i think it's just too much calcium, actually - and i eat a lot of cheese and fortified soy milk as it is. i'd probably just be putting myself at risk for kidney stones, as i piss most of it out.

if i ever test deficient for calcium, i can try it, i guess.

for now, i'm thinking it'll likely end up in a park. just don't let your kids play in the dirt....

i decided against composting my eggshells at the community compost. i wasn't ever really sure those kids were doing it right...

should i just eat them?

i'm thinking i could microwave them to kill whatever's left (they've been left frozen.) and then mash them up and add them to my smoothies.

i need to do more research than this...

the other option, i'm thinking, is to leave them outside in a park. that might sound gross at first. but, the calcium takes a long time to breakdown, which is the reason it's maybe not the best thing for actual compost. so, you want to put them in places where the soil is more continually utilized, so they can replenish the soil as the calcium comes out.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/01/science/eating-the-shell-along-with-the-egg.html

they could always try and evict me, but it would be faster and cheaper to pay me out, considering i actually want to leave, so i'm not sure why they'd make a bad choice like that.

and, i think i was clear enough about that in my letter.

at the least, if he gets proper legal advice, it should get me a clear answer on an eviction attempt downstairs, which is not likely to be successful - which i pointed out clearly in the letter.

well, the property manager claims that the building owner is in the process of contacting his lawyer.

i don't know if that means that he's planning on carrying through with an eviction or planning on buying me out. but, that was pretty much the only answer i could accept without moving to the next step.

and, i guess they'll have until monday to get me a response.

the cheapest and easiest thing to do is to buy me out, and i'll happily take the offer.

how much do you figure a free elizabeth shirt is going to cost?

this might even bring back pemberton.

judges aren't usually this daft. must be a harper appointee. but, i'll take the free martyr.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/elizabeth-may-kennedy-stewart-kinder-morgan-arrest-court-appearance-1.4611437

i'm home.

compost run done; freezer clear. it actually feels good, for some reason.

and my grandmother called when i was out.

she does indeed sound pretty rough, which i'm noticing for the first time.

i've never meant to ignore her, i just live in my own head. so, i need to call nana first, and then the property manager second.

i had to pick between the university and the community centre, and i went with the community centre. it's where the community garden ought to be.

they do the free food thing. i like that...

if you have one of these things around, and you probably do, give them your food scraps.

it's really the least you can do. literally.

https://www.facebook.com/FordCityCommunityGarden/

you know, being able to bicycle to the tunnel kind of opens the city up, if i have to move.

it opens up a larger area to exist within...

i'm going to give the property manager to the end of the day before i call her, just to make sure she's received proper instructions - and because i'm curious about whether the banging i heard around 22:00 was my door or not (i was asleep, and not sure where it was coming from...nobody was there when i got up...but it was a while later...i sleep through anything and often literally can't get up when awoken, if not expecting it...).

yeah, well, they'd better have a nice tidy list in place by the next election.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/04/11/news/trudeau-government-puts-massive-investments-get-public-transit-track

maybe the buddhists got a few things right, in the mess of things they got wrong.

you check via the scientific method.

any similarities in thought are strictly coincidental, and of little concern to me.

"why don't you just get stoned and create?"

because you can't create anything when you're stoned - it is a condition that is antithetical to creative expression.

creativity requires clear thinking through the proper observation of sobriety.

what inebriation is good for is numbing the pain of repetitive tasks. it is good for low wage workers that just need something to help them through the day, or people that can't find a purpose in a system that is designed to make it impossible to find one.

but, nobody uses drugs to make music - or at least not to make music worth listening to.

and, perhaps you might want to actually listen to the music i create to hear how distant it is from marijuana culture. it's basically classical music.

there was a period, from 2011-2013, where i didn't have access to my gear, and i really did just get drunk and stoned all of the time. i spent this period living with my grandmother and hanging out with occupy protestors.

when you take away my ability to create, i lose focus. and it follows that if you insist that i get fucked up all of the time then the way to do that is to separate me from a purpose.

but, that changed over five years ago.

when i first moved to windsor, i stopped drinking & smoking almost altogether; although it took a few years to get a handle on the cigarettes, i really did quit smoking in the winter of 2015/2016. i have relapsed for a few weeks at a time since, but i have not and will not go back to this.

i have also since spent some extended periods partying on weekends, but this is actually mostly an act of depression. i would rather be sitting in my room by myself recording, but i haven't been able to do this, so i've gone out and gotten drunk instead.

i have never habitually smoked marijuana, nor have i ever wanted to do so. given that i have smoked it sporadically and recreationally for over 20 years without having developed any desire to convert it into a habit, i'm just about the lowest probability target you could imagine in terms of becoming a regular, daily-smoking marijuana addict. that is not going to happen.

however, the more separated i become from my art due to constant distraction and inability to create, the more likely i am to sink into daily alcohol use, as i become more and more depressed and more and more distraught. while marijuana may end up as a complement to this alcohol use, it is not going to reverse that depression. nor do i want to become a daily marijuana user, have i ever seen myself as a daily marijuana user or will i ever conceptualize myself in these terms.

this is simply not who i am.

i was in bed around 19:00 last night, but the smoke was so horrible that it woke me up around 22:00. i spent some time cleaning and slept all morning. so, i am going to follow through with the process within a few hours, and seek clarity on the building's approach: will they seek eviction or not?

any other answer besides "yes, we are seeking eviction" will leave me no choice but to assume they are not doing so, and to formally request repairs to the unit below me.

and, if they acknowledge they are seeking eviction, at whatever difficulty, i'll have to sit tight and wait it out.

i found some compost drop-offs for tomorrow...

but, i'm still convinced that this woman is smoking meth.

when i moved in, i noticed some difficult-to-get-off orange stains over the stove. i thought it was just a sloppy cook; it could have been ancient grease stains. but, i cleaned most of it.

these stains have reappeared today at the end point of the tarp over the kitchen, in the same place i was sitting when i got loopy on the stimulants.

that hasn't happened since; the contact high i got at the end of april was exactly that, and i recognized it for what it was. but, these orang stains are associated with meth use...

there's also the issue of the inch worth of stains i pulled out of the bathroom floor. i thought it was some kind of urine, maybe from a cat. but, this is also a potential build-up from a meth user.

hey, if i can use it to get the tenant out, i'll do it.

i may have to take this to detroit :\.

that said, this is why the rhetoric from the democrats on russia is so dangerous, and why they need to stop.

if he pushes any buttons, and anybody is left to record the history, it will be the democrats that will need to be held responsible for the carnage.

trump's projected bombing in syria is a political stunt.

the russians would be wise to get out of the way, as he'll lose interest in a few days.

but, they know that, and are no doubt just gritting their teeth for their own cameras.

don't get me wrong: syria is a dangerous situation. but, the russians need to be smart enough to know that trump is just wagging the dog, here, and react accordingly.

there's of course caveats.

but, he'll probably bomb an empty field, anyways.

dear tory media,

i know that you're convinced that the rule of law refers to the idea that the state is able to ensure it does what it wants by force.

but, as usual, you've got this backwards; the rule of law refers to the idea that the government is itself not above the law.

and, these absurd op-eds take on a more ominous tone when you understand this.

the elder trudeau once found himself in a situation where he felt he had to send the army in to arrest protestors without charge, a decision that is still attacked today as an egregious abuse of power - that is, a lapse in the rule of law - and that he came to realize was a terrible mistake. in response to his own mistake, he wrote a constitution for the country, so future leaders would not repeat that mistake, for whatever reason - influence from foreign powers, financial corruption or just plain stubborn arrogance and foolish pride.

the younger trudeau will need to follow these rules that were put in place by his father.

for, that is the rule of law, in this country.

as always,
deathtokoalas

i don't care about following trends or being cool or fitting in.

i care about science.

and, you may want to educate yourself on what it actually says, and re-evaluate your stance accordingly.

i haven't really been in this room this morning, and it still has a herby smell that i can't fully finger the source of, although it appears to be coming from directly under my bed, but the rest of the apartment seems to be ok.

i've decided to wait for the next episode to call. i expect that to be in a few days.

this morning was spent cleaning and rearranging, and i don't even know why - wishful thinking, i guess.

for this morning, i need to find a way to get the compost out of my freezer. it's just time to get it out...i'm running out of space...

so, how did we end up with this joke of an idea - this "medicinal marijuana" crock of shit?

it's a legal loophole. it's not science; there's no science upholding this, and plenty debunking it.

the reality is that it's hard to legalize pot, because of the international drug laws around it. that's ultimately the reason i don't expect it to happen here at all. so, you get around that by calling it a medicine and letting a doctor prescribe it.

but, smart people can see through this, and can see that the whole charade has done more to damage the medical profession than it has to legitimize the marijuana industry.

the right answer is to deregulate it like alcohol (it's harmless, in moderation.), to treat potheads like alcoholics (they need help.) and to stop selling it like snake oil.

and, for fuck's sake, don't smoke in the goddamned house.

listen.

i've smoked a lot of pot.

and, the idea that it would treat depression is retarded.

if there's any benefit of drug use on depression, it would be due to the fact that drug use is often social. so, you get the benefits of social interaction caught up in taking the drug. and, that's what these people need - friends, not drugs.

smoking mad amounts of pot by yourself is going to end with you crying in the corner while you're trying to masturbate. it's not just wrong; it's flatly moronic.

likewise, longterm chronic marijuana use - of the type associated with "medical" users - is thought to cause psychosis, not treat it.

there's no scientific excuse for this. and, if your doctor gave you marijuana, he belongs in jail - he's not a doctor, he's a drug dealer.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/medical-cannabis-guidelines-alberta-1.4537039

the first step for "medical marijuana patients" needs to be in getting them to admit that they have a problem.

and, you're not helping them in enabling their habits.

the more i complain, the more she smokes.

just doesn't get it....

again: i still don't know if they're going to follow through with this. what i know is that i need an answer, so i can plan to leave if they aren't going to.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/04/29/5-reasons-marijuana-is-not-medicine/?noredirect=on

what i'm learning from this is that the idea of "medical marijuana" should really be abolished.

it should be regulated like alcohol, and treated as a recreational drug that is mostly harmless in small dosages but potentially fatally toxic in large doses. daily smokers are drug addicts that need treatment, not patients that need access. doctors should not be prescribing this, and should not be normalizing it - and should be liable for negligence charges if they are. and, nobody should be getting subsidies for it.

the only exception i'm willing to allow for is people diagnosed with a terminal illness. in that case, nothing else really matters anymore.

but, the "doctors" that are prescribing this to healthy people and telling them it's ok to smoke all they want should be rounded up and shot. what a waste.

and, the only way she knows how to cope with anything is to smoke more drugs.

the pothead appears to be basically retarded. i don't know what she was like before they prescribed this to her, but she doesn't appear to be mentally capable of comprehending the situation, as it is. she's forty-something years old, but she's mentally comparable to a fourteen year old child.

the only response anybody is going to get out of her is going to be something like "so what if i smoke", "it's ok if i smoke", "i have a card", "i'm allowed to smoke", etc.

the only thing she's going to understand is her own behaviour. she's going to be convinced everybody is judging her, that the issue at hand is the morality of her own behaviour, etc.

she's never going to understand the premise of her behaviour affecting others. this is just too abstract, too complicated.

so, it's maybe unfair of me to call her selfish; she's not capable of understanding this, no doubt as a consequence of the drug use.

if they could detox her and send her to rehab, she might get better after a few weeks and be able to get her head around it. right now? this is pointless. it's just beyond her mental capabilities.

i can't get a clear answer from the property manager, so i've asked her to call her boss.

i suspect the truth may be something along the lines of the property owner wanting to kick the smokers out, and the property manager being on the side of the smokers. so, she's trying to stand in between and being obstructionist on purpose.

i mean, if i'm to take her at face value, she doesn't seem to understand her own job. and i don't think that's true; i think she's just playing stupid.

so, the manager is not a willing participant, here, and i may find myself with somewhat of a pyrrhic victory, as a result. but, it's not clear to me yet if they're going to follow through...

the owner may jump at it, while the manager drags her feet.

but, i need to be clear: i can't tolerate this situation. and, if i don't get a prompt response, i'm moving to the next step.

i quit smoking 2.5 years ago.

i have no patience for being sick like this.

:(

Request for Renovations in The Unit Below Me

this is a backup letter. she hasn't ruled out eviction, yet. i don't expect her to follow through, though....

===

In my previous letter, I identified four approaches to addressing the problem of continual plumes of second-hand marijuana smoke coming from the unit below me, which is making me sick/inebriated and rendering the unit uninhabitable.

I need to reiterate that this tenant chain smokes marijuana for hours at a time. She must smoke upwards of 30 thick joints a day. This is not casual or occasional use, but sustained drug addiction on a level that I can barely comprehend. I can’t imagine what kind of negligent doctor would prescribe this; it seems cartoonish, truly. I’m repeatedly getting really, really high on nights that I want to be completely sober; trying to read when you’re baked is extremely unpleasant. It’s hard to focus; it’s hard to stay awake. I’m also finding myself with a smoker’s cough. I can only imagine her own cognitive state, or lack thereof. So, my claim that the unit is uninhabitable is in no way an exaggeration, unless, perhaps, you’re a Rastafarian. No sane person would merely accept this.

I also now suspect that she may smoke cigarettes, after all. It’s just hard to tell because she smokes so many drugs...

It is obvious that the first approach - a simple request to smoke elsewhere - is not viable, and will not be mentioned further. This tenant does not appear to understand the health hazards of second-hand marijuana smoke, and/or does not appear to be even remotely concerned about the well-being of the people around her. She simply doesn’t care if her habits are making the other tenants sick and/or inebriated when they don’t want to be. Sadly, she may even think that the smoke is healthy.

You initially decided upon the path of removing this tenant below me, but have since decided against that option. I frankly did not expect you to pursue this option in the first place and am not surprised that you’re not following through with it.

That leaves us with two further paths to attempt: we could try and renovate the unit, or you could agree to release me from the lease (with compensation). This letter outlines my perceptions around renovating the unit, in a last attempt to maintain my tenancy in this building. I have decided that I will not sue to force these renovations, that I would rather sue to end the tenancy, so this is up to your discretion to pursue in order to maintain the tenancy; if these renovations end before they are successful, i will move directly to the next option of asking the board to end the tenancy in a reasonable time frame, and with compensation.

My sole concern is my health. This is the most important thing in life - maintaining one’s health. And, I frankly don’t expect the renovations to be successful.

To begin with, I should point out that i have already gone to great lengths to try and keep the smoke out of this space, and that it has ultimately not been successful. It took me some time to understand what was happening, but I believe the situation is as follows: whenever I block an area, it merely moves the smoke to another one. So, I do believe that I was initially successful in blocking the smoke from entering my bedroom, but this ultimately just pushed it into the hallway. When I tried to stop the smoke from entering the hallway, i merely pushed it back into the bedroom. Now, the seal I created in the bedroom is broken, and the smoke is coming in both spaces, once again. I think you might want to imagine this like a balloon filling up from two separate directions, and then popping on both sides - leaving me no better off than when i started.

So, it seems to be the case that once the smoke has entered the subfloor, it has nowhere to go except out; any serious attempts to block the many holes in my space will merely create more holes, as the smoke forces itself out elsewhere. Caulking this unit could actually damage the flooring further, as the substantive amount of smoke being produced merely finds other ways to escape the subfloor, by enlarging existing holes or creating new ones. So, in order to prevent the smoke from entering this unit, it will need to be kept out of the subfloor altogether. Any renovations must consequently be done in the smokers’ unit, rather than in mine.

If we are to embark upon this process, I would expect a continuing conversation, as it will take several attempts to resolve the problem. I’m not going to be able to give you an easy request - this is going to go on for a long time. I cannot concern myself with how this might affect the other tenant, as that basic concept of respect is not being and will not be reciprocated. But, to begin with, we can look at the following actions:

1) caulking holes in the unit downstairs - especially in the bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, closets and shelving units.
2) the shelving units in the downstairs unit may need to be rebuilt altogether, as this is one of the worst sources
3) the ceilings below me badly need to be sealed.
4) i suspect that the water closet downstairs is a major source of smoke entering the subflooring, as it is then coming in through the bathroom fixtures. this will need to be sealed. note that caulking the bathroom in my unit will just force the smoke into my bedroom, and that fixing my own water closet will just push it back into the bathroom.
5) the tenant appears to enjoy “hotboxing” the closet, which is sending smoke into both my living room and my kitchen. her closet will likely need to be rebuilt.

more generally, i suspect that there is substantial smoke damage in the downstairs unit and that the only serious solution is going to be in fixing that, where it is found. all that caulking up here will do is push the problem around under the floor. and, i suppose that you’ll have to talk to the tenant about those costs, as they are ultimately of her creation - this problem is ultimately rooted in the damage she’s already done to her own unit.

i need to reiterate that i will not sue to force renovations, because i’ve come to realize that the damage to the subfloors is too great, from however many years of smoking however many different things. i will work with management to resolve the issue for as long as they would like to try to resolve it, but my next step will be to ask the board to let me out of the lease. reasonable compensation will be enough to cover the costs i’ve put into smoke-proofing the unit and the expenses required to allow me to move somewhere else.

so, you shouldn't be surprised to learn that the high-speed rail plan in ontario isn't what the tory media is presenting it as.

unfortunately, it isn't really what i want it to be, either.

i look at the expanding toronto megacity, which is expanding quickly to it's west, and the most immediately pressing issue to me is in trying to figure out how we get all these cars off the road. downtown toronto has a large, successful & rather popular electric transit system (that doug ford seems to not like so much...). how do we expand that system to the rest of the mega-city?

& that's really the crux of the reality, here - that london is being absorbed into a suburb of toronto, and that the city needs expanded inter-city transit options.

what i'd like to see is consequently a kind of expansion of the subway system, with the purposes of easing congestion - and reducing emissions. a high speed rail system could in theory do that, by convincing people to take the train to work instead of driving.

and, i'm all in favour of that.

but, it seems a little pricey, for that end, and that seems to be the problem that these systems are facing, elsewhere: it just costs too much.

i'd be willing to see the province subsidize that. but, it seems to be pitching it as an economic driver instead of as a climate change plan, and the whole thing is consequently existing in this imaginary narrative - it's being pitched as something it won't be, and then deconstructed on terms it shouldn't be aspiring towards.

another aspect that is being overlooked is that, if the train is successful, it could conceivably help lower electricity costs. remember: electricity prices are high because the transition to electric vehicles never happened. at this point, it may be easier to get people to take the electric train than it is to get them to buy an electric car, but the effect should be more or less the same, if we can shift generation away from freeways and into windfarms.

we're currently just wasting all this generation, and then paying for it through higher rates. but, you won't see this discussion in the tory media, either - nor will you see it from the government, which doesn't want to talk about it.

so, i do support the rail line expansion - but i support it on climate grounds, not economic ones. and, i'd even like to see the province subsidize it to get it going, and ultimately treat it less like an exclusive cab system for the wealthy and more like an expansion of the subway system.

that money would be better spent on economic diversification.

the idea that it is in the national interest relies on the idea that we need a secondary oil market to lessen dependence on american oil purchases. but, this logic only holds in the context of the country existing as a petrostate, which is itself not in the national interest.

what is in the national interest, first and foremost, is to lessen our fiscal dependency on oil exports.

i think the courts need to remind trudeau that he has a set of rules, called a constitution, that he has to follow.

...and that the government is following a wrongheaded set of priorities that is outside of it's mandate, will harm itself electorally and will leave the country worse off, over all.

i expected him to support these pipelines, don't get me wrong; they all supported all the pipelines. but, he has apparently forgotten that he campaigned heavily on transition - and that this is where the country's focus and resources should be focused, first and foremost.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/04/09/trans-mountain-pipeline-extension-will-be-built-trudeau-vows.html

when she's not coughing and hacking and heaving, she's crying or cursing - but she sounds drunk more often than stoned, so who even knows what she's on. if it's medical, it's not helping with any symptoms, that's for sure - not with anything physical and not with anything emotional. and she has that patty/selma croak in her voice that makes her sound like she's on the brink of shooting up a playschool.

this is a scary person, through and through.

i mean....

i have to file the complaint before i can apply to get out of the lease.

and, even if i win, it could take forever.

i just want to get away from this person. now.

i'm actually hoping that they don't follow through with the secondary complaint, so i can just go ahead and apply to get out of the lease.

i just want to get out of this place, asap.

this woman appears to smoke upwards of a half ounce of pot a day. 

i'm continually astounded by this.

it's like something out of a cartoon.

but there's no end to it. there's no reprieve. it's just constant.

and, it's terrible for my skin :(.

i mean, i keep pointing out that i'm going to have the same problems in the next place: that there isn't a solution to this.

but, i'm living on top of what is probably the most disgusting person in town.

she's chain smoking marijuana, for hours. she's bringing people in to smoke with her. there might not be a perfect answer, but the status quo is almost the worst situation imaginable.

actually, i should...

this is just logic. i'm not an engineer. i can't even build a paper airplane.

but, if trying to tarp over the floor leads me to the conclusion that i'm just moving the smoke around, it follows that the problem is that the smoke is getting into the subfloor - and the actual renovations that need to be done are in the smoker's unit, not mine.

i'm just wondering to myself what kind of reaction that would produce in the smoker. if i could get a court order to renovate her unit, would she stick around for it?

and, would they just pay me to leave, instead?

but, this is what i need to present: that renovations need to occur in the unit below me.

i have nothing to lose by upsetting management; i don't want to be here.

i spent some time tossing and turning, but i'm ultimately still awake - tired and angry and frustrated, but still awake.

i'll have to give them until wednesday, but i'm going to be making a call on that day.

we initially had four options:

a) talk to her

that's clearly not going to work.

b) get rid of her.

i have to continue my due diligence on this, but it's a very difficult and probably unsuccessful process. and, it will no doubt embolden her, if she wins.

c) fix the unit.

i'm giving up on this.

i initially thought i had the bedroom fixed up, but what that did was push the smoke into the bathroom and hallway. so, i patched those areas up, and it just pushed the smoke back into the bedroom.

i patched up the closet the other day, and it just came up a few feet to the side of it.

i had to do the experiment to see how bad it really is, but it seems like i'm not just patching up holes, but in need of replacing the whole floor. i kind of realized i'd need to tear out some fixtures, but it's beyond that, i'd have to tear down the whole unit. really.

the smoke is just going to have to come out somewhere, eventually. and all i'm doing by putting down tarps and taping up spaces is moving it around - i need something much deeper than this.

so, i'm realizing that i can't win this fight on these grounds. it's really gotta be that one of us leaves.

d) let me out of the lease. 

this is going to have to be the option i pursue on around the 1st of may, unless i get a clearer response over the next few days.

so, it's not going to be a letter. it's just going to be a call. i'll have to update her on the situation: the n4 didn't work, and my attempts to smoke proof the unit have led me to the conclusion that this would require replacing the entire floor. i consequently need management to dedicate itself to removing the tenant below me, or prepare to have me try and escape the lease.

i can't live in filth, like this.

as should be obvious, i don't care if people smoke pot, in the abstract.

i just don't want them to plume smoke into my unit, which i've always kept completely smoke-free.

i have never smoked inside, anywhere.

and, when it's obvious that people are blowing smoke in my face to upset me, i'm willing to use whatever tools are available to me to get them to stop.

i don't grasp the intent of people that want to split the world into binary choices of smokers and non-smokers. that's like arguing that everybody who has a glass of wine now and again is an alcoholic. most people measure their alcohol intake on a monthly or yearly scale, not a weekly or daily one. so, it shouldn't be that hard to understand.

enjoying a glass of wine now and again doesn't mean you want your bedroom to smell like vomit and urine. likewise, enjoying a toke when i'm out at a concert doesn't mean i want my pillow to smell like a bong.

this is not binary.

there is a very wide spectrum.

and, i am an extremely infrequent smoker that doesn't want to live in a hazy environment.

she's having some kind of party downstairs, so i have the windows wide open, and will have to keep them open all night - and potentially for the next several days.

it's hard for me to understand how a grown woman could act like such a child. she's received multiple complaints about second-hand smoke...so she throws a smoke party. how do people this stupid exist? and, how are her friends so irresponsible?

if she keeps it up, she's going to get evicted. and i don't care..

see, and it was mostly actually pretty much ok all week, after she got the n4, too.

i suppose one of two things is happening, right now.

1) the n4 in ontario gives you a week to change your behaviour. i suspect that her warped concept of logic interprets that as "i can get away with smoking as much as i want for the next week".
2) she's just ignoring the n4.

either option seems to be an attempt to upset me.

i can't do anything tonight, except take note of the utter childishness of this. but, if the situation doesn't improve immediately, i'm going to file a second complaint on tuesday.

and, there is a good chance that i'll have to call the cops tonight.

"marxist intellectual" is about as ridiculous a title as "doctor of theology".

so, the real question is whether we want artists or not.

and, if you answer in the negative, i don't want anything to do with your movement.

artists are dependent creatures, by definition.

we are to exist in a culture of dependency, or not exist at all.

but, concepts of dependency are only meaningful in the context of currency, and, ultimately, in the context of property; "dependency" has no meaning when property is placed in common, as we are all dependant upon each other - which is true, anyways, but flatly denied by capitalism. this is what property is all about: the delusional denial of our irresolvable interdependence. and, doing away with this denial is what socialism is really all about.

you have to remember that, as an artist, a proletarian revolution is just a means to an end, for me. i'm 50% bourgeois and 50% lumpen, but really only of the working class by necessity.

it really doesn't matter to me how my subsidies come to me.

and, if you want to tell me to work or starve, then that is not my revolution at all.

it's actually easy enough to understand why anti-poverty advocates would oppose a ubi: they'd be out of a job, and possibly on it themselves.

i posted a discussion with david graeber a while back where he points the situation out pretty clearly. a ubi is going to eliminate thousands and thousands of government jobs. but, anarchists are about getting rid of governments, not creating pointless jobs.

that is the difference between myself and paul krugman. i mean, i'll take keynes if i don't have another option, sure. but, i'd rather tear the system down than prop it up.

and, this is really just a reflection of how depraved the status quo is.

the new screaming females record is getting strong reviews. i actually gave it a wide berth, as it's been clear for a while that the band may be..."growing up" a little. i've been getting the impression for a while that the lead singer may be feeling sort of suffocated, in a role that she walked into before she was old enough to define who she really is, and that she's been role-playing for a few records - and ultimately wants out.

i get the impression that she's a lot more of a "normal" twenty thirty-something female than her persona might suggest, and that she's going to need to find a way to get out of this now completely phony teen-goth-angst schtick, one way or another.

she might actually secretly be a big green day fan.

that said, any substantive fears i had regarding the record appear to be being pushed off to the next one. the record starts off as strong as any other, but slows down quite a bit in the middle. it's not about soft or loud for me, but i just don't like country music, and when you take the kick out of punk rock, country music is what you're left with. it's more of an urban/rural thing....

see, i openly admit i hold prejudices towards rural culture. i try to rationalize them in real-world situations as best as i can - i try very hard to treat people fairly and not judge them and people that run into me in real-life will uphold that - but i simply don't want to celebrate anything to do with rural americana style culture. and, i have to be blunt: this culture really doesn't accept me, either. this isn't out of nowhere with this band, or with alternative/grunge music in general, but it kind of sticks out here.

that said, it's only a couple of tracks - minor enough to reduce the problem to the suggestion that the record has a bit of filler in it.

i preferred the more direct attack of the last one; this band excels when it's in early pumpkins mode, recycling sabbath riffs and just rocking out. but, it's a strong enough record, for the moment.

i do remain apprehensive about where they're going, but i'm also in total solidarity with complete honesty, even if i end up tuning out as they get more and more accessible.

and, i'll always have time for that tone.

i expect the show next week to be worth attending.

there seems to be this strange idea in the anti-smoking literature that you can keep smoke inside.

and, i kind of need to ask these people: if you tell smokers to smoke inside with the windows closed, where exactly do you think this smoke goes?

do you think it disappears through some kind of black hole?

that it becomes one with the furniture?

the smoke is going to eventually escape. if the unit is newer, it will escape through ventilation units. if it's older, it will escape into neighbouring units.

so, why isn't the focus on ventilation? why don't you tell people to go smoke outside, in out of the way places?

there's a large & usually empty church parking lot across the street. that should be a designated smoking area.

and, again, i'll tell you why: it's because the anti-smoking initiatives in this province are not about health. they're about class.

north korea can't even hit japan.

i actively hated the show friends and everything it stood for.

like, it wasn't just passive disinterest, or broad disdain. it was a deep level of contempt.

and, i'm not going to write this essay right now, but i will ask the question: do these people not reflect everything that is wrong with society, and everything about it that needs to be reformed? and, is the filter they are presented in not the biggest problem of all?

i keep saying this: yes, i absolutely do want to destroy your way of life.

sorry.

i slept in, so i'm certainly 100% staying in. if i was out anyways, i could talk myself into dealing with the cold for an overnight binge. but, it would be stupid of me to wander into the cold with intent, with a bicycle or not.

i have a gut feeling that the set was lacklustre, or at least was relative to my own tastes. as mentioned: i'm rather fond of their work with son lux, but i don't have any interest in 00s indie rock, more generally. if i was the person everybody wanted me to be, i'd care about sufjan stevens or the dirty projectors; the fact is that i don't, and never did, and that it was really never likely that i was ever going to.

the piece that lott wrote for them sounds commissioned, and i've always had such a problem with that - because it's always so obvious. you can't write good music in exchange for money; it has to come from somewhere, it's not just a market operation. it sounds uninspired; kind of flat - disappointing, given how emotionally engaging lott's work usually is. this is somebody that has a talent for being compelling. you could argue he has charisma, or something. so, how did the work end up so dry?

you put a price tag on it, that's how. you had to work around complicated schedules. you gave it time lines. you set goals. all of these things can only ruin art.

at some point, it became a product - and art cannot be commodified and remain art.

which is not to say that i don't hope that other people enjoyed it, so much as to say that i don't think i would have, and that this is much, much further from where i exist than perhaps would like to be imagined.

i took one of those 7/11 caffeine boosts this morning, and i'm still wired; impressive given that i had several drinks last night [2 jagers, 1 mikes & 2 strong beers]. i should be tired, but i'm wide awake...

i braved the cold last night, but the truth is that what i did was stupid. i was in some serious danger of hypothermia, and probably only staved it off because i'm in such ridiculously good health. i don't want to do that again tonight.

my bicycle is still where i left it, but the lock is frozen. this is actually a big deal, because having a bicycle would solve most of these problems. then again, i could also take my canada bike with me...hrmnnn...

i'll need to get some sleep, first.

this is wrong.

it's probably true that incumbents are hard to beat in the united states, across the board - because the districts are so heavily gerrymandered to ensure stasis. even in a republican state, the democrat districts are....they're designed to be democrat districts. they just set it up so there's less of them.

in canada, it depends on the type of election. we saw this in the last federal election: popular sitting mps got turfed in what was a liberal sweep. i don't think anybody expected people like paul dewar or megan leslie to lose their seats. and, the conservatives got crushed in ontario and quebec - many cabinet ministers got turfed.

if the 2018 ontario election is a change election, you want to talk about incumbency being a disadvantage. people seem to want to clean house.

i consequently think that this might actually help them - if compelling candidates appear in these ridings, that are able to generate support bases independently of the broader narrative.

it's a big if, granted.

but it's maybe more likely that some fresh blood is going to generate some excitement in these ridings than a vote for the status quo is.

that said, it's also a clear vote of non-confidence in kathleen wynne.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-election-liberal-incumbents-not-running-1.4606871

in the time i've been in detroit, i have a total of one blackout, in the fall of 2016.

that was the night i woke up in some dude's car. some dude that thought i was cis and was trying to fuck me.

i have a complete recollection of all other nights.

honest.

really.

no, seriously - i do. i know i look messy sometimes, but i'm almost always in control of myself.

no, wait.

i have been there in my conscious existence.

twice.

i didn't pass out either time, though.

wait.

i think i know where i was that night, now.

"didn't i see you passed out at..."

like i could answer that. like i could remember where i was passed out at.

but, i've never been to this place in my conscious existence. and the one night i blacked out, and woke up in some dude's car, was the night i was supposedly in that neighbourhood.

*shrug*.

well, i guess i went out after all, huh?

the magic stick was bopping. nice to see.

but i should have asked around about after parties instead of making assumptions. it seems like people wanted to even bring me there, as they noticed me and asked me about it, but i took off right away in an attempt to get to one asap. big mistake - the place i went to was empty, and i ended up back at the diner.

i had fun at the show. and i needed that, too.

i'd kind of like to go out tonight and dance to some guitar-driven funk, but it's just too fucking cold.

the most recent mainstreet poll claims the following responses, which should really not pass any intelligent poerson's bullshit detector:

liberals: 23.9
conservative: 50.3
ndp: 18.3

and, yet they claim that ford has a net negative favourability rating.

so, you want people to believe that doug ford is running at 50%, and yet that 75% of people disapprove of him.

they then have the panache to present this as some kind of paradox.

they're probably getting a 30% undecided rate - but they're not publishing it. and, so the numbers are probably more like this:

conservatives: 35.21
undecided: 30.0
liberals: 16.73
ndp: 12.81

and, those undecideds probably hate everybody, but lean centre-left: they may not vote liberal in the end, but they probably won't vote for doug ford.

when the numbers tighten up, everybody will feign shock. it's all bullshit.

and, they should be publishing undecideds - that is a valid response at any stage in the cycle.

again: the recent round of polling in ontario is distributing undecideds, which is wrong in our spectrum, and is therefore not useful.

the numbers being reported right now are not a basis in which to be shocked by a close election, should it happen; unfortunately, even the companies are playing into the obfuscation, by presenting dishonest calculations.

until we get polling that is accurately reporting the level of the undecided vote, we have no reliable data in ontario.

i've suggested before that she's probably working for the cia.

whether that is literally or figuratively true is probably merely semantic; she'd might as well be, if she isn't, technically.

my guess is that freeland is ultimately more interested in what her friends in new york think than she is in the well being of the country she's representing. because, in the end, she's really just visiting isn't she?

she's certainly not acting in this country's interests, that's for sure.

freeland has been falling all over herself to appeal to american democrats in order to push this bullshit hoax of substantive russian interference in western elections.

the idea that she's some kind of a victim of russian intrigue is a joke; she brought this on herself.

http://nationalpost.com/news/politics/russian-diplomat-calls-expulsions-over-remarks-un-canadian

the cold weather in ontario right now is consistent with all three potential explanations.

1) we've had a couple of cold summers in a row, here. this is consistent with the observation of decreasing solar output, as it pushes the jet stream down a little.
2) despite the physical errors in the model, it is consistent with the idea that it's being caused by melting sea ice.
3) it is also consistent with the idea that we live in canada, and we often have shitty springs in this part of the world.

my money is on (1). but, you need to look at longer term patterns regarding how the continuing decrease in solar output is going to affect the continuing increase in global mean temperatures, especially in the northern hemisphere. and, the difficult reality is that science can't tell you the answer with any certainty until it's already happened.

but, it is certainly not a reason to reject climate science.

i'm not fat; if anything i'm a little underweight.

but, the "fat guy on a computer" idea is much closer to the truth, when it comes to figuring out who i am.

and, the evidence demonstrating this is so overwhelming that only a complete fucking dipshit would argue otherwise.

but, this is a note to would-be trolls: the cia is so incompetent at what it does that if you troll it for whatever reason, it will spy on you.

forever.

to be clear:

what i am doing right now is running through a master document of comments i have put aside. it is 6200 pages long, but this is set to grow quite a bit as i copy data from 2016 onwards from the blog back into it. it contains posts i made to facebook, google+, youtube & all kinds of news sites, going back to about 2008. it is not comprehensive, but i do wish that it was...

i am taking comments out of that master document from 2013-2016 and posting them to two separate blogs:

1) the political comments blog:
http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.ca

2) the music blog:
http://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.ca

the reason i'm doing this is to create a combined master list for the music blog, going back to 1996. i have chosen 2015 as the start date for the political comments blog, but will eventual fill that in backwards, as well - with as much information as i can find. in the short run, once the gaps are filled, the political comments blog will exist from 2015 onwards.

the focus right now, however, is on the master list for the music blog, which is currently about 1000 pages, but is also going to grow quite a lot in the next few weeks. this needs to exist in these two mirrors from 2013 onwards. i will also be building it up in the alter-reality from 1996 onwards; i am very far behind on this.

i have to do this in order to close inri000, because the last part of the process is incorporating a pdf of the relevant portions of the music blog, which includes reconstructed notes from the 90s, and notes regarding the remastering process, from 2013-2018. this will be repeated for each release, moving forwards.

but, you're too fucking incompetent to even read that, aren't you?

"she's just working for the russians."

you fucking retards...

if i had been able to use my gear over 2016, i wouldn't have spent all the time i spent analyzing the american election, and i wouldn't have produced all of this writing that they seem to find so damaging.

then, they claim i'm working for the russians because i'm able to correctly deconstruct the situation. no - i'm just wasting time, because i can't use my gear, because it has a very obviously audible bug in it. this is a situation of their own creation. call it blowback, even.

some people waste time by playing games on their phones. but, i'm a nerd. so i waste time by analyzing elections.

i'd rather use the gear.

but i can't record or mix over an echo or a redirected stream that i can't get rid of...

why haven't they figured out the obvious?

because they're completely fucking incompetent.

that's the uncomfortable truth: these frustrations are a function of their own uselesness.

if they were anywhere close to halfways competent, they would have figured out years ago that there is nothing to accomplish in spying on me, and left me alone to create.

as i've stated before: i don't even care if they spy on me.

i'm too boring to care. i don't do anything illegal; most of the time, i don't do anything at all. they can spy on me all they want...

that's not what's so amazingly depressing about the situation.

i need my gear to work; it's that i can't get the loopback out that is so saddening and frustrating and depressing.

i'm of no threat to anybody at all, but the state is intent on ruining my ability to create, in order to listen in, for no reason i can even make sense of.

it seems like the intelligence services have installed the same loopback software on this laptop that they had previously installed on my recording pc.

the best way i can describe this is knowing your phone is being tapped. if you're talking to somebody on the phone, you can hear that there is a third person on the line because the connection sounds "open". you can hear the empty space on the other side of the third person's line..

i've had to modify my network architecture to take account of this, by only connecting to the internet through a defined access point [although there are two, with the other one in the living room to watch videos on]. this appears to be being installed at the hardware level, because reinstalls after disconnecting from the internet haven't resolved it. and, i'm not even sure if these open lines are connecting anywhere - or merely distorting the sound signal.

because i've set this computer up this way, as an access point, the eavesdropping is acting solely on the level of an annoyance. i'm not mixing on this device. but, i don't understand what the point of eavesdropping on somebody that posts their entire life to the internet is.

and, i need to reiterate, yet again, that this is harmful to me - because this is what i do; this is my art.

i also need to point out that the logic is backwards - much like these smokers, that think smoking through my windows is going to get me to close them. unfortunately, the reason i've been spending time posting to the internet is that my recording gear is not functioning, partially because it's been hacked by the cia. this has been going on for years, now; i could and probably should be mostly through period 3 by now, but i haven't even been able to start it. so, they keep spying on me, for what reason i'm not entirely sure - maybe they think i'm secretly in kahoots with something or somebody, although it's hard to understand how the fact that i'm an introverted loner isn't obvious, given how much time i spent ranting on the internet.

it should be obvious that i simply don't have time to be in kahoots with anybody because i spend so much time typing. it's obviously the only thing i do, or have been doing for years.

so, the more they spy on me, the more typing i do - which is the thing they seem to want to prevent.

if they would stop spying on me already, i'd get back to doing what i actually care about.

again: it would be one thing if i wasn't so transparent, if i didn't type so much. but i'm literally constantly posting: videos...music...comments...essays...it's at the very centre of my existence. what can be accomplished by bugging the audio on my laptop?

i'm italian.

i like the smell of garlic.

again: i'm not running for office.

i don't care if i'm popular.

i'm not trying to appeal to the in-crowd, to hipsters, to the cool kids, whatever.

i am trying to sell weird music to nerds.

link on the side.

i have a really strong fashion aversion to any kind of jackets.

if you look at the options, they're all unacceptable. leather jackets are the most disgusting fashion decision in the history of fashion; denim is perhaps a close second. they're both utterly pretentious looking. then, you have to accessorize them...and who has time for that...

when it's so cold that you need a jacket then so be it. but i'd rather stick with the kinds of big, clunky things you get at walmart, and wear them as sparingly as possible.

the dmst show in december was an exception. but, i tend to just avoid the problem by staying in until i can just put a sweater on. that means i need the temperature to stay above five degrees, and the weather just hasn't been able to accomplish that.

i actually simply forgot about the lightning bolt show. i guess my head was elsewhere. but, i'm not sure i would have went. haven't heard any new material, and the weather was horrific. that said, it was a saturday, so i could have in theory made it home.

it's more the kind of thing i'd want to go to if it's nice out, because it's nice out.

the construction on the tunnel could be a problem for me this spring because it means i can't get to weekday shows without doing the overnight, and i might not want to do that.

that said, the weather is finally set to turn next week, it seems. i know it's been nice on the coasts, but detroit is stuck in a blocking pattern that has had us hovering at freezing for weeks. it felt like february all the way through march: dreary/overcast, cold and unpleasant. and, april has been shit so far, too.

even if it was a few degrees warmer, i could handle some things, but this is still winter jacket weather, and i just don't enjoy going out to places when it's like this.

i'm considering maybe going to see ymusic at the cube on saturday, but i don't know what they're going to play. i know them through their work with son lux, but i'm really not interested in their other projects; 00s indie rock is really the dredges of boring bullshit, and not worth trying to convert into a serious artform.

i am never running for office, anywhere, ever.

i'm not a spy. i'm not building a footprint for my own machinations.

i'm an artist with a smart analytical mind that's trying to sell you experimental classical music. the link is on the side.

that is all.

deal with it.

and, if the bastards want to shut me down and martyr me, they're just demonstrating how right i am - historically. because this is what they do to us. ask oscar wilde. fuck, ask socrates. and, i don't know if we'll ever know why john lennon died, either.

this is the way the world turns.

but, do you want to be the piece of shit that has to explain to history why i didn't make it to 40?

the idea that i'm a russian agent is the most intellectually bankrupt response to my criticism that can be imagined, and should be met with derision, scorn, contempt and disdain.

they have absolutely no shame at all, whatsoever.

there's no use in asking.

october is now complete.

i'll start with november after i eat.

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.ca/2015/10/the-reality-is-that-harper-faced-most.html

ultimately, surrogacy is something that should be left to the courts to work out, and defined through jurisprudence, not legislation.

and, i would expect substantive legal action against any attempt to create a market for human trafficking in canada.

https://collectif-corp.com/2018/02/02/surrogacy-stop-the-buying-and-selling-of-human-beings/

this is perhaps not surprising, as it is consistent with the marketization of everything that comes with the continuing expansion of neo-liberal dogma, but the premise of putting a price on human life should remain a non-starter.

the buying and selling of human beings was banned in canada in the early nineteenth century.

this has nothing to do with gay rights, and we should be shocked to hear anybody frame the issue in these terms.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/trudeau-it-s-time-to-talk-about-lifting-ban-on-paying-sperm-egg-donors-1.3871380

they should deport freeland to the united states.

i have no interest in voting for the democrats, which is what these new liberals are - democrats.

i want the liberal party back.

they're panicking far too early, and it's making them look like a bunch of retards.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/trudeau-cites-propaganda-on-foreign-affairs-minister-as-russian-interference-1.3871653

if it's not clear, i oppose punitive measures in the justice system, and am in favour of restorative approaches that focus on integration, not retribution.

because i'm an educated liberal.

and we're like that.

it seems that the liberals are trying to prove they're tough on crime in order to attract the "tim horton's socialist" voters.

they had a lock on educated voters, but they sem more interested in governing in a way that is designed to appeal to dropouts. and, the sad part is that this is calculated.

they really do think we're this stupid.

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/8xk5z5/justin-trudeaus-crime-bill-is-just-the-latest-liberal-social-justice-mishap

http://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.ca/2015/10/a-debate-on-historical-importance-of.html

so, how is an anti-trans christian female really a repressed lesbian?

well, the real problem is just that they're attracted to us, and can't deal with it - so rather than admit that they have a sexual attraction to women, they insist that we're men. that way they don't have to face up to what they're feeling.

and, i've been over this repeatedly.

trust me, ladies: if you think i'm hot, it's because you like girls, whether you realize it or not. maybe you like the idea of a girl with an erection, sure. but, it's the girl you like - because there's nothing masculine in front of you.

at all.

are radfems really just repressed transmen that take out their frustrations on transwomen because they can't deal with it?

i don't mean the christians, who are probably mostly repressed lesbians. i mean the fake leftists.

is the answer to help them transition?

i actually don't think that getting rid of gerald butts is going to help trudeau much, or that he's really the cause of the problems.

i'd be agitating much harder to send katie telford back to school and tell her to work her way back up from the bottom.

dear ndp,

you're not going to win the next federal election & you know it. but, can you focus on getting rid of chrystia freeland for me? please?

this is an attainable goal. you can win this riding; she should be unpopular within it....

thanks,
deathtokoalas.

i'm not joking.

reading your kids fairy tales is the mental equivalent of giving them junk food; it does to their minds what sugar does to their teeth.

and, you probably didn't turn out ok - or at least not by my standards.

just read your kid science, instead.

the only thing i was ever read was dr. seuss, and it was pretty interactive.

my dad would take me to the library and get me to read to him; my grandmother would buy me books, and i'd read them to myself. and, i actually distinctly remember resenting being pandered to, when people tried to read things to me - as though i couldn't do it myself.

http://www.cbc.ca/parents/learning/view/how-to-handle-reading-your-favourite-childhood-story-to-your-kid

so, they gave us both n4s.

i'm to stop opening the windows in the hallways and stop propping the doors open. we can talk about that later. for now, i can deal with that.

she's to stop smoking in the unit.

my n4 is bullshit. i have to presume that hers is, too - but it is at least true that her habits are interfering with my enjoyment of the property, and fairly substantively, in the form of contact highs and nose bleeds. i just spent yet another day barely able to get out of bed because i'm too tired to move. i'm hoping the rain saves me, over night...

i haven't seen her n4, i was just told that she received it. so, i don't know exactly what it says. i know that it's almost impossible to follow through with this kind of threat, so i'm not holding my breath. but, i overheard her talking about it on the phone, and she's at least upset by it - so i've got a good starting point.

windsor is cheap. she seems to have a job doing something overnight. what she wants is a place where she can chain smoke marijuana and listen to loud music. because this area is so cheap, she's better off renting a townhouse - maybe with a friend or two. she's just not living an apartment-friendly lifestyle...a desire for gratuitous drug use & loud music really requires renting or buying a house....

so, they've at least done their due diligence, in promptly responding to my complaint, and we'll see where we are with this at the end of the month.

for right now, i'm going to let the air turn over with the rain and focus on the rebuild. i'm fully expecting to need to continue taping & tarping, but we'll see if i can back to setting up the studio tomorrow or maybe the next day.

let's aim for getting through 2015 as a transition point.

if the guy won't even run...

these kinds of appointments are the sorts of things that kill them, as they really do undermine the democratic process. what ends up happening is that the activists go elsewhere, or stay home. it's less about this guy and this riding and more about a cultural approach to how representatives are chosen.

i've noticed that the liberals have a lot of unnominated ridings. all politics is, of course, local. they could save themselves by allowing people to build local movements around local issues.

....which is, of course, how this is supposed to work, after all.

https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2018/04/03/wynne-stops-plan-to-appoint-st-pauls-candidate-clearing-the-way-for-a-contested-nomination.html

but, i mean, i don't make rock music.

i'm not a rock musician.

i'm an experimental/classical composer.

so, if you want to work out your fantasies about sex, drugs & rock 'n' roll then you're going to need to find a rock star, first - and that person is not me.

in my existing discography?

i'm stone cold sober through every nanosecond of it.

i have never recorded a single part drunk or stoned.

sorry.

(i'm not actually going to sound like lou reed because i don't write or record folk music. but you get the point)

i just kind of need to get this point down.

musicians don't actually do drugs when they're recording. they might do drugs between recording sessions. but, a musician trying to record something on drugs is going to probably be out of tune, out of time and unable to creatively approach much of anything.

drugs don't make you smarter. drugs don't make you more creative. and, drugs don't make you more productive, either. what drugs do is make you dim-witted, uncreative and slow to react.

you'll end up making trash that sounds like lou fucking reed at his worst.

go ahead and look into it. ask your favourite musician: have they ever recorded anything stoned or drunk? if you have any taste, the answer is almost certainly that they haven't - or, if they have, that they wish they could go back and fix it.

sorry.

so, this is the real importance of getting the smoke out of the recording space. yes, my health is important - &, yes, my gear is important. but, i need to make sure that my recording space is free of outside air contaminants; otherwise i'm not going to be very useful when i'm trying to multitrack guitar parts, or play a drum fill in 17/8.

the conservative party of canada was opposed to free trade until 1984 - because it held to the old tory mercantilist model of state capitalism. it broadly rejected the ideology of free markets as a lot of liberal nonsense. but, it had to change under mulroney, given where thatcher and reagan were headed - neo-liberalism.

the legacy of canadian toryism is probably why canada was so slow to embrace neo-liberalism.

in canada, these ideas of free trade & free markets are historically attached to the liberal party.

what happens repeatedly in canada is less that the conservatives are able to get more people to vote for them and more that the liberals have become very good at getting people to stay home, altogether.

it's worse than the disaster scenario.

trudeau has been lucky; jagmeet singh and andrew scheer are both unelectable.

but, if he doesn't find a way to excite all of the people he's disappointed, liberal turnout is likely to collapse, with unpredictable (from this distance) consequences.

conservative minorities. green party breakthroughs. bloc resurgences. all of this kind of wacky shit happens when the liberals are too uninspiring to get people off their asses to vote for them...and we've seen it all before for that reason...

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.ca/2015/10/just-some-final-notes-on-election.html

i should be rebuilding for the next few hours, at least.

i took advantage of a lull in the smoke to start rebuilding the apartment. i'm pretty sure i have the bedroom secured, so long as nobody smokes in the window; i've rebuilt the space so that everything is on the other side, and it's a more rational construction (closer to how i wanted it in the other apartment), so i'm happy about that.

what really happened was that it rained, which freaked me out a little, and made me realize i'd have to flip the living room around, too. so, i rebuilt the bedroom altogether. and then i started rebuilding the living room...

the rain was the best possible thing for the air quality in the unit, so i'm excited about more rain over the next few weeks, and a possible return to seasonable temperatures mid-month. it was so clear in the unit, that i thought maybe the letter had succeeded in modifying some habits.

it was about 3:00 that the illusion lifted, as a plume of smoke came up behind the closet - where i was setting up my keyboards - that was powerful enough to knock me out.

i now have that entire area tarped over, and i'm back to the waiting game, to see. i'll have to give it a week or two to see if that's enough...

i can't have my gear sitting over a smoke plume. i mean, my health is concern enough. but, if it's powerful enough to get me stoned, it's powerful enough to damage electronics.

as to the mechanics of this, it must be fairly exotic. occam's razor suggests that it seems like what is happening is that somebody is hotboxing the closet - that there are multiple people smoking in the enclosed unit with the intent of preventing circulation. but, there's no functional ceiling in the closet; the truth is that it's a dumb place to hotbox, because it's all just pluming out upwards.

another possibility is that she might actually be burning herb as a part of some kind of ritual, which just sounds like a waste of drugs, but explains why the cabinets are such a recurring problem. she may have some kind of shrine under there or something, and she may keep moving it because i keep blocking off the air with tarps.

whatever the source of this is, it's not a single individual smoking. it's either somebody burning it like incense, or it's multiple people burning large blunts at the same time. and, when it comes up in these waves, it hits you like exhaust from a bus or hot air from a hand dryer - if you're standing in it, it's like taking a deep hit on something. and, it's knocked me out, now, several times.

it's maybe easy to understand why the tape isn't working in some spaces, then. this isn't just a run-of-the-mill smoker. this is a smoke machine, of some sort. and, i'm going to need tarps or serious renos to resolve it.

i'll know by the end of the month whether i'm able to stop it, or if i'm going to need to seek a way out of the lease, with proper compensation.

it is andrea horwath that will make ontario great again, if that's what your idea of great is - even if most voters don't know it.

it is doug ford that represents the future of the right, in a multicultural interfaith coalition against secular liberalism - even if he doesn't fully realize it.

and, it is kathleen wynne that represents continuing the forces of progress, secularization and liberalism - even if she seems intent on distracting you from it.

the reality is that if you want bill davis back then horwath is your ticket - and if there's any truth in the idea that ford (who, rather, represents new conservatives, most of them brown) makes horvath look better, this is why.

but, if you'd like to move forwards, the liberals are the most progressive choice.

i've been clear that i see the ndp as the more fiscally conservative party, which is a fact-based analysis, and that i interpret the liberals as existing further left - not because the liberals are raving socialists, but because the ndp is really a moderate old-tory style conservative party, leaving the centrist liberals as the best thing we've got.

just look at the media narrative.

they're constantly smearing and ripping wynne apart, but they actually tend to cover horwath pretty favourably. you'll even see ndp strategists posting in the sun - fairly frequently. why is that, do you think?

unfortunately, a strong ndp showing will probably just split the vote and elect ford in a landslide.

wynne needs to start hitting horwath, and stop copying her.

the real problem for wynne right now is that the ndp do appear to be strengthening, finally. and, why wouldn't they be, given that wynne has essentially endorsed them?

the narrative is that the gap has closed, or that this is an outlier poll.

my analysis is that this is actually consistent with what reliable polling has suggested they've been at the whole time.

however.

forum is sketchy, and i don't know why. they fluctuate all over the place - sometimes they're dead on, and sometimes they're completely wrong. so, pointing out that this is about what i thought isn't that relieving given that we're talking about forum.

the same thing happened in the last election. the tory media pumped out all of this panel analysis - which is more like a focus group than a poll - claiming the liberals didn't have a chance. they then mislabelled these things as "polls". this was designed to frame the narrative around a certain liberal loss, to influence public opinion in their favour. but, the reliable polling was...reliably close...for pretty much the whole campaign.

then, when the liberals won a majority, everybody claimed they were shocked. but, they shouldn't have been, at all - it was what the actual polls said the whole time.

if decided voters are putting the conservatives around 36-37%, then they're likely running around 32-33, and the liberals have a better than decent chance - not because the budget has saved the day, but because her unpopularity was always exaggerated in the first place.

but, i would like to see more reliable polling, please.

http://poll.forumresearch.com/data/6db584c0-cdaf-446b-b79a-6c7d54cb6c4bOntario%20budget.pdf

they got me buying my meds, and i had to go home to call them, as i don't have a cell phone. i barely made it back to the store...

i'm not going to kill anybody if i don't get my meds. but, what if i really needed them?

and, the reason for this is simply to brand the new card to the cashier. there's no other reason to force the switch.

it's irresponsible.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/former-pc-financial-customers-say-frozen-simplii-bank-accounts-causing-undue-hardship-1.4600627

what the problem is

second-hand smoke of at least six types:

1) tobacco (confirmed) (hallway)
2) marijuana (confirmed) (downstairs unit)
3) sage/incense (confirmed) (downstairs unit)
4) an unknown sweet smell (possibly oxycontin) (downstairs unit)
5) an unknown acidic smell (possibly heroin) (downstairs unit)
6) an unknown stimulant without a strong smell (possibly crystal meth) (downstairs unit)

symptoms of the problem

- sore throat
- both an inability to sleep for days & an inability to stay awake [altered sleeping patterns]
- heart palpitations
- marijuana contact highs
- headaches
- nose bleeds

i have been to the hospital twice for heart palpitations, restlessness and nose bleeds.

the seriousness of the problem

in addition to experiencing undesired effects of these drugs, it must be stressed that smoke is the leading cause of death.
smoke is the leading cause of death.

smoke is the leading cause of death!

even in the united states, a country grappling with a severe gun violence problem, second-hand smoke kills nearly twice as many people as guns, every year.

this is not a minor annoyance or a mere inconvenience. this is a serious health concern, on the level of asbestos or lead in the unit. lead is, in fact, a component of second-hand smoke.

what the law says

20 (1) A landlord is responsible for providing and maintaining a residential complex, including the rental units in it, in a good state of repair and fit for habitation and for complying with health, safety, housing and maintenance standards.  2006, c. 17, s. 20 (1).

in the year 2018, it must be understood by everybody - landlords, tenants and the court - that a unit full of second-hand smoke is not compliant and must be repaired to prevent the smoke from entering the unit.

what has already been done

- holes have been patched over with duct tape & plastic tarps at considerable personal cost (~$300). this has been of varying effect but is ongoing. it is clear that this will not be successful in some parts of the unit, which will require deeper repairs to smoke proof the unit.
- i have asked the downstairs tenant to smoke less, to no avail.
- i have called the police, to ask them to ask her to smoke less, or outside, to no avail.
- i have left the windows in the unit wide open, to my own discomfort, to varying effect. this is currently absolutely necessary, as a starting point. unfortunately, the downstairs tenant appears to actually be purposefully smoking through my windows in a possible attempt to upset me. i am merely confused by this.
- i tried to open the window in the hallway, but this was bolted down by staff. the doors to the stairways are also repeatedly closed by cleaning staff, when i open them.

proposed solutions

- hallway: to begin with, can we leave the doors open so that the air can circulate? and, is there not a way to open the windows to facilitate air flow?

i am currently more concerned about my personal unit, and there are four potential approaches to the problem.

1) discuss the problem with the downstairs tenant, indicating the seriousness of it.

i have already tried to speak with this tenant, and have already asked the police to speak with her. in both cases, she made pledges that she has not kept. while the easiest thing to do would be to get her to smoke outside and away from the windows (which would also be good for her health, considering how much smoke she produces, and of so many different types), i understand that this comes with no enforcement mechanism, and that voluntarism is always at the whim of the volunteer. i’m willing to allow a further request to play out, though.

ultimately, success in a voluntary approach requires this tenant understanding the seriousness attached to the dangers of second-hand smoke, including to herself, which is something that both smokers & non-smokers in this society refuse to get their heads around. we are collectively deeply ignorant about this and seem to be unwilling to change or learn the facts.

2) remove the source of the smoke.

while it is difficult to remove a tenant for smoking cigarettes inside their unit in ontario, it is not impossible if it is part of a complaint by another tenant. more pertinent to the issue at hand is that this tenant does not appear to be a cigarette smoker at all, but is rather an exceedingly heavy marijuana smoker (as well as a smoker of other unknown substances). marijuana remains illegal in canada until further notice and, despite the claims of the sitting government, canada’s obligations under international law are likely to prevent full legalization; this is more likely to be a broken campaign promise than an imminent reality. as a landlord, you would be in your rights to remove this tenant for illegal behaviour. and, i can provide information about relevant police reports.

that said, i understand that this would be a difficult and lengthy process with an unclear end point. further, if this tenant were to be replaced by another heavy smoker, the whole thing would be a waste of time.

3) smoke-proof the unit.

as mentioned, a great deal of effort has already been put into duct-taping around the holes in the unit, and some plastic tarps have even been purchased to block off certain areas. but, there are many areas that cannot be approached this way, particularly areas around the cabinets and other built in features, such as the electrical box. i believe that this is a potentially successful approach, but i understand that it will come with some cost to the company.

i suppose it is up to the company to carry-out a cost-benefit analysis: is it worthwhile to smoke-proof this unit, or is the high turnover rate of a smoke-filled unit (and the subsequent legal costs attached to it...) a worthwhile cost of business?

4) end my own tenancy, with relevant compensation.

i would be willing to discuss this as an exit point, if none of the other options are considered worth pursuing. however, i would expect that such a process be carried out formally through the proper social justice tribunal, where a compensation can be agreed upon in mediation, or determined by a judge. my requests for compensation would be comprehensive, but fair.

should none of these options be pursued by this time next month, i will take the necessary legal steps to pursue one of them on my own.

ok.

i'm finally at the point where i wanted to stop and re-evaluate: election finished, vlog begun and back to work.

the vlog & the blog merge, at this point. i quit smoking at the beginning of 2016. but i need to...

i kind of want to get a move on this. there's a thousand pages on the 2016 us election. do i really want to upload this right now?

the flip argument is that i'm kind of stuck in bed until i can get the second-hand smoke issue dealt with. the other half of the apartment is kind of  a dead zone, for now.

i guess the pages split in mid-2016.

i think the signal increases, at least.

right now, i'm hungry - and i need to spend the morning writing an essay for my landlord.

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.ca/2015/10/well-i-was-by-far-closest-of-any-of.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.ca/2015/10/i-complain-about-models.html

actual results:

liberal - 184  (missed by 25ish)
conservative - 99  (i nailed this)
ndp - 44 (i nailed this)
bloc - 10 (missed by 25ish)
green - 1

my argument was that the increased liberal numbers in quebec would elect a lot of bloc mps, by accident. it turns out that this was too fancy of an argument, and i would have totally nailed it had i just looked at the swings directly.

that's not a request to go bother the introverts, wherever you are.

don't do it.

they don't want you to.

if i was at a party right now, i'd be sitting in the corner wishing i was at home.

i really, truly hate people, in general.

i am hoping the weather picks up soon, though. it might be nice to be at a concert....

i would happily be the bastard that killed jason kenney.

he'd regenerate, though.

again.

and again.

again: i don't celebrate christian holidays.

at all.

it's no doubt a function of the nature of the films...

the social network ost is a livelier, more engaging listen that actually holds up as one of his better records; the girl with the dragon tattoo ost is cold and disengaging, and more difficult to listen to actively, although i'm finding it functional as background music, right this moment.

i think you have to get your head around the idea that these are mostly jams, rather than compositions - you may be hearing some overdubs thrown in, but this is mostly being constructed on the fly, making it a type of twisted jazz, really. there's also a huge amount of sampling in both of these, which i'm not about to criticize from some position of purity, but do need to point out; as these are both mostly improvised works and soundtracks rather than standalone compositions, sampling exists in a different context. the reason you need to point it out, though, is that the tracks come in the form of templates.

reznor has a habit of repeating himself, and he's done the same thing with his soundtrack work - if you include ghosts, it really all bleeds into itself and starts to stagnate some time around 2012. you could argue, then, that it works best if you pull it all together into a ten or fifteen disc set and think of it as a single work.

i have no criticism beyond that point - everything he's done with ross in this style is enjoyable, as repetitive as some of it may be. but, standing in 2018, maybe it's time to move on.

i need to repeat.

if there is any discernible movement in the polling right now, it's away from the liberal party and towards the green party. and, this makes a lot of sense, given that trudeau has been a disaster for the environment, in his zeal to approve every pipeline that he can.

i'd like to see regional numbers, though, and they're not available. is this cross-country, or localized in bc?

federally speaking, there has not been any meaningful polling measuring a shift from the liberals to the conservatives at all. so, i'm not going to provide an explanation for something that there is no evidence of.

there has been a push by the tory media to frame a specific narrative using bunk "polling". that is all.

the liberals are down a little, but the conservatives remain flat. these votes are not moving from the liberals to the conservatives, but from the liberals to elsewhere.

the most likely explanation for this is that trudeau has not followed through on anything that he promised.

it appears that trudeau was given a longer than normal grace period to follow through, and this may have confused people into thinking that policy doesn't matter. most people don't follow the news daily, so it may have taken some time for the facts to get there. but, when reliable polling comes out and finds these lost votes floating around between "undecided", "ndp" and "green", it will be clearer that he's not losing votes on his right, but on his left.

that said, low turnout or a spike in the green vote could lead to a conservative minority.

satanism only makes sense in the framework of christianity.

real atheists rejects satanists as reactionary christians - and satanism as irrational.

something should also be said about the parallels between secular humanism and natural law theory, which is a christian idea, in origin. i'm not an advocate of natural law theory, exactly; it's not scientific inquiry, and science really needs to take precedence over logic. but, you can't really understand secular humanism without having read a little aquinas.

when somebody says "i'm not a christian", that doesn't only mean that they don't believe in angels and demons, or trinities, or zombies, or cannibalism.

it also means that they reject the christian value system.

of course, there are varying levels of rejection, and what that means is complicated. but, the key to understanding an atheist is removing yourself from the framework of christianity, first. it's very hard to understand the irreligious when you've spent your entire life chained in the cave of religion.

so, for something like drug addiction, a christian is going to frame the issue in terms of a value system that upholds hard work, and rejects sloth as a sin. a christian would consequently consider addiction as a "sinful" lifestyle that is rebellious, because it rejects "god". this would then be contrasted with a pious lifestyle. somebody that upholds sobriety would consequently be godly, in their rejection of sinfulness.

i've repeatedly ranted against the protestant work ethic and upheld sloth as a virtue.

but, this entire discussion exists within the framework of christianity itself, and the aim of an atheist is to reject this. a humanist would not care about what somebody might imagine that god would think of the scenario. an atheist does not believe in concepts of sin, and so does not interpret drug use or promiscuity through a filter of rebelliousness or sinfulness, but rather seeks to rationalize it by empirically analyzing it's effects on the individual's health.

so, where a christian may be tempted to certain behaviours as rebellious and sinful, because the issue was framed that way to them, an atheist is likely to flatly reject such behaviours as irrational and harmful to one's health - which is why the christians framed them that way in the first place.

this is why religion is so damaging to a healthy society, and why it is so important to rationalize away these concepts of "sin" and "rebellion", as they manufacture stupidity, rather than abolish it.

somebody rebelling against religion may consequently see an atheist and a religious conservative as somewhat equivalent, because they're telling them the same thing about their destructive behaviour. but, the truth here is that the reason this is happening is because rebellion is irrational - and the true thing to learn from this is that rebels are idiots.

ned would march downstairs and give these people a hug and try to get them to rehab, because their lives are valuable, and god loves them.

i'm out to destroy them and leave them for dead, because i don't fucking care about them at all.

i care about my health.

and, i'm not going to "chill out" and accept your ignorance about the dangers of second-hand smoke - i'm going to get a court to uphold my rights.

the flanders joke was that it's very hard (stupid, frankly) to love your neighbours, when your neighbours are people like the simpsons. but, the buffoon tries, anyways. it was a deep caricature of christianity.

a rational flanders would have built a moat between the properties, or moved away, or bombed them, or something - for the good of humanity. but, because he's a christian, he insisted on loving and forgiving and accepting them. and, that's the joke - it's about how stupid christianity is, because it would preach acceptance rather than seek to protect itself from obvious harm.

you're not supposed to identify with these people; it's satire, and they're literally cartoon characters.

fuck your neighbours.