Total eradication of Hamas requires for Israel to not only carry out a military campaign in the Gaza Strip but also now Lebanon, Syria, Iran and even potentially Qatar where Hamas has a presence.

israel should absolutely be carrying out targeted assassinations of hamas terrorists in lebanon, syria, iran, turkey, egypt, iraq and qatar. further, the united states and nato should be aiding them in those targeted assassinations.

all civilized people should stand together in solidarity at this time in a global campaign to eradicate hamas.

the tunnels in gaza are a surreal reality. the archaeologist in me wants to preserve them, and the libertarian in me wants to quarantine them, but my primary concern is the kind of constant fear that comes attached to being kidnapped and taken into the tunnels. it is reminiscent of the fear of muslim pirates that westerners were under for centuries; these pirates used to raid european cities and specifically carry away the blonde girls.

(see: https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Barbary-Pirates-English-Slaves/, to start. cities that were frequently raided by muslim pirates seeking white slaves included london, dublin, lisbon, marseilles and rome, to name a few.)

our entire concept of using religion to form a basis for slavery was adopted from the reconquista, when spanish warlords adopted arab slave practices in reverse and started enslaving non-christians in response to the arab enslavement of non-muslims. it wasn't until he 18th century that american slavery became about race instead of religion, as a response to the christian abolitionist movement, that wanted to free the slaves by converting them. the slave owners had to find some other excuse to not release their black slaves.

so, they can't have these tunnels; they're just havens for organized crime. if this round of kidnapping is unusual, it's an algorithm that you should expect to repeat itself.

there's talk of flooding them with seawater, but i don't think that's the right approach, either. if i were israel, i would want to take control of the tunnels, clear them out, keep the ones that are useful and fill the rest in with cement. 

not seawater; cement.

cement is a strong foundation to build over.

this is an inefficient use of land that will lead to urban sprawl, which is what we should be trying to prevent as a society as a primary condition, at the moment. this is consequently a bad idea.

can we stop looking to the past for solutions and look to the future instead? nobody wants to turn the clocks back to the fucking 50s. yuck.

we need to build up; building up is the future. building small is the past. let us look forwards, and not backwards.

yet, this is reflective of what is wrong with the trudeau government, as well; the truth is that justin trudeau wants to make canada great again.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10163033/war-time-housing-program/

this story about terrorist suspects being justifiably searched for weapons has been presented as an equivalent wrong and even largely replaced the story about israeli women being raped and mutilated, no doubt by some of the people being pictured, as an example of the depravity underlying the current antii-israel media bias, which is being driven by demographics.

i don't see anything wrong with this at all. i'm glad they're getting them off the street and into jails where they belong.

i refuse to concede the premise that there is a war going on; this is a police operation to stamp out the palestinian mafia.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/images-of-stripped-and-bound-gazans-prompt-concern-over-idfs-arrest-tactics/

i may have been the first person to suggest that what israel is doing in palestine is a genocide, in the process of rejecting the term 'apartheid'. apartheid is fundamentally about enslaving a population. the israelis do not want to enslave the arabs, and have rejected attempts by diplomats like john kerry to set up an export economy; what is closer to the truth is that western capitalism tried to create apartheid in the levant for the benefit of european investors, and the israelis put an end to it. the israelis want those jobs for their own people; they don't want enslaved arabs, they want the arabs done away with and thrown out.

i consequently rejected the term "israeli apartheid" when it was popular in the 00s and replaced it with "genocide of the palestinian people". this was before hamas took over gaza,

however, i've actually evolved my thinking since then, as i've become more aware of the fact that the palestinians are not arabs but jews that have converted to islam. you can find genetic differences between a saudi and a jew, or an egyptian and a jew, or a leb and a jew, but you cannot genetically differentiate between a a palestinian and a jew. the reason is that the palestinians are the jews, they're the jews that stayed and converted to islam. in fact, most of them even know that, they just don't like to talk about it. there is a small ruling clique of arab monarchs that don't get hit by israeli bombs; the mass of palestinians getting killed are ethnic hebrews. this is jewish hebrews killing muslim hebrews, and vice versa.

what that means is that there isn't truly an ethnic component in the conflict. this is in truth a hebrew civil war that is about religion and while i don't support jewish nationalism or jewish supremacism, i realize that civil wars are things that happen and that they need to work themselves out.

i support a one state solution where everybody is equal and rights aren't determined by religion, perceived ethnicity or language. i don't want jewish or arab states, i want a secular democracy with equal rights. yet, i realize that the process of getting there requires one side to win the civil war. historically, the end result of civil wars is that the side that loses the civil war adopts the values and beliefs of the victor. i would strongly suggest to muslims in palestine that they might want to consider looking at their roots with a sober perspective and converting back to judaism if they want to stay in israel, by following the logic of their ancestors, when they converted to islam. the situation has changed and they need to adjust.

if they do not like that idea, they might want to seriously consider leaving as it is clear which side will win this civil war. once the civil war is over, it will be time to talk about civil rights in the framework of a single state where a critical mass of israelis are on their side. they can't talk like that while they are ruled by crazy groups like hamas, which is a reflection of their desperation.

i do not support "national liberation struggles" or religious extremist groups like hamas. i don't support what they want as an outcome, and i don't support their tactics. if the palestinians want to align with groups like hamas as their voice, it would be better if they were wiped out.

however, i know that's not actually true, that most palestinians do not support hamas.

i am putting out a call for palestinians to stop being idealistic and start being pragmatic. you are ethnic hebrews. examine your family history and ask yourself what is truly in your self-interest, as individuals.

i just 'splained my way out of a potential fucking mess.

everybody wants to be open and welcoming in principle, but we need policies like this to slow it down right now.

when the liberals are cutting immigration, you know it's overdue.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberals-double-income-requirement-foreign-students-1.7052387

farming is one of the highest intensity forms of carbon pollution and one of the industries that most needs to innovate ways to reduce it's carbon use. farmers need to find ways to reduce their carbon footprint, and that is imperative. i thought the conservatives liked free markets and policies designed to stimulate innovation?

there is some irony, here; i support the carbon tax as a means of wealth redistribution, but i never expected it to actually be successful in stimulating innovation. polievre's demagogic grandstanding is merely demonstrating how free market policies like carbon taxation don't work in incentivizing behaviour. 

where does this party stand in the spectrum, today? they remind me of the racist american populist and progressive movement of the late 19th century, which organized through the racist democratic party in the solid south and was old tory in ideology, which is authoritarian right-wing but collectivist in a religious sense and not at all pro-market. the party is increasingly reverting to it's roots as a christian progressive farmer's union. are there still funny socred economic ideas floating around in the reform party?

what a carbon tax can do and will do if left in place long enough is make existing solutions (that are currently less cost effective) more attractive, and make more polluting solutions less attractive. that is not innovation, but it might reduce carbon footprints nonetheless. if farmers are complaining that the tax is making them make hard decisions that means the policy is working to the extent that it ever could and the government should stay the course.

farmers need to make different choices and need to change how and what they produce.

climate change denial is the new slavery.

---

it might have seemed odd to many to watch the conservative party win power in 2006 by promising a series of social welfare handouts, but that's because they didn't fully grasp that the conservative party was actually the rebranded social credit party and not the old tory party.

we used to have an actual conservative party in canada, but it was wiped out in the 1993 election and never recovered.

as it is, our conservative party in canada is weird; it's a christian progressive party with very weak free market or libertarian tendencies that has a lot of ideas that are hard to place on the existing spectrum.

i'm not exactly a buddhist. i'm an atheist, and i think for myself.

however, my views on sexuality are very similar to buddhist views on sexuality and i think that western views on sexuality are broadly unhealthy and a major factor in the widespread depression that westerners experience. our sex-obsessed culture is what drives us insane.

my celibacy is by choice, and is desired by me. i have better things to do than waste my time having sex.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_sexuality

the polling for donald trump in the republican primaries is what you expect to see in a fascist country, where people tell the pollsters what they want to hear instead of what they truly think. putin consistently gets 80%+ approval ratings; the polls are sound, but the people are afraid to tell the pollsters what they really think. the same thing remains true to this day in iron bloc countries like slovakia that really shouldn't have those kinds of issues anymore.

trump was a mistake, in the sense that nobody actually wanted him. he came up the middle in a crowded primary that didn't have an acceptable candidate. i will not let you forget that trump was elected republican candidate primarily to stop ted cruz, who was seen as a right-wing extremist; trump was the closest thing to a moderate in the field.

the same problem remains. if you thought cruz was too right-wing, desantis is no answer for you. everybody knows that chris christie is a loser. and, then there's the brown girl; why isn't she running for the democrats?

trump has no opponent.

a strong moderate could have beaten trump very easily, but it's too late now; he's functionally running unopposed. at least he won't catch covid on the campaign trail from a jail cell.

but, don't be surprised if his support is 20-30% lower than the polls are putting it at when the real numbers come in. i don't think trump is as scary as some would claim, but that enforced groupthink in trumplandia is not healthy for american democracy and leaves the country vulnerable to the potential of electing an actual fascist.

in fascist america, president elect you!

peel, york and durham should just be amalgamated into toronto.

halton should be left for the next round.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-government-transition-board-peel-dissolution-cost-tax-increases-1.7049940

well, it would expand the city's tax base by going after all the wealth that's fled the city.

creating safe zones for civilians is exactly what israel should not do because it is well understood in advance that hamas will hide in the safe zones.

israel needs to rely on it's substantive intelligence to hit actual targets and kill actual bad guys and civilians need to take some responsibility in being proactive about getting out of the way. i understand it's a small space and that's hard, but it's how it is.

if you are a civilian in gaza, you should be seeking to find somewhere that is isolated to hide in, not going to civilian safe zones, refugee camps or un food distribution zones. hamas will get there first, and you'll be entering a target zone. it is safer for you as a citizen if there is a lack of governance and a lack of social cohesion; seek out small, autonomous collectives that hide in the cracks in the system, instead.

this is unfortunate, but it's real; there is little that israel can do to protect civilians when hamas makes blending into civilian populations and hiding in safe or non-combatant zones a central part of it's strategy. it's impossible to follow the rules when your opponents flaunt them, and the blame for this should be put on hamas, not on israel.

i can't comment on individual examples of vengeance or insubordination in the idf, which should be condemned when or if they are found.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-hamas-war-truce-ends-buffer-zone-1.7047324

Israel said it had recalled a team from Qatar, host of indirect negotiations with Hamas, accusing the Palestinian faction of reneging on a deal to free all the women and children it was holding. 

it is predictable that they would not let the women they impregnate via raping them leave, as they would then become their property, under islamic law.

what naomi and others miss is that if you let people with anti-semitic biases engage in a process that is legitimate on it's face, it becomes anti-semitic. my experience with "progressive" activists in canada is that most of them really don't like jews very much. i have one jewish ancestor 200 years ago, and it's better if i don't tell people about it, because once i do i get labeled as a jew and marginalized. it really does affect people's perceptions.

spraypainting slogans on a storefront is pointless vandalism, but if they wanted to get their point about this fund across without being labeled nazis, they should have chosen their words more carefully. if it sounds like a nazi and acts like a nazi, most people will decide it's a nazi; and, frankly, the truth is that it probably actually is one, too.

naomi's concern should be about nazis co-opting the action she feels is legitimate, however pointless the action might have been.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/antisemitism-anti-israel-indigo-1.7046501

the bill c-18 deal just signed by google is not what was legislated. the legislation calls for google to make bilateral agreements with independent news organizations in order to allow them to appear in google's search results, which forces google to pay for a service it provides to news organizations for free. the actual agreement has google pay into a fund that is distributed to news organizations.

as a distant observer, my concerns were with free speech advocacy and academic freedom, which were under attack by the initial legislation. i opposed the legislation for those reasons. this agreement changes my concerns, but they do remain.

if i were google, i would want to ensure that a healthy news industry existed in canada and i would also want some influence over the news in exchange for my contributions to it's stability. that actually places google in a position where it will gain undue influence over news organizations due to the fact that it's paying them, as a result of this government dictate. it is not healthy for democracy in canada for a large corporation like google to have a cartel-like influence over the entire journalism industry, but that is what we should expect as an outcome from this agreement, the google news industry cartel that oversees google news content and which has a near monopoly on news access in canada.

i liked google's aggregate because it wasn't integrated. i may need to look elsewhere.

roger was syd's friend; he cared about him, and wanted the best for him.

syd was lucky to have friends that cared about him.

they should really make a movie about syd and roger. it would be quite touching.

can we get this in ontario, too, and enforce it on my landlords?

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-files-application-for-canada-s-first-unexplained-wealth-order-minister-1.6669214

i would support this.

i'd also like to see substantive increases in tuition for international students; it should be prohibitively expensive to come to canada to study. we shouldn't have international students treating this exemption as a backdoor through the immigration system, and in the process competing with the working poor and disabled for resources. going to a different country to go to school should be reserved for the wealthy and those who are poor and can get substantive scholarships.

we have a serious housing availability problem in canada and we will need to take drastic steps to address it.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/with-canada-set-to-reimpose-cap-on-working-hours-international-students-worry-about-paying-for-tuition-living-expenses-1.6669889

i actually don't support a two-state solution in gaza and i've been clear that i don't for a long time. the two state solution is actually a pro-israel position because it solves the demographic problem by expelling the palestinians.

i do not support the idea of the nation-state, in broad terms. the abolition of nationalism is one of the defining ideas on the actual, real left; an immediate way to identify a fake leftist is to observe their nationalism or listen to them speak about "national liberation struggles". such divide and conquer, bourgeois posh is not leftism at all.

no; i support the global emancipation of the nationless working class, via their seizure of the means of production, and the systems of oversight around it.

in the levant, a two-state solution is a regressive idea that sets the clock back. the ottoman empire was intentionally dismantled and cut into small pieces by the british and french in order to prevent it from being threatening; two states in such a small region, as defined by ethnicity, and fighting about and over it, is merely being controlled by anglo-american imperialism. rather, i support an integrated single nation state where all citizens have equal rights and where palestinian and jewish workers understand that they should not fight amongst themselves because they are in solidarity with each other against the bankers and bourgeoisie.

in such a framework, hamas is merely a mafia group of thugs that needs to be dismantled and imprisoned.

the byzantine term for the tactic of divide and impera was "barbarian management strategy". the byzantine empire almost always had a Bureau of Barbarian Management, which was designed to produce policy that would generate quarrels between the barbarians. this was a well paid position in the bureaucracy. the logic was that the barbarians were less threatening if they fought each other instead of the romans, and that actually worked in preventing collapse for centuries, until constantinople got sacked by the french, who were invited in.

generating an ethnic conflict between the arabs and the jews, then monophysites and...jews, would have been exactly what the bureaucrats at the bureau of barbarian management strategy would be paid to do.

you think i'm joking. i'm not.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Barbarians)

in fact, the leaders of the barbarians mostly understand this; i'm actually explaining exactly what the theocratic despots in iran meant when they called the united states the great satan and israel the little satan. the context is generally not explored, but it was actually a discussion of divide and impera, via barbarian management strategy. i wouldn't expect to find those terms anywhere outside of a history book, and you'd have to even go back quite a ways at this point. i have found them used by a respected historian named jb bury.

you can look all this up.

i'm surprised by the results of the referendum, but the university should accept the views of it's students. the university is the student body; democracy should prevail.

....and then the university should analyze it's admission policies, because it should be embarrassed that this happened.

i would call on the mcgill student union to run a parallel referendum asking the school to cut ties with people, corporations and institutions that are complicit in genocide, settler-colonialism, apartheid, or ethnic cleansing against native americans.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/ssmu-mcgill-safeguard-order-palestinian-policy-1.7037113

it makes sense for the canadian government to invest in industry.

it doesn't make sense for it to do so by giving out subsidies to private industry.

some percentage of public control over the factory should have been a pre-condition for the subsidy and would have allowed the state to veto this. as it is, this is what happens when you hand out money to industry without conditions attached to it.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/nextstar-battery-manufacturing-electric-vehicle-korean-windsor-1.7040936

i haven't been to ottawa in a long tme.

this is utterly horrific.

i don't like this in principle, but the underlying reality is that canadians have a tendency to see doctors for issues that are very minor and could be dealt with by a nurse (or a smart friend) and the truth is that this is badly clogging up the system. we also tend to go to emergency for non-emergency situations very frequently.

the existing alberta government is not in the right ideological place to set up a more efficient system, and is consequently defaulting to the inefficiencies of market capitalism in how it approaches a product that demonstrates clear and overwhelming market failure. it is predictable that the result will demonstrate the consequences of engaging with market failure. however, i actually think that a centralized bureaucracy that directs patients to nurses instead of to doctors when the issue is appropriately sent to a nurse rather than a doctor (and vice versa) would be an excellent way to manage resources. this would be better done through expanded centralized hospital care and not through independent private clinics, but there is a kernel of a good idea that addresses a real root cause that seriously needs to be addressed in this confusion.

canada is experiencing a market failure in it's delivery of healthcare because it has experimented with mixed economic models in delivery. in order to more efficiently manage resources, it needs to stop experimenting with free market delivery and reverse course by aggressively centralizing the distribution of services.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-primary-health-care-nurse-practitioners-1.7039229

this is not an advisable tactic. the issue is legislative, and what the individual wants exists in ontario, by legislation. i picked "female" on my card, but i could have picked x. there is also an option for x on driver's licenses, but i don't have one of those.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/montrealer-vows-to-continue-hunger-strike-for-x-gender-on-quebec-health-card

i want to post my updated caesar salad recipe, and challenge you to actually finish the salad - if you can handle the consequences of it. regularity is important.

- 80 g kale

- 1 big avocado, soft but green, not rotten or goopy. chopped.

- 1 big lime or 2 small ones. chop the fruit, and then dice the pith and peel into small spice-like fragments.

- 1 very big clove of garlic or 2-3 small cloves. chopped.

- 1 tbsp cumin

- 1 tbsp sunflower seeds

- 1 tbsp hemp seeds

- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast (with b12!)

- 1 tbsp paprika

- 2 slices of bacon, chopped

- 2 pieces of fresh brown bread (whole wheat, including the germ), chopped

- 60 g of retinol-fortified cheddar cheese

- a lot of frank's hot sauce

- 1 cup (250 ml) of sugarless, flavourless fortified soy milk

- 1 tbsp of olive-oil margarine, fortified with vitamins e & d

- a swirl or more of store bought caesar dressing, altered to taste (i use soy-based pc caesar)

did rosa parks ever comment on seating in airplanes?

she'd have to sit at the front of the plane, right?

this dumb idea of a charter of rights for airplane flyers won't go away in canada, so fine then let's go with it. the primary issue of concern should be that class levels of seating should be abolished in an equitable and classless society, and people should have a right to sit where they want on the plane.

do it for rosa.

birth control is healthcare; this should be covered. male birth control options should be covered, as well, which currently includes a surgical procedure and a pill in final clinical testing.

https://www.cp24.com/news/ndp-pushing-for-ontario-to-become-3rd-canadian-province-to-offer-free-birth-control-1.6657725

these are the pics i can currently find from 2022:

nov, 2022:

oct, 2022:

may, 2022:

april, 2022:

march, 2022: