i need to reiterate: i have not seen any reliable polling that indicates that ford is beyond minority territory.

i am still expecting a coalition government as the most likely outcome.

but, key constituencies are starting to turn in irrational ways - indicating that this might be becoming one of those random expressions of mass stupidity that is inevitable in any democracy.

not only is doug ford unlikely to spend money on more infrastructure, he's very likely to sell a good percentage of it.

perhaps what the unions are really more interested in is a tax cut.

i've had these discussions; workers don't tend to understand economics very well, and tend to get their information from very bad sources. they're consequently easy to take advantage of with what are essentially appeals to ignorance.

they believe in trickle-down economics. no; stop. they really do.

i will not be surprised if unions vote for ford. but, i'll be disappointed in the stupidity of it.

unions + immigrants is a winning coalition. it's a familiar one, too, isn't it?

the left needs some serious reflection, from pseudo to literal.

i'm not sure why anybody would think that doug ford cares about infrastructure.

that sounds like fake news, to me.

leave it to alberta to be the only jurisdiction in the world that is dumb enough to buy into elon musk's bullshit.

i just took a walk downstairs to investigate the banging, and i caught her leaving in a waiting car, which is not conclusive.

she's obviously not going outside to smoke, because she's smoking inside - and she's already had a few.

so, i'm actually left with one of two conclusions: either she left for work a little late tonight or she's slowly moving things out.

if the smoke continues over night, and right now it seems like it's going to, i'm actually going to have to conclude that she's in the process of moving and question the property manager about it tomorrow before i mail the documents.

i don't know if having her move is good enough, any more. i know it's worth giving it another try, though. it's the easiest answer...

i could, of course, cancel the court process, as well.

unfortunately, she appears to be home tonight.

but, i'm wondering if she misread the n5.

i'm not getting an honest response from management; they're playing stupid about it. but, that's just it - they're just bluffing on everything. i can read. to the contrary, this woman is obviously not very bright.

when i made the second smoke complaint, it was after ten days. now, the n5 can be confusing, if you're already stupid to begin with, and this is what i meant when i pointed out that the property management was feigning incompetency.

the first n5 is just a warning. it says knock it off in the next ten days, or i'm going to try and evict you. now, it also comes with a date on it, but the date is really meant for the second n5, not the first one.

my n5 had the date of april 23rd on it, but it wasn't a meaningful date. it was either included out of incompetency, or out of an attempt to frighten me.

a stupid or ignorant person could get the notice and conclude that they have to move by the 23rd. and, if that is the case, i would expect that this woman would actually be moving out over the week.

that might explain why she's not working, and also why i'm hearing a lot of banging.

so, should i wait this out, or what?

when i called in on day 11, i got the (i think feigned) confused reaction from management, indicating they were holding to it. but, i know better.

does she?

hrmmn.

i'm awake.

i've eaten.

thankfully, we got some rain...

i'll be through 2015 pretty fast and on to writing this essay and mailing it tomorrow.

to be a little bit more clear.

it's not whether i'm cool or not that tends to get me upset. i don't care. i really don't. and i don't care if not caring is cool or not, either. or if...

it's the vacuous, empty and nihilistic definition of 'cool' that gets me wishing i lived on another planet.

i'm happy to hang out with the nerds.

it's the popular kids that make me depressed.

my head is just throbbing :(.

i'm actually hoping for a rainy, cold summer in order to keep this person off the porch, so i can get some air in here.

there's no protection from the rain, there. and, the humid air is the best antidote for the smoke from downstairs, too.

it looks like the rain we were supposed to get this week isn't going to show up :(

well, i think it's worn off, now.

but i'll never make it there by 4:30.

i wanted to be there this morning, but i was literally too stoned to move for the last seven hours, from the secondhand smoke. this is a measure of the depth of the problem. and i'm not exaggerating; i was up in the afternoon, yesterday, i should not have been tired this morning. that was a short day....

i want to put the term 'stoned' in quotes, because it's not exactly like that. it's more like a sedative - and i've pointed out before that i suspect she is smoking opiates, at least sometimes. the pot obviously doesn't do much for her, right? and, this happens sometimes - i get a whiff of something and just fall over, for hours.

but, this is also typical of government pot, in my experience. government pot doesn't get you high, it just knocks you out. and, with the way they're prescribing it as an anti-depressant or pain reliever (rather than as the psychedelic it's used as, recreationally), that kind of makes sense. i don't know if it's a sativa/indica thing or something else, but government pot is really more like valium than it is like pot. and, as you might expect, that's not any fun.

the shit the government is going to eventually export is not going to be bc bud. it's going to be this over the top, sedative-heavy government pot engineered to feel like i'd imagine an opiate does. it's going to make you tired and insular, rather than euphoric and extroverted. and i don't expect to have much interest in it.

i'll have to try again tomorrow.

*shrug*.

i'm actually going back to sleep for a bit.

no.

i...

i can't move.

i'll try again at noon.

i didn't get through 2015 before i was overwhelmed by the secondhand smoke around 7:00.

my eyes are burning.

my throat is burning.

my mood is foul.

i want to sleep. but i can't. i have to get up.

it's about ten posts short. i'll do it tonight.

i can barely move.

i feel like death.

:(.

i just want to sit here and cry for the next thirty years.

but i need to get something mailed today.

coffee...

in one of the strangest demonstrations of surveillance yet, i'm listening to one of the remixes i spun off at the end of 2015 (http://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.ca/2015/12/insp.html) and it starts actually interfering with the loopback at the low frequencies, due to the depth of the bass drum.

there are several mixes of this track that use the same drum pattern, so i check each of them, and they all do the same thing.

i was able to solve it on a reboot.

but, it seems like what i was hearing was the bass beating out of phase with itself as it was being captured by the monitoring software.

again: i actually don't care if i'm monitored. i'm boring as fuck.

but, i can't create music when the monitoring software is degrading my audio quality, like this...

but, it's just...

it's never been my thought process.

i've never been angry or sad or depressed and said "i need to get high". to the contrary, i've been angry or sad or depressed and decided to stay home and go to bed early, instead.

i need to be in a good mood to go out drinking & smoking, or i don't go out. i wouldn't want to get high if i wasn't feeling up to it.

& this is maybe why i don't really understand this. the premise of "medicinal marijuana" is combining two things - drugs & depression - that seem to be in contradiction with each other, to me.

when i'm depressed, i go to bed early; i only do drugs when i'm feeling great, and want to have a good time.

how did this get so confused?

it has to be capitalism that's at the root cause of this.

i would imagine that getting in the habit of smoking pot when i'm upset would just ruin marijuana for me.

like i say: i'm usually pretty happy, so long as i don't have to interact with people - or their externalities.

there's too many externalities in this place.

but, i don't associate drugs with depression.

being sad doesn't make me want to get high. getting high is something i do when i'm in a good mood, not something i do when i'm upset. i don't even know what being high and depressed is even like - i've never experienced this. i'd imagine it would just make me more upset. and, the stronger the smell of drugs is, the sadder i'm going to get.

it's not a comfort, or a crux, or something i do alone - it's a social activity that i always used to do with friends, and now do, at least, in public.

when i'm upset, i just want to go to sleep and wake up fresh - ie not hungover.

not tonight. tonight, i just need to deal with it. coffee...

it's not being around people that makes me upset. if anything, being around people makes me exceedingly angry.

it's the nature of humans that makes me upset.

people just smoke drugs, and don't care. they destroy the planet; they destroy themselves. they don't plan, they don't think ahead - all they care about is the present moment.

why can't people be more altruistic, and more interested in living healthy and productive lifestyles? why are so many humans these depraved, selfish utility monsters that destroy everything in their paths? why are we so easily controlled by media into believing such utter stupidity?

you try to live a healthy lifestyle, you try to give back, you try to do what you can to not contribute to all of these social and environmental problems, and all you get in return are these self-absorbed retards that can't even be bothered to get off of their obese assholes to go smoke a fucking joint, when somebody tells them it's making them sick.

i need to get out of here asap.

preferably to a planet with a different dominant species.

i'm broadly a pretty happy person if left alone.

it's humans that make me sad.

we're despicable creatures. it's the best argument i know against religion: no enlightened being would create a species this depraved.

i deserve the payout i'm asking for.

:(

of course, the library has inconvenient hours, for me.

i may find myself blowing most of the summer sitting outside and reading, just because i can't sit inside.

why is it always ugly fat women that smoke like chimneys?

to be clear: i've got the drug addict below me, and have had to open my window to deal with it.

now, there's a tenant next door that is sitting on her porch smoking, so opening the window is no solution.

i don't currently have a functioning laptop, but i'm considering spending my days at the library until i can get out.

if you're forcing me to choose, i would rather deal with second hand tobacco smoke.

it's gross. and unhealthy.

but, at least it doesn't make you tired....

there's a new problem: some ugly, fat wench is sitting in my fresh air intake and smoking 24/7, meaning i'm in the same impossible situation, once again.

what i'm experiencing is just a background general smoke: i can't tell what kind of smoke it is, and it may even be all mixed up. it's just burning my throat.

i want to finish 2015 before i get to the write-up to get out of here.

listen.

if you want to kill yourself, it's easy enough to find a bridge or some poison or something else.

you don't need to trigger the cops, who probably want to catch you alive if they can, anyways.

canada has experienced a few unfortunate outbursts of mental illness. but, this doesn't appear to be a terrorist attack - nor have any of the incidents here been accurately described that way.

it seems like this person was suicidal and wanted to go out in a bang.

outrageously, the response from the landlord was to suggest that if i can't deal with the smoke then i should move.

that's the literal definition of negligence, in context.

"if you don't like the mold on the ceiling, you can always move."
"if you don't like the asbestos in the living room, you can always move."

it's the same thing, legally.

you see this frequently with legal illiterates: i'm just getting some, like, nineteenth century contract theory bullshit. libertarianism seems to be the basic starting point of ignorance, in this culture.

so, i'm going to have to write the board an essay, and this won't get mailed until tomorrow. the basic argument is negligence under the health regulations, and liability for breach of the enjoyment covenant.

but, i got a mailing address, at least. that wasn't obvious.

the truth is that they're actually kind of walking into a trap; it's not like i set the trap, but , if i did, they'd have walked right into it. they've given me everything i need to make the argument for negligence...

and, i need to reiterate: i like tort law. i think more of the law should be organized around tort law principles. tort reform, to me, means expanding the principles of tort law to further destroy contract theory. it's the criminal law that i don't like, and it's classical liberalism that pisses me off...

i mean, the premise is that prostitution pays well, right?

but, that's only true because it's not regulated.

legalization will convert sex workers into fast food employees.

"sex work is work".

ok.

well, then you'd be willing to do it for minimum wage, then - as an employee of a multinational corporation, run by men who take in six figure salaries.

right?

careful.

i think women are better served by the status quo, myself.

and that we should rather be focusing on ways to create better jobs.

i have to make the complaint before i file the documents. it's a formality.

i'm really curious as to how they'll respond....

yes: she's been smoking all night.

i'll have to call the landlord around 8:30.

if you like a glass of wine now and again does that mean you're an alcoholic?

that you want your bed to smell like spilled vodka, and stale puke?

that you want your kitchen to smell like gin, or your bathroom to smell like barley?

that you want your clothes to smell of elderberry?

that you drink so much that you fall over?

just because you like a glass of wine at christmas, or a beer at a show? really?

this is not binary. we don't have to choose between never smoking and smoking an ounce a day. there's a large spectrum...

she may even be getting social validation from "being an addict" that she can't get anywhere else.

i'm posting in the rebuild right now about how marijuana isn't addictive.

and, it really isn't.

this is the first pot addict i've ever met...

and, she's no doubt more addicted to the idea of the drug than the drug itself. she probably thinks it makes her cool, or something; it's probably some kind of fear of missing out.

"marijuana is not physically addictive" is a factual statement. that is science. but, they claim it's "psychologically addictive" - which means that heavy users can trick themselves into thinking they're addicted, when they really aren't.

it's more like they want to be addicted, because they think being addicted is cool, and they don't want to miss out.

twisted. truly.

but, as i am contradicting myself, let be me clear: i am well aware that marijuana is not an addictive substance, and when i'm ranting about this woman being a drug addict, i shouldn't be taken fully literally. she's a wannabe addict.

i mean, when i go out, i make sure i have a good time.

but, it's a few times a month, usually.

i'm not out all of the time...

"so, how does she go out to party all the time, then?"

i don't.

i went out once in november, once in december, zero times in january, february or march and twice in april.

i'm often able to save a few dollars over the winter, so that i can go out more frequently in the summer. i also get those gst checks in every three months. but, the budget gives me about $100/month to spend, most months - which is enough for one or two nights out

and, the truth is that i spend most of my time inside in front of the computer.

as you can see.

rent: $700
groceries: $200
estrogen: $90
internet: $30
laundry: $10

roughly.

do i really have to make this argument?

i have one source of income: odsp.

it's $1150/month.

my expenses are $1026/month [if i spend $200 on groceries, which is often an exaggeration].

where do you propose that i get all of this money to get stoned all of the time?

i don't have an alternate source of income. i don't have a marijuana card.

please just accept the fact that i don't smoke.

i get pleasure out of learning, not out of burning out.

there's lots of people on this planet that just don't like marijuana.

i'm not going to say that, exactly.

but i certainly don't enjoy perpetual inebriation.

i'd really rather be sober.

and, i honestly don't know why i have this reputation, otherwise - i am, in fact, usually sober.

it's not that i'm living some kind of ascetic lifestyle or something.

i don't have any kind of philosophical objection to being a stoner - it's just not my idea of a good time.

i simply prefer being sharp-witted, awake, alert. i don't enjoy the sore throat. i don't like being tired....

if i was going to get addicted to something, it would be cocaine, not marijuana. as it is, i'm usually fine with coffee.

i need to be clear: the problem here is not the drugs, it's the user. drugs don't smoke themselves.

if she were to go take a walk, she wouldn't be bothering anybody. she really wouldn't.

but, her insistence on smoking inside is very much bothering somebody: she's making me very sick, and dramatically negatively impacting on my quality of life.

my costing is as follows:

$1000 for moving costs
$300 for materials used to smoke-proof the apartment (which the landlord ordered me to take down)
$500 for laundry & dry-cleaning
$100 for cleaning supplies
$500 for a new bed [my mattress is ruined]
25% of rent paid is $1400, presuming the lease ends august 1st.
==========
$3800

i hope it makes people think twice about renting to drug addicts.

i repeat: the ndp plan around drugs is not going to win voters, it is going to be an albatross around their necks.

the liberals would be wise to avoid it and, in fact, to take advantage of their opponents' mistake.

i'm going to say this one more time.

- the liberals should support pharmacare.
- the liberals should kick the sex work thing down the road a little; it's maybe encouraging in some sense to hear younger people think we're ready for this, but the older generation really isn't and, as a gen xer, i continue to feel torn in between the need to rip down patriarchal rules and protect women from predatory men. if you do this tomorrow, you'll just be legalizing human trafficking at the expense of brown people and for the dubious benefit of rich white girls that won the genetic lottery and want an easy dime.
- the liberals should campaign against the ndp's plan to legalize all drugs, by presenting it as a crazy right-wing idea, which is what it actually is. this is friedman, it is not marx or even keynes. special attention should be drawn to pointing out that canada is not the united states, and does not treat drug users like the united states does; the policy is essentially based around the misunderstanding that we do, and the fact is that we don't. let this join the list of goofy ndp priorities, like abolishing the clarity act and getting rid of the senate, that voters don't actually want at all.

what we really need is for jerry cantrell, kim thayil & mike mcready to start an instrumental guitar band with a revolving cast of drummers & bassists.

given that she's obviously smoking this much because she can't get high any more, she's probably actually at risk of moving to something harder.

i've seen studies arguing both ways, and they're probably both right, depending on the context. i can understand how marijuana could help a heroin addict - although i might suggest methadone, instead. less harmful. on the other hand, when your tolerance to marijuana is as absurd as this woman's is, and the delivery method is giving you pneumonia, it's easy to understand the appeal of something stronger, too.

it probably depends on what stage the addict is in. an opiate addict that wants to get better but is physically addicted could use pot as a crutch, even if they relapse in the long run; a desperate pothead that just isn't getting high anymore might look at opiates as the only way to get what they're after. and, i might have thought that was obscure a few months ago, but i never thought i'd meet somebody that smokes as much as she does, either.

she's obviously just not getting high.

the way marijuana works is that the more you smoke, the less high you get. all drugs are like this: it's the law of diminishing returns.

so, if you wanted to emulate me, for whatever reason, the way to do this is to only smoke once in a while. that way, you get really high from just getting in on the odd round. when you smoke as little as i do, you only have to buy a $5 pre-roll to get stoned enough that you're still feeling it in the morning. those rastas don't even get a buzz off of that.

whatever media exists of me baked is in fact strong evidence that i don't get high very often, as i would be less obviously trashed if i did.

and, the key to accomplishing this level of inebriation on a regular basis is actually to buy into the culture of sobriety. my daily drug of choice is coffee, not marijuana. i've quit tobacco. but, i drink a pot of coffee a day, and only smoke up a couple of times a month - if that. some months, i don't get stoned at all.

you need that space to prevent yourself from developing tolerance; what my media footprint really is is a lack of tolerance, due to sporadic use.

if i smoked as much as people seem to think i do, i wouldn't get high in public at all - i'd just be your average "chill" stoner.

and, if i disappear from public view for a long period, as i tend to, it's safe to assume i'm completely sober during that period. and, i don't want to build up a tolerance - that would just make my infrequent binges less fun.

this should all be obvious, but it isn't, for some reason. people seem to think i somehow get completely ripped from a random toke at the bar, then go home and smoke mad amounts. but, that doesn't actually make any sense, and you should all know that it doesn't...my obviously low tolerance is evidence that i don't smoke much at all....

right now, i just have a sore throat and wish i was more awake.

she's still blazing. every twenty minutes. it's surreal.

if i was writing policy, that would be my primary focus: to get rid of this ridiculous idea that marijuana is some kind of medicine.

that is utterly ignorant.

that must be corrected.

marijuana is a recreational drug that is relatively safe, if consumed in moderation, and should be heavily taxed like alcohol and cigarettes.

it is not a medicine. and, like alcohol, it can be abused with disastrous consequences.

i don't normally sit in this room.

as far as i can tell, she lights a joint about every 20 minutes. and, i've seen these things - they're not joints, they're cigars, really.

she's been chain smoking since about 3:30, maybe a bit before. she seems to have overwhelmed my defenses around 3:30, anyways. let's say 3:40 to make the math easier.

that means she has smoked at least 10 cigar-sized joints in the last 3.5 hours. that's probably at least $50 worth of pot. in the last 3.5 hours. by herself.

that's more expensive than cocaine.

me? i take one three-toke pass between sets and i'm licked until the morning. and, then i don't touch it for three weeks - until the next show.

if she's smoking that much, the sad truth is that it must be because it doesn't actually get her high, anymore. and, so, what's the point of even smoking it?

it's easy to deduce that this woman goes to work all day in order to spend all her money on a drug that makes her really sick, pisses off her neighbours and doesn't even get her high.

doctor's orders?

what a sad joke.

this isn't a medicine, and it's not doing anything for her.

it's an addiction that is ruining her life.

in fact, i am a health nut and enviro-fascist.

i have an extremely healthy diet.

i don't smoke.

i get a lot of exercise.

i recycle in buildings that don't.

i compost.

i don't own a car; i walk, i bike.

i had a struggle with cigarettes that i've won. but, my entire life is centered around minimizing my carbon output and living as healthily and as safely as possible. and, living in other people's smoke is consequently an impossibility - a contradiction, an unacceptable premise.

i'm very sorry if you thought that i was some kind of advocate for heavy drug use, but i've been very clear that i am not.

most marijuana users are not drug addicts, as most alcohol users are not alcoholics. but, the ones that are addicts need help, not normalization.

all i care about is my lungs, which i have gone to great lengths to keep healthy by quitting smoking over two years ago and cannot allow to be damaged due to the selfish negligence of asshole neighbours.

i do not care what happens to her.

she's created her own problems.

i do hope they evict her, but i ultimately don't care.

i care about my own health.

when somebody repeatedly asks you to stop doing something because it's bothering somebody, and you keep doing it, you're an asshole.

no, she's back to smoking again in her usual spots.

the t2 will be mailed on monday.

that's the end of this.

and, don't let anybody tell you that "medicinal marijuana users" aren't drug addicts. there's no other way to understand this: this person is an addict, and she's not going to stop.

she didn't stop when i asked.
she didn't stop when the cops asked.
she didn't stop when the landlord asked.
and, she didn't stop when the owner asked.

that is drug addiction.

period.

t2 is coming.

i need to get out of this hellhole...

the smell in here tonight is tobacco, but i can't get a handle on the source.

it's absolutely revolting.

but, the thing is that a part of it might be the actual floor, and the smell might be the building adjusting to the spring. and, if i'm not careful, i could be blaming people for something that is actually nobody's fault.

also, given that the source is unclear, i could be mistaking the smell of tobacco for the smell of mold.

it's annoying that this happened on the first night after moving my bed out, but it's also a saturday, and i need to deal with one thing at a time.

if or when i move out of here, i'm going to need to be more careful in analyzing the tenants. again: i like the building. it's that i don't like the other people living in it.

i actually don't think this is ford's election to lose. the numbers suggest a coalition government, not a tory victory.

this has been wynne's mandate to blow. and she's blown it. badly.

and, it's frustrating, because i support most of the policies and actually don't want a change in government. but, every time she opens her mouth, something bad happens.

again: maybe kathleen wynne might want to take a look at the results of the last american election, before she paints her opponent as the victor of it.

?

the criticism of the liberals, for years, has been that they live in a bubble. *sigh*.

this is going to be a difficult couple of weeks.

she should have stepped down.

so, what's happening in the saga of the second-hand smoke, now well into it's second year?

as far as i can tell, the woman directly below me is still not smoking in the unit. so, i'm still holding off on that t2. i'm not holding my breath, though.

last night, however, around 1:00, i got a nasty whiff coming from what i think is the tenant diagonally below me. but, i think i can fix that.

it's not that i want to pick on the tenant directly below me, it's just that there's no solution due to the geometry of the unit, and, frankly, the amount of smoke involved. the guy directly across me smokes a little bit - like, a pinner on friday nights, right; minimal. i had fixed that by taping up the door frame. i took the tape down, so i'll have to put in a request to caulk around the frame, instead. problem solved. if the person on the diagonal smokes a little, on weekends or something, i think we can solve that by building up the baseboards - or maybe by asking the person to smoke on the other side of the unit. the point is that there's a solution. unfortunately, it doesn't matter where the woman below me smokes, and i've learned that i can't keep it out - either one of us has to leave, or she's gotta stop smoking. there's no compromise - it has to be absolute.

see, and she's going to cry that it's not fair that she has to stop while everybody else gets to smoke, and maybe that's true. sometimes, life isn't fair. but, all i care about is keeping the smoke out. i'm not pretending that this isn't a difficult situation, i'm just being crystal clear that all i care about is my own well-being. so, i'm not interested in the application of fair laws across the building; this is simply not my prerogative. she happened to be unlucky enough to have a vocal non-smoker move in above her, and the property owner happens to not be sticking up for her. that's how this cookie has crumbled.

i still expect to be the one that moves, in the end, but we're not there, yet.

i flipped out a little last night, because the smoke triggered the bronchitis. i've moved everything out of the bedroom and will need to put in a work order on monday or tuesday. right now, the space is airing out, and i'm going to need to clean the remaining glue out before i put the order in.

what does it look like?

well, it looks a tad worse. i lost a little bit of paint; it's nothing structural, and all of the problems that exist already existed. but, i'll acknowledge some aesthetic issues with the existing damage. which is...

ok: imagine there's a crack in the wall, and imagine that there is smoke seeping in through the crack. so, i put duct tape over the crack as a simple solution - and it mostly works, at least in the short term. then, when i take the tape down, on request of the owner, i peel a little paint off from around the crack, making the crack look a little worse.

you could make the naive argument that i ought to be liable for the damage, but this is really absurd - there was already a crack in the wall and it already needed to be fixed. rather, i'm going to make the following argument:

1) there was a crack in the wall.
2) smoke was coming in through the crack.
3) therefore, i blocked off the crack with duct tape.
4) the property owner has requested that i remove the duct tape.
5) therefore, i am going to request that the crack be fixed to prevent further seepage.

and, i mean, they could sue me if they really want. they'll probably lose. and, even if they win, they'll never get anything out of me.

they should just fix the cracks.

and, that's where i am right now: i have everything back in the living room, i'm caustically waiting for the woman downstairs to light a blunt, which will trigger the final exit, and i'm going to give the property manager a letter in the next few days asking that the cracks in the bedroom be fixed,.

regarding the paint...

yeah. i lost a little paint.

they employ a full time painter.

and they'd have to paint, aytways.

again: they'll spend thousands trying to extract a few dollars out of me, they'll probably lose and if they win they'll never see it. it's going to cost them $10 worth of paint to just fix it.

but, you can't quantify stupidity.

right now, i'm going to eat and try to spend the night rebuilding.

The U.S. and Britain have accused the Syrian government and Russia of delaying the investigation in Douma to stage a cover up.

is this the same mainstream media that consistently accuses social media of peddling conspiracy theories based on flimsy evidence?

the situation is a surreal joke: the most flimsy conspiracy theories consistently come from the united states state department.

i welcome the investigators, but they are not god, either, and need to be subject to a critical analysis, themselves.

maybe we could even take a step back and ask the more fundamental question: why is drug use even a problem in the first place?

why not just shrug the issue away? their lives belong to them. they can do what they want.

a christian might find that appalling. but, you see, i don't actually disagree at all - in theory, that is actually my perspective on the thing: people ought to be able to do what they want to their own bodies. sure. so, then, legalize it, right?

the problem arises when people do what they want to their own bodies, and then show up at a hospital asking for help. at that point, it's no longer about what they're doing to their own bodies, it's about what they're costing society. and, for me, that is what the problem with drug use actually is: the wasted resources that it costs society. and, with opiates particularly, there's not a way to use them that doesn't end up with the user in the hospital, wasting society's resources. we don't have to do this experiment over and over again. we know what the result is - and should consequently ban the use of the substances.

you'll notice that things like the sanctity of life, or the soul of the individual do not enter my reasoning at any step. i don't even reject them, in my reasoning. i just don't even consider them.

do you see how the difference really is religion?

i'll state this again, maybe a little more clearly this time.

as a social anarchist, my focus when it comes to drugs is about managing resources. i don't particularly care much about saving the lives of drug addicts, as i don't consider those lives to be very valuable. what i care about is minimizing the resources that society wastes on drug addicts, with the aim of redirecting those resources towards more valuable uses. while this may appear to be somewhat similar to the desires of a fiscal conservative on the surface, and i will admit to some common cause with fiscal conservatives at a very shallow policy level, it's really a drastically different perspective when analyzed in any level of detail. so, i will support the supervised injection sites (because it minimizes resources wasted treating drug addicts for hepatitis, and aids) while opposing any grand scheme to sink billions into a national prevention program. targeted schemes to save money (and therefore resources..), though, are a good idea - and i will likely support most of them, as they are articulated.

this is very different than a religious perspective, which has somehow ended up on the pseudo-left in this country, but really belongs to the right, which would be focused on saving the lives of each and every drug addict, in order to save their souls or something. i suspect that most people couldn't really explain why they want to save the lives of drug addicts; it's more of a feeling than a thought. but, if you are to attach it to any kind of thought, it would be a religious one. these people want to redirect large amounts of public resources into saving the lives of drug addicts, with little thought about the resource accounting that such a thing would necessitate, and little interest in whether these kinds of things are effective. they're frankly not likely to understand that saving drug addicts means losing cancer patients; they'll argue that this is a false choice, because they're imagining infinite resources, without really thinking about it.

anarchists are legitimately quite different than even marxists, who are nowadays actually pretty utopian. we seem like we don't fit in on the left. but, we're really what the actual left is. and, the difference is that we've moved past religion.

it really is religion that is the difference, here.

see, this is stupid though - those injection sites save the health care system billions by keeping down the spread of infectious diseases. a fiscal conservative ought to support the sites.

and, you can't help drug addicts. that's what the science says - there's nothing you can do, but let them go.

once in a while, they'll help themselves, and it won't matter what you did or didn't do to help them.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/04/20/tory-leader-doug-ford-says-hes-dead-against-safe-injection-sites.html

there's nothing "progressive" about decriminalizing drugs or prostitution - although the latter is potentially less of a problem, if enacted as an effect of full gender equality. to put it another way: once we have full gender equality, then we can start talking about legalizing prostitution. until then, legalized prostitution is inevitably going to take advantage of women for the financial benefit of men - and that is the simple fact of it, no matter how many fat bros want to argue otherwise.

with drugs, however, progress means getting past them, not getting used to them. giving up on the fight to get rid of drugs is cynicism of the highest order, it's not progress.

i'd support pharmacare.

but, where is the pressure to stop the pipelines and push forward on the transition off of carbon? this is a far more pressing concern than legalizing nihilistic and anti-social behaviour is.

it's a little worrying. the liberal party conventions of the past were always very left-leaning. this sounds more like it's a meeting place for the libertarian right.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/04/20/grassroots-liberals-pressure-trudeau-government-to-be-more-progressive.html

again: forum is consistently doing something in it's polling that i think needs to increase it's margin of error. it might just be the ivr system. i don't know. but, they seem to have a margin of error that's closer to 10% than 3%. i don't know why that is, it's just how the numbers tend to work out.

i don't think that the liberals got a bump from the budget, and i don't think it disappeared over the last week, or whatever it was. that would suggest that the voters are currently volatile, and i don't think that's true;  rather, i think that their polling methods are quite volatile, and that's really what you're seeing in their results, which tend to fluctuate all over the place.

with everything considered - the no doubt large undecided vote, along with the inherent tory bias in phone polling - i have little reason to think that the tories are running higher than the mid 30s. it would be useful if they published undecideds and hang-ups, but they can stand on their record in not doing so, in the end. at least, if they tell me the undecideds i can explain why they're not as wrong as they might appear; if they don't tell me the undecideds, i have to just point out that it's unclear how many people are undecided.

but, i will say this again: firming ndp support in ontario is the thing that the liberals need to be most concerned about. and, their current tactics of mimicking the ndp are predictably going to backfire on them. any rational voter, right now, is just going to see the liberals as ndp-lite, and opt to vote for the real thing, instead.

The causes of earthquakes in eastern Canada are not well understood. 

ok.

i guess the plate must be splitting somewhere, but note that the great lakes are thought to be glacial...

http://www.seismescanada.rncan.gc.ca/zones/eastcan-en.php

i would like to see the liberal party convention make a public apology for letting the country down.

we've seen this before.

at the time, the media said all of the same things it's saying now.

we do lived in a post-truth society: and western media are the biggest liars.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-un/u-n-has-testimony-that-syrian-rebels-used-sarin-gas-investigator-idUSBRE94409Z20130505

i have no idea who is responsible for the attacks, because there hasn't been an investigation. how could i know who is responsible, without reading an investigation, first?

am i supposed to take nikki haley at her word? what a fucking joke.

but, past precedent would suggest that the most likely culprit - as it has been in the past - is american-backed rebels, looking to generate the kind of reaction from trump that is being broadcast on western media (even though the president really took advantage of the situation to push his own interests, and did not actually come to anybody's defence at all).

listen.

this is the right way that you approach this.

then, once the report is released, two things can happen:

1) it can be critiqued, to determine flaws and exaggerations. peer review.
2) action can be taken, where deemed appropriate.

the world can't be allowing the united states to go around bombing people based on gut instincts, and colloquialized applications of terms from probability theory - as disingenuous as that may even be, in the precise example.

can i see your hypothesis testing, ms. may? no? k. didn't think so.

i'm not even going to say the bombing shouldn't have happened, as that would be just as bad as jumping to the conclusion that it ought to have. the problem here is a lack of due process - and this is absolutely necessary to establish, in context.

the united nations doesn't appear to be working any more, and i don't have specific suggestions as to approaches or paths to reform, but we need to find a way to re-establish process. the world cannot be a macrocosm of the wild west; there must be a sheriff in town.

as far as i can tell, the only major western politician that has reacted intelligently to this is jeremy corbyn.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/04/13/47-groups-urge-un-secretary-general-act-syria

the smell tonight - and this isn't the first time - is overwhelming levels of garlic.

this is actually leading me back to meth; maybe they are smoking outside, but i can smell their armpits from here, kind of thing. meth users are known to smell like garlic - like, not from the smoke, but from the body odour.

nobody eats garlicy meals for hours straight. i guess somebody could have left something out, but it's happened repeatedly.

somebody could have terrible gas, and i could be smelling it over and over again. it's actually quite plausible.

it could be another distraction tactic - burning garlic so i can't smell the pot.

but, the reality is that all evidence points towards this building being some kind of meth centre - either through production, or through massive use.

is there some possibility that all of the potheads around me are smoking laced pot and don't know it? well, three months ago i'd have told you that the premise of meth-laced marijuana is crazy talk. you'll find it with pcp from time to time, unfortunately - it's unpleasant; you deal with it. but, meth? this isn't real, right?

maybe it is.

i may never figure out what the truth is around this. i've got clues, and i can put them together, but getting some kind of confirmation is going to be almost impossible. and, i'm no doubt just scratching the surface of something.

i don't need or even want to know, frankly.

but the clearer the meth connection gets, the more i want out.

it's possible that somebody just needs to shower more frequently. but, it's really one thing after another...

i need to be clear: i don't know if these leaves are being burned or cooked with.

i noticed a mild cheesy smell, as well.

it could be some kind of chili.

like i say: if the pot smell goes away, we'll deal with this as it is. i doubt that happens.

i don't care what your witch-doctor says.

smoke is never good for you.

ever.

"burn bay leaves in the house and see what happens after ten minutes"

i'm going to ask for an x-ray of your lungs, and observe that you're coughing your ass off.

smoke is smoke.

so, stop burning shit inside...it's all the same cancer-causing smut...

tobacco. marijuana. sage. now, bay leaves. it's all the same thing.

tonight was a little weird.

i took some of the tape off of the kitchen cabinets, and what it revealed was this overpowering smell of bay leaf, that i remember smelling when i first moved in - and which was in fact the initial reason that i taped up the cabinets. the smell of marijuana only presented itself once the smell of bay leaf had subsided.

see, here's the thing: i don't actually care about the smell. this is a rank, nasty smell - granted. but, it's a minor annoyance. what i care about is the damage caused by second hand smoke - which means that burning sage inside would be as bad as smoking pot. worse, really, because it's pointless.

as it is, i don't know if the request not to smoke was heeded or not because i couldn't smell anything over the bay leaves.

i'm not sure where the smell of bay leaves is coming from, but i suspect that re-opening the hole on the bottom of the cabinet has left me at the whim of a number of tenants. i remember concluding at the time that the cabinet must be connected to six units moving down, around the plumbing, and that it was just never properly finished - thereby meaning that i can plausibly smell the guy three floors down when he makes a burrito. it's maybe facile to suspect that the smell of indian food is coming from the indian tenant, but it could very well be true. at the least, this is the same stench that came in when i moved in, so it's not infrequent. and, in the end, whether this is by design (by the pothead) or by coincidence doesn't matter.

i need to reiterate that bad smalls are not the same thing as second-hand smoke, and that this is a fundamentally different type of problem.

nonetheless, while the tape was only partly successful in keeping the smell of marijuana smoke out of the cabinets, it was actually quite successful in keeping out the smell of everybody else's food. if she surprises me and continues to smoke outside for any length of time, if she even is at all right now, i'm still going to need to get somebody in to fix the cabinet. i had an easy solution that worked well, but we can go with a more expensive solution if the property owner would prefer. i don't expect this happens; i'll be surprised if she's not blazing all day tomorrow.

for right now, i'm going to have to suffer this, keeping in mind the following truth: if i can smell their stinky herbs, then they can smell my fresh citrus air fresheners, too. and, i can be pro-active in pushing nice smells down to ward off their evil ones.

i've got about 1/4 of the tape off, but in the process of everything happening over the last few days, i've aggravated an injury i suffered last week when i was cleaning up my bicycle. it's a small cut on my right thumb (the most important finger.....) that has reopened and that i'd like to close before i continue with the process of ripping up tape off of baseboards. so, i'm going to wait until monday before i get back to that.

i actually don't have anything planned this weekend; it seems to be quiet in detroit. i may change my mind at the last minute, but i'm expecting to stay in and type. i keep pointing out that december shouldn't take long, once i can sit down and do it. if the weekend goes through uneventfully, i guess i'll get to clearing off the tape on monday; if it doesn't, i guess i'll file the t2 on monday morning, and focus on looking for new apartments, then pull the rest of the tape off as i'm moving out.

i noticed something a bit like a really, really big truck driving by,

it could have actually been a really, really big truck driving by - although such a truck would have had to have been really, really big.

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/earthquake-amherstburg-ontario-southwestern-detroit-river-usgs-windsor-london/99803/

http://www.greenmunch.ca/straws/

the straw is a kind of useless thing, really, and i wouldn't mourn it's end.

but, if you are more smitten by it than i, we could always shift to making it out of something biodegradable, like hemp.

more broadly speaking, i would rather see the way we manufacture plastic transformed, even revolutionized, than the way we use it dictated by the state.

that was truly bizarre.

this enforcer of a man shows up, with a thick french accent, looking like denis coderre, that time he filled in for dave semenko, and declares, with a snort, that there shall be no smoking in the building.

he claims that there is a no smoking clause in the lease (there is not).
he claims that he could enforce such a clause (he could not).

and he has decided, by decree that this is the solution to the problem.

further, i am to remove all of the tape from the wall.

i'm going to take the tape down, but i hardly have faith in the outcome. it's just that i'd have to take the tape down anyways, so i'd might as well do it now.

regardless, that means they get another day or two to put off the t2.

note that tomorrow is 4/20.

i mean, don't get me wrong - i hope this works. is it "crazy enough that it just might work"? who knows. who knows. we'll see. but, i think the outcome is a foregone conclusion, and...

...i should really go ahead and start writing the t2 up tonight.

right now, i'm going to lose another day on the unit. ugh.

well, everything is in order in the space, or at least as much as it can be for now.

i'll find out in a few hours if my next step is to wait for renovations, or to file a t2 to end the tenancy.

at the least, i won't be spending any more time rearranging furniture in the other room; i should get back to this shortly, one way or another.

i'll have to continue to run through the files after jan 10th. but, it should pick up quite a bit after that, as the blog started when i picked back up in june; the direction of information then flips, and it becomes about pulling information down, rather than putting it up.

thankfully, the weather seems finally set to turn, so i should be able to keep the windows open most of the time.

well, there's my quarterly stomach wrench.

it's officially spring in windsor. finally. but i need to sit for a bit, too...

as with the last few days, i had difficulty getting out of bed this morning, no doubt due to the poor air quality in the unit. the property owner - from bc - woke me up, with a request to inspect the unit today.

this is actually what i want. sort of. i think. i mean, i put in the request for renovations. so, the next step is to inspect the two units - and i did hear the knock downstairs a few minutes before hand.

there's an off chance they could show up with an n5 or something, but if they do that i'm going to file a t2 anyways, so it's just a waste of time - that would be stupid of them. i've been clear that i want to leave, i'm just giving them a last opportunity to save my tenancy before i get the court to let me out. trying to evict me for trying to smoke-proof the apartment when i'm trying to get out of the lease due to second-hand smoke is likely to get me some judicial sympathy. it would make more sense for them to just buy me out.

i think they're worried about the duct tape. it's not the problem they're maybe imagining it is, partly because of the smoke, itself. the first place i taped up was the closet and the tape had been dried out by the smoke within three months. judging by that, the tape may fall off on it's own by the summer; even if it doesn't, it should come off cleanly with a wet rag.

so, if they try to do that, i'll have to countersue for the cost of the tape - which i was going to do anyways - and then disassemble all of the tape. i'll have to show up with some pictures indicating that there is no damage at all, but that i still want out of the lease, anyways. oops?

i decided that i'd spent the first part of the day rebuilding, get something to eat and clean the place up overnight. if the place is too cluttered, they could claim a fire code violation; obscure, but i didn't want to give that to them. and, if they come in tomorrow with a renovation plan, i could still salvage the tenancy - so why not set up the unit? there's still some chance i could get started on period 3 before i leave here.

i couldn't stay awake so i stopped to eat early and got to cleaning early. and i got a little optimistic about things. maybe this will work out?

but, i got the plumes coming up from downstairs around 21:00, and it was just too much - this place is not inhabitable.

still, i carried through to see, and i'm going to be sad to leave here, even though i must. i like this place for what it is, but it's just not a healthy place to live, and i'm getting to an age where i need to be concerned about my health. it would be negligent to my own well-being to let myself exist in this kind of environment any longer than necessary.

the immediate fire code issue is resolved, at least. i mean, the place was always navigable. but, i'm quite thin.

i'm hoping it's just a nap, but these stomach wrenches really require me to stop until they pass.

i've said this repeatedly: i am incapable of passing the workplace behaviour test.

that is supposed to be the easy one.

but, i've failed it repeatedly.

i simply don't understand it.

note that i've aced the competency tests, though. my iq scores are quite high; it's my behaviour that is unacceptable.

so, what i need is an isolated environment, where i can keep social interactions with others to an absolute minimum. this apartment is not that space...

somebody with a social aptitude as low as mine is going to require drugs and/or alcohol to function in a social situation, and will regularly abuse substances due to feelings of social inadequacy; somebody like me is consequently not well advised to medicate with mind-altering substances, as it is likely to trigger episodic behaviour rather than alleviate it.

i have never been (substantively) diagnosed with depression.

i have never experienced treatment for depression.

i do not believe that i suffer from depression.

i am diagnosed with "social anxiety disorder", which is like the lowest level of personality disorder. i do believe that i have a personality disorder. however, i've never been able to get this diagnosed because i supposedly am not episodic.

in fact, i believe that i am constantly episodic, but i just can't get a doctor to take the evidence i've provided seriously because it's not coming from a police report or a hospital. this is the catch-22: i can't get diagnosed until i do something crazy, but i've generally been able to utilize the resources available to me effectively enough to stop myself from going over the precipice. so, the more that the system works, the weaker my argument that i need it is.

unfortunately, i may need to go through a court process to get properly diagnosed - that's how a mental health system works in a calvinist society. and, if i never get through the court process, i may never get properly diagnosed - despite presenting myself repeatedly to mental health professionals for this purpose.

the basic understanding of the situation is that my social skills are too chronically underdeveloped to allow me to function in any kind of workplace. there's lots of jobs i could theoretically do, if i wanted to, but i can't handle the social component.

i'm going to argue with management. i'm going to argue with staff. my co-workers will dislike me, and i will dislike them, back. i will not want to spend time with them. i will be passed over for promotion, as i am unable to build social relationships. and, i will ultimately demonstrate little interest in what i'm doing, as a consequence of it.

we generally think of disability in terms of mental or physical aptitude. but, there is a third dimension - social aptitude - that is every bit as important in gaining and holding employment. in some ways, this is the most important skill of all.

and, my diagnosis is that my social aptitude is so low that you can label me socially retarded.

i would be willing to explore this further through treatment. but, there is not a solution to this problem.

i don't have a lot of positive things to say about the bush family, but i can't imagine what tomorrow looks like after 73 years.

that's something deserving of empathy, regardless of the topic of conversation.

i mentioned this the other day into my vlog camera. it'll come up to youtube, one day.

i'm walking by a cemetery and there's this old woman howling at the gravestone. i'm thinking to myself...

you howled at this poor bastard every day for how many years, and then you show up to his gravestone to keep at it? jesus, lady. it says rest in peace.

i'm an asshole, and i have a dark sense of humour, but i'm not heartless. and, the thought crosses my mind: i'm glad i'll never have to deal with that.

i could barely handle breaking up with somebody after a couple of years.

after 73 years? i don't think i'd make it a day.

not even if i hated the fucker, in the end.

the person that i smoked most often with as a teenager used to get it from his older brother.

we had a bit of a falling out, and the next friend i met got it from somebody he got in contact with through his older brother.

i was the oldest, and my dad wouldn't admit it, so i didn't have any contacts - i had to rely on my friends for it.

this is the reality: kids get it from family members or the family members of friends, not shady weirdos on school playgrounds. and, no amount of regulation, however well meaning, will stop somebody from smoking their kids or younger siblings, or their friends, when they feel the time is right.

my dad claimed he quit years ago, although i caught him red-eyed a few times. he wouldn't admit it; he had some kind of weird thing about it.

but, the first person i saw smoke a joint was my friend's dad. i think we were in the 7th grade - late, because i was a little sheltered, growing up on a military base.

a few years later, that same friend would bring pot to school and smoke it at lunch. and where'd he get it from? his dad.

this is the whole point, guys. it's a part of the culture. it's not some shady thing. the idea is that we can better address health & safety issues by normalizing and destigmatizing it on a legal level - while putting more of a focus on how absurdly unhealthy it is.

the idea that kids should be - or even could be - kept away from marijuana is simply not realistic. it is far too deeply embedded in the culture for this.

which is obvious.

so, why isn't it obvious to the premier?

ugh.

you know where kids get exposed to pot from, first and foremost?

their parents.

that's actually pretty normal.

i hate everybody the same, though; i'm an equal opportunity hater.

things like physical characteristics or ideological leanings won't make me hate you more or less.

i will acknowledge that i'm relatively good at pretending that i like people.

but, trust me: i don't like you.

at all.

i'm a humongous introvert.

i don't have any friends.

so, finding drugs is a difficult process. i have to go talk to people, pretend i like them, even hang out with them for a little while, sometimes.

i'd rather just go to the fucking store.

that's the point. that's why casual users support legalization: because we don't like the social requirements attached to finding drugs.

so, you've got this completely backwards.

i'm sorry.

i don't even know where it came from. was it my profile pic? the fact that i'm vocally pro-legalization?

did you have some desire to uphold me as a high-functioning drug addict?

all of it was a lie - but it wasn't a lie i told. i was clear about the truth, whenever i could be.

i am not and never have been a pothead. i've only ever smoked sporadically and recreationally. once in a while - and generally sparingly.

very little of the writing i've done has been under the influence of drugs. that's a false perception, and one i've never perpetuated - the misunderstanding is 100% on your side.

and, if you think about it, it's really the casual users that benefit the most from legalizing the drug, as we don't buy large amounts in bulk, anyways - we don't mind if we overpay a little, because we don't buy much, anyways. what's more important to us is being able to find it on the rare occasion we want to, because we don't have dealers and don't know where to go to find it.

heavy smokers generally tend to be pessimistic about this, and largely ok with the status quo. it's the infrequent users that want this to happen.

it's not my fault. i told you - again and again and again. you didn't listen.

there's an old cliche about not judging a book by it's cover. i suppose this needs to be updated slightly, but the idea is no less valid: don't judge an individual by their memes.

i shouldn't have slept another 10 hours this morning, and i'm actually going to blame it on the weather. we got some snow overnight...

all i can do is get going.

and, now, i'll have to put off eating until i get through the month, however long it takes.

also - for those that are curious, there will, in fact, be a youtube / music review blog, and it will go over all of the music discussions that i've skipped at the two existing blogs.

but, this will only become relevant when i launch the music review site, and that won't be for years, probably.

yes. there will be a point in the mid 2020s where i'll post youtube comments from 2014 to a blogspot archive - along with facebook posts from 2009.

the existing focus is really on building liner notes for inri000-inri074, and then tying them altogether into the aleph discs.

that gets me through november, 2015, which was still a heavy posting month. it took ten days to finish, but i didn't spend most of those 10 days posting, so, if i can keep up that kind of productivity, i could be done december in a day or two.

i didn't get my blast of smoke tonight around 21:30. that's a positive. i think i should be alert for a good while, then.

this is taking a long time, and i kind of knew it would, but it's not a choice i have to make. i need to at least follow this through up to mid 2016 in order to finish the liner notes for inri000. and, given that i'm coming up on inri015 in the alter-reality, that's going to push me through until late 2016, at least.

also, keep in mind that the next things to do are to finish the aleph discs, as well. the period 1 aleph disc should be ready to ship by the end of 2020. so, i'd might as well just push through.

i'll look back on this in a few years and be glad i did it.

also: i've been over this before...

if you're a free market libertarian type, you might misunderstand a lot of my arguments as being socially conservative. but, that's the restricted spectrum at work. i'm usually pretty good at pointing out why my arguments are on the actual left, rather than the pretend left that the restricted spectrum presents, but i'll admit it gets tiring to repeat myself. at the least, there's enough material here now that you should be able to put the logic together, if you've been reading this for any extended period of time....

the simple statement is that leftists find themselves more concerned about things like resource management than liberals do, because we reject the premise of infinite growth. we try to avoid scaremongering around artificial scarcity, but we're far more serious about the realities around actual scarcity, and consequently far more conscious of how to utilize scarce resources in ways that ensure everybody has access, not just those that have the financial ability.

as liberals tend to promote markets, they react to the problems around scarcity by merely increasing prices. that reduces access, thereby saving the scarce resource by only making it accessible to an elite. the more scarce the resource, the more expensive it becomes. leftists tend to argue that this doesn't seem very liberal, really; we insist that everybody should have access, which means we need to manage it better than just setting a price on it.

well, almost everybody should have access, anyways.

some restrictions are going to be necessary. and, this is the ideological breaking point between liberalism and the left: do you want access to scarce resources to be determined by wealth, or would you prefer it to be determined by need? and, if so, are you willing to put reasonable restrictions on access to scarce resources, to ensure that they are available to most - or will you allow those resources to be accessed at will by those that have the finances to pay for it?

in between liberalism and the left exist the hippies. in the distant european past, the hippies were actually fundamentalist christians; a little further back, and they become heathen peasants. marx called them "utopian socialists" and contrasted them with what he called "scientific socialism". these people want universal access to scarce resources, and the only argument they present to justify this is in the realm of magical thinking. they deny that scarce resources are actually scarce. these people are unfortunate, but they are also rather numerous, and they're largely outside the realm of meaningful discourse.

i need to repeat: i don't think the hydro rates are all that bad.

it's the service fees that strike me as ridiculous.

and, that's not the government's fault. that's the electricity company price gauging me...

who wants to be tired all of the time, and why?

i admit i drank a lot on friday night, but that doesn't explain why i can't stay awake on monday afternoon.

the air quality in here got better around midnight, but it's....it's weird...instead of getting these plumes of smoke, i'm getting this persistent dusty background, and the odd whiff of it.

i'm tired, not very alert, kind of slow-moving, groggy and stuck with a scratchy throat. i'm not sure where it's coming from, but i'm going to try opening the window overnight.

something changed, and it's for the better, but i'm still feeling it. let's hope i'm awake enough to get some serious rebuilding done tonight.

what about the hydro thing?

well, i'm currently getting free hydro due to the subsidies. that's right: free hydro. my last two bills had $39.02 & $40.14 credits on them - meaning the hydro company actually owes me $79.16. i don't know if i get a check at the end or not...

but, this is due to the fact that i barely use any.

the credit is $69. so, you can see that my hydro bill would be about $30. but, of that, about $25 is a flat rate set by the company.

i actually use less than $10 worth of actual electricity a month. it's more like $7.

so, i'm not going to benefit from cancelling this program, and i'm not going to benefit from a rate cut, either. i would benefit from stronger regulations on the transmission company - perhaps a law that outlaws base rate charges, or minimum fees.

so, i prefer the liberal plan on hydro.

but, i don't want to elect doug ford. so, i might have to make a difficult choice on that.

further, i suspect that horwath will backtrack on her hydro plans, which seem to be designed to win votes from low information voters (many of whom would actually be hurt by her proposals) rather than to lower rates.

it plays into the trust issue with the ndp - they're simply not being honest about this, leaving people to guess at what they're actually going to do.

she seems to be doing this correctly, but when is she going to get that traction?

i don't believe that ford is running in the high 30s. i think he's running in the mid to low 30s - about where harper was running. the problem right now is that the liberal base in ontario doesn't seem to want to budge below about 25%, and that doesn't give the ndp a lot of room to play with. when you take the greens into consideration, her maximum polling potential, if she swings every single undecided, ends up in the mid 30s. more likely is that you end up with this horrid three-way split, where they're all in the low 30s......

the vote could still fall in place nicely. ford is going to win some seats in toronto, but he's going to have a harder time in the suburbs, and that's going to balance things out. the ndp are almost certainly to be uncompetitive in the suburbs. so, you could conceivably end up in this situation where the liberals win a lot of upper class seats, the ndp win a lot of urban seats and the conservatives win the balance - and lose the election, while winning the popular vote.

or, it could fall in place terribly, and ford could sweep based on a total split.

but, remember this: the conservatives cannot win a minority in ontario. the liberals lean too far to the left. a conservative minority means a liberal-ndp coalition government. and, that means the conservatives have to be polling a lot higher than i think they're actually polling in order to actually take power...

given that a coalition may be the most likely outcome right now, there are a couple of ridings where the ndp & liberals may want to choose not to compete against each other in. not all, or even most. but a couple...

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/reevely-leaving-liberals-for-dead-andrea-horwath-out-lefts-kathleen-wynne-with-a-smile-on-her-face

if the liberals aren't the party of science - of rationalism, of secularism - then they are useless and will cease to exist.

we need science-based arguments, including laws minimizing second-hand smoke exposure, and not right-wing fear-mongering.

the scientific reality is that a mcdonald's near a school is more dangerous than a head shop is.

do they do this sort of analysis around fast food restaurants?

but, there's schools everywhere. and, do they do the same kind of consultation with liquor stores? or convenience stores?

this is empty politicking. and, it's going to alienate more people than it's going to appeal to.

i'm actually not entirely opposed to the idea of having giant warehouses rather than little head shops, if it means that the warehouses have less restrictive hours. but, there is probably literally nowhere in toronto that has the characteristics she's projecting.

she's not going to win this election by campaigning against pot.

https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2018/04/16/premier-asks-for-community-consultation-on-cannabis-store-locations.html

i hope the provinces make a big deal about refusing to accept the costs, and it blows up in their face.

this is stupid.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4142592/trudeau-liberals-overhaul-discriminatory-immigration-law-disabilities/

it's actually really not at all surprising that trudeau is more interested in the will of international investors than in the will of the canadian people.

this basic fact - that what non-canadians think is more important than what canadians think - permeates every decision made by this government. i've been pointing it out for months.

for all the talk of post-colonialism, this is the most nakedly colonial government we've had in decades.

to be clear: my understanding is that one of these people leaves for work late in the evening, and that this person seems to be in control of the situation, when she's there - but that, as soon as she leaves, the other people light up.

see, and this is as disrespectful to the person on the lease as it is to me. but, she may feel as though she has no responsibility. that's just a bad friend, whatever kind of friend it is...

it was nice in here. warm. dry. clean.

it's a shame they had to ruin it.

i've suspected for a while that there's two people living there, taking shifts.

it may be that the night shift seems to be worse than the day shift and that the night shift only works weekdays or something. i dunno. but, it seems like it's that one is worse than the other.

the property manager insists there's only one person living there, but this isn't true. is the bigger problem even on the lease? and, if so, why is this woman letting this other woman create all of these problems for her?

about 21:30, they're back at it.

so, what happened over the weekend, and why did it change all of a sudden?

i'm going to guess that there's a point where they get too stoned to care; like i say, i know the psychology fairly well. they may even regret it when they wake up, but they'll decide it doesn't matter any more. and, this is a cycle - if they get another scary warning, they'll stop for a few days, and then get really stoned and stop caring again.

again: somehow, these people are being prescribed marijuana as a cure for depression and apathy. it's not clicking that it's at the root cause of their problems, rather than a solution to them. and, any doctors that are enabling them ought to be liable for this.

for right now, i have no choice but to open the windows and hope it clears out.

i don't know what changed, exactly, but i'm happy about the air quality this weekend.

is there some possibility that this could still work? well, i don't really know what happened. i know that the second letter appears to have had some effect, but who knows for how long.

i guess i should wait until may 1st before i finish cleaning up and setting up the studio.

it's been almost a week since i was at this, but here i go, back at it. let's get through 2015 before i do anything else....

it's known that rachel drinks a lot.

i think that's the key variable.

what are the betting odds on a trudeau-notley "thing" ongoing or developing?

i'm operating solely on body language. but, i think it's incriminating.

not that i even really care, i'm just saying.

so, it seems as though the pipeline meeting was pointless.

here's the thing: trudeau can write some new legislation if he'd like. but, that legislation will then be subject to a constitutional challenge, and that itself will be very lengthy.

even if the pipeline is owned by the feds and it only goes through federal land, that federal land is still in provincial jurisdiction, and, perhaps more importantly, surrounded by land that is, as well.

the division of powers in the constitution is not specific enough to make a clear deduction, and lawyers suggesting it is are in for a rude surprise when they get to court. these lands are probably mostly subject to the changes that occurred in the transfer agreements of 1930, which should give the provinces jurisdiction over natural resources; at the time, a part of the reason this was done was to minimize aboriginal influence, as their treaties were with the crown, rather than the province. now that the province is onside with the aboriginals, the fed wants to take control back again, by citing the 1867 documents. that's not going to work.

this is going to take some time to work out, and everybody will need to deal with it.

that said, trudeau has some leverage, in terms of withholding funding. but, if he were to withhold funding to build a pipeline, it would turn him into a pariah, the country over. that would be suicidal.

and, of course, if abbey road meant it was bed time, then sgt peppers meant it was time to wake up.

i blew the day, yesterday. it happens sometimes. i need to do a bit more cleaning and get back to work tonight.

the air quality in here has improved dramatically over the last 48 hours; we'll have to see if my second letter worked or not, but it's going to be a while before i can make any conclusions. for right now, it's better, at least. if it stays like this, i won't have to move.

if.

it's unclear to me why a city the size of toronto would be unable to recycle items that are recyclable elsewhere, and i'm frankly tired of being told that citizens are at blame for this, as though the recycling industry is above us in some way, and that it's alright if they can't be bothered to separate out things.

the coffee bins are a good example. there's a big market for these things. so, it should fall on the city to find a way to recycle them, if they end up in the bin - even if that means shipping them somewhere else.

if something is recyclable, the city should not be throwing it away just because it isn't locally recyclable; it should be making that effort to deal with the issue. and, if that costs money then they should ask for it; recycling is a core, essential service and not something that should be done on the cheap.

we need a change in culture, alright. and, it seems like the first culture that needs to change is the culture at the recycling plant.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/04/13/bringing-purity-to-torontos-blue-bins.html

what we should do is create an organization and model it after the mormons, who are known for posthumously baptizing people. i think this is a strange thing, but i don't imagine that a dead person would care much if they were baptized; there's not really a mechanism for it.

but, we should create an organization that posthumously awards all of the people that have died from drug overdoses with darwin awards, and have that organization keep detailed records in a deep library, as though they are monks, and the monastery they administer has a sacred purpose to remember the lives of all of the people that willingly removed themselves from the gene pool.

the liberals were never the stupid party. we'll see in a few weeks if they've become it or not.

non-users need to stop proselytizing like religious fundamentalists and rather come to terms with the fact that they can't help them, they need to move on.

my view on drugs is towards total state non-involvement.

the laws should not be changed, but they should not be enforced, either - which, in canada, is really the status quo. they only really arrest dealers, here.

but, no new money should be spent on treatment, prevention or enforcement. that money should be spent on more valid health care priorities to help people that aren't individually responsible for their own fucking problems.

and, i actually think that if the government gets completely out of the way then the industry will kill itself off; it's state involvement that keeps it going. by stepping in and saving the lives of addicts, and regulating use through various schemes, we're actually propping the industry up...

if you just step back and completely wash your hands of it, they'll eventually all die, and the problem will cease to exist.

but, this is no doubt why the industry wants state regulation - to maintain a customer base. the longer the state keeps you alive, the more drugs you buy. it's how you would expect the cartels would want to design the system.

the drug conglomerates of the future will have treatment subsidiaries, along with distribution subsidiaries. because, they are of course going to want to make a profit from the entire cycle of drug abuse - from first use right to death.

how many times have i told you that i'm not a christian?

i think the status quo regarding drug use is fine.

stupid people buy drugs; stupid people die from drug use. the result is less stupid people. what's the down side?

and, i feel no prerogative to save the lives of these people.

at all.

let them die.

see, this is really just a bunch of utter nonsense.

the reality is that treatment doesn't work. so, this idea that we have some kind of successful option in front of us rather than a failed option is a false dilemma - neither of these approaches will save lives, and they are both absurdly expensive.

the real difference is around two questions:

1) should we be socially sanctioning drug use? it's almost impossible to not do that in a society where drug use is legal.
2) who profits from the drug trade? this includes the treatment industry.

underneath every article like this is a financial trail. somebody stands to profit from legalization, and they are the people writing these pieces.

drug addicts don't get better, and it's irresponsible to suggest there's a way to fix them by spending a lot of public money. that is money that could be put into other areas with better likelihoods of successful outcomes, like cancer research.

you just need to let them go and move on with your own life.

i oppose the resolution and hope it fails.

but, ironically, if it passes, it would make the ndp less unattractive - because they're both supporting the same thing, anyways.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2018/04/15/the-case-for-decriminalizing-drugs.html

the author of this piece misunderstands the point.

the bill doesn't intend to place indigenous spiritual belief on the same footing as science in an epistemological sense, it merely codifies an existing judicial precedent that orders industry to have some respect for the religious beliefs of the indigenous inhabitants before they start fucking around with things.

i don't have a lot of patience for these spiritual beliefs. but, i don't have to believe in the premise of a land being sacred in order to respect that these other people do believe that and that, as the land ought to belong to them and only does not due to a historic injustice, they ought to have sovereignty to make those decisions, whether i accept the premise or not.

i can consequently make fun of them for their goofy beliefs and uphold their right to make sovereign decisions around those goofy beliefs, all at the same time - and stand in solidarity with members of their own community that may have their rights, as individuals, inflicted upon by those same goofy beliefs, when it is the case.

i don't know who the author of the piece is, but i suspect they don't know much about canadian law. and, i'd suggest to the washington post that the candian jurisprudence really is complicated enough that you actually do really have to get a canadian expert to talk about it; sending american lawyers after canadian jurisprudence (and legislation modelled after it) is just going to create some confused yankees.

but, the logic is simple enough: this is an additional requirement, and it may be no less important than the science as a requirement, but that doesn't place it on an equal footing with science on an epistemological level...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/04/13/how-trudeau-is-sacrificing-science-in-the-name-of-aboriginal-peace/

nobody outside of alberta is going to vote in favour of a pipeline; this does not affect non-albertans at all in any way.

however, plenty of people outside of bc will vote against a pipeline, because it certainly does affect everybody, and rather considerably.

so, while i'm not going to comment on the results of online "polling", which i consider to be so useless as to be no better than a random guess, the numbers that they are measuring are of little value in the first place.

trudeau can only lose seats by supporting the pipeline.

but, if he's lucky, the number of sophisticated voters like me - that expected him to support the oil industry, and are more interested in structural approaches towards transition - will outnumber the number that kneejerk against it.

but, he has to do a lot more on the transition file; he has to demonstrate concrete results.

the show last night was...

they play short sets. that's how it is.

it was good, but too short.

i was there way too early; my bike is ridable in the short term, but probably going to literally crumble in my hands at some point. i'm not going to bring it back to canada. i'll just ride it until it dies. i'll probably bring something to clean the rust off, next time. if i can get a year out of it, it was a bargain. it won't last another winter...unless i can get it in somewhere, like the trumbullplex.

they might let me do it. they have space.

as i was there early, i pre-drank a lot, and i ended up pretty drunk. so, i'm actually just coming to in any serious sense, just now. i smell like the fire pit at el club, and need to shower.

i'm developing a love-hate relationship with el club. the sound is great, and the crowd is always solid. but, the shows end before midnight. consistently. the band was done at 11:50, and i just don't know if the set was or could have been longer.

but, i know that they do this - that they have this attachment to half hour sets as an inherently punk thing.

and, they consequently rarely play older songs.

there were a few points in the show where i had this different understanding of them, as an off-broadway kind of operatic show tune act. her vocals are becoming the central focus of what the band is doing, and i do think that the whole thing is shifting in the process.

but, this isn't a full review, which i'm very behind on.

trump is complicit in the ongoing catastrophe in yemen and is responsible for a couple of stupid stunts in syria.

but, let us stop to pause for a moment.

clinton - yugoslavia
bush - iraq & afghanistan
obama - libya, yemen, ukraine & syria
trump - has not started a war, yet.

let that sink in for a minute.

right now, trump is the only president in modern history that hasn't started a war.

and, frankly, if he holds to that, he may end up the lesser evil in the next cycle.

it's a shame that he's so terrible on the climate....which is really what the democrats should be running on in the next cycle...

According to reports in the immediate aftermath of the attack, the strikes involved the first combat use of the JASSM advanced missile, reportedly fired from US B1-B Lancer heavy bombers.

i might actually suggest that these ads don't have a lot of reach anymore.

i don't have a tv, and i run an adblocker. that was the only time i'll see this ad. and, i'm likely to forget about it altogether in 5....4....3....2...1...

http://nationalpost.com/news/ontario-liberals-launching-first-campaign-ad-ahead-of-election-focus-on-ford

if you're of a certain age, you probably had paul mccartney sing you to sleep for a substantive amount of your childhood.

that's how you knew it was bedtime.

or, if you're really lucky, a drunk dad doing a paul mccartney impression, albeit only on select occasions.

what?

i have memories of my parents (my dad, actually...) using that song as a life lesson.

kids like music. they learn better through song. that's why kids shows are full of music.

i learned all kinds of things from classic rock. really.

but, somebody missed that life lesson, i think.

hey, justin.

did your mom ever play you this one?

this is a valid point.

but, it's an argument to pull out of nafta, not an argument to complete the pipeline.

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/terence-corcoran-ottawas-next-big-pipeline-problem-kinder-morgan-suing-us-through-nafta

this is a much better explanation than anything you'll see in the tory media.

https://www.desmog.ca/2018/04/13/they-re-not-getting-how-constitution-works-why-trudeau-notley-can-t-steamroll-b-c-kinder-morgan-pipeline

i agree.

justin trudeau is teaching us a very valuable lesson about aristocracy. the tory media, ever a mouthpiece for inherited wealth, really isn't helping the situation by confusing people - perhaps including the prime minister - about the nature of a federal system.

i don't actually think that it makes sense for alberta to be in a confederation with ontario.

but, what trudeau is showing us is that he doesn't understand the law. and, why would he? what training does he have?

he's operating solely on the "whining rich kid" level. and, that's exactly what he's going to do in this meeting he's scheduled with horgan - he's going to cry and whine and stamp his feet and yell that he's not getting his own way.

because he always gets his own way - that's the nature of the kind of privilege he grew up in.

and why he was always a terrible choice for any sort of executive position.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/04/14/news/quebec-warns-trudeau-about-kinder-morgan

geez, guys, everybody knows it's never the cook.

it's always the butler.

c'mon. those are the really important sanctions.

https://www.thestar.com/news/analysis/2018/02/17/russian-indictments-appear-to-target-putins-cook.html

i don't know if there were chemical weapons used in syria.

past attacks have been orchestrated by us-friendly rebels in order to instigate or justify american bombing runs.

it would not justify a unilateral airstrike, if there were. that should go through the united nations.

but, i don't believe a word that the united states says.

so, they bombed some empty factories.

now, trump can go on the talkshows and be the military guy for a few days. and the news can focus on something besides the scandals for a few days.

russia has to sound tough. but they shouldn't overreact. the key needs to be in using that deconfliction line to make sure the targets are understood beforehand.

and, hopefully the united states is not far from more responsible military oversight.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-attack-syria-1.4617438