i want to be clear to the ndp: removing mulcair is not enough. he basically tossed you into the abyss. and, you're really starting again from scratch.

eye-twitching is meth. common side-effect.

when you go through a meth overdose, your body starts attacking itself. your blood pressure gets so high that you're literally under risk of your cardio-vascular system exploding. in the end, you usually die of mass organ failure.

if you survive, you can expect recurring hallucinations for up to a year.

i'm in full support of legalizing marijuana and everything, but legalizing mdma would certainly save a lot more people's lives - and prevent a lot of people from the side effects of meth abuse.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/angel-loyer-lawrence-teen-overdose-new-westminster-alberta-edmonton-mdma-drugs-1.4138235

i actually think that christy clark is doing the right thing in playing out the motions, in order to help voters understand what's happening. i'm not old enough to remember the peterson/rae coalition in ontario, but the failed dion/layton coalition clearly exposed severe deficits in the public's understanding of how the legislature functions. by going through the motions in real-time - losing a confidence vote and allowing the opposition an ability to form government - she's forcing the right-wing press to cover the process. hopefully, voters will walk away from the transfer of power with a better understanding of how the system works.

the worst thing that she can do is emulate what harper did - which was to basically go on tv and lie to people and confuse them into thinking he was being ousted.

to make the situation clear: a green-ndp coalition is about to remove the liberals from power.

...and i'll be keeping an eye on the way that the ndp-green coalition unfolds. these left/centre coalitions are a kind of a special aspect of canadian politics, and the crux of the reason why canada is what it is. the ndp are going to be tempted to moderate, but they will not be able to do so without forcing an election and probably handing over power. the ndp's position is, in fact, exceedingly weak. the greens are going to have tremendous influence. what we'll have to see is how hard the ndp push back, and what they agree to.

the ndp need a litmus test, right now. this might be it. and, because the ndp is a national party, the positions that the greens can get the ndp to hold to may have national implications, too.

british columbians should be ecstatic about this outcome and optimistic for it to be extremely productive in passing legislation to protect both the coast and the interior, as well as to block carbon exports to china.

this is kind of a backdoor, isn't it?

i don't think the college should be making decisions of this sort in the first place. this college needs to be put under democratic control, with it's rules determined by the broader society, and not merely by the doctors.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/quebec-abortion-guidelines-under-review-after-woman-denied-procedure-at-30-weeks-1.3211209

“In case you haven’t noticed, Brad’s not entirely comfortable with the whole gay thing.” - brad trost's campaign manager.

we have different justifications today than they did then, but this is still the right system to use and we should be bringing ourselves back to it's principles, not opening the borders further.

http://www.pier21.ca/research/immigration-history/white-paper-on-immigration-1966

this line about the "perversion of islam". it's been recycled. it's corbyn that's using it now.

maybe corbyn would like to explain to me which school he studied islam in, if he's so convinced that isis is such a perversion of it?

listen: i get the point. most muslims aren't intent on world domination, or at least not for most of the week. it's just buried in their psyche, as code, waiting to be turned on, manchurian-like. it's a substantive difference, i don't disagree.

but, when you say that isis is a perversion of islam, you mean a perversion of what, exactly? the absurdly revisionist brands of islam that most muslims follow nowadays? because to use an analogy that most people can understand, that's like arguing that the evangelists in the united states are a perversion of anglicanism - which isn't even a coherently formed thought.

the brand of islam that isis promotes may be very different than the kind that most muslims prefer. but, it is in truth much closer to the source of the religion, as a brainwashing tool of a warrior cult.

....and the reality is therefore that it is actually more accurate to argue that the moderate forms are the perversion on the fundamental ideas that the religion initially expressed.

i would prefer the term fundamentalist muslim, fully aware of the difficulties with it.

to suggest they're not muslims makes him sound like he's pandering, and flatly foolish.

maybe i should bring some black friends with me next time i go, that'll distract them.

and, i'm not even being intentionally crude. there used to be blacker people at this place, but they've all disappeared. it's not an accident. but, it's not a reflection of individual prejudice, either. it's the nature of the job - when security is proactive, it will always target minorities, and you're just lost in space if you insist otherwise.

and, to address the most absurd and naive point of all: shouldn't i be looking for a "safe space" given that i'm an openly queer jew stumbling around smashed by myself?

but, what liberals have been saying since the beginning of time is that when you give an entity power of surveillance or control, that entity always goes after the most vulnerable. this idea that expanded powers will protect us is preposterous: there is absolutely no empirical basis for it whatsoever, and rather mountains of evidence that implies the opposite.

minorities like myself will always be targeted, as soon as you let anybody target us. and, so, the way you keep us safe is that you take away the watchers, and let a kind of concept of group immunity kick in. this operates at every level, from the very top to the very bottom.

i'm, in fact, upholding a well understood and time-tested truth. and, if you were to sit down and analyse the situation carefully from the start, the idea that the tranny jew would get targeted by security is so obvious as to be unavoidable - which, to be clear, is not a personal attack on the individual security personnel, but a broader critique of security, to begin with.

i want to be clear as possible: you should not have expected a bar with heavy security to protect the tranny jew. you should have, from the start, expected such an arrangement to have no other outcome but targeting the tranny jew - and other minorities it's supposed to be shielding. you don't even need to cite milgram's or something. it's something liberals have understood since the renaissance, and is scattered across centuries of writing on authority: they always go after the minorities. and, you can't avoid that, it's systemic.

beer: contains estrogen.
red bull: increases testosterone production.
vodka: hormonally neutral.

which one do you think i want? huh?

i've made clear what i'm looking for, but i'll be that much more terse: give me a space that offers a dance floor until 8:00 on sunday mornings and lets people flail around as much as they want, so long as they don't get into anybody's face.

the only rule you need is the non-aggression principle.

i'm not going to buy energy drinks, because they contain testosterone. i probably won't buy water, either. but, i'll be glad to get a coffee on the way out. and, i'd take a shot of espresso at 4:19 if it was there for me to take, too.

that's something i can't grasp: of all the all night parties i've been to, i've never found one that sells coffee. they sell red bull. why not coffee?

it ought to be the most obvious thing. there ought to one on every corner. surely, there ought to be one somewhere in detroit....

it's actually a bit more sinister than this. what neo-liberal identity politics really does is offer a hand to minorities: you, too, can be a part of the oppressing classes. it then claims that this is a type of progress. in doing so, it converts what should be broader race-based struggles into purely class struggles. the key thing is the next point: it manages to convince people that a society rooted in class divisions is "normal" or "natural", due to this concept of "human nature", which is not derived empirically but via the convenient process of construction in order to justify what it's supposed to prove is inevitable. the neo-liberals might not all miss the circularity of it, but the masses often do, as they're only capable of knowing what they're taught. if they're taught that our nature implies the inevitability of class, then it's enforcement is justified, and opening up a class-based society to minorities becomes a kind of progress, rather than a kind of oppression. so, the class struggle ends up co-opted by an idea of an "american dream": minorities compete against each other for status, rather than work with each other (and with others) for freedom. so, the capitalist class is converted from a source of oppression that needs to be struggled against into an ideal to aspire to. the result is that the same oppression carries on as it always had, it's just somehow better because the racial components within the classes are more evened out.

in the long run, this is unsustainable, but for the time being it gives capitalism enough support from the people that should be opposing it to allow it to kind of limp along at 1% growth.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/24/beyond-neoliberal-identity-politics/

it's tuesday, now.

it turns out that both april and may were really over the top, for me. as mentioned, i'm expecting a much quieter month. maybe not too quiet. i could maybe get one weekend out...

i'm going to want to make a pact with security in that bar. it's not like it's the greatest bar - all i've done is complain about it - but there often isn't really any other choice. i mean, i can't walk from mexicantown to gratiot - or grand. and one of the rock bars i frequent is a block from it, making it absurdly convenient. so, this is what i need:

a) i don't like bars with heavy security. i'm an anarchist. fuck the police. but, i will acknowledge that the bar is security-minded....if...
b) security agrees that i make choices about whether i'm too drunk to dance or not, so long as
c) i promise to be honest in my assessment and sit down or leave if i'm truly too drunk to dance. and, in fact, i have done this from time to time, in the past - i've needed to sit down for a few minutes before i get back up. i haven't allowed myself to pass out.
d) it follows that when i tell security i'm fine that i am and they should immediately fuck off and leave me alone.

as i mentioned, i happened to be just about to leave, anyways. they were going to close in a few minutes. but, i actually have every right to be irritated with their refusal to listen, and with the bruise on my knee that is their fault. i mean, how do they know if i'm drunk or not? that's crazy. i think this whole discussion is ridiculous, but they ultimately must concede that i get to decide whether i'm drunk or not, or i'm going to have to permanently boycott.

i don't want to put myself into spaces that are heavily policed, like that. i need a truce, or i'll have to avoid it.

it could be a few weeks, or even a few months, before i get in there to talk, though. the only thing i really have planned for june is on a sunday, a good ways from the place in question.

but, i am, in fact, currently officially banned from the works in detroit, for the apparent reason of dancing too hard. i'm going to have little choice but to wear it as a badge of honour for as long as they insist upon it. create a meme: too hardcore for the works in detroit! yeah. well, of course it's preposterous, and of course they're going to have to eventually admit it's preposterous. i honestly don't want to go back in there until i get an assurance that i have agency and autonomy, and they'll back off and leave me alone.

what am i doing about this $320 that i owe the legal loan sharking company?

well, i'm just going to finish my regular monthly scheduling stuff, first. i guess i'm going to have to test my feet on wednesday, at least enough to get to the various stores. once i've done my budgeting and shopping for the month, i'll take a look at what the balance is.

i think i mentioned here that i'd like to put down half in the next few days and the other half on june 30th. i need to verify i'm not walking into a trap with it. but, that's probably how this is going to work, and it should let me get out to a show or two mid-month. functionally speaking, it will be my gst cheque that will pay down the bulk of the second half of the loan, albeit a few days prematurely.

if they don't let me split it, i'm going to have to put it aside somewhere.

right now, i'm finally awake enough to get a coffee so i'm going to focus on editing until the sun comes up and then spend the day cleaning. i'm back to the list of things for the next few days.