given that we already have an unrepresentative body - the senate - i might be willing to entertain ideas about opening it up so that it is proportionally staffed. i mean, bringing party lists into the senate wouldn't be a big change from what already exists. we wouldn't be losing a representative body.

a brief proposal of a bicameral legislature of this sort would be as follows:

1) the house of commons remains riding based. i would like to see it moved to a ranked ballot system, as well.
2) the senate is reformed to be staffed from party lists based on a strict proportional representation.

legislation would continue to largely begin in the house, and then be sent to the senate where it can be thought over a second time, with much sobriety (this was always a joke, right? or was john a. not allowed in the senate premises?).

this actually kind of saves the whole system, as it allows the senate to fulfill it's function in a neary literal manner.

the elder trudeau really turned a lot of things on their heads. he's maybe the only politician i'm aware of that would lie to conservatives, and then govern further left.

the best example of this is the wage + price controls fiasco in the mid 70s, coming out of the opec oil crisis and the resulting stagflation. the conservatives at the time were still old tories, so they were opposed to free trade and in favour of state intervention in the economy. a lot of voters were afraid that their income would be stunted if the government tried to enforce wage controls. so, trudeau campaigned against the conservative party's promise to bring in wage & price controls.

after he had won in large part due to his promise not to bring in wage & price controls, he brought in wage & price controls. like, the day after. with a zeal that made it clear he had balls out lied in your face about it.

that's just the most famous example...

well, this is good, but like i say - it's kicking the can down the road.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/04/08/new-york-buy-american_n_15874840.html

the show last night was enjoyable.

i didn't realize there was an opening band - i thought it was two opening djs. i needed to sit down for the bulk of the opening band's set 'cause i was a little bit tired all of a sudden after having a cigarette out back. must've been the weather. anyways, i had no idea what i was listening to, but the neo-bjorkian voice and gentle guitars coming from the stage were rather soothing, in the ambience of the cross-legged seating. my kindergarten teacher would have said i was sitting like an indian, but she was a racist old lady and she's probably dead, now. she wouldn't let me hula hoop, either. she even yelled at me for reading, a few times. the old hag. i really hated her. it wasn't her actual name, but i called her missus pajamas - which was close enough. maybe there's a more technically correct yoga term for the posture, but i always thought she was talking about native americans, anyways :\. the point is that my enjoyment of this set was greatly aided by the atmosphere of it, which was zonked right out on the floor. it was kind of exactly what i needed to hear, in the situation of floor tourism that i was in. i was able to stand up for the last song or two...

i went into the floating points set realizing it was a little overhyped, and unsure if i was going to get more 70s rehash or something a little bit more warp records. i didn't really get either; it was more goldie than squarepusher, and enjoyable for the head cave, but not what some people want to claim it is. i don't want to dissuade you from it, because i legitimately had fun with it. i'd just caution you from expecting something that it isn't.

i did not take footage because there kind of wasn't footage. it was dark. i'm pretty sure there was a guitarist there. i'm not sure if there was a drummer there or not, but am leaning towards there not being one there. so, it was more of a dj set in feel if not in fact, and i don't usually take footage of dj sets.

i couldn't find the right bouncer last night. i'll have to wait until i can.

i mean, i'm not going to start randomly calling cops. i don't want cops doing random investigations, either. that's a shitty deal for everybody and likely to end with people getting ticketed for j-walking and shit. i'm not doing that.

i'll do the investigation myself and very specifically target any action accordingly. i have to reiterate that i don't know what happened, but that i can't just not react to any random attacks, if they happened, especially if they were politically motivated. i had headaches for weeks. it's potentially a fucking hate crime, guys. but, i need to understand what happened before i got legal on anybody's ass - and, i'm sorry, but you shouldn't begrudge me if i have to do it.

my hearing to have the property owners ordered by the state to build a big, beautiful wall between the units is may 11th. there'll be so much fresh air, your heads will spin, folks. i probably shouldn't have been posting here at all, but need to be a little more guarded now that the date is set.

what about the show last night? well..

i also want to clarify that i'm not, like, opposed to crt or something. whatever that even means.

we really shouldn't even talk about critical race theory as though it's some unique thing, or the ideas are fundamentally black in origin. we should really talk about the racial application of critical theory, which is the broader theory that suggests that justice is not blind, but the consequence of power imbalances. again: i'm an anarchist. i'm all into that.

the power imbalances discussed in critical theory are pretty broad. the classic target in critical theory is actually class, but it can also be used to analyze power imbalances in gender, race, sexual orientation, political affiliation* or whatever else. i used critical theory to analyze the quebec reference succession case when i was in school (the prof was not amused). the basic idea is just that the law works on prejudice: judges come up with reactions first, and then look for answers in the law afterwards, rather than allow the evidence to guide them.

the problem with crt comes when you let it loose into the wild, and in most cases it's not even a problem with crt. it's just a classic case of low information arts majors thinking they can talk about something complicated, and repeatedly failing to really grasp it - and then standing their ground in it rather than learning.


* i think that one is pretty prevalent nowadays, actually, with all of the politicized court battles and seemingly inconsistent court rulings coming out of them.

Scientists generally do not recognize races as biologically meaningful.  Yet scientists, including me, discuss race and describe the racial composition of our samples. To be clear, I am not advocating that we ignore race.  In fact, there are many dangers in ignoring race as a social topic. Race is “real”. But race is socially real, not biologically real. Socially important categories can be very real and meaningful, but arguably nonetheless arbitrary in nature.

see, i don't offer any dissent, here. but, if we understand this, what does it imply for social interaction amongst people that understand it?

i mean, it's one thing to argue that random, uneducated idiots are usually racist and they're probably denying it if they claim otherwise. i'll probably agree with you, depending on how you state it. it's another to argue that it's a universal that everybody is racist, no matter what, and can never do anything about it.

read the italic part again, please. if you really understand this, what it does it mean to still be racist?

"yes, i understand that race doesn't have a biological existence, and is just a contrived means of statist control. but, i still think you're inferior because i can't help it - despite not being able to state what that even means."

it defies reason.

if i'm able to understand that race doesn't biologically exist, how can i possibly be racist?

now, if you extrapolate that further, you get to the right way to deal with this: we should abolish racism by abolishing the social construct of race - because racism and race are in fact exactly the same thing. that's the rational deduction from this.

it can't happen overnight, of course. but, you can start by teaching your kids that race is pseudo-science, that it has no biological basis and that it's something that only exists in peoples' heads. if you don't put the idea of race into your kids' heads, they won't be able to understand what racism is.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/without-prejudice/201612/race-social-construction

we resisted.

that is something to be proud of.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_Crisis_of_1917

http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070406.cover07/front/Front/Front/

i'm an anarchist.

of course i reject race as a statist construct.

“I think what we should do is ask Russia, how could it be, if you have advisers at that airfield, that you didn’t know that the Syrian air force was preparing and executing a mass murder attack with chemical weapons?”

lol.

this article ignores the possibility that the united states - which has the largest stockpiles of chemical weapons on earth - may have smuggled in the sarin through it's contacts with the rebels, which is the theory i'm operating under.

the united states routinely ships weapons to these rebels, and nobody has the authority to inspect these shipments.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-syria-chemical-weapons-20170408-story.html

so, a peer-reviewed article published by researchers at yale says one thing.

and a not-even-funny skit by a bunch of film majors (if they even got through the program) at the "college humour" youtube channel contradicts it with a vague understanding of a controversial (and entirely analytical) sociological (i almost typed sociolological. freudian slip?) theory via a startlingly poor use of satire.

which source will you take more seriously?

see, i actually know that this is a trick question, though - because most of us are really that stupid. it sounds outrageous when i say it like this, but the actual truth is that most people will actually react better to something that argues the point using emotion than something that argues the point intellectually. nerds don't get laid, so we're probably never going to evolve into cold cyborgs. this is a defect in "human nature" we'll have to deal with. well, maybe it's even a tragic flaw - but let's hope it doesn't take us down, in the end.

i can only sit at a distance and shake my head. that's the story of my life.

of course it was the jews.

even when it was the nazis, i knew it was the jews, deep down. it's always them pesky jews, every time...

the collapse into jew-baiting is consistently the death of a conspiracy theory. it represents the point when the conspiracy theory passes out of the realm of reasonable speculation, and into the realm of knuckleheads and white supremacists.

this won't die, it will just pass into the fringes, where it always belonged.

because it was always ridiculous. and, the candidate that proposed it was always ridiculous, too.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/the-happy-go-lucky-jewish-group-that-connects-trump-and-putin-215007

yeah. see, this is...

if you put aside the chemical attack thing, and grasp the reality of it - which is that the us is trying to support rebels in a proxy war, but can't provide air support because the russians are blocking it - this intuitively insane proposition is actually tactically necessary, in addition to being insane. and, the fact that this was floating around just cements the argument that the chemical attack line is utter bs.

this is what they're really angling for: they want to take out the air defenses. consequences aside, it's not even clear that they could do it, given that the russians have defenses in place. i mean, yes - the americans in theory have these stealth bombers sitting in idaho, or whatever, that can evade russian defenses. but, the technical ability to evade a defense is not the same thing as the ability to overwhelm it.

i've been arguing for years that the obvious reason that the americans haven't been bombing in syria is that they can't. this was clinton's own level of ignorance (and she was the one calling for a no-fly zone, remember), as a consequence of being misled by extreme hawks.

as i stated before, the us central command no doubt had to face up to the choice in front of them: they could acknowledge that the russians have blocked any moves in the region, or they could go full retard and just start balls out bombing shit. these are caricatures, of course, but just barely - there's a real truth in the extremity of it. there's really no end point in continuing to support these rebel groups, when the russians have air superiority. i guess maybe the hope at some point was that they could overrun the air defences from the ground, but that's obviously not happening any time soon, or probably at all.

so, what's the point in continuing to offer support for terrorist groups, if they have no ability to actually win? the pragmatic basis of it, whether you agreed with it or not, is now lost. it's a "shit or get off the pot" kind of thing.

the smart thing to do is to accept the reality of it and back off. i know trump wants to play war and stuff, but he has no space to play games on this front. maybe he can bomb the faulklands or something. or maybe he can go invade the moon.

https://theintercept.com/2017/04/06/u-s-weighs-saturation-strike-on-syrian-government-in-response-to-chemical-attack/

so, does assad need to step down?

he does, actually. but, not for the reasons you think. i've been over this previously, but perhaps not here...

it's been clear for a while that the russians are going to succeed in clearing out the rebels, and there's not much that the americans can do to stop it short of sending in their own troops, which can't actually happen because the russians are sitting there, in the way. the americans have to fight this by proxy to avoid a direct conflict with the russians, and the russians are just about done eliminating these forces. let's skip the delusional bullshit and fast forward to a point where assad has reasonably secured the borders on the west of the country (as that is inevitable) and turns his focus entirely on isis. they're not going to win that over night, but let's say they do, and they're able to think about recreating their own borders.

well, then, they'd have to get into a hot war with the kurds. but, what happens after that?

it's very hard to believe that assad is going to stop once his borders are secured, and you have to get your head around a culture shock to really grasp that. there's all kinds of concepts of honour and retribution worked into this. as assad is aware that his primary enemies are the saudis and turks, who will continue to provide a joint existential threat even when the borders are re-secured, he will have no choice but to continue fighting them, even if we see a long period of peace and a subsequent military buildup or potential arms race.

if you leave assad in power, you are guaranteeing a hot war between iran and the saudis. assad cannot let it go. and, he will need iran's help.

while iran is no match for the saudis on paper, iraq is a potentially decisive wildcard - as is israel.

so, you have to get assad out. and, you have to get the whole alawite sect out, too, as they will not think any differently than him.

but, the idea that you're going to replace assad with one of these rebel groups, or some combination of them, is a non-starter.

fun fact: he actually wants to step down. he was trying to transition into a democracy. but, the saudis didn't like that. and, hence the armed rebels (there were never peaceful protests of any notable size...) moved in to prevent assad from transitioning the country into a secular democracy.

a transition needs to be done peacefully and orderly and needs to reflect the will of the syrian people, as expressed by the ballot box.

but, it needs to happen.

and, the russians don't disagree, either.

what a bunch of clowns.

look at the picture in the article, too.

it's like a wwf still, or something.

rex is coming for you, vlad. be afraid.

i think lavrov could take him, one on one. he'd probably have a heart attack. been eating beef his whole life, i bet. couldn't lift a shitzu without the strain getting to him...

they think they're being "decisive", though.

trump: strong like bison, strong like eagle.

what they really need to do is have an arm wrestling match, followed by a shark-wrestling competition and a bear riding contest.

this is the art of the deal, i suppose - make shit up and throw it in their face and then demand something be done about it.

i've been arguing for years that the neo-liberals - and also the marxists trying to analyze them - were wrong to reject the age of empires in favour of some kind of transnational conspiracy of capital. those class interests were always lurking. their arguments always ranged from naive to preposterous.

but, here we have it.

i don't even know how to analyze this. it's just ridiculous. look at this language:

"Tillerson will also charge Russia with..."

what?

they don't appear to be attempting to work through any legal institution. they literally appear to be planning on marching into moscow and yelling at them.

i guess the russians should let them finish their tantrum, suggest it's nappy time for rex and then tell the delegation to bring it up at the security council?

if i was in moscow, i would have absolutely no patience for this kind of idiocy.

http://nypost.com/2017/04/09/us-to-accuse-russia-of-complicity-in-syrian-chemical-attack-report/

i don't have an interest in walking into conservative establishments, or upper class enclaves. i seek out radical people with radical viewpoints, and go places where i can reasonably expect people to have radical viewpoints as an expression of a culture that promotes the politics of the revolutionary left. that's a part of the fucking point of going out and talking to people - i'm looking for radicals by going to places where radicals ought to be. and, if these spaces are just full of poseurs that don't understand the politics of the music scene they're participating in, there needs to be some pushback on the point in getting them out.

if i'm going to an industrial night, for example, it had fucking better be full of anarchists and nihilists and atheists and open-as-fuck queers, because that's what the music is fucking about. and, if i'm somehow "subversive" in the crowd, it's a lame fucking crowd that's at the wrong fucking bar, dammit.

just as an example that i have documented.

i got into a debate with an alt-right jerk on this night, who was going around ranting and raving a bunch of nonsense about the superiority of white culture and needed to be talked to. i approached him and tried to counter his bullshit, but he wasn't capable of understanding why he was wrong. and, i took a lot of verbal shit about identity, but i mostly ignored it.

he was apparently completely unaware that the bar was named after harvey milk.

so, i was in the right place.

...why did he show up there?

i mean, it's not like windsor isn't full of hick bars, either.

hey, btw - i go to punk shows, mostly. the odd jazz show. and, underground dance clubs. i bring an anti-establishment attitude, sure. i'm a little dangerous, even. but, i'm where i'm supposed to be. the important question is this: what is your boring, status quo supporting ass doing at the punk show?

i went to the right bar, man. maybe you didn't...

the administration has no credibility, the party has no credibility, the congress has no credibility and, frankly, the fucking country has no credibility, either.

n-n-n-n-n-no.

stop.

this is consistent.

everything that this white house has done up to this point exists in this "post-truth" space, where accusations are thrown around without proof and conspiracies are presented as fact. what just happened in syria, where the administration is accusing syria of using weapons that all evidence suggests they did not have, is entirely consistent with this. it is more accusation without proof, more conspiracy presented as fact, all in the realm of this "post-truth" reality.

the fact that you might like this narrative better, or think it might sell more papers or something, doesn't negate a damned thing - not in the real world, not in a reality where truth still exists.

what is amazing is the doublethink. because, mark my words - the same journalists and the same media outlets that are willing to swallow this whole will be back on the offensive within days, and without a hint of irony or the slightest clue that they understand their own hypocrisy.

when the balance of evidence is on your side, you're not a conspiracy theorist for pointing it out. rather, it is the americans that are presenting a conspiracy theory, in claiming that the russians helped the syrians stump their own monitors.

the americans don't get some monopoly on truth, or something; a claim is not a conspiracy theory merely for questioning the official state position, and especially not when it is presented without proof.

the russians have the better argument. deal with it.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/06/on-that-gas-attack-we-dont-need-conspiracies-to-oppose-us-war-in-syria/

so, what just happened?

well, i spent last weekend catching up on sleep, which was necessary after not being able to sleep all of last week. i did groceries on tuesday. i was at shows on wednesday (a punk show) and thursday (a guitar concerto at the dso & a jazz band at the magic stick). i spent half of yesterday reacting to the egregious bombings in syria, and the other half finishing research on shows for this month. i then slept most of the day today. and i'm just finishing up the show research.

there's lots of jazz this month in detroit. i'm kind of guessing that this might be a consequence not just of the collapse of "edm", but also of the dumbing down of rock music over the last twenty years to the point that there's really nothing left. there's not a lot of options for an actual musician nowadays - your choices are between various types of non-music. i'll pick anti-music over non-music. but, it's an unsustainable status quo - it has to break. the musicians have to eventually find an outlet. or what? not be musicians?

so, what does that outcast that would otherwise be in a musical alt-rock band do when faced with the reality that there is no longer a distributional framework to cater to the market in musical alt-rock? they could join a metalcore band. that would suck, for them. chances are high that they're not into all of the brazen macho posteuring and overt stupidity of it all. they might be more interested in joining a synth-driven jazz band and trying to eek out an audience in some crossover between rock and techno. or, perhaps they may be more interested in bypassing the whole thing and just trying to start a psych band. i mean, you've heard frusciante's solo work, right?

this is all speculative. i guess you'd have to ask around. and, if there are similarities, people probably aren't cognizant of them.

but, it seems like this will be the focus for the month - trying to find a way to squeeze in as many of these jazz shows as i can.

try it.

find some fucking snot-nosed little kid, and make them listen to this. don't tell them when it was made - even let on that it's brand new. ask them what they think...

is this the future of music?

(pompeii was '72. but, saucerful of secrets was '68, and the song is older.)

the actual truth is that if you were to play a selection of late 60s psych, fusion and prog - and you could probably get as mainstream as pink floyd and have few of them really know what it is - to a group of teenagers or 20-somethings nowadays, a substantial percentage of them would think they were listening to futuristic sounds that will define music in the next century.

now, some of the music of the 60s and 70s was brilliant. sure. you'll get minimal pushback from me on that point.

but, what it really demonstrates is that we're in the midst of a period of cultural stagnation and social regression that set in with the the thatcher-reagan revolution (and perhaps much later in canada with stephen harper). obama did not reverse this, but normalize it. and, trump is set to accelerate it.

it's really surreal to see it: these digital natives that hear sixty year-old pop music and think it's futuristic and get excited by it. do they have the same dreams as their great-grandparents, when they hear it?

it's really across the board: the so-called liberal press (like the toronto star, or the guardian) is universally supporting the islamic fundamentalist rebels over the secularists in the assad regime.

it's just a reminder that the press serves the interests of capital, and has little interest in promoting politics, except as a pragmatic tool to serve it's masters.

if it was about ideology and maximizing freedom, you would expect these sources to support assad over the rebels. this is, after all, the reason the rebels can't win: the syrian people (rightly) see them as a bunch of tyrannical terrorists that want to enforce sharia law. they're fully aware that they'll have more freedoms under assad than they will under any combination of islamic rebels that may take over and start slaughtering the infidels and cleansing the population by ethnicity.

but, it's not about ideology and it's not about what is best for the syrian people, as the syrian people themselves have very clearly decided. it's about acting as an arm of propaganda for an aggressive military machine that wants to push the russians out of the middle east at any cost.

they use terms like 'measured' and 'decisive', which are only meaningful within this delusional framework of manifest destiny - as though america has some obligation, let alone a mandate, to rule the world by the threat of benevolent force.

the syrians didn't vote for donald trump. the only winner of any elections there is assad.

the rhetoric will fly in a certain circle, but that circle is exactly the circle of liberal elitists that think it is their birthright to rule.

this is language that has some logic when applied to donors. but, to think you're going to sway the population by convincing them of the merits of some kind of benevolent aristocracy is...it's indicative of the closed-loop thinking that produces it.

they're making a classic french or russian style revolution necessary. the kind that cuts off the head of the inherited classes....

no, i'll say this again - and i was consistent all the way through the cycle.

trump's foreign policy sounded better, or at least it did in bullet form. if you let him try and explain it, it became obvious that the reality was that he didn't have the slightest idea of what he was talking about. so, it meant nothing. in the end - once he was properly briefed - his foreign policy would basically be indiscernible from clinton's, because clinton's foreign policy was just a reflection of the existing status quo in the first place.

the difference was that clinton would repeat what the wonks had said and then try and market it, whereas trump would just go play golf instead.

no, i said that - i told you he'd spend most of his time playing golf.

so, yes, the military-industrial establishment and the neo-cons are reasserting themselves. they work with the big banks to push the contracts through.

trump's viewpoints during the cycle were a reflection of his ignorance and "evolved" as a consequence of being briefed. had he been briefed, he'd have sounded just like jeb, who sounded like he did because he'd been briefed.

i want to clarify that when i said the russians were going to react, that didn't mean i expected that they were going to launch missiles or invade poland or something.

the russians are not nearly as stupid as the americans are, and they fully understand that war in the 21st century is largely fought off of the battlefield.

what i meant was that you can expect that they are going to find a way to frustrate the situation.

here's an example: when obama put sanctions down on russia after crimea, the russians reacted by installing air defense systems in iran, which eventually forced obama to pull out of the iran deal (the so-called iran deal is just a face saving mechanism to obscure the reality that the russians closed the door). that was a major retaliatory measure, but nobody died in the process.

the russians have already indicated that they are going to be increasing their air defenses in syria. that is itself a provocative retaliatory step. and, i would expect further subtle actions meant to slow down and screw up the containment policy.

i apologize if you misunderstood what i meant, but this doesn't make the situation any less serious. the war is in motion. it is hot. it will get messy. and, much of it will escape the understanding of "analysts".

this is not the first time i've written this. but, i confused some people over the last few days, and i think i should clarify a point.

i overheard this on both nights in different bars:

"that woman just went into the men's washroom."

well, i mean, i guess it demonstrates the point, right? to my knowledge, michigan doesn't have any stupid laws (yet). but, people actually seem to expect me to use the women's washroom, and get a little weirded out when i don't.

....or sometimes don't.

the flat reality of it is that i make a judgement call on a case-by-case basis. bellicosity is important when dealing with the assertion of rights. but, in the real world, i'm concerned about a wide variety of things. i have to get a grasp of the room, of security...

a good example of why it's important to be cognizant of your surroundings was the crywolf show a few weeks ago. the audience didn't care. but, the very large men working security (who checked my id on the way in) were clearly uncomfortable at the mere premise. they seemed to see the very idea that i was even there at all as a kind of threat - and they visibly eased up when i used the men's room. they didn't want to deal with this shit. and, i didn't force them to, with unknown consequences - despite having minimal concern regarding pushback from the actual audience.

do you see why this gets complicated?

well, you probably already realized it was complicated.

one of the issues i feel the need to balance very carefully is the idea of audibly hearing the urine fall. now, i'm not shy about this, either - i've had this conversation with many people, and i've never met a woman who wouldn't not squat in a public restroom if she could urinate without doing it. so, i'm going to walk into the toilet and i'm going to make the non-choice of not squatting, for simple sanitary reasons - because nobody would squat if they didn't have to.

but, that means that anybody walking into the bathroom is going to hear it, and i have a problem with that.

imagine the following scenario: i walk in about thirty seconds before a cisfemale does. so, i go into the stall. i urinate standing up - as any woman would in a public toilet, if they could. she walks into the bathroom as i'm urinating and hears it.

of course that's going to make her uncomfortable. she didn't see me walk in. why wouldn't she think there's a dude in the stall? and why wouldn't she get upset?

so, i've placed a covenant on myself with the women i interact with daily - if i'm going to use the women's washroom, i'm going to squat. and, if i'm not going to squat for reasons of sanitation, i'm going to use the men's room.

that doesn't mean i'll always use the men's room. a lot of bars have multi-use men's rooms and single occupancy female stalls, in which case i'll usually opt for the single occupancy stalls. further, there have been rare occasions where i've felt unsafe using the men's room and have picked the women's washroom instead.

but, more broadly, you have to understand that i did not transition young. i've used the men's room for most of my life, and i've gotten used to it. i'm not usually afraid to go in there, and broadly don't even think that which letter is on the door is really even important.

the push back is kind of more on principle: i get to make this choice, and it's up to my discretion to make it properly.

detroit actually appears to be being bombarded with jazz this month.

if this is a consequence of electronic music's latest failed attempt to go mainstream, i'll take it. but, i'm not going to be able to hit every show...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJdu0OZ9hr8

so, instead of concluding that this claim of a chemical attack is nearly impossible because the russians are operating the military in syria, they're suggesting the russians are complicit in the chemical attack. how much further down the rabbit hole are we going with this?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia-u-s-response-syria-attack-1.4060817

hey doggy.

doggy, doggy, doggy.

bombing the russians is too dangerous as a distraction tactic. go bomb the virgin islands or something.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/apr/07/us-march-jobs-report-98000-retail-government-freeze-trump

as usual, the swedes get it right when everybody else fucks up.

i can hardly expect the swedish government to accuse the cia of manufacturing the sarin attacks. but, this is much closer to the approach that canadians expect a liberal government to take.

given that the ndp don't appear to be offering any kind of alternative at the moment (mulcair proves again that he's a dipshit) or presenting any kind of resistance, it's not clear what kind of direct damage this is going to do to the liberals. but, it is going to contribute to the general feeling on the left that this government is toxic.

https://www.thelocal.se/20170407/sweden-urges-political-solution-to-syrian-conflict-trump-assad-wallstrom

“an aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law.”

are you denying this? or are you claiming it doesn't matter - that international law doesn't actually exist?

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-us-missile-strike-syria-bashar-assad-chemical-attack-khan-sheikhoun-reaction/

i'm not going to make it out, but i'll extend my solidarity with this.

http://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/protest-planned-in-windsor-over-u-s-missile-strikes-in-syria

so, what should they be doing?

they should be working with the russians to take out isis, and then helping assad transition. but, of course, this is an obtuse position because it relies on multiple naive assumptions, such as:

1) isis is operating outside of the influence (at least) of us intelligence.
2) assad wants to cling to power.
3) this wasn't always about pushing the russians out in the first place.

i guess the us central command was down to two options: attack the russians (balls out, no bs) or accept strategic defeat and pull back.

they've attacked the russians.

and, the war is on.

canada's role here should be to try and broker a peace deal. this isn't a war that america can win any time soon. so, it has the potential to drain the empire to a point of collapse.

expected conflict points in a hot war with russia are not just syria and ukraine, but afghanistan/iran, the caucasus, the balkans, the baltics, france, scandinavia, north africa, south america and eastern asia.

this was the attack that the americans never launched. they've launched it. it's on.

expect a russian retaliation.

also, yes: hillary would have bombed syria, too.

she was the one promising it. trump was the one suggesting otherwise.

i understand why trudeau is not interested in picking a fight over syria, but he's wrong to take this approach. he has the benefit of an extra year's worth of briefings, but he truly doesn't understand the situation much better than trump does. and, the situation requires a multilateral approach.

the americans need pushback on this. they're just making things worse...

see, you need to understand that trump can't just wake up on a friday and bomb syria like this. syria is not iraq, and it's not libya, and it's not even iran. bombing syria is more like bombing a warsaw pact state. the one on the furthest reaches that never fit in right. armenia or something. or, conversely, it wouldn't quite be like russia bombing mexico, but it wouldn't be that different than russia bombing costa rica.

because the chain of command right now has the russians operating the syrian military as a client state, and the decisions ultimately coming down from moscow, trump basically just declared war on russia.

this war will likely not be contained in syria.

so, it's not just a moral thing. this is a foolish strategy.

these are not going to be contained or targeted strikes - and it's flatly delusional to suggest they are. this is a substantial escalation, and it will lead to chaos and war.

this is another hard shift to the right by trudeau.

historically, canada has always rejected unilateral military action. ambrose is wrong in her statements - the conservatives supported multilateralism under diefenbaker, clark and mulroney.

what trudeau is doing here is signalling that the liberal party has adopted stephen harper's position on the marginalization of the united nations in favour of american unilateralism - and i fully condemn his language in the strongest terms possible.

justin trudeau is not a liberal, and perhaps never was. he is a conservative, and he is recreating the liberal party in the image of stephen harper.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/04/07/canada-not-part-of-us-strike-on-syria-but-backs-efforts-to-stop-atrocities.html

what is ontario's comparative advantage in construction materials?

to describe the scenario as "free trade" is to purposefully obfuscate the meaning of "free trade". what the ontario government wants is to protect the privilege of it's own capital to invest outside of the country. why should the united states facilitate this, given our reliance on their imports?

we can cry that it's not fair. perhaps it isn't. or, perhaps we've been utterly foolish in allowing ourselves to lose our productive independence.

i understand that these "buy american" clauses are potentially disastrous, and that the government has to do something about them. but, we need a deeper analysis of the situation, here. even if we can resolve this problem, it just kicks the can down the road. there will be another crisis, and another crisis after that.

conceding the potentially disastrous effects of these clauses should be generating a movement to rebuild our own industrial capacity.

nor does doing so negate the potential benefits of actual free trade, when we actually have a comparative advantage to exploit.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/ontario-premier-reaches-out-to-u-s-governors-to-win-allies-on-free-trade-1.3358953

medeski, martin, wood ....+ spencer?

i had fun dancing last night.

if trump carpet bombs syria, a lot of the responsibility is going to lie with senate democrats who have been trying to paint him as a russian puppet.

when accusations of chemical weapon use are thrown around, it is of the utmost importance to allow for an investigation to proceed. accusation is not proof. and, we know, today, that the rebels in syria (probably with help from nato intelligence operations) have staged attacks and blamed it on assad in order to try and instigate greater nato involvement. that is historical fact.

i mean, assad would have to be a complete idiot to do this at this time. to begin with, assad is not making decisions. the russians are making decisions. but, trump has indicated that he wants to disengage from bombing the regime and focus entirely on isis. why would assad choose this particular point in time to launch a chemical attack? that would be retarded.

yet, trump is absolutely dumb enough to fall for fabricated reports. he won't ask questions. he has total faith in his handlers.

if you know anything about this situation, it's absolutely fucking obvious.

but, he's also stubborn. and narcissistic. it's the opportunity to prove he's not working for the russians that is the real incentive, here.

and, the resulting war crimes prosecution that will never actually happen should be distributed equally upon every member of congress, and every member of the media, that has contributed to the dissemination of this fabrication.

not only is western civilization not built on top of christianity, but the christians did everything they possibly could to stunt the growth and development of western civilization.

if western civilization had never conquered the church, the europe of today would look a lot like the middle east does.

rather, the basis of western civilization is greek philosophy, and it's corollary of science. christianity and islam are both disastrous and dangerous offshoots of greek civilization, the hell let loose from the proverbial pandora's box, if you will.

they are not from disparate origins. they do not reflect fundamentally different worldviews. they do not have different intellectual genealogies. they are rooted in the same origins, have the same fundamental worldview and are of one and the same intellectual genealogy.

if you accept that western civilization is rooted in greek philosophy, and is therefore the sum of it's descendants, it follows that islam is not outside of western culture but an integral component of it.

if you are a conservative, that should lead you to embrace the religions as basically the same thing. but, if you are an iconoclast it should lead you to see their destruction as equally necessary.

i still don't know what happened back in february, but if i find out that somebody punched me, i'm not going to blame it on the alcohol.

that's preposterous.

this was predictable via logic: what extending last call by an hour did was push the duis forward by an hour. that is all.

that said, there's a hidden concern, here: if you extend the hours too far, you'll get drunks in rush hour.

i think 4:30 am is the right time, myself. as mentioned: not all of the bars will stay open. but, i'd rather have people drinking in public places that aren't afraid to call an ambulance than have them disperse into bushes, alleys and illegal watering holes.

4:30-5:00 is when people start looking for breakfast.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2693378/#R36

i'm glad to see that the senate is focusing it's time and resources on the pressing issues that are most important to canadians.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/senate-opposed-changes-o-canada-1.4053013

"no, he's not mentally challenged. he's just an american."

although, there's another factor in detroit to consider: whatever and whenever and wherever the bars close at, you can then walk across the street to the 7/11 and get a case.

(and drink it in the park.)

(and, yes, you should share if somebody asks, within reason.)

i understand that the doctor has spent a lot of time treating the results of late night drinking, but i suspect that he hasn't spent much time out drinking past 2:00 am, himself.

this is actually a classic example of harm reduction. if you shut the bars off at 2:00 does that stop people from drinking? of course not: they find liquor cabinets, if they haven't prepared earlier with a stash in the car, and head to after hours locations to keep drinking - some of which are actually unregulated bars. of course they exist.

the choice that the state has in front of it is whether it wants to let late night drinkers drink in the open or keep them drinking in the shadows, where it's harder to keep them out of trouble.

further, i'm sure toronto will find the same thing that detroit has found: just because the bars can stay open past two doesn't mean they actually will. the hours in detroit are 4:00 am, but there are only a few bars that stay open that late, and usually only on the weekends.

but, the idea that last call sends people home is crazy talk.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/why-this-toronto-er-doctor-is-dead-set-against-extending-last-call-1.4053845

and, who's gonna pay for the wall?

i don't want to tell people they can't smoke, i want them to realize it's a shitty habit and quit - which is what i did.

i run into this in a lot of situations. people don't get this subtlety. they can't differentiate between wanting to force a group to do something, and wanting to convince them to.

and, i don't like proselytizing either; in fact, that's another example: i don't want to force people into atheism, i want to convince them that it's the obvious answer and that all religion is complete insanity that should be immediately halted.

so, i mean, this isn't about smokers' rights. i mean, it's kind of a dumb idea, really - not a lot different than "religious freedom". what does it mean to say that a smoker has the right to pollute the air wherever it wants because it's a slave to a dangerous chemical? that's really crazy talk, isn't it? the better idea is smokers' responsibilities. an even better one is smokers' emancipation.

but, even so, i have only approached the smokers twice: once to ask them what the problem with the coal was (i did not get an answer), and once to assure them that i'm not trying to tell them where to smoke.

the goal of the litigation is to build a wall to prevent their habit from affecting me, not to force them to change to my liking.

i just think the argument on rent control ought to be less about markets - whatever you think of them - and more about locking the contract into place. the price you agree to should only be subject to negotiation upon the consent of both parties. this idea that a landlord can unilaterally change the price at their pleasure is not liberalism, it's feudalism. liberalism is about the sanctity of the contract.

that said, i'm not much into contract theory, either. it's just that you usually see these things packaged together: markets, contracts and liberalism. you don't need to get into deep regulation to uphold the fucking contract; to the contrary, the contract is meant to get the state out of it. what the law currently does is negate the contract in favour of the landlord unilaterally doing whatever the fuck it wants, and then pretends that this is about "free markets". it's not. it's just about property owners placing themselves above the law, and above the market.

what i'm into is not contracts but co-ops so i think these things should mostly be set in law, and largely be non-negotiable. the one thing that is negotiable is the price, which i think ought to be the sole purpose of a contract. but, once it's set, it's set, and should not be alterable except under dissolution.

the fact is that the socialists and liberals agree, here: the contract should set the price and it should not be unilaterally altered by anybody. that's contract theory. that's liberalism. it's the conservatives that then step in and say they shouldn't be regulated by contracts, and should have the ability to do whatever they want, because they're property owners and therefore superior.

the press will endlessly attempt to confuse you on this, trying to argue that free markets mean there shouldn't be regulation. but, the market needs some regulation in order to even be a market and not be either anarchy (no rules, no property) or feudalism (those who own the property write the rules for their own benefit), and the contract is the most liberal way to do that.

don't fall for their bullshit.

ok. good.

there's some people waving around the standard "free market" bullshit, and arguing that abolishing controls will lead to decreased prices. right. they're probably not as stupid as they sound, but you're a fucking idiot if you believe them.

rent control should apply equally to all buildings and be strictly indexed to inflation.

i hope they get this through before the next election.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/wynne-rent-control-1.4054781

the way to read this is that turnout was down (obviously. byelection.) and the conservative totals were consequently inflated. but, the tory press never fails to disappoint.

it's too bad that there wasn't more pushback in markham.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/grenier-byelections-2017-1.4054337

this is absurd.

it's no different than asking for a prescription for vodka. that'll help you sleep, too.

it's a recreational drug with health hazards. it's not a medicine. 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/health-canada-urged-to-clear-way-for-medical-pot-insurance-1.4053888

am i just unlucky, or is the world truly this saturated with complete idiots?

it seems as though i couldn't find another halfways-intelligent human being if i tried.

you can't make this shit up. you really can't.

so, i tracked down an msds for the odor eaters that were put down to replace my non-toxic air freshener, and guess what?

recommended for use in ventilated areas, only.

why is that?

because it produces toxic fumes.

so, let's get this right. the smokers complained that i was blowing a non-toxic product up the stairs to help mitigate the effects of their second hand smoke, and the landlord forced me to dismantle the contraption and then installed toxic "air fresheners" through the halls, instead.

now, in addition to the second hand smoke, we can add the fumes from the air fresheners to the toxic mix.

the only way this makes sense is if they're working for a eugenics program, and i'm being targeted to be knocked off.

the absurdity. it's overwhelming. fuck.

i still can't figure out why anybody would pay for a mac, when they just get a dell and put linux on it at a half to a third of the cost.

once again, you can demonstrate my point, if you'd like. but, don't then deny that i'm right.

there's certain interests aligned against me in society. they've always been there, and they'll always be there. i'm going to struggle with these forces for the rest of my life, and those that follow me will struggle with them into perpetuity.

that's reality, and there's no use in getting mad about it. you just need to keep struggling.

what pisses me off are the fucking idiot hippies that really are on my side in every substantive and meaningful way, but are aiding the enemy and are too stupid to figure it out.

i have a habit of being proven right. the question ahead of us is how long this takes. five years? ten years?

if you're a conservative christian, we've been in conflict over everything since the day i was born. but if you identify as remotely left of center, you're going to wake up one day soon to the reality that the muslims have joined forces with the christians, and are fighting a powerful war against secularism. you're going to see prominent muslim groups joining forces with existing christian groups and providing the tipping point as they fight successful campaigns to limit abortion rights and oppress queer people. and, you're going to wonder how and why they've switched sides so dramatically.

they were never on our side, you fucking dipshit.

for those curious, i *am* still vlogging. i have a huge backlog of videos to edit.

right now, it looks like i'm jumping from a four week lag to an eight week lag. hey, if i get in this mess again, i'll expand it further. i like doing this for historical reasons, but i like having the distance, too.

what i need to do is wind my way back to the cloud nothings review. once i get there, i'll get back to editing. that's how i got on this path. and, i don't even remember what i'm back to, after that.

the second hand smoke is back in the apartment, this morning. it took a weekend to seep back in, after i'd kept it out for the last six weeks. and, i cleaned this weekend, too. hopefully, the human rights commission is swift in it's ruling, because i should not have to deal with this when the solution is so easy and simple and cheap.

humans are autonomous individuals. we don't own each other, and that language should be viewed as concerning.

this is from june, 1994.

that's 23 years ago.

The EPA report classified secondhand smoke as a Group A carcinogen, a designation which means that there is sufficient evidence that the substance causes cancer in humans. The Group A designation has been used by EPA for only 15 other pollutants, including asbestos, radon, and benzene. Only secondhand smoke has actually been shown in studies to cause cancer at typical environmental levels.

yet, we still cannot take it seriously.

i mean, maybe it's just a conspiracy by the chinese to eliminate jobs in the tobacco fields. or maybe we're absurdly slow learners.

https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/setting-record-straight-secondhand-smoke-preventable-health-risk

if there was asbestos in the building, do you think a landlord would be within their rights to suggest that it is not a non-asbestos building and if the asbestos bothers the tenant then that tenant should move to a non-asbestos building?

you're right: it's not a good comparison. but, it's not a good comparison because second hand smoke is far more deadly than asbestos is.

i live in a very progressive left-leaning legal jurisdiction. we have "social justice tribunals". and, they're exactly what they sound like.

i am not certain, but think the property owners are dual american citizens and have spent much of their lives in the united states.

as noted: they're in for a surprise.

they don't understand what the law is, they don't understand what their legal obligations are, they don't understand why i'm suing them and they don't understand what they need to do to avoid it.

it's just "muh property, muh rules".

nope. sorry.

it's going to be a beautiful wall, folks.

i had no choice but to sleep last night, whether i liked it or not. and i slept for over 12 hours, too.

today is also likely a light day.

you didn't expect a standard opinion on this, did you?

here's the reality: 24 year-olds have been fucking 17 year-olds since the time that we speciated. not only is this not perverted, but trying to prevent it is delusional.

you will never stop young teachers from fucking mature students, and giving young teachers these kinds of jobs is like locking dogs in a room and expecting them to behave themselves. we need to get out of the victorian age, here, and enter the darwinian one. what this is is a recipe for great sex.

so, we need to take one of two positions here if we want to come back to reality:

1) maybe this isn't so bad, really. he was 17, after all. he wasn't 12. or..
2) we need to take steps to raise the age of teachers entering the classroom, like demanding that teachers get a masters degree before they go to teachers college, if they want to teach high school.

but, if you think you're going to keep putting women in their early 20s into classrooms with boys in their late teens and expect them to not have sex, you're living in a fantasy reality - this is absolutely biologically normal behaviour.

http://globalnews.ca/news/3031406/dr-phil-interview-leads-to-more-charges-for-teacher-who-had-sex-with-student-then-became-a-stripper/

marijuana users aren't generally bad students. i mean, they might be, or they might not be. most of them will be average students. it's hard to study this right now, but i'd expect a bell curve.

what the article is missing is that the current reality is that apprehending kids for being stoned requires calling the cops, because it's a controlled substance. do you want to do that to the A student in the back that has anxiety issues and has difficulty meeting friends?

i went to a catholic school, which meant i had to take a religion course every year. there was one semester where they scheduled the class right after lunch. i ended up attending that class stoned fairly regularly. the teacher was aware, and sometimes gave me concerning glances, but he made it clear to me that he wasn't going to address the issue for that precise reason. and, he gave me an A at the end of it.

i'm maybe a bad test case, because i was never a heavy user. but, i could have been struggling. and, he wouldn't have intervened when he should have.

removing the stigma will allow for greater options.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/what-will-legal-marijuana-pot-mean-for-schools-1.4044583

apparently, acidosis is usually associated with tiredness.

i'm probably just stressed out.

also, i've barely slept since tuesday. am i stressed out, or wired from the vinegar? hear me out...

this is speculative.

but, if you pump your body full of vinegar (i am unclear how this scenario would change in the catalyst of piss), what you're doing is saturating your body with the chemical that kickstarts the process that produces energy in your body.

it's probably not going to work if you drink it. and, you obviously want to avoid snorting vinegar. but, there's some logic to inhaling it from a certain distance, and expecting it to keep you wired for long periods. it's probably the only way it would work, because it's going right into the bloodstream.

acidosis? hrmmn.

i've tried to force myself to sleep and truly cannot, and i'm not zombified - i'm actually very alert. so, i could be stressed out and wired due to it, but this seems like more than that.

it's an interesting suggested experiment, anyways. but, now i'm worried about the ph of my blood...

i'm irritated with myself. i want to put the fan back and fight it in court. i just know that the right decision is to temporarily pull back.

i think i've made my protest at the situation loud and clear and it will need to work it's way through the board, now. and, see, while the cops were wrong on the face of it, their ignorance has a sort of warped logic to it, in the same way that any intuitive but ultimately wrong analysis always does. it's not that it make me look better, so much as it makes her look that much worse.

the principle of it isn't worth the risk, or at least isn't without exploring other options like the wall fan or my own mounting process. no matter how right you are, and no matter how much you know you're right, there's always that aspect of risk when you put a question like this in front of a judge. it's just inherent to the process. the risk might be low, but the outcome of eviction is dramatic.

i mean, there might only be a 0.314% chance that the judge is a three-pack a day smoker with $100,000 invested in cigarettes and a daughter on the board of a tobacco company. but, if that's the card i draw...

i'm not a capitalist, so i don't adhere to philosophies about the value of risk, or the drawbacks of risk aversion. i don't gain a whole lot by being overly aggressive to start. but, in the unlikely chance that i get the worst judge ever, i'm going to look stupid pushing myself to the street.

the right thing to do is to fight the court battle on the front i've opened up (which is essentially on the basis of their negligence to address the problem), and let them hang themselves with their own rope by refusing to mitigate, while making my displeasure as clear as possible.

so, i know i've taken this as far as i should, and i know i'm doing the right thing in pulling back.

i'm just unhappy with myself, about it. i feel like i'm abandoning a set of principles for pragmatic gain. and, despite knowing it's smart, it's leaving me with a bad taste in my own mouth.

it was the first hit at google. follow the links.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/most-palestinians-are-descendants-of-jews/

and, once again: jesus did not speak arabic or hebrew but aramaic (syrian) and greek and would have looked like a modern syrian, kurd or iranian.

...if he wasn't a fictional character, that is.

jesus existed around the year 0.

the substantial arab migration into palestine began around the year 650, although the genetics suggest that palestinians (who exist in a gradient - many are very light-skinned) are largely not arabs at all but descended from jews. yes, blow your mind: the palestinians are jews. what they are is jews that converted to islam - because the jews were not scattered like some fairy tale, but conquered and assimilated like everybody else. notwithstanding some diaspora, of course. excluding these endogamous diasporas, most populations take in some diversity over time, so pointing out that the palestinians are the descendants of the indigenous hebrews doesn't imply there wasn't arab inflow, or that it hasn't affected phenotypes.

jesus would not have looked like a british person either, but demanding that jesus look like an arab is like demanding that pocahontas be white: you're applying the characteristics of a colonizing force to the group that lived in the region before hand, and it is just plain out historically wrong.

i endorsed ralph nader more than once, guys.

again: i'm a huge advocate of tort law. it's about the only law i actually think is useful.

if i had my way, i'd do "code reform" and burn the legislated law and just rely solely on case law. it's the only legal system i've ever run into that is actually rooted in sound principles of evidentiary obligation, rather than just brute force by the use of violence.

call me a barbarian, but fuck the empire and fuck their laws.

The sidewalks, passages, public halls, stairways, fire escapes and vestibules shall not be obstructed

ok.

obstruct.

1. to block or close up with an obstacle; make difficult to pass:

not a problem, there. 

2. to interrupt, hinder, or oppose the passage, progress, course, etc., of.

nope. not doing that...

3. to block from sight; to be in the way of (a view, passage, etc.).

negative. nein.

there's obviously some level of ambiguity in the wording, but i admit no level of ambiguity in the fact of it: i was not preventing passage through the hall in any way, and no judge would say i was. tersely: that's bullshit.

so, if i'm not obstructing the hallway, what else is in the cited clause?

or used for any other purpose other than gaining access to and from the leased premise.

surely, they don't claim that putting a fan in the hallway is using it for some other purpose? but, they probably don't know what this part of the clause is actually about: what this is doing is forbidding somebody from setting up an office in the hallway, or using their residence as a place of business. by extension, it forbids using the hallways for things like movie shoots, parties and concerts. to suggest that this bans me from running a fan is preposterous.

again: i'm going to give them the opportunity to install a wall fan. i would obviously rather have a fan mounted on the wall than placed on a chair, too.

but, if this were to actually end up in a court, their arguments would not hold up. and, if i don't get some movement on their duty of care, and don't find placing the fans elsewhere to be as effective, i will place the fans back where they were.

i heard this from a cop this evening, after i told them that there's litigation pending.

"if you want to be in good standing in the court, you should destroy the evidence in front of you and move the fan."

i keep saying this: orwell v huxley misses the point entirely. orwell, mostly - yes. but, the one that really got it was kafka...

the absurdity of everything is incomprehensible.

i'm going to give her the opportunity to commit to installing a wall fan. i mean, she's wrong on every point. i'm not breaking the lease agreement. i'm not breaking the fire code. you can't disrupt evidence during litigation. and, you can't interfere with my enjoyment of the premises.

but, if she agrees to install a wall fan then that negates all of the non-arguments. and, if she refuses to do so, she's really burying herself on the litigation: it's another non-refusal to mitigate where she's legally required to.

she should call a lawyer, really. she has no idea what she's doing...

I should point out at the beginning of this that I daily vlog my life and consequently have a large amount of video documentation of things that people would not normally have video documentation of. I am willing to provide this video footage upon demand.

The tl;dr of this (but, please read it) is that I am dealing with an issue of second hand smoke in my apartment and that the landlords are not just refusing, point black, to make any reasonable accommodation (they have literally answered “no” when asked the question in these terms), but are even going to the point of obstructing the accommodations that I am making on my own. Given that they are refusing to co-operate, or even to acknowledge the existence of a problem, I am seeking the structural solution of building a wall in the foyer to keep the smoke out, as well as extreme rent abatement until the issue is resolved.

I moved into a small building in Windsor, Ontario on Aug 1, 2013. At the time, I had been struggling with quitting smoking cigarettes for many years, with various levels of success – I would quit for a few months and then smoke for a few months. I was always an outside smoker, preferring to maintain clean air for indoor spaces. I smoked lightly-to-moderately, depending on lots of things.

The actual truth is that I would not have been able to meaningfully identify a building with second hand smoke issues at the time I moved into this unit. I was in a smoking phase over the summer and could have consequently easily walked through a smelly room without really noticing it. I could have – and did – periodically notice particularly strong smoke build-ups in the hallway and front area of the apartment over the next several years, but at this point I would not refer to it as a nuisance or something affecting my enjoyment of the space. I would have been more likely to describe it as somewhat of a worrying curiosity – I noticed it, and took note of the possible health implications but did not have the prerogative to address it due to the fact that I was still smoking more often than not. However, I need to reiterate that I always smoked outside during the period from 2013-2016. I was actually diagnosed with chronic bronchitis as a child due to the effects of second-hand smoke, utilize a puffer from time-to-time and have needed to always avoid indoor smoke as much as possible, whether I was smoking or not, due to the fact that it can trigger the bronchitis. I had this discussion with the landlord during the process of signing the lease, so he has been aware of my concerns with second-hand smoke (and especially indoor second-hand smoke) for the whole time. In fact, I need the puffer more often before I started smoking. I will concede that the behaviour of nicotine addicts is not always strictly rational, but the fact is that my smoking habits are only weakly correlated with my use of a puffer (certainly, quitting would not eliminate my periodic reliance on it, as it is the result of permanent damage from exposure at a young age).

I made a decision at the end of 2015 to quit smoking over the course of 2016. This was a difficult process, but by march of 2016 I felt justified in calling myself a non-smoker. Slowly, the smoke in the hallway seeping into the living room became more and more of a problem to me. There were a few days in February, 2017 where it started to noticeably bother me by seeping into the living room and attaching itself to towels and other clothing in that space, and I felt the urge to find a way to keep the smoke away from my living space. The smoke at this point was certainly affecting my enjoyment of the space, but I did not at this point feel that the issue required litigation; I thought I could mitigate the problem by taking a set of simple and non-invasive steps.

The smoke is a mixture of tobacco and marijuana smoke. I am not interested in determining the legality of the source of marijuana smoke; I support the oncoming legalization, and simply do not want to walk down that path, although I realize it may afford me with more draconian options. However, I also think that persistent second-hand marijuana smoke should be treated the same way that persistent second-hand tobacco smoke is; I do not think I should have these more draconian options. I am merely attempting to point out that the smell of marijuana is not periodic, but nearly as strong as the smell of tobacco. Again: I do not know the legality of the situation.

Besides on the day of this writing (March 31, 2017), it’s hard for me to state exactly when I decided that the smoke was substantially interfering with my enjoyment of the building, but this is a function of my hope, up to this point in the narrative and beyond, that the issue could be dealt with by a set of simple mitigating actions. The fact that I took the steps I did is illustrative of the smoke functionally interfering with my enjoyment of the space, but I wasn’t cognizant of it at the time because I had that hope of a solution. I suppose it was at the point that I lost hope at a simple answer and realized the need for litigation that the realization finally sunk in.

It is unclear what, if anything, could have been accomplished by bringing the issue to the attention of the landlord. The building is arranged in such a way that smoke from the upstairs is going to seep through the doors and envelop the entire front entrance space. Short of demanding that the tenants stop smoking (which is not a request I would even make), there really wasn’t anything that the landlord could do to keep the smoke out of this space. So, I did not consider involving the landlord to be a productive task. Further, it was not clear how I could even contact a landlord at this point, as the property had changed hands. There is a live-in superintendent (Paul Ratko) that is a member of the family that owns the building, but I do not believe that he is mentally capable of carrying out this role and prefer to avoid him due to his short temper and tendency to verbally harass and at times even threaten me. I think that the unfolding of events demonstrates the wisdom of my choice to avoid this superintendent, as all he ever does is exacerbate situations and escalate problems to absurd levels by being excessively authoritarian and aggressive and demanding. I’ve long sought to speak with somebody that is less interested in ordering people around like a bully and more interested in reasonable discussion. A lot of what develops is a ramification of this individual’s personality, and the negligence attached to giving somebody with a mental disability a sense and position of authority. This is another issue altogether.

The first thing I tried to do was air the space out a little bit. I spent the afternoon of Feb 17, 2017 (which was unseasonably warm) attending an opened front entrance of the building while reading a book. This tactic was not as effective as I had hoped it would be.

The next thing that I did was install a fan at the foot of the stairs directly in front of my apartment. This would have been done early on the morning of Feb 18, 2017. The hope was that this would blow the smoke up and away from the entrance. This was actually initially intended as a short term measure, but what I found was that the smoke very quickly filled back up at the base of the stairs upon dismantling the fans. The fan has consequently been in place more or less constantly since this time.

While the fan does not resolve the issue entirely, it makes a substantial difference. As mentioned, dismantling the fan almost immediately degrades the air quality around the door to my apartment.

I put an air freshener in front of the fan at some point shortly afterwards. I could determine the exact date by analyzing receipts and video footage if determined relevant.

I did not receive a complaint or comment about the fan between Feb 18, 2017 and Mar 29, 2017.

Again: it was not an ideal solution, but it was clearly the beginnings of one. From time to time (often on Sundays), the fan became overwhelmed by the smoke. I could maybe even suggest that the fan spent all week pushing the smoke out only to get overwhelmed on Sundays and have to start all over again. The issue is also strongly weather-dependent, and I wanted to give the weather time to warm up. By the evening of March 26^th, I had convinced myself that the fan alone was not enough and that further steps were going to be necessary to mitigate the problem.

My immediate thought was that I should get a more powerful air freshener. However, as my primary issue is health-related rather than odour-related, I decided to avoid that approach. Rather, a health-related mitigation strategy should have to do with pulling the smoke particles out of the air. A little research suggested that my options were either an expensive filtration system (that I would not have been able to install in the hall, anyways) or a simple process of setting down adsorbents in the space to suck the chemicals out of the air with. The cheapest and most plentiful adsorbent available to me was charcoal. I did, however, still need to mask the lingering smell, as well – even if just for the short term. Frankly, the smoke was very bad on that precise night. So, I decided upon a hybrid strategy of placing coal and vinegar in strategic places around the lobby in order to mask the odour and clean the air. In hindsight, is there any doubt that the smoke was substantially interfering with my reasonable enjoyment of the rental unit?

I did not know if this was going to be effective. If it was effective, I did not know if it was going to lead to a longer term strategy. For example, if the charcoal was effective then perhaps some activated carbon filters could be installed on the wall. What I was really doing was experimenting with mitigation tactics, with a final outcome to be determined by what results could be observed.

So, I purchased a small amount of vinegar on the night of the 27^th and put some of it out in a tupperware container directly in front of my door. I put a smaller amount in a cup on my side of the door, as well. Vinegar is merely a masking agent, but it is a powerful one.

I then picked up some all natural charcoal at a grocery store on the morning of the 28^th. This charcoal is created by burning wood in the absence of oxygen and does not contain additives like lighter fluid; it is nearly pure carbon, and chemically almost identical to the material found in a water filter or a carbon air filter, the difference being a slightly higher level of impurities in the charcoal. The effect of carbon, in context, is that it should suck moisture and gasses out of the air and into itself, thereby cleaning the air of volatile compounds (particularly, compounds with open hydrogen atoms). My sleeping schedule is erratic (I live on disability), and I happened to sleep in the afternoon on this specific day, so I didn’t have time to put the charcoal out until early in the morning of the 29th. The charcoal was placed in used plastic strawberry bins, which were placed in out-of-the-way areas that were neither in the direct line of anybody’s transit nor in areas likely to be affected by weather. I also put some coal in socks and hung them from the railways. I happen to have recorded this process for my vlog, if there are any questions as to the exact placement of the charcoal or whether or not the placement would lead to issues with blowing soot.

It really never crossed my mind to think that this would bother anybody. Carbon is not a dangerous chemical; we use it in our water filters and our air furnaces. Granted, we should not smoke carbon, nor should we allow carbon that has been trapped underground for millions of years to enter the atmosphere in unchecked quantities. But, in the form of unburned charcoal placed in the corners of the lobbies? It just didn’t cross my mind that it would upset anybody, or that it would be something I should ask the other tenants about. I might acknowledge that as an error (I perhaps should have realized other tenants would have questions about it and taken the time to seek out their concerns), but such an error should not have led to the outcome that followed.

I fell asleep in the afternoon of the 29^th, to be woken up by a loud knock on the door some time in the middle of the evening, perhaps around 6:00. I opened the door to the superattendant, who started abusively yelling at me to clear everything out of the way. I was half asleep and not interested in being talked to in an abusive manner, so I grouchily told him to fuck off and went to go back to sleep. I was not fully awake and do not remember the exact terms of the conversation, but I do remember that the bullying and demanding tone from the superintendent was both typical of his demeanour and not something I was able to deal with, half-asleep. He seemed to be incredibly angry.

I did not fall back asleep, but it took me upwards of an hour to wake up to the point where I could deal with the situation. The charcoal had disappeared, and the fan had been unplugged. So, I plugged the fan back in and went upstairs to determine what had happened.

I asked the smoking tenants if they had complained about the charcoal, and was told they had. I asked them what their concern about it was, and they hesitated and she said something about it bothering her stomach. This is not biologically plausible, as coal sucks things in rather than expels things out. The only biological explanation for this is the highly unlikely scenario that the coal put her into withdrawal. So, I do not know what their actual motive for requesting the coal be removed was. The reason their motive matters is that they might have had an incorrect understanding of what the charcoal was meant to do, and what it’s effects might be. Ultimately, though, I was phishing for the feedback on mitigation that I perhaps should have sought in the first place.

They were not interested in discussing the issue further.

The next thing I did was go to the superintendent to acquire about the whereabouts of my coal, and whether he intended to refund me for it or not, as the coal did not belong to him. He responded in a raised voice intended to intimidate me, and followed it be charging directly at me in the manner that bullies do, which forced me to raise my own to overpower his and indicate that I will in fact not be intimidated, at all. I made it clear at this point that I have rights and was not going to be pushed around by him. He reacted by threatening an eviction, which I fully understand was spurious – but is indicative of the broader problem. He expects that he can yell at people and intimidate them as he wishes, and threatens eviction at anybody that yells back. This constantly confrontational and combative tone leads to escalated problems that are otherwise easily resolvable – but I know that, in a broader sense, it is not his fault. He shouldn’t be being placed in these scenarios. It is a type of negligence that he is. There should be a landlord on call to deal with things, and the other tenants should be told to avoid him.

I realized, quickly, that I needed to talk to the actual property owners, who I did not have a direct means to contact. I had to find their phone number using 411.

I spoke to Tammy Allen (co-owner) for about ten minutes. She requested that I send her an email explaining the situation, which I did. She also suggested that she might inspect the premises on the next day. The crux of this email was to explain the situation from my perspective and then lay down a proposal to take steps to remedy the problem by scheduling a meeting where the smoking tenants and I could sit down and have a communal discussion about ways that we could work together to mitigate the problem. A suggested outcome was the installation of (activated) carbon filters on the wall, rather than charcoal on the floor.

I spent the night researching various aspects of the situation (mitigation strategies, legal realities) and came to the conclusion that it would probably be better to just let the vinegar sit for a while to let everything blow over. For me to experiment with carbon filtering is one thing, but for me to expect a landlord to get involved without clear benefits is another. I realized that I should be focusing on discussing ways to further experiment with smaller amounts of carbon filtering as a first step, and then talking about things like installing wall filters only after it’s been determined to be an effective strategy or not. I was clearly jumping the gun and everybody – myself included – would probably be more rational about the situation next week. I expressed these thoughts in a follow-up email, and expected to get some better sleep in the afternoon.

It was about 11:30 on the morning of the 30^th that I got another knock on the door from the superintendent’s daughter who, amongst other things, insisted I dismantle the fan. She unplugged the fan twice, and I plugged it back in twice. The two of them are both mentally challenged, and equally deeply unequipped to deal with a complex situation where rights are being weighed against each other: they merely demanded I do what they say, or else. I had to physically position myself in front of the fan to prevent them from dismantling it – this is a literal and classical breach of the covenant of quiet enjoyment, where an agent of the landlord is physically interfering with my right to fresh air. There was even a moment where they threatened to call the police, but they seem to have backed away when I made it clear that I would actually like an officer present. After a little while, and some childish yelling and taunting back and forth that I must engage in when communicating with them out of default necessity, they eventually went back upstairs. While they claimed to be attempting to enforce the fire code, I do not think they had any understanding of what they were doing, beyond the need to enforce themselves.

It was at this point that the breach of covenant made itself abundantly clear, and I understood that I had no choice but to litigate. They were literally trying to steal my fresh air. I sent a third email to Tammy indicating that the only solution is to build a wall between the two stairwells and I would begin litigation on April 10^th should I not get a proper response before then.

It was Ryan Allen (co-owner) that knocked on my door on the evening of the 30^th. He insisted that I dismantle the fan due it blocking the  pathway and breaking the fire code. My analysis of this claim is that it is spurious: the fan was not blocking the path at all, and was thus not in contravention of the fire code. As I knew he was merely using the fire code as an excuse, I tilted the chair by 45 degrees to make it abundantly clear that it was not blocking the exit. He then began making things up, and I stopped listening and changed the topic to the second hand smoke. I asked him whether or not he intended to make a good faith effort to mitigate the second hand smoke, and he looked at me point-blank and said that he would not. He made it abundantly clear that he had no interest in dealing with the issue, and wasn’t going to do anything about it all. He then suggested that I was “full of shit” when I told him his attitude was the reason I require a legal remedy.

Eventually, I thanked him for his time and informed him that I would see him in court. As he had threatened to remove the fan if I did not do so, I took the fans and vinegar out of the hallway with the full intent of reinstalling them when he was gone – and did. While they remain in place at the time of this writing, if my fans (they are two general electric table fans – I have pictures) are stolen between now and the point this case is heard, I will ask for them to be replaced or returned as a component of the remedy in the case.

As Ryan Allen made it clear on the evening of march 30^th that he did not intend to do anything about the situation at all besides attempt to prevent me from breathing clean air, there is no reason to wait until the 10^th. A fourth email was sent to update the situation.

I am seeking the installation of a wall between the units (this will require twinning the front entrance) because it is the most direct way to deal with the problem of mitigating the second-hand smoke. I initially wanted to deal with this problem incrementally, by experimenting with different approaches and eventually settling on something that is cost-effective and non-invasive to everybody involved. However, the behaviour of the family that owns the building (really, all of them) has been so deplorable and obstructionist that it is abundantly clear that an incremental and cost-effective approach will be met with nothing but resistance and obtuseness. Rather than deal with months or years worth of juvenile conflict, I would like them to just jump to building the wall and have the issue dealt with and put aside for good.

I am additionally seeking a rent abatement to get the point across to them that second hand smoke is a serious health problem that requires a serious response, and act as an incentive for them to mitigate. At the core of their dismissive attitude seems to be the view that second hand smoke is not a real problem. How can this be true, in 2017? Cutting my rent down to the maximum odsp allotment would hopefully send the message that this is, in fact, a problem that needs to be taken seriously and incentivize them to work quickly in building the wall to mitigate it.

I am additionally seeking $8.00 for the cost of coal that was discarded and, as mentioned, the cost of the fans, should they also be stolen.