it's a very sad day for democracy in canada, but we will throw this bum out on his ass soon enough.

justin trudeau looks like a 12 year-old that went to a concert with his mom.

and that's probably about right, isn't it?

a staff member working as a chef was arrested after being found with a knife and may be charged with mischief.

that's some fine flutin', boys.

https://calgaryherald.com/news/calgary-police-respond-reports-armed-individual-mount-royal-university-campus

if this was a real war, that's what you would do - you would put the port under siege. you wouldn't keep feeding them as you try to defeat them. that's irrational.

trump actually campaigned on not doing this, and while i didn't endorse him or support him, i did agree with that part of his platform. if you're going to fight a war, you shouldn't do so half-assed and with one arm tied behind your back. war is war. you do it with your whole ass, or you don't fucking bother at all.

this has been america's problem for years: it starts wars, then restrains itself from fighting them.

trump has indicated that the blockade will allow food into iran and is intended to force iran to make a deal, indicating he's continuing to hold to the delusion that running a government is like running a business, and he can force iran into a business deal, and he can negotiate with a psychotic terrorist death cult.

that's not what i called for and not what i support.

the uprisings in iran have been about civil rights, which do not exist in iran, but they've also been about food shortages.

i was calling for a naval siege of iran. i called it a blockade, but i was suggesting a siege of the port of bandar abbas to ensure no food can get in, with the purpose of triggering an uprising. this would have to be done in conjunction with concrete support for opposition groups on the ground.

i don't expect that merely cutting off oil revenue is going to force iran to negotiate. they're not going to negotiate. they'd rather die because they neurotically think they'll go to heaven if you kill them. they're completely fucking insane.

that said, i don't exactly oppose an oil blockade, either. i just don't think it will work.

the haphazard use of carbon in asia is devastating to the environment and needs to stop. they use oil for cooking, for electricity and for practically everything. it's 2026. this is unacceptable, at this point. these countries in the indian cultural sphere, including most of southeast asia, need to upgrade their grids. if this "blockade" creates incentives for them to do that, it's a net positive. reducing carbon emissions should be the number one priority goal when it comes to any kind of carbon fuel policy, including this. it is countries in this area that are going to suffer the brunt of climate change and need to make the most extreme adjustments. they're long overdue, for their own sake.

and, as mentioned, increases in the price of carbon in the west should help to undo some of the effects of extremely damaging subsidies to the oil industry and help make better sources of energy more competitive, as they struggle to scale. it could be the final push that carbon transition needs to tip over. i will support any policy that increases the price of oil.

but iran is not going to sign a deal without regime change, and an oil "blockade" is not going to trigger that. a complete siege type blockade that prevents bandar abbas from engaging in all trade will, if enforced long enough, succeed in toppling the state, which should be the american (and canadian) government's stated purpose, not trying to negotiate. you can't negotiate with irrational actors.

the basic point is that if somebody uses language with the intent to be offensive or harmful, that is their decision, and if it works in offending somebody then that means that the person was successful in expressing themselves with their choice of language. that is entirely valid, and there's nothing wrong with that. it's healthy to seek to express yourself as clearly as possible.

there is something wrong with and something extremely unhealthy about censors, government agencies or self-appointed language police trying to prevent people from a full range of emotions, or from freely expressing themselves. that is reflective of a sick society and a sick culture that needs help learning how to express their emotions freely.

if somebody's angry or frustrated or just descriptive, they have a fundamental and basic right to express that and nobody has any right to try to stop them. if you take some offense and get angry or sad, that's your problem and not theirs, and you should react by venting, yourself.

i never stopped using words like retarded or nigger and when people told me to stop, i started using them more, and especially around the people that asked me to stop. they would generally give up.

the basic point is that it doesn't fucking matter if you're offended and, often times, that's actually the intent. i have a pretty big vocabulary. i get to decide what words are appropriate in how i express myself, not you. and you have a lot of fucking nerve thinking that your feelings are more important than my free will. you can go fuck yourself.

the word is best used to express a certain kind of extreme stupidity. stupidity exists in a hierarchy. something that is only a little bit stupid can be described using a term like dumb. then, there's something moronic, which is more stupid than something dumb. that which is utterly fucking completely retarded is at the very top of the stupid hierarchy.

it shouldn't be used haphazardly, admittedly. it should be reserved only to describe the most stupid of the stupid.

it really has nothing to do with having a genetic defect like autism or down's syndrome. people with genetic defects may act retarded sometimes, and sometimes they may not. generally, that description, to the extent that it may be accurate, would come without the contempt directed at somebody that does not have a genetic defect. you would generally not use the adjective retarded to describe somebody with a genetic defect, unless they are being retarded, which they might be.

but i'm not going to be prejudiced about my hierarchy of stupid or assume that somebody is a retard just because they have a genetic defect.

the term is used most appropriately and most accurately in english usage to describe behaviour that is at the top of the stupid hierarchy, by people that do not have genetic defects, and therefore should be expected not to behave that way, and can be fairly treated with derision and contempt for doing so.

the word's etymology is latin, likely french, and means slow, delay or late - initially, as in dim-witted, or unable to keep up. it was adopted for medical usage, but the use of the term in english long predates that. i could use the latin verb or translate it. there's no logic in yelling at me for using the latin, and thinking it's ok to translate it, but that seems to be the convention amongst the ingsoc newspeak language police.

people that have genetic defects shouldn't assume the word is targeted at them. it generally isn't, and the history connecting the use of the word to the specific context of genetic defect is rather recent. it's just a latin translation for "slow witted".

people that believe that language is something for individuals to decide on, and not something to be determined by centralized bodies, will rightfully push back on any entity trying to remove an adjective from the dictionary. to best express ourselves in the widest variety of contexts possible, we need as many adjectives as possible, and should always be expanding our individual vocabularies, never restricting them.

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/r-word-normalization-9.7156594

nobody cares about the fucking pope.

but i have to ask.

why doesn't he wear his stupid fucking hat? he's walking around in a yarmulke all of the time. is he confused as to what religion he represents, or what?