but, the term "indie rock" was let go as a co-opted term and remains this broken idea that i don't want to go anywhere near.

i'm sorry. they're universally shitty musicians: terrible players, terrible songwriters, terrible lyricists. they sell shirts and shoes to shallow idiots, they don't create music as an artform or generate protest or really do anything useful at all. and, the people that listen to it are what you would expect: manufactured consumers for the corporate chain.

everything about the term "indie rock" has deserved nothing more than contempt for decades.

and, i'm not telling you anything i wouldn't have told you at any point over the last twenty years, if you had bothered to ask.

again: i've never claimed to be a fan of "indie rock", and have rather been incredibly critical of it.

ok - i spent the first half of the 90s listening to various offshoots of punk.

but, i spent the second half of the 90s listening almost entirely to techno. and, through the 00s, i never developed the slightest interest in anything labeled "indie rock" at all. i spent the 00s listening to various combinations of classical music, progressive rock, techno, psychedelic music and jazz.

i can continue to disappoint you, if you insist. it's better to get the fucking point: i never was, i never wanted to be, i'm never going to be.