some things in my playlist this evening:

i'm on a 65dos kick.

and, also, a mammatus kick:

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

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

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

ever.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

that is the new ndp.

sounds like the old conservatives, to me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

liberal is the new conservative.

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

sorry.

well, unless they rig it, of course.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

i'd rather have it raised to 21.

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

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

but i'll leave it that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

so, can we keep wynne and turf trudeau instead?

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

continuing to negotiate further is clearly a waste of time.

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

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

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

canada needs to unilaterally dissolve nafta NOW.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

hey!

hey!

lol.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

wilful blindness doesn't help anybody.

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

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

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

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

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