there's a line in robert newman's history of oil where he explains that the british are easily manipulated by bad propaganda because they are truly uniquely ignorant of their own history.

but, he meant recent history.

there's such a rich legal tradition in the common law, and it really is truly ancient, the last relic of a civilization that was ravagef by conquest and colonialism. conservatives like to be silly and claim we're under ecclesiastical law (which was still roman....) or even straight biblical law, but when liberals point to the romans they're only half right.

the truth is that we have our own damned law, and it's as old as any code is. but, we've passed it down orally over generations, through waves of persecution and destruction.

if we are to reconstruct what we were, tort law is a good place to start.

but, i mean, it's not the disincentive game that i'm focusing on. if bezos wants to kill his wife badly enough, he's going to do it, regardless of the consequences.

to me, there's just little justice in punishing somebody. retribution is some kind of blood lust; it's authoritarian, designed to keep a system in order for the benefit of the rulers. any crime is only wrong in this context because it's upsetting the order, and threatening the king's authority over the people. that's a fundamentally warped concept of law.

the common law, which centralizes tort, is more based on ensuring that people actually right the wrongs they commit. it's about undoing transgressions, about making sure that if somebody is harmed then they're compensated for it.

not retribution, but reconciliation, as best as is possible. just make it right; make it whole.

again: call me a barbarian. but, i know which side of the danube was free and which one wasn't.

of course, not every crime would require abandoning 95% of your wealth.

but, first-degree murder would have to require forking over a very high percentage - and it should be a percentage, not a fixed sum.

well, no, let's think about this.

let's say jeff bezos kills somebody. maybe his ex-wife. i'm just thinking out loud. nowadays, he'll go to jail for a few years, cost society a lot of resources while he's in there and get his money back when he comes out. it might even be worth it, if he can cut a deal for good behaviour.

now, let's say we take away 95% of his wealth, instead, and give it to the family of the victim. no jail time - just bankruptcy.

in which system do the rich get away with murder?

and, i am being consistent, in the sense of the legal system i actually want - let's get rid of the cops and the jails altogether, and reduce everything to tort. it's a traditional, northern european legal order.

today, if you kill somebody, you're committing a crime against the queen. how much sense does that make?

traditionally, if you killed somebody, you'd be committing a crime against that person's family and/or loved ones, and you'd have to pay them directly. you wouldn't go to jail. you wouldn't do community service. you'd pony up to the victims.

so, people think this is nuts, or overboard or whatever, but i'm actually leading by example - this is the society i want, that i'm leading the way on and that i'm willing to fight for.

tort law for all.

honesty would save him a few hundred dollars - two months' rent is $1500. and, that's going to be a better and better deal as time goes on.

20%*(12*750) = $1800. and counting.

and, i'll kill his credit rating if he forces me.

i don't give a fuck,

again: i signed that lease because i don't want smoking in my living spaces, something i have every right to demand. and, it's not a trivial concern - it's a serious, substantive quality of life issue.

he has the ability to pull out, but it's going to cost him.

if i knew he was going to be smoking, i wouldn't have signed the non-smoking lease....an absurd statement, on it's face. but, he set himself up. it's his own fault. and, it's not my problem, at the end of the day.

the easiest thing for him to do would be to admit that he made a mistake, and pay his way out of the lease.

but, so long as i'm convinced s/he's smoking, they're not going to get rid of me without a court case.

yeah, it's this woman he brings over from time to time that's smoking.

i initially thought it might be the daughter. but this woman has been here repeatedly, and i thought i heard her mention once that she was his mother. she doesn't look that much older than him, though. without overhearing that comment, i would have assumed it's his ex-wife.

and, if that's right, and  i understand the dynamic in the scenario, there's no possibility he's going to tell her to butt out.

whoever it is, she's breaking the lease. and, if i catch her...

and, he's clearly still smoking up there, too.

that's tobacco. clearly.

ugh...

so, i'm done the master document for october. it's a little shorter than september, but there aren't any scripts, so less of it will be removed. rather, it's mostly converted html documents - so there's a lot of essays, a lot of web pages. it's consequently going to read off more as a periodical...and it could quite easily top 600 pages.

well, i am calling it a journal. who says i don't publish?

i will also publish my first remaster at the end of the month, so i'll get my first liner notes up, too, for inri000, or at least the first approximation of them. i've resigned myself to this being an ongoing process, and that i'll have to periodically republish. i guess i'll have my first opportunity at a final close for inri000 in 2026, and we'll have to see whether i can actually do it or not. i'll publish this first one at the drive so you can see what i'm doing, but it's going to basically involve going through the music pdf and pulling out everything i can that's related to the recording, going back to the start of the current narrative in mid-july. then, as i publish further monthly journals, i'll go through for each release and add data to it. yes, that's very time consuming, but it's how it has to be, unless i want to wait until the end, and i don't.

but, i skipped a concept: installation files. there weren't any for july or august, but there's a quite a few for september. this won't take long, but i will need to update more or less everything for september before i stop to eat, and then get on to posting for october when i'm done.

i mean, that's the truth of it.

running a dehumidifier = being too lazy and/or dirty to clean.

that was another long sleep. i dunno.

i got halfway through my fruit salad last night and noticed the stink was coming out of the couch. that's a gross reality, but i have to accept it as some progress - it means the smell from the sewage leak has lifted enough that i can smell the consequences of it. but, it got me gagging enough that it may have knocked me out.

i've got the couch disassembled and the fan running. i may need to go over it with some dish soap. we'll try again tonight.

the landlord mentioned that it gets "humid" down here, and seems upset that i'm not running the dehumidifier, but i think he's misunderstood the problem. wetness on it's own doesn't cause musty odours, you need the presence of bacterial growth. that is, a humid apartment is only a smelly apartment if it is also a dirty apartment, so you don't solve mustiness by eliminating humidity, that's just glossing over the problem. you have to actually clean the bacteria out of the space. and, if you have sewage seeping in, the first thing to do is put a stop to it. in fact, the dehumidifier he appears to be running upstairs may be contributing to drying out the traps; it is probably making the problem worse. not only would running a dehumidifier down here at best cover up the problem rather than solve it, it would probably actually just make it worse.

if i've cut off the primary source of bacteria entering the space, that's a good start. now, i have to figure out how to actually clean up the mess....

so, i want to get that fan off, but it's the only source of moving air in the space, and is consequently probably going to need to stay on for quite a while, until i can get the place properly cleaned.

for right now, i've just got a few more html files to add to the master document, and should be posting relatively soon.

hey, all i'm saying is that being a conservative in canada means you can have your poutine, and eat it, too.

through mouthfuls of cheesy goodness

"what's he going to do next, mr. speaker?

rig an election?"

i want polievre to bring a poutine to the house next time he wants to get up on his soapbox and display his moral superiority by yelling at the prime minister over something trivial. if he's going to be a ridiculous hypocrite, he should at least flaunt it with some flair.

what a farce.

parler, mentir, indeed.