this is not the first time i've written this. but, i confused some people over the last few days, and i think i should clarify a point.

i overheard this on both nights in different bars:

"that woman just went into the men's washroom."

well, i mean, i guess it demonstrates the point, right? to my knowledge, michigan doesn't have any stupid laws (yet). but, people actually seem to expect me to use the women's washroom, and get a little weirded out when i don't.

....or sometimes don't.

the flat reality of it is that i make a judgement call on a case-by-case basis. bellicosity is important when dealing with the assertion of rights. but, in the real world, i'm concerned about a wide variety of things. i have to get a grasp of the room, of security...

a good example of why it's important to be cognizant of your surroundings was the crywolf show a few weeks ago. the audience didn't care. but, the very large men working security (who checked my id on the way in) were clearly uncomfortable at the mere premise. they seemed to see the very idea that i was even there at all as a kind of threat - and they visibly eased up when i used the men's room. they didn't want to deal with this shit. and, i didn't force them to, with unknown consequences - despite having minimal concern regarding pushback from the actual audience.

do you see why this gets complicated?

well, you probably already realized it was complicated.

one of the issues i feel the need to balance very carefully is the idea of audibly hearing the urine fall. now, i'm not shy about this, either - i've had this conversation with many people, and i've never met a woman who wouldn't not squat in a public restroom if she could urinate without doing it. so, i'm going to walk into the toilet and i'm going to make the non-choice of not squatting, for simple sanitary reasons - because nobody would squat if they didn't have to.

but, that means that anybody walking into the bathroom is going to hear it, and i have a problem with that.

imagine the following scenario: i walk in about thirty seconds before a cisfemale does. so, i go into the stall. i urinate standing up - as any woman would in a public toilet, if they could. she walks into the bathroom as i'm urinating and hears it.

of course that's going to make her uncomfortable. she didn't see me walk in. why wouldn't she think there's a dude in the stall? and why wouldn't she get upset?

so, i've placed a covenant on myself with the women i interact with daily - if i'm going to use the women's washroom, i'm going to squat. and, if i'm not going to squat for reasons of sanitation, i'm going to use the men's room.

that doesn't mean i'll always use the men's room. a lot of bars have multi-use men's rooms and single occupancy female stalls, in which case i'll usually opt for the single occupancy stalls. further, there have been rare occasions where i've felt unsafe using the men's room and have picked the women's washroom instead.

but, more broadly, you have to understand that i did not transition young. i've used the men's room for most of my life, and i've gotten used to it. i'm not usually afraid to go in there, and broadly don't even think that which letter is on the door is really even important.

the push back is kind of more on principle: i get to make this choice, and it's up to my discretion to make it properly.

detroit actually appears to be being bombarded with jazz this month.

if this is a consequence of electronic music's latest failed attempt to go mainstream, i'll take it. but, i'm not going to be able to hit every show...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJdu0OZ9hr8

so, instead of concluding that this claim of a chemical attack is nearly impossible because the russians are operating the military in syria, they're suggesting the russians are complicit in the chemical attack. how much further down the rabbit hole are we going with this?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia-u-s-response-syria-attack-1.4060817

hey doggy.

doggy, doggy, doggy.

bombing the russians is too dangerous as a distraction tactic. go bomb the virgin islands or something.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/apr/07/us-march-jobs-report-98000-retail-government-freeze-trump

as usual, the swedes get it right when everybody else fucks up.

i can hardly expect the swedish government to accuse the cia of manufacturing the sarin attacks. but, this is much closer to the approach that canadians expect a liberal government to take.

given that the ndp don't appear to be offering any kind of alternative at the moment (mulcair proves again that he's a dipshit) or presenting any kind of resistance, it's not clear what kind of direct damage this is going to do to the liberals. but, it is going to contribute to the general feeling on the left that this government is toxic.

https://www.thelocal.se/20170407/sweden-urges-political-solution-to-syrian-conflict-trump-assad-wallstrom

“an aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law.”

are you denying this? or are you claiming it doesn't matter - that international law doesn't actually exist?

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-us-missile-strike-syria-bashar-assad-chemical-attack-khan-sheikhoun-reaction/

i'm not going to make it out, but i'll extend my solidarity with this.

http://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/protest-planned-in-windsor-over-u-s-missile-strikes-in-syria

so, what should they be doing?

they should be working with the russians to take out isis, and then helping assad transition. but, of course, this is an obtuse position because it relies on multiple naive assumptions, such as:

1) isis is operating outside of the influence (at least) of us intelligence.
2) assad wants to cling to power.
3) this wasn't always about pushing the russians out in the first place.

i guess the us central command was down to two options: attack the russians (balls out, no bs) or accept strategic defeat and pull back.

they've attacked the russians.

and, the war is on.

canada's role here should be to try and broker a peace deal. this isn't a war that america can win any time soon. so, it has the potential to drain the empire to a point of collapse.

expected conflict points in a hot war with russia are not just syria and ukraine, but afghanistan/iran, the caucasus, the balkans, the baltics, france, scandinavia, north africa, south america and eastern asia.

this was the attack that the americans never launched. they've launched it. it's on.

expect a russian retaliation.

also, yes: hillary would have bombed syria, too.

she was the one promising it. trump was the one suggesting otherwise.

i understand why trudeau is not interested in picking a fight over syria, but he's wrong to take this approach. he has the benefit of an extra year's worth of briefings, but he truly doesn't understand the situation much better than trump does. and, the situation requires a multilateral approach.

the americans need pushback on this. they're just making things worse...

see, you need to understand that trump can't just wake up on a friday and bomb syria like this. syria is not iraq, and it's not libya, and it's not even iran. bombing syria is more like bombing a warsaw pact state. the one on the furthest reaches that never fit in right. armenia or something. or, conversely, it wouldn't quite be like russia bombing mexico, but it wouldn't be that different than russia bombing costa rica.

because the chain of command right now has the russians operating the syrian military as a client state, and the decisions ultimately coming down from moscow, trump basically just declared war on russia.

this war will likely not be contained in syria.

so, it's not just a moral thing. this is a foolish strategy.

these are not going to be contained or targeted strikes - and it's flatly delusional to suggest they are. this is a substantial escalation, and it will lead to chaos and war.

this is another hard shift to the right by trudeau.

historically, canada has always rejected unilateral military action. ambrose is wrong in her statements - the conservatives supported multilateralism under diefenbaker, clark and mulroney.

what trudeau is doing here is signalling that the liberal party has adopted stephen harper's position on the marginalization of the united nations in favour of american unilateralism - and i fully condemn his language in the strongest terms possible.

justin trudeau is not a liberal, and perhaps never was. he is a conservative, and he is recreating the liberal party in the image of stephen harper.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/04/07/canada-not-part-of-us-strike-on-syria-but-backs-efforts-to-stop-atrocities.html

what is ontario's comparative advantage in construction materials?

to describe the scenario as "free trade" is to purposefully obfuscate the meaning of "free trade". what the ontario government wants is to protect the privilege of it's own capital to invest outside of the country. why should the united states facilitate this, given our reliance on their imports?

we can cry that it's not fair. perhaps it isn't. or, perhaps we've been utterly foolish in allowing ourselves to lose our productive independence.

i understand that these "buy american" clauses are potentially disastrous, and that the government has to do something about them. but, we need a deeper analysis of the situation, here. even if we can resolve this problem, it just kicks the can down the road. there will be another crisis, and another crisis after that.

conceding the potentially disastrous effects of these clauses should be generating a movement to rebuild our own industrial capacity.

nor does doing so negate the potential benefits of actual free trade, when we actually have a comparative advantage to exploit.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/ontario-premier-reaches-out-to-u-s-governors-to-win-allies-on-free-trade-1.3358953

medeski, martin, wood ....+ spencer?

i had fun dancing last night.