when we started this process, i didn't really care who sold the stuff. i'm approaching this entirely from the perspective of liberalizing access. i don't care about keeping it away from kids (kids will smoke if they want to), about shutting down criminal sellers (i know that this is mostly based around lies) or ensuring a safe product (unlike the kinds of drugs that are synthesized in the bathroom sink, weed is actually rarely tampered with and easy to find in a pure state). but, if the government insisted on selling it as a monopoly, whatever...

as time has gone on, and the process has unfolded, the government has demonstrated itself as too right-wing to do this effectively. i want to be clear: it's not that i don't think government, as an abstract, can do this well. it's that i don't think that this particular, right-of-center government can do this well, because it's approaching the issue from the viewpoints of all of these conservative value systems, rather than the simple task of liberalizing access. doing this right would require a much more liberal government with a very different set of priorities.

as such, i'm agreeing with the market institute, but only as a consequence of the circumstances: i don't necessarily think that the market ought to be able to do this better, but i think the market will do this better than this government, which just wants to pander to the right at the expense of liberalizing access.

http://business.financialpost.com/news/privatize-marijuana-sales-to-avoid-conflict-of-interest-between-public-health-and-profit-c-d-howe-says-in-letter-to-bill-blair/wcm/881ab02c-fbc3-4fc0-8e40-ecef67054fd0

i'm actually in favour of using corrective rape to break christians, muslims and other homophobes.

it's a fair punishment for homophobia, i think.

i think that the correct way for me to respond to this is to put out a request to the pmo to actually read up on what effects climate change is going to have on germany.

here's the thing: nobody familiar with this government thinks they actually care about climate change. on that level, this is a non-story. doesn't she know she has a social license? i mean, they have carbon taxes in germany, right?

no. the story is that the pmo was so ignorant of germany's stance on the topic, and what germany has to lose should we reach a tipping point, that they had the temerity, dare i even say insolence, to ask them to pull back on it.

and, what you should take away from it is this: while it may not be news that trudeau has no interest in emissions reduction, it is news that he doesn't even seem to understand the consequences of that policy position.

http://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/06/19/news/despite-denial-explosive-report-about-trudeau-and-merkel-still-standing

just sell it in the spice rack at the grocery store. no taxes on groceries, right?

i'm serious: the only way this is going to work is if they sell it in existing stores. there's no reason to create a new store. you can sell it in grocery stores, corner stores, pharmacies, the lcbo, the beer store, smoke shops, head shops - whatever. but, the store has to already exist, or the overhead will be impossible.

forget taxes. dealers don't have to pay rent. they don't have to pay salaries. they don't have to pay benefits.

the infrastructure of an existing store is imperative.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/provincial-marijuana-sales-retail-1.4167735

i don't normally comment on the kardashians, but i just want to point out that i've run into this issue myself. people don't instantly know my genetic background, and i don't know how relevant it really is anyway, but if i meet somebody in march, they're likely to get confused by the time july hits, when i've darkened five or six tones. with me, it's really ridiculously dramatic. i'll go from pasty white to east african almost overnight. in fact, it's going to come up in the vlogs...

i've only been accused of 'blackface' once. it was around occupy. this white upper class dude noticed i was all of a sudden darker than an egyptian (she was clearly actually turkic.) woman, and accused me of blackface. but, nope - i was just out protesting in the sun all day. sorry.

but, i have memories my whole life of walking into classes in september and getting hit on by italian girls until roughly december, when i'd start getting hit on by polish girls, instead. it was the neighbourhood i went to school in.

so, you want to cut her a little slack on this one. skin colour isn't static, and those of us that are of mixed race often actually find it fairly malleable.

http://people.com/style/kim-kardashian-west-blackface-kkw-beauty/

i find it hard to condemn the indiscriminate attacks.

i wouldn't have opposed the fire-bombing of dresden, either.

there are certain regimes that are so heinous that, when civilians support them, they need to be treated as extensions of them and wiped off the face of the earth along with them.

https://www.rbth.com/international/2016/10/25/iraqi-kurd-official-isis-enjoys-considerable-support-among-civilians_641947

i don't think this topic can move beyond speculation. this is probably about the best summary of the reality of things that you'll find:

Although the Russian military has been slow to embrace cyber for both structural and doctrinal reasons, the Kremlin has signaled that it intends to bolster the offensive as well as the defensive cyber capabilities of its armed forces. 

i might add that it has probably been slow to adopt cyber warfare for simple technical reasons, as well.

i know it's hard to drop the idea of the superior or at least comparable russian threat, but the reality is that it was always nonsense. they were stuck in the dark ages up to world war one, and only got out of it due to a lot of fdi from american capital. in world war two, they couldn't compete with the germans on technological terms; they just (eventually) overran them with sheer force, and, again, with a lot of help from the united states (lend-lease). during the war, the russians captured a substantial number of the best german scientists and kept them working on the space program for decades afterwards. but, they also carried out a lot of espionage. there was certainly not a lot of space for technology to flourish after the fall of communism; what you had, instead, was widespread theft and piracy of western technology, with little innovation in the region, itself. if the russians have cyberwarfare capabilities, they would have been built from scratch over the last ten years, and would necessarily be still playing catch-up. but, the russians have been playing catch-up the whole time...

i mean, you'll note that putin runs windows on his desktop, right?

i'm picking up on an idea that has been expanded upon by a number of writers. to be balanced, i'll cite both sutton and chomsky. they were always years - decades - behind us. this is the reality: the russians have been chasing the west since napoleon, at least.

there was a section in the oliver stone interview where oliver stone seems convinced that putin is hiding something. that's not exactly what i picked up. but, if you want to use that language, then what he's hiding is that there isn't a substantial russian cyberwarfare program - because they don't have the capability to construct one that is competitive with the real players: the united states, israel and china.

i didn't get a lot out of the series. but, it wasn't meant for me.

one of these days, the crisis will not be averted.

when will the prime minister admit his senate reforms have been a disaster and a mistake and reverse course?

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/senate-votes-against-splitting-up-liberals-budget-bill/article35390179/

although, i should point out that all evidence i've seen suggests that the policy makers in the government continue to hold to the complete myth that marijuana is addictive.

if you think marijuana is addictive, mail order makes sense, because everybody is smoking an ounce a month.

but, this is ridiculous.

the reality is that pot is used the same way that alcohol is. people that smoke everyday are not the norm, but the marijuana equivalent of alcoholics, and they need help, not cheap weed. the vast majority of users smoke on weekends, holidays, events and the odd week night if they're out with friends. they consequently have no use for a mail order system, and you should not expect them to use it.

nonono, the british have the perfect plan.

what you need to do is this: put all of the muslims on one side of the road, and all of the christians on the other, and work this out with a giant game of chicken. we've got organ donation cards over here, folks - don't forget to fill one out before you race!

let them kill each other off. and, good riddance to the lot of them.

A U.S. warplane shot down a Syrian army jet on Sunday in the southern Raqqa countryside, with Washington saying the jet had dropped bombs near U.S.-backed forces and Damascus saying the plane was downed while flying a mission against Islamic State militants.

there's no contradiction, there.

 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-usa-idUSKBN1990XI

but, this is merely the status quo. anybody can get a medical card.

as mentioned, it's fine if you smoke an ounce/week or something. but, most marijuana users don't smoke like that. most users are not habitual, but sporadic and spontaneous. social, even.

my consumption patterns would be on the lines of a gram or two a month, and not necessarily every month. so, i'm not going to plan my consumption patterns out. it's just not realistic.

so, this isn't a backup plan, unless you're medical, which is the status quo.

again: i will not mail order in bulk. i will continue to buy small amounts locally.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/cannabis-backup-plan-in-the-works-morneau-tells-provinces/article35383802/