narrative of events for investigation of the officer

so, what i'm going to do is tell you the entire story, as i remember it, from the start, as i have not yet had the opportunity to do so. i believe that the criminality of the officer's behaviour should become apparent as the story unfolds. i'm ccing the opird as a witness, as i indicated i would. any and all documents that i feel are appropriate have been attached. i apologize to the opird for the presence of any duplicate documentation.

i moved into the building at 851 tuscarora on dec 1, 2017 and almost immediately noticed that i was sleeping a lot more, but did not tie this to the effects of my downstairs neighbour's marijuana addiction until the beginning of the new year. near the end of february, i realized that i could not continue to live in a situation where i was breathing in so much second-hand marijuana smoke as it was affecting my mental and physical health, and would need to figure something out - i would either need to have this tenant evicted for smoking too much, or have the building renovated so it didn't affect me or find a way to move. after the other approaches resulted in dead-ends, i eventually had to sue my landlord for negligence to get out of the lease, as she refused to address or really even acknowledge the seriousness of the problem; canlii documentation of the relevant order, swt-16361-18, is attached. the issue around the marijuana smoke is important both because it defines the initial contact i had with the officer and because it explains why i was trying to move out of the building. i initially had some difficulty finding a low-income drug-free living situation in this city, but i did eventually succeed in moving out of the building at 851 tuscarora; i do not live at this location any longer.

so, my first contact with the officer was related to this conflict over second-hand marijuana smoke with the tenant below me. i initially called the police to investigate the situation at 22:33:05 on mar 23, 2018; they did not arrive until very early in the morning, and informed me that the tenant below me had not answered the door, see CP WI 2018-225525 (not attached). so, i called a second time at 20:05:34 on mar 24, 2018 (in fact, i had called several times in the afternoon and was refused service by the dispatcher), and had two officers arrive at 20:22, officer muntino being one of them - see CP WI 2018-22757 (not attached). as i do not have a cell phone, and the building does not have a ringer, i had to go downstairs to meet the officers and let them into the building.

the first thing that officer muntino did was notice that the entire building smelled like marijuana (which is true.) and insinuate that i was uncool for not using the drug like everybody else in the building was, completely ignoring the concerns i was having about exposure, regarding my mental and physical health. he didn’t seem to think that chronic, unwanted exposure to second-hand marijuana smoke was any kind of a serious issue, or that i had any rights to complain about the situation. after explaining to him that i was seeking to document the situation for civil reasons, and that what i was looking for was simply a report of some sort to use in court, he agreed to speak to the tenant, and came back to my apartment a few minutes later, where he told me that the tenant agreed to smoke outside in the future (she didn’t.), and then continued to insult me for being a loser because i don’t do drugs, and for being openly queer; the messaging was crystal clear - my concerns were not valid, because i’m not a cool drug user, like the tenant downstairs, and nobody likes queer people, anyways. he then left, and i hoped i would not need to see him again.

i made the following posts to my blog on the afternoon of mar 25, 2018:

Sunday, March 25, 2018

the reason i was thinking about sarah last night was that i had to call the cops, not once but twice. i was supposed to write this up a little, but the smoke has been so thick in here that i've been having trouble staying awake since i finally crashed on saturday morning...

i think i'm awake, now.

the cops think i'm wasting their time, but i don't remotely agree. libertarians might present arguments about legalization leading to less policing, but this is a guess - and i'm not sure an evidence-based analysis would uphold it. regardless, that has nothing to do with the reasons marijuana is being legalized, here. the government has been clear that the purpose of legalization is to reduce use - especially amongst youth - and not to promote wider use.

the government of canada recognizes that recreational marijuana use is a substantive health problem and is adjusting it's approach to the drug in order to reduce use. nothing in the changes to the laws sanctions or promotes consensual drug use, or ignores the damages created by second-hand smoke - especially to those that do not consent to be influenced by it.

if you think otherwise, you need to educate yourself on what is actually happening.

and, i don't expect it to be legalized, anyways.

if somebody put drugs in my drink that would be a reason to call the cops, right? so, why is it different if somebody put drugs in my air supply?

if somebody was burning paint thinner in the apartment downstairs, that would be a reason to call the cops, right? so, why is it different if somebody is burning marijuana?

we have these irrational ideas attached to consumption. but, if somebody makes a choice to burn any other carcinogenic chemical inside, we reference their choice in the matter as a legal concept called mens rea. that's all i'm getting out of this - that they're making the choice to pollute the air and make me sick, i.e. they're not doing it by accident and are consequently liable for the consequences.

but, drug addicts see themselves at the centre of the universe. they think everything is about them. no; this is about me, this is about my air, this is about my rights.

i was able to get the cops out here late on friday night and early on saturday night, so there will be two reports for me to reference to the landlord. the tenants eventually promised to smoke outside; we'll see if they do or not. evidence right now is sketchy. i'll make the foia request for data tomorrow.

i'll also be getting the hospital records from the times i went in for observation.

the cops kept telling me to call the landlord, but they appear to have gotten the process backwards. the cops are right that there's little they can do, and i understand that, but a warning from the cops is actually less of an escalation than a formal complaint. so, if i'm going to be doing this proportionately and fairly, i need to call the cops in to talk to them before i agitate for eviction. and, if they change their habits to smoking outside, then that request will have worked - they will have saved themselves from eviction, even if what that means is giving them more time to find a different place.

if they don't change their habits, i'll be able to present evidence to the landlord that the police officer identified the smell of marijuana, that the tenant admitted to smoking inside the unit (!) and that there is consequently grounds for eviction, due to illegal behaviour on the premises of the property.
at 17:22

the language the cop used was "nice".

it was,

i talked to the tenant downstairs, and she seems really nice.

the cop then underhandedly implied i was a fag for trying to throw her out, rather than trying to get to know her. and, he was absolutely right, although i'd reject the implication that there's something wrong with that.

a lot of people of either gender are going to interpret a 30-something curvy pothead as "hot", and i don't doubt this. but, everything about what's happening is utterly revolting to me.

this is not my type, and never was.

i'm not likely to date anybody of either gender again, but i'd be more likely to go for an underweight straight-edge vegan than a pothead that looks like a stripper. insofar as i am attracted to women, or ever was, i definitely have always preferred the modern yoga body to the traditional hour-glass...

i'm actually just likely to interpret curvy women as overweight. that whole culture around large asses is just gross, to me, and i've always felt the same way about large breasts.

but, regardless, i wouldn't date a pothead. it would have been easier to stomach when i was a smoker, but now that i'm not, it's really a non-starter. it's just not a quality i'd want out of somebody i'm spending a lot of time with...
at 18:41

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
ADDICTION IS AGENCY
at 20:18

=======

so, this was my first experience with officer muntino. while i got the report out of him that i wanted to get, he made it clear that he thought there was something wrong with me for trying to evict this woman rather than trying to have sex with her - that he thought i was a loser because i don’t do drugs or have sex with women, and my concerns were consequently entirely invalid. the interaction really exuded toxic masculinity on every possible level. but, this was not the first time i’d been insulted for being openly queer, and i got what i wanted, so i didn’t really think twice about it.

i didn’t get around to filing the foia request until june; the attached documents were released to me on june 20th. the attached civil case was heard on july 5th. a second issue involving officer muntino occurred on july 8th, regarding a situation that started in may and began to escalate over the month of june.

while i suspect that these concerns are not unrelated to each other, i have no direct evidence to present to demonstrate that they are, but would rather request that the department look into the matter to see what kind of communication existed between officer montino, the landlord at 851 tuscarora (ina sanford / lakewind enterprises) and the complainant on july 8th (hilda currie). the period to look for communication between these parties would be from may 1st to july 31st. i am asking the department to look into this because i would not expect to be successful in a foia request of this nature, but i may need to try one if i have to appeal to get charges laid. based on what i could see happening outside of my window, it seemed as though some co-ordination was occurring, but actionable evidence in the case would need to be in the form of a record of communication between the conspirators. my belief is that the landlord was aware that she had lost the case on july 5th, and may have colluded with the neighbour to try and have me arrested as retaliation.

regardless of any co-ordination that did or did not exist, officer muntino did appear at my door a second time on the afternoon of july 8th.  what follows is the statement of disagreement that i attached to the occurrence (go # wi 2018-56622, not attached, as i received it via disclosure) on nov 28th, via a mfippa request, and may or may not be updated in the system as of dec 19th. this statement of disagreement goes over the context of the call and narrates the officer’s first (dubious) attempt to arrest me for harassment, in hypothesized retaliation for the civil action.

=======

Statement of Disagreement In regards to GO# WI 2018-56622

To begin with, let me state clearly that I would prefer to have this record completely destroyed. I am aware that the complainant in this matter had made repeated calls to the police, and had been told repeatedly that I was not in breach of any law. She had in fact threatened me with arrest on multiple occasions, all of them completely absurd. Eventually, her persistence in calling me in produced this (absurd) report, but the world does not operate on the fox news axiom that a lie, when repeated, becomes true. She was wrong the first thirty times that she called in, and she was wrong on this day, as well. Ironically, it is this persistence in trying to get me charged that better qualifies as harassment than anything described in the report - and it is a matter of your own records to verify that repeated calls on the topic were made, after she was told that nothing would be done.

However, I understand that my legal rights regarding amending the report relate primarily to my own privacy, and that it is only my right to reply that i have any real ability to exercise. That said, there is a point where the facts are overwhelming enough to justify the destruction of a report of this nature on moral grounds - that is, there is a point where the force must admit it is wrong and do the right thing in destroying a report that should have never been written. I have no legal argument in forcing the police to destroy the file, but I hope that drawing attention to how wrong it is produces the obvious, correct and logical conclusion: this report should not have been written, and because it shouldn’t have been written, it should be destroyed.

There are some factual errors in the report. The officers were not dispatched to “843 marentte av”, which appears to be a typo on top of an error, but rather to 843 tuscarora - the structure directly below the one i lived in at the time, 851 tuscarora. The nature of the report makes it clear that the call was coming from my neighbour, and the presumed error of “843 Marentette” is too far away for the person to be my neighbour. Further, I distinctly recall having a conversation with an officer that i later learned is PC Montino-Yong - a name that suspiciously does not appear on the report I received, some time after filing an OPIRD complaint against him (E-201809161252432765). The second officer on the call was a white male, whose name I am not aware of.

    I dispute that any photographs of this woman were taken while she was planting flowers, nor does this woman have a gardening habit, nor is there a flowerbed in the yard she was sitting in, which is not hers but a common area in an apartment complex - something that could be verified rather easily, if the address on file were correct. Is that why the address was corrupted? While I do have some footage of her watering what appear to be illegal marijuana plants in potted containers near the beginning of July, 2018, any statements that claim that she was being filmed while “planting flowers” are absolutely false. In fact, this woman was not gardening in her backyard at all, but rather sitting in the common area of an apartment complex and drinking large amounts of alcohol, while chain smoking both cigarettes and marijuana. And, I have the photographic and video evidence required to demonstrate this, if required.

As any photographs or videos that were taken were in the common area of an apartment complex, this individual has no right to privacy in the matter. There is absolutely nothing illegal whatsoever about filming a person in a public place, whether they consent to it or not.


This is a sample of the footage that was taken, and it doesn’t seem much like “gardening” to me - it’s rather some people sitting in the common area of an apartment complex, while drinking alcohol and chain smoking.

(deleted.jpg)
   
And, what is the reason I was filming her?

Well, as I retain these records, we could consult them - and we may still. My stay at 851 Tuscarora has since ended, but it was extremely unpleasant due to the presence of a habitual marijuana addict directly below me. Due to the fact that the flooring was substandard, the second hand smoke in the apartment made the apartment uninhabitable. I even tested positive for thc from it, which is quite difficult to do from second-hand exposure. I ended up suing my landlord over this, and won an escape from the lease. The court reference is SWT-16361-18.

As I was stuck living in a perpetual hotbox, I had no option but to leave my windows open more or less 24/7 to attempt to get some air flowing into the unit. Unfortunately,  a chain-smoking, alcoholic neighbour then moved in next door, around the beginning of may, and decided to enforce her habit directly into my air supply.

I asked this woman to move repeatedly, and all she did was swear at me. I have this documented quite thoroughly. So, what does a person do in this situation? If I were to close the window, I’d be dealing with the effects of unwanted inebriation from one neighbour’s drug habit, and if I were to keep the windows open I’d have to deal with the consequences of a chain smoking alcoholic setting up directly in the air supply. The only option I had was to get this woman out of my air supply.

One will note that every human rights document ever written has a right to fresh air, while the supreme court has stated on numerous occasions that a right to smoke does not exist.  I should have had a legal mechanism to get this woman out of my air supply beyond simply getting up and moving. It is my own rights that were being infringed upon.

As a non-smoker in windsor, I had some previous experience with pushing back against smokers. I knew that bylaw couldn’t do anything because it’s not a public building. I knew that the anti-smoking unit upholds an unfortunately restrictive concept of ‘common area’ that doesn’t include a common backyard. In situations like this, judicial remedies must be sought, and a situation must consequently be created in order to put the issue before a judge. If a specific law would force a person to endure the catastrophic health effects of second-hand smoke then that law ought to be struck down as unconstitutional. Further, a great deal of rather nasty behaviour could no doubt be justified under grounds of free speech, if it is intended to protect a person’s health from the consequences of smoke inhalation. And, I decided that this was a fight worth having, for the benefit of the greater society - that there ought to be something I could do about this.

A project like this needs to begin simply and then escalate. To begin with, what I wanted was for an officer to come to the scene and ask the woman to smoke somewhere else, and hoped that would be enough. Yet, as the existing statute is insufficient to protect me from the effects of second-hand smoke, I had no grounds to call the officer. Rather, I had to push back in the hopes that she would call the officers, and we could then have some kind of mediation service that would end in her agreeing to not smoke in my window, as any sane person can see is quite reasonable.

So, I decided that if this woman was going to sit beside my window and blow smoke into it then she would have to listen to very loud noises while she did it, and hoped that this would act as a disincentive towards smoking in this area. If she got up and moved, the problem would be solved. And, surely, any sane person can understand that loud music is less damaging, disruptive, harassing and harmful than second-hand smoke! This is not even a comparison - it was weak, as far as retaliation is concerned. Yet, I was ultimately acting not out of retaliation but with an intent to get an officer on the scene to mediate. If that did not work, the next step would be to continue to agitate until the situation could be put before a judge, with the hope that a legal battle would end in a judicial ruling that would stand up for my right to fresh air and force this woman to smoke somewhere else - via a restraining order or something else.
   
As intended, several noise complaints were then filed over june and july, and the police appeared at my door several times, as can be checked in the record. I was transparent with the officers that appeared - this woman refused to smoke somewhere else, and if she insisted on blowing smoke in my window then i would need to create a situation out of it, because there is no existing statute to apply to stand up for my rights. And, she was asked to smoke somewhere else by the first several officers that appeared at the door, who seemed to understand that there was a delicate rights balance at play, she was infringing in my space and there was a relatively simple solution at hand - she could move a few feet away from the window. It was not until this Montino-Yong character appeared on the scene that this completely extra-legal idea that she has some kind of right to smoke in my window entered into the discourse.

Despite repeated requests by several officers, she simply refused to smoke somewhere else - and kept calling me in on noise complaints. How long can that go on for before somebody can be charged with harassment? Is continually positioning yourself beside somebody’s window and blowing smoke into it despite being asked to move repeatedly and chased off with harsh noise not the most textbook example of harassment possible? Is the second-hand smoke not a reason for me to fear for my safety? The issue seemed as though it had to go before a judge...

So, I initially started taking footage of this woman smoking - in a public space, beside my window - for the purposes of producing evidence for a court battle that would hopefully force her out of the space. I intended to document when, where and how much smoke she was producing, and the effect it was having on me. This is completely legal in every way; if she did not want to be filmed while smoking in public near my window, she had the choice to smoke somewhere else, or not at all.

After a while, I gave up on the noise as a tactic. While it initially worked in chasing her off, she eventually refused to move. It was apparently very important to her to continue to smoke in my window, even with the noise, and even after I made it abundantly clear that this was making me sick. Further, the noise was bothering some of the other tenants. On top of that, the officers seemed unwilling to send the issue to a judge because they apparently couldn’t generate any evidence. So, I moved to plan B, which was to try and have her charged with creating a common nuisance.

Common nuisance
•    180 (1) Every one who commits a common nuisance and thereby
o    (a) endangers the lives, safety or health of the public, or
o    (b) causes physical injury to any person,
is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.
•    Definition
(2) For the purposes of this section, every one commits a common nuisance who does an unlawful act or fails to discharge a legal duty and thereby
o    (a) endangers the lives, safety, health, property or comfort of the public; or
o    (b) obstructs the public in the exercise or enjoyment of any right that is common to all the subjects of Her Majesty in Canada.
•    R.S., c. C-34, s. 176.

While charging smokers with causing a nuisance would be admittedly novel, it is difficult at this stage in history to understand how anybody could deny that blowing smoke into somebody’s window is endangering their health, and I was getting to the end of my patience. She had at this point been asked to move repeatedly by several officers. She actually was causing a nuisance. And, I frankly think it would have been a positive precedent, should it have succeeded.

So, I decided that I would continue to film her smoking near my window and refusing to move on request in order to build a case against her for causing a common nuisance.

It was under these circumstances that the officers arrived at my door on July 8th. I feel it is worthwhile to point out that I actually have footage on this day of myself informing the neighbour that she had no right to privacy in a common area, and that she called the police anyways. When the police arrived at my door, I was indeed quite hostile - as I was the one being harassed - and demanded that she be immediately charged with harassment, for repeatedly smoking beside my window, despite repeated requests by myself and by other officers to move.  The officers refused to press charges. When questioned as to why I was filming, I informed the officer that I was seeking to gather evidence for a nuisance charge to bring before a justice of the peace, as they would not file charges themselves. Officer Montino-Yong responded to this request by telling me that there was no such thing as criminal nuisance. I informed him that he was wrong, and it was s. 180 of the criminal code. He responded by telling me that he’s a police officer and he knows better; I told him I have a legal background, and I know better than to trust an officer’s understanding of the law. The second officer agreed with Montino-Yong, but it appeared to be disingenuous, in order to avoid the perception of a misinformed officer - he wanted to uphold the authority of the officer, even though he was wrong. Everything about this situation was disturbing and pathetic to me, from the officer’s misunderstanding of the law to the premise of being charged for harassing a nuisance smoker that was making me sick, so I told the officers point blank: it is not illegal to film in a public space, and I will be continuing to collect evidence to bring before the justice, if you won’t press charges, yourselves. I then firmly closed the door and told them to get lost, which was my right, as I was not under arrest, and clearly explained that my actions were not against the law.

I was arrested several weeks later on an unrelated charge of harassment in no less of a ridiculous scenario, and believe that these issues together actually constitute a pattern of police harassment. As of Nov, 2018, there is an ongoing OPIRD report into the behaviour of officer Montino-Yong.

As I had been threatened with arrest for harassment, I then made several calls to the windsor police, to attempt to press charges for a common nuisance. The officer on the phone confirmed that a common nuisance is in the code, thankfully, but I was told that it would be difficult to press charges without establishing intent. So, I resolved to continue documenting the smoking, to generate a pattern that demonstrated intent.

I then posted the following three posts to my blog:

===

i just had some cops show up and try to tell me there's no such thing as nuisance under the law.

the reality is that cops generally have no idea what the law says.
at 12:40

i don't have time to prosecute a nuisance charge. but, i'm collecting evidence in case i have to.

i will defend myself on free speech grounds, if attacked.

and, i will retaliate with a criminal nuisance charge, arguing that somebody that is wilfully blowing smoke into my air supply - despite being asked not to repeatedly - is negligently endangering m health.

i will not act first. i don't have time. i'm leaving as soon as possible.  but, i will retaliate accordingly.
at 13:23

i am absolutely willing to prosecute a smoker under nuisance laws.

are you going to argue that she's not endangering my health?

what year is it?

http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-180.html
at 13:26

===

That said, I still did not want to send this woman to jail, I simply wanted her to smoke somewhere else. So, I attempted to contact 311 as a last resort before trying to have her charged.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: jessica murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2018 17:20:49 -0400
Subject: nuisance complaint
To: 311@citywindsor.ca

i'm having a really hard time with a neighbour that's just intent on
creating air pollution and simply doesn't care - even thinks she has
some kind of right to pollution, and is just flatly hostile to anybody
suggesting otherwise. so, if i can gain some kind of victory in
getting her to smoke away from the window, she turns the barbeque on,
just to piss me off. as i believe that her behaviour is malicious, i'm
ultimately looking to have her criminally charged with nuisance, but i
need some help in getting there.

the basic crux of the problem is that she's an alcoholic, and when
somebody is constantly drunk, they just don't care. so, when she moved
in, she started chain smoking outside my window; when i asked her to
smoke somewhere else, she just drunkenly swore at me, tolf me she'll
smoke where she wants and accused me of "using big words". i've had
officers (which she called on noise complaints related to creating
disincentives to smoke a foot from my window) ask her to move, and she
still doesn't listen. there's basically no way to reason with her -
she's going to smoke where she wants, when she wants and no matter
what anybody says to her. so, the only solution is to charge her with
nuisance and drag her away.

today, after i got a second officer to get her to move after she
called in on me a second time, she retaliated by using an open
charcoal bbq in her yard. this is creating large plumes of very dirty
smoke that is a clear health hazard to anybody around. now, i'll note
that she has a clean-burning bbq, which she has used up until this
point. so, it's clear that she's using this dirty charcoal bbq with
the clear purpose of pissing me off - behaviour clearly indicative of
somebody intent on creating a nuisance. i called the fire department,
and they said the bbq is legal (i'm not so sure - it seems like an
open flame to me, and this is more of an issue of non-enforcement.).
but, my issue is less about the fire code and more about the smoke.

is there something i can do about this?

no amount of debate or discussion is going to have any effect. i need
something harsh & swift.

my next step is going to the justice of the peace and getting her
criminally charged.

j

====

i received the following reply:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: 311 <311@citywindsor.ca>
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2018 14:54:27 +0000
Subject: RE: nuisance complaint
To: jessica murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>

Good morning,

The City does not have any involvement with what is considered a "nuisance" neighbour.  You have addressed all the issues with the appropriate contacts (Police for criminal activity, Fire for open air burning) but if nothing is found to be illegal in nature, than it may be something you have to pursue on your own through a lawyer or small claims court for any damages.

Thank you for contacting 311.

Regards,


Rose | 311 Call Centre Team

Call Centre
400 City Hall Square | Suite 410 | Windsor, ON | N9A 7K6
(519)-255-CITY (2489) | 1-877-RING-311 (746-4311)
www.citywindsor.ca

IMPORTANT NOTICE:
This message is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed.  The message may contain information that is privileged, confidential, and exempt from disclosure under applicable law.  If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited.  If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by email at 311@citywindsor.ca .
Thank you.

===

and, i replied with this

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: jessica murray <death.to.koalas@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2018 11:10:08 -0400
Subject: Re: nuisance complaint
To: 311 <311@citywindsor.ca>

nuisance itself is a crime under the criminal code, s 180 (1).

and, there is no use in suing a belligerent drunk on welfare for chain
smoking a foot from your window, and refusing to move. she has nothing to
take away from her.

i feel that this is an issue that the city *should* deal with: this is
fundamentally an air quality complaint, which should be dealt with through
bylaws. the right thing to do here is to fine this woman and keep doing it
until she stops behaving in such an anti-social fashion.

but, if i have to go in front of the justice of the peace and file charges
myself due to inaction by the city and by the police, then so be it.

the courts, at least, understand the severity of smoke issues. it's just a
shame that it takes somebody with a doctorate to get a basic handle on
simple science.

so, let it be stated here that my desperation is a consequence of your
inaction - and if this woman ends up going to jail for smoking on her
porch, or having to spend the next months or years fighting to stay out of
jail on nuisance charges related to smoking on her porch, it is because the
city would not step in and provide for a more appropriate remedy and more
reasonable means of conflict resolution.

let that sit on your conscience.

j

===

After this occurrence, I made a very clear attempt to communicate to this woman that if she did not stop blowing smoke into my window then I would try very hard to ensure she was charged with a common nuisance, once I moved away. She eventually relented and decided to smoke on the other side of the building. I was happy with this compromise, if baffled that it took so much effort to produce it, and decided against pursuing charges.

I will leave the wisdom of that decision in the hands of law enforcement, however skeptical i am of their abilities.

=========

so, that was my second interaction with the officer. you will notice that there is a commonality, here, of the officer standing up for smokers, to the point of badly misinterpreting the law to do so. once again, the officer broadcast the perspective that my concerns were invalid because i’m uncool. two occurrences, however, is not yet a pattern - a pattern needs three examples.

the court order around the marijuana smoke came down on aug 1st, giving me two months to plan a move. i learned in this process that it is very difficult to find low-income, drug-free housing in windsor, and i consequently found myself increasingly desperate to find a way out of the absolutely terrible situation that i was in.

the third issue with officer muntino began on sept 12th, and is previously documented by me in the opird complaint:

Summary of complaint
Please note formatting has been stripped for preview purposes - original intact
this officer has threatened me with arrest for a non-crime on two occasions. the first occurrence occurred by phone, and i have a recording of it. the officer called me at 3:56 am - that is almost 4:00 in the morning - on sept 12, and threatened to arrest me for repeatedly responding to an online ad. the number that the officer called me from was (removed). i txted a response to this number, and was told it is not an officer's number. it must have been a friend or partner's number, i suppose. i do have the recording of the officer identifying himself and can email it somewhere. i explained that my behaviour - repeatedly responding to an online ad for an apartment - is not harassment under the criminal code, and not only would i not stop, but i am preparing a human rights case against the landlord, for discriminating against me on enumerated grounds. the second occurrence happened at roughly 12:00 pm on sept 16th. two officers showed up at my door (the other was a white male officer and said nothing during the encounter), and this "constable mancino" threatened me with arrest a second time if i did not stop responding to the ad. i asked the officer to explain what harassment under the law is, and he failed to do so in a correct manner. he seemed to believe that harassment is merely annoying somebody, rather than threatening to harm them. of course, if that were true, then telemarketing would be against the law, and the jails would be full of call centre agents. it's just wrong. after determining that the officer did not understand the law, i told him i didn't have time for this, encouraged him to launch a report if he wanted to and went to close the door. he then put his foot in the door, preventing me from doing so. i informed him that he does not have a warrant, and yet he still refused to move his foot. he did eventually move his foot after i asked him to several times. he then threatened to arrest me if i reply to the ad again - not if i conduct in threatening or harassing behaviour, but if i merely reply to the ad. on his way out, i asked him for his badge number and he refused to give it to me. he started with "184" and then said he already gave it to me, which he did not. even if he had already given it to me, that would not be a reason to not give it to me again. when a citizen asks for a badge number, an officer should state it slowly and repeatedly if necessary. this officer may have been acting out of bias regarding my gender identity, as i am openly transgendered, but i cannot state that for certain. regardless, he should not have called me at 4:00 am from an unofficial police number that may or may not have belonged to his friend or partner, he should not have threatened me with arrest without understanding the nature of the law, he should not have prevented me from closing the door without a warrant and he should have given me his badge number when i asked. i would suggest that this particular officer has a superiority complex, is unreformable and should probably look for a different line of work.

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i have little to add to this, but i can re-articulate the point about what the officer said. when the officer appeared at my door, i had already received the voice message, and had already been dubiously threatened with arrest by him in july, so it was already clear to me that the officer had a poor understanding of harassment. i consequently asked him point blank to define harassment. i am forced to paraphrase, but if it were a play it might be something like this:

officer: if you don’t stop replying to the ad, i’m going to charge you with harassment.
me: can you define harassment for me?
officer: harassment is when you repeatedly behave in a manner that annoys somebody, after being told not to.
me: ok. right. i don’t have time for this...file a report if you want....

as mentioned, i then went to close the door, and the officer physically prevented me from doing so, repeating again that he’ll arrest me if i continue to reply, and refusing to give me his badge number when asked.

and, after that, i felt i had no choice but to disobey the officer, regardless of anything else, as i refuse to live in a society where people with guns can bang on your door and tell you to stop being annoying. if that were reality, it would be a policed state, and a policed state is something that’s worth fighting against. generating evidence for the human rights complaint - which is ongoing - became secondary to standing up to police intimidation. freedom is not something you can put on a shelf and forget about; rights need to be exercised, or they are lost. so, there’s a point where you have to disobey the officer simply for the sake of it, and hold him accountable if the intimidation persists, and that is where i was at with this, and where we are with this today.

and, i was in fact arrested for criminal harassment, without further warning, and by other officers, on sept 24th and then released on sept 25th. basic disclosure was not provided until oct 22nd. a request for detailed disclosure was made on oct 24th. the charges were dropped on nov 14th, under the admission that no evidence was ever collected by officer muntino, and the arrest was entirely unwarranted.

again: i cannot attach disclosure documents, but i would encourage you to look up the file:

1) case: regina v parent, jason
2) information no 18-2187
3) occurrence no 18-77979

i would reiterate that the premise that applying for an ad in good faith could ever be harassing behaviour is completely preposterous, and that the idea that any officer could have me arrested for such a thing is so outlandish that occam’s razor demands a simpler explanation. given my history with this officer - now documented in some detail - i believe it is far more likely that he was behaving out of malice, and simply taking advantage of the situation to finally throw me in jail, as he had already threatened to do, and to satisfy some kind of ego trip or something.

i have not filed a disagreement for this occurrence because i’ve applied for a file destruction, instead.

but, when i told the officer to go ahead and file a report, it was with the assumption that he would seek a warrant, as he is required to do under the law. criminal harassment is an indictable offence, so he would need probable cause before he could make an arrest without a warrant, which is outlandish to even define, in context. in the police report, the justification presented is that i was “unpredictable”, which is both unsupported by any evidence (my behaviour was actually entirely predictable - i replied to the ad in exactly the same way every time it was reposted), and the literal negation of probable cause - rather than present an argument that i posed a defined, credible threat to this person, which is necessary to make an arrest, the officer argued that there wasn’t a defined, credible threat at all, by claiming i was “unpredictable”, and then in a feat of incredible orwellian logic, presented that as probable cause.

in fact, i have no criminal record, and there was no reason to suspect any sort of threat at all. so, there was no probable cause, whatsoever.

in the absence of any probable cause, and without a warrant, the arrest was completely illegal. at most, i should have been provided with a summons to appear. thankfully, the justice realized that and had me released on recognizance.

so, to recap, what we have here is a pattern of harassing behaviour that included insulting me for not doing drugs, insulting me for my gender expression and sexuality, insulting me for not smoking cigarettes, threatening me with arrest on dubious or frivolous charges related to standing up for my own rights, filing false reports, clear intimidation on the behalf of a powerful landlord and finally illegally arresting me on an indictable offence without a warrant and without probable cause - all in an apparent attempt to enforce some kind of vigilante justice on me for daring to stand up for my rights, as a non-smoker.

with cops like this, why do we have jails at all?

charges should be filed, and the officer should be removed from the force.

https://www.google.com/search?q=mbs+is+the+new+saddam+hussein%2C&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

rather than kneejerk against the facts, the sikh community ought to be engaging in a moment of self-reflection about it's history of violence, and realizing that it needs to be constantly engaging in a process of harm reduction that includes working with authorities to identify potential threats for violence.

denial isn't a river in india, it's a river in egypt.

Some individuals in Canada continue to support Sikh (Khalistani) extremist ideologies and movements. This political movement aims to create an independent homeland for Sikhs called Khalistan, in India. Violent activities in support of an independent Sikh homeland have fallen since their height during the 1982-1993 period when individuals and groups conducted numerous terrorist attacks. The 1985 Air India bombing by Khalistani terrorists, which killed 331 people, remains the deadliest terrorist plot ever launched in Canada. While attacks around the world in support of this movement have declined, support for the extreme ideologies of such groups remains. For example, in Canada, two key Sikh organizations, Babbar Khalsa International and the International Sikh Youth Federation, have been identified as being associated with terrorism and remain listed terrorist entities under the Criminal Code.

there are no factual errors in this report, that i can see. some people might not like these facts, but that's just too bad.

sikhism, like any other religion, is intrinsically subject to the whims of an extremist fringe of "true believers". it consequently doesn't matter what passage of time exists between attacks - the threat of violence is perpetual, and of infinite length. and, there's not anything that sikhs, as a community, can do to completely eradicate the threat, other than to practice a form of harm reduction and/or denounce their belief system, altogether.

it doesn't matter how well you tame your pet lion, it's still a lion - so long as you have a pet lion, you are under constant threat of being mauled.

as an aside, this idea that sikhs aren't muslims is disingenuous. i understand that most people don't know a lot about sikhism, and i mostly don't, either. frankly, i'm not sure it really even qualifies as a religion - it seems to be more of an ethnic nationalism and doesn't seem to have a very developed sense of theology. but, insofar as sikhism is a religion, it is in fact largely a branch of islam. and, i'm sure you'd actually get a diversity of opinions about that, like you get a diversity of opinions about whether mormons are christians or not.

but, whether it's really a religion, or really a branch of islam, it is certainly an ideology, and all ideologies are inherently dangerous at the fringes, and there's nothing that can be done about that besides abolishing it.

https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/pblc-rprt-trrrsm-thrt-cnd-2018/index-en.aspx#s113

"it was thirty years ago.

get over it."

it's the kind of thing that happens in a third world country.

...which we appear to be on our way towards becoming.

there is essentially no way to justify modifying an intelligence report due to a public backlash, however powerful the special interest group involved may happen to be. once you allow for this kind of interference, you're putting the question of policy in the hands of the highest bidder, and reducing the internal workings of government to a bidding process.

this is the kind of corruption that western democracies have historically generally avoided - it's what makes our form of government inherently better, and more attractive for people fleeing oppression and violence.

the takeaway should really be a reflection on how powerful the sikh community is in canada right now, and whether that's something that should be resisted or not. i don't have an opinion on an independent khalistan, but i'm certain that i don't want to live in the punjab, or be subject to the kind of governing traditions that exist there.

well, the lack of any recent evidence of concrete attacks doesn't erase the existence of these separatist militant groups - that's a grade school logical fallacy. it's like arguing that jaguars aren't dangerous to canadians just because we don't have any records of them attacking us. these remain militant groups that need to be monitored, whether they're bombing us this month, or not.

the air india attack was the worst terrorist attack in canadian history. is that not enough?

have we forgotten the flq?

the intelligence community cannot be folding to this kind of specious political correctness - they must be allowed to do what they do, independent of political interference.

and, if people find the facts offensive, that's too bad.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4765136/sikh-extremism-ralph-goodale-canada/

the left should be campaigning hard against trudeau in 2019, but with the understanding that we are better off reducing him to a minority than we are in defeating him outright.

it would be useful for the liberals to hang on to some seats in alberta.

if you want to win a provincial election in alberta, you need to focus on the rural areas - you can't just win edmonton.

but, the federal liberals are not trying to win an election in the oil patch, they are trying to hold on to seats in the downtown cores, where people actually have diverse employment options, just like they do in all the other urban and suburban centres in this country.

and, the irony is that this is what we all should have learned from the ndp's surprise win in 2015 - that edmontonians and calgarians actually have other things on their mind besides the oil industry, that they care about health care and education and the environment, just like canadians everywhere else.

notley is a sellout, and she's going to be destroyed. trudeau should be essentially taking everything she says and negating it, at this point, if he wants to hold on to some of the urban support that is going to abandon her as conservative-lite.

self-interest suggests that the liberals should focus less on the oil sector and more on health care, if they want to win in calgary or edmonton.

i have absolutely no idea, whatsoever, why trudeau is pretending he has any chance of winning an election in alberta, at all.

he seems to have difficulties with reality, this guy.

the small handful of ridings that the liberals may be competitive in are just traditional urban seats that, if they are going to vote liberal, are going to do so on social policy.

so, these columnists are correct - and the correct reaction is to focus on ontario.

https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/corbella-buying-us-with-our-own-money-doesnt-work-in-alberta-mr-trudeau

the idea that i can be arrested and printed for applying for an ad, and then can't get the prints destroyed, is ridiculous.

everything about this situation needs to be reformed. every law that led to it needs to be struck down. and, everybody involved in it needs to be fired.

listen.

i'm a civil rights activist.

i'm eager to take advantage of the situation, in an attempt to throw these laws out....this is an opportunity to take some legislation down and broadly use the courts to reform the system....

so, i decided i had to finish filing the rest of the information i had in that temp document before i could get to working on the court stuff, which was youtube comments until december, 2016. that's done, now, so i should be able to work through it relatively linearly. and, because i want to do everything all at the same time, i want to give it until the end of the week, or maybe even the beginning of next week, to wait for some information to come to me by mail. for example, i don't want to file the civil case against the cops until i know whether or not i'll be launching a constitutional challenge around the print destruction.

i mean, i could end up with a large number of court cases to deal with.

i also haven't touched the vlog camera in almost two weeks, so i need to recalibrate with that.

but, i intend to get the paperwork around the motion filled today, anyways.

again: i didn't "predict" anything.

i'm not a psychic, i'm a logician.

and, i'm perfectly comfortable with being wrong.

the new government in quebec wants to put an emphasis on selling it's electrical generation. these are trains running from quebec to windsor, so it's a good opportunity to make the point that local energy production should be prioritized over dirty energy being shipped in - in fact dumped - from alberta.

fuck alberta's oil - support ontario's hydro.

so, maybe quebec could look at passing a ban on diesel powered trains in order to prop up it's own interests.

the only possible explanation is corruption.

the diesel industry has somebody working in the government, or something - it's the same stupid thing over and over again, you have to fight them on every project, at every level.

we have a massive grid, that is exporting electricity for free.

why the fuck would we want diesel?

california should block the sale of these dirty diesel trains to backwards canada.

it's 2018, and they spent a billion dollars on diesel-powered trains running through the quebec & ontario hydro grid.

what a bunch of fucking retards.

this was a perfect opportunity to transition, and they completely squandered it.

https://www.thestar.com/business/2018/12/12/canadas-state-railway-set-to-give-order-to-siemens-over-bombardier.html

the key thing, of course, is making sure that it's both fully electric and fully sourced from renewable energy.

they included links from vancouver to seattle, montreal to boston, toronto to buffalo and toronto to detroit, but if we were going to take part in this at all , we'd have a line from montreal to toronto that either goes through or extends to ottawa - as something like half our population lives in the st. lawerence seaway & great lakes area.

and, we've been bad at this.

for some reason, our politicians have historically insisted on building high-speed rail over diesel, and then not understood why nobody supports it. there's also a specific company called bombardier that we keep sinking money into - and they've just repeatedly failed at actually manufacturing anything.

as bad as it always was, we don't have the yankee excuse, any more. they're doing it. we're not.

north america is far behind on this - these systems already exist in europe and asia.

but, the americans are actually taking some positive steps.

yo've got this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail

...which is probably extendable to portland, eventually.

indeed, there's a system being built in the northwest:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest_Corridor

they're building something from houston to dallas, with an extension to tulsa.

there's a boswash line being built, including extensions to pittsburgh and buffalo:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/Corridor_ne.PNG/300px-Corridor_ne.PNG

then a line from washington to jacksonville:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/63/Corridor_se.PNG/220px-Corridor_se.PNG

there's a line in florida that could be connected to jacksonville.

there's a midwest line:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/Corridor_chi.PNG/300px-Corridor_chi.PNG

it's really canada that's kind of lagging, here, which is frustrating because our population transfers are so much less complicated - we would really just want a line from quebec city to detroit, with extensions to ottawa and sudbury, as well as a line from winnipeg to edmonton, although if we got the government to sit down and do this, they would no doubt want a "transcanada line" - and bore through the rockies if they had to.

this is the answer. it's halfway built. but, people have to use it.

airplanes don't have a direct solution in terms of emissions - it's not completely out of the realm of plausibility to redesign the way that airplanes function, but because the planes require a large infusion of energy to lift, there is not a way to port the existing technology.

so, if we could build runways on the top of skyscrapers five miles into the sky, we could kind of glide from place to place, but that's not much of a solution for obvious reasons.

if you look around online, you'll find various schemes trying to take advantage of things like angular momentum to get lift-off, but these are approaches to creating efficiencies - they are not sustainable solutions.

the disappointing reality is that air travel as we know it probably won't present a sustainable option for itself until we find a way to manipulate antimatter. it's the thrust. you need a way to create a lot of energy all at once, and we only really know two ways to do that - combustion or nuclear fission, neither of which are desirable. i've been arguing for years that the future is anti-matter, and we actually do have a reservoir of it not far from us...

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/08/antimatter-belt-found-circling-earth

when anti-matter and matter interact, it produces pure energy in truly frightening quantities. so, you'd just need to find a way to harness it - a problem, because touching it in any way causes it to explode. still. if we could...

in the mean time, could we combust something else? that's a good question. for a long time, people were talking about hydrogen, but it's not well suited for airplanes. in theory, we could potentially find some way to convert electricity into a chemical storage and then combust it into something safer to emit, but it obviously opens up questions around whether what we're emitting is really safe, and the technology simply isn't available to us.

so, when it comes to air flight, there's not a way to "change the system" - this is something we need to do less of. and, what are some better options?

well, if you're going to a city on the same continent that isn't very far up the interstate - new york to washington, los angeles to seattle, montreal to toronto - is there any reason you have to fly? probably not. you may want to argue there's no ethical consumption in capitalism and get on your plane with a clean conscience, but that would just make you an asshole - not an idiot, exactly, because the truth is that you probably don't actually care, which is why it was so easy to convince you, in the first place. this isn't stupidity, so much as it's malice. take a train.

now, i don't have exact numbers in front of me, but i'm certain that if we focused on building a high-speed electric rail system, and then brutally taxed local air travel, it would drastically reduce emissions at minimal cost to anybody's convenience. the key is in ensuring that the rail system is actually fast, and actually sources from clean electricity. that's the best answer we're going to come up with - fly less, ride more. and, you have to come to terms with that - the choice is in your hands, with this.

that leaves the issue of intercontinental flights as a problem, and there may not be a way around it. even if we could built boats that operate at the speed of sound, we probably wouldn't want to. could we build tunnels under the water? maybe - depends where. but, intercontinental flights might be something we can't get rid of. we don't need zero carbon, remember - we just need to get below a certain level.

local flights, though, are something that should stop. there's no solution to this - and it's largely unnecessary. we just shouldn't be doing it.

i need to know, though.

is flying first-class going to be considered unconstitutional?

"the charter of upper class privileges and partial enumeration of things that rich people take for granted"

it just comes off as comically first-world.

i've never been on a plane before, and i don't expect i ever will be. so, it's not like it's a ballot issue for me.

really, it's more like it's...it's something that is so far removed from any lived experience i've ever had or ever will have that it doesn't strike me as actually real.

and, you'd think the government has important things to concern itself with, right?

requires railways to install voice and video recorders in locomotives 

umm.

that's the bill of rights act, right?

does an airplane passenger bill of rights even fall under federal jurisdiction?

i guess that's this election's attempt to appeal to the entitled millennial vote.

it's just so absurd that i don't even know how to react.

i'm more interested in opposing the legislation he's introducing to gut the review process around pipelines.

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/11/its-not-first-military-intelligence.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/10/ok-i-think-i-need-to-take-step-back.html

the fact that we have these hate speech laws is actually sort of embarrassing.

we should get rid of them.

i have to be blunt, though - we do have some funny laws in canada that ought to be overturned. "fake news" is actually a legal term, in canada - to our shame.

the americans have a freer society than we do, when it comes to speech. and, we should be reflecting on that, and asking ourselves whether some of the laws that we have in our code are really compatible with a free and democratic society, because some of them really aren't.

our court has not been activist enough in striking these laws down, which have often been ruled as unconstitutional, but saved under s. (1). we have some existent precedent around speech in canada that we should really be ashamed of. i think that canadians are broadly unaware of this - we think we have more freedom of speech than we really have.

i would argue that any laws restricting the utterance of threats are sufficient to protect people from harm, and anything beyond this should be abolished, as it has the potential for abuse.

nonetheless, hate speech does remain protected in canada, so long as it is not directly threatening or harassing anybody, even if the protection for it is in truth disappointingly weak.

sometimes, the truth is offensive.

that's not my fault.

and i'm not liable for it.

if anything i've posted at this site is untrue, you can believe me when i say i'm honestly mistaken.

i mean, i'd appreciate a fact check - i don't want to post things that aren't true. i'm not infallible; i'm always eager to learn. but, i'm trying to be educational, here - i'm not trying to mislead anybody. any errors are just that.

the reality, whether anybody likes it or not, is that i tend to make an effort to back up the point, and i'm willing to defend my arguments, wherever and whenever necessary.

the language that the protestors use is frustrating, granted.

maybe something like this might wake them up a little bit.

broadly speaking, hate speech is free speech - the exception coming when somebody is being directly threatened.

but, if we're talking about speech rights, the most important speech right is the right to protest; without the right to protest, there is no meaningful right to free speech.

conversely, nowhere does the right to speak imply the right to be heard.

this is a part of the reason i don't get into this. when you have a group of kids outside yelling that a speaker should be shut down, it is their right to yell that is protected under speech legislation - not the right for the speaker to speak without being interrupted. there is no right for such a thing anywhere, in any law, in any country. all concepts of free speech in this scenario apply exclusively to the protestors.

if the system passes a law that says that people can only speak during certain times, this is a violation of speech rights, and should be challenged under s.2.

does nobody see the irony in this?

the best way to approach something like this is to push it. protests against controversial speakers, for example, should be seen as free speech - and it should be the case that campus cops can now no longer interfere when an ann coulter or a jordan peterson shows up on campus to speak.

otherwise, this isn't a free speech policy, but a protected speech policy that gives certain types of speakers extra rights.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ontario-universities-scramble-to-release-common-free-speech-policy/

honestly - it's hard to know if hudson is trying to co-opt these people or has been brainwashed by them, although i guess actually reading the book might make it more clear, but i'm not going anywhere near that kind of crazy, whatsoever.

it's too bad. 

i hear that mel gibson will be doing the film adaptation of michael hudson's new book.

https://michael-hudson.com/2017/12/he-died-for-our-debt-not-our-sins/

and, why is ottawa so much better?

because it's the only city off the 401, so it's not dealing with all the through traffic.

from ottawa, you have to take a roughly two hour drive up the 417 or a roughly hour drive up the 416 to get back to the 401.

i did a little bit of research on the pollution in windsor and while the city gets a bad reputation in canada from being right across the river from the industry in detroit, the reality is that all of the industrial decline in detroit has reduced the problem to being roughly comparable to toronto.

the idea that windsor has awful air pollution is an out of date notion; nowadays, the fact is that the air quality in windsor is usually comparable to the air quality in the gta, which is not particularly bad in global terms.

the other problem in windsor is that the transportation corridor over the bridge - which is famously the busiest border region in north america - goes right through the city. so, if you're heading to the us, you come off the 401 (the big highway that runs from windsor/detroit, through toronto, and into montreal) and go on to a regular city street for a few kilometres, before you go over the bridge and on to the interstate. the result is trucks idling at streetlights, international traffic stuck in traffic jams, etc. and, if you walk through the area, you can see the smog on the road. they're building a new bridge that should both route the traffic out of the city and prevent it from idling, so that should take another dent out of it.

when i walk down the street, i don't usually get the stench of car fumes - i get the stench of burning tobacco and, more frequently, the smell of burning marijuana. these are different smells. i think the bulk of the actual problem is not coming from cars but from smokers. it's a mix, certainly, but it might be useful for these weather monitoring stations to start measuring second-hand smoke in addition to particulate matter and ozone and nitrogen and sulphur...

the real reason i'm reacting poorly to the air in windsor is less that it's particularly dirty and more that i grew up in ottawa, where the air is unusually clean. that's maybe warped logic, granted. but, short of moving back to ottawa, which i should point out is also growing very rapidly, there might not be a lot i can do about it.

seems like i'm going to lose a full day due to a migraine that knocked me out last night...

it's been roughly a year since my last migraine - i had some headaches in the last apartment from the shs, but they weren't migraines - and this wasn't like those migraines, because i didn't have an aura. it was really pretty weak, as far as migraines go. but, i'm clearly in the hangover stage at this point, and it's hard to describe a 12 hour headache that knocks you out using other terms.

by now, the caulking around the windows should be cured, and it's certainly had a positive effect, primarily in keeping out the smell from next door. there's a kind of background pepper-y smell in my apartment that i can follow down the street that i think is particulate in origin, but i cook with a lot of pepper, and the reality is that it's the same smell i get from opening my cupboard, so i can't be sure. i'd have to take all of the pepper out of the house for a while to test.

the family upstairs seems to be gone for the weekend, and the smokey smell seems to have cleared out with them, indicating that the smoke is in fact coming from the kid. i'm still building a correlation, but the uncertainty is declining dramatically. it doesn't seem like this is the cause.

i had a stiff neck this week from sitting in bed too much and may have just been a little overwhelmed. i'll keep an eye on this. the most likely cause is the pollution, but i can't jump to conclusions, yet - let's see if they end up recurrent or not. and, i'll point out again that there was no aura...

for now, i'm going to just try again: i'm going to get something to eat and see if i can get to working on the court documents afterwards.

the canadian liberal party has a history of supporting orderly migration through careful screening processes.

unlike the united states, there is absolutely no precedent for any political party in canada supporting this kind of a rush at the border, nor is it something that has benefited canada for generations - because it's not something that has happened at all.

what has benefited canada for generations is a very strict immigration policy that puts high priorities on educational background, existing job prospects and an ability to speak the language.

while he appears to be confusing immigration policy with refugee policy on purpose, trudeau is still not in any way articulating a position that is historically associated with canadian liberalism. it is closest to canadian toryism, but is really a position that is most closely associated with the democrats in the united states.

the reason every one wants to live here is because it's so hard to qualify for it; while i would support a schengen-type agreement with the nafta partners, and hope for an orderly extension to the rest of the americas, we should not follow the americans into the errors that they made in allowing for condition-less immigration.

we need to bring back the pearsonian system and stick closer to it.

it's his own policy failures that are at the root of the problem - which have often overruled his party's own historical positions. it's unusual for this to be so localized not just in the pmo, but in the prime minister's personal politics.

he needs to take responsibility for any backlash that is coming, as well as the backlash that has already happened in quebec.

they didn't provide enough resources; they didn't take the situation seriously enough. there have been consequences of this, he hasn't produced policy to address those consequences, and he's going to be held accountable to the people for them - that's how a representative democracy works.

he should be announcing policies to deal with these failures and apologizing for his mistakes, not taunting the opposition and calling them names.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/12/16/trudeau-lashes-out-at-conservatives-over-migration-misinformation.html

see, this is just reflective of his blurry thinking around this.

any future government can repeal any legislation of this sort. the only actual way to stop it would be for the senate to block it, which would create a serious constitutional crisis - and would not actually happen.

so, on some level it's merely symbolic. but, it's actually deeply irresponsible, and it would really be better if he just didn't do it at all.

i don't even think these changes would survive a shift to a new liberal pmo, let alone a change in power.

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/12/15/justin-trudeau-to-block-future-pms-from-reversing-senate-reforms_a_23618918/

ok. so that was more time consuming than i wanted it to be, but i'm now caught back up to where i was in mid sept, 2016.

so, what i've done is pull all of the hidden youtube posts down from both profiles up to that point and place them in proper order, meaning the master document and both vlogs are now properly synced. i will eventually need to create a third vlog for music reviews, but who knows when that will be

i want this to be systematic, so i'm going to explore some further things before i get back to the rebuild. i think i've posted at google+, for example. and, there are some other local documents to file.

but, i'm going to put it aside for now and get the court documents ready to file, hopefully for mid-week.

i'm coming up on seven months straight-edge, btw.

i'm getting better, but i feel i'm still recovering from the issues in the previous apartment and am planning to remain straight-edge over the holidays, at this time.

well, i don't know.

can the democrats do better than bernie sanders?

i consider elizabeth warren to be a republican and would not support her. she's a market fundamentalist; she's more like obama than sanders.

i don't think it helps anybody to be seriously considering the idea of running people that will be octogenarians by the end of their first term, but i don't really see a viable option - and if he's the best they've got, i'll line up again. sure.

but, i need to reiterate the point - i have not historically supported the democrats. i was a nader supporter and have been a stein supporter. during the primaries, i've supported candidates like sanders and kucinich, and have then tended to withdraw support during the actual election. my endorsement of clinton was exceedingly weak.

i felt kerry was legitimately a lesser evil, but that was the exception to the rule.

i'm probably not going to support the democratic candidate as a lesser evil, whomever it is. sorry.

it's kind of like how all of that money they sunk into clinton couldn't beat trump, isn't it?

https://news.vice.com/en_ca/article/59vz9k/beto-orourkes-dollar69-million-couldnt-defeat-ted-cruz

i think democrats should probably set their sets a little higher than somebody that couldn't even beat ted cruz.

"well, maybe trump won again, but look - we only lost texas by 2%."

so, you want to run somebody that lost to ted cruz.

ok, then.

you know who completely demolished ted cruz, right?

i mean, i wonder if elizabeth warren is more or less indigenous than theresa spence?

they don't look very different from each other, do they?

there's really no justification for these purity tests - they need to be abolished. nobody should be supporting this kind of hyper-insularist thinking. 

it seems to me that it's these tribes that are being racist in refusing to accept that a phenotypically white person may have some native american ancestry - they are refusing to accept her as one of their own because of her skin colour, and that she be called out and denounced.

more broadly speaking, this is something that should be spoken about with greater transparency. there is widespread misunderstanding all around about this that needs to be properly held up to rigorous scientific scrutiny.

despite what some tribal leaders may imagine is the case, the fact of the matter is that indigenous is not a closed identity, and indigenous groups have taken in genetic variation from all over the world, particularly western europe and western africa. indigenous groups in north america have changed so much through the introduction of foreign genetic material that their ancestors would not recognize or understand them at all. there are some indigenous tribes that report over 80% r1* markers, which is the indo-european male marker - these groups are dominantly european in their ethnic background, yet they have no problem claiming indigenous identity, despite having minimal indigenous ancestry. and, these aren't posh senators from massachusetts, they're people with influence in their own communities.

in 2018, essentially nobody east of the rockies is going to test as more than 30% indigenous. that's the cold, hard fact of it.

is there a concept of metis in the united states? in canada, elizabeth warren would haven't to identify as a specific tribe to gain indigenous rights, she could identify as what we used to call a "half-breed" and today call "metis". but, see, this is a consequence of the fact that canada doesn't have a history of one-drop definitions in terms of racial identity. in latin america, you have an entire vocabulary of different categorizations; in the united states you're either white or not. and, maybe that's really the problem.

depending on the test, i'm likely to test positive for native ancestry, jewish ancestry, african ancestry and asian ancestry - despite being widely mistaken for white. i'm only, like, 30% white. and, i don't know how to identify, besides rejecting the premise. so, i have a little empathy around this.

people condemning her for this should really take a step back and reflect on what they're doing and whether they can really justify it or not - because the actual empirical reality is that a random sample of phenotypically indigenous people is not going to be very indigenous in the genotype, in the first place. you're really, legitimately just criticizing her for what she looks like - and that shouldn't be normalized or accepted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/06/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-dna-test-2020.html?module=inline

while i tend to support the use of violence in revolutionary struggle, there are only two imperialist wars in the modern period that i've supported - or, more accurately, two entities that i've supported using force against.

the first is the nazis. the second is isis. and, i'm absolutely willing to draw very deep comparisons between the nazis and the saudis, as they are both operating under warped ideologies that see themselves as the rightful inheritors of a system of global dominance - these are brutal systems of race-based oppression that are actually very similar in operation.

it was never isis itself that was the root of the problem, but the saudi monarchy that needs to be overthrown. we need regime change in saudi arabia, a secular revolution to overthrow the islamists, and if you really want a longlasting peace in the region, you realize the need for that - that getting out of the way is just an algorithm for allowing the saudis to continue slaughtering people with impunity. finding peace means getting to the root causes, not getting out of the way.

further, in both cases, i understand that the motives of the imperialist power are not aligned with the left. the anglo-soviet alliance was not created to save jews or gypsies or communists, but to contain german expansion - it was an imperialist war through and through. nobody argues against the fact that the nazis had to be defeated, nonetheless, even if it meant supporting an imperialist government in order to do it. and, likewise, history will not be kind on those that resisted bombing campaigns against the islamic state, regardless of the fact that the motives of the various actors are purely self-interested - these are groups that cannot be allowed to exist in any capacity at all whatsoever.

due to russian help, as is so often the case, isis is losing; what was once a dangerous power vacuum is being filled, and support for radical jihadist movements is being replaced by support for secular forces, who are increasingly able to reach the population as the islamists are driven out or brutally killed. this is a success that should be celebrated. it was very important that the islamists be made an example of, so people could see that their ideology is hollow - these people were not chosen by anything or anybody besides saudi oil money, and their claims to any magical supernatural powers are belied by the fact that they are strung up in the public square by their bowels. it was necessary to do this. and, a massive public re-education campaign that reasserts secularism must now follow.

but, what that means is that it is time to withdraw and allow for the secular governments in the region to establish themselves. this is not consistent with the logic of imperialism, but support for the imperialists must be withdrawn, nonetheless - once the fascists are destroyed, the temporary alliance must be dissolved, and support must shift to the people on the ground that are arguing for self-determination via modern, civilized forms of governance.

i do not see any other ongoing imperialist wars that i have any support for. but, my conditions for aligning with imperialist powers are on the table - fascism cannot be tolerated in any form, and alliances with imperialism are justified in the face of any rising threat of fascism, as difficult as that may be to stomach.

the primary focus right now should be on supporting leftist, secularist revolutionary forces inside of the saudi kingdom that are agitating to overthrow the monarchy.

can you point me to a left-wing democrat that has organized a membership drive for tens of thousands of new voters?

no?

then expect another female candidate that is a republican in all but name. that's what the people that actually registered and actually donated actually want.

the democrats are not the party of working class people, they're a bourgeois party that represents middle income earners in the educated part of the professional class. they're a moderate conservative party with middle class values. yes - they can be "liberal" on a good day, which means they believe in equality of opportunity and don't like unnecessary wars. but, it is structurally almost impossible to organize for meaningful change within the party - it requires organizing a hostile takeover via a massive registration drive, with the full understanding that the party is going to discard the results any way it can, while it holds massive advantages in funding and resources.

the big problem that sanders had was that he couldn't get his people registered in time. all of these kids out at those rallies couldn't vote for him.

so, the focus over the last several years should have been on a massive voter registration drive, in order to shift the democratic base away from older conservatives and towards younger voters.

however, all of this anti-trump mainstream media coverage in the centre or even the right of the spectrum, the maddows and the snls and whatnot, has turned anti-trumpism into a popular movement, rather than a political one. and, if you're a democratic party oligarch, that's the kind of registration drive you wanted. you don't want college students with massive debts that may or may not show up, you want middle aged professionals that are able to donate to the party and are going to register when they're hooked.

so, the problem that sanders faced is going to be exacerbated - it's going to be impossible to win the primary.

support for universal healthcare is racist.

get ready for it.

i have no idea who is going to win the democratic primary, and you don't, either.

...but, the fact that the democrats are operating under a large tent right now means an obama-style conservative democrat is far more likely than a "progressive".

these white, suburban voters that are being registered by snl are not going to get excited by universal healthcare. they want bourgeois approaches to feminism and a focus on liberal values like equality of opportunity.

and, they're going to browbeat you into organizing to save obamacare by accusing you of being a nazi if you don't support them.

but, there's no ethical consumption in late capitalism.

whatever, man. yolo.

#backwardshatsaresubversive

it's not a total solution, but it's a good start. let's have an applause for the mp on this.

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/12/14/modern-slavery-bill-john-mckay-forced-child-labour_a_23618530/

they were both racists.

fuck.

you're not going to look me in the eye and tell me with a straight face that you think hillary clinton isn't horribly racist, are you?

i wonder if any super-predators went back in time and tried to stop her from voting for goldwater.

this is not the history book i read in the 90s, but it may have been influenced by it.

https://arretsurinfo.ch/guy-mettans-book-on-russophobia-an-important-contribution-to-the-demystification-of-international-relations/

it's broadly understood that the saudi strategy was to install these islamist totalitarian regimes in syria and iraq to shut down the democracies that were developing in the region, but we somehow always ignore the threat that the turks, the only actual democracy in the region, pose to the saudi theocracy, when we analyze this. a moment's reflection should recognize this as kind of remarkable. if the saudis were really acting with the primary goal of stamping out anything approaching a democratic movement in the region, why wouldn't the turks be their primary target?

i've argued that the turks were in fact their primary target, and that what you see open up in this region around this period is a proxy war between the saudis and the turks for control over syria. that is something that a lot of the independent media misunderstood, in either seeing these jihadist groups as interchangeable or misinterpreting the turks as the hegemon. at this stage, we can surely all concede that these groups were in open conflict with each other from the start, and the turkish-backed rebels and saudi-backed rebels were never operating with a common set of goals. but, perhaps the severity of the potential consequences of this were never fully understood. what would have happened if isis had defeated the proxies and moved directly into turkey? one would not expect the turks to have much difficulty in defeating the saudis.

i think this is where the american support for the kurds comes in. america's master plan is not anything specific, but hegemony over the region; assad was once useful to them, and may, in the future, become useful to them again. a part of maintaining that hegemony lies in creating chaos (being the great satan), but a part of it lies in keeping the turks and arabs in a careful suspension - played off against each other, but without allowing them to come to blows.

the kurds, at this time, were a useful buffer state to keep the saudis and turks from coming to direct blows.

russophobia is actually a very old term. i first remember interacting with it in the late 90s, while reading a book i found in my step-mother's father's basement, after he died. this guy worked as a signals interceptor in alert during the cold war, so i found quite a few unusual texts in his basement. the book was old - 1940s. it was a detailed history of europe, from the collapse of rome to the end of the first world war.

i can't remember the name of it, and i loaned it out to never see it again, but russophobia is presented within it as a kind of a natural prejudice, much like anti-semitism, amongst the germanic christians of western europe, and even used as a kind of narrative device to describe the relationship between east and west. there was actually some very deep contact between the danelaw (the viking kingdoms in england) and the varangian settlements in kiev, which were also viking. there were actually royal marriages between these viking aristocrats in london and kiev - there was an anglo-russian alliance built around these viking kingdoms. this survived the norman invasions, and you'll note the normans were also vikings, but it fell apart during the mongolian conquests.

it is the mongolian dominance in russia that is at the root of this idea of russophobia which, like islamophobia, was not entirely irrational. the mongols were a powerful military force, and they penetrated deep into germany on multiple occasions. standing in the middle ages, a brit of any background - viking, anglo-saxon, celt or roman - would have good reason to fear the mongolian expansion. further, the mongols were of course famous for their barbarity. russophobia is understood in this context as a kind of traumatic stress disorder, built up over legitimate fear of the mongols burning london to the ground.

this text actually develops the narrative forward, from the crusades to the establishment of the russian principalities, through the anglo-russian competition of the victorian era and through to the first world war, as an imperative component of understanding british history. this is not just an old term - it's one that we have to grapple with to understand who we are, as descendants of british colonial rule.

i have looked into this further recently, and can trace the etymology of the term to the mid-19th century.

"Therefore it seeks in Russia the enemy it has lost in France, and appears to say to the universe, or to say to itself. "If nobody will be so kind as to become my foe, I shall need no more fleets nor armies, and shall be forced to reduce my taxes. The American war enabled me to double the taxes; the Dutch business to add more; the Nootka humbug gave me a pretext for raising three millions sterling more; but unless I can make an enemy of Russia the harvest from wars will end. I was the first to incite Turk against Russian, and now Ihope to reap a fresh crop of taxes." - thomas paine, who himself lacked the deeper context.

see, and paul is kind of making the same mistake that paine is - he knows the recent history, but doesn't understand the depth of it, doesn't realize that this is ancient, that it is not ideological but cultural, that it can be traced way past the cold war and great game to the schism of 1054, to the partition of diocletian and all of the underlying roman-greek contradictions in the empire....that this is the deepest civil conflict in western civilization, the longest war that we have.

rome became london became washington. and athens became constantinople became moscow.

i've been wondering for a while if the canada-saudi spat has something to do with oil production.

it doesn't seem to be playing out yet, but, in the long run, cutting the reliance on arab oil should also help us adopt a better policy on israeli war crimes.

i'd obviously rather get off oil altogether - there was never a good argument for shifting to dirtier domestic oil. but, there are geopolitical benefits to self-reliance, nonetheless.

people may want to ensure they're up to date on their stats.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/11/13/news/guess-where-quebec-gets-its-oil

they should ticket the driver for idling.

it's $100/ticket in ottawa.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/12/13/news/albertas-notley-hires-car-poke-trudeau-liberals-during-holiday-party

well, to an extent she's not wrong, but she's kind of setting up a strawman.

there's a lot of people that are questioning the science underlying the curriculum and/or rejecting the idea that science is important when discussing sex ed. the reality is that they're horribly ignorant and badly need to be educated on the topic, but the fact that they're able to sit there and spew their hate and ignorance with impunity is demonstrative of a failure in public education in the first place. so, we kind of have a catch-22, here.

it would probably be a good idea to have an independent body of scientific experts review the material and explain what is right and wrong about it. i understand that this has largely already been done, but it seems we need a kind of scopes trial around this, as the government seems to think that science is subject to political oversight (beyond the process of peer review). if the accusation is political bias, an independent scientific review should put that idea to rest - and if the government refuses to conduct one, or refuses to accept the results of one, reasonable observers should realize where the bias lies.

gender non-conformity is a part of natural variation for the simple reason that gender doesn't exist in the first place; it's not gender non-conformity that we teach, but gender itself that is taught. there's a spectrum, not a binary. and, it's a social construction. that's basic biology. but, these are the same types of people that reject evolution as a "liberal ideology", so there's always going to be a minimal success in getting through to them.

there's two categories here - people that refuse to listen to evidence, and people that haven't been convinced yet. we'll never get through to people that don't want to listen, but we need to recognize that we're failing to make the case for people that we haven't convinced, yet.

let them do an independent scientific review, and accept or deny the findings of it.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/trans-support-leader-ontario-debate-gender-identity-1.4910813

laws only function insofar as they are enforced.

and, systems only have as much power as the body politic allows them to have.

the individual remains paramount in enacting systemic change.

if you think that anti-social behaviour is truly in your self-interest, you haven't really thought it through very well.

the health care debate in the united states - and the broader services debate in the post-industrial world - is not about funding, it's about what kind of a society it is that we want to live in.

so, if you don't need taxes to fund services, why is it such a struggle to get services?

this isn't an argument about resources.

it's ideological.

services providers make more money when services are private. some people think services are better when they're more expensive and/or private. and, there are fascists out there that want you to work hard to pay for your health care.

reducing the issue to a debate about the budget is actually conceding the issue on two levels. first, it constrains the debate to an acceptable discourse in the neo-liberal paradigm - this is a debate that conservatives like to have, because it's about accounting, rather than about ideas. second, it concedes that services are expensive, and we have to make sacrifices to have them - despite the fact that government services are actually more efficient, and there's no reason we have to sacrifice to have them at all.

if you let them define the terms as an accounting debate, you're going to lose this argument. and, so, you might wonder if that's why you're being herded into it.

so, is there a magic money tree, then?

yes.

so, no - you can't print money to pay off the debt.

you print money to create the debt; you destroy money to pay off the debt.

the problem is really in the language we use. what we call "government debt" isn't actually debt in the way that people understand it, but when we use the language we use, we create a broad misunderstanding around it. i've brought this up repeatedly in the past - we should be talking about creating and destroying money, not borrowing and repaying debt. by using the language we use, all we're doing is confusing ourselves.

and, i don't see any particular reason why we should be concerned with the government crowding out private investment, whether it's a reasonable complaint, or not.

but, i think we should have more public ownership of things, and less private ownership of things, too.

because i'm a communist, not a neo-keynesian.

the correct answer to the question of "how do we pay for this?" is that the answer is incoherent - government doesn't pay for things, it funds them by creating as much money as it wants. you can't actually answer the question, because it doesn't actually make any sense - which is why so many people get stumped by it. rather, it's an opportunity to teach the questioner a little bit about how government creates and distributes money.

"how are those squirrels going to save enough red meat to last them through the winter?"

there is actually no reason that you can't cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy and pay for universal health care at the same time. the debt produced by the budget deficits that would result from creating this money would merely be an accounting note: we created this much money to pay for that.

"repaying this debt" would mean collecting the money that was created and destroying it. you're not repaying anybody, you're just destroying the money - which, nowadays, means little more than changing a number on a screen.

repaying government debt is quite literally the destruction of public wealth. broadly speaking, it's a bad thing that should be avoided and vigorously fought against.

there are other reasons why we might want to increase taxes on the rich, specifically at the subnational level. a state or provincial or municipal government has to borrow money like any other entity. we may have a moral problem with runaway inequality. and, there are reasons why we might want to prevent the money supply from expanding out of control.

but, the idea that you fund public spending with tax money is completely economically illiterate, and when you hear people state this - whether it's as an argument to reduce spending, or as an argument to increase taxes - you can safely deduce that they're either completely ignorant or completely dishonest.

as an aside, universal health care is actually a way to save money, not a way to waste it. but, for the sake of this particular argument, that's a cursory fact.

i am in favour of big government, myself.

huge government.

seems like democrats want to run on reducing the deficit, now.

yeah. that's what the country needs - less spending.

fuck.

it's an unavoidable consequence of a two-party system - you don't get any kind of dialectic, you just get this constant pull in one direction or the other. so, you end up with the democrats trying to position themselves to the right of the republicans.

i was concerned that trump would collapse the state by reducing the size of the government, which is the reason that the soviet union collapsed. thankfully, he's not actually doing that. is it what the democrats want?

vote democrat for perestroika?

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2017/01/also-in-long-run-ill-need-to-keep-eye.html

i don't believe in dominance or submission, i believe in equality.

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2015/03/yeah_26.html

sam harris isn't even an atheist, so don't pull that strawman shit on me.

dude believes in "spirituality" and magic forces and other such specious, stupid stuff. he's basically a fucking buddhist yoga guru.

free your mind, man.

again: i don't want to bring this up.

i don't know why she's home all day. she could have cancer or something. no, really - i have no idea. all i know is that i can hear her up there - coughing - pretty much every day during normal school/work hours and that the smoke is correlated with him leaving.

so, i can still potentially assume he doesn't realize it. if that is the case, i want to wait for him to bring it up.

it's cold out. i have somewhere safe & warm. i'm focusing on suing the cops right now. this isn't going to be a serious issue for me until the spring at the earliest, and by then it might resolve itself.

i need to point something else out, though - it tends to get better when i complain about it, here. and, the other explanation that is consistent all around is that i'm not hearing a kid up there but a cop.

the kid seems to pretty much always be home. i dunno...

when he's home - and he's been home a lot lately - it comes right down, but when he's gone she seems to chain smoke.

obviously, i'd rather do something else besides sue him. but i don't want to live in a smokey environment - and i explicitly signed a non-smoking lease for that reason.

it seems like it's his daughter that is smoking.

i'm going to guess she's about 14, and she doesn't seem to go to school or anything.

again: it's very hard for me to understand why the property owner strung me along like this into thinking he doesn't smoke. there is clearly a smoker upstairs.

i was very clear that i wanted a non-smoking environment. what could he have possibly expected, besides conflict?

i'm just baffled.

so, now i'm going to have to figure out who is smoking, document it and sue them to get out of the lease. again.

why go through the expense? why waste my time and his? i don't get it.

if you're going to make me choose between well-meaning spiritualist dipshits that think they can bring the dinosaurs back with positive thinking and neo-augustinian conservative zealots that think there never were any dinosaurs in the first place, i'm going to go do something else, instead.

sorry.

a pox on you both.

the rejection of logic is not a philosophical position.

there is no epistemology that upholds intuition over empiricism, or feelings over facts.

if you are insisting on rejecting logic in favour of subjective personal experience, the position that you're taking is called anti-intellectualism, which is historically associated exclusively with fringe movements on the religious right.

and, that's why they taught you it - because they want you to be reliant on the church for guidance.

if you are a young person in america today, and you do not understand logic, and have even been taught to disdain it, you should try and take a step back from the situation and realize that this is not an accident. your disdain for logic was not implanted into you by marxists - marxists love logic - but by a school curriculum that was designed by conservatives in order to keep you distracted, ignorant, reliant and unable to organize. this attack on public schools was mirrored by a movement from the elite to pull their kids into private schools; it's a type of class warfare, and perhaps an expression of vulgar marxism, but, as such, the diametric opposite of actual marxism.

as adults, you have the ability to look into this, if you want. school funding was absolutely decimated in the 80s and 90s by this clinton-reagan axis that wanted you to be too stupid to be able to resist. the curriculum ejected anything to do with critical thinking because it realized that neo-liberalism doesn't hold up to much of it. it slashed science education, and brought in faith-based programs to compensate.

if you are a young american today, you are a product of this system, and your inability to deal with an idiot like ben shapiro is a consequence of the fact that the basic education you experienced was terrible - by design. i'm sorry to be the asshole that says it to you, but if he makes you feel stupid, then you are stupid.

but, that's not your fault - the system produced you this way.

what's important is that you realize it, and take steps to change it.

again: logic is supposed to be the weapon that liberals use to defeat conservatives with. you can learn this. if you want to.

i don't blame anybody.

i made that mistake. i take responsibility for it.

"this is my mistake, let me make it good."

and, i've been celibate - by choice - since.

briefly.

when i went into transition, i was a virgin. i met a girl that misinterpreted me as a rock star, and she convinced me to experiment before i went through with it. well, i was a virgin, and i'll admit that i saw some value in using my penis at least a couple of times before i got rid of it. so, i agreed to try it for a little while. i was still young.

the experiment was a horrible failure; rather than transition into a male role, i spent the whole time trying to devise a way to convince this girl to accept me as female. she never did, and i eventually had to walk away. but, it was a lot harder to go back into transition than i initially assumed it would be...

in hindsight, that was a mistake - i should not have done the experiment, i should have just pushed through with it. and, i absolutely regret it. unequivocally.

i never decided to reverse anything. rather, i made a decision to put my transition on hold in order to carry out an experiment, and then ran into financial problems when i tried to resume it.

and the experiment failed. i did not accept a male sexual role at all, but flailed against my inability to live up to the expectations of a female partner that was uninterested in accepting my femininity. and, the relationship was short-lived because i couldn't do it, and didn't want to do it.

the only thing i regret is not transitioning more quickly back when i had the chance.

i'll admit i'm stuck in the enlightenment and the ideals of the french revolution, but, in my mind, the left is supposed to uphold rigour and logic and empirical observation as it presents science as a revolutionary counter to the conservative dogma of religious tradition. specifically, the left - as a revolutionary force - is supposed to aggressively attack religion as conservative and backwards, and it is supposed to do so using the language of science.

i've been over this dozens - if not hundreds - of times at this point. everything is confused in the united states because the liberal party (the republicans) succumbed to nietzsche's predictions and collapsed into nihilism. that hasn't happened anywhere else in the world. but, it's created this kind of optical illusion where the traditional conservative party (the democrats) are misperceived as representing the left, and it has created this weird set of alliances that an enlightenment-era thinker has no option but to reject as incoherent.

so, how do you explain the premise of an empirically driven religious person like ben shapiro, that attempts to forcefully push reason and logic to uphold religious tradition? in any other place in the world, at any other stage in history, this would be a contradiction in terms - a complete absurdity. something like this:

and, do not take this too lightly - for this is the reality that a world full of ben shapiros will create; dark age arguments produce dark age thinking.

but, the flip side of this is the intuitively driven liberal, that attempts to argue against a conservative ideology and traditional values using appeals to personal opinion. this is no less of a contradiction, no less ridiculous, no less ahistorical. when you take away logic from liberals, you are denying them of the only weapon that they actually have in their fight against tradition, rendering them helpless fools that are easily pillaged by rampaging barbarians, like shapiro.

but, is all of this ahistorical absurdity not, in truth, quintessentially american? is this not a perfect idiosyncrasy? what has america ever cared for history, or for the rest of the world, anyways?

all i can do is try and hold up a mirror, and insist i can't take either side in their carrollian reality.

so, i just pulled down another 300 doc pages of hidden posts from 2016 and will need to insert them into the master document and uphold, overnight.

as always, that was more time consuming than i wanted, but the data is now pulled, and i'm still pushing forwards on it.

it was cold today and will be cold tomorrow so i wouldn't have gone anywhere, anyways. i'm considering even waiting a few things out and filing mid-month, so that i only have to leave the house once..

i repeat: the cia, itself, was the source of the leaked emails to assange.

source: deductive reasoning.

assange was being fed information by the deep state, and he didn't realize what he was doing.

he was utilized as a useful idiot.

what exactly has ben shapiro done in his life that should necessitate me learning who he is or caring what he thinks?

i actually don't have the slightest clue who ben shapiro is, and i don't suspect i'd find him very interesting to listen to at all.

sorry.

i mean...

the reason i live on disability and focus on art, rather than teach at a school or do research, is precisely because i didn't want to be an intellectual.

i believe in public education, and i think i have some obligation to help, but that stems from my politics; i spend a lot of time helping stupid people understand simple things, and i see it as a revolutionary act, but i don't spend any time at all arguing with people that have advanced degrees, and i don't want to do that, either.

i've never made any attempt to define myself as an intellectual, and i'm sorry if you've misinterpreted me as one.

i self-identify as a sound design artist.

i'm just not sure why they aren't arresting apple employees, too.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/peaceful-parents-happy-kids/201405/why-punishment-doesnt-teach-your-child-accountability

so, 100 people show up at the border and claim refugee status.

three are actual refugees. the rest are just americans looking for free health care.

what you want is a system that can quickly identify the legitimate refugees and process them appropriately and just as quickly deport the economic migrants. that is the actual problem we're dealing with: how to weed the worthy out and then quickly dispose of the worthless. and, how do you do that? well, you need better data collection, to start off with, and you need to be able to get it from the source countries. you need more judges. and, you need to be able to act quickly and decisively when you reject somebody.

so, what we need are ways to speed up the process, and the things outlined in the document should help us do that, if other countries facilitate it.

unfortunately, the country we're having the biggest problem with as a source - the united states - doesn't seem interested in participating. but, if the ideas get standardized, they should trickle down.

this is a political document, and the reaction to it in canada is political, with the pseudo-left embracing it (as consistent with multiculturalism) and the right rejecting it (because they're racist).

and, i actually think the broader pushback should be at the united nations. the un should realize that if they're going to produce political documents then it's going to produce political reactions. then, they scold people for misrepresenting the information. but, why do they waste so much time on these non-binding resolutions that just end up as dubious talking points, in the first place?

so, i don't see any use in opposing it or supporting it, because it's not of any consequence, either way - it's just a political statement.

that being said, what we need is an agreement that makes it easier to deport people by facilitating greater communication between existing states. we've created a situation where people expect to show up at a stranger's door and be sheltered and fed - and that is a problem that we need to find ways to effectively reverse. there has to be a more efficient way to facilitate the return of rejected migrants to their source countries, in order to minimize the amount of time that they're being kept in poor conditions, awaiting deportation. and, this might be a step in that direction.

https://www.un.org/pga/72/wp-content/uploads/sites/51/2018/07/180713_Agreed-Outcome_Global-Compact-for-Migration.pdf

at the very end, she mentions indigenous title, and this is in fact a very limited specific situation where there is a good argument that indigenous sovereignty (if not title, per se) is a way out, because the area in question is outside of the douglas treaties.

first, the explanation in this video is rather bizarre; a head of state cannot just sign whatever they want, what they sign does remain subject to domestic law, and particularly insofar as it relates to the court's jurisdiction, in the domestic country. in canada, the way it's supposed to work is that the international agreement gets introduced into the house of commons, at which point it becomes domestic law, and subject to constitutional requirements. it is only after the agreement is "ratified" in the house that it gains any actual legality. so, if harper (or trudeau)were to sign an agreement, and the agreement were to be found to be unconstitutional, it would no longer be law in the areas under the jurisdiction of canada's law - the government can't just sign whatever it wants and then claim it's a contract and we're all on the hook for it. that's some kind of imperialist nineteenth century logic. harper wasn't an emperor; we don't even have an executive branch, in this country. nor is a country a corporation. he acts merely as a spokesperson, and can be overturned by the house, if it comes to it - even if that is only likely in a minority scenario.

fipa was indeed tabled in the house of commons, and is now a part of canadian law. so, if fipa were to be repealed in the house of commons, it is unclear what kind of legal recourse the chinese would have to claiming it's still valid. again: we don't have an executive branch in canada, so it was only law because the house ratified it, and if the house had not ratified it, it would not become law. so, can any country modify the terms of an agreement unilaterally? well, if they pass a law against it, they can - that's called democracy. and, while some quasi-judicial international body may order us to pay some kind of compensation for it, they can't force us to uphold something we've struck down in law, as that would be an infringement of sovereignty. democratic legitimacy trumps everything else, in the end.

so, that is one way to get rid of the fipa - to repeal it. we may be ordered to pay a fine, but we could do it. sure.

the other way out is to question if the government had jurisdiction to it, in the first place. indigenous title is not the correct legal idea, as it does not provide for real sovereignty, or the ability to override federal authority. but, the reality is that this area was neither conquered, nor was it settled, nor was it purchased. the actual reality is that the federal government really has no legitimate jurisdiction over much of british columbia at all, as it doesn't even fall under the area covered in the 1763 proclamation. the situation in much of british columbia, including most of vancouver, is, legally, best described as an occupation; it's not very different from the illegal israeli occupation of the west bank in terms of the rule of law, even if canadian soldiers aren't murdering people - or at least not every day, anyways.

so, if enough of the bc tribes could come together to make the argument, there may be some way to question the jurisdiction of the government over the area. this might be a s. 35 argument, but it wouldn't have to do with title. see, i'm being careful in what i'm typing, because the premise that s. 35 is even in force presupposes some kind of jurisdictional primacy in an area that was never ceded in any way at all. they may have to use s. 35 as a kind of trojan horse, but they'd essentially be making a kind of succession argument, which itself is linguistically imprecise, because they were never under the jurisdiction in the first place.

i believe this would be novel, and i'm not entirely certain how to do it. nor does this argument apply in most of canada, which was ceded in some way or another. there are also potential risks in requesting this much sovereignty - if they were to win it, they might wish they hadn't. but, there are some legal avenues here around the issue of sovereignty, in that particular area of british columbia, because there's not really a good argument that the federal government really has any jurisdiction, in the first place.

nafta was not a free trade agreement.

proof:

not
a
free
trade
agreement

qed.

but, the reason it wasn't a free trade agreement is because the tariffs had already been slowly broken down, starting with the gatt. what the mcdonald commission called for was a standardization agreement. what nafta really is is an investors' rights agreement.

so, nafta doesn't have anything to do with tariffs, and signing a new nafta isn't going to strengthen or loosen existing tariffs. that's the fundamental point the left tried to get across in the 80s - this has nothing to do with free trade. we need to separate these ideas in our heads.

the new nafta will not act as a counter-balance to rising american protectionist rhetoric, or the policy likely to come out of it.

and, how long did canada have to wait for a loosening of tariffs under the last round of american protectionism?

well, reciprocity ended in 1866, arguably as a consequence of the civil war - and this was arguably a push factor in confederation, to get an understanding of how important trade with the united states is for canada.

the gatt was 1947.

the auto pact was 1965.

the fta was 1988.

it could be a very long while before the situation reverses; we shouldn't assume this is in the short run. that is not evidence-based thinking, it is wishful projection.

is it unfair that we have to scramble to adjust and restructure as a consequence of decisions made in a different country?

is it undemocratic?

sure.

and, that's what the anti-nafta protesters (the elder trudeau, included) were trying to point out, in the 80s and 90s - this agreement will make us completely reliant on the united states, for better or worse. we initially experienced this for the better. now, what was predicted has come to fruition: our minimal economic sovereignty is forcing us to suffer the effects of reliance, when america goes through periods of mismanagement.

getting to the root cause means reconstructing a measure of that sovereignty, and that is going to require a canada-first agenda in building canadian owned industry that is focused primarily on the domestic market.

it's not a contradiction, it's strictly causal.

and, if they are going to break the rules, we need to, too.

trudeau had to deflect from ford's suggestion that the recent plant closures were due to carbon taxes, but there's no more logic in tying it to the tariffs - the cars were simply not selling well.

i am not a trade liberalization fundamentalist; i think there is a place for tariffs and quotas. my opposition to trump's threat to use tariffs was not ideological, but practical: i doubted that trump had the tactical understanding and cognitive ability to use tariffs intelligently. tariffs are hard. and, because the united states and canada have comparable labour standards, ricardo's arguments are applicable: reciprocity makes a lot of sense across the great lakes.

that said, tariffs against mexico and china are in both the american and the canadian national interest. so, as it was previously, the situation is essentially a mess.

but, we need to be realistic.

donald trump is not going to remove the tariffs.

do we have leverage in congress? it's not likely - the democrats tend to be more protectionist at the congressional level, and they're ultimately accountable to voters that are even less sophisticated than trump is.

these tariffs will probably be there for at least six more years, and trudeau standing there and promising he'll have them lifted is equivalent to a union boss standing over a closed factory and promising to bring the jobs back. it's delusional.

rather than resist change and fight to turn back the clocks, canada has to adapt to the new reality, which is going to require federal dollars to build canadian industry that is focused on domestic consumption first, and new markets second.

and, this is not terrible, as it will make us more competitive and our industries more secure, when the next president (or the president after that) eliminates the tariffs.

the prime minister should be looking forwards, not backwards. but, this is consistent with him, isn't it?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tariffs-canada-us-trudeau-trump-congress-1.4938329

so, dubya is now orphaned.

just like uncounted thousands of children in iraq.

that's a shame.

you don't really believe this, do you?

if you really wanted to know what would happen if you put marshmallows in a vacuum, you would eject conan* o'brien's head into space.

*ted kennedy is dead, so conan ipso facto becomes the punchline of all of his own jokes.

you can't underestimate how toxic the stuff is.

https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/yw57pb/smoke-one-cigarette-a-day

https://www.ronitbaras.com/emotional-intelligence/personal-development/bully-parents/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/peaceful-parenting/201103/calling-all-parents-stop-bullying-start-teaching

we need to stop coddling smokers.

and, demeaning somebody for blowing toxic chemicals into your home is not "bullying" somebody, it's a form of self-defense - the bully is the person that refuses to refrain from engaging in behaviour that is seriously damaging to your health, despite repeated demands and explanations.

what i did was correct - both legally and morally. and, while i acknowledge that our society's values around second-hand smoke are currently disappointingly backwards, i am confident that i will be exonerated by history. i had no choice but to take action to protect myself from behaviour that was seriously damaging to my physical, mental and emotional health.

there is simply no excuse to smoke when you're asked not to, and any tactic imaginable is justifiable to protect the only meaningful thing we own, which is our health.

this is child abuse, and the man should be charged for it. worse, what it teaches this child is that bullying people is ok. and, then you wonder why she acts out.

this kind of "parenting: is the cause of this sort of behaviour, not a solution to it.

i mean, with a dad like this, it's easy to see why the kid treats others with a lack of respect, isn't it? that's exactly what she's been taught to do - and exactly what she's being taught to do, here.

please raise your voice to help put this child in a foster home where this asshole can no longer harm her.

notice anything about this picture?

rachel looks a little lonely.

it's ok - she'll be gone soon, too. replacement: fat white male.

canada: where fat, white men make all the decisions.*

*note that one of the fat, white men (the one in charge of roughly half of the population) didn't want to participate because the agenda didn't cater strongly enough to the interests of fat, white men. namely, i believe that the itinerary did not include a barbeque.

the frustrating thing is that, as we import american views towards guns, we also seem to be importing an american political spectrum around gun control, and that's something that should be resisted as strongly as anything else.

in the united states, you get the choice between a conservative party (the democrats) and a nihilist party (the republicans). the republicans are, of course, the historical american liberal party - not the democrats. but, in some kind of bizarre ode to nietszche, american liberalism collapsed into depravity in the middle part of the last century, leaving americans with this mirage that the democrats are some kind of liberal party, which has no basis in reality, not in the past and not today. so, when the democrats push what it is actually a right-wing approach to gun control, americans have nothing to contrast it with besides the pro-nra nihilism of the republican party, which of course grew out of the constitutional right to bear arms - a very liberal idea.

in canada, we're supposed to have a broader spectrum. liberals have historically supported things like gun registries (which was the original response to the montreal massacre), while pushing back against strict gun control - which is, by definition, illiberal. and, we're supposed to have a party on the left that argues for things like social policies and poverty reduction - that understands the need to get to root causes. that's all in flux, right now.

so, let's recall.

1) leftists seek to get at the root causes of crime. and, because most leftists are social liberals, they also reject authoritarian social policies. so, being a leftist means that you want to address gun violence by funding social programs, and fighting to eradicate poverty and social exclusion. the desired end point is a society where nobody wants a gun, anyways. that's the left. that's where i am. and, if you want people to voluntarily give their guns away because they just don't want them any more, that's where you are, too.

2) liberals uphold the capitalist status quo, but seek the establishment of regulatory bodies to curb what they consider to be destructive behaviour. so, they believe in the stock market - they just want to police it. and, they believe in corporate governance - they just want to regulate it. likewise, liberals support gun ownership, but want to pass what they see as reasonable restrictions to curb destructive behaviour. this is where the liberal party used to sit. so, if you find yourself in favour of gun rights, but want regulations around it, you're a liberal.

3) conservatives believe in law and order through the establishment of authoritarian laws, and the enforcement of hierarchical systems of control - and not just via law enforcement, but via religion and the media and etc. they want a system that operates from the top down. they believe in deterrence, in punishment, in retribution - in harsh justice. generally, they believe in god, and that the government acts on the command of god. a real conservative would argue that only the police should have guns, because that is their correct place in the hierarchy - everything in it's right place. regular people should only be given guns when they are conscripted for war time. so, a conservative would argue for very strict gun control, because it believes in a strictly ordered system. and, if that is what you want, you are a conservative.

4) then, there are the nihilists and relativists that just don't give a fuck. everything has a price. can i make money from guns? then i support guns! but, can i make more from gun control? then i support gun control. whatever. the modern republican party has darker undertones to it, but they ultimately have no actual political position on guns besides that which is most profitable to them. somebody like donald trump has no real position on this topic, other than the one that is most profitable in the short term.

i know that americans want to see this in black and white, and that's a problem. we've historically been better than that. and, we should be focusing more on getting americans to see the wider picture, not collapsing into their broken binary.

if we end up with the same choice between conservatism and nihilism/relativism, we will be on the path to becoming them - a tragedy we must avoid.

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/vbj738/danforthshooting-toronto-wants-more-gun-control-will-it-work

what we should strive towards is a society where people don't want to own guns, not one where they're not allowed to.

listen.

i'm a libertarian/socialist - i don't like banning things. i like social programs, cultural revolutions, agit prop, community organizing, etc. and, i participated in english class, so i like it when people explain their answers, and back up their arguments. so, when your kid does something wrong, do you explain why it's wrong and why they shouldn't do it, or do you just order them not to "because"? that is the difference between a left-wing approach to guns, which gets to root causes and tries to alter attitudes and behaviours, and a right-wing approach to guns, which just orders you around - ironically, by gun point.

so, as a leftist, i have ideological problems with this authoritarian idea of banning anything at all.that's not liberalism. liberals don't ban things. conservatives ban things.

but, it's an empirical question as to whether it works or not, and it doesn't.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-think-gun-control-was-the-answer-my-research-told-me-otherwise/2017/10/03/d33edca6-a851-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html

again: i have little opposition to this, but don't be surprised when it doesn't actually work.

you don't solve problems by passing decrees, you need to get to root causes. and, the root cause here is a creeping americanization in our culture that is increasingly glorifying gun use.

i mean, we just legalized marijuana because we realized that banning it doesn't work in reducing use, you need to get to root causes, instead. now, they want to ban guns? there's an incoherence in policy underlying this.

if you want to actually solve this problem - rather than work up your political base - you take a data-driven approach, not get trigger happy on authoritarian policies that don't work.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/12/06/trudeau-says-government-will-limit-access-to-handguns-assault-weapons-on-anniversary-of-ecole-polytechnique-shooting.html

so, i'll be planning to pick this back up on sunday and file the following things on monday or tuesday.

- civil case
- human rights complaint
- a court motion seeking the release of the original time-stamped document, as well as any local and network computer records documenting access of it locally or remotely. i will need to cite my previous statements as evidence that the audio was doctored and push the point as aggressively as possible (as i cannot allow them to present the audio as evidence that my statements are untrustworthy). if i cannot recover the original audio, i must create enough uncertainty around the sanctity of the altered audio to have it inadmissible. we'll see how good they are at this. they weren't very good at editing what i got, so i think this is an amateur job...

i'll need to make some calls in the morning, too.

right now, i'm going to get up and eat and do laundry.

yeah.

i need to keep pushing for the release, but i should assume, in the end, that i end up more likely to prove that the files have been altered - and are not useful for future court purposes - than i am to actual recover any original files.

see, now i have a problem i have to push to the end point that i can push it - i have stated that certain things happened in the court room, then purchased a transcript and received audio in order to demonstrate it, only to have it suggest otherwise. i claim i'm being given altered audio; it must be assumed that the transcriptionist was given the same thing. but, on it's face, this harms my credibility as a witness. and, it doesn't help that there are - unfounded - accusations of mental illness.

if they're going to change the audio, they're going to change the file stamps, and there's hacks to do it, so that's not even really what i'm looking for. i'm going to be looking for local computer logs - or network traffic, potentially. i don' know how or where this data is stored, and am probably unlikely to get access to that information, directly. but, if i show up in a court and make these accusations, they're going to have to take me seriously - and i'm going to have little choice but to push the point fairly aggressively, to maintain my own credibility.

this is why you shouldn't lie, kids.

should i be posting this here? well, i may be giving them a heads up, but i think i'm better off documenting the point as best i can than i am holding my cards closely. i can make arguments for future purposes, but, in the end, i have little control over decisions made by the court, so there's not a lot of use in hiding my tactics - i will need to expose any plan before i can carry through with it. rather, i'm an advocate of open source software, and trust that the truth comes out in the end, if the process is as transparent as possible.