a lot of silly yankee nonsense...
but, there were a lot of people on that stage, there.
i hope he doesn't come down with anything.
Saturday, November 7, 2020
listen - don't get me wrong, here. i want substantive, meaningful policy decisions. if we get anything at all out of this, let's hope it's at least a refocus on actual policy, and less focus on meaningless stories and empty narratives.
but, i am not a person that dwells on gestures or symbols and this is not a space that will allow this guy to rest on his laurels. my criticism may present a viewpoint that is very different from the mainstream consensus, and it will be vicious and without remorse, but it will be fair and fact-based.
so, if he wants to go out there and cancel keystone xl to start, great. get to it...
i'm not holding my breath - my expectations are rock bottom, and i won't give him an inch.
arizona is still in play, btw.
trump could very well pick up 15-20K votes in pinal county, and the big democratic counties seem to be just about done.
the recount margin in arizona is very strict, but that could work either way, in the end.
again: i am acknowledging that i overshot the correction. but, that's not a done deal, even if pennsylvania is.
i'm worried about squirrels.
i've been saying for years that the squirrels will kill us all...
but, this is likely futile, in the long run. are we going to kill all the animals? this is just going to keep happening, until we run out of reservoirs to eliminate - or we develop immunity, naturally, via the difficult evolutionary process of trial and error....and natural selection.
the map has been tilted this way since the democrats peeled off virginia & colorado. even this election was closer than it needed to be, because the candidate was weaker than he should have been. but, all the democrats need to do is run somebody halfways respectable and they will win for the foreseeable future. if arizona eventually swings, that just cements the map - even if georgia flips back.
trump shouldn't have had a chance in 2016 and only did due to how horrible the democratic candidate was, and he didn't have a chance this year, either.
the republicans need some kind of serious way to smash the map open or they're going to need to get used to losing, and it's not at all clear how they're going to do it.
....and, the margin in pennsylvania is too big.
the outcome in georgia, specifically, won't be known for some time. but, the election is called.
i actually agree with those pointing out that trump has the right to bring his issues to court. it's just that there's no serious chance of overturning these results, in the north.
it's done.
well, hey, you'd have to use a newton's method in a real world analysis, right?
the models went too far one way - i saw that, i called it, i was right. but, then i pulled back too far....
the next step is to pull it back the other way - and that's just how you do real world analysis.
so, i did about all i could do.
but, i'm learning, too - maybe i'll be a little more careful, next time.
so, what's my post-mortem on my analysis?
what i said was that the democrats would win back their states in the north (and they did, all three of them) and that they would be disappointed and lose in the south (and they lost texas, florida and north carolina). that said, i refrained from predicting outcomes in nevada (due to low hispanic turnout, and maybe even a swing in the hispanic vote to the republicans), iowa (it wasn't clear to me if iowa would act more like wisconsin or more like missouri) and north carolina (which is currently a real swing state) under the argument that it didn't matter. while the outcome will not be clear for some time still, and despite a disappointing night overall in the south, the democrats are currently holding to very small leads in both georgia and arizona.
the reason i argued that the polls were wrong in the south was due to over-estimating the swing to the democrats amongst educated voters. so, i made an explicit claim about a modeling error and made a prediction surrounding it.
while i insist my critique is both valid and upheld, i seem to have overshot the correction by the smallest of margins. if biden wins georgia and arizona by .01% each, which is looking to be about right, then all i had to do was overshoot the correction by a point. certainly, the models had biden doing better in both of those states, so he did underperform his predictions - it's a question of by how much, and those small differences might end up flipping both those states.
i'm posting now to move on, because it sort of doesn't matter. as i stated in my projection, the south doesn't matter because they won back the north. but, regardless of the outcome, i am right in pointing out that a polling bias existed - what i did wrong was overestimate the correction, and by what is going to end up being the very slightest amount possible.
should i have penciled in arizona and georgia as grey, then? well, i penciled in arizona as light red, indicating i was convinced that the counter-correction would still make it very close. arizona is being absorbed by california, and i actually agree that the trends are that it's becoming more democrat. but, i actually think the voter breakdown in the future will be liberal, white, wealthy democrats v. desperately poor socially conservative hispanic republicans. because abortion. georgia, i think is more of a fluke - i think biden got a helping hand from a lot of white evangelicals and that's not likely to last. so, the short answer is "no" because the modeling arguments being presented to me were not convincing. i made an explicit argument, and i think my position was grounded.
i'm not willing to concede either state, yet, and won't be until after recounts. but, it largely doesn't matter in terms of the post-mortem - regardless of the eventual winner, my counter-correction was correct, but i over-counter-corrected and it may leave me short by a hair.
and, my projection was more accurate, overall.
so, just in case you weren't paying attention to canada's quixotic struggle against covid-19, our four biggest provinces - quebec, ontario, alberta & bc - are all reporting massive case spikes.
canada has almost ubiquitous mask use and fairly widespread mask laws. many jurisdictions have seen restrictions and lockdowns. the increase in spread is happening despite staunch measures to stop it.
...which is what the science always said was inevitable, short of chinese-style fascist tactics. so, if you want to live in a police state anyways, right? no thanks.
the reasons for the spread in canada seem to be the following:
- religion seems to be the primary non-essential culprit, and the thing that should be restricted the most, if you want to learn from our failings
- schools & workplaces are major vectors
- get togethers like thanksgiving (which aligns with colombus day in canada) are a major source of spread
- there was a very stupid election in bc two weeks ago that seems to have completely blown the situation up
bars, restaurants and night clubs do not seem to be a substantive source of transmission.
while it is clear that we are somewhat behind the united states in the epidemic curve, it is just as clear that nothing we've done has made any substantive difference at all.
the amount of debt we've taken on, however, is a potential serious threat to the longterm viability of our superior government-run social services.
so, stop pointing to canada as a success story - it's just not true, and it never was. it just took longer to get here because we're on the northern fringes of civilization.
rather, the lesson to learn from canada is that quixotic struggles against viruses are foolish.
we are an actual example of extreme mismanagement, and the very purpose of the country is under threat due to it.
so, i'm not going to push back against the idea that this colour system is incoherent.
but, mask mandates are incoherent, bar closures are incoherent, border closures are incoherent, etc - it's just more of the same.
and, right now, the right thing for the state to do is to pass token rules to pacify the weak (which is this government's base - the elderly and the religious), and let everybody else go about their lives.
at least they're retreating from the "blame the sinners" bullshit. that's really what i'm more concerned about than prolonging the lives of a few geriatrics.
and, let's be clear - the reason they put peel into the red is because the mayor was running his mouth off.
it's disingenuous at this point to continue to pretend that anything the government has done at any level from the start of this has had anything to do with the science. like, they're keeping the border closed. they're mandating masks. they closed bars. none of this has anything to do with science - it's all about identifying populations to blame, attacking opponents, etc.
if you were expecting a scientific response, you were being naive.
but, the science has been clear for some time - this is futile, and we need to give up and move on.
i will refuse to wear a poppy, and that is the statement i intend to make - i reject the culture of war, and the romanticization of the ritual murder of our children along with it.
these people were not heroes - they were either victims, or they are criminals and should be prosecuted for it.
but, if you must wear one then consider wearing one of the white ones, as it sends a message that is more in line with the original meaning of the day, before it was corrupted by stephen harper.
it's supposed to be one of the major defining differences between canada and the united states.
in america, they pretend that they send their children off to die for democracy and erect them as heroes in disturbing displays of delusion.
in canada, we mourn the unnecessary loss of life and condemn those responsible for it.
we should and must resist the americanization of remembrance day into a celebration of war; it should be anything but.
"[Poppies are] to show respect for people who stood in danger for our freedom and democracy around the world."
that's a heaping pile of jingoist bullshit and mcauley should be ashamed of himself for peddling it. you are a liar, sir. you have no decency,
what the poppies are supposed to represent is the fields of children we sent to die, aimlessly, in a war that served no purpose but the geopolitical whims of the elite - as we vow to never again let them do that to us. it was a war by and for corruption, and by and for nothing else. to this day, historians can't really get their story straight about it, although everybody knows it was about resources, like oil.
it is supposed to be about mourning the loss of people that died needlessly, not about rallying around the flag. worse, this corruption of the meaning of the day is actually fairly recent, in that it is a creation of stephen harper's broadly revisionist worldview.
these people that want to turn this day into a celebration of war are traitors to the proletariat of this country and should be hoisted up on flagpoles like the fascist scum that they are.
mcauley's statements are uncanadian, and i am embarrassed by the behaviour of the house today. shame.
so, i went out today in the unusual warmth and found a store that sells the soy milk i want. bizarrely, i had called that exact store last week and they told me they don't carry it. it's a little out of the way, but it's doable on a monthly basis. there's also some chance that they might sell it at the mall, which is a little closer (and a lot more convenient). i don't mind getting the exercise.
it's not clear how long they'll sell it for...
i crashed when i got back, so i'm up and i really want to focus and finalizing this fruit bowl.
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