i want to see shovels in the ground. this is long overdue.
Sunday, September 14, 2025
if the russians had intelligent, capable leadership, they would have moved immediately to secure the areas east of the dnieper many years ago and then stopped there, at least for now. it's not what they want, but it would be pragmatic and realistic, and i would have accepted it. the world would have learned to live with it.
they don't have intelligent or capable leadership, and they're chasing foolish pipe dreams. the escalation was the weapons deal announced by donald trump, but the russians are not being smart in their response.
the smart thing to do upon learning of the weapons deal would have been to bomb out the bridges on the dnieper and then to try to get there as soon as they could.
this is a map of the indefensible european plain, which russia blames for the carnage it experienced in world war two, in the napoleonic wars and in other wars attempting to conquer it.
this is greater than the maximum extent of the russian empire, but it is less than the warsaw pact countries (excluding finland, which was in the russian empire at it's max extent but not in the warsaw pact), which actually gave russia a series of buffer states on the other side of the carpathians, and to the west of the vistula.
this is greater than the maximum extent of the russian empire, but it is less than the warsaw pact countries (excluding finland, which was in the russian empire at it's max extent but not in the warsaw pact), which actually gave russia a series of buffer states on the other side of the carpathians, and to the west of the vistula.
if it was not for nato expansion, russia would consider this to be the region it seeks to control in order to ensure it's defenses. the natural boundaries of the carpathians, together with the vistula, would give russia a defensible boundary. the world's a shitty place, and you have to acknowledge the logic, even if you don't like the tactics.
as it is, nato did expand, and the idea of russia moving into the baltics, into poland or into romania and bulgaria is currently outside of the realm of russan military capability. the russians are crazy to be sending drones into poland and romania, and that provocative action should be condemned.
however, it's important that people understand what they're doing. that map explains what they're doing, and it's been at the core of russsian defense policy for centuries. it's sort of well understood that the russians would not be likely to expend resources on protecting areas east of the urals, either.
this is a case that could potentially have the law struck down as unconstitutional, and not be saved by an oakes test.
the woman is a horrible retard, but she poses no credible threat to anybody's safety. she should not be arrested, she should be allowed to speak freely, in order to discredit herself.
if carney wants to walk back down this path, his laws will just get thrown out in the end, too. this is settled law. hate speech is free speech. violent speech is prosecuted if the threats are believable and imminent.
if somebody is causing enough of a disturbance, you can charge them with lots of things - assault, harassment, trespassing, uttering threats, etc.
if somebody is just yelling at you, and you don't like it, that's too bad. if you want to live in canada, you'l need to learn to tolerate it. if you can't tolerate it, you should move to iran.
what is against the law is uttering threats.
the various rulings, including keegstra, have all clarified that any law restricting "hate speech" violates s. 2b of the canadian constitution, regarding free speech. keegstra was explicitly clear that what conservatives/progressives call "hate speech" is always protected by s. 2b.
however, in canada we have a section of the constitution that allows specific laws to infringe the constitution if they pass something called an oakes test.
1. There must be a pressing and substantial objective
2. The means must be proportional
a. The means must be rationally connected to the objective
b. There must be minimal impairment of rights
c. There must be proportionality between the infringement and objective
if a law in canada is found to be unconstitutional, but it passes the oakes test, the unconstitutional law may be left in place.
the court has repeatedly found that any restriction of speech, include what conservatives/progressives call "hate speech", is always an infringement of s. 2b, but they will not strike the laws down on the specific case that the speech is determined to be violent. you can hate the jews as much as you want, and you can scream it through a megaphone in public, but you can't threaten the jews. that's when the court lets the police enforce the laws it has determined are unconstitutional.
that is why these cases require a warrant to be issued by the attorney general, which i think is not strong enough. police should never be allowed to arrest somebody for these charges, or any charges, unless they get a warrant from a judge. however, the law is written to prevent officers from making these decisions and get a warrant from the ministry precisely because the court has ruled it unconstitutional, and only saved it because the case at hand involved violence. if the police were to try to charge somebody with public incitement of hate, advocating genocide or any other hokey attempt at restricting speech that some people don't like, and the case did not involve credible threats of violence, which is also required to prove a threat in court, the court would strike the law down. by forcing officers to get permission to lay charges, the government is trying to save a law it knows has already been struck in principle, and is hanging by a thread, due to the specific case at hand being about violent threats.
ultimately, police should just charge people with uttering threats when it comes down to it, as that's what is actually criminalized, and not bother with the attempts to restrict speech that comes up in political discourse. the court will not convict you of just offending somebody, in the end, even if some asshole judge forces you to go through an appeal. you have to threaten somebody for these laws to result in conviction, and the threats have to be imminent. you'd be more likely to get a conviction if you just stuck to the laws against threats in the first place, and sidestepped the minefield of trying to call it hate speech.
ignorant right-wing activists, some of which call themselves "progressive", will frequently repeat the conservative slogan that "hate speech is not free speech". that is complete and total ignorance. the supreme court of canada has been abundantly clear in explicitly and literally stating that hate speech is in fact protected as free speech in canada, but the parliament continues to pass unconstitutional laws and then have them struck down when they get tested.
the number of extremely troubling incidents involving police thugs arresting people for posting words on the internet is extremely alarming, but the issues need to work through the court system.
this law against "advocating genocide" is a very weird law in canada. in canada, we don't have "hate crimes" in the sense of it being against the law to hate people. i am a strong proponent of hating people. i'd rather see the government outlaw loving people and send dirty fucking hippies to jail for love crimes than have them get on the ass of cynics and recluses that rightfully hate the society, because the society is sick and the culture sucks, and is getting worse with more immigration from backwards societies. if we have to choose between criminalizing hate and criminalizing love, i'd vote for criminalizing love. there's nothing more fucking annoying than a goddamned christian. but that's not what this is about.
in canada, a judge can increase the sentence of an existing crime, like uttering threats, if it's determined that the motivation was hate. if you get caught spraypainting a synagogue, you'd get charged with vandalism, and might have an additional sentence if the judge thinks your vandalism was hate-related.
"advocating genocide" is consequently not what you call a hate crime in canada, but is a literal restriction on speech, similar to the thrown out laws against spreading fake news in zundel, which is leading precedent. this law has not been tested, yet. it is clear that a law against "advocating genocide" would be dead on arrival at the supreme court, citing zundel. in fact, the law itself seems to be a reaction to zundel. i would advise any legal professional, including police, to assume that the law is unconstitutional, but just hasn't been thrown out yet.
the last news entry in the case is that the guy was released on bail while he underwent a psychiatric hearing. i would expect these charges will be dropped, due to no chance of conviction, and prosecution not being in the public interest.
if you were going to in theory charge somebody with this, it would be intended for politicians seeking power. to arrest some idiot for posting on the internet is not consistent with a free society, and the police should be roundly condemned for doing so.
“China has a strong control, and even grip, over Russia, and these powerful Tariffs will break that grip,” he wrote
the reason that china has leverage - i would consider the idea of it having control be an incorrect mischaracterization intended to fulfill ulterior motives that is typical of trump - over russia is that the west placed sanctions on moscow.
if there's a desire to eliminate china's leverage over russia and increase western integration and influence instead, which i would support and would consider to be smart policy, and which should also be applied to india, then the solution would be to reduce sanctions and lift tariffs, not increase sanctions and apply tariffs.
if russia could sell more of it's resources to europe, it wouldn't be so reliant on china; the fact that russia is prohibited from selling it's resources to the west is the cause of the problem, not a solution to it.
the western media has developed a tendency to present root causes of conflicts as solutions to them, which it has recently also done in presenting nato troops in ukraine as a solution to, rather than as the cause of the current conflict.
if the united states succeeds in completely blocking russia from selling it's resources to europe, russia will be left entirely reliant on china, and that's actually exactly what china would want.
it's not clear to me what the thinking is regarding tariffs on china. it would likely have no effect except to raise taxes for european capitals, and perhaps to accelerate china's movement towards selling to it's own market, and other markets in asia. european workers would be left worse off, but the european governments would probably mostly reinvest the tax money into social services. it would likely actually benefit the chinese economy, overall.
but, while i don't even understand the logic on placing tariffs or sanctions on china and don't expect it would really do anything at all, tariffs and sanctions on russia from europe are abysmally stupid policy, if you're trying to generate influence over moscow.
i would suspect that might actually be the point, if the new us policy position is just to profit off of selling weapons to europe and not really give a fuck about what happens next.
if you really do the math around what it actually takes to buy a house and the amount of money people are making, even on minimum wage, it's worth asking if the real problem canadians are facing in relation to housing isn't their addictions to drugs, tobacco, marijuana, alcohol, debt, fast food and gasoline.
if i had $3000/month, and i were to rent a reasonably priced $1300-$1500 apartment here in windsor, i'd be able to put $1000/month into a savings account and, with interest, have enough of a downpayment to buy a $250-$300K house in less than two years. that's barely minimum wage.
it's not clear to me why young people aren't able to do this, other than that they waste their money on poor lifestyle decisions, in large part perhaps inherited from their parents, and then complain that they can't afford housing as a result of these lifestyle choices.
the canadian government may consequently want to research a cost-benefit analysis around the question of it may be worth trying to get smoking rates, marijuana use, alcohol use, indebtedness, fast food consumption and gasoline use down as a part of it's housing strategy. people might find they can afford to buy a house after all, if they'd just make more intelligent choices with their money.
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