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.