Tuesday, July 23, 2019


i'm largely of the opinion that this is very silly, and they should be told to use absentee ballots if they can't show up on the day of the vote, or any of the advance polls. the problem is that the body didn't provide for a solution, thereby infringing voting rights, which are real rights, and it got sent back to find one. that doesn't mean there isn't an easy solution, it just means that the body didn't write it out. and, the judge has to defer to the expertise of the panel as much as possible, so she can't just pull it and scrawl all over it - she has to send it back with a note to do it fucking right, this time.

so, absentee ballots are the easy answer, and the review really just needs to send the complainants the memo around it.

but, i wouldn't be overly opposed to allowing for a special advanced polling day, either, so long as it is also open for the general public.

more chances to vote is better than less chances. right?

but, i would oppose moving the election date, on principle. this is not a good enough reason for that - there are absentee ballots available.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/federal-court-orthodox-jewish-1.5222279
great.

more bankers.

hurrah.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-royal-bank-senate-1.5221960
and, you know what i'll say when he loses, right?

he had his ass handed to him.
so, that spring in his step from the return of his ass is illusory.
i actually don't think that trudeau getting his ass back is going to help him much; ass or no ass, i think he's more or less fucked..
no.

stop.

when somebody says "i can't leave my faith at the door", what does that mean? it means they're suffering from a very large amount of trauma, that this system of control and dominance that they've internalized has left them with so much guilt and self-hate that they can't even function in normal society.

and, you think that letting these people near kids is an issue of their rights?

what about the rights of kids to grow up free from systems of dominance and control and oppression? that's the fundamental concern, not somebody's fucking career.
so, now they want leave to appeal the rejection of the request to suspend bill 21. who is paying for this?

there is a really fundamentally serious misunderstanding about what the law says, in this context. so, you see statements like this: "My faith is not something I can leave at the door. That's virtually impossible." presented as an argument against the bill, as though the law actually does or apparently ought to care. what this statement seems to demonstrate is a kind of entitlement towards employment, as though the purpose of employment is merely to raise money. there's no concept of collective ownership in the workplace here, no concept of labour as a task to accomplish the social good; it's strictly about individual rights, and in a sense it's strictly about consumerism.

what the society is saying is that if an individual cannot leave their faith at the door then they should not be employed in certain contexts. there seems to be a particularly strongly held view that people that are unable to leave their faith at the door should not be allowed to be near children. if this person is agreeing that they can't separate their faith from their employment, and even loudly yelling it, then what they are doing is providing justification for the existence of the law, rather than an argument against it, because they are not the fundamental concern, as individuals. their employment opportunities, and their career advancements, are not what the law is or ought to be most fundamentally concerned about; the fundamental concern is ensuring that the state maintains a fundamentally secular identity, including the need to protect children from the influence of religion or people that can't separate themselves from their religion, as an expression of the popular will.

i don't think they have a chance in hell at overturning this law.

but, if they want to get one, they'd better start by actually understanding it.

all evidence i can see at this point is that the movement to overturn the law simply doesn't understand it, and they're going nowhere until they do.
the reason that we collectively own all of these houses is that we used eminent domain to seize them. we didn't build these mansions with public money, and there's little justification for using public money to fix them.

i'd rather see the state tear these houses down, and use eminent domain to seize new ones.

the money should be spent, but it should be spent on social services.
this isn't a ballot issue, and i won't be reacting to it further, but i'll state the obvious.

i've seen two articles now suggest that the cost of building a new structure would not be much more than the cost of repairing it. the cost of repairing it is around $35 million. it's then suggested that he might as well rebuild, because harper fucked the thing up.

i have a better idea: build the prime minister a $1 million house, and spend the other $39 million on subsidized housing.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-welcome-to-24-sussex-dr-official-home-of-petty-politics/
it was just after 23:00 on saturday night that i made a choice to get out, and while it turned out to be unnecessary and resulted in a long day, i don't regret doing it.

the after party i wanted to go to got cancelled due to concerns about a police raid (and what they're looking for is alcohol, even though drinking at these places is actually usually quite sparse), and i did drive by there and they weren't there, but i found a back up party at a space i won't advertise, although i'll say it was advertised. i'm sorry, but with all the cancellations, i need to be quiet. as is usually the case, it wasn't hard to find. i was a little iffy because i wasn't sure if it was going to be the kind of music i like, and i didn't know how late it would go, and i didn't want to wait around all day for sunsquabi....

i was going to skip the night and head out early for the marching festival, but the more i looked at the forecast, the more it didn't make any sense. they weren't calling for a possibility of rain on sunday, they were calling for steady rain all day and over night, starting around noon. the radar was backing them up, too. so, if i was going to go, i'd have to try to get there early, meaning i'd have to leave at like 10:00.

and, it was going to be a nice, hot night, too.

so, i caught the last bus over - at 00:30 on sunday morning - and hit the after-party, which lingered on until around 8:00. apologies to the people trying to get home, but my plan was to push it to as close as 12:00 as was possible, and it was raining, and those other guys were stuck and not leaving, anyways. and, they kept passing blunts to me, so it seemed like good luck for me, if bad luck for them. i wasn't eating breakfast until almost 9:00.

those other guys...

they got bailed on, apparently. steve. they were very upset with steve. steve was their ride back to a satellite city (and detroit is like that, a metro with a lot of small cities around it), and had, from what they could tell, left without them. i had to caution against this understanding of things as steve had left his phone and who does that? my analysis of the evidence was that it was more likely that steve stumbled off somewhere fucked out of his mind (hence the lost phone) and he'd call them when he regains consciousness, but that didn't make them less angry or less willing to smash his phone (which i didn't actually observe, at least). they were convinced he drove off with a female accomplice, and that made them that much more upset, as they were lacking female accomplices themselves, you see.

they were both complaining about being too stoned to roll, so i think my own analysis is more spot-on. and, they fluctuated from offering to take me out to deep michigan with them and wondering why i was still there, even though i told them....

after some probing questions about my own sexuality and age (you're, like, what? 25?) that got them answers they didn't want, they ended up deciding to try to find some female accomplices of their own at the casino downtown. they thought it would be better if they wait until close to noon, to maximize chances. so, i wished them good luck and bicycled off to get breakfast...

i made it to the russell around 13:00, thinking i was lucky to beat the rain, and just sort of waited for it to come in. and i waited. by 15:00 or so, it was very hot, but it did not rain. so, i waited. and waited. eventually, the band comes on around 20:30 and we're just dealing with little drops by the end of the set, so small as to barely notice. so, was this a huge waste? in some sense, it clearly was, but i'm not upset about it as i got something out of it on more of a personal level. one of those guys knew the space the party was in fairly well, so, through what was somewhat of a tour, i was able to get a bit of a better understanding of my surroundings, which i think will be of good use moving forwards.

the dance party was fun. the wait was long, but helpful in some sense. and, sunsquabi was on enough. so, it was fine.

and, i caught the 23:40 bus back on sunday night.

the actual event was a fundraiser for art supplies in detroit schools, which is maybe a little bourgeois, but more interestingly organized by a large head shop in the region. so, it was a giant pot party to raise money that should really be being raised by taxpayers. let's hope a few of those kids can put the bong down long enough to create something worthwhile.