maybe what we really need in order to get past the authoritarian left is a more labour activist focused kind of christianity, where it's all about the apostles overthrowing the despotic rule of the tyrannical jesus.

"who do you think you are? the son of god?"

cut out the middleman...

judas had the right idea. really.

crucify your boss.

Jesus Christ himself isn’t worth 500 times his median worker’s pay

that's not what judas said.

although, judas didn't actually get paid until he went full anarchist, did he? 500*0 = 0.

it's not that he's wrong. but, i don't know where he's going with this.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/disney-heiress-jesus-christ-himself-doesnt-deserve-this-much-money-2019-03-07

i'm not going to have time for geopolitics in the near future, but to tie up a few loose ends.

the amount of nonsense around venezuela right now is just...

so, the russians stepped in and that's the end of that. if only khruschev had the technology to get the bombs to cuba before anybody noticed, right? whatever you think of what they (the trump administration) were up to, the incompetence here is just baffling.

and, now trump has got this thing all wrong. what he needs to do is find a nice little island resort to invade. like grenada. or maybe the falklands. here's an interesting idea: why doesn't he just invade puerto rico?

the more i'm looking at what happened in the israeli election, the more i'm wondering if the coup wasn't to get rid of the new right party to ease a bit of pressure on netanyahu. as bad as netanyahu is, it's the parties to his right that are the bigger problem. the russians just want to stop the superfluous israeli attacks...

but, if the purpose of shifting the conflict from ukraine to syria was to give the russians some space, the american withdrawal and subsequent shift of the conflict from syria to venezuela largely neutralizes russian motives for further interference. if the americans are truly leaving, the russians may not find the goal of reestablishing syrian sovereignty to be all that pressing, any longer. so, you may instead see the russians succumb to some of their own corrupt instincts; s-400s for all. well, it might be good for deterrence. or, it might start an arms race...

we'll have to see how this pans out. but, the set of conflicts that has defined the last twenty years may be undergoing a transformation, and the next set of conflicts may not be clear, yet.

there are some people that you just can't fix, and just have to lock up.

so, if i don't believe in retribution, and i don't believe in deterrence, why would i put anybody in jail in the first place?

i mostly wouldn't.

i do think that there is a valid justification for incarceration, and that is to protect the community. the logic here is that the rights of the community to protect itself overpower the rights of the individual to freedom. now, this is subject to due process and habeas corpus and all that kind of stuff, but, at the end of day the only reason i'm going to support incarceration at all is if i think that this person being incarcerated poses a threat to the people around it. and, there are some twists to this. for example, i would interpret "not criminally responsible" as a life sentence, rather than an acquittal, because the issue isn't whether you disobeyed the king but whether you're a threat to reoffend. further, it would necessarily follow that detention facilities should function more like hospitals than jails, because the people being housed in them are there precisely because they can't be reintegrated due to some kind of mental incapacity. if there's any way out at all, the system should accommodate for it.

given that i would argue that the purpose of a jail is to prevent the people in it from further harming the community, i don't see any kind of moral problem with telling these people they can't vote; they're being held in quarantine, they're being cast out, they're there explicitly because they're being excluded.

and, the real exercise of democracy here is in the community exercising it's right to exclude those that might harm it.

bernie's old enough to make his own choices and choose his own battles. if he wants to go down in flames on this, it's his choice, but he's wrong and should step back from it.

so, i confirmed my appointment with the doctor's office. that's good to go. although i had to send them a fax...

i left a message with the oiprd indicating that if they're not going to communicate with me in an effective manner i'll just leapfrog them and go right to court. i'll give that a day or two.

and, the solicitor general's office is pretending that it lost my access to information request. they're claiming i should try again tomorrow. mmmhmmm. well, as mentioned, i want to file everything all at the same time...

i actually disagree with this, and i've stated why: voting is a function of citizenship, so the suspension of citizenship that occurs during incarceration should imply the suspension of the rights that flow from it, including but not limited to the right to vote.

there should be a ten thousand foot firewall that separates inmates from the public - they should not be affecting decisions that are made in the communities that they've been removed from in any way at all, whatsoever. but, they should also be reintegrated quickly upon release, if they are released.

however, it's a different issue in canada because the incarceration rate is that much lower. we have 20,000 prisoners out of a population of 30 million. america has 2 million prisoners in a population of 300 million. so, it's a factor of ten, once adjusted for proportion.

again: i'm not concerned about punishing people. i don't believe in punishment. my concern is that it is fundamentally undemocratic to allow people in a jail cell to swing elections in communities that they don't even live in. democracy is a living, breathing thing that you participate in in a tactile way. you meet people, you have debates and discussions face to face, you build coalitions, etc. you can't do that from behind bars, so you're devaluing the process by reducing it to a ballot.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-prisoners-voting-1.3202010

this is a completely preposterous comparison.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/30/politics/bernie-sanders-felons-voting-medicare-for-all-cnntv/index.html

so, i was able to cut the august document down to 220 pages - 5 by 8 - by replacing the external files with links to the blog. there would have been 200 pages of windows scripts, otherwise, and that would have just been unreadable.

it's done, but i'm going to stop to eat before i run out of time on the off-rate electricity and finish it up afterwards.

that means the half-quarterly will be a nice little 450 page novel.

i'm going to guess that the politics side of it will add an extra 30-50 pages.

i suspect i may spend the rest of the week on the lawsuit. we'll see what happens when i start making calls. i have to pay bills today, too.

but, the document is done, and i'll be at least ready to move to q4/13 within hours.

i didn't get to the calls today like i wanted, but i'm on my last load of laundry and ready to get back to work.

i need to cross-reference everything before i publish. so, i'll start with the music journal, then rebuild the other three using it as a template.

first, i'll need to make sure i didn't miss anything by cross-referencing it with the master document. then, i'll need to make sure that the local document is the same as the online document. then, i can rebuild.

i don't want to present an eta - this hasn't worked well, and i'm going to be multitasking by checking show listings, which at times may take all of my attention - but i don't expect it to be a lengthy process, and there should be something up in a day or two.

it won't take a month to post the next entry. or, at least, it had better not...

if this works, it's likely that i'll never smoke anything at all ever again.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/02/19/cannabis-infused-beverages-to-launch-in-canada-by.aspx

i would rather drink the stuff, frankly.