ok, i've got something coming in the pipes, now. that's an improvement.

i'm going to have to put out a letter of some sort tomorrow, one way or another.

Feb 21, 2017

To The Management of ===================,

On the day of February 20th, 2017, some time between 7:00 am and 2:00 pm, the heat at =============== was apparently completely shut off, building wide. As of the morning of February 21st, there is neither heat in my apartment on the fourth floor nor is there any heat in the foyer.

As you are no doubt aware, provincial legislation on this topic states that heat is an essential service that must be provided from Sept 1 to June 1. As a tenant, I consequently expect to be able to access the heat in my apartment, at will, over this period, as that is what I am legally entitled to.

I do not believe that this was an accident, but rather a cost-saving mechanism.

As such, you have 24 hours to obey the provincial law before I file the appropriate paperwork at the Landlord and Tenant Board, seeking an order that you obey the law along with a pro-ration of my february rent for services not rendered.

Should the situation arise again, I will jump immediately to litigation.

While I do not seek conflict, I cannot accept a management decision to turn the heat off when it is barely 15 degrees outside, given that this is causing me great discomfort and it is simply blatantly illegal to do so. I am concerned about the implications of this policy in the spring and fall. To avoid further conflict, please simply obey the law, moving forwards.

still no heat.

this is what i'm going to do...

i'm going to write a letter to the landlord accusing the building of turning the heat off in february - which is never legal - and explaining that i expect to be able to access the heat in the apartment, at will, between sept 1 and june 1, which is what the law says.

if the heat turns on overnight, this letter will also state that i will file the appropriate grievances to the landlord and tenant board the day of noticing the heat being turned off a second time.

however, if the heat does not turn on overnight, the letter will explain that they have 24 hours to turn it on, or the complaint will be filed on the next day.

i'm willing to put this in the official deathtokoalas platform:

the penalty for selling opiates of any kind, including prescription opiates, shall be to be roundly beaten the shit out of in the public square by a group of vetted volunteers.

yes, it's a public health issue.

no, it shouldn't be legal.

note that i'm stopping short of calling for public castration - which, in this case, is actually somewhat of a good idea.

an anarchist society would not legalize heroin, it would rather round up all of the heroin dealers and communally break their fucking faces in.

and, with that, i'm going to retire my insistence that jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

see, here's the thing: the ndp has a 0% chance of forming government so long as their leader has a beard. it was the same thing with mulcair, who lost for two reasons:

1) canadians don't want a balanced budget amendment.
2) canadians don't trust people with beards.

as somebody on the outside of the petro-state, i would like there to be a competitive option on the left.

the ndp will not be a competitive option so long as that beard is in the way.

hence, jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

but, heroin legalization is a non-starter - and without a serious option to vote for, i probably won't do so in 2019.

so, that's the end of that.

there is no fucking way i'm voting for any person or party that wants to legalize heroin for personal use.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

i just want to throw this out there: the conservatives in ontario have a base, but you'll note that the very name of the party - progressive conservative - indicates that this base can at times be rather restive about the party taking centrist positions, and that there have historically been serious revolts amongst conservatives on the right, here in canada.

the biggest example is the reform movement, which revolted hard against mulroney. harper's distance from mulroney really wasn't about those envelopes: his base despised him. what do old reform voters think of his daughter? and, would they vote for her if she won?

(she won't win, unless everybody else gets banned from running)

our conservative parties tend to act more like a hillary clinton than they do like a ted cruz; they reach out to the right in a kind of superficial way by erecting left-wing strawmen and bogeymen, ultimately governing in a kind of corporatist manner, rather than from the back of a bible. they privatize things, cut services and still find ways to run deficits; they run governments into the ground. but, they don't tend to go after minorities or queer people. it's just not cultural, here.

that far right component of the base does exist, though.

so, who is in the spectrum that might take advantage of this?

that's a question, actually. i don't pay much attention to the far right in ontario.

i don't think social credit ever did well in ontario, but it is the origin of the far right in canada. i know that there is a christian heritage party that has historically done relatively well in the rural areas. the thing is that the pcs win a lot of these rural areas by 40% anyways, so it doesn't matter much if the chp gets 20%, when the conservatives get 60% (and the liberals get 15%),

again: doug ford doesn't live in this part of the spectrum. he has far more appeal to urban immigrants than he does to rural farmers. i mean, they'll probably vote for him, sure. but, if you sit them down, they'll probably complain that he's not much of a christian, and they're only doing so because the liberals are so godless.

but, tga appears as though she might. she might even be in the wrong party, really. and, it's an interesting question as to what kind of ruckus she's going to end up causing on the far end of the party's spectrum, as well as what kind of swing vote really exists there.

in a close election that comes down to a few seats, the chp could make a difference.

hey - the socreds once triggered an election at the federal level, when joe clark (in the same ideological camp as the mulroneys) refused to enter into a coalition with them, and couldn't pass a budget.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

to the contrary; what he's doing is actually kind of inspiring, and a rather welcome fresh of breath air. i don't identify with much of what he says, politically, but i'm always going to side with people taking on bullies.

and, at this point, he's clearly the real anti-establishment candidate.

if i was in his riding, i'd probably vote for him.

(the one thing i can say for certain is that i will not be voting pc in this riding)

http://nationalpost.com/opinion/kelly-mcparland-if-brown-was-a-real-leader-he-wouldnt-be-derailing-his-own-party

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

on second thought, i'm going to need a thermometer - which i don't have - before i can fill this out.

i don't what the temperature is inside.

i just know that i'm cold and the heat isn't turning on to address it.

and, i know that if i can't get the head on by the morning, i'm going to get a thermometer first thing tomorrow.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

btw.

the sneaky trick that my old landlord used to evict me (and only worked due to a biased judge) is not applicable in this building.

i'm a good tenant, that simply demands that the laws are followed. and, i'll defend myself against retaliation.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

15 degrees is cold.

25 degrees is comfortable.

35 degrees is ideal.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

i mean, it's only 15 degrees today.

will i not have access to heat on an average 15 degree day?

i could see if it was 25 degrees, because then you can open the windows, but 15 degrees is simply not warm enough to turn the heat off.

what i've been doing is running the shower on full blast, full heat every twenty minutes.

i'm not going to argue with anybody about this. this place is not rock bottom cheap like the last one. i'm  paying for heat, and i will receive it on demand.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

so, what am i doing?

well, first - it's cold in here.

and i'm very angry about it.

the law does not say that if you have an unseasonably warm day in february, you can turn the heat off. what the law says is that you have to provide heat.

and, i'm not going to pester the landlord about it. i'm going to sue her for two things:

1) an injunction forcing them to turn the heat on.
2) pro-ration of the rent compensating me for the heat that i paid for and did not receive.

yes, i think that litigation is the way to solve problems.

no, i don't care what the neighbours think.

that said, i'm going to wait a little bit because i recognize that i made an error: i knew it was going to be warm today, so i turned the heat down.

the lesson i've learned is that i should never, ever turn the heat down.

however, if the heat does not turn on before midnight, i will mail the documents in the morning; after talking with some tenants, i've learned that the landlord is quite negligent, and i simply don't have patience for dealing with negligence of this sort.

the law is not ambiguous, and i do not feel like i have the obligation to be patient about this.

second, it took me a little longer to do some cleaning and whatnot this week, but it's done now, and i'll be focusing on finishing up 7/15 tonight - so long as the heat turns on.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

i think it's less that trudeau got snubbed in india, who is a more natural ally than china, and more that everybody is well aware that all that a meeting with trudeau actually entails is watching him read prepared remarks written by somebody else.

he brought some bureaucrats with him; these are the people making decisions.

whether he's in the room or out touring the taj mahal with his family doesn't make any difference.

that's a point the canadian media actually understands, and the rest of the world should get it's head around: trudeau is more of a dignitary than an actual decision maker.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

“The Syrian government has answered our calls and sent military units today to be positioned on the borders and to participate in defending the territorial integrity of Syria,” - ypg spokesperson

see, they would have never taken this position - which is actually what the turks, syrians and russians all actually want - without the threats of turkish bombing.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

that's right.

believe it or not, the initial war plan cooked up by the saudis was based on the idea that isis would be met as liberators by the syrians, who were longing for a returning to a rightly-guided state, as they suffered under the tyranny of secularism and 'arab socialism'.

it was this absurd miscalculation that created this mess.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

so, to recall.

what were the actual alliances and proxies in the failed colonization of syria?

well, you initially had the saudis backing entities like isis, who were fighting against the fsa, which was backed by the turks & the qataris. that was the initial conflict: between the turks & the saudis.

you didn't know that because you didn't realize that you didn't know what was happening. the media made up some lies about kids throwing rocks, or something; there was nothing of the sort on the ground, but rather a battle between the turks and saudis for control of syria, in the post-assad space.

initially, assad was aligned with iran and hezbollah. while isis & the fsa fought each other, the americans were bombing the syrian regime, while the media projected the lie that they were fighting isis. in truth, they were aiding isis; isis were meant to be the ground troops for the invasion of syria, while america supplied the air power.

so, you had a three-sided conflict, with the following alliances:

1) saudis-isis-america & israel. this was the real alliance, and kept quiet.
2) turks-qataris-americans (but not really the americans, who interpreted this as half back-up plan and half divide and conquer). this was the fake alliance, which was in truth kept in the dark.
3) syria-iran-hezbollah

the kurds were still there, of course.

the american axis was meant to depose the syrian axis, and the turkish axis was just kind of being strung along. however, this failed horribly because the isis fighters were seen as a bunch of medieval hooligans trying to turn the clock back (to the annoyance of the saudis). the americans figured this out, that the syrians did not want a return to fundamentalism after all (see, you have to understand that the saudis thought that syrians did want a return to religious fundamentalism...) and tried to replace them with the kurds, who they figured would be more successful in actually holding syria, with the blessing of the syrian people. but, this led to a conflict between isis and the kurds that was entirely unresolved at the time that the...

.....russians stepped in, and focused on bombing isis. this was the first serious attack on isis. to an extent, the russians were supplying air power to the kurds and the syrians. this lead to the defeat of isis, and a kind of wide understanding that the saudi vision of the region was not going to manifest itself in the form of a popular revolution, after all.

that leaves the following axes:

1) america-israel-kurds + the now irrelevant remains of isis.
2) russia-syria-iran-hezbollah
3) turks-qataris

the qataris have been largely neutralized via saudi pressure, leaving the turks in the wilderness - they are aligned with the americans on paper, but they have in fact been fighting a proxy war against american interests for the better part of the last ten years, and now there are kurdish "terrorists" (if defined in terms of tactics, it's not entirely inaccurate, even if i have ideological sympathies with the rojava enclave, despite it not being somewhere i'd want to live) sitting all the way around the border, from the mediterranean to the black seas.

this has forced the turks to perform a careful dance, where they have to play along with the americans, despite holding to their positions. in a sense, the situation is being flipped: now, the turks are the ones stringing the americans along.

that leaves us with this:

1) america-israel + remnants of isis
2) russia-syria-iran-hezbollah-turkey
3) kurds

is this stable?

no.

the ultimate battle of this war will be a full out conflict between syria and saudi arabia.

and, the syrian generals will intend to win this fight, if they are allowed to wage it.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

a neighbour's dog took a run at me in the hall tonight, and it reminded me of the time that i broke my sister's leg foot.

this was in the mid-to-late 00s; 2007, maybe 2008. i would often go for brunch with my dad on sunday mornings, because i worked nights during the week.

this particular week, i was drained and didn't feel like it, so i called him and asked him not to come.

a few hours later, my sister is knocking on my door. had she not woken me up, this probably wouldn't have happened. nonetheless, i remain adamant that i made the right decision - and that she's lucky that i'm ideologically opposed to filing police reports, because i had every right to follow through with one.

so, i open up the door.

"what?"

you're coming to lunch.

"no, i'm not."

she puts her foot in the door, like a twentieth century vacuum salesman.

we have something important to talk about. come downstairs.

"i'm going to give you until i count to ten before i break your foot."

she laughed, actually.

you won't do that.

"10.....9....8....."

she's only beginning to contemplate the idea.

"...7.....6.....5..."

she's trying to talk over me, but i'm not listening.

"...4....3...2...."

she just looks me straight in the eye.

i stared right back.

"1...."

snap.

i went back to sleep.

i was told that she limped downstairs, and went right to the hospital.

all i could tell anybody was that she should have listened, but i don't recall hearing many arguments - probably because it left everybody in shock. but, i remain convinced that my position was correct. the fact that she is my sister does not give her the right to trespass in my apartment, or take away my rights of self-defense. further, i gave her plenty of warning, and she had every opportunity to withdraw - she made that choice, herself and accepted the consequences of it when she did.

fwiw, she wanted to announce that she was getting married.

that's not something i had any interest in.

if the owner of this dog is reading this, she may be advised to take my body language a little bit more seriously and thoroughly fuck off when i've broadcasted it as clearly as i have. because, i'm not going to be taking chances with my safety if i find myself left in an enclosed space with a strange animal.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.