i had a weird scare a few hours ago, where the master document seemed to shrink, but i think it was due to a program error with the formatting. i don't think i lost any data.

there's a few extra html files to add, but it's actually done, which was quite fast. so, i'm going to stop to eat and finish up the last little bit when i'm done.

it's going to be a longer document, maybe even the longest, but i'm also going to have a lot less cutting and pasting to do to finish it up. there's already 152 posts here. in the end, there may be around 200, as i add some emails and txts. so, it's not the same kind of rebuild from scratch....

i could actually be mostly done by sunrise.

so, i'll let you in on a secret: there's a major plot twist. but, i'll have to post it here for you to figure it out.

look at these hits for this phrase:

https://www.google.com/search?q=what+america+should+be+in+the+future.&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b

americans see nothing but decline and desperation in the future.

so, no wonder they're obsessed with the past - across the spectrum.

this is the first hit:

Looking to the Future, Public Sees an America in Decline on Many Fronts

Majorities predict a weaker economy, a growing income divide, a degraded environment and a broken political system

https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/03/21/public-sees-an-america-in-decline-on-many-fronts/

and, they say punk rock is dead?

no
future
for
you.

everybody wants to make america great again. that's the zeitgeist, right now.

the question is "when was it greatest" - in the conservative post-war era, or in the revolutionary period that followed?

nobody's thinking about what america should be in the future.

i think this is a really profound observation, actually, that's become kind of fundamental in understanding the spectrum in front of us.

maybe, at some point, we had this left v right thing happening, where the right wanted to turn the clocks back and the left wanted to push deeper into the future. so, you had this struggle between people pushing for change and people pushing back, trying to resist it.

that's not what is in front of us, anymore. what we have today is a competition between different concepts of the past - on the right you have the trumpians, who want to go back to the conservatism of the truman-eisenhower years of the late 40s through to early 60s. and, on the left you have these kids that want to turn the clock back to the late 60s through to early 80s and think sanders is the way to do it (even if he actually lives more in the mid 30s through to mid 40s).

there is no future.

is it because we're already there?

do we need to reimagine what the future should be? is that it?

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2013/10/i-think-im-starting-to-realize-that.html

memo to god: you set the wrong amazon on fire.

infallible, my ass.

the fact is that we don't have 20 years to wait for fusion.

i think people are missing the point about nuclear power. they think it's a safety issue, or they're dealing with luddites that are afraid of technology.

the actual problem with nuclear is that the mining and shipping of uranium is so carbon-intensive as to defeat the point of using it. any issues you have with nuclear energy aside, it's just not an answer if you're trying to reduce carbon emissions.

further, we'll eventually run out of uranium, and then what? we'll need to shift to renewable energy, if we don't find ourselves back on coal in a pinch.

i'm not anti-nuclear; i think there's a place for nuclear power, and i think that research should continue to be funded around the potential use of fusion power. but, it's just simply not an answer to the climate crisis, and sanders is at least right to point that out.

i mean, if you tried to run a democrat here, there's no fucking way in hell i'd vote for it.

it's interesting, though.

because the actual reason that canada exists is gridlock in the colonial parliament. we had an upper and lower canada (quebec and ontario) united in a parliament that just produced an array of tie votes. so, they couldn't govern. to fix this, they brought in the maritime provinces, which were at the time separate colonies. and, then there was a westward expansion, and the final inclusion of newfoundland in 1949. i think the closest we've come to expanding since then are these frequent requests from jamaica.

and, i have to remind america that we have our own history and our own prerogatives, which opens up a set of interesting questions. i mean, i'm pointing out that the american political spectrum would be permanently altered by swallowing canada; it would be more like when the romans tried to conquer the greeks, and the greeks conquered them from the inside, instead. america would find itself slowly conforming to the traditions of it's british origins. might we even redistrict the country into provinces? you'd save a lot of money by getting rid of all of the redundancy in these little states. why not have a northeast, a midwest, a southeast, a northwest, etc?

so, there's a narrative and outcome here that is consistent with the arc of canadian history.

it's just not the narrative anybody is expecting.

this would be the end of the two-party system, and lead to a massive transformation of the american political spectrum.

i used to think that the democrats would eventually do it, and the republicans never would (it would destroy them). but, i don't even think the democrats want us any more.

and, i confidently speak for the country when i say this: i don't want to be an american. at all. sorry.

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-tuesday-edition-1.5253191/forget-greenland-this-politics-prof-thinks-the-u-s-should-buy-canada-instead-1.5253196

i needed to sleep today, clearly.

after i finished the facebook part last night, i spent the overnight pushing myself to stay awake while sorting through google takeout options over various old accounts, looking mostly for youtube comments. i just wanted to be sure i've got everything, as i move into a final push over the 2013-2018 phase, which i suppose will end up being period 5 in the end. it won't let me download data from two old accounts unless i use a phone, which i don't actually have. i mean, it's telling me to use the hardware i usually log in from, but the fact is that this is the hardware i've logged into from the most over the last two years, anyways, and probably, on the balance, over the last ten years. i think it's the only hardware i've logged into these accounts from since this time in 2017. the fact is that the accounts are over ten years old, and i don't remember what computer i created them on, although i am sure that i created them in ottawa.

a google search indicates that this is a problem for a lot of people, but that nobody has an answer.

i would put out a request to google to stop doing this. frankly, this is stupid: i'm giving you a valid password from a machine i've logged into repeatedly over a long period of time, and you're telling me i can't access my own data because i can't prove i'm not a thief. there's not even anything useful in there. i don't even have a credit card. i didn't sign up for an extra layer of security, and if i could i'd opt out of it. maybe, instead of forcing unwanted security measures on a large number of people that keep dummy accounts for various reasons, google could make enhanced security a paid feature for corporate clients, or something. my concern is not security; i don't have anything worthwhile to secure. my concerns is that i want my data, and i want google to stop making it so difficult to get access it.

as it is, i think i've already cleared these accounts out, so what i'm missing out on is just triple-checking that i didn't miss anything. and, i'm moving on.

in the meantime, i got the facebook data - txt messages. some comments. some pictures. - into the master document.

moving forwards, i'm going to add another redundancy check, just to make sure the data is consistent. this is going to be a cross-reference between each of the blogs as they exist, before updating them, with the master document, from the start. so, i'll be able to pull any stray posts into the master document before i redistribute. that's going to be my task for the evening...

i'll then be able to move any remaining data i have from the filing into the master document, and properly distribute it into the blogs and docs from there.

the humidity and temperature have crashed outside, but it's still a little damp in here, so i'm going to wait until i get through october before i take a serious look at doing a thorough clean. it's hard for me to tell what the background smell is. is it the smell of sewer gas on the walls, and some of my furniture? can i clean it off? is it seeping up from under the flooring? would some cheap rugs help? and, was this the "smoke" i was smelling that was making me sick? if i give it a few more days to kind of settle, i may have a better idea. it might not be obvious what the best approach is for a while, though...

for now, if i can get to posting before sunrise then i think i'm doing well.

good.

this is what the planet needs to hear: america needs to lead on this.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/22/climate/bernie-sanders-climate-change.html

we've seen this before, in world history.

you had the great game for control of india. you had the scramble for african resources.

the arctic is the next piece of the earth that is going to be up for grabs, and, in this case, trump is right: the great powers are going to be vying for control of greenland any day now, so coming in and buying it out makes some sense, if it keeps everybody else out.

i'm not sure the russians would be so polite as to ask.

i just want to remind everybody that the united states has, in fact, illegally invaded and occupied greenland, in the past. further, this discussion has come up before; this isn't as random as a lot of people are suggesting.

one might even argue that it's inevitable. this is prime real estate, moving into a warming world, and it's not clear what role the danes think they can play in the region. it's going to end up american or russian.

but, donald trump doesn't believe in climate change. right.

so, it's becoming clearer and clearer at this point that the plumbing problems in here are not a coincidental or secondary point but at the root cause of pretty much everything bad that is happening down here.

now that the humidity is crashing, probably for the year, i'm going to see if i can clean up around the walls in the morning, to see if i can gain any insight into the situation.

is there a broken pipe under the floor?

i don't expect the landlord to be of much assistance, or even to present an honest response when questioned about the situation, but i'll happily call a plumber and send him the bill, which is my legal right and will likely send him into a fit. he thinks he has "property rights". but, more importantly, i think he thinks he has some kind of dad authority over me, or at least isn't used to being challenged, due to dad status. but, i didn't listen to my own father, and i wouldn't listen to him, even if he was more than 5-7 or so years older than me (i don't think he realizes how old i am, either). so, we may be in court relatively soon, after all. and, he doesn't really have a leg to stand on, if that's how it turns out.

i mean, hopefully he reacts more reasonably, but i expect him to have a hissy fit. he doesn't seem to accept that he has any responsibility as a landlord, here. and, the reality is that that's legally completely unacceptable, and i'm not interested in his emotional reaction to his lease responsibilities - he'll do what he must, or i'll force him to do it via court order.

so, if i find a plumbing leak under the floor, he's going to need to pay to fix it. and, if he fights that, i'll nail him on a rent reduction.

i don't think this string of catastrophic situations is unique. renters across the continent are dealing with one useless landlord after another - this is normal, it's the status quo. what's unique is that i know my rights and i'm not afraid to fight for them.

i'm not certain, yet. but, i'm having a hard time guessing at what else it might be.