also: i've been over this before...

if you're a free market libertarian type, you might misunderstand a lot of my arguments as being socially conservative. but, that's the restricted spectrum at work. i'm usually pretty good at pointing out why my arguments are on the actual left, rather than the pretend left that the restricted spectrum presents, but i'll admit it gets tiring to repeat myself. at the least, there's enough material here now that you should be able to put the logic together, if you've been reading this for any extended period of time....

the simple statement is that leftists find themselves more concerned about things like resource management than liberals do, because we reject the premise of infinite growth. we try to avoid scaremongering around artificial scarcity, but we're far more serious about the realities around actual scarcity, and consequently far more conscious of how to utilize scarce resources in ways that ensure everybody has access, not just those that have the financial ability.

as liberals tend to promote markets, they react to the problems around scarcity by merely increasing prices. that reduces access, thereby saving the scarce resource by only making it accessible to an elite. the more scarce the resource, the more expensive it becomes. leftists tend to argue that this doesn't seem very liberal, really; we insist that everybody should have access, which means we need to manage it better than just setting a price on it.

well, almost everybody should have access, anyways.

some restrictions are going to be necessary. and, this is the ideological breaking point between liberalism and the left: do you want access to scarce resources to be determined by wealth, or would you prefer it to be determined by need? and, if so, are you willing to put reasonable restrictions on access to scarce resources, to ensure that they are available to most - or will you allow those resources to be accessed at will by those that have the finances to pay for it?

in between liberalism and the left exist the hippies. in the distant european past, the hippies were actually fundamentalist christians; a little further back, and they become heathen peasants. marx called them "utopian socialists" and contrasted them with what he called "scientific socialism". these people want universal access to scarce resources, and the only argument they present to justify this is in the realm of magical thinking. they deny that scarce resources are actually scarce. these people are unfortunate, but they are also rather numerous, and they're largely outside the realm of meaningful discourse.

i need to repeat: i don't think the hydro rates are all that bad.

it's the service fees that strike me as ridiculous.

and, that's not the government's fault. that's the electricity company price gauging me...

who wants to be tired all of the time, and why?

i admit i drank a lot on friday night, but that doesn't explain why i can't stay awake on monday afternoon.

the air quality in here got better around midnight, but it's....it's weird...instead of getting these plumes of smoke, i'm getting this persistent dusty background, and the odd whiff of it.

i'm tired, not very alert, kind of slow-moving, groggy and stuck with a scratchy throat. i'm not sure where it's coming from, but i'm going to try opening the window overnight.

something changed, and it's for the better, but i'm still feeling it. let's hope i'm awake enough to get some serious rebuilding done tonight.

what about the hydro thing?

well, i'm currently getting free hydro due to the subsidies. that's right: free hydro. my last two bills had $39.02 & $40.14 credits on them - meaning the hydro company actually owes me $79.16. i don't know if i get a check at the end or not...

but, this is due to the fact that i barely use any.

the credit is $69. so, you can see that my hydro bill would be about $30. but, of that, about $25 is a flat rate set by the company.

i actually use less than $10 worth of actual electricity a month. it's more like $7.

so, i'm not going to benefit from cancelling this program, and i'm not going to benefit from a rate cut, either. i would benefit from stronger regulations on the transmission company - perhaps a law that outlaws base rate charges, or minimum fees.

so, i prefer the liberal plan on hydro.

but, i don't want to elect doug ford. so, i might have to make a difficult choice on that.

further, i suspect that horwath will backtrack on her hydro plans, which seem to be designed to win votes from low information voters (many of whom would actually be hurt by her proposals) rather than to lower rates.

it plays into the trust issue with the ndp - they're simply not being honest about this, leaving people to guess at what they're actually going to do.

she seems to be doing this correctly, but when is she going to get that traction?

i don't believe that ford is running in the high 30s. i think he's running in the mid to low 30s - about where harper was running. the problem right now is that the liberal base in ontario doesn't seem to want to budge below about 25%, and that doesn't give the ndp a lot of room to play with. when you take the greens into consideration, her maximum polling potential, if she swings every single undecided, ends up in the mid 30s. more likely is that you end up with this horrid three-way split, where they're all in the low 30s......

the vote could still fall in place nicely. ford is going to win some seats in toronto, but he's going to have a harder time in the suburbs, and that's going to balance things out. the ndp are almost certainly to be uncompetitive in the suburbs. so, you could conceivably end up in this situation where the liberals win a lot of upper class seats, the ndp win a lot of urban seats and the conservatives win the balance - and lose the election, while winning the popular vote.

or, it could fall in place terribly, and ford could sweep based on a total split.

but, remember this: the conservatives cannot win a minority in ontario. the liberals lean too far to the left. a conservative minority means a liberal-ndp coalition government. and, that means the conservatives have to be polling a lot higher than i think they're actually polling in order to actually take power...

given that a coalition may be the most likely outcome right now, there are a couple of ridings where the ndp & liberals may want to choose not to compete against each other in. not all, or even most. but a couple...

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/reevely-leaving-liberals-for-dead-andrea-horwath-out-lefts-kathleen-wynne-with-a-smile-on-her-face

if the liberals aren't the party of science - of rationalism, of secularism - then they are useless and will cease to exist.

we need science-based arguments, including laws minimizing second-hand smoke exposure, and not right-wing fear-mongering.

the scientific reality is that a mcdonald's near a school is more dangerous than a head shop is.

do they do this sort of analysis around fast food restaurants?

but, there's schools everywhere. and, do they do the same kind of consultation with liquor stores? or convenience stores?

this is empty politicking. and, it's going to alienate more people than it's going to appeal to.

i'm actually not entirely opposed to the idea of having giant warehouses rather than little head shops, if it means that the warehouses have less restrictive hours. but, there is probably literally nowhere in toronto that has the characteristics she's projecting.

she's not going to win this election by campaigning against pot.

https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2018/04/16/premier-asks-for-community-consultation-on-cannabis-store-locations.html

i hope the provinces make a big deal about refusing to accept the costs, and it blows up in their face.

this is stupid.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4142592/trudeau-liberals-overhaul-discriminatory-immigration-law-disabilities/

it's actually really not at all surprising that trudeau is more interested in the will of international investors than in the will of the canadian people.

this basic fact - that what non-canadians think is more important than what canadians think - permeates every decision made by this government. i've been pointing it out for months.

for all the talk of post-colonialism, this is the most nakedly colonial government we've had in decades.