she got a friend to do it, in the hallway. i think it was before algebra class, because i remember it was in the c building, the old building at pius, which was still haunted by the ghost of dan akroyd (and who you gonna call when it's the ghost of dan akroyd?) from the days when it was a real catholic school, with nuns and priests, and i don't remember taking any other classes in the c building that year.

hopefully, the remaining aura of dan akroyd's sense of humour is helping the dead souls of the people that were killed there, years ago, by an angry child. this was all years before my time.

finite math was in the portable. calculus was in the new building, which was what? a? b? i don't remember. so was english, physics, bio & chem - although i think i took bio & chem the year before. computer science was downstairs. and that's the eight i took.

most people took 6 pre-university courses; i took 8 because i didn't know what i wanted to study, and i wanted my options open. clearly, i was leaning towards a science-based education. that said, i would have liked to have taken a music course as well, but there wasn't really an option. a lot of people took geography, but i felt this was pointless. i somewhat regret not taking history. were there other options? i think economics was an option. the only mandatory course to graduate was english.

so, it was definitely algebra class.

i remember coming in after i told her friend 'no', and she was shaking and distraught and embarrassed and...not exactly crying, but clearly on the brink of it. again: still a teenage girl, and on some level the smart ones are the manic ones, right? she was visibly very upset.

so, i tried to be rational, and i think it worked.

"listen, i don't want to go to prom. i have my own reasons. that doesn't mean i hate you. i'm a little surprised by the request, but i'm not going to get weird about this. and, we can keep it between the three of us. so, let's just be rational about it and move forwards. i'm sure you'll find somebody else."

she was a smart kid, and she instantly perked up and went back to her normal self - stoic, distant, introverted and kind of barely there.

but, i don't remember actually speaking to her again after that.

fwiw, the 'ol brookings institute ought to be on guard - trump is due to break in and steal some documents, any day now.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/11/08/2018-exit-polls-show-greater-white-support-for-democrats/

so, a muslim, a republican and a liberal walk into a film festival. the popcorn-tender asks them - who is your favourite director, oliver stone or david lynch?

the muslim immediately responds "oliver stone".

the republican says "david lynch".

the liberal says "neither. i don't believe in capital punishment.".

so, what's the difference between a muslim and a republican?

muslims prefer to stone you before lynching you.

it really doesn't help your argument to point out that the kkk were historically attached to the democrats.

so, what's the difference between a muslim and a republican?

the colour of their hoods.

no, listen.

this is what i need you to do.

if you go through my blog and replace the term "muslim" with the term "republican", you need to ask yourself if you're still upset or not - because my criticism of muslims is exactly the same as my criticism of republicans, or of christians in general, and if you react differently then you need to explain why. so, if it upsets you when i say it about muslims, but it doesn't upset you when i say it about christians, or republicans, then you need to ask yourself why that is.

& to be as clear as i can be, if i haven't already been, my opposition is to any kind of organized religion, or, more broadly, any kind of conservative institution - including the democratic party, itself. that is, i'm not making the argument you hear on the right that criticism of christianity should be held to the same standards as criticism of islam, but am rather introducing an argument from the left that criticism of islam should be as deep and as frivolous and normal and routine as the widespread criticism of christianity is. and, yes that is the correct argument from the left. if you want to argue that islam should not be criticized because it might offend some muslims, that is an exceedingly right-wing position.

i have pointed out before that there are two reasons that you might react differently to a criticism of islam than you would to a criticism of the republican party (and, again, i criticize both in this space). the first is that you don't actually realize that republicans and muslims are essentially the same thing, with the caveat that muslims are far more extreme than republicans, in general. there are neither moderate republicans nor are there moderate muslims. so, the first explanation is ignorance, and i suspect that this is the proper explanation when dealing with most activists on the ground - whether they've been taught to see the issue as racial rather than ideological, or they're just mindlessly following a trend, the basic point is that they actually don't have the slightest idea what they're talking about, they just think they're doing something good. this is a broader cultural problem that needs to be addressed at the organizing level - the debate that needs to be had here is about the longterm consequences of renormalizing these value systems. and, this is where the second explanation asserts itself - there may actually be some people organizing on the left that actually uphold these values, and see islam as a way to reverse a moral decline in society. it is these people that are most dangerous to the left-wing project, and that need to be defeated in open debate, not the mindless foot soldiers on the ground, who will shift allegiances with the wind.

i've spent my whole life fighting against religious value systems, and i'm not going to stop or tone it down or dial it back just because it is unpopular this month. rather, i intend to win the debate, over time, and put the left back on a proper footing towards increasing secularism.

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/09/j-reacts-to-usual-calvinist-criticism.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/09/j-reacts-to-implied-racism-in-focusing.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/09/j-reacts-to-idea-of-2000-being.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/09/j-reacts-to-idea-that-markets-will.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/09/j-reacts-to-curious-cnn-poll-with-trump.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/09/j-reacts-to-elites-misunderstood-plan.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/09/j-reacts-to-bernie-sanders-being-dirty.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/09/j-reacts-to-how-bad-polling-is.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/09/j-reacts-to-medias-baffling-refusal-to.html

i've always wondered if tony clement is related to the great avogadro.

it's the bugged-out eyes. they're quite unsettling.

well, the other option is that he's a massive cokehead. and, how far is his riding from helena guergis', anyways?

i don't really care about whether he's guilty or not - he doesn't deserve due process. he wouldn't allow it to his opponents.

good riddance.

so, why don't we just fund social assistance via market dividends, then?

we'd have to put down an initial investment. but, isn't that what a wealthy family does when it has a disabled child? so, why shouldn't a wealthy province do the same thing, for it's disabled population?

you could use the teacher's fund as a model.

and, the next government can pick it up when it brings back the ubi - which it will do. after all - isn't this the capitalist way to socialize production in the face of mechanization?

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/09/j-reacts-to-bipartisan-demagoguery-on.html

it does appear, at this point, that trump is on a path to deport less migrants than obama did, over the same period.

so, i finished the bureaucracy through august - that is done now - and i need to ask...should i just go to september?

well, i wanted to make some calls and get to cleaning in the other room - but it assumed i would have been done with this by monday or tuesday, and i'd be able to get back to september for the weekend. i can't make those calls, at this point. i'd might as well just push through september...

if i can get september done by monday morning, i can switch gears for the start of the week.

i've pointed this out before: if i were to go back to school today on a serious basis, my interest would neither be in art nor in science but in financial markets. but, i wouldn't be looking to get a job in the industry, so much as i'd be looking to find a way to live off of a small investment - stocks, bonds, etc. and, i wouldn't be looking to actively trade to maximize profit, so much as i'd be looking for a way to properly finance my activities as an artist.

i never planned to end up on disability, but, once i ended up on it, i realized that it is, in fact, what i wanted - with the caveat that it could always be a little more. and, it could always be a little more. it's the nature of it.

at this stage in life, i would be looking towards the education system as a way to emulate my existing living situation, rather than to abolish it or transform it. where i am right now is a lot better than where i was, but my only real concern about living in low income housing is trying to avoid the second-hand smoke. but, see...i don't think this is limited to low-income housing, at least not in this city. buying a house probably wouldn't resolve the issue - i'd just end up with neighbours smoking on their porches.

if i had a larger nest egg, a modern condo in a newer building would be a way out. hopefully.

but, do i want to change my lifestyle? my thrust of existence? what i do? no. this is exactly what i want. i just need to catch up and get back on track - and hope the government doesn't ruin it.

is the simpsons "problematic"?

well, i'm going to flip the situation over: perhaps the reason that the stereotypes it uses resonated with people so dominantly was because they accurately reflected their lived experiences, at the time.

now, these things are subject to change. i don't want to create a linear model, here, or think that trying to understand social progress through representations in prime time cartoons is very useful (i think the gender streotypes in children's programming today are far more offensive than anything i've ever seen in a simpsons episode, and that we've broadly moved very far backwards on gender since the mid-90s), but i can recognize that people have different experiences, both shared and individually. so, if you're younger, it's ok to look at a simpsons episode and say "this was created before i could walk, and i don't understand the social context around it.". i don't understand harry potter, or miley cyrus, or any of the other things that define the generation of people younger than me - nor do i understand archie bunker, or three's company, or mash, or the effects that this programming had on people older than me. i don't even understand south park, to use a somewhat worthwhile comparison. so, we're all going to have some difficulties understanding each other, and that's ok. it's when we say "i don't understand this. therefore, it's wrong." that we start turning into self-righteous, moralistic zealots that deserve to be laughed at. and, you know who was always really good at taking on self-righteous moralistic zealots, by laughing at them?

that said, as it is the case that things change, one wonders why this show is still on the air. i haven't watched it in over 15 years. you will find that the people that identify with it the strongest are also the loudest voices for cancellation, and that has been true for a long time.

so, is the show "problematic"? i guess it's all relative, isn't it?

but, it's mostly an irrelevant question.

i mean, it might feel good to get a result like this, but it's not really what i'm angling at.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-cop-pot-charges-1.4899645

again, i'm kind of struck by how forward thinking that last track i posted was.

i will get back to posting music asap. i promise. life took an unexpected turn, and i think i'm back on track, now. but, there's a process, and i need to have it done in sequence. i have an absolute deadline of the end of '99 to finish this period disc, remember.

you may listen to the track and hear something that is foreshadowing something like this:

but, it is probably better to see it as a missing link. the alpha document is here:

otherwise, i guess i've been in a down swing over the last few days - i didn't really wake up yesterday, or finish the last parts of the august rebuild. the day is now done, so i guess we'll have to put those things off until monday.

it's dry in here, but i doubt that is the reason i've been tired. more likely is that i'm behind on my eating - i just had my scheduled tuesday meal, this morning. but i also have a habit of getting unfocused between projects. otherwise, i'm still a little concerned about the pollution in the neighbourhood, even if the direct issue of second-hand smoke seems to have largely disappeared, for now. or, maybe i can't tell.

the first half of the airwalk order came in yesterday - the red ones. these appear to be decently constructed shoes, but we'll find out over time. they may have been returns, but there's a sticker for $80 on them. again - it said they were new shoes. but, they were marked right down to $30. i don't see anything obviously wrong with them, besides a little bit of dirt on the bottom. so, i guess you mark returned shoes down when they're like this, but it would have been better if the store was honest. we'll see what the second pair looks like. if the second pair is brand brand new, i think i have an argument to replace the red ones, but it might not be actually possible - everybody else was out of stock, and it doesn't seem like they're going to keep doing this.

listen, i get it - the brand name is unpopular. but, i was always the kid with the cheap shoes. i'll wear the unpopular shoes if they're more comfortable, and happily call you stupid for buying into the marketing.

i guess the weekend is now here, so i just need to get to the list of stuff and get to it.

i should get through the bureaucracy first. one thing at a time.

so, i seem to have succeeded in getting the file pulled from the windsor police. we'll see where it goes from there. it's the conflict of interest that is at the crux of this, because i suspect it has to do with the property owner.

i can't talk like this in official communications because i can't prove it yet, but it's pretty obvious to me that what is going on is that this property owner tossed me in jail to prevent me from suing her for discrimination in housing. the conditions on the recognizance are that i'm not to communicate indirectly or directly for a year - which technically means i can't file, but i'd like to see the cops bring me before a judge and argue i should be imprisoned for filing a discrimination lawsuit, against the recognizance terms. that would be so outrageous that i might even be willing to go through with it for the benefit of the discrimination case - it would just help the case. and, the reason i'm holding off is to wait until more information comes out - although what i really want is the "victim impact statement" that was read to me, where the property owner literally stated "you are not welcome here". that is the smoking gun i needed to file.

so, i suspect that the conflict of interest has to do with the cop's relationship with the property owner. getting this in some kind of writing is fundamental to the various claims i'm going to be pursuing. but, we'll see what kind of information comes up through the official investigation. and, if i can get a good, unbiased investigation from the oiprd, i should be able to use it in multiple contexts.

so, i'm pushing for the possibility of charges against the cop, and i'm not unserious - i think what he did was harassment in the literal sense, and he should face some kind of punishment for it. but, what i really want is that report.

it's similar to the issue with the woman smoking drugs in the last apartment. i never expected anybody to arrest this woman. however, i was hoping that creating a paper trail would help with an eviction process - and, in the end, it did help with the court process that gave me a rent reduction and got me out of the lease. so, it worked. but, i was explicit over the call - and it is actually in the report - that when i called the police to the apartment, it was not because i wanted this person sent to jail, but because i wanted documentation to use for the housing tribunals. it is obviously the case that i had no interest in this woman's well-being in any way at all - that i was perfectly willing to drag her through the mud for my own purposes. but, i actually made it clear to the cops when they showed up that i wasn't seeking criminal charges, i was just building a legal case.

i don't really care what happens to this cop - which means that i don't care if i have to get him fired to get what i want, in the end. i mean, he clearly doesn't understand what harassment is, in a legal sense, and needs some training on the topic, sure. and, he clearly should have gone to a judge to get a warrant. the sum of this is probably legally harassment in itself, but can a cop plead ignorance over malice? my concern is more related to getting the documentation required to seek compensation.

like i say - we'll see what the director says. but, i don't know how he could put the police in charge of this investigation, given that they've already declared themselves in conflict. i'm not sure exactly what the next step should be, but that the cops themselves can't be in charge of this is really a no-brainer.

if it goes to a different office, it probably shouldn't be the chatham office, either.

as mentioned, it's probably the case that i would have horribly disappointed her and she'd have cried all night and never spoken to me again...although, she had never really spoken to me in the first place, so i guess it would have been a minimal loss, on a purely conversational level.

i also suspect that i may have been in some kind of physical danger from her father, if i were to have actually gone within a fifty foot radius of her house. and, i wouldn't have really blamed him - at the time, even. i had no business being in that neighbourhood for any reason other than to mow the lawn, not even on his daughter's invitation.

worse, i don't know how many years of imagining the future came into this, or what kind of completely off-base projections were put into it. teenage girls with 99.5% averages are still teenage girls, after all. obviously. maybe she thought i wanted to be an engineer, or something. who knows. really.

but, if we had hit it off that night, due to some fluke, would it have changed my future path? this is one of those alternate history games, i guess.

i would have to assume that deciding that i enjoy spending time with this girl would require me to actually take my schooling seriously, for once. but, see, here's the twist on that - if i had decided to take my schooling more seriously, i would have probably transferred into an arts program. my whole way through university, i always saw it as some kind of back-up plan. i spent years in a math program, but i didn't really want to be a mathematician, whatever that means - i never intended to work for the government, or to be a professor, or to even be a high school teacher, or at least not seriously. the key point is that i really didn't know what i wanted to study, or if i wanted to study anything at all, so i just stumbled through it, without any real desired end point - and then, when i got to the end of it, the only reason i bothered finishing it was just for the sake of finishing it. i haven't looked at a math text book since.

because i've never been interested in dating or starting a family, i've never been incentivized to do well in school or get a good job in order to make me more attractive to potential mates or partners. i've actually made the opposite argument - that because i'm not interested in dating, it follows that i have little interest in climbing up the hierarchies in the labour force; my disinterest in labour is a consequence of my disinterest in relationships. but, this is all an analysis from a distance, so to say. there is a possibility that i may have had a stronger incentive system open up in the presence of a concrete set of options, rather than an abstraction of possibilities.

the truth is that it's more likely that i would have become intimidated by the bourgeois nature of her lifestyle and retreated, or that she would have grown impatient with me for being lower class, but there is some possibility that it may have driven me - and that even if it didn't work out, it may have had a longer term effect on me.

if the encounter would have been effective in altering my incentive system, the flip side of that is that i would have no doubt spent much less time on music over the next few years. i'm not convinced that would be a net positive in the broader arch of my life, even if others think it might be - the sum of it may have been a more normal path through these years, at the expense of a deeper level of depression.

so, would i be better off today if i had had stronger incentives during my university years to actually participate and perform? on paper, perhaps. but i think i'd have ended up miserable, in the end, and not despite it but because of it.

yet, this is all very speculative, and i think little would have been accomplished outside of me smashing down her preconceptions and false projections of me - and that would have been difficult for any teenage girl to go through on prom night.

so, if i didn't want to go to prom with the valedictorian, where was my head in the early summer of 2000?

i didn't work that summer. it was a part of a bribe to get me to go to school, because i wasn't otherwise interested in going. at that point in my life, i would have been perfectly happy to work 30 hours a week at the wendy's and spend most of my time in my basement creating art, so i actually didn't even initially intend to go to the pre-university year at all - i intended to just graduate grade 12 and be done with it. because i had never really had a conversation with this girl, i suppose she had no idea of what my longterm perspective on life really was - but it certainly was not to go to school and get a good job at that particular point, and the fact is that it really never was. but, my dad had decided quite some time before this that i ought to be an engineer (something i at no point in my life ever expressed the slightest interest or inclination towards), so he bribed me into going to grade 13 by giving me spending money on an as-needs basis.

it was over this summer that i picked up the classical guitar for the first time, but i think that would have been after prom. july, i think.

what i was doing that night was probably working out parts for this track, and i was probably very immersed in it, and disinterested in doing much of anything else:



there is also some possibility that i may have spent some time in a friend's basement smoking marijuana with a group of kids in the neighbourhood from low income families, but i don't have any explicit memory of doing so.

like i say - it caught me off guard. she wasn't my type; it didn't really make any sense. and, i never really worked through what she was imagining.

but, yeah. that's true - i turned down the valedictorian for prom, and stayed home and played guitar, instead.

to be clear: i'm not technically a virgin.

i've had sex something like 350 times, all with the same person, in the period from 2002-2006. it was actually a lot of sex, in a short amount of time. but, she seemed to be enjoying it more than i was.

she liked sex. a lot.

but, it was never "heterosexual sex" in any kind of understood way. which is perhaps hard to grasp without getting graphic. you know the way you imagine boys and girls having sex, when you think of it? not necessarily missionary, but the general idea, anyways. well, it was never anything remotely like that. ever. at all. she seemed to want that, but realized it wasn't coming from me - and the mutual dissatisfaction just rendered the thing pointless, after a while. she used to complain that i was very good at getting her extremely worked up, like crazy aroused, but that i had no ability to finish the job - that i wasn't able to do the thing boys are supposed to do in that situation, and that we all imagine sex is like when we think of it. but, of course i wasn't able to do that - because i didn't want her to interpret me as a boy at all. i had a penis hanging there the whole time, but i was continually making a very conscious effort to avoid using it. she had to pin me down.

i've sworn off of it since. entirely.

so, i can say i'm a virgin in the sense of never really having sex in a male role - of never actually having intercourse in a masculine way. and, i haven't. but, i'm not a virgin in a technical sense, and i may have had more sex over those three or so years than a lot of people have in a decade.

got a letter from the cops.

I am currently in receipt of your OIPRD complaint, received by the Windsor Police Professional Standards office on November 5, 2018. If at all possible, I would like to discuss with you your wishes regarding this complaint, and how to resolve it and or investigate further. I am under the impression that you were informed by the OIPRD of the Informal Resolution program, which I would be happy to discuss with you further.  It has been my experience that the Informal Resolution program is an excellent measure to resolve public complaints about the police and most often leaves both the complainant and the involved police officer with a better understanding of each other. If you wish, you may speak with the officer directly or I can shuttle your concerns to the officer involved as well. If this is not something that interests you, I would be happy to explain the investigative process, and arrange a time to conduct an interview with you in regards to your complaint.

Please feel free to contact me by email or at the phone number below.

Kind regards,

this is my response:

i do not have confidence in the windsor police to conduct a review of
this matter, as you have already declared yourself in a conflict of
interest on this file. this is in your own omission, and i expect you
to excuse yourself, as you already have.

i am not interested in an informal resolution process; i want a
thorough review by an outside body.

i will follow up with ======== by phone in the morning.

===

i meant to say admission rather than omission. i apologize; my
"morning" coffee is just kicking in.

i want to be more explicit as to why i'm rejecting an informal
resolution, and why i'm pushing for an outside review.

i made a complaint about what was essentially police harassment on
sept 14th. on sept 24th, i was arrested without a warrant on a hybrid
charge and held without cause for nearly 24 hours. on the day after my
first appearance, i was told that the case would be being moved to
chatham due to a conflict of interest in the windsor office. the
chatham office is not seeking jail time but a year of probation on a
summary conviction; i claim that there is no evidence against me in
the case, and i expect the charges to either be dropped or for the
case to be dismissed.

i do not know details regarding the conflict of interest at this time,
however i believe that the reasons i was both arrested and charged on
behaviour that i claim is not criminal are due to the nature of this
conflict of interest. at the least, it does not make sense for the
department to excuse itself from a prosecution based on a conflict of
interest, and then carry out an investigation of the circumstances
leading to charges around that prosecution. if it feels that the
conflict is serious enough that it cannot prosecute - as it has
already stated - then it must also feel that the conflict is serious
enough that it cannot investigate. nor could the results of such an
investigation be taken seriously, if presented in a court of law - and
you should expect that the results of this investigation will be
presented in a court of law, in time.

i feel that i was harassed by the officer, but it will not be clear if
the harassment is substantive enough to press charges until the
investigation is completed, including a full understanding of the
nature of the conflict on the file. i do, however, believe that there
is a very good reason to think that charges against the officer will
eventually be laid.

i am a model citizen with a clean record, advanced university degrees
and a nexus card, and am not going to just go away. i don't want this
dealt with as quickly as possible, i want the officer held fully
accountable in as lengthy and as thorough a process as is necessary.
this cannot happen again.

so, i will repeat the following:

1) the windsor police have already declared a conflict of interest on
this file and are consequently obligated to excuse themselves from
investigating the matter further.
2) no reasonable person would be able to express confidence in the
ability of the windsor police to carry out this review, nor would the
findings hold up in a court of law, as they must, eventually.
3) i claim that there is a reasonable possibility that charges may be
led against the officer, and that an independent investigation is
required to get to the facts of the matter, before doing so.

please excuse yourself from the file, ======.

and, i will follow-up with ===== by phone in the morning.

well, it's nice to see jeff sessions out, one way or another.

to put it another way on the height issue, let us recall the basic truth that correlation is not necessarily causation - and that the presenter has the burden of proof to demonstrate causation, if she believes the data exists that can do so.

did i go over this before?

height is not thought to be entirely genetic today, at all, but determined by a complicated mix of genetic and nutritional factors - but mostly nutritional factors. and, what determines nutritional factors? the answer is cultural differences.

see, we feed girls less than we feed boys, and we expect girls to eat less than boys, too. so, we've set up a cultural input into a nutritional mechanism. and, without very rigorous controlled studies, we can't be absolutely certain what the dominant factor is - although what we know does suggest that if we control for nutrition then we should also control for height.

i believe that the classic experiment on this topic was done via a comparison of italian immigrants to the new york area. it was found that the children of italian immigrants were shorter than their parents, and this was attributed to poorer nutritional levels in new york, compared to those in italy.

to fully debunk the claim, what what we need to do here is to perform a very specific experiment, where we feed girls the same way as we feed boys right now, and we feed boys the same way as we feed girls right now. this is probably unethical, because the way we feed girls is a consequence of systemic sexist bias. however, i might suggest that we keep an eye on rising average female height - as one would expect that women should be getting taller over the next several years, or at least they should be in certain regions, as the way we feed and exercise our daughters changes to a more egalitarian basis. while this data is likely a long time coming, it is worth noting that data in countries where both sexes are very poor (like nigeria, and india) suggests that the height differences are questionably statistically significant.

to suggest i'm offended is a base strawman argument to distract from the factual question, which i dispute, and which is being stated without any convincing evidence - and contrary to the general understanding of the underlying mechanism.

is that what you wanted? good. i've got lots more. because, this is the frustrating thing - the fact is that reality has a left-wing slant to it, and not a right-wing filter on it.

and, we can debate the tabula rasa elsewhere. i'm going to follow rosseau. as i must.

"brain sex" is also a deeply debunked pseudoscience, and it is somewhat distressing to hear it referenced by a tenured professor.

the question of muscle mass needs to be investigated with controlled studies, just as height. but, again - there's little reason to think genetic factors should overpower nutritional/cultural ones.

regarding fat distribution, the mechanism is hormonal, and while this can be modified through medication, it is an understood genetic sex difference, if it is not further modified through chemistry.

mature gametes are binary, but all specialized cells can in theory be reproduced from source, so there is no reason we couldn't artificially create an egg from a male hair cell, or sperm from female skin cells. the specialization may be real, but drawing some kind of innate difference between them is anti-evolutionary.

likewise, one should note that both human sexes have x chromosomes, so we should not be talking about the difference between x and y but about the presence of a y, which is a flag - and which can be overturned via exposure to the relative sex hormones. and, you will note that i will repeatedly concede that there is a difference in chemistry, even as i reject a substantive difference in meaningful biology. this places the issue on a spectrum, as hormone levels fluctuate widely across the sexes - and are modifiable via medication.

right. and, are the overlapping bell curves determined to be causally determined by genetic sex differences, via rigorous science? (usually not). are they even statistically separable by gender? (usually not). and, are those differences in interest determined to be causally determined by genetic sex differences via rigorous science? are they even biological? (i can't come up with a single example, actually)? if not, is culture a better explanation?

the classical argument for women's rights was that women are not incapable but uneducated - that this is cultural.

ugh. this is stupid. i'm done.

and, yes - it's perfectly ok to be born xy and be disinterested in male sexuality. that's not shameful. it's not inferior. it's just variation.

"too civilized for sex".

but, honestly. they've done studies on this. did you know that testosterone spikes are actually tied to brain damage? that testosterone actually kills brain cells? that's not hyperbole. these are controlled clinical trials, here. meatheads are morons for a reason, even if they're better at passing on their genes.

steroids kill brain cells...

but, hey, nobody ever said that intelligence was selected - at least not literally. and, some prominent biologists - ernst mayr was one - have argued the opposite point, that intelligence is an evolutionary dead end.

i'm hardly the first person to articulate this idea of macho stupidity, or react against it. it's actually one of the central themes in the alternative musical culture i'm so immersed in - however outdated it might be at this point. you just need to take it to the next level of abstraction to get your head around where i am on this.

my dad was a football star when he was in high school, so i was forced to played football when i was a kid, and i probably should have been relatively good at it. i was fast, fairly fit & in good shape, overall - i've seen pictures of myself from this period and i'm actually kind of surprised by the definition around my shoulders. this was about 16-19. i started to lose weight after that. but, i actually wasn't very good at football, and the reason was that i didn't have the aggressive nature in me to hit. i was faster than most of the kids on the field, but i couldn't make a tackle. i didn't have the energy.

likewise, when they put me in karate as a kid, they were frustrated at my disinterest in sparring. i was good at the fundamentals, but i just didn't have any interest in actually fighting anybody.

that's not an argument for gender transition, in and of itself. if it's hormonal, and it probably is, then it's just the start of one. but, it does explain my disinterest in heterosexual male sexuality: i just don't have the aggression for it.

there's not a way around it: male sexuality is violent.

it is. it doesn't matter how consensual it is, it remains violent.

and, i just never developed a mean enough streak to be able to do it. it just seems stupid and ridiculous and primitive, to me. if i were to ever seriously try, i'd probably fall over laughing at the absurdity of it. i can't even imagine myself doing it. really.

i'm not an ideological pacifist, i recognize the utility of violent struggle, but i'm entirely submissive in just about any kind of personal context. and, that just doesn't make sense when attached to a heterosexual male gender role. i mean, i'm not going to bring you to orgasm with a good argument. sorry.

i guess if i could find a fully dominant female, it could work from her perspective, but it wouldn't be my fantasy. i would essentially be lending out my body, and i would remain in an impossible situation...

and, i did finish august, 2016 early this morning - i just kind of spun out right after.

i'll get to the bureaucracy after i eat.

then, it's back to the real world for a few days. and, as we can see, i'm getting anxious.

i don't think about the girl i turned down for prom very often. like i say - it was out of the blue. totally unexpected. in hindsight, there were signs, but i really didn't see it coming. at all.

so, i mean, i dunno. did she have a crush on me for a long time? was it spontaneous? i never really asked.

i told you the story about sarah from elementary school. i knew sarah for years. we had plenty of conversations. i might dare even say there was a time when we were friends. so, i was able to understand why avoidance was the best strategy - i can analyse this, in hindsight..

but, i don't even remember having more than a cordial conversation with this girl who asked me to prom. i really didn't know anything about her besides the basics of her reputation, so i don't really know how well i might have gotten along with her. she was in my classes for years, though. maybe she was paying more attention to me than i was to her...

like, i can count the number of times i remember speaking to her on one hand, kind of thing. i remember her complimenting my cover page for the oac (grade 13, pre-university) algebra project - she thought it was "clever". that could have been small talk, i guess. i remember her trying to track me down in grade 10 or 11 to get a picture of me for yearbook, because i skipped out on the school photos that year, then dodging attempts by her to follow me around to get a shot of me, then learning she got one of me sitting by the stairs. see, she was on the yearbook committee. so, i guess there was somewhat of a game there - but i don't recall so much as a fuck you in direct conversation. it was more of a tip-off that i was being stalked. and, i recall getting into an argument with her about whether she should be allowed to qualify for scholarship money, because she's upper crust, and she doesn't need it - which she was actually rather pissed off about, because her grades were nearly perfect. well, what's a scholarship for? is it merely a reward, or a way to balance the playing field? besides that, i must have walked by her a thousand times, and i don't recall so much as a tug on my tshirt.

perhaps she liked being challenged. or, perhaps the handful of encounters i had with her were that much more memorable, given a lack of contact with other boys. maybe i read the situation wrong, and she liked my hair. i dunno....

what i know is that i really had no plans to go to prom that year, and wasn't going to change my mind due to somebody asking me.

it's easy enough to call me stupid for turning down the fucking valedictorian. all i had to do was be a man, right? well, i hadn't done the experiment yet, but i still knew better. and, i frankly just simply don't know how well i might have gotten along with her, had i gone along with it, and let her drive the night.

i didn't think about it much then, and i haven't thought about it much since.

but, i do suspect that she would have gotten bored with me relatively fast.

i legit just didn't want to go - i would have found it horribly boring.

i'm just trying to imagine what it would have been like, if i had said yes.

she probably would have had to dress me, because all i owned were tshirts. i don't think i owned a single button-up shirt until years after i graduated university. i certainly didn't have any expensive clothes to wear. i probably would have grumbled something about looking like a fascist.

i didn't have a driver's license, let alone access to a vehicle. i still don't. so, i guess she would have been driving - i probably would have bicycled down to her place to meet her, i guess.

i was straight-edge at the time, so i would have been drinking water, or pop.

and, i'm a very poor conversationalist, and wholly disinterested in the pomp, so i probably would have just cordially gone through the motions and sat quietly until the end of the night.

it's easy to call me a jerk. but, i think it's better that i turned her down.

the person that i turned down was in my classes for years leading up to it, and while it certainly took me by surprise, i did suspect she had a crush on me. she was a lisa simpson type - not just straight as, but straight 99s. widely seen as the smartest kid in school. and, i might be giving it away.

she was very wealthy, and seemed to think the same thing of me - but she was very wrong to do so. the last time i remember seeing her, she was visibly annoyed at me because i was working at an a&w's for spending cash, while in my first or second year at carleton. she was apparently home from the holidays on a scholarship (i think she went to queen's), and buying expensive clothes in the mall. so, she did this walk right in front of me like she's superior thing, and i just laughed. i don't know if anybody ever told her. i wouldn't have the slightest idea what to do with a woman like that, and wouldn't have had the slightest interest in playing out any of her fantasies or designs for me.

she probably looks back at it and wonders what she was thinking, but i'll tell you what she was thinking - it was that i wasn't a shallow idiot. this was a smart, attractive, wealthy young girl with a bright future ahead of her, and she had to resort to asking somebody that she probably knew was queer, just to avoid getting shut out. the better question is what everybody else was thinking. sadly, her intelligence level made her unpopular, and it's hard to break that stigma once you pick it up without changing school districts and starting over.

i don't regret turning her down - as mentioned, i wouldn't have been able to handle the role playing, and i probably would have ruined her night, anyways. and, i don't know if she went or not.

it was a non-event...

i don't even know what i did that night.

so, take something like prom, for example.

most people that skip out on prom have a sob story about how they couldn't find anybody. that's not my experience. the fact is that i didn't go to a single school dance for the five years i went to high school, so i never really seriously contemplated it. i didn't ask anybody; the fact is, i never intended to go. i would have probably told you in grade 10 that i didn't intend to go, and fully meant it. and, while i won't name any names, i actually turned somebody down.

so, my only experience around prom is total disinterest in the entire concept of the thing. and, while i can't be sure about how i'd have felt if i was in a different gender role at the time, i suspect i may have taken a more active interest in it, if i was.

for somebody to look at me and say "but, you have these experiences...." is wrong. i don't. sorry.

the total number of sexual partners i've had is one.

one person.

that's it.

the fact is that my experiences as a male have largely been about trying to avoid women that have demonstrated an interest in me.

it's just...

there are some people that transition later in life after having normal heterosexual relationships in their birth gender, perhaps including having children. they can say they lived a life in their birth gender, had all of the normal experiences in their youth and young adulthood and then switched. i'm not one of those people. i'm somebody that should have transitioned as a child and lived my youth as a girl; i was wholly incapable of being a boy, from the start.

i did have one relationship in my early 20s (i did not date in high school, or even pretend-date in elementary school - my first kiss was at the age of 21, and she had to ask me), but it was not a normal relationship, and my experiences within it were not heterosexual in any meaningful way. this person knew i was transgendered the day we met, and the relationship existed entirely within that context. i was never interested in being this person's boyfriend, but focused from the start to the end on having her accept me as female.

so, i don't have the experiences associated with being a young male throughout high school, my 20s or my 30s. i made no attempt to pursue girls at any time throughout high school at all, whatsoever; rather, i went to some lengths to successfully avoid the interest of a few. i wasn't just not attracted to women at this age, i was actively disinterested. i have never asked a girl out on a date before; indeed, i've never actually been on a date before. it's just not a world i have the slightest interest in or the slightest understanding of. i've never approached a woman at a bar, or had a one-night stand, or made an indecent proposal or anything of the sort. so, i don't have those experiences and don't understand the world from that perspective.

i'm really without a sexual nature of any sort.

and, i'm sorry if you find that disappointing, but i've been trying to get the point across for years, and can only hope it's clear enough by now.

my orientation is currently asexual, and the truth is that it always has been.

so, why don't i have sex?

ask around - i've had plenty of chances. but, i really haven't had sex since....i don't remember if it was 2004 or 2005. i don't think it was 2006. but, it's honestly been so long that i don't even remember when.

it's certainly been well over ten years.

what's with this? am i sexually repressed, or what?

well, for the longest time it just didn't make any sense. i didn't really know if i was attracted to women or not. i knew that my experiences with women were deeply unsatisfying for both myself and my partner because she expected me to behave in a male gender role and i simply didn't want to, and i knew that my experience with putting things inside of my anus had been unpleasant up to that point, so i didn't have a lot of interest in having sex with men. so, what that left me with was sex as a kind of functional impossibility. i didn't have the right equipment.

the truth is that i made a decision around 2007 or 2008 (i don't remember, exactly) that i would refrain from any sexual intercourse until i was post-operative. now, at the time, i didn't think i'd be sitting here ten years later with a penis in my victoria's secret underwear. but, anything or everything else aside, i've simply held to a decision to avoid sex. and, frankly, i fully intend to hold to that decision indefinitely, even if i never have that operation.

i would not know how to have sex "as a male". in that sense, i'm a virgin - i've never done that, and i don't want to learn how to do that. i would be absolutely clueless as to how to proceed. sorry.

over the years, i've answered the question: i'm not just not attracted to women on a sexual level (although i hold out an abstract possibility of a potential relationship on a purely emotional level), but i'm actually rather revolted by female sexuality. i think i've had the layers pulled back on it, and had it exposed as something that is very vulgar. years ago, i may have argued that i would no doubt be sexually active if i had the correct sex organs to enjoy sex the way i've always imagined it. today, i'm not willing to make that argument - if i were to wake up tomorrow with a vagina, i don't expect i'd have much interest in using it, anymore.

my interest in hormone therapy at this point is consequently less about increasing my estrogen levels and more about reducing my testosterone levels. i'm less about actively identifying myself as female, and more about actively rejecting myself as male. so, i probably wouldn't get particularly angry if you took away my estrogen - but i may become suicidal if you took away my testosterone suppressors, because i just don't want to deal with the annoyance. at all.

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-clinton-criticizing-trump.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-how-interpolating.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-trump-getting-desperate.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-contradiction-between-trust.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-internets-perversion-of.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-benefits-of-clinton.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-error-of-using-regression.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-social-value-of-yoga-as.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-mississippi-floods-and.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-importance-of-historic.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-looming-canada-post-strike.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-dream-about-genetic-factors.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-trumps-obvious-turn-on.html

regardless of their own education levels, it is in fact true that communists generally tend to side with exploited workers, who generally have low levels of education themselves, against an academic elite in the bourgeois institutions, like the universities. the lie is that the academy is liberal. the academy has always been very conservative.

that was the basis of so many leftists siding with uneducated, exploited black workers during the civil rights era, against the educated elite at the time, who were southern whites.

i need to make the point as clear as i can. i don't want to support the party of christianity, for obvious reasons - the exploitation there is immense. but, i'm going to go wherever it is that the workers are organizing against the elite, and if that ends up being the republican party then so be it. i guess that the next step is pushing out the christians and conservatives.

and, i'm not going to accept any shaming around being lower-class, or standing up for the rights of the lower class, as that has always been where my politics are, in the first place.

i will stand with the deplorables against the pharisees, as is required. that is where the need is for social activism, in our society, today.

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-cult-of-success.html

it's not just about forcing me to do things with people that i don't like.

it's about forcing people that don't like me to do things with me, too.

i'm an openly transgendered, vocally anarchistic, largely straight-edged nerd that doesn't have sex, doesn't watch tv, doesn't like socializing, doesn't have or want a family, etc.

i wasn't always as disinterested in society as i am now. but, at this stage, i can fully understand why nobody wants to hang out with me - i'm not a part of the dominant culture, and don't want to be. they're going to think that i'm as boring as i think that they are.

and, i don't want to lower myself to the level of the culture in order to fit in, either.

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-canadas-anachronistic-but.html

and, i will tell you this: if you put me in jail, like seriously in jail, with a term, so that i lose my things, then i'm probably not going to want to leave.

at the end of the day, i would probably be happier in a padded cell with a book than i would be with a "middle class job".

i just ultimately don't know what the point of trying to force me to get a job is.

i don't want to spend my time doing that. i'm just going to end up in a situation where i'm forced to deal with people that i don't like (and that don't like me). and, i'm ultimately taking a job away from somebody that wants it.

i don't want to be a teacher. i don't want to be a lawyer. i don't want to be a programmer. i don't want to work for the government. broadly speaking, i don't want to work in an office. and, i'm not physically capable of doing manual labour. so, if you're going to force me to get a job, i'm going to be looking for something like a job as a cashier, and in the process i'm going to be taking money away from somebody that wants to save money to go to school, or that needs the extra cash to raise a family.

and, i don't want to raise a family.

i've been through this. i'm going to design my schedule so that i sleep at work, basically, because it's the least important part of the day - i want to be fresh and alert for when i go home, and am able to work on things i actually care about. i'm not going to distinguish myself as a very good employee, because i don't remotely care about doing so. i'm not going to climb ladders. i'm not going to make friends. i'm not going to meet a partner - and i'm going to forcefully reject anybody that demonstrates any interest in me, sexually. i'm probably going to get into political arguments with the people i work with.

i neither want to be there, nor are they going to want me there.

what the government is consequently doing is forcing people into an unwanted relationship, which is the opposite of any kind of market system. somebody is going to be forced to suffer me, and i'm going to be forced to suffer them. why make everybody suffer?

it's just stupid...

when people tell you that they don't want to participate in society, that should be taken seriously. it's not a ploy. and, there's not a "cure". there are only two solutions: you need to let us exist outside of society, where we want to be, or you need to put us in jail. and, putting us in jail is the far more expensive option.

i'm willing to be as frustrating as i need to be, for as long as i need to do it. if you're going to force me to waste my time for some capitalist structure, i will happily waste as much of yours as i possibly can, in joyful retaliation.

sounds like make work projects, to me.

they will literally have to come to my door and drag me out of here screaming, and then beat me when i refuse to co-operate.

https://news.ontario.ca/mcys/en/2018/11/statement-by-minister-macleod-on-social-assistance-plan.html

so, i lost a day, but i slept well and i'm awake now and want to get through august asap.

so, are the democrats going to merely waste everybody's time unearthing trump's tax records, and continuing this neo-birchite conspiracy theory about russian hacking?

i was kind of hoping that a democratic congress might be good for trade policy, healthcare, immigration and infrastructure - that this might help the democrats call trump's bluffs in a sandersesque kind of way.

whatever happened to that trillion dollar infrastructure plan? with holding the drug companies accountable? with single payer healthcare?

i just stated myself the other day that most of the democrats in the house will be indistinguishable from republicans, or vice versa if you see the world from the other direction. i'm not naive about this.

but, if they're not able to muster up something of social worth, they're going to end up back in opposition pretty quickly.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/07/midterms-democrats-house-trump-mueller-investigation

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-clinton-and-trump-calling.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-idea-that-ethnic-diversity.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-clintons-apparent-rejection.html

i made this suggestion at the time; it's in here, somewhere.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/06/health/oumuamua-alien-probe-harvard-intl/index.html

i wanted to go to sleep yesterday afternoon, and finish the month last night, so i could get back to real world things today. instead, i got stuck in the midterms and i'm still awake, and more awake than ever. i guess that's a positive, as it suggests the drugs are out of my system, finally - this is more normal, for me. but i need to stop pretending i'm tired or am going to sleep and just get back to work, instead.

so, it does actually follow that i do actually think that the democrats should be focusing more strongly on winning over lower class white voters in the mid-west, and should care less about winning over right-leaning identity voters, and should especially care little for the particularly right-leaning ones in the south.

sorry.

i don't want the democrats - or the liberals or the ndp - to become a party of muslim and mexicans, if you'll allow me to borrow the phrase, or of hindus and sikhs - i want a party of godless secular humanists that uphold axiomatic liberal values and empirical, scientific based reasoning, on the path to eventual full communism. and, that is probably going to be a mostly white party - not out of ideology, but as a reflection of reality.

it doesn't sound much like a republican or a conservative vision, does it? no, it's clearly a left-wing vision, but it breaks very strongly with the ideas of progressivism, which were always very christian, and in many ways always leaned rather strongly to the right.

but, it's not really a left vs right debate.

it's a science v. religion debate, and a struggle over what the left is.

so, yeah. i'm willing to declare open season on progressives. but, i'm trying to send you back to the right, where you belong - and properly reclaim the left for rational, scientific deduction, and a system of proper secularism in government.

"out of concern that the democrats were pandering to groups with violent, discriminatory views towards queer people, i joined the republican party.".

sure.

right.

rather, my focus is on convincing these bourgeois groups on the pseudo-left to stop pandering to dangerous religious groups for votes.

and, you don't really think that queers and muslims can co-exist in the same movement, do you?

c'mon.

get real.

listen: i'm openly queer. and, i don't like republicans for exactly the same reason that i don't like muslims - or catholics. i've been pretty clear on the point.

i'm also a socialist, so i care about workers. and, trump came through on the trade deal. he did. the tax cuts were nonsense, but the trade deal is substantive, and should create some upward pressure on wages for the first time in decades. i have to acknowledge that, because the democrats have historically been the lesser evil precisely because they've been the party of the working class, and if that is flipping then some reanalysis is necessary.

but, it wouldn't make a lot of sense for me to speak out against the dangers that the normalization of islam poses to the queer movement (and the wider society, in general) and then go and support the republicans. the point i've been making from the start is that they're the ones with the conservative values, so they're the ones that ought to bail to the right-wing party. and, i consequently want to have this fight on the floor of the democratic convention, and not at the ballot box, where i'm voting against my own interests.

i am certainly cognizant that if the republicans do come out of this mess as the workers party, and the democrats do end up as the new conservative party, then the fight is going to be at the republican convention rather than the democratic convention, in the end - rather than have this fight with conservative muslims, i'll have to have it with conservative christians. but, we're not there yet. the democrats are still the queer party, and the queers need to make sure the muslims know it.

so, there's no contradiction, here. what there is is a fight over the nature of the left, and whether it is to be a secular/liberal left or a "progressive"/religious one.

to me, the most interesting thing that happened was in kansas, which now has a democratic governor and a democratic congresswoman. how did that happen?

well, the district is 93% urban. and, the state is apparently rapidly urbanizing.

https://wichitaliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Rural-populations-of-the-states.png

i pointed out a few years ago that the reason that colorado is now a blue state is that it's 87% urban - so denver carries the state. kansas was apparently 75% urban in 2016. if that number continues to increase, it's chances of becoming a blue state increase with it - especially if the population is localized strongly around kansas city. at the time, i was just looking at the map and thinking outloud.

it's the same thing that is happening in virginia, as well as nevada. white people don't and never did vote as a bloc, but the urban/rural split is pretty well-established, with almost no exceptions.

the democrats should be taking this as a signal that kansas is in play for the foreseeable future, so long as the trend towards concentrated urbanization in a single centre continues - because winning the city means winning the state. and, there may be signs that oklahoma is following the same path of development, although i initially pointed to nebraska as more likely. if the democrats can kind of split the map there, and separate the south from the northern plains by this kind of blue road from the west via arizona & new mexico, through colorado and kansas and nebraska and up the mississippi and back to chicago, it could break the jesusland culture. and, then, the northern plains get culturally absorbed by western canada, leaving the southeast as an isolate...

that's where this war is going to be fought: on the west of the mississippi delta, in the space between the river and the rockies.

and, that being said, i'm continually disappointed by missouri, but i understand that the state is undergoing such a process of decay. i keep thinking that it's a matter of time before it reverses itself, and st. louis rises from the dead. kansas city is also in missouri, which i've never understood, but if kansas is swinging, it could help. but, if it doesn't get an intervention of some sort, it's going to get swallowed by arkansas...

i'm not as excited about texas as others, and the reason is that those mexicans are catholics. i understand that they don't like trump, but this is not a particularly rational reaction to that - they didn't like obama, either. and, they don't like abortion. or gays. they're on the wrong side of the culture war, and that's going to eventually assert itself. texas is a melting pot; it's the south, and if it becomes more hispanic, we will end up with more hispanic conservatives, who in the end will stay to the right. i think the same thing is true of georgia. they need more than demographic changes, they need a cultural shift; texas is the counter-example, as it is already largely urbanized. rather than being on the brink of a shift, texas may be the last major state to swing, as these hispanics are slowly converted into republicans, as they are slowly americanized. and, georgia may end up as the epi-centre of a black conservative movement, in the end.

it's what happened in kansas that is more substantive, and the opening of a serious battle that will have longer term implications in shifting the map - so long as these trends of centralization and urbanization continue in the deep mid-west.

personally, i think it's a matter of time before the idea of marijuana as a medicine is essentially laughed out of court. it's kind of astounding that it ever ended up viewed that way in the first place, really. we may have to wait for rigorous studies that tie habitual marijuana use, specifically, to things like lung cancer and heart disease.

the problem is that you have to smoke the stuff, and that people are so used to the onset of instant effects. if your neighbour is a drunk, they might be loud sometimes, but the habit doesn't directly affect you. if your neighbour is a pothead, that is going to have a direct impact on you, and it's not in any way reasonable to suggest that they should be able to avoid liability for it.

it is true that i like to smoke pot at live music events a couple of times a year, away from the house, and with long periods of time in between. but, i learned first-hand just how psychologically, mentally and intellectually damaging that living downwind from a pothead can actually be, and i came out of the experience starkly convinced that serious regulations are required to protect the health and mental well-being of people dealing with chronic, unwanted exposure.

it's not ok to just smoke up and tell your neighbours to fuck off if they don't like it. you should be liable for the consequences of that, via some kind of tort process or broader negligence claim.

https://www.thestar.com/life/homes/opinion/2018/09/28/clearing-the-smoke-on-condo-no-smoking-rules.html

"she doesn't even smoke drugs. pfft. what a loser."

right.

i repeat: i have not bought any legal marijuana in canada, and currently don't plan to at any time in the future.

i will probably buy legal pot in michigan before i buy it in canada, if i ever buy it in canada at all.

and, yes - i am far more excited about legalizing marijuana in michigan than i am about legalizing it in canada, because i only smoke pot at concerts, and windsor does not have a music scene worth engaging with.

being able to buy a pre-roll before the show is going to make things a lot easier for me.

fwiw, i currently have every intention of remaining fully straight-edge until the spring. i'm never going to lift my opposition to marijuana use in residential areas - it's a health issue, and a quality of life issue.

the right to sobriety and a smoke-free, healthy living arrangement is an actual, real right that legalization should help to better enforce, by placing reasonable regulations around areas where people are permitted to smoke drugs and areas where they are not.

it's like these people that go on about how gore wouldn't have invaded iraq, ignoring the fact that gore wrote op-eds in major papers supporting the war in iraq, was the architect of the policies under clinton in the 90s that devastated the country, loudly supported the first gulf war in 1991 and even advocated bombing saddam hussein in the fucking 80s. the facts actually suggest that gore would have probably bombed iraq without even needing 9/11 as an excuse.

but, we live in this collective fantasy reality where, wherever we are on the spectrum, we buy into this right-wing media narrative and all imagine that the democrats are these idealistic leftists. and, the facts don't matter.

it doesn't matter how much death and destruction the democrats cause, they're still seen as pacifists that are weak on national security.

it doesn't matter how many austerity budgets they push, they're still seen as tax & spend.

it doesn't matter how many people they deport, they're still seen as being on the side of migrants.

it doesn't matter how many schools they defund or how many social programs they slash, they're still seen as less racist.

& etc.

the frames are constant, and it's a fact-free world in the media.

i've been over this repeatedly - the idea that hillary clinton is a pro-choice warrior or a crusader for women's rights is actually just right-wing propaganda. really. and, it forms a part of a canon of myths about the democratic party.

another is that the democrats are less violent on immigration; of course, they aren't. obama deported more people than any other president in history. he set up a quota system, for fuck's sake.

a third is that they're pacifists, or anti-war.

so, it makes sense to send people that think she would have been better on abortion to the same debunking web sites that you send people that think she eats babies, because it's actually the same source of misinformation:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/boycott36-clinton-sanders-late-term-abortion/

she actually mentioned her support for a ban on late-term abortions (with the usual republican list of exceptions for rape and health) several times during the last campaign, including as answers in several televised debates. this is very well-known.

now, it's easy to say something like "this is reasonable. it's moderate. nobody likes abortions. safe, accessible and rare is just being a decent person, who opposes that?".

...except that when you really take a look at what she says, you realize that there's very little daylight between where she stands and where the mainstream of the republican party is.

most republicans don't support a full ban, and because roe v wade is settled english common law, you need to be extremely cynical to suggest a court can just overturn it outright. that is scare-mongering. if the republicans get their way on this, it's going to be some kind of partial personhood amendment with the list of exceptions - pretty much exactly what clinton proposes.

i support abortion rights. fully. abortion is a choice, and it is the choice that needs to be upheld. and that was one of the reasons i opposed clinton - she doesn't agree with that.

i need to state again that i didn't analyse the polls leading into the election, i was simply expressing some concern surrounding things like voter id laws, based on what i learned in 2016.

and, what happened tonight?

well, it seems like the democrats did find a way to win back some white voters, after all. watching the early results come in, it looked like a replay of 2016, but when the numbers come in, you're going to see that the important swing is amongst whites in the midwest, not amongst blacks or hispanics in the south.

the irony with kobeck losing is that his tactics weren't applicable to his own district, out in cornfield, kansas, where there weren't any duplicate mexican names to purge. oops.

so, understand this: if the plan was to win a lot of seats in the south on the strength of minority voters, as has been broadcasted for the last several cycles, then that appears to have failed, yet again. they may have flipped a few, but just barely - they lost almost all of the seats that they were relying on minority strength to win. the more convincing wins are in the mostly white rust belt, and i guess you'll have to ask the voters there why they flipped back. you'd think these people would be broadly happy with the new trade deal. isn't that why they voted for trump in the first place? and, perhaps you may find that these particular democrats are more likely to back it, whether the voters realized it or not.

so, if one accepts the idea that trump's strength in the region was due to his opposition to nafta (even if he won due to voter suppression tactics - and, yes, there's plenty of documented evidence of this), it may seem like a strange reward to lose the house, when he delivered on something better - but when you realize that a democratic controlled house is more likely to ratify the new agreement than a republican one, it turns the logic on it's head. after all, trump is governing more like a democrat than a republican. and, like i say, who really knows if this is conscious or not.

regardless, it seems like the balance of power in the new democratic house is actually going to be disproportionately white, and operate disproportionately in the interests of rust belt workers, who have demonstrated themselves as the most important swing in the country. so, it's going to be interesting to see how well trump can work with the house - and whether or not he finds it easier to deal with a democratic house than he does with a republican senate.

i went over a lot of this in my analysis of the 2016 election, which i've been sprinkling into the page over the last several months, and i'm now almost caught up with. seems like i may have jumped the gun a little.

fwiw, i don't think that clinton would have picked somebody less conservative than kavanaugh. she is, after all, on the record as supporting a constitutional amendment to restrict abortion rights for essentially her whole life, and very purposefully picked a pro-life running mate to get the point across. those are the facts, here. sorry.

but, weren't the seats they needed to flip mostly in the southeast and midwest?

this question of whether the democrats need to reach out or rev up their base is missing the point. obviously, it's better to rev up your base - and if you lean left, it's easy to understand why you'd prefer it, even if it's a bad tactic. do you want this because you think it's going to work better, or do you want this because you want this.

the point is that the votes aren't being counted. you can rev the base up all you want, it means nothing if they get to the station and can't vote, or can't get to the station to vote at all. and, standing in california - or in canada - it is hard to understand how hard it is for the base to actually vote in the south, and increasingly in the midwest.

obviously, you want to fight for these people to be able to vote. but, you have to win the elections, first. even if you get the buses out and everything else, you still can't be sure the votes are going to count - or enough of them will, anyways.

so, this isn't a choice.

the democrats must find a way to win back enough white voters to flip enough districts to undo the longterm damage.

another way to understand what i just said is to point out that this approach has a wide error bar, and is consequently only able to present a wide range of results. so, depending on how it is being presented, it can appear to be very wrong, without being wrong at all. you just have to understand how to read it correctly.

it seems like they're trying to fit national data for the house races, and using local data for the gubernatorial ones. they probably should have used the same methodology for the house (and senate.) that they're using for the governor races. and, given that this data probably exists here - as opposed to in a presidential election, where it might not - they probably have less of an argument about a deficit of data.

this is the same argument i've been making for years.

and i have no understanding at all about what affect it may have on the outcome.

one possibility that you could see is that millennial turnout may end up very high in already-leaning democratic districts. if that happens, the election results will be spitting on a fish, and not a lot of seats will flip. the popular vote will end up as a mirage. that is probably the most extreme type of error, but how unlikely is it, really? i mean, if what's driving this is saturday night live, the polls may be broadcasting a kind of circle jerk in the easily led "still watches tv in 2018" demographic - even if these are the same people annoying you on facebook with dubious articles from vox.

again: i have no understanding of what the numbers say. i'm not suggesting that this will affect the accuracy of the outcome. but, you should expect a model like this to be off by quite a bit - it can't be anything better than a crude guess.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/our-final-forecast-in-the-senate-house-and-gubernatorial-races/

ok, so, i think i finally understand what was wrong with those airwalks.

they were slippers. that is, they were made out of felt. apparently, converse does this, too. they apparently don't have to pay as many taxes that way - which makes it that much more shady.

these airwalk ones are supposedly the real deal - for the same $30 i paid for the classics, with the felt bottoms. let's hope they are.

then, do i keep the vans? i dunno. probably not. i don't need four pairs of sneakers....but maybe i can come up with an excuse.

so, i just bought two pairs of airwalk ones. in 2018. they were cheap - i'm interpreting it as 2-for-1. one in red and one in the classic grey & white. these are the suede & rubber shoes that i've been looking at puma to emulate.

see, i don't know the exact history, but i suspect the airwalks were aping on the pumas in the first place. regardless, it's the airwalks i wanted. so, why not go for it.

they say the soles are rubber; we'll find out when they get here. if they are, and these are really just like the old airwalks, then i got two pairs of good shoes for cheap. it seems like this is the right time, as they were limited edition and not being re-run. if these are good shoes, i might have fluked out. if the soles are pvc or something, i can use them as very comfortable throwaways.

i guess it puts the vans on notice if these are good shoes, because i'll want to keep the platforms as dress shoes. i dunno, though. i may just keep them, too. it rules out the extra pumas, for now. probably.

and, if they end up as throwaways, then i'm done, save for a potential trip to the puma store, probably in the spring.

to be clear: i wanted classic airwalk-style, well built comfortable skate shoes. i don't care what the brand name is. i ended up getting some weird mid-top vans as a compromise because i needed shoes, but the only thing i could really find in the style i wanted were pumas, and the store didn't have them in my size. so, i ordered some pumas in my size when i got home and they are, in fact, exactly what i wanted. and, now i've ordered some throwback airwalks, too, after all - potentially in the last few days that i could. if that works out, i probably won't want the vans anymore. but, if they get here and they're shit, i'll use them as throwaway and keep the vans...and maybe get another pair of pumas, too.

i'm finding myself choosing between airwalk classics and puma classics here, and it's not because i'm attached to the style or the past - it's because i want some well made shoes. i may have fluked out and found what i really wanted, but in the long run i'm probably going to be defaulting to those pumas...

my shoes also came in today, and they fit perfectly. that's a size 7 kids shoe.

so, i ended up with

1) size 7 kids pink puma classics with what is a questionable sole for girlishness use. the ad said rubber, but i think it's pvc. disappointing. i'm going to keep these because they're cute, but i may get an adult pair, too.
2) size 9 women's black suede rubber platforms, which are sort of dressier. i wanted these to be walking shoes due to the huge rubber soles, but they're kind of too nice to trudge around in and i think i'm going to put them aside.
3) size 8.5 women's mid-top black canvas vans, with rubber sole & pink laces. these are probably better for long walks, even if the soles aren't quite as thick. i would see these as more expendable.
4) size 7 men's waterproof hiking boots, brownish, ozark trail. these are for walking around in the slush. growing up in ottawa, i've usually had a pair of boots like this, but i initially decided i wouldn't need them in windsor. i'm hoping these last a while and can be pulled out when useful.

i already had

5) size 6 children's rain boots, bluish. these should last for years.
6) size 6 children's winter boots, black. i'm going to need to touch these up a little as there's some hairline cracks in the front, but these are what i'll use to go out in the actual snow, if or when i have to. if i can fix the cracks and just wear them when necessary, these could last years and years.
7) falling apart airwalk classics that were size 9 women's.
8) some falling apart walking shoes i bought at the dollar store.

outside of potentially buying a second pair of puma classics in search of more clearly rubber soles, the last thing i'm going to want is a pair of super cheap shoes for bicycling. i considered shoe gooing the airwalks, but the bottoms are just trash - which is frustrating because the shoes themselves are otherwise so much better built than any of the others around the heel and the toe. if i could find another pair of them, and just replace the sole altogether, though...

and, i think that should probably last me quite a long time, hopefully. i mean, that's the intent; this isn't frivolous. i'm trying to figure out my footwear needs for the next several years now, while i have a good opportunity, and then ensure i don't have to worry about it for a while. i now have rain boots, snow boots, slush boots, cute running shoes (with a skate rubber sole), dressy platform shoes and what seem like pretty comfortable utility shoes (also with a skate rubber sole). i can probably benefit from a second pair of decently built running shoes, and i need some kind of cheap throwaways for utility. but, that should do me. really. for a while..

i'm 5' 8", i don't feel i need heels or pumps. and, i don't exist in the business world, either. i've had these discussions with people at bars "i wish i wore more comfortable shoes". i wish you did, too. really. i have some girlier shoes, but i don't have a lot of opportunities to wear them, and don't see the use in spending money on them.

i didn't get started on this again until after midnight, so i only picked up a few things.

so, the coffee machine is about 0.18. i've never noticed it as a problem, previously.

the 150 W bulb is the 3:00 reading, suggesting it's about 0.15 if run alone. i think a 0.01-0.02 fluctuation is acceptable noise. this is far too much for one light, either way - and is consistent enough.

and, it would seem as though the fan is running at 0.1/hr or so. this is kind of an unavoidable cost, i was more interested in getting the fan alone so i can get a clean reading on the heat lamp.

i measured the fan with the heat lamp & the fan with the led this morning, which i'll be able to compare tomorrow afternoon.

i've also uploaded three blog posts that i wrote in 2016 and i'm dating to 1996. these were written for the liner notes for inri000 & the music blog in general; while i won't be mirroring here, i will be reconstructing this page from 1996-2013 as a part of the alter-reality, and uploading various historical writings, as they come up. that should separate out over 1997, which was supposed to happen over 2017. i will need to track down my old usenet posts...

it was when i moved across town that i got internet access in my room, and i started posting to usenet.

these are the three posts, which are creative writing, but are politically relevant.

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/1996/05/really-enjoying-new-soundgarden-record.html
http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/1996/06/the-quake-soundtrack-is-really-really.html
http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/1996/07/scenery-and-fish-and-building-rooms-in.html

so, that gets me through season 9, which is most of the way through august, 2016. i need to have a big meal before i finish the rest of the month, and then get to real world stuff for tomorrow morning. i think the lights were seriously the last thing to build for the bathroom; the next step is to set up the dining/living room, which will also act as a side library. that should take me through the rest of the week, meaning i should be able to get started on season 10 by the weekend, hopefully.

i just need to keep working and get through it as quickly as i can.

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-stop-white-people.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/so-what-is-barack-obamas-legacy-i-might.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-trumps-appeal-to-inner-city.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-trudeaus-curious-decision.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-long-term-consequences-of.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-medias-curious-focus-on.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-inexcusable-use-of.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-daily-shows-cyclical-stunt.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-tragically-hip-trigger.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-importance-of-past-and.html

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2016/08/j-reacts-to-example-of-how-trudeau-is.html

listen: it's less that i'm not on either side of the election, although i suppose that is a technical truth. it's more that i take a kind of classical anarchist position: it is the democrats and republicans that are actually on the same side, which is the side of capitalism. the side i am on is the side that opposes both parties, and broadly equally so.

from about 1930-1990 or so, the democrats were usually the least evil option. the lines started to blur with clinton, and the spectrum may be shifting with trump.

but, realizing that the republicans may be becoming the lesser evil is not to take their side against the democrats, or switch sides, because i was never on the side of the democrats in the first place, and the republicans are still very evil.

races for the senate and the house and the governor and etc are going to more individualistic. as an anarchist, i would have never presented a party preference; the reality is that the vast majority of these races are inconsequential, and the candidates will end up with virtually indistinguishable voting records. in some cases, there may be democratic candidates worth supporting; in others, there may be republican candidates worth supporting. but, broadly speaking, i am more likely to support an independent or third party candidate than i am to support either of the two major parties, who i see as broadly interchangeable.

to an extent, i guess if the republicans think i'm secretly a democrat and the democrats think i'm secretly a republican then the conclusion is that i must be a fair voice - and not one in the centre (the centre of a one-party state is the one-party state, itself), but one outside of the spectrum. and, i often place myself outside of the discourse - because the side i'm on is the one that opposes the two of them equally, as a two-headed monster.

the facts on the ground are that the republicans are engaging in massive, widespread vote suppression tactics, and that the effects of these efforts have been decisive in multiple contests over the last several years, including the last presidential election. any polling analysis consequently needs to be very careful that it isn't overestimating support amongst groups that are going to have difficulty voting.

and, that is truly the extent of my analysis.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/12/black-voter-turnout-fell-in-2016-even-as-a-record-number-of-americans-cast-ballots/ft_17-05-10_voter-turnout/