i got my forms from the court house today, free of charge.

i'll have to make some calls in the morning. except...

...there's something very wrong going on with my gmail right now. i can't call out, and i'm getting a network error when i try to log in. are the cops trying to shut my phone down, or what?

it seems childish, frankly. but, i know i'm not dealing with the best or the brightest, here.

anyways. i tracked the initial issue down to something to do with my sound card, and was able to fix it by creating a new firefox profile. further, i can get into gmail using a deprecated browser, so this may be easier to fix than i think.

but, i've been through these kinds of things before - shadow bans on youtube, for example. somebody clearly wants to shut me down, and i don't know the exact reason why...

great idea.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/03/28/news/mike-layton-urging-toronto-reckon-climate-change

it's not just what trudeau said, it was the reaction by the party elite.

the best word to use is deplorable.

again: the overwhelmingly bourgeois nature of this government is on full display.

it's like that meme with the republicans laughing, "and then we told you it would trickle down.". but, what it really is is tory - this is the liberal party actually becoming the progressive conservative party, it is justin trudeau turning into brian mulroney.

liberals don't win elections because people really believe in them to the absolute core, they win elections because there's a careful calculation by the masses that, as bad as they may be, they're not as bad as the conservatives.

it's becoming harder and harder to make that argument.

i've been uncomfortable for some time about the government falling on a corruption scandal. but, a caucus revolt on the basis of the leader being far too bourgeois would be welcome.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2019/03/28/justin-trudeau-made-a-smug-remark-to-a-protester-its-hard-to-recover-from-that.html

i am not a politician, i don't care much about public opinion and i have no interest in running for office.

this is horribly wasteful and unnecessary and should be outright banned.

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/travel-porter-airlines-now-offers-flights-from-toronto-to-muskoka-cottage-country-summer-billy-bishop

a few words about the russia report...

i actually really don't know the details, as i interpreted the thing as a distraction from the start and haven't bothered with it. and, it's not even the kind of drama i'd be interested in following for the fun of it; frankly, i find the whole thing terribly boring.

but, it must follow that i couldn't possibly think the findings of the commission are meaningful, given that i don't think the commission itself was genuine; if they had found him guilty, i wouldn't have taken it very seriously, either.

i was actually expecting a finding of guilt, given that my analysis of the situation is that it was intended as a cover-up. i have been pointing out since mid-2016 that i think that the american deep state stole the election for trump, but that it was less about being pro-trump and more about being anti-clinton. so, i immediately wrote off the russia thing as a way to cover that up. it made sense to me that the next step would be to remove trump and put pence in.

it might be that my entire analysis was wrong - although it sure looks predictive, in hindsight. why didn't they find him guilty, then? well, they may have changed their minds. they may have decided that trump is actually a useful puppet. they may be anxious about the democratic field. they may have questions about the electability of mike pence. they may have just punted until after the election. i don't know. and, it may become obvious over time, or it may be obscured forever.

i am surprised by the results of the report, though - not because i think there was actually collusion, but because the purpose of the investigation was clearly to take him down.

so, that was an unplanned for detour, and it seems like i've lost the day.

so be it.

but it's done....

i'm not surprised by this; it seems like pei is the exception, and probably because it's an island. alberta likely levels out in a month or two, too.

first, you have to take into account the "fad" aspect of it. i would bet that the actual reality is that a lot of people tried it and realized it's really not such a trip, after all.

second, from what i can tell it's simply too expensive.

if the premise was to legalize in order to fight organized crime - something i initially thought was just an excuse but am starting to believe the government might actually take seriously - then this was a solution seeking a problem. marijuana isn't addictive. what that means is that the cartels don't have time for it. i'm sure that some amount of pot moves with the cocaine and the meth and the heroin, but the overwhelming amount of marijuana in canada is produced and sold by mom + pop growers. until the system reflects this reality, legalization is going to be a flop.

but, at least the cops aren't bugging you if you're smoking in the park, right? well, except to write you a ticket.

Further Clarifications Surrounding My Gender Identity

While I initially suspected that my gender identity may have played a role in my mistreatment by the officer(s) in question due to the tone I was receiving from them around it, this is a difficult thing to argue in the absence of clear evidence. I am somewhat baffled by the continuation of this tone throughout the continuing investigation, to the point that the consistency really seems incriminating.

I have stated repeatedly that I am openly transgendered, and it has simply fallen upon deaf ears; even after repeated corrections, the review letter from the oiprd still uses masculine pronouns. This is something that I haven’t experienced from any other institution or body, in two cities in Ontario or in the state of Michigan. I initially began hormone therapy in 2002, so I actually have a lot of experience dealing with a wide sector of society; nobody else has insisted on misgendering after being corrected, not even christian laity, which at least have the decency to show respect for a stated preference, even if they believe in something else. This singular insistence by the various branches of the ontario police seems to be reflective of a regressive culture around queer identity that needs some kind of serious exposure; there is clearly something happening in the force, here, that isn’t happening anywhere else in society.

I am consequently in the position where I feel as though I need to prove that I am transgendered, which is rather unbecoming of a process such as this at such a late stage in history. I feel like we’ve been thrust backwards several decades...

So, what does it mean to be “openly transgendered”? As gender is fluid rather than rigid, and the science around it is still largely speculative, there is a great deal of impreciseness regarding the concept of gender identity. When I say that I am “openly transgendered”, what I mean to say is that I am both fully female identifying and presenting and yet not interested in hiding my birth sex - if forced to specify on a form, I would prefer to choose neither M nor F but T. So, I am transgendered, and I want you to know that; I don’t want to mislead you into thinking I have female genitalia, because I don’t.

That said, a transgendered person is a person that actively lives the life and identity of the gender nominally associated with the sex they were not born into. A transgendered person is not a crossdresser or drag queen, and is not a person with a sexual fetish for the opposite gender role - there is an active concept of living attached to it. Nor has any of this been considered a mental illness by western science at any point in my own conscious lifetime, which is a point I will get back to shortly.

A transgendered person undergoes a process called transition that arguably never truly ends but takes anywhere from two to five years to become convincing or “passable”. The central and most important part of this process is the replacement of testosterone with estrogen in the transgendered person’s body (if they are transitioning from male to female; it is the opposite replacement if the transition is the other way around), which both changes their physical and emotional states through the alteration of their body chemistry. If “male” and “female” have meaningful, scientific definitions, it has to do with the dominance of testosterone and estrogen as chemical regulators, rather than any precursor to it (such as chromosomal instructions) or any consequence of it (such as physical sex characteristics). So, if an individual has a body chemistry that is dominated by estrogen, they can be said to be “female”, and if they have a body chemistry dominated by testosterone they can be said to be “male”. Whatever else you’ve heard, that is the actual science of it - it’s all about dominant hormones. Transition may or may not also include plastic surgery, eventually leading up to an operation where one physical genitalia is converted into the other one.

I began my gender transition in March of 2002, and placed it in a paused state from late 2002 to mid 2010. During the pause, I experimented with natural sources of estrogen and testosterone suppression outside of the supervision of a medical professional. The cause of this pause was primarily financial. Since mid-2010, I have been on a medically supervised regimen of estrogen replacement, testosterone suppression and supplemental progesterone. Yearly blood tests since 2014 have consistently confirmed a near zero level of testosterone and levels of estrogen that are actually on the upper spectrum of normal female variability. I currently take 6 mg of estrogen a day, orally; this is roughly the same amount of estrogen as exists in an entire package of birth control pills.

Chemically and hormonally speaking, I am indiscernible from a biological female.

Such a consistent dosage of estrogen has also led to substantive breast growth. I am around a B or C cup; it comes up and down.

I am roughly 5’ 8” and 130 pounds, and of a slender but fit build.

I have not undergone any plastic surgery, be it sexual reassignment or otherwise. The requirements for sexual reassignment in Ontario are expensive and onerous, to the point that I’ve mostly decided against it; I just don’t want to spend my remaining years in and out of hospitals, or travelling between cities. There are years long wait lists and a coerced requirement to relocate to Toronto; it’s really a broken and badly underfunded system that needs to be drastically rethought and radically decentralized. If the process were easier, I would have already had it done by now. At this point I have not been sexually active for many years, and do not expect I would become sexually active again after surgery, so it strikes me as a large waste of time. However, I have made some active attempts to have my testicles removed in order to reduce my dose of testosterone suppressors, in order to alleviate stress on my liver. While I would undergo an orchiectomy immediately if I could, I have been unable to find a doctor willing to perform this procedure in Windsor. I feel that this reflects poorly on the local specialists, as it is putting continuing strain on my liver that could be easily relieved by a routine surgical procedure; it is really against their hippocratic oath to deny this request, in this context, and appeals to religious faith are really beyond lacking but rather specious. Yet, the truth is as it is - I cannot have the procedure performed if nobody is willing to do it and have not had the time to pursue the option further. I mention it only to point out that some effort towards surgery has been made on my behalf, even if full reassignment is too much of a bureaucratic mess for me to seriously contemplate.

As I wasn’t given the opportunity to freshen myself up before I got arrested, and I was living in a disgusting situation that was terrible for both my skin and my hair, the mug shot that exists of me is rather unflattering. I am consequently attaching the following picture of me, taken in mid-2017.

While everybody looks nicer in makeup, that is much closer to what I actually look like and present myself as on a daily basis - openly transgendered, but fully female identifying and fully female presenting as well.

While I haven’t previously presented this kind of argument - and, in 17 years, no other institution in any other sector of society has ever required that I do so -  I have made the point clearly enough, to no apparent response. Why is that, exactly? I actually think that answering this question will get to the root of the mistreatment I received, as I appear to have been essentially treated as a potential sex offender. Worse, the tone of the department seems to be upholding the premise of discrimination on this basis as something that is in the public interest, and this really needs to be corrected and reversed.

If I were to answer the question of “why are they doing this?” precisely, it seems to be that they think their case relies on it. That is, they seem to think that relenting on the point and acknowledging my identity as clearly female by any empirical criteria will act as an admission of guilt to the question of discrimination. Instead, they’re aggressively asserting my identity as masculine, to justify the arrest. Yet, this is exactly the point I’m trying to draw attention to - it is a literal statement of discrimination in policing. The argument - and this is never stated explicitly, but is ever so more clearly between the lines as things unfold - is that the reason I was potentially a threat to this woman was that I was a male presenting myself in a female identity, that is that my transgendered identity was just a front for some kind of latent male criminality, which is just a statement of discrimination directed at trans people. There was absolutely no evidence of any intent to pose any harm to this woman, and absolutely no evidence of any criminality in my past, but there does appear to have been a lot of suspicion around my gender identity being some kind of trojan horse attack method. The justice seems to have instantly recognized this, as it is the first thing she mentioned at my release hearing. Not having much experience at being arrested over trivialities, it took me some time to realize the depth of this intuition. If i were to answer the question of “why were you arrested?” today, i would have to provide the answer “i was arrested for being queer”.

So, it seems like the more I draw attention to the discrimination underlying the arrest, the more the police want to assert my identity as male in order to justify it; all i’m getting in return to my claims of discrimination is more discrimination, to try and justify the already existing discrimination. So, there is apparently a fundamental lack of understanding here. This really speaks to more than corruption, but points to a culture in the force that needs adjustment.

The last thing that I want to point out, and this may not be distinct from the broader narrative, is that I dispute an aspect of the report. I haven’t really had the opportunity to bring this up yet, but I guess I need to, now. It says in the report that I preferred to be patted down or searched by a male officer. In fact, what I stated was that I didn’t have a preference as to how I would be sexually assaulted by the officers, and in context it’s hard to describe the situation using different language. Further, I was in fact patted down and searched by a female officer, not a male one, indicating that I was in fact identified as female by the people involved in the arrest. While occam’s razor initially suggested to me that this was glossed over by the officers due to laziness, I now suspect it may have been a part of the overall insistence on presenting me as male to justify the arrest and advance the case.

I would appreciate it if further communications with me would address this issue accordingly by gendering me properly. Further, after so clear a clarification as this, which i repeat has been unnecessary in any other context, the court that will no doubt eventually receive this case ought to have little recourse but to view any further correspondence from the police that genders me incorrectly as confirmation of a continuing process of discriminatory treatment. This is baffling enough, to me, as it is.

so, i got a response on the review for request - they are in fact going to review the report presented by the windsor police.

if i understand correctly, this review is done by a panel appointed by the director. it is at least independent of the police, itself.

i need to spend the morning gathering evidence to send to them.

regarding the rebuild, i made it to the end of july 29th before i crashed yesterday. i'd like to be a little more productive today; we'll see.

and, i still need to make these calls. this morning, probably.

it is true that elizabeth warren has a lot of really bad, out-of-date ideas and largely opposes the forward-thinking legislation brought forward by the left of the party.

it's a lot of quantity, but not much quality.

next.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/03/26/media-coverage-vs-reality-democratic-primary-race/

this is called natural selection.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47715169

ok, not literally.

but, the ones that die still deserve darwin awards.

i would support any legislation that forces mandatory vaccination, but in the meantime there should be active measures taken to quarantine them.

to be clear on this point: rachel notley is considerably less evil than jason kenney, but there are not many people that can compete with mr. kenney in terms of diabolical intent. i complain a lot about the restricted spectrum in the united states, but alberta's spectrum may actually be the worst in the hemisphere; albertan voters are really being forced to choose between a lesser catastrophe, more so than even a lesser evil. it's just an absolutely depressing array of options.

the polls suggest that notley has little chance of competing with a newly unified right and that kenney really needs to just shut up in order to be elected in a landslide. so, why is he out there promoting stupid bullshit like this when he doesn't have to be?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/ucp-leader-jason-kenney-defends-allowing-parental-notification-if-child-joins-gsa-1.5072253

the polls are bad. very bad. but, if notley has any chance at all, it may be in kenney's incompetence overpowering his insanity, and in his megalomaniacal instincts overpowering whatever deficit of good sense is lurking in his depraved mind. he's laid his cards down when he didn't have to.

do albertans really want to elect doug ford?

and, where is the outrage from liberals on this topic, anyways? this is exactly the kind of hateful extremism that the charter exists to stamp out. the premise of weaponizing human rights legislation against a marginalized group is beyond orwellian doublethink - it is evil. and, it must be resisted as strenuously as possible.

there's currently no reason to think the ndp have much of any chance in the upcoming election - unless kenney effectively talks his way out of power.

so, let him speak.

and, listen carefully, alberta. are you sure you want this?

i don't have any way of knowing whether this leaked information about the supreme court nomination is actually true or not, and i was in fact highly critical of the selection of kim campbell to head the committee at the time, but i think it alters the narrative in the right way, and it is consistent with the existing messaging from the pmo, which has consistently tried to steer the conversation in the direction of the view that the assisted dying legislation was seen as particularly problematic.

there's continuation here, rather than a break in narratives. and, it would really be nice to see the media more strenuously question the minister's questionable performance, rather than (i think absurdly.) treat the question as out of bounds.

but, the media dances to the beat of it's own drum.

i'm sorry, but there's no excuse to use a term like homo erectus at this late a stage in history. i don't know if the palaeoanthropologist responsible for this was just too aloof to realize what the fuck he was doing or if he a sophomoric sense of humour, but it really must be stricken from the record.

use ergaster or antecessor or something.

anything.

please.

listen, there's going to be posts from like 2004.

"it's 2004. why are we still arguing about climate change?"

i've been doing that as long as i can remember. sorry.

no, really.

assad should go to town with this.

or maybe i just miss gadaffi, who had such a good sense of humour about these things.

if i were syria, i would react by signing a declaration recognizing guantanamo bay as a part of cuba.

i think it's rather clear to anybody with a cursory understanding of the situation that israel's occupation of the region is in fact illegal under international law, which is the appropriate arbiter, here.

the fancy and whim of this naked emperor should really be addressed with little regard at all.

of what relevance is donald trump's opinion regarding the legitimate sovereign power in the golan heights?

again: you just need to sit vladimir down for tea and explain the idea of manifest destiny to him. then, the monroe doctrine will make sense.

it's just a silly misunderstanding, that's all.

so, i slept more this weekend than i wanted to. i think i figured something out, though.

it seems like that woman's voice upstairs belongs to grandma; that buddy's mom is staying there, either for the long term or the short term. my initial thought - that there was a kid up there smoking all of the time - appears to have been somewhat wrong; rather, it seems like it's his mom that sits up there all day chain smoking. this remains purely speculative; i still don't really know what's happening.

that said, while i'm actually getting some reinforcement that he doesn't smoke, it seems like his mother may be smoking a few different things, in the house.

it might be useful to try and get a better idea of what's happening; if her stay is limited then i'm better off waiting it out, but if she's here in the long term, i'm going to need to find a way out.

would i be liable for some compensation on that? well, it comes down to the lease obligation - we signed a non-smoking agreement, and it seems like he moved his smoking mother in shortly afterwards, thereby breaking the lease. i'm not sure something like this has really been tested, but i'm willing to be the person that tests it if it comes to it.

so, i've been tired, and that is probably why. and, i think i'm still tired....

i have at least organized all of the remaining july posts. it turns out that there was over 200 pages of emails and messenger conversations to put in order; that is something that should almost disappear by the middle of 2013, although it will pick back up again in the alter-reality after 2011. there's roughly another 100 pages to post...

i'm going to get through this first, and then make some calls tomorrow morning.

if this guy wins, i'm going to be merciless.

the problem with religion in politics - and the reason it needs to be so vigorously opposed - is not the right-wing social polices, although these are a symptom of the problem. the real problem is the broken epistemology, the insistence on faith over reason. so, removing the hate from the religion doesn't really solve anything, even if it looks a little nicer on the surface, so long as you''re still presenting a world view rooted in belief rather than in evidence.

a politician needs to be driven by the scientific method. as the role and purpose of the office of the president is largely to analyse evidence, a faith-based epistemology is fundamentally incompatible with the role of the office holder. concerns about the sillier parts of christian eschatology and theology aside, that is why this is disqualifying - it is a position that requires a very strong attention to empirical fact, not one where you should be guided by conversations you have with some schizophrenic projection of yourself, in the form of an imaginary friend.

i mean, if you're going to make me choose between supporting a real christian, somebody that actually believes in this pile of obvious bullshit, and a fake christian that is just reciting lies for profit, i'm going to pick the fake christian as the lesser evil every single time.

does this mayor pete think jesus is coming back soon, or what? 'cause there's a button in reach, and if he does then i don't want him anywhere near it.

there's a point in the restricted spectrum where nihilism actually becomes the lesser evil, when compared to conservatism.

there's just no way.

yes, i'm in canada. but, if the democrats run a fucking minister, i'm going to campaign for fucking trump.

being an ordained minister needs to be outright disqualifying. period.

it's 2019.

at this stage in history, why can't the united states find and support an openly atheist candidate with acceptable social policies for president?

yuck.

no thanks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/pete-buttigieg-has-broken-through-the-noise-on-community-and-religion/2019/03/24/8fc72084-4ce0-11e9-93d0-64dbcf38ba41_story.html

the russians would obviously really rather that the israelis simply stop bombing syria under bullshit pretences.

the election is when, the 7th?

if netanyahu is removed and the new leadership is less retarded, it might not be necessary to start shooting down planes that are only there for political theatre in the first place.

the syrians/russians will need to respond at some point, israel cannot keep doing this, but a shift in power is a better response than an escalation of violence; waiting netanyahu out (and perhaps helping him find the exit) is the preferable strategy, here.

https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Syrians-are-practicing-with-the-S-300-will-they-ever-use-it-Report-584563

this is a discussion that has no relevance, interest or meaning to me, other than to reinforce the point i've been making about this government being almost uniquely bourgeois, relative to recent governments in canada, even conservative ones.

the liberal party has essentially become an aristocracy at this point, run by fifty or sixty year old trust fund kids. they've been swinging right for years, granted, but i didn't really see this coming.

they're totally out of touch with the working class voters that they've historically relied heavily upon. worse, they don't seem to really care, instead falling back into tired arguments about "winners and losers" - as though trudeau or morneau are people that have earned a thing in their lives....

when you strip away the gloss, you see the same basic thing in this government that we're seeing in the trump administration, except that it's been sort of obscured, somehow. yet, with every new piece of legislation, it's increasingly clear that this neo-trudeau government is really just a bunch of useless aristocrats writing laws that exist solely for their own benefit.

https://globalnews.ca/news/5076924/analysis-finance-minister-bill-morneau-homebuyers-housing-affordability/?utm_source=Article&utm_medium=Outbrain&utm_campaign=2015

beta o'rourke actually reminds me a little bit of a young george w. bush.

so, i'm posting to july, 2013 and the posting may be a little heavy because there's some context around the hitchhiking that i need to build.

again: this is final. i want to be comprehensive.

i just want to clarify a comment i made about how islam being the most hateful and dangerous ideology in existence today is an empirical question.

you'll note that i made the comment in the context of an attack in new zealand, and that i typed it from canada. so, citing american statistics is disingenuous; this neither happened in the united states, nor am i an american. there was no reason to think this comment was intended in a domestic american context; it was  rather obviously intended in a global context.

this article (which links to a report) puts the situation into a global context:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dominicdudley/2018/12/05/deadliest-terrorist-groups-in-the-world/#62f5c99b2b3e

compare the following two statements:

"Of the 18,814 deaths caused by terrorists around the world last year, well over half were due to the actions of just four groups: Islamic State, the Taliban, Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram."

"In Western Europe and North America, far-right extremists are a growing threat. In 2017, they carried out 59 attacks which killed 17 people. Most of the incidents were carried out by individuals motivated by extreme white nationalist or anti-Muslim beliefs."

9407+ to 17. those are numbers that make the israeli army seem amateur. it's not even a coherent comparison. while it is true that many of those 10,000 people were of non-caucasian descent, and my comments about resistance notwithstanding, the very narrow question of islam being the most violent ideology in existence today (with the exception of capitalism) and the assertion of that being an empirical question is really not controversial, and if you insist it is then you're just fucking brainwashed.

but, we can talk about domestic american attacks too, if you want. you just need to control for population sizes.

i'm not going to cite this, but these are some statements, some of which i know are true and some of which i'm assuming are true:

1) the target audience for hip-hop and rap music in the united is majority white. that is, the majority of hip-hop records and concert tickets are sold to white people.
2) the largest market share for hummus in the united states is white men of european descent.
3) more chinese food is purchased by white woman than by asian women.
4) the largest ethnic group of japanese speakers in the united states is of european descent.
5) english is more widely spoken amongst american blacks than any indigenous african language.
6) spanish is more widely spoken amongst americans of indigenous background than any indigenous native american language.
7) most practitioners of yoga in the united states are white.

i think i'm making my point clear, which is simply that muslims only make up a small amount of the american population. if the population is 70% white european and 3% muslim, you'd expect there to be more white europeans doing just about anything, including buying things and engaging in behaviours that we often associate with muslims. so, if it turns out that the largest buyers of falafels in the united states are drunk white men, there is no useful information in the statistic, other than that there's 20x more white people than muslims.

so, if the fact is that there are more shootings by white people in a majority white country, that is not surprising. there would no doubt be more outreach programs by white people, too - because white people are majorities in most scenarios.

all things aside, then, the base assumption by a non-racist person would be that the number of attacks should be roughly proportional to the size of the population. if the data is measured and it turns out that this proportionality assumption is proven false, it is at that point that you need to identify a specific population as requiring intervention.

and, what do we have?

"According to a 2017 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, "of the 85 violent extremist incidents that resulted in death since September 12, 2001, far right wing violent extremist groups were responsible for 62 (73 percent) while radical Islamist violent extremists were responsible for 23 (27 percent). The total number of fatalities is about the same for far right wing violent extremists and radical Islamist violent extremists over the approximately 15-year period (106 and 119, respectively)."
 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States)

according to the 2016 census, 73% of americans are white. i know that it's easy to look at the numbers and say "73% of terrorists are white, so it's clearly the bigger problem", but this is methodologically incorrect; rather, if the number was less than 73%, we would conclude that white people are under-represented in the terrorism statistics, and unusually pacifist. i know that this is a weird discussion, but you have to qualify the data properly if you want to throw it around. i think it's only counter-intuitive until i point it out; it should make sense once i have.

muslims, on the other hand, are nowhere near 27% of the population, and are consequently clearly over-represented in the sample. this would suggest that the muslim population is at need for some dramatic intervention.

worse, if you look at total casualties, it would suggest muslims were responsible for 53% of terrorism deaths in the united states over the last 15 years - which is not only a dramatic over-representation, but bafflingly an actual majority; the percentage of muslims in the united states is less than 2%, and a lot closer to 1%. 15 years ago, it may have been closer to 0.5%. if such a small percentage of people is responsible for a majority of terrorism-related deaths in the country, there is clearly grounds for serious intervention into that population.

i hope i've clarified my point.

i may have misunderstood the chronology.

it seemed as though the americans decided to pull out of syria and redeploy to venezuela, in a strategic re-evaluation of which oil field is more valuable. i stated things liked "if the americans want maduro gone, they'll blockade the oil, and watch the military take over in five minutes". while the americans have tried some sanctions, they have been slow to take effect and are arguably harming themselves more than anybody else, as they are not actually preventing venezuela from exporting the oil. really, all they did was give the russians an opportunity to walk in.

but, that would suggest this process started around christmas.

and, it may be that the russians actually made the first move, here; perhaps the muted american response is a consequence of their hands being tied.

it would be one thing if we were talking about korea or iran, but for the americans to be unable to act in south america due to strategic russian dominance is a major shift in the balance of world power.

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/12/11/nuclear-capable-russian-bombers-land-in-venezuela.html

i can state with clarity that he knew that she was going to cut me out against his will, and can point out clear actions that he took to try and prevent it, which ultimately didn't work.

what's unclear is whether i had or have any real legal recourse to challenge it, and whether there was enough money on the table for it to be worthwhile to do so.

i think i'm better off on odsp, but if i get thrown off i'll have to crunch the numbers and work it out.

so, the way this is going to work until i can catch back up is that i'll need to sort through all of these files, organize them properly, and then post them all at once. this first batch of files is going to be fairly quick, as i'm just sorting through some email; i didn't start posting to youtube until around christmas, and i've already posted most of the facebook posts.

something's bugging me, though.

a few days before my father died, he gave me a coat. now, i didn't really think much of this coat, but his side of the family - his mother, his brother and his sister - all thought it was important that i take the coat. so, i took the damned coat. if there was some traditional reasoning behind this, it slipped beyond me both then and now - but if this is my family, and they're carrying through with some tradition, is it not their own responsibility to explain it to me? so, i accepted the gift, but did not attach any meaning to it, and was not told i should have done so, either.

a few days after he died, my sister and my stepmother became frantic about recovering this coat. i have the email record of this, and in hindsight it's fairly curious. why was it so important to get this coat back? it was just a coat...

at the time, my concern was about the use-value of the commodity. i had been spending a lot of time with anarchists and i was really just concerning myself with who would best utilize the coat, as a coat. i figured i might have a use for it as a fall jacket (in hindsight, i think that i would not have and don't at all regret losing the coat, as a commodity), and reasoned that they had the financial ability to purchase another coat, if they so insisted. yet, they continued to demand the return of this coat. i eventually wrote up a kind of sardonic response, asking them to weigh the importance of this coat with other concerns, and they still insisted on the return of the coat. further, some of the language they used produces some further questions.

he was trying to get something across to me, near the end. he even told me that he thought my step-mother was trying to kill him, but.....he was terminal at that point, and on a large amount of drugs (including opiates). even if he was right, he may have been better off.

i didn't have a lot of options at the time. i was on disability, and trying to find a way to get thousands of dollars worth of gear out of my dead father's garage before my step-mother lit it on fire - and i knew from experience that my time window was very short. i am neither exaggerating nor fibbing when i tell you she would have just discarded it without a second thought. when i was young, i was told she was bipolar, but i believe her diagnosis was eventually changed to asperger's; the woman seemed chemically incapable of empathy, and simply did not give a fuck. she seems to have already removed most of his personal belongings from the house within days of his death. that is what we're dealing with - after fifteen years of marriage, his stuff was in the trash within hours, and it's not malicious, it's pathological. i was aware that i was getting ripped off, but it seemed a secondary concern, and i decided it wasn't worth the hassle.

to be clear: i realized this wasn't happening properly, i just decided it wasn't worth it. there would have been some insurance money, but the estate would have been joint and there would have been a lot of debt. after splitting it up a few ways, i don't think i would have ended up with much.

my status as an odsp recipient also drastically restricted my legal rights, and will continue to so long as i remain on it. in the end, i'd rather a steady disability check than a small chunk of cash - and that's the choice i really made.

but, i wonder. was there something in the pocket of that jacket?

i'll never know, really. but, i'll need to call the court house about that probate, eventually.

this will no doubt be taken down relatively shortly.

there was recently some closure on one of the most compelling stories of the rock era.

jimi's tribute to his biggest influence remains the most fitting eulogy to the man who was arguably the most important guitarist the world has ever seen. it's unfortunate that his family still won't allow his music to be streamed on the internet - but we can hear the man's own interpretation of the track that was written to mourn his own death.

in the end, dick dale outlived jimi hendrix by nearly 50 years.

but, he's not still here, anymore.

the world is changing.

again: a left-wing approach towards reducing gun violence lies in addressing the attitudes underlying gun culture, not in ban hammering gun ownership.

and, gun control is, at it's core, just a type of reaganomics: it is based in the logic of supply-side economics.

the spectrum that exists right now is not left or right; there is no organized left anywhere in the anglosphere.

you can choose between conservatives that want to enforce gun control or nihilists that don't give a fuck - your choices are between the right and the extreme right.

again, people don't know their left from right.

gun control is not a liberal or left-wing approach to addressing gun violence, but rather the most right-wing, conservative and authoritarian approach in the list of options.

leftists understand that social problems are not a consequence of supply and demand, but ultimately rooted in the way we're socialized to adopt certain attitudes and perspectives. as gun violence is a social problem, it's solution lies in the adoption of social programs to change how we think about guns, as well as in how we interpret each other.

conservatives think we need more laws and rules to keep us in order; leftists think we need a social revolution to change how we think.

while leftists may consequently oppose or support gun control for other reasons, the argument that gun control reduces violence is entirely disqualifying on the left of the spectrum - it is a statement of total, utter conservatism, and marks anybody repeating it as existing firmly on the right of the spectrum.

i've made my views crystal clear on this over a long period: i do not oppose gun control because i don't like being around guns anyways, but i firmly reject the conservative narrative around gun control as a causal effect on violence.

ok, so now that they've carried through with a policy that no expert in the field thinks will have any effect on gun violence at all, i wish them luck at a careful evaluation of the actual root causes of violence in their society.

banning things makes authoritarians and sheeple feel safe, but it doesn't solve anything: it doesn't solve for addiction, it doesn't solve for prostitution and it won't solve for gun violence, either.

i don't oppose these bans, i'm just insistent that they don't work. all evidence-based research suggests that the focus and resources would be better spent on finding ways to address the toxic effects of heteropatriarchy and aggressive masculinity - of which islam is a dominant contributing problem - as well as on better identifying mental health issues in socially isolated young men.

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2019/03/20/new-zealand-bans-semi-automatic-and-assault-rifles-6-days-after-mass-shooting_a_23697256/?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=spotim_recirculation&spotim_referrer=recirculation

it would be a lot easier for scientists to become amateur journalists than for journalists to become amateur scientists.

we live in the era of free publishing; i would encourage more scientists to take control of their means of production, and control their own messaging.

as jello biafra often said: don't hate the media, become the media.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/why-canadian-scientists-are-worried-about-being-victims-of-fake-news-1.4345432

and, the weather's really still just horrific...

i'm going to sit still and hibernate for a few more days. i sent the review by email almost immediately, so if they want to play games i'll just file in divisional court. it could very well be late april before spring hits this year in southern ontario. ugh. fucking sun...

i need to get to the court house to get the disposition, but i don't want to cross until i understand what's up with the prints, so i can wait a few days on that, too.

i don't handle stress well, and have had enough this week. next week.

right now, it's bed time, but i should get through a chunk of summer, 2013 by the time i wake up and be back to work on the alter-reality by the beginning of next week.

filing is done, relaunch is imminent.

and, as mentioned, i decided that i couldn't avoid this any longer.

as i retrace through the rebuild, i'll be reconstructing the music review blog, as well, which is now here:

https://deathtokoalas.blogspot.com/

that makes the rebuild & alter-reality comprehensive, so i won't have to go back again later to retrace - this is final.

Mr. Dulles believed “moderate” Nazis might “be useful” to America, records show. 

surreal.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/us/in-cold-war-us-spy-agencies-used-1000-nazis.html

"moderate nazis".

i mean, you'll hear people say things like "stalinism and nazism were religions", and it's certainly valid to draw comparisons, but i'm actually more likely to make the argument that islam and (modern) christianity are actually political ideologies, and that joining a church is really just the same thing as joining a political party.

"but, i have nazi friends. they're good people. they love their kids. they pay taxes."

i'm really in no way interested in what the shooter thought, and what he thought really has nothing to do with anything i've said about it, or will say about it. it's just not an important part of the story.

think of it like this: if a group of klansmen opened fire on a nazi rally, would it be that different to you than if a crazy loner did it? would you have more or less compassion for the nazis if it was a crazy loner? would you condemn the tactics more or less depending on who carried them out?

now, you might be aghast that i'm comparing "peaceful worshippers" to nazis, but you can make all of the same arguments. as i pointed out the other day, nazis and muslims are actually astonishingly similar in their belief systems. the comparison is not ghastly; it is in fact both apt and quite astute. arguments have in fact been made for years that nazi marches should be permitted because they aren't actually harming anyone, and if you look at these arguments from nazi apologists and muslim apologists you see the same basic components - it's free speech, it's diversity of thought, etc.

but, we have this kind of mental block around it. for some reason, we very clearly understand the threat that nazis pose to us and immediately react, but we don't seem to understand the threat that muslims pose to us - despite the belief systems sharing the same basic oppressive foundations.

i take things a step further, as i so often do, and i recognize that it may be as a consequence of experience. as i was largely raised as an atheist, and have almost no experience with personal religion, i fundamentally don't understand this argument for personal worship. muslims famously don't accept a separation of church and state, and i actually agree with them on this point; i've never swallowed this line of personal faith, but have always seen religion as a political activity. it follows that attending a mosque is fundamentally the same thing as attending a political rally and the attempt to categorize them as different types of activities should be discarded entirely.

and, if you consequently view a muslim religious gathering as a political rally where hateful statements are being read from the mic, minorities are being targeted, etc - as is the norm - then the difference becomes almost solely linguistic. it follows that i have a hard time victimizing muslims for the same reason that i have a hard time victimizing nazis.

i'm not justifying the shooting; as mentioned, i reject the tactic as counter-productive. further, circumstance can be cruel - there may have been atheists or children caught up in the massacre, who may have been more legitimate innocents. i don't know these things.

but, my initial reaction was something like "let the fuckers kill each other off", and the motives and factors for the shooting aren't a meaningful factor in revising that.

fwiw, i haven't read the new zealand shooter's manifesto, and i'm not going to, and i don't care. his actual opinions about the world, whatever they are/were, don't change the content of my analysis, or my refusal to rush to the aid of a system of thought that cannot be justified for any reason or under any set of circumstances. that's my actual point, here - that i'm rejecting the mass reflex, that i'm not rallying around this.

i took the media at face value; maybe that was wrong, but it doesn't matter, and i'm not looking for nuance, here.

closer to relaunch. yeah, i know - i've crashed on relaunch more often than apollo.

their kids are probably dead.

here's what has survived from my summer, 2013 playlist, which is first up:

to be clear: that's just what made it from that point to the current point.

i got some sleep today, which was overdue. but, i don't have an answer on my prints, yet. they've agreed to waive the processing fee, which is welcome, and i suppose a consolation on the wait - although i'd rather the process was already dealt with.

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

i could finish filing tonight.

she would make a good drama teacher.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberal-mp-caesar-chavannes-caucus-1.5064544

the scandisk finally finished this evening. i have one big copy operation left, and the rest should be pretty quick...

i got a response back on the prints, and they're telling me that they're willing to start the process, now. that is, a process i started in november - and i'm not happy about it.

i will need to find a way to figure out how to react over the next day or two. as it is, the forecast just changed, so i'm back to not wanting to go anywhere for the foreseeable future...

the thing is that i still don't know if the border cops can see the prints or not, and i am not volunteering my prints to them if i don't have to. if i convince a judge in the end that my prints were taken illegally, that ruling has no jurisdiction in the united states, and i can't get them back. this could cause me all kinds of problems. one would think this would be a simple problem to solve, but the access to information request came back as useless.

i may have to actually call the cbsa tomorrow to figure out how to do this.

so, i'll need to make some more calls tomorrow...

for the night, i'm going to try to get over that hump with the filing.

to be clear: if the senate were representative, the electoral college would be, too. so, senate reform would fix the electoral college....

reforming the electoral college so that it is more representative may be a better idea than abolishing it. but, i'd make the same argument about the senate...

you can easily put together the narrative.....

trudeau won in 2015 by getting a lot of young people out to vote for the first time, and out of some combination of a desire to change the world and to get high without breaking the law, in whatever order.  he then broke every one of his promises to left-leaning voters, but kept his promise to let people get high. so, this mass of young voters is abandoning him for something else.

if he wants to repeat, he'll need to find some way to regain the attention of the kids that voted for him last time and find some way to tap into the next group of kids coming up. but, given his total abandonment of almost everything he ran on, this is going to be a hard sell on both counts.

and, he actually seems to realize that, opting instead to try and win over conservative voters by pushing a harperesque free market messaging and pandering to religious groups, thereby abandoning his own base, which he may have decided he doesn't really like, after all. but, this is a recipe for disaster - one we've seen too many times, already.

trudeau will almost certainly fail at convincing right of centre votes to switch to him. but, he's already committed to it.

in the mean time, the question of how badly they lose reduces to how much of their base they can keep from wandering - and whether they even realize how much trouble they're actually in.

i want a liberal minority, followed by a caucus revolt and leadership review. but, a conservative majority is not impossible if his base, which he has abandoned, just stays home.

nanos clearly has the best data. but, it's also widely misunderstood - and i've been over this before, but let's do it again. this has everything that is useful in the tracking poll, and it actually says that there's really been minimal movement lately.

you'll note the little blurb there, explaining that this is a rolling sample. the gigo models want you to believe that you're better off average everything out, which is actually just going to produce middling data; the best predictor of an election is to look at a snapshot poll conducted as close to the date of the election as is possible, as it prevents old and out of date data from corrupting the sample.

what nanos does is the exact opposite of that, and it's not some kind of accident, but he does it this way because he's not trying to predict an election but rather trying to measure party branding, which is going to fluctuate a little week over week. nik is basically trying to smooth the data out, which is arguably more useful in determining the effects of a scandal on a party brand, as intended, but isn't going to tell you who is going to win the election tomorrow. and, there isn't an election tomorrow. but, we have to understand what we're actually looking at, here.

if you look at the line for the liberals across the top, you can see that they're down by some amount, pretty much across the board. so, the liberals have lost some support, clearly.

but, if you look at the results for the conservatives and the ndp, you see a different story.

the conservatives went down a little over the course of the week, but this is just noise relative to the margin of error, which is actually pretty big. the conservatives are in fact down from the year's highs, but mostly moving sideways. there is no evidence here of the conservatives taking advantage of the decrease in liberal support, at all.

the ndp are up over the week, but that is also just noise in the long count. while the trendline is moving in one direction recently, it would be wrong to conclude meaningful movement, relative to the margin and they, too, are down from their year high. there is not any convincing evidence that they are taking advantage of this, either.

so, where is the support from the liberal party actually going?

i previously surmised that maybe the greens were picking something up, but they don't appear to be, either. nor is the bloc.

so, this is very strange - how can the liberals be down if nobody else is up? and, the answer must be that people are disengaging.

we saw this in 2011, when liberals neither wanted to vote for ignatieff nor for his opponents, and the conservatives won a majority by accident.

it's way too early to make predictions, but if the apathy sets in long term, trudeau's primary opponent may end up being reheated pizza, easy access to pot and still-stupid reruns of friends.

"i was going to get up and vote, but then i got high."

what is my record on recent election predictions?

- my prediction in 2015 was a large liberal minority - that they would almost get a majority, but not quite. this was considerably better than any of the aggregate sites, which i criticized very heavily. the reason i was off was that i traced the ndp collapse to an increase in bloc support, and it ultimately ended up helping the liberals more than the bloc. with four way splits and small sample sizes, the polling in quebec was vague and messy, and nobody saw what happened coming; i at least got the right idea. the reason i was able to make a very good prediction here is that it was a long election and that there was a lot of data. my writing exists on this page, but the basic takeaway is to take aggregate sites with a grain of salt because they utilize too much flawed data; it's largely garbage in, garbage out.

- after the field stabilized a little, it became clear to me that trump would win because he was the most moderate candidate in the republican field, and i do believe that this is the truth of the matter, regardless of the narrative around it. had the party picked a moderate, they could have beat him; instead, people ended up voting for trump because he just wasn't nearly as bad as rubio or cruz.

- i paid more attention to the democratic side, and found myself having to learn the demographics of a foreign country in order to keep up. i figured out very early on that the polling companies were skewing the data on purpose, and i made some good predictions - i predicted sanders winning michigan, for example. i also predicted clinton winning kentucky, which surprised a lot of people. when i made errors, and i did, it was mostly due to a misunderstanding of those demographics, or a lack of clarity as to the process. for example, i assumed that the large black population of dc would transfer over to northern virginia, and it did not - stuff like that happened over and over. i also come face to face with the reality of voter suppression in the democratic primary system, and the difficulty in trying to analyse polling in a system that isn't actually fair. i stand by the focus of my analysis, and by my critique of the media narrative around race as such a defining issue in a race between two older white folks. i largely corrected myself as i went through, and would defer to my own writing. in the end, my record was mixed but at least as good as anybody else's, even if the larger takeaway was a learning experience about the process.

- my prediction in the 2016 election - and this is still sitting in those files - was that the shadow government would rig the election for trump. that doesn't sound very scientific, granted, but it's what allowed me to avoid the error that everybody else made. i guess that silver came closest with his gigo-model, but he was simply less wrong. the fact is that the data clearly projected a clinton victory, and i realized that, but i also realized the election was rigged. so, when the narrative switched to the russians rigging the election, i just rolled my eyes - it was an inside job, and i saw it coming. there's two ways to talk about this, after the fact. the first is that you can reference vague, shadowy bodies without any real evidence, which is both obvious and sketchy at the same time; call it a vast, right-wing conspiracy if you must, but realize that it is the obvious truth. the second is to point to more concrete concerns about voter suppression, the civil rights act, etc.

- my analysis of the 2018 ontario conservative leadership convention was nearly spotless, if cynical and distant.

-  the 2018 ontario election might seem like a spot on my record at first glance, but i disagree with that. there are two things i tried to make clear, here. the first is that the polling was really not detailed enough to be predictive - we had tons of online research, but almost no actual polling, and the little bit of polling we had was not focused enough on regional variation. the gigo models actually drastically underestimated conservative numbers, so to suggest they were accurate is to hit a very large target - the conservative numbers were mostly well outside the margin of error in the polling. so, i tried to make that point clear - i didn't have enough data to work with. the second point i tried to make is that ford was repeating all of the same warning signals we heard from trump around the fairness of the election, specifically these projections that the vote isn't fair. i also became suspicious of these online panels, and what they were really up to. i stopped short of explicitly predicting a stolen election and instead suggested an ndp minority is most likely (with very low confidence due to a deficit of data), but i am extremely skeptical of the numbers i saw come in and have called for an investigation. so, i don't have a lot of confidence in my analysis of this election, but i don't trust the results, either; and, if some process of stuffing ballots is shown to be true in the end, i think my analysis gets upheld.

- i did not pay attention to the 2018 midterms in the united states, but pointed out the importance of the democrats finding a way to win white voters.

i don't expect to be as interested in either of the upcoming cycles, but how well i do in any of these elections will depend on whether i can get enough data to identify flaws in the gigo models and whether or not the elections are fair in the first place.

so, here's the fun twist of it - maduro's days are probably still numbered, and perhaps more so than ever. but, it's the kremlin that is taking control of the venezuelan command, and the russians that get to pick his successor.

aaaaah haaa haaa haaa haaa.

they'll probably run an election, in the end.

and, the phony consulate in washington can enjoy the furniture.

if venezuela exits the us market, it's actually good for canada, but we know that freeland doesn't get along with the kremlin, and this is essentially an accident. go-go gadget nose.

i guess somebody needs to call up vlad and explain that america has a manifest destiny to control the hemisphere, due to the monroe doctrine.

he doesn't seem to understand.

so, the russians get free oil to pay off the debt, and will then resell it on the market at a higher price.

the dominant narrative is going to be that the trump administration tried to isolate venezuela and it backfired, and this is clearly true, but it's missing the point: america is an empire, and it needs to be able to control resources in order to survive. that's not going to stop me from criticizing it, but my criticism of empire can hardly be taken seriously by the empire itself.

the actual problem here is that they fucked around for weeks, trying to employ a series of hare-brained schemes to avoid the use of hard power. and, the lesson that the americans ought to learn from this - and they should have in fact learned this years ago, when the sanctions against iran failed - is that the era of soft power is over.

soft power required american hegemony; it rested on the assumption of total american military dominance, and the absence of any serious competitor. but, as the russians have regained their space as the second-tier power, and china has become increasingly assertive, those assumptions no longer hold.

all that soft power did here was give the russians time to move in.

they should have physically blockaded the country like i told them to; but, here we have it - they fucked around like a bunch of doddering old men and they've lost venezuela to the russians.

bravo.

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Venezuela-Halts-Oil-Exports-To-India.html

you're going to see him in a fucking sweater-vest before the votes are counted, too.

guaranteed.

this just in...

pm trudeau is set to announce an economic action plan to create jobs for the middle class, and speculation is rife as to whether it's a four year plan or a five year plan.

he is, however, expected to announce that we will require Strong Leadership (tm) to see the plan through.

"In 2015, you elected a government that was going to invest in the middle class, grow the economy, and make a real difference for you and your family."

actually, that was what we tried - and apparently failed - to get rid of.

what canadians elected in 2015 was a government that was going to transition the economy away from carbon extraction, change the way elections are conducted, re-establish canada as a champion of multilateralism on the world stage and strategically carry through with a continuing liberalization of society.

the people that voted for family values and the middle class are members of the other party.

ultimately, we voted to send stephen harper directly to hell and to tear all his legislation up into tiny little pieces.

it seems like justin's just a little bit confused; it seems like he thinks we wanted more harper and has just kept things moving according to plan.

yeah.

i didn't miss anything because there wasn't anything to miss. well, ok - i would have gone out a couple of times, maybe. weather permitting...

sllllooooow year in detroit.

there's a few things coming up, but, again, it's the same bands i've been seeing for the last couple of years.

i pointed this out about this time last year - i may spend more time exploring the artier fringes this year, as a consequence of age. i may end up at the dso a few times. there's lots of shows happening, but rock music has really turned over to a point of macho stupidity that i never liked. the artsy fringe of rock that i always existed within has largely evaporated, or at least isn't appearing in detroit. it may be lost to history at this point. the aesthetic i'm looking for will inevitably appear in some combination of hip-hop and techno, but it's not really presenting itself to me at this point; what i'm seeing is mostly the same kind of toxic masculinity, which has long been the norm in hip-hop, and appears to have become the norm over the last few years in techno.

so long as i can find something to do a few times a month, i'm not going to be obsessing over sorting through much of this stuff. but, i'm going to have to survey bits of it....

we're in a down period, musically. 

the go-to spot in mexicantown appears to have shifted directions. that was apparent from the start, but the turnover is at this point apparently mostly complete. oddly, though, some of these shows are showing back up at the magic stick, or at least at the theatre downstairs. the venue in mexicantown was really simply too small to be detroit's go to rock bar; maybe everybody just finally came to terms with it. some of them have been moved back out to the suburbs, which is where they were when i first got here. it's going to be a trek out to la dispute.

there appear to be a few new venues. ufo is re-opened....

detroit is known for this. you have to pay attention, or things start disappearing in front of you and you don't know where they end up. ottawa, on the other hand, has had the same five bars for fifty years; they just change names once in a while.

anyways, i should get out to see something in a few days. for now, i'm going to nap and try to call about the fingerprints again in the afternoon.

i'm defending my views on this by pointing to liberalism, but i will acknowledge that my liberalism is on the far anti-authoritarian extreme of the spectrum, and i have made no secret of the fact that i identify as an anarchist.

you can't call yourself an anarchist and then go walking around apologizing for islam. there's no such thing as an anarcho-muslim. it's a contradiction in terms.

and, as an anarchist, my fundamental concern is with the abolition of the illegitimate use of power, which means two things:

1) i am simply not going to stand with a group of people that define themselves by a system of brutal oppression, and muslims are exactly that. my political vision necessitates abolishing their religion; co-existence isn't actually possible.
2) nor will i offer blanket condemnation for any group fighting against a system of hierarchy, no matter how misguided their approach may be. so, i will not offer blanket condemnation towards palestinians fighting the occupation, and i will not offer blanket condemnation towards anybody fighting against the spread of islam in the west - even if i don't like their tactics, one bit.

in a sense, i'm refusing to take a side in a debate between white supremacists and muslims because i actually view them as essentially interchangeable, and the truth is they largely are - they both hate jews, they both hate queers (if anything, nazis are less anti-queer than muslims), they both hate africans, they both believe in slavery, they're both hyper-capitalistic, etc. i'm not sure that the differences between the modern saudi state and the historical nazi state are very substantive; there's terrible people on both sides, here.

but, i'm also sincere in my belief that this is not something that ought to be fully condemned, because there is a basis of resistance underlying it.

discourse is always preferable, granted. but, if we can't win this argument, there may come a time when violence is actually rational.

is that an acceptable diversity in opinion?

see, in justin trudeau's warped and shrunken pre-adolescent benetton faux liberal pea brain, when a muslim stands on a pulpit and attacks jews and queers and calls for the annihilation of infidels and the subjugation of women and the enslavement of blacks, that is a diversity of opinion - which underlies our strength, as a nation.

however, when a jew or a queer or a woman or a person of colour pushes back against their hateful tirades, that is toxic and deplorable and should be censured.

in the end, we end up supporting hate speech in the name of suppressing it, and advancing hate in the name of reducing it. this is indeed the era of orwell....

but, as i've pointed out repeatedly, and the evidence seems to be mounting in favour of, the reality is that this analysis is giving the man far too much credit. the actual truth of it is no doubt that this guy simply lacks the cognitive ability to work through this kind of contradiction, and is resorting to the doublethink out of a feeble deficit of intellect rather than a downwards enforcement of brainwashing. this is no doubt less some kind of elaborate psy op and more just a completely naive, total idiot.

if he were to wake up one day and see a group of muslims stringing a bunch of people up a tree on his front lawn, he'd no doubt just conclude they don't understand each other well enough and require more face time together. the problem isn't an ideology rooted in hate, it's just a lack of community and fraternity. they just need to sit down and worship together.

as i've said repeatedly: the only difference between a muslim and a klansman is the colour of their hoods, and they need to be treated the same way.

i mean, if the prime minister wants to hold to the position that perpetuating a medieval system of violence designed to advance slavery and war is acceptable, while fighting against it is toxic, then i suppose he is entitled to his backwards opinion, but such is not an opinion that many observers would associate with descriptions like "progressive" or "liberal", but rather a pretty extreme form of far-right conservatism.

i don't think that his mishandling of the lavalin farce says much about his opinions on gender. these were poorly performing ministers that got demoted due to their clear incompetence; the media's insistence on making it about gender was vacuous.

but, his strange affinity with this violently anti-woman philosophy actually reveals a lot about where his head is about gender, and it's pretty damaging.

you can't be an apologist for islam and a feminist at the same time. this is a specific instantiation of the religion's broader incompatibility with the left, but it's one that cuts to the core of his astounding array of contradictions. and, if you ask me, his head isn't really with equality, but more with religion.

we don't need two conservative parties in canada; we already have one, and their track record at governing isn't very good.

black muslims and gay republicans ought to hold an outreach party together in colorado somewhere...

the ignorance required to be muslim and black at the same time is really astounding, isn't it?

black muslims, for example.

what a bunch of fucking idiots...

again: the prime minster's so-called moral relativism is in truth an absolute moral depravity, and his comments about new zealand are contemptible.

the most toxic, hateful people in the world today are muslims - and it is standing up for islam (a religion that would enslave 70% of the population and kill 15% of it if allowed to) that is by far the most toxic thing a politician can do, in the current environment.

if one is to condemn hate in any meaningful way, the strongest condemnation must be directed at the most hateful people, and the most hateful people are muslims. this is an empirical question. i'm not interested in the doublethink and intellectual dishonesty that would suggest otherwise, this depraved idea that it is acceptable to uphold the hate inherent in the core of islamic teaching and yet somehow unacceptable to condemn it, and that would hold muslims to a double standard.

the cliche is that we don't need to tolerate islamic hate, but i'm interested in liberalism, and not in tolerance.

i agree that simply killing them is not going to work.

but, mr. trudeau's comments reveal a fundamental incompatibility with liberalism. and, if he insists on aligning ideologically with an ideological system that insists on extremist conservative values then i might suggest he cross the floor to the conservative party, as that is where he truly belongs.

no, honestly - this is a responsible approach, and is more evidence that we're looking at an internal reclamation by the liberal party intelligentsia rather than a coup from the fringe.

no matter how you frame it, it's clearly a step in the right direction.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/anne-mclellan-justice-lavalin-wilson-raybould-1.5061475.

landslide annie is a legit fixer, and she should hopefully find a way to get the pm out of this toxic relationship.

the weather is finally turning today, it seems for good. sort of. it's still clearly spring.

despite the air outside being bad, the smoke really, really doesn't seem to be coming in through the window, so i'm back to being 90% sure that the smoke is coming from upstairs and bracing myself for another legal battle. i don't know how to prove this, but i have no interest in hacking and wheezing all of the time. i'll have to figure something out. and, i'm just confused as to how and why this is happening. who signs a non-smoking lease and then smokes inside? what the fuck...

i don't remotely get it. but, if this is some kind of joke, it's going to backfire. hard.

this should be coming up on a full ten months entirely straight edge, but it's been ruined by whatever is happening upstairs, and i'm just tired and drained and sick all of the time as a result of it. sore throat. dizziness. it's like i never quit.

i crashed for a few hours yesterday afternoon and was nearly done filing when the kernel crashed; i overloaded the processor, and this board has been on the skits for a while. there's not a lot i can do with this machine due to the broken screen, so i'd might as well ride it out until the end. but, i may need to figure something else out for an internet gateway in the near term. the chrome book can work in a pinch, but it's not what i got it for, and i simply can't handle the lack of ad block for long periods.

i'm trying to file a folder with 75,000 html files in it, and it's just not liking it. i don't think it had started copying yet, so i don't think anything blew up, but i wanted to run a chkdsk to make sure. that 2 tb drive is a long scan - 12 hours in was only at around 5%. i had to cancel it to make some calls this morning...

so, the day, which is ending, was largely wasted, but i managed to get a few ideas cleared up and a few calls in. it's still cold for the day, so i guess we'll wait until tomorrow to get things going.

first, i had to figure out what i need to do about the border issue, now that the report came back unsubstantiated. it turns out i should have gone to detroit immediately. as it is, i need to get the disposition from the court house and bring it to the detroit side of the ambassador bridge, pretty much asap. so, i'll need to plan a day into detroit soon....and we'll see if my bicycle is still there while we're at it....maybe i can drop off some recycle, etc...

the person on the phone indicated that a dropped charge will probably not affect my status. we'll see what happens....

there is no statutory time frame on an appeal to divisional court, but i'll want to have it dealt with 30 days after i get the response on the review. documents were email saturday morning; i'll mail them to toronto tomorrow, unless i get a response today.

i was able to get a hold of somebody about the prints today as well and am expecting a response as to the status of them before the end of the day.

finally, the request to the privacy commissioner is in process, and i'm advised to sit tight and wait.

so, tomorrow is a running around day....

....and, what's going on in detroit this week? what did i miss this year?

there is a deep, fundamental contradiction between islam and liberalism that needs to be more thoroughly examined, as so-called liberal parties rush towards increasing muslim demographics in an attempt to pander for votes.

liberals are making a dangerous, faustian bargain, here - and we're already seeing some consequences of it.

in the end, liberalism will defeat islam - this is clear enough from history. so, i am less concerned about liberalism being defeated by islam in the long run, i don't think this is a fair fight, than i am about being forced to fight battles that have already been won.

it is easy for a cis white male that is born into privilege to talk about tolerance for differing views, as he is under no threat of harm from anybody at all. but, essentially all of the most vulnerable groups in society are in immediate threat of harm from increasing muslim political power, and we cannot accept this kind of depraved apologism for a system that would kill us on the spot, if it only could.

https://centerforinquiry.org/blog/is-islam-compatible-with-democracy-and-human-rights/

the religion of islam - like all other religions - is a violent system of hetero-patriarchal dominance that needs to be resisted at every opportunity, and ultimately abolished; it belongs in the dung heap of history, along with all of the other failed totalitarian attempts at tyrannical social control.

i do not and will never stand with muslims, and insist that fearing them is not merely rational but intellectually necessary.

that said, killing people at a mosque - and they are not innocent if they are attending a religious service - is a terrible way to address the violence of religious intolerance, as it merely sinks the shooter to their own level of depravity. we must be better than them, not become them.

i will always support any rational or effective tactic to annihilate religion; this isn't one of them.

so, am i going to support this government or not?

this government wants to present itself as representative of the younger generation; it wants to be the millennial-focused government, the future of the country. but, in doing so, it is modelling itself on the obama administration, which was anything but the future of the united states. rather, what we have before us is a government rooted in the values of generation jones.

this is a government that is solely about appearances, and how it looks compared to those around it. they're all about keeping up with the jones'.

but, what i'm jonesing for is some substantive policy fixes, not a caretaker government that is essentially an extension of the previous one. in the long run, we may find ourselves talking about the harper-trudeau years - as we talk about the bush-obama years, or even the reagan-clinton years.

i may insist on distinguishing myself from young people by adopting a gen x identity, but this is not what young people voted for. at all.

the conservatives are hardly a solution, and the ndp haven't addressed any of the reasons why i've tended to prefer the liberals in the first place; if anything, they're less appealing today than they were four years ago. i am not likely to vote for either party.

i would like to vote for the liberals, and i may wade in from time to time to support them on some issue that they've historically taken the right position on, but i want a change of leadership and direction in the party, and will probably abstain from voting at all in this election, unless the green candidate convinces me to actually go out and cast, even if it's merely in protest.

that is the choice in front of me at this point: greens or bust.

i will not be voting for a trudeau-led liberal party; i want him to step down.

i'm never going to suppress this reflex to just take him home and make him some soup.

it's surreal, but it's late capitalism.

i'm glad those stitches didn't mess up his hair.

i can still write an essay on sunday night, it seems.

Are the Officer’s Words Credible?

When a witness makes a demonstrably false claim, their credibility is generally called into question. I have clearly demonstrated that the officer lied about the time of the call, positioning it at 6:08 PM, when the timestamp on the audio file is 3:56 AM. I was also able to pull out an incorrect address in the report on the neighbour. If the officer is going to lie about the time of the call, why would you believe anything else that he says? Further, if the department is going to uphold a lie in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, in an apparent attempt at a cover-up, why would you believe anything else that the department says?

I can resend the file, if it’s been lost. For now, here is a screenshot of the voicemail, indicating the time of reception.

Regarding the Question of Intimidation and Harassment By The Officer

I documented three occurrences of harassing behaviour by the officer, leading up to a series of legally incoherent threats and an eventual illegal arrest and arbitrary detention. However, the report did not make any attempt to put the situation into context. Given the clear illegality of the arrest, and apparent cluelessness of the department in general, I must insist that these accusations be properly investigated.

Regarding the Question of Transphobic Bias

A key part of my complaint was a feeling that the officer was behaving out of a transphobic bias. By referring to me using masculine pronouns, despite my clear indication that I have a female identity, the report perpetuates the bias that I requested be examined, leaving me more concerned about a bias than I was to begin with. While an explanation for this does appear in the report, it hardly seems credible; it is rather quite readily apparent that the insistence on masculine pronouns is intended to insult and degrade me. There is really no other way to explain it.

For the record, I have been on high potency hormones for nearly ten years. I am not at the start of a transition, but functionally through it. My appearance is unambiguously female, and the continued claims to the contrary are not grounded in empirical reasoning but simply in a continued insistence on prejudicial bias. I’m a girl, and it is clear to all who have eyes.

The report really just confirms my suspicion, so I must insist that this question be more thoroughly examined.

Regarding the Question of The Foot in The Door

My recollection of the situation is clearly rather different than the officer’s, but the officer nonetheless clearly acknowledges placing a foot in the door; rather than deny the encounter, he has made up an excuse to justify it, one that doesn’t even contradict the accusation. I will deny that I yelled through the door and rather insist upon my recollection of events, which was that I asked him to move his foot multiple times (reminding him that he did not have a warrant) and was unable to close the door until he left. Why, exactly, would I file a false complaint, in context? Given that the officer’s credibility is in question, his recollection of events should be taken with a grain of salt. I must insist that these claims have been substantiated by the officer’s own statements - that he acknowledges preventing me from closing the door, whatever his excuse, and should be held accountable for it.

Regarding the Question Of The Badge Number

The reasoning utilized in the report that I must have been provided with a badge number because I heard part of it is facile to say the least. Again - what would the purpose of filing a false report of this nature be? If I had the badge number, would I not have provided it? To suggest this is unsubstantiated is disingenuous; the fact that i got a few of the numbers correct actually substantiates the claim pretty strongly. I must insist this be rethought.

About The Phone

I initially responded to the voice message on the morning of Sept 12 (when i woke up), and received the following response at 9:48, and fairly quickly iirc. If the phone was a loaner, that would mean that it was returned to the office and lent back out again between the hours of 4:00 AM and 9:48 AM - a stretch, if you ask me. I must insist that this question be revisited.

and, you will note my clock is military - 09:48 is 9:48 am.

About The Officer’s Understanding Of The Law

My statements were clear - I asked the officer to define what harassment is, under a clear concern that he hadn’t the slightest actual clue, and he specifically referred to the idea of being “annoying”, which is simply objectively false. This was a few weeks after he tried to tell me that nuisance does not exist under the criminal code. While I understand that the officer is neither a lawyer nor an encyclopedia, one would expect that he would at least look up a law before he tries to make an arrest, or get a warrant if he’s not sure, and at least take it to heart when somebody tries to explain something to him, which I did rather clearly. The cliché is that there is a difference between ignorance and stupidity; we are all ignorant of many things, it is a natural condition of existence, but we are only stupid when we refuse to acknowledge our ignorance. This would not have happened had he simply listened to me, and made an attempt to understand me. The report attempts to frame the issue around the officer’s obligations to explain the law to a civilian, which is just a red herring - the issue at hand is not whether I understand the law, but whether the officer does; this is an officer that aggressively pursued a completely ridiculous interpretation of the statute, with no interest in the truth of the matter. Such an officer is a clear and present danger to civilians, as he operates on ideology rather than on evidence or reason. I think I explained this point clearly enough at the top of the page, and would insist that the issue be revisited - does this officer understand the law well enough to continue being an officer? Is he capable of learning it? This is the important question here, not whether he tried his best to explain a statute to somebody with a math degree and three years worth of law credits, and that understands it better than he does.

The Emails

I will attach the emails that I have in a separate file. Nobody ever asked me for them.

Conclusion

While the report is unreasonable, it is also incorrect and it is the correctness basis of review that I wish to draw a stricter attention to.

1) The main issue at hand, in hindsight, is the question of whether the arrest was legal, and this was not dealt with correctly.

2) There was no attempt to determine whether the officer’s behaviour constituted intimidation or harassment.

3) I believe that Count #1 remains unclear and requires further investigation, although the tone of the report further substantiates it.

4) I believe that the report substantiates count #2.

5) I believe that the report substantiates count #3.