nafta was the absolute last thing that the elder trudeau set in motion before he was forced to resign (the open secret in canada is that reagan was convinced he was a communist and forced him to step down over his opposition to missile defence). he set up a commission in the last months of his rule - called the macdonald commission, as it was head by a liberal bureaucrat called donald macdonald (condolences for the name.) - that recommended that canada aggressively seek a new reciprocity deal with the united states.

trudeau himself was picking up the legacy of wilfrid laurier, who was his biggest ideological influence in governing.

the macdonald commission's report was eventually picked up by the next elected prime minister (brian mulroney), who tends to be the popular face of free trade in canada. but, this was continuity: he was carrying forward with something that trudeau put in motion.

the immensely superior bilateral fta was signed first, and then nafta superseded it afterwards. it was jean chretien that signed nafta, but he was clear that he felt he had no choice. the elder trudeau was vociferously opposed to all of this, as he felt that what mulroney came up with was the literal opposite thing of what he intended.

the liberals in general - not just the elder trudeau -  presented a large number of very cogent criticisms of the fta and then nafta through the 80s and early 90s, while maintaining support for actual reciprocity. most of what they said has proven rather prophetic, although they weren't ever able to find a way out of what mulroney left around our collective necks.

nobody expected that trudeau would be his father. but, it would be nice if his handlers would at least bother to read what he wrote about free trade with the united states, as it is quite lengthy and rather insightful.

as it is, trudeau 2.0 is under serious threat of going down in history as mulroney the younger.

https://www.workers.org/marcy/cd/samnafta/nafta/nafta02.htm

what's starting to unfold is that the trudeau government is going to sell out certain industries in exchange for further investment rights, which will lead to further job losses, a further decrease in the standard of living, further cuts to services, further environmental degradation and a general attack on the working class, in exchange for higher profits for trust fund babies and other people reliant on hedge funds.

and, nobody should have expected anything different.

given that all that the government cares about is alberta anyways, why don't we try this: if we abolish nafta, they'll get a market price for oil, which will negate the need to export to asia. that would be good for them....

it's really not an agreement that gives us much, besides rights to invest. and, what's unfolding is starting to look like theatre.

what trump is really doing is characteristic - he's tilting at windmills with this, by threatening us with something that's in our own interests, to begin with - because he doesn't remotely understand what he's talking about. the business press is aligning with their class interests.

but, speaking of emperors with no clothes...

and, i've said this over and over again: we should have offered to pull out in exchange for concessions. we can throw this deal in the trash overnight; we don't have to go through congress.

but, what trump wants is to extract concessions, so he's trying to build "leverage". that's not a negotiation amongst equals, it's a threat from an imperialist tyrant.

and, we need to straight up tell him to fuck off.

let's throw their imports in the sea.

abolishing nafta is generally expected to make a different of about .2% of gdp, or something.

the reason is twofold:

1) nafta is not a free trade agreement.
2) abolishing nafta would not erect any tariffs (with the united states.), because that's been dealt with through various bilateral agreements, and the wto.

so, this idea that tearing down nafta is going to create a trade barrier between canada and the united states is just wrong. that barrier was removed long before nafta. and, nafta was not about removing barriers anyways - it was about creating rights for investors.

what abolishing nafta would harm would be people with large investments in the united states. we're talking about a very small bourgeois upper class that trudeau belongs to.

but who cares about them?

it can be calculated how often a broken clock is wrong - and then accurately predicted.

and, one of the few things that harper did that i thought was quite positive was putting more money into local greenhouses for the purposes of food sovereignty. he made this a priority. surprising, but welcome.

this is a sustainable future: automated local food production in greenhouses, using aquaculture rather than pesticides.

there is no future in continuing to ship all this food in from the south at such great environmental costs.

don't believe the reports arguing that nafta termination will cost jobs.

in the short run, it will certainly lead to job losses, as export markets dry up. but, what it would really lead to in the end is a reorganization, as domestic markets further open up. and, this is an issue where the trade deficit is actually relevant, because it is a rough measure of the amount of jobs that can be created by increasing local consumption.

here in ontario, we'd lose jobs in the export industries, like softwood. but, we'd gain jobs in agriculture and services.

but, the environment is more important than jobs. and, that's basically the argument i'd throw out there: we should be doing whatever we can to try and localize production, so we're not wasting so much carbon unnecessarily shipping things around all over the place to undercut labour markets.

anything that stops us from burning all this carbon shipping all this food in from california and mexico is a good thing.

but, it's also worth noting that cancelling nafta is not an end but a means to an end, that end being the much preferable option of a bilateral treaty with the united states, and something less than that with mexico.

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2015/02/like-isis-thomas-more-believed-passionately-in-burning-people-alive/

they made me read thomas more in high school, and i just remember thinking he was a douche.

"but my laws come to me from god."

i know that a lot of americans will turn into bleeding hearts when they hear this, and bleed all over everybody as they fall down convulsing. it's a match point for a certain group of people.

i'm going to ask you to think about it.

because, is the premise of democracy not that we can make our own laws?

and, if so, is this attitude not fundamentally incompatible with democracy - and something that should be resisted immediately, torn out at the root, rather than accommodated for in the name of 'tolerance'?

i'll say it again: we cannot tolerate the intolerant. and, the idea that laws are made by gods - and not by humans - is at the absolute root of intolerance. it's not an argument that should be validated by the court.

and, so i would actually take some pleasure in watching the judge strike down her gavel.

where's your god now?

i've been clear that i don't think that 'religious freedom' should be a charter right. putting religious freedom in the charter is the biggest error that pierre trudeau made, while in office. i believe this is attributable to that asshole, lougheed. it's become a loophole to escape the rule of law, and get special treatment for trivial reasons.

i believe in one law for everybody.

sorry.

that said, the judicial system in canada tends to lean the other way. and, that's something that the majority ought to be fighting to change, ourselves.

like i say: i think it's a triviality. i don't care if people wear hijabs or baseball hats in court. or sweat pants. or miniskirts.

but, i would expect consistency, one way or the other.

and, there's an entirely valid argument that the hijab is just not appropriate attire.

if, in the end, the judicial system rules that hijabs are allowed in court, they'd have to rule that baseball hats are, too.

and, you might be careful what you wish for.

i understand that people come from different cultures and accept different norms and even different legal standards.

but, in a democracy, you're not supposed to be able to say "i have different beliefs, so the rules don't apply to me.".

the rules need to apply to everybody the same way - regardless of their culture or beliefs.

but, in a democracy, we can also change the rules, if we can generate enough popular support to do so. and, this would be the task ahead of religious muslims.

but, it's a difficult battle, up hill.

and, i'm certainly not on their side, on this.

...although i don't care what you wear in your private life.

i'm willing to accept the argument that this is inappropriate attire for court.

but, what the judge would need to demonstrate is a consistent approach - that she didn't single the hijab out for special treatment.

and, is a hijab inappropriate attire in court? i wouldn't make the case too strenuously. but, i wouldn't argue against it too strenuously, either.

i think i'd like to hear arguments on it.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4050966/quebec-judge-who-refused-to-hear-woman-in-hijab-loses-appeal-to-quash-investigation/

i would advise that they spend their time doing something else.

there's clearly multiple people down there smoking.

but, they couldn't fit enough people in the room to overpower the cold air pushing down from 6 wide open bay windows, 24/7. and, they'd choke to death, if they were to try.

if there's any damage done to the floor, it will be from the smoke, not the temperature.

so, it's no surprise that the crackheads downstairs aren't good at physics.

i have enough of the holes patched that i'm clear-headed enough that i'm getting some work done; if i've been a little slow the last few days, it's more that i've been distracted, and partly by the need to patch holes..

so, here's how the physics with this works.

so long as it's relatively cool out, opening the window above a smoker will flush the cold air downwards. further, the smoke will escape out the window.

the end result is that i get fresh air, and they get cold. perhaps very cold. but, i can't care, so long as they're blowing smoke through the electrical fixtures in an obvious attempt to piss me off.

i'm perfectly happy to sit here in a sweater with the windows open for the next month. the air in here is clear enough, right now, and just going to clear out further, as i patch up more and more holes.

and, the more i'm annoyed the colder it will get downstairs.

that said, the maintenance person should be here today to finish sanding the bedroom, at which point i can start smoke-proofing that space and moving things in, which will let me smoke-proof the larger space, next.

i don't feel like my time is being wasted, because i have to work this out, anyways. but, it's unclear to me why they're wasting their time with such obviously childish behaviour.

now, people will yell and scream at me for expressing this.

but, look at who is yelling and screaming at me.

no; do this - it's an excellent exercise in independent, critical thinking.

why are these specific people making these specific criticisms? why are they so upset about it? why are they reacting with vitriol instead of logic?

the best way to get rid of this nonsense is to read a history book.

what you will learn is that everybody enslaves and slaughters everybody else, and these constructs you speak of only exist inside of your mind - because they were put there in order to control you.

now, if you're a black person arguing that white privilege exists, what you're doing is acknowledging your inferiority. and, yes - that does make you a white supremacist, as upholding your own inferiority is the same thing as upholding the white man's superiority.

i want to be clear: anybody that argues for the existence of white privilege is a racist, and needs to be smashed.

that is the definition of being a racist.

white privilege = white supremacism. so, arguing that white privilege exists is the same thing as being a white supremacist.

all the fancy language is just meant to confuse and brainwash you into upholding the status quo.

see, and the more you don't get it, the more he was right.

that's the orwell-turing thesis.

nononono.

you don't get it.

see, if orwell was right, you'd never know it.

because you're a fucking idiot. which was his actual point.

me, though, i'm smart, so i have to explain it to you.

but you're still not going to get it...

and, of course, the people that call themselves leftists are broadly anything but.

what's an anarchist to do, besides point it out from a distance and hope they don't get crucified?

it's exactly what orwell taught us.

the people we call feminists are out there enforcing patriarchy.

the people we call secularists are out there enforcing religion.

and, the people we call anti-racists are out there enforcing white supremacism.

and, they're all cops.

what those posters are teaching kids is that a racial hierarchy exists, and that they will need to adapt to their correct place within it.

the people that did the actual postering are no doubt completely brainwashed, and at little fault. and, you can't argue with people that are under the control of these methods, either.

what this is is a psy-op. it's an evolution of the tools that people like edward bernays invented a hundred years ago. and, if they have their way, we will all be placed in our right places, in this neo-burkean structure - with white people as rulers, and everybody else as slaves.

so, i don't see any difference between putting up a sign that asks white people to acknowledge their privilege and putting up a sign that asks white people to acknowledge their superiority - and black people to acknowledge their inferiority.

so, when i say this is racist, i don't mean "reverse racism".

this is systemic racism.

this is white supremacism.

it follows that when i deny white privilege, i am denying white superiority, and fighting against systemic racism.

but, our ignorance is our strength, today.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/racism-campaign-school-district-74-1.4566779

so, i expect that protective services are on their way to take these kids out of the abusive environment they're living in....

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/harrow-mom-walk-school-sign-bus-1.4568266

have another drink, rachel.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-throne-speech-2018-1.4567873

so, we're 15 years from fusion, huh?

lol.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/09/nuclear-fusion-on-brink-of-being-realised-say-mit-scientists

(i know the history of forced secularization, and will only remind you that i've strenuously argued that forced secularization doesn't work and should be avoided for that reason.)

you gotta be careful when you see something like this at the washington post.

but, this is where my solidarity lies - in principle.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/women-in-iran-are-pulling-off-their-headscarves--and-hoping-for-a-turning-point/2018/03/08/bb238a96-217c-11e8-946c-9420060cb7bd_story.html

so, what are all the countries that obama lost?

- russia [who, up until mid mandate, sought a reset and friendship]
- iran
- india
- pakistan
- iraq
- afghanistan

and, which countries are in the process of being lost as a consequence of obama's lingering policy influence?

- turkey
- japan
- south korea
- germany

what did he gain?

- ukraine
- libya

these are serious losses that historians will need to seriously account for.

it's true that he was handed a difficult plate.

but, regardless, obama was really a historically poor president. his economic policies were outstanding, but his foreign policy legacy was merely to accelerate the collapse created by bush. his major error was letting hillary take control of the state department; in the end, he was outsmarted by putin over and over again. and, he really left little domestic legislation that will survive the current administration, with perhaps the sole exception being the heritage foundation's health care plan - which is what the republicans always wanted, anyways.

i've said this before: look at a list of presidents from the second half of the nineteenth century.

you can't name anything they did, can you?

that's obamas future.

...except that he will be remembered for setting various things in motion, that will lead to the collapse of american hegemony.

those sanctions on russia will be remembered for time immemorial as one of the worst foreign policy blunders in the history of the world - on par with french armies starving in the russian winter, or germany foolishly overextending itself deep into the russian steppes.

i really wish that websites would stop pushing video and podcasts - or at least provide transcripts for people that would rather read than watch.

it just takes ten times as long to watch a video or listen to the audio of something than it does to read a transcript of the same thing.

we don't need to change the senate.

we need to change the prime minister.

under the smoke and mirrors, the truth is quite clearly this:

justin trudeau is an ideological conservative.

that's the reason that nothing seems to make sense.

like obama before him, he's batting for the other side.

on it's face, this is a level of incompetence that has not been seen in any western democracy. ever. it brings up memories of incompetent boy kings, or monarchs gone mad with power. and, this is the real lesson, here - we need to stop underestimating the threat inherent to electing the children of former leaders.

what trudeau has done to the senate is exactly the kind of thing that democracy was supposed to make impossible.

if the liberals won't accept the independent group (which is absurd.), then the liberal rump needs to join the independent group and take control of the chamber, already.

can we get the senate to arrange itself in a way that the majority controls the committees?

i'm still convinced that this is a ploy by the liberals to avoid passing the legislation - which they never intended to pass. but, the way the senate exists right now is really nothing short of retarded.

how can the government sit there and allow the opposition to control the senate, when it has a majority in the chamber? it's beyond absurd, it's contempt. is it even unconstitutional? is it grounds to remove the prime minister from power?

the liberals have a majority in the senate.

this is a cruel joke....

(this link is paywalled)
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/senate-adds-new-delay-to-ottawas-cannabis-legalization-plan/article38227907/

....and is available for free here:

was there some shady force aiding sanders in the primaries?

yeah, i think there was. at least at first.

and, was sanders aware of it?

to some extent, but perhaps not clearly.

i don't know what happened, in the end. maybe bernie tricked me along with everybody else - although i'm hard to trick. trump didn't trick me. obama didn't trick me. trudeau didn't trick me, either. maybe sanders got me when the rest couldn't....

maybe, they decided that supporting him was a bad idea, after all - because he seemed as willing to play them as they were to play him. maybe he seemed to understand the game, and it freaked them out. i'm leaning there.

but, it never crossed my mind that this shady force was russian, nor do i think that it was, looking back. and, i'm keyed into russian media and russian narratives. i'd see it if it was there.

the deep state hates hillary clinton. i can only say that so many times....but nobody wants to see the obvious.

apparently, when mccartney found out about carol kaye, it broke his naive heart.

brian wilson was a hack.

this is his ghost writer.

and, i'll say it: tommy douglas' skeletons are a lot more frightening than pearson's.

i would have voted for the latter, and i think history defends the point.

pearson was without a question the best prime minister we've ever had; while we should be honest and critical where necessary, the left should be trying to build on what he left us, which is a legitimately strong starting point, and not trying to tear that legacy down.

i think engler is generally a little too hard on pearson, who wasn't jesus, but did articulate a vision worth striving for.

he's right about may being a problem, though.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/12/canadian-greens-vs-us-greens/

in terms of informing voting decisions, i'm far more upset about what they're doing in eastern europe.

there's no way i'm voting for legalizing heroin. but, i'd like to hear the greens speak out against arming nazis in ukraine, and against placing troops in the baltic.

to be clear: i'm not denying that trudeau may be seen as being weak on foreign policy.

i'd agree that his foreign policy has been pretty amateurish, and in truth more of an extension of harper's than a return to liberal principles.

but, this is the same error that clinton made: she ran on foreign policy, despite polls making it clear that foreign policy is simply not a ballot question to americans.

(and, as a hard leftist, i preferred what trump said on foreign policy, anyways.)

when people sit down to vote, the question of whether trudeau is making the country look good or bad to indians is simply not going to be top of mind, or middle of mind, or even bottom of mind.

nobody is going to care at all.

he could build a shrine to vishnu in his office, for all i care, so long as he does something substantial on the climate, between now and then - and, if he doesn't, it's not likely i'll support him, even if the indians love him, after all.

and, i'm more concerned about what our indians think of him - which is currently not very much.

the abacus poll may seem relatively reasonable upon first glance, but don't let that distract you from the fact that they are not doing scientific polling, and should essentially be ignored by serious observers.

if the poll is picking something up, it's by accident.

nor would there be any reason to draw a causal relationship between trudeau's trip to india - which nobody actually cares about besides the tory media - and any decrease in support, given that there are plenty of better reasons to see his support slip. if he was trying to stop movement to the ndp, such a thing is beyond rational deconstruction, and it's not going to stop something that was never going to happen in the first place.

it's like lisa's rock that keeps away lions.

the actual movement in the poll is to the greens and not the conservatives or ndp, which would suggest that the movement (if real, by accident) is due to distaste over trudeau's lack of a serious policy on climate change. and, it may be partially connected to the mulroneyesque bait and switch in the budget, which appears to be putting funding into conservation at the expense of transition.

but, i'm going to vote for variation.

don't expect the national post to skip a good yarn, though.

just typical tory media nonsense...

http://nationalpost.com/news/politics/john-ivison-trudeaus-blunder-filled-india-trip-sinks-liberals-in-the-polls

again: throw away that pseudo-scientific claptrap you call "business literature" or "negotiation theory" and watch the dawkins video.

trump is not being a "tough negotiator".

he's being a parasite.

defect.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1jprgh

on the other hand, his mom might have the most useful advice in the world, right now.

call your mom, justin.

you know, i wasn't alive in the 70s, let alone old enough to be following politics, and the historical literature i've read has only cursorily examined the trudeau-sinclair "marriage", but i have to wonder just how long people sat and wondered....

when is she just going to get up and walk out?

he's more like his mother every day, isn't he?

and, then, let's sue the fuck out of him until he's gone.

let's make canada the divorce that trump really remembers and truly regrets.

and, trump will call us at all hours of the morning.

i've changed.

bullshit.

hang up that phone.

block that number.

this, too, shall pass.

let's a sign a statement of solidarity with melania, instead - and get up and walk away together.

when people talk to you the way that trump has spoken to us, you need to get up and walk away.

we should not remain a part of this abusive relationship.

not for one second longer....

friends do not give each other ultimatums.

and, canada should not be the fool that cannot identify it's friends - and is then taken advantage of for it.

i would have no patience in these "negotiating tactics", or see any reason why we need to suffer such idiocy.

i'd tell the dipshit to take a fucking hike.

no.

there can be no "conditions" on exemptions for steel and aluminium.

we have a free trade agreement.

and, trump is just wasting everybody's time in acting out, like a child having a temper tantrum.

when children act out, you need to correct their behaviour.

nafta is a farce. end it. now.

we can re-enter negotiations for a bilateral agreement with the next president, on the condition that it is actually a free trade agreement.

in the mean time, let's start shipping oil to china.

what i said after the election was that all the liberals need to do to win the next five elections is carry through on their campaign promises, and avoid looking like harper-lite.

oops.

so, if the real reason that trudeau won is that people rejected mulcair the same way they rejected ignatieff, does that mean singh comes in and save the day?

no.

he's not what anybody wants, either.

again: this is going to be a strange cycle, and nobody dare predict the outcome at this point. the only thing i'm predicting is disturbingly low turnout - like, the low turnout will be a major news story, kind of thing. the lowest turnout anybody's ever seen...

but, the demographics are changing, because the conservative base is dying. where low turnout once guaranteed a conservative win, today it's just a flag for unpredictability.

it could be anything from a conservative minority to a breakthrough for the greens to a return of the bloc.....

this is the first evidence that i've got this thing.

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.ca/2015/08/it-was-leading-question-on-tpp.html

i loved loved loved loved loved loved jim carrey for a few years, at a certain age.

i don't talk about him much.

but he's actually probably my biggest influence.

it wasn't just jim carrey  it was robin williams. it was bill murray. that kind of character actor that can do drama as well or better than comedy - i always drew a lot of inspiration from that.

not that i ever wanted to be an actor; or, at least, not formally. i saw that more as an optimal way to actually live, to actually exist.

because it's the drama that makes life worthwhile, and the comedy that makes the drama manageable.

it's more fun when nobody is sure if you're acting.

maybe, one day, we will have a final sacrifice.

that's something worth being hopeful about.

until then, some kind of mourning is a part of life.

blame god, or something.

i don't fucking know.

maybe we could genetically engineer ourselves to photosynthesize.

i think i'd be happy as a flower.

what this emperor truly lacks is a soul.

https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2018/03/07/Trudeau-New-Clothes/

you make the bill as simple as you can make it.

nothing else besides daca.

you reject all amendments.

you force an up or down vote.

and, you get the two thirds required in each house to tell the president to eat a shit sandwich.

capeche?

don't expect it.

an unwillingness or inability for congress to act can never be an excuse for the arbitrary use of executive power.

congress has to eat this. and, voters should be holding them accountable for their failures to get a popular bill passed.

and, that lottery is a dumb idea, anyways.

are you telling me that congress can't pull together a supermajority to support dreamers without funding a wall?

bullshit.

it's not the role of the president to pass decrees on immigration status.

only congress can fix this.

and, if the president is being an ass, you overrule him with a supermajority.

i repeat: daca must be resolved by congress, as that is their role in the american system.

chuck schumer is full of shit - and not remotely interested in solving the problem.

he'd lose way too many votes...

do a survey.

ask habitual marijuana users: do you smoke by yourself or with others?

be prepared to learn that almost all of them smoke alone, and prefer it that way - that they even use it as a way to escape being social. and, then put 2 +2 together around it.

if what you're thinking is..

if we make it so that marijuana users have to stay inside, then they'll stop having fun and stop doing it.

...then that's completely wrong, and based on a total misunderstanding of what marijuana is all about.

that might work for cocaine, or meth. but, marijuana users hate people, anyways, and would rather smoke alone, and pout by themselves - that's why they pick the stone, rather than the high.

what you will end up with is chronic, paranoid marijuana users stuck on disability for life.

but, if you encourage them to come outside and meet people and be more social, you might even help them break the habit a little.

potheads are not, never have been and never will be the archetypal cool kids.

potheads have always been and always will be the introverts, the ostracised and the socially inept. see, realizing that the data shows that marijuana doesn't create inept behaviour is only getting half of the picture: it misses that these things have become correlated in the popular (mis)conception for the precise reason that people that are already socially retarded are so heavily drawn to it.

so, part of a marijuana legalization strategy should be to stop people that are already losers from using the drug as an excuse to reinforce their anti-social behaviour.

in the end, your average pothead might not become a gregarious social butterfly. but, helping them connect with each other could at least minimize the arresting behavioural habits.

so, if marijuana doesn't belong inside peoples' homes, where does it belong?

i think there's two places where marijuana should be smoked:

1) outside, in dark alleyways.
2) at bars.

where it belongs is in the back patio at a dive bar, shared amongst patrons enjoying a beer. and, it should be available for purchase at said bar.

if people prefer to avoid alcohol, there are always coffee bars, as well.

but, like alcohol, there should be a focus on designated consumption sites and a policy to get it out of the home - partly because smoking alone, like drinking alone, is going to contribute to mental health problems, not help resolve them.

these are people that you want to encourage to go outside and meet friends, not encourage to stay inside and fester in a state of arrested development.

the thing i held on to for a few more years was civ2 on pc.....but i was done by about 16 or 17....

i never did the first person shooter thing, although i remember watching friends play goldeneye at parties.

i just never found the idea of killing things to be very appealing.

sorry.

i had a sega genesis when i was a kid. about 10-13 years old.

then i grew out of it.

that is all.

i would support an outright ban on first-person shooter games, regardless of whether or not it leads to gun violence, on the basis that it's destroying lives and wasting potential.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/trump-reopens-a-seemingly-settled-video-game-debate-1.3832555

the new (lack of a) tobacco reduction strategy is a concrete example of where this government is actually worse than the previous one.

i can't believe that the government put a policy of reducing the wage gap for cancer researchers in it's updated tobacco reduction strategy, which is no strategy at all, but the worst written policy document i've ever seen; this is not a professional report, but an undergraduate paper that any competent prof would grade with an F.

minus.

this is a government that is fundamentally unserious about anything.

and, i'd never thought i'd say it, but at least harper was serious.

no, changing tax rates doesn't affect people's behaviour.

so, tax cuts don't create jobs. and, they don't increase gdp, either. nor will tax increases reduce carbon emissions - or smokers.

the idea that taxes affect behaviour is just a bunch of right-wing propaganda.

we've made good progress in reducing the number of smokers, here. but, it wasn't due to taxation. it was due to a combination of restrictive policies that made it hard to smoke, a lot of public health information and a lot of social coercion that rejected smokers as untouchables. we made smoking socially unacceptable - that is what worked.

personally, i'm strongly in favour of utilizing peer pressure as an informal mechanism of social control to carry out social engineering goals - and getting smoking out of apartment buildings would be a desirable end that peer pressure could be effectively used as a means for.

we're going to have to replicate this with marijuana smokers - and, god forbid, crack smokers, too.

science always takes primacy.

sorry.

hey, i didn't make that up, it's just what the science has discovered.

if you are a palestinian today then you may have some genetic drift from the surrounding areas, but you are actually a descendant of the ancient jews, who were converted first to christianity by the romans and then to islam by the arabs.

the jews are not your cousins, or even your brothers, but your actual selves.

and, so this is the truth we must come to: some hebrews are jewish, and some hebrews are muslim, but they are all hebrews - and should live together under a pluralistic hebrew state, with equal rights for all.

see, the point you're all missing about palestinian origins is that the roman genocide actually worked.

the romans were quite good at genocide, actually. they successfully carried out several of them...and they had a particular hate on for semites of all types....

today, almost two thousand years later, the palestinians don't even know that they're hebrews. they think they're arabs. that's pretty impressive, isn't it?

wiped right off the map...

and, somewhere in hell, a roman legion is chuckling.

and, who do you think gave you those drugs in the first place?

huh?

if i could get away with it, i'd march down there, kick the door down, take their crack pipes away and kick them out into the street.

of course, i'd need back up.

the man won't allow it, though.

hey, where'd you go?

oh, there you are back there - hiding behind the man's legs.

safe there, huh?

and, now you're calling me a terrorist...not until critical mass....wait...patience...

but, you know that's what the man does, right?

the man exists to protect your property from anarchists like me, that don't acknowledge your contracts or deeds.

do i want to destroy your way of life?

you betcha!

"you mean you don't....accept....property rights...i can't...who ever heard of such a thing...?"

and, what makes me laugh is that the status quo will look at you in shock, right?

"this...this...revolutionary...wants...she wants to change social norms...i can't...even...."

yeah.

and, you're the person i'm launching the revolution against.

who did you think i was going after? the government is you.

maybe you saw yourself as something different. but, you're probably just a status quo neo-liberal like everybody else, lost in delusions of your own feigned uniqueness.

and, that's what i want to burn down: your delusions of free choice.

what i want is to make government at the centre of people's lives: we need government at work, government at school, government at home - government everywhere.

democracy everywhere!

ok, ok.

ideally, the tenants vote.

but, ideally, we have actual mobility, too.

i have a problem with telling poor people to choke.

hey, don't look at me like that.

i never claimed to be a libertarian, or to have any interest in "keeping government out of people's lives".

i'm an anarchist of the left. i think that we are the government, and the idea of "keeping government out of people's live" is incoherent on it's face - a contradiction in terms.

i would have liked to see something a little bit more proactive than a measly tax increase.

just more incompetence from this government...

https://ipolitics.ca/2018/02/27/liberals-hiking-tobacco-taxes-boosting-control-strategy/

but, i need to be clear: i'm right about this.

history will uphold this plight.

and, i intend to win, in the long run.

so, how am i feeling?

well, given that i'm caught up on sleep, it's not that strange that i'm having a long day. i'd better get some sleep in the next 12 hours, though, or i'm going to find myself back at the hospital.

and, i will keep going to the hospital until they give me the right answer.

i'm not high. not racing. not feeling palpitations. i'm getting a mild nose bleed, but it's dry in here, and i need to clean the remnant smoke off the walls and floors. it's suspicious, but it could be a coincidence. my headache never fully went away, but it's currently manageable.

i've patched up the worst area for now, and it does seem to be having an effect. and, i've got the windows wide open. but, the wind has not been blowing directly at me since the first onset of winter, and i'm above hot air rising, so i'm actually getting a lot of negative pressure. the forecast suggests that the wind might shift in my direction this morning.

thankfully, the landlord was here this morning to patch the hole in the bedroom. he's suggesting it may need two more days. but, my hands are tied until i can get in there.

see, i need to clean in here, but the space is packed full of stuff. i really need to be able to clean in the other room first and then slowly move things in, which will give me enough space to clean in the main room.

i've decided that i need to use a brute force approach, which means taping over every inch of the walls. it's going to look like a rubber room. but, that's what non-smokers are going to have to be doing to deal with this.

i am of course in support of marijuana legalization, at the least, but i would also support a law banning smoking inside of apartment buildings. as it is, property values for older buildings are going to crash when this becomes legal. we're going to see the creation of "pot houses" that nobody except pot heads want to live in; on the other hand, we're going to need to pay a premium to avoid living with potheads. it's going to be a factor in further class stratification. and, the people forced to live in these buildings due to low income are going to incur all kinds of unnecessary respiratory diseases that are going to bog down the medical system.

expect a lot of people in the hospital complaining about smoke inhalation over the next few years....

i'll eventually have pictures up, and i'd fully recommend that people emulate this approach, if they're in the same situation.

for now, like i say: i should be getting tired soon, and will have reason to be concerned if i don't. but, i'm otherwise feeling ok - besides the little bit of blood in my nose, and the mild lingering headache that i think should lift when i can finally do a good clean.

i almost fell over when i first heard this.

a familiar, comforting voice in a refreshingly new context.

best cure song in decades.

but, i mean....

i've been crystal clear that i reject the claim that i'm not working.

not only am i working, i'm working harder than you are, and i'm being more productive than you are, too - because, at the end of the day, nobody cares about that hole you get paid to dig.

you're just brainwashed...

sorry.

software should be free in both senses.

you would expect me to take a harshly realistic view on software piracy, right?

i do not and never will have the means to purchase audio software. so, i can steal it or just not use it at all. as such, i'm not actually cutting into anybody's profit margin, because i was never going to buy it, anyways.

if it was a guitar or a synthesizer or some other physical object, i'd buy it in a pawn shop. that's the better comparison; and, either way, the creators aren't getting paid.

that said, i'm an artist, and keenly aware of the need to convert my labour into food, or starve. but, i'd prefer to lean towards a ubi or gai than towards an enforcement of property rights. and, we can have this debate this decade, but it won't be long before property rights aren't a serious option, and programmers are uniting with artists in their requests to abolish the market.

some things in my playlist this evening:

i'm on a 65dos kick.

and, also, a mammatus kick:

there were a lot of things wrong with that ipsos poll, but the basic reality is that the demographics of it were almost impossible.

i'm sorry, life long conservative supporters, but your movement is literally dying. your party is experiencing structural negative growth - much like the economy, when you're in power. the romantic narrative of the mulroney years is fading into the mists of history. and, the narrative of the harper years was never romantic, to begin with, but full of anxiety and trepidation.

wherever the liberal numbers fling around to, the conservative party, as we know it, will probably never reach 38% again.

ever.

http://www.nanos.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Political-Package-2018-03-02.pdf

"responsibility", like everything else, has to be socialized in a modern economy.

"personal responsibility" is a nineteenth century concept that you can't even define in modern terms.

i mean, we're talking about going into an election where 60-65% of the vote is totally disenfranchised, beyond any pretension of representation.

and, that's he kind of thing that does lead to weird outcomes, like fluke green sweeps, the return of quebec nationalism....or conservative minority governments.

trudeau has absolutely no credibility. may is unelectable. and, singh is a libertarian crank. so, you tell me what happens next, when the country swings left 3:1 and doesn't have a party it can vote for...

all i can tell you is that it's going to be strange.

i mean, the fucking conservatives could very well pull an end around and come out on the centre-left at this point and win a majority that way...and neither trudeau nor singh would know what hit them....

see, i can talk about stable party systems reconstructing themselves out of a systems collapse, but it assumes that the parties are competent enough to follow their own self-interest.

to have a spectrum composed of parties that are this incompetent - across the board - may be unique in the history of western democracy.

there is not a single political party in canada with competent leadership, right now.

legalizing all drugs is not a centre-left position, it is a radical right libertarian position. it may not become a ballot question, but, if it does, the country is going to discard jagmeet singh and the ndp as completely fucking bonkers. the dominant centre-left position on this topic is more or less the status quo, perhaps with increased funding for treatment.

and, if you look at the ndp platform carefully, this is a constant: it's "progressive" in the same way the progressive conservatives were....

- strong support for oil
- lip service to the environment
- balanced budgets
- expanding universal healthcare [but, this is a consensus position in canada]
- support for free trade
- less government regulation
- upholding constitutional civil rights

that is the new ndp.

sounds like the old conservatives, to me.

to be clear, this is the spectrum we currently have:

1) quasi-fascist ("conservative party"): fading support. obscure future. but, this must exist in the spectrum....

2) moderate conservative (liberal party is competing with the ndp for this place): will never get more than minority support in a stable system.

3) left-leaning centrist party (currently vacant): this is the majority position in the canadian spectrum. but, all of the parties are avoiding it.

4) social democratic party (currently vacant): the greens will eventually move into this space when may is removed or steps down.

and, if we go to an election like this, the result is going to be mass apathy and record low turnout.

but, they pulled a switch on me: mulcair's attempt to leapfrog the liberals to the centre ended up swapping my predictions around, for the moment.

right now, in 2018, the ndp and the liberals seem to be in a competition with each other for irrelevancy.

liberal is the new conservative.

doug ford would not have jurisdiction to legislate on abortion if he were premier of ontario.

sorry.

well, unless they rig it, of course.

then, the candidate they want to win will win. which is probably mulroney.

http://www.lfpress.com/2018/03/05/amid-tight-race-doug-ford-wants-paper-ballots

the reality is that the younger, female part of the tory base that mulroney was supposed to appeal to is going to see more of themselves in a feisty christian activist like tga than they will in an elite, agnostic aristocrat like mulroney.

these people will just interpret mulroney as a status quo liberal.

rather, expect mulroney to do better with older voters that are nostalgic for her father.

i just want to post a last update on the ontario pc race.

as expected, the media is mostly assuming that tga is taking votes from ford, but i can't imagine that this is actually true - tga is probably mostly taking votes from mulroney, and to a lesser extent from elliot. what that means is that the modelling is probably exaggerating both mulroney and elliot and under-estimating tga.

the reason this is happening is due to the phenomenon of women that lean hard to the right, but would vote for a centrist female candidate over a right-wing male candidate, at least on the first ballot, due to the overwhelming pull of identity politics. the modelling is going to get this completely backwards.

i still expect the results of the first ballot to be as follows:

1. ford.
2. elliot
3/4. tga / mulroney

i think the real race is between tga & mulroney for last - and it will be very close. tga could beat her in the end.

mulroney's votes would then go to elliot. but, tga's will go to ford in the end.

the result is that tga's effect in the race will be to steer votes from mulroney & elliot to ford, in the long run.

and, ford will win comfortably for that reason. 55-60%.

if tga were not running, i would still expect ford to win, but not by the same margin. in that scenario, it would really be the toss-up that the models are throwing out, because that path to ford wouldn't exist.

this is the kind of dumb idea you usually hear from the ndp.

i'd rather have it raised to 21.

https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2018/03/05/let-youth-start-voting-at-16-urges-liberal-mpp-in-private-members-bill.html

speaking of which, i had a nice long conversation with an undercover cop at the hospital, yesterday.

but i'll leave it that.

an anarchist would say something like "we are the ungoverned", or "we will not be governed", and not "we are the ungovernable" - as though we would rather be governed, but, alas, just can't be.

cops are, in fact, exceedingly simple to identify...they give themselves away....

i mean, i could just imagine how much fun a group of actual anarchists would have in deconstructing a ridiculous slogan like "we are the ungovernable".

there is a 100% chance that a cop came up with that, and a 0% chance that an anarchist did.

almost certainly cops, but it's not clear what they're up to.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/03/04/mob-dressed-in-black-damages-vehicles-smashes-storefronts-on-hamilton-street.html

see, if you like what trudeau says, you ought to be voting for wynne - because she's actually doing it.

the feds will not be introducing legislation of this nature, they'll just hold press conferences on it until they're replaced.

so, can we keep wynne and turf trudeau instead?

https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2018/03/06/ontario-to-bring-in-pay-transparency-bill-that-aims-to-close-gender-wage-gap.html

continuing to negotiate further is clearly a waste of time.

there is no use in pretending that negotiations are going to lead anywhere.

so, let's pull the rug out from over his head.

wait until this guy is gone, and start over again, then.

canada needs to unilaterally dissolve nafta NOW.

is there not some hope in the israeli judiciary, to at least direct the process in such a way that upholds rudimentary constitutional principles, even if that leads to annexation, in the end?

after doing some cleaning and taping this morning, i really feel better than i have in days.

but, i don't think the crackhead ever made it in last night.

it's just confirming what i've been sure of...

i've got some spaghetti in the microwave. let's hope i can get something done after breakfast. i'm due for a long day, but i need to avoid being drugged in order to do it...

i need to make sure, though, that i get tested for heavy metals as a part of my yearly blood tests next month.

lead poisoning also leads to aggressive behaviour, although it doesn't explain the high i got last night.

i wonder if lead or arsenic may act as a catalyst for certain stimulants...

the crackhead is yelling outside my window to let her in.

hey!

hey!

lol.

all i'm thinking is that maybe i can get some fresh air tonight if she can't get in...

and, i'd like to reiterate that i have never smoked anything inside of any apartment i've ever had.

when i was a smoker, i always always always went outside.

and, i never have and never will smoke a joint inside, either: always, always outside.

...so, when i relapsed last month, i was smoking outside.

that said, one should temper their views on tibet slightly.

in the real world, things are rarely black and white.

http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html

in the long run, i would fully expect china to treat the rest of eastern asia - with the exception of japan - the same way it's been treating tibet.

this is the future of states like cambodia, laos and vietnam.

wilful blindness doesn't help anybody.

more likely is that the meth psychosis is going to have me shooting at imaginary nazis on the street.

"but, they gave wwII soldiers meth. so, it must be safe."

yeah. just like all those other chemicals they've exposed soldiers to.

it's not like the government uses soldiers as guinea pigs, or anything.

besides. i might be known for arguing with racists online, but i've never tilted at a windmill so far that it made sitting on my computer anything at all like fighting nazis through trench warfare.

the test came back negative, and, while the doctor at least heard me out, his suggestions were no less silly: not only have i never had anxiety before, but one does not get high from anxiety, and i was high as a kite.

the connection between the second hand smoke and the effects i experienced is too obvious to be altered in my mind.

so i'm left with one of two options:

1) my tolerance to meth (or crack.) is so ridiculously low that i got scary high from an amount that was so low that it didn't even show up in the sample. this is actually consistent with my past experiences with drugs: my tolerance for everything is extremely low. i need to take children's dosages....and that itself might be the answer to the quandary: i'm going to get smashed from a smell, in the first place.
2) whatever stimulant they're smoking was not tested for - so is neither meth nor crack. i have no further suggestions, right now. glue?

i don't know know what the next step is, but i know that if i continue to get high from this second hand smoke, then i'm going to continue to seek medical attention until we can figure it out and devise steps to address it.

something i could try is taking a sample of the air in the apartment to a lab.

and, i could also try and replicate the urine test, and see if i can tweak it to be a bit more sensitive.

i may end up moving, in the end, but not until i can figure out a way to get the landlord to swallow the costs. this is ultimately their legal responsibility, not mine.

...and there is absolutely no chance whatsoever that i'm taking drugs to combat the effects of other drugs.

last one.

and, this song's a little special, too.

careful.

let's consider a few facts:

1) i have zero tolerance to meth, because i've never done it.
2) i am underweight.
3) it seems as though the downstairs neighbour is smoking every twenty minutes or so, indicating that she has an extremely high tolerance.

i would probably get ripped from the bare minimum amount. and, she probably needs enough to stun a horse.

so, i could very well overdose on a quantity that wouldn't even get her high.

given that, is a contact high that absurd?

i feel ok, now. i just ate four bags of doritos, which i would not have otherwise done. my metabolism just got tweaked up and down; that's what happens. i'm not going to fall for the drugs, but i'll fall for the munchies. this time, anyways.

so, what's tonight's saga?

i started getting floaty around 9 or 10, and overwhelmed about 11:30. same deal: odour wafting up that seemed kinda like pot, but didn't feel like pot when inhaled.

i didn't get a headache tonight, so i wanted to work through it, but, like...

i can't grasp how they're giving this shit to kids to get them to focus. i could understand giving kids marijuana if you wanted them to focus, because it wipes away the distractions; it turns off the noise and lets you focus on the signal. uppers, on the other hand, exaggerate the noise and drown out the signal. i could barely sit still, and barely look at one place on the screen. my heart was racing, and my head was buzzing....

so, i did two things:

1) i drank a lot of water.
2) i sat down in a yoga pose and did a lot of deep breathing, basically waiting out the high until it was gone.

is that why you're not supposed to drink the water in the ganges?

that's probably not what you're supposed to do on meth. but, you're not supposed to drug people against their will when they're trying to read, either. fuck.

about a half hour later, it was time to get up and urinate. i've now got three bottles to submit for testing in the morning...

i fully expect to get the same response.

"but, you need to be in very close proximity to get the effects of second hand smoke."

yeah, that's what they said about cigarettes for decades, too, if you'll recall. let's do the test and see what comes back. that's empiricism. if you're going to walk around in that lab coat, you've gotta fucking act like it..

and, i'm going to state this flat out: the reason i'm confusing to you, on point after point, is because the idea of free will has become foreign to people in this society - foreign or native born.

i'm not full of contradictions at all; i'm really quite consistent.

you just don't understand what agency is.

and, so i would rather flip the situation around and request that muslims refrain from appropriating the local winter clothing as some kind of religious symbol, when it is nothing of the sort.

you can find these for a couple of dollars at pretty much any store, around here:

maybe i should make this clear.

i have a ski mask. two of them, actually. i bought them for bicycling in subzero weather. but, it gets cold in canada, so sometimes i wear it to just walk around in.

i am not a muslim, and do not wear a hijab.

nor would i wear one in solidarity, as my solidarity would be with the women that throw away the hijab as a tool of oppression.

i was kind of hoping she was muslim. she's jewish...

but, i would encourage sports illustrated and others to reach out to muslims to start broadcasting this particular message, because it's true.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BfJR1JsFR8b/

i apologize for the untrustworthy source, but they cite their research well enough

https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/21/health/us-life-expectancy-study/index.html

WHAT ABOUT THE PRINCESSES !?!?

science: we have a major obesity epidemic that needs a serious public education campaign to prevent us from actual decreasing our average life expectancies.

third-wave faux "feminists": but, what about attractive upper middle class white teenage girls obsessed with the male gaze and that spend more on fashion magazines and make-up in a month than they could even make on minimum wage?

and, in no-fucking-shit news...

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/obesity-is-an-eating-disorder-just-like-anorexia-and-its-time-we-started-treating-it-that-way-a6891166.html

it boggles my mind that anybody could be so blind and/or daft as to not recognize obesity as an eating disorder.

but, when you live in a society where 60-70% are overweight, and those numbers are increasing, maybe it's at least easy to understand how people can't see their own disorders when they look in the mirror, and mistake themselves for being healthy when they're not. after all, they're the same size as everybody else around them, right?

of course obesity is an eating disorder. and, it dwarfs anorexia in terms of the number of people affected as well as the costs to society.

so, i'm not at all interested in hearing people argue that we can't address a problem that affects 70% of the public because doing so might upset 1% of it. that's just irrational.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/you-must-be-hungry/200909/is-obesity-eating-disorder

daca remains an issue that can only be solved by congress.

but, nobody wants to solve it - especially not the democrats.

it may depend on what's true on the ground.

brian masse is less objectionable to me than cheryl hardcastle. we'll see who the liberals run...

...but, right now, it looks look i'll probably stay home and lob missiles at everybody from my misanthropic perch over the detroit river.

i mean, i'm not going to vote for conservative economic "policies" just because the liberals have given up on policy; an absence of policy from the liberals doesn't make the enemy seem appealing, all of a sudden.

and, the ndp are still the stupid party...if anything, they're dumber than ever...

canada's system doesn't have primaries, so it's not likely to produce a sandersesque saviour. the flip side of that is that we have almost no restrictions on party membership, so it's a lot easier to create a new party. but, that means that we get movements on the ground, or nothing at all - which is better in the long run, but takes time to build.

i mean, you could argue that what the system here does is make the false hope presented by a populist sanders style jesus impossible, and rather forces us to build the kind of movement bernie really wanted in the first place - which is harder, but more effective. do we have the attention span? and the will? and the resolve?

a backbench revolt would be easier.

they've given up on policy; they're going to run on trudeau being a celebrity.

and, i'm going to make sure to hammer them on it...

...but i'm not going to say it's a losing strategy, because the other options are terrible. it should be a losing strategy. but, that's not clear.

i really wish the green party had spent the last four years preparing for a serious run in 2019, rather than on continuing to be a vanity press for elizabeth may (who is unacceptable as a serious candidate).

and, this is the problem: i want trudeau thrown out of office, and the door slammed on his ass as he's pushed out. but, i can't endorse anybody else to replace him.

so, i'm going to say it again: the best hope we have right now is a backbench revolt in the liberal party.

i have no problem looking a jew in the eye and saying "you stole this land from the canaanites, and you should give it back to them."

but, god said...

"that's not a valid argument. sorry. do you not admit, yourself, that you stole this land?"

...despite the fact that i know that's not actually true.

as i've said before: the actual true owners of the levant are in fact...

...the neanderthals.

but, the best we've got, today, are the non-arab components of the lebanese.

everybody else around there are invaders, and most in the historically documented period.

a greater persian empire would not be complete unless it included afghanistan.

it's a province of persia...

that was the point, right?

and, just about the only counter-argument that anybody around there is going to come up with that makes any sense is to partition the south into pakistan.

it's 8:00, and what's going on?

well, i'm feeling alright. the sum total of the smoke inhalation yesterday afternoon appears to be that i'm a little tired - and that i have a rash on the inside of my arm, that may be due to some nasty perspiration.

the remaining smell i'm getting is that smell you get when you cross a mild dish soap with heavy grease and let it sit. so, imagine using dawn to let a pot full of hamburger grease sit.

they could be doing dishes.

ugh. let's just hope it's gone by tomorrow.

once again, i would have liked to get more work done today. there's still some chance i could get a second wind.

i just have no interest at fiction at this point in my life; i can't interpret sitting in front of a tv set as anything more than a waste of time.

that applies equally to the entire genre of film.

you could make a movie about me, and i wouldn't even know it exists.....

it might be a really good show. sure. i can still think of a million other things i'd rather be doing...

when somebody talks about a tv character named 'dexter', i think of this.

i don't want to have to be a narc, but my health is more important than their freedom...

that said, i'm starting to adjust my understanding of what's happening downstairs.

the smell has shifted this morning to a very strong chemical smell. so, i'm starting to think that i may be on top of a meth lab, and that the seemingly ridiculous amount of pot smoke may actually be intended to cover up the smell.

well, it's canada. pot will be legal here, soon.

this is a different sort of problem.

but, i'd still rather wait until tomorrow and hope they just clean up and set up elsewhere.

i need to remind you that i haven't watched tv since the 90s, and i have no concept of popular tv shows that have existed since then, at all.

i've had random people suggest to me that i remind them of a character named "dexter", but i simply don't understand the reference. and, that's all i have to say about it; i can't deny or affirm something i don't understand.

i mean, i'd like to know how often it happens that kids taken away from meth addicts are then prescribed meth to deal with the symptoms created by their parents being addicted to meth.

it's fucking insane...

...and don't even get me started about the absurd idea of giving meth to kids to fight a condition that doesn't even exist.

that's a type of abuse that boggles my mind.

i just want to point something out, though: i've run into the pcp problem before, i'd say on average every six-ten months, but this is the first time i've been convinced that i've run into meth-laced marijuana, and i'd have actually been the first to suggest that such a thing doesn't exist, if somebody had presented it to me before last week.

i'd be skeptical if i were you, too.

but, i'm good at logic, and i'm pretty much convinced that this is what we've got, here.

moments after i published the last post, i got bombarded with what felt like a chemical weapons attack: smoke coming from every room of the apartment at the same time, with an especially powerful concentration in the kitchen, which is a few feet away from any window and consequently almost impossible to neutralize without letting it air out.

it seemed both co-ordinated and intended to upset me.

the one thing you can do is try and steam it out by running hot water and burning water on the stove at the same time. but, the hot water was out - strangely. this is twilight zone shit, really.

about an hour in, i started to freak out: i had been drugged against my will yet again, and there was nothing i could do but escape. but, i couldn't escape...it was coming from every direction...

as somebody who has hotboxed many things, i would hazard a guess that there was roughly ten grams of pot released into the air over that hour. this wasn't a j or two. this was an onslaught...like they were burning open leaves as incense...

once again: i didn't feel stoned, i felt agitated and angry. i wanted to smash something in. the headache was creeping back (and is still there, nine hours later).

what does meth do? well, some of the literature focuses on the hormones, but this isn't really what a user actually experiences, despite the drug industry propaganda. the only hormonal reaction i'm getting is a headache, which is probably an acute withdrawal symptom. but, i don't want more drugs, i want to detox

what meth (also called speed) does is give you a really short burst of energy, followed by a really terrible crash. if you're dancing, you might look like this:

do they look that ridiculous?

worse.

because they can't dance like that. rather, they flop their arms around and stamp their feet like children having a temper tantrum. it lasts a few minutes - twenty at the most, but usually more like five. they can be easily identified by how obtuse they appear. and, then they zoom off the floor and go pass out somewhere.

the sensationalized media portrayal of meth is just that. most people at the rave really actually just have a few drinks, maybe a few tokes. mdma is fun, if you can find it. if you're of legal age, you probably know better. balloons are quite popular, as well. and, the people taking uppers that last the night are mostly taking very small hits of actual cocaine up their noses. these little spoons they carry around...

the speed addicts are really rather rare, and are the isolated losers; they don't last on the floor very long - because speed isn't an endurance drug but a short burst and a long crash. the effects of the drug might last you 12 hours, but the high is only a few minutes, and you'll spend most of the night struggling with the come down in the bathroom or outside by yourself. as addictive as it is, you often hear things like "i made the mistake of trying that once....never again...."

that's if you're dancing.

what if you're having an awful fucking day? then, that burst of energy is going to manifest itself as anger, as violence. and, that's what i've been going through repeatedly with this: the smell pisses me off, and then the effect of the drug takes over, and i get very uncharacteristically angry. i yell and scream for a few minutes, it passes through my system in an hour, and then i sleep it off for ten-twelve hours.

and, i don't want this to happen again. ever. there is no reason at all that i need to tolerate being drugged against my will - and arguments that i do are ridiculous. if you think that being a liberal means getting stoned because your neighbour is, you don't understand liberalism so well.

today, i stormed downstairs and banged on their door and demanded they cut down their intake. and, it seems to have had enough of an effect that i'm starting to clear it out of my system.

so, i'm going to give them a grace today, tomorrow.

but, i'll be at the clinic early monday morning if this happens again tomorrow night.

i've also decided that i need to apologize. i don't yell at people like that. it's deeply uncharacteristic. i need to explain that i believe my behaviour was a consequence of second-hand smoke exposure, and that what they're smoking is clearly laced with something. i'm going to present meth as the most likely culprit..

but, how much smoke is getting up here?

1) enough that i can see it in the apartment. clearly. a stranger walking in here would assume i'm a smoker just via what they can see with their eyes.
2) enough that it's frizzing my hair out.

it's a lot...

i'm feeling far more alert, today...and i didn't go through a messy phase last night, although i slept a lot...

if i'm going to catch meth or crack in the urine, it's going to need to be within a few hours of being poisoned by it, so there's no use in going today, because i didn't feel it last night.

we'll see what i feel like in the morning.

i mean, if they're done, they're done. i mentioned that it wasn't bad until a few days ago; some of  the vocal snippets i'm hearing from downstairs suggests that some parents or grandparents may have been away for the week.

that would explain everything....

we don't really have separate branches of government in canada, like they do in the united states. our system of government is still the same system that the british set up in the colonial period; we have the system of government that america revolted against, and replaced. so, what we have is a parliament and a judiciary, and it's actually really the judiciary that sits at the top of the hierarchy and gets final decision making authority, here.

the most powerful person in the country is the chief justice of the supreme court, not the prime minister.

so, because the legislative and executive branches are not separate, we end up with internal power struggles - and that's fine, it prevents gridlock. but, the legislative branch is supposed to be the dominant focus; the executive branch is supposed to operate as an arm of parliament, and ultimately be subservient to it's decisions.

the prime minister is not even directly elected.

rather, the prime minister is merely first amongst equals - just one voice at the table, of no greater importance than any other. it is the mps that elect somebody to this office, not voters. that makes the prime minister no more powerful than the speaker. in theory, the office is actually superfluous in our system - it's unnecessary, and our system should be able to operate perfectly fine without it. in my more bitter moments, i've advocated doing just that - abolishing it.

but, as a first step, we need mps to stand up and take back their constitutional roles and stop letting this plastic jesus tell them what to do.

if anybody's to be systemically ignored in our system, it ought to be the prime minister, not the committees.

the committees are the actual government. the executive branch is supposed to fall in line, not the other way around.

this is really a co-option of our system.

the idea that the prime minister can just pull the plug on a parliamentary committee, as though he's the king, is completely absurd in the context of a westminster system of government. but, we have a tradition of parliamentary spinelessness in this country that really needs to come to an end...

i think that the members of this parliament should have turfed trudeau months ago. and, i've been vocal about it. how long will they let him run roughshod over our democratic institutions for?

and how long will we keep electing mps that just do what they're told?

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/03/02/the-trudeau-government-says-its-listening-if-so-not-to-parliament.html

i think what donald trump meant to say is:

if you don't have stolen land then you don't have a colonial state.

right?


or


if you don't steal land, you don't have a country.

that could have been a daley-level typo. alas...


i think this article gets the right point:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/3/2/1745982/-Tariffs-aren-t-good-or-bad-but-the-way-Trump-is-imposing-them-could-be-a-disaster

look at this guy.

he even looks next level.

shit, i'd take laurier over any one of these poseurs, any day.

that was a man with some serious principles. you don't see that nowadays.

and, he was right, too. world war one was a pointless bloodbath. we should have launched a revolution over that shit....

....but, i just want to point out that the idea that trump may actually be trying to break some unions is not that remote.

if the actual intent is union-breaking? well, that might work....

but, is it not clear yet that the 'free trade' part of nafta is a joke?

if i was in this government, i'd be looking at a cost-benefit analyses on complete withdrawal.

we can talk bilateral reciprocity with the next administration...

i've made my views on tariffs clear...

they're neither good nor bad, but they're complicated. and, you need to be really, really, really smart if you're going to start throwing them around with any meaningful intent.

the trump administration is not smart enough to do this without it coming back to hurt them.

and, canada must immediately retaliate.

i could no doubt deconstruct this into a probable actual movement from liberal to undecided (i promise you that the conservatives are not up 5 points), but the polls at this stage in the cycle are realy just propaganda, anyways, and that's the better way to look at.

what i'm going to tell the liberals is this: the pandering to minorities was always a bad idea, and is going to blow up in their faces if they don't stop. nobody is going to vote for trudeau because he wears traditional indian clothing on a trip, but lots of people might vote against him because of that.

minority voters are generally more sophisticated than this and will at best ignore it.

but, low education white voters (many middle class) are broadly not more sophisticated than this at all.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4058984/justin-trudeau-india-trip-ipsos-poll/

...so, you let the 5-6% of addicts that will beat it come to you, and you stop wasting resources ordering the rest of them around...

and, let's be frank - keeping a couple of visibly hopeless addicts on the street is just about the best disincentive you can come up with.

“The therapeutic community claims a 30% success rate, but they only count people who complete the program.” Califano adds that 70-80 percent have dropped out by the 3-6 month marker.

so, you're looking at something more like around a 6-9% success rate.

are you willing to redirect billions of dollars in health care spending for a program with a 95% failure rate?

you'd have to be pretty religious not to see the folly of this.

...or perhaps get very large checks from the relevant industries.

so, i do support needle exchanges, and a few other harm reduction approaches, because studies have shown that it helps maximize resources.

put simply, it's cheaper to give them clean needles than it is to treat them for aids and hepatitis.

our scarce public health resources should be focused primarily or solely on people that don't create their own preventable problems.

and, i'm going to present similar arguments for smokers and fat people that i will for drug addicts.

and, i've been clear enough, but people kneejerk on this: i've never suggested punishing users, i'd rather advocate for non-intervention altogether, but i think that the dealers should be basically executed in public.

and, i mean, that doesn't mean that people should be denied services, either. if they want help, let them come to it. and, volunteer services should deal with this.

my concern is that the resources are limited, and i don't want to see money for addicts competing with money for other services. what bothers me are outreach services, and the amount of resources wasted by the system on a problem that shouldn't exist at all.

i'm sorry; i just don't consider this something that room should be made for in the public health budget.

but, i'm the densest flac you've ever heard: there's not a compression algorithm in the world that's going to let you take a byte out of me.

i don't even listen to hip-hop.

i can feel myself decompressing.

wow.

so, you could call me the black sheep of the family.

i'd rather call myself the white sheep in a black herd.

my mom is still alive.

i don't talk to her much, and haven't since i was a teenager and she got very heavy into heroin. i abandoned her more than she abandoned me, and i actually don't regret that; i could see as clear as day that she was hopeless, and that i had to make a choice about it: was i going to let this affect me for my whole life, or was i going to move on?

i was about 14 or 15 when i decided to move on.

there was never a talk or anything. i just showed up for a scheduled visit once to find her passed out, naked on the couch and washed my hands of her. we made no attempt to contact each other for years afterwards. i don't know if she had overdosed at the time or not.

to this day, she's a heavy methadone user that comes in and out of heroin relapses.

she got it through AA - drinking buddies looking for something stronger. she may have been blacked out when she first tried it; i don't know. maybe we can call that the "rob ford defense", moving forwards.

nobody and nothing gets 100% blame for this, and lots of entities get partial responsibility. but, knowing my mother, i don't think she would have sought it out. i think it was presented to her, and she went along to fit in. i'm consequently very much of the opinion that restricted access could have prevented her from walking down that path.

the best way to stop kids from doing drugs is to drug their parents.

you can just imagine the political discourse, fifteen years from now.

liberal prime minister justin bieber has just announced legislation that is designed to appeal primarily to the powerful children-of-dead-addicts lobby....

there may even be a reason to think the reaction may be that much worse.

if you grew up in the 60s or 70s, you may have ended up bitter about your parents basically being stupid potheads. and, if you grew up in the 80s, you may have seen your hyper-materialist cokehead parents through a very unflattering prism.

but, kids of addicts growing up in the '10s are only going to hear stories about their parents.

because they're dead.

that said, the distribution networks that you do catch should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

there's been a lot of ink spilled about how the collective consciousness of gen x was formed by revulsion at their parents' drug use. in that sense, i am firmly gen x.

but, how do you actually do this, then?

well, i've been clear that i support legalizing a handful of drugs. but, the ones that should not be mad e asily accessible are mostly heroin, meth and crack. what you'd do with these is shift to a kind of grey market - i don't want to blow up villages in costa rica to keep the crack out, but i don't want to make it available to buy at a store, or with a prescription, either.

i'm essentially an advocate of ignoring it and letting it run it's course.

i got some more sleep and am finally feeling a bit better.

20 years ago - even ten years ago - if somebody had told you that opposing the war on drugs meant being in favour of supporting drug use, the opposition to the war on drugs would have labelled that a ridiculous straw men.

for, the war on drugs was always really about controlling the supply of drugs. and, what opposing the war on drugs always meant was opposing war crimes in central america, not the free or liberalized use of chemical agents.

nowadays, opposing the war on drugs really does mean supporting widespread drug use, and arguing against widespread drug use is the same thing as supporting the war on drugs. i'd like to claim this is surreal. bur, it fits a pattern with the millennial generation, which has never known anything besides backwards orwellian arguments.

once again: i'm just waiting them out and crossing my fingers.

i think a good sign will be how the younger generation ultimately reacts to cell phones. if they grow up without really ever spending time on actual computers, we're probably screwed. but, if they're able to look at the phone and then at the laptop and say "that cell phone is of little actual use value", then there's some hope for the future.