i am republishing everything temporarily in order to use mirroring software to pull it down. i expect this post to be taken down within 24-48 hours. i would request you refrain from unwanted moderation in that time frame, so i can take my site down from here and upload somewhere that cares more about speech rights and less about conservative value systems.
friday, july 1, 2022
the angle on turkey's position regarding the finns (primarily) is characteristically incoherent. after spending the better part of the last five years trying to find a way to buy f-35s, and being told that turkey cannot purchase these weapons, we're now supposed to believe that buying f-16s is some kind of reward. if erdogan has indeed agreed to purchase f-16s from the united states, that would be a punishment and not a reward.
the turks currently have roughly 250 f-16s. that's not a typo: today, in anatolia, exist roughly 250 broadly obsolete f16s that the turks have been trying to upgrade for years. they hardly want more f16s. if they bought them, it's because the americans forced them to buy them as a show of subservience - like a form of tribute, really; in punishment of ankara's disrespect for washington on this file, they have been ordered to send to lockheed martin the tribute of the cost of x obsolete f16s.
if you look at the text of the agreement, it's just empty language. the swedes will be unlikely to implement any of these points substantively, and will be unlikely to suffer any consequences for it.
so, what happened appears to be that biden smacked erdogan over the head with his giant cock and told him to shut the fuck up, and erdogan essentially did what he was told - for now, in front of the cameras.
such empty displays of primate dominance do nothing to resolve the issues on the ground, or solve any of the legitimate concerns the turks have about being marginalized. if anything, such treatment is likely to backfire.
the first thing erdogan did when he got home was ban voice of america. that would suggest he's concerned about the americans trying to overthrow him. and, the headlines are about the pkk joining the opposition.
erdogan is still standing because his position is relatively secure. optics at the nato summit aside, if this becomes a war of attrition, it just leads into the general imminent demise of the turkish state.
so, did erdogan relent because the americans sold him f16s? that's what the headlines say; any knowledgeable observer would need to laugh.
0:04
i actually think that ground beef should be packaged with labels similar to those put on cigarettes.
nice to see the hacks and losers at health canada cave to industry, though. again.
8:45
i wouldn't concern yourself with government-enforced stickers on your food, and the exemption for ground meat - which is without question one of the most unhealthy things you could possibly eat and should be consumed in extremely limited quantities, if at all - is evidence of the kind of corruption that is unavoidable in any government-directed process around any sort of health decisions.
if there's one thing in the whole grocery store that should have a warning label on it, it is ground beef - and the industry just cut a check to get an exemption, and it worked. that sets a precedent: if you want to avoid the label, you just have to pay for it. so, what you end up with is a "sticker tax" by a corrupt government body that big manufacturers can pay and small manufacturers cannot pay. and, big agriculture will realize this and use it as a way to price smaller companies out of the market.
the last entity you should be consulting for information about your diet is the state.
8:58
if there was a no-exemption policy across the board and the government wasn't driven by economic concerns due to anarchy in production (if we had a properly planned economy that put the health of humans ahead of profits for food companies), then there might be some value in these kinds of evidence-less assertions plastered on products as negative advertising. that's how you should actually look at this - it's just another ad, and it's just as meaningless as any other ad. the value of the back-of-product labelling is that it lets consumers look at actual data and make their own decisions, it doesn't tell them to rely on a nanny-state deduction and just take the word of corrupt industry lobbyists. at the very least, the sticker should tell consumers to consult the label for more information.
but, what the decision to exempt the worst offender on the shelf does is demonstrate that the regulating body will pick and choose which items to put the stickers on based on economic, rather than on health considerations, and that the system consequently has little value in helping uninformed consumers make better choices. if the worst offenders can simply pay their way out of it, the warnings don't actually mean anything, and it just becomes a punitive measure placed on small businesses without the financial leverage to lobby their way out of it. i would expect to soon find identical products placed beside each other with and without warning labels based on who got to pay their way out of it, and far more healthy products with labels placed beside far less healthy products without labels, based on which lobbyist group got to the state and which didn't.
as one example, it is the case that ice cream will have a label and yogurt will not (strictly because it is "exempt"). much of the yogurt you buy in the store is just candy; ice cream, on the other hand, can be a good source of nutrients (including fat) in an otherwise mostly vegetarian diet. the science simply wouldn't support the idea of labelling ice cream one way and labelling yogurt the other way; this is an ignorant assertion, based on arbitrary perceptions of one as "healthy" and the other one as "unhealthy", and what a labelling system of this sort should actually be trying to correct, but this labelling mistake is exactly what is about to happen, by absurd government mandate. in the example of ice cream v yogurt, the labels are consequently doing the opposite of what a label should do: they are replacing data and evidence (still on the back of the item, for consumers to consult independently - which is what they should continue to do) with an unscientific decree, based on an arbitrary and entirely unsupportable opinion. if ice cream is decided to be unhealthy and not worthy of an exemption, then yogurt certainly should be declared unhealthy and unworthy of an exemption, too.
the stated goal of health canada to try to eliminate products with more than a certain level of saturated fat is also not a desirable goal for all consumers. i understand that many people eat too much saturated fat. but, there are people out there that don't eat much saturated fat at all and actually need to watch their diet - which is composed largely of fresh produce - to ensure that they're getting enough fat. i need items on the market that have more than 30% of the saturated fat content (i mostly use dairy for this), or i'll struggle to find ways to get enough. if manufacturers reduce the amount of fat in their products, i'm either going to have to increase my intake of the items that i eat at reduced fat levels (which is going to increase my total calorie intake, which is worse), or i'm going to be forced to make less healthy decisions (like eating more meat) in order to get enough fat. this might benefit industry, but it will not benefit my health and it will not benefit my finances. in fact, i will almost certainly not actually make that decision - i will instead find myself with a fat-deficient diet and end up dealing with health related concerns from it because, in a misguided attempt to make better decisions on behalf of hopelessly stupid people that are incapable of doing it for themselves, the government has made it impossible to get access to a healthy amount of fat in an acceptable (perhaps morally acceptable) delivery mechanism. if the braindead stepford wives in the government get their way, i might have to go buy saturated fat supplements at the health food store. i already have to buy vitamin d supplements, because they reduced fortification levels. i should not suffer from a reduced ability to make good choices because of the surplus of stupid people that are unable to make intelligent decisions for themselves. this is just another instance of the catering-to-the-lowest-common-denominator mentality that has been normalized and systematized within justin trudeau's government, probably because they are low information individuals that represent the lowest common denominator, themselves.
the focus on the regulating bodies should be to increase exercise levels, not to reduce fat consumption. the fundamental problem is less that we overeat and more that we're horribly lazy. they should ban television, instead.
so, it's going to vary, but some brands of ice cream are actually going to be more healthy than some brands of yogurt and there are going to be some people that use ice cream as a source of fat because they don't eat meat or processed foods, in general. ice cream will have a label and yogurt will not, despite the science being pretty clear: ice cream and yogurt are functionally almost exactly the same thing. if the government succeeds, i will lose access to a healthy source of fat in my diet, and obese people will continue to eat and consume equally unhealthy, and in many cases even less healthy, yogurt products, which will continue to make them fat and continue to sap public resources. it's the most retarded policy proposal you could draw up, if you tried.
i would call on health canada to implement a no exemptions policy, or not bother with the labelling at all. the government is capable of legislating a blanket statement on all food, but it is not a competent enough or a reliable enough (or honest enough.) entity to try to work things out modularly in the presence of a profit motive, and if it tries to it should simply be ignored.
9:37
i actually don't expect that it will make much of a difference, at all.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2014/07/lack-of-exercise--not-diet--linked-to-rise-in-obesity--stanford-.html
if people are too lazy to check the back of the label, they're likely too lazy to check the front of it, too.
9:38
we're fat because we're lazy.
9:44
and, can we get the public health authorities to stop obsessing over a common cold virus that only kills useless old people and instead focus on mass vaccinating against small pox, which might actually lead to an epidemic that could seriously harm useful people?
we should be dropping all covid restrictions and introducing mandatory smallpox vaccinations immediately.
11:29
there should also really be a protein warning sticker, as your body does not need much protein and high protein diets are not healthy. for many obese people, the high protein content of their diet is as much of a problem as anything else, as almost all of that protein gets stored as fat and it's that fat that is the hardest to get rid of.
11:40
"but, protein gets stored as muscle!"
no.
you ditz...
protein gets stored as fat. you have to create muscle with exercise, if you want it.
inactive, sedentary people with high protein diets are going to gain massive amounts of weight, very fast.
11:49
the idea behind a high protein diet is supposed to be that it makes you less hungry. i don't even think this is right, but what some people may experience is something like this:
1) eating more protein makes them less hungry
2) so, they eat less
3) they lose weight because they eat less
so, it's a kind of a trick being played on your brain (which burns sugar, remember. you need carbs for your brain to work, if nothing else. maybe that's why jocks are so retarded.).
but, what then happens is that the meat consumption catches up. pro-protein apologists may make excuses for their bad science by arguing that the people that see weight gain after adopting a high protein diet are not being ascetic enough in their rejection of sugar (and i actually strongly agree with asceticism more broadly, so don't interpret that as a critique), and are simply cheating. well, what kind of argument did you expect from such lowlifes? their theory is flawless, you're just not doing it right, obviously. you don't need to bring in these kinds of conspiracy theories, so much as you just need to recognize that your body is undergoing a rate shift and that, in the end, if you keep consuming high amounts of protein, that will get stored as fat the same way that excess carbs do.
eating a high protein diet doesn't come with some kind of difference in body chemistry or metabolism or digestion. protein isn't some superfuel that stops your body from storing fat - it is stored as fat, like everything else. the theory is just that it's supposed to make you less hungry, and therefore make you eat less. so, you just lose weight due to starvation from increased satiety, if you do. in the meantime, you could very well be undergoing organ damage, including brain damage, due to a lack of glucose - but you'll feel full and lose weight, if you do it right. evolution would not think you're doing this right, though.
an obese person that is just eating too much and isn't really reacting to hunger is actually going to find that protein builds fat considerably faster than carbs, because it's a less efficient source of glucose to run the various bodily things. fatty mcfatface actually burns a fair amount of sugar from his pepsi & fries sitting at home and watching oprah; the protein in the burgers, on the other hand, will just build right up.
the key thing is to realize that the theory - however silly - is that you're supposed to lose weight on a high protein diet because it makes you less hungry, and not because it's different than other foods or because it doesn't store as fat, or something. to the contrary: it more readily stores as fat, in excess.
12:53
i mean, you realize that the reason you're fat is that you're eating too much in the first place, right?
if you just eat too much meat instead, the result is that you'll still be fat. sorry.
12:54
so, if you're going to put fat and sugar warnings on food, you should put protein warnings on it, too.
12:55
be a winner!
eat to get slimmer!
13:00
saturday, july 2, 2022
i actually don't think teachers deserve any sort of raise at all - i think they're overpaid, as it is. the nature of the work they do is really not very important and their salary should better reflect their lack of importance.
they should be paid roughly at the same rate that we pay babysitters, which is in the $20-25/hr range. that's roughly 45K/yr - a fair, living wage that properly values the limited importance that teachers have in society, which is not much. teachers should not own fancy houses in the suburbs, they should rent modest, affordable housing close to the place that they teach.
the curricula of the future should put a greater focus on independent learning and a lessened focus on teaching instruction; the primary purpose of an enlightened education system should be to teach kids how to think for themselves, not to train them to defer to expertise or authority. surplus funding should be spent on supplies to make independent learning more accessible, not on salaries for already overpaid teachers.
further, all extracurricular activities should be removed from the schools, as they are just a waste of public money. if kids want to play sports or whatever other waste of time, they should do it at their parents' expense and on their own time. there should be no place in schools for extracurricular activities.
2:18
the idea of a teacher's union - which is why teachers get paid 2-3x times what they're worth - is in truth a sort of a contradiction in socialism, and it's one that a lot of people don't really want to address. the contradiction really applies to all public sector unions, which are broadly the only kind of unions that still exist in this society at all. if you look at how public sector unions actually vote, it should be apparent enough that these are deeply reformist groups that prop up the status quo rather than challenge it. teachers may vote liberal in large numbers, but they're also a fundamental barrier to socialism, as they couldn't live the way they do in a socialist economy - it would be a ridiculously inefficient allocation of resources. teachers would be one of the first things on the chopping block in a real socialist economy, and that would be a welcome change, in my view.
the idea of collective bargaining is supposed to be to socialize profits. if you have a paperclip factory, what is the role of management? all it does is steal profits from workers and live off of them, it's a completely useless bourgeois layer that should be abolished. so, socialism argues that you should get rid of management and let the workers run the paperclip factory themselves, so they can distribute the profits equitably amongst themselves rather than have it stolen by their bosses.
but, there are no profits to be redistributed in the public sector. rather, the public sector is like a management class, even when they behave like workers. to pay teachers' salaries, workers must be taxed. so, what does a teacher's union really do besides just act as a tool of intimidation? it's not socializing anything, it's really just standing in the way of it. they're just a bunch of mafia hooligans demanding they get a bigger cut, or else. carefully thinking socialists really shouldn't be in support of such things.
fake left bourgeois liberals are never going to step away from teachers as a source of votes and of funding, as it would happen to be, via tax dollars stolen from workers. the left should wake up about it, though - teachers are not allies of socialism, they're barriers to it.
2:23
to clarify a point: i am not "spiritual", nor am i "agnostic". you will find very few people with less patience for spirituality than i have.
i am not one of these types that claims they're "not religious, but spiritual". i am not religious. i am not spiritual. i reject all forms of superstition, and i reject all forms of tradition.
the only valid way to understand the world is through science - all other ways to interpret the world are invalid and inferior and should be discarded as such.
i am an atheist that has no doubt whatsoever in the non-existence of any sort of supernatural being or force, of any definition.
11:25
this month's numbers remain weird, to the point that i think they're open to interpretation.
you'll note i've changed the reference ranges for the cbc numbers. i was simply using the ranges provided for by the lab, and initially was concerned about it, and was then mentally adjusting when i realized it's not the right way to measure it. it's really pretty clear at this point that i should be using female reference ranges, so i'm just going to hard code it.
to be clear: i should have been using these female reference ranges all along. this change in the chart reflects something i've learned doing this. it's not helpful to flag a hemoglobin count that sits in the normal female reference range; that's not going to change, and i don't have any reason to want it to.
| 2021 | 2022 | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| m | a | m | j | j | a | s | o | n | d | j | f | m | a | m | j | j | a | s | o | n | d | |
| cholesterol | 3.93 | - | - | - | 3.99 | 3.8 | 4.15 | 4.01/3.83 | 4.14/4.02 | 4.14/3.67 | 3.54/3.8 | 3.78/3.68 | 3.42 | 3.6 | ||||||||
| triglycerides | .87 | - | - | - | .95 | .89 | 1.41 | 1.05/0.94 | 1.09/1.32 | 1.86/0.73 | 2.26/0.75 | 0.69/1.02 | 0.42 | 0.82 | ||||||||
| hdl | 1.69 | - | - | - | 1.84 | 1.59 | 1.73 | 1.42/1.55 | 1.37/1.42 | 1.51/1.74 | 1.75/1.72 | 1.74/1.69 | 1.55 | 1.58 | ||||||||
| ldl | 1.85 | - | - | - | 1.72 | 1.81 | 1.78 | 2.11/1.85 | 2.28/2.00 | 1.79/1.6 | <0.8/1.75 | 1.73/1.52 | 1.68 | 1.65 | ||||||||
| non-hdl | 2.24 | - | - | - | 2.15 | 2.21 | 2.42 | 2.59/2.28 | 2.77/2.60 | 2.63/1.93 | 1.79/2.09 | 2.04/1.99 | 1.87 | 2.02 | ||||||||
| wbc | 8.7/8.4 | 9.9/9.0 | - | - | ? | 7.0 | 7.6 | 6.9/6.9 | 7.8 | 11.3/8.2 | 6.7/6.4 | 7.4/7.1 | 5.3 | 6.4 | 9.5/7.0 | |||||||
| rbc 4: yellow 4.2: normal | 3.97/4.25 | 4.11/4.38 | - | - | 4.17 | 4.12 | 4.33 | 4.47/4.2 | 4.28 | 4.55/4.19 | 4.3/4.22 | 4.42/4.26 | 4.4 | 4.13 | 4.26/4.31 | |||||||
| hemoglobin 120: normal | 132/140 | 133/142 | - | - | 139 | 136 | 141 | 138/138 | 139 | 144/131 | 141/133 | 140/136 | 145 | 132 | 135/139 | |||||||
| hematocrit normal: 0.36 | .382/.404 | .394/.424 | - | - | .405 | .398 | .418 | .417/.402 | .405 | 0.431/0.393 | .409/.396 | .417/.404 | .412 | .392 | .407/.408 | |||||||
| mcv normal: 100 | 96.1/95.1 | 95.8/97.0 | - | - | 97 | 96.8 | 96.6 | 93/95.7 | 94.6 | 94.7/94 | 95/94 | 94/95 | 93.7 | 95 | 95.5/94.8 | |||||||
| mch | 33.1/32.9 | 32.4/32.5 | - | - | 33.3 | 33.2 | 32.7 | 30.9/32.8 | 32.5 | 31.8/31.3 | 32.7/31.5 | 31.7/32 | 32.9 | 32.0 | 31.7/32.2 | |||||||
| mchc | 345/346 | 338/335 | - | - | ? | 343 | 338 | 331/343 | 344 | 335/333 | 344/336 | 336/337 | 352 | 337 | 332/339 | |||||||
| rdw | 13.3/13.5 | 13.0/13.1 | - | - | ? | 13 | 12.3 | 11.7/12.9 | 12.6 | 13.4/12.0 | 13.2/11.7 | 11.7/13 | 12.8 | 11.9 | 12.8/13.2 | |||||||
| platelet | 199/187 | 171/171 | - | - | ? | 175 | 167 | 168/150 | 155 | 188/185 | 159/184 | 187/175 | 166 | 181 | 176/173 | |||||||
| reticulocytes | - | -/42 | - | - | 53 | 56 | 46 | 35 | 33 | 33 | 39 | 41 | 43 | 49 | 58/55 | |||||||
| vitamin d | 87 | - | - | - | 109 | 72 | 64 | 72/83 | 78 | 64/71 | 61/74 | 74/80 | 102 | 77 | 111 | |||||||
| estradiol | 363/388 | - | - | - | - | 563 | 443 | 432 | 777 | 343 | 578 | 416 | 307 | 691 | 380 | |||||||
| testosterone | 0.9 | - | - | - | - | - | <0.4 | <0.4 | <0.4 | <0.4 | <0.4 | <0.4 | 1.4 | <0.4 | <0.4 | |||||||
| progesterone | 1.9 | - | - | - | - | - | <0.5 | 0.7 | 0.5 | 0.9 | <0.5 | 3.7 | 62.5 | 21 | 24.4 | |||||||
| fsh | <0.2 | - | - | - | - | - | 0.2 | 0.1 | <0.1 | - | <0.1 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.2 | |||||||
| lh | <0.2 | - | - | - | - | - | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | - | 0.1 | <0.1 | <0.2 | 0.1 | <0.2 | |||||||
| ferritin | 12/9 | 6/17 | 21 | - | 29 | 43 | 28 | 40 | 42 | 59 | 33 | 28 | 59 | 64 | 48 | |||||||
| tibc | - | 69.5 | - | - | 65.7 | 62.9 | 64.7 | 58.9 | 58.2 | 63.2 | 57.4 | 58.7 | 57.9 | 53.2 | 63.9 | |||||||
| iron | - | 9.6 | - | - | 22.7 | 37.3 | 19.3 | 28.3 | 37.3 | 32.5 | 13.1 | 14.8 | 28.2 | 17.2 | 45.5 | |||||||
| iron sat | - | 0.14 | - | - | 0.35 | 0.59 | 0.3 | .48 | 0.64 | 0.51 | 0.23 | 0.25 | 0.49 | 0.32 | 0.71 | |||||||
| transferrin | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2.59 | 2.29 | 2.38 | 2.49 | 2.31 | 2.39 | 2.42 | ? | ||||||||
| pth | - | - | - | 5.5 | - | 6.2 | 5.9 | 6.2 | 5.5 | 8.0 | 6.3 | 5.7 | 6.9 | 6.4 | 4.7 | |||||||
| tsh | 0.92 | - | - | - | - | 0.94 | 1.22 | 1.67 | 1.48 | 1.07 | 1.39 | 0.97 | 1.26 | 0.92 | 1.05 | |||||||
| calcitonin | - | - | - | <0.6 | - | - | - | - | 0.6 | - | 0.8 | - | 0.7 | 0.6 | ||||||||
| alp | 61 | - | - | 63 | 59 | 50 | 60 | 59 /55 | 47 | 50 | 60 | 58 | 55 | 67 | 47 | |||||||
so, the good news is that i finally got the pth down. is it mostly just the sunlight? i don't have enough results from last year, but i'd guess that, probably, yeah. the increase in d is certainly from the sun, but keep in mind that it's a random reading. the reason i'm taking d pills is to get my pth down (my d was never low enough to justify taking d, otherwise), so i'm going to stick with it and hope it works. what range do i want? i don't know, i just know i want to get it down and keep it down.
i got a little behind on my pills last week, so a slightly lower hormone reading isn't unexpected. i'm just about caught back up, now.
but, what about the iron?
i don't know. my immediate feeling is that it's hemolysis, but i want to look into it.
20:22
the high serum iron is definitely concerning, and i think moreso than the decrease in ferritin.
as mentioned, i had some sunburns this month, and i may have also lost a little more blood than usual. i also had that taken not long after a teeth cleaning, and the hygienist was definitely cleaning blood off of the instruments. i must admit that this is a disappointment, and i accept that the idea of having it go down from 65 to 48 due to blood loss is a stretch, but, after some thought, i've decided not to react to the decrease in ferritin unless it occurs two months in a row. i'm going to approach this as a temporary setback.
i'm very disappointed, but i'm clearly dealing with a serious iron deficiency and have to accept it's going to take a while to correct.
i picked up another fit test on thursday and will return it soon. i will also get another cea test soon. but, this still doesn't strike me as consistent with any sort of cancer, or at least any sort of gastrointestinal cancer.
what i want to know is this: how likely is it that the high serum iron is a result of just taking too much iron? that sounds like the obvious answer, but i want to actually think it's probably wrong because i should be regulating it properly. that iron should be in my liver, not in my blood. my ferritin shouldn't be decreasing, either.
my estrogen on this reading was a little lower than i'd like it to have been. when i say i got behind on my pills, what i mean is that i went a little longer than i'd like, and in fact a few times. technically, it means i missed some applications, but what i do when that happens is that i catch up on it. while i make a very real effort to take the pills every 12 hours, i'm also trying to make sure i take it with food and not take it with coffee. when i do this right, it works, but i may find myself nursing a coffee longer than expected or going longer than 12 hours between meals. if you go 15 or 18 hours a few times in a row, it adds up, and you find yourself a little behind. what i do when that happens is try to take them at decreased intervals - every 8 or even 6 hours - until i catch back up. this can actually result in a higher estrogen level if i don't have to catch up too much. in this case, i actually must have let the estrogen get too low before catching back up. right now, it's 3:00 am on sunday morning and my next application will be dated to saturday evening. my last application was at about 19:00 on saturday night and was the application for saturday morning. so, i'm only just catching back up, now, 2.5 days after the test.
how reasonable is this? well, i can't reverse time - i missed an application and need to catch up. i think it makes more sense to stagger it than double up, considering i'm taking such high dosages. in practice, though, i think it depends. before i had my testicles out, i think it was eminently important to maintain constant testosterone suppression, and less important to maintain constant estrogen and progesterone. i mean, biological women have a cycle - i don't. my estrogen and progesterone is constant, or at least is supposed to be constant. if i miss a dose or two, i'm sort of emulating a normal female cycle, rather than enforcing the post-menopausal hrt reality i'm normally on. so, i want to keep constant, perpetual levels of estrogen above 500, but the truth is that some fluctuation is pretty normal for most women, which is a topic i'll otherwise sidestep.
the bottom line is that all i can do is catch up if i miss a few doses.
in the context of the iron reading, what missing a few doses of estrogen means is the following:
1) a decrease in estrogen should have triggered an increase in hepcidin, which should have decreased iron absorption. that might be the answer to the lowered ferritin.
2) it also means that i ate a little less in the week before the test, so i ingested a pill or two less.
i know that i need to be taking pills to keep my ferritin up; what i don't know is why. if i take less iron, my ferritin goes down. this is very extreme, but it is likely that simple. i still need to understand why.
i did not get a chance to talk to the specialist about hepcidin, and will need to do so when i talk to her, next.
but, if i ask the question "what changed?" between the two readings, we have three answers:
1) because i missed a few doses and had to catch up, my estrogen went down
2) i got a lot more exercise in hot weather in june than i did in april or may
3) the sunburns, and some mild blood loss from shaving and dental work
if i'm correct - and i accept that this is quite novel, but i'm an unusual test case, in terms of hormones. - then it really hammers the point across: i need to keep my estrogen up, or i'm going to run out of iron. i have perhaps created this problem for myself, but it is what is, and i want my estrogen high, anyways.
the next thing to take note of is that, because i was catching up, i increased my frequency of estrogen consumption in the 24 hours leading up to the blood test. so, while my serum estrogen might have been a little lower than desired, it also likely came up quite a bit. it is well understood that oral contraceptives can increase serum iron, although this would no doubt be a rather extreme example of this phenomenon.
so, these results are a little bit freaky, but it may be as simple as that i missed some estrogen applications and that i'm visually seeing the result of what has become somewhat of an estrogen dependency. the ferritin might have come down as a result of missing a few doses, and the serum iron might have rebounded dramatically as a result of catching up on those doses. if these extreme swings are due entirely to what was in truth an accident (i did not plan to miss estrogen doses), it may go a long ways to explaining what i'm dealing with.
i will need to ask the specialist.
i should also get ultrasound results when i speak to my doctor on monday, regarding the potentiality of hemolysis.
but, let me sort through this: how likely is it, really, that serum iron might spike to such a high level as a result of taking pills, strictly?
3:14
while i'm focusing on estrogen fluctuation, and think that the evidence in front of me suggests that it is the causal factor, i should also point out that testosterone is certainly a factor in hepcidin expression in genetic men. however, the only studies i have been able to find are about testosterone supplementation suppressing hepcidin. logic would suggest that reducing or nearly eliminating testosterone production would have the effect of a high hepcidin expression.
however, in the context my own body chemistry, testosterone expression would not be of any biological relevance in understanding hepcidin expression for the purposes of iron absorption. i have had no discernible testosterone in my system for well over twenty years. if anything, i was struggling with unwanted increasing testosterone in the lead up to this, which is why i had my testicles removed. on top of that, i think it's likely that i always had low testosterone, to begin with.
what is fluctuating is not my testosterone levels, which have remained low, but my estrogen levels, and that would really be expected to modify my hepcidin expression. if the near total absence of any testosterone in my system is remotely relevant, in context, it's merely in pointing out the importance of maintaining sufficient estrogen levels, in the permanent absence of any measurable testosterone production, post-orchiectomy.
3:50
i mean, i just watched my ferritin shoot up from almost 0 to 65 over the course of less than two years, in the presence of varying dosages, and i had trace testosterone the whole time. i can clearly absorb and regulate iron in the absence of testosterone. but, the fluctuations in estrogen - which are what are meaningful in my individual chemistry, which is nearly void of testosterone and will be for the rest of my life - appear to be dominant in whether it's effective or not.
if there's a warning here, it's that you need to be ready for what you signed up for: if you want to be a female, you need to be ready to deal with an estrogen-dependent iron metabolism, and prepare for the kind of iron deficiencies that all women have to deal with.
i don't think i'm bleeding. but, i'm essentially dealing with the same kind of metabolic processes that i would be if i were.
3:55
i may be pushing the oncologist on this, but i've already spoken to an endocrinologist and he wasn't of much help.
if i'm right - and i need a hepcidin test to establish it - i'm really in uncharted territory, here. there is going to be little science to reference. rather, i'm going to be the test subject required to write the science.
i really think i just need to make sure i keep my estrogen up - and that it's really imperative that i do.
3:57
i suspect that what i've done is put myself in a situation where i need to regulate my iron the way a diabetic needs to regulate their blood sugar, because i've undone my natural regulatory measures.
to answer the question: i think it's possible that i'm nearly poisoning myself with too much iron, but it shouldn't happen unless i take too much estrogen too frequently.
so, i need to be careful with the estrogen - i need to make sure i'm getting enough to avoid the ferritin from falling, especially while i'm on iron pills, which could be for a long time, but i also need to make sure i don't take too much estrogen too fast, which could spike the iron to dangerous levels. that probably wasn't as much of a concern when i wasn't on iron pills and probably won't be if i stop taking iron pills.
for right now, i'm reasonably very apprehensive about taking any more iron. my last iron pill was wednesday night, and i'll be due to take another today, after i have eggs. i'm not going to.
i'm going to ask for a weekly iron test on top of the monthly standing order for a while to see if it's safe to take the iron or not.
for reference: technical iron poisoning begins at 63 umol/l. i came in at 45.5 umol/l, less than 24 hours after a dose, and after eating little besides a bit of fruit afterwards. so, i suspect that the 45.5 was not a spike, and i may have come close to an overdose.
i mentioned some stomach aches, and i think it had to do with the weather, but i may have been experiencing the early symptoms of iron overdose.
so, i want to get this tested before i take any more iron pills and i want to keep a very close eye on it for a while.
4:36
also worth pointing out is that i may have experienced some bleeding from iron overdose.
4:43
(i have seen no signs of bleeding...)
4:44
and, what about hemolysis - which is the other, not at all unlikely option?
i've experienced chills in this space repeatedly over the last two weeks, which i've blamed on the air conditioning. this has been the major actual symptom i've had, and it's relatively longstanding. i can definitely recall shivering in the previous basement in windsor as far back as 2015ish, and it's something i think i've dealt with periodically for many years, but it really is very closely connected with the a/c.
i wish i had done a haptoglobin test....
as it is, i will get ultrasound results soon and it should really clarify any potential issues with my spleen.
5:25
i'm also going to halve my nutritional yeast intake.
the last b12 reading was 499 pmol/l, which is getting a little bit high. apparently, an obscure cause of iron overload is b12 "overdose".
i was always under the impression that b12 was water soluble, not stored and therefore something humans could not overdose on, but that actually appears to be wrong - a fair amount of b12 is stored in the liver and hypercobalaminemia is actually possible.
so, i'm going back to 1 tsp of nutritional yeast rather than 2.
5:33
....or it could all just be because i had a sunburn.
so,
1) i can't react to this low ferritin reading because of the high saturated iron. i need to address that, first.
2) the ultrasound results should help me understand the likelihood of hemolysis v secondary iron overload
3) while it may result in decreased ferritin in the short run, i will need to wait until i can test for lower serum iron before i take any more iron pills. i also want to test again for haptoglobin.
4) i'm getting too many b vitamins and am going to halve it.
5) i need to stabilize my estrogen levels and avoid fluctuations. i want to do that, regardless.
so, i guess the broader reading from this month's tests is that i'm overdoing it on everything - too much b12, too much iron absorption (after too little), too much estrogen (after too little) - and need to tone it down, broadly.
6:44
i am not g6pd deficient, either.
rs1050828: C C
rs5030868: C C
the risk alleles on either of these are A.
my mother appears to have some jewish ancestry, but i don't appear to have inherited this on my x chromosome.
7:08
i don't oppose this. if the actual driver at this point is industry pressure on government to move vaccine units, it will at least speed up the process.
i would not expect that a 4th shot would have much of an effect against newer variants, given that the science was pretty clear that a 3rd shot wasn't helpful against omicron - and that is despite misinformation being presented by the health authorities. this idea of "severe illness" is difficult to properly define in a disease with an exceedingly low complication rate, to begin with. i've posted a lot of criticism of these studies here, and am rather convinced that 3rd shot status - if anything at all - is merely a proxy variable for better general health decisions.
but, a 4th shot could not harm those that are desperate for anything to protect them, and there are some people that are legitimately exactly that. it would appear that they're going to have a long wait for a new vaccine formulation. as these vaccines are otherwise useless, they should just be given to whoever wants them - and if for no other reason than to relieve industry pressure on government to get the shots released, so we can move on.
reference:
"doctors urge ontario to open 4th doses of covid-19 vaccine to all adults", cbc news, july 3, 2022
10:07
vaccines don't "lose effectiveness". that's ridiculous.
but, the virus is mutating very quickly, and these vaccines are not designed to respond to ever-building mutations so much as they're designed to lock into a slowly mutating virus. the technology they're using would be better suited to something like smallpox, which mutates slowly, while covid vaccines should have used whole virions, the old-fashioned way.
it makes no sense at all to leave these vaccines in the freezer; they need to be used up or thrown away. so, let people at them, if they want them, and let the health authorities move on to more pressing concerns.
10:15
the faster we get rid of the vaccines, the faster this madness ends.
10:17
so, it looks like the russians are nearing a completion of their stated objectives. with the potential exceptions of the cities of odessa and kharkov, both of which appear to be under occupation by these same nazi battalions that are giving the russians an acceptable excuse to bomb them, there are not many further regions that they have any legitimate claims to. so, they should be starting to wrap things up, now.
that opens the awkward question of "what next?".
it would help the ukrainian position if it would refrain from launching strikes. if ukraine decides it wants to keep fighting after the russians accomplish their goals, the russians might very well take them up on it. that's really not helpful to anybody.
the russians will set up representative governments in the areas it has taken. if the ukrainians are convinced that they command popular support in these areas, let them co-opt the sitting governments, then. ukraine may stand little chance of winning, but a general strike in odessa would cause the russians severe headaches.
there is a window opening up, and it is now up to the ukrainians to make the choice to end the conflict. they've been stupid so far, but they can wise up and try to cut their losses.
if the russians keep moving, they might not be able to stop at all.
10:35
i'm imagining the host of a schoenberg listening party working the room.
"is everybody having a good time? great. morty, good to see you, you don't get out much. is cruella here? excellent! have another sip of arsenic, it'll lighten you up a little. it's loud enough, right?"
it's trash. deal with it.
18:35
biden is keenly aware that this is a massive political liability that could win the republicans back the house and make re-election impossible, and doing about the only thing he knows how to do in response: bully people into doing what he wants. he knows it could destroy him, and he knows he can't do anything about it. it's extreme desperation.
king biden decrees lower oil prices.
bezos is again correct (and he's more left-wing than biden is, too): the price of oil was increasing before the war against ukraine, and the issue is primarily dwindling global supply in the face of imminent peak oil, if it hasn't already occurred. this was something that was going to happen before ukraine, and it's something that will outlast ukraine. you don't have to be an environmentalist to understand that oil is a finite resource, and we've been squeezing the last bit of it out of the earth for decades. this price of oil is not temporary - this is permanent.
the only solution is to transition the country away from oil. but, dhimmi joe is drilling off the coast of alaska, instead - something that was previously banned by the obama administration, because it's a legitimately retarded thing to do.
if the president will not live in the modern world and will not choose to adapt, americans must look beyond him and adjust on their own. pissed of about the price of oil? get used to it - it's just going to get worse, until there's none left at all.
you will have to change.
deal with it.
23:02
the era of oil is over.
adapt or die.
23:11
monday, july 4, 2022
would removing the tariffs actually reduce prices?
probably not - not now. manufacturers would likely just pocket the costs.
but, that's not even biden's argument. his argument is that he can't lift the tariffs because it's good leverage, and he needs to make a deal. if it sounds familiar, it's because it's exactly the same logic the last guy used. in an excellent example of the warped logic of capital, after unilaterally placing punitive tariffs on china, the united states won't lift them unless it gets something for them, as it would be losing out on a potential gain, however abstractly contrived. instead, it will lock itself into a war of it's own creation.
tariffs are hard and these ones were not well-designed. while it might not help much immediately, the white house should lift them, and it should not view such an action as a victory for china in the warped logic presented by capital, but rather as a victory for themselves over impulsive stupidity in the executive branch.
8:38
this is important, because if you listen to what the bank is saying - and what economists are saying - the argument is something like "well, we know that raising interest rates doesn't actually do anything, but all those plebs out there learned these stupid linear models in school, and the fools all believe in it. so, we can trick them into thinking we're reducing inflation by increasing interest rates".
i mean, it's all a lot of bullshit - raising interest rates is what the investor class does to adjust to inflation, so it's not losing income. but, that's the line they're giving you - that this is some kind of psychological trick, and we're all ignorant enough to fall for it.
because nobody listens to the chief economist on national tv, i guess.
to get a survey come back like this tells the bank two things:
1) their pop psychology isn't working (which should really be to nobody's surprise) and
2) there's minimal to any confidence in the bank's ability to control inflation, which is a well deserved lack of faith.
i guess people aren't as stupid as the arrogant fuckers thought, huh?
reference:
"high inflation likely to stick around, consumers and businesses tell bank of canada in 2 surveys", cbc news, july 4, 2022
14:37
tuesday, july 5, 2022
this would have been a catastrophe for the turks. it seems as though biden's giant cock put an end to it, probably under israeli insistence. i mean, there's little question that they would have stepped in as a nato ally, that they would have asserted air superiority at the least, but this is also outside of their sphere of interest.
ok.
but, the russians also seem to be finally pushing back against the israelis after a long period of seemingly deciding that diplomacy was the better option. the russians have s-400 systems in syria, which i thought was going to be a major shift in the balance of power in the region, but they have bafflingly refused to use them against israeli air strikes. then again, the israelis don't hit russian targets, do they? it would seem that the russians only want to protect their own interests in syria, and while these systems are there as a deterrent to hit russian hardware, and that at least seems to be working, they are essentially telling other actors to use their own air defense systems. it's easy enough to understand why russia doesn't want a war with israel. but, there's been some warning shots fired recently that appear to be sending the message: enough.
the russians want "territorial integrity" in syria, which means that they want syria to be a country again, and for it to have defensible borders (if it ever did). of course, the russians have a military base in syria, so a stable government in damascus with clearly defined borders is in their interests. at some point, they're going to have to get pushier about asserting territorial integrity on the ground if they really want it.
0:45
so, i did a second iron test yesterday to make sure that i wasn't going to poison myself by taking more iron, and the results are truly baffling:
the serum iron went down to 35, which is still high but only barely. the ferritin went up - to 66. that's the highest i've seen it, yet.
i have not taken any iron since the last test, and have not eaten any meat. so, the answer is clear enough:
1) the serum iron was high due to strong absorption (probably brought on by more frequent estrogen consumption in the hours around taking the last pill)
2) the iron was removed from my blood and deposited in my liver
that leads me to conclude that the ferritin probably came down as a result of the temporary decrease in estrogen (due to being late on my pills a few times). so, this really does seem to be about hepcidin and iron regulation via serum estrogen levels.
there's some conclusions:
1) taking too much estrogen, like via injections, for example, could lead to iron overdose and i don't want to do that, under any scenario.
2) if i do not maintain high serum estrogen, i am going to end up anemic.
so, i'm going to take my next scheduled iron and keep building, and it means my temporary setback was just that. the slow march returns - and i'm now at 66.
11:08
so, i got sick of riding up the main street in town and dealing with all of the lights and pollution and traffic, so i've spent the last few rides out finding a round-trip through the residential spaces, back roads and bike paths:
this is a much more enjoyable ride, and is also considerably longer, but actually seems a lot faster because there's a lot less stopping. that means i'm able to get better cardio, which is of course the actual point.
this is a much more enjoyable ride, and is also considerably longer, but actually seems a lot faster because there's a lot less stopping. that means i'm able to get better cardio, which is of course the actual point.
i have to take the main road south a little from an urban park to an urban parkway along a creek that takes me from howard to walker. i then have to go south a little more to a back exit into the industrial park south of the freeway. that section of windsor is occupied by several gigantic factories that block east-west transit, so there's no way to avoid one of a couple of main roads (you can take tecumseh or go south to grand marais or go north to seminole, or all the way to wyandotte; otherwise, you're blocked by a factory. all of these are busy roads, which i don't want.), except to go all the way down to the industrial park, where there's actually a nice (if underutilized) bike path that runs all the way to jefferson. if you cross back under the highway at jefferson, the path continues through a protected area to the lauzon parkway, where it transitions into suburbia all the way to st clair beach. i can then get back on the main road, because there's a path all the way to puce, and the traffic is a lot lighter (this is a very upper class neighbourhood).
on the way back, i'll go north of the main road at st clair beach through a residential street on to a broad bike path up mcnorton, which becomes mchugh, then go through the little river corrider to little river rd, which turns into edgar, via a number of short path linkages. i have to cross the railroad tracks at jefferson; the other option is going north to wyandotte. but, i can then immediately get back on a long cross road called reginald that takes me all the way back to walker, through mostly residential spaces, and a few parks in between. then, as before, the options to get through the factories are limited, and it broadly makes sense to just take the main road the rest of the way back.
so, that's a 50+ km round trip i'm going to be doing for exercise for now on, on the nicest days, roughly once or twice a week.
23:55
wednesday, july 6, 2022
my own feeling on this is that the lack of action is tied into trudeau's neurotic obsession about undoing everything his father ever did.
i actually think the current incarnation of the federal liberal party wants to move to an americanized, for-profit, market-driven health care system and i think that for two reasons:
1) trudeau and his inner clique are legit market fundamentalists and this would be consistent with their legitimate faith in the market and
2) i think it's likely that his family sees an investment opportunity, which seems to be the factor that drives a lot of his policies.
of course, there wasn't a word of this in any election cycle and they would have no mandate at all for any such thing, but that is not important to these people.
i would strongly suggest that various stakeholders - including the media - need to be doing their due diligence in understanding the direction the federal government (under the control of the federal liberal party) intends to take on the issue of universal health care.
reference:
"premiers press trudeau to end delay on health transfer talks", globe and mail, july 5, 2022
0:38
the correct analysis is that this is of no relevance, as no law was broken, regardless.
ms. lich very well might have masterminded a plan to gridlock ottawa. so what if she did?
again: this barbarian prosecutor is applying laws that neither exist in this country nor in this culture and he needs to be viciously ripped apart and ultimately reprimanded for it. i don't know exactly what source of law this is, but it's not the criminal code of canada.
reference:
"convoy leader tamara lich discussed a strategy to ‘gridlock’ ottawa, court told", toronto star, july 5, 2022
2:28
if that is the extent of the evidence that the crown has against ms. lich, the charges should be withdrawn at once, as there is no reasonable likelihood of any sort of conviction.
2:29
the prosecutor's arguments are simply uncanadian in character.
2:34
one of the arguments that the barbarian prosecutor uses is an attempt to smear ms. lich's character by suggesting she's pragmatic, which strikes me as some kind of aristotelian islamic virtue ethics or something.
we live in a capitalist society where pragmatism is the norm, and idealists are weird people that hang out in domed structures and don't participate in society.
it really demonstrates where the prosecutor is coming from, and the kind of specious harassment that ms. lich is likely to be subjected to if this continues on any longer.
2:46
the fact is that this issue came up before the event took place and it was pre-decided that ms. lich would not be in breach of her bail conditions by attending the event. that is, the court already determined the outcome of this process, in advance of it occurring, by already deciding that the behaviour was sanctioned. for the court to reverse itself at this point would be to undermine the consistency of the court's previous decisions. stare decisis should simply be that the court already decided as much, and the issue is not up for discussion at this time. the actor disobeying the court ruling, here, is the crown, who arrested somebody for acting in a way that was already determined to not be a breach by the previous court decision.
that doesn't mean that this is what the court will determine, but it's what the court should determine. if there was a penalty for a prosecutor breaching the rule of law in this manner, it would need to be applied; as far as i know, the only penalty in the matter is likely to be a stern talking to, but there should be some consequences for a prosecutor's decision to breach the rule of law in such a flagrant manner, and waste everybody's time with such nonsense.
2:57
more broadly speaking, there really needs to be ways to introduce risk calculations into the crown's activities. right now, they can do whatever outlandish thing they want, and the judge might smack them down, but the judge won't introduce any sort of penalty. there truly is no rule of law in place - they can do whatever they want.
the crown should be subject to stricter rules in terms of how it behaves, and subject to actual penalties when it misbehaves. in a situation like this, where there is really no likelihood of success, the crown should be liable for various civil and criminal proceedings regarding issues of false imprisonment, beyond the constitutional guarantees. a crown attorney that arrests somebody on such flimsy grounds should face charges for it.
somebody will say that that will restrict the ability of the crown to act, but that's the point: the crown currently acts with total impunity, and is beyond the reach of any law in doing so. it has been legislated above the law, on the grounds that it deserves the benefit of the doubt.
the crown does not deserve the benefit of the doubt and should not be legislated above the law, it should be restrained by the same rules as any other entity in society, and held accountable when it breaches them. such is the rule of law, and such is not the status quo. this case is merely exposing the lawlessness that the crown operates within in this country.
3:31
i'm going to post this article because it's not current.
3:33
the problem with these issues when they come up, though, is that the officers and the prosecutors rarely or never suffer individual consequences.
so, you can sue the cops and win, but the cop remains in the force. it's the taxpayers that end up paying for something, while the cops and the lawyers, who should be the ones that pay, get off scot free.
again: it's a complete absence of any sort of rule of law.
3:39
so, my cea came in at 0.9, which is less than the 1.4 i had previously. that's excellent.
cea tests for a chemical emitted by tumours. all humans (all animals, really.) have cancerous cells; everybody has a few tumours. the question is whether they grow out of control or go away. a low cea doesn't necessarily mean you don't have cancer, and a high cea doesn't for sure mean you do, but chances are pretty high that a serious tumour is going to announce itself in this manner. a cea under 1.0 is very strong, if not conclusive, evidence that one does not have any sort of worrisome cancerous growths. it wouldn't help for some cancers like blood cancer, though, which is what i'm really worried about.
the fit test will come in next weekish and if it is positive will say, in conjunction with the cea result, that any colon tumours are very small and are no doubt treatable. but, i expect it to be negative.
we'll be doing this every year...
i have another appointment at the end of july, and i think we're coming up on the end of this. it is likely that my ferritin will be getting close to 75 by then, which is the point where this is no longer a concern. i'm going to keep monitoring it until it's over 100, but the situation is starting to stabilize and i should be able to manage the results on my own, now.
he might disagree with me, but i'm going to ask for a modified monthly standing order for a year with a few less items and a return to yearly checkups.
this wasn't a waste of time, but it seems like i'm actually in pristine health, minus the iron issue, which is nearing resolution.
16:29
they tell you it's the nitrates.
rrriiiiiiiight.
17:18
well, it serves those evil carnivores right, doesn't it?
those fucking horrible lionesses deserve to die of cancer.
17:29
good.
serves them right.
Lions (66.7%), jaguars (55.0%), and tigers (31.3%) had the highest species-specific prevalence of neoplasia. Neoplasms in Panthera species were more frequently malignant than in non-Panthera (86.1% vs. 55.6%). The systems most commonly affected were the reproductive, hematolymphoid, and respiratory.
17:34
if you're curious, this picture would be misleading:
this is more accurate:
18:03
something similar happened before the 2018 election in ontario, and the message is very clear: the conservative establishment does not like mr. brown. whether conservative voters do or not is another question, and he may want to consider whether it's worthwhile to start his own party, as he is clearly not welcome in the conservative party.
reference:
"brown says conservative establishment, poilievre campaign worked to oust him from leadership race", cbc news, july 6, 2022
21:21
there's a very high probability that the conservatives are going to win a federal election very soon. trudeau is himself exceedingly unpopular, but the party can't get rid of him because they don't have a better option. they're almost certainly going to lose if they run him, and are probably going to lose if they don't run him. on top of that, the clown running the ndp makes the party unelectable to a large proportion of canadians, and the ndp doesn't seem to even care, indicating that they don't have any serious intent to be competitive. it makes the outcome clear: if the conservatives don't win an imminent election (it seems like the liberals are waiting for the conservatives to get a leader, first), they'll almost surely win the one after that. so, the government is on the brink, and the only possible replacement is the conservatives.
given that truth, i would much rather see patrick brown as the leader of the opposition than pierre polievre. patrick brown is your kind of typical middle of the road establishment candidate, whereas pierre polievre is increasingly exposing himself as a dangerous demagogue.
the result of a split in the conservative party may simply be to prolong the lifespan of the trudeau government by another 12-24 months - as mentioned, it is on the brink. it won't last much longer, regardless. - but mr. brown may want to consider whether that is in the best interests of the country or not. if his choice is between supporting or not supporting polievre (he may want to frame it in those terms), he should seriously weigh his options.
i honestly don't see a lot of differences between polievre and trudeau on substantive policy issues or on personality concerns. these men are both dangerous dictators with authoritarian personality types, and neither seems to have any respect for democracy or the democratic process. they seem to have largely interchangeable economic positions (they're both market fundamentalists and both representatives of the bourgeois class) and they don't seem to have very different views on religion, even if they support different types of religion (i think all religions are basically the same, and i don't see a difference between being pro-christian and pro-muslim). they're both terrible on environmental policy. so, i don't actually think polievre would be a lot worse than trudeau, or that much substantive would change in such a shift in power.
however, if patrick brown can at least block the transfer of power, it opens up the opportunity to allow some other actor the ability to make a run at it, and that would be the preferable outcome, here. if the option is shit or shittier, any process that provides for some alternative - any alternative - ought to be welcomed, even if it just slows the shit show down.
mr. brown has now been removed from two leadership processes that he had good chances of winning, in both cases by corrupt political opponents. he should have no illusions as to whether he is wanted in the contemporary conservative party (a party that is the descendent of the social credit / reform movement, and is not an old tory party), and should take the hint and start his own party, instead.
if this is the result of merger with the reform party, tories everywhere should question the outcome and whether it is in their interests to work with the reform party or not.
22:13
regardless of the outcome of this process, mr. polievre is the end of something and not the start of it.
ten years from now, canadian conservatism will be represented by the descendants of mr. brown, and not by the descendants of mr. polievre.
22:27
ms. freeland has a mandate from her bosses to reduce spending as we transition to austerity, and one should not forget that while the conservatives might increase government handouts to the upper middle class, they will do it on the backs of budget cuts to those that are actually vulnerable, to reward the greed of rich people complaining about the cost of filling up their brand new suvs. the conservatives will always jump at an opportunity to redistribute wealth from the poor (who do not vote for therm) to the rich (who do). so, the statements from the conservatives are as disingenuous as ms. freeland's concerns about the environment are.
but, through whatever coincidence, the government is holding to the right policy here and should stick with it.
the only thing that will reduce inflation is to take the price of oil - which is going to remain high for a very long time - out of the equation, whatever the equation is. if it's your home heating, find another fuel. if you're a manufacturer, find another energy source. if you're buying food, look for less carbon-intensive choices. and, if you're driving from a to b, find another energy carrier.
that is the hard truth, and promises of free candy from slimy politicians cannot undo it - you will need to pay for carbon if you want to use it.
reference:
"surging energy prices harmful to families, should drive green transition: freeland", ctv news, july 6, 2022
22:45
it is now against the law in canada to deny that the holocaust happened.
for that reason explicitly, i would like to announce in this public communication that i completely deny that the holocaust ever happened. it's a total myth. and, i believe that, too - truly.
i will defend that view in court, should i be asked to.
23:11
it's hard to get good information about this.
my understanding is that the city - like many regions on the frontline - is currently being occupied by nazi paramilitaries (and nazi is the correct term to use) that are broadly unrepresentative of ukranian popular opinion and that many of these regions have very longstanding russian identities and very substantive russian sympathies. if these nazi groups were winning, they might be seen in a different light. as it is, the fact that they never represented popular opinion along with the fact that they're losing is going to set them up as scapegoats. at the end of this, the people in the region seem to be more likely to blame kiev than moscow for the carnage, and i think that this is correct thinking, even if some liberal commentators might consider it warped logic. if it weren't for these nazi paramilitaries, the russians would have occupied the region with minimal resistance, which is actually what a majority of russian-speaking ukranians really wanted.
so, if the reports are that the ukrainian authorities are receiving requests about obtaining russian citizenship - a seriously coveted prize, in the region - that is believable. these people are ethnic russians, that woke up in a foreign country one day in 1991. as a canadian that grew up on the ontario-quebec border, i can understand that feeling of alienation.
how far the russian sympathies extend into ukraine is an open question, but if the russians can break through this line of nazi defenses - which they are likely on the brink of - then the floodgates open into ukraine. recently, media has suggested that the russians don't have a numerical advantage; i think this is incorrect. first, the media tells you lies that the ukrainians are spontaneously defending themselves against an unwanted aggression, then it deduces that the potential size of a ukrainian army is proportional to it's population. in fact, the fighters on the ground are extremists trained mostly by canadian special forces, and their numbers are very limited. all evidence suggests that the majority of ukrainians don't want to fight this war at all. the extremists will not be replaced when they are done away with, and the russians will find it as easy to move into the rest of the country as they were supposed to, in the first place (before the extent of the existence of these nato-trained nazi paramilitaries was clear).
if the russians intend on occupying kharkov (and odessa), they will set up independence referendums in the region, first. we'll see how that works out. but, i'd expect them to pass - at least in those two regions. and, i cannot condemn them for this, if the people truly want into the russian federation, which i suspect they do.
once they get deeper into the geographic space currently called ukraine, the issue gets a lot blurrier, although the exact boundaries of this blurriness are not entirely clear.
so, i stated earlier that the russians were getting closer to achieving their objectives and they need to broadcast their plans about what they intend to do next. it would seem that this is a start of that: they are broadcasting that they intend to stage referendums in kharkov at the least and perhaps in odessa as well and that the results of these referenda will determine if the military movement will continue or not.
i've also found egyptian state media referring to the liberation of kharkov by russian forces, which is curious. it's generally understood that the existing regime in egypt is a puppet of riyadh. some sort of neo-nasserism, in conjunction with the now established russian presence in syria, could severely destabilize the region, especially if the russians start getting serious about stopping the israeli strikes.
again, we need to ask who the lesser evil is, here.
23:50
thursday, july 7, 2022
that jerusalem post article is confusing because it talks about a referendum in kharkov, then discusses events in kherson, suggesting the author might have the two regions confused with each other.
kharkov is a large russian-speaking city in the northeast of ukraine. kherson is a port city on the black sea.
i suspect you'll see referendums in both regions soon, but they are not the same region.
this is the tass article:
0:02
yeah.
the plans for a referendum in kherson are already announced.
i understand that there's going to be some skepticism about this, but if you take the premise seriously - that crimea, luhansk, donestk and now also kherson, kharkov and zaporizhzhia have actually voted to leave ukraine and join russia - then the entire narrative flips over, and the russians really are liberating areas held by nazis working against public opinion.
the empirical question is trying to figure out what is actually true, and all sources are propaganda. but, my reasoning skills tell me that these people are russians and want to return to russia.
again, the question is where the faultlines really are, and they're not represented by the maps.
0:09
there is also a referendum scheduled in zaporizhzhia
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-proxies-plan-vote-ukraines-zaporizhzhia-region-joining-russia-2022-06-08/0:11
i don't currently see any articles about referendums in other oblasts, but that doesn't mean they won't come up.
0:15
can i say a little about this?
this is very much the kind of house my parents bought and sold repeatedly, for much less than $300,000. so, they represent the demographic. what did they actually want?
1) location. specifically, they wanted something close to schools and hospitals.
2) they didn't want a two story house because they were worried about climbing stairs (something that was never relevant, but they always worried would become relevant)
3) they wanted a big yard for their two golden retrievers.
these are perhaps not the things people think of when imagining million dollar houses - people assume that expensive houses are to exist in fancy neighbourhoods, have large square footage and probably be away from urban decay. but, that is not what retired couples want. retired couples (which is where the money is) want to be near a hospital, they want less housing space, they want wheelchair access and they want big yards.
that's why these sorts of houses - that seem undesirable by normal capitalist metrics - are going to stay expensive for a long time, while all of those brand new houses in the middle of nowhere are going to see substantive devaluation. it's why tiny condos downtown sell for higher than mcmansions in suburbia.
as with other issues at the end of the oil era, we might find the market actually helps in fixing the problem, as much as i don't want to admit it. the properties that are going to face the least devaluation aren't the ones you'd imagine they ought to be, because people don't actually want the things that the tv tells us they do.
reference:
"mississauga bungalow on a large lot sells for $500,000 over asking as 17 potential buyers ante up", globe and mail, july 6, 2022
0:47
that ramp at the front of the house probably cost less than $10,000 to install and probably added $400,000 in value to the property.
0:48
again: this is the kind of property that will hold value, because it's the kind of house retired people want to buy.
reference:
"oshawa bungalow sells $225,000 over asking just before market turn", globe and mail, july 4, 2022
0:55
so, is the housing correction because of the interest rate hikes?
no. the interest rate hikes were because of the housing correction.
this actually started in the winter, and appears to be a consequence of the migration of people out of the city starting to slow down, although it's less clear what the primary cause is; it could be a perception that the pandemic is over, it could be that people are going back to work and it could just be that the backlog of people wanting to get out of the city has cleared.
i thought housing prices would crash due to the pandemic, as i thought it would make people more conservative - i was expecting a kind of bunker mentality to assert itself, that people would shelter in place. i think i got the idea right, but people have chosen to flee urbanization, rather than hunker down where they are. so, the irony is that the thing driving high prices in the cities seems to be a need for equity to get out of the cities. person a had to overpay to pay down person b's mortgage, and for a lot of people these are just abstract numbers on paper that don't really mean anything to them, so the "money" changing hands doesn't really matter to them.
the fundamental problem remains a lack of supply, but it looks like the market is shifting because the dynamics of it are starting to flip over. previously, people were scrambling to get out of the city as fast as they could. now, there's a lot of overvalued properties in the city (sold to get bigger mortgages on houses out of the city) that less and less people with money are going to want and that are going to have to come down in price to appeal to a different kind of buyer, with less equity. so, it's a reshuffling of the deck that's setting in.
i would expect some houses to continue to sell for very high prices (these are houses appealing to seniors, mostly), and for some to experience sharp devaluations (these are houses not appealing to seniors, and that will need to come down in price so that people with less equity than seniors have can buy them). this is going to create an irrational market for a while, where things that don't seem like they should have value will be overvalued and things that seem like they should have value are undervalued.
i'd advise avoiding impulse buys and doing a lot of shopping. you may be surprised about what isn't selling.
1:25
the last couple of weeks have largely evaporated because i keep getting stuck in these in between days. every time i come in, it's just for a day or two, so all i have time to do before i have to go back out again is sleep, clean and eat. i just haven't been able to get anything started when i get in, because i keep having to go back out again.
there will be a narrative update coming soon where i explain this and why i haven't done anything in weeks.
6:51
just briefly.
- on june 24th (a friday), i got an ultrasound and some bloodwork done very early in the morning and then spent the rest of the day doing various things, including picking up my cyproterone, picking up a rec at my doctor's for the cea and fit test, going on the 50 K ride, picking up the blood test results at the hospital and then doing some grocery shopping at the end of the night. i mostly slept on the weekend and then wanted to spend the beginning of the week doing minimal legal stuff (sending the rcmp documents about the karen case, name change things and preparing documents for the appeal to the hospital case which was never heard and is tomorrow), but i never got started on it; i had a vicious stomach wrench on monday night due to the weather and it didn't really lift until early wednesday morning, when i finally got through the name change stuff and decided to go to the court house the next day to observe the documents. so, i slept all day saturday and sunday, got some legal stuff done on sunday night, lost mon & tues due to the stomach wrench and then finally got some things in order on wednesday morning.
- i had a teeth cleaning on thursday morning (the 30th) and then spent the rest of the day doing various things around town, including dropping off the last name change forms at my doctor's, doing the monthly blood work, picking up the fit test and stopping at the court house to sort through the served documents and print off the universality section of the canada health act, before going on the 50 k ride at the end of the day. i then stayed in on the 1st and 2nd in order to avoid stoned drivers on the roads and mostly slept, although, after some phone wrangling, i finally got access to my blood results early on the 2nd, and realized my serum iron was dangerously high. i then spent the 2nd & 3rd researching the ramifications of the dangerously high serum iron result, and what my best course of action was to react to it. was i poisoning myself, did i injure myself or was it evidence of hemoylsis? i decided to hold off on the iron until i could take another test and to just continue to monitor it.
- i had a doctor's appointment on the 4th, by phone. i then went to the office to pick up the last name change forms, as well as a new rec for the iron, and immediately went to get the iron & cea tested, but didn't make it to the other lab in time to drop off the fit test, on the way back. so, i had to drop the fit test back off at home and then went out on the 50 K ride at the end of the night, came home, showered and then went back out on the 5th to drop off the fit test and do the 50 K ride one more time. these were hot days, here, as were the 24th and 30th. i slept much of yesterday, which was also colder.
for today, i need to finalize the name change stuff so that it's ready to submit and i need to get my case in final order for tomorrow. i was considering perhaps dropping off some extra documents at the court house, but i didn't intend to in the first place, and i don't know how necessary it is. we'll see if i can get that done by the end of the day or not.
so, that's the short write-up.
i have bought a usb sound card for the damaged 90s laptop. i have bought another inverter and can only hope it's not damaged. i have not tested the graphics tablet, i have not set up the typing machine and i have not focused on the new windows image. i've just been stuck in a cycle where i come in, settle in, have to recover from exertion and then have to go back out again before i can really get started on anything. so, i keep thinking i can get some documents written up quickly, but have instead been stuck doing the same things over and over again for days and days on end, now.
i should briefly explain the hospital case.
i was removed from the windsor hospital twice on the morning of sept 1, 2020 for refusing to leave after being denied access to care, in relation to a medially necessary refill for a cyproterone acetate prescription. after the second arrest, they left me in a jail cell for a few hours and released me in the morning, and i would have gone right back and gotten arrested a third time, if i had not talked the pharmacist into giving me a kind of forward on the prescription, in the morning. as it is, i ended up with two trespassing tickets and decided to fight both of them, as i had a valid reason to be on the property. the first ticket was dropped because the police officer did not show up to the hearing. i did not receive the notice of hearing for the second ticket until the day of and now have to appeal it on grounds that i didn't receive notice. so, that is what is coming up tomorrow.
i actually doubt the cop will show up again, but i don't know if it's the same thing as a trial or not. if the cop fails to appear on the initial charge, it gets dropped. but, this is an appeal. so, is there actually a hearing, or am i just presenting the appeal to the justice, to look at the issue after the fact?
the reality is that i was denied access to care and i was doing the right thing in refusing to leave. the justice might not actually care, but the idea that somebody can be removed from a public access hospital in canada and charged with trespassing when they are seeking care is tenuous, to say the least. there is no such thing as private property in canada, and hospitals are legally publicly owned anyways, up to a sort of formal legal fiction; they're publicly owned in every functional sense, even if there's a nominal fiefdom attached to it. this is legally similar to being removed from a public park, which is not permitted in canada, except under extreme scenarios, which this would not fall under. if i can convince the justice that i was being denied access to care and therefore had a right to be on the property, the justice could very well drop the charges.
so, i need to finish planning that out today and, in the process, see if i need to provide any further documents to the court office or not.
7:58
the ultrasound came back negative, by the way - no sign of organ damage.
7:59
i think the proper reading, though, is that the hemolysis is mild, at least for now.
as was the case with the pancreatic insufficiency, the hemolysis might be measurable and real but is not substantive enough to be of clinical relevance. my pancreas is a little underactive; i'm experiencing mild hemolysis. i should continue to monitor it, but there's currently not any symptoms to react to.
8:01
the question of whether trespassing tickets can be enforced on patients being denied access to care in a hospital in canada is a grey area, to say the least.
8:21
16:46
before people get upset about the covid positivity rate climbing in ontario, it should be pointed out that testing is restricted to high probability cases. on some level, a high positivity rate merely indicates that the health authorities are doing a good job in screening testing.
that said, we are also in the part of the year in canada where people don't go outside because the humidity is higher. the premise that people spend less time indoors in the summer is sort of flawed - many people, and many of them more likely to be vulnerable to a weak virus like this, are going to rather stay in air conditioned spaces than enjoy the humidity. i've noticed that when i'm biking - there's less people outside than there were in may or june. canadians are less acclimatized to 30+ degree weather than they are to -30 degree weather, and many would prefer blizzards to thunderstorms.
in fact, humid weather should help the virus spread.
so, it sort of makes sense to have rates come up a little when people - especially older, overweight people - are heading inside to escape the heat. my landlord, for example, has suddenly reappeared, and has cranked the fucking air. ugh.
the existing variants are exceedingly contagious, and nothing is going to work in preventing them from spreading. if you're at high risk, you're going to have to get used to avoiding people, as every tactic to try to mitigate the problem has just made it worse. i don't want to hear any more pseudo-science around masking, either - it doesn't work, it didn't work and the science never suggested it would have been expected to work. it's utterly ridiculous bullshit.
the thing we've learned is that we need to let it burn out. well, that's the thing smart people have learned, anyways. maybe you're not that bright, and still think you can flatten the curve if you work hard enough.
at risk people will need to take responsibility for their health and make better choices, or suffer the consequences.
17:19
the premise that the bank of canada created inflation in the united states, europe, china and the rest of the world - or could undo it - is ridiculous. however, that doesn't mean that right-wing demagogues with access to capital won't take advantage of the situation by paying politicians and/or central bankers to restrict the money supply, in order to maximize their own wealth.
there are very limited historical examples where printing excess money has caused inflation, but you need to print absurd amounts and there needs to be extenuating factors. more often, the inflation has been the result of geopolitics (the primary example of supposed german inflation due to printing money after world war one was actually created by the franco-british alliance to punish the germans, and the issue in zimbabwe was driven strictly by sanctions) and countries reacting to try to stop money creation as a way out of debt. if canada were to print money in order to avoid paying sovereign debt, that would certainly lead to retaliatory inflationary policies by outside debt holders. and, none of this applies to the united states, which can do whatever it wants without consequence.
right now, the issue is a distraction pushed by demagogues and illiterates and these people should be ridiculed and ignored until they shut the fuck up.
reference:
"bank of canada may need to reconcile with money supply to stabilize inflation", globe and mail, july 7, 2022
18:29
if you actually understand milton friedman's argument, you know that he never argued that printing money creates inflation. that was reaganite policy designed to protect the rich, not something friedman argued.
18:33
i find it curious that fake bourgeois leftists will argue that trying to tell muslims not to rape or murder women for existing is some sort of colonialism, but are up in arms about some stupid basketball player that got caught smuggling drugs into russia.
it really demonstrates where their priorities are.
marijuana is not a dangerous drug and marijuana users should not be put in jail. i do believe they should be fined if they're annoying the people around them, but it should be treated the same way as a noise violation. however, this woman should have known what the laws were in the country she was entering and she should be held liable for the consequences of breaking russian law, in russia.
we do not have the right to tell the russians what their laws ought to be. worse, to suggest that she's some kind of political prisoner is ridiculous.
21:24
i'm going to print this for the oncologist, and store it here.
| 2021 | 2022 | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| m | a | m | j | j | a | s | o | n | d | j | f | m | a | m | j | j | a | s | o | n | d | |
| creatinine | 78/80 | - | - | - | - | 87 | 84 | 83 / 81 | 80 | 90/64 | 66 | 77 | ||||||||||
| egfr | 107/106 | - | - | - | - | 96 | 100 | 101 / 104 | 106 | 92/116 | 115 | 107 | ||||||||||
| alp | 61 | - | - | 63 | 59 | 50 | 60 | 59 /55 | 47 | 50 | 60 | 58 | 55 | 67 | 47 | |||||||
| albumin | -/45.7 | - | - | - | 45.9 | 44.6 | 46.8 | 48 /46 | 46.7 | 49.8 | 43.7 | 45.1 | ||||||||||
| cholesterol | 3.93 | - | - | - | 3.99 | 3.8 | 4.15 | 4.01/3.83 | 4.14/4.02 | 4.14/3.67 | 3.54/3.8 | 3.78/3.68 | 3.42 | 3.6 | ||||||||
| triglycerides | .87 | - | - | - | .95 | .89 | 1.41 | 1.05/0.94 | 1.09/1.32 | 1.86/0.73 | 2.26/0.75 | 0.69/1.02 | 0.42 | 0.82 | ||||||||
| hdl | 1.69 | - | - | - | 1.84 | 1.59 | 1.73 | 1.42/1.55 | 1.37/1.42 | 1.51/1.74 | 1.75/1.72 | 1.74/1.69 | 1.55 | 1.58 | ||||||||
| ldl | 1.85 | - | - | - | 1.72 | 1.81 | 1.78 | 2.11/1.85 | 2.28/2.00 | 1.79/1.6 | <0.8/1.75 | 1.73/1.52 | 1.68 | 1.65 | ||||||||
| non-hdl | 2.24 | - | - | - | 2.15 | 2.21 | 2.42 | 2.59/2.28 | 2.77/2.60 | 2.63/1.93 | 1.79/2.09 | 2.04/1.99 | 1.87 | 2.02 | ||||||||
| wbc | 8.7/8.4 | 9.9/9.0 | - | - | ? | 7.0 | 7.6 | 6.9/6.9 | 7.8 | 11.3/8.2 | 6.7/6.4 | 7.4/7.1 | 5.3 | 6.4 | 9.5/7.0/6.7 | |||||||
| rbc | 3.97/4.25 | 4.11/4.38 | - | - | 4.17 | 4.12 | 4.33 | 4.47/4.2 | 4.28 | 4.55/4.19 | 4.3/4.22 | 4.42/4.26 | 4.4 | 4.13 | 4.26/4.31/4.24 | |||||||
| hemoglobin | 132/140 | 133/142 | - | - | 139 | 136 | 141 | 138/138 | 139 | 144/131 | 141/133 | 140/136 | 145 | 132 | 135/139/140 | |||||||
| hematocrit | .382/.404 | .394/.424 | - | - | .405 | .398 | .418 | .417/.402 | .405 | 0.431/0.393 | .409/.396 | .417/.404 | .412 | .392 | .407/.408/.401 | |||||||
| mcv | 96.1/95.1 | 95.8/97.0 | - | - | 97 | 96.8 | 96.6 | 93/95.7 | 94.6 | 94.7/94 | 95/94 | 94/95 | 93.7 | 95 | 95.5/94.8/95 | |||||||
| mch | 33.1/32.9 | 32.4/32.5 | - | - | 33.3 | 33.2 | 32.7 | 30.9/32.8 | 32.5 | 31.8/31.3 | 32.7/31.5 | 31.7/32 | 32.9 | 32 | 31.7/32.2/33 | |||||||
| mchc | 345/346 | 338/335 | - | - | ? | 343 | 338 | 331/343 | 344 | 335/333 | 344/336 | 336/337 | 352 | 337 | 332/339/349 | |||||||
| rdw | 13.3/13.5 | 13.0/13.1 | - | - | ? | 13 | 12.3 | 11.7/12.9 | 12.6 | 13.4/12.0 | 13.2/11.7 | 11.7/13 | 12.8 | 11.9 | 12.8/13.2/11.9 | |||||||
| platelet | 199/187 | 171/171 | - | - | ? | 175 | 167 | 168/150 | 155 | 188/185 | 159/184 | 187/175 | 166 | 181 | 176/173/183 | |||||||
| reticulocytes | - | -/42 | - | - | 53 | 56 | 46 | 35 | 33 | 33 | 39 | 41 | 43 | 49 | 58/55 | |||||||
| vitamin d | 87 | - | - | - | 109 | 72 | 64 | 72/83 | 78 | 64/71 | 61/74 | 74/80 | 102 | 77 | 111 | |||||||
| estradiol | 363/388 | - | - | - | - | 563 | 443 | 432 | 777 | 343 | 578 | 416 | 307 | 691 | 380 | |||||||
| estrone | - | - | - | - | - | ? | 4138 | 5203 | 7000+ | - | - | - | ||||||||||
| testosterone | 0.9 | - | - | - | - | - | <0.4 | <0.4 | <0.4 | <0.4 | <0.4 | <0.4 | 1.4 | <0.4 | <0.4 | |||||||
| progesterone | 1.9 | - | - | - | - | - | <0.5 | 0.7 | 0.5 | 0.9 | <0.5 | 3.7 | 62.5 | 21 | 24.4 | |||||||
| fsh | <0.2 | - | - | - | - | - | 0.2 | 0.1 | <0.1 | - | <0.1 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.2 | |||||||
| lh | <0.2 | - | - | - | - | - | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | - | 0.1 | <0.1 | <0.2 | 0.1 | <0.2 | |||||||
| ferritin | 12/9 | 6/17 | 21 | - | 29 | 43 | 28 | 40 | 42 | 59 | 33 | 28 | 59 | 64 | 48/66 | |||||||
| tibc | - | 69.5 | - | - | 65.7 | 62.9 | 64.7 | 58.9 | 58.2 | 63.2 | 57.4 | 58.7 | 57.9 | 53.2 | 63.9/63 | |||||||
| iron | - | 9.6 | - | - | 22.7 | 37.3 | 19.3 | 28.3 | 37.3 | 32.5 | 13.1 | 14.8 | 28.2 | 17.2 | 45.5/35 | |||||||
| iron sat | - | 0.14 | - | - | 0.35 | 0.59 | 0.3 | .48 | 0.64 | 0.51 | 0.23 | 0.25 | 0.49 | 0.32 | 0.71/0.56 | |||||||
| transferrin | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2.59 | 2.29 | 2.38 | 2.49 | 2.31 | 2.42 | - | 2.51 | ||||||||
| sodium | - | - | - | - | - | - | 141 | 141/139 | 140 | 141 | 138 | 138 | ||||||||||
| potassium | - | - | - | - | - | - | 5.0 | 4.7/4.6 | 4.3 | 4.0 | 4.7 | 4.1 | ||||||||||
| chloride | - | - | - | - | - | - | 104 | 107/105 | 104 | 101 | 105 | 104 | ||||||||||
| phosphate | -/1.42 | - | - | - | - | 1.09 | 1.34 | 1.08 | 1.35 | 1.27 | 1.13 | 1.36 | ||||||||||
| magnesium | -/.93 | - | - | - | - | 0.8 | 0.82 | 0.86 | 0.82 | 0.84 | 0.85 | 0.88 | ||||||||||
| calcium | -/2.4 | - | - | - | 2.38 | 2.32 | 2.44 | 2.39 | 2.4 | 2.43 | 2.33 | 2.32 | ||||||||||
| pth | - | - | - | 5.5 | - | 6.2 | 5.9 | 6.2 | 5.5 | 8.0 | 6.3 | 5.7 | 6.9 | 6.4 | 4.7 | |||||||
| tsh | 0.92 | - | - | - | - | 0.94 | 1.22 | 1.67 | 1.48 | 1.07 | 1.39 | 0.97 | 1.26 | 0.92 | 1.05 | |||||||
| calcitonin | - | - | - | <0.6 | - | - | - | - | 0.6 | - | 0.8 | - | 0.7 | 0.6 | ||||||||
| cortisol | - | - | - | 325 | - | 464 | 170 | 129 | 225 | 136 | 367 | - | ||||||||||
| insulin | - | - | - | - | - | 50 | 33 | 68 | 92 | 312 | 53 | - | ||||||||||
| b12 | 223/251 | - | 304 | - | 363 | 313 | 370 | 292 | 369 | 376 | 293 | 448 | 499 | |||||||||
22:43
hey, if you're a doctor - or just play one on the internet - then scrawl me up yer perscription.
22:52
so, it seems like putin's gone looney tunes after all.
what they need to do is parachute in some ninjas to kick his ass. he'll submit.
frankly, i think he's being tough for the cameras, but it doesn't resolve the basic facts on the ground, and i think his analysis is probably basically right: once the russians get past the nazis on the front line, resistance throughout the rest of the country will be minimal.
the ukrainians need to acknowledge that the regions that russia has liberated were always a part of russia and cut their losses. i'm analyzing this through a long lens of history, in ways most westerners cannot understand, but even i'm going to start condemning the russians if they move into legitimately "ukrainian", or eastern polish, areas. if ukraine is a fake country, then partition it. fine. but, this has an endpoint and there will need to be boundaries for the russians to respect - so long as kiev allows them to.
if kiev insists on belligerence, it will need to be conquered, and probably destroyed. sadly. so, it's really up to them: they can continue to be stupid about this or they can smarten up and go home.
23:00
this is how you do it.
23:24
but, seriously. we're aligned with japan. there is surely a nato ninja strike force with a joint command somewhere, and if there is not, there must become one. ninja ambushes can solve a lot of the world's problems, you know.
you think i'm joking.
but, putin needs to be bear wrestled, and we can't trust bears not to defect. ninjas are our only chance to force him to submit.
23:26
we can train an army of bears, sure, but the heart of every bear is with russia and they will join the russians at the first opportunity.
no. we need ninjas.
23:29
but, the problem is that if the ninjas pin putin to the ground and make him submit then they became the emperors of asia, and then we have to fight a ninja-russia alliance, which we would have no chance against.
hrmmn.
well, the chinese would become natural allies against the ninjas, though. the problem is i don't think it would help much.
so, how do we force putin to submit, then?
23:53
we could send send zelensky to putin's house and get him to bang on his door to force him to come out to settle this once and for all, but putin would just kick his ass.
23:55
friday, july 8, 2022
i actually don't think it's at all unlikely that this ends in a fist fight between zelensky and putin.
0:00
ok, so this is going to be messy, but i think i've got it planned out.
the messy thing about it is the format. if i was defending myself against an accusation, i'd be able to poke holes in the argument - and there are a lot of holes, here. everything in the doctor's report is completely fabricated bullshit, down to the lie that i was on drugs. the basic delusion by the doctor was that i was pretending to be suicidal, which is utterly bigoted garbage. but, i'm appealing a conviction, and there wasn't a trial, because i didn't get notice until after the fact. so, there wasn't any basis for conviction other than that i didn't defend myself, so i don't have any fabrications to dismantle, as there was no argument made in the first place. i'm using the word conviction, but we're talking about what is essentially a parking ticket, and a backwards system that presumes guilt if you don't defend yourself. so, how do i appeal against an accusation that was never proven?
i'm not sure how this is going to work, but i hope that the justice has the cop actually make the case, rather than have me defend myself against an argument that doesn't exist.
otherwise, i'm going to have to comprehensively explain what actually happened by referencing the narrative in the human rights case i filed for gender discrimination (which was settled) and by referencing the various documents that were sent to the court office last week. as no actual argument was presented to convict me, i'll have to just start from the beginning and explain why i had a right to be there, and that's going to take a long time to get through.
0:25
the doctor was clearly a bigoted muslim who had me removed for being queer. that's the reality of the situation. so, the report is full of bigoted lies, and my task is to explain what the lies are by referencing evidence and facts that contradict the report.
where the issue in the human rights case was the bigoted muslim doctor's anti-queer biases, the issue here is the question of whether the doctor was justified in removing me from the premises without adequately treating me, first.
the reality is that i expect to win the case, otherwise i wouldn't have fought it.
0:29
for example, it says in the report that the er doctor would not be able to prescribe the prescription, so it was impossible for me to get access to the medication from the er.
but, i have a report of a previous situation where a previous er doctor prescribed the same prescription. so, the claim by the doctor was incorrect. surely, the doctor was aware that he had full prescribing capabilities - that, as an emergency room doctor, there are not any medications he was "unable" to prescribe.
the doctor suggested i should go to a family doctor or a clinic. but, the sherbourne recommendations make it clear that i could not do that because the dosage required exceeds the amount in the recs. only an endocrinologist or an er doctor would be able to prescribe the required dosage, and i did not have access to an endocrinologist on short notice.
the doctor claimed i was "pretending" to be suicidal. but, suicide rates amongst trans people are exceedingly high, and i have an academic report to cite regarding that. he had no basis to make a specious accusation of that sort, when the facts align so powerfully against it.
there's more. but, the basic point is that if the doctor didn't want to prescribe due to some stupid, irrelevant religious opinion - which is the only answer that withstands any sort of scrutiny - then he had an obligation to let another doctor on staff do it, instead. throwing me out of an er room when i am seeking medication that only an er doctor can prescribe, and when the er doctor knew that that was the case, because i explained it, is clearly a discriminatory act, which gives me a right to stay on the premise, until i can get the second opinion that the religious bigot is required to defer me to. he can't just have me arrested because i offended his beliefs. that's absurd, and it would require a legal concept of private property to uphold, which we do not have in relation to the hospitals in this country and in truth do not actually have at all. it would, in truth, require more than private property - it would require a merging of church and state and, in this case, actual islamic fundamentalism in government. this might be what the muslims want, but it's not the status quo, and cannot be upheld by the court.
it would be one thing if i was hanging out in the er room, bothering people, or asking for change. but, i was there expecting to receive care and i was removed without receiving it. that should not be considered trespassing, in canada - and if this judge doesn't agree, we'll see what the next judge up thinks.
0:33
so, is there a lot of point of doing an update post from the 24th on?
i think the summary is probably sufficient.
i've been over this so many times: i'm just exhausted and frustrated with the constant need to fix and set up components rather than use them. every time something is fixed, something else breaks, and i have this very substantive suspicion that things are being broken in an attempt to spy on me.
so now my square monitor is about to go in the studio space, which is potentially catastrophic. i do not want a widescreen monitor in the studio and will not accept one. the version of cubase i'm using won't even launch on a widescreen monitor, and the computer is too old to run a newer version of cubase. the components are ideal - i don't want them to break and i don't want to upgrade them, i just want to use them. but that seems impossible, over and over again.
and, every time i sit down to do something, i'm overwhelmed by how much time has passed since the last time i did anything. so, i haven't done anything worthwhile in over a month - again. i've just been wasting my time with healthcare bullshit and legal nonsense out of necessity brought on by assholes that just won't fucking do what i need them to. all the fucking retards at the hospital had to do was write me a prescription, but their stupid, useless faith got in the way of what i needed to make me happy. is that morality? no - it's stupidity. if your morals exist to frustrate others, you're a fucking idiot. and, it's one stupid doctor visit after another to deal with one stupid thing after another, when all i want to be doing is recording, and i can't be, because i can't pull together the fucking time.
so, is there anything to add?
i don't think so. i want to move on.
i spent the day cleaning, and that's at least mostly done. i want to get the name change stuff in order tonight, as i want to get it over with on monday.
2:45
i don't understand why religious morons can't get it through their stupid thick fucking skulls that nobody fucking cares what they believe and that they have no goddamned rights to stand in the way of somebody trying to get what they want. they're just being useless, fucking annoyances.
2:49
religion is this constant, frustrating barrier standing in the way of freedom and progress.
2:51
i don't care about your stupid beliefs.
just get the fuck out of my fucking way.
2:52
let me set some productivity boundaries for the weekend.
about two weeks ago, i said i needed to get the other machine set up before i did any more ranting.
i think i can probably finish that by the end of the weekend.
2:56
unfortunately, it looks like i'm going to have to spend next week scouring windsor for a square monitor, before i can get back to work on the production machine.
2:57
the other thing is that i want the monitor to be relatively small, so it's not wasting space on my desk.
i don't know why people think bigger monitors are preferable in their work spaces, or why people would want dual screens, but i'm not one of them. that makes no sense to me, and i would never use the functionality.
3:00
like, i need to find a 15" or 17" square monitor. i don't want it bigger than that, and i don't want it remotely rectangular.
3:01
it also has to be vga because it goes through a kvm.
3:02
i went to the hospital because i needed a prescription. it was supposed to be quick and easy.
instead, i had to deal with some self-righteous, moralistic piece of shit that wanted to enforce his worthless beliefs on me, which created a conflict because he was standing in between me and what i wanted. so, i had to find a way to push him out of the way, which has wasted large amounts of time.
and i don't understand why people insist on standing, with their beliefs, in between people and what they want. get out of the fucking way - or you will be pushed out of the fucking way.
and, i did push the useless idiot out of the way, but it's been months of annoyances dealing with it, when it could have been easily resolved if the worthless, moralistic asshole would have just got up and moved.
3:17
ugh.
so, there's a section specifying that lost birth registrations must be reported to the office, immediately.
i'm going to have to call them in the morning. fuck. this is so fucking annoying....
3:35
ok, jessica. there's no use in getting flustered.
i just know that i only have a finite amount of time to exist within and i'm pissed off with myself (and my circumstances) that i'm not using it to maximum efficiency in artistic production. but, that doesn't help in resolving the problem. i just need to refocus.
i need to get the legal stuff done in the morning.
then, i think i can and am certain i will get the typing space finally set up by the end of the weekend.
3:43
when i get the typing space set up, i'm going to want to rewind back to last fall, which is further and further away with every week, to get back into the journal writing, which will be done in the typing space.
i'm then going to want to push forwards through the blog - including finishing inri077 - until i catch back up.
and, then i'm going to want to rewind back to last year.
see, this is...i'm never going to get everything i want done, and the more time i have to waste on stupid things that i don't actually care about, the more frustrating it gets.
3:47
i've been spinning around in circles now for almost five years.
3:48
if i find a way to get it all done in the end, it won't matter.
it just seems less and less likely with each passing month.
3:48
if you have a surplus square monitor in windsor and you're pretty sure it works, please consider putting it up on kijiji for me. that's how i'll find you.
i doubt i'll even find one in a pawn shop, at this point.
maybe i'll try txting the guy that sold me the last one. he had a lot of monitors.
4:07
it's one thing if i go to your house and tell you what to think. i wouldn't do that.
but, a doctor working in an emergency room needs to understand that people are coming in for medical access, not for a religious discourse. if an er doctor can't deal with people making requests that upset their beliefs, they need to realize that their beliefs are blocking access to care and they need to find another fucking job.
as it is, i went for a second opinion and i couldn't even get in to talk to somebody.
a hospital is not a place of religion, or somewhere where the faith of the employees should be considered important. people come in seeking access to care, and the only thing that faith means, in context, is a barrier to care - a barrier the patient then needs to find some way to remove to get access to the care.
again, we're not talking about somebody's home and we're not talking about a private practice. we're talking about a publicly funded emergency room on what is arguably public access property. it's universal access to care that's paramount here, not the arbitrary viewpoints of the employees.
i'll try to be a little less colourful in my arguments this morning, but it's essentially the argument i'll be pushing: the emergency room doctor's irrelevant religious opinions cannot be an impedance to my access to science-based care, that's a fundamental collapse in the health care system, and i certainly cannot be being fined for asserting my right to access care in the face of a contradiction between my rights and somebody else's opinions.
4:25
the inmates are currently running the asylum of canada. but, it can't be accepted, it has to be struggled against, and overturned. and i intend to win...
4:33
so, the last time i took an iron was on the 29th. i had the serum measurement of 55 on the 30th, and did not take another one after that on the weekend. the serum measurement on the 4th was 35. i just took my first iron again around 5:00, took a shower and i'm not feeling so good, which wasn't true before. double vision, even.
i think it'll come down soon, but i'm wondering if something changed, if i'm over a hump or something.
a dosage decrease may be appropriate, but that backfired last time.
i may be struggling with trying to get this right for quite a while.
6:15
it's easy to get the logic here backwards, but what this really demonstrates is that "love" is a trivial hormonal response that can be triggered by anything and does not have any real value as objective reality.
reference:
"'i love her and see her as a real woman.' meet a man who 'married' an artificial intelligence hologram", cbc news, nov 18, 2021
9:00
i was hoping to get a hearing on the merits of the case today, but what i got instead was an administrative process with a clueless justice that had no capability to analyze the facts. there was no hearing and there was no ruling, there was just an explanation that i'd have to appeal to a higher court to have the issue dealt with. in context, i decided to speed the process up because i didn't have faith in the justice. i don't know why i had to waste my time on an appeal in appeals court when there was no potential of a hearing without an appeal to superior court, in the first place. but, it's over with now.
there's an inherently unreasonable and blatantly unconstitutional quirk in the law that is the (entirely invalid) reason that i wasn't granted a hearing (which i of course have a common law right to). what happened was that i missed the original hearing date because i didn't get the notice of trial. the case law is pretty clear that the judge is supposed to order a new trial when that happens, so long as the whole thing isn't unreasonable, which it wasn't. there's going to be situations where people repeatedly make bad excuses, which is not the case here. i had at most a week to retrieve the document (it was mailed the week of the 30th and the trial was the week of the following 11th, so i had the week in between, including transit time and inbox-waiting time), and it just sat in my mailbox while i was inside for about ten days at the start of the month. there was no attempt to phone or email me, i was just supposed to magically know somehow that there was mail in my mailbox (like most people, i don't check my mail regularly unless i'm expecting something because it's just all flyers). it was also the week of thanksgiving, when a lot of people are away, and which no doubt slowed down transit of the mail itself. so, i had minimal opportunity to access the notice of hearing and it passed by without me being made aware of it.
the unconstitutional quirk in the law is that when people don't arrive at a hearing of the sort, they're presumed to be guilty and then need to make the case that they didn't get the hearing. the presumption of guilt is an egregious piece of legislation that has no place in canadian law, or any other law, but it's there, and it hasn't been done away with because nobody's had a good reason to challenge it, i guess. there are few things as obviously ultra vires as a legislated presumption of guilt. now, as mentioned, the judge is supposed to be reasonable about this, and is supposed to order a trial, but it doesn't actually say that in the law, that is case law. this judge had no clue what she was doing and didn't appear to even know that; she thought she was there to act as an administrator and just rubber stamp statements by the prosecutor, and actually repeatedly deferred to the prosecutor, who was really acting as the judge. i had to listen to her for quite a while leading up to it, and i just didn't bother. i guess this is what happens when you have prosecutors and judges working closely every day - they turn into friends, which reduces the process to a joke. they shouldn't be allowed to build friendships, they should be rotated around from city to city to ensure objectivity and mitigate inherent levels of corruption.
so, what the court did is deny the appeal explicitly due to the presumption of guilt due to missing the hearing and wasn't interested in hearing reasons why, which it was required to do under case law, but which it seemed to think it was forbidden to do due to the legislation (under an incorrect analysis by the prosecutor). this is technically an error of law (the justice did not even attempt to consult the case law and did not even seem to be appear aware that there was any), but i will probably have to argue it's unreasonable. i don't expect the issue to be difficult once i can get it in front of a real court judge (as before...and as it hasn't been...), but the prosecutor here in windsor seems to be an ideologically driven extreme right-wing conservative that is beyond the realm of any sort of argument and it seems like i'll have to force the point. he's going to hold to the legislated presumption of guilt and argue the arcanely traditionalist position that parliament is supreme and the court doesn't have jurisdiction to amend it's legislation (which is wrong, in canada - judges can write and actually have written entire sections into legislation, as though they're legislators, albeit not at this level, and i strongly support that. (most) judges are capable. members of parliament are, broadly, complete idiots.). as it is, there is existing case law on the matter that is so well established that it exists within the court forms (which ask if you received the notice of hearing, and which i filled in correctly), and the justice just didn't do her job correctly in deferring to the legislation (on the prompting of the traditionalist right-wing prosecutor) instead of the case law, as she should have, to the point that she didn't even seem to realize it. so, i'm not asking for the judge to strike the law down, i'm asking for her to follow the case law, as it was even presented to her in the court forms, and which she clearly didn't remotely understand. this is a basic point, but i think it's probably not uncommon in the lower courts, like this, where judges are politically appointed as a reward for whatever good behaviour by whatever political party and not on merit or experience or ability. this is maybe an extreme example of incompetence, but i don't think it's isolated or unique.
and, it is clearly an unreasonable outcome, too. i contacted the court office within a day or two of missing the hearing and explained that i missed it because i didn't receive the notice and wanted a trial. i have every right to that, regardless of what the legislation says. but, i'll have to get a higher court to affirm it.
so, we didn't even talk about whether i was removed from a public access institution that i had a right to be in while seeking access to legislated emergency care under the universality clause - we're not even there. we're arguing about whether i even have a right to a trial or not, under a brutally unconstitutional quirk in the law that needs to be burned and destroyed, and which i will fight to have burned and destroyed.
while i expect to have the divisional court send the case back to the poa court on the grounds that denying me access to a trial is unreasonable in context, i'm going to have to file a constitutional challenge to the provincial offences act, as well, as we can't have laws that presume guilt in a democratic country, that's ridiculous. i have a fee waiver and a fair amount of free time, so i'll do the necessary activist work that so many have avoided to this point.
so, that was disappointing, but there was no actual outcome in the appeal - there was no hearing and there was no ruling, there was rather an incapable justice who made it clear that she wasn't competent enough to make a decision on the matter and the issue would have to be elevated to a more competent legal body. i'm just annoyed i had to waste my time in the lower court in the first place.
i didn't get a chance to call the ministry today about the birth registration, i'll have to wait until monday.
so, i'll have to get the appeals process ready this weekend, as well.
19:10
this is a disgusting joke in a system that has long ceased to function correctly and the only solution is a mass protest movement and an eventual revolution to re-establish the rule of law.
to suggest the ruling is specious would be an understatement - this is an application of blatant political interference in a situation where the court needed to demonstrate it was functioning independently of the government and has instead demonstrated that it is not.
we are now living in a fascist country that no longer has basic freedoms or basic constitutional rights and we need to react accordingly.
reference:
"tamara lich's bail revoked, will remain in custody", cbc news, july 8, 2022
19:13
canada has now taken it's place beside other backwards countries like thailand, nigeria and saudi arabia, where the courts lack independence and people are put in jail for their political views.
we can accept this like slaves or we can fight it like free peoples.
19:36
“This court finds the actions of Ms. Lich to be troubling,†- barbarian judge in ottawa
troubling.
oh dear.
i suppose she's immoral, too?
what a fucking disgusting ridiculous joke.
19:38
“Her communications alone indicate she may have been a leader of some sort,â€
so, her behaviour was troubling and she was some kind of political leader. therefore, she belongs in jail.
where are we, zimbabwe?
19:40
the ruling - in the face of a previous order which explicitly allowed ms. lich to attend the meeting - has at best put the administration of justice in extreme disrepute (the system is a contemptible joke) and is at worst a form of entrapment by the court system.
one will note that the resigning justice has changed, and it is overwhelmingly obvious that it's the result of political interference, which needs to be investigated.
19:43
“Your detention is necessary to maintain confidence in the administration of justice.â€
what?
that's pricelessly hilarious - her detention makes a mockery of the system, and puts the administration of justice in immense disrepute.
but, who is he talking to, here? what fascist idiots is he addressing?
or is he in truth reciting lines sent to him from the pmo?
19:47
this is soviet-level, orwellian, show trial hypersuperomegabullshit.
this is worse than thailand, this is fucking north korea level absurdity.
19:48
i suspect that the legitimate judge was going to let her out, and the pmo interfered and put this barbarian in charge of detaining her as a political prisoner, instead - because that's what barbarians do, and what canada is going to be like if we sit back and let it be run by barbarians.
19:50
he should have said: “your detention is necessary to maintain faith amongst the sheeple in the totalitarian, authoritarian supremacy of the dictatorship of the state, and it's ability to arbitrarily enforce itself without the interference of constitutional rights or deference to concepts of justice. the arbitrary supremacy of the state must be maintained over appeals to justice or the enforcement of the rule of law."
let's get this appealed to an actual legitimate non-barbarian justice asap. our judicial system is not totally corrupt, not yet. i don't think...
19:56
you have to understand that this is what the barbarians want - they want a strong centralized state power that enforces it's will to create fear amongst the people, which they call "order", and which is in truth oppression. they want a hobbesian dictatorship run by a strong-man dictator that keeps people in line with threats of extreme violence. to them, that is freedom and peace and order - it's a freedom from independent thought, freedom from individuality and freedom from non-conformity. it's everything the west spent centuries undoing, and everything we're going to have to fight against, again, as it ends up re-introduced via the state's fresh recruits from barbarian lands.
20:02
the only victim in this process is ms. lich, and it is time to call for a global protest movement to embarrass the canadian government into having her released.
the pampered children of the elite that are running this country, who were not parented properly and who grew up into adult delinquents, simply don't understand what they've done wrong, and think they're saving the country's "reputation" by putting a harmless women in jail as a political prisoner, one who has no reasonable prospect of being convicted on any charge, whatsoever. they actually think that the perception of canada as a fascist dictatorship will help increase it's image abroad.
the world needs to prove them wrong on that point, and paint them as the fascists that they are.
20:08
i want tshirts printed, i want protest marches, i want public forums, i want a movement - i want a martyr.
free tamara lich!
20:10
the thing that will work is to harm their "reputation" and their "image".
they're like 13 year-olds. they're obsessed with being popular and cool.
if the rest of the world makes canada look "uncool" for locking her up, they will release her in response - if she doesn't get a real justice at the next court up first, which is of course preferable.
20:16
of course, the reason that middle aged gen xers in their 50s and in some cases 60s find themselves obsessed with being cool at their ages and stages of development is due to trauma regarding living as losers when they were children.
"you ignored me when i was young, but look at me now!"
(actually, that person grew up and moved on and still thinks you're a loser for being what they thought was cool when they were 15 and haven't thought about in 30 years. sorry.)
it's a kind of arrested development, ultimately.
if you want to beat the fuckers, it helps to get into their heads and this is clear: they're obsessed with image control, and more so than normal, in truth pathologically so.
20:24
this is a general lesson in canada, right now: this government is vulnerable to tactics that might damage their image and the way to extract concessions from them is to make them look unpopular, rather than make them look evil or stupid.
20:28
does anybody have any really nerdy pictures of trudeau when he was a teenager? i'm sure there's plenty.
that's their greatest fear, that nerdy or uncool pictures might start circulating and tarnish his image and reputation. get them running...
20:32
saturday, july 9, 2022
the germans may want to consider whether ukraine is worth their time, and their pocketbook, or not.
canada will of course return the turbine. but, the damage to ukrainian-german relations might be longstanding.
the ukrainians are not brave, they're dumb.
reference:
"canada caught between allies as germany presses for return of russian turbine", cbc news, july 8, 2022
1:59
so, first i need to figure out if this is an appeal or a review. the justice and prosecutor were acting like it was administrative - the prosecutor even said as much and the justice went along - but i think that's wrong, i think the way to appeal is from the court of justice to the court of appeal and i don't think that vavilov affects appeals, so i can actually make non-stupid arguments about being correct or incorrect.
6:48
yeah, so this is legislated in the poa act, it's s. 139 - i need to ask for leave in the court of appeal.
i was hoping i could actually file this in superior court in windsor, but it appears there is only one court of appeal, and it is in toronto. so be it.
7:10
i'll get all of the nonsense that went on in the transcript, or maybe order a recording - i think tone would be useful for the appeals court to fully grasp the level of bullshit being thrown around.
7:11
it turns out that the court of justice actually has a lot of discretion, contrary to what was suggested not just to myself but also to several other people that seemed confused by the narrow nature of the justice's analyses.
the justice in question - who i will repeat repeatedly deferred to the conservative prosecutor, who seemed to be making the actual decisions, including repeatedly using the somewhat sexual line "i'm in your hands", in repeatedly breathy tone, suggesting some kind of physical relationship. this is the justice talking to the city prosecutor in ticket court. - told person after person that she didn't have jurisdiction, and her ability to interpret the law was limited. while i knew that wasn't true, there was enough of a pattern apparent by the time i came up that i didn't push it. i didn't know the extent of the precedent, though.
if the justice's position was that trespassing is strict liability (which is wrong, anyways. there's plenty of counter-examples, many of them tied to protest activity. so, for example, you can't enforce property laws on people protesting in a park. i was protesting a removal due to a denial of access to care. but, she would not hear the case because i missed the trial date, and that was as far as we got.) and she had no jurisdiction to overturn it, that's just legally absolute bullshit. she might not want to do her job - she might not really give a fuck, she might just be pushing people through so she can get to the next smoke break - but the idea that she didn't have the legal authority to do the things asked of her was just fucking wrong. she used the line every ten minutes, though; many people left the virtual room wondering what the point of appealing was, if the justice didn't have any authority to overturn anything.
so, the fact that i got a good sample makes it clear enough what i was up against: this justice doesn't hear any cases at all, she just tells everybody she doesn't have any authority, and then comes up with the fastest reason she can to dispense of whatever's put in front of her. the most likely reason for this is that she doesn't actually know what she's doing.
in other words, she's a lazy person and a shitty judge that should get fired.
given that this is necessarily going to take a lengthy argument - i would have needed upwards of an hour to make my case yesterday and wasn't going to get it in that court room - i'm really better off getting a real hearing in the court of appeal, anyways. but, what i was told was....
like, there's "unreasonable" and there's "incorrect" and there's "this justice just doesn't want to do her job and just doesn't listen to anybody that stands before her, then makes up specious excuses as to why she's not working.". is patently incorrect a thing? it's an appeal - i can just state in bold letters that the fucker was fucking wrong.
7:23
ok, this is going to be easier than i thought because what i'm looking for is in subsection 11 of the act. i thought this was just in case law (i know it comes from case law), but i guess it's been codified after all. great.
so, the justice had the form and i made the oral argument but the justice didn't appear to have the slightest understanding of what the form was or why the conviction should have been squashed. she read it verbatim and seemed audibly confused by it, as though she'd never seen a s. 11 appeal before.
it was never made clear to me why the issue wasn't reopened, which is supposed to be the right thing to do. so, i filled out the form - which i thought was based strictly on case law but is also codified in s. 11 - and the response i got was entirely incoherent, it was something like "i'm not re-opening, because it wouldn't matter, anyways.", which is a denial of a constitutional right.
(as an aside, i also brought up the constitution, which the clueless justice claimed was "of no value in this court room". if i can get that in transcript, i'm going to file a complaint and actually try to get her fired. that is an unacceptable comment that must come with consequences - the charter is the supreme law of the country, and any justice disinterested in the charter should no longer be employed as a justice.)
when i brought it up to the justice, she didn't even understand what was being presented to her.
so, this is an easy case:
1) the proper s. 11 forms were filed
2) the basis of the review on s. 11 was made clear in the appeal document
3) the oral arguments were presented
4) the court did not apply s. 11 as they are obligated to
5) therefore, error in law.
i'll just need to get all the things together. easy.
8:01
this is the actual relevant law that should have been applied - and was presented to the justice both verbally and on the notice of appeal - and was not:
this was all in front of the justice and the discussion was not ambiguous - we discussed not receiving the document (i thought that would be part one and part two would be the case, but part two did not happen) and she read the nature of the appeal verbatim. i did not reference the section because i was spending my pre-trial time focusing on the case, rather than what i interpreted as a triviality; i knew the basis of appeal was that i didn't get the form, but i was expecting to actually have a hearing, after establishing that fact. like, i thought we'd spend ten seconds acknowledging i didn't get the hearing document and we'd move to the next thing. she instead decided i was trying to appeal the law (again, that's incoherent, given what was said and what was in front of her), which is just wrong - and i knew better than to waste my time with her, i just said "whatever, we'll deal with it on appeal" and hung up.
Reopening
Application to strike out conviction
11 (1) A defendant who was convicted without a hearing may, within 15 days after becoming aware of the conviction, make an application to have the conviction struck out by completing the prescribed form and filing it in the office of the court. 2017, c. 34, Sched. 35, s. 6.
Striking out the conviction
(2) On application under subsection (1), the clerk of the court shall strike out the conviction if satisfied by affidavit of the defendant that, through no fault of the defendant, he or she,
Note: On the day section 6 of Schedule 35 to the Stronger, Fairer Ontario Act (Budget Measures), 2017 comes into force, subsection 11 (2) of the Act is amended by adding “or on other evidence or information†after “if satisfied by affidavit of the defendant†in the portion before clause (a). (See: 2020, c. 18, Sched. 18, s. 4 (2))
(a) was unable to attend an early resolution meeting described in clause 5.1 (3) (a) or (b);
(b) was unable to appear for a hearing; or
(c) did not receive delivery of a notice or document relating to the offence. 2017, c. 34, Sched. 35, s. 6.
Review by justice
(3) If the clerk of the court does not strike out the conviction, he or she shall forward the application to a justice for review, who shall strike out the conviction if he or she determines that the requirements in subsection (2) have been met. 2017, c. 34, Sched. 35, s. 6.
there has to be some consequences for the behaviour of this justice. this is not an acceptable level of incompetence.
but, for now, let me get the transcripts and let me get the appeal in order.
8:17
i did everything right, and i should have been granted what i asked for.
the justice was something between too corrupt to allow for it, too incompetent to realize it and too lazy to give a fuck. that's not my fault, and there was nothing i could do to avoid it. i just have to appeal it.
8:34
it's something similar to the ltb case a few years ago where the ltb blatantly ignored the legislation put before it and produced a breathtakingly wrong ruling, but where i decided to move on with that miscarriage, i will fight this to the end, out of principle.
8:36
there's some justices that just shouldn't have jobs, and everybody is going to run across them, sometimes. you just have to go over them....
8:39
my take on this is that the actual thing driving it is city finances.
so, i hope i cost city hall a lot of money. i know i already have.
8:53
sounds like the kind of fascist idiocy you'd expect to see in a backwards country like russia.
this woman is an airhead and needs to be thrown out of cabinet.
reference:
"canada announces new russia sanctions targeting disinformation", cbc news, july 8, 2022
9:01
we've learned that these tactics are difficult to implement in the internet era, but it certainly implies a lot of guilt: it is always the actors seeking to control information that are guilty of lying.
i would take it as an admission of guilt - there are canadian forces in ukraine, and the government doesn't want you to know about the depth of their complicity in training nazis on the ground.
9:02
i hear the shooter's name in the assassination of the former japanese prime minister (who was a dangerous person) is "shinzo john-wilkes".
9:15
japan should remain non-militarized.
9:15
i'm going to get sued by conan for posting abe jokes.
9:16
3d printed guns certainly pose a quandary for gun control advocates, though.
sunday, july 10, 2022while a good ninja might have managed to hit abe with a tactical ninja star, this is beyond the "but, they'll just use knives if you ban guns" argument.
it gets the point across though: if you really want to kill somebody you'll figure it out.
9:23
we'd better cancel macguyver.
(i'm going to guess that macguyver was cancelled quite a while ago, but i haven't watched tv since the 90s, so i can't be certain about it. i bet it's still in syndication.)
9:24
usually, the problem with biden is that he runs his mouth off.
i think there's been questions about this for a long time, hasn't there?
is mr. biden being managed on this because he doesn't actually support abortion rights?
13:33
this discussion of "power" has been trendy in fake left media lately, as though somebody ran a foucault book club meeting at the national press gallery or something.
i really have to get this point across: while i personally grasp where the language is coming from, certainly better than most, i find it horribly alienating, as a leftist voter, and would advise liberal or progressive or fake left politicians against using that kind of rhetoric. i will disagree pretty vociferously with foucault at the best of times, so i'm going to have this argument, in multiple contexts; i think foucault was a burkean conservative, and his ideas really have no place on the actual, real left. when you hear bourgeois activists start citing foucault, you should interpret it as a red flag - that is how you know they're not actually left-wing, at all.
but, outside of the actual left doing real organizing on the ground, this is a situation where a sterile academic debate translates into a very different presentation by a working politician, if that politician wants to extract buzz words they think are "cool", and will likely backfire very badly. i will reject almost all forms of power as illegitimate, which is a term i interpret strictly as a euphemism for oppression; when somebody talks about having power, my instinct as a leftist is to struggle against them to take it away from them and reestablish a status quo of equality, in place of a gradient of power. the missing part of the sentence is always having power over others. people just talk about having power as though it is....empowering. the fact that power is a linear order, a relation between individuals, gets lost in this kind of neo-liberalization of foucault (and, again, i think foucault has a better home on the right, as his ideas are broadly more consistent there - he belongs with the neo-liberals as he was basically one of them) that hyper-individualizes it. power is always zero sum and can never exist unless there is a subject being disempowered, which is why it is always a euphemism for oppression and why i'm always strictly concerned about taking away power and i am never interested in establishing it. you always have to take power away from some oppressed entity in order to utilize it, yourself - it's a conservation law, there's no perpetual power creating machine; it's always expressed in the form of negative energy.
even as an individual, i don't want power. what i want is freedom, and that means freedom from asserting power over others, as well, which i find deeply distasteful. i don't want to tell you what to do - go figure it out yourself. i don't want to assert executive authority, i want to participate in collaborative decision making and consensus-building. i don't want to be your boss, i want to be your ally or even your friend. i'm a fucking leftist - get the point. i hate power. further, the connection between these things is blurry - i don't really think that having power means having freedom, especially considering that i understand that having power necessarily means taking freedom away from somebody else, and that having power means having responsibility. responsibility is the negation of freedom and the thing people seeking freedom are truly always seeking to minimize.
working this out over beers is one thing, having a politician talk about establishing or asserting power is another; this is frightening, alienating language that is very quickly going to create suspicion in most gut-feeling or natural-leaning leftists and lead to a lack of trust in the words and intentions of any politician speaking in such terms. politicians that talk openly about using and enforcing power are like politicians that are wearing a shirt that says "i'm a corrupt, asshole politician that's going to take away your rights and you should avoid supporting me at all costs". i want to hear politicians talk about equality, not hear them talk about power. let the right-wingers talk about power - that's their thing.
the simple analysis is that power is always the opposite of equality, by definition, and that real leftists are always going to hear "i don't believe in equality" when politicians start talking about using, enforcing, implementing or establishing power. talk of "empowerment" by politicians just flags them as being hierarchical and not believing in equality.
that is going to be missing from the contemporary discourse, which, as is generally the case in ivory tower discussions, exists pretty divorced from actual reality, and what real people actually think and feel.
14:15
it's interesting to see the increase in vasectomies by what i'm assuming are mostly single men that are realizing "she can't just have an abortion, now" and are trying to avoid getting trapped in a child-support relationship. it's a reminder that the idea that this is just about the rights of women is simple-minded and wrong and that men also benefit greatly from unhindered access to abortion.
14:32
a law that restricts indoor temperatures to 26 degrees?
i currently have the stove running about 20 hours a day - mostly overnight - to combat the air conditioner upstairs. my thermostat says 28, but i'd rather it were in the 33-35 range, which i consider ideal. i don't want to open the window because my neighbours smoke marijuana.
i would find 26 to be far too cold in the summer and, more frustratingly, would be in the situation - which i find to be unnatural - of having to adjust to going outside in the summer. i will not accept a reality where it's so cold inside that i can't go outside to get some exercise, that would be like living in a jail cell. i need to be able to transition in and out in the hottest part of the summer, which means i need to have the heat at a minumum of 26 in the hottest parts of the year.
i can understand the concern, but 26 is unreasonably low for a law and, as a tenant, i would not be able to follow it - i would have the stove on or the heat running all year round to fight the air off.
if the concern is simply to prevent death, 36 is more appropriate than 26.
reference:
"b.c. building codes could be set to change after deadly 2021 heatwave", cbc news, july 1, 2022
20:06
the reality is that people in poor health put themselves in bad situations, and it's their own fault - not the fault of the landlord - if they can't adjust to the normal temperatures they're supposed to be evolved to.
what would our ancestors in africa say if we told them we felt 26 degrees celsius was too hot out?
a greater focus on public health - getting people outside and exercising - is a better strategy than laws that take the temperature down so that unhealthy people can watch tv without dying in their own filth.
it's a bizarre concern, from an evolutionary perspective - 26 degrees is cold.
20:12
remember: your body temperature is 37 degrees.
if your internal organs fell to 26 degrees, you'd be hypothermic and eventually die.
20:13
hypothermia is defined as a body temperature below 35 degrees celsius.
so, why aren't you comfortable at 30-33 degrees? it's because you're unhealthy.
20:14
the barbaric us embargo against cuba needs to come to an immediate end.
americans should be embarrassed that this policy is still in place.
20:40
so, should i file the constitutional challenge?
the clause in the legislation i've referenced largely addresses the issue. essentially, it's not clear what more i might want - the legislation deals with the issue of the absurd presumption of guilt by instructing a new trial be ordered. if i were to win the case, i'd get the clause that already exists.
this is really just an example of a justice that didn't do her job correctly and that needs to be held accountable for it by the appeals court and hopefully by the complaint i'm going to make in regards to it.
0:41
it's just gross incompetence.
she should get fired for it.
0:44
so, i'll just do the appeal, then - and point out that i made references to charter concerns.
if that doesn't work, for whatever unclear reason, then i'll file the challenge. for right now, it seems like i was wrong: it seems like somebody did get here fist and did amend the legislation accordingly. the justice just didn't follow the legislation correctly.
1:09
i've done a handful of appeals in the divisional court now, but i need to look up the process of appealing to the court of appeal in strict detail, next.
1:10
when i get the transcript, i'm also going to see if i can file a complaint against the prosecutor, in an attempt to get him fired, as well.
i suspect he's the bigger problem in the equation and the one that the city would benefit more from getting rid of.
1:29
this might seem awful at first glance - and the us press is still bizarrely holding to the widely debunked cia narrative about a syrian civil war and a democratic opposition of "moderate rebels" holed up in idlib - but it's actually a major step towards stability in the region.
if the russians want "territorial integrity" in syria, they're going to have to make it a reality with force, which means pushing what are turkish backed islamicist groups out of the region and re-establishing the control of the legitimate regime in damascus. fighting will linger here until that happens.
the flow of food into the region is just propping up a terrorist base that needs to be dismantled. as was the case with the isis controlled regions, the civilians in the region have little in the way of any legitimate claim to observer status - they are active participants in the barbaric society that the islamicists have designed and that needs to be burned down and destroyed, and then erased from history.
3:38
once the syrian borders are re-established, the turks and saudis will need to fuck off and go fight each other somewhere else.
3:40
is this going to become normalized language from american propaganda outlets?
the article is absurd.
but, the language is concerning.
19:21
this post is intended to keep track of what i've picked up since mid march with grocery store settlement cash, to make sure i'm getting something close to what i got from it.
specific hp inverter: $11.80
rocketbook: $31.15
cisco phone: $26.28
cisco power cord: $38.88
=======================
cisco phone total: $65.16
25 ft cat-5 cable: $14.68
4 port ethernet switch: $16.96
19" 720p philips monitor: $25
headset: $10.75
==========================
total tv room (thinkpad chromebook + 90s laptop): $67.39
dell chromebook 1: $112.99
usb to ethernet: $14.63
=============
total chromebook 1: $127.62
dell chromebook 2: $112.99
7-port usb hub: $9.61
usb to ethernet:
====================
total chromebook 2: $122.60
lenovo i5 thinkpad: $188.42
ssd hard drive: $37.28
usb sd card reader: $9.03
sata y-splitter: $5.64
ps/2 cable: $14.12
ps/2 keyboard: $15
usb pen: 36.48
16 gb ram:
===================
total i5 desktop: $305.97
unusable universal inverter: $6.28
===============
total cq60: $18.08
7 16gb usb keys: $28.08
5 small midi cables: $22.67
4 ps/2 mice: $45.27
mini sewing machine: $39.95
new kitchen scale: $22.60
total:
31.15 + 65.16 + 67.39 + 127.62 + 122.60 + 305.97 + 18.08 + 28.08 + 22.67 + 45.27 + 39.95 + 22.60
==================================================
896.54
23:32
while it's not the reasoning underlying the policy, it should actually drastically reduce prices because it eliminates the profit motive.
23:36
monday, july 11, 2022
so, i slept a little bit - not a lot - more than i would have liked to this weekend. i think i picked up a mild virus of some sort last week. whatever; that's life. i'm fine. but, i think i can get the notice of appeal done up in the next few hours.
i need to be clear about timelines. it's either 30 or 5 days; i think it's 30.
unfortunately, i might have to do this twice because i have no space to discuss the merits of the case. there was never any sort of hearing, so i can't appeal the actual conviction; the appeal will be strictly on the s. 11 grounds that the justice didn't follow instructions correctly.
so, when i win this - and it should be a triviality - the outcome will be to have the case heard in poa court, and we'll have to take it from there.
i'm doing this partially because i think my best tactic is to force the city to make the case. it's easy to convict somebody without a hearing. it will only be after they make their case (if they do. they may not show up, as was the case with the second ticket.) that i'll be able to identify the right legal issues to respond to. as mentioned, the prosecutor seemed to think that this is strict liability, and he's just wrong, there's all kinds of defences to trespassing in canada, much of it surrounding the idea of a right to access the property, which is the argument i'm explicitly making.
in the end, i may have to appeal to the appeals court a second time, and i'd expect that's going to be very expensive for the city. perhaps they may want to question their role in providing muscle and acting as a not-for-hire security guard for the hospital, given the bill they'll get in the end.
but, i have to actually have a case first, and what that means is that i have to send it back. i will need to mention something about the constitutional issues, and make a suggestion that the outcome of the case is unclear, but the actual issue at law here is going to strictly be whether the justice followed instructions or not, and that's as clear as can be - she did not.
3:47
this is the argument the russians have been making in response to accusations by western governments that they're targeting civilians: while much of the shelling that falls on civilian infrastructure is what the pentagon once called "collateral damage", which everybody should realize is perhaps a reason not to have wars but not something that can be stopped in the middle of one, a substantive percentage of the residences being destroyed are due to ukrainian army guys (who are indeed mostly nazis...) using residences as shelter and the people in them as human shields.
at this point it's clear enough that the russians don't give a fuck: if the paramilitaries are going to use nursing home and hospital patients as human shields, the russians will just slaughter them - which is the same thing the israelis do in palestine, and the americans recently did in iraq. you can throw the geneva convention around and be right, but the fact is that this has become a normalized part of modern warfare and that state and non-state actors alike need to get their head around the fact that this doesn't actually work in stopping the advance of armies, much of anywhere. the chinese have not yet had the opportunity to ignore international law on the matter, but when it comes down to it, they will, as well.
if an armed force is going to use these kinds of tactics - as the nazi groups in ukraine clearly are - there is some reasonable ground to calling them terrorists, for it.
4:00
so, in ontario, the court of appeal is considered to be a superior court (as is the divisional court, which i've been dealing with). the court i'm appealing to is in the same building as the divisional court i was dealing with previously, may allow judges from the same court to sit on it and may even be administered by the same people.
so, i may find this more familiar than i thought.
i have to file online due to covid - there is no in-person filing process. i would hope that i at least have the option to appear by phone, but i also really hope that these virtual appearances are starting to go away, soon. even a plexiglass barrier in the court room would be a better idea than these virtual hearings, which cannot continue forever.
4:36
yeah.
so, i'm back in s. 61 of the rules of civil procedure, as i was before, i just have slightly different rules to follow, this time.
i don't have an automatic appeal, i have to ask permission. and, i have 15 days to do it, not 5 or 30.
4:40
ok.
so, i think the process is i'm supposed to:
1) serve & file the notice of request for motion within 15 days of friday. and, i can do that this morning, i think.
2) file & serve the factum & stuff 30 days after that, so by the 10th of august, roughly.
3) i don't have to file the actual notice of appeal until 7 days after the leave is granted, which might be after the factum and stuff? that's odd, to say the least.
this is for civil matters (a ticket is not administrative or civil in ontario but technically a criminal matter), but i would assume it's the same procedure:
5:18
there's also an automatic stay with the notice of appeal, so i want the issue dealt with asap, so i can serve the appeal.
5:23
yeah, the monitor just went as i was typing up the notice. i don't want to plug a widescreen monitor into the kvm, so i'm going to install a temporary copy of word (2003!) on the new typing machine instead, which is still in temporary install mode. i have a potential purchase of two 15" square monitors for $10 each in progress.
it's weird, what it's doing. the inverter works. the screen works. it seems like it's a power issue. i've swapped out the cord, i've tried it with the dvi and it's doing the same thing. i've also tried it with the windows 98 machine and it doesn't help
it's been flickering for a while, now. what happened was that i heard a kind of a hiss, like air coming out of a balloon, and then it just went black. now, what it does is shut off after less than a second, but the monitor doesn't actually turn off. so, it seems like it's overheating.
do you know what i think actually happened? i think somebody put a wifi chip or other sort of relay device in the monitor, and it overloaded the circuit. the fucking idiots.
listen: this device is for recording. there's no internet connection. i will replace the old vga monitor with another old vga monitor, probably of lower quality, as i don't want to invest in it. if i have to, i'll get a dvi or hdmi to vga cord.
i'm not hiding anything, i'm just not interested in video quality because the machine is not used for video editing or watching videos of any type. it just has to display a square output, for the old version of cubase i'm using, which requires it.
fuck.
i'm about 30% done and want this done this morning, as stated. so, let me get word up on the other machine and get to it.
6:49
once i get a replacement monitor, i'll maybe think about buying a capacitor and trying to resolder it. but, the fact is that i am not good at soldering and there is almost no likelihood that i'd succeed at replacing a burnt out capacitor.
given what i actually want - a small square vga monitor - it is likely more cost and time effective to simply replace the monitor.
6:53
it is actually in my interest to buy up 5 or 6 cheap square monitors at this point, as they are not likely to be available much longer.
6:54
so, that slowed me down just enough to piss me off.
i got the file served and am going to wait until tomorrow to file.
i can't get through to the office to report the missing birth registration and am running out of time for the day, as i have other things to do.
12:32
it's easy to look down on rights as "bourgeois", and i do it sometimes too (although i shit all over different rights than most fake leftists do, and hold the ones that fake leftists dislike the most in the highest regard), but when they're taken away from you, you might find out very quickly that you want them back.
i wouldn't waste my time with anybody that is overly skeptical about human rights. that's a bad scene.
14:52
tuesday, july 12, 2022
i use voip for phone service and am connected via teksavvy to the cogeco network from windsor. i was not affected by the rogers outage. at all.
but, i've argued repeatedly for many years that the cable lines should be owned by the public in the same way that roads are. the information superhighway metaphor should really be taken literally. we should have publicly owned - and publicly accessible - access, at this stage in history.
the internet should be as wide open and as free as the roads are.
10:48
so, what the justice is saying is that the doctor is not bound by the charter because they're not the government. applicable human rights legislation may apply to private businesses, but the charter only applies to governments. the outcome might have been different if it was filed under the alberta human rights code. that is why i filed my hospital case in the human rights court and not as a charter challenge.
ok.
i would have advised the client to file in the right jurisdiction, but this is done and i would now appeal that on the grounds that a hospital is a part of the civil service - a position that conservatives (and many liberals) would scoff at but that much of the left would consider to be unwritten truth. it might be blurry right now but, in the long run, doctors will need to be seen as state employees offering a service and not as private businesses operating on the market.
alberta isn't exactly like texas, it's more like missouri. or, maybe edmonton is something like austin. but, this is an issue where a judge in alberta would be expected to rule in a specific way, and where a judge in ottawa might staunchly disagree with them and wholesale overturn them. alberta would then whine about being "alienated".
so, this was filed in the wrong court, but that ruling can't stand without being challenged, now, as it sets an awful precedent, moving forwards. however, the outcome is ambiguous; this is not obvious, not clear.
reference
"charter not violated in denying transplant to patient who refused covid-19 vaccine, court rules", cbc news, july 12, 2022
21:41
the hospitals in canada are publicly funded, public access and publicly open. in many provinces, they're explicitly public property. they are administered by public law and the employees are represented by civil service unions.
the idea that the employees at these facilities are not state employees or should be treated differently than other state employees is a disingenuous facade.
the charter should apply to hospitals, specifically - and agitating for the point is worthwhile.
21:48
is it time to take eldridge to the next level?
21:52
more on eldridge:
21:55
an analysis of eldridge:
22:12
so, it's a little too strong for me to suggest that the court in edmonton erred, exactly.
it's more that this is unsettled and that the supreme court should be making final decisions, here - and there's a good chance that eldridge gets expanded rather than reversed.
22:13
legalities aside, what's the correct answer, in the sense of what ought to be done?
the reason that people are required to get vaccinations before undergoing a transplant is that organs are in short supply and you have to take immune suppressing drugs to ensure your body accepts the organ. organ transplants have become normalized, and are not new, but they're still experimental, in the sense that we still don't have a really good understanding of how to force your body to accept the invading organic material. often, your body will reject the transplant.
the collateral damage of taking immune suppressing drugs is that you're more likely to get sick. so, they require you to be to date on your vaccinations to minimize chances that you'll die of polio or something a few weeks after you get the organ. this is eminently reasonable.
however, a covid vaccine is not the same thing as a meningitis vaccine, and that's a point i've been trying to bring up over and over again:
1) covid is constantly mutating. the vaccines don't work anymore, if they ever did (even the first round of vaccines was already out of date). this is different than the list of legislated vaccines, which vaccinate against viruses that are stable. the last vaccine i got was a tetanus/diptheria vaccine and i'm pretty sure that tetanus isn't going to mutate dramatically any time soon. (yes, these are bacteria, not viruses).
2) covid is a weak virus.
3) most people have had some kind of contact with covid by now, regardless, which means they have some kind of natural protection. studies are clear that natural protection - because it's based on the whole virion rather than an rna fragment - is more effective against variants than vaccination.
so, the court needs to weigh whether the restriction is rational or not, and i have to put forward the argument that it isn't. vaccination with current vaccines is not going to help much in the context of immuno-suppression, and chances are very high that she has antibodies, anyways.
they could test her for antibodies, first, at the least.
so, if the restriction isn't rational then it becomes discriminatory and she has a strong case in her favour.
22:25
you want vaccines to work. i get it.
that's hope.
it's not logic.
22:52
the eventual way around all of this will be to use stem cells to grow new organs or potentially even "print" new organs on the fly.
but, we're not there yet.
23:02
wednesday, july 13, 2022
i don't know why people are still talking about donald trump as a potential candidate. it's forgotten, apparently, that he didn't really command a core of the party, and he was actually seen as the less extreme candidate, when placed beside rubio and cruz. trump won because people thought cruz was too right wing; he was the centrist in the primary, and commanded a lot of anti-cruz support that otherwise didn't like him much.
i don't think he could get lucky like that a second time. i think he'd lose if he tried again.
besides, everybody knows that the most likely republican nominee in 2024 is kanye west.
7:36
trump is last decade. get with it.
the future of bad hair and worse ideas is kanye west.
7:38
if you don't like the rate hike, contact pierre polievre to complain about it.
he already got what he was bitching about. why vote for him, now?
21:30
thursday, july 14, 2022
somehow, a contemporary geopolitical problem in the middle east is that iraq - with the world's 12th largest natural gas deposits - has become reliant on iranian gas for consumer use.
apparently, iraq's gas is being used almost exclusively for oil production.
that is baffling. but, this is an area of the world with a very bad track record of resource conservation.
0:58
canadians care deeply about health care funding and will punish any government that wants to fuck around with the funding model.
what canadians don't care about it is ukraine, religion, nato or specious displays of empty moral superiority.
any politician claiming that canadians don't care about health care is a retard and should be thrown out of power by his own party.
1:31
it seems like mr. trudeau has a hidden agenda to dismantle the health care system, and there's only a minimal time frame in which he can be stopped.
1:32
this is worth pointing out, though.
in canada, there's 10 premiers and three territorial representatives, which mostly operate via consensus. parties have a different meaning in the north.
of the ten premiers, there are
- 8 conservatives (nova scotia, new brunswick, pei, quebec, ontario, manitoba, saskatchewan, alberta)
- 1 fake leftist ((bc)
- 1 liberal (newfoundland, which was a separate country until 1949)
mr trudeau does not tolerate dissent, and he may not have shown up at the meeting because he knew he couldn't bully them, the way he does to most people around him.
this is what happens when we put somebody with the maturity of a child in power.
it's imperative that the party find a way around mr. trudeau and work through this problem. canadians will instantly annihilate the liberal party if presented with a ballot question of this sort.
and, where exactly are we, when the liberal government won't give money to conservative premiers on healthcare because it wants to avoid allowing them to roll the money out in their own announcements and instead speciously accuses them of wasting it on beer and popcorn? it's a total subversion of the canada health act, which is supposed to withhold money when the premiers don't spend it. if this issue isn't dealt with, it's going to turn the clocks back on healthcare access in canada, in a way that will make clarence thomas look enlightened, in comparison.
there's a really serious problem in ottawa and only the liberal party itself can fix it.
1:55
so, i finally got my hair blonde again. it's always a pretty dramatic difference, as i instantly go from looking sort of italian-jewish to looking starkly swedish-russian. it also makes me look much younger. what i learned from the ancestry.com test is that i have norse on both sides and jew on both sides, although the jew is actually trace on both sides and the norse is overwhelming on my mom's side (and trace on my dad's side, probably from northern france, but possibly (also) from italy). there is also some trace (northern) italian on my dad's side, but i'm not convinced it's phenotypically relevant (northern italy is actually mostly lombard/swedish). my r1b is halstatt celtic, which is ancestral iron age central european. i can only guess how that got to the gaspe c. 1800 as the records aren't very helpful; the legend is that a charles parent showed up in the gaspe from quebec city, but it's not consistent with the church records. the truth is that he really just shows up there out of nowhere, in the middle of multiple revolutionary wars, and he could have arrived from any of them. it's a haplotype associated with the non-latin indo-european speaking populations of western europe - germans & celts, but mostly celts. the specific mutation is explicitly iron age celt, so i can confidently trace patrilineal descent directly from the central european iron age. it's funny, then, that i came up with almost zero affinity with otzi, and quite a large amount of affinity with the clovis culture. the implication is that whoever this iron age gaul, charles parent, that showed up in the gaspe c. 1800 was, he married into the local indigenous population, and his offspring have genetic ancestry from both continents.
i think i mentioned that i dyed it red a few months ago, so it didn't come out light blonde but rather came out a strawberry-orange. the bleach over the red over the natural brown created a reddish-orange hue embedded into the blonde. that was done intentionally; i've done it a few times before, when starting from the natural brown. it is very youthful looking, and it works for me, but you need to make sure you have the right hair type to do that. so, don't blame me if you try that and it doesn't work.
4:26
how do you fix the health care system?
well, everybody is looking for more funding, and it does appear to be necessary. however, as is the case with most of the problems in canada, we are fundamentally dealing with the effects of already existing overpopulation, largely driven by unchecked immigration. there are simply more people looking for health care than there are resources available to treat them. we have too many people for the health care system to treat, too many people to house efficiently, etc. so, the request by government is for more funding to hire more nurses.
but, that isn't a sufficient solution. the fundamental problem needs to be addressed: canada, and specifically ontario, is simply experiencing the effects of extreme overpopulation. this is going to get worse, as the government wants to increase immigration.
this unsustainable population growth - the consequence of naive liberal models about unlimited growth - is at the root of many of the country's existing problems and needs to be more seriously addressed. you can't just spend your way out of over-population.
immigration can help solve this problem if we bring back the points system and start focusing more on tailoring immigration to the economy, rather than insist on a broken refugee-oriented system that functions as some kind of global social welfare system. it should be abundantly clear that canada does not have the infrastructure to fulfil this role and that politicians that want to be philanthropists should get out of government and get into the philanthropy sector.
the reality is that if the state keeps piling refugees up in the ditches, and keeps letting them bring their extended families in, we're going to see the problem exacerbated.
to be clear: i'm not blaming the problem on refugees. it's not their fault. rather, it's the fault of politicians running on legislated morality instead of sound economic theory and then justifying it by presenting naive liberal growth models that were debunked decades ago. now, after so many decades of this, the fact is that we can't meet health care demand, and we're going to have to reduce that demand, as well as find ways to increase supply, or the system is going to fall apart.
canada's social system works best with a low population density. if you look at the list of issues affecting the country, almost all of them are a consequence of that low population density model coming into contradiction with a high density reality. our immigration targets don't make sense in the context of our social system. something needs to give: we cannot continue on with low density models while living in high density realities.
if the state insists on enforcing a reality of high population density, the end result is going to be a move to a market health care system. there's no way out of it.
i would rather maintain the existing system and ensure we're holding to low densities to accommodate it.
9:17
canada is a big country, but it's population centres and infrastructure only take up a small percentage of it.
most canadians would never stop to think that we might be overpopulated, but the fact is that we're experiencing the effects of severe overpopulation, and we've largely yet to become cognizant of it.
9:22
the country of canada is not a charity with a magic check book, it's a population of people bound together by a social contract to help each other first and foremost, and that is breaking under the strain of bad governance and poor resource management.
9:32
if you presented this problem to a stalin or a mao, they would order the construction of new cities and move people from one place to another. that's not going to fly, here.
but we need to get people out of southern ontario and the government has to start being more aggressive about it.
9:40
these metals are chosen because they have certain electrical qualities. but, these decisions are clearly not sustainable and this needs to be revisited immediately.
for example, lithium could largely be replaced by magnesium. calcium apparently suffers from electrostatic issues. further, an aluminum battery should be highly efficient and would be pretty ideal given how abundant it is.
it needs to be realized that this isn't a choice. the mass manufacture of these devices is impossible using the chemistry currently used, but this is a problem with many obvious solutions.
policy makers need to understand that these devices are not going to be made with rare metals much longer and funding for large battery plants using rare metals as electron donors/acceptors is not well placed.
11:29
in the medium term (it's not long term anymore), as we start talking about mass manufacturing evs as replacement for fossil fuels, issues about maximum performance and even fuel efficiency will get kicked down the road.
what manufacturers are going to be concerned about are two things:
1) minimizing cost (and therefore availability)
2) does it fucking work or not?
we're not talking about how to get from 0 to 100 in the shortest amount of time, or about driving across the country. we're talking about driving the kids to school.
magnesium batteries are already good enough for most applications, and they cost a fraction of the ones being made. it's a no-brainer: the technology is going to shift.
11:49
politicians are not business people. that's not to say they ought not be, and perhaps they ought to be, but they're not. politicians are generally not capable of making planning decisions - and that's coming from somebody that believes in planned economies.
existing ev battery technology cannot be scaled.
it is necessarily a niche product for the rich.
that has to change. but, public money spent on technology that can only produce products appropriate for purchase by the rich is not helpful.
11:58
friday, july 15, 2022
the question of whether the poster is "offensive" to some people or not is not a relevant legal consideration under canadian law. it is wholly, entirely irrelevant in a canadian legal context.
nobody in canada will ever go on trial for "being offensive". it's just not a crime, here.
the various private entities have the right to decide what films are shown on their property, based on their own opinions, and the filmmaker has an obligation to follow their rules if she wants the film shown at their festivals. i don't think that's really any sort of debate. one would hope these institutions would care more about free speech and less about whining religionists complaining about "being offended", but our only reasonable reaction to such censorship in a free society is to boycott them. and, i would certainly call for any entities that cave in to pressure by right-wing extremists to censor films for being "offensive" to be strenuously boycotted by a wide cross-section of society. if these kinds of pressure tactics are not pushed back against, they will succeed. don't go to this festival or give these people any more of your money. transfer out of the school, if you can.
if canada is to have a large population of indian secularists, that community will need to build it's own infrastructure in which to effectively express itself. the filmmaker should look into her community for help and support in building parallel structures to take on and overturn the religious elements existing within it. as a secularist, i don't just have solidarity for that kind of action, but i strongly encourage it, as it is in my self-interest to maintain this place as a secular society, free of religious control. it is in the tradition of western enlightenment, which will last longer than the silliness of canadian multiculturalism. this is what western culture really is: we are the culture of enlightenment. i stand with attempts by hindus, muslims, animists, buddhists and anybody else to carry through with their own enlightenments. as stated, i consider that fundamental to the extension of the enlightenment, which is under threat by religious elements in our society,
but, the idea that the government should be involved is retarded and the canadian government should release a statement officially telling the indian nationalists to fuck off. take it from this canadian: canadians will not be told what they can and cannot say, based on what is considered offensive to the religious or not.
reference:
"toronto filmmaker receives backlash, death threats over hindu goddess poster", cbc news, july 14, 2022
16:45
what i see in this filmmaker is an expression of the iconoclasm that defines the basis of contemporary western culture, which formed as a consequence of the liberation of the west after the overthrow of the despised christianity, which is a process that ended in the 17th century.
16:51
what the filmmaker needs is a forum in which she can show her films where the organizers will stand with her right to expression, not cave into pressure by religionists. it is up to her and her community to build that infrastructure, and to fight that struggle.
and, as stated, this is not merely her struggle, or the struggle of her community to modernize. this is a shared struggle that defines western identity, and that all westerners should see as foundational.
16:56
in a very real sense, she represents our origin myth, in our struggle against and overturn of the oppression of the church.
16:58
saturday, july 16, 2022
i got my $200 carbon tax rebate, and i didn't spend a cent on gas last year, nor am i experiencing the effects of inflation.
i actually got a good price on cheese thor's day because it was set to expire because nobody bought it at the heightened price. that's the way you do it: you refuse to pay the higher prices and wait for it to go on sale and then you buy it up. this will always happen, as the stores won't want to take a loss. so, i got 6 bricks at the price i paid for it last year. the loser here is the store, not the consumer - or, not yet. in the long run, you're going to see stores not carrying items they can't sell.
i got a good deal on strawberries, avocados, all bran and peaches, too. so, i don't know what people are complaining about, exactly.
so, for me, this is free money - but don't get jealous. this is the intent: if you spend less on carbon, you save money. it's not a rebate. it's not supposed to compensate you for the rising cost of gas. it's supposed to reward those that don't use much carbon, and provide an incentive for those that do to reduce consumption. if you spent more than you got back, it's because you're a climate criminal and you deserve to be punished for it, not compensated for it.
what i'm actually going to spend this $200 on is a name change, which is long overdue.
1:38
listen, it doesn't matter how you want to define it, it's just a simple fact: christianity isn't consistent with western culture, and it never was.
what actually happened was that the romans brought so many slaves back from syria that they took over the country. that's not some historical revisionism about migration being paramount, it's a running commentary in the ancient sources. one of many examples:
Syrian Orontes has long since flowed into the Tiber, and brought with it its language, morals, and the crooked harps with the flute-player, and its national tambourines, and girls made to stand for hire at the Circus. - juvenal, satire III, c 118 CE
the romans were cognizant of the fact that they were being not just hellenized - they liked that - but semiticized, which they did not like. many of the anti-semitic tropes that have come to us down the ages have origins in the punic wars, where the latin romans drove the semitic carthaginians out of africa, and largely out of history, altogether.
in the end, the romans were overwhelmed; due to some combination of the numerical dominance of the slaves and their religion and control from the very top (official decrees of national faith by emperors, including but not limited to constantine), the religion became dominant in the south of europe, which immediately led to the empire's decline. the adoption of oriental forms of despotism and fundamentalism quite predictably led to scientific decay and social collapse, which was accelerated by pagan germanic hordes descending on the population centres and burning and raping and pillaging. if this was some kind of experiment with middle eastern religion (and christianity is clearly a middle eastern religion, in both origin and character) in the west, in an undoing of the punic wars, it ended in utter catastrophe - and with pagans firmly back in control.
these pagans may have called themselves arians, which is a curious form of christianity that insists upon the mortality of jesus as a human being and in the process denies the trinity. while it require less of a suspension of critical thought to accept, it's hard to really call these people christians in any meaningful sense of the term. one will note that the roman sources initially labelled the muslims as arians as well. there is more than a little bit of evidence that these germanic warrior kings were some combination of atheist and traditionalist pagan that were also tolerant enough and pragmatic enough to realize that trying to rule in italy or spain (or carthage) required some lip service to christian adherence. they did not rule as christians in any real sense, nor did they seem to have had much interest in christian morality.
it is from the collapse of christian rome and it's replacement by a functionally pagan german-speaking elite that the catholic church walked into a power vacuum. if the early germans were tolerant enough to allow the romans to keep their faith without killing them, the later germans (including the vikings) were pragmatic enough to understand the power of the church as a tool in advancing their own interests. in the south, people listened to the church because it was seen as an extension of roman power and therefore gave it a legitimacy they didn't give to the secular german leaders, so church leaders could be trotted out to justify various policies. in the north, the expansion of christianity gave the warrior kings an excuse for conquest, and a ready made army of southerners willing to fight. and, so it came to be that northern europe was conquered by christianity, and the peoples of northern europe were forced to submit to christan values by the sword, and most of those that resisted were killed, with the survivors forced to flee deep into what we today call russia. the result is that europe emerges out of the period of germanic migrations as nominally christian, because the pagans themselves used it as a tool of conquest.
however, the idea of a "christian europe" was never actually true in the working classes, or even in much of the middle class, and the upper classes were famously openly cynical about it. our popular understanding of the conniving, taxing ducal lord - using the church to raise income - is rooted strongly in historical reality. on every opportunity for revolt, from the great barbarian conspiracy to the fact that the vikings explicitly targeted churches and monasteries (there is a theory that the viking movement south was a retaliation for charlemagne's church-sanctioned genocide of the saxons, under fears they were next) to the great peasant revolt after the plague to the reformation and the renaissance and the wars for-self determination that ended the enlightenment, there is a constant narrative of the church as a despised oppressor, as an unwanted force of colonization by distant foreigners and even of a continued adherence to pagan traditions. the great peasant revolt, for example, was very strongly correlated with the idea of gathering at groves, which was a pagan meeting place. there's evidence of pagan sacrifice in both the south (italy) and the north (scotland) extending deep into the late medieval period (italy) and as far as the renaissance (in scotland). the inquisition is frequently condemned for it's misogyny, but few stop to think that the reason the state could justify burning witches was because there were still so many europeans adhering to their traditional religious customs, which the church condemned as witchcraft. if the christianity of the courts was always cynical, the christianity of the common people (who were not allowed to read the bible until the reformation) was little more than a disingenuous veneer, and enforced strictly with violence; this veneer frequently collapsed upon the first opportunity that the people had to rise up against the tyranny that enforced it.
so, by the time of the enlightenment, and of the revolutions in france and america, what you have is a gestating concept of western culture that is attempting to emerge from 1500 years of foreign oppression by middle eastern religion and reassert the indigenous character of it's somewhat lost culture: weakly polytheistic but broadly atheistic, democratic, free and autonomous of the middle eastern christian church. the french revolution was not spontaneous - it was the result of a thousand years worth of resentment, finally boiling over and putting an end to a system of rule by foreign values and reassert the values common to germanic and celtic civilization, as best as they could actually be remembered, mostly via reconstruction from the greeks.
indians (of both types) might see something in common with that, if they look deeply enough into the history of europe, and avoiding the oversimplified narratives presented by contemporary fake leftists.
3:26
"christian europe" is little more than a great lie.
our culture, as an autonomous entity, begins with the struggle to overthrow the church.
3:43
yes, it's true that most europeans couldn't read at all during that period, anyways.
but, if you could read, the church would sentence you to death if they caught you reading the bible.
think that through.
4:03
Estimates for the prevalence of slavery in the Roman Empire vary. Estimates of the percentage of the population of Italy who were slaves range upwards of two to three million slaves in Italy by the end of the 1st century BC, about 35% to 40% of Italy's population
that is the reason that rome became christianized.
4:11
no, it's not a question of athenian v germanic democracy. democracy is the form of government indigenous to central european tribes, who either moved north (and became germans), moved south (and became greeks and italians) or moved west (and became britons, gauls and proto-spaniards).
the traditions in rome, athens and uppsala clearly have a common origin in some common ancient indo-european ancestry somewhere older than the halstatt period.
6:28
our democracy is clearly more directly germanic than latin or athenian, even if it takes some late influence from the latter. but, trying to separate the ideas is missing the point: this is the form of indigenous european governance.
6:29
and, i actually think that genetic evidence suggests there probably was a connection between spanish iberia and georgian iberia - the pre-celtic inhabitants of spain were genetically connected to the caucasian populations, and it would stand to reason that the greeks (who named them both iberians) simply realized they were basically the same people.
the much-maligned linguistic connection between basque and kartvelian is probably legit, meaning the basques may be one of the last living relatives of the sumerians.
6:47
what happened this week?
i got my document served monday morning, and then went out to pick up a square monitor in the afternoon and go for the ride i described last week. unfortunately, the monitor wasn't square (the guy didn't really know what i was talking about when i asked him over kijiji), so i decided against the purchase. i have two smaller monitors waiting for me on the edge of town, which i hope to pick up early next week. on the way back, i stopped at the soy milk store to inquire about my soy, which i need to update a little on.
when i realized what was happening at the end of last year, i tried to get as much of my soy (this is the second best soy. my old staple is gone, forever. sadly.) as i could find and decided i'd figure out what to do next in the summer. we're at that point. while i'm pissed off about the situation, i think the best thing to do is just stick with the modified natura product, and supplement with d. the reality is that the other changes in the formulation are largely trivial, given that i'm getting more than enough b vitamins from the introduction of nutritional yeast into my diet. the decrease in b12, for example, is no longer important. the cut in calcium is baffling, but i'm getting more calcium now, anyways. it's the cut in d from 45% to 10% that is a serious pissoff (even realizing that they increased the rdas) and i can only really adjust to by taking supplements. dietary sources of vitamin d are simply not plentiful and i really relied on that, but it's gone.
unfortunately, the reality is that i can't even find the product anywhere, so i don't even have the option to buy it. the best option i have available to me is the unsweetened, which is an extra 20 calories per serving. this isn't catastrophic, but i kind of like the vanilla in my cereal, too, even if i end up sticking with the unsweetened for the salad.
so, i decided to stop in to the store (it's a metro) to ask the manager: can you order this for me? and, the answer is that they cannot order it for me because the parent company no longer orders it. the store does not have the autonomy to order the product. fuck. i'm going to have to ask around, and shop around to see what my options are.
so, i went home without my monitor and without my soy, got a box of the strawberry version from the fridge and went for my ride, stopping to chug the soy midway. it was hot late into the evening on monday, so the ride was great, and i got in late in the evening, took a shower and went to sleep.
the idea was to get out early on tuesday afternoon to do a number of things at city hall, but the day just went too long. i had to sit on hold for quite a while to try to understand what the instruction to "immediately notify the registrar general of lost or damaged birth registration" actually meant, and the answer was that filing the name change is sufficient for the purpose. ok. i intended to drop off the documents at city hall in the afternoon, but it was pushing 14:00 by the time i got off of the phone, got everything in order and got something to eat. i just had to push it forward to wednesday. so, tuesday was spent getting things in order for a run to city hall that never happened. instead, i ended up sleeping for much of the afternoon.
wednesday was even worse; i had every intent of getting out to city hall and doing all of the other things, but it was cold in the morning and then it started to rain in the afternoon. i might have gotten out at the very end of the day, but decided against it. foiled. so, wednesday was spent browsing the internet waiting for the rain to stop, then sleeping in the evening.
i was able to get out on thursday, albeit a little later than i intended, partly because i bleached my hair in the early hours of the morning and partly because i was waiting for a response on a kijiji ad that came up that morning for a free square monitor. so, i made it to city hall and served the provincial offences office with a notice for leave to appeal to the court of appeal, at about 14:00. i then went up to the commissioner's office and got two documents signed, for the name & gender change. i was hoping to then drop that off at service ontario, but i have to mail it to thunder bay, unfortunately.
the next thing to do was to bicycle out to south windsor to get the free square monitor, which i was a little late for, but which worked out nonetheless. on the one hand, it's a dell from 2003, so it's not worth much; on the other hand, the person was kind enough to offer it for free, which he deserves recognition for. so, many thanks to the south asian guy that handed me the free square monitor in south windsor, it's very appreciated.
however, there was a problem - the monitor was too big to fit in my bag. i had a bicycle with me. what do i do now?
i was able to get the monitor off of the stand and able to get the stand in the bag. i'd just have to ride back one handed with a 20" monitor in my arm. there really wasn't any alternative.
i was able to pull this off, but it was certainly with some difficulty, and the route back wasn't at all helpful; first, i had to get out of a suburban enclave, and up behind devonshire mall through an industrial park that didn't have a sidewalk and did have multiple big rigs shaving me on the ripped up pavement. worse, my back brake, the one i was relying on when riding one-handed, had somehow ended up crooked and was not working correctly.
so, i had to stop at the mall, put the monitor down and adjust my brakes. this was actually helpful because the monitor was...it wasn't heavy, exactly, but it was awkward, and i was barely able to handle it, while bicycling one-handed. if it was five pounds heavier, i would have surely dropped it.
i did make it from the mall to my doctor's office and walked in with a 20" monitor in my arm, which nobody asked me about. the purpose was to print off the result of the fit test, which was negative. that doesn't prove i don't have cancer, but it's one of a dozen things i've done now that suggests there's really no evidence i do have cancer. we'll do it again next year.
it wasn't that much further home, but i made sure to go around through the park, in order to minimize contact with traffic. i had to stop a few times to change arms; it's saturday morning and my arms are still sore. but, i got it home.
the new monitor is a 2001 FP, which is actually a substantive upgrade from my 1701FP, but otherwise essentially the same model:
i haven't plugged it in yet, but it has the same connections as the broken monitor, it's just 3" bigger. if it actually works, it's exactly the same thing, just bigger.
the one i had when i moved to windsor was the 19" model, which i bought in 2007, and which i had to downgrade when it imploded in november 2016 (i left it in the previous basement). the one i've had since 2017 was the 17" model, which has been good enough, although i haven't done a lot of actual work with it. the new one is the 20" model. they're actually otherwise all the same monitor from dell.
i've had so much bad luck with monitors, that i don't want to spend really anything at all on them. this could be absolutely ideal, if it works. i'll find out soon enough.
when i got home, i got my papers in order and headed out to mail them. i then tried the food basics, and could they order the light vanilla soy? the answer is that they could not, for the same reason.
i then took a ride out to two of the independent stores and purchased two flavours of a different brand of soy. this brand is retaining the high fortification levels, at least for now, but is also a higher calorie level. so, you get the good with the bad. i bought the original and the vanilla, and we'll see how i like it. i did not inquire about ordering the items, as i got both stores ten minutes before closing, but i was able to confirm that neither store carries the brand. obviously, it would be better to find a store that carries the brand before i ask them to special order, so i'm going to keep looking.
i was going to take a final run out around 21:30, when i experienced something i haven't experienced much of this year: i was a little cold. it was still well over 20 degrees, but the humidity was lower and the sun wasn't shining. so, i decided i'd finish the shopping in the morning.
unfortunately, i completely lost friday; when i came in, i made myself a salad and passed out within minutes of trying to eat it, and for hours. i slept for 16 hours straight. did my iron crash again? i didn't get a lot of exercise, and i think i was sleeping well. my fecal movements are solid and normal. whatever it was, i wasn't able to really wake up until after 20:00 on friday, so it amounted to almost a full day of totally zonked out sleep. maybe i just experienced a little stress relief in serving and filing the document.
i've been awake since friday evening, now, and was able to tidy up a little in here, do some research on a few things and get this typed up. if i was planning on finishing the grocery shopping today, i think it's better that i wait, as it's going to rain in the nicest part of the day.
for now, i want to check to see if the monitor works or not.
10:48
the monitor works.
with both pcs.
excellent.
so, do i want to pick up some backups while i still can? i think i do...
i suspect the one that's broken is easily fixed with a new capacitor, and i will hang on to it for a fix, one day. the other one, years ago, looked like it blew right up, somehow. there was a creamburst pattern on the screen, it was just fucked. i suspect this one is absolutely fixable, with minimal effort, i just need to learn how.
but, the reality is that this technology is old and these screens are all going to slowly die. i want this setup to last. so, if i can get a bunch of backups for $<10 each, now, to keep them out of the landfill, it's worth the investment.
i'm even going to put up a kijiji ad.
11:27
yeah, so i'm trying this other brand of soy - the soya sensational vanilla - and it's far too sugary. gross.
i'll stick with the unsweetened natura, if i can't find the vanilla light.
13:53
i really don't have much of a sweet tooth. i prefer sour and spicy to sweet. sweet can be ok if it's paired with sour or spicy, but sweet on it's own is just kinda disgusting.
13:55
i'm used to a kind of faint hue of vanilla. this tastes like somebody poured a container of table sugar in it. yuck.
13:56
this isn't vanilla flavoured at all. it's just sugar flavoured.
14:00
the stats aren't terrible in an absolute sense. a serving has 8% of the daily carbs. but, by comparison, my normal brand has 1%. so, it has 8 times as much sugar as i'm used to, and my reaction is that it's gross and i'm thirsty.
14:02
i won't buy this again.
in fact, i'm going to dump it. yuck.
14:05
flushed.
that might work as dessert in a berries & cream sense, but i didn't buy it as candy, i bought it as a health food, and it's too sugary, for me, on my all bran.
14:12
dairy producers are going to have to figure out something other than price hikes.
there's a clear pattern, from what i can see: they raise prices on dairy, the stores pass it on, nobody buys it and the result is that stores have to put it on sale before new stock comes in - and before it expires.
i can predict that the stores will pay the price increase, and that's not sustainable. eventually, if the dairy producers keep hiking the price, stores will reduce their orders to try to break even, which means:
1) dairy producers will sell less
2) they'll have excess supply they can't sell and
3) dairy consumers will move on and look towards less expensive products
the result will be a shrinking of the dairy sector, as nobody wants our exports.
so, dairy producers should think this through.
i would again encourage consumers to refuse to pay inflated prices and force the stores to put the items in sale.
reference:
"cost of dairy to rise again across canada, but relief could be on the way: expert", ctv news, july 15, 2022
16:04
for me, the issue is mostly cheese. the yogurt i buy is always on sale, because it's healthy and nobody wants that. the fools don't realize that cheddar cheese is high in retinol; otherwise, they wouldn't want it.
i will spend $30/month on cheese, and i will wait until it's on sale. if i can't find it on sale, i will buy less cheese - the budget is $30. if it's on super sale, i'll buy even more.
if stores adopt that mentality, producers will get the same amount of sales, but sell less cheese, overall. high prices will be sustainable, at least, from their perspective. and, many consumers will simply lose out.
16:15
they are now in competition for potato yields with vodka manufacturers, and it's not ambiguous who will win that struggle, in russia. there cannot be a shortage of vodka, it will lead to riots in the streets.
no freedom fries for you, russia.
reference:
"french fry producers in 'unfriendly' nations refusing to supply russia, says mcdonald's replacement", cbc news, july 16, 2022
22:47
i strongly doubt that ivana trump died from falling down the stairs.
i'm not generally interested in these investigations into trump, as i find them broadly specious and driven entirely by politics. this is different - i would hope there's a full investigation.
23:12
so, i'm coming up on the end of my second batch of thai chilis and realizing that my bowel movements and my ferritin levels are stabilizing at the same time. is that a coincidence?
how seriously can i take the idea that i flushed something out? i understand that the correct answer is not very.
but, what if i poisoned them with high iron and chili peppers at the same time? what if it's a synergy?
i have to clarify that thai peppers are very, very spicy. we're talking an average of 75,000 on the scofield scale. a measly wittle jalapeno is only in the 5000 range. these thai peppers scoff at your jalapenos, which is what the scale is about, right? higher numbers mean more scoffing.
these peppers are hot enough to burn my hands when i'm handling them, cause me to sneeze and hack when i'm chopping them, make my face burn on contact with gasses emitted from them and, yes, burn my asshole on the way out. they're borderline toxic, truly.
i'm not having a hard time believing that they might have flushed something out of there at all.
there's only so many answers to fluctuating ferritin in the face of extreme supplementation, and i'm just not fucking bleeding. i may have some mild absorption issues from a handful of factors and my hormones may be a little out of whack, but that's not enough; i almost have to conclude parasitism via the process of elimination. there's almost no other answer.
but, those symptoms have vanished in the last few weeks, so i now have to conclude nothing at all. but, i don't want to get ahead of myself.
the next step up the ladder is habanero or scotch bonnet. i'm going to take the jump and see what happens.
4:27
so, what am i doing, now?
i'm trying to collect all of the square monitors i can find and have leads on a few. i need to do a store-by-store search for one that sells natura soy and then ask them to special order me the type i want [i have a lot of the unsweetened version at full fortification, for now]. and, i think i can get to starting on swapping the chromebook to linux, this morning.
5:03
i just sorted through what i've done since my last substantive narrative update on june 13th, and yikes.
- lost the day updating the wikipedia kiev site, to an unappreciative audience of fools [13th/14th]
- lost a fews day due to needing to fix the broken scale (15/16)
- tax & oesp stuff (17)
- tried to plug in my new headphones in the 90s laptop, only to realize that the headphone out had been damaged, which led to me rebuilding the image on the machine (18/19). note that my usb soundcard came in on thursday and i can test it soon.
- blog editing (20/21/22/23) while procrastinating on legal stuff for karen case
- doctor's appointment + much running around (24)
- recovery (25/26)
- karen case stuff sent. then, procrastinating on further legal stuff (27/28/29)
- teeth cleaning + much running around (30)
- recovery (1/2)
- research on high serum iron (2/3)
- more running around (4/5)
- legal stuff (6/7)
- phone court date (8)
- writing appeal notice (9/10)
- serving + botched pickups + biking (11)
- lost days on legal stuff (12/13/14) + monitor pickup + mailing name change + filing
- hard crash (15)
- putting things back together and refocusing (16)
- i really intend to get started on the chromebook today, finally
it's been a combination of doctor things, a variety of legal things, procrastinating those legal things (i'm notorious for that), normal shopping & exercising and fixing broken things that keep coming up. more frustrating is that i only stayed in for a few days, which made it seem transitory. i've gotten used to staying in for weeks at a time, and doing rigorous cleaning when i come in, so the real problem here has been that i haven't been able to get settled in before i've had to go back out. days i've been out are the 15th, 16th, 24th, 30th, 4th, 5th, 11th, 14th. that's made it frustrating for me, even if it's an unusually light schedule, for most [obviously, this is not a light workload - i'm keeping busy].
the karen case is in review. i'm going to call the court of appeal on monday to make sure everything was correctly filed and otherwise give the city a few days before i start thinking about filing factums and whatnot. i have 30 days, so i'll get on it if i haven't heard anything back at the beginning of the month.
i'm not sure why the city would bother forcing everybody to waste their time. the case is obviously going to get sent back. the judge completely ignored the rules. if they're smart, they'll fix the problem without going through the motions - and note that if i have to file a transcript, i'm going to be reporting misconduct while i'm at it. the comments by the judge were outrageous. the name change stuff is done. so, i don't have to think about that for roughly two weeks.
i have another dentist appointment this week, and we'll wait to talk about that. i'll need to get my bloodwork done as well. so, i have some running around to do, certainly. but, the extra health related stuff should be closing down this week - i should be getting monthly blood tests and going back to yearly checkups.
i will need to pick a day this week to scour the stores for soy milk, as well.
so, it's going to be a while before this calms down completely, but i should have less to worry about for the rest of the month, at least.
with that, i need to make some quinoa, then take a shower and then get to the chromebook.
11:02
you know, i was just about to post a side by side comparison, thinking i had a good tongue-in-cheek joke, and the first hit for "trudeau new haircut" was a fox news article that beat me to it.
foiled.
but, it demonstrates the point.
and, it makes you wonder if his hairdresser was making fun of him.
11:53
maybe the truth is that people didn't get the reference in the first place:
12:02
great idea.
</sarcasm>
reference:
"canada's oilsands look into use of nuclear power as 'net zero changes everything'", cbc news, july 17, 2022
12:38
"it's ok, it's just a little meltdown."
12:40
the truth is that it won't work for the same reason that nuclear doesn't work as a renewable source, more generally. you think you're being smart in replacing the natural gas emissions with nuclear power generation, but how do you get the uranium?
you have to mine it. and, that requires a lot of gas.
so, what you're really doing is shifting the gas use to the uranium mining, and introducing this ridiculously dangerous and in fact absurdly uneconomical layer into the process. and, what is the real reason for it? it is that liberal bigwigs in shady institutions like power corp have massive nuclear power holdings and want to find some way to get government to buy contracts.
the correct term to use to describe the proposal is insane.
but, the simple reality is that nuclear energy is a net-emitter. it's not zero emissions; that's wrong. if that's the intention, that's an incorrect policy to use to get to the stated policy objective.
12:59
maybe we can capture it and store it underground.
</sarcasm>
monday, july 18, 2022
i would encourage joe rogan to explain what he means when he claims that canada is a "communist" country. he may find that what he means to say is that canada is a fascist country, and not a communist country.
communism is the end stage of socialism, where the state withers away and the economy of need takes over the running of society. a communist society has no currency. production is determined by the needs of society, and not by the profit motive. housing exists for all, because people are moved from one dwelling to another based on need, rather than ownership. homelessness is impossible. the laws of supply and demand are done away with, as the total socialization of production radically democratizes the economy from the bottom up.
that does not remotely describe this country.
but, if he wishes to modify his language and explain that he meant that canada is a fascist country, we might find some common points of agreement.
0:42
i don't think that joe rogan is intellectually capable of presenting a coherent definition of the term communism and i consequently wouldn't take much of what he says very seriously.
0:43
canada is, in truth, in the middle of an overpopulation crisis brought on by insufficient central planning; we sent immigration levels through the roof and did not plan the economy to accommodate for it, but rather decided the "market would take care of it". the predictable result was anarchy in housing, anarchy in transportation and anarchy in health care, and that's the reality of living in canada right now - it's the complete anarchy of the free market, run wild.
1:17
the thing that defines communism is that all of the decisions are made together, in the same body, by the same people. there are authoritarian types of communism where this is done by an "independent body" and there are democratic forms of communism, where the people do it themselves, in the form of some kind of legislature. but, to have any claim to communism, you need to have that planning process, whether autocratic or democratic. as an anarchist, i prefer the democratic models.
for example, in a communist society, housing production and immigration levels would be set together, in a rational way; if a communist society wants more immigration, it will set housing production to meet the social needs presented by increased immigration. the fact that this was not done (if anything, we seem to have brought in more immigrants to increase the price of housing) has led to canada's biggest contemporary problem, which is it's lack of available housing. we could actually use a little more communism to help us through this mess we're in.
stalinist russia was a "command economy" in this sense, and it is one of the few ways that soviet russia weakly emulated communism. the chinese have this aspect of communism down fairly well, although they have the opposite problem: they have empty cities from too much planning. maybe we could ship some canadians out to live in the empty chinese cities. hitler and mussolini were actually relatively pro-market in comparison; they were better described as keynesians or even progressives than socialists, economically, and largely allowed the market to function, albeit under certain systems of incentive and direction. they were, however, both of course incredibly illiberal.
this kind of illiberal capitalism is really what fascism is about, and what is beginning to take root in canada. and, i strongly suspect that is what joe rogan was getting at.
he didn't understand the word he was using; he meant fascism, not communism.
2:05
if the claim were under justin trudeau, canada is moving away from liberal democracy and towards the kind of strongman illiberal capitalism seen in countries like hungary and turkey, i would agree with that, entirely.
2:11
"the basic feature of our economic theory is that we have no theory at all" - adolf hitler
while justin trudeau would actually relate to that kind of thing - he has repeatedly advocated this kind of know-nothingism - that statement is the antithesis of any sort of communism.
3:03
when a communist tells you that you have no theory, that's a vicious insult, and you've been burned in the third degree.
3:09
does anybody have a video of hitler admitting he has no theory?
3:11
here is a project for the internet.
make me a moving picture of stills of charlie chaplin mashed up to create the quote by hitler.
go forth.
chop, chop.
3:24
it really is interesting to me how much of an effort is being put into controlling the historical narrative around russian history online.
this article is a fluff piece. it's special interest; it's intended strictly for you to sympathize with the subject. it provides no useful information about anything, whatsoever. i read it to the end looking for some specific examples of how ukrainian history is different than russian history, and it didn't provide any. it just reassured us of the claim, in the most vague vagueness possible, and suggested anybody suggesting otherwise is just lying.
so, this is propaganda.
this issue of supposed ukrainian identity is of paramount importance to some shady somebodies somewhere trying to control the flow of information. i've been following this for a while, and the story that western intelligence agencies are pushing is that slavs are not indigenous to the geographic space we currently label ukraine but are rather invaders to the region, which is actually indigenously turkic & muslim. they're trying to draw parallels, ultimately, with the uygurs in xinjiang (which are not indigenous to the region, either, but invaded in the 11th century). the narrative is ultimately going to be that we have to go to asia to protect the wretched, indigenous muslims (who are not indigenous) from being oppressed by the evil communists* (who are indigenous).
the question to be analyzed is "what is a ukrainian?", and you're instantly faced to deal with the fact that this is not an ethnonym. the people that inhabit the geographical space we currently call ukraine have historically called themselves russians. ukraine translates to "march" or "borderland", much as austria means "land to the east" and only derives meaning in relation to charlemagne's position, west of it. the indigenous people of the region were celts, who had long since been romanized, then overrun by huns and avars. eventually, the german bavarians settled here and the area was just the eastern borderlands to them, as well. so, everybody calls the area "the eastern march" because the region had been depopulated and repopulated repeatedly in the dark ages, and there was no longer any indigenous group living in the region to name it after, although you can impress your friends by explaining that the romans called the region noricum, as that was the name of the indigenous celtic confederation in the region, at the time. to the romans, the region was also the limit of their world to the north, rather than to their east, as the roman east bordered persia.
there was no such thing as a "ukrainian" until the poles created the term in the 16th century, near the end of the war against the mongols (and then the turks) to liberate the region, which had been depopulated and repopulated (as austria had been). there was no ethnonym to attach to the region, as there was no ethnic group indigenous to the region that lived there. that is why we used to call it the ukraine - the borderland. they don't like that anymore, though. ukrainians were the russians on the borderlands between poland and the various turkic speaking muslims, and the ukrainians were ukrainians because they were russians trying to re-establish control over their ancestral homelands by fighting a war to expel the usurping turks from them. further, they called themselves russians, too. the term then passed into russian, which used it in the same way as the poles had, as the russians led the process of indigenous slavic liberation and self-representation in eastern europe from muslim and turkic colonialism and domination, almost all the way to the liberation of constantinople. while the slavs are not indigenous to greece, the greek religion has been in exile in russia for hundreds of years, and a russian liberation of constantinople on behalf of the greeks would be a historically legitimate act of benevolence.
so, then when did the language of ukrainian separate from russian? the answer is some time in the 17th or 18th centuries. it is not possible to identify an exact moment in time where the languages split apart, as the allopatric evolution leading to linguistic separation is a gradual process; the important thing to realize is that this is a relatively recent event, which some deny ever meanngfully happened at all. at the time, people in the region around kiev would have called themselves russians and would have told people they spoke russian, although they would have also specified that they're in the borderlands between the indigenous slavic and colonial turkic spheres of control. moscow then slowly started taking over the region soon afterwards, and had largely conquered it by the time of the french revolution.
so, what is this separate ukrainian history being spoken of? it's not remotely clear. i can concede that the vast russian-speaking regions had east and west components, which were split in the mongol invasion and reunified in the 17th-18th centuries, but these east and west slavic regions had the same ethnic identity, spoke the same language and belonged to the same religion, up to a geographic split in dialect that occurred at roughly the same time as reunification. today, some linguists still refer to ukrainian as a mere dialect of russian. historical conflicts in the region would be more about power struggles between warlords, or occasionally about ideology (especially during the russian revolution), and less about cultural identity.
my understanding is that the vast majority of ukrainians identify as being ethnic russians, with the caveat being that there is a portion of ukraine in the west that was historically a part of austria, is primarily catholic and identifies as being a part of poland. this small part of ukraine has a different identity and a different culture, and it brings us back to the definition of ukraine as the polish borderlands. but, this region does not even extend as far as the dnieper.
what the western intelligence agencies want to interject is something different altogether - that indigenous ukrainian identity is turkic and that the slavs are late invaders to the area, a position that is so wrong as to be viciously offensive. but, this is what they actually mean when they talk of a separate ukrainian identity: they speak of cossacks and tatars, and present these people as the real ukrainians, who are the real owners of the land. even the poles are likely to reject that (and, try running that by the nazis fighting on the ground...), but it seems fundamental to the unravelling of russian history being pushed by the cia, which wants russia to cease to exist at all, to the point that it is actively trying to write russia out of history, altogether.
i understand that few will pull so much out of a fluff piece of this sort, which is designed strictly to generate sympathy for what it is portraying as victims of a russian invasion. but, you're being conditioned, and i think i can see where it's going.
the general tactic is to align with muslim groups across the steppes of asia to destabilize russian and chinese control over the region. this goes back to the cia funding for the mujahideen in afghanistan, and what i think is a trick withdrawal from afghanistan to prop up the taliban in order to allow the country to act as a staging ground for islamic militants encroaching into western china. so, we're back to the late cold war reaganite tactic of propping up muslim fundamentalists in eurasia to weaken the communists*. the cia has to rewrite the history to make it make sense, and convince us go along with it.
the sad truth is that the ukrainians themselves - the east slavic speaking ruthenians around the dnieper - are the great losers, here. their supposed protectors want to hand over their lands to their historic enemies. it's similar to what we did to the kurds. if the west gets it's way in the region, there will neither be a ukraine nor a russia, but an imperial turkish outpost in kiev and a kazakh occupation of moscow.
if ukrainians figure that out, this is over - they will switch sides, immediately.
*not really
6:33
i'm going to post this article, and the propagandists will change it. note today's date, and seek the older version of it, dated to today's date.
it's helpful as a starting point, but let me expand on it a little.
the geographic space that we currently call ukraine has historically been an uninhabited wasteland because it was a horse and caravan highway for migrating barbarians, massacring and plundering (and raping.) from one side of the steppe to the other. while the steppes were being used for this purpose, the slavs had little choice but to hide in the forests to the north, where the horse-mounted savages couldn't oppress them. the slavs, however, have recognized this region as belonging to them the whole time, going back millennia, as they were the only group in the region that wasn't migratory. the reality is that the slavs are the direct ancestors of the proto-indo-europeans, who lived in this region as far back as 7000 years ago, and probably first inhabited the region after the last glacial maximum. their connection to the land is truly ancient.
it was some time before the back-migration of the scythians (about 3000 years ago) back into the steppes that the slavs had to escape into the forest, and they were not able to find a way back out. they did not develop an advanced civilization; they remained stuck in the bronze age. this constant parade of horse mounted barbarians up and down through these wild fields with the perpetual intent to burn everything down, from the danube to the edges of china, is the dominant reason why slavic civilization took so long to establish itself.
a central narrative in russian history is that the defeat and expulsion of the mongols (tatars, turks) allowed the slavs the ability to finally protect themselves from these barbaric savages to their east, and finally develop the region into settled cities. this russian defence of the region is consequently paramount to any civilization in the region at all.
so, this term ukraine comes out of the fact that nobody lived in these areas at all for millennia until the russians were able to secure it from the constant influx of barbarians from the east. it follows that some deeper ethnonym is not forthcoming - this was an uninhabited wasteland before the russians were able to secure and develop it.
7:11
up until roughly the year 1500, when the russians overwhelmed the steppe barbarians with the use of more advanced technology, all attempts to set up any sort of settlement in the south of the geographic area that we currently call ukraine ended in destruction. the vikings were the only power to try (twice - don't forget the goths), and their settlements were overrun and destroyed, both times. you could set up a city here, the water was plentiful and the land was fertile, but some horde of barbarians from the east would just burn it down and enslave everybody. eventually, there were enough examples that nobody even tried.
there were simply nothing there - there couldn't be.
the area was indefensible - a term russians continue to use to describe the security situation in the region. the existence of any sort of civilization here was truly precipitated directly on the ability of the russians to protect the region from the barbarians to the east.
7:20
should biden be running off executive orders to try to get around congress?
technically, no.
technically, the president isn't supposed to have a domestic agenda at all. the president is supposed to be the commander in chief of the army. americans today look at the president as a kind of elected king (which is scary), but he's actually supposed to be a kind of elected military dictator (which is worse). this president-as-napoleon thing is all wrong, but it's maybe better than this president-as-hannibal thing that was initially intended.
and, so, we're kind of left with a contradiction, here.
what do you do when the voters don't understand the system? they're supposed to vote for congress to do this kind of stuff, but turnout on congressional elections is something like 20-30%. the country votes for the president, thinking the president is the executive, and he'll get things done. and, frankly, that's the culture, right?
it's wrong.
but, the other alternative is to keep letting this barely elected, unrepresentative congress keep blocking the will of the people.
america has a lot of things wrong right now. unfortunately, it looks like it's going to need a charismatic leader to set a lot of it right, because that seems to be the will of the people, who don't want a strong congress, or even seem to know what congress even is.
so, should biden be running off executive orders like this?
no.
but, i think he has to.
12:50
jefferson was right about democracy requiring an informed electorate.
so, what do elected representatives do when there's no ambiguity about the electorate being ignorant, uninformed and broadly not even engaged, leading to unrepresentative bodies with disproportionate amounts of power?
the premise of checks on power sort of breaks down. you could argue that the executive orders are an abuse of power, but you'd have to follow through with the congress not having a legitimate mandate. if neither side is legitimate, it's just a battle of egos playing out as a charade, and the president should just do whatever he can to strongarm his will through.
12:55
at the least, biden can argue he has a mandate because he got the most amount of votes ever.
those republican senators, even in swing seats, got elected with 15% of the vote.
12:57
the system is broken. it's not representative. it's not working.
elected leaders need to break with tradition a little and think outside the box to try to determine if (1) they have a mandate and (2) whether breaking the rules is justified in advancing it.
12:58
at the end of the day, it's the will of the people that matters, not traditions and rules in parliament.
13:00
listen.
homophobia - and it's derivative transphobia - is a legitimate psychological condition, as described by freud and upheld by quite a bit of science (unlike most freud). russophobia is an old term that i first saw used to describe a british fear of mongolian expansion, as described in a textbook on the history of europe, written some time in the victorian era (i don't have the source; it belonged to a long dead and very old family member). these are actual words used to describe actual phenomena.
"islamophobia" is a trite adaptation by homophobic muslims trying to be ironic when confronted with their stupidity and that has somehow managed to be taken seriously, to the immense discredit of the underlying heteropatriarchal moorings of our society. and, "iranophobia" is just piling up the stupid.
i'm going to be accused of being retardophobic. well, i'll be pre-emptive: fuck off!
13:13
the concept of homophobia is the only worthwhile contribution freud ever made to science.
13:18
tuesday, july 19, 2022
it has been hot everywhere, almost, including here. it's going to get worse before we get one more reprieve, before the next cycle starts.
this is our last chance.
that should now be obvious.
13:33
we don't have until 2100 or 2050.
we have until 2030.
13:35
wednesday, july 20, 2022
i've been very critical of border testing as a means to prevent the spread of viruses and repeatedly argued that it's not just not supported by the science but is actually a perfect example of the kind of policy that the science tells us to avoid. while it's nowadays just an annoyance, the primary expected effect of such a policy (and it's consequent enforced isolation) is to act as a disincentive to get tested, which would be expected to worsen surveillance. if your goal is surveillance, you want to incentivize testing, which means avoiding criminalizing being sick.
however, it's important to listen to their reasoning before you criticize their policies.
the purpose of random testing is not to try to stop the dissemination of the virus or to "keep us safe" in some hobbesian abuse of logic (if you think government exists to "keep us safe", you deserve a darwin award). this isn't about quarantine, even if you're still going to get quarantined, which is the part of the policy that needs to end. what they're doing is trying to understand the evolution of the virus' genome, and the right way to do that is via random sampling.
there is a valid critique embedded in the question of whether this is actually random sampling, as it comes with an obvious class bias. working people and young people are the most likely to spread the virus, while being the least likely to take an airplane. so, you could argue that by instituting your random sampling in an airport, you're skewing your sample source to the people most vulnerable (seniors are disproportionately represented in air travellers) rather than the people most likely to harbour new variants (which would be something like a 30 year-old grocery store cashier).
those critiques - which are valid, if somewhat weak - aside, random sampling is the right way to get a good data set, which is what the scientists want. there is consequently a rational connection between the policy of random testing and it's intended outcome of collecting genomic data, and the issue at law becomes whether the charter violation is justified in a free society or not. this is different than a vaccine mandate, which lacks a rational basis, in context (a smallpox or polio vaccine mandate would not lack a rational basis, and my opinions about all of this would and perhaps will be very different if or when we're talking about the potentially much more dangerous monkeypox pandemic).
so, no, it won't "keep us safe", but that's not the point. the point is random sampling in scientifically useful data gathering. and it's actually a good policy for that purpose, whatever you think of the purpose.
i would argue it's a charter violation, it can't be upheld via the oakes test and it should be stopped. but, as stated previously, i need the mandates to lift on the american side before i can start fighting these battles.
reference:
"random covid testing is back for air travellers entering canada", ctv news, july 19, 2022
3:19
again - i don't think that increasing interest rates will decrease the price of oil, and i consequently don't think it will reduce inflation. the idea that interest rates and inflation are connected is a historical correlation that has long since been debunked and has not been taken seriously by real economists for a very long time, but it continues to linger on in the popular imagination, and continues to be used cynically by unscrupulous actors seeking to maximize their self-interest by tricking other people into doing things for their benefit. it's fake economics.
the actual effects of higher interest rates are primarily two fold:
1) people that benefit from higher interest rates - banks, bond-holders, etc - will keep up with inflation and see their net wealth stabilize, while wages will be unlikely to come anywhere close to keeping pace, unless wage increases are legislated via an increase in the minimum wage (which is very helpfully set to inflation in ontario, but that is rare in north america). the result will be a "trickle up" effect, which will lead to an increase in inequality. essentially, interest rate hikes shield the rich from the effects of inflation at the expense of the poor and create a transfer of wealth upwards along the income scale - except in the rare jurisdictions like ontario that have addressed this by pegging the minimum wage to inflation. so, yes - in ontario, minimum wage earners can expect a 10% wage boost if inflation is 10%, which is what the bank is trying to prevent, but is actually a very enlightened and egalitarian policy that should be applauded, especially in the face of a central bank trying to push trickle-up economic policies that protect the rich under the guise of "fighting inflation"; in most places, wages will not go up at all, and the wealth will simply transfer upwards.
2) household debt will increase, as people fall behind on credit card payments, need to take out one form of debt to pay another, etc. in canada, household debt is a much more serious problem than inflation, and the bank should be weighing these things against each other very seriously. if their policy of pretending to fight inflation with the fake economics of interest rate hikes leads to an increase in household debt, that is a catastrophically bad policy. we'll need to see if that happens or not, but i strongly suspect it will.
inflation will eventually go down. the high price of oil may be a new normal, but inflation is a difference in prices, so if oil stabilizes at $120/barrel or something, the inflation rate will come down (while prices remain high). i think there's been some signals that the price might have maxxed out, already, which would suggest that inflation may actually come down sooner than the bank is forecasting. the cynical will then point to the correlation, and deduce causality, and little argumentation will persuade the true believers. this will need to be corrected over time with careful statistical analysis, but it is unlikely to reach the masses.
what the bank is doing - trying to trick people, essentially - should really be condemned, but the bank's mandate is to work for the investor class, so it's not some kind of error or mistake. when inflation increases, investors will demand their pound of flesh by increasing the rent to compensate for lost revenues. so long as they can legislate themselves above the law, they will continue to do so.
6:06
i think the bank should have left interest rates near zero, accelerated the creation of money to compensate, pointed out that there is carbon price legislation in place and waited the situation out.
6:11
if the result of the bank's interference in the economy is an unnecessary recession - which seems likely - it should be condemned by history for it.
it is not likely that the bank will "learn the lesson", because it's not making a mistake, it's protecting the rich, which is what it does. but, leftist analysts and policy makers need to learn the lesson that the bank operates in the interests of bond-holders, and draw appropriate conclusions and present appropriate remedies.
6:14
i would like to explicitly remind the bank of canada that there is a democratically enacted law passed in the legislature of ontario - initially by the liberals under kathleen wynne, and recently reformulated by the conservatives under doug ford in an attempt to take credit for it. so, it's "bipartisan". - to tie wages to inflation.
that fact is of extreme importance in the legitimacy of what the bank does as an unelected and unaccountable body.
the bank ought to be subservient to the will of the people. at the very least, it should not behave in a way that attempts to subvert or undo acts legislated by the parliament of ontario. that would be severely undemocratic, and open up a crisis as to the legitimacy of the bank's mandate.
11:55
i would support a central banking policy designed to protect the working class from the effects of inflation, and make investors take a loss, instead.
let the investors eat their own filth.
12:18
i've been posting around this awesome song a few times the last few weeks, and there's a strange perception that the track is in some way biblical. the correct answer to that perception is wrong.
the specific line while the rest of you harvest the souls/gold is directly dismissive of organized religion. it explicitly - without ambiguity - states "i'm the wreck of you, and you're pushing spirituality for profit"; this permeative retributive justice he's personifying is working against the preachers and the bankers, and they are in truth the actual target of the justice. it's a contrast - a rejection. critiques of religion are frequent in soundgarden, with it's most obvious example being jesus christ pose, which viciously attacks christian poseur hypocrites.
the song is a critique of western capitalism from an indigenous perspective, which is a theme common to the seattle grunge of the period. i don't actually know if any of these people were or identified as indigenous in any serious way, or if maybe some had distant ancestry and were aware of it, but there is an overwhelming common theme in late 80s and early 90s grunge of critiquing "progress" and "development" from this holistically environmentalist (and somewhat primitivist) perspective, in favour of a return to the land and re-synthesis with nature. so, swallowing rivers (as a hydro dam would) belongs to the sea and blowing to pieces (as dynamiting landscapes for development would) belongs to the wind.
it follows that building towers belonging to the sky does certainly share a common theme with the tower of babel story, but it's a surface similarity. the parable of the tower of babel is that god struck the sumerians down (the author of the bible was clearly confused. the story is obviously about sumerians and not the babylonians that replaced them in the south.) for being arrogant. cornell is suggesting more of a revenge of nature, and he probably wouldn't have tied it so much to an indigenous concept of a spirit realm (also common to celtic and germanic animists) so much as he would have tied it to an idea of poetic justice. if you're going to show up out of nowhere and steal the land and swallow the rivers and blow up the earth, there is a level of justice attached to being destroyed by naturalistic processes, as the end point. that idea has more to do with karma than anything else.
it's also worth noting that there is an understanding within indigenous protest movements that the white people will eventually leave - that european colonialism (and i suppose it's current shift to asian colonialism) in north america is a temporary phenomenon, for the reason that it is simply unsustainable.
i don't think that chris cornell had any religious beliefs to discern of, but he seems to have had a lot of solidarity with indigenous groups. he also temporarily replaced zach de la rocha in rage against the machine, which is a band i do not like very much, due to it's hyper macho aggressiveness (something that was absent or even ridiculed in grunge) but attempted (and, i think failed.) to forward a lot of the same themes, albeit in a far less articulate manner. if you want to understand a lot of these soundgarden, pearl jam, mudhoney, etc songs, realizing that a lot of it is indigenous solidarity will help rather substantively.
the track:
further references:
13:18
this is not a good idea. it's far too easy for retards to get elected mayor, and it's not a good place for executive power to operate. i would prefer eliminating the mayoral concept altogether, and investing all executive power in the hands of the council, instead.
cities are not corporations and should not be treated like private tyrannies.
however, i would also support the province uploading powers to toronto and reducing the jurisdiction that cities have, thereby reducing the amount of power that a city has and restricting the abilities of what a city can actually do. i don't think that a lack of executive power is what is causing the housing crisis, or that moving in the direction of fascist mayors is a solution to anything; rather, there needs to be a greater deal of centralization and province-wide planning so that housing development is rationally determined in a way that properly accounts for all of the resources province-wide, which means more decisions being made and implemented at queen's park and in ottawa and less decisions made in nimby city councils, with limited scope or understanding of the broader networks they exist within. the idea of more executive power would create more anarchy in production, when what we need is more rational development in a co-operative and co-ordinated fashion. if you create more powerful mayors, nimby councillors will just give way to nimby mayors. the reason i would support less powerful cities in general is that much of what cities are tasked with governing today is no longer truly local in a globalized economy, and the factors input into planning decisions therefore cannot be effectively delegated to local decision makers - the proper reaction to globalization is that there needs to be more and better planning in a central location, and local decision makers need to be increasingly overridden by central policy makers for the common or greater good.
we don't need a mayor at all. issues that are actually local and should actually be in the hand of local bodies should be discussed in a radically democratic fashion and implemented strictly via consensus. but, issues that need to be co-ordinated over a broader geographic space (housing is the prime example) should be taken control of directly by queen's park.
reference:
"veto would be among expanded powers of toronto, ottawa mayors under 'strong mayor' system: ford", cbc news, july 20, 2022
14:44
that's twice this week that i stayed in due to a forecast for rain that never happened.
:|.
14:57
ok, there it starts, after all.
it's been extremely dry here this year, so i might complain about staying in, but we need the rain.
15:10
the saudi dictator may think he's putting dhimmi joe in his place, but if the consequence of high oil prices is that biden needs to scramble to find alternative energy sources to save his presidency (an emergency, indeed!), his primitive attempt at barbaric primate dominance might have the unintended consequence of finally getting america to do what it should have started doing 30 years ago.
me, cynical? ok - i can be a little cynical.
but, joe biden being convinced that he needs to push carbon transition to get re-elected, that it's his only path, might be the best news i've heard all year. so, thank you to the autistic saudi dictator, trying to dominate the guy with the thousands of nukes.
15:21
if oil is driving inflation, what is the price of oil, adjusted for inflation?
what i wanted to find was an absolute comparison between oil prices now and previously, to determine whether oil is really expensive right now, in historical terms.
i found this chart a little surprising:
it would suggest that there is likely a way to climb, still.
16:04
if markets were actually efficient, we would have seen massive deflation in mid 2020 and inflation might be high but prices would be just catching up.
the fact that the savings of the cut in oil prices weren't passed on is what is driving the increase in absolute prices.
i'm going to consequently adjust my price gouging suggestion, then - at some point in the chain (not necessarily the entity consumers buy from directly), producers used the pandemic as an excuse to increase their margins. now, as the price of oil is recovering, producers are holding to the increased margin, rather than allowing profits to reduce to what they were previously.
so, it's some kind of passive price gouging.
16:09
the only way to fix that is using lysistrata theory: withhold until the price comes down.
16:12
thursday, july 21, 2022
in theory, ben shepherd (or matt cameron) could sing. i really liked the wellwater conspiracy.
i would be different, but i think they'd want that.
i'm just saying.
4:23
there might even be something symmetric in letting cameron sing, as cornell was initially the band's drummer.
4:37
they could name the next record and then there were three.
4:38
hey. don't forget this.
18:10
i'm absolutely appalled that the mainstream media is actually citing the phillips curve in it's attempts to explain what the bank is doing regarding it's rate hikes.
to begin with, it's wrong, in the sense that that is not what the bank is citing in it's rate hike decisions. the bank is citing some kind of clinton-era new labour theory about expectations. the bank knows the phillips curve is bullshit. like, c'mon.
second of all, it's wrong in a theoretical sense, because the phillips curve is entirely debunked. there's not a serious economist in the world that would cite the phillips curve in 2022. so, why is the media trying to explain the rate hikes by citing an economic theory that nobody has taken seriously in over 20 years?
what's happening is a generation gap, and it's exposing the depth of the depravity of the gerontocracy we're in. these economic writers are naturally explaining the theory they learned in school, some time before 1990. what they don't realize is that anybody that's gone to school since then - and especially since 2000 - was taught explicitly in first year economics that the philips curve is the greatest example of bad logic in the history of pseudoscience. the philips curve was erected by cherry picking data and then trying to extrapolate a causal relationship from a correlation that arose from that cherry picking of data, and that broke down as more empirical data was collected. there is no causal relation because there's not even a correlation.
if you're reading some explainer on rate hikes and it talks about how inflation is connected with unemployment, immediately close the article. all it can do is confuse you. don't read it.
23:16
there is no theory suggesting interest rate hikes in canada will have any effect on the price of imported commodities. no naive linear model can be deployed for this purpose.
rather, the theory is that producers will stop price gauging if they realize the fed is "serious" about stopping inflation. further, consumers are supposed to become more judicious if they expect less inflation because the fed is "serious", now.
it's a shot across the bow: this town has a sheriff, after all. so, you kids play nice, or the sheriff will smack you down.
that is the depth of it - it's a psychological trick. that's what the bank itself has said.
23:22
any msm writer citing the phillips curve in 2022 - or otherwise suggesting there is a trade-off between inflation and unemployment - needs to be laughed out of the room and fired on the spot.
no pensions - they've forfeited them, by citing the phillips curve in 2022.
23:29
the theory is that if people believe that rate hikes reduce inflation, then rate hikes will reduce inflation. it's next-level magical thinking. so, what they're doing is a facade intended to manipulate what people believe, in an attempt to alter how they act. it's deeply asimovian, truly.
or, at least that's what the bank actually said.
as stated here repeatedly, what they're actually doing is raising the rent so that the indebted are forced to pay the cost of inflation to the rentier class. that way, investors don't lose income relative to inflation.
23:46
friday, july 22, 2022
this month's update is as follows:
| 2021 | 2022 | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| m | a | m | j | j | a | s | o | n | d | j | f | m | a | m | j | j | a | s | o | n | d | |
| cholesterol | 3.93 | - | - | - | 3.99 | 3.8 | 4.15 | 4.01/3.83 | 4.14/4.02 | 4.14/3.67 | 3.54/3.8 | 3.78/3.68 | 3.42 | 3.6 | 3.49 | |||||||
| triglycerides | .87 | - | - | - | .95 | .89 | 1.41 | 1.05/0.94 | 1.09/1.32 | 1.86/0.73 | 2.26/0.75 | 0.69/1.02 | 0.42 | 0.82 | 0.7 | |||||||
| hdl | 1.69 | - | - | - | 1.84 | 1.59 | 1.73 | 1.42/1.55 | 1.37/1.42 | 1.51/1.74 | 1.75/1.72 | 1.74/1.69 | 1.55 | 1.58 | 1.55 | |||||||
| ldl | 1.85 | - | - | - | 1.72 | 1.81 | 1.78 | 2.11/1.85 | 2.28/2.00 | 1.79/1.6 | <0.8/1.75 | 1.73/1.52 | 1.68 | 1.65 | 1.62 | |||||||
| non-hdl | 2.24 | - | - | - | 2.15 | 2.21 | 2.42 | 2.59/2.28 | 2.77/2.60 | 2.63/1.93 | 1.79/2.09 | 2.04/1.99 | 1.87 | 2.02 | 1.94 | |||||||
| wbc | 8.7/8.4 | 9.9/9.0 | - | - | ? | 7.0 | 7.6 | 6.9/6.9 | 7.8 | 11.3/8.2 | 6.7/6.4 | 7.4/7.1 | 5.3 | 6.4 | 9.5/7.0/6.7 | 6.1 | ||||||
| rbc 4: yellow 4.2: normal | 3.97/4.25 | 4.11/4.38 | - | - | 4.17 | 4.12 | 4.33 | 4.47/4.2 | 4.28 | 4.55/4.19 | 4.3/4.22 | 4.42/4.26 | 4.4 | 4.13 | 4.26/4.31/4.24 | 4.02 | ||||||
| hemoglobin 120: normal | 132/140 | 133/142 | - | - | 139 | 136 | 141 | 138/138 | 139 | 144/131 | 141/133 | 140/136 | 145 | 132 | 135/139/140 | 132 | ||||||
| hematocrit normal: 0.36 | .382/.404 | .394/.424 | - | - | .405 | .398 | .418 | .417/.402 | .405 | 0.431/0.393 | .409/.396 | .417/.404 | .412 | .392 | .407/.408/.401 | 0.382 | ||||||
| mcv normal: 100 | 96.1/95.1 | 95.8/97.0 | - | - | 97 | 96.8 | 96.6 | 93/95.7 | 94.6 | 94.7/94 | 95/94 | 94/95 | 93.7 | 95 | 95.5/94.8/95 | 95 | ||||||
| mch | 33.1/32.9 | 32.4/32.5 | - | - | 33.3 | 33.2 | 32.7 | 30.9/32.8 | 32.5 | 31.8/31.3 | 32.7/31.5 | 31.7/32 | 32.9 | 32.0 | 31.7/32.2/33 | 32.8 | ||||||
| mchc | 345/346 | 338/335 | - | - | ? | 343 | 338 | 331/343 | 344 | 335/333 | 344/336 | 336/337 | 352 | 337 | 332/339/349 | 346 | ||||||
| rdw | 13.3/13.5 | 13.0/13.1 | - | - | ? | 13 | 12.3 | 11.7/12.9 | 12.6 | 13.4/12.0 | 13.2/11.7 | 11.7/13 | 12.8 | 11.9 | 12.8/13.2/11.9 | 11.7 | ||||||
| platelet | 199/187 | 171/171 | - | - | ? | 175 | 167 | 168/150 | 155 | 188/185 | 159/184 | 187/175 | 166 | 181 | 176/173/183 | 167 | ||||||
| reticulocytes | - | -/42 | - | - | 53 | 56 | 46 | 35 | 33 | 33 | 39 | 41 | 43 | 49 | 58/55 | 47 | ||||||
| vitamin d | 87 | - | - | - | 109 | 72 | 64 | 72/83 | 78 | 64/71 | 61/74 | 74/80 | 102 | 77 | 111 | 80 | ||||||
| estradiol | 363/388 | - | - | - | - | 563 | 443 | 432 | 777 | 343 | 578 | 416 | 307 | 691 | 380 | 444 | ||||||
| testosterone | 0.9 | - | - | - | - | - | <0.4 | <0.4 | <0.4 | <0.4 | <0.4 | <0.4 | 1.4 | <0.4 | <0.4 | <0.4 | ||||||
| progesterone | 1.9 | - | - | - | - | - | <0.5 | 0.7 | 0.5 | 0.9 | <0.5 | 3.7 | 62.5 | 21 | 24.4 | 17.3 | ||||||
| fsh | <0.2 | - | - | - | - | - | 0.2 | 0.1 | <0.1 | - | <0.1 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.1 | ||||||
| lh | <0.2 | - | - | - | - | - | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | - | 0.1 | <0.1 | <0.2 | 0.1 | <0.2 | <0.1 | ||||||
| ferritin | 12/9 | 6/17 | 21 | - | 29 | 43 | 28 | 40 | 42 | 59 | 33 | 28 | 59 | 64 | 48/66 | 70 | ||||||
| tibc | - | 69.5 | - | - | 65.7 | 62.9 | 64.7 | 58.9 | 58.2 | 63.2 | 57.4 | 58.7 | 57.9 | 53.2 | 63.9/63 | 56 | ||||||
| iron | - | 9.6 | - | - | 22.7 | 37.3 | 19.3 | 28.3 | 37.3 | 32.5 | 13.1 | 14.8 | 28.2 | 17.2 | 45.5/35 | 25 | ||||||
| iron sat | - | 0.14 | - | - | 0.35 | 0.59 | 0.3 | .48 | 0.64 | 0.51 | 0.23 | 0.25 | 0.49 | 0.32 | 0.71/0.56 | 0.45 | ||||||
| transferrin | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2.59 | 2.29 | 2.38 | 2.49 | 2.31 | 2.39 | 2.42 | ? | 2.51 | 2.23 | ||||||
| pth | - | - | - | 5.5 | - | 6.2 | 5.9 | 6.2 | 5.5 | 8.0 | 6.3 | 5.7 | 6.9 | 6.4 | 4.7 | 3.7 | ||||||
| tsh | 0.92 | - | - | - | - | 0.94 | 1.22 | 1.67 | 1.48 | 1.07 | 1.39 | 0.97 | 1.26 | 0.92 | 1.05 | 0.44 | ||||||
| calcitonin | - | - | - | <0.6 | - | - | - | - | 0.6 | - | 0.8 | - | 0.7 | 0.6 | 0.6 | |||||||
| alp | 61 | - | - | 63 | 59 | 50 | 60 | 59 /55 | 47 | 50 | 60 | 58 | 55 | 67 | 47 | 51 | ||||||
the testosterone is still coming, but the low tsh, fsh and lh would strongly suggest it's low. i will be very surprised if that is remotely peaked. i'm going to assume it's <0.4 and quietly update if it is; if i'm wrong, i'l point it out.
i did major biking runs on monday and tuesday and mostly slept wednesday. my ferritin, however, continues to inch up. i think this is confirming the sports anemia diagnosis - and that giving myself high iron supplements like this is really just enough to allow homeostasis within the amount of exercising i'm doing.
the low pth is excellent. again, i don't know what the clinically preferable numbers are here, but my tactic to reverse bone loss was to overload my calcium, d and estrogen to lower the pth (which is working) and boost the calcitonin (which seems to not be working). i don't know how low it can or will go as my d stores build to unusual levels, which i'm trying to do on purpose. i wasn't previously d deficient, but i'm purposefully trying to build excess d, because my bone health was less than optimal. it seems like it has also pushed my tsh down, which i've never seen below 0.8. so, seeing this kind of response from going out in the sun regularly is encouraging. no human can absorb vitamin d at the rate their body can produce it naturally, so i'm going to keep at it. i look like i'm brown, right now, from the tan. the lesson is that sunlight really is demonstrably good for your bones. i'll continue with the supplementation through the winter as well.
on second thought, i want to keep with this rec. i was considering toning it down, but i don't want to, now.
so, i'm going to explain everything here as over-exercising in the presence of a desired low testosterone and take note that i need to watch the excess iron - that if i'm going to be taking high concentration supplementation, that i need to be working it off. that's fine.
9:20
i would prefer it if the government left prescribing powers strictly to qualified professionals.
pharmacists have a profit motive that makes giving them prescribing powers an affront upon the non-profit nature of the healthcare system, which is imperative to maintain.
i would call on the province to think this through more carefully. if certain products are deemed safe to administer by a pharmacist, they should simply be made available without a prescription.
reference:
"'we need this now': ontario pharmacists say plan to let them prescribe drugs doesn't go far enough", cbc news, july 22, 2022
11:29
i would encourage you to seek medical advice if you think you require a prescription, and not to be led around by your nose by your pharmacist.
11:32
a pharmacist is something more than a chemist and something less than a nurse. they simply don't have the training.
go to a clinic, if you need a quick diagnosis.
11:35
if your local pharmacist wants to be a doctor then encourage them to go to med school. the system can always use more doctors.
11:41
"oh, i did go to med school, but i dropped out. now, just sign here for that rx..."
11:43
honestly.
what's the percentage of pharmacists that dropped out of med school? 30%? 60%?
11:45
putin has not suggested that faulty canadian repairs may be a reason to turn off gas supplies to germany.
what putin has openly speculated about is the question as to whether canada may have sabotaged the turbines as a pretext to ship our own dirty energy there instead.
and, this is a reasonable - if somewhat paranoid - suspicion.
it is not clear to me what self-interest the russians would have in "weaponizing energy". the russians will want to maintain a high flow of gas - and have recently insisted it be paid in rubles, to get around disingenuous attempts by american banks to force russia into default. the idea that russia would have any incentive to turn off gas flows to europe makes no sense, whatsoever.
however, canada has a gas industry itself, and it has a large amount of self-interest in manipulating the situation, which the germans seemed to realize in demanding the return of the turbines under threat of a trade war.
the likely thinking by the liberal party - which is the bankers' party in canada, and acts as a political layer for bourgeois interests, including bourgeois gas interests - is that it has a higher chance of securing gas contracts by returning the turbines, that you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar. withholding the return of the turbines would have eliminated any chance canada may have had in securing future contracts in germany, gas or not gas related, potentially for decades. now, it needs to manufacture a crisis to get it's product moving.
the russians likely have no intention of giving canadian gas producers any such pretext to interfere in their market, whatsoever.
12:10
it's a good example of how western propaganda outlets (like the cbc) continually misrepresent russian positions or statements from russian politicians.
12:14
saturday, july 23, 2022
i don't remember when pride was a sin at all. when was that, the bronze age?
if mr. peterson wants to express primitive viewpoints, it is perhaps fitting that he attaches them to primitive belief systems from primitive eras.
the man is the village idiot, but he shouldn't be prevented from demonstrating it. give him a microphone and a time on stage and let him prove to the world what a fool he really is.
12:03
there is only one person in the world that should be in favour of silencing mr. peterson, and that is his publisher.
everybody else should be in favour of letting him bury himself.
12:26
so, what happened this week?
the answer is that i enjoyed the weather. a lot. it was 30+ degrees here every day this week. i soaked it right up.
i mentioned on sunday morning that i wanted to make some quinoa and get to work, but i actually went to sleep. by the time i woke up on monday morning, it was time to start the week.
i mentioned months ago that i expected this to be an exceptionally hot summer in southern ontario, and that has turned out to be correct. while there were some eye-popping temperatures early in the year - mid 30s in april and may - the summer here has been marked not by extreme swings in temperature but by consistently above average warmth. in fact, there has been almost no variation at all - it's been almost the same temperature every day, and it has refused to rain much all year. i posted a 14 day forecast of two weeks above 30 degrees some time in june and pointed out that that was remarkable. that turned out to be a very slight overshoot, but it has consistently been on the order of 4-5 degrees above average here for weeks, meaning almost every single day since mid may has been in the 28-33 degree range, with much of it pushing into the lower to mid 30s. this is enough to get a heat warning here (while it would be considered a cool day in texas), but it's not extreme, it's just consistently above average. the average in windsor this time of year is 27 degrees, which is a hot day in ottawa. so, if we were to take a snapshot of this summer here, and compare it to the average temperatures, it would seem like the temperature has warmed by roughly 4 degrees, for the reason that the number of cool days has been almost 0. i know that's an oversimplification, but it's about what it feels like. it's also a true climate change, it's not just a relic of extremes averaging out to a higher value.
i've also pointed out before that the official temperature readings at the windsor airport are always a few degrees lower than the temperature readings i see on the billboards around town, which always seem more correct. so, there were more 30 degree days than officially acknowledged. a lot of those 28 degree days were really 31 degree days downtown, and the couple of 25 degree days were more like 28 degree days. it's really been just consistently hot.
all of the forecasts do say that 30+ degree days (the cut off for a heat wave in canada, even if americans will laugh at 90 degrees being extreme heat) here are going to be far more frequent in a warmer climate, and that is indeed what this summer is about. even in windsor, you only ever get a couple of days that hot per year. we exceeded that before summer even started. i expect this pattern to accelerate over the next few years, reach a peak and then come back down again. the next time around, it will be extreme.
i've tried to pick the hottest days to get out for the bike rides, which have been those 30+ degree days. i've only missed a few. in june, i was able to get out on the 15th, 16th, 24th & 30th, meaning i missed the 21st, 22nd and 25th, all because i focused around the 24th (i didn't need groceries on the 21st or 22nd). in july, i've gone out on the 4th, 5th, 11th, 14th and now the 18th, 19th, 21st and 22nd. i only skipped the 1st (i decided to not bicycle down the roads on canada day, to avoid stoned drivers) and the 20th (because it was raining). i am likely to skip the rest of the weekend due to the rain as well but we'll see. there are some more 30+ degrees scheduled for the end of next week, and we might have another very hot week to start august.
for this week just ending, my thought process was something along the lines of "it's nice and hot out all week, i'm transitioning from a to b, let's just blow the week outside".
i wanted to get out earlier on monday to look for monitors and soy milk, but i got an email on monday morning from the court of appeal indicating that (1) appeals regarding poa offences require the use of a special form and (2) there's no charge for poa offences, so i don't require a fee waiver. that meant i had to re-serve the city and resend the document, so that slowed me down on monday enough that i couldn't finish the other things i wanted to do for the rest of the day. i was able to find a store on wyandotte that sells the brand, and made a request to a clerk, but the end result is that i'd need to go in and speak to the manager, who had already left. i haven't yet had a chance to do that. they had some awesome peppers, though, so i had to get those home, rather than go on the trek out to the edge of town.
when i got home, i decided to do some local grocery shopping first and then got out on the 50 km ride, but a little late. i only made it to the st clair beach area before i realized i'd have to turn around if i wanted to get through the wooded stretch before dark, so i stopped to buy some tomatoes and headed back home. i took a late run to the far store to get a few things like toilet paper and then was able to get in the shower before i crashed pretty hard.
i then woke up on tuesday, got something to eat, cleaned myself up and went on the long ride in the afternoon, all the way to belle river, where i picked up a 15" backup square monitor for $10 and hauled it back home. when i got in, i made some yogurt, got the compost out and picked up a second slightly larger square monitor as backup. i took one more trip out to the walmart to get some toothbrushes and other things and noticed they were out of grapefruit juice (which was on sale) before running into a deer on the new underpass under dougall, which is of some concern given that cougars eat deer and there's been consistent sporadic sightings in the peninsula for years. keep the deer away, please.
when i got in, i made a salad and crashed on the couch; i didn't get a chance to take a shower. i had already decided that i was going to have to stay in due to the rain, although it didn't really get going until late in the afternoon. this day was spend browsing the internet, eating and sleeping a little bit. i think i slept a little more than i wanted, but i didn't hardly sleep at all on monday or tuesday.
i was up on thursday morning to get ready for a dentist visit, which was supposed to be a short consultation after the teeth cleaning on the 30th. after speaking to the dentist after the cleaning, who suggested it was better to drill the incorrectly applied filling out, and doing some more research on it when i got home, i've realized that the decaying plastic on my teeth is not "white filling" as had been initially deduced, but actually light-cured sealant. i remember the glasses - i'm certain of this. unlike white filling, sealant will eventually wash off. that is the reason that dish soap has been effective in cleaning the stains off my teeth, and why my teeth look like they're getting whiter with some of the things i'm doing, which is otherwise considered to be exceedingly unlikely (cleaning off calcification is almost impossible). sealant on front teeth is extremely unusual, and the tactic employed by the dentist may have had the effect of damaging my gumline, but the simple truth is that it will eventually wash off. the thing is....what next, then? that's what i wanted to talk about.
unfortunately, i showed up 15 minutes late for a 20 minute appointment and the dentist would not see me, claiming i "missed" the appointment. this is demonstrably false - i was in the office. a "missed appointment" is a no call / no show, and i didn't have to call because i showed up. on most days, a dentist is running at least 10 minutes late, so showing up 15 minutes late wouldn't matter much. frankly, i expected to have to wait to be seen, anyways. i'm not sure if it's just an excuse or not, but i was told i'd have to pay $100 for a missed appointment, of which there is no possibility of happening, for the reason that i didn't miss the appointment. so, i'll have to call on monday to determine if i need to find a new dentist or not.
what i want to understand is whether or not there's a cosmetic fix that doesn't require drilling. if i have to drill, i'll wait for the sealant to finish falling out. if there's something else i can do, i'll want to consider doing it. i will probably need to wait it out, and it is getting better, although the darker brown is leaving a lighter brown (a stain) on the exposed roots, as it washes off.
sealants are usually placed on the molars of children because they can be hard to brush effectively. the idea is that it fills the grooves in so that the toothbrush only interacts with a smother surface, which is easier to brush. this can go wrong if it locks bacteria in, to expose a nasty cavity when the sealant wears off. now that i am sure what was used, i want to determine if i can understand if any damage of that nature was done, and if there's still time to address it.
i understand why he did what he did, now. i certainly had some gum recession, which exposed parts of my gumline to potential infection. painting over the gumline with sealant would prevent sugar from getting stuck in this sensitive region, and eating away under the tooth, so long as you make sure you don't trap anything in there. it also had a definite cosmetic value - until it started turning brown, from some combination of smoking in years past, drinking too much coffee and just getting old and decaying. sealants are supposed to last 3-5 years, maybe 7. i'm coming up on 10, now. so, the sealant should be gone already. as it is, most of it has fallen off and i can visibly see where it's still lingering, and where it's fraying. so, i wonder if the best thing to do isn't to repeat the same mistake, once enough of it has come off. i also wonder if the dentist can help me understand or identify any signs of malpractice.
but, i'm certainly not drilling into teeth that have never had cavities simply for cosmetic reasons to fix an unpleasant gumline. i need to keep these teeth for a few more decades, at the least. i don't want to drill anything away, especially if there was any acid damage from a bad sealant application.
so, i will need to speak to a dentist very soon, and i also want my eyes checked soon, too. but, that didn't work out on thursday.
i was able to get to the blood lab by about noon, and then stopped at the walmart to pick up the grapefruit juice and some guava, which has been scarce here as of late. i then took a walk for my bones to get a few items at the store (i wanted cherries and dish detergent but instead got cherries and eggs) and went back on the 50 km ride for the third time that week. i've recently found the wind to be rather irritating on the way back because it makes it less hot, but i otherwise enjoyed the ride.
once again, i crashed on the couch when i got in.
i had not heard anything back from the court of appeal so i called them in the morning and i found the response suspect. they could not confirm receipt of the application, and the suggestion was that i should wait for them to process it, which i found rather odd. i will call them again on monday afternoon.
i also had a phone appointment with the hematologist on friday and while i initially found her helpful, the follow-up didn't follow through. she initially tried to explain to me that there was no concern because my hemogoblin was in normal range, which had nothing to do with the issue that was presented to her and suggests that she wasn't taking the issue seriously. when confronted about the ig test not being a celiac test, she sidestepped the issue by arguing that i didn't need a celiac test anyways (well, why did she order me one, then?). i had to ask her explicit questions about a variety of concerns, and she didn't have any actual answers. so, this was largely a waste of my time and hers, although it wouldn't have been if i had at least gotten the celiac test she offered me instead of the ig test (i think it's obvious that she ordered the wrong test and didn't want to admit it, and then wouldn't address the issue when i tried to follow up by phone. this is very unprofessional, really.).
the initial reason that i wanted to talk to her was that i was concerned that my low reticulocytes indicated a production issue, and her response was that she can't react to something that isn't clinical. in other words, while it might seem that my blood is being produced at a low rate to me, and i might even be right, there's nothing she can do until i have an actual deficit of actual blood besides suggest i monitor the situation and chock it up to variation. i'm not really satisfied with this, but i'll have to accept it. i at the least learned that if i do have a production issue then there are no useful tests to do until i'm experiencing symptoms, which i probably won't experience so long as i'm taking iron. so, the answer is to take iron, and let it mask the symptoms, which is not ideal.
she did not know the answer to my "cell biology" question about hepcidin expression being altered by fluctuating serum estrogen levels, but she acknowledged that she recently took a post-graduate course in iron regulation via hepcidin expression and that i am actually on to something. nobody else even knew what i was talking about. she does not expect the hepcidin assay to be available here in the next decade, but she does expect i will eventually be able to test for hepcidin, one day. so, i at least got confirmation that i can't test for the regulating hormone that i think is causing the problem, but that it's an issue the healthcare system is working on and will probably have an answer to, one day. again: not very satisfying. but, i'm not anemic anymore and appear to be able to resolve the issue with iron supplementation, anyways. again: just take iron and mask the problem. ugh.
this was also her take on the hemolysis: while she acknowledged that i may have brought evidence of some hemolysis occurring to her, there is no evidence of any organ damage and my iron levels are sufficient enough to avoid dying. so, if i do have some mild hemolysis, and it is contributing to the problem, the iron supplementation is working in resolving it. i can do nothing more than monitor it and wait for something to go wrong. again: take iron, mask the problem and don't bother calling in the morning.
so, her analysis was essentially that she can't treat a problem without any symptoms, and i have to sort of accept that as it is. i may be producing blood at a lower rate than others, and i may have evidence of some hemolysis, but it's not causing me any discernible harm and i should just continue with the iron pills and monitor it moving forwards. she suggested that if my ferritin does not stabilize then the next step is to get a scope, but she actually thought my ferritin was too high to justify a scope, now. so, she thinks i just had an iron deficiency.
the end result is that i didn't get any of the answers i wanted, but i learned that some of the questions i asked don't have good answers. ok.
i then went on the 50 k ride for a fourth time that evening, came in, took some iron, cleaned up a little and slept on the couch one more time. it was supposed to rain today, but has instead just ended up cloudy, windy and a little less hot than forecast, so i do think i'm in for the weekend.
the stuff with the hematologist is now done, but i need to follow up on the dentist stuff next week, as well as the court of appeal stuff and the soy milk stuff. so, if i can get that chromebook fixed up tonight, i can hopefully get through all that stuff early in the week.
i'm feeling a little more alert than i have in a while. call it a holiday, maybe. i think it was a helpful detour.
15:42
so, i got the write-protect screw off - these ones are easy for that - and have booted into developer mode.
what distribution do i really want?
the processor in this machine is not that old; it's one of the faster in the house, in fact. but, it really just needs to operate more or less like a chromebook. it's a front-end for accessing google. some minimal typing software would be helpful, but it really mostly just needs to let me type and upload. even the uploading is mostly going to be done in the studio.
so, i was going to use gallium, but it seems to be dead.
arch seems to be alive and well but a little too minimal.
i want something that is lightweight, functional and is likely to remain active for years. so, i'm attracted to something established like puppy, but i also like the idea of a lightweight fork of something major like ubuntu. hrmmn.
17:32
the last version of puppy seems to be connected to the last 32 bit fork of ubuntu. that sort of makes sense.
this machine is 64 bit. so, i should look at something else.
17:35
so, let me list some options.
- i could just use chromium.
- xubuntu v lubuntu?
- solus?
- void or arch, if i want to spend the time on it
- gallium will at least have good hardware support, even if it's dead.
let me look into this.
18:16
so, if i wanted to install chromium, how would i actually do it?
it turns out that there is a daily chromium os build maintained by somebody named "arnold the bat". as far as i can tell, this is pretty sketchy and not what i want.
it seems like there are corporate forks of the chromium os, as well. there was previously an independent version of chromium called cloudready, but that got bought by google who are strongly discouraging what i'm trying to do and probably bought the company to stop it. i'm going to avoid this, i think.
for what i want to do, there is a fork called nayu that actually has an image designed specifically for this chromebook model. i'm going to look into this a little more.
18:27
naw. nayu doesn't seem to be any less shady than the chromium dailies.
i'm having difficulty determining if chromium os isos are something that google does or does not maintain for public use.
18:38
yeah. i'm stepping back from chromium os.
so, what about xubuntu v lubuntu?
18:50
so, xubuntu uses gtk+ 2, which is end of life. lubuntu uses lxqt, which has many fewer software options, due to being qt rather than gtk based.
is there a distro that uses an xfce update based on gtk 4?
19:20
i'm getting the impression that it doesn't matter much.
i'm concerned that the newer versions of lubuntu may have less software options available for install.
19:26
i actually think this isn't necessary.
the lubuntu and xubuntu systems are designed for machines like my p3b-f. i should actually be able to just install ubuntu on this chromebook, and i should be asking if i want kde or gnome, not lxqt or xfce.
19:54
yeah, i'm going to start with kubuntu, i think.
i'll have to experiment a little.
19:59
i got it for $100, but this chromebook is the first in the line of higher end chromebooks on the brink of expiration.
it's a 2.5 ghz dual core machine with 4 gb of ram. those are becoming normal to lowend chromebook specs; it's not the specs that the internet expects when talking about converting chromebooks to linux machines, which are more along the lines of my 1.4 ghz thinkpad (also with 4 gb of ram, though). you can still buy like 1.0 ghz / 2 gb ram chromebooks, and you probably would want to put lubuntu on one of those.
the next generation of expired chromebooks is going to have 8 gb of ram and run at 3 ghz dual or even quad. those are not low end machines and they should be able to easily handle new versions of linux.
this is still in between, so i'll start with kubuntu.
20:05
but, then, why not put arch on it, after all?
the arch wiki has better instructions. i'd be on my own if i used kubuntu.
i can install kde or whatever else on arch.
20:20
so, attempt number one seems to have produced a bios error i don't understand. i don't know what went wrong; i think i followed the instructions. but, the machine didn't want to boot.
i'm trying to edit the "sea bios". i think trying to get into it directly first would be helpful.
as it is, i had to boot into the other chromebook to make a recovery media, and the machine is recovering, right now. that's fine, i wanted to do that, anyways.
i'll have to try again, but it seems like a bios issue on the machine rather than an issue with the install media.
23:41
so, it's unbricked, but the error message on the screen is still there.
i think it got stuck trying to boot into "legacy mode", and now it can't boot into legacy mode at all.
is it possible that the school that owned these machines altered the bios? i might have to try to replace the bios.
23:54
yeah, it seems as though i was following old instructions and google has maliciously altered their code to brick the machine if you follow those old instructions.
somebody at google should be sent to jail for that.
it means i need to find new instructions.
0:00
this device is now out of service.
2 medium heads of romaine lettuce with the outer leaves removed 80 g of kale [1 use 50 g of leaves & 30 g of stocks]
¼ cup freshly grated parmigiano reggiano cheese 70 g of crumbled up high retinol cheddar cheese
1 egg yolk½ cup of extra virgin olive oil my replacement for this is 1 tsp of olive oil margarine, 150 g of fortified probiotic yogurt, 1 cup of low fat & unsweetened fortified soy milk and a small swirl of store bought caesar dressing
2 tbsp of lemon juice 1 large chopped lime (peeled like on orange), including zest. lime has inositol and lemon does not.
1½ tbsp of Worcestershire sauce½ tsp freshly ground black pepper 1 tbsp dijon mustard i use frank's red hot with extra cayenne [1 tsp], extra paprika [1 tbsp] and extra thai peppers [6, deseeded chopped] in replace of the worcestershire, pepper, salt & dijon. the 1 tsp of cumin is also best listed here.
anchovies i would like to introduce some indoor grown trout or salmon, but i have not been able to find any. i don't consider the risk of mercury exposure or parasite ingestion worthwhile. for now, the protein and flavour replacement is 1 tbsp of nutritional yeast.
that means it's mine, now, and i can do as i please with it. for google to interfere with that in order to force obsolescence is a criminal act.
0:07
so, this is my one person caesar salad replacement recipe:
i keep the 1 small clove of garlic
+
1 tbsp basil
1 tbsp oregano
1 tbsp thyme
+
1 tbsp hemp seeds for omega-3s, protein & minerals
-----------
the salad also includes the non-caesar salad ingredients of 50 g broccoli, 1 small beet, 1 tomato, 1 large red pepper & 55 g carrot to make it an actual meal. but, if you just want the caesar, you can go with the above.
19:36
monday, july 25, 2022
so, i made some quinoa late last night, stopped to sleep on the couch, woke up, took a shower, fell asleep, woke up to make a salad, fell asleep, woke up to finish the salad, cleaned up a little and now i can get back to this.
i want to do it step by step.
1:57
it was never clear to me why they didn't build an underground subway system through ottawa, even if it had to detour slightly. this system seems to have been designed around the mentality of restoring the historical railway system ratter than building something new, which was never the right mentality.
most major cities have some kind of subway system and they don't constantly breakdown. if there's a problem in ottawa, it's not due to the technology. so, don't blame the technology, blame the administration of it.
8:01
likewise, the rail work in detroit really should have been to build a subway system, but they didn't want to spend the money. i haven't been over since early 2020 and will not be able to go over again until the president lifts the border vaccine mandate (which was never science-based and is just stupid at this point), but it won't be surprising if the exposed light-rail network has similar problems.
8:04
in ottawa, they should have spent the money to build the whole thing underground. they tried to cut corners, and it has cost them more than it would have had they just done it right in the first place.
the solution is to redesign the system to run underground like it should have been designed to in the first place.
8:08
the right lesson is that the lrt in ottawa is a good example of the kind of mismanagement that happens when you give mayors on city councils too much power, or give the council authority over broad issues that affect regional actors. had the planning been done in toronto, it would been insulated from the demands of local actors, who screwed up the project.
with something like lrt, the province (or the feds) needs to be able to come in, seize property through eminent domain and do it right the first time - or we end up with expensive mistakes due to cost-cutting schemes designed to protect "property rights" that need to be fixed, in the long run.
8:14
it's hard to justify the mandate of the crtc in a globalized information economy, and it should really just be abolished. however, the same argument that supports abolishing the crtc upholds the increased importance of the cbc. the crtc's mandate should be folded into that of the cbc's, which should be tasked with providing canadian content not just to canadians but to the entire world.
8:24
i would again call upon the pope to be arrested by canadian officials and charged appropriately under the rome convention.
8:31
so, i got another email from the court of appeal claiming i had to tell them the names of the judges involved. it says nothing of the sort in any of the legislation i could find, so i challenged them for the statutory basis of their refusal and they gave me this, after asking to speak to a manager, and even having to yell the request at her:
https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/940721
https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/940721
the statute does indicate the need to use a form 2 but does not actually say that i need the name of the justice on the form, which is no doubt why they were obscure about it. but, i was able to quickly get the names, so i can do what they want, as stupid and irrelevant as it is. that's fine.
i would push the point if it weren't for the fact that they give 30 days in the regulation rather than 15 (15 is friday). it would be helpful if they would state in the rules of procedure that there are scenarios where the rules of procedure are suspended. but, i've dealt with these law school dropout losers at the courthouse enough to know at this point that they like to pretend they're important by taking out their insecurities on self-represented parties and that, while i might be right, it doesn't matter. it's enough of a problem that the court has actually had to address what it refers to as "discrimination" against self-represented parties, as absurd as that is. it's a cultural problem at the court that needs to be addressed systemically and that nobody in the system wants to address due to the attitude of superiority in the culture.
so, i had to do that this morning.
13:49
what the court staff should have done is file the document with a "defect". whatever. it's of no relevance.
if i could go to the courthouse directly and yell at them, i'd win the argument by hammering across the point that they have no statutory basis to reject the document, but my abilities are limited by the need to argue by phone or email. that is a problem with insufficient access to the courthouse - it doesn't take into account the fact that the court staff is systematically out of control. they have no authority beyond that which is explicitly stated by the legislation, and yet are constantly in an abuse of power.
but, there's nobody to appeal it to, nobody to force a bad manager to do things correctly.
i am, however, going to file a complaint.
14:28
i reject the pope's pleas for "forgiveness", as though anybody ought to care that he's sorry.
i won't forgive, and i won't forget.
the institution needs to be permanently dismantled. we have not won this battle until the vatican's wealth is redistributed, and there is no longer any pope at all.
16:08
the pope is sorry, alright.
he's a sad, sorry excuse for a human being.
16:19
i want to be clear about this legal document.
i did everything i was supposed to do, in the case of a general appeal to the court of appeal. however, it happens to be that this particular appeal is the one situation where there is a special regulation (that i posted) that states the following:
(2) Civilrules 61.03 (motion for leave to appeal), 61.04 (commencement of appeals), 61.05 (certificate or agreement respecting evidence), 61.07 (cross-appeals), 61.09 (perfecting appeals), 61.10 (appeal book), 61.11 and 61.12 (factums) and 61.13 (dismissal for delay) do not apply to appeals under sections 131 and 139 of the Act. O. Reg. 721/94, s. 2 (2).
this is the only regulation of the sort. so, it's a very specific scenario, in which there is a stupid form i have to fill out, instead.
so, out of all the things that can be appealed to the court of appeal, there's one special case, which the legislation doesn't mention (it's in the court of appeals act, not the provincial offenses act or the rules of civil procedure), and what i'm doing happens to be that one special case.
even so, if i had a lawyer - and i can more than competently represent myself for a trivial matter of this sort, where the judge obviously didn't follow the rules. - the form i would need to fill out would be almost identical to the general appeal heading (using s. 61 of the rules that every other category of appeal falls under) i attempted to file, and the submission would have been fine, with the exception of the trivial deficiency of not naming the original judge, which is generally not required. it is not clear why this is suggested in this specific situation, and the legislation does not specify it is required.
the bizarre regulation is that, in the specific case of poa offences, self-represented litigants have to follow the same rules as inmates launching appeals, and there's no reason presented for that. it's just this weird, very particular, very specific case, that has arcane requirements for no apparent reason. nobody could have realized that. there should be a note in the rules of civil procedure about it. but, i have enough time to react to it.
even so, the second submission should have been filed, with the deficiency. i am literally forced to reprint 10 pages, go down to city hall, give it to the prosecutor and then email it to the court in order to enter in the name of two justices, which is information that will not even be looked at by the justice determining whether leave is granted or not.
it is legitimately a stupid technicality, of no meaning or value of any sort - and one hidden in the fine print, where nobody could reasonably find it. but, i'm better off just doing it - and then filing a complaint about it.
16:52
i would call on the legislature to modernize this section of the court of appeals act by eliminating this discriminatory treatment of self-represented litigants and making filling in these special forms optional in poa cases rather than required.
some applicants may find these forms helpful, but i'm just finding them annoying, and they're just slowing me down, because they're hidden in the rules. my initial application was perfectly cromulant. further, it gives the registrar a bullshit excuse to avoid filing, which they will always take, as they are small-minded people stuck in a dead-end job that enjoy taking out their insecurities on people they perceive as below them. special rules for self-represented parties give the registrar an excuse to try to bully them, which is counter to the function and purpose of the court system, which is to provide an avenue to justice for all. if i want to launch a real appeal as a self-represented party, i should have the right to do that - i shouldn't be forced to fill out stupid forms that assume i don't know what i'm doing.
so, this needs to be abolished.
or, maybe we need to ask the superior court if the court of justice act is constitutional.
17:03
what's the rational basis for confession, anyways?
you know i'm an atheist, and i don't give a gram of legitimacy to the bible. but, the idea has no biblical justification. jesus never told you to violate the fifth to your priest. and, the reformation rejected the idea, on it's head.
i would guess, without much effort, that the idea was introduced by western feudal lords to trick dissidents into admitting their plans, bond villain style. that's how you catch robin hood, right? you get the poor saps out in the groves in front of a priest and scare them into telling the authorities everything, by threatening them with eternal damnation. works every time, huh?
it turns out that, according to wikipedia, that naive assumption is not that far off of the truth. it apparently has to do with the merging of roman civil law with ecclesiastical law in the heart of the empire (which never really happened in britain, which retained separate civil and cannon laws). so, the bishops became judges. do not judge, lest ye be judged, right? well, the bishops are all going to hell, anyways...
as would be expected, they actually ended up commodifying sin and selling it on the market, in a precursor to modern carbon trading. just wacky stuff.
so, what do those words mean, in historical context?
they don't mean anything at all. they're utterly worthless, and should be rejected at face value.
17:21
why do the indigenous groups take any of this seriously?
the truth is it's a remnant of their colonization.
i need to be careful: we're talking about band councils, here, which are imperial bodies. this kind of deference breaks down when you communicate with real indigenous resistance, outside of the state-sanctioned councils, who don't really represent anybody.
but, if you've never seen the bullshit they were brainwashed with, you should look it up. it's just outrageous. to this day, even real indigenous groups think that to get anything done you have to convince the queen, first - because she's really the one in control, making decisions. they completely reject the parliament; they give no legitimacy to the democratic process. the reason for this is that they were taught to quasy-deify the british monarch, in ways that seem to strangely mirror biblical language.
the queen is the great mother of the indigenous people; they are her children, and she protects them. you think i'm bullshitting you. no. look it up. in fact, the brainwashing maintains an existence in the case law, which has erected a "fiduciary" duty by the crown over the indigenous groups. legally speaking, the indigenous groups in canada are considered in equivalent terms to disabled dependencies of the crown.
there are plenty of people talking about decolonization, but the way the band councils are reacting to the papal visit is just more evidence of something i've been pointing out for years: indigenous peoples in canada are so badly colonized that they no longer even realize it.
we don't need truth or reconciliation - that is the language of colonialism and merely upholds the colonial relationship. we need decolonization, autonomy and self-sufficiency.
17:41
when the subpopulation in your country that is most excited to see the last standing representative of the most conservative strain of the most imperialistic aspect of your culture is actually the colonized indigenous groups, that should set off red flags in that community.
i mean, it makes sense - the most colonized are the most excited to see the colonial master.
but, it's a depraved reality that needs to be undone. it's a distortion of existence that cannot be justified or upheld, from any angle. it's an affront upon history; it's a travesty.
17:46
they should be driving the pope out with eggs and tomatoes, if not with spears and flints.
17:48
at this point, a rational government in ukraine would be seeking to partition out the russian speaking regions that have already voted to join russia or are in the process of voting to join russia. the ukrainian government is instead holding to the irrational insistence of trying to govern regions that are both under russian occupation and have majority russian-backing populations.
it would follow that the russians will need to undo the 2014 coup and put their own puppet in power if they wish to have an outcome to their liking, if the government in kiev refuses to behave rationally.
i think it's clear that there isn't a master plan, and there will have to be some partition point. but, the russians are simply correct to ague that the government in kiev needs to change to see an end to the conflict, as the current head of government is a retard.
18:27
i've made this point repeatedly: there is no valour in ukrainian resistance. it's simply base stupidity.
18:28
if the situation continues long enough, the situation will eventually flip over, and the russians will be fighting to take ukrainian speaking regions. i'll have to react to that when it comes up.
but, the reality is that, right now, it's ukraine that's trying to hold russian-speaking regions that want to return to russia. they can't win - the people that live there won't let them win. there's no path to victory; the people there want to be russian, and they will eventually return to russia, now that the fighting has begun.
18:39
the people the russians are fighting against are extreme right-wing nationalists (nazis.) with zero popular support. the local populations are broadly - not monolithically - on the side of the russians.
as i've stated repeatedly, i don't know exactly where the demarcation line is. it's likely fluid.
but, the russians haven't hit it yet.
18:44
replacing zelensky with a more rational actor will have the benefit of accelerating the inevitable partition of ukraine into russian and polish spheres, and then it will up to the pro-western forces in the polish sphere to reorient the country, if they can - and i suspect they can.
but, so long as zelensky and his cronies sit there and foolishly think they're going to fight off the russians, as they reabsorb their own population centers, they are inviting deposition and dominance.
the foolish get what they deserve, in this world.
18:53
you may argue that the russians wouldn't allow for the polish partition, they'll just hold the whole country.
i want to be a little bit careful, because the russians have been breaking with their historical policies, here. the russians are supposed to want a buffer state. that is why the annexation of belarus is unlikely, and why ukraine has existed for the last 30 years, in the first place.
it is possible that the calculation has changed and that the russians now view a buffer state as a liability, but they've been trying to create buffer states in the area for centuries, and that would be a major break in historical policy.
so, what the russians are supposed to want is a ukrainian puppet-regime in kiev - if they can't have a polish puppet state in warsaw - and that puppet regime is supposed to act as a buffer. it follows that they should want to partition the country along ethnic lines in a way that makes it easy to hold the russian speaking regions and throws away the ukrainian speaking regions.
they haven't been doing what they're supposed to do, though.
19:08
this is why i'm being patient, here.
the russians have been there for a long time and they've generally been the protagonist in european history. it's not difficult to construct what they want, based on the fact that they've wanted the same things for centuries. they've already fought and won this war a couple of times. if the obvious outcome asserts itself, history will view them favourably for it.
but, they've been acting slightly strangely, recently, too.
we'll have to see if they break any red lines, in the end. i don't think they have, as of yet - i think that my initial accusations of this being a mistake have been tempered by the unfolding realization of the nature of the forces on the ground in ukraine, and the pre-emption has appeared increasingly justified.
they will need to make the right choice as to how to partition the country.
19:12
i've been arguing for a long time that the kids will need to respond to the current state of the industry by creating a new underground. mainstream music has always sucked. what's different today is that the counter-culture has disappeared.
have we gotten to the point where new music is so boring that even the kids don't want to listen to it?
see, that's what happened c. 1988 and that people sort of glossed over. people just got fed up with 80s culture, and started tuning into alternative culture, instead. so, we had this great moment when everything flipped over - until the majors bought everything out and shut everything down. the process was more or less complete by the late 90s, when they tried to market my chemical romance, which was just rebranded 80s hair metal, as punk rock.
with the pandemic shutting everything down, we don't even have an alternative any more. it's really that bad.
but, this might signal rock bottom. there might be nowhere to go but better.
19:35
i actually missed this during the election, in the midst of promises by the opposition parties to "double" odsp rates.
doubling odsp rates would be rather dramatic. given what ford ran on, i was happy to get the 1.5% increase that was half of the 3% promised by wynne in 2018. the actual likelihood that anybody is going to double the rates is pretty remote. 5%, for me, is an extra $55, and that's more than i'm paying out in inflation. this is a conservative government - i'm relieved i'm not dealing with cuts. i had very low expectations, and for good reason; the harris government was vicious on this file.
i've pointed out repeatedly that the best way to reduce disability costs is to get more people in subsidized housing. after the 5% increase, and including the $65 monthly deposit i get from the tax credit, the total income i'm receiving is going to be roughly $1190. that doesn't include another $200, quarterly, from gst & carbon tax rebates (federal money). i'm still giving 65% of that to my landlord, and i'm doing relatively well, regarding that- a lot of odsp recipients find themselves in 80 or 90% ranges, which is not sustainable. if my rent was cut to 30%, it would give me an extra $400 in my pocket, per month. that $400 is perhaps not a lot of money to somebody with a larger income, but $5000/yr in disposable income is a lot to somebody in my income range.
when the decision was made to force odsp recipients into market rent, nobody expected us to be paying 65-75% of the income on rent. none of the math in any document argues that, but it's frequently reality. that isn't a good use of public funds - it's a subsidy to the rentiers.
they could do a cost-benefit analysis and decide what makes the most sense, but even getting the mismatch down to 40%, on average, would be hugely beneficial to a very large number of people.
otherwise, this doesn't really end - we're always going to be asking for more money, and we'll always be at the bottom of the list.
reference:
"doug ford says election promise to increase disability support will be in 2022 budget", global news, june 27, 2022
21:20
odsp recipients are largely humble folks, who are dealing with a wide variety of physical and mental concerns. we're not looking for lavish lifestyles, we're mostly scrambling to pay rent. that is, functionally, what the payments are for, and any systemic shift should really be primarily concerned with ways to get the rent paid.
so long as we have homes, we'll figure the rest out. really. that's what the program is about - keeping us off the street.
21:24
as a recipient of odsp, nobody has a greater stake in the sustainability of the system than i do. i don't actually think doubling the rates is a great idea, for that reason.
it would require an upfront investment, but a serious push for sustainable housing would have to be in the long term interests of the sustainability of the system, and a better investment than merely hiking the rates.
that's my point.
23:05
tuesday, july 26, 2022
it's like rationing candy to children on hallowe'en; you set rules, and they scream for one more lollipop. you give them the lollipop, and they want another.
we're either serious about transition or we're not. we can't be serious about transition, while maintaining the tar sands. and, if we're arguing that some other country will just increase their emissions and we're losing out on profits, in an application of the twisted logic of capital, then we're not serious about transition, at all.
and, the answer is that we're not serious about transition - we're stage managing political expectations in an obscene charade of cynical political theatre.
reference:
"government insists it will meet its 2030 emissions target despite extension for oil and gas sector", cbc news, july 25 2022
3:15
if you've been paying attention to the banking aristocracy in the background, the plan is to move to hydrogen cars that use natural gas as a source.
it's unserious.
4:11
biden is using the term "technical recession".
ugh.
4:24
i lost the day today.
i'll have to get everything done tomorrow.
18:31
the original decision was pathetic.
ms. lich will need to weigh whether she thinks a constitutional rights case for arbitrary detention is worthwhile.
reference:
"convoy organizer tamara lich again granted bail", cbc news, july 26, 2022
20:40
here's some poetry in motion.
maybe it's the viking in me, but i hope they get away with it.
reference:
"ny bishop and wife robbed in $400K jewelry heist during live sermon", global news, july 25, 2022
21:54
wednesday, july 27, 2022
this is a fairly naive analysis, but i'm more concerned about outcomes.
a big part of the reason that biden is unpopular is that he (accidentally on purpose) couldn't get anything through congress, and a lot of people will vote democrat in the midterms to make it easier for biden to pass legislation through congress (however lacking the math for such a thing is). so, yes, these are different questions, but they're related enough concerns that the variables aren't actually independent. pulling these ideas apart enough to analyze them separately is probably impossible.
but, what do those numbers suggest? they suggest that, at best, democrats might hold the house. while little change in the balance of power seems likely, the most likely shift seems to be the off chance that democrats lose the house. i don't think anybody's suggesting any meaningful shift in the balance of power in the senate.
so, if the way for biden to improve his approval ratings is to get more democrats in congress, these numbers suggest that that will not happen, and biden's numbers will remain low going into the next election, because the congress wouldn't let him pass any bills, *winkwink*. many frustrated democrats will vote for him, anyways.
it would be helpful if they'd run an analysis on approval ratings v voting outcomes. the current scenario seems extreme, but i don't think it's unprecedented. it's essentially the same thing we saw in 2016, where polling saw trump's approval ratings very low for months, but independents voted for him anyways, because the alternative was hillary.
what biden needs to get over this catch-22 is a level of charisma he doesn't have. if bernie sanders couldn't increase voter turnout - and he couldn't. deal with it. - it's not clear how to get more americans to vote.
so, we'll keep running around in circles, then, with obstructionist congresses that block agendas, and make presidents unpopular, because americans don't understand how their political system works well enough to actually use it to get what they want.
2:04
there is a viewpoint amongst independent voters - who decide a lot of elections - that they want opposite parties in power at different levels to maintain checks on each other, and ensure a balance exists. so, they vote republican for house as a check on a democratic president, and vice versa. then, they complain that the president can't get anything done.
when your voters suffer from this kind of bipolar behaviour, the outcome will reflect the pathology.
but, the 5% of independents in the 30% of eligible voters that actually vote shouldn't be deciding elections. as stated, i don't know how to excite people into voting for congress, or how to explain to people that the congress has the power, not the president. the voters don't get it....
2:13
the removal of the civics class from the education system was tied into more nefarious elements within it. i grasp that.
but, now, in conjunction with years of attempts by republicans to make americans dumber and dumber, the united states does not have an educated electorate.
there needs to be some understanding that the struggle for the country - and by extension the planet - is intrinsically tied into educating americans about how their own government works, and there's little solution besides dictatorship if that can't be effectively done.
7:24
i keep pointing out that the cops are obsessed with my computers, and i can't figure out why.
i had to run a scandisk this morning to recover a number of legal documents that were deleted from my usb key after leaving it plugged in for a few days. so, it helps answer the question.
to begin with, are they so afraid of me that they have to delete my legal documents? i mean, this is the police, we're talking about - this is how they act? second, i have everything backed up. even ignoring the absurdly amateur nature of such behaviour, that's never going to work.
my best guess is that there's a wireless chip in the monitor, which is what i think broke the last one - and something i'd been noticing for a while.
so, i'll have to unplug the usb hub on the monitor, then.
this is childish and stupid. the cops need to grow the fuck up.
10:18
i have better things to do than this. surely, they do as well.
10:20
is there some kind of other explanation, as to what happened to these files?
there's not many.
file corruption of this sort generally happens due to unclosed handles, meaning that the files were likely accessed remotely and not dismounted properly, which destroyed the pointer in the file system. but, when i recovered them, i noticed they were all write-protected. this strongly suggests somebody had the end goal of preventing me from accessing them.
i have an idea for the police: why don't you begin by behaving lawfully, and then graduate to taking responsibility for your corruption when you're called out on it?
short of disassembling the monitor, it would be difficult to prove the point, and i don't particularly want to. and, i mean, who do i call? the police? there's simply no justification for this. i don't want to spend the next 20 years fighting the corrupt police, i want the retards to fuck off and leave me alone.
it shouldn't slow me down in any substantive way. but, it's exceedingly unsettling and exceedingly annoying. like, i'm not supposed to know this. the incompetence is just surreal. and, as pointed out repeatedly, the lengths and extremes being gone to are beyond comprehensible.
i wish i understood what the actual point was, what they've imagined is justifying this.
10:29
what i know is that some arm of law enforcement thinks it's worthwhile to go to extreme lengths to spy on my writing and that i strongly doubt they have any kind of warrant. this branch of law enforcement is in truth breaking every law in the country, and the more that evidence mounts that there's no justification for it, the more aggressive they get about it. they're being driven by conspiratorial logic - if they can't find anything, it's just proof i'm hiding something, because i can't actually be a law abiding citizen, otherwise they wouldn't be spying on me. qed.
10:33
this computer, which was built in 2007 and is no longer a modern computer, runs a version of xp that cannot be connected safely to the internet and has it's network card disabled in the bios, and yet i'm constantly fighting off attempts by law enforcement to hack into it over wireless from upstairs. it's absurd.
i am currently using it to do some basic word editing, because the typing machine isn't set up, yet. but, it's purpose is nothing more or less complicated than to act as a sound recording interface for the music gear i have in here.
i'm quite obviously doing all internet related applications from the chromebook, as should be clear from my network log. what's the value in trying to hack into my recording machine, which has no internet access? it's utter stupidity.
10:41
none of the desktops in this space are networked.
all connectivity goes through the laptops.
11:04
the file directory errors that came up are the same errors that came up on my windows 7 laptops, and are the reason why i don't connect anything except the chromebooks to the internet anymore.
if i thought that perhaps that was over with, i was clearly wrong.
11:07
i'm going to run chkdsks on all of the local hard drives, just as a precaution.
11:10
i don't think that this is a fact-based analysis of what the russians are doing, but is rather based on western propaganda, mostly from right-wing sources. the russians actually claim they're doing maintenance. i don't know how it would even be possible to challenge that claim, even if it's false.
that said, the issues of importance are two-fold:
1) ensuring the existence of capacity.
2) ensuring the actuality of sufficient short term supply.
i don't think this is what the russians are doing - and, if it is, it doesn't make sense for then to do it - but maintaining flows at a high enough level to keep the economy running (while preventing german stockpiling, which is what we're talking about), while ensuring that flows might be increased should it be required (which is different than the previous situation, where an increase of flows was not possible) would be a pushy but acceptable strategy. if i were the germans, i might get bitter about that, and the russians shouldn't want that.
that said, if the germans want the russians to go beyond maintaining a sufficient flow of gas and instead provide an optimal flow of gas, they might consider lifting some of the sanctions, and holding off on the weapons transfers. the reality that the germans are helping to fund and execute a war against russia is not an irrelevant or minor detail, here.
but, as it is, i don't think there's any evidence that challenges the russian explanation, and i would expect flows to increase in the upcoming weeks - as it is in russia's self-interest to ensure as much.
reference:
"russia cuts flow of gas to europe, raising fresh doubts about canada's sanctions waiver", cbc news, july 27, 2022
23:59
thursday, july 28, 2022
i'm not much of a football fan, but the republicans are actually running hershel walker for senate in a seat they have a good chance of winning?
the democrats should run emmitt smith.
1:36
mr. trump must have made a deal for herschel walker, i assume.
1:37
i am looking forward to the concession speech, were mr. walker explains that he was outrun by his opponent.
1:46
if you listen to manchin speak - something i'd advise against doing too frequently - it seems like his epiphany has to do with concerns about a shift in power in the senate.
i actually think the democrats can likely win in wisconsin and pennsylvania, in addition to holding arizona and georgia. the republican candidates in pennsylvania and georgia do not appear to be serious legislators, and senate voters tend to take the process seriously, if their numbers are less than they ought to be. this is the flip side of low turnout: we might not like what we get if we increase turnout.
i would expect that dr. oz and hershell walker are both net benefits to the democrats, in the end.
but, manchin seems to see it differently, and this seems to be a legacy move. so, is it actually his own seat that he's given up on, in the face of evidence of a republican sweep?
some of what manchin does is self-interest, but a lot of it seems to be to try to dominate (using game theory language) his republican opponent. he seems to be suggesting that he's giving up on this tactic.
we'll see what happens. but, if manchin was just kidding, he has a short time window to reverse himself and help plow things through.
2:04
trading herschel walker for the sitting democrat in the senate will be the greatest deal of all time for georgia!
3:04
this week has been awful in terms of trying to get things done. fuck.
11:59
the doctrine of discovery is a revisionist concept invented by a nineteenth century american judge that has no historical application, whatsoever. it is a fanciful term that should be dropped from all usage entirely, not a policy to be rescinded or revoked.
the 1452 dum diversas that defined all further papal decrees on the matter was issued primarily in the context of the ending stages of the reconquista and the subsequent final liberation of the iberian peninsula from a long and brutally oppressive muslim occupation, and with an eye to the pending inevitable shift of the reconquista into northern africa and was consequently mostly targeted at north african muslims. this papal dictate was an explicit reaction to existing practices in the muslim realm that enslaved non-muslims. the pope dictated a rule that non-christians are to be enslaved in the christian realm in the same way that non-muslims were enslaved in the muslim realm. it had nothing to do with race. the language specifies "saracens and heathens". it was later used to justify the enslavement of non-christians in africa and the americas, and the specificity of the decree defines some of the odd counter-examples that occurred, like the fact that ethiopia was never colonized, because it was already christian. during the period of american slavery, slaves were frequently christianized to undo the legal justification for enslaving them, which is that they weren't christian.
in britain, after henry viii, which is essentially the entire british colonial period, the law governing how land was administered in the empire was actually derived from roman imperial law, and had nothing to do with any papal dictates. the legal discourse had to do with whether a land was conquered or settled. following the roman precedent, conquered peoples were to keep their own laws and customs, whereas settlers were to self-govern themselves by erecting a parliament, and enact their own laws. the fact that the indigenous peoples in canada would not admit to being conquered is what led to such a confusing mess of law, until the courts in canada de facto declared them conquered and began treating them as though they were.
the focus on this doctrine of discovery by the indigenous peoples themselves as something meaningful is reflective of the level of discourse around colonialism in canada, where the colonized group is too clueless to even define their own condition.
the doctrine of discovery never existed, was never referenced by any parliament or court in the british empire, had nothing to do with the colonization of canada and is of no consequence today, whatsoever.
14:21
the catalyst for the dum diversas was the fall of constantinople.
14:40
the puritan british colonists to the americas were of course very protestant and very anti-catholic.
for much of america's history, catholics have been a severely persecuted minority who have lacked basic democratic rights, like the ability to vote.
the idea that the pope had anything to do with the british colonization of the americas is utterly ridiculous, absurdly ignorant and historically nonsensical.
14:48
the reason that the catholic church was given control over the indigenous school system in canada had to do with it's power in quebec, which was a global backwater until the silent revolution. after the british conquest of new france (which the british considered to have also been a conquest of the indigenous peoples, although the indigenous peoples rejected this), the british allowed the quebecois to keep their laws and customs under the roman imperial law of conquest, which was what was actually in use. so, the conquered quebecois were allowed to retain their catholicism, their civil law and their language because they were conquered. nobody was ever able to get the idea of conquest being a tool to use to maintain indigenous cultures across to them, and they never understood the ramifications of it.
the americans did not follow roman imperial law in their conquest of louisiana (after the nominal purchase of it). they just forced everybody to adopt english laws and customs.
the catholic church was utilized as a tool of control by the protestant british aristocracy in canada, which allowed quebeckers to rise up the ranks within it due to the imperial precedent of self-rule. the people that created the indigenous school systems were a mix of catholic quebeckers and british tories that realized the utility of the catholic church as a tool of control over the subjugated quebeckers and then applied that control structure to the indigenous peoples in an attempt to assimilate them. the end goal of the british aristocracy was always to convert the indigenous peoples into taxable farmers. if not for this quirk of history, the catholic church would have certainly had no role to play in british colonialism in canada.
14:56
the british didn't give a fuck about what the pope thought.
like, c'mon.
this is grade seven history class, here.
14:59
it is, in fact, even likely that the actual reasoning underlying the 19th century court decision that invented the doctrine of discovery out of thin air was an anti-catholic bias in the court, and an attempt to blame the problem on catholics, rather than take responsibility for it.
15:06
past popes have already addressed the dum diversas.
but, the pope cannot retract or rescind the doctrine of discovery because it never existed in the first place.
15:08
did columbus or cabot or the rest of them ever make any suggestion that they'd found a "new land" or that it was "empty"?
the answer to these questions is that the claims are demonstrably false.
before 1492, most of the european ruling class (with the exception of an educated elite that did not include clergy) actually thought the world was flat. the term "terra nullius" does not appear anywhere until it was invented in the 19th century, but the premise that the pope wanted to split a world he thought was flat up is incoherent. there was an agreement in 1494 to split africa between spain and portugal that was later applied to south america.
columbus and cabot were both looking for asia, and not for empty land. columbus thought he landed in indonesia; cabot thought he landed in japan. neither thought the country was empty. columbus took back a lot of slaves, and it wasn't long before they found cities in mexico and peru. there is no coherence in the claim that they thought the land was empty.
the spread of western diseases that happened shortly after contact had a devastating effect on the indigenous people, and language of that sort started appearing after an estimated 70-95% of them died from various viruses, mostly smallpox. so, there was a time when the emptiness of the land would have been an empirical truth, but nobody cited this and it had nothing to do with the colonization.
what they were trying to do was find a way around the muslims, who had blocked the trade routes after the fall of constantinople, in order to get to india and china - which is why they called the indigenous peoples indians. they really thought they were in india!
it's really a question of just understanding the history, and realizing that the doctrine of discovery was invented wholecloth in the 19th century by an american judge.
16:21
why did the pope split africa between portugal and spain?
well, it's an oversimplification, but that's fine.
the reason is that two historical processes were coming to a conclusion at about the same time - the reconquista, which liberated spain from muslim occupation, and the fall of constantinople, which ended the empire in the east. the next stage of the reconquista was logically to reconquer north africa for the empire, but columbus upended that. standing in 1495, it would have been expected that it was a matter of time before the invading arabs were chased out of carthage, and the western mediterranean was placed back under roman rule. and, that did sort of happen, eventually, with the french conquest of northern africa. morocco also ended up as a client state of spain.
it was the fall of constantinople that forced europeans to try to find a way to sail to asia to get access to commodities. it was a matter of time, but that was the thing that sent europeans sailing west.
so, you have to place these papal dictates, notwithstanding fabrications of them by dishonest american jurists, in the context of the things they actually cared about, and america was not something they actually cared about.
16:55
friday, july 29, 2022
google wants to push the loch ness monster on me, for some reason. i dunno.
maybe the most rational explanation is that it was an otter or seal, but it seems like a stretch. i think you have to throw a wrench in it - it could have been an otter-seal hybrid (otters are known to mate with seals), or even a failed otter-seal hybrid born with mutations from the pollution coming down the river.
i actually don't think the idea of a living fossil in the region is absurd, a priori, but the region has been inhabited for centuries, and it seems odd that a living fossil might randomly appear in the 20th century. the lack of sightings before 1933 makes this hypothesis unlikely. worse, if there was a population, there would be multiple specimens.
1933 is late enough that the british government may have been doing some weird experiments in the region, and what people saw might have been a seal with birth defects. as there was only ever one of them, and it's long dead by now, the sightings would have stopped because the thing died.
surely, some of the stories are empty trolls. but, if there's a basis to it, i think the vanilla otter narrative is lacking - it needs more oomph, via the addition of a hybrid or a mutant.
that's my deduction, anyways.
3:43
it's all hormones.
it's not hard to grasp how getting excited about eating could lead to sexual arousal, if it's some analogue of cortisol that triggers both reactions. most animals - arguably even most humans - don't have the mental capacity to grapple with the hormone response. if the cortisol response from being excited about eating also triggers a testosterone flush, it's entirely deconstructible behaviour.
3:50
the seal doesn't reflect on the situation.
"but, you're not a seal, you're a penguin. this isn't right. we need to stop."
the seal just reacts to the testosterone, largely autonomically.
3:52
humans are primates. primates are animals. therefore, humans are animals. i offer no subtlety on the point: i am an animal, you are an animal, we are all animals.
but, we are sort of unique in our ability to rationalize our hormones.
i don't think other primates, cetaceans or proboscidea can do that.
3:55
when male elephants go into testosterone overdrive, they literally go insane.
some people think elephants are smarter than chimps and dolphins, but the males turn into zombies every year, and nobody can reason with them until the testosterone goes down.
4:06
seems like they don't like being cancelled.
hey, you reap what you sow.
seems a little over the top of you ask me, but boycott is a valid political act. if a business wants to take a political position - and what does this have to do with their product? - they'll need to accept the consequences of it.
reference:
"p.e.i. pub pulls trudeau's photos after barrage of hate-filled comments", cbc news, july 29, 2022
10:02
saturday, july 30, 2022
i agree with russia: the nazis in the azov battalion, and other paramilitary groups, should be killed in a gruesome and humiliating way in order to send a message to those that hold the ideology that they will not be tolerated, they will be hunted down and annihilated. every boulder will be overturned. they will not survive.
ukraine is legitimately different than syria, because the nazis in syria found themselves with popular support. in that situation, entire towns need to be wiped off the face of the earth in order to stop the virus from spreading.
the nazis in ukraine are not popular, do not represent the ukrainian people and have not been successful in any sort of governance. polling puts them at less than 5% - generally less than 2% - popular support. as such, only the fighters need to be wiped off the face of the earth.
tactics such as the parading of dead nazis through the cities of eastern ukraine should be considered, to show the remnant opposition what will happen if they refuse to submit.
this is the correct way to deal with ideologies of this sort - you need to ruthlessly wipe them out, and you need to humiliate them and their families to send the message that they will not be tolerated.
if the ukrainians had any decency, they would be putting these people in jail, and not training them to fight an offensive war and then sending them arms.
13:16
put their heads on pikes and march through town with them.
that is what needs to be done.
13:22
i need to strongly discourage elizabeth may from running for the green party. she is the cause of much of their problems, not any sort of solution to them.
the country doesn't need another centrist party, and trying to position the greens in the same place in the spectrum as the ndp and liberals is just going to help the right. that has been the party's legacy: it has helped the conservatives win.
the country does need an organized voice on the actual left, which is what the green party is best positioned to play the role of, and which ms. may is wholly unsuitable to act as a spokesperson for.
the green party should buy ms. may a nice kitchen set and strongly suggest she retire. i would call on mr. trudeau to offer her a senate seat, but she's so old that she'd have to retire as soon as she entered.
in line with mandatory retirement for judges and senators, the liberal party could and should introduce a mandatory retirement age for mps and set it age 70.
14:21
this is noaa's official june, 2022 temperature graphic.
if you live in canada, you may have seen something different at sites like the weather network. there appears to be a co-ordinated push under way in canada to move towards denialism.
15:55
where i am, just south of detroit, it was indeed much warmer than average.
15:56
you will note that the graphic does indicate the existence of a la nina, but it was not a major factor in (eastern) canada's weather, this year.
more important has been the very hot water in the atlantic.
15:59
this article attempts to define the "doctrine of discovery" (the historically revisionist term invented by an american judge in the 19th century to blame the catholic church for british imperialism, which was directed by precedents set by roman imperial law, and rejected any authority of the pope, whatsoever) as a 1493 papal bull and claims "scholars" support the idea, without referencing any. the only scholar cited in the article disputes the claim.
generally, when you read something like "scholars say" or "experts agree", it's because the opposite is true - they couldn't find a scholarly source to uphold the common sense or colloquial interpretation, so they just say "scholars agree!" rather than actually look into it, and debunk themselves. no article with such weasel words should ever be published, let alone taken seriously. this article published by the cbc is just the definition of bad journalism, truly.
in this case, as mentioned, it's worse than that - we're dealing with an understood fabrication of history, literal revisionism, that stems from a court ruling, and not from any history department. this idea is not scholarly in origin, it's juridical. judicial independence does not imply that the court can rewrite history, but that is exactly what has been attempted to be done, here.
what is this papal decree that is being referenced?
as mentioned, there was a papal bull in 1452 called the dum diversas that ordered the enslavement of "saracens and heathens". this was issued in the context of the fall of constantinople and the expected shift of the reconquista into northern africa, after the final expulsion of the muslims from occupied spain. i did not mention the romanus pontifex, which ordered the redistribution of property owned by saracens and heathens to christians, in the same dual context of the reconquista and the final fall of the eastern empire. you can read a little about the context of that here:
it is of the utmost historical value to point out that this policy of enslaving non-christians was identical to the policy in the muslim world (which had a caliph, which was similar to the pope) of enslaving non-muslims. the christian monarchs asked for this and received it, although they were already applying it before they asked, because they inherited the existing muslim slave networks. ask and ye shall receive.
to be clear: when the latins re-established control over spain, there were already slave trading networks coming from africa, as it was the northern terminus point of the gigantic muslim slave trade, which sent slaves from africa to the various points in the muslim (mostly arab) world and was nominally primarily about religion. the latins inherited these networks, as they retook control of the iberian peninsula. so, the latins went to the pope and said "we want to maintain the existing slave networks and for you to tell us this is ok". the pope complied, and the slave networks expanded, along with the re-establishment of latin control in the western mediterranean.
neither the portugese nor the spanish thought they discovered africa. that is ridiculous. the reason they wanted to go to africa is because they knew it was the source of gold and slaves that the arabs brought north into europe. they were following the trade networks that the muslims had set up hundreds of years earlier, and that they knew of because they lived at the northern terminus of them. they inherited the routes; they inherited the maps.
the reason the spaniards (primarily) ended up in central and south america is that they were looking for gold, and they found a large amount of it for relatively easy taking. this temporarily spared north africa from the consequences of reconquest, as there was more gold in the americas, which was simply easier to get.
this area was new to the romans, who launched several expeditions south, as explorers. it is reasonable to talk of nero's expedition to the source of the nile as being that of an explorer, or some of the expeditions through the sahara in the first centuries ce being expeditions of exploration. while the romans considered this region outside of their sphere, there was actually a roman settlement around lake chad (look at a map) for quite some time, as well as roman naval bases in western morocco, on the open atlantic. there were wars fought against the nubians, but they were largely defensive, as the romans considered the area too hot and humid for advanced civilization. the name used by 16th century european map-makers for the area around lake chad was the name given to it by the romans 1500 years earlier. so, there was nothing to discover - not after the roman explorations and certainly not after the well-established arab trade routes. you have to get south of nigeria before you get into unexplored (by greeks or romans) regions, at such a late date in history.
the closest thing you'll find to any sort of doctrine of discovery in real history is the following treaty between the kings of spain and portugal:
that was a secular treaty.
as explained in the article, the treaty was an amendment to the existing 1479 agreement, the treaty of alcacovas:
there was no understanding of the existence of the americas in 1479. the treaty was strictly about africa, in the context of the ending stages of the reconquista in spain, and it's inevitable shift into the liberation of north africa from muslim occupation.
in 1492, columbus sailed through the bahamas, past cuba and landed in haiti, and then brought back knowledge of the existence of a set of islands that he thought was the easternmost extent of indonesia, although even that wasn't exactly clear. the island chain columbus thought he had landed in is something similar to where the actual philippines is. columbus died in 1506, still insisting that he had landed in asia, which just demonstrates the lack of understanding of the geography. based on what was actually understood in 1493, it really cannot be said that columbus had discovered anything besides a few distant islands in the atlantic. it was another 20+ years before anybody really realized that there was a continent in the middle of the ocean separating europe and africa on one side from asia on the other, and that these weren't just islands.
so, while columbus had found some islands, that is all he had found, and when the portugese king demanded that sovereignty be handed over to portugal (by requesting review of the situation by the pope, who was expected to act as a mediator), it was in the context of having found another island chain to the west of the canaries and of cape verde.
what the pope actually says in his 1493 bull which is being cited as the doctrine of discovery is the following, and i paraphrase:
while it may be true that there is a 1479 treaty, and that treaty would give portugal control over land south of the canary islands, of which the new island chains lie, that treaty was constructed without knowledge of the new island chains. further, the treaty was intended to apply to africa, which these new islands are not a part of. i am concerned that you two christian nations may fight a war over this, which may give the muslims an opportunity to re-invade the iberian peninsula. i therefore forbid conflicts between christian nations, as it weakens us against the muslims. as spain already occupies this region, it will remain with spain, and portugal must not try to take that land by force. portugal will retain control over land south of the canaries, relative to a dividing line that runs west of the canaries, of which spain will have control, given that they have landed in these new islands first. spain and portugal are to draw up a new treaty that reflects this new declaration.
the portugese obeyed the ruling and sailed south to land in brazil. the history is blurry, but the southern tip of florida may not have been sighted until 1517. there was no attempt by spain to colonize eastern north america further north than florida, and there is consequently no relevance of this treaty north of florida, where the british and french established the colonies that founded the legal basis for canada and the united states (the united states purchased florida from spain in 1819 and conquered northern mexico in the mexican-american war of 1846-1848).
the first explorer relevant to french, british, american and canadian history (and therefore of the indigenous peoples in contact with them, in conflict with them and eventually under the jurisdiction of them) is not christopher coumbus but john cabot, an italian (like columbus) sent west by the british crown, who landed either in newfoundland or cape breton in the late 15th century, while columbus was still alive. cabot was looking for a passage to japan, and subsequent voyages tried to move northward from newfoundland around hudson's bay, before getting stuck in the ice. around 1508, the son of john cabot, sebastien, was the first european explorer to sail south from canada, and is thought to have made it as far south as chesapeake bay, although everybody knows that the first english settlement in the region was in jamestown, 100 years later.
henry VIII became king of england in 1509 and broke all allegiance to the papacy after he was ordered not to divorce one of his wives. so, while the very earliest voyages of the cabots were under papal supremacy, no english settlements were established in the united states or canada under the system of papal supremacy, and no papal dictates or declarations were ever accepted as law in any english colonial administration. as mentioned previously, the british empire - as an empire - governed itself using common law, by appealing to roman imperial precedents. while no imperial british jurist ever cited any papal bull, references to roman imperial laws, as best as they were understood, are frequently cited as precedent under stare decisis. judges under british imperialism, seeking to hold to common law, quite reasonably sought existing precedent in decisions made by roman administrators under their own imperial system.
the imperial precedent was actually quite clear, and repeatedly utilized by the british empire all over the world. some jurisdictions (like india and quebec) were allowed to keep their languages, laws and customs, if they were considered conquered. however, british setttlers in places like myanmar and eastern north america were allowed to govern themselves, if they built their own settlements and erected their own parliaments. this is 100% imperial precedent, with absolutely zero deference to the pope, and no interest in the utilization of christian morality as any sort of justification. frankly, the rulers of the british empire would not have cared much for what the christians thought.
the french landed in north america in the 1530s (under jacques cartier) and while they were under the system of papal supremacy, they did not consider the 1493 papal bull to be relevant. modern sources claim the papal bull was "ignored"; i don't think anybody in france would have considered it relevant as it was obviously intended to apply to africa and the islands off of it, so it's unlikely that it was ever even brought up to them. they likely never even had the chance to even ignore it. in 1493, the pope did not know north america existed, at all. while i have not done any sort of survey on the matter, i think it obvious that nobody in france ever cited this bull, and not because it would have undermined their claim but because it was obviously irrelevant. in fact, new france suffered under a level of disinterest by french monarchs, who saw it as an expensive annoyance, and slowly sold it off to other european actors. the french did, nonetheless, build monasteries and attempt to convert the locals to catholicism, partly because many of the earliest french settlements were burnt down by the indigenous peoples (so, the catholic church generally came first to christianize the savages, like they did in northern europe; the settlers then came after, once it was safe), but the earliest settlements were not established until the early 17th century. the french started in quebec city (1608) and explored the watersheds west, founding cities like green bay (1634), trois rivieres (1634), montreal (1642) and detroit (1701). they then moved south down the mississippi and founded new orleans (1718), before paddling back and founding cities like st louis. there was active francophone catholic missionary work done throughout this period in ways that simply did not occur in the british settlements.
the long franco-british conflict started in europe with the norman conquest of england (1066), which was the second roman conquest of britain, and which left england as a possession of a french landholder of partial viking descent which also had possessions in france. the franco-british wars in north america were a part of this thousand year struggle which ended with the entente cordiale of 1904. standing on the other side of world war one, world war two, nato and the cold war, it's easy to forget just how long and how vicious this war between england and france really was, through it's various phases of wars over competing interests by landholders and conflicts over ideology during the revolutionary period. the struggle for hegemony in north america between england and france was a small part of this massive, generations-long conflict and ended in 1763 with the british empire in sole control over the eastern part of the north american continent, for however short an amount of time.
the french backed the colonies in the american revolution of 1776, in a hope that they'd regain some control over the regions they had lost, which led to a partition of the british empire in north america in 1783 into separatist and loyalist factions, with the loyalists in the north (called british north america, and later canada) and the separatists in the south (called the united colonies, or united states of america). not long after, there was a revolution in france itself, which severely restricted the power of the catholic church in france, 250 years after henry VIII. today, france has some of the world's strongest rules restricting church power and influence within the state.
in quebec, the catholic church became the source of quebecois identity, after british hegemony became undisputed. as mentioned, the existing imperial precedent was to allow conquered peoples to retain their customs, so the quebecois clung to catholicism in the face of their poverty and general social exclusion from polite society, although the british aristocracy did allow for self-rule, as that was the existing imperial precedent. as a result of this catholic dominance under british hegemony, quebec became an impoverished backwater, full of backwards peoples with primitive social views - not unlike today's arkansas or mississippi, or mexico, for that matter. the british understood the role of the catholic church in pacifying quebeckers, and attempted to utilize these catholic schools (which the quebecois themselves insisted upon.) as a model in pacifying the indigenous populations, who were notoriously restless. in a conscious act of assimilation, the british took the existing catholic school system in quebec, which was even then rife with abuses and human rights violations, and expanded it to the indigenous populations, in an attempt to emulate the results. it is worth noting that the british ran similar schools for the catholic irish in ireland and later in canada, as well. the result was the same kind of sexual abuses in indigenous school systems that are seen in catholic school systems everywhere, including ireland and quebec and latin america, as well as africa and australia. this is the reason the catholic church ran the indigenous schools in canada, which is very isolated from columbus and very isolated from british imperial law.
quebec underwent a silent revolution in the 1950s and 1960s where it successfully liberated itself from catholic oppression, largely by looking towards the french revolution for inspiration and guidance. the indigenous peoples in canada are still struggling to define how they will emerge from catholic oppression, or what a post-catholic canadian indigenous identity actually looks like.
as canadians and americans, our legal traditions do not come from the bible, from the papacy or from spain. while many of the earliest british and french settlers to north america were religious fundamentalists, and they enacted horrible laws in their settlements, these settlements and laws did not survive the establishment of british imperial hegemony. our laws are not christian in origin, but derived from the english common law (except in quebec, where the civil law is napoleonic). our judicial system is not driven and never was driven by christian dogma, but was based on the stare decisis of the common law, which saw decisions made in imperial rome as the proper precedent to follow and paid no deference, whatsoever, to the pope and his specious decrees.
so, it is interesting that this revisionist idea of a doctrine of discovery requires deference to the most colonial christian myths to make sense of. in truth, only the samuel alitos and clarence thomases of the world could take such a thing seriously.
we live in a secular state and our laws are secular in origin. insisting otherwise is really simple base ignorance of basic history.
if you meet a "scholar" that wants to argue otherwise, ask them to send me an email about it.
reference:
"why pope francis may be hesitant to rescind the doctrine of discovery", cbc news, july 30, 2022
19:35
there was a proclamation by the british monarch in 1763, at the conclusion of the seven years war (or french and indian war) that declared all land west of a dividing line to be "indian territory". this decree has been much misunderstood since. what was the king's intent?
yeah, i think i get it, now.
the king wanted a monopoly on the purchase of land, to prevent any settlers from holding what is called allodial title. to this day, the federal government of the united states considers itself the sole owner of almost all land in the united states, and the crown of britain owns almost all land in canada, which is to be administered by the federal government. yes, legally speaking, the queen owns your house, if you live in canada. the almost sole exception in canada is the nisg'aa agreement; in the united states, there's a handful of allodial title indigenous areas in the plains states, and in new mexico. indigenous title is not considered allodial in canada - it's a special category of fee simple. fee simple is the modern evolution of a fiefdom, a plot of land granted to a title holder by the king (or state) in exchange for a property tax. allodial title holders pay no property tax, because they actually own the land.
the function of the proclamation was to decree that all land west of the appalachians will eventually be purchased by the king, which is a weird kind of land grab. the actual content of the proclamation is a ban on settler purchases of land from the indigenous sellers; only the king was allowed to buy land from the indigenous peoples. so, while it doesn't transfer ownership directly to the king, it's an algorithm for the eventual total transfer of all land in north america to the crown, and that is a process that is actually still ongoing in canada (most of bc is still not under treaty).
while the proclamation was intended to prevent settlers from buying land from the indigenous peoples - and pissed the settlers off enough that it was a major cause of the revolution, even if it didn't result in a reversal of the policy - it also follows the spirit of the existing imperial precedent. it certainly doesn't derive from the doctrine of discovery, even if it looks a little similar on paper. i've pointed out a few times that the existing imperial precedent has a difficult application in canada, because the indigenous peoples never utilized land ownership in the same way that europeans did. tribes may have had agreements about common hunting lands, but they considered the idea of owning land to be ridiculous. like, they would mock the europeans for it - they thought it was crazy, bonkers, looney tunes. so, they couldn't define whether they were conquered or not in their own cultural language, and they didn't put up any resistance to settlements on their land, until the europeans started putting up fences, which they found to be baffling. that made it easy for the settlers to build houses, which created property that they sought to self-govern, which meant the precedent was that the parliament becomes supreme, even as the indigenous peoples are still living and hunting on the land being settled. the existing british imperial law had no precedent as to how to deal with these people that didn't accept land ownership, that allowed for foreign settlers to settle their land, that refused to acknowledge they were conquered and just assumed co-existence was obvious. we made no sense to them, and they made no sense to us.
so, eventually, after grappling with it for centuries, the court had to de facto declare they were conquered, but they could never phrase it like that, and you won't see that language utilized.
the issues that have been historically put before the court in relation to indigenous peoples in the british empire and canada have had to do with what rights that they have within the imperial law framework and the much newer canadian constitutional law framework, and the 1763 proclamation is fundamental to that - not any papal decree. if you want a legal framework to substitute for the 1493 papal bull in canada, it is the 1763 proclamation, which was clearly derived from the roman imperial law and not from any papal dictate. our courts have already modified this, and rather dramatically.
20:46
(note: i hadn't read the case, yet. i was faced with a contradiction between what i knew about the british imperial law of the time, which was substantive, and what the secondary sources were telling me about american colonial law, which i knew and still know less about. i was trying to resolve that contradiction. this is deductive, based on the secondary sources, which are very bad and do not accurately convey the content of the 1823 ruling. i correct myself in subsequent posts.)
so, the 1823 case reintroduces the 1763 proclamation into the american jurisprudence via case law. that case - which uses this stupid term, doctrine of discovery - goes through this specious historical revisionism, and in the end just restates the 1763 proclamation, almost verbatim - only the state can buy land from the indigenous peoples.
so, why didn't the court just cite the proclamation, then? because it's 1823, and the court is ruling on a land transfer in post-revolutionary america. had the court cited the decree of king george III, they might have been hung - if not tarred and feathered. there'd be pitchforks running through town, in no time.
so, instead, the court ran off a pile of nonsense and blamed it all on the pope - when the ruling is in actual fact an application of the proclamation, nearly verbatim.
needless to say, england did not "retain" the 1493 bull, which was never intended to apply to it, and which it wouldn't give a fuck about, even if it did. but, for the court to entirely extinguish any concept of allodial title, it needed a scapegoat, and that scapegoat was the catholic church.
a neat trick is that the 1823 ruling doesn't even have anything to do with indigenous rights. the real significance of the ruling is the denial of the right to buy property, for the colonists. i mean, the language of the ruling is that you can't sell, but the value of the ruling is that you can't buy, and the outcome is that you can't own. that's just as george III wanted it.
when later theorists cite this specious doctrine of discovery, they're really citing the proclamation, as there never was a doctrine and there certainly was a proclamation.
i'm going to put call out for this to be corrected.
22:41
those who want the pope to rescind the doctrine of discovery (which never actually existed) should really be calling for the queen to retract the 1763 proclamation (which is what the 1823 case is actually based on).
22:45
what we've done in canada is not retract the proclamation, but run it through an orwellian filter, so that it now means the opposite of what it did, previously.
23:20
in fact, the ruling does mention the proclamation, but only in passing:
can we get some rational analysis of this, please?
i mean, c'mon.
papal bulls in post-revolutionary america, designed to explain colonial british policy? what a steaming heap of bullshit.
23:31
i mean, the ruling is legally correct: the 1763 proclamation ought to have been in force, it's just sovereignty passed from the crown to the state.
it's the historical discussion around it, the justification for it, that is utter revisionist hogwash.
23:33
i should make something clear, though.
whatever one thinks of the 1823 ruling, the implication by activists is that they can reverse the precedent by having the pope retract the doctrine. that is, the indigenous activists seem to think that the dictatorial papal decrees are some kind of higher law, and that the secular courts are bound to obey the papal fiat. that would upset a lot of americans, if it were true. again: samuel alito may be the only person on the planet willing to take that idea seriously.
this point needs to be as clear as day: even if it were true that the american precedent is in some way derived from the papal dictate (a clam that is simply wrong), it would not follow that reversing the papal dictate would alter the case law.
overturning this precedent - insofar as it exists in the united states. it is not legally meaningful in canada. - is not dependent on decisions made by the pope, and words by the pope (thankfully) have no legal relevance in the secular courts of either country on this continent.
i actually get the impression that a large number of indigenous people think that these european actors - the pope, the queen - have some greater level of influence than being empty spokespeople that perform formalistic duties as relics of the past. it's baffling.
23:49
actually, let me backtrack slightly, as i've now read the actual ruling, directly.
the ruling (https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep021/usrep021543/usrep021543.pdf) actually doesn't say what the supposed analysis of the ruling claims it says. i'm a canadian, remember - this isn't of any relevance to the laws in this country, so i've had no reason to read it, i've just relied on the secondary sources to provide a cursory analysis. we have the 1763 proclamation as the fundamental basis of our law, here, which it should be clear is what my analysis is based on. american rulings from 1823 are of no force here, so why would i read them?
what the ruling actually says is this:
Virginia, particularly, within whose chartered
limits the land in controversy lay, passed an act,
in the year 1779, declaring her " exclusive right
of pre-emption from the Indians, of all the lands
within the limits of her own chartered territory,
and that no person or persons whatsoever, have,
or ever had, a right to purchase any lands within the
same,'from any Indian nation, except only persons
duly authorized to make such purchase; formerly
for the use and benefit of the colony, and lately
for the Commonwealth." The act then proceeds
to annul all deeds made by Indians to individuals,
for the private use of the purchasers.
Without ascribing to this act the power of annulling
vested rights, or admitting it to countervail the
testimony furnished by the marginal note
opposite to the title of the law, forbidding purchases
from the Indians, in the revisals of the Virginia
statutes, stating that law to be repealed, it may
safely be considered as an unequivocal affirmance,
on the part of Virginia, of the broad principle
which had always been maintained, that the exclusive
right to purchase from the Indians resided
in the government.
so, the ruling is based on a 1779 law that is derived from the 1763 proclamation.
he then correctly applies the law of conquest, from it's existing precedent in british imperial law:
Conquest gives a title which the Courts
of the conqueror cannot deny, whatever the private
and speculative opinions of individuals may
be, respecting the original justice of the claim
which has been successfully asserted. The British government,
which was then our government,
and whose rights have passed to the United States,
asserted a title to all the lands occupied by Indians,
within the chartered limits of the British colonies.
It asserted also a limited sovereignty over them,
and the exclusive right of extinguishing the title
which occupancy gave to them. These claims
have been maintained and established as far west
as the river Mississippi, by the sword. The title
to a vast portion of the lands we now hold, originates
in them. It is not for the Courts of this
country to question the validity of this title, or to
sustain one which is incompatible with it.
this "doctrine of discovery" is therefore actually a "doctrine of conquest", described further in vaguely hobbesian language (he does go on after that). it is not discovering the tribe that confers sovereignty over them, but conquering them that does. that is roman imperial law.
he continues discussing the imperial precedent:
Frequent and bloody wars, in which the whites
were not always the aggressors, unavoidably
ensued. European policy, numbers, and skill,
prevailed. As the white population advanced,
that of the Indians necessarily receded. The
country in the immediate neighbourhood of
agriculturists became unfit for them. The game fled
into thicker and more unbroken forests, and the
Indians followed. The soil, to which the crown
originally claimed title, being no longer occupied
by its ancient inhabitants, was parcelled out according
to the will of the sovereign power, and
taken possession of by persons who claimed immediately
from the crown, or mediately, through
its grantees or deputies.
That law which regulates, and ought to regulate
in general, the relations between the conqueror
and conquered, was incapable of application to a
people Under such circumstances. The resort to
some new and different rule, better adapted to the
actual state of things, was unavoidable. Every
rule which can be suggested will be found to be
attended with great difficulty.
However extravagant the pretension of converting
the discovery of an inhabited country into
conquest may appear; if the principle has been
asserted in the first instance, and afterwards sustained;
if a country has been. acquired and held
under it; if the property of the great mass of the
community originates in it, it becomes the law of
the laud, and cannot be questioned, So, too, with
respect to the concomitant principle, that the Indian
inhabitants are to be considered merely as
occupants, to be protected, indeed, while in peace,
in the possession of their lands, but to be deemed
incapable of transferring the absolute title to
others. However this restriction may be opposed
to natural right, and to the usages of civilized nations,
yet, if it be indispensable to that system
under which the country has been settled, and be
adapted to the actual condition of the two people,
it may, perhaps, be supported by reason, and certainly
cannot be rejected by Courts of justice
so, the legislature is dominant because the land was settled after it was conquered. total imperial law. absolutely correct.
-----
inserted:
in re-reading this a few days later, i'm having difficulty remembering what the point i was trying to make in quoting the last three paragraphs was, other than that marshall is sticking to the imperial precedent in discussing conquering v settling land and not introducing the question of discovery (as i understood it when typing this, initially). reading the quote, now, i'm left feeling unsettled, in that it introduces questions i don't address and that, in hindsight, should be. i'm concluding that i think i was too brief, and that i think i intentionally avoided the subtlety of the ruling, at the time of writing. i just wanted to show that the imperial precedent was the issue in marshall's ruling without getting bogged down by the language. doubling back, i don't want to be accused of misquoting marshall, given how this discourse unravels. i want to elaborate on this point to ensure i properly address as many of marshall's points as are contextual. i can only partially address marshall's ruling, in total; marshall's ruling is quite complex.
for right now, i want to acknowledge that marshall does introduce the need to look past the imperial precedent by questioning the existing dichotomy, and that i don't want to gloss over that. i pointed out in my previous comments that the roman imperial precedent was hard to apply to the indigenous peoples in north america, and it turns out marshall realized that even in 1823, and states as much verbatim. if the indigenous peoples of eastern north america were conquered, they were not conquered in the same way that the french were, or even in the same way that the aztecs were. yet, it is clearly difficult to talk about settling a land when it is understood that there are people living there, which nobody disputes, now or then.
what marshall does, and it might be disingenuous, is suggest that the indigenous peoples abandoned the land, which introduces the law of settlement as the correct precedent. we know that disease ravaged the indigenous peoples, but, even so, that seems less than honest. the indigenous peoples were at the least chased away.
it's useful to recall that the imperial precedent at one point applied to germanic peoples, who would have been spoken of by roman administrators in ways that are similar to the way that the indigenous peoples are being spoken of, here. the celts had settlements that were conquered, even if caesar's treatment of them was unlawful, even relevant to the rather swashbuckling imperial precedent - what caesar did was genocide, even relative to roman law. but, the germans did not have settlements; all of the ancient german cities were built by the romans, who looked down upon the germans as barbarians and frequently enslaved them, even when the germans were slaughtering roman legions in retaliation (as per the varian disaster in the battle of teutoberg forest). what i'm getting at is that the roman imperial precedent is actually a good precedent, and not merely a tradition - the british were quite like the romans, and the indigenous peoples were quite like the germans. stare decisis makes good sense, here.
so, the romans could not have conquered the germans like they did the carthaginians or the greeks or the celts, and they instead applied the law of settlement to germany, even as the germans sat outside the limes, collecting coins - and plotting revenge. remember that the germans eventually win this struggle.
but, the romans did not discover the germans, and their settlement on german land did not come from discovery; the romans fought hard to conquer bits of swamp and forest, and erected their camps in hostile territory. that comparison may have evaded marshall at the time, but he nonetheless comes to the right solution - that the law of settlement applies, when the people being conquered cannot be absorbed, and the laws of the conquering people become paramount, in the settlements enacted on the conquered land.
the point is that this is not a discussion of discovery, it is a grappling with how to work through the imperial precedent in a situation where the application is not crystal clear - and that it is in fact quite clear that he's weighing the two sides of the precedent, in discussing whether the indigenous peoples were conquered or the land was settled.
----
and, then he does defer to the proclamation, after all:
The authority of this proclamation, so far as it
respected this continent, has never been denied,
and the titles it gave to lands have always been
sustained in our Courts.
he then spills a few pages of ink on upholding the proclamation, much to my surprise; based on the analysis in the secondary sources, i surely thought he was trying to get around it. nope.
so, my analysis is (oddly) actually completely correct, as it would be expected to be, as i actually know what i'm talking about, and i feel like i just tore down a straw man erected by the secondary sources.
there is, in fact, no substantive reference to the 1493 papal bull in this ruling, at all. so, i don't know where that idea came from, but it's not in the ruling. i should consequently direct my ire at the secondary sources, and not at the ruling, itself. the ruling is actually entirely consistent with my informed analysis, and not at all consistent with the colloquial reading, which bafflingly seems to be taught in american law schools.
i apologize for not checking the source before debunking it, but my degree is in canadian constitutional law, and my knowledge of american jurisprudence (post-1776) is total dabbling. that should actually be obvious.
there is a one line reference to the kings of portugal and spain, but it is strictly cursory and is not presented as any sort of legal precedent in the ruling, and for good reason - that would be utter nonsense.
so, that opens the question - who is the actual author of the revisionist doctrine of discovery? it is not justice marshall, whose ruling is perfectly cromulant, relative to the existing british imperial law of the time.
0:41
justice marshall does not bring up the concept of discovery to justify the settlement of an already populated land (he correctly utilizes the law of conquest for that purpose), but rather brings up the idea of discovery as a "right" that excludes other european powers from negotiating with the indigenous people that exist on the land that is discovered. only the discoverer of a land may negotiate with the indigenous people that inhabit it. this is an articulation of a "sphere of influence", or an "exclusive economic zone". historically, it refers primarily to france's broad claims over the centre of the continent, and the idea that the indigenous peoples were allies, rather than subjects, of the french king. the indigenous peoples did not realize that being labelled "not conquered" gave them less rights than being labelled "conquered" under the existing imperial legal precedent.
this claim is clearly delusional:
It was a right which all asserted for themselves, and to assertion of which, by others, all assented.
i mean, that's bonkers. totally wrong.
but, he's nowhere presenting discovery as a right of settlement - he explicitly presents conquest for that reason. discovery gives the european power rights over other european powers (or so he claims...), it doesn't give the european power ownership over the land, or at least not until it's conquered.
so, what he's articulating is a kind of "shotgun" system. if britain calls shotgun on the eastern seaboard, the dutch and swedes cannot claim it for themselves. but, there is no inherent right of settlement, or not until the land is conquered, first.
the ruling was clearly misinterpreted on purpose. who is responsible for that?
1:04
now, an indigenous person might reasonably challenge the idea of the right of conquest being a law. that sounds more like an absence of law than an application of it. that might be a reasonable critique of imperial law, but it would have no basis in law, or at least no basis in the law of the time. international law, as we understand it, is almost entirely post-nuremberg. the contemporary international order is radically different from british and roman imperial law, or at least it is on paper; today, planning and executing an offensive war is considered illegal, whereas that formed the basis of the law of conquest in the era of empire. we can be critical of imperial law, but we shouldn't be revisionist about it. understanding old legal principles means avoiding anachronisms.
if indigenous activists are looking to the pope to try to find some higher source of law than imperial law, that is an error in the context of anything resembling modern european law, and especially in the context of british imperial law. the pope has no special place in this legal system, post-reformation (which is the entirety of the colonial context). in fact, the higher law is that religious axioms are to be excluded from consideration - it is the separation of church and state.
so, i mean, you can sympathize with this, if you'd like. you can argue it seems wrong, and some people might feel your pain. none of that changes the legalities of the issue.
i want to know who made this up. it's post-1823.
1:24
in fact, in 1832, justice marshall over-ruled a lower court decision and declared the cherokee were sovereign.
i'm going to sort through this, but, as justice marshall seems to have understood imperial law, i promise you he argues they weren't conquered.
1:32
right.
so,
1) the doctrine of discovery means that only the english can negotiate with the cherokee. that's what he said in johnson v mcintosh, and he's properly applying it, here.
2) the doctrine of discovery does not allow for an inherent right of conquest.
3) the charters of the colonies allow for defense, but not for conquest. the colonies therefore have no legal basis in which to invoke a conquest.
4) the 1763 proclamation declares cherokee territory outside of colonial administration, so it would need to be conquered to be brought under the force of colonial law.
5) the treaty between the united states and the cherokees implicitly recognizes cherokee sovereignty. so, there can be no naivete, here.
6) the boundaries of cherokee territory are well understood and there is no pretending otherwise.
so, the marshall court has clearly indicated that the doctrine of discovery does not allow for the right to extinguish rights, without an intervening conquest - and that there is no legality to conquest, in the context of the charter granted to the colonies. but, if conquest happens by the declaration of the congress, it must be upheld, regardless.
this is entirely consistent with imperial law, and bears no resemblance to the discourse in the secondary sources, which actually cite the lower court ruling, which was overturned.
1:52
i bet this "doctrine of discovery" actually dates to the roll back of civil rights after the reconstruction, doesn't it?
1:54
just briefly.
in canadian law, the general rule is that the proclamation gives the crown the exclusive right to purchase land from the indigenous peoples, which is similar to this doctrine of discovery, as it is properly understood, but is not derived from it. while you might see the odd reference in canadian law by way of analogy, the canadian case law tends to avoid referencing the american case law, and instead derives itself strictly from the proclamation. this is partly why i was able to derive the earlier american law by citing much later canadian precedents. so, it is not correct to argue that canadian case law is any way derived from the doctrine, even if there is that surface analogy, once you correctly understand the doctrine as a sphere of economic influence that is separate from the law of conquest.
so, in canada, the proclamation gives the crown the exclusive right to purchase land, but allodial title exists until it is extinguished via purchase. once the allodial title is extinguished (in the form of a treaty), indigenous title can be claimed if the indigenous community can establish continual use. what that means is that if indigenous peoples are using the land, and they have remained in use of the land through the years (as they have in parts of atlantic canada), then they have special and inherent rights granted to them under the constitution, despite the crown having ownership of the land. title is extinguished by treaty, but it is replaced by constitutional rights, if there is continual land use.
allodial title is retained in canada only by the tribes or nations that have not signed treaties, which are mostly in bc (including the tribe dealing with a pipeline through their territory). the nisga'a agreement was supposed to act as a model, but movement has largely stalled. canada is really in contravention of any sort of law, imperial or domestic or international, in it's continued occupation of british columbia - and that is what it is, an illegal occupation.
these marshall court decisions use anachronistic language, but are really largely consistent with canadian law.
2:36
this is an up to date map. most aren't.
the official position is that quebec was conquered, which is entirely legal from a european context, but doesn't give the mohawks and other groups there any answers. that is an issue that needs to be dealt with. the southern labrador region may be being worked on, i think. newfoundland's indigenous population - the beothuk - was exterminated via disease. bc is simply under illegal occupation.
3:01
i seem to have little problem accepting the law of conquest.
it's the law of the old world. when the normans showed up in france, nobody asked if it was morally right if they seized a section of land - they just took it. according to legend, alexander was a pupil of aristotle, the greatest moral zealot of all time, and he was out there conquering the whole fucking world.
what's sort of weird is that we do feel some need to justify this. i'm not entirely sure why.
it's certainly enlightened for the conquering power to attempt to treat the conquered peoples with equality, but that's actually relatively rare throughout history. we can hold ourselves to higher standards, but we have to be real, too.
so, it may seem like an absence of law, granted, but if we're standing in european courts, we ought to be using european laws, and the harsh reality is that conquest is historically lawful in europe, in asia and in the middle east, as well.
3:15
we can try to be more civilized moving forwards, sure. but, trying to apply a post-nuremberg reality to 16th century europe is beyond anachronistic, it's kind of crazy.
i mean, if you think the colonization was bad, try living through france in world war one. right?
3:18
europeans didn't apply just laws to each other, nor did any other group of people on earth. it's not reasonable to expect them to treat others better than they treated each other, or than anybody else treated anybody else.
the court system is based on precedent, and the court rulings of the past were consequently rooted in ideas that are even older. it's useful to put the law in context - i support stare decisis, don't misunderstand me.
but, if you are morally aghast at the rulings of the past, you just need to look forwards and argue for better rulings. there's some progress there, surely. but, i don't think it's helpful to condemn people in less advanced times for being less advanced. it was a universal condition, truly.
3:22
i still want to figure this out, but i need to stop to eat.
3:26
this opinion by a justice taney is the earliest opinion i can find that reverses the precedent set by justice marshall, although it erroneously cites it:
https://scholar.google.ca/scholar_case?case=18306627545409107013&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr
The English possessions in America were not claimed by right of conquest but by right of discovery.
that is Martin v. Lessee of Waddell, 41 US 367 - Supreme Court 1842 and is a direct reversal of the precedent in johnson v mcintosh.
let me try to follow that backwards. if i cannot find an earlier source, there's the answer.
it still doesn't answer the question as to who built the mythology up, but i suppose it must have been a 19th century textbook.
4:17
justice taney was nominated by andrew jackson, who famously ignored justice marshall when he expelled the cherokees to oklahoma in the event known as the "trail of tears".
4:22
justice taney was also responsible for dred scott.
it's starting to make sense.
4:22
and, taney was also a catholic.
ok.
let me put these pieces together.
4:24
yeah.
taney cites the following:
"If the discovery be made and possession taken under the authority of an existing government which is acknowledged by the emigrants, it is supposed to be equally well settled that the discovery is made for the benefit of the whole nation; and the vacant soil is to be disposed of by that organ of the government which has the constitutional power to dispose of the national dominions; by that organ, in which all territory is vested by law. According to the theory of the British constitution all vacant lands are vested in the crown as representing the nation, and the exclusive power to grant them is admitted to reside in the crown, as a branch of the royal prerogative. It has been already shown that this principle was as fully recognised in America as in the island of Great Britain."
that is absolutely valid law and, if read literally, is not very controversial. if you were to apply that to an uninhabited island in the arctic ocean or the south pacific, nobody would think much of it.
but, was north america uninhabited?
marshall, in fact, takes exception to that claim, and taney is quoting him way out of context. the section quoted is the precursor to a much longer discussion, where marshall repeatedly acknowledges that the indigenous people own the land and have all kinds of rights associated with that ownership, although he also defers to the authority of the monarch or the parliament. the question of what power falls to the monarch and what power falls to the legislature is a very old one in british law, and still exists in the united states (with the president as elected king), where it no longer exists in britain or canada. for taney to cite this small bit of marshall in this manner is a strong tip-off - taney does not intend to interface with the subtleties and rights balancing in marshall's ruling, but wishes to declare a clear ideological decree that eliminates the rights of the indigenous people, which the crown did not intend to do and which the earlier court decisions attempted to prevent.
so, i am confident that i have my author, here - it is justice taney who is the disingenuous jurist and not justice marshall, and it is all the worse, in truth, because he's actually overturning what was a relatively forward thinking precedent and establishing a much less well thought out one.
given that i understand the general outline of american history from 1840 to 1890, i can guess how this turns out and i'm going to step back and leave it there.
the doctrine of discovery, as it is cited today, is a dishonest misquote of justice marshall, nefariously constructed by his successor, justice taney, to eliminate the rights that the previous court had tried to balance.
4:54
this is so perplexing to people.
but the right answer is provided by weber: the state is the entity with a monopoly on violence. might makes right.
we consider this uncontroversial in every other historical context, but find it baffling in relation to european colonialism, like the mongols and arabs and persians and romans never existed.
this is what i'm perplexed about.
5:33
i want to clarify what the proclamation - and johnson v mcintosh, which is just an interpretation of the proclamation - does and does not say.
so, a common analysis is to criticize the ruling by arguing that the doctrine of discovery says that the indigenous people can't sell their land because they never owned it because it was discovered. that's not even close to being correct.
what the proclamation is about is buying land, rather than selling it. it may be valid to criticize the king of england for thinking he can tell the indigenous peoples who to sell to, but the question of whether the king of england has the right to order his subjects not to buy a commodity from a seller or not is a question for english law to work out, through the mechanisms of english law, and one the indigenous people should have little say over. if looked at carefully, the proclamation is really a set of sanctions against the indians, in that it forbids english subjects from buying their land, much as current sanctions exist against buying commodities from russia or iran. the reality is that those sanctions were then adopted, in tact, by the various state parliaments, who certainly have always had jurisdictions over such matters.
the case at hand had to do with an overlapping parcel - supposedly. there's some question about that, apparently. - but it's worthwhile to conduct a thought experiment - what would have been the correct ruling if the lands didn't overlap? would the court have accepted the purchase of indigenous land by the settlers?
the answer is that it would not have, because the application of the proclamation (via it's adoption by the state legislatures) means that the settlers weren't allowed to buy it. the sale would be nullified and the land would be returned to the indigenous owner, until such a time would come as they would opt to sell it to the state, instead.
it does follow that the law here doesn't have anything to do with telling the indigenous people what they can sell, nor does it deny indigenous ownership of the land - it's about forbidding settlers from buying, because the king (and then the state) expects a monopoly on allodial title under it's jurisdiction.
what the doctrine of discovery then asserts, in functional terms, is that the king of france can't buy indian land in areas claimed by the king of england, because the english have exclusive economic rights. again: this is about buying, it's not about selling.
the court is actually pretty clear that the indians own the land - before it is sold - and have the right to put terms on the sale. but, only the king can buy it!
so, i hope that clarifies the actual precedent set by the marshall court, as it derives from the proclamation, and which is actually still law in canada, as canada did not adopt the disingenuous reading by that evil bastard, justice taney.
i would agree with activists arguing that taney's precedent should be reversed and marshall's should be re-established, but i think that has already been done, and i think the issue is largely dealt with. there is no more indian land in the united states that might be sold to france (or britain), so the doctrine of discovery, as it was articulated by marshall (rather than misinterpreted by taney), no longer has any functional relevance in the united states. in canada, there is land that is not under treaty that the indigenous peoples might in theory sell to the chinese (or the americans), but i don't think that's a serious concern.
14:42
the doctrine of discovery as articulated by marshall, and misinterpreted by taney, is not law in canada, as the united states was not a part of the british empire at the time, even if it has been referenced by means of analogy.
but, what would happen if the indigenous peoples in bc decided to sell a parcel of land to china? they're not under treaty. there's nothing stopping them, except the use of force.
that is the doctrine of discovery, as articulated by marshall - that canada has an exclusive economic right over the area, and the chinese need to respect that claim and not attempt to buy land directly from the indigenous peoples. he claims that that doctrine was always respected, which is demonstrably false, but it's what he's trying to establish.
in canada, the proclamation is still law and we would consequently not recognize the validity of chinese attempts to buy land from the indigenous peoples that exist in the area we've claimed as under our economic sphere of influence. that's our law. that's relevant to us.
the chinese might decide to ignore it, as the spanish might have decided to ignore it, but that never happened.
i hope what marshall actually meant is now clear.
14:54
uhuru is dead.
there are three left: kirk, chekhov and sulu.
19:41
there's a running accusation that star trek was racist because sulu never had a girlfriend.
but, sulu was gay, you idiots.
the show was legitimately edgy, but i don't think it could have gotten away with that in the mid 60s.
20:42
i actually think the show got the point that sulu was gay across fairly well.
these are probably the same people that went to queen concerts and didn't get it.
20:43