i grew up in the 90s, which were a period where the gender imbalance in music started evening out, but which was still overwhelmingly skewed towards men. i don't want to apologize for listening to a skewed sample, given that the female musicians of the period were overwhelmingly commodified for their looks.

i'm not going to listen to bad music because it was made by girls, or ignore good music because it was made by boys. i'm a musician - i care about the sound art. i don't think my record collection needs an affirmative action program, or that gender parity within it is an ideal to strive for. so, yeah - my record collection in my formative years is overwhelmingly male.

not exclusively. there's lots of female voices in there. but, overwhelmingly - and that's a reflection of the culture, not of me.

if you wanted to be a girl in a band in the 80s and 90s, you had two paths: you could either date somebody in one of the bands (which is actually fairly common in underground music of the period) or you could market yourself with your body. it kind of didn't matter how talented you were or you weren't, that's just how it came out in the wash. the talent consequently existed largely on the fringes, and, even so, only managed success though sexuality. for example: tori amos is talented, but that's not why she sold records, unfortunately.

i guess it hit a breaking point in the mid-00s, and actually flipped over some time around 2010. nowadays, it's very difficult to find any interesting music made by men at all. entire genres are dominated by women. even guitar music is dominated by women. the only type of music dudes seem interested in making is bro-rock, and it's this like weird gym class culture that i've never wanted anything to do with. from psychedelic music through to industrial music, women really dominate the entire spectrum.

and, so, while my formative years were spent listening mostly to male voices (not exclusively. lots of girls in there, too.), nowadays i'd guess that women take up upwards of 75% of my listening time.

i think we all tend to default to certain periods in our lives, and that these periods tend to expand. contemporary music converts itself into memories over time, and my posts will even out in gender as that process unfolds itself.

i like having an appspot site, but deploying it is always something else.

i've always deployed over the gui. last time, i had to find a way to upgrade to python 2.7, because it would stop serving if i didn't. today, it was giving me ssl errors. as best as i can tell, my local ssl python libraries are out of date and i have to upgrade to a later bugfix, but the installer past 2.7.7 seems to require accessing the dot net framework in a manner that i consciously dismantled, making the install impossible.

i fixed it by using the command line.

so, i'm back to doing what i was doing, now, and should be able to push through the main facebook page before the next sleep. one of the things i'll be doing is replacing old events with links to the concert site. this is the first one...

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2013/10/24.html

trump is getting to that age where it's going to start unravelling. it's not clear if his remaining time in office is best measured in months or weeks, but i can't imagine he'll be able to run for another term at 74.

we have to just wait him out.

he's going to ruin the economy on both sides of the border because justin has nice hair, and he doesn't?

really?

probably.

like, let's get our head around it, right?

i'm just a little bit worried that he's going to think that the solution is to put on a charm offensive, or that he's going to take advantage of everybody taking his side.

but, that's the point. trudeau is young and good-looking and popular; trump is a running gag on saturday night live.

the more he keeps doing what he's doing, the deeper the disdain is going to be, and the more he's going to get targeted.

there's thirty some million people here that don't need the fallout from a petty, jealous old man keying on the good-looking, well-liked world leader that he isn't, and never will be. it's not fair. at all. but, trudeau has a responsibility to get out of the spotlight.

...even if that spotlight shifts in another direction, altogether.

is trump just jealous?

well, his numbers don't add up. it's something personal, something emotional.

trudeau could maybe take a step back from doing things like accepting honorary degrees from american universities. the truth is that neither of them deserve that kind of attention. but, nobody is asking trump to do these kind of things.

being the keynote speaker at trump university obviously doesn't count.

i'm not suggesting that this is in any way fair. but, trump is a petty, shallow guy - and trudeau doesn't really have to go make speeches in the united states.

maybe i could get a job insulting convicts.

i'd be good at that.

the thing about impaired driving nowadays is how remarkably stupid it is. deportation seems a little bit harsh, but i'm not building a lot of empathy up around it, either. my brain tells me that you need to send them to school rather than jail, but there's a point where you can't fix the stupid any more, and getting behind a wheel when you're fucked up is pretty much exactly that point. how do you get to 18 without somebody telling you not to drive under the influence?

but, i want any retribution to focus more on embarrassing them than punishing them. i don't like retribution; i think vengeance is uncivilized, that deterrence doesn't work and that it's ultimately 100% about blood lust. but, sometimes a stupid act deserves a good public drubbing.

we used to tar and feather people. why don't we do that any more?

i wouldn't expect this rule to withstand a constitutional challenge. you either need to make the rule apply to all convictions, or none at all.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/06/08/tougher-impaired-driving-penalty-a-double-whammy-for-immigrants.html

when you run a country like a business, or an empire, allies are not to be upheld for similar values and customs but treated as competitors that need to be absorbed through shady stock deals, or through hostile takeover bids. and, the more friendly they are, the easier they are to conquer.

meanwhile, dissimilar countries and flat out enemies are to be ignored, as they aren't invading the market share.

it's a backwards idea, all around. and, if nothing else comes from it, let us hope that the boneheadedness of trump puts an end to this "run a country like a business" thing once and for all.

"punishing canada" is not likely to go over well with anybody at all.

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2018/06/12/we-just-shook-hands-trump-confused-by-trudeaus-pushed-around-comment-after-g7-summit.html

2 + 2 = 5.

i suppose that's what we should expect for the new math curriculum, right?

then, when there's a deficit, the ndp will blame him for cancelling the carbon tax...

<newfie accent">
well, if you wouldn't have cancelled the carbon tax, we wouldn't be so far in debt.
</newfie accent>

ugh.

it's not post-logic - it's logic plus!

i'm curious about the carbon tax, though.

one of the things that ford ran on was opposing the carbon tax, but there isn't actually a carbon tax in place, and nobody is actually proposing one.

the previous leader of the conservative party, patrick brown, who was taken down in an act of defamation by the core of the tory media, ctv, was proposing a carbon tax to replace the existing cap & trade system with quebec and california. a carbon tax is, after all, a right-wing approach to emissions reductions, and something that it makes sense for an ideological conservative to propose, as it is market-based, as opposed to a "statist" cap & trade system that just wants to order you around. now, i don't want to stand up for this cap & trade system too much - it's just a way for california to send money to canada in exchange for votes in san francisco. it's hard to criticize wynne for signing up for it, but it's not likely to have reduced emissions much, either.

nonetheless, it made some sense for doug ford to campaign against a carbon tax when he was campaigning against his own party - even if nobody else besides the removed former leader was proposing it. that led him to the populist schpiel. then, in the end, you expect him to align with conservative orthodoxy and support the carbon tax to replace the cap & trade, after he's tricked all the low-information voters. that's how politics works.

but, then, he kept campaigning against the carbon tax, even after he'd won the leadership - and there was no longer even the memory of the proposition to fight against. it's something i've never seen before: a campaign constructed around a straw-man argument.

it opens up the question: is this some devious ploy to get morons to vote for him, or does he really think there's actually a carbon tax?

if he really thinks there's actually a carbon tax, are we to expect the status quo when he's told there isn't? that would be maintaining cap & trade. see, but some observers have suggested that what he actually means is that he's going to abolish cap & trade - suggesting that he either doesn't know the difference, or doesn't think voters care.

so, scenario one is that we maintain the status quo, and then what? does he go back to his supporters and say he's killed the carbon tax that nobody was proposing? well, as it doesn't exist, and nobody proposed it, it's an easy win, right? and, if his voters are that fucking stupid, they'll eat it right out of his hand. maybe he'll run for re-election on killing the imaginary carbon tax, too.

scenario two is that he's actually planning on killing cap & trade, in which case we should expect the imposition of a federal carbon tax - meaning that by killing the "carbon tax", he'll be delegating responsibility to ottawa, who will impose an actual carbon tax. and, while we can expect him to fight this carbon tax, we would be right to scratch our heads and wonder why he didn't just stick with cap & trade, which is going to bring in quite a bit of easy revenue so jerry brown can buy votes in california.

and you thought donald trump was confusing. you need a fucking logician to figure out doug ford.

of course, as has been the case with trump from time-to-time, we may find out that ford is using a ternary logic system, and believes he can cancel the carbon tax and create one at the same time.

ok.

i'm still embarrassed & saddened by the outcome of the election. i do not want to look at media of doug fucking retard ford right now.

"my friends..."

i'm not your fucking friend, you obese piece of shit.

what i will say is this: this is exactly the kind of fucking idiot that's likely to get some brutal rants out of me. the guy should be working in a fast food restaurant.

for right now, i don't want to hear a stupid word out of his stupid mouth.

listen: somebody has to do this.

i should have better things to do, but there's a convergence leading to a reality where i might just not have better things to do, but i might not have the option to not do it.

the laws are a little different in ontario, but we...

well, we were moving in this direction.

for all we know, doug ford may encourage smoking hash in the laundry room.

it's a fucking laundry room, guys. why do you have to specify? but i had that problem in the last unit: somebody insisted on smoking pot in the same place i was trying to clean my towels.

i smoked for years. but, i knew where to smoke and not to smoke. i always went outside, and tried to smoke away from the building. who the fuck smokes in the laundry room? it's just hard to get yourself in the head of these people.

i had a bit of a mental collapse yesterday, and may have to deal with the consequences of it. but, my letter made the situation clear enough: any attempt to evict me will be met with a human rights complaint. and, i suspect the owner will be on the hook for it...

http://healthpolicy.ucla.edu/programs/health-data/uclasafe/Pages/Can%20You%20Be%20Sued.pdf