15-11-2015: skinny puppy (pontiac/detroit)

their music:
http://www.skinnypuppy.com/

vlog for the day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKsbf1Op8jM

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2015/11/15.html

i just had this show up on a video i made theorizing that the russians may be behind the attacks in paris. this is certainly incredibly controversial, and i can completely understand why they're putting a pause on it. for me, it doesn't matter - because i'm making vlogs as a way to document my recording career, and act as a sort of public interest gateway, rather than for the cash itself. i want people to buy my records at bandcamp, not generate ad revenue over youtube. i mean, i'll take it, sure. but, it's not the intent.

but i think my example makes it clear what's happening. from your standpoint, as a user of the system, you're thinking you want to slap ads on a video and get a cut out of it. but, remember: you're not the customer from google's standpoint. you're the product. google's customers are businesses that want to advertise their products on youtube. ad space on your videos is what google sells it's customer. that ad space consequently needs to have value. i think my theory of russian involvement in the attacks has merit, but i can completely understand why a company may want to distance themselves from the content in the video.

the metric in understanding why you might get flagged consequently shouldn't be understood via a kind of first amendment type thing. it should be interpreted via the question of whether you think advertisers would want to be associated with the content. a perfectly clean and legal post may very well get flagged just because it's controversial in some other sense that advertisers want to distance themselves from. my example is just much more clear due to how extreme it is.

14-11-2015: vampire belt & absinthe bust

concert footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCI5CRdMB4c

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2015/11/14.html

i seem to have been taken in on an urban legend regarding the absinthe....

"Absinthe has been frequently and improperly described in modern times as being hallucinogenic. No peer-reviewed scientific study has demonstrated absinthe to possess hallucinogenic properties."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absinthe#Effects

that would explain why i didn't feel anything. the initial waves may have been psychosomatic and a consequence of expectation.

also note that i had to reupload this video to remove an approximately one minute section (beginning around 18:40) where the bar i was walking by happened to be playing a michael jackson song. sony claimed copyright over the entire vlog, the right to place ads of it's choosing on it and total control over revenue to those ads. to put it mildly, this is absolute bullshit. i have no intention of profiting directly from these vlogs (please visit my bandcamp site to support me financially), but the idea that i'd be allowing sony to profit from it because the bar i was walking by for forty seconds was playing a michael jackson song makes me want to vomit.

in order to prevent these kinds of absolutely frivolous claims, youtube should have an independent arbitration process in place that takes power away from claimants and puts it in the hand of a neutral third party.

Grandma Roses
Why does anyone believe that using conventional warfare against a non-state enemy would have any effect?
Why does anyone believe that creating more martyrs for 'the cause' will have a negative effect on ISIS? If anything, it will make ISIS more determined.

booyakasha
That's why you kill all of them.

jessica murray
to carry out this plan, funerals are the best targets. you have to make sure you get the kids, first and foremost. that's getting to the root cause.

www.cbc.ca/news/world/g20-syria-paris-attacks-1.3319701

wait a second, here.

i'm not convinced it was isis, and trudeau may not have been fully informed about the nature of the mission, but for brevity let's go with the dominant media narrative.

bill maher made headlines last night by suggesting that the attacks on paris were a consequence of the attacks on isis. he articulated a opinion that is actually fairly widely shared by liberals - that the attacks can only make things worse. and, was this not trudeau's argument in the first place? if he argued the attacks only make things worse, and then the attacks produce a terrible response, that suggests he was right. it in no way suggests he should modify his proposals; to the contrary, it suggests he should stick to them.

if you hold to the dominant media narrative, the obvious conclusion with the mission is that we're fighting with one hand behind our back. isis is a bunch of hoodlums operating on some kind of medieval ideology (if that...). if has no chance of withstanding a serious nato offensive. but, nato has been unwilling to go in all the way and really bludgeon them.

(which certainly begs the question as to *why*, but we're sticking with the dominant media narrative, here)

trudeau's logic could lead to a continuation of bombing if it's also an escalation of bombing. that is, if the americans want to take the lead in seriously bombing these idiots into a crater, then it could very well seriously destroy them, and that would be entirely rational from the perspective he's argued from. but, his logic absolutely rejects continuing the kind of half-serious attacks that nato has been pushing, which accomplish nothing besides further radicalization and an escalation of the problem.

the idea behind focusing on training instead of bombing is that it's more likely to actually work. it's not a "dove" position. it's simple pragmatism.

what happened in paris doesn't - and won't - change anything unless the americans seriously evaluate how they're fighting this. and even that might not be convincing.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/paris-attacks-trudeau-isis-1.3319277 

RonRaygin
No it's only "piecemeal" attacks to the toenails that make things worse. We have to believably threaten of attack the heart.

We have not yet threatened the only thing they truly care about, and cannot lose. And, that is obviously not their lives, or their childrens lives.

jessica murray
well, it will be a cold day in hell when i take advice from the gipper. but, think about what you're saying.

i agree - and pointed out in this post - that a serious, all-out total blitz on isis with the intent of absolute annihilation is consistent with trudeau's position. it's also a call for genocide.

you could imagine a cartoon strip, with some academics talking with some politicians.

academic: every time you kill a terrorist, you create five more. it's a culture that roots itself in feudal perceptions of honour and the subsequent deduction of revenge. have you seen the princess bride? you're creating a bunch of inigo montoyas, all looking for their six-fingered men. 'you killed my father. prepare to die.'. you need to get to the root cause of this, which is the radicalization.

politician: get to the root cause, huh.

the next still would show them dropping a nuclear bomb, and building a fence around the area to prevent survivors from escaping.

if you follow the logic of excessive force through, that is what you get: the extermination of entire villages. vietnam-style mass aerial slaughter. fire-bombings of cities, or, dare i say it, actual nuclear attacks. there's no middle point.

the cold reality is that it might work - if it is barbaric enough. but, then what have we become?

again: the tactic of sending in advisers is not pacifist. it's pragmatic. we either need to convince them, or we need to start thinking in terms of committing atrocities. the status quo is a failure. and both approaches may be consistent with the argument that the status quo is a failure. but, you'll excuse me for preferring the former.

i don't see any reason why we should tie ourselves to failed strategies that target ourselves without getting to the root causes.

what’s being lost in this discussion is the underlying idea that training local forces to fight on the ground will be more *effective* than aerial strikes. i know, i know – when people hear the word “liberal”, they think of anti-war activists. but has canada so quickly forgotten what the term “liberal” actually means?

this isn’t a question of engagement or withdrawal. it’s a question of smart tactics that might work versus stupid tactics that clearly haven’t, and there’s no reason to think magically will. when something fails, doing more of it isn’t an “evidence-based” response.

www.macleans.ca/news/canada/deadly-attacks-renew-debate-over-trudeau-warplane-strategy/