i'm just annoyed by the motive of christian dogooding, playing into the naivete and the ignorance.
Monday, October 13, 2025
i don't want to downplay the release of the hostages too much. these are 20 lives that were saved. in broad calculations of the general game being played, those lives are really not very important or valuable, and are not my primary consideration, or the primary consideration of the decision makers on the ground. to the individuals themselves, and their families, nothing could be more important or valuable.
the outcome is extremely predictable.
the "stabilization force" will walk in and try to exist parallel to hamas and hamas, with iranian backing, will start bombing them. the result is a predictable civil war in gaza with hamas backed by iran and the international force as a weak government with no clear direction, as the turks and arabs fight with each other.
trump didn't write the plan, so i don't want to pretend this is his fault, but it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the conflict as being about muslims and jews. frankly, if it was that simple, it would be over by now. the underlying problem is that islam was a colonizing empire that left an array of warring indigenous groups and invading populations in constant conflict with each other, when it collapsed. they don't get along with each other on anything, and palestine is just one of a myriad of conflicts.
in a real sense, the israeli bombing has been stopping an inevitable muslim civil war in the broader region, as well as a war between iran and saudi arabia. if the americans are demanding israel step back and not do this, and the muslims to take initiative, it will just expose and trip and exacerbate those fault lines allow that civil war to finally happen.
it is the egyptians that will need to get aggressive with hamas, but it will generate a response when they do, and it will then escalate and spiral out of control.
israel can't let it get too out of hand, and they may have to step back in very soon. but, in the short term, we may see continued bombing of gaza by arabs instead of by jews.
let me warn everybody: if you buy this house to evict me, i will take everything with me when i go. you will be deeply disappointed with what you end up with, which won't be what you thought you were getting.
it's a huge space for a low-income rental, which is what i wanted and got (~600 square feet in the apartment, up to 700 including the laundry and closer to 900 including the in-unit garage. the upstairs units don't manage space well because they've been converted into apartments, but this is the entire basement of what used to be a moderately sized house). it's been partially recently redone; the hot water and furnace are fairly recent. there's new inside doors, new flooring in the bedroom. somebody tried to give a fuck and gave up, which left me with a lot to work with, and i'm going to finish the job.
i'm sorting through what kind of furniture i need to make sense of this new space, which is relatively large but also extremely rough and therefore very cheap, and i'm realizing i can do some unusual things with it, for it's price range.
this is a $1000/month basement in the bottom of a house with a busy drug dealer living on the top floor. i have no reason to call him in at this point, and won't so long as i'm not smelling weed, but he couldn't be more fucking obvious. he's got somebody banging on his door every 20 minutes.
for reference, the apartment i just abandoned was $1200/month, on the third floor and somewhat smaller in total footage, but also more finished and came with three other apartments in the building full of potheads that were polluting my air space. the basement i got evicted from in the spring was less than $800/month and discernibly smaller than either. the basement i got evicted from in 2018 was less than $700 when i left (i signed at $650) and about the same size as this one, overall, but far more finished.
i've thought through how i want to do this and have decided that the new space is going to consist of the following rooms or areas:
1) a small but usable bedroom, partly because much of the storage that you expect in a bedroom exists elsewhere in the apartment, but big enough for a stereo system, a study/writing desk and a bedside computer pc typing system
2) a large enough bathroom for substantive shelving, full wall mirrors and a makeup table
3) a walk-in closet off of the bathroom (not the bedroom) with built-in laundry and a dedicated sewing area
4) an eat-in kitchen with expanded counter and shelving space
5) a side entrance with a space for coat and shoe storage
6) a voip phone and zoom (via voip videophone) area off of the kitchen
7) about 150 square feet of studio space
8) a small couch area with a stereo for listening
9) space for an exercise bike off the front entrance
10) a device charging area behind the front door
11) a 150 square foot work and storage area as a functional in-unit garage or actual basement in parallel to the apartment, with functional 2-level storage built in.
12) sufficient wall space for cd and book storage
it's cheap because of the drug dealer and the various problems a drug dealer creates to property values, but i've been told they're getting evicted. the front door, for example, is pretty brutal. i haven't seen the effects of the drugs yet, but i'm sure i will. i have recently seen somebody passed out beside their shopping cart around the corner, because they couldn't make it over the bridge, and i jumped to probably correct conclusions. he just fell over; he might have been technically dead.
it's going to take a few weeks, maybe a few months, to set the apartment up. right now, i'm not sure the furnace works, and i'm waiting for the owner to do some minimal but necessary cosmetic work.
i hope i don't get evicted to raise the rent, again; i'm unfortunately realizing the necessity of planning around it, and want to focus on buying if i have to move again. some small houses in windsor are starting to list under $180K.
Sunday, October 12, 2025
i really don't think it's a good idea for trump to meet emaciated holocaust victims being released by hamas, who need a discrete process and medical attention, not somebody brandishing them as trump property with a hot iron on their non-existent ass.
i couldn't imagine something so self-centred and morally depraved. this man is a disgrace to humanity.
it is abundantly clear that hamas will not step down, and is instead carrying out extrajudicial killings of it's democratic opponents. there was no likelihood of a different outcome. it needs to be annihilated with force and burned to death with fire.
peace is stupid when your opponent is a barbarian.
in the long run, and medium run in 2025, there is no discernible upside in supporting clearly doomed american auto manufacturing of big, dirty vehicles supported by taxpayer subsidies and cultural brainwashing via bombardment of advertisements on tv, which is itself dying. those products cannot continue to exist and should not receive government subsidies. they will need to be replaced by more efficient, cheaper, cleaner products that have higher market demand for them.
it's actually a red herring because the chinese evs are small cars and the american-canadian auto industry ony creates pickup trucks and suvs, because they're more profitable. the chinese evs pose no discernible threat to any american made product.
what they do pose a threat to, and will be competing with, is german, korean and japanese made smaller cars, which are dominating the market because they're what people want. the chinese evs could be damaging to volkswagon or honda, but they pose no real threat to ford or gm.
the best idea is to convince the chinese to make the cars in ontario.
the lines outside of the official food banks in windsor were short, but the line outside of the goodfellows on friday felt like the fall of capitalism.
after thatcher, western society made a purposeful decision to privatize food distribution to religious organizations. this wasn't due to government mismanagement, and isn't some kind of mistake. thatcherite and randian ideology argues that it is not the role of government to distribute services to the population, and that citizens should not be taxed to distribute resources justly. rather, they argue it is up to the church to do this, and that the church should be funded by donations, rather than taxes. this is seen by conservatives as a decrease in government coercion, and increase in voluntarism, but it wouldn't feel that way to anybody reliant on the services, who are now forced to deal with religious institutions that have views they don't adhere to or agree with, rather than governments bound by bills of rights and guarantees for universal access and secularist value systems. this is fundamentally rooted in the theoretical economic mistake that markets are efficient and government are not, which was popular in ivory towers 50 years ago, but which has been proven 100% exactly wrong by thorough empirical data, which demonstrates very clearly that markets are infinitely more wasteful than governments, and that virtually every market will be expected to fail almost immediately, without deep and consistent government intervention.
increasing the cdb is one approach, although i'll point out that people don't seem to realize that it's tied to inflation. if you're going to tie it to inflation, it makes sense to come in low. the cdb will increase on a yearly basis and the increases will compound over time. if they had come in with a higher number, that might have been harder to maintain.
it is a better idea to allow governments to centralize resources, which is even easier to do now than ever due to advances in technology leading to increases in speed and efficiency in warehousing and database management. a province wide distribution system that accepts inputs from producers and suppliers would be far easier for the government to manage than it is for a free market of volunteers and religionists to hack together.
like so many of the problems facing us, the solution begins in undoing the free market ideology that western capitalism has adopted since the 1970s as ideologically backwards and empirically wrong and re-embracing centralization and government supply management, which the technology has dumped on our laps as feasible, logical and cost effective to implement. until we have this shift of mindset, we will continue to decay in the dystopia of late capitalist free market economics.
Saturday, October 11, 2025
i made a food bank run on wednesday and friday which might be the last run, finished moving on friday, gave back my keys, got my check, and then did some grocery shopping for the next week or two. i will need to eat through specific food bank items first before i get back into my food schedule, which should be in a few more weeks. i will have a lot of fruit and salad to eat through first, and that's ok.
i am exhausted. i slept a lot on tuesday, thursday, friday and saturday, and i'm going to sleep a lot more tomorrow. i bought a chicken for thanksgiving, which i think is a stupid holiday, because i did this the last time i moved into a new basement, in 2018.
the drug dealer upstairs gets a lot of business. he's constantly leaving the door open to let his clients in. my observation is that his business model is that he has scouts working to bring in new clients. it's a sick business in a sick world. they are apparently getting evicted. i guess i'll need to wait it out.
for now, my focus is on eating, sleeping and cleaning both in here and myself. my hair is a mess.
Friday, October 10, 2025
john bolton is clearly guilty of wantonly impersonating the walrus, and they should throw the book at him for it.
he would have been genuinely charged with war crimes in iraq, unlike the people they go after on a regular basis, if the united states were a party to the convention. he should legitimately be rotting in the hague.
if trump goes after him, that's justice, albeit the wrong way.
Thursday, October 9, 2025
there is an opportunity in front of us, being taken by netanyahu, to put an end to this perpetual catastrophe by wiping out the losers once and for all.
by forcing israel to foolishly show mercy on it's enemies, trump is instead guaranteeing an extension of the conflict and suffering, until we get back to this point again, and somebody else has the kutzpah to finish the job, and put them out of their misery.
this is why christianity destroys empires.
this is why christianity is stupid.
everybody has to humour don coyote, at least for a few minutes, but this so-called settlement, the myth of the judgement of solomon aside, just does not make any sense. hippies and christians are always stupid, even when they're business nazis selling you peace as a marketing scam. more so.
hamas must cease to exist, and everybody realizes that, but it just ends the mess in front of us.
in the medium term, there is no possibility that the palestinians are going to enjoy their shit sandwich. they need to be slaughtered, starved, deported and/or converted for this conflict to end, because they will not accept the outcome that they can't change.
Monday, October 6, 2025
it is utterly fucking beautiful out.
i had a shitty summer; stuck living with disgusting male pothead losers (again) and fighting off some religious idiot's decision to put drugs in my food, while needing to save money to move again. i'm moving, which sucks, but at least it was a nice weekend.
i've been walking around outside and, in every direction, the vegetation has taken advantage of it. it's october 6th, and there's not a bit of red or yellow or orange anywhere, in any direction. every tree everywhere is as full as possible and deep, luscious green. it's starting to look and feel more like a rainforest here in that respect, although we've had very little rain since june.
the new house doesn't seem to have potheads. there are what appears to be some heroin addicts upstairs, but they don't seem to smoke it. fine. whatever. i'd rather live with heroin addicts that don't smoke anything than with potheads that are constantly emitting dangerous air pollution. the heroin addicts aren't bothering anybody; the potheads are bothering people around them that don't want to get lung cancer.
if you live in windsor, plant some trees or plants around. it'll help to clean the air of some of this horrible marijuana pollution.
i don't care much about eurovision. bad music. truly. and competition has no place in art; this is not artistry, it's athletics. as a punk rock guitarist, this irritates me. it's like having a scale-playing competition, instead of just enjoying the tunes.
however, i have to say that it's ok to criticize the israeli team for sucking. it's ok to jeer them. it's even ok to throw bagels at them, so long as you throw hummus after, too.
while it's fine to tell them they suck, banning the israelis outright sends no valid political message. it just makes you look like dumb nazis, which everybody already knows that you are.
Sunday, October 5, 2025
this is worth dwelling on because it is a juxtaposition of the new and old conservative values, crashing against each other. you used to expect conservatives to be cold, heartless accountants that acted like sociopaths because they were suffering from some childhood trauma leading to an arrested emotional development that prevented them from being able to experience empathy. nowadays, conservatives appear to have no brains at all, don't think before they speak, routinely carry out no fiscal analysis of their policies at all and operate solely on the level of exaggerated emotion. they've converted themselves from uncaring, overcalculated, asshole jerks to hysterical, psychotic, impulsive bitches.
while there is some direction in the code, our bail conditions were developed by judges, not by politicians. our independent court system can accept some direction, but the judges would be correct to essentially ignore this bill as an extreme overreach of the house of commons. politicians should not be telling judges how to sentence criminals.
the reason that judges tend to avoid onerous bail conditions for most criminal acts is that the reasons for sentencing people don't work. decades of research make it clear that judicial deterrence is a joke, stopping repeat offenders is a crap shoot and viciously punishing people for the sake of it is barbaric. the one valid reason to put somebody in jail is for the protection of the community, but that is difficult to establish after trial, let alone before it, and people are and must remain innocent until they are proven guilty.
there is one condition on the list - sexual assault - that should generate very strict bail conditions, but it already does. crimes like kidnapping and trafficking seem terrible, but they are usually done by organized crime, and when the police catch the thug that did it, they caught the fall guy. it would usually be more helpful to send hired thugs to school or to rehab than to jail.
the list of crimes that should generate severe bail restrictions are crimes of passion, usually involving an ex-lover, and being a higher up in an organized crime ring. it's not the runners on the ground that you need to lock up, it's the fat tonies in the smoke filled cellars and garages.
increasing bail conditions is mostly a waste of money, and it opens the state to liability in scenarios where people are wrongly accused. the old conservatives would have cared about that. the new conservatives just want you to please think of the children.
Saturday, October 4, 2025
it's looking like the 9th is ticking back up over that 20 degree threshold in the long range, and then it recovers for another week or two, pushing into late october. this is windsor, in the southernmost part of the country and province, but it is still a canary - it happens here first. so, the key date is the 8th, where the yearly crash is forecast to take temperatures down to 18, but then bounce back up over 20 either by the 9th or 10th. watch the 8th. can we get to 20 on the 8th? if we do, it looks like we're getting to late october without dipping under 20. if we don't, we're only going to miss it by a hair. this expected early october crash is supposed to take late summer low to mid 20s temperatures down ten degrees into the low to mid teens, not peak summer high 20s weather down ten degrees into 20 degree late summer weather.
climate change isn't about the extremes, it's about the averages. the heat waves and hurricanes make headlines, but it's the increasing norms that are the shift in climate.
i'm curious how long we can go before we finally get to that first below 15 degree day, which is fall, finally.
i signed my lease on tuesday, got my new keys on wednesday, moved the furniture in on thursday and moved a lot of the smaller items in last night. i seek to be out by monday morning, and i'm going to do it the slow and safe way, which is by bicycle. i could cart stuff over, and i will need to cart some things, but i want to cart as little as possible. i want to get through the distance from a to b as quickly as possible, and allowing observers the least amount of detail in observing what i'm doing. this is the 5th location i've lived in since i moved to windsor in 2013, and 4 of the 5 have been downtown, but this is the first time i have to move through the creepy part of the city.
i'm actually going to be further from the creepy area than i am now. it's not a or b that i'm worried about, it's the transit in between. i can go in the back way, but it doesn't really help.
i also learned when i got the keys that the space includes a 150 square foot private storage and work space, which makes it bigger than the first basement in total square footage and the biggest place of the 5. it's very rough, though, so i don't want to think of it like that. however, it's going to let me not just store my bicycles there but also split the work bench out of my studio, which has become a large part of it. this work space will be where i fix bicycles, work on guitars, solder and do other types of physical work. it has a two level storage space built in for shelving, as well. it's really quite a large area.
if i buy a house in the next year or two, i'll move this into the basement.
so, that opens up space in the unit, as well. i can take my work bench right out of the studio and i can put shelves instead of bicycles in the hall.
i was a little queasy when i started moving things in, and was having second thoughts, but i'm feeling better about it now. the place needs some work, but it'll get done.
i will repeat: you cannot negotiate with hamas, and trump is a buffoon for trying to. yet, he seems to have swallowed his own propaganda, and decided hamas will do what he tells them to, despite hamas apparently having actually rejected the plan.
that is because this is trump. he doesn't really care about the middle east, he cares about self-promotion. somebody probably told him it's intractable, and once the meaning of the word was explained to him, he decided he was going to do it. so, this is about marketing trump as the prince of peace, not about actually achieving meaningful peace; it doesn't matter what hamas says or does, it just matters how trump markets himself. is he quoting beatitudes yet?
meanwhile, the israelis are stuck dealing with the idiot's whims, until he gets distracted by a teenage girl walking by.
Friday, October 3, 2025
i'm a strong advocate of the idea of historical process.
the reclamation of israel by it's indigenous jewish population has been a long process, and there is no way to reverse or prevent it. it will run it's course.
the stupid thing to do is to try to interfere with this process. the smart thing to do is to get out of the way.
netanyahu keeps signing off on everything that trump puts in front of him because he knows hamas will never live up to any agreement it signs. then, the americans go after netanyahu for being dishonest, but the truth is that netanyahu is humouring the americans.
i can predict the future without a crystal ball: within a week to ten days of signing, hamas will break the agreement.
that is why the premise of a negotiated peace in israel is utterly retarded on it's face. the words from hamas, and their signatures, are not worth anybody's time; there is complete certainty that hamas will break the agreement within two weeks, at the absolute max. so what's the point? the point is that the delusional president doesn't want to look at the data, he wants to imagine things that aren't real. what can israel do, but humour him?
when hamas breaks the deal, and israel resumes the bombing, you cannot blame israel. the problem is that trump is wasting everybody's time seeking a peaceful way out of a conflict that has to run it's course. when you have your enemy cornered, with a boot on their neck, and a gun on their forehead, you don't show mercy and relent; that is stupid, and that is weak. that is slave morality, slave logic. it's typical christian idiocy to forgive people you need to destroy, and just a prolongation of something that has to end violently. we can either burn the place down now and get on with it, or we can pretend there's some way to save the furniture, drag it out, and burn it down ten years from now. the result is the same, in the end.
i don't see the value in wasting time pretending that hamas can avoid total slaughter. they need to be completely killed off, to the last one of them, and the sooner it's over with, the faster we can move on. pretending otherwise is delusional and stupid.
it's relatively clear that there's no business case for expanded pipelines out of alberta. if there was, the private sector would be building them, and it isn't happening. so, why is the government in alberta so insistent on this? the reason is that the government's base thinks it will create jobs, and therefore wealth. albertans don't want the pipeline, exactly; they want more high-paying jobs. so, the government is forced to constantly push this idea, which is a non-starter, because the people want the labour.
it might be helpful for alberta to - quietly if necessary - find more realistic ways to generate these kinds of job opportunities.
Thursday, October 2, 2025
i don't really understand this idea of "white christians".
christianity is a religion made by and for brown people in the middle east, and white people spent thousands of years resisting christianity, and then passively ignored it when the state stopped trying to enforce it violently, due to fear of being overthrown. white people still worship odin on christmas.
can somebody explain "white christian nationalism" to me, because it's a contradiction in terms. white nationalists should be pagan, by definition, and should think christians are stupid blathering slaves and idiots. the christians were the brown people that tried to colonize us, and failed.
Wednesday, October 1, 2025
it's starting to look like we might get that ten degree crash with a rain storm next week, but it's going to be a crash from 29 to 19, instead of from 23 to 13. what is that, then? that's not a crash into fall, if it's still summer, it's a crash from midsummer to late summer, which we used to get in september or sometimes late august. so, when does the crash to fall happen? november? december?
it's not actually supposed to be winter yet until december 21st, and winter is supposed to end at the end of march. here in canada, that's crazy talk. where i'm from, in ottawa, winter starts in early to mid november. it snowed on halloween sometimes, when i was a kid; you'd go trick or treating in tobaggans and snow pants. except that it isn't anymore, and we might actually get to have normal weather like everybody else soon.
an ai actor can do awesome impersonations. get tilly to do shatner, or pacino, or de niro, or julie andrews or taylor swift. or shrek.
an ai actor can't do new roles; it can't learn, it can't improvise.
it's not the wave of the future, it's an algorithm for cultural stagnation and decline, but that won't happen.
applications that fail to provide a labour market impact assessment should always be permanently rejected, as it suggests intentional abuse of the system. there should not be tolerance for this, and employers should not be given the opportunity to "correct the paperwork", as this is not paperwork. employers that abuse the system in this way should be permanently banned from using it further.
Tuesday, September 30, 2025
some little kids may have missed this one, too.
hendrix didn't write this, and there are other versions of it, but it's mostly known as a hendrix tune. i actually wasn't sure if dylan wrote it, and he didn't (although he performed it later, maybe to invert all along the watchtower, which he did write)
empirical studies are crystal clear that sending troops to patrol streets will not reduce violent crime, but may reduce property crime and theft.
in fact, portland has one of the worst property crime rates in the country, probably due to the drug problem in the region. that's actually true.
but, there's better ways to deal with the complications of drug addiction than a policed state.
i am again moving into a basement. this will be my third basement in windsor. my basement stays have been lengthy - 08-2013-12-2017, 10-2018-04-2025 - while my two apartment stays have both been less than a year.
this basement is about $200 more than the previous basement (when i left). it's smaller than the first one, but bigger than the second one.
however, i didn't have my rent increased for five+ years in the previous space. how much would i be paying if i paid the rent increases?
750*1.025^7 = ~$900. it would be a little less than that, probably around $850.
however, i'm getting an extra $200/month from the cdb, which balances that out.
in the previous basement, i had around $400-600 left for groceries and disposable income together, after paying bills. it fluctuated, but generally went up. now, i'm going to have $700/month to start, and that's going to go up.
so, this has taken a while to sort itself out, but in comparison to the previous basement i was in from 2018-2025, i'm going to end up with a bigger space and with more money in my pocket per month, and also with more in the bank to start with. my material conditions have consequently evened out.
this is due to the reality that i'm even steven. things always work out for me
now, i just need compensation for the wrongful eviction, and i'm working on it.
i don't want to mislead you or mischaracterize this. this has sucked. i've had years of my life stolen. however, i ended up better off, in the end.
what's next after this?
i have a hearing with my previous landlords on nov 4th, about me suing them. i need to update the new evidence, serve it and file it. i'm asking for upwards of $20,000 in damages for smoking and illegal entry. the new evidence includes drug tests and also the key i found in my mailbox, here. i don't know if they'll let me file it or not, but it demonstrates the point - somebody has been getting in my apartment, and somebody has been drugging me.
my appeals of their eviction order are now scheduled to go forward in the spring. i'm asking for a reversal of the costs orders and damages relating to the wrongful eviction, including the costs of staying in a hotel. that's going to be another $5,000-$10,000.
they got their house. fine. but the court should order them to pay me for it.
what am i going to do with all of this money? i have an asset limit of $40,000 on odsp, and need to be careful i'm not shooting myself in the foot, but a $20,000 downpayment would be enough to buy a $150,000-200,000 house, which exist in windsor, and which will reduce my rent/mortgage payments to well under $1000, which is the cost of the new lease. these are small bungalows or two story houses, mostly downtown. i don't need a big fancy house; i'm concerned about minimizing labour, not about maximizing wealth. this is a minimization problem for me, not a maximization problem. i have to live in capitalism, but i don't want to participate in it. further, i'll get that back when i turn 65, and no longer have an asset limit.
the reality is that nobody wants these houses, at this point. they're too expensive to rent. the bourgeois don't want them, and the students and poor can't afford them. that's the underside of capitalism i moved here to take advantage of, and which trudeau's immigration policies had taken away from me, by opening up a market for things nobody else wants.
that could work itself out by the summer, if all goes according to plan.
if i have this money and i move in the summer, it will be my last move. i'm not interested in climbing ladders. i don't care about the neighbours. this will ensure that nobody can take the house away from me again, and ensure nobody can move disgusting losers that do drugs into it. it's the end of this process.
i'll have to determine in the end if i can afford to stay there past the age of 65 on government retirement pensions, or if it is more logical to sell the house and move into a house for retirees, which have reduced rents.
so, that's the plan.
the new place is about $200 cheaper, and i'll soon be about $200 better off, per month. i've also gained a few thousand dollars in my account. i don't foresee any fights with the landlord, and the space should be a lot less smoky.
i think that i should be stable there for a while, enough to let me get back to work very quickly, as soon as i'm able to set the space back up.
i'm officially moving again over the next few days.
it's not very far. i feel like my fucking parents, who used to move across the street every six months.
the place is smaller, but it's laid out better. i haven't had the opportunity to maximize the space here, but it has two 150 square foot rooms (bedroom, living room), two 50 square foot hallways, an awkwardly 100 square foot kitchen with lots of counter space and fridge & stove on the side walls, and a bathroom. this place is around 600 square feet, but i'm wasting a lot of it, and i can't find a way to save it. the living room is 50 square feet too small and the bedroom is 50 square feet too big, and the 100-150 square feet of hall space isn't helpful. i needed to move. if i had more time to look, i would have skipped this space; it's 600 square feet, but i'm only using 350-400 of it.
the place i'm moving to is around 450-500 square feet, but it's laid out in a way that's more useful to me. the hallway is at the bottom of the stairs, so i have a natural place for my bicycles, away from the main living area. the bedroom is smaller, so i'm not wasting the space in it. there's a separate laundry room, where i can put the sewing table. the kitchen is smaller but more usable. there's a second entrance that i can use for studio space, which opens up a large living room. it's just a way better layout, for me. most people would find it awkward, but it's going to be arranged to look like it's twice as big, whereas this place feels half as big.
it's a little rough. that's fine. i don't care. i'll fix it.
so, i will be moving the rest of the week and hope to be done with this by monday.
Monday, September 29, 2025
tony blair was one of the people involved in the good friday agreement, and he was around during oslo. it's not so crazy.
you might ask the obvious question: why not ask bill clinton, then? i suppose there might be some political issues with that.
if it fails, it will be a great punchline, but if it works it'll look pretty smart, from a distance.
i was thinking maybe the turks might be the most reasonable party to lead an international un peacekeeping mission, not donald trump & tony blair, but this is more or less what i've been saying for years. actually. in fact.
i will say that deprogramming and denazifying the palestinians is going to be very hard. nobody is thinking this, but the truth is that new labour psychology just might be our best hope to debrainwash them.
i'm not a christian.
i'm a very strict atheist - an evangelical atheist, even. i very strongly believe there's no god and want to spread the good news about it, which is that you're free. like, really free. there's no greater expression of freedom than godlessness.
i kind of like pagans, though; not in a literal, religious sense, but in a cultural, indigenous sense. i think that rejecting semitic religion and reembracing indigenous religion is a prerequisite to saving the planet; not in the sense of taking it literally, but in the sense of changing the culture. further, i hold to the general intellectual consensus that buddhism is the most advanced and mature religion out there, and the one to take half-seriously if you want to learn something and live better.
i support this in principle, but this is unconstitutional. it's just going to get torn down.
the problem is that the federal government is decriminalizing drug use, and that it's largely following the direction of the courts, and this is in fact largely correct. if you own your body, you have the right to abuse it any way you want, including pumping it full of poison. and, really, if you can afford it and aren't bothering anybody, who has the right to tell you to stop? nobody does.
the problem is when you can't afford it, and resort to crime to pay for it, and when you are bothering somebody, like taking over streets and yards. so, you need to criminalize those activities, and then arrest people and charge them for it, and then you need to strengthen those sentences. then you need to give the addicts treatment as a way out of jail, in terms of bargaining with them. that's how you get them into treatment, you tell them the other option is they go to jail, and then you follow through and send them to jail if that's their preference.
you're never going to convince the supreme court that this is legal, not even with an oakes test.
i think the ostriches should be quarantined and tested one by one.
those that test positive for the virus should in fact unfortunately be destroyed. but those that test negative should be allowed to live.
i don't understand why this is difficult. imagine killing all the old people at an old folks home when one person gets covid. it's fear-based, not science based. these tests should get results nowadays within minutes. it's not the dark ages; this isn't the plague.
the best way to ensure that the government has enough funds to provide services like canada post is to increase taxes on the middle class, who have received too many tax breaks for far too long. the fact that the government is talking about eliminating mail delivery - a key purpose of government for centuries - is reflective of it's shrinking tax revenues, due to decades of right-wing government mismanagement, which has led to structural deficits that are going to collapse the functioning of society if not corrected.
the way the news is describing canada post is incoherent.
- canada post is not a private corporation. it cannot become insolvent.
- mail delivery is not a product, it's a service
- canada post does not have shareholders. it's mandate is not to run a profit.
- there is no consequence of canada post running at a loss other than that it's not being sufficiently funded.
the simplest, easiest solution is for the bank of canada to print the money required to eliminate canada post's debt. it's that simple.
however, if this service requires greater government funding in the future, then government should simply fund it.
Sunday, September 28, 2025
it's time for another repost.
it's near the end of the month, and i'm rather annoyed. i've seen a handful of places i could have moved to by now, but nobody wants to sign.
i'm going to send out mass emails that are just blunt - you want a good tenant? want to stop looking? well, you have a few more days before oct 1st. i have the money. i can sign and move now. like, what's the problem?
i know that the problem in some cases is that the owner is muslim, and in other cases that my income source is odsp. it's widespread discrimination on one of two considerations - gender identity or source of income. but, launching hrto applications is going to take years, and i need to be able to prove the case. i might be able to make the case against one very big company, but it's not clear that it's worth my time.
further, regarding the issues of muslims not wanting to rent to me because i'm trans (and i have several examples of this), i'd actually rather we get the issues out before hand, so i don't get trapped in it. the last thing i want to do is move into a situation where i have to deal with conservative muslims, and then fight with them for months or years. i'm doing the opposite; i'm sussing this out and going beyond it, by actually actively asking them if women dressing immodestly, or eating pork or drinking alcohol is going to upset them, because i don't want to live there if it does.
i really should have moved by now. i've seen enough places. there have been more than enough places i would move to. but i have not yet succeeded in finding a landlord that would rent to me, and it's about 85% discrimination underlying it. i can really not see good reasons not to rent to me in any of these applications, but they want to tell me my income is too low (despite me doing the math for them, showing it isn't, once you take out debt and cars, mostly, which i'm not paying for) or they just don't respond further once they realize i'm trans.
the discrimination against trans and disabled people are both rampant, especially amongst muslim landlords, which represent a substantive number of the low income rentals in this region. they'd be wise to be careful about what they say to me, but i'd largely rather avoid them, anyways.
the thing is that i don't want to make assumptions about people. i'm trying to get a showing in a basement owned by an arab guy, and he even told me to reschedule because he was busy praying, but he doesn't want to enforce his views on me, and is even trying to help the current tenant out, who is apparently a destructive alcoholic. i know discrimination when i see it, but i can't reverse it by making assumptions; i need to ask. it's mostly been a waste of time, but i can't make that assumption ahead of time. nine out of ten arabs might be viciously transphobic, but that one that isn't, even if they're religious, might be the best landlord in the city.
i ate a lot of nachos this week to use up the limes and tomatoes and even gained a little weight, although i pooped a lot of it out today, too. it'll pass with the coffee. the last two tomatoes were used for tomato sandwiches, and i now have three limes left. i also have no more food bank side meals, except about 30 cans of soup and two packages of frozen peas that i forgot about. it's possible that i could eat these soups with the garden salads, when i get there.
i need to get through the dried goods as much as i can first, which means alternating through quinoa (lentils) and pasta for the next several meals. there's still several bags of lentils and i believe five packages of spaghetti left.
the next step after this will be to cycle back to eat the food i skipped, which includes a lot of fruit and salad meals. i'm going to want to combine the fruit & ice cream meals for a week or two of straight fruit meals to catch up on that. i'm also going to want to eat caesar salads every day for a week or two in order to build up the kale stalks, then use the kale stalks to eat garden salads every day for two weeks. after i get through this month or two of fruit bowls and salads, i will have finally caught up. i might add the chicken in the freezer to the caesar salads, but i'm also getting close enough to the point of complete detox where i'll want to bring the bison back in to the pasta. soon.
i don't know when i'm moving yet but i do know that i'll hit all three food banks in the days after i sign the lease, and it might be for the last time.
- june 16th: doubled up salsa with chick peas, cheese, spices and vitamins.
- june 17th: onion soup bacon poutine
- june 18th: basic doritos nachos and french onon soup with bacon
- june 19th: doubled up salsa reprise
- june 20th: caesar salad without subs
- june 21st: 2nd onion soup poutine with onion soup and last chance salad
- june 22rd: 3rd onion soup poutine with onion soup with beets
- june 23rd: caesar salad without subs
- june 24th: caesar salad without subs
- june 25th: bacon and eggs without subs, no salsa
- june 26th: bacon and eggs without subs, no salsa
- june 27th: ad hoc pad thai
- june 28th: broccoli soup
- june 29th: fridge-clearing meal (oranges & garlic bread)
- june 30th: kd + chick peas + fridge clearing exercise
- july 1st: kd + chick peas + fridge clearing exercise
- july 2nd: kd + chick peas + fridge clearing exercise
- july 3rd: 10 packages of instant oatmeal, in 5 installments. spaghetti-os + spices & vitamins (cumin, cayenne, pepper, oregano, paprika, sunflower seed, hemp seed, nutritional yeast, frank's).
- july 4th: a can of stew and a can of corn, plus spices & vitamins.
- july 5th: a package of jasmine rice i had put aside as a quinoa sub (it probably isn't), with a can of peas and a can of tomato soup, plus spices and vitamins.
- july 6th: a can of beans cooked in a can of vegetable soup, plus spices and vitamins.
- july 7th: two cans of chicken noodle soup, plus spices and vitamins. tim's xl double-double coffee in morning. two builders protein mini bars in evening. 7-11 coffee with jalapeno taquito late at night.
- july 8th: food bank junk food eat through - two bags of "real vegetable chips" (one big, one small), a bag of goldfish crackers, one mini crispy crunch, some strawberry licorice, prime energy drink, two tim horton's donuts, little ceasar's pepperoni pizza with unlabelled chocolate milk product.
- july 9th: another prime energy drink with another unlabelled chocolate milk product, unlabelled food bank ginger bread (two loaves)
- july 10th: pasta with minor subs (1), third energy drink, sour cream n cheddar chips
- july 11th: sour cream 'n' bacon, sour cream 'n' onion chips
- july 12th: more licorice, pasta with minor subs (2)
- july 13th: jalapeno cheddar chips, pasta with minor subs (3)
- july 14th: 10 baby cookies, pasta with minor subs (4)
- july 15th: i ate most of the 14th pasta on the 15th and followed it with the remaining baby cookies (which are actually french butter cookies, not baby cookies. they look like baby cookies). i did not make pasta for the 15th.
- july 16th:. pasta with minor subs (5)
- july 17th: pasta with minor subs (6)
- july 18th (on the 19th): pasta with minor subs (7)
- july 19th (on the 20th): cereal (one bowl of vector and all bran with paprika, flax, nutritional yeast, hemp seeds and soy, as per my normal diet and one bowl of instant oatmeal with a little real milk and an apple)
- july 20th (on the 21st): pasta with minor subs (8)
- july 21st (on the 22nd): pasta with minor subs (9)
- july 22nd: cereal day 2 in cycle 2 (final cycle 2 cereal day): one bowl of vector and all bran with paprika, flax, nutritional yeast, hemp seeds and soy, as per my normal diet and one bowl of instant oatmeal with a little real milk and two apples, one in the oatmeal and one standalone.
- july 23rd: cereal day 1 in cycle 3
- july 24: pasta with minor subs (10)
- july 25: cereal day 2 in cycle 3, same as 22 and 23, with the addition of 6 mini apple sauce containers.
- july 26: pasta with minor subs (11)
- july 27th - guac with white rice and canned corn. two pieces of white bread with plum better.
- july 28th: pasta with minor subs (12)
- july 29th: guac with white rice and canned corn. two pieces of white toast with olive oil margarine, and then two pieces of white bread with plum butter after. four more pieces of white bread, with plum butter and strawberry jam.
- july 30th: pasta with minor subs (13), including fried chicken for salami.
- july 31st: a larger piece of fried chicken alone. pasta with minor subs (14), including a mix of buffalo and chicken for salami. six pieces of white bread for peanut butter and strawberry jam.
- aug 1st: four pieces of white bread and the rest of the peanut butter. quinoa without subs (on aug 3rd).
- aug 2nd: four marshmallows, two bananas and a chocolate bar. quinoa without subs (on aug 3rd).
- aug 3rd: pasta with minor subs (15), including the buffalo/chicken mix for salami (on aug 4th). two pieces of toasted italian bread.
- aug 4th: bacon and eggs (no salsa) (on aug 5th)
- aug 5th: pasta with minor subs (16), including the buffalo/chicken mix for salami. two pieces of toasted italian bread. (on aug 6th)
- aug 6th: guac with yellow pepper, homemade hot sauce and canned corn (on aug 7th).
- aug 7th: monterrey jack tuna salad melt with bowl of cilantro lime monterrey jack rice (on aug 8th).
- aug 8th: pasta with minor subs (17), homemade hot sauce and bacon for salami (on aug 9th). . two pieces of toasted italian bread.
- aug 9th: guac with yellow pepper, homemade hot sauce and canned corn wth cilantro lime monterrey jack rice (on aug 10th).
- aug 10th: bacon and eggs (no salsa) (on aug 11th)
- aug 11th: pasta with minor subs (18), homemade hot sauce and bacon for salami (early on aug 12th). two pieces of toasted italian bread.
- aug 12th: bacon and eggs (no salsa) (at midnight on aug 13th)
- aug 13th: pasta with minor subs (19), homemade hot sauce and bacon for salami (early on aug 14th). . two pieces of toasted italian bread.
- aug 14th: potatoes with gravy, cheese, sour cream, bacon and dill (early on aug 15th). no av.
- aug 15th: onion soup + side salad (as posted) (late on aug 15th). no av.
- aug 16th: potatoes with gravy, cheese, sour cream, bacon and dill (early on aug 17th). no av.
- aug 17th: onion soup (mid day on aug 17th) and side salad (as posted) with two pieces of toast (early on aug 18th). no av.
- aug 18th: pasta with minor subs (20), including bacon for salami (early on aug 19th). no av. no juice. no hot sauce. two pieces of toasted italian bread.
- aug 19th: pasta with minor subs (21), including orange/lime for pineapple and bacon for salami (early on aug 20th). no av. no juice. no hot sauce. two pieces of toasted italian bread.
- aug 20th & 21st: cereal day 1 & 2 from cycle 4 together in one big bowl. (mid-day on aug 20th)
- aug 22nd: pasta with minor subs (22), including orange/lime for pineapple and chicken for salami (early on aug 21st). no av. no juice. no broc. no hot sauce. two pieces of toasted italian bread.
- aug 23rd: pasta with minor subs (23), including orange/lime for pineapple and chicken for salami (early on aug 22nd). no av. no juice. no broc. no red pepper. no hot sauce. i had the rest of the italian bread, and four extra pieces of brown bread with cheddar cheese, on the morning of aug 23rd and otherwise didn't eat on the 23rd. this is the bread for use with cycle 7, eaten early.
- aug 24th: pasta with minor subs (24) (early on the 24th). this was the last of the penne and shifted the pasta source to a box of kd, for now. no av. no juice. no broc. no red pepper. no hot sauce. no pineapple. no salami. no caesar. no dill. two pieces of toasted brown bread with margarine. one xl tim's double double.
- aug 25th: (early on the 25th) is going to be a tomato sandwich one from cycle 2 and an instant meal chicken "sidekick". no av, as it's not ripe yet.
- aug 26th: pasta with minor subs (25). pasta source is a box of kd. bacon subbed for salami. two pieces of toasted brown bread with margarine. no av. no broc (forgot).
- aug 27th: second tomato sandwich meal from cycle 2 with a package of (cooked) chinese noodles.
- aug 28th: pasta with minor subs (26). pasta source is a box of kd. bacon subbed for salami. two pieces of toasted brown bread with margarine. two avs.
- aug 29th: doubled up salsa with kidney beans, cheese, spices and vitamins. cycle 2 salsa. four avs. juice. 50 g broccoli.
- aug 30th: pasta with minor subs (27). pasta source is a box of kd. bacon subbed for salami. two pieces of toasted brown bread with margarine. two avs.
- aug 31st: first cycle 3 quinoa, with lentils subbed for quinoa and a can of side baked beans. two avs. last extra juice.
- sept 1st: pasta with minor subs (28). pasta source is a box of kd. bacon subbed for salami. two pieces of toasted brown bread with margarine. two avs. not eaten until morning of sept 2nd.
- sept 2nd: first tomato sandwich meal from cycle 3 with a package of (cooked) chinese noodles. extra av in chinese noodles.
- sept 3rd: pasta with minor subs (29). pasta source is a box of kd. bacon subbed for salami. no bread. two avs.
- sept 4: doubled up salsa with kidney beans, cheese, spices and vitamins. cycle 3 salsa. four avs.
- sept 5th: pasta with minor subs (30). pasta source is spaghetti. bacon subbed for salami. two avs (avs caight up).
- sept 6nd: second tomato sandwich meal from cycle 3 with a package of (cooked) chinese noodles. 1/2 red pepper in chinese noodles from catchup. jello with catchup pineapple and one lime, one orange.
- sept 7th: pasta with minor subs (31). pasta source is spaghetti. bacon subbed for salami.
- sept 8th: second cycle 3 quinoa, with lentils subbed for quinoa.
- sept 9th: pasta with minor subs (32). pasta source is spaghetti. bacon subbed for salami.
- sept 10th: doubled up salsa with cheese, spices and vitamins. cycle 4 salsa.
- sept 11th: green beans that were intended for the 10th (eaten on the 12th), with mushroom soup and bacon. first skipped pasta. later, first cycle 4 guac with red pepper (eaten on 13th).
- sept 12th: canned corn that was intended for the 11th (eaten on the 13th) with bacon. 2nd skipped pasta. first tomato sandwich from cycle 4 (eaten on 13th) with a package of (cooked) chinese noodles (eaten on 13th). 1/2 red pepper in chinese noodles from catchup, last catchup. last chinese noodles.
- sept 13th: pasta with minor subs (33). pasta source is spaghetti. bacon subbed for salami. first skipped. (eaten early on 15th)
- sept 14th: pasta with minor subs (34). pasta source is spaghetti. bacon subbed for salami. second skipped. (eaten early on the 16th)
- sept 15th: first cycle 2 nachos (eaten late on the 16th). third skipped pasta.
- sept 16th: second cycle 2 nachos (eaten late on the 17th). fourth skipped pasta.
- sept 17th: first cycle 3 nachos (eaten early on the 19th). fifth skipped pasta.
- sept 18th: second cycle 3 nachos (eaten late on the 19th). sixth skipped pasta.
- sept 19th: second tomato sandwich from cycle 4 & poutine with canned potatoes (eaten early on 21st). seventh skipped pasta.
- sept 20th: second cycle 4 guac & canned cream corn with bacon meal, eaten on 21st and 22nd. eighth skipped pasta.
- sept 21st: two for 1 bk whoppers (no lettuce, extra pickles) with added monterrey jack (melted), franks and caesar, with four of those cheesy jalapeno things and two apple turnovers. eaten late on the 23rd. ninth skipped pasta.
- sept 22nd: first cycle 4 nachos (eaten during day on 24th). tenth skipped pasta.
- sept 23rd: second cycle 4 nachos (eaten early on 25th). eleventh skipped pasta.
- sept 24th: first tomato sandwich from cycle 5 (eaten late on 25th). twelfth skipped pasta.
- sept 25th: second tomato sandwich from cycle 5 (eaten early on 26th). thirteenth skipped pasta.
- sept 26: pasta with minor subs (35). third cycle 9 pasta. pasta source is spaghetti. bacon subbed for salami. third skipped.
- sept 27th: pasta with minor subs (36). fourth cycle 9 pasta. pasta source is spaghetti. bacon subbed for salami. fourth skipped.
- sept 28th: first cycle 4 quinoa, with lentils subbed for quinoa. eaten early on 29th. soy saved to be eaten with two pieces of toast with cheese, eaten midday on the 30th.
- sept 29th: pasta with minor subs (37). first cycle 10 pasta. eaten early on the 1st. pasta source is spaghetti. bacon subbed for salami. fifth skipped. two pieces of toast with cheese, eaten midday on the 2nd.
- sept 30th: pasta with minor subs (38). second cycle 10 pasta. pasta source is spaghetti. bacon subbed for salami. sixth skipped. eaten late on the 2nd. three pieces of toast with cheese, eaten late on the 3rd.
- oct 1st: -------
- oct 2nd: --------------
- oct 3rd: 7-11 pizza with taquito and two glasses of orange juice. eaten early on 4th.
- oct 4th: pizza crusts fried with bacon, margarine, cheese + caesar, brocolli, avocado. eaten early on 5th
- oct 5th: extra large pizza eaten on 5th,
- oct 6th: pizza crusts fried with bacon, margarine, cheese + caesar, carrot. eaten on 6th
- oct 7th: second cycle 4 quinoa, with lentils subbed for quinoa. eaten on oct 7th.
- oct 8th: two nutrigrain bars, one half a container of cookies, 1st cycle 5 quinoa, with lentils subbed for quinoa. eaten oct 9th/10th.
- oct 9th: rest of cookies + small pizza pizza, including crusts.
- oct 10th: two small crispers bags, one nutrigrain, one granola bar, big bag of "veggie straws" (which are cheeseless cheezies).
- oct 11th: big bag of cheeseless cheezies, six fruit rollups, one small container of apple sauce, two chicken sadwiches from food basics roasted chicken
- oct 12th: two chicken sandwiches from food basics roast chicken
- oct 13th: second cycle 3 caesar salad, with packaged lettuce subbed for kale and with two broken fried eggs and cucumber added. served with buttered sub bun.
- oct 14th: first tomato sandwich from cycle 6 with chicken sidekick noodles. two apples, eaten later.
- oct 15th: first cycle 4 caesar salad, with packaged lettuce subbed for kale and cucumber and apple added. served with buttered sub bun. one apple, eaten later.
- oct 16th: second cycle 4 bacon & eggs. no salsa. two apples, later.
- oct 17th: first cycle 5 cereal, with two extra plain isrnstant oatmeals, each with an apple and a touch of chocolate soy. also, two pop tarts to test the new toaster.
- oct 18th: first cycle 5 guac, with added cucumber and with white rice, but third. first part was 75% of a pineapple (because it needed to be eaten) with a cup of apple sauce. second was canned cream of corn with bacon, dill, cheese, caesar, frank's, bob's nutritional yeast & hemp seeds.
- oct 19th: doubled up salsa with cheese, spices and vitamins, and cucumber and apple. with buttered bun. cycle 5 salsa.
- oct 20th: second tomato sandwich from cycle 6 with chinese noodles.
- oct 21st: first tomato sandwich from cycle 7 with chinese noodles.
- oct 22nd & 23rd: doubled up salsa with cheese, spices and vitamins, and cucumber and apple. with buttered bun. cycle 6 salsa.
- oct 24th & 25th: doubled up salsa with cheese, spices and vitamins, and cucumber and apple. with buttered bun. cycle 7 salsa.
- oct 26th: 6 pop tarts, one bag of goldfish chips & a can of mildly expired ravioli.
- oct 27th: first cycle 5 bacon & eggs. no salsa.
- oct 28th second cycle 5 quinoa, with lentils subbed for quinoa.
- oct 29th: second cycle 5 guac, with white rice and canned corn.
- oct : pasta with minor subs (39). third cycle 10 pasta. pasta source is spaghetti. bacon subbed for salami. seventh skipped,
- oct : pasta with minor subs (40). fourth cycle 10 pasta. pasta source is spaghetti. bacon subbed for salami. eighth skipped.
- first quinoa, guac from cycle 6
- oct : pasta with minor subs (41). first cycle 11 pasta. pasta source is spaghetti. bacon subbed for salami. ninth skipped.
- oct : pasta with minor subs (42). second cycle 11 pasta. pasta source is spaghetti. bacon subbed for salami. tenth skipped.
- oct : second cycle 6 quinoa, with lentils subbed for quinoa.
- guac
- oct : pasta with minor subs (43). third cycle 11 pasta. pasta source is spaghetti. bacon subbed for salami. eleventh skipped,
- oct : pasta with minor subs (44). fourth cycle 11 pasta. pasta source is spaghetti. bacon subbed for salami. twelfth skipped.
- oct : 1st cycle 7 quinoa, with lentils subbed for quinoa.
- guac
- i'm going to cut at the end of cycle 11 and catch up, then go back to normal scheduling to start cycle 12, but not until i've caught up. there will be a lot of pasta in the cupboard at this time, and that's ok.
- run through caesar salads to build up kale stalks
- then run through garden salads
- eat fruit/ice cream together as meal instead of half meals
- clean up with whatever's next
- get back to schedule when cycle 11 is finished
- probably no more food bank runs are going to be necessary, but i'll see
- the fact is that i like the idea of getting random food and figuring out how to prepare it
=====
- oct : pasta with minor subs (45). first cycle 12 pasta. pasta source is spaghetti. bacon subbed for salami. thirteenth skipped.
- oct : pasta with minor subs (46). second cycle 12 pasta. pasta source is spaghetti. bacon subbed for salami.
- oct : second cycle 6 quinoa, with lentils subbed for quinoa.
- oct : pasta with minor subs (47). third cycle 12 pasta. pasta source is spaghetti. bacon subbed for salami.
- oct : pasta with minor subs (48). fourth cycle 12 pasta. pasta source is spaghetti. bacon subbed for salami.
===
- i moved on oct 1st and went to food bank (maybe for last time) that week
- quinoa/2x pasta concept skipped until i get through perishables
- might still be out of both lentils and pasta by then
well, yeah. this is what happens next.
by putting bombs in eastern europe, you open up a political fight over every single slavic, baltic and finno-ugric speaking country, as the russians need to pull them all out of nato in order to dismantle the bombs.
expect this everywhere - poland, romania, bulgaria, finland, etc.
there's nothing else they can do. they can't bomb the places out, they can only launch soft coups via election interference to alter or manipulate policy.
what did you expect?
...and for the italians, particularly, to be aggressively trying to enforce the existence of an imaginary palestinian state, by even going so far as to send naval vessels to the coast, is an extension of the genocidal roman policy of changing the name from judaea to filistinia (named after the philistines, who were not arabs, but greeks). it was the emperor hadrian, who in 135 ce, changed the name of judaea to filistinia as punishment for bar kokhba revolt. this was an intentional, conscious act of genocide by the romans, with the intent to eliminate the jews from the map, and consequently from history, and it followed a long policy of completely erasing the carthaginians and phoenecians, who were in truth the real ancient hebrews, before cyrus brought this different population into the region, worshiping what is essentially an indo-european sky god, with deeply zoroastrian themes. the only trace of semitic cultural themes in hebrew religion is the condemnation and rejection of them, which is not the case in arab religion.
does prime minister madonna know any of this at all?
what i actually want to hear from the arabs, and this would demonstrate a level of cultural and historical maturity that is almost entirely lacking in the arab world, is an acknowledgement that the arab conquest and colonization of jerusalem was a historical wrong that needs to be righted, and that the arabs actually owe the jews reparations for their 1000 year occupation of israel.
the mythical solomon was of course a jew, but the arabs put a lot of emphasis on this particular story.
using the myth of the judgement of solomon to determine that the rightful owner of jerusalem is the jews, as though jew-rusalem wasn't evidence enough, is consequently very much hoisting the palestinians by their own petard.
walmart needs to understand that it oversees a circular flow of paper money. as they are frequently a major employer in the areas they exist, the wages they distribute come back to them either directly or via multiplier effects. for walmart to eliminate wage slave employees would force them to close many of their stores, where the walmart is the centre of the local economy.
that's less true of any specific fast food restaurant or other low wage business, but is in aggregate. the walmart is not unique but is special, as it generates aggregate effects.
it's been summer here all the way through september. that's normal nowadays.
in recent years, in southern ontario, meteorological fall starts on oct 1st - maybe. summer generally starts may 1st.
what tends to happen is that the weather just utterly crashes in the first or second week of october and then that's it, summer's over. it's not a slow ramp down; it comes in the form of a thunderstorm, and a wind barrage and five to ten days of highs in the mid to low teens. it's a sudden ten degree crash. it might recover a little for a week or two, but those 20+ degree days in late october don't feel like summer, they feel like warm fall days.
this year, it's been summer all the way through september, with highs in the late 20s and even early 30s. it still feels like july, here. we're still getting convection sunshowers, which in this part of the world are unheard of outside of late july and early august.
we had a cold snap in late may and early june, which sucked, so the last sub 20 degree day here was later than normal, june 4th. it's been 20+ degrees here every single day since june 5th. that's the psychological boundary between summer and not summer, in canada.
we should be ready for this to crash in mid october, but the long term is not projecting it, and i'm not feeling it. we should expect 7-10 days of 20+ degree weather in november in southern ontario nowadays, but it has always followed a cold snap in october or early november. if we get all the way to nov 1st, or even nov 15th, without a single fall day, that's going to be a serious indicator of very real climate change here, and it will make it hard for winter to take hold.
it would be nice to actually grow more fruit here. the entire greenhouse economy here switched to marijuana production after 2015; you can smell the giant grow-op just walking around leamington. it's kind of not very sustainable, and kind of looks pretty stupid, in hindsight. we used to grow tomatoes and strawberries and peaches. now we just grow drugs.
Saturday, September 27, 2025
Carney said the recognition was prompted by the current Israeli government's "avowed policy" of preventing a Palestinian state from ever being established.
canada, britain, france, portugal and spain are all on the path to becoming third world countries. i guess it was long overdue for us to start acting like one.
it might be helpful for white people to realize that the west has this entire generation of immigrant young people that just woke up in 1963.
for them, it's the sexual revolution all over again, and the debates they are having are the debates our grandparents or greatgrandparents had, and that white people aren't interested in and don't want to relive.
i went to see an apartment the other day and an arab guy that was probably half my age practically told me to cover up, like he was a 120 year old. in fact, the old arab tell the trans girl to cover up trick has now happened to me twice this month.
so, i mean, what do i do? do i pity him? do i laugh at him?
they're going to be slowing us down over the next 20 years, and we're going to have to wait for them to catch up.
there's an old movie called pleasantville. go watch it.
Friday, September 26, 2025
the media is trying to argue that the charges that trump faced were legitimate and the charges comey is facing are illegitimate. but, from what i can see, comey is more likely be convicted of perjury, in the end. i might argue they are probably both political attacks and neither is/was really justified, but we judge the value of a court case by it's outcome and it looks like it's comey that's going to jail.
this isn't an acceptable way to use the system, but the democrats need to take responsibility for starting the fight. it's hard to fault trump for defending himself.
Thursday, September 25, 2025
i don't think that moving to community mailboxes is going to result in saving money in the long run. if i have a piece of mail that i want to get somewhere, and i know it's going to a box at the end of the street that might get checked once a week, i'm going to fed ex it instead. for canada post to be the only delivery option that doesn't get your package to the door is just going to make it uncompetitive.
i have a better idea: ban flyers, or make them five times as expensive to deliver.
mark carney simply isn't qualified to do parliamentary work, and he probably was doing very little work in parliament, and would continue to do very little work while in parliament. he has no legal education and no experience as a politician. this work was being done by other people around him, and he likely had minimal influence into it.
what mark carney is qualified to do is a part of the political system that has no basis in democracy, but is required for it to function, so long as we live in capitalism, which is fundamentally incompatible with democracy, and that is to talk to autocratic leaders in the business world and sign backroom deals in smoke filled rooms. this behaviour is not democratic, but it is capitalist, and is the foundation of our political/economic system.
as such, i actually think that carney would have been better used as a foreign minister or as a diplomat than as a prime minister. if the choices are that he can sit in the house of commons and watch his staffers do the work for him or go out and talk to people and try to generate investment, he should do the latter.
i don't like any of this, but it's real life.
what they should do is buy the produce that the farmers can't sell at market prices and then donate it to low-income americans, use it in lunch programs at school, etc.
they could potentially get better vegetables for their low income kids than ketchup.
i think i mentioned something like that in terms of policy in canada, but we haven't seen it yet. i guess we had to wait for the americans to do it first, so we could copy them after.
this is anecdotal, but there's every reason to believe it's honest:
marijuana use amongst retired seniors has skyrocketed in canada over the last ten years. well, i mean, what else do you have to do? you'd might as well just get baked and watch cartoons.
- strokes
- heart attacks
- lung disease
- cancer
- reduced cognitive functions
that's real life, and it's going to be an epidemic here, which is fine if you want them to just fucking die and go away already.
all of the old people are smoking drugs nowadays, which is going to lead to severely reduced life expectancy. they're all going to die of cancer.
this is only bad news if you're a banker. for the rest of the country, the fact that decreased population growth will open up job opportunities, reduce housing costs, ease up social services and potentially even result in deflation is the best thing we've heard since 2006.
i would be happy to sell the three northern territories to the americans if they really want the expensive burden of defending them, but we don't really have the right to do that and the indigenous groups, who certainly could not defend themselves at all, want to be canadian. i don't want to tell them otherwise.
but i want them to be self-reliant and to be able to defend themselves, and that should be the government policy, not aggressive expansion and further colonization via unending population growth.
in order for canada to maintain a society in which government can efficiently provide services based on taxation (the scandinavian model), it's population should not exceed 35 million and should be concentrated in tightly connected urban regions, not spread out over a large distance that requires expensive defense spending. the current population of canada is about 42 million, and we are suffering from the results of overpopulation as a result of it.
the government's policy should be population decline over the next ten years via essentially zero immigration, to reduce the population back to the 30-35 million range. once there, we should be seeking to maintain the population through encouragement of small families.
it is only through restricting population growth that canada can maintain the social services that canadians consider a part of their social and national identity, in contrast to the market capitalism than runs rampant in the united states.
neither side of the arab-israel bitchfest (i'm not calling it a conflict anymore, i'm hereby officially referring to it strictly as bitching) wants a divided jerusalem. the west keeps insisting on this idea. nobody wants this outcome.
in fact, there's a story in the bible about that.
the mythological israeli king solomon is dealing with a conflict over custody of a child. this appears to be a myth that is part of a genre of semitic stories, that have to do with an attempt by the authorities to end child sacrifice (another is the one where a schizophrenic named abraham thinks god told him to kill his child, and then goes into a mental breakdown over it, the moral of which is to stop sacrificing your kids to god), which the romans, greeks and persians all documented as a serious problem in the region, in the late bronze and early iron ages, something that has been upheld by archaeology, and is probably at the root of what later became blood libel, and which we still see in western news in the digital age, in terms of a constant attempt to make jews look like they eat and torture children. anyways, the story goes that they can't figure out who should have custody, so it is suggested that the child be cut in half and split equally amongst the two sides. one side shrugs it off and says whatever, and the other says "no, don't cut my child in half, you psychotic jew. give it to the other person.". solomon, who all evidence suggests never actually existed, decides the real parent is the one that won't cut the child in half, but would give it to the other instead.
while i don't think there's much wisdom in this story, it's worth thinking about.
a divided jerusalem is not a solution to the bitchfest, it's the cause of the bitchfest. the bitchfest will not end until the city is united.
this is the google ai response, which couldn't be more clear:
when the google ai bot is that clear, what more evidence do you need?
just don't take escalators. i know you might be tired, or drunk, or crippled, or old, but it doesn't matter, just tough it out. try as hard as you can. there's no down side, always take the stairs.
just.
don't.
take.
escalators.
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