it's easy to make this kind of argument when you're not actually poor, and you don't have any firsthand experience with what it's like to navigate through a system that is already overused, underfunded and understaffed.

the continent is not "full", but after decades of funding cuts and pro-market policies, we both lack the infrastructure at this time to accommodate an influx of refugees. we could rebuild this infrastructure, but it doesn't currently exist and the christian right/left needs to come to terms with that: no, in fact, we actually can't.

when trudeau flew all these people in from syria, they sat in military barracks for years because there was nowhere to put them. we just moved the refugee camp to petawawa. and, we've got the city of toronto musing about buying hotels because it doesn't have the shelter capacity and can't afford the rates. meanwhile, we have an affordability crisis in basic housing services. i'm sure all the same things are true in texas and california.

but, it is of course only half of the argument - it's not enough to argue against open borders, you also have to argue in favour of increasing access to services, which is what sets bernie apart from the demagogues on the right.

the truth is that bernie is right, and being firm on these kind of issues will resonate with the kinds of voters that will swing the election. it's exactly the kind of pushback on corporate driven globalism and unchecked neo-liberalism that we need a more clear articulation of on the left.

and, if you find that immoral or something, you need to push for more spending on infrastructure, first.

https://splinternews.com/heres-bernie-sanders-giving-an-unequivocally-bad-answer-1833882031

libel/defamation laws are a tort under the british legal tradition.

what that means is that we have a rule in our society that says that if you're going to lie about people in an attempt to harm them then you should be liable to compensate them for the damages it creates. this rule is very specific - you have to be acting with malicious intent, and you have to be purposefully dishonest about it. veracity is a valid defense in a defamation case; you can't be sued for saying things that are true, regardless of the effects it has.

while i support the abolition of the criminal justice system, i am a strong supporter of the english tort system, and a strong supporter of defamation laws. this is a more traditionally germanic system of government - when you do something wrong, you pay a fine for it. it's how the germans lived for centuries, before the romans introduced this idea of punishment. decolonization doesn't just mean dechristianization, it also means deromanization; getting closer to an indigenous form of european governance would mean putting tort at the central nexus of the legal system. it's also a more "anarchist" legal system, as it upholds a concept of remuneration while abolishing the more authoritarian concept of retribution.

trudeau is in kind of an annoying situation that i can empathize with because i'm going through something similar, myself. i was recently charged with an absurd offense, and the charges were dropped due to a deficit of meaningful evidence. the officer does not seem to have understood the law; the scenario should have never happened. however, i haven't been given the opportunity to actually defend myself in court. as such, i've had an injustice committed against me that i don't have a clear path to resolve. i will not be filing defamation charges (i can't demonstrate financial harm), but i will be filing a human rights complaint once the issue with the officer is dealt with, as well as a constitutional challenge when the time is appropriate. it's the closest thing i have to due process, in context.

it's easy to understand why trudeau may actually want some kind of a trial in order to clear his own name, even if the process is politically perilous. but, then, why not allow for an investigation through parliament? a defamation suit would amount to the same thing. if there's a contradiction here, it's in demanding one without the other, and/or not realizing that the political liability of one is the same as the other. see, the question of whether he has a case or not depends on how effectively he can demonstrate the point, but he also needs to show financial or reputational damage, which is the more difficult point.

so, i'm not following the tory media's line on this - i think the premise is entirely valid, and he might even have a good case. i'm just not sure it's been thought through very well in the pmo, or even if there's anybody left in there that has the ability to think it through, any more.

so, it took me a long time to even get my head around the depth of a survey of music in the gta this month. it's a big place, with lots of venues. and, i'm only just getting caught up to the upcoming week, just now.

i don't expect to go anywhere before the la dispute show, and i don't see any obvious trips in the second half of april, ether.

but, i'm going to pause at this point and listen to a few things more closely, because i'll otherwise be sitting here for the next year.

reviews at the dtk site...

while i'm listening, i should be able to get back to what i was doing. i need to set up the new blog, first. then, i need to go over july, 2013 that last time to finalize it.

maybe a nap first, though .

so, i don't like the girls, but the girls like me; and, i do like the guys, but the guys don't like me. so, what do you do? you keep to yourself. and, there's no serious way out.

to clarify the point: if you took me off the hormones, i'd be gay, but i'd be 120 pounds and scrawny, long haired and disinterested in guy stuff, and consequently not particularly interesting to gay men.

so, i might like the gay men, but the gay men wouldn't like me so much.

it's a circle that you can't really square, which is why i'm certain i will spend my life single. but, you need to take me at face value on it.

if you were to take me off the hormones, i'd be gay, and if it makes you feel better to interpret me that way, i can deal with that.

so, yes, i mostly hang out in rooms full of guys.

but, you need to invert your logic, if you find it confusing.

there are reasons why i avoid putting myself in spaces dominated by cis-females, and it's only partly that there's no desirable endpoint, from my perspective.

i don't like getting hit on by women. but, it happens. so, i avoid the spaces.

it's a weird condition, but at this point i'm too old for it to really be a meaningful discussion point, anyways.

i need to do my undecided analysis, as i always do.

is this actually in play?

i picked this one out, but the numbers across the board are closer than you might expect, if still just outside of the margin of error. at a 7% spread, perfect distribution and a 3% margin, a minority is still the best possible outcome.

is there any evidence, though, that the undecideds might lean ndp?

you'd need some kind of shy dipper effect, and the article i just posted may suggest one. albertans may not realize the speed that the province is transforming at, as they seem to think that they're more conservative than they actually are. that is the kind of social pressure that may lead somebody to tell a pollster that they're undecided, when they really expect to vote ndp.

i would certainly not expect a shy tory effect, anyways.

if the redistribution is slightly tipped towards the ndp, you start getting into a blurry error bar. if it's a bit bigger, they start running neck to neck. and, if it's overwhelming, you're looking at an upset.

we'll find out soon enough.

but i wouldn't expect it split evenly, anyways - they will beat the polling, even if it's not enough.

it's probably too little too late. they should have done this months ago and hammered it.

but, here's a thought that is as unprecedented as anything else: could we maybe see a minority government in alberta?

barring some catastrophic collapse, that's the best hope the ndp has right now, and even that is pretty distant. i think it would be good for the province, though.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-election-2019-jason-kenney-rachel-notley-1.5087164

your grandkids will cite the jones case as the dominant legal precedent about online expression.

it's always baffling to me how stupid right-libertarians are about an issue that they ought to be kind of experts about.

the status quo is that posting to facebook is uploading your writing to be displayed on private property (the facebook servers), so it is up to facebook to make an arbitrary decision as to whether your posts should be deleted or not. there is no appeal mechanism, here, merely the dictatorship of private capital - if facebook or google or twitter or whomever else doesn't like your posts, you're gone. and, people have been legitimately banned, without any kind of due process.

what zuckerberg is saying here is "wait a minute. i'm just a boy wonder that got lucky. i'm technically a college dropout. what the fuck am i doing adjudicating speech issues? this is a rights issue. government is on my ass about it, but shouldn't a court deal with this?".

reason would apparently prefer the dictatorship of private capital, however unqualified, and however incompetent.

if a government agency were to step in here, it would be subject to appeal, and i can assure you that no judiciary anywhere in the english-speaking world is going to uphold any kind of meaningful prohibition of political expression online.

alex jones might even be able to get his profile back. and that's what we all want, right?

https://reason.com/blog/2019/04/05/mark-zuckerberg-calls-for-government-reg