really?
Wednesday, July 23, 2025
i don't think the solo to crazy train is overrated, exactly. it is what it is. it's not original, or unique, or even that hard, but it is just about perfectly stereotypical. it's like spinal tap reformed with ozzy singing, for real. it's not something i'd listen to myself, but rock music wouldn't be the same without it.
(i'm not a fan of ozzy osbourne. at all. sorry. no link, because i don't even know. i had a copy of the first black sabbath cd at one point, and i actually learned how to play crazy train when i was a kid, but it was like going to school and doing a project. i really didn't like the song very much.)
i do support bans on public prayer in publicly owned spaces, which would include public parks. if the permit was for a religious prayer festival, i would support revoking it.
i don't support bans on artistic expression in publicly owned spaces, and they aren't the same thing.
concerts should be allowed to proceed on public land, but religious gatherings should be told to find a private venue.
i would no doubt disagree with this guy on virtually everything, but i doubt his concert poses any kind of security threat, and i don't see how it's any more offensive to have a christian musician than it is to have a muslim festival. the latter would almost certainly not have been cancelled, and these same people have come out in opposition to banning muslims praying in public spaces in canada about the same issues (this is a real issue here, specifically in montreal), which is exactly the same thing. it sets a bad precedent and a double standard that the bourgeois left may regret one day in the near future, after a change in government cancels a concert critical of pierre polievre due to "security concerns". conversely, if they are going to apply this precedent fairly, they should be ensuring that muslim groups are not allowed to pray on public property, either.
i'm not a christian. i'm a secularist and an atheist. i'm concerned about the precedent. i have no solidarity with this guy.
we don't give free speech rights to foreigners in canada, so he doesn't have a case, but he has one in principle. this is the government infringing on the right to free assembly in a pretty blatant way. i would hope the ccla would step in, to get some kind of process in place to censure parks canada for an absurd decision.
if trump wants to surprise me and prove that he's smart after all, he'll make a trade deal with the eu that re-establishes them as the export market. that is the way that the post-war economy was supposed to work: america builds it, europe buys it. it worked for a while and broke down after nixon went to china. this would be dramatically different from a deal with japan or korea.
this us trade deal with japan, if i understand, is designed to try to force japanese car makers (and other electronics manufacturers) to manufacture items for the american market in the united states, against market forces that would push production to mexico or canada.
it's explicitly designed to force japan to make less cars in canada and more cars in the united states and it's doing so by increasing the cost of business across the board, and making it that much more expensive in canada. this is reshoring by manufactured inflation.
the result is that the price of japanese cars is going to substantively increase, and i can't imagine it will be substantively offset by the increase in wages associated with reshoring. that increase in wages will help a little, sure, but only for auto workers. everybody else is faced with a huge increase in inflation.
that said, the japanese are a special case. they have a history of spending huge amounts of money building factories in north america for the north american market. it's like they figured out that buying the factories that make the bombs makes more sense than bombing hawaii. it's almost colonialism, more than it is trade. the deal apparently specifically indicates that japan will spend half a trillion dollars building new factories and upgrading old ones in the united states. that will create jobs in the united states, and it will be good for the economy, overall. it's not "america first". it's foreign ownership of american production, and it may prove itself a national security threat in the long run, but it's a start in rebuilding american manufacturing, which everybody realizes still has incredible potential.
this might actually be a good deal for the united states, in the long run, even if it's a better deal for japan. it's also a direct attack on the canadian auto sector, who will be the massive loser, via collateral damage and negative externalities, even if it feels like it's on purpose. trump has clearly broadcast that canada and mexico are not invited to any special treatment, here.
it's also not possible to apply the same ideas to other countries, with the potential exceptions of south korea and taiwan, who have similar relationships with united states tech manufacturing. this would not apply to china, to india, to any other country in the pacific rim, to anzac or to europe. the saudis might have gone down this path with their oil money, but they didn't; they just buy stock and flip it for profit. it's only these us-occupied asian countries that want to buy into american manufacturing on such a deep level, and that are pulling the old trick that the romans pulled on everybody for centuries, which is to colonize the imperialists from the inside out.
what i'm getting at is that i don't want to give trump too much credit. the japanese know what they're doing, and almost nobody else has the same kind of relationship with american capital.
i've been dealing with migraines this week, and it really threw me off and knocked me out, as they do. i think i've avoided another drugging, to this point.
the over sleeping means i'm skipping a day.
- june 16th: doubled up salsa with chick peas, cheese, spices and vitamins.
- june 17th: onion soup bacon poutine
- june 18th: basic doritos nachos and french onon soup with bacon
- june 19th: doubled up salsa reprise
- june 20th: caesar salad without subs
- june 21st: 2nd onion soup poutine with onion soup and last chance salad
- june 22rd: 3rd onion soup poutine with onion soup with beets
- june 23rd: caesar salad without subs
- june 24th: caesar salad without subs
- june 25th: bacon and eggs without subs, no salsa
- june 26th: bacon and eggs without subs, no salsa
- june 27th: ad hoc pad thai
- june 28th: broccoli soup
- june 29th: fridge-clearing meal (oranges & garlic bread)
- june 30th: kd + chick peas + fridge clearing exercise
- july 1st: kd + chick peas + fridge clearing exercise
- july 2nd: kd + chick peas + fridge clearing exercise
- july 3rd: 10 packages of instant oatmeal, in 5 installments. spaghetti-os + spices & vitamins (cumin, cayenne, pepper, oregano, paprika, sunflower seed, hemp seed, nutritional yeast, frank's).
- july 4th: a can of stew and a can of corn, plus spices & vitamins.
- july 5th: a package of jasmine rice i had put aside as a quinoa sub (it probably isn't), with a can of peas and a can of tomato soup, plus spices and vitamins.
- july 6th: a can of beans cooked in a can of vegetable soup, plus spices and vitamins.
- july 7th: two cans of chicken noodle soup, plus spices and vitamins. tim's xl double-double coffee in morning. two builders protein mini bars in evening. 7-11 coffee with jalapeno taquito late at night.
- july 8th: food bank junk food eat through - two bags of "real vegetable chips" (one big, one small), a bag of goldfish crackers, one mini crispy crunch, some strawberry licorice, prime energy drink, two tim horton's donuts, little ceasar's pepperoni pizza with unlabelled chocolate milk product.
- july 9th: another prime energy drink with another unlabelled chocolate milk product, unlabelled food bank ginger bread (two loaves)
- july 10th: pasta with minor subs (1), third energy drink, sour cream n cheddar chips
- july 11th: sour cream 'n' bacon, sour cream 'n' onion chips
- july 12th: more licorice, pasta with minor subs (2)
- july 13th: jalapeno cheddar chips, pasta with minor subs (3)
- july 14th: 10 baby cookies, pasta with minor subs (4)
- july 15th: i ate most of the 14th pasta on the 15th and followed it with the remaining baby cookies (which are actually french butter cookies, not baby cookies. they look like baby cookies). i did not make pasta for the 15th.
- july 16th:. pasta with minor subs (5)
- july 17th: pasta with minor subs (6)
- july 18th (on the 19th): pasta with minor subs (7)
- july 19th (on the 20th): cereal (one bowl of vector and all bran with paprika, flax, nutritional yeast, hemp seeds and soy, as per my normal diet and one bowl of instant oatmeal with a little real milk and an apple)
- july 20th (on the 21st): pasta with minor subs (8)
- july 21st (on the 22nd): past with minor subs (9)
- july 22nd: cereal day 2 in cycle 2 (final cycle 2 cereal day): one bowl of vector and all bran with paprika, flax, nutritional yeast, hemp seeds and soy, as per my normal diet and one bowl of instant oatmeal with a little real milk and two apples, one in the oatmeal and one standalone.
- july 23rd: i'm going to double up on the cereal this morning to start cycle 3.
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