deathtokoalas
the comments here seem to suggest that it's a common view in america that one is not entitled to water unless they are a good slave. bad slaves are best left to dehydrate and die, as they are not producing anything for their masters.

you white racist dipshits are a bunch of fucking niggers.

John Galt
Just pay your bills and the water gets turned on.  Do you somehow feel that you can demand the labor of others without paying for that labor?

deathtokoalas
what does an automated system of water distribution have to do with labour?

and why do you think that automated system has the right to charge a price, or generate a profit?

the real issue is parasitic investors converting humans into profit generating machines, and denying them the necessities of existence if they don't contribute to that extractive process.

so, why do you think that these parasitic investors ought to have the right to force independent human beings into non-consensual labour (which is difficult to even find) in exchange for the things they need to survive?

there's a very simple fix: common ownership. if the people having their water shut off owned the system, nobody would be able to deny them of what they owned, and they would maintain access to what they are entitled to.

the crime here is in private ownership of goods that nobody should have the right to own, or be able to coerce people into forced labour in order to gain access to.

until we collectively pull our heads out of our asses and work towards collectivizing the various ways we produce things, we will continue to live under the slavery of market capitalism that forces us to work or die.

the reality is that the vast majority of employed people do nothing of any substantial value to society, and most of them are going to lose their jobs in their near future to automation.

but, we should look forward to this as a step forward in human progress and seize the opportunity that is finally available to us to truly be free.

but, we have to change how we think about labour, first.

and, john galt is not helping us do that. john galt is keeping us locked in a system that has failed us as workers, artists and inventors - while benefiting a select group of people, most of whom have never done an honest day of hard work in their whole lives.

crowbird213
Never worked, never will. What does your fantasy system do about population explosion by the dumbest among us? Keep feeding them? If the whole world naught into your fantasy, what effect would that have on your lifestyle. As the dumbest continue to over populate, what continued effect would that have on your lifestyle? Are you prepared to meet at the lowest common denominator? Before answering that last one, I want you to get an apartment where all those lovely poor live. Then get back to me.

deathtokoalas
i actually live just about as close to detroit as a canadian possibly could. it's a five minute walk to the tunnel under the detroit river....

i've only been over once, and it was to get my border clearance, which should (finally) show up in the mail this week. and i can state that windsor is not as bad as detroit, but that it does have all of the same underlying economic problems stemming from massive job losses due to massive automation. i live in what is one of the poorest parts of windsor, which is no doubt roughly comparable to some areas in detroit. and, i moved here specifically to exist in the area that has the highest potential to move beyond capitalism in the near future.

starting in august, i will be over to detroit fairly regularly.

the basis of the plotline underlying the film idiocracy is not scientifically valid: there's no correlation between intelligence and genetics. brilliant people will produce dumb children, and dumb people will produce brilliant children. it has more to do with the environment that the children are raised in.

i would consider both of my parents to be stupid people - especially my father, who was a flat out imbecile. but, i was raised with a focus on learning that i've kept up with and have consistently scored in the highest percentiles, while both of my parents would consistently score in the lowest. i'm not a statistical anomaly. you just can't draw those connections, it's a myth.

it's a standard anarchist hope that one of the effects of mass automation and collective ownership of production would be greater community involvement in educating kids (as well as a greater focus on art and education, in general). that kind of freedom from repetitive, dull employment is going to allow parents and other adults to spend more time with their children. to most of us anarchists, this focus on art and education is the entire purpose and value of collectivizing production and resources.

further, the solution to overpopulation issues lies in increasing access to abortion and contraceptives and tearing down religious taboos against their use. it doesn't have anything to do with who owns the resources, it has to do with ensuring that people have access to the tools they need to avoid pregnancies.

intelligence is largely a function of brain plasticity. genetics are certainly passed down, but intelligence is not something that is genetic. there was thinking along those lines in the previous century, but if you move beyond the popular press and popular media and into real journals, you'll see that brain plasticity is now understood as the dominant factor, which places environment as the sole consideration.

this is actually a really important thing to understand in constructing the nature of what human beings actually are. you have to begin thinking of your brain as a ball of plasma that is constructed not by a planned genetic code but by the sum of it's reactions to it's experiences. it's consequently not the same organ that you had when you were born, and it consequently will be an entirely different organ by the time you die. genes code for quantifiable traits, like eye colour and physical sex. despite what the popular press would have you believe, genes don't code for things that arise in our minds like intelligence, sexual orientation or moral value systems.

just as an aside...

the reason people push this "dna is a plan for our lives" hogwash is that it aligns well with the christian idea of "god's plan". it's the genetic equivalent of cavemen hanging out with dinosaurs. the difference is that it cuts a little deeper, and even respectable scientists consequently have difficulty separating the ideas. but the media is relentless in ways that no scientist ever would be because it's seen as bridging a divide.

the reality is that there's absolutely no evidence that there are genes that code for behaviour, cognition, orientation or anything else outside of the basic bio-chemical functioning of our bodies, and anybody that suggests that genes do code for these sorts of things is pushing pseudo-science.

it's chemistry, it's not the magic wand of god.

QuartuvLarry
Collectivism: from the same assholes who brought us the Soviet Union

deathtokoalas
actually, we're the assholes that loudly denounced marx when he was still alive, split the socialist international in half because we thought he was a homicidal lunatic, did everything we could to prevent the russian revolution and then died in several theatres (spain, ukraine, germany amongst others) trying to fight them off when they stamped us out with force.

this report is just bluntly crazy talk. completely disconnected from reality.

seems like a controlled "leak". but, this is smart strategy from the russians.

finally.

"to complete this transition"

kerry knows exactly what's going on. he's in absolute control of the crazies, and he's offering a peaceful transition if the iraqis choose it. otherwise, he'll unleash them on the city.

it's the same kind of tactics that genghis khan used to use.

in truth, they're not seriously planning any kind of military operation against isis. they've been pushing for maliki to get out. it's almost a threat to the iraqi government, but there's not anything the iraqi government can really do about it.

i'm not sure how this media narrative came up. that's a job for a detective of some sort. maybe, some media outlets just jumped to the conclusion, without having a solid understanding of who is funding isis. whatever it is, the state department seems to be running with it.

but, taking it a step back, the idea of providing air support for these groups in syria served exceedingly unpopular, with media images of genocide floating around and headlines asking why the fuck we're supporting al qaeda, all of a sudden. they can't stand up and say they're supporting isis.

so, instead, they say they're sending a few hundred "military planners" to iraq, and talk tough about not taking options off the table. but, it's a smokescreen....

the american goal is to take maliki out because he's too close to iran. the saudis are organizing it, but we're in agreement with the objective.

well, they should have thought about this before they invaded the falklands, eh?

they should seize it from the pope.

i don't think we can talk about hayek being wrong, because his predictions rely on the assumptions of ever increasing state ownership, and the new right stepped in right after he was done rambling and took steps to reduce state ownership, under fears of that serfdom developing (or, more realistically, just using it as an excuse to increase their own power).

when i have this argument, i don't tend to try and convince people that hayek was wrong, i try to point out that my opponents sound like they're stuck in 1973. it's ironic that the right-libertarians tend not to acknowledge that everything they want to see happen has been being put in motion, slowly, by the crony capitalists they're all after. then, when the result is more and more crony capitalism, they call for greater and greater privatization...

so, all you can do is look at the reality and say "well, we've been doing what you want for forty years and the results are exactly what you were trying to prevent. don't you think it's time to try something else, now?".

it creates a sort of irony. we are on the road to serfdom. by eliminating governance as anything but an organization that collects taxes and gives it to military, police and banks, we're recreating a two-class debt-based society that consists primarily of landowners and serfs. rather than push for universal education, we have student loans. rather than keep wages up at levels of inflation, we have a society of people with mortgages.

i'm not sure how hayek would correct the policies of the new right to be more in line with what he was saying.

yeah. that makes it clear who is really running the operation.

again: sneaky russian propaganda. i guess they realize they're not going to convince anybody pushing "conspiracy theories", so they spin the situation to make it look like the americans are incompetent.

in actuality, the americans are refusing to support the maliki government because they want it to be removed by isis. the only uncertainty is the level of co-ordination, but it seems to be rather high.

say what you will about where the republican base stands, but this proves that marketing is meaningless in the face of an educated populace and that those that are focusing on keeping money out of politics are not operating on the principles that were supposed to keep this machine running. they should, instead, be focusing on educating voters.

lol.

yeah, that's exactly what the people that own al jazeera want you to think.

actual funding source = people that own al jazeera.

it's going to be propaganda one way or the other. it's not up to the state to restrict it's propaganda, it's up to parents (and the children themselves) to ensure they get a broader-based education of events.

i don't often "laugh out loud", but finkelstein has a particularly effective style of observational comedy.

i get his argument, but i'm not sure the israelis or americans really want this to end. the israelis have been clear for decades that they're not going to allow a two-state solution. the uncomfortable corollary of this is the question of what exactly they plan on doing with the palestinians is, a question in which nobody wants to exist within the reality where it becomes necessary, and people consequently don't bring themselves to ask. surely, some sort of return will be allowed, or some kind of two-state understanding will be come to! but, neither of these things are going to happen, and the question is consequently pertinent, as difficult as it is.

and i think that's what the economy part of this is about. kerry is trying to set up an apartheid state, and perhaps this is because he knows it is the best thing the palestinians can hope for, and it seems to be being resisted by the israelis. this is implying more drastic answers to the question.

the best case scenario that the israelis will allow appears to be resettlement somewhere outside israel. they seem to want gaza to join egypt, to egypt's continuing refusal. they seem to want to expel the population of the west bank to jordan. integration isn't a serious option.

so, if kerry's plan relies on convincing the israelis to abandon this type of cleansing operation and integrate the palestinians as low wage workers, i don't foresee it being successful.

however, that doesn't make finkelstein's underlying logic go away. the west bank is almost full, and when it becomes full something is going to have to happen to all of these people that are never going home.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7R8GyplfV8

but, aboriginal title is not sovereign land rights. it's just a special type of fief. and, the ruling states that the crown maintains veto over the process, in the end.

they've been doing this for years. it's all a smokescreen. and it's actually directed more at making white settlers feel good about themselves than it is towards any real aboriginal land rights.

of course, some aboriginal activists will want to spin it as positively as they can, under the misguided view that if they push hard enough then the courts will eventually give in. but, that's exactly what the system wants them to do.

just to clarify.

the way this will work now is like this:

1) the developer will seek consent. if granted, it will be recorded forever. this helps developers regarding ambiguities - it constructs a real contract out of the process.

2) if not granted, the province will declare that it's in the public interest and attack the first nations groups for not behaving in the public interest.

the difference is consequently merely that they're forcing the natives to sign contracts, to clarify the process.

so, stephen, is that a four-year plan or a five-year plan?

five-year plan, this time.

i may have voted for hillary ten years ago (i can't actually vote in the united states), and i supported her by default as the more left choice over obama (although there was incredible ignorance on the topic in '07) during the last primaries, but she's since proven herself as right-wing as obama. continuing with hillary would just be extending the bush administration into a fifth term.

she lost last time because the banks wouldn't support her. again: people were easily manipulated into being confused over the establishment candidate. obama was the establishment candidate, and he was run by the establishment to defeat hillary, who was rejected by the establishment.

i'm not expecting that hillary will be the establishment candidate this time, either. yes, she just spent the last six years trying to prove she's right-wing enough for office - and she's convinced me, but i doubt she's convinced wall street. i don't know who wall street is going to run to beat her, but they'll find some puppet or other and construct some outlandish media narrative.

but i'm hoping she's lost or will lose enough support that it won't matter. this is a woman who has been trying to break through the establishment for thirty years. she had some good ideas when she was younger, but she's shown clearly that she's not a reformer or a visionary but somebody that is willing to do exactly what she's told in order to advance her career. if she's the anti-establishment candidate, we're fucked.

rather, i'm hoping that a serious candidate will emerge out of the ground. now, i don't expect most people will learn from the obama debacle, but i was able to clearly see what was coming and so were many others. so, it's no surprise that obama carried the bush legacy forward. if you actually listened to him directly, rather than relying on media, you wouldn't have ever thought otherwise. what that *does* mean is that independent media should be able to play a role in debunking the establishment candidate when it appears.

further, this serious candidate isn't going to appear out of nowhere. the american left needs to get to work. it's running out of time....

i'm really fucking sick of this political message that we need to just accept fat people. i wouldn't care so much if resources were infinite, but they're not. so, markets are not able to solve anything (unless they can make resources infinite). every time a doctor is forced to treat somebody that lives like a fucking animal, it takes away resources from somebody that is more entitled to them. i'd be just as happy to round all these fucking pigs up, put them in a rocket and eject them into space.

it's true that people have a very hard time keeping the weight off. the report tries to gloss over this with the politically correct bullshit that it's a "mix of biological and social factors". what that means is that people go back to their old shitty lifestyles again, and deal with the consequences over again. the fact that they were able to lose weight in the first place clearly demonstrates that we're dealing with lifestyle and not biology. going back to it just means relapsing.

the conclusion is not that it's impossible to lose weight, but that most north americans are disgusting, vile creatures that cannot take care of their own health and deserve to be ground up and fed to cattle. that's the uncomfortable message that isn't getting out, and that reports like this are trying to obscure.

stop the bullshit. fat=lazy. deal with it.

"they eat more than their fair share, they waste medical services.....they take up two seats on the bus...."

applauds

if only more people would just cut them off...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v97JhEz4ZPQ

it actually sounds very similar to the ideas put forward by the stephen harper government.

deathtokoalas
public castration is a good idea, sometimes.

Kriegsmarschall Grim

Who are you suggesting be castrated?

deathtokoalas

that racist, murdering, scumbag piece of shit, obviously

there's lots of fun things you can do with a waste of oxygen like that, but it should be public and horrific to act as a disincentive for other dipshits that think he has good ideas.

you could disembowel him in public, or feed his carcass to vultures in the town center, or feed him, live, to hungry pigs.

whatever it is, the key needs to be to demonstrate that he doesn't have good ideas and there are consequences for adopting his mentality.

we need to get tougher on nazis, not continue spewing a bunch of liberal nonsense about freedom of expression.

Vinum Sabbathi

that doesn't make you very much different from the actual "nazis". Also how is Varg a "nazi"? Because you disagree with him? You must be "open-minded liberal" or something. 

deathtokoalas

naw, i'm a communist-anarchist that isn't delusional enough to equate hate speech with free speech. these barbaric lunatics will kill if they're not killed, and the general society needs to stop being naive about it. what i'm proposing is the only kind of message that they're ever going to understand. he needs to be made an example of.

this guy's politics are well known. he's killed people for not being satanist enough, and justified it by citing his barbaric value system. his musical movement is openly anti-semitic and openly white supremacist. he's been involved in violent acts of terrorism that have specifically targeted religious groups. the russian government would not be lenient on this guy, and the french government should not be lenient on him, either.

i don't expect that they will give him what he deserves, but they really should.

this isn't about economics or social policy or anything that can be fixed with different approaches. its just violent hate, drawn out of an ideology of immorality, and it needs to be stopped by any means necessary.

i see the sentence has come down and it's a fine. that's bullshit.

i spend far more time criticizing liberalism than identifying as a liberal, but as an anarchist i do have some overlap. while i do support individual rights up to a point, i believe society has the right to protect itself from these kinds of people and that takes precedent over individual rights. as this is purely a speech issue, i believe he should have been removed from society. the anarchist literature would refer to this as ostracizing him, and could mean anything from denying him the right to work to physically expelling him.

ideally, they should have sent him to siberia.

(several deleted posts)

deathtokoalas

i love how the responses i've deleted indicate that it was alright to kill the guy because he wasn't masculine enough, thereby demonstrating my point that this movement is driven by an ideology of immorality. you can't reason with these kinds of extremists, you just have to eliminate them.

"you killed him?"

"well, yeah. he was a fag."

"well, ok then."

fucking idiots...

eugenics never stopped happening. they just stopped telling us about it.

gee. is it possible that they're actually shutting down smaller banks on the order of the larger ones?

see, that's what "regulators" actually do.

this is mostly nonsense. the fraser institute is considerably to the right of the existing government, and does not influence it much at all. in fact, it's constantly attacking it for not adhering to market principles. i don't agree with the fraser institute's politics, but they are right to point out that stephen harper is a hypocrite and a fraud when it comes to pushing free market policies.

this is one example of a very typical fraser institute article about stephen harper:
http://www.fraserinstitute.org/research-news/news/commentaries/The-Harper-government-s-crony-capitalism/

further, the article is presented to make it seem like the customer in the end is the united states. this is entirely false. the various pipelines under consideration are all being built entirely for export to china.

this is the kind of conspiratorial, ignorant nonsense that belongs in the soft-left press, like the huffington post.

the americans have been doing everything they can to ensure instability in the region. they just want them to keep fighting. divide and conquer.

the saudis seem to want to eliminate the shia and annex the arab-speaking areas (maybe not literally, but the goal seems to be to set up a puppet state to the gulf council). they night be in favour of this in the short term, but it's inevitable to lead to a desire for further expansion. an independent kurdistan would almost certainly end up aligned with iran. it's not their focus....for now.

this would benefit iran, as it would create a more serious bridge.

that makes netanyahu's statements....curious.

it doesn't matter. i've stated repeatedly that turkey, a nato member, is the most important american ally in the region. they'd start bombing the day they declare independence.

not happening.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/29/israel-prime-minister-kurdish-independence

the ironic thing about the spooky satan-worshipping side of the neo-pagan movement is that they interpret the old pagan gods the way that christians demonized them, rather than the way they were worshipped by actual pagans.

odin was a good guy. wise. kind. generous. more like jesus than satan, actually. maybe a little less naive, but no less altruistic in his motives.

to a medieval christian landowner, however, any competition with the church was satanic, by definition. i mean, you weren't even allowed to read the bible back then. it was just madness. a jesus by any other name is just another representation of satan. it challenges the monopoly. so, it all got perverted and twisted around. and, now these kids are just picking up the bullshit out of historical ignorance. in reality, it's all just christian propaganda...

you see the same thing with these anti-illuminati groups. the illuminati were the good guys. they were into liberty and equality. but, that meant opposing the church, because the church wasn't into liberty and equality, it was into feudalism and ignorance. so, the church did what it does to any person or organization that challenges it (odin, scientists, jews) - it declared it driven by satan. from this, we get the nefarious nwo that wants to take over the world and enslave us all. but it's never been anything more than christian propaganda designed to stigmatize a political movement that challenged it's power. it's just morphed from a right-wing catholic scare tactic to a right-wing military-industrial scare tactic. the united nations is really the only global body that offers the slightest bit of competition to american hegemony, which is why it's loathed so deeply by the people that make real decisions and have real financial power within the united states. a true global order would have to decentralize power from the united states, by necessity - by definition. the conspiracy is actually the conspiracy theory, itself; the anti-illuminati and anti-nwo propaganda is being spread by the status quo in order to maintain it.

if you strip out the anachronistic warrior culture, which is just no longer applicable to a civilization at the stage we're now at, actual odin worship would not be much different than the core ideas present in british liberalism. it would uphold fairness and honour in the face of a strong emphasis on individual sovereignty. a random observer would be forgiven for mistaking it for the kind of advanced form of christianity that most people adhere to nowadays - the golden rule minus the hubris.

people may have observed me running at full pace down the street today while pushing a shopping cart (it was starting to rain), and, if they did, they were no doubt struck by my wanton disrespect for rules and flat out rebellious behaviour.

yes, i was told not to run with a shopping cart, and warned of the dangers of doing so. yet, i heed the laws of no man!

in other news, the library was closed today, and i wasn't happy about it.

correcting the time machine, again

so, i've uploaded those two files one last time. the bass wasn't coming across well on low end equipment, which is sort of essential stylistically. i had to cut the parts up and resequence them all, but it bounces now...

uploading the time machine to thru (original uploads)

i'm putting mixes together for "singles", but, ultimately, the thru mix is one of two mirror images i'm working on. meaning this is this version's home. meaning it's done, now.

written in early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. this render was initially created on june 23, 2014 and updated on june 28, 2014.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-time-machine

written in early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. this render was initially created on june 28, 2014 and updated later on that day.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-time-machine-5

the time machine (vst mix) (correction of original upload)

this is the vst mix, which hooks up the constructed score to a series of vst instruments through the magic of midi sequencing and outputs the notes through various effects processors to create something approaching the sound of a live band.

written in early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. this render was initially created on june 28, 2014 and updated later on that day.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/vst-mix-2

the time machine (soundblaster mix) (correction of original upload)

ok, so that's done now. the thru entry will come in on rss.

i had to clean up the drums a bit because the effects i had on them were saturating the mix. it's better now.

written in early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. this render was initially created on june 23, 2014 and updated on june 28, 2014.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/soundblaster-mix-3

the time machine (vst mix) (original upload)

this is getting close to a final mix of the renaissance guitar piece i've been orchestrating this month. it's arranged here in a heavy drum 'n' bass mix. so, play it through a subwoofer if you've got one. influences on this mix are of the warp records variety: aphex twin, autechre, squarepusher. keep in mind it was written and first imagined this way back in '01, when that sound was kind of winding down, and starting to morph into post-rock via tortoise and do make say think, which is also stylistically present in the mix. but i need to stress this is fundamentally renaissance music. i'm also trying to get a grungy guitar sound at points, which will come out clearer in the final mix with live guitars (the guitars here are played by a sample-based midi sequencer through some amp simulators - they sound good, but they're not live). the drums are also written with a heavy phil collins influence, of all things.

so, this is warp records + do make say think + phil collins + swans + renaissance music. an eclectic mix, i might say, that i'm sort of proud of. give it a listen....

written in early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. this render was initially created on june 28, 2014.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/vst-mix-2

it seems as though the conservatives may be planning to stage an attack before the next election.

anybody telling you that al qaeda is collaborating with iran neither understands al qaeda (who are violently opposed to shiite iran) nor iran (the idea that iran would launch a terrorist attack in canada is laughable). but, the sitting government doesn't have a lot of respect for your intelligence.

if they try it, make sure it backfires, eh?

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/06/16/irans-anti-canada-rhetoric-has-officials-on-guard-for-possible-ottawa-area-terror-attacks/

i realize this is probably hot air. but the idea that iran would attack canada is a laughable proposition that anybody with a cursory understanding of the country would not take seriously. if anything materializes, it is clear from the start that it is staged for the upcoming 2015 election cycle. and, this government in power is not an honest one, so it is not in any way beneath them.

i would not expect that canadians would respond violently or with a desire for vengeance. canadians are isolationists. i expect canadians would be thrust into a crisis on national identity that would more stringently reject the more assertive tone the sitting government has been pushing out of us.

years before 9/11, dubya famously claimed he wasn't a nation builder. indeed, he wasn't. canadians are nation builders, not soldiers. this would be a total shot to the foot.

....which is why i'm almost welcoming it. ottawa could lose a church or two, i just hope nobody gets hurt.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/06/16/irans-anti-canada-rhetoric-has-officials-on-guard-for-possible-ottawa-area-terror-attacks/

the russian propaganda is so sneaky, the way it plays off american messaging. this is designed to build up opposition to isis, by presenting a military option against it - knowing all the time that the american policy is to quietly support isis through saudi contacts as it overthrows the "lost" iranian-backed iraqi government.

the americans would be more like to provide air support for these guys in iraq, as they've been trying to set up the circumstances to allow in syria. but, see, the russians want you to oppose this, because they know that's game over for their interests in the region.

but, it doesn't challenge the american lie, it takes it to it's logical conclusion. sneaky.

but iraq just elected this guy last month. it's true that the american rhetoric on democracy rarely approximates anything approaching reality, but it's really absurdly off the wall to ask a government with a weeks old mandate to resign in the face of a terrorist insurgency.

what's clear, though, is that the reason the americans are not providing iraq with weapons to fight off the terrorists is that they'd prefer that the terrorists eject the government, because it's perceived as too close to iran. the rest of this is some kind of twisted mafia charade presenting itself as political theatre.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGHiecfrCGQ

yeah, more or less.

iraq just elected this guy. the american rhetoric on democracy rarely approximates anything approaching reality, but it's really off the wall to ask a government with a weeks old mandate to resign in the face of a terrorist insurgency.

10muji
America goes by the principle " with great power, comes great responsibility " It then imposes what it think's is the correct way to go on every1 else.

deathtokoalas
i really don't think they operate on any principle at all except the one that might makes right. in this case, they seem to want the guy out simply because he's not obeying their orders. it doesn't hurt that the saudis think he's a heretic, but it's just mafia bullshit at the nitty gritty.

10muji
In other words, America feels " It's time for a puppet change "

the americans are planning an invasion, it's very clear - it was the purpose of distracting the russians in ukraine, and it's been expanded to an anti-maliki operation in iraq as well. this is about replacing russian/iranian influence with saudi/american influence. it's the real thing. it can't end with another outcome.

i just want to get a bit more in depth, though...

it's obviously incomparably worse than ukraine, but it's the same kind of irreversible pandora's box. the assad people understand that they're fighting a saudi invasion being driven by a ruthless ideology, and that a cease-fire is just an opportunity for them to regroup and replan. it follows that it is not only the case that the syrian government cannot accept a ceasefire, but it is the case that it cannot restrain from escalating. they've already begun bombing iraq, and they have to eventually begin bombing the saudis. that's the possible serious crisis point, as it brings everybody in, but it's irreversible.

thought experiment: suppose assad can theoretically expel the saudis from the country (and they're centered in iraq, now, remember). can we expect assad to quietly rebuild syria? no, because it understands that the saudis would be planning a new invasion. assad has no option but to seek to control iraq first and ultimately attempt to depose the saudi theocracy.

it follows that the americans have to remove assad. and it's been clear for months that they're preparing us for the action, which will neither be quick nor clean.

note: i thought this was june 5, 2014, rather than june 5, 2013. it doesn't change my comment, but it takes it to a slightly different context.

i'm a little behind on my playlist, but it's interesting to come across this after the fact and understand it as pure propaganda. in fact, maliki won the election by a healthy margin, and as a consequence is being forcefully driven out of power by a coalition of western-backed terrorists that includes qatar. this is what we call bringing democracy to the middle east...

btw, this is my walkaway conclusion from researching my diet and trying to be a little bit more healthy...

"eat food. not too much. mostly plants."

this is more or less how i've lived my whole life. i'm more confirming my existing philosophy than deriving a new one...

...and i don't think that's an oversimplification. it's not that it doesn't matter what you eat, it's that it only matters in relation to how your body *stores* what you consume, which is what happens when you eat *too much*. so, processed carbs are worse for your heart than red meat, but it's not because of how your body metabolizes it but because of how your body stores the fat. there's a growing problem with people that replaced too much red meat with too much processed carbs. basically, they didn't grasp that the real problem is that their lifestyles have them eating far too much relative to the amount of exercise they get. in the end, your body stores processed carbs as badly as or worse than it stores red meat and the same problems end up happening; replacing too much of one thing with too much of another doesn't solve anything.

i don't think studies have been done on it, but i would suspect that you'd see the same problems amongst people that eat thousands of calories worth of fruit and vegetables on a daily basis. if you eat so much fruit that your body is forced to store it, stuff starts getting clogged....

so, if the problem is the way your body stores fuel (perhaps we're not really evolved to store fuel as fat as well as we could be), then the solution is to reduce the amount of fuel it's storing by reducing diet as much as possible, or burning it all off. it's less about *what goes in* and more about *how much gets stored*.

it follows that a bagel that contains 15% of your daily carb intake is absolutely fine if it's also 50% of the carbs you eat through the day. and etc.

this is not a problem for me to accomplish because i don't follow set eating times. i follow my stomach, and eat when i'm hungry. i really couldn't imagine eating thrice daily - that strikes me as pure insanity. twice, at most....

but, extrapolating what i've learned, that's maybe the best advice there is: don't eat unless you're hungry.

the scary implication that nobody wants to come out and state, but everybody is dancing around, is that this wasn't an accident at all.

i do need to reiterate that life really is almost absolutely perfect for me right now. if i could define an existence for myself in a computer model, it would be almost exactly the life that i'm living right now. excluding border papers, there's nothing i want that i don't have. i have unrestricted free time. i'm getting some work done for the first time in many years. i legitimately couldn't be happier.

i continue to have these bizarrely vivid recurring dreams about lions and tigers. it's been going on for years - decades, maybe - but it comes and goes. recently, it's been really intense....

the plot is some variation on how i'm supposed to get used to them and stop being silly because the idea that they're going to eat me is just me being paranoid, but me knowing better, and escaping moments before they turn on me, which always "excites them" into eating some loved one, which i get the blame for. further, the dream is almost always set in the south gloucester ghetto/project/neighbourhood i grew up in.

i'm convinced i had some kind of traumatic childhood experience with some kind of large cat that lived around the corner on hunter's way, near the community pool. i don't know if it was ever confirmed that there was a large cat living there or not, but i know exactly what house it was. it's very vivid. i was going out to go swimming on my little bicycle (i couldn't have been more than ten years old), and i looked up and saw a bengal tiger walk by. i was absolutely nerd enough of a kid to know the precise difference between a bengal tiger, a snow leopard, an african lion, a puma, a serval, an oceolot, a black jaguar, a cheetah, etc. i had taken out a book from the library that categorically listed every known species of cat (including the smaller species of african and asian wild cats) and studied it pretty closely, so i would have been able to (and for the most part am still able to) identify just about any species of cat i could've seen with a high degree of accuracy.

it didn't seem to see me. but, i sure saw it, and i got on my bike and rode home and didn't go near the pool the rest of the summer due to a very intense and very real fear of the bengal tiger in the house on hunter's point. but every time i explained it, people thought i just had an overactive imagination and was seeing things.

the tiger is usually a lion nowadays, and the place in the neighbourhood shifts dramatically from dream to dream, but i just can't shake this one. and it's not fun to wake up knowing that you just escaped a hungry pack of lions or tigers that you know is about to consume your sister and/or your mom....

the time machine (soundblaster mix) (original upload)

this is the crux of what this thing is going to sound like, i just need to improve the sound fonts and clean the mix up.

this is a temporary mix, built up in noteworthy, that suffers from a slightly blurry drum sound due to everything being run through channel 10 in the soundcard synthesizer. specifically, i'd like to turn the snare down (because it blurs the toms) but it doesn't seem to be possible to do this. obviously, i'll want to fix this as i build more sophisticated mixes of the track. however, this is what the track sounded like on playback as i was actually arranging it....

written in early 2001. drastically rearranged in mid june, 2014. this render was initially created on june 23, 2014.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/soundblaster-mix-3

cops came and went. these ones seemed a little less like your typical cops, and understood the premise a little bit better.

it was pointed out that i'd have a better chance of ensuring a diagnosis if i'm able to build a relationship with an md. this is more or less what i was thinking, it's why i went through the process of seeing a shrink in the first place, but the idea of trying to get a family doctor to build a diagnosis isn't something that crossed my mind. well, it's an avenue to explore, and it would be imprudent not to explore it.

again, they seemed surprised by my level of rational thinking. they weren't really expecting me to agree with them and were visibly shaken by how easily i agreed that the suggestion was reasonable. they seem to have been expecting me to resist somehow.

so, i have an alternate plan i'll want to put into motion in the next few days. but i want to be clear that the fundamental situation remains unaltered.

It was on the islet of Stac an Armin, St Kilda, Scotland, in July 1844, that the last great auk seen in the British Isles was caught and killed. Three men from St Kilda caught a single "garefowl", noticing its little wings and the large white spot on its head. They tied it up and kept it alive for three days, until a large storm arose. Believing that the auk was a witch and the cause of the storm, they then killed it by beating it with a stick. It is the only British bird made extinct in historic times.

just slept about 26 hours or so, waking up only briefly to eat and check social media. it's my neck again. i think it's ok, now.

i can't really pin a cause. it's probably a culmination of things. i went for a long walk on friday morning with a bag full of compost, but i really felt fine when i came back. i feel comfortable in my decision to do so, but i don't deny that there's been a little stress about deciding to end my own life in a few months, conditional on circumstances. a lot of coffee. lack of sleep. the piece i've been practicing has got me really tense, with clenched teeth and everything - this is i think is the primary culprit, the others are only secondary. and nicotine (i'm still on target, but cracked a bit last week). guess i just burnt out.

i'm alert now and hoping to finish the sequencing on the track by the end of the night.

my neck seized up again a few hours ago, which forced me to sleep early. i'll be working out the drums this morning.

doesn't matter if it's true or not.

http://stupidevilbastard.com/2004/11/man_tries_to_convert_lions_to_jesus_gets_bitten/

so, it's entirely predictable that sending in military thugs and shelling apartments is going to create resentment and strengthen resistance...

the question, now, is if reconciliation is possible or if the crackdown has permanently pulled the region out of kiev's sphere of governance.

bottom line: somebody ought to chop off poroshenko's penis to prevent him from thinking with it. this is just utter tactical stupidity, from any perspective.

so, it's entirely predictable that sending in military thugs and shelling apartments is going to create resentment and strengthen resistance...

the question, now, is if reconciliation is possible or if the crackdown has permanently pulled the region out of kiev's sphere of governance.

bottom line: somebody ought to chop off poroshenko's penis to prevent him from thinking with it. this is just utter tactical stupidity, from any perspective.

hey, listen - reality is that society is running just fine without me, and that the challenges i'm facing are not unique to me, and will become increasingly prevalent over the course of the next generation. youth unemployment in this region is pushing 30%. there are places in europe where it's pushing 50%. this is a structural level of unemployment that is likely with us permanently moving forwards. the solution is not to magically create jobs where no jobs are necessary, to dig ditches and fill them in as the old saying goes, it's to come to terms with the reality that we've already reached the technological requirements of full communism and adjust the social system to account for that reality. my generation is just unfortunate enough to be on the bleeding edge of it, where the shifts in technology are ahead of the shifts in mass consciousness. there's no future in western society beyond that realization, but there's a lot of social norms and traditions pushing against coming to terms with it. the fact is we live in a reality where we're increasingly only able to employ a small percentage of the population, and the rest is not going to have any option but to live on the wealth that the machines create, in one way or another.

there's a popular misconception that we've lost all the jobs to offshoring, but if you actually look at statistics and ask economists about it the truth will come out that the largest share of job losses are due to mechanization. mexico didn't steal your job, robots did. the robots and artificial intelligences are just getting better. i've seen a number of articles recently asking if doctors are about to be replaced by smart phones. well, i think we'll always have a place for doctors and surgeons especially - but the workload may decrease dramatically. a "family doctor" may soon be a thing of the past. the classrooms of the near future will probably not have teachers in them. &etc.

as all these shifts in technology create ever increasing levels of unemployment, we're going to have to adopt ideas like job sharing. to an extent, we're already there, with the ubiquity of part-time employment. but, again, the social system hasn't adjusted to it. perhaps, more problematically, workers movements haven't adjusted to it. demanding higher wages seems progressive, but it's masking a larger problem. from a quality of life perspective, working part-time is far better than working full-time, is it not? that's less work and more play, which ought to be the goal (i understand it isn't currently). but, it requires structural adjustments like guaranteed incomes to fill in the holes. otherwise, we need to turn the machines off - or adopt ghastly measures to decrease the population.

these are realities that we all need to come to terms with. more and more people are going to be living the way i am, out of necessity, because a prole has nothing to sell but labour, and if capital isn't buying labour then the prole simply doesn't have a way out. i'm just a little ahead of the curve in understanding these things.

the only reason it's not hitting us right now with mass movements is that there's so much wealth tied up in the older generation. i didn't get the worst hand in life, but i didn't get the best one, either. there's thousands and thousands of people in my age group in my situation, but they have family they can live with, so they're not in dire straits.

i mean, i'm sure you've seen these self checkout machines at grocery stores.

consider the consequences if every grocery store, big box chain and retail outlet let their cashiers go as obsolete in the face of new technology. well, it's gonna happen....

lol.

some cops showed up today to talk about my suicidal facebook messages. but, the context in the messages is very clear - i'm not currently suicidal. such an autonomous decision is dependent upon the outcome of the odsp evaluation in september. i was posting to prepare others for the eventuality. further, while i'm fairly certain of the outcome, i'm actually holding out hope that it will be extended. how can i be suicidal if i'm mutedly optimistic about the future, and merely planning for the worst case should it actualize?

i've already posted my logic.

it's always interesting explaining my coldly rational, detached perspective to people that seem to think they have the ability to magically project their desires onto reality.

but, you're giving up too soon! you're young!

it's not a question of giving up. that's a subjective perspective. i'm about analyzing data and coming to objective conclusions. my attitude doesn't affect the data, which clearly demonstrates that my chances of finding employment are exceedingly low. it has nothing to do with how i feel, it's just what the data states.

but, you haven't tried.

sure i have. that's how i built up my data set. why try further when the data projects a high probability of failure? it would be *this* behaviour that would be insane.

but that was in ottawa.

the conditions here are worse than in ottawa. that's why i moved here. it follows that i should spend even less time trying here.

you're just focusing on numbers and statistics, you just need to think positively and...

no. i need to focus on data. your arguments are not convincing, because you're not challenging the data, you're merely asking me to ignore it in favour of magical thinking.

*frown*

i tried to explain it, but they didn't get it. they did, however, convince me to allow a nurse to come later today to talk to me.

btw: the correct mathematical argument against my data-driven deductions is to question whether employment data is dependent. if each process is independent of the next, my conclusions collapse.

i think there is some argument for this. in fact, it even follows that if each process is independent then the probability of eventually finding a job approaches one (because any non-zero probability implies at least one success in infinitely many trials).

however, i'm convinced that the challenges are related to personal character traits, which makes each trial dependent on the last.

i can hear the roaches scratching around behind the barriers i put up. i guess that means they're working. but it'd be nice if they'd get the hint and go away, now.

this is such bullshit.

they're keeping the fisherman out because they're doing military testing, possible even testing nukes.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/8679/20140617/pacific-ocean-tiny-island-focus-of-commercial-fishing-ban.htm

obviously. that's why they're supporting isis.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/19/obama-wants-maliki-out/

it's saudi money and american weapons. no us airstrikes are likely.

the iraqis played both sides and got burned.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iraq-urges-us-airstrikes-as-insurgents-press-offensive/2014/06/19/51b0ef07-f5cd-4eb5-8260-1ab75c2d2ee4_story.html

head cleared, decision clarified, expecting the worst, resolved to get as much music done between now and september as i can.

that means i'm not thinking about it between now and then or wasting my time with it.

i just want to get the logic down somewhere for when (if) they find the body.

1) it does not appear as though i am going to have my disability renewed.
2) therefore, i will be unable to pay rent.
3) therefore, i will lose my studio. again.
4) i have nowhere else to store my studio.
5) therefore, i will have no way to save my studio if i am unable to pay rent to house it.
6) humans need a purpose to continue to exist and whither away without one. i have categorically rejected most accepted purposes for existence as not interesting (children, "career", partner, family, etc.). the one purpose i have is recording.
7) therefore, losing my studio would also be losing my purpose to exist.
8) therefore, i would no longer have a will to exist.
9) therefore, suicide will become desirable.

note that, questions of the desirability of labour aside, the chances of me finding employment here or elsewhere are approaching zero. i haven't had a job of any sort since 2011 and i haven't had a full time job since 2008. i have also consistently been fired from every job i've had since 2008 for being unable to show up on time. i see no use in pretending that i will be able to support myself when the evidence is abundantly clear that i will not be able to.

it follows that i'm better off maximizing the recording time i have left than i am wasting my time trying and failing to find a job i'd be fired from within a few weeks, anyways.

...or neuroticizing over a way out. there isn't one.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/julian-baggini-suicide-can-be-a-rational-choice-1912358.html

i've decided to wait.

if i only have a few months left, i don't want to waste it chasing around doctors.

i went back to the clinic to get a second rec and they suggested i go to a "crisis center" at the hospital. i'm debating it, and leaning towards doing it now rather than waiting for the decision and doing it then.

i don't know what the right diagnosis is either, but i'm certain that it's abundantly clear to any person that can analyze evidence that i'm not capable of or interested in participating in society, and anybody denying that clear and obvious truth must have a political motive in front of him.

bluntly: if you actually think i'm capable of properly functioning in this world, you're either stupid or ignorant of the facts.

i'm sick of struggling. if the system doesn't make the right decision, people are going to get hurt.

a life spent working is a life that is not worth living.

if this happens (and i'm hoping things are worked out, but, if odsp throws me off, i will almost certainly choose to end my life or do something that will place me in a jail cell for a long time), you need to think of it in terms of me ending my suffering. it will be for the best.

one day, people will look back at the barbarity of market societies and canonize those who resisted. hopefully, through suicide, as an act of defiance, i can provide inspiration for future generations.

well, that went terribly. and, all the peace and stability and happiness i've been feeling over the last few months just went up in a smoke of rage and anger and hopelessness.

some ideas floating through my mind.

1) show up at the psychiatrist's office with a butcher knife and saw my foot off in front of him. manipulating you? want me to prove otherwise, you producerist piece of fucking shit? how about we get your license taken away? ruining your career would give me more pleasure than my foot does. fucker. die. die. die.

2) taking baseball bats to the odsp building and just hanging out outside until the cops show up, and then admit it. when they release me, do it again. then again. and again. and again....

the bottom line that these fuckers have to come to is this: they can either sign my disability papers, or they can watch me kill myself and/or put me in jail, because i'm not participating in this society. it's a threat, but it's not an empty one. i'm at the end. there's no compromising. no trying to fit in. i'm on the fucking terrorists' side. this society needs to be incinerated. i'd rather bomb a walmart than work in one. and i'd rather read in a jail cell in peace than be forced to participate in the market.

Paul Walker
why does the Iraqi girl at 1.53 look European?

deathtokoalas
as others have pointed out, there is a continuum of ethnic iranians through the north of syria and iraq, into iran and north into afghanistan. but, it's an error to suggest that indo-europeans (indo-germanic isn't a good term,for historical reasons) are inherently light skinned or connected to europe. a substantial portion of indo-european speakers today live in india, and it's widely accepted that their origins are somewhere in central asia. that is to say that the child does not "look european". she is simply light-skinned.

precise kurdish origins remain difficult to establish, but they speak an iranian language and it's generally thought that they descend from the earliest iranian invasions into the region. some people suggest they may be related to a group of people historically known as "medes", but this is mostly speculation. regardless, something along those lines is roughly correct. that places their entrance into the region, probably from the northeast, at roughly 1000 years before the common era. stated tersely: light-skinned people have continuously occupied the north of syria and iraq for roughly 3000 years. further, to their slight north, exist armenians and various caucasian groups, whom are also all light-skinned and have been in the region even longer.

it is true that ancient mesopotomian groups (like babylonians) were semitic, and probably of tanned complexion. however, they never expanded far outside of the fertile crescent; light-skinned ancestors of armenians and what we today call christian assyrians (like urartians) existed in the north of syria and iraq.

the oldest group known to modern iran are called elamites and are thought to have probably looked like some modern indians (they may have spoken a language related to the dravidian languages, but this is far too difficult to reconstruct with certainty). these groups were slowly displaced by invading iranians over a period of roughly 1000 years. starting about 500 years before the common era, light-skinned iranians were the dominant cultural and political force through syria, iran and iraq for another thousand years. the struggle between first greece and then rome and persia existed in the context of white emperor against white emperor.

the seventh century saw a series of catastrophic wars between persia and rome that left both of them unable to defend their borders. this allowed some muslim conquerors to "liberate" the semites in the south of iraq and what was then called judea from persian and roman rule, respectively, and put them under the control of a growing center of power in the city of medina. starting around the year 700, waves of arab settlers began to migrate into areas that muslim warlords had conquered, from both persia and rome. the persians were conquered entirely, and the romans never fully recovered. multiple waves of turkish and mongolian invasions followed, but they were largely assimilated. this constructs the broad boundaries of the existing ethnic divisions in the middle east.

eventually, the british carved an irrational state out of the ottoman empire that tried to create a coalition between a northern iranian region and a southern arabic region, but it's perhaps naive to suggest this was done out of ignorance.

so, the short answer is that light-skinned people are actually indigenous to this region, which is historically connected to central asia, and the typical darker-skinned "arabic-looking" person is in fact only really indigenous to the arabian peninsula.

(deleted)

deathtokoalas
the indigenous people of that region were asssyrians, before the kurds helped carry out a genocide of them around the first world war. the kurds are thought to be indigenous to the zagros mountains.

however, there is no historical record of the kurdish people before the dawn of islamic imperialism. it's not difficult to deduce that they've probably been around the mountains for a very long time, but it is not possible to connect them to a past ethnic group. medes have been presented as a good guess, but it's ultimately without compelling evidence.

the kurds could, for example, descend from a group of iranian migrants fleeing the islamic advance, or they could be a late migration of alans or ...

i haven't read that text, but i've read enough on the topic to know that what the genetic analysis has demonstrated is that the people of the region demonstrate a genetic continuity and similarity to their neighbours. that is to say that kurds are genetically similar to assyrians, northern arabs and armenians. that doesn't do anything to prove origin, it just proves that the groups have mixed over the period they've been in contact. the same kind of analysis will state that the welsh and english are genetically similar, but we have historical records that tell us they have different origins.

(deleted)

deathtokoalas
i'm going to respond to this and then block the commenter, because i'm not interested in the kind of language being used. my primary source was cavalli-sforza many years ago, updated along the way with various articles that i didn't think to document, as i wasn't expecting to be asked for sources on youtube 15 years later. but, i need to stress that i haven't just looked at results of studies, i've analysed the math underlying them.

the indigenous people of the area - assyrians - are not closely related to southern arabs at all. they show a stronger genetic resemblance to jews, but are also the most distinct group in the region. some people will suggest that, due to religious differences (being christian in a sea of muslims) there has been less genetic mixture between assyrians and other groups and this is why assyrians seem to demonstrate a bottleneck. however, it should be noted that the aforementioned genocide no doubt substantially reduced the amount of genetic diversity present in the assyrian population, making it difficult to come to meaningful conclusions as to how widespread the genetic flow was amongst the assyrians, who live continuously in the area for 3000 years before they were mass slaughtered, and the people around them.

the bigger point i'm trying to get across is that what these genetic studies have demonstrated is not that whatever group is from whatever area, but that groups that live in close proximity tend to demonstrate dramatic gene flow. assyrians, armenians, kurds and a number of the turks of the region are genetically indistinguishable from each other. there is no way to use genetics to demonstrate a person's exact ethnicity, and groups that live in close proximity are not genetically distinct from each other.

it was initially thought that genetics would help us classify races. instead, what genetics has taught us is that there is no biological basis for the concept of race. it is simply not a scientific concept.

worse, you seem to be making a very elementary error in the way you're interpreting the data. i don't know if your source makes the same error or not, but if it doesn't then you're misunderstanding it. you're not just confusing genetic continuity with ethnic continuity, which a stigma has not built up against yet but is wrong nonetheless, but you're making the massive faux pas of confusing linguistic continuity with genetic continuity, which i tried to correct the original posters on. finding that skeletons in the region have dna that is similar to modern kurdish dna is not demonstrating kurdish-speaking continuity or kurdish-identifying continuity. it is merely demonstrating genetic continuity. this could, and in fact usually does, happen when a group of invading people interbreed with a dominant indigenous group, as likely happened when the kurds moved from (probably, not certainly) the zagros mountains into the region. i gave you an example of this phenomenon in britain - english speakers are predominantly celtic-british, like the welsh, despite speaking a language and identifying as an ethnic group that invaded from germany. you haven't demonstrated anything about where the kurds came from, you've just demonstrated that they had sex with the people that lived there when they got there.

with that, i now block.

(deleted)

deathtokoalas
he got one in before i blocked...

i repeat that there was no mention of the kurds until the arab invasion. kurd is actually an arab word that means something like "wanderer". it would be difficult for greeks and sumerians to describe an ethnic group named by arab invaders. so, i'm not going to ask for a source because i already know it's bullshit. if he's not just making it up, he's certainly drawing on a source that tries to extrapolate kurdish history backwards by identifying them with other groups. but as i've stated, that can't be done through more than crude guesswork, because the term is not indigenous in origin and whatever the original indigenous term actually was has been lost to us. it's little more than a hunch, but the etymology of the term is why i'm of the opinion that the kurds probably moved west as a result of being displaced by arabs moving into iran. they may have been refugees. note that this region was also the battleground between persia and rome for upwards of a thousand years, so it would make sense that the end of that conflict would lead to an increase in migration into a newly peaceful area.

as an aside, the linguistic evidence (which is more compelling than genetic evidence when it comes to migration of ethnic identity) puts the derivation of the kurdish language from persian in northwest iran about the year 100 or so. so, if we understand the genetic evidence properly (which rejects the kurds as a race distinct from the people around them), and we rely on the linguistic evidence as a means of determining ethnogenesis instead, it would have to be stated that the kurds didn't even exist as an ethnic group at the time of the sumerians or babylonians.

i'm also going to post a link for further reference. this is a little bit dated, and i wouldn't take the chart too seriously (if you read the write-up, it explains that the differences are slight. these charts are also sort of cherry picked. minor variations in the model that take into account different expressions create different relationships. the key is that the cluster from pathan up to "turkish" (iranian, here. the greeks didn't leave a mark in anatolia, either, but the persians did) is closely related. also, throwing pathan and tajiki in is sort of a curveball. it's a control, really. that shouldn't be read as that armenians are closely related to afghans. it should be read as armenians are closer to afghans than they are to yemenis, which is not very close in either way. a larger sample of ethnicities would separate them out.), but it gets the point of genetic continuity (rather than genetic difference) being dominant across the middle east.

http://www.atour.com/health/docs/20000720a.html

indeed.

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/pipeline+flip+flop+factor+election+outcome+union/8403531/story.html

neither mulcair nor trudeau will reverse the decision if they win.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/northern-gateway-pipeline-approved-with-209-conditions-1.2678285

trudeau's party won't let him.

and, mulcair's party will ultimately push for refineries to create more union jobs, not to shut the project down.

it might put a few more greens in parliament, and they'll be ignored.

we don't live in a democracy. the opposition has just wasted a lot of time playing silly political games that they can never win, rather than build networks that can oppose the construction by force.

and, on that note: only in canada do we look at election results that contradict every poll taken and say "gee, i guess the pollsters got it wrong".

i didn't see one person suggest the election was fixed.

and, look at the way it got spun: "flopping" was a "mistake".

this article makes no sense. mdma is a hallucinogen that has to do with serotonin levels and is the safe(st) part of doing e. the dangerous part that usually leads to heart issues is the meth or coke that it's spiked with, because they're uppers. what generally happens is that people don't realize that e is mostly meth and mix it with even more meth or coke. it's not the bit of largely harmless mdma that gets them, it's the mix of meth, coke, speed or whatever else that pushes their blood pressure through the roof and starts bursting blood vessels.

it follows that 91% pure e is waaaaay safer than 58% pure e, because it's not the mdma that's dangerous but the stuff they splice it with.

my opinion on the drug is that i won't touch it because i know i'm probably getting some kind of upper (probably meth), and i don't do uppers. if i could get pure, regulated mdma i'd try it...i just have zero confidence in the street to produce it.

the end result is still that regulation is the way forward. but, somebody seems to have fucked up the reporting somewhere...

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/12/mother-martha-fernback-died-ecstasy-legalisation-debate

ok. it turns out she took 500 mg.

a typical dose is 100 mg.

so, she overdosed in terms of how much, not in terms of purity. 500 mg would be dangerous at any mixture.

it would be nice if the press would stop treating mdma like heroin, but it's probably not likely.

it's not the case that this church is setting up peacefully and that it's followers are harmlessly going about their daily lives. this is a meeting point for people with discriminatory and hateful views, who will go out into the community and act those ideas out. this idea of religion as peaceful expression must be challenged. it's just simply not accurate. religion is systemic and hierarchical. it seeks power. it spreads propaganda. it's a political threat to the area and must be treated that way.

free speech is not protected speech. no sane person would suggest that people ought to be able to speak their mind without social consequences; the idea is that people ought to have the right to make the decision on whether it's worth taking the risk or not. these types of christian groups are taking a risk in spreading hateful messaging, and ought to deal with the consequences of it.

i do support the vandalism as a political statement, but it's only a first step. the next step needs to be boycotts against church members and other political actions designed to reduce their influence in the community and run them out of town.

it sounds harsh and it's against certain liberal values that are embedded in our cultural psyche, but we have to collectively understand that there is no peace with religion and allowing it to build is just ceding ground to enemy forces.

tigers and humans (as well as lions and humans, and crocs and humans) have evolved in a predator-prey relationship. it's not like that with bears or wolfs or even with leopards. there is absolutely no way to get one of these things to see you as anything more than food. it just boggles my mind that due to whatever arrogance or religious thinking or whatever else, people don't realize that we are not at the top of the food chain in certain parts of the world.

even with that taken into account, the general understanding of any kind of beast is that once they kill once they will kill again. this is the reason we kill crocs and wolves and mountain lions that get one of us. so, i don't understand how the tiger was not put down by law enforcement after it's first victim.

ok, this describes me pretty well, except perhaps the manipulative part (i'd rather avoid people altogether than try and turn them into personal puppets), but what's the problem if i'm happier interacting with a book or a guitar than a human being? in the context of spectrum politics and individual rights, it strikes me as more of a question of economics. it kind of makes me a "free rider", but there's not much i can do about it besides go through some kind of brainwashing. on the other hand, if we modified our economic system to focus more on using technology as a distributive tool, then we could all be happy introverts living in our closed realities as we walk around from one machine to the next. so, is this a negative disorder, or are we actually pushing the genome forward?

the sad reality nowadays is that google fails far more often than it succeeds.

uploading recent guitar demo to soundlcoud

a math rock version of the three's company theme, or something. i'm now caught up. these are the kind of silly shorts that will be posted here moving forward....

https://soundcloud.com/deathtokoalas/2014-05-18a

deathtokoalas
isn't it obvious that the cub is too small to offer much of a meal, but could act as a trojan horse to catch a bigger one? lions normally hunt in packs. if it's solitary, how is the lion supposed to catch a big meal? it needs a better trick. as soon as the cub gets close to the herd, it tries to ambush....

i'm a little skeptical about lions being empathetic, but i'm comfortable with the idea that they're very sneaky and very smart.

Alastair Leith 
You look pretty miserable too :-)

deathtokoalas
you know, i get a comment on that almost every day. it's a shot i took when hungover, and uploaded because it's the last thing people expect to see in a profile pic nowadays.

Alastair Leith
Winning! And why do you hate koalas?

deathtokoalas
clearly, it's their nefarious level of cuteness.

Jason P
That's exactly what I thought, too. The lion was using the baby as bait to find bigger meals -- the baby was just too small for it to satisfy.

Rob Scha Nay Nay
Good idea but it doesnt seem so.  Not all nature needs purpose

deathtokoalas
it's not about purpose in some grander scheme of things, it's about understanding specific behaviour in the specific circumstance. lions cannot hunt large prey by themselves. it follows that she has no choice but to come up with a different tactic.

lions aren't the best at chasing things. instead, they rely on ambushing. one lion will sneak up behind the group of ungulates, startling it to run directly towards another; they try to manipulate their prey to run towards them, rather than chase them down and only chase when the ambush fails. they're really good at using the landscape to help them with this, and good at positioning themselves to take advantage of angles. i don't suspect they're doing the geometry mathematically, but they seem to get it intuitively. when lions are not able to hunt in packs, they're forced to rely on easier and smaller prey, like warthogs, or go after the old and young. if you think about it, the way they hunt is essentially herding behaviour, but with a kill at the end of it.

it's not that big a jump to go from ambushing the ungulates to using a baby to get close to them. i mean, it's an ambush tactic, either way. both are means to get close to the prey. i agree this appears to be novel behvaiour, but the jump in abstraction of thought is really not high, given what we already know about them.

further, as i mentioned previously, the video clearly demonstrates that this is what the lion is doing: it's allowing the calf to get close to the herd, then stalking around it. they didn't observe the tactic as successful, but the behaviour demonstrated is really blatant from the images in the film.

Rob Scha Nay Nay
I meant a purpose with respect to its survivability.  It could just be a motherly glitch its CNS that has no bearing on its evolutionary success.

deathtokoalas
well, it could be, but the evidence doesn't seem to suggest that.

i just need to point out that i realize the film suggests the lion caught an antelope on her own, but this seems to be a mistake. the longer version suggests she ate a warthog. my best guess on that is that the calf is an antelope, and the speaker had a mental freeze.

it is very difficult for a lone lioness to catch a grown antelope, and warthogs make up the core diet of single lions. she'd have to be an exceptional hunter to pull off that feat, which is clearly not the case. that's why they hunt in packs.

Alex F
HOLY SHIT I just clicked on your channel. I'm scared now.

deathtokoalas
i think more people should click on my channel, but there's really no reason to be afraid.

unless you're a scaredy-cat...

simone4447
i think the lioness was hunting then fail yet the baby live, now the lioness have no idea what to do so she just stay with the cub. after-all she was raised by humans so she wasn't really trained by her mother to hunt correctly ...

deathtokoalas
where did you get the information that the lioness was raised by humans? if true, it's kind of a fail that the doc didn't mention it, and i need to modify my opinion. everything in the doc suggests that this is a wild lioness. it even hypothesizes that she may have been separated from her pride.

Cari Schumann
but lions often eat babies or sick or elderly prey so to say the baby was not satisfying meal can't be right   lions are opportunistic   hunters  they eat what they can it's obvious the lion was nurturing the baby she could have eaten at anytime 

deathtokoalas
lions will eat a baby as a snack if they know they can eat a real meal later. if they know they can't, it stands to reason that they might try a different tactic.

it wasn't nurturing it, either, it was starving it...

think of it like this: you might fry up a minnow as a delicacy (just go with it) if you know there's a supermarket near by. but, if you know you're going to be out in the wilderness for a while, you'd realize it makes more sense to use that minnow as bait to catch a bigger fish.

the lion is quite clearly stalking the larger animals when they go to investigate the calf. it didn't work, but it's obvious that it's what it was doing.

DHD9
your giving lions too much credit, I can't explain this, but I watch bog cat dairies and lionsll eat anything, including lion cubs. They don't care about size. And it let the calf feed so it wasn't deliberately starving it

deathtokoalas
when lions eat lion cubs, it's a territorial and genetic thing. there's a number of animals that they will kill and not eat - most notably cheetahs, who they seem to not want around for competitive reasons. they'll just storm a cheetah family, kill the babies and walk off. it seems they're killing them to avoid competition, but i don't think anybody really understands why they don't bother eating them on top of it.

i don't think the lion is starving the cub on purpose, either - it ultimately is going to want it to survive long enough to get close to the larger one. letting it close enough to feed, and taking a run during the distraction, is the whole point.

kristian perez
this theory makes no sense, how does the presence of a baby make others come closer ? if anyhting the presence of the lioness would drive off any other orix (forgive my spelling) 

that and when the lioness did find a group she went straight for the baby rather than the other orix,

deathtokoalas
a mother oryx will be attracted to a calf in need because it does have motherly instincts towards it. they'll even try and protect their offspring from attack, and can sometimes succeed. so, if the lioness places the baby oryx just a little away from the herd, it will attract the mother away, where the lioness can more easily ambush. if you watch the video (or the longer version, i don't remember) again, you'll see that this is what happens - except that the mother oryx didn't take the bait long enough to get into pouncing range.

again, you have to realize that lions are very inefficient hunters when left alone. they rely heavily on their pack to hunt. the reason the lioness doesn't go straight for the larger antelopes is that it knows it can't catch them.

in packs, lions are apex predators and probably the most ferocious and deadly creatures on the planet. alone, they're forced to compete with other mid-level carnivores like jackals and cheetahs for much smaller prey.

kristian perez
if i recall, wasnt the baby oryx the reason for it being alone in the first place ? (other lions kept trying to kill it)

deathtokoalas
no.

simone4447
i like your idea of the lioness using the baby to get closer to prey but when the park guards tried feeding her meat to stop them from starving, the lioness didnt take it. If that was her intent to use the baby it must of change while they were together or she did want meat while being with the baby. idk but this wouldnt have happened if the lioness pride wasnt killed when she was young.

deathtokoalas
i think there's a lot of reasons why the lioness may or may not have taken possibly unsafe meat from humans and it's a big jump to deduce it had anything to do with the baby antelope.