deathtokoalas
yup. the russians took the bait. and now they're fucked. as this drags on for years, the americans will focus on completing their dismantling of the russian empire.

there's going to be a brief period of instability, but unless the russian army figures out how to massively multitask - and fast - this is potentially every bit as damaging to moscow as afghanistan was.

next stage is an invasion of syria.

SVGuss
US is dying and trying to bring as many to the grave as possible. In vain. And when Russia is fucked, asses are sore with some other people. 1612, 1812, 1945 to name a few biggest.

Mindaugas V
US is not dying and never will

deathtokoalas
i think these rumours of america's demise are much exaggerated. there's not a lot that has really changed, other than that they've expanded their sphere of influence. there's many decades before china or india can pose a real threat. and these arguments about debt are mostly coming from right-wing idiots that don't actually understand what money even is.

i think it remains to be seen how much of a bite the russians can take out of them on their way to the history books. that will have consequences. but, the russians are really their only serious competitor at the moment, and they're really doing a precision job on them.

lighthouse500
All empires die. 

Geehad
America's not really dying, I mean if America does all of a sudden "die" you do realize it's economic collapse would bring a severe blow to the World's Economy and severely damage foreign economies as well

Jesus TheDestroyer
You think too much.

Murphy82nd
America is not going to help Ukraine.  America has a laundry list of domestic issues and a populace that has become so sick of foreign intervention that I fear they'd even sit by as true atrocities are committed (Syria is already evidence of this).  America is waning and Russia is waxing.  Power is cyclical.  In some decades down the road this may change.

deathtokoalas
it makes me laugh, continually realizing just how bad reading comprehension is out there. helping ukraine is about the last thing on america's mind, but it's more than happy to incinerate it to distract russia so it can kick them out of the middle east.

americans helping somebody. lol.

.....well, unless you mean "help", in which case they already are, they just have to be hush-hush about it due to those pesky international laws.

Murphy82nd
It makes me laugh continually reading your comments.  How will intervention in Ukraine kick the Russian Federation out of the Middle East?

deathtokoalas
where did i suggest intervention? that's crazy talk, from right-wing news media. there's not going to be any armies moving around across countries in eastern europe. it's going to be a propaganda war that's going to work itself out through internal organizations clashing with each other.

you're more likely to see marine le pen seize offices in france than the russians actually invade ukraine. and, likewise, the americans have ngos operating in russia.

but, obama was just prevented from attacking syria (which is a russian protectorate, basically) a few months ago by some kind of threat from vladimir putin. we're not clear on what that was. it wasn't leaked. but it must have been naughty, 'cause it almost resulted in american destroyers docking at sevastopol.

now that vladimir is distracted, his threats are likely neutralized, or perhaps even countered. and the americans can get back to invading iran (of which syria is the second stage of, iraq being the first).

Murphy82nd
When I said intervention I was referring to Russian intervention.  You're clearly stating that Russian intervention in Ukraine will somehow lead to the Russians getting "kicked out" of the middle east.  How?  And how would America taking Iran kick Russia out of the middle east?  There is no support for any war with Iran in America, and with recent talks with President Rouhani there is less reason than ever.  I seriously don't know where you're getting these conspiracy theories from.

deathtokoalas
these aren't conspiracy theories, they're published american strategic statements. i explain to you what's happening, and i get a kneejerk and ignorant response. which i'm used to. but you'll see that this is correct over time, so take the few moments to understand. it's not even particularly complicated. and it's not a question of me being right, because i'm just explaining to you what the elite have published themselves (albeit not through popular media, which is designed for mass consumption by idiots). probably the most famous is the project for a new american century letter, but it's not the only place that the establishment has explained the long war it's currently orchestrating.

since clinton's attack on yugoslavia, the goal has been to dismantle the russian empire piece by piece. that's not a conspiracy. that's stated american imperial policy. you might not know that, but that's your ignorance. all of the invasions of the region since then have been a slow process of expunging lingering russian influence from their former satellite states in afghanistan, iraq, libya and syria. that is to say that they're "cleaning up the pieces of the collapsed soviet empire". there are other dimensions driving the alliances (the saudis are opposed to all secular rule), but (despite what some conspiracy theorists might say) the americans are the hegemonic power and it's their interests - dismantling what they see as a weak competitor - that are pushing the operation.

the expansion of nato in eastern europe has also happened within this policy of dismantling the russian state. for whatever reason, probably mostly pressure from european allies but also simply due to how willing the participants have been, the americans have been mostly (excluding yugoslavia) willing to forge a peaceful path in the region. but, the ukrainian government refused to do what it was told (in rejecting the eu package) and got taken over by force instead - like several countries in the middle east have, for the same reason. but, you have to look at the wider picture to understand the timing.

just to be clear: the american government doesn't care about popular support for the wars that they launch. i'm really sick of that argument being presented, like it means something. it tacitly legitimizes the scam that is american "democracy". the united states is a military dictatorship headed by a ceremonial commander-in-chief that is increasingly controlled directly by the army, not a functioning democracy. it doesn't even call itself a democracy, it calls itself a republic. and it was designed around the idea of being headed by a strong, charismatic military leader. the closest america has ever come to democracy has been various stages of plutocracy and oligarchy. america does what the generals say, not what the american people want. and it's been that way throughout history.

pick a war. it was unpopular. it happened anyways, because it advanced the interests of the elite. that's how america works.

now, your question didn't grasp the context well. i read it the way it should have been interpreted. the russians are already intervening in ukraine. it's not direct occupation. because it's not the twentieth century. that's not how major powers operate anymore. they have to orchestrate democratic legitimacy, but people are easily malleable sheep so this is easy. the americans do this too - they just did in ukraine. and it wouldn't be particularly difficult to stage an uprising in france or the uk or the united states, either. the useful idiots don't need to know that they're advancing russian strategic interests, they just need to be worked up into a frenzy over taxes or grazing rights or whatever other stupid thing makes them angry.

so, the timing (regarding ukraine) is important because they've reached an impasse in syria - russia's last remaining military outpost in the region (excluding their "ally", iran, which does not host or want to host russian troops). vlad flexed his muscles, and obama had to back down. but, any show of power is only true so long as the factors underlying it are. for obama (or obama's generals, let us not confuse ourselves in elevating the empty suit to the position of real decision maker) to remove putin as an obstacle, he needs to collapse the conditions that allowed his threats to be credible.

looking at the way the situation has played out, it seems like the goal was sevastopol and the threat consequently had something to do with something stationed there, or perhaps the ability to deploy from there. it stands to reason that, for the time being, that threat remains.

but as ukraine becomes a long and protracted conflict it is going to bog down resources, as it did in afghanistan (even if it's under the carpet). it's going to cost billions of dollars (even if those dollars are swept under the rug). it's going to distract the russian leadership. really, it's a textbook example of a decoy.

it may even force the russians to abandon tartus, at which point a russian occupation of syria (to counter an american invasion) is no longer a credible threat.

knowing exactly what putin's threat was would clarify some of these points. but knowing that there was a threat is enough to build the broad picture, which is that putin tossed a wrench in the plan to invade syria, and got a grenade thrown into his lap in retaliation.

infiltr80r
You have it all backwards.

Americans are focused on China entirely, that's why they were moving troops out of Europe as well.

This is Russia saying to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia etc. that "if you think you will leave our sphere of interest, we will come down and take it all".

deathtokoalas
interesting suggestion. what do you figure china's interests in central asia are?

infiltr80r
But what about the fact that China is Russia's quiet ally?

I'm from Estonia, are you familiar with the massive propaganda war towards the Baltics coming from Moscow?

Putin was also planning to do another invasion here, the only thing stopping him was the existence of NATO.

True, Americans don't do it to help anyone but in that sense they're exactly like every other country on the planet.

Do you think Russia does anything to help the people of Ukraine? It's all about securing resources which are controlled by a handful of people based in Moscow.

The average Russian could have a very good life if he had a fair share of oil profits but as it is, they're fighting for a system that is highly abusive (much more than in the west).

SugarTomAppleRoger
I disagree. The Russians are doing well here to my mind. The so called Ukraine government is being praised and supported by the English mainly, and the USA also. But they are being brutal, crushing demonstrations with tanks and rockets. Not a good publicity move.

deathtokoalas
the pr is irrelevant. the american military (who makes the real decisions) couldn't care less about public opinion. they can protest all they want, it makes no difference. don't like the democrats? well, your option is the republicans. and don't like them, either? well, then you can vote the democrats back in. it's a one-party state, with essentially no influence from the bottom up. and it's held together by police brutality.

what's important is that they're carrying out the strategic goal of draining away resources from the russians. and the hippies can march all they want, so long as they don't get too rowdy. then they got shot...

deathtokoalas
+infiltr80r
sorry about the late reply. google's spam filters are not very good, and i'm not aware of a place i can go to check what it thinks is spam. i just hope it's based on a learning algorithm and will get better. if not, it's going to slowly make the site unusable.

china has a long term policy of not being anybody's ally. it's maybe a little enigmatic, but that's how it is. further, china and russia actually have difficult relations over the last century. they have some mutual defense concerns, but they're rivals for resources in central asia.

you've got the cause and effect in "the baltics" backwards. i think russia should be trying to destabilize latvia and estonia and lithuania (estonia isn't really a baltic state, it's more historically aligned with finland), because the governments in these countries are incredibly hostile to russia. they're hosting american missile bases that are being pointed directly at moscow. the correct thing to say is that if it weren't for nato expansion, russia wouldn't be justified in collapsing these states in it's legitimate self-defense.

but, what i'm getting at in this post is that it is too late for the russians to react in a meaningful way - and putin is responsible for this due to his inaction. the bases are there, now.

the russians have a better social system. but, pitting the russian oligarchy against the imf doesn't produce a set of good guys, no. that's what a lot of the propaganda is about - getting people to pick a side. but, it's one group of vampires against another. no good guys. the right side to pick is the side of the people and these are not represented by statist interests.

infiltr80r
Not a problem.

First off I should say that I'm an estonian living in estonia at the moment. Estonia is classified "Baltic" in the military-geographic division.

Quite surprised you think Baltics are treating Russia badly. It's like the military occupation that lasted for 50 years never existed in your world. Do you also know the little fact that Russia has violated the treaty of Tartu and refused to sign a border agreement with Estonia. Only until Estonia gave in and lost areas that was historically Estonian to Russia, the treaty was signed (this year of all times).

Why do you think Estonia basically welcomed NATO and the US with open arms? Was it that the experience with Russia had been so good, that we wanted to try something different? Or was it due to the fact of 50 years of ruthless military rule?

I'm quite informed what the Russian mentality is and while I oppose American wars, NATO is an absolute necessity here. In 2007 Russia threatened to invade the country as some ethnic Russians were rioting as a war statue was moved to a military cemetery.

You claim that NATO is "aiming" for Russia but you ignore the fact that Russia has deployed nukes aimed as Estonia (and all neighbors) as well. Without NATO, Russia would be here right now, russifying the whole population and destroyed what's left of the local culture (as happened during the occupation). Estonia at one point was developmentally equal to Finland, that is until the Russian invasion. Do you see why people here would resent Russia for that?

Just curious, where are you from? You seem to have read a bit on the subject but have a very warped picture of what Russia is about. The idea that Russia would let any neighboring country (that's not under Russian influence) exist peacefully is laughable at this point. You only need to look a few hundred years back to see what their intentions are.

The Russian social system in comparison to the West does not exist. I have no idea where did you get that information from.

Indeed, it should be the people who rule. Yet I contend that under western influence, the people will have a higher quality of life. Personally, even though the EU is corrupt and bureaucratic, I wouldn't want to be in any union with Russia as that would set the country decades back in time.

deathtokoalas
i don't care about international agreements. they're imaginary rules in some liberal fantasy reality that has never existed. it's delusional to keep coming back to them as though they mean something. in reality, states do what they need to advance their interests. they have never been constrained by international law and never will be. it's a failed world order that should be abandoned as utopian claptrap.

further,  you're again trying to draw moral equivalences when i'm explicitly trying to reject them as propaganda. states are not moral actors and should not be analyzed as though they are. when i state that placing missiles in the region gives russia a valid pretext to invade that they should have taken advantage of in order to advance their interests, that says nothing of estonian nationals, who are (and ought to be) irrelevant in the calculation. this isn't a discussion of human rights, it's a discussion of russia's failure to secure it's own borders, which has thrust it into a desperate situation.

russia has socialized health care, to begin with. they have a better social security system, as well.

i reiterate: a smart post-yeltsin russian leadership would have realized the strategic necessity of reoccupying the baltics very early on, as a counter to their clear encirclement by american forces. at the very least, it should have been crystal clear after iraq. pointing missiles at the region is not enough to secure their borders. they must occupy the region to prevent the possibility of a ground invasion, under the cover of an sdi.

it is, however, too late. the nato bases in the region cannot be removed, and it's consequently a matter of time before the full invasion of moscow. all the russians can do is make some desperate movements that will be countered by the superior nato forces, technologies and strategies.

their focus on ukraine right now is at best a strategic blunder. a smart, strong russian leadership would be focusing on controlling poland.

if i thought states could or should be held to moral guidelines, i wouldn't be an anarchist.

not pushing through with burke, after all. taking a swing back to hobbes, on a path through locke to tucker. we'll have to see what else that picks up along the way. end goal still that paine text.

0pTicaL823
Germany and Japan teamed up again Russia? Hmmm, wonder what happened the last time Germany and Japan teamed up against Russia.

Rytis Kurcinskas
LOL  good one

Keanu Victor
Fair point but your forgetting, they had the USA and the commonwealth and the free forces of Europe on their side as well. The US, Europe and the commonwealth aren't on Russia's side anymore, they are imposing sanctions on them. Oh and Japan didn't actually team up with Germany against Russia, they were only at war for a couple of months in 1938-39 and the last month of the war. The rest of the time they were at peace. It was the US and the Chinese that defeated Japan, not Russia. They effectively did absolutely nothing to japan. Russia only won because of numbers, nothing more. For each man the Germans were 10 times better, in both skill and technology. Oh and now the people against Russia outnumber them and have better technology. So sucks to be you Russia.

SilverЪ Pozzoli
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Storm

It sucks to be you, Keanu :)

deathtokoalas
indeed. it's largely understood that truman ordered the nuclear attack in order to prevent japan from falling into soviet hands. also, it should be understood that the reason the americans entered the european theatre of the war in the first place (remember that they were attacked by japan, not germany) was to prevent the soviets from taking over western europe, which no doubt would have happened otherwise. the british are a slightly different story, but for all meaningful purposes the americans entered wwII against the soviets.

in today's world, germany and japan are both client states of washington. there's nothing really meaningful in the comparison.

0pTicaL823
I'm not Russian but I know for a fact the US did not end WWII. I was brought up believing the story of US dropping 2 atomic bombs and WWII was over, US contribution to WWII was minimal at best. The USSR took the brunt of the attack and did all the work, on BOTH western AND eastern fronts. The deciding factor was the Soviet's declaration of war on Japan and what I like to call the "Manchurian Blitzkrieg" that ended WWII. Over 800,000 elite Japanese troops surrendered in less than a week. Any strategist knows that when you lose troops of that size, it's checkmate. Japanese cities were dropping faster than flies, US was carpet bombing Japanese cities for shits and giggles. Dropping 2 or 20 atomic bombs  wouldn't have made a difference. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa - a highly respected historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara agrees.

Keanu Victor
never said the US ended ww2, I just said that the US were a lot more involved in the defeat of JAPAN, not Germany than the soviets were. So what about August storm. The Japanese had already been pushed back from most territories by then. It was the millions of Chinese people that gave their lives which stopped Japan not the Soviet union. The soviets stopped Germany, not Japan. If America had not been in ww2 you would now be saying Heil to the fuhrer. They didn't do as much on the ground but their contribution in equipment was unquestionable. A lot of which by the way went to the USSR.

deathtokoalas
yeah. the americans were funding both sides up to '41, and some say even longer than that. lots of money involved in funding a war....

i don't think it's true that we'd be speaking german if it weren't for american involvement, but the germans and french and italians and spaniards (and maybe even the british) might be speaking russian....as a second language. attacking russia hasn't worked out for anybody that's tried it. it was a huge strategic error. and, i'm not quite sure why there's such a resistance to this idea that hitler lost because he made a series of mistakes, rather than that he was out-manned or whatever else. maybe it was a jewish conspiracy, who knows...

mainland china was indeed the primary battleground of the asian theatre, but you have to understand how important oil and rubber were to japan. the chinese didn't have an air force, which was the dominant factor in japan picking on them in the first place. the dominant factor that contributed to japan's collapse was cutting off those supplies, which is perhaps the royal navy's last major victory. of course, there was some help from the french and the americans, but...

that doesn't change the fact that the soviets were in position to invade before the bombs came down and the americans weren't.

Keanu Victor
actually it kind of has, the mongols back in the 1200-1300s absolutely demolished the Russians. And the Japanese in the war of 1905 absolutely demolished the Russians. Then in ww1 the Germans absolutely demolished the Russians. The Germans beat them so badly that it caused an entire civil war and Russia to sue for peace on humiliating terms. Russia may have saved Europe in ww2 but it was repaying the favour from when it had been saved by the West 25 years before. The only countries that has never been successfully invaded that are of significance are JAPAN and Ethiopia. Russia has been invaded and conquered.

deathtokoalas
the mongol and japanese invasions are not meaningfully comparable to any invasion of russia from the west. to begin with, russia as we know it did not yet exist at the time, and is actually very much a successor state to the mongols in the first place. that's like suggesting that america is easily conquered by pointing to colonization by europeans. it's just not meaningful.

the entirely unprovoked and western-backed japanese invasion was on the colonial fringes of the empire, in an area that doesn't meaningfully even count as russia. it just has nothing to do with attempts to conquer actual russia.

all of the other examples you're citing (along with napoleon's attempt and sweden's attempt in the great northern war) indicate how impossible invading russia is. this idea that the germans defeated the russians in wwI is just absolute rubbish. what happened is that the army revolted, because it thought the invasion of germany was pointless (and it was) and the czar was a more meaningful target. the terms that russia picked were a function of the empire's repressiveness, not a function of german military strength. and, the fact that the germans gladly called a truce is indicative of where the balance of power truly was.

the front is certainly wide open and always has been, but the same reasons that make it difficult to defend make it impossible to close, and work in reverse for invading russian armies.

Keanu Victor
actually the Russians were shit in ww1, they lost millions of men, I think that may have actually contributed more to the mutiny. If Russia were winning the war then they wouldn't have complained. Secondly the newly imposed provisional government did actually try and regain territory from the Germans in early 1918 and got massacred. So they had to give even more land. Napoleon and Hitler were both defeated by snow not by Russian soldiers in their initial invasions. Without the weather Russia would be fucked. While it was summer and autumn the Germans and the French steam rolled across Russia, killed millions and captures huge swathes of territory. Both made it all the way to Moscow and then ran out of resources and the winter set in. If Russia wasn't so vast it would be conquered easily. They have always had leadership that is lacking in quality compared to other nations. Their military is large but not invincible. Countries may Gail to invade Russia fully but Russia fails to invade the west fully as well. It's never going to happen.

deathtokoalas
oh, i don't expect russia to invade western europe. this debate is historical, with essentially no relevance to today.

when you're talking about a country that is being conscripted and sent across a continent to fight a war they don't understand (and wouldn't care about if they did), winning or losing isn't really important. it's fighting that is the problem. most people don't know that canada faced massive general strikes and ethnic unrest during the war, as workers revolted and the french refused to serve. that's because most people don't care about canada. there were comparable revolts in france, as well. you need to flip the situation around and derive the loss of life from a lack of national pride. it wasn't an accident that the communists picked russia, it was very carefully targeted.

you're otherwise explaining my point, not defending yours.

i've been saying for years that obama sounds a lot like dave chapelle's white guy impersonation. this sort of cements the comparison.

best thing on youtube.

i'm actually glad that oliver's viewpoint is presented as smugly as it is, because it's a good representation of the so-called academic opposition to wikipedia. the mere idea of trying to separate between "legitimate academic work" and "amateur enthusiasts" (or whatever he said) is a lot of rubbish that wikipedia is doing an excellent job of exposing and unraveling, leaving a lot of upper class snobs to spit in their teacups. we're taught to look at educators as altruists, which is obscuring us to the reality of the backlash which is that the real reason academics react so badly to wikipedia and free information in general is that it threatens their business model. today, it's encyclopedias that are going under. tomorrow, it's textbook companies. eventually, it's publishing companies altogether, in a totally free (as in speech) economy. this doesn't eliminate academic rigour, it merely separates it from a profit motive and gives it back to the community (and away from the individual) where it belongs. this is progress, and the universities should be scolded for resisting it.

it's one thing to point out that this is in direct contradiction to the increasing privatization and corporatization of the "knowledge industry", including skyrocketing tuition prices. they warn of free information dumbing us down, but this is indicative of our existing era of academic sophistry, where students are charged thousands of dollars to sit through lectures where profs summarize books they could get at the library for free. it's another to point out that it's exactly why it's so important - because it breaks that model of education for profit.

once you realize you're dealing with scam artists that are afraid of being called out on it, rather than people working towards the common good as we are so often falsely lead to believe, it is easy to cast aside their criticism as rubbish.

jimmy's making far more sense, here. he's built a great tool that academics should be more excited about adapting to, and would be if they were the altruists so many of us like to pretend they are. now, the challenge is in getting them out of their ivory towers and down on the ground to engage. it may not be in their immediate financial interests, but here's the nice part of it - there's a cusp approaching, where they risk irrelevance if they don't.

and rupert murdoch can fuck off.

scottish independence isn't something i'm following closely or care much about. not my place to care or give advice.

but, i can't imagine how it would be really beneficial to anybody, except the people stepping in at the top of the tax chain. i'm sure there's problems with local governance - there are everywhere - but declaring independence is hardly a solution, and finding a solution doesn't require independence. this is a distraction.

i'd suspect scotland is more independent than quebec, but by how much i don't know. the argument against quebec nationalism is that they'll end up like mexico, a reality that the separatists largely acknowledge. they talk about multiple generations of sacrifice. it's a dumb idea, bluntly. i'd have to think scotland will take at least a small hit.

further, i don't know if part of this is about getting into the eurozone. that doesn't strike me as a good idea.

i think britain is better off outside the european union, and that the islands are better off working together. perhaps that means negotiating the union into an actual union, a confederation of sorts, where britain and scotland (and wales and ireland) are equals in joint government, and yet retain much sovereignty.

trying to disassociate too much is just going to harm everybody.

actually, you have to wonder how much of this goes back to scotland being aligned with the pope and whatnot...

judging from this moment in history, it seems as though the continent might finally have the island where it wants it. that's another empire that is on the cusp of entering the history books....

i mean, it makes sense. pull scotland out, bring them into the eurozone. ireland, too. it's ancient imperial policy.

or maybe britain and russia team up against those fucking germans one last time. i'm not going to like what political incarnation britain would require for this. but i don't get to pick.

crazy? a little poetic, but not crazy...

imperial pain in the ass #3 has always been sweden. i don't think they're much of a military threat right now. but those vikings are sneaky. they've never been conquered. strangely, that might be the centre of real digital resistance (in the guise of neutrality), as britain and russia both finally collapse. is the pirate bay more than it seems to be?

i've had this idea in the back of my mind that the ultimate motive underlying the attacks on libya is eu unification, from north africa through israel to turkey. the saudis won't like that. but it's decades from now.

the romans spent something like a thousand years trying to conquer iran. that ended in the mid 7th century, when the arabs conquered them both after a particularly rough round of fighting that left them both highly vulnerable. know what's funny? the story really does align well with the apocalypse. i think any educated person standing in the region would have seen it coming, this catastrophic conflict between iran and constantinople that would destroy the world - not unlike living through the cold war really. was the biblical apocalypse really something like an ancient kubrick film? probably.

but it was within that collapse of civilization that the arabs colonized the region, meeting minimal resistance 'cause everybody was already dead. there's a few other periods in history where colonization was the result of mass slaughter, not tied directly to it. it was one of the consequences of the invasions of genghis khan, for example. the apocalyptic narrative has real parallels, it's not all fantasy.

but the point is that these historical conflicts have roots that are more deeply rooted than the politics or populations of the regions. they recreate themselves as functions of the land. there's probably no real end to them. whether the eu ever succeeds in reconquering northern africa or not, it will always have a contingency plan in the background. and spain (let alone iran) will always be lost territory to whatever force governs in arabia, regardless of race or religion.

tactics regarding squeezing out the british will always include controlling scotland, whether you're the pope or the emperor or the fuhrer or the european central bank or some future continental entity...

richard price - a discourse on the love of our country

so, things are back to normal for now, meaning i can get back to my daily readings instead of backing up files and scouring the internet looking for desperate ways to try to fix broken hardware.

this is a pointless read, except as background for paine or burke or wollstonecraft, which is what i'm about to get back to, and i have to say that i'm not really getting the relevance there, either. maybe it will present itself. for now, it's just weird and anachronistic...
 

there's actually a worthwhile point in here somewhere....

this text is a transcription of a speech that price gave to a revolutionary society. however, it is known to history as being an easy target that edmund burke keyed in on in his reflections on the revolution in france. subsequently, both thomas paine and mary wollstonecraft came to price's defence. while it is unlikely that i will side with burke in the more general argument (i haven't read that text yet), i am far too removed from the text to react in a way that is in any way comparable to the existing defences of it. rather, my initial reaction was actually very dismissive. not only is there no place for nationalism in my understanding of liberalism, but my very idea of freedom is defined practically in direct opposition to the idea of defining one's self in terms of ethnic identity. if we do not have the freedom to reject the mental slavery of being defined by a national identity and simply be human beings, we do not have any freedom at all! yet, a closer reading has led me to conclude that price is speaking somewhat cryptically to get around the restrictions that existed on his freedom to speak as he truly wished to. i would go so far as to argue that this is the only way to read the speech that makes any sense at all. while such a reading may gloss over a few particularly egregious aspects of his concept of nationalism, it doesn't shield him of deeper and more worthwhile criticism.

- begins by noting that "...like all other passions, it (nationalism) requires regulation and direction.". getting this across is the real purpose of the speech.

- price then defines nationalism. it is not a geographic concept, but a communitarian one. a russian-born person living in england should consequently identify as english, rather than russian. so, this is a melting pot concept of identity that sees the individual's identity as transferable between communities and as an expression of the community one lives in, rather than existing uniquely within the individual and carried along with it. sort of fascist; not very liberal.

- "it is proper to observe" that nationalism is not the same thing as supremacism or xenophobia. collectivists of a certain variety may assert this on principle, but they have a hard time arguing against it's cognitive dissonance. nationalism is inherently exclusive. how can it avoid being xenophobic? and how can the xenophobic avoid being supremacist? real leftists have no patience for nationalism. price's attempts to argue for nationalism and against xenophobia are consequently difficult to take seriously, as they're not really possible to separate.

- it is also proper to observe that nationalism is not the same thing as competition. again, this looks nice on paper but is simply incoherent. as nationalism is exclusive, it categorizes people into separate groups that can only ever develop hostilities and become antagonistic, which leads to division and competition. price even seems to realize this. he runs through a list of historical examples of cultures that have seen themselves as superior, condemning each in turn.

- so, price's ideal of nationalism is hereby defined for the rest of the text as an impossible mindset that can never exist anywhere amongst any people, and never has. his comment? Let us learn by such reflexions to correct and purify this passion, and to make it a just and rational principle of action. yes, let us rationalize the irrational...

as nonsensical as all of this may seem, it is easy to read between the lines to deduce that price's preferred brand of nationalism is actually the rejection of nationalism. this has historically been a difficult thing to articulate in any kind of public forum without dealing with serious consequences. if we are to recognize the contradiction in his statements, the next step is to determine which side of the contradiction is presented as more important, and it is without a doubt the side that minimizes nationalism in favour of universalism. that is to say that price has no option but to argue against nationalism by redefining it as it's antithesis, or face the king's wrath as well as, perhaps, the wrath of his fellow citizens; if we reject xenophobia and competition then we also reject nationalism, regardless of further incoherent rhetoric on the topic, however necessary it may have been.

- he then moves on by noting that jesus did not mention nationalism. well, of course not. he was created to unify the empire. The design of this parable was to shew to a Jew, that even a Samaritan, and consequently all men of all nations and religions, were included in the precept, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. to price, nationalism ought to be nothing more than the golden rule applied to one's immediate surroundings, which is not nationalism at all but the negation of it.

- in somewhat of a turn towards buddhism, he suggests three blessings of human nature (truth, virtue, liberty) and relates each of them to what he proposes as properly nationalist behaviour, largely by contrasting them against their opposites (barbarism, atheism, slavery). this is a weird section of the text that presents crude and early versions of what would today be called liberal imperialism (teach the savages freedom and they will be free kind of stuff) and that i'm going to mostly avoid, except to stress the point that the importance of the separation of church and state cannot be overstated. also: if we show them that they are men, will they not act like devo....?

if price is coyly speaking out against nationalism, what is his goal? i can think of two motives. the first is to assert the church as more powerful than the state, which is consistent with the underlying message in his 1776 speech. might he have been turning on those who would assert a separation of church and state by coyly attacking the widespread feelings of secular nationalism and replacing them with a manipulated christian universalism? the second is somewhat contradictory to this, in that he may have been reacting against british nationalistic rhetoric in the context of the events that came out of the revolution, perhaps even out of self-preservation. these are merely speculations; i do not know enough about the life of richard price to state anything with any kind of force. yet, i've seen enough in these two short documents to realize that these are propaganda pieces by somebody with a political agenda and that they can't be taken entirely at face value.

- he finishes by exploring various examples of what he would consider proper nationalism (unsurprisingly, these all reduce to being good, obedient citizens, and contain several warnings against "anarchy") and discussing some historical aspects of the "glorious" english "revolution" of 1689. this is again a touchy subject, as the official position from the english authorities at the time was that england already had a liberalizing revolution (a point that is now historically accepted, but that many liberals of the period were not willing to fully concede or in some cases concede at all, especially in the context of the revolution in america). whether out of genuine belief or fear of consequence, price takes the statist line, here. beyond noting that, this ending section is not particularly interesting to me.

so, the point that is hidden in here beneath the jingoistic language is actually that nationalism has many pitfalls that should be avoided. our opinions may part on virtually every other aspect of the two short tracts i've read by him, but i can agree with dr. price on that basic point.

full text:
http://oll.libertyfund.org/simple.php?id=368

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/books/congress/DA/452.P7/index.html 

a bunch of populist right-wing talking points, pompous rhetoric and targeted demographic-driven empty provinces. this is contributing to the death of the ndp, but isn't likely to rejuvenate the base.

as a basic starting point, where is a promise to *reverse* the privatization of ontario hydro? what's that? taboo? actually, run a poll, andrea. you'd be surprised. oh, you meant taboo on bay street. got it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqP4bucvh-k

the last time ontario elected the ndp, it got the most right-wing government it'd seen in decades as rae jumped all over himself trying to convince the business community that he wasn't a communist plant.

i'd expect the same from horwath, who is a highly opportunistic career politician that is seeking power first and foremost.

so, i'll stick with the liberals for now, until a real alternative presents itself.

see, this is what i was worried about.

it's 10 out, and 5:00 am, and i can feel the air coming down. which must be because the heat is on high two floors up, to fight the air on the main level.

i can't deal with that. i have to get the heat up. there's essentially no tenant that could deal with that. and it's going to squeeze him out, but it's his own fault.

this is really revolting.

do sanctions have environmental benefits, in that they encourage local production?

...well, real sanctions, anyways. not these paper sanctions that reduce to food fights at the country club.

all the major empires support and aid fascist groups to carry out destabilization tactics within competing empires. it's abundantly clear at this point that moscow wants to be sugar daddy to the west's far right "libertarian" movements as they become increasingly militant.

i grasp the value of broadcasting in multiple languages, but the actual effect of this is to cut the video off from 90% of your audience. how about captions in english (or multiple languages, resources willing)?

they really need to take this woman off the air, or at least replace her with an ewok. i applaud wichita fall's efforts to reduce dumping. and i wouldn't even expect a report this absurdly stupid to come out of my ruling conservative party.

stuck in the middle of an alley closing in on all sides (vst mix) (final)

those alternate tunings were more of a problem than i realized, as they cut out one of the guitar sections. i thought the guitar seemed quiet, but thought it was just a function of the technology.

the sampler i'm using to convert midi notes to guitar sounds will simply not allow shapes that can't be played on a guitar in standard tuning. it will allow you to lower the bottom string down to c, which opened up enough space in my case to get the chords out, but that won't allow for really impossible chord combinations. strangely, lowering the range fixed it because it also seems to try and automatically invert chords so they fit on the fretboard.....! i suppose that might be useful to a keyboard player that doesn't know guitars so well, but it's actually horrific for a guitarist that fully realizes what they're doing when they're typing up the notes.

so, i got the inversions to stop and all the notes to come out, so that will update via rss. well, hopefully that's the last version.

the one thing i can't get is this chord in the transition from the bass solo to the post-jazz section. i'm talking about this pesky A#. i could always create a new track and resequence it. yeah. i should do that, actually. good thing i didn't upload yet. but the chord is F-A#-C, from low to high. this is impossible to play on a guitar in standard tuning. the solution is to tune the D string down to a C, making an easy chord to fret. simple. but, the computer is instead just dropping the A# altogether...

that's good to know for future reference.

written late 2000 & early 2001. initially rendered mar 7, 2014. re-rendered due to shift in instrumentation on april 29, 2014. re-rendered again on may 3, 2014 to allow for audible acoustic guitars, after a rewrite to allow the computer to play in an alternate tuning.

it was vindication, if unfortunate, walking to the front entrance today and getting a rush of hot air from upstairs. you know when you come in from outside and can feel the heat rushing at you? it was like that. except i was walking from a basement to a main floor, and feeling the heat coming from behind a closed door and *down* a flight of stairs. and it's 13, not -20. and it's electric radiator heat, too. indicating that it was just right cranked. no doubt to fight the air conditioning on the main floor. i've mostly avoided raising it past 21, which has mostly kept it off. i'm not likely to crank it more than 22 more than a few hours at a time. so, somebody else is more irritated than i am by this unseasonable air conditioning...

i slept through most of the afternoon; a hot shower warmed me up nicely and then knocked me out cold. but it does seem as though it was on again a little after 4:00. i'm still feeling it a bit...

that's another possible answer, for the short term, that i can accommodate better than my neighbours. if he's going to turn the air up in the afternoon and leave it off overnight, i can sleep in the afternoon and stay awake overnight.

there's a bunch of reasons i don't really want to crank it. the rent is low here. i'd rather wear a sweater than see a rent increase, but it's within reason - what's a piss off is how unreasonable setting the air to below 20 is. which i think is the real reason i'm concerned, rather than the actual temperature. that, i can deal with. but if we get into this a/c v radiator fight, it's going to fuck the landlord and that's going to fuck us. electric heating is also quite dry. and the truth is that i like it a little cool. it's one of the reasons i like basements.

we might finally get a real warm up next week, but it looks sketchy.

i'd normally go talk to the guy, but it's not a situation where we're legal under the law. tenant law is badly skewed towards family members. if it's intended to intimidate non-family members, it's worked. i have to be careful to not get into conflict with them and more or less resign myself to his right to have the air as he wants it.

see, the flip side is i have the right to get the heat up. and the lease is the lease, regarding rent costs. there was a verbal agreement to keep the rent static. i think that endows me with a responsibility to try to minimize heating costs. the day i get a rent increase, that's out the window. but, for now i'd like to try and stick to it.

it's just...it all revolves around being reasonable. and the actual owner is reasonable. but i don't feel like i'm getting that from his brother upstairs.

i mean, it's hard to compute the idea that he doesn't realize turning the air on in an unseasonably cold early may and late april is unreasonable. this has to be "i don't fucking care". and it can't really be something that an explanation can resolve.

wonder how successful a claim that current tenant law is unconstitutional would be. it's clearly discriminatory; not clearly enumerated, but perhaps analogous. see, it pits s. 15 rights directly against "property rights", which are in quotes because there is actually no legal recognition of property rights in canada, despite the idea being thrown around by various types of liberals. i mean, there's contract law. sure. but it's not at all the same thing. i would *hope* that s. 15 would trump these imaginary "property rights". but that's up to the judge...

i'd be skeptical. but it would be an interesting case that would bring to light a lot of interesting questions. or, at least it would if i was orchestrating it.

this is the east-european superstate (centered in warsaw) that is in the process of being reformed for the purposes of swallowing up western/european russia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish–Lithuanian_Commonwealth

"in soviet russia, poland invade you"

seriously, though. this is what's coming.

i think this is worth watching for a more subtle analysis from some wiser people. it always makes me laugh when i see some 30-something associate prof think he can use his greater understanding of the modern world to overturn decades of experience. it's the wide-eyed naivete that the older folks have grown beyond; you can call them cynical, but realize it's largely synonymous with being wise when the topic is geopolitics. matlock's statement that (maaaaaaatlooooooock. ok. sorry.) he's talking about reality, not human rights, was really refreshing. so, just shut up and listen...

al jazeera has it's own biases, but i'm finding the analysis (if not the actual coverage) to be coming from enough of a spectator position to only be mildly pro-western. it's more ideological than hierarchical. that objectivity is not universal on the channel, but it's nice in this conflict. while it lasts, anyways.

but even the greater wisdom in understanding here isn't really getting to the mindfuck that we're entering the end stages of this conflict, notwithstanding the russians unveiling some secret weapon or coming clean on their alliance with the intergalactic space empire (i still claim they would have contacted the communists and not the capitalists) or something. the section on russia joining europe is sort of getting it, but only accidentally.

if anything has changed, it's that the go-for-the-jugular strategy of the current administration is just too outlandishly aggressive for them to really get their heads around. they get the context better, but they're having trouble moving from this idea of balancing alliances that was dominant from bismarck to kissinger (the space of their entire professional lives) and getting into the new neo-con reality that clinton bombed into existence...

they don't just want nato bases in kiev. they want nato bases in moscow, too.

"whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god."

i'll take the latter, up to the caveat that the classical conception of a god was not an omnipotent, monolithic force but a being with faults and strengths.

i very well may cite this, in the future, as an argument for my continued claims of not belonging to your species.

it took me a while to getting around to watching it, but this is an important speech, historically, that will be cited for decades to come. you have to get through a little bit of propaganda to come to it, but putin is announcing a drastic shift in russian foreign policy: an end to american appeasement. that is provocative language, but in the era of over the top propaganda the truth is indeed often provocative. and, like churchill before him, putin is too late: this is the end of the russian empire. what remains to be seen is whether the new regional power is going to be europe or china, or whether they just split russia down the middle.

see, here's the thing i was worried about and we've seen confirmed in the east of ukraine: russia may have been forced into crimea by threat of losing it's strategic regional bases (if one pushes a spring, it does indeed bounce back at you, as vlad said), but it cannot simply stop with that reaction. it's like setting a string of dominoes in motion. russia now has no choice but to attempt to reassert it's hegemony over all of eastern europe, which will lead to it's imminent collapse..

likewise, once assad has rooted out the rebels he will have no choice but to launch a counter-attack against saudi arabia. there's a major proxy war in the region on the horizon with a less certain outcome attached to it.

now, it's a new century. generally speaking, excluding the middle east, tactics are very different now. nobody wants to set off a war of alliances. i'm not suggesting that russia is planning an invasion of poland, which would start a nuclear war. i'm suggesting that russia is moving into a period where it attempts to control events in eastern europe through economic leverage and covert intelligence operations, like we're seeing in the east of ukraine. goals include taking power in these countries long enough to pull them out of nato, and crucially long enough to prevent the construction of that missile shield, which will reduce russia to a slave of nato. i think annexations like we've seen in crimea will be exceedingly difficult to organize.

it's a race against time, and one russia is destined to lose. especially if it continues to waste time in eastern ukraine, while nato further fortifies the baltics.

none of this is really new. it's in the pnac. supposedly, books have been written about it (i haven't read them). but let's be clear what the theatre is in this war: it's the famous resources triangle of instability. what's changed is that a serious front is opening in eastern europe.

one of the different aspects of this front is that nato and america are on the defensive, which i think is unique in the post cold war world. that's not to assign the russians a position of strength. it's very illusory.

so, this is what has changed: russia has reacted, and now cannot reverse the machinery it has set in motion until every former warsaw pact member has resigned it's membership in nato. which will not happen.

warsaw is the new moscow.

dontlaughtoomuch11
"russia now has no choice but to attempt to reassert it's hegemony over all of eastern europe, which will lead to it's imminent collapse.."

====>Retard bitch, you made the TERRIBLE mistake but TERRIBLE mistake of confusing Sovjet Russia with Modern Russia, seriously??? Has the USA yankee propaganda made your brain that weak that you can't even think straight?!

deathtokoalas
well, no. i'm equating modern russia with soviet russia with czarist russia, actually. all of these things are different stages of a russian empire. none of these stages were communist or capitalist in any meaningful way, they all shared the ideology of empire.

there was no such thing as the cold war. there was a conflict between london's empire and moscow's empire that heated up a little after the french revolution, when they became the two dominant empires vying over global control. london was replaced with washington, but this is an insignificant detail; the american empire is the lineal descendant of the british empire. and, one can maybe extrapolate that back further, by connecting london to rome and moscow to constantinople. there has always been a conflict between the empire to the east and the empire to the west.

such is the nature of a world broken up into states.

that is not a result of propaganda. i don't watch western media, but i doubt there's many western talking heads comparing putin to churchill or voiding the american revolution by reducing it to a civil war within the british empire. it's the result of having a solid understanding of history, and being able to see when an empire is on the brink of collapse.

the reason russia cannot reverse the attack is that, if it does, nato will become more aggressive. every sign of weakness from russia merely strengthens america's kill reflex.  if they do not take control of latvia, nato will place missiles there directed directly at moscow that will eliminate all russian sovereignty. if they do not take control of poland, it will be used to retake latvia. and etc. there is no end to this, other than the west changing it's mindset out of this endgame/final-kill/conquer-russia mode and into one that respects their boundaries.

but all of this is completely impossible. putin is fifteen years too late to reverse the collapse of the russian empire - which he is responsible for by not reacting to the expansionism by the american empire. all he can do is watch helplessly as his allies turn against him in a rush to steal the country's resource wealth.

the kill is approaching, and the world will feast on the carcass.

note that there's always the possibility that the russians have some secret weapon, or are covertly aligned with an inter-galactic empire (i think it more likely that an alien species would initiate contact with communists than capitalists) or something. but, by all open and earthly appearances, russia is pretty much mated in five or six.

i mean, putin's gotta pull a heraclius or something, here.

---

Beastinvader
Go Putin! Funny how people will talk about the injustice of the Tartars being forced to leave. Yet they won't mention that those tartars supported the NAZIs.

marcwhatever
Stalin was same criminal as Hitler was. In USRR there was a lot of people who supported Hitler in because they thought he bring them more freedom. I don't know how i'd act if I was a Ukrainian (for example) just after Holodomor and face chance to kill soviets. Btw. half of Tatar population was killed or deported before 1933, repressions after WWII only ended up whole thing.

deathtokoalas  
but the history is always stated in a vacuum, as though it's an unprovoked aggression. nobody talks about the brutality of the mongol invasions, or how russia and ukraine were enslaved by mongol hordes for centuries. slave and slav have a common root in the english language, due primarily to the slave trade that existed in the period. millions upon millions of slavic speakers were rounded up by crimean tatars and shipped south to the ottomon empire, where they were sold as slaves within the islamic world. it's actually one of the greatest atrocities in the history of mankind, up there with the extermination of american indigenous populations and the transatlantic slave trade. and, western media has the audacity to suggest that the crimea was the "ancestral homelands" of the tatars? after they invaded from east of the caspian and depopulated and enslaved the indigenous inhabitants? herodotus makes it clear that the indigenous peoples of the crimea were the agricultural ancestors of the modern slavic groups. when you put stalin's deportation orders in context, it's as a process of revenge that is difficult to actively condemn.

Keeper Web
It was political change, what Stalin did I can't even start on something to defend his actions, but compare it to the change in US civil war, how many human rights violations and human tragedies you can find there. You can find it repeating it many times in history, but Stalin had more "recognition" on the subject.

Beastinvader
I didn't realise the problems began before WW2. My mistake. I have to learn more about that period in history. Thanks for letting me know.

deathtokoalas
to get to the root of the history, begin by googling the term "harvesting the steppe". it's hard to condone what stalin did, but when you understand the history it's also hard to condemn it.

we could talk about native american tribes potentially rising up against american settlers, but that's maybe hard to put under any concrete basis. however, if you look at land redistribution in africa, that's maybe a more concrete way to understand it. the anc (under mandela) toyed with the idea of redistributing land from white settlers to indigenous blacks. in the end, they didn't. could anybody have condemned them if they did? this has actually happened in zimbabwe (under mugabe). there's no doubt that rights abuses have occurred. but, it's also very difficult to condemn, given that black africans obviously have a greater right to the land.

what's annoying, to me, is the lack of context in discussing a complicated issue. instead, it's consistently framed in a lingering cold war narrative.

Beastinvader
I agree. I happen to be South African and I'm well aware of what Mugabe did and what the ANC is trying to do.

Two decades of Black Economic Empowerment and they are pushing for more. But in South Africa it's more complex. The Zulus were in the East when the Dutch arrived in the cape. Under Dutch (and later British) rule we expanded to incorporate the whole of West South Africa and the East coast. The only people there were nomadic people who wanders around.

I admit that the wars against the Zulus might have been wrong.

My point is just that the white people here has as great a right in this country than black people.

Also, thanks for the info. I'm at this moment looking at the history of the tartars.

yeah. heating situation here is now officially ridiculous, and something buddy and his brother are going to have to work out.

it hit a low of about 7 degrees this morning, with an overcast high of 12. even so, there was enough retained heat in here from yesterday that the heater didn't really kick in until this morning - and even so, only weakly. but, see, the air conditioner wasn't on. nor should it have been, with temperatures ranging between 7 and 12 - in addition to it being overcast and rainy. so, it was *actually* close to 21 in here. which was nice.

in addition to this, it seems like nobody was home up there for most of the day, which allowed this normal situation to go undetected. the air is now noticeably on, which is triggering the heaters again.

it's 12 degrees out. the heat came on because it's cold. that's what heaters are supposed to do. but the heaters were in fact barely even running. i'm being totally normal here; it's turning the air on to reverse normal heating operations when it's 12 degrees out that is anomalous.

and, i had the bathroom heater off, but am going to have to put it back on.

i mean, i can get that these are bigger people. so, it's like they're always wearing a few extra layers. ok. but, why not open the window, then, when it's overcast and twelve? that makes a big difference for the surrounding units, due to the way air conditioning works.

it's been a slow ramp down, but i'm willing to finally (albeit cautiously) declare myself a purely social smoker. the last three weeks of april were pretty much cold turkey, we're talking one or two opportunistic puffs over three weeks, and it's really put me over that final hump. i've been slowly disassociating the habit from the things i had it attached to: wake up, after meal, etc. at this point, those connections are just not there anymore. i even spent my smoke money on mushroom soup, which sounds weird but the expenses related to fixing my pc had me broke all month and i found myself down to spaghetti and canned beans the last week, which is something i don't want to repeat. hence, a large stack of mushroom soup (which i use as pasta sauce).

so, i have no nicotine budgeted for may. if i get to june 1st without breaking, i'll be done with the "cautiously" part.

it was weird walking around this morning, though, 'cause i found myself hypersensitive to other people smoking. smokers will mostly agree that they can't really smell the smoke coming from the guy at the bus stop. i can't say it ever bothered me before i started smoking, either. but, when you've stopped smoking for a while, you start to notice it, and it starts to bug you because you're trying to avoid it. it's especially been the smell, for me; once it gets in your clothes, you start carrying it around with you and it's a constant reminder. i mean, i'm sure i'll get used to it over time. but that was a surreal experience that i took as indicative of something positive...

pfft.

that's no match for my illudium Q-36 explosive space modulator.

also, weren't the russians denying this? right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, or what? welcome to capitalism, russia.

gingrich is the scariest one because he isn't a scripted, empty suit. and he's right. bismarck is a very good comparison. it's the comparison i've been using myself for several years, actually. well, almost, anyways. i've been using it as a secondary comparison.

a far better comparison is to winston churchill.

yeah, that'll win some hearts and minds back.

we've got a heavyweight clash between mental midgets here, folks.

"can i get a pizza?"
"sure. it's $8.00."
"a large one?"
"yup."

*pause*

"is it on sale?"
"you don't watch much tv, do you?"

best strategy is to keep it off most of the time, and set it high for about an hour when the air gets bad. i mean, i don't want to kill my landlord on the electrical bill, either.

i really think it should cease to be a concern once we get a week or two over 20 and i can just keep the window open. it's just that the basement is having a hard time "turning over" because we're stuck in this middle temperature range, and the air is really acting as a huge setback in it doing so...

actually, no. it's the gradient i'm noticing. keeping at 21.5 is just a waste of electricity - i'll have to crank it if the air comes on, regardless.

it seems to have levelled out. thankfully.

what i'm going to do is take it down to 21.5 and just leave it there. that'll trigger it before it gets too cold...

it must be about 10-15 degrees upstairs.

i mean, it's been over 20 all day and the heater has been working at 50% for an hour to get it to 22. ridiculous...

i've lived in air conditioned basements ~ half my life, and i've never seen an air unit run this irresponsibly.

another way to measure the temperature down here is via the floor. and i'll just say that the floor was not this cold at any point in the winter. which is bizarre.

i should hopefully be able to turn it back off in a few hours.

i mean, i can't articulate how stupid it is that i'm cranking the baseboard heat to fight off the air conditioner upstairs on this rarest of nice days of the year so far. but it would be below 20 in here, otherwise. and that's not acceptable to me.

i just wish it would warm up and stay warmed up. if we can get a week or two of warm weather, the basement will heat up. it's just that all we're getting right now is a few hours every week or so, which the air is negating. so, it feels like march in here because every time we get that little bit of warmth (a) it goes away and (b) the air sucks it out.

and the landlord wants to put an air conditioner in here. i'm trying to explain to him that it's not only unnecessary, it's completely backwards. he needs to try to get his brother to turn the air down....

i mean, if my thermostat can't even get to 22 then it's certainly not air conditioner weather. that's called enjoying the warm weather. air conditioner weather is 30+.

the thermostat was hovering around 21 naturally (ie not really on) before i turned it up to 22, but that was not indicative of what it feels like in here. it's that frigid air conditioning air that sinks down and makes you feel like it's january, even as the temperature in the room stays steady. yuck.

yeah. it's 25 degrees out and i'm shivering with a sweater on. absurd.

so, the heat is now on. buddy can explain that to his brother.

i mean, move to winnipeg if you want to live in a tundra.

these teases of summer are painful.

...and it's finally warm out for a few hours and the air upstairs has triggered the heat on. again.

whatever. the window is open. and if i have to, i'll turn the heat up. i don't care at this point. it's just inconsiderate to turn the air up that high, this early.

stuck in the middle of an alley closing in on all sides (vst mix) (intermediate)

i posted this back at the beginning of march, right before my drive crashed, with the caveat that i may revisit it slightly. the drums need some work, but i'm not going to use (directly programmed) midi to tweak them, so that leaves this done with. this is final (as chiptune). no further tweaks.

the update, however, is the addition of a wind section to take over some arpeggiation. i've boosted this slightly in the mix, but not too much. it was finding that middle point that took all day.

i've probably pointed out a few times that you need to listen to this stuff loud and through headphones to get it. this is especially true of this track, which needs volume and headphones to get the dynamics right.

canned guitars aside, or perhaps included, i think this mix sounds outstanding. it's just going to get better, though, as i layer it over with drum effects and live guitars.

this is the vst mix, including computer generated guitars. in addition to being the core of the final track, it's interesting to point out just how good computer music can sound nowadays. excluding the introduction, i didn't play a single note in this song. the guitars are all played through midi-based vst instruments and put into digital amp models and digital effects emulators. it's really rather remarkable how far the technology has come....

written in early 2001. initially rendered mar 7, 2014. re-rendered due to shift in instrumentation on apr 29, 2014.
 
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/vst-mix

i haven't thrown a bag of garbage out since mid-february, but it's that time and i'm sort of dreading having to do it. and it's actually only a plastic shopping bag. at this rate, my proverbial pile is going to be at a rate of much less than a green bag per year. which still sucks, but is a far cry from the supposed 650 kg a year that most of us dump into a landfill, which is something i currently can't actually fathom.

btw, if i can do this, you can do this.

a) recycle. that partially means buying things that are recyclable, which isn't hard nowadays. about the only thing i've had to turn down recently were styrofoam eggs. i mean, honestly. eggs in styrofoam? to save a tenth a cent per package? what planet does this asshole farmer live on? if you're reasonable about your shopping, this should really cut you down to organic material and plastic wrappers.

b) compost. now, listen: i agree that having compost in your house is fucking revolting. why not just go and buy some roaches at the store and let them loose? yuck. but, that's *actually* kind of how i arrived at this approach, in a round about way. see, i was a little unhappy about leaving coffee grinds and pineapple cores and other bits of organic material under the sink, so i started freezing them. after a while, i had a large pile of frozen organic material. and, why throw that in the garbage? so, i found somebody to give it to that runs a community garden. that actually solves two problems: it *stops* the shit from rotting in your kitchen and it recycles the organic material. perfect.

b.5) don't eat a lot of meat.

c) there's still wrappers. i can't recycle them here, but i'm going to see how much of it i can get rid of like this:
http://www.terracycle.com/en-US/brigades/cheese-packaging-brigade-r.html

i think that could very well get me as close to zero waste as is possible. what's left is dust and hair. and i'm not letting anybody compost my hair, it could mess up your human dna....

Z12IT
how many bottles of Wodka do this bandits drink every day?

Victor Podolsky
Hmm.. probably 1/2 of  the Vodka-per-day dosage? Just to make sure I got you right Wodka = 2*Vodka ?  

deathtokoalas
wodka is the west slavic term for vodka.

rap news 24

deathtokoalas
it's actually not apartheid, which most people don't understand the meaning of. the west has chosen to use the term apartheid due to positive association with the so-called victory in south africa (which has not really ended racial separation there at all, it's just created a small black upper class) and due to concerns about the possible offensiveness of accusing an israeli state of genocide. but, if it were apartheid then the goal would be to convert gaza and the west bank into factories to produce goods for israelis, which sadly was actually proposed by the americans recently as part of a "peace plan" to "improve the palestinian economy" but was rejected outright by the israelis, who want to ethnically cleanse the area. the proper terminology for this is not apartheid but genocide.

...and this marketing strategy to make bds and other actions seem less "anti-semitic" has unfortunately failed. i think it's time to backtrack and be more graphic about the truth of the matter.

stop calling it apartheid. start calling it the genocide that it is.

archi2a
So every company that has factories abroad is evil? Or does that only apply to the ones owned by jews?

deathtokoalas
that depends on whether you've stopped beating your wife or not. have you, archi2a?

it's capitalism itself that is "evil" due to the reduction of human labour to a commodity. whether the model is being applied to asian workers being beaten to make electronics for westerners or palestinians forced into wage slavery for israeli luxuries, we're talking about the same fundamentally horrific situation.

however, that's not what is happening. the israelis do not want the palestinians as slaves. they simply want them removed from the planet. this is not apartheid; it's genocide.

fwiw, i don't have enough faith in markets to think that bds has the potential to be successful. nor does the israeli government seem to take it seriously. netanyahu is just using it as a prop to raise campaign funds. but that's not particularly relevant to pointing out the nature of the situation on the ground, how the apartheid designation is drawing attention away from the genocide that is continuing and drastic steps that ought to be taken to counter it.

archi2a
If the Israelis want the Palestinians "removed from the planet", why does Israel supply electricity, and medical aid to the Gaza strip? Why does it allow palestinians to be treated in israeli hospitals?  If there's a "genocide", where are the piles of corpses of Palestinian civilians(that's what happens in a real genocide). Why does the Palestinian population have one of the highest ratio of growth if they're being mass murdered?

deathtokoalas
your questions are talking points - propagandistic in nature - and not worth answering directly. further, you probably work for somebody that is paying you to post this and i probably don't have a legitimate chance of convincing you, because you're not actually thinking about the things that you're posting. however, for the benefit of other people reading this, i'll talk around your talking points.

israel can't simply snap a finger and be done with the palestinians in a moment. if it was that simple, they indeed would have done so. there are some boundaries that they have to adhere to so as to maintain a working relationship with their allies, which include arab governments in the region who are concerned about how continued israeli colonization of the region may destabilize their own governments. so, it has to carry out a long and slow process of colonization and replacement. the current stage of this long term process is related to eliminating the possibility of a future palestinian state. that is a type of genocide. if you look up what the word means, you'll see that. but, you're not interested in doing this, you're just pushing nationalist propaganda.

archi2a
I stated facts, go ahead and check them for yourself, or come visit Israel or Gaza and see for yourself, I've got nothing to hide. 2) I can actually get paid for exposing biased BS about Israel? Who should I sign with?

deathtokoalas
i doubt i'd be allowed into the highly contained open-air prison that is gaza. from the israeli perspective, this is an effective way to contain the palestinian population in the short run. it's admittedly not entirely clear what the long term plan regarding gaza is, but the foreseeable future is for israel to continue to run it as a prison.

archi2a
Gaza is not controlled by Israel. There are no israeli soldiers there. And anyone can come and go through the security checkpoints. Furthermore, Gaza also has border with Egypt, which is too in a war against Hamas and also strictly controlls its border to prevent weapon smuggling.

deathtokoalas
see, this is so outlandishly absurd that it's more worthy of laughter than any kind of response.

as rap news once said, many years ago,

"people, please, research the truth. nowadays, it isn't hard to do."

archi2a
What is absurd? The fact that Gaza has a border with Egypt? Check a map for G-d's sake. That's exactly what I'm telling you, research the truth. I've only stated facts, which you can verify yourself. Or, as I said, come visit, see for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

deathtokoalas
mmmhmmm. like the fact that gaza is no longer under israeli occupation?

archi2a
Exactly. Do you have any picture of Israeli soldiers stationed in Gaza after the disengagement in 2005?

deathtokoalas
these lines in the sand are based around these arbitrary technicalities, like kids playing dungeons and dragons. as though moving a few feet past some arbitrary border has any meaning to anybody except professional propagandists. and this is something israel has utilized quite loudly: move the soldiers back ten feet, then claim you've withdrawn. the united nations isn't buying it. independent media observers aren't buying it. really, nobody is buying it at all.

you're lucky i've got a headache and am hungry, because i want to be recording guitar tracks right now, but am waiting until midnight for a check to clear to get something delicious to put on my spaghetti...

i've got some pictures of some people being prevented from delivering food & medical supplies. that almost seems like a blockade of some sort. and when you can blockade somebody from all angles that's the same as occupying them.

but, wait, let me guess - that was unnecessary because israel runs a generous welfare stare that provides them with everything they could possibly need. that was a previously stated fact. so, they must have been smuggling in weapons. qed. those terrorists!

archi2a
Yes, of course there's a blockade by sea, to prevent Hamas smuggling weapons from it's main backer: Iran. Anyone who wishes to donate to Gaza can do so through the Red Cross, Israel, or Egypt, but not by sea. And like I said, Egypt controlls its own border with Gaza in the same way.

You can answer when you think more clearly, if you wish.

deathtokoalas
i see. so, gaza is not occupied by israel, israel just controls all movement in and out of the area through direct military force, by means of it's own interests in the region. got it. the difference is absolutely meaningful and abundantly clear.

archi2a
Yes, both Israel and Egypt. And if Hamas didn't rocket israeli population, this blockade wouldn't be necessary. In fact, if there hadn't been for the constant suicide bombing in bars and buses, there would be no security fence either (at least not in the Israeli border).

deathtokoalas
mmmhmmm. so, you would embrace the right of return, then, if the palestinians would only denounce violent tactics?

archi2a
I would embrace a Palestinian state coexisting in peace with the State of Israel.

deathtokoalas
indeed. it's easy to state that once you've built security fences around the area. separate and unequal. but, does that mean you would support an immediate moratorium on settlements in the west bank, to ensure that this theoretical state can exist somewhere in the physical world? do you realize that existing government policy is to eliminate the possibility for such a state in the west bank by cutting into the area piece by piece?

also, supposing that the state of israel continues to refuse to accept the palestinian right of return, how do you propose that palestinian families regain the land that was stolen from them besides using force?

ffs....

http://www.cnet.com/news/bitcoin-mining-malware-reportedly-discovered-at-google-play/

now, every cpu is a possible drone to generate currency from. not only do we have people wasting resources on nothing of any value, we have computers doing the same thing.

i'm not really surprised, although i'll say that i looked at this as a harmless ponzi scheme up to this point, rather than anything legitimately threatening to the real economy. this is providing for a different perspective...

could we just get the point that the problem is exchange value itself and abolish currency already?

a: i think there's this huge problem in the world.
b: really? what's that?
a: well, money is just made out of thin air, like it's some kind of meaningless abstraction, or something.
b: isn't it a meaningless abstraction, though?
a: never mind that.

b: well, what's your solution?
a: i think we should make money out of processor cycles.
b: isn't that out of thin air?
a: never mind that.

a: when it's just made out of thin air like this, it lets banks create these imaginary bubbles that they can get rich off of.
b: but aren't they going to do the equivalent thing, regardless?
a: what do you mean? what is equivalent to making pretend money, stealing it and then charging for it?
b: well, isn't that just a function of their unlimited power? if you were to modify the system and leave them with comparative levels of power, wouldn't they figure something else out? isn't the problem the lack of accountability, rather than the (more or less entirely arbitrary) way the money is created?
a: you surely don't suggest that we should regulate bankers, do you? what are you, some kind of commie nazi globalist fascist?
b: do you even realize that you're completely contradicting yourself?
a: never mind that.

b: have you considered just abolishing money?
a: pft. how do you suppose i exploit people without currency? dumb communists...

there's a couple of interesting points here. it's an intriguing watch, for al jazeera's troll if nothing else. free speech doesn't mean giving equal time to idiots. that's cnn logic.

the hybrid citizen thing is something i've been pushing for a long time with almost nothing but grief from the left, which i've found downright depressing. the identity politics (using vacuous buzz words like "intersectionality" to try and gloss over it's reactionary character) on the left has gotten to the point that it's as bad as the prejudice on the right, with the difference that it seems to represent right-leaning elements from minorities. i think this is an interesting point that has not received enough attention.

one of the prime examples of this is the current president, who speaks more glowingly of reagan than of roosevelt. my memory is failing me - i can't remember if it was obama or somebody else that came right out and stated "i would have rather joined the republican party, but the primaries were full of racists, so the only way i could make a difference was by joining the democratic party". if it wasn't obama, a prominent black leader has stated this. that's not to conflate the left with the democrats; the few people that are reading this semi-regularly know enough not to put that blurred vision in my eyes. nor is to suggest that all black leaders are secretly conservatives, which is equally outlandish. yet, something similar to this seems to be common place. the right simply doesn't accommodate, listen to or take anybody seriously unless they're rich first and white second. that pushes the entire spectrum into would-be leftist movements and has the effect of co-opting them. the result is that you end up with people that would be on the right of the politics of their previous culture speaking their voice within leftist currents in western culture. worse, modern leftist ideology denies any kind of debate on the perspective presented as a type of colonialism. islam, specifically, consequently becomes defined *within the left* by it's rightist and religious tendencies, because they are more numerous and more vocal; marx and bakunin and the rest (who, it must be stated clearly, were all openly racist against everybody) are put aside to provide for first-person perspectives, which itself implicitly enforces the narrative of an "alien viewpoint".

that's as much of a problem as white supremacism is, especially in the context of so many white people not having any kind of real ethnic identity. i'm italian, but the only italian traditions i have are enjoying pizza and spaghetti, neither of which are prepared in ways that are particularly italian, or are ghettoized to italian characteristics at this point. i'm irish, but don't have any irish traditions at all. i'm french, and grew up a few kilometres away from a french speaking area, but don't speak french very well. my culture is described more by weird americanisms like sesame street, the smurfs, michael stipe, jello biafra and cereal for lunch (and eggs for supper). michael jackson told me it didn't matter if i was black or white, and i believed him, because i didn't really understand what the difference was in the first place. growing up, listening to backwards sitars was no stranger than church organs (and perhaps a little less strange, 'cause i understood george harrison better than i understood church hymns). materialism was ubiquitous and normal; christianity was the other. you get the point. i'm white, but i don't understand or connect with white culture, and i'm very much the norm. but, that's a good thing. yet, i get accused by cultural conservatives masquerading on the left (when they ought to be on the right, and would be if the right wasn't blatantly racist) as being some kind of fascist when i point this out, when it's really very much the desired end point of pretty much all leftist thought. there's no room on the left for cultural nationalism. it really can't be synthesized with the abolition of the nation state; it's just antithetical, with no possible compromise hidden away.

so, this idea of hybridizing is the future we really need to be embracing, and we're going to run into opposition from nationalists on both sides, whether these are miscategorizations or not. that doesn't reject the idea of local governance, mind you. it just rejects attaching it to an ethnic character. we've learned that there's no such thing as race, but i don't think people are aware of just how much gene flow exists. this idea of looking at each other as hybrids isn't some empty conceptualization that we need to get abstractly, it's an empirical fact. "i am an arab" or "i am russian", or "i am dutch", are statements that are void of any meaning. but that's not so easy to get across to people that have had their identity programmed into them by the nation-state since their birth.

the other thing i wanted to point out is that i was surprised that the explanation by the young female prof snuck in. the hosts were trying to ignore her. she was spouting bland academic jargon, or some other populist nonsense. but, then it came up, and i smiled. i just want to clarify this further.

racism = unemployment = capitalism.

those equalities are each a little tentative. there's some conditions required. i'm oversimplifying. but it's very accurate.

what that means is that taking this idea of nationalism away from the state is also taking away their time-tested approach of reflecting criticism during economic downperiods, which means unemployment crises in the modern period. bluntly, this is going to get much worse before it gets better, whether any of it makes any sense or not.

stuck in the middle of an alley closing in on all sides (orchestral fade out)

mixes 2-5 have been replaced. mix 6 has been retained to represent the "original track", as it is the closest of the mixes to what i was hearing as i was scoring it. but to keep with my posting format, i need to record today as the day that a new mix, mix 7, was rendered.

mix one, that is the fully modern vst mix, should be up very shortly. i'm toying with upping mixes that contain no guitars and/or mixes that contain only guitars. conversely, i may just upload the cpr file as a part of the download so people can play with it. customizable sound founts may even be the future of music, or some other meaningless vague projection that probably isn't true because people couldn't seriously be bothered.

this is just played through the orchestral preset of bandstand, with the caveat that the drivers are very poor (forcing the machine to miss things faster than an 1/8th note). the bass part was definitely written for electric bass, but it sounds neat through an orchestral haze, doesn't it?

written in early 2001. rendered and modified on apr 27, 2014.

stuck in the middle of an alley closing in on all sides (directmusic mix)

played through winamp on a sb live! through directmusic and captured in a sound editor.

written in early 2001. initially rendered feb 11, 2014. re-rendered due to shift in instrumentation on apr 27, 2014.

stuck in the middle of an alley closing in on all sides (bandstand mix)

i downloaded bandstand for the drums because the way i wrote the track required something that would read general midi through channel 10 and this isn't really how cubase normally works. bandstand is basically a way to play old midi files through vst by emulating a wavetable card in software, so this qualifies as a different card mix.

written in early 2001. initially rendered feb 11, 2014. re-rendered due to shift in instrumentation on apr 27, 2014.

stuck in the middle of an alley closing in on all sides (m-audio mix)

played through winamp on an m-audio delta and captured in a sound editor.

written in early 2001. initially rendered feb 11, 2014. re-rendered due to shift in instrumentation on apr 27, 2014.

stuck in the middle of an alley closing in on all sides (soundblaster mix)

those numbers can get confusing as they change to accommodate new ups. i often number them myself, but i'm not totally sure how many mixes this is going to have, yet. i suppose i'll have to stop at 74 minutes.

this is an update of the primitive card mix to include the new wind section instead of the arpeggiated guitars. they're all updated now except the vst mix, which i'm going to need to do something about the drums as well, on second thought....

there may be a few more, but, as i just said, i don't know the sequence.

when i do, i'll number. and they'll post through rss....

written late 2000 & early 2001. initially rendered feb 11, 2014. re-rendered due to shift in instrumentation on apr 27, 2014.



there may be a few more, but, as i just said, i don't know the sequence.

when i do, i'll number. and they'll post through rss....

stuck in the middle of an alley closing in on all sides (original mix)

played through winamp on a sb live! and captured in a sound editor. this is what the track sounded like on playback as i was composing it. note that the background guitar parts have not yet been converted to wind instruments.

written in early 2001. rendered feb 11, 2014 from the unmodified original midi track. defined as "original" on april 27, 2014.

we're entering an era where remarkably fast computers are basically worthless. there's capitalism going and making no sense again. the kind of stuff you could pick up on the curb (awaiting garbage pickup) could run a space station as a screensaver, but it's last year's model so who wants it?

somebody does.

how much is a brand new ibm with a dual core processor, 200 gb of space and 4 gb of ram worth to you? this is pushing the brink of 32-bit technology. couldn't upgrade it further, without jumping to 64.

how about $50? well, it's only 32 bits, after all! that's soooooo 2000s.......

you'll see 'em on the curb if you look for 'em, no doubt. along with perfectly working televisions that have gone out of fashion due to some kind of geometric obsolescence.

what i'm getting at, though, is that there's a real social revolution underlying this, as the technology works it's way out and into the hands of creative people that can do something unusual and perhaps unexpected with it.

wait for it.