i hope they checked the office for pretzels, though.

cocaine pretzels, specifically.

i remember one time i was having sex, and my girlfriend at the time was sitting right on top of me and leaned down to bite my nipple, causing me to reflex in such a way that my back arched, which threw her off of me rather violently. she hit her head on the nightstand, creating a nasty bruise.

she was ok. thankfully. and, i don't blame myself - i reflexed, it was involuntary.

but, if she had landed a few cms one way or the other? yeah - it could have killed her. certainly.

the husband may not be the best person to analyze the data, frankly.

you'd obviously need an autopsy to know for sure, and i understand that foul play was not suspected, but when you tell me that a woman has been found dead of head injuries in her boss' office, apparently consistent with head trauma, a seizure is not the first thing that comes to mind.

i'm not saying joe killed her. at least not on purpose.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-tweet-scarborough-1.5576546

and, what about the claim about mail-in ballots?

well, i've seen some results in primaries that don't seem quite right, to say the least. i have some strong reservations about their use and would like to see stronger paper trails attached to them.

i would not consider trump's claim to be objectively false - his concern has some merit.

and, what about the people that actually want the government to crack down on free expression?

well, those are the actual conservatives.

but, our legal system doesn't actually take these people seriously, on either side of the border. they have no mechanism on which to actually act - they would need private companies to do the deed for them. well, unless we rip up our respective constitutions...

but my basic position is clear enough - social media is central enough to public discourse at this point that it should be removed from private oversight and nationalized, so that speech over social media is constitutionally protected.

we shouldn't have private companies determining what you can or can't say, it should be up to the courts.

and, that's a left wing position, not a conservative one.

given the current legal paradigm of private property and free markets, trump has the choice to abide by the rules put in place by the owners of the social media or not; if he doesn't like the speaking rules put in place by the owner of the property, he has the right to leave the premises and speak elsewhere.

but, if he wants to try to change that, i'd actually support him.

well. let's see what he has in mind, first, before i commit to that.

this is yet another situation where i'm sort of agreeing with trump, from the far left. i've been over this before, but i'm going to summarize what i've already posted.

the issue of speech on social media is confusing for a lot of people, and conservatives are often the most confused. legally speaking, social media is considered to be private property. what that means is that the government really has no more of a right to get involved in this than it does in a private speaking event, and the social media companies have as much right to basically do what they want as the owner of a private venue does.

so, trump's claims are actually rather dubious, especially in the united states, where property is so constitutionally protected. any attempt made by this administration to regulate social media in this manner would be ripped apart by the courts.

but, as a leftist, i don't like that - i think this is an example where property rights are a bad thing, and should be abolished. as an anarchist, my opposition to private property is more or less my most fundamental axiom, and forms the starting point of almost all of my politics. what that means from where i'm standing is that i want to treat social media not as private property but as a public forum, something that the courts have already thoroughly rejected, and that liberals seems to think is reasonable.

so, we're in a situation where liberals want to support social media as private property and let the companies regulate it (and may or may not want stricter enforcement), and self-identified conservatives seem to actually agree with the socialists, who want to treat it as a public forum, which would bring in constitutional protections for freedom of speech.

do i think that twitter should place a parental discretion warning on trump's tweets? i don't, no. and, if twitter was a public forum rather than private property, they would be prohibited from doing so by the first amendment. it's the fact that it's private property that lets them do that.

and, the way out of this is to nationalize social media, which is something i've been calling for for a long time.

i hope i've clarified the actual legalities here and where i stand on them.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-social-media-twitter-fact-check-1.5586285

in fact, i'm going to call for a permanent boycott on any company that is refusing service to people based on whether they wear a mask or not.

doug ford has no legal background and is completely fucking wrong in every way. as usual.

if this were to show up in a court, it would be a clear issue of discrimination, and the business would be forced to pay a fine. and, that is the correct ruling under any concept of human rights law.

that said, if i show up at a grocery store and they tell me i can't come in unless i wear a mask, i'd be just as happy to take my business elsewhere. permanently.

https://www.inbrampton.com/no-mask-no-service-businesses-have-the-right-to-require-masks-on-customers

so, i told you months ago that i couldn't support bernie anymore because he was a sellout. basically.

are you admitting i was right, yet?

i'm halfway done the final cross-reference, if measured chronologically. however, it's closer to being two thirds of the way done, if measured in terms of amount of content - more than that, really, because a lot of the posts left are very lengthy, and the remaining process is about running the 'compare' program in notepad++.

i might get this finished by noon.

right now, i'm stopping to eat.