yesterday started the same way as saturday, although all i had to eat to start was an apple, and i was out after that. 

i took the same walk through town to the same bike store and picked up the walmart bike, which had the brakes replaced and adjusted and a general tune-up done to it. this is marketed as a light weight aluminum frame 700c hybrid, but it is by far the lightest hybrid i've ever ridden, and i'd be more likely to label it a road bike; it will ride best on smooth and paved and clean surfaces, which are somewhat sparse here in the detroit-windsor area but do exist if you know where to find them. this bike is super light and picks up high speeds with minimal effort. it climbs up hills like butter, and faces minimal resistance in the windsor wind, which i often complained about when biking with my much heavier miele*, which is also aluminum but is actually a true hybrid (for example, it has a spring front suspension suntour fork. none of the others do, they all have rigid forks, of various thicknesses and sizes.). in fact, it's so light that the wind knocked it over when i set it down for a minute to wait for a train to pass on dougall last night.

i initially avoided taking this bicycle outside because i was concerned about it's flimsy build, but i had to take it in after i busted one of the brakes on it, just to verify it was set up correctly and there weren't any mistakes in the factory, and i rode it around yesterday after the tune-up to see if i felt like it could handle being outside. the bike store guy explained to me that it might have been the stationary that busted the brakes, and i shouldn't engage my brakes at all when on a stationary. ok. the brakes on the bicycle are working well after the tune-up; as mentioned, it is very light and very fast and very smooth. it seems sturdy. it handles and rides well - good turning, good response. i was able to dangerously weave through traffic on tecumseh rd like i like to rather effectively and able to hit turns and cut through narrow passageways at unrecommended velocities in ways that would frighten the elderly and cause them to yell at me, as has happened at least twice this month (i can't be sure i always heard them, as old people sometimes yell in ways that doesn't actually escape their weakened lungs). great. and i'm not even in shape, right now. so, this should be my new outside exercise road bike, right?

yes, with a caveat.

the gears are clicking, meaning i'm going to need to adjust the gears myself, which is disappointing after explicitly paying for a tune-up. i didn't explicitly say "check the gears" and should have, but that should have been a part of the checklist, too. they did what i explicitly asked for, and oiled it up; i was hoping they'd give it a more thorough examination and try to find problems with it. it seems like they didn't do that. that said, with a bike like this, it's potentially the case that everything is a problem, and you just need to wait for things to break before you replace them. if they had actually gone over it part by part, it would have ended up with a $1000 bill. i get that. 

still, the gears shouldn't be clicking when you take the bike out of the shop.

which leads me to the real problem with this bike and the real reason i'd be careful about riding it too hard, which is the flimsy drive train. the bike cost $340 with tax and the tune-up and brake replacement together cost $166. it will likely cost me another $75-100 to upgrade the drive train, which will likely also fix the clicking gears. i think. that's still under $600 for a bike that looks like it should cost well over $1000. i've consequently decided to:

1) see if i can fix the clicking gears myself. if it's a simple trial and error process involving turning a screw, and i can fix it myself, whatever, it's done. if it's something more than that, i'll have to decide what to do when i understand it.

2) after or if the gears stop clicking, i'm going to ride it until the drive train falls apart and then replace it. i'll get something economical but decent - that's my balancing proposal. i think that if that gets done, this bike will be ideal for hard exercise runs for many years, until i need to do it again. but, as i mentioned a few years ago, bikes are not immortal. you ride them. they break. you fix or replace them. so it goes.

if you're keeping track, that means i have a shopped vintage mountain bike for riding through detroit (a comparably bulky 90s gt palomar (it looks like a hybrid by today's standards because it's a 90s female bike)), a shopped inexpensive road bike (technically a hybrid) for exercising outside (a 2020s walmart hyper 700c, also female), a to-be-shopped vintage hybrid (technically a mountain bike) for grocery shopping and day to day riding in windsor (a light rigid bmx mongoose switchback (a male bicycle)) and a currently disassembled early 2000s miele siena hybrid 700c* (a true hybrid, also female) that i need to clean up and try to reassemble but will either leave inside for the stationary if it turns out to be fragile and unsafe for outside use or reclaim for day to day shopping, reducing the mongoose to a backup and putting me in the market for a cheap light bike for the stationary before november. if i can fix the miele*, the mongoose becomes the weakest bike, as it is old and worn out and not worth spending much on, but it is very useful for a heavy bicyclest like myself to have a general purpose backup bike, and the mongoose does that - i can ride it long distances if i have to, i can use it on bumpy terrain or flat terrain, etc. it could be a temporary exercise/road bike or a temporary day-to-day grocery shopping bike. so, this is what i'd like:

1. exercise/road bike:  walmart hyper 700c with increasingly subbed parts, as the stock parts wear out (technically a hybrid)

2. detroit bike: 90s gt palomar (technically a relatively light female mountain bike)

3. shopping/commuting bike: early 2000s miele siena* (technically a hybrid*)

4. backup bike: 90s mongoose switchback that feels like a heavy hybrid (technically a light mountain bike)

5. stationary bike: i'd like to get something very light. to be purchased second hand.

i then took the walmart bike out to walmart to get my two new coffee makers, and rode them both home. stop two was to the dollar store to get the glass mugs, and to freshco to look for some bacon, which they didn't have (they had some brand name lysol wipes). i then checked the close food basics for similar items, which they didn't have. so, i biked out to the metro because i knew they had nutritional yeast (a scarce item since the start of the pandemic, which has never recovered it's stock here in windsor), and also got some bacon while i was there, but they did't have any flax bread. so, i stopped at the freshco on the way back to get the wipes, dropped the bacon off at home, and then headed out to the superstore to get some flax bread, along with some nivea and a loofah.

that was that, and it should be the end of my shopping run for the month, i expect.

costs:

$180 - movers

$300 - bicycles

$70 - coffee related items

$300 - groceries, toiletries, pantry items

i snuck a double tomato sandwich (because i'm doubling everything this run) into my meal cycle and had one last night before i passed out and then this morning when i woke up around 6:00, along with a big cup of coffee in my new 25 ounce beer mug. the tomato sandwich was supposed to come up last, because i was supposed to make a salad out of the giant tomato that the food bank gave me. however, i decided at the last minute that i should buy fresh tomatoes for the salad and make two tomato sandwiches out of the giant tomato, due to the legitimately excessive giantness of the giant tomato. it was too giant for one salad, but about right for two sandwiches.

i did not need to make subs for my tomato sandwich recipe, except to use one tomato instead of two, which is as follows:

- two pieces of quinoa/flax bread

- olive oil margarine on the bread

- one half an avocado, diced, on each piece of bread

- one large clove (or two small cloves) of garlic on each avocado

- one tbsp of nutritional yeast on each side

- one tbsp of paprika on each side

- one tbsp of hemp seeds on each side

- five slices of medium cheddar cheese on each side

- one piece of bacon (cut in two or three) on each side

- a spiral of caesar dressing on each side

- a half a tomato on each side [due to the extreme giantness of this tomato, we did a 1/4 instead of 1/2]

- frank's

- pepper

- and a tall glass of grapefruit-orange juice

i regularly serve my coffee with chocolate soy, and am currently filling it up with vanilla flax, which was a food bank item.

i have now spent all day researching this miele bicycle, which is not what i wanted to do, and will need to spend the evening cleaning, which is what i did want to do today.

* this miele siena doesn't appear to be what it says. while the branding decals point to a procycle-era miele bicycle made in canada (2003-2004), i can't find any bicycle made by miele that looks anything like this, and it doesn't look like any other siena i can find pictures of. it looks a little more like a tuscana than a siena. more tellingly, there is a sticker on the bike indicating it's made of aluminum alcalyte, which is an alloy specially licensed to a high-end bike company called cannondale. i feel i've done as much research as i can and need to run it by some people with better knowledge bases, but it seems to me that the frame is a 2002 or 2003 cannondale scalpel frame and that somebody built a custom branded miele from that frame as a base. if i can verify that that is the case, i'm going to rebuild it as a 2002-3 cannondale scalpel, with equivalent (not identical) parts. notable is that this bicycle is a 700c hybrid, not a 26" mountain bike, but there are minimal explanations as to how a bike from this time frame gets this sticker on it, indicating it is made of this alloy. it could be that miele had some agreement with alcoa to sell this type of frame in canada, but more likely, i think, is that miele himself built this bike out of his special order factory in 2002 from an essentially pirated part that was otherwise licensed to cannondale, which he had a history of doing in the 80s with bianchi bicycles. the scalpel bikes had similar but more expensive suspension systems, meaning this was probably built to mimic one of those bikes at lower cost. that's exactly what i will do, as well - mimic the 2002-3 cannondale scalpel at lower cost, once i understand what model the frame came from, or how the frame was intended to be adjusted. i will probably need to completely rebuild the drive train; if i'm going to do it, let me do it right. i will still want this to be a hybrid for biking around town, but it's worth noting that this model of bicycle was intended to be a cross-country racing bike, much as the switchback was in the 80s. i don't have any interest in racing or in competition in general.

yeah. now that musk is disposed of, here come the big boys in exxon. do you remember who trump's first secretary of state was?

- kill the high speed rail

- slash the ev targets and emission standards

- start a riot

- aggressively go after the governorship

trump wants to launch a corporate take over of something. it looks like he's not going to take over canada. california would appear to be the new target.

in canada, the fact is that the british crown bought the land. there are treaties for almost every inch of land outside of bc and quebec, which the british conquered - which is considered lawful under european legal norms stemming from imperial roman law. those ideas don't make sense in the context of indigenous law, but it is the europeans sitting in the castles, applying their laws and they make the rules relative to their culture and norms.

it is also true that the government has repeatedly failed to adhere to the conditions in the treaties, and that in some circumstances it is unclear if the indigenous groups understood what they were signing. the treaties sell or permanently lease the land. that is easy for us to understand, but pre-contact north american indigenous groups had no coherent concept of land ownership. so, how can you sell something if you don't agree you own it?

in traditional indigenous cultures, the land is owned by the gods and humans are only permitted to use it. so, they have concepts of land use but not of land ownership. they also fundamentally share hunting and fishing grounds, which they hold as a commons (an idea that germanic culture had as well, and does continue to tentatively exist in british law).

there are good arguments that the indigenous groups thought they were exchanging the right to use the land in common and not selling it outright, but the courts have not really upheld that and the treaties say what they say. that's where ideas like the honour of the crown come in to enforce some kind of enlightened solution on a shitty situation.

but the lands were not stolen in any coherent legal sense. that's just incorrect.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadians-reject-that-they-live-on-stolen-indigenous-land-poll

gavin newsom is again repeating the "republicans are trying to take away democracy" messaging, which has repeatedly fallen flat with voters, who want the trains to run on time - and the looting and vandalism to stop.

if newsom wants to help his successor, he'll take control of the situation and clean up the mess himself. all voters are going to see is that trump is getting the job done and democrats are babbling about democracy.

i'm feeling way better this week.

i was never able to clearly determine if the stalkers were two men and a woman or three gay men, one effeminate or female identifying. if it is the latter, this person's behaviour would disqualify them from identifying as trans. this would have either been a very aggressive and dominant gay man in drag (a transvestite) or some kind of dom female. i've tended to lean towards them being a dominant transvestite looking for a slave, and misinterpreting me as one. i'm an anarchist that roots the core of my being in ideals of self-ownership; i'm not into bdsm, i'm not submissive and i have no interest in playing the role of anybody's slave.

however, they were trying to force me into some kind of gross male performative behaviour and were entirely unwilling to take no for an answer. it is the same people that were trailing me previously, as i have seen them following me around in the same boring, gas-guzzling muscle cars, which they think are "cool" and i'm supposed to give a fuck about.

i'm going to operate on the hypothesis that my entire disinterest in pride last weekend blew them off, which is partially the result of the condition i'm in. i have never had the slightest interest in gay men, and i would not be remotely interested in going to any sort of gay male sausage party. that's not my thing. i may have gone out dancing to a queer friendly venue full of people with mixed gender identities and sexual orientations if the situation were slightly different. i have gone to gay clubs sporadically in the past, but the logic has been that it's a safe place to dance where i won't get hit on by straight men.

i may be able to get out for the end of the summer, but my focus right now is domestic and will be for a while. with the opening of the new bridge, i won't have to find things to do after concerts anymore, either; i can just bike home. that doesn't mean i won't go to dance clubs at all, but it means i can be a little more selective and not need to find something to do from 12:00-6:00 in the morning, as i'm waiting for the tunnel bus to come back up.

bitch went all that way and didn't even get gifted a bagel.

she could've got a bun anywhere.

canada does not need fighter jets at all and should not purchase them at all. bombardier will not actually build anything if you write them yet another blank check. we don't need to funnel money back into europe, like we're reverting back to colonialism, and should strongly resist such a thing.

if our goal is defence and not offence, the money should be spent on norad, on the coast guard and, yes, on missile defense. boats that can accurately launch missiles large distances are more useful than fighter jets, for defense. we should also ensure we have the ability to manufacture drones effectively, but should not choose to actually manufacture them.

my politics in recent years are most closely aligned to the bloic quebecois and not to any of the major federal political parties. i have tended to endorse the green party, but i have rarely voted in recent elections.

i'll take the conservatives seriously on immigration when they acknowledge that jason kenney and stephen harper are the architects of the status quo, not justin trudeau.

the existing system has aided the conservatives at the expense of the liberals, who are losing safe seats due to high levels of immigration from conservative societies, which was kenney's plan from the start. our culture has shifted firmly to the right since 2005 as a consequence of all of this immigration from conservative cultures.

https://globalnews.ca/news/11234497/pierre-poilievre-canada-population-growth/

advocating for two states in 2025 is not a serious policy and is not serious politics and politicians that take unserious positions and advocate for unserious policies should be condemned for politicizing an issue that needs to be approached with great statesmanship.

ms. anand has demonstrated that she is strictly concerned about appealing to a small section of her constituency and not concerned about representing canada on the world stage. she's the wrong person for this important job.

this is horribly embarrassing.

are there sanctions against the terrorists in the palestinian authority and in hmas? the answer is no. canada only sees fits to sanction democratically elected politicians, not murderers and terrorists, and does so by cowardly falling in line behind neo-nazi parties in europe.

anita anand should immediately resign, or be immediately fired.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-sanctions-israeli-ministers-1.7556968

i was able to get some cleaning done this morning in the kitchen and in the bedroom. vacuuming the closet was a small but key thing to do, as i'll have to move everything on the floor into the closet before i can scrub it. getting the compost bags in the kitchen meant i was able to get the items in the fridge separated, which means i can get the kitchen cleaned up and set up. i was able to scrub out the freezer and put a bunch of the bulk items away, then get the green bin items and the garbage back in the freezer, while getting the cans and other recyclables in the blue and red bins, and separating the plastics bags into reusable and recycable, and then get everything off the counter and even do some dishes. i still need to scrub the bottom tray of the stove out so i can get some extra dishes in there, to get some more space in the cabinet. it's a necessarily slow process, especially considering that i need to spend extra time cleaning myself right now because these retards won't go away and fucking kill themselves off.

does canada have the lowest living standards in the world? clearly not, no.

does canada have the lowest living standards in the developed world? parts of it might, sure.

my plan to get my disposable income back on track is working out as intended.

my odsp is going up 2.8% on july 1st, which i won't get until my august 1st check. i think. that's what it was last year. that will amount to about $40.

conversely, as inflation has been hovering around 1% from june 2024 to may 2025, my rent increase on june 1, 2026 should only be about 1%, which will be about $12. the immediate $40/month bump will only be taken down by $10 or so on june 1st next year, and that $40/month will definitely help. a lot. when you're poor, small amounts make a big difference, they're not throwaway pocket change. 

i should be able to convince my doctor to fill out the disability forms for an extra $200/month, although i'm being cautious about this. this amount was supposed to be more widely distributed and for a much higher amount, but the randians in the liberal party got their hands on the legislation and largely ruined it. it's being approached the way it was intended to be by doctors, who are purposefully abusing it in order to react to the financial realities facing disability recipients in this country. we need the cash. that should be within a few months, max. the problem is that the forms are pretty intense, in terms of what you're asking a doctor to fill out. i don't have difficulty dressing myself or eating by myself, but i do have a lot of problems with ptsd-linked trauma, and i may be able to play that angle. am i being stalked or am i hearing things?

i don't think i've been drugged for a few weeks, and i haven't heard the male voices in that time period, although the female seems to still be here. i have blood recs and am waiting until i think they get me again before i go to the blood lab. the key indicator is stomach hair (i have never grown any hair on my stomach at all previously, before or after hormones, and it thankfully immediately clears up when their drugs metabolize. it's just about the most revoltingly disgusting thing imaginable, regardless of gender identity decisions. there is no possible explanation for this disgusting, unwanted change other than that i've been drugged with steroids or testosterone.), which i haven't noticed. as soon as i do notice stomach hair, i'm off to the blood lab to get the key evidence to convict these fucking losers with.

i could tell the last time i talked to him that he's having difficulty processing what i'm telling him, which i understand. i need the physical evidence to convince people. if we were to switch places, i'd be just as skeptical. the cops should be willing to investigate on a complaint and generate evidence, but a doctor needs to get the evidence and needs to be evidence based and should be skeptical about entertaining fantasies without evidence. the blood rec is extremely important, but i have to wait until they drug me again first, if i want to catch them, and they seem to understand what's going on and are waiting. if i can use that to get the doctor to fill out the disability forms, great. in the short run, it's in my self-interest to have him think i'm crazy.

that would also wipe out my remaining student loan, if he filled them out.

inflation should go up soon as well, as a result of the tariffs. i saw orange juice at the store yesterday for $12/jug, which is 100% inflation, due to tariffs. tropicana had better figure something out, because that's not going to sell. if the inflation rate for june 2025-may 2026 is in the 3-4% range overall, the increase on july 1, 2026 should be in the 5% range, which would be about $70. my odsp increases are not capped by legislation.

rent increases are capped by legislation; the rent inflation for 2027 will likely be capped at 2.5% by legislation, which would be about $30 on june 1, 2027. so that $70/month bump on aug 1, 2026 will only be taken down by $30 on june 1, 2027, leaving me with a remaining $40 + whatever the increase is on july 1, 2027, which should be 3%ish minimum and over $40 minimum, meaning i'll get it back almost immediately, and then some, at least another $10 and probably more than that.

however, i'm not going to predict inflation in 2027 at this point. i'll just point out that, year over year, rent goes up by 2.5% max, and odsp will go up by 2.5% min. the minimal inflation this year still resulted in a 2.8% boost. that means my disposable income increases every year i'm here, until i sign a new lease, which i hope ends up being for less (and will be if the tariffs devastate southern ontario).

a lot of disability advocates might not fully understand how powerful this is, but i do. it is true that it doesn't help right now and a lot of people need help right now, but it will balance out over time for people that can stabilize their housing. i've been explaining for years that the major problem is rent, and the solution is to lower rent or stabilize rent costs. the rest will work itself out, if you can actually get disabled people in stable housing and keep them there.

the assholes that bought my house to throw me out and got lucky with horrible and corrupt judges are facing a number of legal actions that they're going to need to pay for, as well. they are refusing to settle, which is just going to hike their costs in the long run. they think they got away with something, but they didn't, they just increased their own bills in the long run. i'll be better off in the new apartment in the long run, as i have more space and it's closer to downtown, which is where i want to be.

that said, the fact that i was paying $800/month in the previous apartment and might be looking at a monthly income of close to $1700/month by the fall is something to ponder. that $900/month for groceries, gear and concerts would have been great, if i wasn't dealing with asshole stalkers that need to go to jail and shithead landlords that need to pay me out. the best scenario is that i stay here and they pay me what it cost to get me here, and that could very well happen in the next few weeks, via one action or another.

there's a t2 in motion that asks for my rent back because they spent two years harassing me to leave; this amounts to about $20,000. the eviction is in appeal, and awaiting case management direction, which essentially has to determine if the possibility of compensation is substantive or not (and it clearly is), given that i'm not moving back into the old apartment. if i win this, they should be ordered to pay me what it cost to move, which would be about $6500, and possibly also pay me a year or two worth of the difference in rent, which would be upwards of another $10,000. there is a t5 coming in the next few days, which would be for the rent difference, and upwards of $10,000. altogether, it could run close to $50,000, but t probably won't. i should aim for $10,000 each, for a max of $30,000. 

yes, they deserve to be ordered to pay this kind of compensation, as the eviction had no legitimate legal basis to it, but was ordered by a retarded religious person operating strictly on jewish moral principles, which have no legal force in this country. i do not intend to allow myself to have some judeo-christian moral principles enforced on me, as i reject them thoroughly, and expect the court system to uphold my right to live in a christian-free society, in the end, even if i have to take it to a few levels up to get there. canada is a secular society and people have the right to live free of religion within it. i demand the courts uphold that right, and they will in the end.

i think i cleaned the physical external button and that it's aligned well, but the internal button itself is kind of rusted and not responding well to being pushed. i was not able to turn it on by pushing it in with a screwdriver.

something i noticed before it stopped working was that the machine would turn on when i plugged it in, without pushing the button, indicating it may have been stuck in the on mode and having difficulty turning off.

i could in theory use anything for the external button. it's just a piece of plastic; i could even rip it out and just turn it on with a screwdriver or a knife. however, if the internal button is broken, it needs to be replaced.

let me let it sit for a few hours, and i'll make the decision a little past sunrise. i will take the walmart bike out for a spin this afternoon to get a coffee machine of some sort, one way or another.

yeah, it's totally dried out and it's just not turning on at all.

i believe the problem is that the contact on the switch is broken. there are no wires or anything on this switch, it just works via pressure. have you ever taken apart a laptop? the switch is more like that - it's a certain distance away from a button on the inside of the coffee maker. if this comes out of alignment or gets bent at all, your machine won't turn back on. ever.

i see no signs of damage - nothing frayed, nothing split, nothing bent. there's some rust and some dirt, which i've tried to clean out, but i just don't think the button is engaging properly.

i'm going to try to get it back in line the best i think i can, put it back together and let it sit plugged into the wall for the night, in the hopes that the electricity "finds it's way through the circuit". we understand electricity pretty well...except the parts that are totally mysterious. there's still an aspect of magic to how these electrons really flow. electronic devices will do weird things. i've had devices "heal" by leaving them plugged in, which i can only explain by the idea that electrons like to find each other and like to solve puzzles, like lab rats.

if i can't turn it on in the morning, i'll have to buy a new one. unfortunately.

google tells me the answer to the question is "it depends".

all i can do is thoroughly dry it and test it. i don't see any circuit boards in the device. it looks pretty simple - just basic wiring. either the water is creating an electrical storm, which might be salvageable, or it corroded something, but i don't see any obvious damage.

i couldn't get the proprietary screw off the single serve coffee maker, but i was able to get the plate out of the way by removing the other screw and spinning it around. i didn't notice an obvious short, but i did learn that there was quite a bit of water in there. so, i'm going to leave the plate off for a bit and let it dry. i do remember washing the coffee machine out before i packed it, and it might have gotten a little too wet, although it was already demonstrating signs of a short (you had to fidget with the cord to get it to turn on).

i don't know the answer to this question: if an electronic circuit is water damaged, is drying it out enough to fix it, or is it permanently destroyed?

if i can't find a clear answer as to the cause, i should replace it, as it might be a fire hazard.

many weeks ago, i wondered out loud what exactly musk had on trump. he must have been blackmailing him with something or other in order to get such overwhelming compliance on issues of no importance, particularly the south african themed policies, which i would expect will now evaporate. everything else aside, the united states should be prioritizing a solid relationship with south africa, as a chinese military base in the horn of africa would be disastrous for long term american shipping interests, especially considering what's going on in yemen. right now, the chinese are winning this fight for global shipping supremacy, and the americans don't seem to even understand what's going on.

it is now clear that the answer is trump's presence in the epstein files, although it's not clear what the lingering concern about it is. he's already been convicted for soliciting a porn star, and he seems to have benefited from it, but he can't run for office again.

musk probably learned this from non-government sources. he probably doesn't have a mole in the fbi, he probably just knows people that know people that know that trump was there. 

but, now that it's out, musk probably has no further leverage over trump and this sad and twisted situation, which we haven't seen in the united states since the 19th century (when rockefellers and carnegies had immense power behind the scenes), is now over.

what trump is focusing on is trying to help the republicans win the 2026 election for california governor, and framing it as a choice between law and colloquial anarchy is the best chance he's got. it worked in the upper midwest after the shooting of george floyd.

if the republicans can swing california, they won't need to rely on dwindling support in other regions. 

the rule against collective punishment, like all rules, has limitations and exceptions.

israel is a collectivized culture. they don't live in kibbutzes right now, but they are a people with an extreme level of collective culture and identity. an attack on one jew is an attack on all jews, and you will get a response from all jews if you attack one jew. they don't operate on this level of rugged individualism inherent in the western european rule against collective punishment.

this is brutal and hard to interact with and vicious and terrible, but it's real life and the message it sends is crystal clear - if you attack any of us individually, we will respond collectively. that is the right message to send and the palestinians need to understand it and adjust to it. they need to be traumatized and frightened and abused to the point that they will not do this again.

there is only one way to end the impasse, and it is for hamas to immediately release the hostages. it must understand that this response is intentionally a collective response, and that it is correct that it is a collective response.

there are still no reports of actual famine; unlike hamas, israel is keeping it's hostages alive, if barely. two wrongs don't make a right, but they make a response in the real world, where right and wrong is not of much importance, in the face of years of bad behaviour by everybody that cannot be undone, but only be mitigated and moved on from.

it's hamas' choice how this ends.

It is misleading to suggest that these limited aid distributions are enough for more than two million Palestinians enduring Israel’s military siege and total blockade for months. Far more must be done to meet even the most basic humanitarian needs.

so, release the hostages, then.

it's a double standard.

i hope that the israeli government gets the aid (as meagre as it may be) from the boat that it correctly redirected to it's intended destination, or matches it with it's own contributions. the likelihood that there are weapons on board is vanishingly low, which is exactly why a thorough search is necessary.

martial law is very messy and difficult. it's not likely what trump wants.

trump is probably angling to swing votes in california, and it might work, but probably not enough. we've seen this a few times now in the united states and the result  is that voters choose order over chaos.

given that canada is going into recession, 2% of gdp on defence might not be much of an increase.

i oppose the idea in principle. we're not going to win a conventional war against the united states, we'll have to resort to guerrilla warfare. i'd rather see the money spent on housing. 

but, we don't really need to choose, and i'll wait for the details before i comment further.

i did my research and the simple reality is that it's cheaper at walmart, as always.

if i can fix the single serve black and decker (which operates like a normal coffee machine but dumps into a 20 ounce thermos. it's not one of those wasteful keurig catastrophes.), i'll just get a 12 cup machine for $20.

if i can't, i'm going to have to get both, and add on the single serve for an extra $20.

it's not that bad, it's just frustrating; the pot should cost $5. i really don't need a new machine.

as for the 10 cup pot, such a machine seem to be available anywhere anymore. i wonder if the machine was originally imported. that was also a dollar store purchase, in 2013ish. there are some higher end models that still use 10 cups, apparently, but nothing in the $15-30 price range. it's a slightly smaller pot and doesn't fit in the 12 cup machine.

i mentioned i got a lot of stuff done on saturday. i spent most of sunday, and have spent most of monday, sleeping. i've been hauling boxes for kms for weeks and need to catch up on the sleep and then i need to wake up and move on. getting a functional coffee machine going will help.

i didn't eat on saturday morning but, before i left, i made myself some peanut butter and jam slices on white bread (with apple slices on top). peanut butter has some health benefits, but is borderline junk food and not a part of my regular diet. i was concerned it would sit in the fridge and go rotten, so i just ate it quickly to ensure it got eaten. the worst thing i could do is throw out free food given to me by helpful people. i don't want to do that. it was not a sandwich, but three slices of white bread with pb, jam and slices of apple. this was enough for the day.

the first trip on saturday was to the old dollar store on wyandotte that i used to go to all of the time, as that's where i bought the coffee machine about 10 years ago. did they have the same model? they had no coffee machine at all, apparently.

i then walked through walkerville and down to the bike store in what used to be ford city. this bike store used to be on wyandotte, and is where i got my now demoed bike setup years ago, but moved several years ago. my old gt palomar had some adjustments done and a new seat put on it. it's a smooth ride, but it's twice as heavy as what i'm used to riding, so it needs a little care on the turns. this heavier bike also needs to build some momentum up before it can build any speed and can be slow trudging at times, but that's the point - it's a clunker with a sturdy frame and big wheels that is intended for pummeling over the harsh roads in detroit. my detroit bike has now been adjusted for safety and is ready to go, when i am.

i then took this bike out grocery shopping because it was ready to ride and my go to bike right now - the mongoose switchback - is behind a pile of stuff i need to move out of the way. i should get the walmart bike on tuesday, and i'm curious as to how it rides. i've never ridden this bike outside.

my first stop was the wholesale club on dougall, where i picked up some specific items. these items were in bulk, so they required some money down to get, but it will save me over the next few months an that's important because i'm dealing with a stark decrease in disposable income after the move (this was optionless. rent inflation happened.). i got those items home and then headed out to the mall at huron church and tecumseh, where i got some items at the bulk barn, got the mugs at the canadian tire, picked up a prescription at the shoppers and then did some grocery shopping at the food basics and the freshco. i got that home and picked up some remaining items at the closer food basics, then went back out to the walmart and the real superstore to get the lingering items. by then it was close to 11:00, so i got everything put away and made my adjusted ceasar salad. i didn't finish it before i passed out; i finished it when i woke up.

this is my normal ceasar salad recipe:

- 110 g of kale

- 2 big cloves of garlic (or 4 normal sized)

- one avocado

- one lime, segmented and cut in half

- one smallish orange, segmented and cut in half

- two slices of bacon, fried and crumbled

- 50 g of broccoli

- one tbsp of cumin powder

- one tbsp of paprika

- one tbsp of nutritional yeast

- one tbsp of raw, hulled sunflower seeds (on the side. i usually chomp it while preparing.)

- one tbsp of hulled hemp seeds

- one tbsp of dried oregano

- one tbsp of dried basil

- one tbsp of dried thyme

- one tbsp of cayenne pepper

- some black pepper

- roughly 150 ml of no name caesar dressing (or more). i am picky about it being no name, as it's a zestier caesar with less salt. most store bought caesar is too salty.

- two pieces of brown bread (100% whole wheat flour including the germ)

- one cup of fortified, sugar-free soy milk. i use natura nowadays.

- 10 chopped slices of medium cheddar cheese (that's how i do it, i don't measure it, and i prefer the black diamond brand, which is expensive but often on sale)

- one tbsp of olive oil margarine (i prefer the olivina)

- lots of frank's hot sauce

i put that down in front of me with a tall cup of 25% grapefruit and 75% orange juice (no added sugar, not from concentrate).

i made some substitutions to use the food bank items and make use of what i had:

- 110 g of kale -----> 250 g of romaine, as i got a big head of romaine. i generally very intentionally pick kale instead of romaine, but i will eat the romaine and say thank you.

- a handful of chopped fresh dill (i may keep this)

- 2 big cloves of garlic (or 4 normal sized)

- one avocado

- one lime, segmented and cut in half

- one smallish orange, segmented and cut in half

- two slices of bacon, fried and crumbled ------> two chopped slim jims, fried in olive oil margarine to be a little crispy. it was actually a pretty good sub.

- 50 g of broccoli

- one tbsp of cumin powder

- one tbsp of paprika

- one tbsp of nutritional yeast

- one tbsp of raw, hulled sunflower seeds (on the side. i usually chomp it while preparing.)

- one tbsp of hulled hemp seeds

- one tbsp of dried oregano

- one tbsp of dried basil

- one tbsp of dried thyme

- one tbsp of cayenne pepper

- some black pepper

- roughly 150 ml of no name caesar dressing (or more). i am picky about it being no name, as it's a zestier caesar with less salt. most store bought caesar is too salty.

- two pieces of brown bread (100% whole wheat flour including the germ) ----> one piece of chopped up onion rye, and the ends of two other pieces (which were toasted for onion bread)

- one cup of fortified, sugar-free soy milk. i use natura nowadays.

- 10 chopped slices of medium cheddar cheese (that's how i do it, i don't measure it, and i prefer the black diamond brand, which is expensive but often on sale)

- one tbsp of olive oil margarine (i prefer the olivina)

- lots of frank's hot sauce

i served this to myself with my glass of grapefruit-orange juice, and two pieces of onion bread, which were the onion rye toasted, with melted olive oil margarine, and melted monterrey jack (in the microwave) and then doused with onion salt and frank's.

the romaine is crunchier (and far less nutritious) than the kale, but it also tasted more "normal" in terms of traditional casear. the onion rye is closer to a crouton than crumbled brown bread, and is actually even a little bit stale. croutons have become their own thing, but it's supposed to be stale bread. the slim jims, when fried in olive oil until they were crispy, really didn't taste much different than bacon. the dill was a good addition. i don't plan an adjusting my caesar salad permanently, but i am going to make the same thing again today, as i didn't get a chance to eat this morning.

i did, however, finish up my peanut butter yesterday afternoon (after sleeping all morning) by having three more open slices of white bread with peanut butter and jam. i skipped the apple; i should have it now. i then slept all afternoon.

i meant to spend yesterday night cleaning my bedroom up and moving items into it, but instead spent all night cleaning myself up by repeatedly washing my face. i had no choice but to deal with a build up of caked on filth as i was moving, and didn't have time to wash. i'm feeling and looking better, but i'm still in need of a long shower.

i bought some compostable bags when i was out, which will help me in cleaning up my fridge and making it normal.

i'll need to take another trip out on tuesday, but the main focus now for the next few weeks is going to be on cleaning the apartment and on sorting through email and catching up on things i put aside until i was done moving.

right now, let me see if i can get that coffee maker open.

my 10 cup coffee pot is 1.25 L, which is much larger than the 5 cup machines being sold, as it should be, even though it looks about that size.

the 5 cup machines are actually about the same size as the single serve, and that is a better choice because it's filterless.

i'm in a frustrating scenario with my coffee situation. i drink a lot of coffee.

i have a 12 cup coffee maker with a broken pot. i have a 10 cup coffee pot without a machine. i have a 20 ounce single serve coffee maker, which is what i've been using for the last several years, that seems to have a short in it, but which i can't get the back off of due to a proprietary screw. i can't even figure out what it is. i'm going to try to jimmy it with a flathead and i'll make sure to replace it with a normal screw.

i have more counter space here and would like to have a single serve and a pot-brewing option, so i can decide if i want a pot or a cup. if i can fix the single serve and get a coffee pot for $5, it should be a simple fix, but a replacement 12 cup pot is going to cost me more than a new coffee machine, which i don't want to pay for. i have a coffee machine that works!

the basement apartment i recently moved out of had extremely hard ceramic tiled floors that would break anything that fell on them and got freezing cold in the winter. i had something like ten mugs when i moved in there; i had two when i moved out, and they're both small. i broke the last one about a year ago and i've been using soup bowls for coffee cups for the last year as a result, as i couldn't find big enough coffee cups online for a reasonable price that were made out of materials that i could be confident didn't have lead (and could take hot coffee without killing me or making me retarded). it's also the reason the pot is broken. the floors here should be more forgiving.

i bought two 21 ounce (621 ml) cups yesterday, which cost me about $13. these are stoneware ceramic made out of black clay, without any sort of paint or inlays and with visible air holes from the baking process. those vintage dishes your grandmother loves are deadly and should be smashed up and sent to the hazardous materials part of the landfill. 21 ounces is as big as you'll find for a reasonable price that is made out of a safe material that hasn't been glazed. it's sort of baffling that you'll find coffee mugs made out of items you can't even microwave. that said, i'm also going to get some 26 ounce glass beer mugs at the dollar store in the next few days with the intent of using them for coffee. the four mugs should be enough and will give me the option of more or less soy in the coffee.

if i have to buy a new machine, the cheapest option is a 12 cup from walmart, rather than another single serve. so i hope i can fix the one i have, too. that would cut it down to one rather than two machines.

what's my take on the hockey player trial in london?

the issue at trial is really not what a lot of people want to frame it as, it's strictly to determine whether she was or was not too drunk to consent. if she was sober enough to consent, there's no crime; if she was too drunk to consent, it's gang rape.  you have to be very careful when having sex with drunk people.

as it is, there's apparently a video where she consents, which i find to be very strange. it indicates that there's no mens rea on behalf of the players, as they asked the woman to film herself consenting. however, it also forms the key and really only relevant piece of evidence. i have not seen this video, but it should be relatively obvious to determine if she was able to consent by analyzing how drunk she is in it. if there's any slurred speech or lack of coordination at all, i would find them guilty, but if she consents by film and appears to a reasonable person to be sober enough to do so, then there's no crime to analyze, there's just somebody that made a decision they regret and are embarrassed about making and are looking to evade responsibility for.

the tommy douglas plan, which many canadians erroneously believe was the forerunner to our single payer system, was a way for farmers in saskatchewan to lower insurance premiums by buying insurance together in bulk. the premier wrote the law to allow for farmers to buy the bulk insurance, collectively. they still had to pay insurance packages and still paid premiums, but those premiums were lowered by the collectivized insurance, which allowed them to socialize risk. this was modeled on the canadian wheat board. 

this is also how obamacare works.

it's not single payer at all.

single payer was brought in by the liberals, and modeled after the nhs in britain. it was supported by all three of the major parties in a minority government. most of the legislation was written by paul martin, sr.

many years later, pierre trudeau packaged a series of scattered laws together into the canada health act and gave it quasi-constitutional status, introducing a series of barriers that would make it extremely difficult to dismantle.

greta thunberg,

you have to let the israelis check your boat for weapons if you want to get to gaza. there is no possibility they will let you dock.

do you understand why?

go back to south africa, elon.

the more that musk dominates the news cycle, the less reporting is done on something worthwhile, and that's exactly what the white house wants. 

i don't care about musk-trump gossip and want it out of my newsfeed. it's of no importance. stop clicking on those links.

we need to work together if we want to build a new society, and that's not something to give up on. we have to keep trying.

but, if we were naive then - if we didn't realize that cell phones and social media were state surveillance tools - we cannot still be now. we have to learn from that mistake and put our phones down.

occupy seemed like something different than your average protest. it's not that i ever thought that going out and marching and screaming would really change anything directly, and more that i was looking for a group of like-minded people to build parallel institutions with. you will get nothing done working in the system of government, because it's designed to prevent things from getting done. it would be great if it was that easy, but the reality is that it's impossible to implement change from the bottom up in a representative, parliamentary democracy; once in a while, we get lucky and have enlightened members of the upper class implement good ideas from the top down (which, contrary to the popular myth, is how the liberals wrote the health care system in canada, which is based on the nhs, not on the system advanced by tommy douglas in saskatchewan, which was not single payer but actually virtually identical to the affordable care act in the united states). it's just not a true form of democracy. you pick which oligarch you'd prefer, and they make decisions from the top down.

if you want to build parallel structures and try to exist outside of the status quo, you can't do it yourself. you need solidarity. that's what i was excited about with occupy.

but it was a setup run by the cops. i was in rooms at points with 20-25 people, and i was the only person in it that wasn't a cop. there wasn't one or two informants. the whole thing was orchestrated by squads of officers trying to get people to break laws.

i didn't do anything stupid, because i'm not a stupid person, but i was asked to on multiple occasions. for example, i have a pretty clear memory of a night where i was coerced into keying up a guy's car because he was accused of sexually harassing an employee, without any due process, which would have been an overwhelmingly retarded thing to do. it was a cop directing this, trying to get activists arrested.

i did end up on some kind of list and have been under overwhelming surveillance ever since.

if you're in california, you should stay away from these immigration protests. they're being designed by the police to act as a mechanism to implement facial recognition software, and once you get on one of these lists you will never get off of it. trust me.

we live in the era of orwell, and the technology has just gotten more advanced in the 15 years since occupy, which was a giant entrapment operation conducted by the police.

i noticed something interesting today: not one but several large apartment buildings up for sale in the downtown core. it would seem to suggest an expectation that the property won't be able to attract desirable tenants in the near future, which is an expectation of an extreme downturn. it's essentially capital flight.

this is actually what i want, as an artist. windsor/detroit should have some level of manufacturing, but it should also be cheap. our artist haven was being taken away from us by capital via inflation. we want it back.

if these units have recently been renovated, that's a net positive for any artistic community that sets up in them at affordable rents.

i got lots of stuff done today.

i'm currently enjoying a modified ceasar salad recipe and i want to eat a little before i post an update on it.

i also switched from teksavvy to oxio yesterday. it seems to be fine.

i don't play video games or stream large videos to big tv sets. my bandwidth and speed requirements are pretty minimal by today's standards; i was paying over $40/month for a grandfathered 6/2 mbps package that belonged in the 00s. it was already slow when i bought it in 2013 (i believe it was $20/month when i signed up) and i've actually been trying to downgrade ever since as i don't even need that, and they keep jacking up the price and offering me nothing in return. instead of offering lighter packages at lower costs, teksavvy has been trying to coerce me into upgrading by hiking the cost, to make the other packages look more attractive. it's been pissing me off for a while, but there just hasn't been a better choice. any switch would have just cost me more. however, it was also clear that some of the other services in the area were coming down in price, including the fiber optic, which was falling into the $50-60 range. i knew it wouldn't be long before falling prices on much faster services converged into this grandfathered teksavvy package that was increasing in price. 

i paid my internet bill on april 1st because i hoped to get into a new apartment asap and then didn't use the internet package at all from april 9th-may 9th, which is a full month on the calendar. i contacted teksavvy to ask for a refund and was baffled by their response, which is that it's not in the contract. did teksavvy get bought by rogers? what the fuck was this? i asked for some basic customer service in not being billed for a service i didn't use, and the response was some contract law bullshit, like i was talking to bell, or woke up in the united states. a reasonable person would not charge somebody for a service they didn't use. so, i decided that was it, i was moving out of the grandfathered package.

the cheapest oxio package is 15/2 mbps, with no bandwidth limits, for $25, which is faster and has more bandwidth and costs less. i'll use something like 5 gb in an average month, and maybe 50 gb on the heaviest months. i had no use for the 400 gb cap teksavvy was selling, but no cap at all just means i don't have to worry about it.

i have tested it at speedtest and i am getting the 15, although my network is currently throttling that on my end. my router is set to 10 mbps mode and i'm using a switched usb 2.0 hub to accept an rj-45 to usb input and that maxes out under 9 mbps. i can set the router to 100 mbps mode and i have a usb 3.0 hub for this chromebook, but it's not installed because i was worried (and am still worried) about stalkers trying to break into my network and the older technology made it harder to access my terminals at a reasonable speed. i don't know if the new modem will make any difference or not.

i'm going to need to spend a fair amount of time fixing hardware, as the idiots broke a lot of my gear in an attempt to hack or overclock legacy hardware that they expected to be faster and more modern and just isn't. a basic disconnect is that these retards seem to think i'm some kind of upper class rich kid with brand new fancy shiny toys to steal, when the reality is that i'm a disabled person that grew up in a ghetto and has very carefully assembled a collection of inexpensive but broadly functional gear through budget purchases over a long time frame, mostly second hand or discounted. and, if the retards would have just gotten a job at walmart some time in 2023, they'd have saved up enough money to get a much nicer studio than i have by now. but that's not as much fun as harassing a disabled trans person, and pretending they're rich, because you're fucking stupid.

i've spent the last few days catching up on sleep and cleaning myself up, as i got pretty gross from weeks worth of walking through downtown in dirty clothes and engaging in minimal showering, as what's the point? i haven't been able to get out to get the extra ingredients for my salads, yet. i should be able to get out tomorrow, after i pick up my detroit bike, which is in for a tune up. i will be having salads every day for the next week or so.

i've decided to clean up the miele and try to reassemble it myself before i take it in. the 90s palomar will be ready tomorrow. the walmart bike (which is a very light (the lightest of the four) 700c hybrid) will be sometime next week. i'm going to wait until august before i bring the vintage mongoose switchback, which is a very light mountain bike or slightly thick hybrid, in. the miele is a more normal sized hybrid and the palomar is a low riding, heavy set mountain bike for cruising at moderate to low speeds through the rough backstreets of detroit.

all of the actual moving is done now, so i should get a good grocery run in tomorrow that will assemble a pantry of basic items, including things like spices and condiments, and also builds up cleaning and hygiene products. that is the basket of items that requires a bit of money upfront to build; the actual food is $5-10/day on top of that, and i can mostly get it at one of the stores in walking distance as i need it. the run tomorrow is going to take me out to get stuff at the wholesale store in bulk (it's cheaper in the long run), at the walmart, at the bulk barn, etc. once that is done, it's done, and it won't need to be done again until next month. it will slowly build on a monthly schedule, on a needs basis, as it comes up. as it is, i've had to improvise a little outside of my schedule. thursday was the cucumber soup and i stopped with that. friday morning, i had my chicken meal, which was the following, and was actually also quite filling:

these items were served together:

- one of those sidekick instant meal packages. it's labelled as a side dish and said to be chicken flavoured, and it had a chicken soup with bigger noodles feel, but was otherwise not particularly chickeny. i would never normally buy or eat something like this at all. i do appreciate the free food. i ate it plain because i was hungry, but if i made it again i would put some cheese and nutritional yeast on it, to give it some value as food.

- i made chicken salad melts with a can of flaked chicken (like a can of tuna) and the last two pieces of brown bread from last month. again, i'd never buy this. i made the chicken salad with caesar dressing instead of mayo, nutritional yeast, paprika, frank's, fresh dill and pepper. the brown bread had some olive oil margarine spread on it, then the chicken salad, and then some monterrey jack. that went in the microwave for 44 seconds.

i had a bowl of chicken soup, separate, with frank's, yeast and old cheddar, melted. they didn't have any medium and the old was on sale, so i got the old thinking it would be fine for this cycle. it was ok melted in the soup like this, but it just reminded me why i buy the medium. the old is way too powerful for me, personally; i much prefer the medium. i can't use this old cheese in salads. i'll have to put it aside for soups and other cooking. that's ok. there's some broccoli soup coming, and it should use most of it.

i also had a margarined dinner roll with the chicken soup, so this was actually a pretty big meal, and i more or less passed out for the night when it was done. all of these items - the sidekick pasta, the canned chicken, the brown bread, the chicken soup, the dinner roll and even the canola margarine were food bank items, and the only thing in that list that i'd ever buy in a store is the brown bread. the other items - the caesar, the yeast, the paprika, the frank's, the dill, the pepper, the cheese, the olive oil margarine - were items i bought myself in the store to supplement, and they added the nutrition and the flavour to the basic food items provided. so you see how i'm doing this. as mentioned, i'm hoping that my adventures in food bank food preparation isn't too prolonged, but i'll make that choice on a month to month basis.

i am actually a fan of dinner rolls, even if i never buy them, but they don't last long and i realized that these ones were already starting to crust up, so i ate the rest of them up quickly this afternoon. four of them were peanut butter and jam dinner rolls (i also don't expect the pb to last too long) and the fifth was another monterrey jack melt in the microwave, the pb, jam and rolls were all donated, whereas i bought the cheese on sale the other day. the monterrey jack was a good idea, jessica, with all this extra donated bread. i've got two more loafs in there - the onion rye and a loaf of white bread. i actually would buy rye from time to time (i tend to get pumpernickel when i get it), but i never buy white bread. i appreciate the free food and will happily consume it. really. i just need to make sense of how. the onion rye will be good for sides of garlic bread with the salads this week, and i'll figure out where to go with the white after that. there's still pb & jam left. and apples. that's probably the answer.

i'm currently not very hungry so that might do me until i get the salads tonight, but if i do get something later then it will be round one of the mashed red potato poutine.

what i'm doing tonight is getting a basic grocery list done and starting to clean a little. once i get the basic pile of pantry item groceries in tomorrow, i will need to shift to a day/night split schedule that requires tending to my email, finishing updating my address everywhere and then getting to work on getting some legal stuff done during the day, and then working on cleaning in here and setting the apartment up. it's currently a giant pile of stuff scattered everywhere. first, i have to thoroughly clean all of the floors, then i can start putting item in place.

i think that public prayer can and should be banned in public spaces that are intended to be inclusive, as it's a breach of secularism. this wouldn't be a total ban. they would be allowed to pray in their church parking lot, for example, but not in public parks or other publicly owned areas, as the expression of religion in these publicly owned spaces excludes those that don't share those beliefs, and prevents them from using those spaces.

https://www.montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/article627929.html

it has explicitly been deemed unconstitutional by the supreme court to open a public assembly with a prayer in canada, but that ruling has been widely ignored, especially in rural areas.

https://www.bchumanist.ca/eight_alberta_municipalities_council_meetings_with_unconstitutional_prayers

this is a good idea.

we've had similar rulings in canada, and our parliament has also ignored them. canada's legal concept of secularism draws more from the french revolution than the american revolution (which we were literally on the opposite side of) and developed a lot later, mostly since the 1950s, and is consequently actually a lot more aggressive in it's separation wall, but our parliaments and city halls have tried to resist it.

https://ffrf.org/news/releases/ffrf-why-we-are-so-over-that-unconstitutional-day-of-prayer/

there should not be any prayer being done in the house at all, as it's a clear breach of the separation of church and state.

all prayer in any legislative assembly should be banned outright, and anybody seeking to pray in a public assembly in any way at all should be immediately expelled and permanently banned.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/06/us-house-prayer-republican-mary-miller

activist?

he was a wanted terrorist and a convicted murderer. he deserved to die.

the idea that canadian intelligence tied india to the killing is a lie that trudeau told the world, because he was butthurt about being snubbed about a trade deal. carney should actually come out and clarify that canadian intelligence did not tie india to the assassination, and the previous prime minister concocted a horrendous lie for political purposes, to appease a political constituency.

however, given that the canadian government has refused to cooperate in arresting these people, the indian government would be justified in acting within our borders, if it did, which it probably didn't. when a state refuses to abide by it's international obligations, it opens itself up to reprisals.

i would hope that canada is taking steps to correct and undo the damage that trudeau created with his dishonest politicized foreign policy decisions and his naive perception of sikh terrorism.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/06/canada-prime-minister-g7-invitation-modi

however, the bill to lift inter-provincial trade barriers is likely a mistake and should be slowed down, amended or blocked by the senate.

this is a change that will have winners and losers and is being rushed through without study and requires some sober second thought.

it is extremely important that canada maintain good relations with india. trudeau's butthurt response to not getting a trade deal with india was childish, immature and stupid. carney is right on this.

i also support the parliament sitting through the summer. these kids blew the semester; they should go to summer school to catch up.

almost all trade in and out of china goes through the malacca strait in indonesia. if india and the us could together blockade that narrow strait, the chinese would be fucked.

for that reason - and this isn't the only issue but it's currently the most important one - the chinese are trying to smash their way through myanmar to the indian ocean to build a port, much as the russians were trying to do in afghanistan during the great game. they face overt and covert opposition to this by british, american and indian forces operating in myanmar. british infiltration of myanmar is particularly profound and particularly deep; this is the most recent iteration of a conflict between the british and chinese that goes back to the 1700s, and predates the revolutionary war in the united states.

it's not well known that there were indian regiments in the british garrison during the american revolutionary war - that indian troops fought on the side of the british. this is in addition to the native american forces.

however, that isn't what the order is about. the order is about overstays. it is reasonable for the americans to send a strong message to countries that don't respect their international agreements. canada also has a serious overstay problem that needs to be addressed, but i wouldn't propose a total ban, as that is neither fair to those that do follow the rules, nor is it really in our self-interest.

it's not a policy i would support, advance or implement if i were running the world (i would rather focus on foreign aid work and nation-building, which was working in afghanistan before dhimmi joe pulled out), but i can understand why some of the countries are on the recently published travel ban list. i couldn't understand why some of the others were. i understand that burma is undergoing some political instability, and that this is tied into a geopolitical struggle between the us-uk and the chinese (people forget that burma (myanmar) was the easternmost section of the british india, and split off because it was buddhist (while pakistan and bangladesh were split off due to being muslim)), but i have never heard of any kind of burmese instability exported to the west in any way.

so i looked up the order.

(i)   According to the Overstay Report, Burma had a B‑1/B-2 visa overstay rate of 27.07 percent and an F, M, and J visa overstay rate of 42.17 percent.  Additionally, Burma has historically not cooperated with the United States to accept back their removable nationals.

(ii)  The entry into the United States of nationals of Burma as immigrants and nonimmigrants is hereby fully suspended.

well, presuming that is actually true, it's a reasonable justification.

i actually think that the term "artificial intelligence" should be disassociated from the technology being marketed by it, as it is not intelligence in any way, it's rote memorization. it's not ai in any way, it's a database query.

i took courses on this at university. the term is entrenched, but it's a misnomer, and there should be an aggressive attempt to correct it. call it what it is - a database search. it's all it is. you're just querying a database for a search term, with a more user friendly interface than an oracle query. at it's backend, it's just oracle. it's just access.

if people were describing this correctly, it would eliminate a lot of the ignorance around it. no, chatgpt is not going to conquer the universe, unless somebody asks it to, and then it's a tool being used by an insane human, and you blame the human not the tool. we could get better legislation and have a better discourse if we better understood what it actually is.

it's just a search engine. it's not some sentient computer program that acts independently or makes it's own decisions.

why is biden continuing to take the fall for losing an election he was not a candidate in?

how about this: it is unambiguously obvious that he would have dramatically outperformed harris, and i think he might have even won.

go blame the person that lost for losing.

i'll again note the high vitamin content in the nooch + biobest + avocado + beet mix. this is potent for b vitamins. you could add paprika, cumin and oregano for iron and betacarotene, but i did not.

how's my soup?

as expected, the yeast and frank's and dill really balance out the bitterness of the first bowl. further, i added the beet because i realized that my gazpacho was really more of a borscht.

this is consequently a spicy borscht gazpacho.

and i have to say it's pretty good - if you like bitter and sour and spicy together. a lot of people wouldn't like this.

it's been several years since i've been able to open the window when it's raining. the previous apartment had heavy smokers at both side windows and a functional litter box outside the bathroom window. here, i'm on the third floor, but it's a high third floor, so it seems more like a 5th floor.

the bedroom is facing southeast; tonight the rain is blowing in from the northwest, so there's no threat of splash, it's just fresh air.

it's quite nice.

round two of my hacked cucumber soup recipe, which is still evolving:

=====

- melt three tsps of olive oil margarine in a large sauce pan

- dump a bulb (yes a bulb) of garlic and a handful of diced dill in and cook for 3 minutes, until a little brown

- add a lime that's been segmented and with each segment cut in half and a dash of vinegar. cook for one minute.

- add 450 ml of vegetable broth (a half carton), diced cucumbers (oops. forget to mention this.), one diced beet, one tbsp of cayenne and some pepper. i avoided salt. let it come to a simmer and simmer for five minutes

- dump about 375 g of yogurt into a large soup bowl. i used biobest probiotic because it has fortified vitamins and that's no longer mandatory in canada.

- dump the saucepan of simmering soup on the yogurt, which will cool it down

- add an avocado (diced)

- add a tbsp of hemp seeds

- add a handful of fresh dill, cut and sprinkled

- add about 100 g of grated cheddar cheese, or more. tonight, i used a bit of medium cheddar i had left, and about 100 g of monterey jack that i bought on sale

- add a tbsp of nutritional yeast 

- add some frank's hot sauce

i am serving with two slices of buttered (olive oil margarine) toast (they gave me onion rye at the food bank, so i toasted it with olive oil, monterey jack and garlic salt), a second avocado and an apple.

how is it?

the movers finally came today to finish the move. there's one thing left in storage: my old demoed bike, the miele. i need to get that out tomorrow. the 90s palomar and the walmart bike are both in the bike shop. my couch is stuck in the hall and i'll need to get the guy across the hall to open the door so i can tilt it into the apartment.

monday morning, i had the can of soup variation again, but it was chicken soup this time. chicken soup is excellent with melted cheese and hot sauce. tuesday morning, it was more vegetable soup. in both cases, they were served with toast with margarine, and an avocado, but i only had one orange left, so i had two avocadoes with the last one. i approach the soup via the least-expired-first algorithm, although i actually now have too much canned soup, none of which is expired, and which is now strictly backup, in case i need it - it's security. thank you to the food bank downtown, and also to the goodfellows of windsor, who have a highly efficient process in motoon. the goodfellows seem to actually buy items, and present a static basket, while the food bank redistributes whatever it gets, which means the basket is entirely random. i will be developing further recipes over june, as i once again have an assortment of items i would not normally buy, as i try to ease back into my normal eating cycle for july. i'm in a hope-that-happens mindset right now.

i then had the food bank lunch on tuesday afternoon, because i had to eat the pizza immediately, and donuts don't last long in the fridge before they get goopy, and because why did i get an energy drink? i spent the rest of the night snacking on some of the less nutritious items they gave me, including a kit kat bar (no nutritional value, but yummy) and another box of goldchip crackers (high in iron and fortified b vitamins). that gets all of the junk food eaten right away, and i've done a lot of exercise recently, so i was in fact in need of just raw energy like pizza, donuts, energy drinks, chocolate bars and goldchip crackers.

i had two apples this morning before i went out, and bought some mountain dew mid-walk, because it was beautifully hot and humid and you gotta stay hydrated. the travel blog will resume soon, and i should make some attempt to narrate this horrendous move, which required about 400 km of walking with a shopping cart back and forth from storage to my new apartment. let me remind myself about that, in case it takes a while to get the writing done.

i made a flowchart of meals last night for the next week that prioritize eating old items first, and try to ease myself back into my meal schedule by mid month. i have eaten double modified day ones (cereal/fruit/guac), day twos (quinoa/ice cream) and day sevens (eggs). there will be a catchup day this week where i eat the items i passed over from those three days. i will also need to finish round two for the cucumber soup, make two batches of broccoli soup, have two modified ceasar salads (day six pt 2), two modified garden salads (day three), two modified nacho plates (day six pt 1), two modified pasta plates (day five) and eventually two tomato sandwiches (day four), before starting the next cycle at two more ceasar salads and two more eggs days, as that will be the items remaining.

i also got a big bag of apples that i will eat casually and a big bag of red potatoes that i've decided to make a lot of gravy and/or sour cream/bacon/chives mixes with. smashed red potato poutine is a little unconventional but is going to end up being the basic idea. i did some research into how to eat this type of potatoes, and they are generally baked with added spices, which....i would eat such a thing and say thank you if you put such a thing in front of me, but i would not make it myself. i would argue this meal is a little too dry. i would probably douse them in ketchup or vinegar (not salt. i have grown somewhat averse to salt.), which would ruin them. it's just not my kind of meal. you have to boil these potatoes before you bake them, and i'm highly unlikely to bother baking them at all - i'll just boil them and smash them and make some kind of gravy/cheese/sour cream/bacon/chives side out of them. i'll be creative in how i make these sides as it comes up.

tonight, i made a quick run to the store before it closed to get the missing cucumber soup ingredients, but forgot to get beets and found out that they didn't have any nutritional yeast. i was able to order beets & yeast over uber, which was somewhat of a challenge for the driver, but he got it done. so, let me get to work on a redesigned cucumber soup recipe for the night, before i get to the caesar salad tomorrow.

i'm actually kind of hungry tonight, and that makes perfect sense, so i may eat a little more than the cucumber soup. as mentioned, i have a surplus of canned and other pantry items, some of which is a part of my normal diet (if slightly modified, like a variety of different types of pasta i would not normally buy) and some of which is not. i will be prioritizing eating some of the items i wouldn't normally eat as ways to supplement my regular diet plan but drag it out a little. days with two or three meals will be split into two or three days to drag it out a little by making use of the items i wouldn't normally purchase as a part of my diet. that will ensure i'm getting all of the vitamins i normally get, but over a longer period than normal, by subbing in a lot of the raw carbs and sugar in the food bank items.

night one, then, is the redesgined cucumber soup; i may also make a second chicken themed dish that combines a few of the gifts that are unusual in my diet. i like chicken, but i don't eat it regularly.

can we stop pretending that the white house is in any way serious in it's demands now?

the tariffs are a way for the treasury to raise money, and trump is dumb enough that he thinks it will get america out of debt and let him cut taxes for the ultra rich even further. trump doesn't think rich individuals should pay taxes at all, he thinks that government revenue should be generated by taxing imports.

there is consequently nothing we can do to change the policy except wait for americans to understand it and react to it.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/trump-to-double-steel-and-aluminum-tariffs-on-canada-white-house-press-secretary

i want you to make this youtube video for me.

- find a high class asian chef. not specifically chinese - maybe thai or vietnamese.

- find a bourgeois french chef.

- get them together, and ask them to make soup together

- but tell the asian guy he's making hot and sour soup and the french guy he's make french onion soup

- have them fight over the ingredients, and how to make the soup

for my amusement solely, the asian guy should be dressed like commander kor from the original star trek series and the french guy should be dressed like the swedish chef from the muppet show. make no attempt to explain why if they ask, and immediately replace them if they resist.

porn stars have sex for money.

i don't know where the intellectual disconnect is.

alexander may have conquered the world in the name of the hellenes, but he was no hellene himself!

food bank lunch:

- stale little ceasars (in case you needed proof that they don't make their pizza on demand. there was a stack of them that came in around noon. must have been a slow day yesterday.)

- peanut butter for dipping sauce (i never eat peanut butter)

- two tim horton's donuts (because it's still canada)

- with an energy drink

i used to volunteer at food not bombs and while they would not have take this stuff because it's not vegan they would have been happy that it got donated rather than thrown out. let's have a round of applause for little ceasars (for once. this is south detroit.) and for tim horton's for getting their stale products eaten rather than destroyed.

no onions today, but some more cucumbers, so i need to eat up that yogurt in round two.

i don't normally eat this time of day, but the pizza couldn't sit, so i might not eat again until tomorrow night.

the narrative on the qatar plane is really not correct.

there's really nothing wrong with the president taking gifts, but he's obligated to take those gifts on behalf of the office. it would be unheard of and incorrect and a breakdown in the rule of law if trump is allowed to take this plane with him. the plane has to become property of the white house, for use by the next president.

that's not negotiable.

i expect that will be actually happens.

these changes work something like this.

- cops break law

- court refuses to enforce law

- precedent is set

- government is informed of change in precedent

- law is written to reflect change of precedent

yes, it's supposed to work the other way around. it never does.

it's not surprising that the liberals are using the fentanyl nonsense as an excuse to clamp down on civil liberties, as though trump gives a fuck. where did that come from?

the answer is the rcmp, and the military, and the courts. you have to understand that these kinds of things work backwards, in real life - the enforcement agencies change the laws first, often via legal precedent, and then the parliament legislates existing precedent.

the reality is that our courts our exceedingly powerful in canada, and that was fine when the judges were picked properly, but judicial nominations since about 2006 in this country have been broken and in recent years it's really made a difference, in the form of terrible precedent leading to horrible law.

this will generate a backlash, but most of the backlash doesn't get it. it already happened, and nobody told us. now, they're updating the law, formally, as an afterthought.

canadian border guards need to more aggressively enforce stricter penalties on people bringing guns into canada, and i don't see that in the bill.

john is donald trump's middle name.

that's what they call him, donald 'john' trump.

obviously, the truth is that trump is a robot clone. that's why you can shoot at him without killing him, and why his wife is mia.

mia? no, i never slept with mia. promise.

i mean, like there's some mystery about why melania's pissed off. he was convicted of soliciting (does the case use a different word?) a porn star when she was fucking pregnant. the only mystery is why she's still around at all.

i had some vegetable alphabet soup this morning, with some toast, an avocado and an orange. i put the cucumber off until i could get some dill and yeast but didn't get a chance to get out today. so i made the cucumber soup without the dill.

i am not very nice to cucumbers. they gave me red peppers, which are good, and cherry tomatoes, which are ok, but the onions and cucumbers are (with lettuce) the triad of useless vegetables. you'd might as well just drink a glass of water. that's why i'm making soup out of it.

i enjoy pickles, but they're not really food.

here's my hacked recipe

=====

- melt three tsps of olive oil margarine in a large sauce pan

- dump a bulb (yes a bulb) of garlic in and cook for 3 minutes, until a little brown

- add a lime that's been segmented and with each segment cut in half and a dash of vinegar. cook for one minute/

- add 450 ml of vegetable broth (a half carton), one tbsp of cayenne and some pepper. i avoided salt. let it come to a simmer and simmer for five minutes

- dump about 375 g of yogurt into a large soup bowl. i used biobest probiotic because it has fortified vitamins and that's no longer mandatory in canada.

- the recipes call for a blending step. i would avoid this. i tried it and it wasn't pleasant.

- i would just dump the saucepan of simmerimg soup on the yogurt, which will cool it down

- add an avocado (diced)

- add hemp seeds

- add dill, if you have some

- add about 100 g of grated cheddar cheese, or more

- i would suggest adding a tbsp of nutritional yeast and some frank's, as well

i am serving with two slices of buttered (olive oil margarine) toast, a second avocado and an orange.

if i do this again, i'll avoid the blender and add the extra ingredients. adding the ingredients converts these useless cucumbers into something worth eating.

how is it?

it's bitter, but it's supposed to be. the missed ingredients could tone it down a little.

yes, this awful weather in eastern north america is climate change.

meteorologists are confused by what they're seeing - the weather is moving the wrong way. the blocking pattern isn't so weird, but the idea of the atlantic dominating weather in the midwest is unheard of.

...except that it isn't. this has been increasing for years. i posted quite a bit about this a few years ago, when it was the hot atlantic sea surface temperatures that were extending the summer here. well, it works both ways, is what we're learning.

if i were in boston or new york, or the swamps of the potomac, i'd be very worried, as it signals you're about to fall into the sea. detroit is becoming a maritime climate, and the boswas seaboard is tipping into domed status.

but what is even more concerning is that we're watching the gulf stream collapse. this was one of the most publicized outcomes of climate change, the collapse of the gulf stream. all of the factors surrounding climate change will lead to a hotter atlantic, and don't let people trick you into thinking otherwise, but these things are cyclical, and they oscillate. this will cycle out and  come back, but it's something new and different, and the patterns are legitimately novel.

this is something that has changed.

- if it made sense to build an oil pipeline to nova scotia, the private sector would do it. they aren't because it doesn't. this is an expensive boondoggle that the government should avoid.

- i actually like doug ford's tunnel idea in principle, but i want to see a serious feasibility study. the basic observation, that the 401 is brutally congested, is correct. you don't want to see more giant highways built further north. a better idea may be to try to reduce the amount of traffic moving by truck and increase the amount moving by electrified rail, and if they do end up digging, they might want to consider expanding the subway network under the 401 and pairing it with freight traffic moving parcels.

new swans out today and i'd grade it as interesting but i have to listen to it a lot more first.

i take the atypical position that swans was best in the 90s and are better at being psychedelic than at being metal.

this song could not possibly be about taylor swift.

(more likely, it is about courtney love. but there's a real chance it's about madonna.)

as expected, the attack doges were released on elon musk immediately.

if i were him, i'd get out of the country.

i actually support the state department order directing that visa applicants to harvard should be explicitly vetted for anti-semitism, but would argue it should apply to all visa applicants, not just people going to harvard.

let's not overreact or be sensationalist. as a strong critic of islam, i've constantly been forced to try to maintain levity in recent years.

trump's disdain for the educated is not fascism. it is not anything close to fascism. however, he does have a very real stalinist streak and what the united states should be seeking to avoid right now is the kid of devastating anti-intellectual purges that occurred in the soviet union under lenin and stalin.

the soviets killed or locked up all the smart people, then wondered why they couldn't compete. america may be driving the smart people away, or in the process of deporting them, but they are not killing or imprisoning people and there is really no good evidence that they are on the brink of it.

we remain in the era of orwell. don't forget that. trump is in truth overseeing american decline get itself over the hump, and start free-falling off the cliff.