downpayment: $8000
mortgage + condo fees: $1100
will i find a one bedroom for $1100? anywhere?
the answer is no. nowhere.
Sunday, August 4, 2024
i've mentioned that i need to move soon and have few to zero options, which is creating a bad situation in the current ridiculous market.
the listing is here:
i have a stable income at $1430/month, and it's tied to inflation. it went up about $70 on aug 1. that's about $17,000/year. i get another roughly $1000/year from carbon tax rebates and gst rebates. this is odsp (disability) for one person in ontario.
i currently live in a large bachelor's apartment in a basement duplex that somebody put a wall up in to pretend is two bedrooms. it's not. it would be useful if they knocked the wall down, frankly, as it just wastes space in the bachelor unit. the person that rented it to me advertised it as a bachelor's apartment for $750, in 2018. after a few increases, it's still only $790.
i should clearly be in subsidized housing. i'd have to be homeless, first, unfortunately. i may push it, regardless.
i could afford something around $1000-$1100, more or less max. i'd rather be in the $800-$1000 range. that is the cost of a room in ontario at the moment, and i can't live in a room, i need a private space. there are almost no one bedroom apartments in windsor available for rent at all - it's a less than 1% vacancy rate.
to be clear: it doesn't matter if you can afford it. there's no supply. you can't move anywhere.
they are building, but it will take time. they've cut out international students in windsor, which should reduce the number of college students, but you have to understand that they cram these indian kids into closets and they don't complain because that's how they live in india anyways. apparently, the owners of these houses (all indian) are just going to sell and they're cranking up the prices. it may have less effect on the market than i'd like.
however, i may be able to win some money in a number of lawsuits, and look at this:
the listing is here:
i've seen these aging and small houses in windsor (i live in one) and it's not a two bedroom house. it's nothing fancy. it's best understood as a split level bachelor's unit (so that you can have one person living upstairs and potentially another downstairs), with an attic that can be used for extra space. adding in the garage, it would be about 3x as much usable space as i have now.
it may be easier for me to find $20,000 than it is for me to find a one bedroom apartment for $1,000.
i'm disabled. i live on odsp. government assistance. it's more affordable for me to buy an old house than to pay rent. that is retarded.
how about this beachfront property on lake erie? it's a one bedroom house, for $150,000. this one is a time share and not what i want, but you get the point, regarding a property worth $150,000.
will i find a one bedroom for $834/month? no.
can i find $7500? maybe.
this is idiotic. i should not be purchasing property, i should be in city run housing.
but i'll need to do what i need to do to survive.
it's not clear to me which party here is worse, the rioters or the prime minister.
we don't yet have a clear motive for the stabbing, but the individual does appear to have been a muslim, and it is an open question if his religion played a role in his behaviour.
this is a valid question facing british society, which is overwhelmingly secular and largely atheist. is too much immigration bringing people with unwanted beliefs and values into the country?
however, rioting and breaking stuff doesn't help, and this kneejerk liberal reaction by starmer is no better and no more helpful. reducing immigration levels or making it more difficult to enter britain is a valid policy discussion and one that is long overdue in britain.
i understand that liberals will oppose deislamification.
that's fine.
that's why britain had to get rid of neville chamberlain to win the war.
go be liberal in the dung heap of history. the real world has a problem to solve and it has to be aggressive and pragmatic in order to do it.
this is not the time or situation for liberal rhetoric about "tolerance".
right.
that's exactly why we're still fighting the nazis and japanese. because occupations don't work.
this kind of defeatist attitude is ahistorical. we know how to do this because we've done it before: you lock the region down with a military occupation, you put the islamofascists on trial, you execute them for war crimes, you send the adults to re-education and then you teach the kids that their parents are wrong.
gaza is a way easier problem than japan or germany.
the thing israel needs is to embrace a marshall plan type mentality, but it's having difficulty doing that itself and it's being resisted by the west because some idiots think it's "racist". we know how to do this, but we are refusing to do it, and it indicates where the minds of many people really are.
things that would help israel include feeding, housing and educating the civilian population. blowing up a school that teaches the gazan kids anti-semitism is step one. building a new one that fixes the problem is step two, and they never seem to get to step two, but it's really not very hard to do it.
let's start with the easy stuff.
when biden tells netanyahu that he's on his own, he can't then get mad at him for ordering a missile strike into iran. there's been conflicting reports as to whether it was a missile strike or a bomb placed by the irgc (right), which appears to be intended to stop biden from yelling at netanyahu.
"well, umm, the bomb was already there. months ago. we didn't escalate. it was already like that. right."
now, what is biden's response?
again, he tells netanyahu that israel is on it's own.
well, which is it joe? is israel on it's own? then shut the fuck up and mind your own fucking business and run your own fucking country.
or is the united states going to protect it's interests and frankly stand on the side of moral decency in protecting israel? if so, stop telling netanyahu to act unilaterally, because it's pretty clear that he will, if you do.
you can't have it both ways, joe.
if you want to run for a seat in the knesset, joe, you can always move to israel for your retirement.
i want to talk briefly about china and i solely want to present a different perspective, one rooted in history. i do many things, including history and politics; i tend to approach politics from a historical filter and think this is important to do.
those of us in the west, even in north america, view china as a distant, exotic thing. it is the far east. it's far away. distinct. different. and, this is true. the first european visitors to (northern) china and japan were surprised to realize they were white and described them that way, but china has the sole distinction within surviving civilizations (because subsaharan africa may be powerful one day, but as a post-european colonial construction) in that it is not greek.
china really is different and it really is far away.
we should realize that they view us the same way and through a very long historical filter. realizing the depth of this historical filter is important in understanding how china will interact with the western part of eurasia, which will be keenly important in the upcoming decades.
in north america, when we talk about european civilization, we talk about the cities that developed from the development of global capitalism after the age of enlightenment - paris, london, berlin. we might mention older cities in the south of europe as falling apart tourist destinations, but they are not seen as being in the centre of european culture or vital parts of european civilization. in china, when they talk about europe - and this is true. look at their statements about european trade routes. - they talk about the exit points to the silk road, which include jerusalem, constantinople (which is currently temporarily renamed as istanbul while it remains under foreign turkish occupation), alexandria, carthage and rome. china has a long history with the persian empire and has had to deal with pillaging arab barbarians trying to interfere with the trade routes to europe (and tax them) since the dawn of recorded history.
when europe came to terms with the collapse of trade from china, it had to find a way to get around arab civilization to reconstruct important supply lines, which is what led to european seafaring and the "discovery" of america, and then of america as a military force, itself. china is exiting it's own dark ages, brought on by it's own religious backwardsness, which manifested itself in a severe opiate crisis that lasted centuries. it is now trying to re-establish land-based trade routes directly with europe, mimicking the process europe went through in rebuilding trade routes to china in reverse. this time, china is in control, and the arab taxation racket for transiting through the desert, which caused such a myriad of problems for both china and europe, will be placed under chinese oversight.
it seems difficult to make sense of the barbaric attempt by iran to shut down the suez canal, except it isn't at all. it's clearly in the chinese interest to re-establish land-based trade routes as it tries to rebuild a system of trade that collapsed centuries ago and that left it incredibly wealthy. that would make china great again.
in the end, both europe and china will benefit from increased trade, if the ancient trade routes through cities like samarkand, persepolis, babylon/baghdad, constantinople, jerusalem, alexandria, carthage (tunis) and rome re-establish themselves, with distant terminal points in provincial backwaters like paris and london. however, america will suffer in it's newfound irrelevance. dramatically.
the post war order was supposed to be that europe was the market for american manufacturing, whether they liked it or not. this would maintain full employment in america and keep the trade balance on america's side. nixon destroyed this by reversing the role of the american economy from exports to imports, and it's been economic decline in america ever since (but the multinational investor class, disproportionately located in europe, saw increased profits). nato evolved into a protection racket, but it was supposed to be an american military occupation of europe to enforce it's place as a dumping ground for american exports. in the end, the guns were the biggest export. increased chinese trade will lead to greater european autonomy. this will cripple american hegemony, and that is actually not in canada's self-interest at all, as much as we may moan about the fucking yankees.
the fundamental mistake of biden's presidency is that he has decided that russia is america's enemy, and china is america's competitor. such neat boxes are always foolish. as my father was fond of stating, all generalizations are false. however, as a basic analysis, this box-placing exercise is completely backwards; not only is russia not america's enemy, but russia sees itself as a western and european civilization and wants to be america's friend and ally, while china sees westerners as a distant, alien species of barbarian to be dominated and pacified and perhaps even colonized and replaced. china is not america's friend and does not want friendly competition in some victorian british sense; china is america's only true enemy in this world, and the americans are largely utterly oblivious to it.
it's like nixon left notes for biden or biden was always a republican or something.
biden is basically wasting time fighting the last war, while china has been busy starting the next one.
the most important lesson in european history is that russia always steps in and saves the day. it was russia that defeated hitler; it was russia that defeated napoleon. these are two of many examples. it was the russians that saved constantinople from collapse for centuries. the russians are the great protagonists of history that have been repeatedly pushed to the brink but always step in on the right side and always win.
in the inevitable epic, centuries long war between america and china to control the world's oceans, which historians in the distant future on other planets will compare to the even more ancient punic wars to control the eventual mare nostrum (imagine the pacific ocean as a true american or chinese lake), russia will eventually step in and decide who wins, as it always does. america will need russia's help to defeat china; it will lose if it tries to fight this war alone. if the end result of this foolish war in ukraine that biden personally incited and is personally responsible for is german rearmament, as appears to be the case, it is china that is the sole and only victor. russia will have no choice but to align with a german-chinese axis based on mutual trade interests, and then america is basically fucked.
america might have avoided this outcome by being less aggressive and more collaborative in eastern europe. it is not clear if the situation is reversible at this point, but i will remind america that russia does not hate it and likely still wants to align with it to try to contain chinese encroachment into east and central asia. it cannot do so when it is fighting a stupid war to protect it's western flank against nations it in truth actually wants to do business with but are stuck in a military occupation by a foreign power run by psychotic extremists that are using it as a terminal point for a military build-up as a consequence of a protection racket, which is both weakening it and the west and giving the chinese the upper hand. russia loses. america loses. britain loses. china and germany win.
china would certainly benefit from a port in the eastern mediterranean right about now, say right about where haifa is.
i need to begin with my previous caveat that i don't follow sports and don't like competition or competitive people, but the issue of transgender athletes is again appearing at the olympics, where a third gender called 'mike tyson' has appeared, leading to confusion and outrage. members of the other two genders are being advised to cover their ears.
my general suggestion is to pool by categories like weight, which is done in boxing. it seems wrong, i'll grant you that. but, both of the athletes with y chromosomes have been defeated by women without y chromosomes and there's little conclusion to draw but that this particular female athlete just didn't have the balls to take this...thing....on.
it looks bad, but it seems to be legitimate.
is weight the best category for female boxing, or should they choose something like bmi? i don't know. ask a boxer. i know i wouldn't want to fight the boxer from italy that went down immediately, or any other female boxer in my weight category.
the media and fake left in the west have also demonstrated an inability to understand what changed on oct 7th, and even seem to think that some entitled rich kids whining at western universities has some kind of relevance to sovereign israeli policy in the middle east. they are equally out of touch, and also need to adjust and change.
but the president is supposed to lead, not to follow.
entitled rich kids literally still in school aren't paid to figure out complex geopolitical issues, the president is.
the president is having difficulties keeping up with the conflict in israel, and the white house is consequently skewing the narrative, but somebody down there is reading this site, so i'm going to give it a go at being professor jessica to get things across more clearly. try not to fall asleep, mr. president.
biden is again upset that the "timing" of the strike to get rid of that piece of shit haniyeh puts a "cease fire" in gaza in jeopardy, indicating again that he fundamentally doesn't understand what the war is about. is it because netanyahu is being sneaky? is it actually his fault, really?
no. netanyahu is being crystal clear: while he will agree in principle to temporarily stop the operation to erase hamas from the planet to get some or all of the hostages back, which is a reasonable position, he realizes that hamas will never present a reasonable offer (hamas took the hostages as leverage and is continuing to call for the recognition of sovereignty in exchange for releasing the prisoners, which was in truth the desperate last act of a dying movement and is contemptible and has no possibility of leading to a successful truce) so there is no actual likelihood of a ceasefire and this rhetorical position is consequently real but trivial. it's sort of like telling a lion that you have locked up that you'll let it go so long as it promises not to eat you. that lion can never make that promise, or at least not honestly. ergo, the offer may be made honestly, while knowing it will never come to pass. further, you keep a lion locked up because it threatens you harm, not because you enjoy locking up lions.
further, netanyahu has been as clear as day that the war is ultimately not about releasing the hostages and that releasing the hostages will therefore not end the war, even if he acknowledges being willing to accept a ceasefire for as long as it takes to release them, if hamas will in fact release them, and for terms that are not insane. rather, the war is about destroying hamas and will end with the destruction of hamas, whether the hostages are released or not.
(the reality is that the remaining hostages are probably either all or almost all dead, and those still alive are probably on their second pregnancy and consequently property of their husbands, under sharia law, and not returnable. under islamic law, you own the women you impregnate. they're property. it's also difficult to predict how a woman ends up feeling about a man that rapes her hundreds of times. israel will never get those girls back without launching commando raids and killing the rapist/husbands, and then they'll probably have to take the kids, too.)
i suppose that if netanyahu wants to really be cynical, he could order a prisoner swap and then launch an airstrike on the bus as it enters gaza. but, hamas won't even let them get to that point of absurdity.
meanwhile, biden is still role playing bill clinton in the oslo accords, and trying to "bridge a divide" to build a "lasting peace". he hears gaza's pain. he hears israel's pain, too. in fact, i think he has tinnitus from listening to himself speak, so he hears everybody's pain. your words are his pain. literally.
the reality is that the october 7th attack fundamentally changed everything in israel. it changed the security calculation. it turned pacifists into war mongers. it has radically altered the israeli psyche, and it should have. israel woke up one day in the dark ages and is trying to turn the clocks forward, without the sardonic humour of a classic bill murray film. this is not oslo. this is not camp david. this is a different game, a different war, a different day and, in fact, a different century. this isn't about palestine anymore, it's about iran, and it's about china.
it's hard for an old man to adjust. after all, joe understands the conflict; he's been dealing with it for 50 years. in his mind, he was always going to be the one to sign the deal and bring a lasting peace. he's been planning for this moment his whole life. he's the genius that will solve this problem. right? netanyahu is mucking it all up, the sonofabitch.
that's the problem.
there's not going to be a cease fire in gaza and there shouldn't be. hamas will and should be destroyed, and gaza will need to be occupied and pacified by force.
the united states needs a commander in chief that can adjust and change with the times and correctly understand what is happening now, not what happened 30 years ago. the world has passed biden by and left his foreign policy in the 20th century and his refusal to adjust to the new reality in israel is exhibit a. netanyahu has no choice but to use kid gloves. but, the pentagon really needs to intervene, or at least give allies alternate contact info, for the next six months.
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