we spend all of this time making robots out of steel, but we're not made out of steel for a reason. god didn't make a mistake, or something. god doesn't exist at all. rather, the universe and evolution teamed up to make us out of calcium, which is a different kind of metal with different properties than steel. steel would not be likely to form naturally on the earth's surface due to the temperature required, at least not since the earth's early phase, but a biological process to use steel in physical biological organisms might have developed via evolution closer to the earth's core. it never has.

likewise, if we want to create legitimate artificial intelligence, we need to get a better grasp of quantum physics, first. these absurdly large ai data centres are built on top of 100,000+ chips running in parallel. your brain is more powerful because it uses quantum physics to manipulate millions of hydrogen atoms in the space of your skull. we don't need to go down some pseudoscientific penrosian path of woo and metaphysics. that's not what i mean. quantum physics is clearly wrong in an absolute sense, but it's also the most accurately false model we currently have to describe how the world operates at a small scale. your brain uses quantum mechanics because everything uses quantum mechanics. quantum mechanics is not the exception; newtonian physics is the exception. however, our basic systems of electronics are still built on the exception, which we know is wrong more generally, and not on the general rule. there is no way to scale this for serious efficiency, it needs to be redesigned to better utilize physics, by using evolution as a model.

100,000 human brains running in parallel would be real intelligence with minimal energy costs.

i like the idea of harnessing anti-matter for energy from orbit. but you eventually even run out of space in orbit, even if you can get the energy.

ai as we understand it is a dead end and doomed to stagnate as a glorified clippy with the cognitive sense of forrest gump. it's really just a search engine. regulations should be focused on human behaviour. this is just another tool for bad actors; it's not fundamentally different than existing tools and it never will be.

after years of losing to vinyl, cds are making a comeback, apparently. the old men are arguing the young folk are just being cool and they're losing the game. vinyl's out of fashion; cds are back.

i want to provide a different argument.

let's reduce the debate. fundamentally, there's three format types - tape, vinyl and digital. each of them come in various quality levels, but i want to combine the various types of digital audio - from cds to 24 bit audio file - into a single audio type. this is key to my argument, and i'll make a scientific argument as to why you can't tell the difference between 16 bit and 24 bit audio in the end.

then, what sounds better - cds or vinyl? 

it's a complicated question because there's an objective answer and a subjective answer. usually, audio nerds will concede the objective point - that cds clearly sound better, technically - but defer to a subjective consideration, which is a personal preference for the sound of vinyl. the argument goes something along the lines that people that grew up listening to vinyl prefer it's "warmth" and can't adjust to the "crispness" of digital audio. these are adjectives to describe technical specs. what do they actually mean?

the "warmth" of vinyl records is a description of something called  harmonic distortion. digital audio lacks the "warmth" because it doesn't create distortion in key frequency ranges. instead, digital audio is "crisp" or "dry". what that means is that it produces accurate reproduction. you will get a similar effect from cassettes called tape saturation.

essentially, what baby boomers and some members of gen x have been saying since the 80s is that they prefer the inferior sound quality of analog reproduction - they like the harmonic distortion produced by the technology's inability to produce sound cleanly and get upset when you remove the noise from the end result. i guess that's their opinion, and it drove lingering vinyl sales in the 90s. then, records overtook vinyl. was that because millennials decided vinyl sounded better?

i think there's some complexity, here, but my understanding is that millennials were buying vinyl mostly for the cover art or to support their favourite artists as an act of charity. they were mostly actually listening to music on their phones. what happened is something more along the lines of that the collectors decided the vinyls were the more valuable commodity to put on a shelf. buying music as a commodity is not the same thing as listening to music; i do both, and i understand they're not the same thing. in fact, i'd guess that a huge percentage of the vinyl records manufactured and purchased new as commodities are still sitting in plastic because the owner didn't want to damage the commodity. instead, they downloaded 128 mbps mp3s or just streamed the music on their phone.

(https://consequence.net/2023/04/half-vinyl-buyers-record-player-study/

i do own a turntable and a handful of kept lps, after selling a pile of old lps at the height of their value, around ten years ago. i essentially never use it.)

...until their parents died. then, they inherited their audio systems. with cd players.

enter the younger generation, which neither grew up listening to cds nor to records but to digital audio, strictly, on digital devices. to most people under 30 today (in fact, to most people under 50 today), all music has always been digital. if you try to play a record to these people, and ask them what sounds better, even on your fanciful high quality system (which is mostly not upheld by science), it's not even a formed question. the record crackles and pops. it sounds warped and distorted and blurry. the difference is obvious and to them the truth is apparent: the analog source is not "warm" or "full", it's just distorted. because it is. that's objectively correct.

cds, on the other hand, sound like what they expect music to sound like, but better - especially on their parents' sound system, which is probably completely digital, and might even be high end.

there's some caveats to this. i have corellis as my main playback speakers. these are kefs from the late 70s. they're older than you or i are. they sound phenomenal from digital or analog sources (i feed them with cds coming from a dvd player) and i could never replace them with new speakers. they're analog speakers. i have celestions from the 80s in the other room, but i'm looking at finally buying digital studio monitors for the recording computers, where i mix in headphones anyways, because the gulf is too much. it's increasingly irrational to record in high end digital and play it back on 50 year old speakers. i need to modernize.

further, i'll concede that, sometimes, the distortion, the degradation, does sound good. it depends. the counter-example i usually provide is 70s kosmiche guitar/synthesizer music like mike oldfield, pink floyd or tangerine dream. one of these days does have a certain quirk on vinyl. hergest ridge sounds fantastic through a good vinyl setup. some subset of 90s alternative music - like siamese dream and loveless would maybe fit into that category. 

however, the arguments about digital sampling that vinyl supporters use are broadly wrong in respect to old recordings recorded on analog equipment and completely wrong in respect to new recordings recorded on digital equipment, which includes old recordings that have been transferred to digital to preserve them (which in 2026 means virtually everything ever recorded on analog equipment). for old recordings in 2026, the sampling process already happened at the remastering stage; for new recordings, it's a question of recording quality itself. the vinyl record is just being dumped to analog from digital. you're just introducing noise into the signal when you do that. it's utterly irrational and is being done to produce a commodity for an irrational market, not to adhere to sound quality.

your vinyl setup only makes sense in 2026 if you're playing old records manufactured before the year 2000, which are going to sound bad today because old vinyl doesn't retain it's quality. it degrades. cd does rot, but it doesn't warp or crackle or pop. young people want the digital remaster to cut the noise out (those old beatles records are in fucking mono, which is insane to a young person) and they don't want to pay for something that is going to degrade and sound worse in 30 years, because it will. that's rational. that's correct. that makes sense.

if you're listening to anything at all recorded in the last 30 years, transferring it from digital to analog can only make it sound worse. to a young person, 30 years is a long time. it's still a minority of the total recorded output available, but it's the vast majority of music that's relevant.

so, to a young person buying music today, a cd is of better audio quality than a vinyl record and it's not even a debate worth having. it's unquestionable. it's obvious.

i would, however, suspect that the uptick in physical cd sales is likely connected to digital focused stereo systems, some high end, being inherited. the millennials and gen z kids may have spent most of their lives to the point of inheriting these systems without much of a playback system at all, excepting their phones and any pcs they may have had. 

but dad had a system. dad listened to cds. now, dad is dead, and i have his system and his cds. and, hey, it sounds pretty good. it sounds clean, like the digital audio i'm used to, but bigger and louder and fuller and less compressed than my phone. wow. maybe i could get some more of these shiny discs. i kind of remember them, but not really.

is it a downgrade from 24 bit audio?

not if you stream at 128 mbps or worse on your phone. it's certainly an upgrade to that. but not generally, either.

you can't upsample to higher digital audio. again, the question is what commodity consumers want to buy, not what sounds better. people are recording in at 16 bit and selling it at 24 bit. that adds nothing but zeroes and there is no difference in sound. 

there should be a law that says you can't sell or market audio at a higher quality than you recorded it as. that should be banned as a deceptive business practice.

but you're probably not benefiting from 24 bit audio anyways unless you're recording with specialized software on specific hardware and you're recording very complex music, like symphonies. yes, a symphony will sound more full in 24 bit audio, specifically the quieter parts. an example of a popular musician that would actually benefit from using 24 bit audio would be peter gabriel, specifically his soundtrack work (rabbit proof fences or passion), and maybe some very select recordings by son lux or trent reznor. a day in the life might in theory have sounded better in 24 bit if it wasn't initially recorded on today's equivalent of a handheld recorder. almost nothing recorded for a pop music audience is going to benefit from being recorded in 24 bit.

worse, the daw you're using was probably not written for 24 bit audio. the plugins you're using were not written for 24 bit audio. in 2026, your sound card might not have to downsample anymore (that's recent), but your operating system probably does.

functionally, then, what recording in 24 bit audio actually means - still - is constantly resampling up and down. the plugin downsamples from 24 bit to 16 bit, applies the transform, and upsamples back to 24 bit. the daw mixes it down to 16 bit and upsamples to 24 bit. then your soundcard downsamples to 16 bit to play it.

which means what?

it means adding and removing piles of zeroes. it might create clicks, like a bad mp3, because you're basically doing the same thing you'd be doing when you're compressing mp3s, and then playing them back.

again, there's caveats, but they're still very expensive and apply to very limited circumstances. if you legitimately have the equipment to record in 24-bit - the hardware, the daw, the plugins - and complex enough compositions to justify it then do it. you probably don't. you should probably stick with 16 bit to avoid the constant resampling.

and that's what a cd is - it's the highest quality, cleanest quality audio realistically available to most people. it's the standard. 

it makes sense that it's what the kids want.

it didn't make sense for vinyl to outsell cds and that should be seen as a weird blip that happened as a result of weird circumstances. the return of cds is a renormalization of the music market. it's good news for the music industry.

the americans can take on the burden of patrolling the arctic, too, if they insist. i don't want it. i don't care. it's just a massive financial drain.

it's clearly not in alberta's self-interest to try to be independent, and that wouldn't appear to be a serious proposal. rather, "albertan independence" is really about becoming the 51st, or maybe 51st and 52nd, state. the americans would need to also absorb british columbia and at least a part of yukon for that to make any sense.

while alberta would be worse off, i would not be sorry to see them go. the country would instantly shit ten degrees to the left. we might not have to worry about conservatives winning office in canada for a generation or more, which would let more people vote for the ndp and greens. certain ideas - like recriminalizing abortion - would shift from third rail to nonexistent. 

we would have a little less revenue in the short term, but our carbon emissions would go way down. we'd have to refocus on different energy strategies. it could result in a return to hydro generation. they won't sell the rest of canada the oil, anyways.

it might hurt a little financially in the short run but we would be better off without alberta in the medium to long term and while i would rather keep bc than lose it, we would be better off losing bc if it means losing alberta than having to keep alberta to hold bc.

it seems very unlikely, based on the polling.

never forget that we are in the era of orwell, of doublethink, of newspeak. we had the renaissance, the enlightenment, the industrial revolution and then the orwellian age. it's not a cliche; it's a phase of history.

hitler would love 2026's version of "liberal democracy"; it hates israel, is embarked on a war to destroy russia and sees the united states as it's greatest threat and rival.

i have a legitimate question. i honestly don't know. 

when right-wing neo-con stooges like thomas friedman argue that ukraine is a democracy and russia isn't, are they doing so out of ignorance or dishonesty?

ukraine and russia both had elections scheduled for 2024. russia carried out it's elections. ukraine did not. putin was recently reelected. zelensky refuses to hold elections. 

you can criticize the russians over state repression, and i won't argue with you. it's true. but ukraine has exactly the same political system and exactly the same culture and the repression in ukraine is equivalent or worse.

so, which is it?

is friedman ignorant about the political realities in ukraine or is he aware of them and being dishonest when he calls ukraine democratic?

maybe you support ukraine for other reasons. russophobia - a fear of russian expansion - is a real thing. maybe you're still fighting the last war, against the communists. maybe you're racist against russians. the mainstream press has done everything but explicitly call them non-europoid mongoloids in their racist attacks on russia (and has come pretty close to being explicit about it), which forms one of the arguments russia has presented for why it's doing this - there is a latent nazism barely concealed under the surface of western culture that threatens russia directly. you see this latent nazism in the recent liberal support for "palestine", as well.

but the idea of ukraine protecting democracy is farcical. it is specious. it is counter-factual and irrational. it is not upheld but firmly torn down by the most cursory analysis. it requires immense ignorance or immense dishonesty to write an article like this, and i just don't know what the truth is.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/15/opinion/trump-russia-oil-putin.html

the truth is that this is a bait and switch.

none of this will generate demand for more steel. therefore, none of this will result in job retention. jobs = demand. no demand = no jobs.

however, the state appears to have a right-wing, nationalist agenda to maintain canadian control over particular industries, including environmentally damaging industries like steel that should be offshored to the united states to minimize the health and safety harms that steel manufacturing inflicts on canadian citizens. this owner is a trump supporter, so the government is targeting and scapegoating him in essentially trying to steal the private property that he recently bought in canada, due to his political affiliations being aligned with forces opposed to the government's political priorities. don't be fooled into thinking this government cares about private property; it doesn't, it just cares about implementing class war and it's facade of support for property rights in attacks on poor canadians is only as deep as the omnipresent class war necessitates it to be. he's being attacked as a political opponent, and the minister is using the court system to go after him. this reflects extremely poorly on the canadian government's neutrality, on it's tendency to try to use the courts to implement political priorities and attack political opponents and on our own free trade obligations. it's something you expect in a corrupt third world country....because canada is a corrupt state that is increasingly becoming a third world country. this kind of corruption is becoming rampant here and the commonality is that it as almost all being driven by intellectually vapid ciswomen with weak resumes and low levels of ability that came out of the trudeau government, and who are interested in asserting control and power rather than upholding democratic or legal norms. the tendency to seek dominance and control and power is a characteristic of low intelligence, but it comes paired with a dunning-kruger effect, and the misperception of competence. the kind of woman that trudeau put into power is a cut throat type that wants to dominate and control their enemies; it's a type of aggressive female masculinity that amounts to women playing exaggerated male performative stereotypes in ways men could not get away with anymore, in full nazi corporate garb. they universally suffer from mental health problems, short tempers, substance abuse problems (often prescription meds, like anti-depressants) and a tendency towards emotional decision making, paired with a fundamental incapacity to think logically. it's an algorithm for fascism.

foreign investors should take note that if you invest in canada and the state doesn't like your politics then it might try to nationalize your private property.

there's increasingly a role reversal underway between canada and mexico, where mexico is demonstrating stable governance and becoming america's best friend and wealthy partner while canada is becoming the impoverished third world society on it's borders with an unpredictable government led by mentally unstable leaders and beset by mass corruption.

stelco should launch a counter-suit against the canadian government at the wto (through the us government) and/or through the nafta courts for government interference and for using the courts to attack their political opponents.

but this has nothing to do with jobs and selling the company to a canadian owner won't somehow reverse layoffs that are happening due to low demand in the midst of an economic recession caused by the reduction of exports resulting from an import tax levied by the united states. if the canadian government was legitimately concerned about steel jobs in canada, it would be focusing on a jobs bill to generate more demand for steel and it is not only not doing that but is actually going out of it's way to explicitly not do that by focusing on trying to stimulate foreign investment, which may or may not buy canadian steel for projects it does in canada, and by distracting from the layoffs through using the courts to attack it's political opponents, instead.

https://globalnews.ca/news/12101944/stelco-federal-government-legal-action/

it's not how i had initially intended it, or how i more recently had revisited it, but i do have the shape of the studio in place and i think it's a solid, stable setup. this is a much bigger apartment than the last one, so i don't need everything crammed on top of itself, i can open up the room a little by pushing things up to the walls and create a bit more open space between instrument placements. it's still a one person space, but there's maybe space to jam in the studio for the first time in several years. that's basically it for inside, except to get some more things into the garage after i clean a second time in there, and install the bicycle rack. 

there will be some pictures of the entire remaining space, soon.

and then i hit the showers.

the forecast continues to suggest temperatures in the high teens through october, here. no crash forecast yet. it's still 20+ in the garage so it should be safe to the move the bikes in.

i'm going to predict that greta thunberg will die of a heroin overdose in the next five years, max, and probably much sooner.

the full name of the school is the lyin' brian school of corruption for impressionable young people.

they will sing "irish eyes are smiling" every morning, along with o canada.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/ottawa-school-becomes-first-in-canada-named-after-former-pm-brian-mulroney/

what have i been doing?

i lost track of time a little this week because i got sidetracked by something.

as i indicated i was doing, i spent the middle of last week sealing the furnace room, and cleaning the bottom of the carpeted side entrance and the tiled hallway between it and the kitchen, with the intent of moving some small furniture items in place in that part of the apartment. once the hallway had been vacuumed, scrubbed, vacuumed again, steam mopped and vacuumed one more time, i put the furniture in place, moved the items that belong on the shelf on to the shelf and started focusing on clearing things off and around the couch, in order to pull it away from the wall. i was about ready to take some pictures.

i think that what happened is that a small rat escaped from the furnace room when i had the door open and was in there cleaning. as mentioned, i cannot seal that space. i had been hearing something try to get in from upstairs for a few weeks, but there was no sign of entry anywhere, and no sign of activity anywhere, after i sealed up the cardboard the last time a few weeks ago and i after i cleaned up the little bit of activity in the laundry. it was only after i opened the door that i noticed anything. unfortunately, when i moved the couch out from the wall, it became clear that there was something under it and had been for a few days at most. there were only a small number of droppings, but they were fresh.

i reacted by doing two things:

1. setting up baitless traps against the wall. rodents are nearly blind. i don't want to feed it, i'm hoping it just trips on it.

2. dumping powdered bleach everywhere near the couch so that it would necessarily track through it

the idea with the bleach is that i'm hoping the rat will walk through it and get it on it's feet and legs or on it's body. rats spend a lot of time grooming. a rat with powdered bleach on it's body is likely to remove it by licking it off. it would not take much bleach to kill a juvenile rat, the hard part is getting it to eat the bleach.

i then let it sit and instead spent a few days in the bathroom cleaning myself while i waited.

over the next few days, i checked everywhere in the apartment several times and i found nothing - no droppings, no rat. i have not heard anything, either. it disappeared without a trace and without a sound. i don't know how it might have got out and suspect it didn't but i haven't found it yet. my best guess is it's under the pile of boxes blocking the side door and is probably dead in there. at the least, it's no longer running around in here and no longer leaving droppings but i'll have to keep looking for it.

what i've done since i got back to working on the space is

- removed everything on the stairwell to the side entrance (but not on the top landing in front of the door yet)

- vacuumed, scrubbed with carpet cleaner, vacuumed, scrubbed with cleaner again and then again vacuumed the carpeted steps. it's looking pretty clean.

- sealed the stairwell and the baseboards at the bottom of the landing

- installed two lights in the area, one 800 lumen and one 1500 lumen, and upgraded the pot light to 1500 lumen.

- sealed the window, including putting a blackout curtain in place

- revacuumed, rescrubbed with lysol, revacuumed, re steam mopped and revacuumed the hallway 

- washed all of my winter jackets, rain jackets, hooded sweaters, toques, face masks, scarves, gloves, etc and put them on the coat rack or the hat and glove holder. it's ready for the winter, or for the rainy season.

- set up a shoe rack and put all of the shoes that don't need to be fixed on it. the rest are in the garage.

- put all of my various bags up on the racks or on the wall

- placed some art on the wall

- further sealed up the ceiling under the stairs (on top of the carpet) to address some water leaks from upstairs

- further sealed the furnace room door

- moved the old tv stand in front of the furnace room door and put boxes for kitchen items on it (for now)

- moved the coffee table that's too big for the listening room in the hallway and put sealed containers of spices, a bag of plastic bags and a number of reusable containers, some with bottle caps, on it

- moved the three tier console table back into the hallway, but on the other side of the hall. put an electrical splitter behind it. will move further small appliances (pop machine, etc) to top of console table. unused kitchen items and old appliances on bottom of console table.

- sealed up pot lights to keep flies from upstairs out. step one. step two to come.

- vacuumed, scrubbed with lysol, vacuumed, steam mopped, vacuumed tile under couch

- moved couch back to where it belongs. vacuumed couch.

- sealed up cold air returns to keep vermin out and to block draft.

- put up floating shelf for networking devices on wall (modem, firewall, several daisy chained wired and wireless routers, switches) near cable in. moved devices to shelf.

- put legs on remaining studio tables (big keyboard table, small antique table)

- caulked remaining wall behind computer desk (for 3 studio pcs, studio chromebook, potential studio mac, etc)

- vacuumed, scrubbed with lysol, vacuumed, steam mopped, vacuumed tile under computer desk

- picked all boxes and pcs in studio up off the floor and put on table or desk

- picked all boxes in bedroom up off floor

- started putting cardboard up on ceiling in kitchen. ordered more sealing tape (oddly slow to come in).

- moved smelly old couch out of garage and outside to the curb.

- set up steel mesh over vent into furnace room (from outside, where i built the brick wall a few months ago)

i started again on saturday and stopped on monday afternoon to let the floor behind the desk dry, slept in the evening and then spent most of tuesday (which was warm here) in the bathroom, before getting the couch out in the afternoon. 

what's left to do before i shift back to the great cleanup and then to typing in the bedroom?

- i have enough cardboard broken down and ready to go to finish the bottom layer in the kitchen as soon as the tape gets here, so i should get the aluminum up by the end of the week. that was a primary goal.

- i have a very small amount of caulking left to do on the stairway down from the side entrance and i'd like to do another vacuum run of the carpet and floors there before i move on. 

-  once i get the cardboard up, i have a two-tired coffee table to move to beside the couch (parallel to the console table) that will be a side coffee table for the couch. i'll need to vacuum that space and it will probably be rescrubbed and relysoled.

- i want to finally finish installing the shelving in the kitchen and get the items that belong on the shelves on to the shelves.

- there's a small number of amazon haul items to finish with, but i mostly did that the previous week (all of my pots and pans are finally up on the wall)

- i need to move the rest of the furniture in the studio out to in front of the stereo before i can clean the rest of the floors and then move it back

- while the studio will remain uninstalled for a while, i can take things out of boxes and clean them and generally tidy the space up to prevent anything from living in there

- i am going to set up the drum kit because i need to in order to understand the best way to use the space

- finish cleaning around the removed couch in the garage

- set up the bike rack

- move the three bicycles currently in the unit into the garage and lock them to the rack

- tidy up further in the garage (tools, shoes, fans, electronics that need to be fixed, etc)

- a second waterproofing run over the brick wall and around the bottom of the wall

- another concrete run

- clean floors in front entrance

- clean floors between stereo and couch

- clean floors in kitchen and bathroom

- clean bedroom floors

- clean sheets

some items i'm looking to purchase in different areas - 

side entrance: 

- couch at bottom of stairs with computer system

- second video doorbell

- standalone mailbox

kitchen:

- small appliances

- step two for pot lights (extenders, reseal)

- needs more caulking and sealing (need a little bit more caulk)

- install light over stove

- update youtube laptop (needs new os and battery, update account access from koc)

listening room:

- small coffee table

- shelf for pi

- wall mounted monitor for pi

- wireless mouse and keyboard

- small ups or battery backup

- mini standalone exercise bike (not stationary)

library: 

- set up shelves (need glue, masking tape)

- get tall, skinny shelf

- security pc setup peripherals

studio:

- update further items as per use and journal. need old guitar analogs. set up mini tele (hannah montana guitar), find solution for ibanez replacement.

- may need to replace some electronics due to previous damage

- 486 pc is initial project (may go in garage)

- update shelving to get lingering items out of boxes.

- need to update power bars (need to get a ups for studio, long overdue)

bedroom:

- new filing cabinet

- fix celestions

- bluray for digital media

- tablet for sleeping

- peripherals for tying pc (offline multimedia presentation)

do i have any concrete suggestions for the situation in france?

the more traditional left tried to step in and co-opt the riots organized by the radical right immigrant movement and while they got some people out on the street for a few days, the size of the protests has come down dramatically. that's a predictable result. if the result of the co-option is that the situation fizzles out then that might be a gift to the status quo. 

the reality is that france spends a lot of money on education, but also that the state is threatening substantive cuts. the complaints seen in the english media appear to be disingenuous, in terms of representing the concerns of the students, which don't seem to be financial, exactly. it doesn't seem to be about underfunding, it seems to be more about a cultural perspective that the french education system is too intense. that doesn't seem to be grounded in fact, either.

so, if the reality is that the french system is not too harsh (but is maybe a little too lenient) and the schools aren't underfunded at all but are better funded than almost anywhere in the world, what is going on? why are the middle class white kids marching?

because it's cool. everybody's doing it. it's happening to protest like it's 1968.

or maybe like it's 1848.

but this doesn't present a lot of answers besides looking at the media landscape and asking what these kids are consuming that makes them decide that burning their school down or waving palestinian flags is "cool". the right-wing press wants to blame it on left-wing agitators, but this is the antithesis of historical materialism, and all evidence suggests rank opportunism by a very fake left rather than any legitimate organizing. the real culprit seems to be an internet media landscape that lacks filters or even metrics. you and i don't even know what they're consuming that's got them playing out the revolution and jostling for the next revolutionary beside them for the coolest kid spot in a legitimate attempt to try to get laid.

it really takes the issue out of the hands of the elected class. that is a difference between iran and france, at least for now - nobody's getting shot in france, except the teachers and the police. nobody's going to get sentenced to death. nobody's going to the guillotines. if the issue is a decentralized internet culture that delusionally romanticizes islamicist extremism by falsely equating it with leftist uprisings, the democracy has no available solution. you just need to step back and let them tire themselves out, like you do with a toddler throwing a tantrum.

the solution might be to respond through the grading system.

if it's not safe to go back to school, set up pandemic era distance learning for the kids that want to go to class, and let them study. if there's some set of kids that would rather be cool and go to the riot than be good students and go to class then fail them for it.

in the medium term, security may need to be increased to ensure that kids can get to school and students trying to stop them from getting to school or otherwise disrupt the situation may need to be charged with harassment. they can tell the judge they were just trying to be cool.

in the mean time, somebody has to show up and campaign on maintaining education funding. the situation only demonstrates the importance of funding your secondary schools. if france has debt issues due to irresponsible spending, the kids shouldn't be the ones to face the cuts. 

clearly, the biggest problem right now in france is runaway military spending, which needs to be addressed.

and regarding the cultural issues, it's important to remember that immature teenagers will grow up and that the education system will help them do that but that not everybody is going to learn and not everybody is going to succeed. some students will fail. some young people will spend much of their lives incarcerated.

the only real approach possible is to create counter media that challenges the idea that what the students are doing is sexy or cool and the only real source of that counter media is the young people themselves. it will need to work itself out, but the system needs to enforce educational and legal consequences in order to make counter examples.

you might remember when smoking was cool. you might likewise remember the wrinkly, toothless 40 year old that got trotted out in the 90s to show the kids what you're going to look like at 45 if you smoke. and that worked; not on everybody, but on a majority. the kids that will need to be failed will need to become the examples of what happens when you're cool and go to the riot instead of smart and go to class.

there's probably not a quick fix to this.

it does not appear as though netanyahu's most recent challenger has the numbers to overthrow him. israel's parliament is very complex.

right now, it doesn't look like this month's vote will result in a workable parliament and they'll have to do it again in a few weeks. but that doesn't often happen. somebody usually blinks.

i would put my money on the old man staying in power. his health may be thing that removes netanyahu in the end. he won't live forever.

a movement that won't criticize the iranian state or support people fighting it on the ground but instead flies flags in support of it's proxies in israel is not a left-wing movement.

one will recall that the iranian revolution began with student protests, before a counter-revolution resulted in a fascist theocracy.

i support exporting the french revolution to iran. i do not support importing the iranian revolution to france.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/oct/14/najmeh-amini-blasphemy-death-sentence-insulting-prophet

i'm just intrigued by the reality that the bourgeois press is largely in support of the rioting in france, while characterizing it as radically left-wing, while the socialist press is overwhelmingly critical of it. it's like the mainstream press has been given orders to create a strawman for the far-right press to tear down. they are working together to create a fantasy reality of the protests as left-wing, while the actual left is saying "we don't support this. this is not socialism. this is a developing fascist movement that has no revolutionary potential and no resemblance to socialism and that threatens the freedom of many vulnerable groups and threatens the revolutionary left.".

"Had Charles Martel not been victorious at Poitiers – already, you see, the world had fallen into the hands of the Jews, so gutless a thing was Christianity! – then we should in all probability have been converted to Mohammedanism, that cult which glorifies heroism and which opens the seventh Heaven to the bold warrior alone. Then the Germanic races would have conquered the world. Christianity alone prevented them from doing so." - adolf hitler, lamenting the victory of the french over the muslims in 732 that prevented a muslim conquest of western europe (and largely repeating the views of edward gibbon about the collapse of the roman empire, the first of hitler's three reichs)

i'm not sure why zetterberg thinks it's ai assistant will fare any better than clippy did 30 years ago.

the meta muse is functionally exactly the same thing as the talking paperclip that came with ms office 97, which was widely despised by all. it just uses more ram and has control over a bigger part of your hard drive.

i can't find footage of the taiwanese christian missionary that jumped into a lion enclosure in order to convert them to christianity.

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna6396422

despite being from a very bourgeois background, greta thunberg has decided to go riot with the lumpenproletariat in france.

does she calculate that dumpster fires are good or bad for carbon emissions? or does she even care anymore? 

that would make her a 23 year old high school student. and that's the correct way to interpret ms. thunberg.

she's retarded.

the international community should be putting immense pressure on ukraine to immediately hold elections and should be threatening the withholding of funds and the withdrawal of recognition of ukraine as an independent state until it does. it should be kicked out of the un until it holds elections, and it certainly shouldn't be given any more weapons until it does. 

this is farcical.

the last ukrainian election was in 2019. they've been repeatedly delayed since 2024, meaning zelensky is on par with mahmoud abbas in terms of holding to democracy. he is no longer elected and should be referred to as unelected.

ukrainians should indeed choose their next leader. the problem is that zelensky and his corrupt party are refusing to allow them to do that.

zelensky is currently running around 25% popular support, which makes him competitive but not a clear front runner in a new election.

https://www.aldeparty.eu/blog/news-11/ukrainians-choose-their-president-not-trump-613

these plants are not adhering to existing environmental regulations, are outdated and should be shut down, but nobody is enforcing the laws.

https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/why-has-dark-smoke-been-coming-out-of-stelcos-stack/article_22195a90-7337-5639-b37a-584f692109f5.html

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/hamilton-soot-grime-health-9.7313009

https://www.hamilton.ca/people-programs/public-health/environmental-health-hazards/air-quality-hamilton/black-particulate

the ndp should also be supporting positive reforms to ei and increases in funding for retraining programs for permanently or structurally laid off workers.

this is nonsense and will do nothing to protect jobs, as the federal government has been responsible for more layoffs over the last year than the tariffs have. you're more likely to get laid off if you work for the federal government right now than if you're in a private industry that's been affected by the tariffs. nationalizing stelco consequently might increase the number of layoffs, if it's nor paired with a subsequent increase in demand generated by a jobs bill and increases in deficit spending.

further, it's a right-wing economic policy disguised as left-wing by using strategically chosen buzzwords. nationalization is often promoted by the fake left but that kind of state capitalism is generally more similar to very old conservative ideas about mercantilism than anything related to socialism. state control over industry does not necessarily lead to greater worker control or greater worker percentage of profits, and in canada in 2026 there's little reason to think it would. it's all "general revenue"; you're just paying for mp's salaries. that's not socialism, it's not left-wing - it's state capitalism, it's fascism, it's extremely right-wing.

you protect jobs by increasing demand, not through nationalization. employment is not determined by the national origin of the owner of a company, it's determined by how many workers are required to generate enough product to meet demand for it. if the ndp's goal is to protect steel industry jobs in canada, it should be calling for a jobs bill and for the government to buy more steel, not for nationalization. nationalization is irrelevant to employment.

the reality is that this is not left-wing at all, it's supply side economics. the ndp is supporting reaganomics.

i don't personally support maintaining a steel industry in canada and would be happy to shut the filthy steel mill in hamilton down. we should import steel from other countries and offshore the pollution it generates in the process. the amount of employment it creates in canada by keeping it here is broadly trivial. i don't want this filthy industry here, in this country. let the americans deal with the pollution if they want it. good riddance.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/ndp-calls-nationalize-stelco-9.7379251

"So everyone's concerned, as they should be, about some of the implications of (the) tariff war with the U.S. But in real practical terms, what the federal government has done has been much more impactful when it comes to layoffs."

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/ottawa-sees-highest-job-losses-070121743.html

i thought ozzy was dead.

?

do crazy train.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cwdr8xzr45l2t

this isolated westernmost group of kurds in turkey, today, is what happened to the galatians in the end, although i won't pretend to know how to clearly trace the steps:

the celtic boii were thought to be an old austrian celtish group (although that's hard to prove due to a lsck of evidence) that lived in the area we today call bohemia and also conquered an etruscan city in northern italy that it renamed to balogna, and which became an important italian city in the roman and post-roman periods.

you won't find a lot of galatians today. they were just straight up gauls, like the gauls in other places in europe, but they were settled in turkey by the successors of alexander during the macedonian period. the galatians were so irish that their warlord, at about 280 bce, was named brennan. you could take their freedom..

however, the galatians/gauls/irish left huge traces in central anatolia. to begin with, they founded the city of ankara, which is today the capital of turkey (not constantinople). much of the local culture in the region of central turkey, including a lot of the musical culture, is not central asian (where the turks came from) in origin but celtic and western european in origin. that distinctive arabic pentatonic tonality in string music, and which is also present in celtic music, was brought to the area by the galatians, who became the folk people of the region, in contrast to the emperors in greece and persia and rome and mecca. they eventually assimilated into the kurdish and armenian populations.

the galatians are probably one of the primary sources of remnant red hair variability in central turkey, but you need to be careful. yes, there are red-haired turks. in fact, it's not that uncommon:

https://www.google.com/search?num=10&newwindow=1&sca_esv=7a9d3f4fa3fac4b8&sxsrf=APpeQnuoQjur4b7X-jKxtL9zsSOkX8X5_w:1791891284615&ei=VBfOavXsJKiQm9cPwOr4oAY&q=red+hair+in+turkey&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj15vqb87aXAxUoyOYEHUA1HmQQ7Al6BAgYEAE&biw=1518&bih=734

this woman is a successful model and actress in turkey and if you think she looks pretty darn irish it's because she's likely galatian:

https://www.pinterest.com/aydanisayeva5/elcin-sangu/

however, the region was settled by an indo-european group called the hittites a very, very long time ago. the hittites were displaced by further waves of people from the steppes, and eventually assimilated into the greek world and then conquered by the persians and then the greeks and romans - all indo-european groups that would have had some red hair. 

but by the time of the arabs and turks, the galatians were all that was left of this, along with the armenian and kurdish groups, which were still developing identities. the galatians disappeared in the end, but there would have been a time when all of these other groups rode up into the mountains to live with the remnant, wild celts. they survived here longer than they did in austria, in spain or in france.

i am broadly in favour of a concept of pan celtism, which would include iberian celts, the belgians, the boii, the galatians of turkey, the polish and ukrainian silesians and the austrian and german celts, in addition to the gauls, the welsh and the irish, who only became the scots after invading an area known in ancient history as pictland.

A writer from the Irish Press interviewed Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger who spoke of Celtic heritage of Austrians, saying "I believe there is a deeper connection between us Austrians and the Celts. Names of places in the Austrian Alps are said to be of Celtic origin. For that reason, the celts can be seen to be both alive and dead, depending on whether it's being directly or indirectly observed."

this is the little known origin of schrodinger's celt, which through the error of a bad typist, became schrodinger's cat.

on sept 1, 2026, france banned the presence of all cell phones in high schools, for any reason.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/student-riots-france

france's sprawling multi-party system does not seem to have produced a candidate with a platform i would support, which would look like:

1. reduced immigration from religious societies and a strengthening of laicite laws

2. support for secularist political movements in the middle east

3. increased social spending

4. reduced defense spending and a step back from the idea of france as a colonial power, which is absurd and delusional in the 21st century

5. a return to an arms-length approach to nato 

6. french devolution into breton, norman and provencal regions

7. enhanced hyper-local sovereignty in the context of a strengthened european parliamentary system with regional jurisdiction, including parliamentary elections to a eu parliament that can write enforceable laws in that jurisdiction's context

8. support for an equalization formula in europe to negate the issue of bankrupt eu member states

9. increased environmental regulations, including phasing out the combustion engine

10. stronger food and energy sovereignty

given what i just said, it is clear that marine le pen's platform, which seeks to balance the budget through massive spending cuts, is not the correct path forward for france, but increasingly seems to be difficult to separate from the republicans or from the status quo under macron, which is also calling for spending cuts.

while i don't want to pretend that i'm sympathetic to concerns about the british right collapsing, the british tory party may want to look at canadian history in the 90s to understand what's going to happen if it splinters into a reform party with more modern conservative policies and a conservative party that is lost in traditional conservative ideology. the reform party will win.

...especially if the conservatives can't find a white person to run for pm. i mean, they're the conservative party. they can't find a white man? what are they thinking running a black female?

is it a reflection of who votes conservative in the uk in 2026? if so, they'd might as well just give up now. reform will wipe them out.

i live in canada, where multiple visible minority groups are reliable conservative voting blocks. we don't have the kind of race-baiting politics that you have in the united states, and it's nothing weird for brown or black people to vote for the right, especially when they come from religious communities. it actually makes a lot of sense.

however, canada is a colonial society that has accepted immigrants from everywhere in varying proportions for centuries. we don't really have a dominant ethnic group in that sense. i don't like the idea of multiculturalism - i prefer the idea of post-culturalism - but the dominant ethnic group is only english-speaking in the sense of white assimilation. you throw a german, a swede, an irishman and an italian in a room, and they're all white people that speak english, in canada. otherwise, there is no concept of canada as a nation, as a race, as an ethnicity; that doesn't make sense in a colonial context.

the uk is not a colonial society. maybe it was briefly an empire, but that's been over for decades. the uk is a nation state with a dominant historical culture, race, language and ethnicity. it is not at all unreasonable for citizens in the uk - especially conservative citizens in the uk - to expect their representatives to be members of the historical dominant cultural group and the fact that the uk tories have run two visible minorities (uk born or not) in a row is either political suicide or reflective of the fact that they're already dead, they just haven't been declared dead yet. 

well, stuff them like jeremy bentham and put them in a room already, then.

is nigel farage more absurd than boris johnson? or of winston churchill? i'd get used to it.

the movement in europe is to realize that social services are being cut to fund a war against russia and to oppose the war on grounds that it's eating into social services. in fact, this is also happening in canada, but the phony war against the americans is distracting from it. if trump would fuck off with his unreasonable trade demands and just retreat to the status quo, it is predictable that canadians would quickly make a turn against defense spending. canadians don't usually support defense spending; we're only supporting it now out of a fear that the americans are going to attack us, not the russians or chinese or arabs or germans. if you take away that threat from the americans, canadians will also oppose funding the ukraine war and go back to demanding more funding on social services.

this rejection of war spending in favour of spending on social services is, in europe, being called "right-wing". well, if that's right-wing and supporting an endless war against russia is left-wing then call me right-wing but i think people have their spectrum mixed up.

the fact that the ndp is not vocally opposing war spending or organizing against the war in ukraine is a function of it's inefficacy and irrelevance. i will not be able to take the ndp seriously again until or unless it joins the global fight to defund the ukrainian war machine and redirect the funding to domestic social services.

today is likely to break a temperature record here, due to the remnants of the atlantic hurricane moving north, which is due to the effects of warm water in the atlantic, rather than warm water in the pacific. americans have been lucky that wind shear is so high because these temperatures in the atlantic should be generating substantive storms that should be caving in the coasts in the southeast. they should not get complacent, as the wind shear is a temporary effect that will lift in time, and the warming atlantic will just get more and more intense. it will just take one vicious year for the new normal to assert itself.

some people will try to tie it to el nino. it's not el nino; it's climate change in the atlantic. the cause of the wind shear is dust blowing into the atlantic from the sahara, which has various short-term and long term causes but is temporary.

i would expect the high sea surface temperatures in the atlantic and their effect on pushing the jet stream over the great lakes up a little bit to continue to be the single biggest reason for above average temperatures in the great lakes and st lawerence regions this winter and in upcoming winters. this is not about ocean currents and is not periodic, like enso is. this is about the ocean trapping increasing amounts of heat, leading to consistently higher sea surface temperatures, and is constant.

no, listen, the diesel deal with russia is difficult for me for reasons that are not related to ukraine. reducing global carbon emissions is more important than "ukrainian independence", whatever that even means. the definition of the word "ukraine" is the region between the countries. what does it mean for a region between countries to have independence? it's a region without a state, without a country. 

ukrainian is a dialect of russian and the leader of ukraine is past due on calling elections. he should rightfully be declared a dictator. societies that support democracy should stop supporting ukraine until it holds elections.

but the need to reduce carbon emissions is - unlike ukrainian independence - very real. 

yet, the need to normalize relations with russia is also extremely pressing right now and should be the primary priority in not just washington but london, paris and berlin. it may very well be the case that it is within a few years, if the current pro-ukrainian leadership in western europe is replaced in the ongoing or upcoming democratic cycles, and there is a high chance that it will be. canada might be standing on the outside of reality, wearing a "neville chamberlain was right" tshirt, while europe moves towards abandoning ukraine.

how will american voters react?

i have explained here several times that the attempt to tie energy prices to the iran conflict is overstated. i do not support the endless war against russia (the cold war is over), but i do support regime change to rid the world of the terrorist death cult in iran, and i would like to see regime change in saudi arabia as well. energy prices are not up that much, relative to inflation. the real issue is inflation, not the straight of hormuz, and the issue in ukraine is a primary cause of the inflation. energy exports out of hormuz have largely normalized but energy prices haven't adjusted because it isn't really the issue. trump is actually getting the economics right on this; the media is not, it is wrong.

it doesn't seem likely that russia is going to get diesel on to the global market that quickly. the russians are, after all, using a fair amount of diesel in their war operations. if i was putin, i would prioritize a moratorium on fossil fuel exports because it's a threat to national security. the argument is that russia needs the money it gets by selling the fuel, but that argument isn't rooted in fact. due to decades of isolation under communism, russia is a largely self-sufficient society; there is nowhere in the world that could be self-sufficient, if not the russians. they are behind the west on technology and have been since day one, but they import almost nothing. the russian economy doesn't need to sell things to survive. that's why the sanctions have made the russians stronger and not weaker. this is an approach based on bad data and a bad analysis and it's never going to succeed.

nor is it clear that the russians want the republicans to win the midterms. the kremlin actually endorsed kamala harris. that was not reported in the western press, which continues to repeat debunked claims about russian intelligence influencing trump, which came from the clinton campaign in 2016 and are not based on reputable reporting by reputable sources but are just democratic party political propaganda. trump's attack on iran has severely weakened a regional ally of russia, which creates a security threat on it's large caspian sea border area and may potentially destabilize the kazakh buffer state. he also threw them out of syria. the democrats are not likely to have supported that; they withdrew from afghanistan, which very much was in russia's interests. trump has been a much bigger pain in the ass for putin than clinton or harris would have been or than biden was. 

so, i'll believe it when i see it.

but i don't expect diesel prices to go down before the midterms.

if they do, however, american voters will be left with a decision. the democrats are running against inflation, but they have not presented anything resembling a concrete solution and there is little reliable data that it is a ballot issue for american voters (who are more concerned about congressional policies on immigration than inflation, which is a private sector concern that congressional legislation has no impact on). it is in fact true that the most substantive thing that could possibly be done to lower inflation is to end the war in ukraine. if it is trump that is taking actionable steps to lower inflation that the democrats in fact are actually opposing, while running against it, how will voters respond to that confusing mess?

if you're really concerned about inflation, you should support the diesel deal (even if it takes time to happen), you should support normalizing ties with russia and you should support ending the war in ukraine and western russia. all the democrats have to offer in response is complaining. they have no policy proposals, no answers that will work.

but my position is that the best way to reduce the effects of diesel prices on inflation is to stop using diesel, not to enforce policies to lower the price of diesel.

i want to encourage consumers on both sides of the north american border to avoid buying foods manufactured using diesel. the prices will help you figure that out. if the item seems expensive, don't buy it - force the store to mark it down first. don't buy it unless it's on sale. force the stores to seek lower price suppliers by forcing them to take losses on items manufactured using diesel.

the grocery industry will never be competitive. basic economic theory makes it clear that the industry is a natural oligopoly and that state interference in the oligopoly to try to force competition will only result in higher prices. rather, it is up to consumers to force the stores to lower prices by refusing to pay them.

the basic fact is that if you pay the price then it's not too high. you can bitch about it, but that's not important. what's important is that you paid it. the store will respond to sales, it won't respond to complaints. if you think it's too expensive, don't buy it. it's only consumer behaviour that will adjust prices in the oligopoly, and that's what they teach you in school in the modern era, rather than what they used to teach you in school in the 60s and 70s. 

holding to classical economic theory like conservatives do is like holding to newtonian physics. it's wrong. it's been proven wrong; you adjust and learn or you fail. the current economic theory states that it's up to consumers to adjust prices through demand and not up to governments to force them to compete, as competition does not lower prices, it increases them. only shifts in demand have the power to adjust prices, and if you keep paying them, you just tell the stores they can charge what they're charging and they'll keep doing it.

high diesel prices combined with an appropriate consumer response is the only way to eliminate diesel use.

so just stop buying things that are too expensive, until the store marks them down. it's up to us to force those changes. that's how the economy actually works. it's not up to governments to try to force competition. that's not how the economy actually works.

canada voted for a liberal government to fight donald trump and somehow ended up with the most radically right-wing conservative government that it has ever had, which is now systematically attacking and restricting our constitutional rights. canadians must rise up and fight back.

ensuring access to suicide on demand in canada is the most important moral and cultural issue of our time, in canada. this government's decision to block it is illegal, immoral, uncanadian and out of touch with the cultural values of canadians in 2026. it should be resisted to the point of being discarded and ignored - full stop.

governments that don't follow the rule of law must be ignored until they are overthrown and replaced. all canadians have a civil and ethical duty to fight to overthrow this government for breaking the social contract and ignoring the rule of law.

it would be helpful if advocates would organize marches and demonstrations to demonstrate the level of support that exists for expanding the right to death in the secular society and post-religious culture of contemporary canada.

i strongly agree with this mp's comments and unequivocally condemn the government's decision to ignore the court's ruling, which clearly indicated that mentally ill canadians have a constitutional right under s. 7 of the canadian constitution to seek life-ending medical care.

medically assisted suicide should be available as a right to all canadians, regardless of mental health status. the process should even include a psychological exam to indicate that the individual seeking suicide is mentally sound to make a decision about ending their life.

the right to suicide is a personal, individual choice and not something the state has any place interfering in. the courts are correct. this government is once again wrong and once again on the wrong side of history. this is the wrong legal, cultural and moral decision to make for canadians and the courts will overturn it shortly. 

i would call on doctors in canada to emulate morgantaler and continue to provide access to suicide, in defiance of the government's extra-legal and unconstitutional decision to try to stop it.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/an-mps-comments-about-fentanyl-and-maid-are-being-criticized-as-irresponsible-thoughtless-and-dangerous/

the most recent episode in the ukraine drama is certainly surreal but i'm tired of the endless wars with russia and strongly support steps taken by the us president towards normalizing ties with the russians. the issue in ukraine is complex, but it is an internal russian issue that is not the concern of the west and that we have no business interfering in. ukraine is not an important enough issue or consideration to derail broader us-russian relations or justify these endless conflicts that need to come to an end. it's not our concern.

i don't understand why mark carney thinks that sanctions on russia are going to lead to peace. sanctions are an act of war. more sanctions equals more war.

if you want peace with russia, you eliminate the sanctions as step one. maybe you don't get there overnight, but it's a necessary condition to start.

unless he wants to conquer russia and then call that peace?

has he looked at a map recently?

his position has no logic to it. like, i can't even critique it. it's just entirely incoherent to think that maintaining sanctions leads to an outcome of peace. if you seek to maintain the sanctions, you want to extend the conflict and you're just full of shit if you're claiming otherwise.

i have strongly opposed the international liberal foreign policy consensus for decades. i don't exactly agree with trump, but i support the fact that he's blowing up this consensus. this was one of the big reasons i could not endorse joe biden or kamala harris; i may have mildly (i want to stress mildly) preferred harris or biden on domestic issues, but trump was the distinctly less horrible choice than harris or biden on foreign policy issues, where the democrats have been the greater evil since the hillary clinton days (i give john kerry some credit for trying to reverse this, but he didn't succeed in the end). the democrats are the worse neo-cons than the republicans, who are nowadays more realpolitik. realpolitik is not good but it's less bad than neo-con. carney is just parroting the neo-con line on ukraine, and he's wrong. it's the wrong policy for canada, it's the wrong policy for the world and it's the wrong side of history.

on this issue, trump is right and carney is wrong - the path to peace with the russians is through economic normalization leading to a renewed detente. continuing the sanctions regime is an algorithm for endless conflict and war, and that is not in canada's self-interest. it is in canada's self-interest to make peace with the russian federation.

our cultural enemies are the muslims and the chinese, not the russians, who are our mirror reflection and our on-again off-again ally, when we need each other. we are going to need each other again to contain the chinese very soon. we need to get over the triviality on the dnieper and start to work together on more substantive concerns in containing the chinese, before it's too late.

do you know what christa pike actually did?

look it up.

there is no question at all to her guilt.

tell me that's not an extreme counter-example. 

it's the most extreme counter-example i could think of.

canada does not have the death penalty. anywhere at all. i have mixed feelings about that, and a lot of canadians do. there are rare circumstances where it seems like the death penalty is the correct outcome, but there are reasons we don't do it that are logically sound, and it's generally inadvisable to suggest they are reconsidered for the sake of a few extreme counter-examples.

the united states does have the death penalty, although i realize that many states do not carry it out or have not carried it out in years or decades. i have at times called for the application of the death penalty in the united states, where it does happen, and is not banned, in the context of these rare cases. i would consider both the menendez brothers case and the christa pike case to be the kind of rare case where a sentence of death is justified.

i do not see a contradiction in resisting the application of capital punishment in canada, a jurisdiction where it is completely banned, and supporting it in the united states, where it is not banned. i very rarely make political or legal decisions based on moral considerations. i do not believe in god. should the united states move to ban the death penalty, i would support that, and also resist it's use in the united states, even in those rare cases where it's justified. i understand that this is complex reasoning, but it's logically consistent, because it's a legal question and not a moral question.

in no context would i ever support live streaming a firing squad. that is disturbing and sick. in situations where somebody should die as a combination of the need for excessive punishment, the absence of any doubt as to guilt (including a clear and reliable confession) and the need for public safety, it is something that should be done amongst reflection and sombre attention to the gravity of the decision to extract such an extreme level of legal retribution. it is not a normal punishment. it's certainly nothing to gawk about.

trump's support for this reminds us that he is a reflection of the religious extremists in other parts of the world, including in the middle east, which is why he wants to negotiate with these people instead of wipe them out. you expect something like this in palestine, iran or saudi arabia. you don't expect it in the united states.

i'm admittedly not fully educated about the subtleties of state rights in the american union, but if the congress has the power to ban live streaming of capital punishment, it should. further, streaming sites should take steps to block the state from utilizing their services for that purpose.

there was a time when i supported the icc, but it has in recent years become beset by politicization and corruption and has in the end collapsed into anti-semitism, and should be explicitly dissolved for that explicit reason. history should state that the icc was dissolved for being anti-semitic. the case against netanyahu is beyond specious, it's absurd and blatantly racist in character. no court that would advance a case on such a flimsy set of grounds should continue to exist.

i have presented ideas for how the un should be reformed into a global democratic body. such a global democratic body should have a reconstituted court system with jurisdiction within it's member states and should have a primary mandate to hold international capital to a legally binding international law.

i just want to give you an example of how bad the linq tunnel bus service is, in terms of hours.

i am not going to a show at el club tonight but i might have. i would have likely taken the new bridge if i did. but what is the schedule for the bus?

doors are at 19:00. the show probably starts at 21:00 or 22:00, but let's say i want to get there for doors. then i want to get to detroit for 18:30 in order to bike to el club.

in order to do that, i'd have to catch the 17:00 bus because the next one is not until 19:00. the old tunnel bus would have run either every 15 minutes, every half hour or every hour, depending on the time of day. the new one only runs every two hours. that means i'd get there around or before 18:00 and have an hour to blow before doors.

let's say the show is over around 1:00, which is on the later side of things. it might be over at 00:00 or even at 23:00.

the last bus on sunday nights leaves detroit at 19:40. the old tunnel busses ran until 22:00 on sundays, until 1:00 on fridays and saturdays and until 00:00 during the week. 

so, because it's a sunday, i might have missed the bus anyways. but i would have easily caught it home on a weekend if the show ended before 00:30 and on a weeknight if it ended before 23:30.

with the new private bus service, there is no chance i'm going to catch the bus home at night. the last bus on sundays is 19:40. on weekends it's 23:40. on weekdays it's 21:40. the show might not even start until after 21:40 and certainly won't start until after 19:40. it would be very hard to catch a 23:40 bus - the show would have to be over by a hair after 23:00, which is unlikely.

i'd have to catch the early bus on monday morning, then.

it used to be that this wasn't so bad if i could catch an all night party, which is why i ended up at raves or techno parties that ran from 00:00-7:00 am in detroit so often. if the rock show did go until 1:00 or later, as they often did, especially in smaller venues, then i was indeed stuck, and that would have been ok. i just get to the after party for 2:00 or 3:00, do a few drugs, have a few beers, dance a little, catch the bus in the morning. not bad at all. the early buses came as early as 5:00 depending on the day of the week. sunday mornings were the worst, but it was 8:30 and parties could run until 10:00 am on sunday morning. i sometimes didn't get home until the afternoon.

the new busses will pick you up at 7:40 am from monday through saturday or 9:40 on sunday and trust me, that two to three hour difference is brutal when you've been up all night partying and need to crash. you don't want to sit in a diner until 7:15 am. that's awful. sitting in the diner until 4:30 is bad enough, on nights where you can' find an overnight party.

i'd might as well walk or bike to the bridge, which opens at 8:00 am daily year round.

the price for these hours?

$17.50. one way. that's $35 round trip.

at least the bridge is free.

i can still cross before 19:00 until nov 1st, when i'm forced to cross before 15:00. no, it's probably not worth $18 to cross two hours later. so, going to a show in detroit in the winter means crossing at the bridge before 3 pm and coming home at 8 am the next morning; in the summer, it means crossing before 19:00 and coming home at 8 am.

these are ridiculous hours and the bus won't survive unless it runs later, earlier and more frequently, which is going to force it to price itself out. it's gambling that it can make a profit by running infrequently in a reduced schedule, but in the process it's cutting itself off from it's own utility. it's largest user base wants late night or early morning service, not service during midday.

the bus would be better off cancelling trips between 10 am and 6 pm and adding trips between 21 pm and 5 am; it would be more profitable if it only ran overnight. but it's not going to listen to that.

the result is that when the private operator fails the city won't have a tunnel bus at all and that won't be acceptable. only the government can run this at the loss it needs to be run at to be useful as a frequent all day shuttle across the border that services people over the hours that need to be serviced - evening, late night and early morning.

who crosses the border on a bus at noon? why?

that being said, there is a broader problem with regional public transit in this area that should be addressed by the province. do you realize that the greyhound service from detroit to windsor and back has a more useful schedule for many people, at a comparable price, than the privately run tunnel bus?

it's not likely that the private service will last. it's hours suck, and it costs too much.

reliable public transit from detroit to windsor and back could be done through expansion of detroit's rail network, and that has been talked about, but should also be a part of a broader network from windsor to london and from london to sarnia, kitchener, hamilton and niagara. london is the obvious central hub for the region. in 2026, kitchener and hamilton are in the gta and are serviced by toronto buses and niagara's not too far. but it's very hard to get around in southwest ontario, and the region is firmly not a part of toronto and can't be serviced by toronto. it could in theory be serviced by london but it's not. it's more likely that london gets swallowed by toronto than that it becomes the centre of a bigger city, but that would be a maximum extension of toronto for decades. toronto is never going to get to windsor.

it would probably make more sense for the province to step in and take over a tunnel bus as the exit terminus of a broader regional transit that better connects the region to itself and better connects detroit, toronto and buffalo together, as well as toronto to sudbury, ottawa, kingston and montreal. the 400 level highways are there. a similar bus service between niagara and buffalo should also exist.

this is a potential issue for the ndp or liberals to run on in the region in the next election and they should seriously consider it. the greyhound was never replaced fully.

the new sources of revenue generated by charging user fees to access city property for the purpose of subsidizing the tunnel bus should further be used to make the bus run 24/7. i want to be able to get out of the bar in detroit at 2:30 am after a late night acid rock show and not have to wait until the morning to get home. i would support charging christians $20 a pop to go to the lights festival to subsidize that bus service.

somebody might say:

"i don't want to pay a user fee for this. it's why i pay property taxes!"

but that's exactly what users of the tunnel bus are saying. 

it's a question of priorities and where they belong. i support subsidizing the tunnel bus because it's good for the economy downtown, particularly the bars and the night clubs. i don't support subsidizing athletic facilities or religious festivals, which bring no real benefit to the city, and are a net drain on city resources. i want to flip the logic. let people that use the athletic facilities pay for them directly, so that the whole city isn't forced to subsidize their use of the facilities. let the religious pay user fees to access public spaces, so that the irreligious aren't forced to subsidize them. and then take the money and use it to pay for public transit more generally - not just the tunnel bus.

i think more people here would agree with me if the argument were to be presented to them in those terms.

and i'd hope the city hall would consider my arguments, but they won't so long as dilbert is mayor. he's already vetoed this once.

i'm not exactly going to endorse fred francis for mayor of windsor. voters should realize that he appears to be a more right-wing candidate than mayor dilbert overall, so if your primary concern is that you're annoyed that dilbert is a right-wing dunce that is mismanaging the city in favour of conservative priorities, francis might not be much of a solution.

but i want to suggest that francis couldn't make things much worse than dilbert has and point out that he does want to bring the tunnel bus back. however, i might find his funding strategies to be frustrating.

i think that the emphasis on what is a drain on resources and what isn't has been misplaced during dilbert's tenure as mayor. dilbert cancelled the tunnel bus because it was expensive, but the cost was around a million dollars. then, he spends millions of dollars on a hockey rink at city hall and a stupid christmas lights festival, and doesn't charge money to access them and rather presents them as benefits to the economy. but neither the hockey rink nor the christmas lights are paying for themselves and they never will, they will always be a net drain on city finances. my perspective, as a resident of the city, is that the tunnel bus was good for the city's economy and should be brought back for that reason (because it brought people downtown to spend money on their way to and from events in detroit and made them get out of their car downtown, rather than just drive through it) and the hockey rink and christmas lights are net drains on the city's economy that should both be privatized or cancelled as wastes of city tax dollars.

i consequently want to flip the logic. 

i am not running for mayor or council but would like to see the opposite approach taken. 

1. the christmas lights festival should be privatized. it is not an appropriate use of public funds, at a loss, year after year. it brings little benefit to the city and only appeals to a small minority of religious people. a secular-first city hall should focus on defunding or privatizing all religious festivals. if the city thinks privatizing the festival is too far, it should consider charging an entrance fee of $20 per visit to offset the losses and generate revenue.

2. the hockey rink at city hall should not be free, while the city operates it at a massive loss. people should have to pay a fee to skate on the rink. an entrance fee of $20 per visit to use the rink is a reasonable proposal. if the rink is unable to turn a profit, it should be shut down altogether.

3. the tunnel bus should be brought back and funds raised by charging a fee to use the hockey rink and go to the lights festival (or funds raised by privatizing it) should be used to subsidize the tunnel bus so that users are able to use the bus at a reasonable cost. the $5 tunnel bus fee should be brought back, and subsidized with revenue generated by charging fees to enter religious festivals like the bright lights or sporting facilities like the hockey rink.

another source of funding for city hall to subsidize the tunnel bus may be charging a user fee for muslims to use the city grounds for their loud and disruptive religious festivals.

a user fee to enter the farmer's market downtown would be reasonable, as they take up a lot of space and, to my knowledge, don't pay for it.

a busker's fee might be reasonable, to use the downtown area, as they are generating income tax-free.

a user fee for little leagues and schools to use the city parks and other city owned athletic facilities would be reasonable.

etc.

all of these are possible revenue sources to subsidize the tunnel bus, which is a valuable service that windsorites should not have to pay exorbitant prices out of pocket to use, but that the city should mandate lower prices for by generating revenue streams elsewhere to offset it.

is a universal basic income communism?

no.

in fact, the idea was designed by milton friedman, the same hard-right goof that gave us the debunked but impossible to get rid of idea that printing money creates inflation. it's generally brought up by right-wingers when the alternative is actual communism.

i don't exactly support a ubi. i mean, i'll take it; a universal basic income dystopia is a better reality than continuing the endless march of empty, meaningless labour created by late capitalism. however, it's a way to prevent communism - which means overthrowing the capitalist class and taking direct control of the ai - and not a way to get to it.

you have to let the capitalists develop the technology first. that's how the theory works. the question as to whether we have to get through the capitalist stage or not, which has been the major issue on the left for the last 100 years, is becoming irrelevant. the capitalist stage is exiting relevancy.

it's nice to see the united states making an attempt to mend fences with the russians, who will be required as allies to nato in order to contain the enemy of the present, the chinese, but consumers should be trying to avoid buying products that use diesel in the manufacturing process for environmental reasons.

is quebec society ready for a ban on male facial hair in the public service?

i'd support that.

something that this ai debate is exposing is that there are a lot of capitalist slaves out there. this is not the same thing as being a reactionary. bernie sanders is exposing himself as a reactionary, whereas jon stewart is demonstrating that he's a slave to his capitalist masters, but i guess that was already clear enough. stewart is just one example. i could go on. but what i'm interesting is drawing that separation between the reactionary, who wants to fight against a process of emancipation, and the slave that wants to uphold the slave relation in capitalism. the reactionaries require the slaves.

definition

proletariat: the class of people in society that has no choice but to sell their labour.

the coercion is the basis of the critique. it's the reason socialists want to overthrow the capitalist state, because it takes away the individual freedom to live how one decides. that's the point of socialism, it's the basic argument - that capitalism eliminates freedom and takes away the ability of people to make meaningful life decisions, that the "free market" is a system of government defined collectivist coercion (we're seeing this develop in the grocery issue where the state is trying to step in and demand they compete, or else. you vill compete and you vill like it. but it makes no economic sense for that to happen and if the state keeps at it the only result is going to be laws written forcing competitive behaviour when it's not what the industry has determined is optimal. prices will go up and not down. some free market.) that forces people to carry out economic activity against their desires, and in the process destroys meaning and purpose in their lives.

there was a book written not that long ago by david graeber called bullshit jobs that i think is highly relevant in this context, on top of gen x trends like quiet quitting. the graeber text should be picked up by all and people should start quoting it. there is currently a general disillusionment in the quality of labour available to the proletariat that we haven't truly seen in the west since the dickensian period. people aren't getting killed by the machines, physically; they're getting killed by the machines, mentally, instead.

but what i'm going to tell the slaves that want to continue to hold to the capitalist relation in a future where they have the choice to abolish it is this:

if you want to be a slave, don't be surprised if you end up treated like one, in the end.

meanwhile canada should be looking at writing a jobs bill that increases government spending and generates demand.

it might be some kind of proto-fascist theory, i guess that would be closest, but it would not be fascism without the underlying cartelization, which is absent.

the courts are going to laugh at the minister.

she should resign and apologize or be removed for her outburst.

i'm aware of no economic or legal theory that supports the idea of maintaining employment via the industry minister of a country aggressively ordering and emotionally demanding private sector companies to maintain full employment, despite decreases in aggregate demand and the subsequently incurred losses that are resultant from that.

when economies go into recession due to decreases in aggregate demand, keynesian economic theory - which the liberal party has supported and implemented for decades and would be expected to continue to support and implement - argues that demand should be generated through increases in government spending.

again, canada's liberal party appears to have recently embraced the illogical theory of reaganomics. this is exposing itself as a consistency in policy across the government.

you don't create jobs by ensuring supply exists. jobs are a function of demand, not a function of supply.

there's no demand for the product. what does she expect them to pay the workers to do when the company isn't selling anything?

her demands are irrational and the court will probably reject them and side with the company. contracts are not legally binding in canada. the court has the power to dissolve contracts, does and will if they don't make any sense, or lack characteristics defined in contract law. that would appear to be the case.

the basic point is that you cannot sign away your rights, which is what this unreasonable airhead seems to be incorrectly insisting that the company did.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/melanie-joly-cleveland-cliffs-stelco-layoffs-9.7372902