hey - at least the liberals will be able to claim they have a principled opposition.

i mean, it wasn't that long ago that i heard paul martin reject "normative value systems" in upholding the same-sex marriage equality ruling at the supreme court.

and, that was the right answer.

it's remarkable how fast and how far we can fall.

"we hold ourselves to a higher moral standard."

well, ok.

but, that's not the kind of thing you expect to hear from a liberal - that's the kind of thing you expect to hear from a conservative.

in fact, it's the kind of thing liberals are supposed to reject pretty vehemently.

so, you can hold yourself to your moral standards if you want. i don't even want to argue with you. it's like debating with a creationist. it's 2018, and you're talking about morality. yikes.

go have fun at church if you want.

i'll go vote for somebody else...

i liked the old liberals better.

sorry.

if i were running for office, and my opponent were dying of cancer, i would do everything i possibly could to ensure that voters were aware of the facts in the matter - so they don't vote for a terminally ill person that is unable to carry out their term.

"you should not vote for her because she has stage 4 cancer" is an absolutely valid argument. and, if you think there is something wrong with that because it harms your moral dignity or something, you're an irrational buffoon - a bleeding heart, even.

fwiw, it is entirely rational to take all possible steps to prepare for a byelection in a seat where the sitting member is terminally ill.

and, anybody who prioritizes reason over passion would see no reason to get upset about it.

it's hardly a policy position, and hence hardly a reason to support the conservative party. but, the reaction is reflective of everything that is wrong with the new liberal party - this is base emotionalism at the expense of logic.

it was disturbingly close, though. 53-47.

i think lisa is fighting a losing battle on this, in the long run. but. it's not sure in which direction it ends up in.

i don't think that maxime bernier is likely to attract much support in ontario or alberta, for the precise reason that he's not this kind of christian conservative. quebec is a different question, where the immigration issue is more cultural than ideological. alberta has a separatist movement, but it isn't about language or identity.

the abortion thing is a giant fundraising ticket for the conservatives. how long is their base going to continue to delude themselves into thinking this is the right vehicle for their goals?

if bernier ends up recreating a bloc-like force in quebec around immigration, it is going to be abortion that acts as the catalyst for a new reform movement. and, what we call the conservative party is going to have a perpetual struggle against an eventuality: either the christian (and increasingly muslim.) right of the party is going to leave, or the centre is going to cave in.

i was arguing that the centre was bound to cave in, as the liberals took over the center-right. but, the ndp have evaporated from the spectrum altogether. and, this is giving the tories a chance to hold the centre - but only at the expense of losing their right.

one way or another, it's the socred-conservative coalition that is unstable. and, we'll see in the end if the way it collapses is by the conservatives returning to their socred roots, or by the right striking out on their own.

and, abortion is the likely catalyst.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-great-thing-for-conservative-party-that-abortion-proposal-failed/

my dad worked in student loan collections when i was young, eventually moving up to being one of the guys that goes after corporations that don't pay their taxes, and he'd tell me these stories all of the time.

people would take out student loans to buy sports cars, then crash the car in a night of partying.
they'd gamble it all away in one night.
they'd go out of town on trips.
they'd spend it on drugs.

he saw all of this first hand - he was the guy that had to do the investigations, which often involved kind of pseudo-detective type work, write the reports and ultimately explain to the government where the money went. he'd call the car dealerships. he'd find the receipts from the travel agencies. he'd get the police reports.

his stories were outrageous - often crowd pleasers at parties.

and, these were people that got admitted into good schools, in many cases.

it's a fact of life: when you take a poor person and give them a chunk of cash, there's a high chance they're going to blow it on beer and popcorn.

canada is a clean, healthy place to live - if you have wealth.

otherwise, it's as dirty and impoverished as anywhere else in the world, with the caveat that the rent is a lot higher.

see, and this is the trick that you need somebody like me to tell you: they are promising refugees the life of new immigrants. and, that is not realistic. it's a trick as old as colonialism is itself, but it's no more realistic now than it ever was.

i like to cite the study on bone morphology that they did on italian immigrants to new york in the early twentieth century, where they found that the malnutrition these migrants suffered from in america was creating bone deformities that were not present in the ancestral population. they were something like a foot shorter, on average. but, the advertisements said america was prosperous...that emigrating would bring your family great fortunes...

in truth, immigrants have always been intended to be cheap labour. this is true at every point of both american and canadian history. the dream was always a lie - and never a naive lie. it was a malicious lie. a lie with intent.

so, they get this chunk of cash and think it's the start of a new life. they think they're going to use that couple of thousand dollars and live the same type of life that the engineers and doctors we're admitting are - because that is the international perception of canada. and because that's more money than they've ever seen before.

that startup money is just the first instalment. the start. or, so, they think.

from what i can see, based on my eyes, something that is happening is that these refugees are using their startup money to buy sports cars. immigrants wouldn't do that - because they'd be educated people that know how to invest. but, when you give these refugees a stash of free cash, it's just like giving any other uneducated person a stash of free cash.

would you give the guy at the homeless shelter a $20,000 check? no - you'd argue he'd fuck it up. but, we give these refugees - who often have lower education levels - these huge checks, and don't think they're going to waste it, for some reason.

so, they buy a new car with it. or they gamble it. and, i've been propositioned for cash on the street. while that is a constant around here, and has happened from people of multiple backgrounds, it's reflective of the reality of where the money is going.

that money will dry up in 12 months, which, for the first batch, should be relatively soon. and, then, we're going to have a problem on our hands....when the dream crashes and the reality sets in...

i have five weeks, not 12 months.

but, i might not want to be here then, either.

i'll fuck with them once in a while.

"how are you today?"

"i'm having an absolutely fucking terrible day. first, i ran over my dog on the way out of the house. then, the teacher called to tell me my kid committed suicide in class. and, my partner has blamed it all on me, and left me as of a few minutes ago. so, i decided to come buy some broccoli. debit. no bags, please."

but i usually just ignore them.

i actually think cashiers should be fired on the spot for engaging in small talk.

do you really care about how i am? then why are you fucking asking, then? it's patronizing. it drives me nuts...

i can deal with questions about the transaction. but, i don't want to chit chat. i want to pay and be gone asap.

weird showing this morning. almost seems like a trick, although every dwelling has an entrance, and every landlord has access, anyways. it's more the proximity that's weird to me - enough that i could potentially just use the "bedroom" for storage.

i would normally go through the back door. but i came in through the front door on this day, through the kitchen and through this kind of trap door into the unit, which consists of a bedroom on the main floor, a staircase downstairs and then a kind of semi-basement, in the sense that it's more like the house is on a hill.

so, my bedroom is upstairs and the rest of my apartment is downstairs. and, while there is supposedly a locked door separating the units, this is demonstrably strange to me. i don't expect that the fireplace works, either.

but, this place is actually explicitly non-smoking, in the lease requirements - so i applied for it, because it's so rare to find.

as mentioned, i'd probably use the upstairs space for storage rather than for living, which reduces the unit to a big bachelor apartment. it is a legitimately big room, though - about the size of my entire existing apartment, with the walls knocked down. like 700 square feet. so, it's like a basement loft, even.

that might be my last serious option before sept 1st, when the market is going to change. i looked it up and classes start on the 6th, here in windsor.

there's still hundreds of rooms available for the less wealthy students.

and, the wealthier kids that grew up here and want actual apartments will have already moved by then, too.

well, i tried to plan this to get in BEFORE students. but, the process slowed down over the summer. and i didn't realize how many of them there are, or how much the market is really focusing on them....

listen: i have pure intelligence in the form of aptitude. but, i don't have infinite information. i'm very good at processing information. that doesn't mean i have an advanced ability to predict the future.

i could have done a little more research, but i don't think it would have changed how i planned this - except perhaps to ask for november.

and, i'm back to wondering if the woman downstairs has left or not.

that's something else i'll know in a few weeks. and, if she's gone, i could potentially appeal - to buy time.

as of right now, i intend to pay the balance of my rent on sept 1st, which is $50. and, if i appeal, i will pay rent for oct 1st, too.

their balance is about to be paid down.....

nope.

i'm falling asleep.

fuck :(.

11/2015 is updated...

i'm going to try for an all nighter tonight. i'm sick of living normal hours, which i've been doing for weeks to conform to normal scheduling for viewing and whatnot. i want to see the sun come up this morning...and i want life to start getting back to normal...

i will always stand up for the oppressed, and against the oppressor.

i'm just more clear-eyed as to what that means than you are.

you'll get it, eventually.