and, i'm thinking about my issues with eye contact. it was what i
initially wanted to talk to a psychiatrist about, before i got diagnosed
with...well, i guess they got me to social anxiety disorder in the end,
which is more along the right lines. but, i never expected it to be
declared a disability and to entitle me to a monthly check; i was
thinking it was something i could get some therapy regarding.
part
of the argument i used to get my extension, which i haven't posted
anywhere yet, was a cost-benefit analysis of treatment v. acceptance. it
was a catch-22 themed essay that argued that i might seem perfectly ok
right now, but if you take me off the odsp then i won't seem ok anymore.
i concluded that i ought to be grounded. but, i acknowledged that a
significant investment with morally questionable techniques could
resolve the issue - even if you had to chain me down and lock me up to
administer it.
what i'm wondering right now is whether that's really true.
i
avoid almost all eye contact. it's really only when i want somebody to
do something for me that i can muster up the courage to look somebody in
the eye; it's that aggressive of a gesture, for me. it's clearly not
such an aggressive gesture for others.
is that learned, or instinctual?
the
earliest memories i have with eye contact are feelings of almost panic
due to a desire to avoid confrontation. so, i don't have memories of any
theoretical causes, but only memories of effects. the thing is that it
goes back very far, to that murky early grade school period; it could be
because i changed schools in grade 3, or because i had a concussion
shortly afterwards, but i would be almost hopeless in differentiating
between events that happened between when i was four and when i was 7.
it's quite young, though.
i remember that when people
looked at me in the eye, i would become fearful that an argument or
fight was about to start. it was just an act of pure aggression. so, i
found myself avoiding eye contact both to counter the aggression of
others and to prevent others from thinking i was behaving aggressively.
it
sounds like i'm talking about an antelope. and, maybe i am in the sense
that i have some native american genes. i'm exhibiting behaviour
regarding eye contact that is normal in some indigenous cultures, but i
haven't been conditioned into any of those cultures. perhaps therapy may
be less effective then i'd like to think.
i've liked
to think i'm not irreversibly broken; that i could be fixed, but that
the investment would be at a loss. and maybe what i'm pointing to only
necessitates therapy, rather than negates it's use. but maybe i'm
uncovering somewhat of an unrealized truth, whatever it's scale.
Saturday, September 26, 2015
i'm starting to become more cognizant of this strange tick in my
neck. now, what i'm going to say may seem unscientific, and would
probably be rejected by most doctors, but if you ask them to provide a
better explanation, you'll be disappointed in their responses. i'm
grasping the situation through experiencing it; i'm carrying out the
experiment. and, while i may not be the person best positioned to
measure my own behaviour, my notes should be analyzed for a mechanism
rather than discarded as "impossible".
i seem to have developed too much control over my autonomous nervous system. seems ridiculous, i know. but, can you point me to studies that prove it impossible to gain control over the autonomous nervous system? because i bet i could find some studies that blur the lines pretty substantially.
i seem to have developed a fear of swallowing. that's at the crux of it. due to throat inflammation for various reasons, but one obvious, i may have nearly choked once or twice. i suppose we all cough something up once in a while, and it's a lesson to be more careful when you're eating. but, we mostly tend to shrug it off after a day or two, right? instead, i seem to have internalized it to the point that i'm not able to open my throat to let liquids in. i find myself fighting a battle against my own throat.
that might seem to indicate a loss of control, but not if it's thought about more carefully. if everything was firing correctly, i'd expect my throat would open when i pick up a glass of water. instead, it shuts and i have to consciously struggle with myself to open it. if i were in full conscious control, i would not have to struggle; if it were truly autonomous, it would not close at all. that indicates that it's my subconscious that must be interfering and shutting it out of a repressed fear of choking, which indicates too much control - but not consciously.
i understand i'm not likely to convince anybody with a doctorate in anything of this. but, i believe it's what's actually happening. in theory, the solution should be in the realm of mental health. but, even if i could convince somebody to take me seriously, i'm skeptical that they'd have any good ideas. it's maybe the kind of thing something like yoga might fix, without as of yet understanding the mechanism.
i don't think i actually need to go to a yoga studio. but, the answer may be spending a little bit of time sitting and breathing. i've spent most of my time recently fighting with a computer, and most of my time before that mixing and mastering. maybe i need to spend a little time with the guitar.
i'm not as dismissive of hypnotism as you might suspect i am, i just wish we could get a better handle of the mechanism.
i mean, you have to wonder if that's what demons are - repressed fears - and if that's what an exorcism really is - hypnosis to escape a repressed memory, fear or other such thing. we can do without the spells and religious mumbo jumbo, no doubt. but, it might be getting at stimulating a condition that allows for erasure.
my understanding is that there are actually experimental techniques underway that can erase undesirable memories using electronic equipment. that could be demon removal, on demand.
perhaps certain systems of eastern mysticism may have thrived for the reason that they minimize the onsets of these sorts of stresses.
and, if that's true, the mechanism would be in stimulating the hormonal condition that allows for stress release (jumbled language, it's still sort of magic at this point).
which, i believe - through direct personal experience and the observations of others regarding how i appear when i play the instrument - i can stimulate by expression on the guitar.
i seem to have developed too much control over my autonomous nervous system. seems ridiculous, i know. but, can you point me to studies that prove it impossible to gain control over the autonomous nervous system? because i bet i could find some studies that blur the lines pretty substantially.
i seem to have developed a fear of swallowing. that's at the crux of it. due to throat inflammation for various reasons, but one obvious, i may have nearly choked once or twice. i suppose we all cough something up once in a while, and it's a lesson to be more careful when you're eating. but, we mostly tend to shrug it off after a day or two, right? instead, i seem to have internalized it to the point that i'm not able to open my throat to let liquids in. i find myself fighting a battle against my own throat.
that might seem to indicate a loss of control, but not if it's thought about more carefully. if everything was firing correctly, i'd expect my throat would open when i pick up a glass of water. instead, it shuts and i have to consciously struggle with myself to open it. if i were in full conscious control, i would not have to struggle; if it were truly autonomous, it would not close at all. that indicates that it's my subconscious that must be interfering and shutting it out of a repressed fear of choking, which indicates too much control - but not consciously.
i understand i'm not likely to convince anybody with a doctorate in anything of this. but, i believe it's what's actually happening. in theory, the solution should be in the realm of mental health. but, even if i could convince somebody to take me seriously, i'm skeptical that they'd have any good ideas. it's maybe the kind of thing something like yoga might fix, without as of yet understanding the mechanism.
i don't think i actually need to go to a yoga studio. but, the answer may be spending a little bit of time sitting and breathing. i've spent most of my time recently fighting with a computer, and most of my time before that mixing and mastering. maybe i need to spend a little time with the guitar.
i'm not as dismissive of hypnotism as you might suspect i am, i just wish we could get a better handle of the mechanism.
i mean, you have to wonder if that's what demons are - repressed fears - and if that's what an exorcism really is - hypnosis to escape a repressed memory, fear or other such thing. we can do without the spells and religious mumbo jumbo, no doubt. but, it might be getting at stimulating a condition that allows for erasure.
my understanding is that there are actually experimental techniques underway that can erase undesirable memories using electronic equipment. that could be demon removal, on demand.
perhaps certain systems of eastern mysticism may have thrived for the reason that they minimize the onsets of these sorts of stresses.
and, if that's true, the mechanism would be in stimulating the hormonal condition that allows for stress release (jumbled language, it's still sort of magic at this point).
which, i believe - through direct personal experience and the observations of others regarding how i appear when i play the instrument - i can stimulate by expression on the guitar.
at
21:47
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
you know, there's a lot of evidence that brothels are actual a step forward in increasing safety measures. as comically anachronistic as the comment may be, i'd actually be pleasantly surprised if he stood up and made an announcement in support of brothels. and, i'm not convinced he'd face that much opposition from the centre, either.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/26/jason-kenney-brothels-trudeau_n_8199480.html
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/26/jason-kenney-brothels-trudeau_n_8199480.html
at
20:43
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
it demonstrates the absurd lengths that people will go to in denying that they're racists.
"if i don't want a wall with canada, too, then they're going to think i'm racist, which i am, but they can't know that, so, yeah, let's build a wall with canada, too!"
a wall would actually hurt marijuana exports, though. the logic is not entirely non-transferable.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/24/americans-canada-border-w_n_8192724.html
Kevin Wells
Let me guess, you're stoned right now?
jessica amber murray
that would be false. and, i would prefer that further responses focus on my analysis (which is no doubt correct), rather than my personal decisions.
Kevin Wells
There is no way to prove your idea is correct but it seems to me there are other possibllities that are equally, if not more likely, to be correct.
jessica amber murray
right. i suppose americans are concerned about canadians sneaking in and stealing their jobs in order to take advantage of their health care system.
as mentioned, a wall would likely hurt the canadian marijuana industry, which is actually the single largest industry in british columbia (if measured in terms of gdp). there is a mild level of consistency, if viewed along those lines. but, i somehow doubt that's what americans are thinking.
"if i don't want a wall with canada, too, then they're going to think i'm racist, which i am, but they can't know that, so, yeah, let's build a wall with canada, too!"
a wall would actually hurt marijuana exports, though. the logic is not entirely non-transferable.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/24/americans-canada-border-w_n_8192724.html
Kevin Wells
Let me guess, you're stoned right now?
jessica amber murray
that would be false. and, i would prefer that further responses focus on my analysis (which is no doubt correct), rather than my personal decisions.
Kevin Wells
There is no way to prove your idea is correct but it seems to me there are other possibllities that are equally, if not more likely, to be correct.
jessica amber murray
right. i suppose americans are concerned about canadians sneaking in and stealing their jobs in order to take advantage of their health care system.
as mentioned, a wall would likely hurt the canadian marijuana industry, which is actually the single largest industry in british columbia (if measured in terms of gdp). there is a mild level of consistency, if viewed along those lines. but, i somehow doubt that's what americans are thinking.
at
20:27
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
so, when they start measuring increased levels of sulphur dioxide, they will deflect the blame away from backpedalling on emissions and towards the volcano. i hope they have monitoring sources that can cut through this.
www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/volcanos-toxic-gas-triple-amount-of-all-europes-industry/57741/
www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/volcanos-toxic-gas-triple-amount-of-all-europes-industry/57741/
at
19:47
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
sharks have been around longer than trees, perhaps. but longevity is not necessarily a measure of fitness. only now do they finally have mammals to compete with. the way that humans are changing the ocean may act as a catalyst for the mammalian takeover of the ocean, as they are more adapted to adjust to changes in the ocean, but that strikes me as an inevitable process. none of us will live to see it, no doubt, but it will be interesting to see if chemical changes in the water provide for the die-out necessary for mammalian radiation. like an asteroid hitting the ocean, to use an analogy.
i have a lot of problems with the way that biologists "do" evolution. rather, i like the idea of evolution as a function of environmental change. it reduces evolution to a kind of geology. oxygen goes up, the size of insects increases; temperatures change dramatically, and mammals move into opening niches. but, in this context we see something that is certainly an improvement, in any measurable way: the ability to survive changes in temperature seems almost elementary from the perspective of an advanced mammal like humans. if i'm assigning a direction, it's in the direction of robustness - but as a reaction to changes in environment that can be measured using physics.
when you really realize this, it becomes difficult to argue against climate change on the basis of restricting species diversity. if species are unable to withstand changes, other similar species that *are* able to withstand those changes, or thrive in them, will move in. you can view it as catalyzing evolution towards robustness. hey, maybe you actually want to keep an eye on polar bear and wolf hybridization for that reason. but it's bound to create more robust species, and they will diversify again on advantageous terms. not that there aren't better reasons....
how did polar bears happen, anyways? you'd have to think they were probably bears that got chased out of their range, and slowly moved into the north, adapting as they went. they were more or less pinched out of the bear genome and set adrift. an exploratory mission for the genome - possibly beneficial, but ultimately entirely expendable. and, so, anything that returns will be a net gain and contribute to a more robust type of bear. but, if nothing returns at all, there is not a loss because it was essentially expelled dna.
ah, but i'm interpreting evolution as a crossing graph rather than as a tree - i am understanding hybridization as a driver of evolution, through hybrid vigour. and, that's maybe a little cutting edge and hard to follow. it's simply the idea that what we're seeing right now with coywolf hybridization is a good model to use to explain how closely related species combine into a form that eventually assimilates one or both founder species, as a response to changes in environment. that could in theory create an ursid form from grizzly and polar founders that is actually better suited for the new arctic.
www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/new-regulations-provides-more-protection-to-endangered-shark-species/35812/
i have a lot of problems with the way that biologists "do" evolution. rather, i like the idea of evolution as a function of environmental change. it reduces evolution to a kind of geology. oxygen goes up, the size of insects increases; temperatures change dramatically, and mammals move into opening niches. but, in this context we see something that is certainly an improvement, in any measurable way: the ability to survive changes in temperature seems almost elementary from the perspective of an advanced mammal like humans. if i'm assigning a direction, it's in the direction of robustness - but as a reaction to changes in environment that can be measured using physics.
when you really realize this, it becomes difficult to argue against climate change on the basis of restricting species diversity. if species are unable to withstand changes, other similar species that *are* able to withstand those changes, or thrive in them, will move in. you can view it as catalyzing evolution towards robustness. hey, maybe you actually want to keep an eye on polar bear and wolf hybridization for that reason. but it's bound to create more robust species, and they will diversify again on advantageous terms. not that there aren't better reasons....
how did polar bears happen, anyways? you'd have to think they were probably bears that got chased out of their range, and slowly moved into the north, adapting as they went. they were more or less pinched out of the bear genome and set adrift. an exploratory mission for the genome - possibly beneficial, but ultimately entirely expendable. and, so, anything that returns will be a net gain and contribute to a more robust type of bear. but, if nothing returns at all, there is not a loss because it was essentially expelled dna.
ah, but i'm interpreting evolution as a crossing graph rather than as a tree - i am understanding hybridization as a driver of evolution, through hybrid vigour. and, that's maybe a little cutting edge and hard to follow. it's simply the idea that what we're seeing right now with coywolf hybridization is a good model to use to explain how closely related species combine into a form that eventually assimilates one or both founder species, as a response to changes in environment. that could in theory create an ursid form from grizzly and polar founders that is actually better suited for the new arctic.
www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/new-regulations-provides-more-protection-to-endangered-shark-species/35812/
at
19:32
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
this document will move numbers.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-liberal-fiscal-plan-1.3245239
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-liberal-fiscal-plan-1.3245239
at
18:03
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
Friday, September 25, 2015
why write a law, steve? why not build a plaque? a statue, with an engraven image? future mps could gather around the stephen harper memorial on national tax freedom day and take a moment to honour the inscription. children could go on field trips.
the law is impermanent, steve. granite is forever.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-harper-tax-lock-1.3243973
the law is impermanent, steve. granite is forever.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-harper-tax-lock-1.3243973
at
20:47
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
he can't walk this back. and, i suspect he doesn't want to. this is the direction the ndp will continue in until he is removed from power, regardless of consequences.
"just a dip in the polls, stay the course."
rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/michael-stewart/2015/09/ndps-rightward-drift-strategy-destined-to-fail
"just a dip in the polls, stay the course."
rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/michael-stewart/2015/09/ndps-rightward-drift-strategy-destined-to-fail
at
01:13
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
it's interesting how humans learn to adjust to whatever the biggest fraud of the era is. speculators. stocks. whatever. now, we've got youtube hits as the easy money game
at
00:27
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i have a better idea: why don't we get rid of citizenship ceremonies?
at
00:03
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
Thursday, September 24, 2015
putin looks like his bladder is about to erupt. he's shaking. i guess even the president of russia gets stuck holding it from time to time.
at
23:55
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
it's like the initiation into a cult. creepy....
somebody needs to go to one of these things in a spiderman costume and see what happens.
somebody needs to go to one of these things in a spiderman costume and see what happens.
at
23:03
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
well, duceppe won the debate, hands down. trudeau sounded like a robot (although he still has the best platform, sadly). i think mulcair got hit pretty badly by duceppe on a few points.
i couldn't see it swinging anybody between the ndp and the liberals - it just cements the same narrative of mulcair having more experience and talent but being wrong all of the time and trudeau having no idea what he's talking about, but reciting lines that make a lot of sense. harper & may largely don't matter. but, this was about as well as the bloc could have hoped for.
i have to say i missed duceppe. he always had his own angle. harper seemed pleasantly amused too; i actually bet he enjoyed that.
i'm not calling it. too delicate. but, here we go: now the election really starts.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/french-language-debate-five-party-leaders-1.3242417
regarding the "issue"...
i've been just trying hard to figure out why anybody cares. but, i'm ducking the question.
i agree with both sides, in varying amounts. is the niqab a symbol of oppression? yes. but, so is a bra. and, we all accept that a woman gets to decide if she wants to wear a bra or not, regardless of the history of the article of clothing.
i don't see any ground swell of muslim women rising up to demand that the state intervene in their right to choose their own clothing. i think everybody else needs to take a step back and ask what right they have to determine anybody else's oppression
the day i see public niqab burnings is the day i know there's an issue here that requires some solidarity.
Myopinion
I respect people’s rights to wear whatever the hell they wish but I do have a problem with the nijab. To women of Muslim culture and religion the nijab means one thing (I get that) but in the west it is a totally different reality. The death to America and its alliances mantra is becoming all too real. When ISIS fighters, dressed in garbs concealing their faces (Jihadi) John, and beheading people on TV happened, the nijab became a new reality for me. If I find myself in public places with someone wearing a nijab, I get the hell out of that place as quickly as I can. I am not trying to sound intolerant but I become fearful when I am around people whose faces are concealed. As a Canadian I should have the right to feel safe in public and not anxiously look for the nearest exit out of fear that my life could become endangered in that moment. I am sure I would not be allowed to take my citizenship ceremony in a Halloween mask or KKK outfit so why is the nijab be acceptable?
jessica murray
well, see, i don't see any reason why you should be banned from taking your citizenship ceremony in a halloween costume. in fact, i beg that the experiment be attempted, as i expect it will face no opposition.
i find people with beards scary. i'm not sure why. i think it might be because my dad had a beard when my parents divorced, and he may have been a little scary for awhile, and then coincidentally went back to not being scary when his beard was shaved. but, the details of my psychological difficulties with bearded people are long and arduous, and i wish not to bore you with their long-windedness.
does that mean i should be able to demand everybody shave?
talk about unreasonable accommodation. yeesh.
i want spiderman to crash that citizenship ceremony in style!
i couldn't see it swinging anybody between the ndp and the liberals - it just cements the same narrative of mulcair having more experience and talent but being wrong all of the time and trudeau having no idea what he's talking about, but reciting lines that make a lot of sense. harper & may largely don't matter. but, this was about as well as the bloc could have hoped for.
i have to say i missed duceppe. he always had his own angle. harper seemed pleasantly amused too; i actually bet he enjoyed that.
i'm not calling it. too delicate. but, here we go: now the election really starts.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/french-language-debate-five-party-leaders-1.3242417
regarding the "issue"...
i've been just trying hard to figure out why anybody cares. but, i'm ducking the question.
i agree with both sides, in varying amounts. is the niqab a symbol of oppression? yes. but, so is a bra. and, we all accept that a woman gets to decide if she wants to wear a bra or not, regardless of the history of the article of clothing.
i don't see any ground swell of muslim women rising up to demand that the state intervene in their right to choose their own clothing. i think everybody else needs to take a step back and ask what right they have to determine anybody else's oppression
the day i see public niqab burnings is the day i know there's an issue here that requires some solidarity.
Myopinion
I respect people’s rights to wear whatever the hell they wish but I do have a problem with the nijab. To women of Muslim culture and religion the nijab means one thing (I get that) but in the west it is a totally different reality. The death to America and its alliances mantra is becoming all too real. When ISIS fighters, dressed in garbs concealing their faces (Jihadi) John, and beheading people on TV happened, the nijab became a new reality for me. If I find myself in public places with someone wearing a nijab, I get the hell out of that place as quickly as I can. I am not trying to sound intolerant but I become fearful when I am around people whose faces are concealed. As a Canadian I should have the right to feel safe in public and not anxiously look for the nearest exit out of fear that my life could become endangered in that moment. I am sure I would not be allowed to take my citizenship ceremony in a Halloween mask or KKK outfit so why is the nijab be acceptable?
jessica murray
well, see, i don't see any reason why you should be banned from taking your citizenship ceremony in a halloween costume. in fact, i beg that the experiment be attempted, as i expect it will face no opposition.
i find people with beards scary. i'm not sure why. i think it might be because my dad had a beard when my parents divorced, and he may have been a little scary for awhile, and then coincidentally went back to not being scary when his beard was shaved. but, the details of my psychological difficulties with bearded people are long and arduous, and i wish not to bore you with their long-windedness.
does that mean i should be able to demand everybody shave?
talk about unreasonable accommodation. yeesh.
i want spiderman to crash that citizenship ceremony in style!
at
22:15
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
essentially nobody is going to change their vote on this, anyways. it's not the technical definition of a recession that hurts incumbent governments, it's the actual reality of job losses. what the declaration of a recession does is give people hit by job losses (and family members of those hit by job losses) an opportunity to place blame and an outlet to express anger. but, a statistical correction doesn't change anything in what people are experiencing.
given the nexus of recent job losses, you'd expect the biggest effects in alberta. but, given reality, you wouldn't actually expect much of an effect in alberta.
budget deficits are a legitimate article of faith, but whether we're in a technical recession or not is just academic.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-harper-ndp-liberals-statscan-recession-1.3240679
given the nexus of recent job losses, you'd expect the biggest effects in alberta. but, given reality, you wouldn't actually expect much of an effect in alberta.
budget deficits are a legitimate article of faith, but whether we're in a technical recession or not is just academic.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-harper-ndp-liberals-statscan-recession-1.3240679
at
19:03
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
it's the bloc, guys, not the conservatives.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-s-muslim-community-feels-used-by-political-parties-1.3241582
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-s-muslim-community-feels-used-by-political-parties-1.3241582
at
18:41
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
the niqab fiasco, as it exists, is not a wedge issue. it's a tyranny of the majority.
i think i understand the issue, theoretically, a little bit better now. for the longest time, i couldn't figure out what the actual pretend substance was; why would anybody care? is it even about surveillance? but, it seems to be that there's an archaic british tradition where you have to show your face to make an oath. it might even be religious in justification.
but, it's a stretch to think that much of anybody - especially people in quebec - are interacting with the issue on the level of archaic british tradition. and, i'm not going to yell at a monk or a bishop for hiding his face while taking an oath, either. i mean, we're a little beyond fealty to the king (or queen, as it may be) here, aren't we?
it's a way to channel that longstanding francophone fear of assimilation, by channelling it towards a visible minority. the candidates should not be playing with this as a political issue. and, i actually hope that the debate gives at least one of the candidates the opportunity to make it clear that this shouldn't be treated as a wedge issue - because it isn't.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-french-language-federal-leaders-debate-1.3240714
i think i understand the issue, theoretically, a little bit better now. for the longest time, i couldn't figure out what the actual pretend substance was; why would anybody care? is it even about surveillance? but, it seems to be that there's an archaic british tradition where you have to show your face to make an oath. it might even be religious in justification.
but, it's a stretch to think that much of anybody - especially people in quebec - are interacting with the issue on the level of archaic british tradition. and, i'm not going to yell at a monk or a bishop for hiding his face while taking an oath, either. i mean, we're a little beyond fealty to the king (or queen, as it may be) here, aren't we?
it's a way to channel that longstanding francophone fear of assimilation, by channelling it towards a visible minority. the candidates should not be playing with this as a political issue. and, i actually hope that the debate gives at least one of the candidates the opportunity to make it clear that this shouldn't be treated as a wedge issue - because it isn't.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-french-language-federal-leaders-debate-1.3240714
at
18:23
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
you have to understand that there's already an existing line to cushing. keystone was about increasing production. cancelling keystone is about putting an increase in production on hold. move your mental goalposts, there. existing transfer of bitumen through this region is already at quite high volumes.
the fact that oil is trading low due to oversupply and likely will be for a while is going to prevent the increase in production, anyways.
it's surprising that the only candidate that has come close to levelling with people about the actual realities around getting any pipeline built is harper. mulcair was initially pushing some weird manipulative scheme to use the environmental review process to reduce opposition, but has lately dropped that argument in favour of preferring local refineries. it's all based on the unrealistic projection of rapid oil-industry growth. and, while trudeau has been less obvious and more interested in carbon transition, he's more or less thinking the same thing in terms of short-term financing. only harper has pointed out that the industry is actually facing a lot of challenges that could lead to medium term decreases in production.
this ought to be an issue. but the issue ought to be discussions surrounding the circumstances of over-reliance on an oil industry that is not going to meet unrealistic expectations. that would be some actual leadership.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-pipelines-chris-hall-1.3241032
bgGruff
Harper is biased and does not govern with Canada's future in mind.
can't blame him though, big oil owns him along with his Fraud Party.
Keystone expansion will create est. 42,ooo jobs and $Billions in revenue, at the expense of Canada's environment and water resources
populist
no that is simplistic thinking.you think more Hydro dams are better .Remember all the Caribou that dies when James Bay 2 was being built??
jessica murray
changes in landscape can be planned and adjusted for. the atmosphere is not such an easy thing to engineer.
and, those jobs numbers are bunk, even under unrealistic projections. the ndp always says "according to the government's estimates" because they know it's a trash projection. if you ignore the short-term construction jobs, long term job estimates are more like 42 than 42,000.
but, i'm not letting the ndp change the narrative, it doesn't matter how many jobs it creates. there are better ways to create jobs. we're not so desperate for employment that we have to throw every other consideration out the window. exporting asbestos creates jobs, too.
--
Paul Bourgoin
We have enough oil for Canadian needs, why not refine our own energy, keep it for Canadian consumption while keeping our money in Canada, creating jobs and reducing our green house emissions and most important keeping our money in Canada until we master clean energy.
jessica murray
in the past, canadian governments have tried to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by increasing our consumption of domestic oil but it led to massive opposition from alberta. it's a large part of the reason the political spectrum is as it is today.
the fact that oil is trading low due to oversupply and likely will be for a while is going to prevent the increase in production, anyways.
it's surprising that the only candidate that has come close to levelling with people about the actual realities around getting any pipeline built is harper. mulcair was initially pushing some weird manipulative scheme to use the environmental review process to reduce opposition, but has lately dropped that argument in favour of preferring local refineries. it's all based on the unrealistic projection of rapid oil-industry growth. and, while trudeau has been less obvious and more interested in carbon transition, he's more or less thinking the same thing in terms of short-term financing. only harper has pointed out that the industry is actually facing a lot of challenges that could lead to medium term decreases in production.
this ought to be an issue. but the issue ought to be discussions surrounding the circumstances of over-reliance on an oil industry that is not going to meet unrealistic expectations. that would be some actual leadership.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-pipelines-chris-hall-1.3241032
bgGruff
Harper is biased and does not govern with Canada's future in mind.
can't blame him though, big oil owns him along with his Fraud Party.
Keystone expansion will create est. 42,ooo jobs and $Billions in revenue, at the expense of Canada's environment and water resources
populist
no that is simplistic thinking.you think more Hydro dams are better .Remember all the Caribou that dies when James Bay 2 was being built??
jessica murray
changes in landscape can be planned and adjusted for. the atmosphere is not such an easy thing to engineer.
and, those jobs numbers are bunk, even under unrealistic projections. the ndp always says "according to the government's estimates" because they know it's a trash projection. if you ignore the short-term construction jobs, long term job estimates are more like 42 than 42,000.
but, i'm not letting the ndp change the narrative, it doesn't matter how many jobs it creates. there are better ways to create jobs. we're not so desperate for employment that we have to throw every other consideration out the window. exporting asbestos creates jobs, too.
--
Paul Bourgoin
We have enough oil for Canadian needs, why not refine our own energy, keep it for Canadian consumption while keeping our money in Canada, creating jobs and reducing our green house emissions and most important keeping our money in Canada until we master clean energy.
jessica murray
in the past, canadian governments have tried to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by increasing our consumption of domestic oil but it led to massive opposition from alberta. it's a large part of the reason the political spectrum is as it is today.
at
17:43
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i've been making this argument for quite some time, now: world war two is ancient history, now. it truly remains at the core of our entire society. but, young people are increasingly oblivious to it, and will mostly argue that it was such a long time ago that it doesn't matter, anyways. we're on the cusp of what is going to be a pretty big generational overturn, as the memory of this war exits our collective consciousness. and, the ramifications of this are both profound and extremely varied.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/news/canada-election-2015-ndp-hamilton-alex-johnstone-auschwitz-1.3241065
H.S.C
yah...like slavery...it was soooo long ago... Ancient history...lets play video games and forget about all that old stuff...
One word sums your comment up....pathetic.
jessica murray
i'm not attempting to take a moral position on the matter, i'm pointing out that this is a part of a developing social phenomenon.
Think twice
These young people you refer to, are they the ones with massive student debt and little job prospects?
jessica murray
i think this is more broadly cultural.
H.S.C
you have clarity issues...
jessica murray
i think i'm perfectly clear; you have comprehension issues.
people don't want to live their lives shackled by the oppression of history, either. they want to look forward.
as it stands at the moment, the israeli state is carrying out far greater crimes than they're being subjected to.
Think twice
Is this your assertion or do you have facts?
jessica murray
i'm not sure how you'd propose that i prove such a thing.
it's an intuition brought on by observation, but the intuition is accelerating due to increasing observation.
Think twice
I get it. What you are saying is that young people are mostly interested in current things.
Quite a revelation. A similar thing happened in the 70's apparently:)
jessica murray
it's more profound than that, though. wwII is our modern founding myth - which is not to say the things didn't happen, but to say that the way we interpret it is through myth. my grandparents were born *during* the war; i'd have had to have had a relationship with great-grand-parents to have any first-hand recollection of it, and i don't. my stepmother's father has told me some stories about seeing u-boats off the coast of nova scotia. he was just a kid. he could've been seeing things. that's the closest thing to firsthand knowledge.
basically, the myth of wwII - rather than the reality of it - is our existing justification for the state. it's a social contract that gives it the right to fight bad guys - cartoonish, but the reality in the public perception. if the myth begins to fade into history, then the state begins to lose it's legitimacy.
the "war on terrorism" that came out of 9/11 doesn't have the same legitimizing effect, because the enemies are not as clear and the policies are far too transparent - it's as clear as day that it's a ploy to contain the russians. there was a really definable bad guy in wwII. there was even a really definable bad guy at the beginning of the cold war. funding islamist extremists while you pretend you're fighting them in order to hem in the russians just isn't as convincing as fighting a legitimately powerful state entity bent on world domination on frightening terms.
so, for world war two to pass into history requires massive adjustments in virtually everything. a real generational overhaul.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/news/canada-election-2015-ndp-hamilton-alex-johnstone-auschwitz-1.3241065
H.S.C
yah...like slavery...it was soooo long ago... Ancient history...lets play video games and forget about all that old stuff...
One word sums your comment up....pathetic.
jessica murray
i'm not attempting to take a moral position on the matter, i'm pointing out that this is a part of a developing social phenomenon.
Think twice
These young people you refer to, are they the ones with massive student debt and little job prospects?
jessica murray
i think this is more broadly cultural.
H.S.C
you have clarity issues...
jessica murray
i think i'm perfectly clear; you have comprehension issues.
people don't want to live their lives shackled by the oppression of history, either. they want to look forward.
as it stands at the moment, the israeli state is carrying out far greater crimes than they're being subjected to.
Think twice
Is this your assertion or do you have facts?
jessica murray
i'm not sure how you'd propose that i prove such a thing.
it's an intuition brought on by observation, but the intuition is accelerating due to increasing observation.
Think twice
I get it. What you are saying is that young people are mostly interested in current things.
Quite a revelation. A similar thing happened in the 70's apparently:)
jessica murray
it's more profound than that, though. wwII is our modern founding myth - which is not to say the things didn't happen, but to say that the way we interpret it is through myth. my grandparents were born *during* the war; i'd have had to have had a relationship with great-grand-parents to have any first-hand recollection of it, and i don't. my stepmother's father has told me some stories about seeing u-boats off the coast of nova scotia. he was just a kid. he could've been seeing things. that's the closest thing to firsthand knowledge.
basically, the myth of wwII - rather than the reality of it - is our existing justification for the state. it's a social contract that gives it the right to fight bad guys - cartoonish, but the reality in the public perception. if the myth begins to fade into history, then the state begins to lose it's legitimacy.
the "war on terrorism" that came out of 9/11 doesn't have the same legitimizing effect, because the enemies are not as clear and the policies are far too transparent - it's as clear as day that it's a ploy to contain the russians. there was a really definable bad guy in wwII. there was even a really definable bad guy at the beginning of the cold war. funding islamist extremists while you pretend you're fighting them in order to hem in the russians just isn't as convincing as fighting a legitimately powerful state entity bent on world domination on frightening terms.
so, for world war two to pass into history requires massive adjustments in virtually everything. a real generational overhaul.
at
17:06
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
when you live in a basement, outside lawn mowers can make some rather gorgeous ambient music.
at
10:16
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i want to see him running up the steps to parliament yelling "adrian!".
careful, though: it runs too far into the series and we've got justin taking on putin, who we all know will be badass well into his 80s. maybe if we get a plot twist to hockey, we can pull that off.
https://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/23/trudeau-spars-with-former-trainer-on-eve-of-french-debate/
careful, though: it runs too far into the series and we've got justin taking on putin, who we all know will be badass well into his 80s. maybe if we get a plot twist to hockey, we can pull that off.
https://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/23/trudeau-spars-with-former-trainer-on-eve-of-french-debate/
at
00:05
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
well, it's unfortunate, but he's right. canada is a five eyes nation. collection and storage of data has been going on here for decades. the reason our parliament doesn't have any control over it is that our parliament doesn't have any control over it.
harper thought he could get a political bump from this, which is why the opposition to it was so necessary. but it was really just a question of legislating existing practices. and, this is really just a political miscalculation.
we'd have to get at some dramatic reforms that are well beyond repealing c-51 to begin to address the situation. and, i'd suggest it's not even possible to withdraw from these treaties, given the reality of the telecommunications networks.
my own opinion is that it is naive to expect to connect to the network and not be monitored.
https://openmedia.ca/blog/pressprogress-conservative-candidate-c-51-civil-liberties-folks-thats-not-country-we-live
Georgie Gagnon
Can you please explain why our parliament doesn't have any control over Bill C51 again?
deathtokoalas
that's not quite what i said.
a part of the criticism of c-51 is that there is no parliamentary oversight over csis. now, csis is not a new organization. you don't think that it's just something that never crossed parliament's mind, do you?
apparently, the australian secret service never bothered to tell the prime minister that they had signed the ukusa agreement until nearly 1980 - nearly forty years after it was signed.
there's certain aspects of our intelligence networks that operate at a joint military level in strong co-ordination and direction from our allies and are excluded from parliamentary oversight on purpose.
harper thought he could get a political bump from this, which is why the opposition to it was so necessary. but it was really just a question of legislating existing practices. and, this is really just a political miscalculation.
we'd have to get at some dramatic reforms that are well beyond repealing c-51 to begin to address the situation. and, i'd suggest it's not even possible to withdraw from these treaties, given the reality of the telecommunications networks.
my own opinion is that it is naive to expect to connect to the network and not be monitored.
https://openmedia.ca/blog/pressprogress-conservative-candidate-c-51-civil-liberties-folks-thats-not-country-we-live
Georgie Gagnon
Can you please explain why our parliament doesn't have any control over Bill C51 again?
deathtokoalas
that's not quite what i said.
a part of the criticism of c-51 is that there is no parliamentary oversight over csis. now, csis is not a new organization. you don't think that it's just something that never crossed parliament's mind, do you?
apparently, the australian secret service never bothered to tell the prime minister that they had signed the ukusa agreement until nearly 1980 - nearly forty years after it was signed.
there's certain aspects of our intelligence networks that operate at a joint military level in strong co-ordination and direction from our allies and are excluded from parliamentary oversight on purpose.
at
23:42
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
canada has to ratify the deal first, remember. signing it doesn't take away the house's ability to reject it, although it may make it a little harder. and, we actually have several trade deals awaiting ratification.
it would obviously be nice if they give us a chance to read it beforehand. and, i think that's what harper would like to avoid. his optimal strategy is to sign the deal the day of the election, so that the details don't get leaked and the opposition parties get stuck with it.
if the ndp votes to ratify the document, it's going to be an instant cleavage of support. but, they've been signalling that they will. tossing that on mulcair's lap from the get-go and then forcing a quick election could hurt the ndp pretty terribly.
understand this: if the ndp get a minority, one of the first things they will need to do is ratify this agreement. that's an almost existential quandary, immediately facing them as their first decision. there's almost nothing they can do that won't fracture them.
ipolitics.ca/2015/09/23/canada-negotiating-tpp-as-if-theres-no-election-new-zealand-trade-minister/
it would obviously be nice if they give us a chance to read it beforehand. and, i think that's what harper would like to avoid. his optimal strategy is to sign the deal the day of the election, so that the details don't get leaked and the opposition parties get stuck with it.
if the ndp votes to ratify the document, it's going to be an instant cleavage of support. but, they've been signalling that they will. tossing that on mulcair's lap from the get-go and then forcing a quick election could hurt the ndp pretty terribly.
understand this: if the ndp get a minority, one of the first things they will need to do is ratify this agreement. that's an almost existential quandary, immediately facing them as their first decision. there's almost nothing they can do that won't fracture them.
ipolitics.ca/2015/09/23/canada-negotiating-tpp-as-if-theres-no-election-new-zealand-trade-minister/
at
23:21
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
lol.
i think we're going to like this climate compact about as much as we like nafta.
https://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/23/after-keystone-thumbs-down-clinton-proposes-continental-energy-pact/
i think we're going to like this climate compact about as much as we like nafta.
https://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/23/after-keystone-thumbs-down-clinton-proposes-continental-energy-pact/
at
23:01
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
listen. it's not a philosophical discussion. it's an empirical reality. ivr has a proven, successful track record of being accurate to the definition of what accurate means, in context. i'll give the panels some breathing room because it's still novel, but their track record to this point has been very poor. you can construct whatever rhetorical house of cards you want to describe how you think things ought to be, but the measure of how things actually are does not have to agree, and must take precedence. further, there is a good explanation: randomness is important.
the riding projections are really an expression of artistic freedom, based on a lot of very weak inferences. it's one thing to collect the data. it's another to really more or less make guesses on how it's being distributed. it's the exact wrong way to work if you're trying to build a model. you want specific, local data that builds - not broad, vague data that you have to guess how to categorize.
if you compare the leadnow polls to the riding polls, the thing that often comes up is that it can't predict swings that increase the vote share of the party that finished third in 2011. it will instead consistently increase the share of the second place party; the polling is telling us that this is too simplistic. the issue is probably simply ignored altogether in the algorithm. you could conceivably improve the model by adding in more complicated logic, but it's only likely to be a marginal improvement.
i can't be sure, but it seems to want to weight the data relative to only the last election. if it were to average out the last five elections (weighted) and fit it to the result, it would do a little more to find the center of gravity in the riding. that will probably be more predictive when you have sudden reversals of the previous election or several previous elections (as i think may be the case; we may be heading towards 2004 results, except with a weaker liberal party and a stronger ndp, as well as no bloc - or with the roles of the ndp and liberals reversed, but with liberals stronger than the ndp ever were in such a scenario), but won't help with unpredictable situations, which are unpredictable, of course. i think that this is likely the right way to weight the data in ontario, at least.
another option for this election specifically - i'm not claiming this will be true in general, or even often - may be to look at weighting the ontario data relative to the last provincial election. you'd have to promote such a thing as speculative, of course. but i think it may be illuminating both in finding methods that are more generally applicable and in predicting the outcome of this specific election.
http://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/23/strategic-voting-group-releases-new-riding-polls-but-hard-data-remains-elusive/
the riding projections are really an expression of artistic freedom, based on a lot of very weak inferences. it's one thing to collect the data. it's another to really more or less make guesses on how it's being distributed. it's the exact wrong way to work if you're trying to build a model. you want specific, local data that builds - not broad, vague data that you have to guess how to categorize.
if you compare the leadnow polls to the riding polls, the thing that often comes up is that it can't predict swings that increase the vote share of the party that finished third in 2011. it will instead consistently increase the share of the second place party; the polling is telling us that this is too simplistic. the issue is probably simply ignored altogether in the algorithm. you could conceivably improve the model by adding in more complicated logic, but it's only likely to be a marginal improvement.
i can't be sure, but it seems to want to weight the data relative to only the last election. if it were to average out the last five elections (weighted) and fit it to the result, it would do a little more to find the center of gravity in the riding. that will probably be more predictive when you have sudden reversals of the previous election or several previous elections (as i think may be the case; we may be heading towards 2004 results, except with a weaker liberal party and a stronger ndp, as well as no bloc - or with the roles of the ndp and liberals reversed, but with liberals stronger than the ndp ever were in such a scenario), but won't help with unpredictable situations, which are unpredictable, of course. i think that this is likely the right way to weight the data in ontario, at least.
another option for this election specifically - i'm not claiming this will be true in general, or even often - may be to look at weighting the ontario data relative to the last provincial election. you'd have to promote such a thing as speculative, of course. but i think it may be illuminating both in finding methods that are more generally applicable and in predicting the outcome of this specific election.
http://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/23/strategic-voting-group-releases-new-riding-polls-but-hard-data-remains-elusive/
at
22:39
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
unlike the united states, where there are large areas with majority populations of black people that are descended from slavery, under 2% of canadians are of african ancestry, and essentially all of them are migrants to canada after the pearsonian system was set up. while some of these people may have had slave ancestors in the caribbean or other places, there is essentially no cultural legacy of slavery in canada. there are small communities of loyalists in nova scotia and alberta; that's about it.
canada of course helped a lot of blacks escape slavery, but almost all of them chose to move back to the united states.
the fact is that the number of black canadians coming out of a history of slavery is statistically insignificant. you couldn't even micro-target it. there's more hermaphrodites.
so, why would anybody think trudeau would be responding in the context of a culture he doesn't live in, and about a minority that does not exist in the country he's running for prime minister in?
i'm a leftist. but, i'm also a logician. and, i get into a lot of arguments with activists over this stuff. it's a theory that makes sense in the context of a society built on imported slaves that neither went through reparations nor even really dismantled the economic system of slavery (they just created a prison labour system and made up crimes for black people to break, and that continues today with the war on drugs). that's what it's meant to explain: social relations between the remnants of a small white slave-holding class and a large enslaved black population.
there's nothing of the sort in the history of canada. not with blacks. not with the indigenous groups, who we've treated very poorly but not in a comparable way; you'd have to start from the very first principles of the theory to build a parallel critical race theory on aboriginal peoples in canada, and it would look almost nothing like the critical race theory as it applies to blacks in the southern united states. the historical goal of the canadian state has been to assimilate the natives. the dominant policy has been to try and convert them into free farmers, on an equal footing with the white settlers. laws were passed to destroy their culture to get them to that end point; there was much resistance. but, it's been a process of "domesticating" them into what american society considers being free (and which they have historically certainly not considered free to mean), not anything remotely resembling chattel slavery. there's consequently not an entrenched hierarchical system of control and dominance that is a remnant of a legacy in slavery, because there was never any such system in the first. there was and remains forces that wish to assimilate the natives into western culture, and treat them with equality under the law - including equal levels of taxation.
some advocates of the thinking understand this, and try and be careful when they say things. but, it seems to be taught at the undergraduate level of university nowadays and picked up by people with very poor understandings of history, that want to think of it as a global universal that you can just plug into any system, anywhere with comparable levels of resulting insight. these are the frustrating ones.
but, the argument in this circumstance is too weak to even be a simple error in generalizing the specific. leftist activists also know that crt is widely used entirely disingenuously as a trump card to attack political opponents. so, you might have an organization that wants to save the trees, and various dominant personalities vying for control over that organization. it is routine occurrence nowadays for arguments to erupt accusing one another of abusing privilege, in order to create fracture points that will lead one personality to conquer the other. any ridiculous straw man will do.
that's really what you're seeing here: even the most naive and ignorant application of critical race theory could not be so specious, if coming from an adult. an undergraduate student, maybe, but that's not where the attack is coming from.
it's simply meant to proactively smear. and, while i may agree that trudeau's answer was a little simplistic, these dishonest and shifty tactics have coalesced into a clear pattern that needs to be rejected. we can argue about what trudeau said, sure. but, we need to drop the bullshit, first.
http://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/22/trudeau-defends-comments-made-during-womens-debate/
canada of course helped a lot of blacks escape slavery, but almost all of them chose to move back to the united states.
the fact is that the number of black canadians coming out of a history of slavery is statistically insignificant. you couldn't even micro-target it. there's more hermaphrodites.
so, why would anybody think trudeau would be responding in the context of a culture he doesn't live in, and about a minority that does not exist in the country he's running for prime minister in?
i'm a leftist. but, i'm also a logician. and, i get into a lot of arguments with activists over this stuff. it's a theory that makes sense in the context of a society built on imported slaves that neither went through reparations nor even really dismantled the economic system of slavery (they just created a prison labour system and made up crimes for black people to break, and that continues today with the war on drugs). that's what it's meant to explain: social relations between the remnants of a small white slave-holding class and a large enslaved black population.
there's nothing of the sort in the history of canada. not with blacks. not with the indigenous groups, who we've treated very poorly but not in a comparable way; you'd have to start from the very first principles of the theory to build a parallel critical race theory on aboriginal peoples in canada, and it would look almost nothing like the critical race theory as it applies to blacks in the southern united states. the historical goal of the canadian state has been to assimilate the natives. the dominant policy has been to try and convert them into free farmers, on an equal footing with the white settlers. laws were passed to destroy their culture to get them to that end point; there was much resistance. but, it's been a process of "domesticating" them into what american society considers being free (and which they have historically certainly not considered free to mean), not anything remotely resembling chattel slavery. there's consequently not an entrenched hierarchical system of control and dominance that is a remnant of a legacy in slavery, because there was never any such system in the first. there was and remains forces that wish to assimilate the natives into western culture, and treat them with equality under the law - including equal levels of taxation.
some advocates of the thinking understand this, and try and be careful when they say things. but, it seems to be taught at the undergraduate level of university nowadays and picked up by people with very poor understandings of history, that want to think of it as a global universal that you can just plug into any system, anywhere with comparable levels of resulting insight. these are the frustrating ones.
but, the argument in this circumstance is too weak to even be a simple error in generalizing the specific. leftist activists also know that crt is widely used entirely disingenuously as a trump card to attack political opponents. so, you might have an organization that wants to save the trees, and various dominant personalities vying for control over that organization. it is routine occurrence nowadays for arguments to erupt accusing one another of abusing privilege, in order to create fracture points that will lead one personality to conquer the other. any ridiculous straw man will do.
that's really what you're seeing here: even the most naive and ignorant application of critical race theory could not be so specious, if coming from an adult. an undergraduate student, maybe, but that's not where the attack is coming from.
it's simply meant to proactively smear. and, while i may agree that trudeau's answer was a little simplistic, these dishonest and shifty tactics have coalesced into a clear pattern that needs to be rejected. we can argue about what trudeau said, sure. but, we need to drop the bullshit, first.
http://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/22/trudeau-defends-comments-made-during-womens-debate/
at
22:13
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
this is one of the many situations where maher is certainly not wrong, but he's certainly not right, either.
the reality is that you have to check a package like this, regardless. not because of the kid's religion. but, because it's a suspicious package. i'm not prioritizing and picking and choosing columbine over isis if i see a kid with what looks like a suitcase bomb. i'm stopping that kid and asking questions, regardless of race, creed or colour. we all know that middle class, christian white kids are perfectly capable of carrying out school massacres. and, what reason is there to tie a possible attack to the religion, anyways? muslim kids certainly aren't immune to isolation or taunting.
the reality is that you have to check a package like this, regardless. not because of the kid's religion. but, because it's a suspicious package. i'm not prioritizing and picking and choosing columbine over isis if i see a kid with what looks like a suitcase bomb. i'm stopping that kid and asking questions, regardless of race, creed or colour. we all know that middle class, christian white kids are perfectly capable of carrying out school massacres. and, what reason is there to tie a possible attack to the religion, anyways? muslim kids certainly aren't immune to isolation or taunting.
at
23:43
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
if some kind of serious disease ever figures out how to transmit itself via squirrel, we're all doomed.
at
23:33
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
canada once had an ambassador to the united states named hume wrong. this never fails to amuse me.
ambassador wrong.
every time i see reference to it, i have a sudden urge to look up old newspaper articles...
"Ambassador Wrong held a press conference today...."
"well, i think that is a positive step in the alliance", replied Wrong.
ambassador wrong.
every time i see reference to it, i have a sudden urge to look up old newspaper articles...
"Ambassador Wrong held a press conference today...."
"well, i think that is a positive step in the alliance", replied Wrong.
at
23:02
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
clinton has the right answer for the right reasons, but the political part of it needs to take two things into account:
1) long-term projections suggest that there's not going to be a lot of demand for tar sands oil in western-aligned states over the next decade or so. transporting by rail with the cost of oil this low may even run at a loss. the market is such that this is not going to be necessary for quite some time.
2) what that means is that it is even more clear than it's ever been that the primary customer for this oil is china. and, that's what this is really about.
the decision is being made by the state department. the state department doesn't make decisions based on environmental assessments, although it may pretend it does sometimes. the state department makes decisions about the american national interest, strategies regarding access to resources, geo-politics and national security. the state department would consider canada to be within it's sphere of influence and that the united states has de facto ownership of canadian resources as a result of it. when you get your head around the way they see us, it's entirely logical for them to conclude that selling our oil to china is a national security threat - it takes oil they believe belongs to them and siphons it away to their competitors.
that is the actual issue, here: they waited it out because it wasn't entirely clear that blocking transfer was the best way to hem the oil in for later. if the price of oil had increased dramatically, for example, it would remain profitable to ship it over the rockies, and it would be strategic for them to have ultimate control over transit lines. it's the state department. they put tremendous resources into controlling pipelines, the world over. they would rather it ship through the contiguous united states, where they can ultimately control it, than through canada straight to the tankers in bc.
but, with the cost this low, virtually any method over the rockies is uneconomical. it follows that opposing the line can be safely pursued as a way to maximize obfuscation in the export process
www.cbc.ca/news/business/hillary-clinton-keystone-xl-1.3239215
wattajoke
Interesting observation, especially considering that the only country the US has increased oil imports from over that last five years is Canada.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbblpd_a.htm
However, about 99% of our oil exports go to the US.
https://www.neb-one.gc.ca/nrg/sttstc/crdlndptrlmprdct/stt/stmtdcndncrdlxprttpdstn-eng.html
Perhaps they have us over the (oil) barrel?
jessica murray
well, yeah, that's exactly the point - they don't need our oil right now; they're producing enough that they're exporting it themselves. so, if we're trying to boost production, and they're not buying, that means it has to ship somewhere else. and, it's pretty clear where that destination is, and why they don't want that to happen.
1) long-term projections suggest that there's not going to be a lot of demand for tar sands oil in western-aligned states over the next decade or so. transporting by rail with the cost of oil this low may even run at a loss. the market is such that this is not going to be necessary for quite some time.
2) what that means is that it is even more clear than it's ever been that the primary customer for this oil is china. and, that's what this is really about.
the decision is being made by the state department. the state department doesn't make decisions based on environmental assessments, although it may pretend it does sometimes. the state department makes decisions about the american national interest, strategies regarding access to resources, geo-politics and national security. the state department would consider canada to be within it's sphere of influence and that the united states has de facto ownership of canadian resources as a result of it. when you get your head around the way they see us, it's entirely logical for them to conclude that selling our oil to china is a national security threat - it takes oil they believe belongs to them and siphons it away to their competitors.
that is the actual issue, here: they waited it out because it wasn't entirely clear that blocking transfer was the best way to hem the oil in for later. if the price of oil had increased dramatically, for example, it would remain profitable to ship it over the rockies, and it would be strategic for them to have ultimate control over transit lines. it's the state department. they put tremendous resources into controlling pipelines, the world over. they would rather it ship through the contiguous united states, where they can ultimately control it, than through canada straight to the tankers in bc.
but, with the cost this low, virtually any method over the rockies is uneconomical. it follows that opposing the line can be safely pursued as a way to maximize obfuscation in the export process
www.cbc.ca/news/business/hillary-clinton-keystone-xl-1.3239215
wattajoke
Interesting observation, especially considering that the only country the US has increased oil imports from over that last five years is Canada.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbblpd_a.htm
However, about 99% of our oil exports go to the US.
https://www.neb-one.gc.ca/nrg/sttstc/crdlndptrlmprdct/stt/stmtdcndncrdlxprttpdstn-eng.html
Perhaps they have us over the (oil) barrel?
jessica murray
well, yeah, that's exactly the point - they don't need our oil right now; they're producing enough that they're exporting it themselves. so, if we're trying to boost production, and they're not buying, that means it has to ship somewhere else. and, it's pretty clear where that destination is, and why they don't want that to happen.
at
06:01
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
vox populi
Whats with the Nanos polls ? They are the only polls that are putting the conservatives ahead. It makes you wonder who they are contacting !
jessica murray
that's not actually true. the ekos polling is also putting the conservatives ahead. and, you'll notice something: nanos & ekos (& forum...) are the only pollsters that are still utilizing random sampling. i don't like what nanos is telling us either, but the reality is that his polling is superior - so long as it's looked at purely federally. it's the local results that poll watchers need to see, and nanos' polling is useless on that (because the sample sizes are too small).
the most recent forum poll finally aligned with the consensus from polls using proper sampling techniques, which is that decided voters are hurling us towards a conservative minority - but undecided voters have the power to put either the liberals or ndp ahead, if they lean in a specific direction in the right places.
the point is that, while you're correct to suggest that there's a disconnect, you're not taking the scientific side of that disconnect. the unfortunate reality is that the traditional and more reliable polling firms have had harper polling more or less steady around 29-31 the whole time, and the media is confusing people by suggesting otherwise on the backs of citing polls of questionable methodology.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-pollcast-sep22-1.3238790
Whats with the Nanos polls ? They are the only polls that are putting the conservatives ahead. It makes you wonder who they are contacting !
jessica murray
that's not actually true. the ekos polling is also putting the conservatives ahead. and, you'll notice something: nanos & ekos (& forum...) are the only pollsters that are still utilizing random sampling. i don't like what nanos is telling us either, but the reality is that his polling is superior - so long as it's looked at purely federally. it's the local results that poll watchers need to see, and nanos' polling is useless on that (because the sample sizes are too small).
the most recent forum poll finally aligned with the consensus from polls using proper sampling techniques, which is that decided voters are hurling us towards a conservative minority - but undecided voters have the power to put either the liberals or ndp ahead, if they lean in a specific direction in the right places.
the point is that, while you're correct to suggest that there's a disconnect, you're not taking the scientific side of that disconnect. the unfortunate reality is that the traditional and more reliable polling firms have had harper polling more or less steady around 29-31 the whole time, and the media is confusing people by suggesting otherwise on the backs of citing polls of questionable methodology.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-pollcast-sep22-1.3238790
at
05:13
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
*rrrring*
trudeau: hello?
obama: i'd just like to call to congratulate you on winning the election and becoming prime minister.
trudeau: thanks.
obama: now, about those planes. i don't want to have to do it, but if you won't buy them, i will have to release newt gingrich.
trudeau: what?
obama: newt. we'll have to release the newt.
trudeau: i....don't...
obama: see, son, we gotta get you caught up on this empire thing. we're the empire and you're the client. you get that, right?
trudeau: i was raised to believe that canada is a middle power.
obama: man, they had you hanging out with castro, didn't they? middle power? don't give me that. and, don't start thinking you can call the russians and make concessions without us, either. we're the empire. you ain't no empire. and, because we're the empire, that means you buy our stuff. we make it. you buy it. that's empire.
trudeau: i think...
obama: ...i think you'd better stop thinking and start listening. you're getting the memo.
trudeau: what?
obama: the memo. on empire. i'm not going to release newt on ya yet, i'm not that heartless.
*click*
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-f35-trudeau-harper-monday-1.3237046
Fibonacci11235
A very good reason to buy the Rafale or Typhoon. My Canada is free
jessica murray
no, i agree with you. in principle. but, you know, there's that reality thing.
as canadians, we need to understand that what the americans want from canada is greater reciprocity on the military alliance. they want a greater proportion of funds towards shared missions, a larger amount of troops, etc. in return for this, they offer their protection - and withhold their wrath. if nato was a purely defensive alliance, we wouldn't have these kneejerk cultural differences, although keep in mind they're to scale; a war that has 55% support in america may have 35% support in canada, based on similar reasoning.
i don't like the idea of fortress north america. but i'd be more than willing to be a more enthusiastic supporter of defense co-operation if it were truly devoted to securing the borders, which i might add at this point includes securing borders from rising oceans. that's the kind of thing i would have overwhelmingly enthusiastic support for.
it's the endless cat-and-mouse overseas wars that are a strain on society.
canada may even be better suited to build certain kinds of infrastructure in the united states. an alliance where canada focuses on local defense issues and america focuses on foreign wars would be broadly embraced by canadians.
but, until a discussion about expectations can be had, existing expectations will be expected by the expectors. and canada's gotta negotiate it's way out of that, if it can
trudeau: hello?
obama: i'd just like to call to congratulate you on winning the election and becoming prime minister.
trudeau: thanks.
obama: now, about those planes. i don't want to have to do it, but if you won't buy them, i will have to release newt gingrich.
trudeau: what?
obama: newt. we'll have to release the newt.
trudeau: i....don't...
obama: see, son, we gotta get you caught up on this empire thing. we're the empire and you're the client. you get that, right?
trudeau: i was raised to believe that canada is a middle power.
obama: man, they had you hanging out with castro, didn't they? middle power? don't give me that. and, don't start thinking you can call the russians and make concessions without us, either. we're the empire. you ain't no empire. and, because we're the empire, that means you buy our stuff. we make it. you buy it. that's empire.
trudeau: i think...
obama: ...i think you'd better stop thinking and start listening. you're getting the memo.
trudeau: what?
obama: the memo. on empire. i'm not going to release newt on ya yet, i'm not that heartless.
*click*
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-f35-trudeau-harper-monday-1.3237046
Fibonacci11235
A very good reason to buy the Rafale or Typhoon. My Canada is free
jessica murray
no, i agree with you. in principle. but, you know, there's that reality thing.
as canadians, we need to understand that what the americans want from canada is greater reciprocity on the military alliance. they want a greater proportion of funds towards shared missions, a larger amount of troops, etc. in return for this, they offer their protection - and withhold their wrath. if nato was a purely defensive alliance, we wouldn't have these kneejerk cultural differences, although keep in mind they're to scale; a war that has 55% support in america may have 35% support in canada, based on similar reasoning.
i don't like the idea of fortress north america. but i'd be more than willing to be a more enthusiastic supporter of defense co-operation if it were truly devoted to securing the borders, which i might add at this point includes securing borders from rising oceans. that's the kind of thing i would have overwhelmingly enthusiastic support for.
it's the endless cat-and-mouse overseas wars that are a strain on society.
canada may even be better suited to build certain kinds of infrastructure in the united states. an alliance where canada focuses on local defense issues and america focuses on foreign wars would be broadly embraced by canadians.
but, until a discussion about expectations can be had, existing expectations will be expected by the expectors. and canada's gotta negotiate it's way out of that, if it can
at
04:21
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i actually think that non-voting is going to be one of the few non-violent approaches that people have in certain districts, in order to get the point across that the purchased wings of the political spectrum had better start listening. this is a tactic that should be generating discussion regarding the feasibility of building a movement around it.
but, if you look at the american election, there's still a halfways viable option in bernie sanders. i mean, he's not going to set off a revolution. but, maybe the experience in analyzing the post-war outcomes in america and the soviet union can do a little to remind us of the value of democracy. it's an imperfect democracy, but it's functional if it's utilized sufficiently. you want to make sure the workable options are really exhausted before you move to the death grip, in really shattering the facade of the system's legitimacy. and, hey, do you think the cia is above a coup in washington, if the people get a little too out of hand? don't think these people value the life of an american more than a chilean. shattering the illusion of real american democracy creates a path to reactionary authoritarianism in greater probabilities than it does to demagogically populist authoritarianism. if we're sure we don't want it, they may be more than happy to take it away.
you have to measure that against the nature of the system, though as well, which is designed to slow any kind of reform to a halt. law is of course a means to avoid violence in conflict-resolution, it all is, but the way the legal system is applied to activism is especially defined as a way to distract activists from making real changes. the institutional hurdles that a sanders presidency would have to jump through to apply some of the things he's proposing are so immense as to be almost not worth contemplating. and, then, in the end, it serves no purpose to elect a wood log and hope it floats against the current; you need to reroute the river. the true level of inertia exposes itself on greater analysis, and mass abstention again seems necessary.
i'm still torn on whether there's really a sufficiently useful option in this canadian election to take the scorched earth approach of boycott. for the longest while, it didn't seem like it. and, i understand that legal battles are going to be required to stop every single one of these candidates. but, those cases often seem like the correct dispute mechanism to settle the underlying issues on a longer term basis.
http://or-politics.com/newsnewspolitics/signs-pop-up-in-moncton-encouraging-protest-votes-in-federal-election/94057/
but, if you look at the american election, there's still a halfways viable option in bernie sanders. i mean, he's not going to set off a revolution. but, maybe the experience in analyzing the post-war outcomes in america and the soviet union can do a little to remind us of the value of democracy. it's an imperfect democracy, but it's functional if it's utilized sufficiently. you want to make sure the workable options are really exhausted before you move to the death grip, in really shattering the facade of the system's legitimacy. and, hey, do you think the cia is above a coup in washington, if the people get a little too out of hand? don't think these people value the life of an american more than a chilean. shattering the illusion of real american democracy creates a path to reactionary authoritarianism in greater probabilities than it does to demagogically populist authoritarianism. if we're sure we don't want it, they may be more than happy to take it away.
you have to measure that against the nature of the system, though as well, which is designed to slow any kind of reform to a halt. law is of course a means to avoid violence in conflict-resolution, it all is, but the way the legal system is applied to activism is especially defined as a way to distract activists from making real changes. the institutional hurdles that a sanders presidency would have to jump through to apply some of the things he's proposing are so immense as to be almost not worth contemplating. and, then, in the end, it serves no purpose to elect a wood log and hope it floats against the current; you need to reroute the river. the true level of inertia exposes itself on greater analysis, and mass abstention again seems necessary.
i'm still torn on whether there's really a sufficiently useful option in this canadian election to take the scorched earth approach of boycott. for the longest while, it didn't seem like it. and, i understand that legal battles are going to be required to stop every single one of these candidates. but, those cases often seem like the correct dispute mechanism to settle the underlying issues on a longer term basis.
http://or-politics.com/newsnewspolitics/signs-pop-up-in-moncton-encouraging-protest-votes-in-federal-election/94057/
at
03:33
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
the bc general was weird, and i'm just going to avoid it completely. but, what the ontario election actually demonstrated was the clear inferiority of internet polls. it wasn't just ipsos that got it wrong, it was the internet panels across the board. the ivr and phone polling was actually pretty accurate. a media narrative developed that the polling was wrong, but the narrative was really flat wrong - it was only the internet polls that were wrong. had the proper narrative developed...
i would think that the first thing that such an organization would do, if it were serious, would be to strongly discourage the kind of polling methods ipsos is using. that it's not doing such a thing suggests it's not a body that much attention should be paid to.
ipolitics.ca/2015/09/21/feud-emerging-between-pollsters-as-election-day-approaches/
i would think that the first thing that such an organization would do, if it were serious, would be to strongly discourage the kind of polling methods ipsos is using. that it's not doing such a thing suggests it's not a body that much attention should be paid to.
ipolitics.ca/2015/09/21/feud-emerging-between-pollsters-as-election-day-approaches/
at
02:42
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
this article needs a serious fact check.
but, the issue isn't so much that the liberals are running to the left of the ndp; they really aren't. it's that the ndp are running to the right of the liberals.
rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/scott-piatkowski/2015/09/are-liberals-really-running-to-left-ndp-oh-please
but, the issue isn't so much that the liberals are running to the left of the ndp; they really aren't. it's that the ndp are running to the right of the liberals.
rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/scott-piatkowski/2015/09/are-liberals-really-running-to-left-ndp-oh-please
at
01:33
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
the ad is actually clearly geared at what should be tory-bloc swing voters that may be currently leaning ndp out of groupthink. remember that the bloc was initially a conservative party splinter group, so it's always had a right-wing side in the party. this swing would be represented in provincial politics by the adq, although of course the pq have not been shy about trying to swing them over the last several years, either. a quick glance at the numbers would suggest that the ndp is likely attracting quite a bit of support from right-leaning voters, as even the most generous tabulations of conservative + bloc results are well under adq levels.
sure: it's a last gasp for dead air. but, it maybe offers a little insight into internal bloc polling as to what is left of their voting base and who may benefit from further erosion in it. it seems to imply that they have nothing left to lose on the left side of their base. i don't think the idea of remnant bloc support bleeding to the conservatives has been considered by many people, but perhaps it should be.
http://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/18/voting-ndp-means-a-pipeline-of-niqabs-bloc-attack-ad/
sure: it's a last gasp for dead air. but, it maybe offers a little insight into internal bloc polling as to what is left of their voting base and who may benefit from further erosion in it. it seems to imply that they have nothing left to lose on the left side of their base. i don't think the idea of remnant bloc support bleeding to the conservatives has been considered by many people, but perhaps it should be.
http://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/18/voting-ndp-means-a-pipeline-of-niqabs-bloc-attack-ad/
at
00:59
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
so, i suppose we should be less concerned about all those confused, mistaken and misunderstood sharks - and create a selfie patrol that prevents people from harming themselves, along with laws restricting unsafe sefie behaviour. next time you see a shark, you just want to calmly explain your hierarchical dominance and point it towards it's correct prey sources; it's just a misunderstanding if it starts biting you. but, remember: friends don't let friends take dangerous selfies. and, report all suspicious selfie-taking behaviour.
www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/selfies-have-killed-more-people-than-sharks-this-year/57533/
www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/selfies-have-killed-more-people-than-sharks-this-year/57533/
at
00:27
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
well, there will probably be a million jobs created in the next six years, regardless; it's less than population growth.
i'm more interested in how this sounds like tim hudak's pitch in ontario, which is exactly what i'd think the conservatives would be trying to avoid doing right now. considering the party's use of microtargetting issues, that may suggest that it's worried about it's core supporters wandering.
http://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/22/conservatives-would-strive-to-create-1-3m-new-jobs-by-2020-harper/
i'm more interested in how this sounds like tim hudak's pitch in ontario, which is exactly what i'd think the conservatives would be trying to avoid doing right now. considering the party's use of microtargetting issues, that may suggest that it's worried about it's core supporters wandering.
http://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/22/conservatives-would-strive-to-create-1-3m-new-jobs-by-2020-harper/
at
00:05
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
Monday, September 21, 2015
it's an interesting thought. but, by some estimates, if even a quarter of the undecideds vote as a block, it could swing the election. you have quite a bit of room to move on this hypothesis in being absolutely right, and yet being absolutely wrong. for that reason, there's almost no way to write off the undecideds - even if they overwhelmingly abstain, the few that don't are still the key in who wins, should numbers stay static.
if you look at how the 30/30/30 split has developed since august, the conservatives have more or less been flat while the ndp has lost a few points to the liberals. all of the data suggests almost all of the swing is on the left. i would expect the undecideds to eventually push one of those two parties up by a few points.
depending on where it happens, it could be disastrous for harper or it could save his hide. if the liberals get the bump, and it's largely in ontario, it could push the conservatives into third. but if the bump the liberals get is mostly in quebec and tepid in ontario, then you end up with equally sized opposition parties in a harper minority. conversely, if the ndp get the bump and it's mostly in ontario, you end up with conservatives winning tons of splits; if they get the bump and it's in bc, it could win them a small minority.
right now, it seems to be the liberals that are trending. but, even so, their gains may come at the expense of allowing mulcair a chance at governance, as they push tory seat totals in ontario down, but not enough to get over ndp dominance in quebec.
the point is, the undecideds are still huge - even if the vast majority stay home, in the end.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-undecideds-sep21-1.3237086
if you look at how the 30/30/30 split has developed since august, the conservatives have more or less been flat while the ndp has lost a few points to the liberals. all of the data suggests almost all of the swing is on the left. i would expect the undecideds to eventually push one of those two parties up by a few points.
depending on where it happens, it could be disastrous for harper or it could save his hide. if the liberals get the bump, and it's largely in ontario, it could push the conservatives into third. but if the bump the liberals get is mostly in quebec and tepid in ontario, then you end up with equally sized opposition parties in a harper minority. conversely, if the ndp get the bump and it's mostly in ontario, you end up with conservatives winning tons of splits; if they get the bump and it's in bc, it could win them a small minority.
right now, it seems to be the liberals that are trending. but, even so, their gains may come at the expense of allowing mulcair a chance at governance, as they push tory seat totals in ontario down, but not enough to get over ndp dominance in quebec.
the point is, the undecideds are still huge - even if the vast majority stay home, in the end.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-undecideds-sep21-1.3237086
at
23:37
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
as a tenant, i'd consider a "no children" clause to be a selling point. i'd even be willing to accept a short-term increase in rent to help the landlord pay the fine.
there needs to be options for people that decide to have children. but there also needs to be options for people that have decided to not have children.
www.cbc.ca/news/business/got-kids-find-another-place-to-live-1.3233761
Donald D
Jessica, you have every right not to have children if you don't want to have them. You also have every right not to endure excessive noise in your dwelling. But neither you nor landlords are allowed to control how others respect the noise requirements in a building, and you certainly don't get to decide that families with children cannot live in the same building as you.
Your neighbours could be gay, black, Amish, wheelchair-bound, pet owning parents, and as long as they respect the noise and cleanliness regulations of the building, you get no say
jessica murray
i'm an anarchist, so i don't believe in property rights, which means i don't believe in tenants rights. rather, i think that the people that get to decide who lives in a building are the tenants, themselves.
if the tenants of a building decide they don't want kids in it, then it's up to the government to try and stop them. and, as mentioned, i'd be willing to help pay the fine.
you can throw around the language you'd like all you want, the question is what is it that you think you're going to do to enforce it? the only thing you can do is go to the human rights commission and get a fine. and, i'll gladly pay the fine and keep the restriction, thanks.
Sid
How idiotic and uncaring of you
jessica murray
well, it works both ways. it just means that people that want kids will need to organize to create spaces that are welcoming of their lifestyle decisions. i'd even support a little government help in doing that. but, not at the expense of my own peace.
Leopold August Wilhelm Dorothe von Henning
This isn't about "options", but human rights.
jessica murray
well, i'd question whether this is a valid application of human rights law; i don't think i'm paying to get around a rights abuse, i reject the idea that it's a rights abuse in the first place.
as mentioned, i would support the government subsidizing segregated housing units for people with children. that is the proper rights balance that respects their rights to housing and my rights to not be annoyed by them.
700kotchi
You reject anything that doesn`t fit your point of view it seems. See above.
jessica murray
this is the standard boneheaded reaction to my generally very subtle and sometimes quite complex arguments.
700kotchi
I don`t think you need worry about ever having children.
jessica murray
the most important thing that my parents taught me is not to have children. unless you have a lot of wealth to throw around, your goals immediately change. you no longer live for your own dreams; you must live for those of your kids. it's a type of martyrdom.
--
jessica murray
my post seems to have been disabled because it had the most likes and contradicts the message in the story. it's not remotely offensive. and that's pretty weak, cbc. rather than post it again, i'd request that you re-enable it.
Stan
(something about flagging the post)
jessica murray
and, you accuse me of not accepting the views of others? i've never flagged anything in my life, other than spam.
that's blatantly frivolous censorship.
original post:
as a tenant, i'd consider a "no children" clause to be a selling point. i'd even be willing to accept a short-term increase in rent to help the landlord pay the fine.
there needs to be options for people that decide to have children. but there also needs to be options for people that have decided to not have children.
there's nothing flaggable, there.
if people are going to abuse the flag function, it should really be disabled.
you're lucky there's not a legal process here, because you don't have anything close to a valid argument.
Extrapolate
My post has disappeared as well. Is that all it takes...to have someone who disagrees flag it ?
SquareDeal
How many. Is it in Bill C-51
jessica murray
while it seems as though this response is sardonic, the truth is that that's a good question. but, if so, i think it is codifying long existing practice. i can't be sure if i'm crosslinked to my 2008 election persona, but i was certainly dealing with censorship then, too.
and 2011, too, of course.
there needs to be options for people that decide to have children. but there also needs to be options for people that have decided to not have children.
www.cbc.ca/news/business/got-kids-find-another-place-to-live-1.3233761
Donald D
Jessica, you have every right not to have children if you don't want to have them. You also have every right not to endure excessive noise in your dwelling. But neither you nor landlords are allowed to control how others respect the noise requirements in a building, and you certainly don't get to decide that families with children cannot live in the same building as you.
Your neighbours could be gay, black, Amish, wheelchair-bound, pet owning parents, and as long as they respect the noise and cleanliness regulations of the building, you get no say
jessica murray
i'm an anarchist, so i don't believe in property rights, which means i don't believe in tenants rights. rather, i think that the people that get to decide who lives in a building are the tenants, themselves.
if the tenants of a building decide they don't want kids in it, then it's up to the government to try and stop them. and, as mentioned, i'd be willing to help pay the fine.
you can throw around the language you'd like all you want, the question is what is it that you think you're going to do to enforce it? the only thing you can do is go to the human rights commission and get a fine. and, i'll gladly pay the fine and keep the restriction, thanks.
Sid
How idiotic and uncaring of you
jessica murray
well, it works both ways. it just means that people that want kids will need to organize to create spaces that are welcoming of their lifestyle decisions. i'd even support a little government help in doing that. but, not at the expense of my own peace.
Leopold August Wilhelm Dorothe von Henning
This isn't about "options", but human rights.
jessica murray
well, i'd question whether this is a valid application of human rights law; i don't think i'm paying to get around a rights abuse, i reject the idea that it's a rights abuse in the first place.
as mentioned, i would support the government subsidizing segregated housing units for people with children. that is the proper rights balance that respects their rights to housing and my rights to not be annoyed by them.
700kotchi
You reject anything that doesn`t fit your point of view it seems. See above.
jessica murray
this is the standard boneheaded reaction to my generally very subtle and sometimes quite complex arguments.
700kotchi
I don`t think you need worry about ever having children.
jessica murray
the most important thing that my parents taught me is not to have children. unless you have a lot of wealth to throw around, your goals immediately change. you no longer live for your own dreams; you must live for those of your kids. it's a type of martyrdom.
--
jessica murray
my post seems to have been disabled because it had the most likes and contradicts the message in the story. it's not remotely offensive. and that's pretty weak, cbc. rather than post it again, i'd request that you re-enable it.
Stan
(something about flagging the post)
jessica murray
and, you accuse me of not accepting the views of others? i've never flagged anything in my life, other than spam.
that's blatantly frivolous censorship.
original post:
as a tenant, i'd consider a "no children" clause to be a selling point. i'd even be willing to accept a short-term increase in rent to help the landlord pay the fine.
there needs to be options for people that decide to have children. but there also needs to be options for people that have decided to not have children.
there's nothing flaggable, there.
if people are going to abuse the flag function, it should really be disabled.
you're lucky there's not a legal process here, because you don't have anything close to a valid argument.
Extrapolate
My post has disappeared as well. Is that all it takes...to have someone who disagrees flag it ?
SquareDeal
How many. Is it in Bill C-51
jessica murray
while it seems as though this response is sardonic, the truth is that that's a good question. but, if so, i think it is codifying long existing practice. i can't be sure if i'm crosslinked to my 2008 election persona, but i was certainly dealing with censorship then, too.
and 2011, too, of course.
at
23:06
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
a large percentage of the people fleeing are actually christians.
the association of religion with the right-wing is a certain sort of religion - one that aligns with right-wing values. in that sense, it's sort of a meaningless correlation, other than to point out that a certain amount of religious interpretation leans to the right. the way we tend to understand this has cause and effect backwards.
there was actually a large amount of focus put onto this issue in the united states a few years ago. left-leaning internet sources felt some kind of urgent need to get across the point that, statistically speaking, christians prefer more communitarian interpretations of christianity that point more towards ideals of utopian socialism. these christians seem to have more numerical power, but they don't seem to be as politically mobilized as the smaller group of christians that seem pre-occupied with vengeance, and are driven very strongly by opposition to abortion.
there's no reason to think that isn't also true in canada. however, canada also has a different political tradition insofar as religion exists in it's political spectrum, because we have historical toryism - which, while existing on the right of the spectrum, holds much more closely to the communitarian concept of christianity. this is going to hold pretty closely to the reform/tory split in the conservative party.
the bigger question is where these people may feel they have to go. the ndp has a history in the prairie gospel, but that itself is a mixed bag in terms of historical vengeance-based policies, mixed with communitarian policies. but, it's barely a faint memory in the ndp of today.
one would suspect that this voting bloc may feel too alienated from the secular visions of the other parties, in the sense that there isn't a grassroots to blur that secular vision, like there is in the conservative party grassroots.
but, i think the article at least makes the point that these people would take a better option, if they saw it available to them.
30% is the floor, guys. +-. 27, minimum. i'm not making that up. that's historical reality.
globalnews.ca/news/2232630/christians-say-syrian-refugee-crisis-could-affect-how-they-vote-in-federal-election/
the association of religion with the right-wing is a certain sort of religion - one that aligns with right-wing values. in that sense, it's sort of a meaningless correlation, other than to point out that a certain amount of religious interpretation leans to the right. the way we tend to understand this has cause and effect backwards.
there was actually a large amount of focus put onto this issue in the united states a few years ago. left-leaning internet sources felt some kind of urgent need to get across the point that, statistically speaking, christians prefer more communitarian interpretations of christianity that point more towards ideals of utopian socialism. these christians seem to have more numerical power, but they don't seem to be as politically mobilized as the smaller group of christians that seem pre-occupied with vengeance, and are driven very strongly by opposition to abortion.
there's no reason to think that isn't also true in canada. however, canada also has a different political tradition insofar as religion exists in it's political spectrum, because we have historical toryism - which, while existing on the right of the spectrum, holds much more closely to the communitarian concept of christianity. this is going to hold pretty closely to the reform/tory split in the conservative party.
the bigger question is where these people may feel they have to go. the ndp has a history in the prairie gospel, but that itself is a mixed bag in terms of historical vengeance-based policies, mixed with communitarian policies. but, it's barely a faint memory in the ndp of today.
one would suspect that this voting bloc may feel too alienated from the secular visions of the other parties, in the sense that there isn't a grassroots to blur that secular vision, like there is in the conservative party grassroots.
but, i think the article at least makes the point that these people would take a better option, if they saw it available to them.
30% is the floor, guys. +-. 27, minimum. i'm not making that up. that's historical reality.
globalnews.ca/news/2232630/christians-say-syrian-refugee-crisis-could-affect-how-they-vote-in-federal-election/
at
22:41
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
it's not the 70s. nobody cares about the debates anymore.
her insistence on the debates being an issue merely demonstrates that may is out of touch and needs to make way for younger people.
she'll reach more people over twitter. it actually gives her an advantage, as she's able to set the narrative - if she uses it.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/20/greens-file-complaint-to-cra-in-bid-to-get-elizabeth-may-into-munk-debate_n_8166226.html
her insistence on the debates being an issue merely demonstrates that may is out of touch and needs to make way for younger people.
she'll reach more people over twitter. it actually gives her an advantage, as she's able to set the narrative - if she uses it.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/20/greens-file-complaint-to-cra-in-bid-to-get-elizabeth-may-into-munk-debate_n_8166226.html
at
22:23
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
wayne gretzky is a high school dropout. that is one of harper's major voting bases. and, frankly, if you're so uninformed that you would allow him to sway your vote, then you shouldn't be allowed to vote, either. non-issue. next...
ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/the-gargoyle-gretzky-to-endorse-harper-but-cant-vote-for-him
ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/the-gargoyle-gretzky-to-endorse-harper-but-cant-vote-for-him
at
22:02
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
well, i got my forms mailed today. that's to cancel my student loan.
i can't be certain what the bureaucracy will do, but my understanding is that they basically can't overrule the doctor.
so, i'm celebrating this week. which means listening, but carefully - i know i can't mix when i'm celebrating.
and, it means making some different lifestyle choices starting next week.
i can't be certain what the bureaucracy will do, but my understanding is that they basically can't overrule the doctor.
so, i'm celebrating this week. which means listening, but carefully - i know i can't mix when i'm celebrating.
and, it means making some different lifestyle choices starting next week.
at
09:15
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
...because it is critically important to maintain the existence of a species that sees us as prey. i suppose their plans are to breed thousands of them and release them back into the wild, where they can go back to their natural diet of villagers?
www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/zoo-spares-tiger-who-killed-zookeeper/57457/
www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/zoo-spares-tiger-who-killed-zookeeper/57457/
at
06:15
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
see, the unfortunate thing is that it took you so long to figure this out. i figured this out about 25 or so. but, i think you still haven't quite figured it out.
you're still lost in the misunderstanding that we live in a meritocracy. but, if you look around a little bit more closely, you will hopefully see that your problem is not that you do, but that you don't - that we live in a system defined by rampant nepotism and corruption. we don't get ahead based on what we're able to accomplish, we get ahead based on the family we're born into and our ability to build social connections up the ladder, often in direct contradiction to our actual abilities. we would benefit from more meritocracy and less class hierarchy. a social reformation, if you will.
what they told me when i was in school was that i was brilliant. i came back at the 99th percentile of all the intelligence tests, for as far back as i can recall. i'll still ace just about an iq type test you can throw at me. but, i also failed the situational judgement tests in the 00s. three times. it's not because they demand the exceptional, it's because they demand conformity. i'm in the strange position of not being able to tell them what they want to hear because i'm so isolated from the people around me that i don't know what they want to hear. the only way i'm able to approach something like that is with logic, which is the wrong way to approach it. it's a test of whether the candidate is properly conditioned to behave in a hierarchical workforce. for me to pass the tests, i'd have to take courses in workplace behaviour that teach me the correct way to defer to authority and when i should not think for myself.
what i figured out about the age of 25 is that it's a waste of time to bother dreaming. i mean, it doesn't matter anyways. even if you get to where you want to get to, you've accomplished nothing of any value. so, i went back to school because i didn't want to get a job - i'd rather smoke a joint in the park and read a book under the tree.
the solution to the conundrum is to stop pretending you want the things you don't have. if you wanted them, you'd have already accomplished them. you studied science instead because you preferred it. so, stop letting the society define you, and take control of yourself, instead. if you can do that, you'll realize that you're happier reading that text book in your parents' basement than you would be otherwise. and that that's why you're doing it in the first place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pglv6VrA8ro
you're still lost in the misunderstanding that we live in a meritocracy. but, if you look around a little bit more closely, you will hopefully see that your problem is not that you do, but that you don't - that we live in a system defined by rampant nepotism and corruption. we don't get ahead based on what we're able to accomplish, we get ahead based on the family we're born into and our ability to build social connections up the ladder, often in direct contradiction to our actual abilities. we would benefit from more meritocracy and less class hierarchy. a social reformation, if you will.
what they told me when i was in school was that i was brilliant. i came back at the 99th percentile of all the intelligence tests, for as far back as i can recall. i'll still ace just about an iq type test you can throw at me. but, i also failed the situational judgement tests in the 00s. three times. it's not because they demand the exceptional, it's because they demand conformity. i'm in the strange position of not being able to tell them what they want to hear because i'm so isolated from the people around me that i don't know what they want to hear. the only way i'm able to approach something like that is with logic, which is the wrong way to approach it. it's a test of whether the candidate is properly conditioned to behave in a hierarchical workforce. for me to pass the tests, i'd have to take courses in workplace behaviour that teach me the correct way to defer to authority and when i should not think for myself.
what i figured out about the age of 25 is that it's a waste of time to bother dreaming. i mean, it doesn't matter anyways. even if you get to where you want to get to, you've accomplished nothing of any value. so, i went back to school because i didn't want to get a job - i'd rather smoke a joint in the park and read a book under the tree.
the solution to the conundrum is to stop pretending you want the things you don't have. if you wanted them, you'd have already accomplished them. you studied science instead because you preferred it. so, stop letting the society define you, and take control of yourself, instead. if you can do that, you'll realize that you're happier reading that text book in your parents' basement than you would be otherwise. and that that's why you're doing it in the first place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pglv6VrA8ro
at
02:35
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
wait. this is the finance minister of the supposedly left-wing syriza party? he's got stiglitz shaking his head, and stiglitz is hardly a socialist. the real left media told us from the start that these guys are pseudo-leftists and you shouldn't expect much of a break from the status quo.
but what i found interesting about this video is how openly he suggests that the crisis is meant to stimulate a political union, and how easily stiglitz seemed to agree with him. this is generally considered to be in the realm of conspiracy theory, or at least in that space of somewhat heavy-handed left-wing analysis that tends to look like conspiracy theory to most people. but, nobody blinks an eye, here. it's just stated as obvious.
the truth is that stiglitz was very patient with this guy. the correct answer is that there is nothing that greece can do without looking at the framework of the eurozone. you can spend as much money as you want, it doesn't change the fundamental reality that the system is impossible. and, he even seems to agree with that and says "but...".
no. there's no "but". it's political union or bust.
Miguel RodrÃguez Ruiz
How can the idea of a Federal europe be a left-wing conspiracy their?
*theory
deathtokoalas
+Miguel RodrÃguez Ruiz there's a strain of thinking on the left that sees the european union as a kind of fourth reich and - implicitly or explicitly - tends to argue it was planned by nazi banking cartels, behind closed doors.
what i'm getting at is that this perception is really reducible to a question of scale. there doesn't have to be a grand illuminati cabal for it to be basically right.
Giannhs Kwstas
+jessica I dont think he speaks left wingy or right wingy, he speaks common sense.
deathtokoalas
+Giannhs Kwstas what i'm pointing out is that he is not making any sense at all - he's spouting a lot of hard-right idiocy.
i should also point out that, in canada, "common sense" is doublespeak for "extreme right-wing policies". whenever that term is brought up, you know to expect absolute nonsense. it's broadly used to reject empiricism by pushing disingenuously presented intuition - to replace academic approaches with constructed gut reactions. it's the mark of anti-intellectualism. i don't know if that's also true in europe.
----
Alan Pater
Speaking of a US of Europe is counter productive, I think. Many Europeans hate the idea of modeling themselves after the US.
Perhaps Europe could take a look at the Canadian system? Canada has three territories and ten provinces, each with their own budgets for healthcare, education, welfare, etc. Yet it remains an optimum currency area.
Alex Khalif
Hi, when Varoufakis talks about a "United States" of Europe, I think he is talking about some sort of "Federated Europe" where the peoples of Europe live in a more harmonious way, with the possibility of a number of shared institutions like a Central Bank. In his previous talks Yanis has stressed that Federation cannot be created in the middle of a crisis & that it will take approx. 20 years to make it happen. The institutions & structures that were created in the 60s, 70s & 80s by the so called technocrats n Brussels, Paris & Berlin have failed spectacularly to deal with the earthquake that hit Europe. Also among Europe's elites the notion of TINA (There Is No Alternative) must be killed off!!
Charly CGN
The Terminus Technicus we use in Europe is "Multi-speed Europe". Nobody seriously wants a "United States of Europe". Yanis Varoufakis is a fool. He and his communist party really should do all of us a favor and leave the Eurozone!
Alex Khalif
Varoufakis maybe an idealist when it comes to reforming European institutions as well as trying to stop Europeans turning against each other...BUT iam certain he is no fool & he is not a member of a "communist" government!
Charly CGN
Yes, of course. The Syriza-Party is a coalition of the radical left. That's the point. You know, I'm from western Germany and because of the subprime mortgage crisis and the corruption in Greece today we have the upcoming right wing-parties Front National (France) and AfD (Alternative für Deutschland - Germany). So, if now Varoufakis is not quick about returning to the negotiating table he is responsible for the rest of Europe to lose its patience.
Alex Khalif
Iam not going to mention anything horrible about the Germans or their culture as I have some distant relatives living there even though I now live in Australia. Iam very disappointed in what Schäuble & others in the government had to say after the meeting with Varoufakis. They don’t seem to able to differentiate between somebody who is just a technocrat with a degree in Economics & Finance from a person with a deep intellectual understanding of European problems and practical solutions. The human cost of this whole debacle is too high. Also, its not our responsibility here in Australia to find jobs for unemployed European citizens who have fled the crisis, we have enough unemployed youth ourselves...
taguchi13
Kindly watch the video you're commenting on Christian. It is evident, from your comment, that you have not.
Charly CGN
Right! We desperately need new GLOBAL institutions to deal with the consequences of climate change, inequality, injustice and implement the digital revolution.
TheHomoludens
Right, ´cause central bureaucrats actually solve problems, just look at Brussel...
Fool!
johnselekta
You are part of the problem I think. Media tells you he's a fool, you act like one. He is the only person I can see that wants to start at the top...where to do you think all the money goes? Thin air or a tax haven? Greece won't bring the Eurozone down, the people in power with hidden interests will as they profit from it.
deathtokoalas
canada is indeed the better example, primarily because it has an equalization payment system and the united states doesn't.
you could think of alberta as germany and new brunswick as greece. the way the canadian system works is that the federal government will collect taxes from alberta and send them to new brunswick as an "equalization payment", so that there are comparable standards of living across the country. if it wasn't for this system, the less wealthy provinces would not be able to afford things like healthcare.
that's the reality that greece has to come to terms with: it's economy will never be strong enough to use a german currency without a transfer system.
but what i found interesting about this video is how openly he suggests that the crisis is meant to stimulate a political union, and how easily stiglitz seemed to agree with him. this is generally considered to be in the realm of conspiracy theory, or at least in that space of somewhat heavy-handed left-wing analysis that tends to look like conspiracy theory to most people. but, nobody blinks an eye, here. it's just stated as obvious.
the truth is that stiglitz was very patient with this guy. the correct answer is that there is nothing that greece can do without looking at the framework of the eurozone. you can spend as much money as you want, it doesn't change the fundamental reality that the system is impossible. and, he even seems to agree with that and says "but...".
no. there's no "but". it's political union or bust.
Miguel RodrÃguez Ruiz
How can the idea of a Federal europe be a left-wing conspiracy their?
*theory
deathtokoalas
+Miguel RodrÃguez Ruiz there's a strain of thinking on the left that sees the european union as a kind of fourth reich and - implicitly or explicitly - tends to argue it was planned by nazi banking cartels, behind closed doors.
what i'm getting at is that this perception is really reducible to a question of scale. there doesn't have to be a grand illuminati cabal for it to be basically right.
Giannhs Kwstas
+jessica I dont think he speaks left wingy or right wingy, he speaks common sense.
deathtokoalas
+Giannhs Kwstas what i'm pointing out is that he is not making any sense at all - he's spouting a lot of hard-right idiocy.
i should also point out that, in canada, "common sense" is doublespeak for "extreme right-wing policies". whenever that term is brought up, you know to expect absolute nonsense. it's broadly used to reject empiricism by pushing disingenuously presented intuition - to replace academic approaches with constructed gut reactions. it's the mark of anti-intellectualism. i don't know if that's also true in europe.
----
Alan Pater
Speaking of a US of Europe is counter productive, I think. Many Europeans hate the idea of modeling themselves after the US.
Perhaps Europe could take a look at the Canadian system? Canada has three territories and ten provinces, each with their own budgets for healthcare, education, welfare, etc. Yet it remains an optimum currency area.
Alex Khalif
Hi, when Varoufakis talks about a "United States" of Europe, I think he is talking about some sort of "Federated Europe" where the peoples of Europe live in a more harmonious way, with the possibility of a number of shared institutions like a Central Bank. In his previous talks Yanis has stressed that Federation cannot be created in the middle of a crisis & that it will take approx. 20 years to make it happen. The institutions & structures that were created in the 60s, 70s & 80s by the so called technocrats n Brussels, Paris & Berlin have failed spectacularly to deal with the earthquake that hit Europe. Also among Europe's elites the notion of TINA (There Is No Alternative) must be killed off!!
Charly CGN
The Terminus Technicus we use in Europe is "Multi-speed Europe". Nobody seriously wants a "United States of Europe". Yanis Varoufakis is a fool. He and his communist party really should do all of us a favor and leave the Eurozone!
Alex Khalif
Varoufakis maybe an idealist when it comes to reforming European institutions as well as trying to stop Europeans turning against each other...BUT iam certain he is no fool & he is not a member of a "communist" government!
Charly CGN
Yes, of course. The Syriza-Party is a coalition of the radical left. That's the point. You know, I'm from western Germany and because of the subprime mortgage crisis and the corruption in Greece today we have the upcoming right wing-parties Front National (France) and AfD (Alternative für Deutschland - Germany). So, if now Varoufakis is not quick about returning to the negotiating table he is responsible for the rest of Europe to lose its patience.
Alex Khalif
Iam not going to mention anything horrible about the Germans or their culture as I have some distant relatives living there even though I now live in Australia. Iam very disappointed in what Schäuble & others in the government had to say after the meeting with Varoufakis. They don’t seem to able to differentiate between somebody who is just a technocrat with a degree in Economics & Finance from a person with a deep intellectual understanding of European problems and practical solutions. The human cost of this whole debacle is too high. Also, its not our responsibility here in Australia to find jobs for unemployed European citizens who have fled the crisis, we have enough unemployed youth ourselves...
taguchi13
Kindly watch the video you're commenting on Christian. It is evident, from your comment, that you have not.
Charly CGN
Right! We desperately need new GLOBAL institutions to deal with the consequences of climate change, inequality, injustice and implement the digital revolution.
TheHomoludens
Right, ´cause central bureaucrats actually solve problems, just look at Brussel...
Fool!
johnselekta
You are part of the problem I think. Media tells you he's a fool, you act like one. He is the only person I can see that wants to start at the top...where to do you think all the money goes? Thin air or a tax haven? Greece won't bring the Eurozone down, the people in power with hidden interests will as they profit from it.
deathtokoalas
canada is indeed the better example, primarily because it has an equalization payment system and the united states doesn't.
you could think of alberta as germany and new brunswick as greece. the way the canadian system works is that the federal government will collect taxes from alberta and send them to new brunswick as an "equalization payment", so that there are comparable standards of living across the country. if it wasn't for this system, the less wealthy provinces would not be able to afford things like healthcare.
that's the reality that greece has to come to terms with: it's economy will never be strong enough to use a german currency without a transfer system.
at
02:19
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
Sunday, September 20, 2015
in the sense that this is accurate, it's exceedingly depressing.
at
23:55
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
is the biologically assigned sex of the child really that big of a deal?
at
23:21
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i suppose i should be happy that i'm healthy enough that my lungs are
still able to go into overdrive whenever i quit smoking. i've been
through this often enough to know that this is the last phase before
normalcy: the white blood cells start coming out in a quantity that
sometimes makes me feel like i'm choking. i can literally stand over the
sink and watch a connected gob of slimy goop fall out of my throat for
upwards of a minute at a time. it only lasts a day or two. rather than
clear my lungs slowly, my body seems to want to go into hyperdrive and
flush it all out as soon as it can...
i'm actually scarily healthy. i tell people i won't live to 50. the reality is that if i can cut the smoking out now, otherwise keep my lifestyle (healthy eating, but more importantly no car) similar and get a little luck on inheriting dna from my mom's side, i'll probably make it to 90.
and i can't help but feel that this exaggerated response i always get when i quit is a function of being as healthy as i am.
i made a point of not getting anything done today, because i was expecting to pass out. i've actually been awake for a normal 17 hour day at this point and i'm feeling very alert. but, i'm still not doing anything...
tomorrow, i think, will be time to start again.
i determined yesterday, briefly, that the primary problem was, in fact, the firewire driver. i'm expecting it to boot up to a clean signal. perhaps another reason i didn't do anything today is fear that it won't.
i'm actually scarily healthy. i tell people i won't live to 50. the reality is that if i can cut the smoking out now, otherwise keep my lifestyle (healthy eating, but more importantly no car) similar and get a little luck on inheriting dna from my mom's side, i'll probably make it to 90.
and i can't help but feel that this exaggerated response i always get when i quit is a function of being as healthy as i am.
i made a point of not getting anything done today, because i was expecting to pass out. i've actually been awake for a normal 17 hour day at this point and i'm feeling very alert. but, i'm still not doing anything...
tomorrow, i think, will be time to start again.
i determined yesterday, briefly, that the primary problem was, in fact, the firewire driver. i'm expecting it to boot up to a clean signal. perhaps another reason i didn't do anything today is fear that it won't.
at
14:45
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
so, sneaky tom claims he has enough senators to pass legislation, but won't tell us who they are. he has also just put the champlain bridge up for sale, but won't tell us where he got the jurisdiction from; his good friend philip is on the record as responding with "i shakes me head".
the last time i looked at the senate, it had a bare minority of conservatives required to pass legislation, dozens of vacancies and a rump liberal minority that has been disowned by his party.
so, we're to believe that he's managed to convince the entirety of that rump liberal minority, along with over a dozen harper appointed senators?
don't worry. he'll tell us who they are after we elect him. and don't forget to look at his other offers, including the champlain bridge.
he has dozens of open seats. the first thing he'll do is fill them.
this is the kind of absurdly irrational lie that destroys careers, because it takes precisely no careful thought to realize he's lying through his teeth on it. he'd better hope that very few people are actually prioritizing this as a voting issue, or he's digging another shovel into his own grave every time he opens his mouth on it.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-senate-abolition-ndp-1.3235746
the last time i looked at the senate, it had a bare minority of conservatives required to pass legislation, dozens of vacancies and a rump liberal minority that has been disowned by his party.
so, we're to believe that he's managed to convince the entirety of that rump liberal minority, along with over a dozen harper appointed senators?
don't worry. he'll tell us who they are after we elect him. and don't forget to look at his other offers, including the champlain bridge.
he has dozens of open seats. the first thing he'll do is fill them.
this is the kind of absurdly irrational lie that destroys careers, because it takes precisely no careful thought to realize he's lying through his teeth on it. he'd better hope that very few people are actually prioritizing this as a voting issue, or he's digging another shovel into his own grave every time he opens his mouth on it.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-senate-abolition-ndp-1.3235746
at
02:39
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
so, the way this works is that we have to buy it because we're being ordered to, but harper is dragging his feet (diefenbaker may be using some magnets from his grave) and the other two are being facetious in suggesting a market-based competition. in the end, they will of course buy the f-35s like they're told. this might be the only thing they all agree on: they don't want this.
but, why do we have to do this, again, barack? you know they're going to sit in a hangar. hell, i'd rather you just keep them down there to begin with - we'd save money on keeping vandals away from them. and on wd-40.
why can't we just pay you a protection tax, or something? that way, we can budget it properly. plan around it. tax your compan..err....the russians. tax the russians to pay for it.
no, really, there's gotta be some way out of this. two out of three are insisting on balanced budgets, and i don't want anybody dealing with funding cuts to buy planes. we've got pilots. they'll be happy to take part in your silly empire, if you'd like - you just need to give them planes. or, if you really want us to have them, maybe you could give us some of that "military aid" that you give to countries like israel.
we're just kind of not really interested in being taxed on this. we've got stuff like single payer health care that we'd rather use that for.
see, the american perspective sees it as a win-win. they get jobs for building the planes. they get their allies the planes. it's all win. and, this is the post-war reality and has been since the war: they get to order us to buy their stuff because they're the empire and we're the client and that's how this stuff works.
what they're not realizing is that we don't spend more on the military than everybody else in the world combined, like they do. rather, we spend a lot on services. for us, that's an obscene amount of money.
it's not as easy as just levelling with them. it's going to require some kind of delightfully aloof comedy routine, or something.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-trudeau-scrap-f35-halifax-1.3235791
PrimeMinster Gerald Butts!
Where do you guys get such utter nonsense?
Jessica Murray
it's how the world works, man. maybe drop chomsky an email and ask him to explain it to you....
but, why do we have to do this, again, barack? you know they're going to sit in a hangar. hell, i'd rather you just keep them down there to begin with - we'd save money on keeping vandals away from them. and on wd-40.
why can't we just pay you a protection tax, or something? that way, we can budget it properly. plan around it. tax your compan..err....the russians. tax the russians to pay for it.
no, really, there's gotta be some way out of this. two out of three are insisting on balanced budgets, and i don't want anybody dealing with funding cuts to buy planes. we've got pilots. they'll be happy to take part in your silly empire, if you'd like - you just need to give them planes. or, if you really want us to have them, maybe you could give us some of that "military aid" that you give to countries like israel.
we're just kind of not really interested in being taxed on this. we've got stuff like single payer health care that we'd rather use that for.
see, the american perspective sees it as a win-win. they get jobs for building the planes. they get their allies the planes. it's all win. and, this is the post-war reality and has been since the war: they get to order us to buy their stuff because they're the empire and we're the client and that's how this stuff works.
what they're not realizing is that we don't spend more on the military than everybody else in the world combined, like they do. rather, we spend a lot on services. for us, that's an obscene amount of money.
it's not as easy as just levelling with them. it's going to require some kind of delightfully aloof comedy routine, or something.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-trudeau-scrap-f35-halifax-1.3235791
PrimeMinster Gerald Butts!
Where do you guys get such utter nonsense?
Jessica Murray
it's how the world works, man. maybe drop chomsky an email and ask him to explain it to you....
at
02:17
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i just can't see how the liberals could be polling in the high 20s in quebec without being competitive in outremont. show me the polls, dammit...
it's not a mulcair thing. and i'm sure there's an intangible. and blah blah blah. it's just that it has to be at or near the top of the list of ridings that the liberals can win back if they're running higher.
it's one of those things where it's like fighting against gravity. as an independent observer, i see the numbers i'm thinking, and i think that outremont is worse than vulnerable. the ndp could run maurice fucking richard, it doesn't change the math.
well, maybe the rocket would change the math a little. you get the point.
if the liberals are up, outremont is vulnerable. no caveats.
so, show me the polls.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-trudeau-papineau-mulcair-outremont-1.3230605
iamjustme
Liberals are at 32% in Outremont, 54.6% in Papineau!
Jessica Murray
do you have a source for that?
iamjustme
Threehundredeiight.com ....Eric Grenier amalgamates all of the respected polls and has numbers for every riding in Canada.(CBC)
While the election is on he also has a contract with CBC.
Saw CTVs pollster this am. He said the NDP were trending downward, but Eric hasnt said that...
Jessica Murray
i see. you're posting the numbers from his "riding projections".
those numbers are more or less pulled out of thin air. there's some vague attempt to construct them to be consistent with the provincial polling averages, but it's ultimately merely a lot of guesswork. they should not be taken seriously on a riding-by-riding basis.
what i'd like to see are some actual riding polls.
it's not a mulcair thing. and i'm sure there's an intangible. and blah blah blah. it's just that it has to be at or near the top of the list of ridings that the liberals can win back if they're running higher.
it's one of those things where it's like fighting against gravity. as an independent observer, i see the numbers i'm thinking, and i think that outremont is worse than vulnerable. the ndp could run maurice fucking richard, it doesn't change the math.
well, maybe the rocket would change the math a little. you get the point.
if the liberals are up, outremont is vulnerable. no caveats.
so, show me the polls.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-trudeau-papineau-mulcair-outremont-1.3230605
iamjustme
Liberals are at 32% in Outremont, 54.6% in Papineau!
Jessica Murray
do you have a source for that?
iamjustme
Threehundredeiight.com ....Eric Grenier amalgamates all of the respected polls and has numbers for every riding in Canada.(CBC)
While the election is on he also has a contract with CBC.
Saw CTVs pollster this am. He said the NDP were trending downward, but Eric hasnt said that...
Jessica Murray
i see. you're posting the numbers from his "riding projections".
those numbers are more or less pulled out of thin air. there's some vague attempt to construct them to be consistent with the provincial polling averages, but it's ultimately merely a lot of guesswork. they should not be taken seriously on a riding-by-riding basis.
what i'd like to see are some actual riding polls.
at
01:43
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
when i moved here, it didn't take me long to realize i'd walked into a space that is rather strange, politically speaking. in the ontario election, it was not that uncommon to walk by middle class houses with giant union signs next to giant conservative party signs. it sounds like a contradiction, but it rather seems to be the bedrock of the political culture. there seems to be a sort of underlying insularism in the region that i think you want to explain by a lack of education. so, you get all these people that want strong unions to improve their financial circumstances, but are in truth deeply socially conservative - like most uneducated people. the saying is that conservatives may not all be stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. this area seems to demonstrate the truth in this. what they really want is a right-wing socialist party.
i would consequently suspect that these ridings could easily swing conservative if they had a fiery populist candidate in the mould of a rob ford.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/canada-election-2015-harper-manufacturing-windsor-1.3235747
i would consequently suspect that these ridings could easily swing conservative if they had a fiery populist candidate in the mould of a rob ford.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/canada-election-2015-harper-manufacturing-windsor-1.3235747
at
01:07
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i am an actual, real-life leftist that is not afraid to stand up in a room of conservatives and declare myself a communist, and trust me – the media is not on my side.
i think this article is maybe circumlocuting a bit of an epiphany, in referring to the media as disconnected elites – although it is continuing to make an error in tying them to the existing spectrum. so long as we let the media do this, it can continue to divide and conquer in a weird way.
and it is a weird way. the media is it’s own party. i haven’t read the book, but “laurentian elites” is not a bad description. the truth is that they’re tories. not conservatives; tories. supporters of diefenbaker, clark and mulroney. bleeding hearts, as the elder trudeau would say. christian protectionists that enforce a noblesse oblige amongst themselves. that is at the heart of the refugee crisis: noblesse oblige. not liberalism. not socialism. toryism.
it’s a strange anachronism. there truly isn’t a party that represents the interests of the aging canadian elite. and, has there been a country in the history of capitalism where the elite is disenfranchised? hey, i’m the leftist here – i realize how little that makes sense. and, yet it is clear that this is what exists…
www.therebel.media/media_party_disconnected_from_public_they_serve?page=4
i think this article is maybe circumlocuting a bit of an epiphany, in referring to the media as disconnected elites – although it is continuing to make an error in tying them to the existing spectrum. so long as we let the media do this, it can continue to divide and conquer in a weird way.
and it is a weird way. the media is it’s own party. i haven’t read the book, but “laurentian elites” is not a bad description. the truth is that they’re tories. not conservatives; tories. supporters of diefenbaker, clark and mulroney. bleeding hearts, as the elder trudeau would say. christian protectionists that enforce a noblesse oblige amongst themselves. that is at the heart of the refugee crisis: noblesse oblige. not liberalism. not socialism. toryism.
it’s a strange anachronism. there truly isn’t a party that represents the interests of the aging canadian elite. and, has there been a country in the history of capitalism where the elite is disenfranchised? hey, i’m the leftist here – i realize how little that makes sense. and, yet it is clear that this is what exists…
www.therebel.media/media_party_disconnected_from_public_they_serve?page=4
at
00:33
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i think it's reasonable to be extremely wary of dynastic politics. and, frankly, i wouldn't vote for trudeau solely on his own merits. but, he happens to be walking into a situation where the other two party leaders are unelectable, which makes him the best option by default.
if he wins this thing, it's neither going to be a commentary on his own abilities, nor a commentary on the abilities of his father. it's going to be the country settling back in to it's comfort point in rejecting the politics of the other two parties. and, the truth is that most people realize he's a largely ceremonial figure head, anyways. the prime minister is not meant to be like the president; when he talks about decentralizing power from the pmo and allowing cabinet more independence, that's a direction i'm in favour of.
it's one thing to not know something. there's lots of things we don't know. all of us.
what's more important is whether we pretend we know things we don't or if we have the humility and maturity to defer to others that are more capable when we know we lack the required understanding.
it's that deference that marks a capable manager - and that pretension that marks an incapable one. the truth is that we've had far too much pretension in government for far too long and could benefit from somebody that doesn't see themselves as a philosopher king.
so long as he continues to understand what he understands and what he doesn't, and knows what to defer, i think we'll be ok - in fact, better off than if we are to elect yet another narcissist that thinks they can run the country from a single office.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/ranjani-iyer-mohanty/justin-trudeau-political-dynasty_b_8156318.html
Maryanne Weis
Jessica... take the time out of your busy schedule to read his policies and perhaps then and only then can you see the difference between voting for Trudeau or Harper and Mulcair.
Jessica Amber Murray
well, that's the thing - i don't think he's written any of these policies, or even had much input into the process. and i'm ok with that.
if he wins this thing, it's neither going to be a commentary on his own abilities, nor a commentary on the abilities of his father. it's going to be the country settling back in to it's comfort point in rejecting the politics of the other two parties. and, the truth is that most people realize he's a largely ceremonial figure head, anyways. the prime minister is not meant to be like the president; when he talks about decentralizing power from the pmo and allowing cabinet more independence, that's a direction i'm in favour of.
it's one thing to not know something. there's lots of things we don't know. all of us.
what's more important is whether we pretend we know things we don't or if we have the humility and maturity to defer to others that are more capable when we know we lack the required understanding.
it's that deference that marks a capable manager - and that pretension that marks an incapable one. the truth is that we've had far too much pretension in government for far too long and could benefit from somebody that doesn't see themselves as a philosopher king.
so long as he continues to understand what he understands and what he doesn't, and knows what to defer, i think we'll be ok - in fact, better off than if we are to elect yet another narcissist that thinks they can run the country from a single office.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/ranjani-iyer-mohanty/justin-trudeau-political-dynasty_b_8156318.html
Maryanne Weis
Jessica... take the time out of your busy schedule to read his policies and perhaps then and only then can you see the difference between voting for Trudeau or Harper and Mulcair.
Jessica Amber Murray
well, that's the thing - i don't think he's written any of these policies, or even had much input into the process. and i'm ok with that.
at
00:15
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
Saturday, September 19, 2015
the big difference is the redrawn ridings. it is arguably the case that the cities were split up to harm the ndp in the first place; it certainly raised some eyebrows. even at 2011 numbers, the ndp would be expected to pick up most of those new urban seats in saskatoon and regina, with the one exception being rock-steady ralph. nobody's ever beating ralph. well, jesus, maybe - but the conservatives are not that bold. yet....
ralph's seat will probably eventually go to the ndp, too.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-prairies-sep19-1.3234750
Rush 2112
nobody causes harm to the NDP, They open their mouth and speak
Jessica Murray
well, the accusations of gerrymandering are kind of hard to ignore, if you look at the riding splits.
both cities were sliced into four parts in such a way that the rural parts of the riding would determine the winner with essentially no ambiguity.
had that not occurred, saskatoon and regina would have been sending ndp mps to ottawa the whole time.
HardRightByte
The cons didn't do this though, the Liberals did because at the time they figured the NDP were a bigger threat to them than the Reform Party.
Jessica Murray
this is accurate. for all the talk of "western alienation", it suited the liberals just fine so long as they could keep it contained, and the more the westerners cried and yelled like the entitled, spoiled children we've learned they are, and it was always clear that they are, the more they kept themselves hemmed in. it makes me angry whenever i see somebody apologize for the nep.
and, the truth is that this calculus was absolutely correct. nobody should apologize for being right. the liberals did not lose power due to a surge in conservative voters. they lost power because layton started bleeding them on their left, most notably in ontario. and, for them to win again, they need to beat the ndp, not the conservatives. the poll corrections over the last week have upheld what i've been saying for years: you can't push the conservatives under 30 for any length of time. you have to fight over the other 70% to form a government.
they seemed to get it then, what's more head-scratching is why they forgot it for so long.
ralph's seat will probably eventually go to the ndp, too.
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-prairies-sep19-1.3234750
Rush 2112
nobody causes harm to the NDP, They open their mouth and speak
Jessica Murray
well, the accusations of gerrymandering are kind of hard to ignore, if you look at the riding splits.
both cities were sliced into four parts in such a way that the rural parts of the riding would determine the winner with essentially no ambiguity.
had that not occurred, saskatoon and regina would have been sending ndp mps to ottawa the whole time.
HardRightByte
The cons didn't do this though, the Liberals did because at the time they figured the NDP were a bigger threat to them than the Reform Party.
Jessica Murray
this is accurate. for all the talk of "western alienation", it suited the liberals just fine so long as they could keep it contained, and the more the westerners cried and yelled like the entitled, spoiled children we've learned they are, and it was always clear that they are, the more they kept themselves hemmed in. it makes me angry whenever i see somebody apologize for the nep.
and, the truth is that this calculus was absolutely correct. nobody should apologize for being right. the liberals did not lose power due to a surge in conservative voters. they lost power because layton started bleeding them on their left, most notably in ontario. and, for them to win again, they need to beat the ndp, not the conservatives. the poll corrections over the last week have upheld what i've been saying for years: you can't push the conservatives under 30 for any length of time. you have to fight over the other 70% to form a government.
they seemed to get it then, what's more head-scratching is why they forgot it for so long.
at
23:43
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
china's population is roughly 40 times that of canada. yet it's emissions are only 16 times. another way to see this is to look at emissions per capita. china's is about 6. canada's is more than twice that, around 15. and, because we can only control our own behaviour, this is the right to way to look at the situation: we need to reduce our emissions per capita to a level that indicates we're doing our share, rather than polluting at two or three times the global rate.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/15/this-changes-everything-china-canada-climate-change-_n_8140518.html
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/15/this-changes-everything-china-canada-climate-change-_n_8140518.html
at
23:32
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
scientists and media organizations should be presenting this information as emissions per capita, not as gross emissions. it may be true that gross emissions are a better way to understand the climate effects. but, per capita emissions make it clear what it is that we need to do in order to do our share.
despite the media narrative, the reality is that we'd be making a huge contribution if we could get our per capita down to where china's is.
Peter Thompson
Jessica Murray, if you want Canadians to get our per capita emissions down to China's level, set the example and start with yourself. No heat, no car, no electricity are the realities for the vast majority of Chinese, you first and enjoy the upcoming winter...likely your last.
jessica murray
i don't own a car, and i heat my apartment with electric power that i'd like to hope will be 100% renewable in the near future. the largest part of my relatively small carbon footprint has to do with transporting food, which is something we can easily work together to avoid if we decide that we'd like to. the irony is not in me needing to look at myself; i already have, and i can assure you that i do about everything i can, and actively argue for people to get together to take further steps. my footprint is lower than china's per capita emissions. the irony is in your false assumption that i haven't, and your inability to see beyond your own mental blocks.
www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/see-which-nations-are-the-biggest-co2-contributors/57401/
despite the media narrative, the reality is that we'd be making a huge contribution if we could get our per capita down to where china's is.
Peter Thompson
Jessica Murray, if you want Canadians to get our per capita emissions down to China's level, set the example and start with yourself. No heat, no car, no electricity are the realities for the vast majority of Chinese, you first and enjoy the upcoming winter...likely your last.
jessica murray
i don't own a car, and i heat my apartment with electric power that i'd like to hope will be 100% renewable in the near future. the largest part of my relatively small carbon footprint has to do with transporting food, which is something we can easily work together to avoid if we decide that we'd like to. the irony is not in me needing to look at myself; i already have, and i can assure you that i do about everything i can, and actively argue for people to get together to take further steps. my footprint is lower than china's per capita emissions. the irony is in your false assumption that i haven't, and your inability to see beyond your own mental blocks.
www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/see-which-nations-are-the-biggest-co2-contributors/57401/
at
23:12
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i won't go over what's been said, other than to point out that the ndp never previously polled as high as 10%. if the bloc are polling at 10% or higher, the ndp would have to be swinging a considerable number of liberal voters to even be competitive.
that said, i'd like to see some polls in outremont - which is one of the first ridings you'd expect to see swing back to the liberals, if they're getting a boost over 2008, which they clearly are. i suspect this is a deflection.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/18/justin-trudeau-papineau-anne-legace-dowson-poll_n_8161098.html
that said, i'd like to see some polls in outremont - which is one of the first ridings you'd expect to see swing back to the liberals, if they're getting a boost over 2008, which they clearly are. i suspect this is a deflection.
www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/18/justin-trudeau-papineau-anne-legace-dowson-poll_n_8161098.html
at
22:53
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i'm quitting smoking again. done this enough to know it's temporary. but, dammit....
at
13:45
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
it's always a little disturbing to me when media purporting to be about "exposing rape culture" features violent rape imagery, knowing full well that many people that are watching are less than horrified by the imagery, if you understand what i'm saying. there's a very fine line between messaging and pornography; this is a topic that people engage with in complex ways, from repressed fantasies to voyeurism. sometimes, this line is crossed by accident, or at least not by conscious choice. i think lady gaga has a marketing team that is able to understand what i'm saying better than i'm able to articulate it, and they wouldn't make such an error as an oversight.
if i'm interpreting this as twisted porn, it's because it's designed that way.
if i'm interpreting this as twisted porn, it's because it's designed that way.
at
01:13
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
so, this is pretty much the precise point where it makes sense to start panicking.
world war three is due to start any minute, now.
world war three is due to start any minute, now.
at
00:57
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
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