the thing that drove up rents was interest rate hikes. 

i think that there should be a law passed that says that you're not allowed to rent a property that you own less than 80% of, unless it's a new development. this would prevent people from buying second properties by getting second mortgages on the houses they own, then using the income to pay their banks. it doesn't make sense for middle or upper class people to expect low income renters to pay their mortgages, but that is what is driving up the rents - people just buy houses at whatever the costs, then pass it on to renters, without spending the time doing the math, or really caring.

the result is that the person working at the tim hortons ends up paying off the government worker's overpriced mortgage, which that government worker couldn't otherwise afford, and just in order to have shelter. that's not logical and that's not fair. that shouldn't be allowed. the system should be telling the middle class workers to pay their own fucking mortgages, and helping the wage slaves escape from the tyranny of serfdom. there should be far greater protections in place to stop the middle class from exploiting low income workers and students.

the purpose of housing is not to generate income. housing is not an investment. i'm not even arguing against capitalism, which is supposed to be critical of idle rentiers. deregulation has led us back into feudalism, and put us on the road to serfdom. 

it would also help if they just cut interest rates, but that's going to take a while to go through.

i went through some volatility, but then i got lucky. i got into a program that's going to subsidize my rent. i could technically afford over $1500/month for rent at this point, but am currently paying $1000 and don't want to move again.

not everybody is going to navigate the system or get into this program. there's currently a problem with people buying properties as investments instead of as places to live that needs to be addressed by the federal government. 

it's one thing to rent an old house you're not using because you inherited it or moved somewhere else, or your situation changed, or whatever else. but explicitly buying old properties in urban cores at high interest rates to immediately rent them at high prices to poor people is not good for society and is driving up rents and should be banned by requiring a certain level of ownership before you're allowed to rent. this will ensure that the property owners are getting more of the rent and the banks are getting less, so that property owners are not dumping the cost of their over-priced mortgages that they cannot afford onto the working class, which can afford it even less. that will open up more affordable properties for people with lower incomes to buy, instead of be forced to rent.

something else that is driving up rents is the recent near ubiquity of property management companies, which are introducing an unnecessary bourgeois layer that needs to get paid. there are very few rental units, at least around here, that are just run by somebody renting their basement, anymore. everything is run by a management company, with some absent owner behind it that just gets a cut, and which is increasingly hiding ownership concentration. what we see are these dozen or so management companies; what we don't see is that they're managing portfolios of dozens or hundreds of properties, all owned by the same person. the state needs to step in and break up these hidden ownership conglomerates by passing rules on how many single-family houses one entity can own, and how far they can live from the properties they own.

the city and the province can only do so much. it's the feds that need to step in and start breaking up concentrations of ownership, but they have broadcast that they are more interested in maintaining high property values. 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/windsor-cmhc-rental-vacancy-rate-9.7012565

*quack*

*quack*

*quack*

waddle over here, donald duck.

i'll save the descartes for later. it's coming.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/republican-led-house-votes-overturn-trump-executive-order-bargaining-r-rcna248767

i voted for trudeau's liberal party in 2015 because the local representative in windsor, who lost, campaigned on pushing the liberals to re-open nafta and because i strongly supported the green infrastructure bank, which was supposed to use the bank of canada to print debt-free money to finance the public infrastructure required for carbon transition, but that the liberals eventually converted into this horrible public-private thing to build pipeline infrastructure, like it was run by joe fucking clark. i regretted that vote, and wished i had voted for the greens.

i was a supporter of stephane dion and a very loud critic of michael ignatieff.

i did not vote for trudeau to legalize pot, and really didn't have a lot of support for the idea. at the time, i was indifferent to it; i figured it didn't matter. there's some convenience in being able to buy the odd quarter once or twice a year at the store, right? it's not like my life revolved around it. i didn't really actually care. in hindsight, the ndp and thomas mulcair probably had a better marijuana policy than trudeau did, but i would not be somebody that would be likely to determine my vote on marijuana policy. mulcair was running on new labour thatcherism and was a non-starter for that reason. as it is, i have purchased essentially no legal marijuana, after trying it and realizing it was engineered to create dependency. for me, the result of legalizing pot in canada is that i've started to strenuously avoid it.

i want my low key, underground, quiet neighbourhood hippie grow-ops back.

i have not voted for the liberals since, but have voted for the greens a couple of times.

there is no possibility that i would vote for or support mark carney in any way at all.

progressives used to talk about fining marijuana users for smoking, both tobacco and marijuana. trump might actually like that idea, i think. the fines should be intended to stop people from smoking in places where it bothers people, both in public and private. i would strongly support the ability to fine people for smoking in their own homes. an upside is that it might weaken property rights, which are a terrible idea.

as for responsible users that smoke in reasonable places like outside bars or concerts, or in recreational areas away from residential housing, it is better for us to keep it underground than to sell it in storefronts. if you ask around, that's actually a consensus position. most people support various decriminalization schemes rather than outright legalization.

you want to protect the marijuana plant from the drug industry, which will ruin it. that's what has happened in canada, where we now talk about Big Canna.

i would like to see the united states classify tobacco as a schedule I narcotic.

that would be truly progressive.

i would be more like to argue that ketamine should be classified as schedule I than that marijuana should be classified as schedule III. i actually think that marijuana should remain classified as a schedule I narcotic because it clearly has absolutely no medical use.

marijuana should be treated the same way as tobacco or to a lesser extent, to alcohol - it's a carcinogenic scourge that creates mass dependency and kills scores of people, but it does it slowly via cancer and heart disease, rather than via overdoses. it is possible to use it responsibly or irresponsibly. where marijuana is far worse than alcohol and on par with tobacco is in it's second hand smoke phase, and it's ability to create nuisance and public health emergencies for people that don't smoke it habitually.

the data is abundantly clear that legalizing marijuana in canada has been an absolute catastrophe and a total failure, from any analysis point - from a public health perspective, from an addictions perspective and also from the perspective of a casual user.  i have generally enjoyed smoking very small amounts of marijuana on an infrequent basis and have preferred low thc levels so that it's actually fun. nowadays, it's mass marketed as a drug for addicts and is 5x as strong as it used to be. it's not fun anymore, it just knocks you out like a retard on heroin. i would rather buy periodically from a hippie with a grow op in his basement making low potency pot, but that market is wiped out. you have to buy it in overkill packaging at potency levels designed to create dependence and bad experiences. as a casual user, i would rather it was illegal again.

it's led to extreme difficulties finding non-smoking housing in the country's urban areas and it has almost entirely reversed decades of progressive health initiatives to reduce indoor smoking. people have stopped caring, and started looking at you funny if you complain that they're smoking inside. it's a complete embrace of anti-intellectualism and scientific backwardsness.

the latter point would make it fitting for trump to be the president that is actually dumb enough to make this mistake, where every other president has thought about it and looked at the data and stopped. data is of no concern to donald trump.

for a substantive period of their rule, the nazis actually banned emigration because they wanted to enslave the inferior races. no escaping; that's not fair.

the nazis consequently didn't really have a problem with immigration, as not many minorities were interested in moving to nazi germany, but were rather trying to stop people from fleeing.

the nazis at no point ever argued that immigration was ruining european society. 

in fact, the nazis were very pro-muslim and built military alliances with the muslim world, across the middle east. the most obvious answer, a common hatred of jews, is the most correct one, but there are a number of angles. 

it is true that the arabs were in revolt against the british, which is how arabs usually explain the situation today, but that doesn't explain the nazi alliances with muslim groups in eastern europe, or with turkey. 

one of the few intellectual sources in nazi "theory" is edward gibbon, who claimed the roman empire (the first reich, which nazism was trying to rebuild) fell because it embraced christianity, which made the romans weak. gibbon contrasted that to the arab societies, which remained militant because they converted to islam. the contrast was between the slave-morality christians and the master-morality muslims, and gibbon decided the muslims were superior to the christians because they did not have a slave morality (to interject somewhat anachronistic language). gibbon argued that the first reich would have survived if it had converted to islam and the nazis picked up on that and tried to model their militarist christian society on muslim culture. does that sound like what donald trump is saying?

the basis of nazi expansion was that the aryan race was superior and therefore needed more space, liebensraum. the inferior slavs, the russians, were to be exterminated to make more space for the aryans. does that sound like what donald trump is saying?

what trump is saying is that the europeans are weakly, inferior and in the process of being colonized by stronger races, including the arabs. he's disappointed by this, but he's not arguing in favour of white supremacy, but rather in favour of white inferiority. it's essentially the exact opposite position taken by the nazis.

trump is therefore abandoning europe as inferior weaklings not worthy of an alliance with america and seeking to build alliances with stronger, more dominant societies that are not in decline, like the russians and the arabs.

there is some truth to trump's position. europe is clearly in decline. immigration is more of a result of that decline than a cause of it. the major cause of european decline has been it's acceptance of it's role as a us client. europe is weak precisely because america decided it ought to be weak, because it identified it as it's only serious competitor.

is europe still worth protecting? it's less clear. the resources are dwindling, and they've become an import-reliant economy. they're no longer the global centre of research or education. if europe thinks it's still worth protecting, it should make the argument a little more forcefully.

but, this is not nazism; this is the exact opposite of nazism.

factually, i think he's incorrect. europe is actually still recovering from world war two. the immigration will dry up when the wealth collapses and europe will be able to refocus on itself again when that happens.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/dec/11/us-extreme-rightwing-tropes-1930s-british-mps-donald-trump-keir-starmer

a million dollar fast track around an h1b wouldn't be a policy i'd have come up with.

but i'm having difficulty criticizing it.

this looks psychotic on it's face, but it's a form of progressive taxation.

trump is an asshole, no doubt, and some of his policies are horrific. he's neither as polarizing or as substantive as a napoleon, a stalin or a genghis khan, and i hope he doesn't get there. but future historians may have some difficulty with this guy.

is this...conservative?

right-wing?

it kind of almost seems a little...

wait for it.

SOCIALIST.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/10/trump-us-gold-card-visa-launch

were indigenous europeans religious?

it depends on what your definition of "religion" is.

we lack good sources because they were destroyed or written over by christian propagandists, but the sources we have suggest that the celts and germans were pretty similar to the very ancient greeks and that the reason is that the greeks ultimately came from the same origins as the celts and germans, before they migrated into greece. for that reason, the greek literature, in conjunction with very old literature from india, is the best information we have about what indigenous european culture was actually like.

we know that the europeans believed in democracy, which is why europe still has democracy; the christians were not democratic, and would have done away with it if they could have, but they couldn't and they failed. we know that germanic legal systems mostly followed processes that we still have remnants of in tort law, rather than civil law codes written by kings or churches, or the perpetual authority of the king.

we know the german and celtic gods were very similar to the greek gods, which is partly why the germans and celts let the greeks in to trade and largely avoided conflict with them but then fought the romans, years later. a lot of the cities in france were built by greeks and you can see the remnant overlap in the architecture, particularly in the cult of dionysus/diana, which is considered foundational to the spread of christianity.

it's no more clear that the germans or celts really believed in god, per se, than it is that the greeks did. when you have gods instead of god, you have magic and you have mysticism, animism and the sort. that is superstition, but it isn't clearly religion.

i think there's no clear answer to that question, and whether you should call indigenous european culture pagan or atheistic or superstitious or spiritual or animistic is not clear, but it is clear that europeans could never accept monotheistic belief or middle eastern legal codes, and never did.

i also have to reiterate my position that the idea of a historical christian europe, let alone a white christian europe, is a nonsensical myth. it never existed. it is strictly a fantasy of conservatives, and of the christian upper classes that have held to it for centuries, as the entities that wrote (or rewrote) the histories, that engaged in the genocides, and that wiped out the indigenous cultures of europe in a process that started with julius caesar and did not truly end - firmly - until napoleon.

it is more accurate to talk about a failed attempt by brown romans to colonize white europe that went on for thousands of years and ultimately failed than it is to talk about "christian europe". we universally condemn the inquisition, but fail to stop for a minute and realize that there were still enough pagans in europe at the dawn of the enlightenment to justify a crusade in the form of a witch hunt against them. the church was still launching crusades against white pagans in northern europe in the 17th century. it's christmas; you are still worshiping odin and not christ and should realize it. what do reindeers and  christmas trees have to do with a barn in israel, where it almost never snows? that's north germanic pagan iconography. the romans spent centuries trying to pacify white tribes in the north and were eventually first thrown out of europe in the 4th and 5th century by pagan indigenous groups (the roman sources call it the great barbarian conspiracy; it was an indigenous uprising), in a process that repeated over and over again in waves of pagan revolutions, culminating in the last viking invasions. england itself, the alpha culture of north america, is based on a pagan law code that was introduced to the island by saxon pagans, who were still in power in england in the 11th century, when a warlord from france named william invaded it under the direction of the pope in order to re-implement christian rule. we gloss over the fact that the norman invasion of england was basically a crusade against the furthest fringes of roman/christian colonial rule, and against an island that refused to christianize. the brutal despotism that followed was the last serious attempt to enforce christianity on england, and it failed to even establish a christian legal code, as the saxons would not let go of their democratic institutions, but instead enforced a magna carta on the norman nobility that ultimately returned power to parliament, that constructed the common law and, within a few centuries, had thrown the romans out for good. the english kings were so unchristian by the late dark ages that they didn't even believe in monogamy, and figured a serial philanderer could run an english church just as well as the fucking pope.

but if there was any christianity in europe at all it was restricted to the nobility. the regular people of northern europe were never christians and spent centuries evading taxation from the christian aristocracies and fighting their feudalism, while returning to their indigenous belief systems whenever they could and suffering immense persecution and cultural destruction for it. they actually teach you in school that indigenous european cultures were illiterate and had no history, which any cursory investigation into the matter will expose as a brutal lie, but these histories were destroyed by the christian aristocracies in a process that did not significantly differ from what they did to the aztecs centuries later.

it is the fact that white europe emerged from this process of cultural destruction both uncolonized and as a cultural tabula rasa, with no history of it's own, that allowed it to make such a clean break from the past, when it did. europe had no choice but to start from scratch, because everything it used to have was taken from it by brown christians from rome and lost in ruins and engulfed in flames. europe wouldn't be what it is today if it hadn't been thoroughly destroyed by christianity, while simultaneously refusing to accept it. all the christians had to show for their efforts in the end was a pile of rubble and a population no more willing to accept it than it had been in the first place.

the result is that while white europeans won - we defeated christian colonization - the victory was deeply pyrrhic. we lost who we were in the process, and had to redefine ourselves by reading greek mythology, but we did it, we dd the homework, and we emerged as a new society with new institutions that had little to no cultural baggage tied to the past.

there are few constants through history, but one is that white people make shitty slaves. we can't be broken, and they've tried, over and over. we don't want your religion, we don't want your slavery. we'll burn your cities down, in the end, if you won't fuck off and let us live in freedom.

it follows that there is really no likelihood that muslims are going to succeed in taking control of this power vacuum left open by the forced retreat of christian colonialism, and if they try to do so, the same thing will happen. the danger is not in the uncertainty of the eventual outcome, but in enduring the hardship of struggling against a new type of middle eastern colonialism. it's a shitty way to spend the next thousand years.

europe will win in the end, but it may have to do so the hard way, and may have to endure a new dark age, if it doesn't learn from it's own history, and allows these middle eastern groups to try to walk into this vacuum and continue to try to colonize it. it's up to them how they want to do this.

it should be clear that white europeans will not, in the end, accept middle eastern religion. it spent a thousand years defeating christian colonialism and won, and it will spend the next thousand years defeating islamic colonization, if it must.

i want to be clear that, as an atheist, i have no interest in taking a side in conflicts that are developing in the west between christians and muslims. dawkins' position on this question, for example, is disappointing and wrong-headed; i would prefer to take a marxist class analysis, which dawkins would not do, but which hitchens might have, especially when he was younger. i've found dawkins to be greatly disappointing in recent decades.

due not to any enlightened social attitudes in the upper classes but due to the fact that white people fought against our aristocracies and reduced their power in law via a series of revolutionary movements going back to the collapse of rome but picking up after the fall of constantinople, the white aristocracies have largely retreated from trying to enforce christian dogma on their populations, until recently. this is not out of their own volition or choice, but because we forced them to stop, and we took away their power. this is the great victory of modern enlightened/secular european society over medieval christianity (a mostly brown-skinned religion from the middle east that remnant roman/jewish groups tried to colonize white europeans with, and mostly failed at doing) that created the modern world. this great victory of the white european masses over colonizing brown christians from rome opened up somewhat of a power vacuum, and islamist groups that are basically the same things as christians are now trying to walk into that power vacuum, which is scaring the remnant roman christian aristocracies into thinking they're being replaced by muslim aristocracies, who never faced that revolutionary back lash, and continue to viciously enforce what is really exactly the same religion on their own people using violence and coercion. that is the reason the christian aristocracies are trying to fight back now, as they are trying to protect what they see as a threatened position in society; they withdrew from enforcement, because we forced them to, which is allowing these other religions to walk in and take their place. you can in fact see that in the statistics they present, which appear to me to be valid, that show that religious belief amongst nonchristians in north america and europe is increasing at a rapid pace, while christian belief continues to decline, which is something that is being brought on by immigration policies authored not by the aristocratic elites but by the bourgeois political establishments. the bourgeois political establishments are trying to do things like increase gdp and really aren't concerned about religious belief, or the role of the religious aristocracy, that has never truly gone away, but has continued to exist in the background. this isn't an intentional attack by the bourgeoisie on the aristocracy, but rather an unintended consequence. the aristocracy is nonetheless interpreting it as an attack and responding to it as one and trying to retake control of that power vacuum before a new foreign born aristocracy manages to wrestle it from them. up to this point, the bourgeois class has largely responded to this by calling the aristocrats insane and accusing them of perpetuating conspiracy theories, but i think that a solid marxist analysis should show that the concerns of the aristocrats (from their own perspective) are very real, even if the capitalists don't really comprehend what they're doing.

but i'm neither a christian aristocrat, nor a bourgeois capitalist. i'm an anarchist, an atheist and a proletarian. the aristocracy and bourgeoisie can kill each other off all they want. i don't give a fuck; if anything, i'd egg it on, as it weakens them both, which makes it easier for an eventual proletariat overthrow of both of them.

my atheist position on the increasing tendency towards conflict between muslims and christians is really that we should step back and let them kill each other off with an eye on divide and conquer, while keeping the following things in mind:

1) our position should not be in protecting one of these communities from the other, but in ensuring that neither of them are able to project violence towards atheists or is able to mount any kind of attack on freedom, individuality or reason and

2) that our greatest threat is not this or that religionist group, but the haunting spectre of religious integration, of communalism, of syncretism and of inter-faith collusion and cooperation. our real concern should be in preventing christians and muslims from aligning with each other against us, not in taking a side when they fight each other.

the religionists, like any other groups, are stronger when they work together, and weaker when they fight against each other. the atheist position should be to step back and let them fight each other and not to try to bridge differences; it should be to get out of their way and let them kill each other off, while protecting our own from their violence as best we can, which means self-defense when required, and it will be required, eventually. for now, we're better off getting out of the way than trying to intervene.

likewise, the proletariat has no position to take in trying to protect white aristocrats from brown aristocrats, or in taking a side in a conflict between the capitalist bourgeoisie and the remnant christian aristocracy, at all. the proletariat should focus on advancing it's self interest, and avoid getting involved in these conflicts which they have no part in and no interest in. but it should also ensure it understands what is going on and is able to react to events as is required.

it is obviously true that islam is a greater threat to freedom than christianity is, in contemporary western society. but we should address that truth without getting lost in class conflicts that we have no stake in.

conservatives will always approach new things by trying to ban them. that way, things can stay the way they are now, or go back to the way they used to be, which is always the goal - identifying what has made things different, and trying to reverse it.

kids need more exposure to technology at a young age, not less. they need education, not protection. this is real life and they'll have to learn how to exist in it. those that fail, and many will certainly fail, will not succeed in reproducing or in thriving as individuals.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/article/expert-warns-of-unintended-consequences-if-canada-implements-youth-social-media-ban/

what a disgusting eyesore.

there used to be a nice green space here, and they ruined it with a stupid hockey rink, like a bunch of immature eight year-olds.

as soon as we get rid of mayor dilbert, we should bulldoze this over and plant some trees.

https://citywindsor.ca/residents/recreation/arenas/rinks/city-hall-square-ice-rink

if trump doesn't want to negotiate with canada, we shouldn't push him to, we should shut up and wait for the next guy.

the bible and koran are just regular books, like any other books. they contain words authored by humans and written down onto paper. they are no different than political pamphlets, fictional narratives (they should clearly be categorized as fictional in the dewey-decimal system) or any other type of written texts. there is nothing special about them. they are not above the law.

while i would rather see these hate crime laws abolished altogether, having special exemptions for a specific political position is legislating that position above the law, which is an affront to the rule of law. the law must hold everybody equally accountable.

i consequently strongly support the legislation but, more importantly, i welcome the debate. we need to return to a more open discourse about religion in this society, and stop being afraid of offending people.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/biblical-passages-canada-could-list-as-hate-speech

while it's predictable that the kids that grew up in the 00s, the oughties, have a more nuanced perspective about it and are re-evaluating it, i align with the gen x consensus that the 00s fucking sucked in terms of popular music. you had to look to some pretty obscure corners of the music world to find something exciting going on.

this record is one of the few counter-examples and one of the few albums i keep coming back to for that reason. it's one of the rare classic records released so far this century.

it's certainly a hysterical over-reaction to the situation in the united states in 2006, which is why it's fun. we are closer to this point now than we were then, but it's still a great distance away.

a society where these concerns are not hysterical but are very real is the middle east and levant and i would, today, mostly recommend this record to syrian or iraqi refugees fleeing isis, hts and al qaeda (including the current syrian regime), hezbollah or hamas. it is mostly arab refugees of islamic fundamentalism that would be best able to relate to this record as something very real, in 2025.

this wasn't the most popular punk record released c. 2005, but it was one of the best.

https://thethermals.bandcamp.com/album/the-body-the-blood-the-machine

the ndp needs to make fighting these kinds of cuts the centre of their political movement, but they won't be incentivized to do so until it involves fighting the jews in some way. who has time to fight for the civil service when there's jews to fight, instead?

it is these kinds of absent priorities that pushed the unions away from the ndp, which had stopped caring about unions because they were too white, and even because they were too jewish. what does unionization have to do with immigration?

but the public service walked into a trap in doing this, as the liberals have begun to govern on the hard right again (as they always do) and the conservatives offer no way out. these are not blue collar union jobs; these are educated workers. they're not going to be swayed by social conservatism, or scared into thinking the socialists are out to eat their children. 

it's not clear if the socialists or the jews are more likely to eat your children, at this point.

so, what do they do when they correctly walk away from the ndp for shifting it's priorities away from labour politics and then get stabbed in the back by the bourgeois capitalists for it? the ndp isn't running on this.

the answer is the ndp has to be running on this. this is canadian labour politics, and something the ndp can legislate on. the ndp cannot legislate on gaza, whatever you think of it.

and if the ndp will not run on fighting these cuts then the unions need to reorganize and leave the ndp behind, to follow in the footsteps of the social credit party to oblivion.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2025/12/05/news/cuts-natural-resources-canada-wildfire-flood

i would hope that anti-terrorist authorities in the united states are keeping a close eye on canada as a transit point for money laundering. this change in the law effectively allows canadians to legally send money to an al qaeda affiliate, and functionally legalizes al qaeda in canada.

this is not an isolated change, it's a part of a general embrace of islamic fascism by the canadian government.

i may find myself supporting regime change in canada on the basis that we're supporting islamic fascism, and have become a state sponsor of terrorism. if canada insists on walking down this path, i may find myself eagerly inviting american tanks in to overthrow the state.

this is utterly disgraceful.

it's a sad day to be a canadian.

what an embarrassment.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/canada-drops-terror-sanctions-on-syria-and-its-interim-government/

i have officially been a non-smoker for ten years, as of this month.

i have a lot more money, and i'm in better health, but have found it a lot harder to find housing.

what have i been doing the last several weeks? i stopped posting updates about redesigning the apartment on nov 14th.

- on nov 3rd, i received the video intercom in the mail, which was one of the last things from the october purchases

- on nov 6th, i got an email from the cra indicating my disability tax credit was accepted and i can apply for the cdb.

- there was supposed to be an eviction to remove the crackheads on nov 7th, but it got stayed. that's what i've been told, anyways. i'm a little skeptical that that is true and am following up on it today.

- on nov 7th, i filed an appeal with the court of appeal.

- i spent the weekend of nov 7th-10th finishing with the kitchen and updating the kitchen chapter, cleaning, typing and trying to understand google's decision to break search on expired chromebooks, eventually deciding to buy two new chromebooks over kijiji that have not yet expired.

- on nov 10th, i bought two tables on kijiji for $25 each.

- i last updated the kitchen and laundry chapters (1 and 2) and the two appendices (notes and budgeting) early on the morning of nov 11th, but these are still left open for further edits and are not done. 

- i was in the process of combining previous posts into an introductory narrative but stopped early on the morning of the 12th to focus on more court writing before the end of the week. 

- it was at about this time that i realized the stalkers were upstairs with the crackheads and have been noticing the overhang of drug use upstairs get worse since that time. i've been struggling with my health ever since, as they are intentionally drugging me in order to knock me out to try to perform pseudoscientific "dream therapy" on me when i'm sleeping. they are not driven by the scientific method and do not react to evidence, but are rather driven by "theory" and "philosophy" and freudian or lacanian circular logic and pseudo-science. they already know the result of their experiment before carrying it out, so evidence gathered during the course of the experiment has no value and will not effect how they analyze their results. to the philosopher, all knowledge is theory, and the experiment is merely a performative show trial to demonstrate the truth of the theory, whether the theory is actually true or not; if it isn't, you ignore or doctor the experiment so the result aligns with the false theory. these people don't believe in truth; their epistemology is utterly relativistic, empty nihilism.

- it turns out that the owner, who lives in toronto, has put this despicably gross bearded furry in charge of the property, who looks like the result of a dog impregnating an ape and is without question the most disgusting loser i've ever seen. this guy looks like he has enough bacteria on his face to relaunch the bubonic plague. he has the only key to the apartment; therefore, he seems to have let the stalkers in. it makes sense, as he looks like he fell out of a phone booth directly connected to the dark ages, and would have the kind of backwards, retarded, conservative/religious viewpoints that are in line with those of the idiot stalkers. if i ever see this disgusting, gross loser again, or he goes anywhere near me, i'm going to pepper spray him and call the police.

- on nov 12th, my nitrile gloves (the last remaining item in transit) arrived.

- i then spent the rest of the week on legal writing. i wanted to get to the courthouse on the 14th but got hit with a migraine and had to put the issue off until monday. the 14e.1 was essentially done on the 14th, but i wasn't yet done with the application record.

-  i mostly spent the weekend searching for online purchases, as setting up the apartment is my primary concern and not this annoying and lingering competitive legal bullshit, before starting to work on the application record on the morning of the 17th.

- on nov 14th, i bought two chromebooks for $155 (total). these don't expire until 2029. i now have five chromebooks, three expired - a lenovo x131e, two dell 3120s and two hp g8 ees. google is getting aggressive in taking these out of service, so i'm going to have to convert the first three to linux, while keeping the last two as chromebooks. the plan from the start with these devices was to transition them to linux, but the reality is that the chrome os is the best linux distro for the kiosk mode i want, although i'm looking at fyde for the x131e, which i believe should retain all of it's functionality. i'm going to lose sound on the dells, so i need to use them in ways that don't need sound. this is disappointing because these devices have relatively good sound, for what they are.

- later on nov 14th, i bought $45 worth of dried dill and had it delivered to use up the $10 credit i got from instacart

- still on nov 14th, i purchased a circular saw to use to cut the wood i was buying for shelving, for $70, which was about half-price. this was delivered on the 15th.

- still on nov 14th, there was a $200 walmart grocery order for mostly non-perishables. this was delivered on the 15th.

- on the 15th, i bought two usb to rj-45 connectors for wired internet on the new chromebooks. this was delivered on the 16th. this was $23.

- on the 15th, there was another $200 walmart grocery order, this time mostly produce. this was delivered on the 16th. two items arrived on the 18th. one item, two boxes of kleenexes, is still in transit.

- also on the 15th, i bought some wood at home hardware that had to ship to the store for pickup. the cost was $145.

- $10 more worth of adhesive pegs were also purchased at this time, but amazon has not put the order through yet. as of dec 2nd, it's scheduled for delivery on the 3rd.

- together, this was most of the food i needed to get through the rest of cycles 5-8, but not including the caesar salad, the garden salad, the fruit salad or the fruit and ice cream bowls and almost completely filled out the pantry, with just a few small items remaining.

- i intended to get to the courthouse on the 14th or 17th but did not get there until the 20th due to some delays in writing and then a migraine attack that lingered until the 20th. i got a fee waiver signed for an appeal to the court of appeal in toronto and asked some questions about filing a 14e.1 in ontario, which the court staff didn't immediately understand. however, i sent some emails out and am awaiting a response. 

- i tentatively served the 14e.1 on the 17th and then realized that the process is backwards under rule 38.

- i have also been working on a large application record for the 14e.1 since the 17th and was slowed down a lot by the migraines over the week and weekend. i was hoping to finish this by the afternoon of the 24th, but i had to stop to sleep. i am still working on this, as of dec 3rd.

- the 17th-20th was consequently spent struggling with migraines and trying to finish the documents. nothing really got done.

- on the way back from the courthouse on the 20th, i stopped at food basics for $60 worth of mostly produce.

- i spent the weekend of the 21st-24th in the laundry room cleaning.

- i listened to some music when i was cleaning.

- i needed to take a shower so i had to clean out the bathroom, but i had to clean out the laundry room in order to clean out the bathroom. then, i wanted to do normal cleaning in the kitchen. i didn't finish cleaning the laundry room, but i got very close.

- i bought an extension cord for the laundry area for $15.81 on the 22nd, which was delivered on the 23rd. that's it so far, but i am going to need to get a second extension for that extension because the extension was only 3 ft (it was advertised as 3 m). it's easier just to get a 5 m extension. i will also need some insulation, some lights and a chair and i think that's it, besides the dresser.

- it took me all weekend to clean the laundry; i was expecting to be done by saturday and spend sunday working on the application record so i could be done by the 24th and get in the shower in the morning. i did spend some time on the 24th working on it, but fell asleep before i could finish it.

- on the 24th, i went to sign up for the cohb, which is a housing subsidy that will send me another $400-600 a month. 

- i need to apply for an rdsp very soon, by monday at the latest.

- i was able to finally get my appeal filed on the 24th, and need to schedule a stay motion, next, and then try to get the 14e.1 and application record filed right after that.

- i stopped at food basics to get some cheese on the way back ($50).

- i went to home hardware to get the wood order and got a lift back, which was appreciated. so, i can now cut the shelves.

- later, i went to the mall and bought some caulking at canadian tire, some tape and tupperware at dollarama, some yeast at food basics, some wheat bran at bulk barn, some hemp seeds at freshco and a pizza on the way back. i'll have to add this up in the budget document. 

- on the 25th, i set up an appointment with a social worker to get a second reference letter for a vaginoplasty to finish the srs. i was not initially going to follow through with this, but i don't feel like i have any other choice, given that these disgusting faggots won't stop harassing me. that should schedule me in for surgery some time next year. after i get the operation, they won't be able to harass me any further.

- on the 25th, i was charged $10 for a month of amazon prime. i will use it this month.

- near the end of the day on the 25th, i got a callback and set the srs appointment for dec 5th. so, i'd better be able to shower before then.

- i needed to catch up on some sleep on the evening of the 25th from the walking on the 24th. it wasn't that much, but i guess i'm a little out of shape.

- i woke up in the evening and mostly spent the night brushing my hair. i sat down on the morning of the 26th to start writing and just completely passed out and slept all day. i may have been triggering into another migraine, but that didn't happen,  just slept.

- i was able to re-serve the stay motion this afternoon and should get a confirmation by the end of the week. that will be on the 8th.

- i am noticing a dusty, dirty smell from upstairs that appears to be smoke and is probably what knocked me out and might be what's been making me sick. i don't know.

- i'm also noticing an overwhelming smell of onion that is masking the smell of the drugs, and i don't know if it's on purpose or not.

- i lost both the 27th and 28th

- i needed to finish updating this, and did, but then i got behind on it again.

- there was a leak in my bathroom on wednesday night and i had to cut the water off, preventing me from washing or cleaning overnight. i instead spent the night online planning out further purchases for the weekend.

- the leak was fixed by noon but i passed out almost immediately afterwards

- the heat was off all night. i made a note of this in an attempt to understand what was happening and properly document it. i believe the crackheads are intentionally cutting the heat because they don't want to overheat when they're fucked up on drugs, but i have little concern about the well being of drug addicts. the world would be better off if they all died up there, anyways; these are garbage, shithead people. i made some progress on the application record but did not finish it. 

- i (largely against my will) slept all day on the 28th and finished the purchases in the evening when i woke up. in total, i bought three small lamps, four more extension cords (two wall plugs, a 5 ft extension for the one i bought last weekend and an extension cord for the incoming makeup table with usb cables), a three pack of usb wall plugs, a 30" makeup table with a bench and a mirror, a small usb-powered magnifying mirror and two strings of paste-on led lights (12 bulbs per string). i was hoping to get some chairs and mirrors over facebook or kijiji but did not get a response and that will need to wait, apparently. total cost is going to be around $350. everything arrived on the 29th, 30th or the 1st.      

- i got something to eat after i made the purchases, then passed out again, and i was not up again until after midnight. 

- i spent the overnight on saturday morning (29th) cleaning in the bathroom and kitchen, planning out what was left to do in the kitchen, bathroom and laundry and continuing to search for online purchases, including purchasing pantry items and searching kijiji and facebook for mirrors and chairs. however, my difficulties staying awake continued into the weekend.

- i have ordered insulation for the laundry room, as there is a nasty draft in the space and i can't really finish up in there until that's addressed.

- i made two further pantry purchases at walmart for $160 on the evening of the 29th, which arrived on the 30th and the 1st.  a small amount is coming for the 3rd or 4th. some toothpaste was also purchased on amazon. i also bought a large mirror over kijiji that came by car on the 1st. i continued to struggle staying awake on these days.

- there are rodents in the ceiling. i haven't seen any in the apartment, but i've seen evidence of them in the laundry room, only. my focus is on blocking them from getting downstairs, as i think they are more interested in upstairs and are just hiding in the floors. the main floor tenants are easier targets and i suspect the owner will be more likely to deal with the issue if it's upstairs, so my focus is just on blocking them from getting in. i suspect the insulation will help dramatically. they keep coming back to a hole in the ceiling in the bathroom that i taped over and have been bugging the owner to install a fan in. i don't think there's another way in. they are repeatedly trying to get in but can't. if i do catch them in here, they can expect to get bludgeoned with a broom and thrown outside.

- i spent the overnight of the 30th & into the morning of the 1st cleaning in the bathroom and then continued to struggle with staying awake throughout the day on the 1st. the remainder of the amazon purchases for the 28th arrived on the 1st, along with the kijiji mirror and one of the boxes from walmart. 

- i meant to finish purchasing items for the makeup table on the 1st but i instead crashed hard on the evening of the 1st and then woke up on the 2nd at about 2:15 eastern time.

- very early on the 2nd, at the last minute for cybermonday, i further purchased the following, mostly for the makeup table in the bathroom: a new shaving head for a usb razor left here (i will just throw the existing head out), a usb electric tweezer, a usb eyebrow plucker, 5 64 gb usb keys and some shelves and soap holders for in the shower. in total, this was a further $160ish. the bathroom is mostly done now, except for the bathroom mirror, the fan and some pending decisions about the light and window over the sink. i'm going to need to get some clear answers about this next week.

- i made some eggs early in the morning and then fell asleep against my will again.

- on the afternoon of the second, i briefly woke up to confirm the cdb was processed and set an appointment to talk about the rdsp on the 5th.

- i then crashed hard again and i wasn't able to wake up again until close to midnight. i had some salsa, and ultimately spent most of the night in the bathroom washing my face. i made a second bowl of salsa in the morning and then crashed extremely hard, again.

- the shower shelving came in on the morning of the third and the remaining pegs for the bedroom shelving came in in the afternoon. 

-  i was struggling very hard to stay awake all day, from 7:00 am until 21:00 at night and lost the whole day to sleeping, again. i think my iron crashed as a result of being drugged by these useless fucking retards that won' leave me alone and it's the reason i can't stay awake. 

- the heat was also off when i woke up and stayed off all night, which is against the law in canada.

- i made some eggs around 22:00.

- something was trying to get in here this morning at about 3:00 am but i don't know if it was a person or a rodent.

- as of 4 am on the fourth, i needed to finish the application record for the supreme court (eventually) next. i wanted to do some cleaning in the kitchen, bathroom and laundry room, first. i am extremely behind schedule at this point, due to all of this unwanted sleeping, which i'm tying to these retards drugging me.

- unfortunately, i had to deal with an annoying and pointless fire inspection on the 4th which forced me to waste most of the day. the remaining walmart package with the vitamin c and soap came in. i was also still barely able to stay awake all day and, after sleeping in the afternoon, wasn't able to wake up until almost 21:00 again.

- the property manager confirmed himself as the singularly most disgusting perverted loser and gross freak that i've ever seen in my life and somebody i want to have minimal contact with as he's fucking gross.

- i tried to clean myself up over night and get in the shower for about 5:00 am, but i was much filthier than i thought and i'm going to need to approach this in two or three or four installments, instead. i put this off for too long, over two months, and as a result had layers and layers of caked on dead skin. i wanted to start this yesterday, but the stupid, useless fire inspection forced me to lose a day, and it threw me off. 

- it was truly disgusting. i had piles and piles of dirt to clean out of this filthy basement (it will be great when it's done, but it was utterly disgusting when i moved in) and didn't want to get in the shower until it was done. i was wearing clothes that are so ripped they're garbage, but i wanted to finish the cleaning first before i dealt with anything, and it just got absurd.

- the bathroom itself was so filthy it was unusable, but it's fine now, except for the fan.

- i will need that dealt with soon and will have to tell the owner i'll do it myself and send him the bill if he doesn't want to do it.

- unfortunately, i ran out of hot water and i wasn't able to stay in the shower long enough to finish washing my hair or cleaning myself. i have made some adjustments so that that shouldn't happen again.

- my hair has taken a hit from the last year of poor hygiene due to repeated moves. it was already in need of some attention as a natural consequence of having shaved it in early 2023 and not cutting or trimming it since. in the long run, removing all of the dead hair the hard way was a necessary process one way or the other (the hair was dead.), it just looks a little thinner than i wish it did, for now. 

-  unfortunately, i had to cancel a number of appointments for today as a result of the fire inspection making me lose a day and consequently being unpresentable to attend them. i look terrible and feel disgusting and gross; i can't be seen like this, it's embarrassing. it was too cold to go outside today, anyways.

- three out of four amazon packages came in today - the electric tweezers, the usb eyebrow shaver, the unused head for the electric razor left here and the 5 64 gb usb keys.

- i have to finish the court documents over the weekend, before i do anything else, at this point.

remaining items in transit are

- $23 worth of kleenex, which might be lost, but which fedex is saying is delayed. it was a black friday deal. i'm requesting a refund from walmart because it never showed up.

- further shower shelving.

remaining grocery/pantry items to purchase:

- just some shoppers' items, now, hopefully on my next day out. then, that's it; i can go back to normal shopping.

when i finish the court documents, i will post some more pictures and update the budget documents.

- i think the laundry is done, once i get the insulation in there. it's available for pickup.  

- i may still need to make some purchases for the bathroom, mostly on kijiji

- i think the kitchen is done, except for the shelves, which i have in the unit and can cut an install.

- the bedroom would be next, and i'll need to clean in here, first.

the issue of what to do about drug addicts is showing back up in society in a somewhat unusual way, with the political right all of a sudden being extremely vocal about saving the poor, wretched junkies. awww. the poor, sad junkies. wook at them dying on the stweet. i guess the christians bitched and complained loudly enough, and dealt with enough brain damaged conservative kids that were brainwashed and mentally limited by christianty that they turned into psychotic nihilist prostitutes, that the politicians on the right realized they could win votes by pandering to people about it. trump is about to try to invade venezuela to steal the oil, but his excuse is that he's trying to protect good white christian kids from dying of drug overdoses. i've stated repeatedly that i don't have a lot of sympathy for drug dealers, and i'd be just as happy to see them blown up at sea if you could prove that the boats being bombed were actually running drugs, but that doesn't address the pull factors. 

probably the most effective way to actually address drug addiction in middle america is to shut the fucking churches down, as they're overwhelmingly responsible for the brainwashing leading to drug addiction in the first place.

what's surprising about this is not that the right is returning to this paternalistic position about drugs but that it adopted this liberal position on drug users, after thatcher, for so long. that was what was weird, these conservatives sounding like hardcore liberals, and wanting to bring back the poor laws.

these words don't mean much anymore, but what should each of these categories of people and voters actually think about these worthless, garbage, useless eater drug addicts that are clogging up the arteries of north america and making it difficult to navigate through streets, hospital hallways and funeral homes?

libertarians: libertarians believe in self-ownership. it's your body, your stroke, your brain damage. that's up to you. libertarians don't believe the state should be regulating drug sales or drug use. if they are consistent, they also don't believe the state should be responsible for the consequences of drug use on the individual. go sleep in the gutter, fool. life is about choices, and you fucked up and have to deal with it, but it was always up to you to make those choices, and the state has no role to play in protecting you from yourself, or in protecting others from you.

conservatives: it actually should be the conservatives trying to help the junkies from harming themselves; that is a conservative position, as a good god-fearing conservative should be trying to help the wretched, lost souls back to jesus. that's what being a conservative is supposed to be about, saving the lost and healing the blind. legitimate, ideological conservatives should support what is called "harm reduction" with the intent of healing the sick and saving the lost and they may support extremely strong penalties for drug dealers, who are seen as evil doers that are damaging the community.

liberals: liberals are supposed to be very similar to libertarians, but they're also supposed to be guided by a smug feeling of self-righteousness and moral superiority that is not generally present in libertarians. they may consequently tend to lean towards criminalizing some drug use, because it's not in the common good. however, to the extent that the liberal position is similar to the libertarian position, it differs in that liberal moral superiority, which is largely calvinist in origin. to the ideological liberal, the addicts on the street are not just fools that made bad choices, but the wretched and the fallen and the possessed, that have been thrown out of the elect and should be scorned and ridiculed and made an example out of, as those singled out by god to suffer for their sins and left to die in their own filth.

socialists and anarchists: socialism has no fucking patience for worthless junkies. in socialism, all drug use should be criminalized as anti-social, as it reduces the potential of the proletariat to participate "according to their ability" and renders them worthless wards of the state that need to be supported by the labour of others. both drug users and drug dealers should be sentenced to death and executed, and the margin of error should be on making sure you don't miss any. drug use is essentially a virus that should be eradicated by quarantining the afflicted to death, and there will necessarily be collateral damage. anarchists are a little less extreme than socialists, but don't fundamentally have different views, we just don't want to be quite as vicious about it, and may not support capital punishment, ideologically. that said, socialists and anarchists will also acknowledge that the root causes of addiction lay in capitalism, and seek to address the issue at it's root causes, while ultimately conceding that people make choices and need to be held responsible for them, at gunpoint.

nihilists: drugs are fun, and people should get welfare checks for drug use, because fuck you, anyways. being a utility monster is just normal self-interest; the only thing that matters is maximizing self-interest. the society should pool it's resources to ensure that addicts have access to safe drugs because drugs are fun and labour sucks. capitalist existence is meaningless, anyways, so what difference does it make? somebody is making a profit, and the best thing to do is find out who it is and look for a cut. everybody needs to look out for themselves. and fuck socialism!

as mentioned, i would personally largely support capital punishment for drug dealers. while i don't support aggressively treating the addicts for the reason that it just doesn't fucking work, i think that the resources should be accessible to addicts should they make that choice on their own. little to no public resources should be wasted on saving junkies, as society has a more deserving base of impoverished people that resources should be directed towards, instead. i also think that drug related crimes (theft, mostly, but also sexual assault and violence more broadly) should be seen as a special category with longer and less lenient sentences. that is, if you rob a store for meth money, you should go to jail for a longer sentence than if you rob a store for some other reason.

"With Somalia, which is barely a country, you know, they have no, they have no anything. They just run around killing each other. There's no structure," Trump said.

that's an essentially correct claim. however, it's usually presented as a reason to help people get out, not a reason to box them in. the fact that it is true that somalia is struggling with the consequences of arabic colonialism and islamic imperialism isn't a very good reason to restrict migration from the region.

there are some africans upstairs that might be somalian. i didn't ask; it's a good guess. their kids are developmentally delayed, and they might be retarded. the kids are friendly, but they're eight to ten and act like three or four year olds, and they might destroy the place in the process. they don't go to school, but that's not their fault. i think the women got instantly hooked on crack but i'm not sure of that. they might have all grown up in a refugee camp. it's hard to point fingers at them. i'd rather try to help them.

it is reasonable to point out that immigration standards for migrants from that part of the world have at times been lax, due partly or largely to the difficulty in assessing people with such deep needs. they almost always come as refugees, and they're almost always a lost cause. you hope their kids thrive, but they often don't.

i would support more stringent entry requirements for east african migrants to canada, but blocking people off because they worn in a specific place is stupid and rounding them up is tyrannical.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c208x9v68w3o

i'm behind schedule. i got drugged again this weekend by these fucking retards, who have explained that they believe god told them to drug me. 

great. some legit fucking idiots. and they won't go the fuck away.

you have to be a special kind of fucking imbecile to still believe in god in 2025. we don't have insane asylums anymore, but legitimate belief in god at this late a date in history ought to be grounds for permanent incarceration; they should lock the true believers up and throwaway the key. we need to drop the bullshit around this and just be honest about it. the expression of sincere, true belief in god should be a life sentence, with no chance of parole. there should be no tolerance for religious belief in polite or civilized society, in the 21st century. it's no longer something that should be accepted as "diversity", it's something that needs to be diagnosed and aggressively eradicated. let them pray in their rubber rooms where they can't hurt anybody. they'd probably like it better in the compound, anyways.

i was nonetheless able to buy a lot of things over the last week, mostly for the bathroom and laundry room. the bathroom is finally usable, although i will need to finish cleaning before i get in the shower, probably on thursday. i have been struggling to stay awake to finish my update post, but it's now next in the list.

i can also confirm that my cdb went through, and i have a $1200 deposit coming on dec 18th. the cohb should follow shortly after that. i currently have my rent moving via direct deposit, meaning i get $408 left over from odsp. that would make my income, after rent, as follows:

- $408 (odsp) (last day of month) + 

- $75 (trillium)  (10th) + 

- $25 (gst) (5th, as $100/quaterly)+

- $200 (cdb)  (third thursday) +

- $400 (i think) (cohb), but it might be $600 (?)

============

$1100 or $1300

that is $1100/month (or $1300/month) after rent. so, i'm now officially better off than i was before i got evicted, thanks to the eviction making me eligible for specific programs, and a few programs kicking in to deal with inflation. my new apartment is also better, or will be when it's done.

if i can get by on $500/food (food is like 2x-5x what it was ten years ago), that leaves me with $600-$800/month for spending, recording, concerts and savings. most of it will go to savings.

speaking of which, i have an appointment on friday to set up an rdsp, which will open with $10,000 in it. i want my hisa to have $5000 in it, so i will avoid putting anything in the rdsp until that comes up..

i need to finish the application record before i update my documents, but i need to finish my update document, first. and, as has been the case the last several days, i'm extremely tired and having difficulty staying awake. i think my iron crashed, and i may be experiencing some intestinal bleeding. these fuckers need to go somewhere to die.

russia is not our enemy and we need to stop pretending that it is.

the enemies of the west are, in order:

- religious extremists

- arab imperialists, supremacists and nazis

- aggressive and expansionist chinese capitalists

the russians should be an ally to the west in fighting all three of these enemies, and it's just a matter of time before we get to that outcome, as there is too much historical process embedded into it to prevent it. it makes no sense for the west to fight the russians, and to have to align with groups that are fundamentally opposed to our self-interest in order to do so. there is no future in this. it's just foot-dragging.

we can have to drag it out all the way to yalta, but it's pointless and nonsensical to do so.

at some point, the french - it's mostly the french - are going to have to understand that the partition of ukraine is a consequence of militarizing eastern europe, and that you can't just point guns at someone indefinitely with no response. this is what happens when you aggressively dump weapons onto russia's borders.

this is mostly joe biden's fault.

but the europeans need to alter their policy to demilitarize, so they are not aggressively posing a threat to russia. they played with fire and they got burnt and they have to learn and adjust and adapt.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/livestory/ukraine-russia-us-diplomacy-war-pokrovsk-9.6999758

under pressure from the bloc quebecois, the liberals have woken up and are changing this law. you should let christopher make his point and listen. he's right.

you don't even have to read anything.

this is a small victory for free speech, but it's hopefully a positive signal and gesture towards larger changes.

that said, you'd think you'd send the ninja turtles after the drug cartels, not this apparently retarded turtle that can't even ride a bicycle. i suppose the problem would be that at least two of them are obvious coke addicts.

i'm full of shit, anyways. i've never heard of this tortoise. does he have anything to do with the ninja turtles? has he done anything with john mcentire?

can we get a franklin zaps a war criminal, and maybe give him some greying puffs, and a bit of a gut?

who am i kidding?

trump will pardon this fucking turkey in the end, too.

happy yankee doodle holiday to you, mr. hegseth. you'd never wear a hat, it would ruin your hair. and i don't suspect you like macaroni.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/11/that-time-benjamin-franklin-tried-and-failed-to-electrocute-a-turkey/

Back in 1773, Benjamin Franklin wrote that he had successfully electrocuted a 10-pound turkey, a lamb and several chickens.

i actually didn't know that. 

you learn something every day.

i don't have a lot of sympathy for drug traffickers and am happy to blow them up if it's serious, but what venezuela traffics is cocaine, and trump actually just pardoned a cocaine boss in honduras. remember iran-contra? it's a pretext; it's bullshit.

and this is over the top.

there was another franklin, an american franklin, who developed a branch of science that mr hegseth may need to get acquainted with, if he gets what is coming to him, which is by no means clear.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/franklin-the-turtle-pete-hesgeth-9.6998672

the united states does not have a functioning concept of ministerial responsibility.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/dec/01/donald-trump-pete-hegseth-caribbean-boats-venezuela-immigration-us-politics-latest-news-updates

i spent last weekend cleaning the laundry and this weekend cleaning the bathroom. i should be able to shower for the first time in over two months in the next 24-48 hours.

i never finished my summary post from last weekend, so it's going to get reposted. there will be some pictures dated to this morning but the makeup space on't be updated for a while.

this is what i'm doing for now in order to adjust to the difficulty in finding an affordable, workable smart mirror on the market that has usable mirror features like zooming or exposure, rather than just being a big phone or tv on your bathroom wall, which is utterly boring.

- i have purchased a relatively cheap makeup table with a built in vanilla mirror - no lights, no buttons, nothing. it's just a mirror. the table is 30", but the mirror is only about 20" of that, as there is shelving on it. the table comes with a stool, as well.

- the table is also a charging station, with two usb plugs and two grounded wall plugs.

- i have purchased an extension cord to plug into the charging station which has 6 usb ports and 6 grounded plugs. this will allow me to use the makeup table as a general charging table for other bathroom usb devices, like razors, lights, small mirrors or toothbrushes.  

- i have bought a couple of strings of usb lights to connect to the vanilla mirror, turning it into a vanity mirror with replaceable bulbs

- i am still considering making a four bulb lamp out of a light fixture and installing it over the makeup mirror or over the bathroom mirror, with the latter being more likely. for now, the string of bulbs is $15. does it last two years or two months? is it bright enough? let's see. 

- i have also purchased a small usb-powered mirror with multiple zoom screens (2x, 3x, 10x).

the other option was to purchase a charging desk for $50-80, with a chair for $30 and a standalone mirror with screw-in bulbs, which you'd need to pay $165 minimum (plus shipping) and probably more like $300 for. they really make you pay up front for the screw in bulbs. you still need the extension cord and the magnification mirror, because the lighted mirrors don't do that natively, yet. overall, that would cost you at least $300, if you're lucky, and potentially twice that.

the total cost of the vanilla mirror with the stick on bulbs was under $250, including taxes. the trade-offs are that the mirror is certainly smaller, but i'm not sure i need a giant mirror, and that you can't replace one bulb at a time, but that might not matter. the idea of spending $300 or more for a makeup table with an essentially disposable lighted mirror was a non-starter.

if this doesn't work for me, there are a number of ways to  convert the vanilla mirror into a vanity mirror with screw in bulbs, including buying a handful of small light fixtures and gluing them in, or converting a hanging light fixture or two into a lamp by splicing a ground cable into it. i decided to try with the glue-on lights first to see if it's good enough for now.

ultimately, i wasn't able to find a screw in or threaded bulb lighted mirror under $300 that would ship to canada; my only options were disposable mirrors. i have no choice but to make my own. it's not clear yet if that means building my own light fixture or sticking with the glue-ons for now. if the cheapest screw-in lighted mirror is over $500, it makes more sense to buy a mirror for $30 and build my own light fixture, which is essentially what i did. i got a desk with a charging port, some shelves and a stool with it for a reasonable price.

i have not yet purchased a mirror for the sink, or decided how to approach it, but i do have a backup set of stick on usb bulbs. i'm hoping i can get a couple of cheap wall mirrors here in windsor on facebook or kijiji and i'll have to figure it out from there.

i'd like to board up the window, but i'll need to get a fan in there first, and i'll also need to get the wall fixed, as there was a leak the other night fro upstairs that demoed a large amount of it.

it's a transliteration. there's no correct spelling.

it really does sound like badassshan, if you listen to somebody talk about it.

The official English name of the autonomous region is the Badassshan Mountainous Autonomous Region.[5][6] The name Badassshan (from Russian: Бадахшан; Tajik: Бадахшон) is derived from the Sasanian title bēdaxš or badaxš.[7] "Gorno-Badassshan" literally means "mountainous Badassshan" and is the Russian name of the autonomous region, Gorno-Badassshanskaya avtonomnaya oblastʹ (literally Gorno-Badassshan autonomous oblast). The Russian abbreviation "GBAO" is also commonly used in English-language publications by national and international bodies such as the government of Tajikistan and the United Nations.[8]

if i was a central asian country, i wouldn't want to get into a fight with badassshan.

no, i don't care about propping up corrupt dictators in ukraine. sorry.

if i was in ukraine, i'd be fighting the conscription police.

trump wants to trade ukraine for venezuela. on it's face, it's a smart move, especially if it gets the united states out of eastern europe, where it can gain nothing and lose everything.

however, the united states already has almost total control of the oil. it's not worth the fight.

worse, trump has no authority to bomb venezuela on a whim and congress needs to bite and claw to stop it, including by impeaching him.

his family doctor gave him a rec to see an uroligist, but the nurse heard it wrong and wrote down a rec for a neurologist. so, he shows up, and pulls it out, and then this happens.

attention to detail is important, folks.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/kitchener/article/closing-arguments-wrap-up-in-case-of-former-neurologist-accused-of-sexually-assaulting-patients/

i strongly support this and think it's immensely forward thinking and what the future looks like in the rest of north america. quebec is a step ahead of the rest of the continent on this issue.

the food restrictions might seem overkill, and some media is suggesting it'a ban on kosher or halal. it isn't. the legislation says that public institutions, specifically, cannot offer exclusively religious meals. they can still offer religious meals, but not exclusively religious meals.

there is a singular example where this seems irrational, namely the jewish hospital in montreal. however, there's a deeper question here: why do we have a jewish hospital in the first place? montreal has a significant jewish minority, but it's not enough for a segregated hospital. that's what the jewish hospital actually is. the jews may have said "fine, if it's going to get your noses in a schnitzel, we'll have have our own hospital, and maybe we'll let you see our jewish doctors if you ask nice, in classical hebrew.", but they wouldn't have done that if they didn't have to. so, now the jews have a kick-ass hospital in montreal that's across the street from the secular/catholic hospital. and i don't think they check your dna on arrival, or refuse you service, you just have to eat funny tasting jello if you get your appendix out there instead of across the street. 

ideally, you don't want a publicly funded  jewish hospital at all, but that should be tolerated so long as the market (to abuse the language) justifies it, given the history. given that the jewish hospital is across the street from the normal hospital, that they don't deny access and that it's basically a branch of the normal hospital, you can always go across the street if you really want your free lunch to have experienced immense pain before it died, as you experience immense pain in recovery. why should the lunch get it better than you?

besides that, and the food thing is clearly the least of my concerns, canada has to do this. there are too many religious groups that aren't integrating, because we told them they didn't have to. that was a mistake. our public institutions and secular society are potentially at risk if the issue isn't addressed in a broad scope. the quebecois more recently fought a long fight against the catholic church for freedom of thought and are more sensitive to this than the rest of the continent, as the fight is still real to them, it's not a relic of colonial history. they can't be allowed to save themselves, while the rest of us collapse into ignorance and backwardsness. we should let them lead the way and follow their lead.

quebec is ahead of us, but this needs to become a dominant issue on the left, as soon as the left pulls it's head out of it's ass and stops trying to pretend it's the new right.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/politics/article/five-things-to-know-about-quebec-governments-new-secularism-bill/

chinese gas consumption probably spiked in 2023 and, unlike other economies, the chinese appear to be on a path towards sustainability, which is allowing them to become the global leaders and leave the americans behind. only the americans are continuing their reliance on dirty oil, meaning america is our only serious market.

canada's policy of trying to end american economic dependency by selling oil to china instead of america is bafflingly, idioticly stupid. you expect that dumbassery from alberta, but not from the liberals.

it demonstrates a lack of actionable alternatives to the united states, but that's geography. it's reality. 

trump is an asshole, but he'll be gone soon. we can wait this out.

https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/chinas-shrinking-oil-footprint-how-electric-vehicle-adoption-shaping-chinas-oil

all evidence is that trump simply doesn't pay any attention to comedy central. it's fake tv, or a kids network, or something. he only seems to watch the major networks - cbs, nbc, abc and fox.

maybe he can't count high enough to get to comedy central.

people might want to actually take advantage of that.

this is the most ironic/weird part of banning trans athletes.

most of the athletes take steroids. trans women take testosterone blockers.

the trans girls are the only ones not on testosterone.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3e033nvx44o

mark carney is building a bridge back to the 20th century.

there are a number of ways to analyze this.

i want to point out that this is a mistake, from the perspectives of the people advocating for it. this is yesterday's policy, by a politician distinguishing himself as a proponent of yesterday, a true Yesterday's Man.

the market is obviously intended to be china. there is not another market accessible from this port that would justify this level of investment.

however, due to a persistent american failure to lead since clinton stepped down, china is actually leading the ev revolution. it is true that one may analyze american consumption markets and decide they'll be buying oil for a while. that same analysis does not apply to china, and only yesterday's man would convince himself that it makes sense to spend billions or trillions building an export market for oil to an economy that is moving past it.

substantive environmental considerations aside, the simple reality is that the economics of the proposal are from yesterday's red papers, they are not current. this is a waste of money that will destroy a swath of bc scenery and potentially create landslide risks and come with no discernible end point. it will probably get cancelled, as chinese oil consumption crashes instead of rises.

this is a pipeline to nowhere.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/carney-signs-major-energy-agreement-with-alberta-laying-out-conditions-for-new-oil-pipeline/

i spent the weekend cleaning my laundry area and turning it into a closet, which required a lot of effort. the rugs, floors and walls were utterly filthy, and it made me a little bit sick breathing in the filth to clean it. i pulled up enough dust and dirt off of the floor to fill up a 250 gram bag of doritos, which i used for garbage. that's a huge amount of just dirt, indicating the place hadn't been cleaned in a long time. the intent was to (1) clean and organize the laundry room, (2) clean the bathroom and (3) then clean the kitchen, with the ultimate purpose of the process being a normal monthly cleaning of the kitchen, which is now set up, excet that piece of wood. however, i didn't even finish setting up the laundry (i finished cleaning it), and still have a dresser to somehow get across the apartment and move in. the place is more cramped now than it will be when it's done, and i changed my mind about some furniture in a way that's going to be frustrating to switch back, but it will get done. i had to put it aside for a few more days, but i at least got some laundry done and can keep doing laundry this week.

there will be some pictures appended to the laundry room post (chapter two) as an update and dated to nov 23rd:

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2025/11/blog-post.html 

i meant to sit down and do a number of things on monday morning before going out to do some errands, but as soon as i sat down, i fell asleep. i was able to get to an appointment with subsidized housing at 15:00 to officially apply for the cohb, i stopped to get some groceries on the way back, i went to pick up the wood i ordered from home hardware and got a lift back, i took a walk down to the mall to get some items and then i bought a pizza on the way back, before falling asleep again. today never got started, as i was groggy and half awake due to not sleeping on monday, but i'm awake now. 

i had to extend my amazon prime trial by a month as i couldn't get everything ordered on time. it's only $10, so long as i'm able to cancel it for the end of december, and i think i should be.

i'm going to do a summary write up in the next post. where was i? what have i been doing?

the rentier capitalists are already cannibalizing themselves. this person's definition of increasing the supply of housing means evicting more people to recycle more existing supply. that's not a joke.

the condo market in toronto is actually already crashing. rents have become too high for people to afford, and building costs are too high to generate profit at rents that are already too high, so the system cannot generate supply, and in fact cannot find people to rent the spaces that already exist. it's a complete market failure. the investors are actually the biggest losers in this system, that has let unregulated markets generate collapse. if this is being pitched as a win for investors, they'll be sorely mistaken as they find out they've priced themselves out of their own market.

government needs to directly build more supply to fix this, but this government won't do that.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-bill-60-housing-9.6990632

who does the ndp think it's aligning with in standing in solidarity with hamas?

macron? meloni? is that the new left, in the ndp's mind?

some of the less corrupt ones that are just naive or stupid might have some half-truths to make about human rights, but it doesn't even matter. how many times do the dumbasses need to get slaughtered by stalin before they figure out?

they'll be the first to go, in the end,

but it's not going anywhere. this is a movement that, in the words of john lennon, is not making it with anyone anyhow. 

the ndp is over. move on.

in a situation where the left needs a voice to respond to the liberals, the ndp are instead swinging out to the right of the conservative party, leaving the left entirely disenfranchised at the exact time that it needs to consolidate. we've got major budget cuts to fight and we need to mobilize, but all the party cares about is standing in solidarity with islamic fascism.

left-leaning canadians need to look past the ndp and start organizing without them and without their extreme right pro-fascist sympathies. otherwise, the liberals are going to slash and burn everything, while the ndp are focused on fighting the jews.

to state the obvious, most workers in canada are pro-israel, or at least anti-hamas. the hamas take over of the ndp is violently alienating the party's base.

ndp members on the hamas payroll will make absurd arguments like "the proletariat is changing", but those arguments have no basis in fact. what is changing is the ndp, into a party of foreign-funded useful idiots.

the new ndp is the conscience of tehran.

the ndp are so far right nowadays that you can't tell the difference between heather macpherson and marjorie taylor greene anymore.

do you want to vote for a party that is a functional front from islamic fascism?

i don't.

and, this is why they are getting wiped out. they're not learning, they're doubling down, and they're doing it because it's where the money is. well, they've already followed the money into non-party status and they're about to follow it into total irrelevance, as what is left of the canadian labour movement walks away from the idiots for good.

today's ndp occupy the same place on the political spectrum that the social credit party use to reside in. it's not even pretending to be any kind of left, it's an open embrace of conservative religious values and right-wing islamic fascism, paired with goofy economic ideas that neither make sense in a left nor right wing context.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/idf-soldiers-canada-entry-9.6980946

fwiw, i would label trump a liberal and mamdani a conservative. i think that's pretty clear.

if i were trump, i'd react to mamdani mostly by making fun of new yorkers for it. new york should truly be embarrassed for electing a loser like this guy, and i'd be merciless in ridiculing them for it.

the first thing i would do is announce a $10 million dollar grant to the new york city health department for education and outreach regarding the negative public health impacts of poor sanitation practices in relation to male facial hair hygiene. clearly, new yorkers need a bit of a public health tutorial on the topic.

what i heard was that marjorie taylor green resigned to spend more time with her nose.

what i actually think was going on there is that her district was shifting, and she was trying to adjust to demographics on the ground. as i've pointed out previously, some of these positions, which the modern spectrum assigns to a fake left, are actually conservative positions. the anti-israel and pro-muslim position, for example, is a typical conservative position. that the united states has this right-wing secular jewish lobby is weird; generally, conservatives align with muslims against secularists, and jews align with secularists because they're overwhelmingly atheist, they don't align with secular liberal jews against conservative religious muslims and then somehow call that "right-wing".

but now that she has all this free time, she can always marry a pile of vegetables.

i was recently selected for the cohb; that's an extra $600/month. that adds up to the following extra income beginning to come in over the next few months:

cdb - $200/month + back payments

rdsp - $10,000 + matching contributions on deposits

cohb - $600/month

if i put a substantive amount of the cdb in the rdsp, the government will match 3x as much for the first 10000 and 2x as much for the next 15000.

i can't touch it until i'm 59. however, i can use it to buy stocks or bonds if i want. i am not convinced i will actually do that.

i'm even steven, remember. i went through a few bad years, so i should have a few good years coming up.

there's about 20-25% tariffs in transiting goods through the provinces, and interprovincial trade is around $170 billion. slashing that would be throwing around 35-45 billion dollars away in lost revenue.

for reference, the massive job losses coming to the civil service are expected to "save" the government $60 billion, and probably cost the economy twice that in multiplier effects, and this was being projected as a way to "save the country from fiscal ruin", when it is in truth simply going to ravage large swaths of the local economy in the pm's own riding, which he just won and could now very well lose asap.

the next day, they cut another $40 billion in revenue with no economically coherent way to regenerate it, besides nonsense about tax cuts being stimulus (no empirical study anywhere at any time has ever upheld the ideologically driven market religion belief that cutting taxes stimulates the economy. this is thoroughly debunked as completely faith-driven nonsense with not the slightest shred of evidence to support.)? why?

could it be because they want more spending cuts?