we were supposed to support voting for joe biden because donald trump was going to start a world war. how did that work out for us? i didn't endorse either of these shitfaces last time and i'm not going to endorse either of them this time, either. this is in truth the least consequential election of my lifetime, as the outcome will clearly have no discernible effect on any kind of policy anywhere. it truly doesn't matter who wins.

however, i think that something sobering needs to be seriously considered: both of these men are very likely going to be dead by the year 2028. donald trump's running mate should consequently be the deciding factor in whether you should vote against him or vote for a third party. i found mike pence to be infinitely more frightening than donald trump, and trump may very well present another absolutely frightening running mate, which might make voting for kamala harris necessary, if undesirable.

it seems as though the disgusting, abject total losers that lived upstairs and have been harassing me for the last year have finally left. i'm struggling now to convince myself that they're actually gone. 

there was a woman upstairs for the last year that never ever left the house and it absolutely freaked me out. i'm having difficulty accepting that she's finally gone, that she's finally going to leave me alone.

i have ptsd as a consequence of childhood abuse. i don't have a history of hearing voices but i do have a history of flashbacks; i am fully confident that i heard everything i heard and that it was real in the sense that it was physically stated, that it was enunciated from an actual human's lips, but now the actual struggle with my actual mental health concern is about to begin, which is trying to convince myself that the flashbacks are actually flashbacks. i am absolutely expecting months worth of trauma, and the fact that i can't leave the house until the tenancy issue is resolved is simply going to add to the process.

are they really gone? really? or did i just hear a door close? did i hear a voice in the distance, or is it trauma?

it's going to take a while for me to process this, and i'm going to need space and patience to do it in. i know the tenants were drugging me, but i don't know if they were acting independently or on the order of the landlords or on the order of somebody else they were working for. i consequently don't know yet if this nightmare is actually really over or not.

i was waiting for them to leave to set up my new network and i hope that i can get back to working on something substantive soon.

the bds protests at the universities are unfortunate. the reality is that the best way to understand them are as a reflection of the demographic changes taking place in the west, and i think it should cause a moment of pause: do we want this outcome? it is not inevitable, it is easy to understand the causes and it is reversible with changes in policy.

the kids are wrong, but they're more confused than evil. this particular attack by hamas could not be justified and it demonstrates why hamas, as a brutal fascist organization, needs to be destroyed. the idea that hamas is fighting against israeli colonialism is idiotic; hamas is a brutal fascist dictatorship that wants to convert everybody to islam and kill all the fags. hamas is more ideologically in line with colonialism than netanyahu is. the correct position is to support the imminent and permanent and thorough destruction of hamas, and have subtleties about it if you insist.

however, there used to be marxist groups in palestine and they used to be a part of what they interpreted as a colonial struggle (i don't agree with the perspective, as the jews were there first, but i understand the argument. i actually support a one-state solution where all citizens have equal rights, regardless of ethnicity or religion.). what's happening is that the kids are basically reading out of date literature and then making the mistake of applying it to the current moment, and then having that mistake reinforced by their professors and elders, who are the ones that need to be denounced, not the kids. the kids learn what they're taught. it's truly the profs that are the ones making a serious mistake, here.

we can talk about root causes all day, and we should, but what i want to type briefly in this space is that it is clearly the israelis (and the egyptians, who i am pleased to see are finally taking some initiative on the matter, which is long overdue) that need to take the initiative in redesigning a post-hamas gaza strip because the palestinians don't currently have the prerequisites to maintain a functioning democracy. this point is being lost. you can't just take any tribe out of the jungle and give them democracy, there has to be pre-conditions met, and they cannot be met at the moment in gaza. if they repeat the same mistakes, they'll get the same outcome. i've been calling the israeli policy genocide since before everybody else was calling it apartheid (i may be the author of this shift in direction), but this is a genocide that is required to get out of the status quo, which is not desirable and is not sustainable. gaza cannot be a democracy and the people that live there need to be deprogrammed in a way that is not realistic; it is easier and safer to just wipe them out. somebody else then needs to take over and focus on infrastructure and education and development. eventually, one day, they can start talking about a democratic state again.

the lesson from this process needs to be that you can't just build a fence around a city and expect the people that live there to adjust to it. i've read some things recently that suggest the israelis understand this and that there's a broad consensus developing that the root cause of palestinian terrorism is the tactics deployed by ariel sharon, which were in fact not favoured by the israeli civil service, military or intelligence apparatus, who wanted a mini marshall plan rather than a neo-auschwitz. unfortunately, sharon won the argument and we now have the consequences of a neo-auschwitz, and it is going to create terrorist headaches for decades. that mistake needs to not be repeated.

what the kids ought to be saying is that there needs to be serious shifts in the israeli's approach to a post-hamas gaza, that there needs to be a focus on infrastructure and development and that egypt needs to be taking a primary role in the process. they should not be arguing against dismantling hamas, but they've been confused and misled by simplistic and warped ideologies that are difficult to apply to a post-industrial world. they're just kids, and they're just trying to be cool.

it is ultimately of little consequence what the kids think, but i am concerned about the violent nature of the crackdowns, which would appear to be unnecessary. the admins and higher ups are embarrassed by the riff raff and want to mow the lawn of the protest presence. well, again, we need to ask: do we want this outcome? if not, we need to change our immigration policies, and we need to pay more attention to who we hire to teach our kids.

when these people talk about the culture of northern europe, they use terms like colonialism and draw attention to the crimes of the past. however, they expect everybody to follow the rules of their culture, and complain that they're being oppressed when other people don't obey their dictates; not following their rules is oppression, but expecting people to follow our rules is colonialism. it's a double standard.

worse, it's a historical half-truth, at best. in reality, arabs invented colonialism as we understand it today (i mean, the greeks had colonies, but...) and islam is in fact the most brutally colonizing force in human history, worse than christianity by several degrees. besides, what we call "european colonialism" was carried out by the largely middle eastern in origin cultures of southern europe, orchestrated by the egyptian-origin religion of christianity and carried out primarily by olive-skinned and sometimes outright brown spanish, portugese and italians, many of whom even had some arab ancestry. when the various wars of the age of enlightenment came to an end, and the north of europe triumphed over the south, the result was that the northern europeans abolished the arab-originating slave institutions and undid the olive-skinned christian colonial projects, rather than continue or advance them. the result of white people taking over the world was the end of slavery, not the enforcement of it.

this double standard needs to be addressed and the hypocrisy needs to be deconstructed. we're long overdue for this backlash. as mentioned, quebec is ahead of the curve; this is a process that needs to happen. we need to protect our european, liberal, secular and atheist institutions and we need to make doing so a serious priority, lest we wake up in saudi arabia and not understand what happened.

sarah jama's disgusting outburst in the ontario legislature last week was a despicable act of disrespect for the cultural norms and values of the culture she is currently living in, and which has made an attempt to include her and encouraged her to thrive. it is long past the time that the historically pagan and white cultures of northern europe stood up for themselves in asserting the expectation that the cultural values of secularism and atheism be respected by foreigners that are visiting here and that our institutions be respected and our laws be followed.  such disrespectful outbursts need to be condemned in the strongest terms possible, and i would call on her to immediately resign. 

perhaps she could go to gaza and run for office there. i expect there will be some kind of elections there soon. i'd advise she pack a lunch.

i want to explicitly clarify that i have no affiliation with cevin key or skinny puppy whatsoever because there is apparently somebody upstairs that thinks my jjjjjjjjjj^2 record is going to be a new tear garden record. i'm going to try to contact ka-spel, artefact records and a few others. 

cevin key is a thief. he's a drug addict loser that steals everybody else's music. i've somehow been targeted. i think. 

i saw somebody in my garage about a year ago that looked startling like him, and i thought he was just a wannabe.

i've been struggling to understand what is going on here. i think it's beginning to become clear. i'm not letting this washed up old loser steal my music.

when pierre polievre claims that the problem with trudeau is not that he's too liberal but that he's actually deeply illiberal, he is correct. unfortunately, all evidence suggests that polievre is even less liberal than trudeau is. 

canada is a country with a deep history of liberal institutions and that has liberalism so thoroughly embedded in it's laws that it has lost the requirement of liberal political representation. it is not the case that canada has been overrun by "woke liberalism", it is the case that there is no longer anything remotely approximating liberalism in the political spectrum at all, because liberalism was so triumphant here in the 20th century that it lost it's political prerogative and faded away into cultural norms.

the result is that we have three parties, and they are all deeply illiberal, because you essentially have to react against the liberal institutions here to have any purpose in existing at all. polievre remains a figurehead for the radical right; a true conservative movement in canada would be about maintaining our liberal institutions. the ndp are a bourgeois socialist party and the liberals themselves are increasingly driven by culturally conservative critiques of the liberal status quo. 

taken as a whole, as illiberal as trudeau is, he remains the least illiberal of the three, and that is a problem that canadians are going to need to grapple with, lest they wake up one day in a different culture, without realizing it ever happened.

i would strongly suspect that the test incursion into iran by israel yesterday was a data gathering exercise rather than a retaliatory strike. it would be rational to expect the israelis to test iran's defenses as a preliminary step rather than just start shooting missiles.

that said, did i say 100 missiles for tit-for-tat? i meant 350 missiles. those 350 missiles need not all land in iran; indeed, israel's self-interest would suggest most of them should be targeted at hezbollah. that is a large balance for israeli payback still to come, nonetheless.

it's not clear that there are 350 targets in iran worth hitting. it is clear there are 350 targets in lebanon worth hitting.

i am also disappointed by the disability tax credit's $200/month, which it does not appear as though i will qualify for because i don't have a disability tax credit. somebody needs to explain to ms. freeland that she missed the point of the legislation; i would not consider this to be a response to the legislation, and would expect further steps from the government, perhaps after a change in finance minister.

however, i've been trying to get the idea across for quite a long time that the primary issue facing disabled people in this country is not a lack of income but a lack of subsidized housing. it is not a good idea to just give us more money and tell us to go spend it in the market. there is  a distinct lack of infrastructure in this country regarding housing for those with disabilities.

if you give me more money, some rentier (like my landlord) will find a way to take it from me and, in the end, it's just another corporate handout to the rentier class. state aid should be structural and not in the form of bursaries.

so, yes, i agree that it's not what i was hoping for, but energy is better spent getting more subsidized housing built, anyways. this is a problem the society needs to build it's way out of, not one it should throw money at.

i remember when the united states published it's missile defense plans and showed everybody that the wreckage would fall harmlessly, outside of america's borders. somebody had to explain to dubya that the map showed a direct hit on the canadian city of edmonton, as collateral damage.

the kingdom of jordan has been very clear regarding it's motive in shooting down iranian missiles: it was to protect it's airspace. this ought to be read literally, as the jordanians had the choice of shooting these projectiles down outside of jordan or watching the united states and israel shoot them down inside jordan, with jordanian citizens as collateral damage.

the speaker of the ontario legislature is correct to ban the keffiyeh during debates. it is customary in british-canadian culture that political symbols not be worn during debates. i applaud the speaker for enforcing british canadian cultural values within british canadian political institutions. foreigners should be expected to follow our rules and conform to our culture, not the other way around.

that said, i also understand that this decision is being made within the context of certain laws being passed in quebec, which, as is so often the case, is ahead of the rest of the country. i have been making the argument for many years that the hijab is a political symbol and should be banned from the public sector workforce for that precise, exact reason. while it would not exactly by a ballot issue for me, i would like to see ontario adopt some of the laws that quebec has recently adopted regarding religious symbols in the workplace. perhaps this is a first step towards that desired and inevitable (and correct, in a secular society) end point.

the iranian strike on israel, as unsuccessful as it appears to have been, is a major escalation that requires a proportionate response. a proportionate response would certainly be a tit-for-tat retaliation, which i might propose as a dominant strategy. the israeli military knows it's game theory. iran does not have anything remotely similar to the same defence capabilities, and a strike of this size would consequently do severe damage to the islamo-fascist "republic" of iran. israel now essentially has an excuse to send 100 or so missiles into iran, at targets that are at it's discretion. i might suggest taking out the fucking ayatollah.

i think the biden administration is making a pr error in taking a step away from israel's response. there is a loud and vocal and well-financed and powerful arab-american lobby in the united states that tends to get what it wants, but it does not represent popular opinion. the biden administration may find the polling shocking, but it's a reflection of it's own incompetence. i would expect massive popular support for an american strike on iran, and for it to cross into both parties. i'd guess 80-85% of americans would support nato bombing in retaliation.

i was exceedingly vocally opposed to the attack on iraq in 2003, but i've tended to be cautiously in favour of military-backed regime change in iran. this is going to come up. the situations are not only not comparable, they are diametrically opposite; iraq was a secular society (run by an asshole dictator, but secular nonetheless) and the only opposition on the ground was religious, whereas iran is a fascist theocracy with a secular opposition movement that could use some air support. i'd be happy to provide a secular and liberal movement on the ground in iran with air support, and i think they can win if we give them it.

however, i expect biden and his cronies to avoid such things with a ten foot pole. the 2003 iraq war remains formative in the post-bush years; biden was a part of the obama administration. obama then thoroughly screwed up iran and nobody wants to deal with it. regime change in iran will require generational change.

as it is, i don't expect israel will require american backing to carry out a vicious tit-for-tat strike, and that should be it's immediate focus. if iran wants to get uppity, israel is going to need to smack it down and show it it's place.

take note of this fact: the russians don't even try to retaliate against israel in syria, because they know they're beat before it starts. iran has russian missile defense systems that are essentially the same as the ones in syria. israel can do what it will in iranian airspace, at will.

for this particular issue, throwing money at government bureaucracy is precisely what is required to solve the problem, as the root cause is a collapse of government bureaucracy in the first place.

that said, the language from the minister makes it clear that this is an election promise and that it probably won't go anywhere.

i'm going to suggest something else: we need ndp governments across the country at the provincial level to deal with housing. it's imperative.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/liberals-release-plan-to-solve-the-housing-crisis-branding-it-as-a-call-to-action-1.6844545

we're trained to act as though all life is sacred and every second matters, and some of us want to bring silly ideas like god into it, but perhaps what we're learning from asking people with poor qualities of life what they actually want is that this value system is in truth deeply flawed.

conservatives are focused on quantity of life and freaking out about people choosing death over life, but the constant in these deaths is extremely poor quality of life. 

maybe the fundamentalists should stop speaking and start listening.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/assisted-death-quadriplegic-quebec-man-er-bed-sore-1.7171209

there's a fair amount of evidence in front of us, and i think ms. qualtrough would make a far better prime minister than ms. freeland.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/overwhelming-support-for-disability-benefit-complicated-by-slow-implementation-survey-finds-1.6837126

we legitimately need a zombie-vampire flick about jesus, ala life of brian, that uses the new testament as the primary script, complete with gore-filled depictions of the crucifixion. in the end, zombie-vampire jesus should come back to have his revenge on the common soldiery.

i also want a scene where he's having gay group sex with his disciples and makes a bad pun about the second cumming.

i actually don't want to come down on a side in this debate about fourplexes. it seems like a good idea to enforce fourplexes as a right until you stop to do the actual math and realize that it wouldn't even actually help.

we don't need fourplexes, we need massive skyscrapers. we need to be building up; way up.

if the government wants us to be as populated as megacities like london and new york, we're going to have to build like london and new york, and (with the single exception of the very downtown core of toronto), we just don't. we think it's not canadian to have that kind of urban density.

well, the population is growing very fast and nobody wants to live in permafrost, alberta. our government made the choice to overpopulate us. now, we have to start building skyscrapers, not fourplexes.

there's a weird narrative that the issue in rafah has to do with the saudis protecting the palestinians. that's odd, as the saudis have never tried to protect the palestinians before.

this guy sisi, however, is a puppet of the saudis, and they would be interested in maintaining stability in egypt, which may be where the arab revolution to overthrow islam eventually happens, one day. egypt is a brutal dictatorship but it's a relatively secular society, and it has to be by popular demand. this shadow caliphate in riyadh wants to keep egypt under control.

but, in fact, the primary concern of the saudis would not be in protecting palestine from israel but rather in ejecting the iranian proxy that is hamas from the mediterranean. the saudis would need to obscure it a little, but their primary rival and enemy is iran, not israel. the saudis and israelis would actually be expected to have common cause in wiping out hamas, but the saudis don't want to destabilize egypt.

i would consequently be skeptical about this idea that the october attack was about trying to undo the saudi-israeli detente, as hamas is a common enemy of the saudis and israel, and the alliance against iran was what the detente was supposed to be about. if anything, what's happening might be better described as the first step of the aforementioned detente, which is something the americans would seek to prevent (as it would upset the balance of power and complicate their strategy of divide and conquer).

the absolute last thing in the world that the americans would want is an alliance between israel and saudi arabia.

jesus was a zombie and a vampire.

that's next level. no wonder people worshiped him.

it's that time of the year, but i was busy and didn't notice it.