so, i did get my court order in today, and i'm kind of flabbergasted that they would do this, as it's the smoking gun i needed for my harassment suit.

it's really the absolutely dumbest thing they could do, in context.

see, i sued them a few weeks ago for harassing me with the intent to remove me from the apartment. i gave them another chance (to fuck up). the day i gave them another chance, they put through an obviously false eviction notice to remove me from the apartment - thereby giving me the clear evidence i need to reopen the harassment suit. any lingering doubts about the veracity of my claims are now ameliorated - they actually filed the notice, proving my point.

worse is that they have to actually take it trial, because if they don't then they're clearly admitting the harassment. if i show up and walk into a grovelling paralegal, pleading with me to avoid a trial, he's going to have himself on the legal record demonstrating the initial claim. this all seems to have gone entirely over their head, right. in order to get out of this, they have to actually succeed in evicting me - otherwise it's obvious harassment. but, that was the point of the whole thing - this isn't supposed to go to trial, it's just supposed to scare me out of the place. so, they've walked right into a self-imposed trap: if they don't go to trial, it's harassment; if they do go to trial, and they lose, it's harassment.

so, can they win?

in order to win their case, they're going to have to demonstrate the following:

1) they need the unit. "i can save money" is not a need. "i want to" is not a need. this is a difficult burden. one usually puts their kids in there. they're claiming it's a parent, but that would probably mean it's the upstairs tenant's ex-wife (i can look into this), which is laughable.
2) this process is in good faith. but, they just signed a mediation order in bad faith moments before they signed the eviction notice. these people are pathological liars, and i can demonstrate it.

on top of that, they're going to have to get around the following realities, which are definitely not in their favour:

1) they have been repeatedly threatening to evict me for months.
2) there is a negative history at hand.
3) they appear to be selling the building.
4) this unit has problems with insects and with air quality. who wants to move mom into a cockroach infested basement full of sewer gas and cigarette smoke?

it would be hard to imagine a more obviously bullshit case. if i can't win this case, there isn't a case on the topic to be won. so, i expect the paralegal to do everything he can to avoid it. this is a dumb gamble, but it's his clients that no doubt put him up to it.

the hearing is on the 19th. i wouldn't expect an answer until the beginning of november. so, i should be here until december 1st at the earliest....

....but i do expect to win. and, i expect to win the dove-tailed harassment case as well, which i'm hoping gets scheduled after the ruling on the first, so i can use it to demonstrate the point. if not, i may have to refile :\. that's going to cost them a fortune...we're at eight months rent, now, and counting.

what should they have done?

given that they're obviously selling, they should have just waited it out. i gave them a chance to let it blow over, and they blew it.

but, i'll point something out: they have not been harassing me since. or, at least, not since the first day. my hope that legal counsel would straighten them out is working a little bit, at least. we'll see how long it lasts.

i'll also give them another way out: if i show up on the 19th, and they admit that the whole thing is bullshit, i'll drop everything. in fact, i'm going to send them the offer.

that's going to be their last chance. and, it's not by my choosing - they've run out of options.

i've been clear, repeatedly, that my apprehensions about immigration are solely due to fears that the elite wants to use it as a social engineering tool to make the country more right-wing, more conservative & more religious - because these are the qualities that capital romanticizes: industriousness, hard work, obeyance, etc. this is not the society i want, and i'm willing to stand up and say it.

it's classic marxist theory to explain the elite's support for social engineering policies to increase the prevalence of religion as a tool to further the aims of capital. it's literally right out of marx (and maybe more so right out of engels).

but, i am not a worker, exactly - i'm an artist. and, i realize that workers have real concerns about reserve armies. it's actually a market argument - and it's again right out of marx.

i've explained before that the solution is enforcing labour laws to take away the ability of capital to take advantage of the system of undocumented labour. but, the racial undertones the status quo promotes aren't going away, either.

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/lawrence-solomon-why-americas-elites-like-daca-and-so-many-american-workers-dont

i want to provide a little idea of what it was like.

i knew i had to stop, so i opened up notepad and tried to type up some notes. i had determined that the mp3 version and the 2014 mix were somehow phase reversed, and i'm trying to type it out.

1999/1914

no.

1989/18

what.

18990/1999...19....wait...oh...2001...wait...2014. ok.

first sicteon was

(backspace)

gowt swivtion

what?

like, the letters weren't even close.

when i realized what was happening, i slowed down and tried to enunciate, but, even so, i couldn't remember where the letters were on the keyboard. i sat and stared, looking for the 'f'. the 's'. it just wasn't coming...

they weren't obvious typos. it was really all over the place.

the first time this happened, back in 2016, it manifested itself in a difficulty speaking. i wasn't nearly as fucked up this time, although the headache was a lot worse. but the typing was....

....well, you know i'm a sucker for the surreal. if my head wasn't so brutal, i might have even had some fun with it.

i'm realizing that this was a classic hemiplegic. i didn't get an aura this time; i did in 2016. what i got this time was the arm tingling. it was very much mimicking a stroke...

the temperature is coming up this weekend, so i should get the windows open, and i know that will help a lot. but, it means i need to venture out to clean up the cat shit, first. i'm hoping it's not too bad.

i stopped around 1:00 to take a nap.

i was back up around 3:00. but, it triggered a nasty migraine, including arm tingling and aphasia. i couldn't find words. and, i couldn't operate the keyboard. i had to go back to sleep...

that itself was bizarre. i think we're all so used to just typing nowadays without thinking about it; i was stuck in a scenario where i had to stare at the keyboard and look for individual letters. even so, i couldn't find them - or i picked the wrong ones. scary shit.

was it a stroke? well, it hit my right arm, sure. but, i've been through this before, and i know i'm prone to migraines. further, my mom has told me that she get migraines like this, too.

what are the triggers?

- when i don't sleep
- when i don't eat
- when i don't get enough water
- when i don't get fresh air

there is somebody dealing with a "fire system" in the back. he's been there for two days. it's quite odd. the air quality in the back might be a factor.

i got enough sleep. i'm going to eat and drink and go from there.

my head is still throbbing, as of right now.

it's not looking like i'm going to ship today, and if my head doesn't resolve itself, i'm not going out tonight, either.

i'd love to see that on his page, btw.

corporate polling you can trust

"nik knows his shit and doesn't fuck around" - deathtokoalas

nik knows his shit, and he doesn't fuck around.

if the conservatives are smart about this, they could really hurt the left. but, you don't have to define this in terms of markets or choice - you can define it in terms of access, and even argue to let the monopoly grow over time.

if the ndp position was decriminalization - and it was, for years - it makes sense to support private storefronts...at least for now, until the government can get it going.

http://nanosresearch.com/sites/default/files/POLNAT-S15-T749.pdf

but, how often is it enforced?

i mean, it's discretion, right? and, if you're setting of red flags, anyways...

i answered the question truthfully, and they gave me a nexus card - because their discretion was that i'm harmless. and, so long as we're not at critical mass for an imminent anarchist revolution, in which case all bets are off, they're right - i am harmless.

so, this is kind of throwing a rock at a hornet's nest. there's not much chance of anything good coming out of it.

http://nationalpost.com/news/politics/ndp-pushes-for-agreement-with-u-s-to-prevent-lifetime-travel-bans-once-pot-is-legal

also: i'm going to be quiet about daca, for now. i think that's the decent thing for me to do.

these people, whatever their age, have nowhere else to go.

i'm all about being rational. and, the rational reaction to knowing this space is read is to avoid further politicization and just let the thing get done.

you hear every little once in a while about how something shouldn't be partisan. this should have never been partisan.

no. i'm going to have to a/b it.

i can get through inri031 first, though.

i badly wanted to remix this track in 2014, but i couldn't figure out how to do it in cool edit. i may have better luck in cubase.

it's going to come up with a few alternate mixes, as well - which could push the aleph discs forward.

i think i can still ship tomorrow. this is my fault, and i immediately owned it - but i hope he's patient. well, i'm doing what i can.

i need to eat, and get back to this fresh. i have a plan, anyways.

this is the botched version.

and, it was the version of hummer - reburned it because it was left unfinished.

and, in fact, i'm starting to think i tossed the disc away because it was scratched. memories are strange things.

in fact, i did work this in 2014, but i've forgotten exactly what i did. i know it led to me cutting out the synth intro as 'missed connection'. i'm going to check my journal, that's what it's there for....

so, i'm remembering something, and it's going to need some careful reconstruction.

when i went over the tracks from inri032 - including inri031 - in 2014 (we've pushed ahead to the next year, now), i hadn't set my system up for cubase yet, so i wasn't able to line anything up for a proper a/b. now that i've done so, i'm noticing that the mp3 has a significant difference in sound texture.

this isn't a degradation issue. it's a different mix.

and, this triggered a thought in my mind: i did, in fact, burn this disc twice - and it was, in truth, partly due to quality. i vaguely recall the issue having something to do with dithering. that is, i accidentally dithered and it sounded awful and i had to reburn. and, i carried these two discs around with me for a long time.

i can't find the other disc. i've looked through everything.

to complicate the issue, i remember that the second burn completed one of the tracks - i think it was the nin mix.

i vaguely recall giving away the other disc. now, i'm concerned i gave away the wrong one.

i should be able to figure this out. and, there's an upside to this - i don't have waves or source material for this, but i at least have decent quality mp3s.

i'm going to have to go through inri032 first and figure out which disc i have. did i even rip this disc, or did i rip the other? you'd think i'd have ripped both if i had both. grargh.

i'm thinking the one i wanted to have should have said MASTER in red. and it doesn't - it says demo.

it's a minor concern, in the end - it will just mean i'll have to replace some files. but, i need to figure it out. and, i'm kind of surprised i had forgotten about this, at the time.

update:

Shipping and return policies for jessica murray

Shipping Info

format:
single: $5
ep: $7
lp: $10
double ep (split digital/physical): $10
double ep (both physical): $14
double lp: $20
compilation discs: $10/hr (official releases) + free out-takes
period discs: $10/hr (all sound on disc)

releases are categorized conceptually, rather than by length.
there are 70 minute eps and 65 minute records.

compilation formats (dvd, bd) will be priced at $10/hour of music.
so, a 7.5 hour dvd flac disc will be priced at $75.
i've been unable to derive a flat pricing that makes sense.

types of compilation discs will be:
- dvd flac "box sets" of all singles around an lp. may include free out-takes.
- dvd/bd mp3/flac compilation discs are a running chronological total with no overlap. no extras on these discs.

note that flac is higher quality than mp3.
therefore, mp3 discs contain more music.
pricing is relative to length, only.
be sure to purchase what you WANT.

period discs will be as comprehensive as i can make them, meaning they will include all sound, all notes and all vlogs relevant to the period in question. the pricing will also be absolute. so, if the disc contains 35 hours of official releases, 20 hours of outtakes and 15 hours of vlogs, it will come up to $700. these discs are meant to be thought of as donations to the artist, not as economical market purchases. they will need to ship 20 years after the period closes, to sync properly with the alter-reality.

shipping:
$5 - can
$10 - us/intl

shipping rates are flat to the max, meaning i may gain slightly but i won't lose on shipping. it's otherwise about $3 to make a package. 20% of the sale price goes to transaction fees. this is as cheap as it can be while still being worthwhile to produce. if you buy a very large package (five cds or more), shipping will come down substantially and i'll contact you to talk about ways to make it more fair.

for right now, all discs will have planned limited edition, numbered handmade runs and will be made on demand up to 5000 copies sold, at which point they will be professionally pressed without numbers.

if you want me to send you something twice, you'd better be able to prove it got lost. there will be very few exceptions. sorry.

 https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/policies

 

 

...and, if they asked about christmas, i'd tell them the truth.

"christmas was initially a pagan solstice ritual, meant to mark the end of the calendar, and the beginning of the new solar cycle. the idea of the god-man being reborn is a common motif of rebirth in near eastern religious rites. a better way to think of it is in terms of the science of the yearly solar cycle.

(insert lesson about heliocentrism.)

nowadays, however, it's just a way to drive the worst aspects of the economy. i know your friends are going to be walking around with a lot of shiny things, but ask yourself: do you need any of those things? if you don't need them, why do you want them? seems kind of silly to want things you don't need, doesn't it?

let me know what you need, and we'll make sure you have it - regardless of the calendar date."

not only would i refuse to lie to my kids about santa (i'm never having kids.), i would refuse to even celebrate christmas.

i wouldn't have to lie about where the gifts came from because there wouldn't be any gifts in the first place.

what you really want to do is shelter them from reality as much as is possible, with the hope that they grew up naive and delusional, and unable to function in society.

here's an idea: tell them the fucking truth.

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/extreme-weather-events-irma-harvey-children-media-saturation-hurricanes-tornadoes/86190/

it's funny how i can turn myself off and on like that.

i told myself i'd need to sleep before i could address inri031. and, i did - for 11 hours.

that's the other side of it, the crash. but, i've been all crash, lately.

these discs are going to be closed soon, and that's a step forwards. but, it doesn't change the fundamental need to organize all of this writing - and all of these videos. in the end, it just means that i'll have that much more organizing to do.

but, i've at least broken the recursion. and, combined with all of the uncertainty around my living arrangements, it may make sense to focus solely on the discography for the next several months.

i am currently waiting for the court date around what i believe to be a frivolous eviction order. the reality is that i will not have much of any options at all, should it go through. i'm going to end up living in a one-room apartment for a while, or perhaps putting my belongings in storage and living on the street. it could be years before i'm able to rebuild the space.

if i end up homeless, i may choose to stay that way; i may sell my belongings out of storage and end up living on coffee and books in the local library.

the order should be here by now. their legal counsel seemed to deny it ever happened. and, i have strong reason to believe that they're selling the building, in which case i should lay low and wait it out.

everything will change should the notice end up in my box. and, i will need to call on monday to figure out if the office received it.

but, it wouldn't make sense to build custom shelves for the apartment - for example - only to get evicted. nor would it make sense to spend the rest of the money my grandmother gave me, because i may need it for last month's rent and moving costs.

i can't afford to move around all of the time. but, there isn't a long term solution on the market for me, right now. i'd have to find a bachelor apartment - or storage - and just cram everything in and sit and wait until something better comes up.

first of all, i don't think they put the court order through. second of all, i think i'd win the case - which would re-open the previous harassment case. in the end, i'm still here and they owe me a lot of money. third, i really do think that the building is being sold, which was the gamble that everything i've been doing always rooted itself in - all i had to do was wait them out.

for right now, my immediate focus needs to be on finalizing what i was able to complete over the last four years. and, i will no doubt look back on this large order as a kind of necessary and welcome refocus.

publishing inri030

this little sample collage went a long way over the years. in the end, it needed a home of it's own.

the initial collage, from september 1997, is actually the earliest computer music experiment that i have. years of enjoying playing 'civilization 2' by myself had me imagining soundscapes during events, and they began to arrange themselves in my mind, in patterns. if you were even alive in 1997, you might want to think back to the realities of technology at the time; i had a dial-up internet connection, minimal access to software and little idea of what i might be able to find on the internet. when i finally did find a shareware copy of cool edit '96, it became clear what i was looking for; before that, all i had access to was the default windows 95 software, which included the windows 95 sound recorder.

it would be harder to find this executable nowadays than you might think, unless you have a windows 95 cd (or perhaps a set of windows 95 floppy disks). it was clearly not designed for sound art, but it did have a crude copy and paste operation. really, it had some potential, it just lacked a tactile gui.

while the program was difficult to operate due to a poor user ui, i was able to take advantage of it to produce some interesting sound experiments that would be difficult to reproduce in any sort of other program. you could tell the program to loop or to slow or speed down samples, but you had to make a good guess as to where to paste it in - often with the aid of some napkin math. what i was able to get out of the program is perhaps wholly idiosyncratic, but i would not recommend it at all, not even in the conscientiously goofy retro sense.

really. don't do this. i plead of you.

once the background collage was completed, i initially intended to turn the track into a goofy electro-swing thing, with punk rock guitars, but i found the out from the computer to be noisy and the in from the 4-track to lack dynamics. so, sending the track to tape created too much noise and trying to record in over cool edit seemed to suck the life out of the guitars. i would later realize that this was gear specific: i was using a stock soundblaster from c. 1995 and a stock floor digital effects processor that needed to be warmed up by the tape. a version with vocals was recorded in january of 1998, but it was discarded in favour of the pure collage, which i decided worked well enough on it's own, in a quirky, yet subversive, kind of way. when i burned my first demo cd in june of 1998, i used the strict sample collage (shaped slightly for continuity).

i was assigned an electronic music project in the winter semester of 1999 and intended to use this track, as it narrates the absurdity of a war situation (and even kind of sounds like the 30s). however, i couldn't hand in the first part of the collage because it was lifted directly out of the sample. in the initial context it didn't matter - it was entirely atmospheric, purely conceptual - but it was imperative that it be removed in the academic context and be replaced with something i could assign myself writing credits to. so, i took an isolated experiment with score writing off of the first demo and fused the tracks together, creating a fully original hybrid written/sample piece. this was done twice due to reasons that i don't fully remember, but partly to remove the glitchy cricket sounds in the background; in the end, the second version did not have the sample overlays that the first did, which are only available in the 'early warning' version.

the track was remastered in 2013, along with the rest of the early material, but it didn't work out for any of it, in the end. at the end of 2014, i was able to recreate the originally intended version (with punk rock guitars) by taking advantage of a much newer soundcard, as well as noise reduction and digital mastering software. it was this version that was used in the reconstruction of my first record in january of 2016, but i again had to modify the lead-in; this time, i created an ambient sample collage to rise from the ashes of what i had to destroy.

meanwhile, the initial sound card experiment had also been dramatically updated by the newer technology. the lead track was created on oct 26, 2016 to simply explore the idea of what merging the two completed components together would sound like. in the end, it seemed necessary to release this, in order to be comprehensive.

the track is really more about mental journeys undertaken during long overnights of civ 2 than it is about anything explicitly anti-war, although the ideas intersect and the latter certainly evolved from the former. this is really actually a little bit of a window into what is going on in my own mind, as i'm conquering alien land masses at 3:30 on a wednesday morning.

this track was initially created in the fall of 1997 as an experiment using the windows 95 sound recorder. it was further expanded upon several times over 1998, resulting in several different mixes. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013, while a more successful rescue was carried out on a reclaimed full band version in late 2014. the track was further reconstructed and remastered for inri015 in january of 2016; the lead track was created on oct 26, 2016 out of material that had been remastered over 2013-2016. the ep was created on oct 26, 2016 but not released (and finalized) until sept 13, 2017, in order to properly fit into sequence. as always, please use headphones.

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1997, 1998, 1999, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017). 

credits

released July 1, 1999

j - guitars, effects, bass, orchestral sequencing, windows 95 sound recorder, digital wave editing, sampling, production

the rendered electronic orchestra includes piano, electric guitar, orchestra hit, pizzicato strings, violin, viola, cello, contrabass and synth pad.

maduro should still be on the look out, though.

those panamanians are always up to no good.

They also banned its state oil company’s U.S. subsidiary, Citgo, from sending dividends back to Venezuela.

well, gee. that's a neat trick, eh?

bolivarians should relax, this is just normal imperial piracy: boost the price and steal the profits.

"because we have the nukes."

well, find a new fucking market, then.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article173054886.html#storylink=cpy

“The White House was willing to stomach a slight bump in gas prices, but..."

ah.

clearly.

i've been saying for years that this is the underlying reality in venezuela: if they wanted maduro gone, they'd put up a blockade and he'd be gone in days. but, then what?

you have to wonder what it was like to live in carthage around the beginning of the common era. for, you surely knew the history. and, yet you realized your place in the empire.

however mithradatic chavez may have been, maduro does not have the same military background and will not survive such a coup - but i can't fathom how creating instability in the country is in any way in america's interests.

i don't know what the white house was planning, exactly, but i doubt it would have amounted to much, in the first place.

http://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article173054886.html

purchasing this release does not come with a download.

inri015: written and demoed in multiple stages from 1994-1998. initially constructed in this form in june, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reconstructed and resequenced jan 6-10, 2016 from parts that were rebuilt over 2013-2016. audio permanently closed on aug 10, 2016. finalized on oct 10, 2016. lp001.

inri016: created in the summer of 1998. released as a standalone ep on nov 16, 2013. audio permanently closed on oct 12, 2016. release finalized on oct 27, 2016.

inri017: initially written over the course of 1997. recreated and expanded over the course of 1998. lead track first sequenced in this form in feb, 1999. further remixes generated over the course of 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013, and another in late 2015. remastered in november, 2016 from various sources, 1997-2015. finalized on nov 17, 2016.

inri018: initially written in 1997. recreated and reconceptualized in late 1998. salvaged somewhat at the end of 1999. remastered in 2013. compiled on nov 13, 2016. finalized on nov 19, 2016. final album version added as a bonus track and refinalized on dec 15, 2016.

inri019: written and demoed from 1996-1999. initially constructed in this form in january, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. compiled on nov 13, 2016. sequenced on nov 22-24, 2016 from parts that were rebuilt over 2013-2016. audio permanently closed on nov 24, 2016. release finalized on nov 27, 2016. symph002.

inri020: initially written in 1993. first full recording in 1996. recreated in dec, 1997 and again in jan, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reclaimed on july 2, 2015. remixed on july 15, 2015. reconceptualized & remixed repeatedly over november & december, 2016. finalized on dec 13, 2016.

inri021: written and demoed in multiple stages from 1993-1999. initially constructed in this form in feb, 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reconstructed and resequenced over november and december, 2016 from parts that were rebuilt over 2013-2016. finalized on dec 15, 2016. lp002.

inri022: recorded over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. corrected to normalize for stereo in september, 2014. expanded incrementally between dec, 2014 and dec, 2016. merged with inricycled b and then finalized on december 16, 2016.

inri023: constructed over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. the first two tracks were corrected to stereo in sept, 2014. the last two tracks were added for re-release as a remix lp in dec, 2016. lp003.

inri024: initially written and recorded between 1996-1999 and remixed over the summer of 2015, with a lengthy pause due to malfunctioning electronics. final compilation date is jan 3, 2016. finalized dec 17, 2016. lp004.

inri025: this idea was developed in parallel to the inriclaimed project over the summer of 2015 and first compiled on nov 27, 2016. finalized on dec 17, 2016. lp005.

inri026: initially written in the fall of 1997. recorded in the winter of 1999. remixed in late 2013 and again in early 2014. this track was separated from my second record in january, 2016 but the single was not completed until it was remixed one last time in sept, 2017.

inri027: streamed to disk in one take on the afternoon of march 9, 1999. ripped back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017.

inri028: constructed over a few days in april, 1999. ripped back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017.

inri029: recorded over 1997-1999. constructed in this form in june, 1999. published in november, 2013. aborted early version added as a hidden track on sept 13, 2017; release consequently finalized. symph003.

originally created from 1996-1999. this compilation is dated to june 30, 1999. slowly remastered, reconstituted, compiled, reconstructed, released and finalized from 2013-2017. compilation finalized on sept 13, 2017. as always, please use headphones. 

credits

released June 30, 1999

j - guitars, effects, bass, bass synth, pick scrapes, synthesizers, piano, flute, drum kit, drum programming, orchestral & other sequencing, sampling, vocal relics, mic noises, vocoders, octavers, cool edit synthesis, windows 95 sound recorder, found sounds, paper, strategies, soundraider, hammerhead (909 emulator), sound design, noise generators, noise reduction, light-wave synthesis, metronome, loops, a broken tape deck, tapes, digital effects processing, digital wave editing, vocals, chance, production

the various rendered electronic orchestras include piano, organ, electric guitar, orchestra hit, pizzicato strings, synth pads, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, electric bass, sitar, tubular bells, tinkle bells, synthesizer effects and flute. 

 

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/flac-dvd-disc-volume-2

republishing inri029

this was my grade 12 final project in electronic music design. the assignment was something along the lines of creating a piece of music with a social message.

the message is part dystopian, but focuses more on the idea of identifying certain threats that would become a problem in the upcoming century. remember that this was the middle of 1999. how close was i?

1) intro
2) war
3) noise pollution, or pollution in general
4) conformity (or the collapse of individualism)*
5) chemical warfare
6) global warming
7) outro

* i was thinking in terms of personality/uniqueness, rather than something political. and i think the extreme conformity underlying gen y social attitudes have played this out frighteningly well, actually. it's a reaction to the radical mindset of anti-conformity that dominated gen x, but it's still a very real thing that will have very real ramifications in the upcoming decades. if you thought the 50s were creepy, wait until you see what these kids grow up into!

i should have included something about inequality. i also removed a vegan track, partly due to time restraints. besides that, i think i got all of the broad ideas right.

the piece is made to be played in an indefinitely repeated loop.

most of the tracks are slightly remixed/resequenced versions of tracks from inri or inriched. track 5 is brand new, and recorded on the school's synthesizer (part of the project requirements).

recorded over 1997-1999. constructed in this form in june, 1999. published in november, 2013. aborted early version added as a hidden track on sept 13, 2017; release consequently finalized. this is my third symphony; as always, please use headphones.

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1999, 2013, 2017). 

credits

released June 20, 1999

j - synthesizers, sequencers, effects, guitar, bass, piano, drum programming, noise generators, metronome, a broken tape deck, sampling, loops, cool edit synthesis, windows 95 sound recorder, sound design, digital wave editing, production

"well, then work harder to get better access to clean air."

fucking calvinists.

no, i need to be absolutely crystal clear on this point.

the reality is that there is no solution for a non-smoker with a low income. the market is going to price non-smoking alternatives out of their range, forcing them to co-habit with smokers.

this is a social problem and, like all social problems, it is without a market solution; it requires that smokers make reasonable compromises to modify their behaviour to be more conscious of the health implications of their habits on other people.

and, the fundamental step is a change of language, and a reversal of the concept of property rights - which do not even exist in this country.

the reality is that so long as smokers think that they have some kind of right to pollute, they will continue to take uncompromising positions that put everybody else at risk - and there isn't anything anybody can really do about it.

i can't date this exactly. i know it was the first half of the second semester of grade 12, which was spring of 1999. further, i'm taking it forward to about midway because the first part of the course was about voice-leading and i spent it orchestrating the beatles' something. i don't have any files.

i was lucky: i went to a high school with a big music department. not an arts school, mind you. just a school that had enough funding to run a wide array of course options that are outside the basic core topics. there were three main assignments in the course, and while i don't remember the exact assignment questions, i do have two pieces to show for it.

this, here, is a conceptual piece about pop music. all of the sounds are created from pop cans. yes, puns are fun. the samples run from pouring water out of pop cans into the sink, to crushing and smashing pop cans, to opening them, to exploding them, etc.

i used the tab of a pop can as a pick as i played the ambient guitar parts. it's all thrown together, processed, warped and perfected in a wave editor.

constructed over a few days in april, 1999. ripped back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017. as always, please use headphones.

this track appears unmodified on my third record:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1999, 2013, 2017). 

credits

released April 15, 1999

j - guitars, effects, samples, loops, digital wave editing 

somebody asked me to do this for them for a school project in the second half of grade 12, which was early 1999. we're both italian. silly joke, no offense intended.

i never saw the final version, but the guy described it to me. it was an anti drinking and driving ad (think madd) for a marketing class. they sequenced it up with shots of one of them stumbling towards a car, getting in and driving off. very clownish, apparently.

i didn't spend a lot of time on this, so i didn't charge them for it or anything. i think i was more hoping that it would float around a little, but if it did i'm not aware of it.

streamed to disk in one take on the afternoon of march 9, 1999. ripped back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017. as always, please use headphones.

this track appears in slightly modified form on my third record:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1999, 2013, 2017).

credits

released March 9, 1999

j - hammerhead (909 emulator), digital wave editing

publishing inri026

i went through a string of extremely cold basements in the late 90s. it was half heating costs; on that level, i could even agree for environmental reasons. however, it was half because my step-mother legitimately prefers absolutely frigid, air-conditioner-level temperatures and didn't want hot air rising from the basement to ruin the freezing temperature upstairs. you can understand how that might get frustrating sometimes.

i was offered a room upstairs, but then i'd have to go to bed at 10:00 pm rather than stay up until 4:00 am recording music and chatting on the internet, which was clearly unacceptable.

the song is more than a surreal commentary, it is a morbid fantasy i was legitimately having. there wasn't any real chance that i was going to light the basement on fire; if i were to do that, i might ruin my guitar, and then i'd be worse off. the story runs a little off the rails, but that is it's charm.

this was the last song recorded for inclusion on my second record, inriched (inri021), and initially sequenced as the penultimate track (as the viewless/suicide sequence had already been decided upon as the ending track). the song was finished on the evening of the 5th; i finished the cover art on the evening of the 6th. it remained in that position, as the 14th track, from february, 1999 until jan, 2016 when it was split off for the technical reason that i wasn't able to remove the vocals because i didn't retain source material. this is frustrating, because it's by far the most interesting song on the record, from a musical perspective.

however, i've always viewed the track as transitional; i realized, even at the time, that i was starting something new rather than ending something, with this. in hindsight, the elaborate electro-prog explored by the track is certainly more similar to what would follow than what i was closing down. it is actually fitting that the track was removed due to a lack of source material, as that defines what i created over 1999 (which i'm retroactively labelling period 1.3).

as the track was still on inriched through 2013, it was remastered along with the rest of the record. a version was also produced for the deleted inricycled b compilation, which included some extra mastering and the removal of the opening sample. these versions were both mastered to fit into their respective sequences; while they're both improvements, neither really captured the essence of the track as it's own thing. so, a final standalone mix was constructed in sept, 2017 to permanently close the ep.

initially written and recorded in the winter of 1999. remixed in late 2013 and again in early 2014. this track was separated from my second record in january, 2016 but the single was not completed until it was remixed one last time in sept, 2017. as always, please use headphones.

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1999, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017). 

credits

released February 5, 1999

j - guitars, effects, bass, sequencing, drum programming, synths, vocals, loops, samples, digital wave editing 

 

i've read quite a large number of the sagas, and they certainly stand out for their female protaganists - which one might point out were also prominent in celtic societies.

it kind of bugs me that so many feminists are so insistent on this idea of perpetual patriarchy. they seem to openly doom themselves to subservience, by providing the most extreme exit plan possible. so many of them are convinced that civilization itself is inherently patriarchal, and you have to go back to the very beginnings of human culture to overturn it. give me patriarchy, or give me death.

i don't think the evidence is there. frankly, i think the evidence is much stronger that patriarchy is a fundamentally jewish concept, and that it's been usurped and brutally enforced by christians and muslims, but that the indigenous groups both in christian europe and in the middle east tended to range from broadly egalitarian to questionably matriarchal. you don't even have to go full gimbutas on this. we have historical records of the power of priestesses in the pre-islamic semitic world - as well as the greek world, for that matter. the hellenic world was quite often dominated by powerful female monarchs (propped up by court eunuchs) - it was quite normal, not the anomaly that it was in western europe, save britain, which largely kept it's celtic traditions and both in england and in scotland.

tied into this is unquestionably the fact that so many historical feminists have been so religious. many of them seem to have even defined the question of feminism as the process of winning the right to participate in the church. the situation is far from irreversible,  but it does require overturning the system that so many seemed to long to be a part of. the only logical way out is to collapse into parmenides and deny the possibility of change: patriarchy is irreversible, so it does not hurt to join the church.

if patriarchy is intrinsically connected to abrahamic religion, however, it can be abolished along with the religion. and, i would promote that positive view.

we don't need to go back to the norse sagas. but, we can see the society as proof that there are alternate paths to this place in time and space.

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/09/11/high-ranking-viking-warrior-was-female-dna-tests-prove.html

i may have literally been the first to argue that canadian social positions are politics, but i was being cynical - these are the things i want in an agreement.

and, it's easy enough to make the case for environmental & labour standards, as these things are what the agreement is actually about.

as a canadian, i can even understand the indigenous rights part, although the jurisprudence is a bit behind in the united states and, as far as i know, non-existent in mexico. but, even basic language on consultation would be hugely positive. that said, perhaps the prime minister could start at home.

it's the gender section that doesn't actually make any sense to me, in context. what, exactly, does a gender chapter in nafta contain, if anything at all? i'm just not able to imagine what they're imagining. it could take the form of a basic list of rights, i guess, but that would be supplemental - because women are people, too. that's settled case law. i guess i'm aware that the harshest work is disproportionately done by women, but i don't know what that translates to in a nafta chapter that wouldn't, and shouldn't, be approached more broadly.

nafta certainly isn't about political representation or any of the things that the liberals routinely invoke gender around - except, unfortunately, in one way, which is as a distraction.

so, now i see the headlines focusing on the topic, and the prime minister going out of his way to use it as a talking point, which is worrying, because when he does that it almost always means he's hiding something unpopular.

it's very cynical of me, but if you know then you know and i know that the likely truth is that this is intended as a bait and switch.

i just hope we don't wake up to a patent regime or a border arrangements or a resource sharing agreement that was rushed through while everybody was talking about something else.

actually, this is better: somebody do me a favour and immediately launch a charter challenge on a law that forbids all outside smoking. people can deal with rules in trafficked areas, and that's fine - they'll do it. but, to suggest that you may only smoke inside is clearly overly broad and, in fact, rather cruel and unusual.

the case law would be far more useful, in the long run. let's just get it going, please. pronto.

who am i kidding - where am i going to find that won't have the same problem?

a law that says you have to smoke inside is, in fact, sentencing every poor kid in the province to inhalation problems.

if dad smokes, the way to make sure the kids watch it is to send him inside - where they have to inhale it, too.

it is genuinely, truly, legitimately a consequence of utter stupidity. and, the person that proposed it should resign in disgrace.

for fuck's sake, send them outside.

it's probably government pot: smells horrible & doesn't get you high, just gives you a headache and knocks you out.

...and, listen: i'm not the anti-drug zealot. i'm even a moderate user: socially, when i'm with people. but, even i can't handle living in a space with a daily smoker. it's just putrid.

send them outside, for fuck's sake. and, they'll go willingly, so long as you don't threaten them with a fine - because they know.

i've been fighting with these people for months and have essentially refused to budge.

but, i don't want to live in a vape lounge. and, if the stench (and contact buzz, which is actually just giving me a headache) doesn't relent, they've finally found a way to get me out of here.

one of my upstairs neighbours appears to have decided that he's not allowed to smoke pot outside anymore, and has moved inside. the law is, indeed, coming.

he was no doubt smoking outside, previously, out of courtesy to the other tenants.

i don't know what the fuck he's smoking, but it is absolutely rank. the entire building now smells like somebody lit a skunk on fire.

up until yesterday, this was easily manageable: he simply went outside to smoke.

this is a law that is going to plummet property values if it isn't reversed, and it's what happens when you put hopeless geeks in charge of public policy - and this is coming from a nerd of epic proportions. wynne has converted the party into a collection of people that have never been to a party before in their lives. they're hopelessly out of touch; the simple reality is that the liberal party of ontario has absolutely no experience with marijuana whatsoever, and no clue at all how to legislate on the topic as a consequence of it.

and, it's hard to understand how a liberal party got like this. these are the most socially hopeless people you could fathom.

the law should be pushing people outside, where it doesn't bother anybody. the status quo is that you smoke in the park, or perhaps in your car. the best place to smoke in an apartment building would be the roof. what we're going to end up with, now, are buildings where pot is and isn't allowed (after lengthy court battles). and, the buildings where pot is allowed are going to end up falling apart.

this is a socially acceptable drug and has been for decades. your kids are going to have to navigate this. and, dragging the stigma along is just going to create a lot of problems.

i repeat: forcing people to smoke inside is going to be a nightmare for property values. it is a legitimately stupid law, because it is legitimately clueless, and it is going to have to be reversed.

i guess only racists support social systems. racial equality means we can all compete equally on the market, right?

(psst: that's called neo-liberalism)

do you know where this guy came from? he built his career on opposing the sex-ed curriculum, on the backs of votes from insular religious communities that don't want their kids to know that queer people exist.

this is becoming standard, nowadays: these parties that used to represent the left have become the voice of disenfranchised brown conservatives, because they were the only parties that would sign them up.

my understanding is that jagmeet singh remains third or fourth in polls in the race, and that despite the establishment talking points, he is still a longshot candidate. but, take note of what the party is doing, here - because it will do it again, and it might work next time.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2017/07/26/ndp-leadership-rebel-jagmeet-singh-takes-aim-at-old-age-security-walkom.html

this is the narrative that the party wants to run on.

the reality is that singh is actually quite a bit like obama - he's a social conservative to the core, who is  constantly forced to explain his way out of it, often unconvincingly. and, he's clearly the establishment candidate in the party - as obama clearly was, too.

a lot of people will fall for this. but, they will be greatly disappointed in the outcome.

the ndp is not becoming liberal lite; it is becoming the party of right-wing immigrants, who would only join the conservative party, if it weren't for the racial animus within it. in the end, we will have two conservative parties, and be left without an option on the left.

http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/get-real-jagmeet-singh-has-been-dealing-with-racist-hecklers-for-months/

i'm reading all of these opinion pieces on trump "cancelling" daca (and if you present it in those terms, you're wrong to start off with), and they're all getting it wrong on an empirical, factual level. this isn't an error in analysis. it's an error in fact.

and, some of it is feigned, no doubt - it's easier to go with the flow than it is to rock the boats. if everybody is misinformed, why would it be the media's role to correct them? it's far more profitable to just capitalize off of their ignorance.

but, some of it seems sincere, and it's all rooted in a set of mental gymnastics that lead to the following conclusion: a very large number of americans seem to actually want to live in an empire. they just want trump to pass immigration reform by decree, and they don't seem to understand why there was a problem when obama did it. i suppose there's a level of pragmatism underlying a desire for results, but i'm pulling out something a little deeper, here - and, in act, especially on the pseudo-left, that has been criticized so strongly for it's authoritarianism.

i've lived most of my life concerned about creeping corporate fascism on the right, and with good reason. but, you don't see these arguments on the right - this kind of flat out contempt for congress as some kind of obsolete instrument.

the contemporary left seems to truly be more into enlightened despotism than it is into democracy. and, marx' biases in favour of the form aside, that's something that intellectuals on the left ought to be addressing more seriously.

i just want to be clear on a point....

the new ontario pot law says you're only to smoke inside your house.

but, i have never smoked pot inside my house before, and i have absolutely no intention to ever do so in the future.

i will continue to take a walk, or maybe take a bike ride. i'll smoke in the park, or at the bar. and, i don't care if there are kids around - because i don't think it's something kids should be sheltered from.

i don't expect anybody to even try to enforce this law, either.

i'm in full support of legalization. but, the last thing in the world that i want is for my apartment to smell like marijuana.

yesterday was a weird day; i was up fairly early, and got to work around noon, but i blew the entire day trying to reconstruct the mix from the day before, only to conclude the difference file was reverb from random sampling...

i dunno, though. i tried a few things, and it all ended up inconclusive. i think there's an underlying issue. i went to sleep in the evening with the intent of checking the output file when i woke up. i mean, the point of verifying the out was to tweak - if i didn't need to tweak, i wouldn't need to verify anything.

i've been distracted by the hurricane and other things this morning, but i'm actually content with the mix. so, i'm going to close the ep. 

i should get through at least two more by the end of the night, and hope i can ship the first package on monday at some point...

this strikes me as a setup to generate media coverage, actually.

she's clearly an actress, by her tone of voice. and, not a good one.

"is it better with the mic away from me?"

you can definitely hear her better once you take the mic away from you - and once the sound person turns her up.

the worst part about the whole thing is that this is what the party actually wants to run on. the cynicism underlying this is where the real racists are living....

his candidacy is popular in the party's bureaucratic wing due to the same kind of cynicism that thinks they can win minority ridings by running a minority, but is not catching on amongst members. the ndp doesn't actually have a choice, here: it needs to listen to it's members, because if it doesn't then it won't be a party, any more.

and, this was the problem in the first place: if it had listened to it's members, it wouldn't have swung so far right in the last election.

the country wants to elect a party that doesn't exist: it wants the historical ndp back. everybody - including the liberals - seems to realize this, except for the existing ndp, itself. so long as that surreal situation manifests itself, we're going to be stuck with liberals or conservatives.

i don't have a fundamental opposition to electing a guy with a turban, although i'll admit it's hard for me to imagine a way in which i could harmonize my vision of a secular society with the vision of somebody that wears a turban (i'd imagine a sikh i could actually vote for would probably look more like nikki haley than jagmeet singh). but, the reality is that this guy is simply a bad candidate for a left-wing party.

it's not what's on his head that i don't like, it's what's between his ears.

...and, as this process has played out, what he's really exposed is how corrupt the party is as a vessel: this guy is an empty turban, and the machine behind him is not something anybody on the left should be supporting.

"well, they're misinformed. look at the kind of left-wing conspiracy theories that are rampant in the left-wing media..."

get yourself together, guys.

i, for one, will not tow your line - i will tear you down.

i'd support the raise act, anyways.

my understanding is that it's actually built on legislation that the canadian liberal party pioneered in the 1960s, and was strongly defended by the current prime minister's father. as such, it's actually an absolutely logical corollary of lbj's "great society" program.

i'd also support - and in fact have repeatedly called for - stricter enforcement of labour standards. that's the actual solution, here. lax enforcement of labour standards is the actual problem.

and, i wouldn't mince words directed at democrats that stand up for corporate greed at the expense of the enforcement of labour standards, then try to hide behind some neo-liberal identity politics or nonsensical accusations of racism. these people are just corporate stooges. they don't care about workers, they're just cashing a check. and, they're the crux of the problem. don't fall for that bullshit - call it out for what it is. primary their ass, and get rid of them.

https://www.good.is/articles/how-congress-can-replace-daca-and-make-it-better

whatever you think of nuclear - and i'd like to see funding directed at the research needed to make it more feasible, but don't think it really is, even now - these plants should not be in florida.

i had these arguments about japan. i actually think they ought to evacuate japan to russia, and declare the entire island uninhabitable. and, you know what's crazy? serious people have actually considered this. you can look it up.

but, whatever you think of nuclear power, the plants should be located somewhere less dangerous. this was inevitable - completely predictable. and, here it is.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/as-irma-approaches-nuclear-plants-in-florida-lessons-from-andrew-resonate/

this is close to the reality of it.

i'm hoping michigan legalizes soon. and, i suspect people in ottawa will buy most of their pot in quebec.

toronto is not going to be able to shut down the black market if this is their approach towards it.

...and, this is consequently a potential election issue. hopefully, the ndp has some better ideas about how to do this.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/reevely-ontario-plans-150-government-run-pot-shops-by-2020

the ontario government released it's plans to sell marijuana behind counters in closed drawers, like it does cigarettes.

i'm left to conclude that we're only going to have one strain of medical available to us. this strain is designed for people that suffer from depression. i've run into it on the street: it's a powerful body numbing high, and it gives me a headache.

i'd ask the premier to imagine walking into the wine store and being give the single option of a red with a high alcohol content, and being forced to order it at a store front, and have the clerk come back with it. would you not buy your wine out of province?

full legalization was a necessary step, but it's only the first part. what they announced the other day is going to be a disaster - the stores will fail, and we're going to have to listen to people complaining about how high the costs were. we still have a long fight ahead of us to actually liberalize access.

i don't mind the premise of the government operating the stores, but we need to have some consumer choice in terms of purchasing different types of marijuana, and that's going to require a broad liberalization around production.

as it stands, you couldn't give me the stuff being produced by health canada for free.

this is such a powerful demonstration of the power the state has to control you through mental obedience.

not only is everybody just sitting there (excluding the few rebels that decided that everybody hurts....sometimes), but i bet you're looking at the picture thinking "wow. i can't imagine being stuck in that traffic".

i guess nobody wants to get a ticket for driving on the wrong side of the road.

i'd be zooming right past them.

"see ya."

"The meteorological equipment used by the Cuban government to determine the wind speed was broken by this powerful storm," Oppmann told CBC News.

ah, fidel. and, things could have been so great. but, i tell you: when these storms that the americans have created wipe themselves out, we will still be here to rebuild. viva la revolucion!

ok, so why is this different now? they had years to pass the dream act. i'm supposed to be a rationalist, aren't i being naive?

no. because paul ryan is not john boehner. or, at least, he isn't to anybody besides his wife. and, you can have fun misinterpreting that all you like.

(at least that's what his wife thinks, right?)

the votes were there. the votes are still there. but, the former speaker was a complete and utter asshole.

paul ryan is merely a contemptible jerk.

they could put the thing down, as it was years ago, and it would pass. everybody knows it. they just have to fucking do it. and, boehner would not do it, due to some tactic of wanting to cripple the executive.

bush signed deferred action. reagan signed amnesty.

this is going to happen.

they're distributing again, which is an error. you need to include undecideds.

they're not even measured. fail.

the best thing you have here is this:

undecided - 37%
brown (pc) - 27%
horwath (ndp) - 21%
wynne (lib) - 15%

if you reduce the sample, you end up with:

brown (pc) - 43%
horwath (ndp) - 33%
wynne (lib) - 24%

that is actually roughly consistent with the published results, which have brown at 40% and the other two at 27% and 25%. you'll note that the greens are at the difference, at 6%. but, that's a coincidence.

the way you should read this poll is actually like this:

conservatives - 30%
not conservatives - 70%

that is, brown has his diehard support, and everybody else is disgusted by the spectrum, but knows they don't want conservatives. that 37% is mostly disappointed liberal voters, who could swing anyway except right. and, that's pretty much exactly what we saw in the last federal election around this time. the ndp were able to briefly jump ahead, but in the end lost because they moved right in an attempt to win the centre, which backfired.

this is why it's an error to distribute.

this is a different situation, because the liberals are incumbents. if there's a change vote coming up, the ndp should swing most of it.

yes, we should wait for the second-choice data to be sure. but, what you'll find is the same thing you saw two years ago, because nothing has changed since...

wynne doesn't have a lot of credibility in moving left, right now. but, horwath should come out and start ranting like a raving socialist - because it's what the province wants, and is fed up that it can't find anywhere.

http://poll.forumresearch.com/data/fae42e93-d6a3-47b5-8395-c451571b0b0aFOLJ%20ON%20Horserace%20Aug%2025%20.pdf

federal canadian elections were certainly an important consideration in the initial talks in the 80s and 90s.

i think wilbur ross is just old. this is something that happens when you get older; you start getting timelines crossed in your mind. you speak to your spouse as they were forty years ago. you think your children are still children. and, you hold to a canadian political discourse that the conventional wisdom claims is out-of-date.

but, you might accidentally provide some insight, in the process.

the liberal party's position on nafta has always been complicated, and the media has never understood it, but it has never been in lockstep with the conservative party. yes - the left should prepare to be disappointed. but, there's also an opportunity for ideological renewal in the party (that is, an opportunity to move away from neo-liberalism), and there is some sign that this is happening - along with some evidence that it is being cemented as the party's dominant position. the liberals in canada have always been strange animals, in that they will surprise you from time to time but also in that they are fundamentally unstable. but, however the cards fall on this, everybody should expect the current iteration of the federal liberal party to sign something - and all existing provincial liberal governments to demonstrate little opposition.

where the spectrum in canada gets a little more interesting is when you look at the parties to the left of the liberals, which are essential in the spectrum but which the media tends to pretend don't exist.

the pq are dying in quebec, but an anti-nafta tirade is the kind of thing that could bring them back to life, if it's tied to some concept of declining sovereignty. and, how quebec obeys the separation of powers in the constitution is not always defined by the constitution, which they've actually refused to sign.

the ruling liberals in ontario are almost certainly going to lose, which is providing the ndp with an opportunity they haven't had in decades. a deal that threatens certain resources, like water, could give them a lot of ammunition, if the race collapses to conservative v. ndp. certainly, one would expect the conservatives to take unpopular positions, should trudeau offer those unpopular positions to them.

but, if mr, ross' accidental insight is to be acknowledged, what he should be suggesting is that he's better off waiting until after the election - that is, if his mind holds out that long.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wilbur-ross-record-breaking-nafta-speed-1.4280761

However, one court struck down the Obama administration’s effort to create a similar deferred action program for undocumented parents of US children, ruling that the Obama administration failed to follow the notice and comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Plaintiffs are sure to argue that the APA also applies to terminating the DACA program, and that the Trump administration failed to do that here. 

this is the best argument i've seen so far. it's a technicality, and just extends the process, but it's at least plausible. lower courts can make curious decisions at times, but the stuff about equal rights doesn't strike me as remotely relevant, in context - it's essentially an argument that it's ok to break the law if you're not white, and that trying to enforce the law on non-white people is therefore just being racist. what these arguments are really doing is warping around the equal rights amendment into an argument for special status for brown people. what equal rights actually means is that the law applies the same to everybody, and everybody needs to be prosecuted the same way - if you're mexican or latvian or whatever else. higher courts won't even entertain these kinds of arguments.

but, it doesn't change the fact that it doesn't make sense to fight for a return of deferred action when the congress appears ready to legislate.

i don't think this is going to be what happens. or, at least not for most people; there's a realistic chance they could hunt down people on social services, which is going to turn into a deportation of people on disability amidst disgusting rants about welfare queens. i think that's the real struggle, here.

but, it could happen. and, if this drags on through trump renewing daca, it very well might eventually happen. so, it needs to be a part of the conversation.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/paaj8v/a-former-daca-recipient-explains-all-the-data-ice-can-use-to-go-after-dreamers

it seems like i'll be in bed early tonight, and that's ok. well, i've been awake since 3:00 this morning...and it's a quiet night in detroit. there's this ancient tradition happening tomorrow, and i'm not sure i'm keen about it, given the weather. i've been drinking enough this summer; i need to get some work done. widowspeak, on tuesday, is more likely. and, i'm not going to miss goldie on saturday.

i had a dog named goldie. of course she was a retriever.

i managed to get my printer back online this afternoon, so i've printed the first disc in this order: it is ready to ship. but, i'm going to ship them two at a time out of courtesy, to keep costs down. he's going to get a free order at the end of it, due to overpaying for shipping. i have an obligation to be economical, then. order one is potentially on monday, but it depends on how much i get finished.

i also finished a potential mix of this track. after controlling for interference, and using good headphones, the cool edit salvage of this was better than i thought. but, i have more sophisticated tools in cubase and i've used them to positive effect.

i'll have to do some listening when i wake up. it's tentative, but probable. watch out for the bottom end - that is very crunchy bass.

miami is not going to fully recover from this storm.

they're finding old roman ruins of the coast of the mare nostrum all the time. not hurricanes, but earthquakes. it's not hard to imagine a future civilization - or perhaps a future species - doing surveys along the coast and finding these sunken metropolises.

we can name them: new orleans, houston, miami.

which will be the first to sink into the ruins of the future?

10 years. that's the waiting time for subsidized housing.

needless to say, i'll have to figure something else out.

for right now, i'm staying in this weekend; it's too cold to go out. so, i'm going to do a little cleaning, take a shower and get ready to do some real discography work.

do i have an opinion on trudeau's decision to cut tax loopholes for the upper middle class by preventing them from incorporating?

not really.

i mean, it's probably fair. but, it strikes me as more of a political ploy than a serious revenue generator. if they wanted to seriously generate revenue, they'd raise the corporate tax rate.

i wasn't supposed to put that together, though. and that was a part of the point of it.

i don't expect that many canadians will care much, either. nor will they forget about how low corporate taxes are.

....except for the bourgeoisie that's being affected, of course - which is actually the liberal party's fundraising base.

i read an article where gerald butts pats himself on the back, claiming that raising taxes on rich people is a kind of political license. i would rather expect to see it hurt the party's finances, and rather dramatically.

i'm ignoring this stuff for good reason, as it's insane. but, let's see what they found.

1) the ads did not include election content.
2) the ads were not targeted towards any election outcome.
3) the ads were not targeted towards any specific demographic.
4) the ads were not connected to any political party.

but...

5) the ads "probably" originated in russia because they were purchased in russian.

therefore, russia interfered in the election!

by that logic, budweiser is interfering in russian elections whenever it runs ads for beer in russia.

hey - they said trump wanted to bring the country back to the 50s. well, there you go, i guess.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/06/facebook-political-ads-russia-us-election-trump-clinton?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

if this was entirely political, i'd just ignore it as opportunistic - and concede it will probably work.

but, these arguments are not even close to being correct, they're in truth barely even formed, and should the case get to trial (which it probably wouldn't; these arguments are so bad that the case could and probably should be dismissed) they could have a devastating impact on the ability of future presidents to pass similar legislation.

the only possible outcome of this trial is to place future legal restrictions on what the president can't do.

migrant rights activists should be opposing this suit, due to the dangers of these unforeseen consequences. and, i will publicly call for these states to withdraw this response as poorly thought through, and even to apologize for putting the lives of migrants at risk.

this has to be dealt with in congress. you can find any number of clips by obama himself, pointing that out. and, it may perhaps be useful to get a recent statement on the topic from the former president, who has an opportunity for responsible civilian leadership in front of him.

it's been known for years that the votes exist in congress, but the congressional leaders couldn't put it to a vote. paul ryan, at the least, has changed his mind. the focus needs to be on targetting mitch mcconnell, to make sure he puts the legislation through.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/06/politics/daca-trump-states-lawsuits/index.html

i made it to the office late in the morning, but it's closed on wednesdays. oops.

at least the forms are printed and ready. i'll need to get them there in the morning.

i spent the rest of the afternoon doing grocery shopping for the month, as i didn't do it around the first. i'll need to pick up some fruit in a few days, but it should otherwise be a very cheap month, grocery-wise. that is good...

i was up around midnight and am getting back to inri026 just about right now.

some honest reporting from independent media on the left, which is so tied up in the cartoon villain narrative...

what is the actual discussion ahead of congress?

1) can you stay if you've committed a crime? well, it's not my country, but.....let's say you won't see me at the 'let the criminals stay' rally.
2) can you stay if you can't find a job? immigration law generally has rules about self-sufficiency. it's still not my country, but i'd be far more likely to go to the 'let the disabled stay' or 'let the unemployed stay' rally.

i posted elsewhere that nobody's getting deported, and i maybe spoke too soon: the congress could very well target people that live on social assistance. and, this is probably the real battle coming up.

but, if you came to the united states as a kid and you have a job then you should not expect a deportation order, so long as you educated yourself about what is happening. and, that is the real thing that the independent media on the left should be ashamed of: instead of disseminating information that these people need access to in order to avoid having their lives uprooted, it is scaremongering for click bait.

bravo to this guy for being honest and for being real.

i'll say this again: people are always like "i don't see any evidence that orwell is right. read huxley, instead.".

but orwell's primary argument was that you're all too stupid to see how right he is, that you're all a bunch of hopeless primates, in the end. if we were all able to understand what he said, and see his analysis, he would, in truth, actually be wrong.

and, it follows that you fucking plebs need people like me to explain to you how frighteningly right he actually was.

and, that you'll continue to deny it, too.

sorry, one more thing, in case you were confused.

adam smith was a capitalist. a middle of the road altruistic liberal that the contemporary right would despise, but a capitalist nonetheless.

david ricardo, however, was a socialist.

nafta is not built on the idea of comparative advantage, but on the idea of giving mexico an absolute advantage in the cost of labour. this is smith. this is capitalism. but, it is not free trade, which came from ricardo.

free trade is socialism.

...and, that's exactly why they sold it to you as capitalism.

get it, yet?

one more thing: if the economics are so obvious, why do the governments in canada and the united states keep doing this?

because they don't work for you. they work for capital. they told you it would trickle down, but they didn't actually believe it. that's how capitalism works: big money buys influence and the rest of us can die in the street.

unless we fight back. it's a pressure point, perhaps - a way to save the system rather than topple it - but it's there, and we've stopped using it.

here's the thing: i don't sound like trump. trump sounds like me. trump sounds like thousands of unnamed leftist free trade protestors in the 80s and 90s. he somehow ended up representing this radical right coalition that opposes nafta because they think it's some kind of move towards world government - it's the old quasi-fascist john birch society narrative. but, he himself actually sounds like a socialist when you hear him talk about this.

i don't mind get attacked by the fraser institute or the cato institute or whatever other market fundamentalist you want to throw at me. in fact, i think it's imperative that the left does not get lost in a common front, or allow the capitalist press to gloss over the differences. we're not going to get very far in fighting against capitalism if we ended up co-opted by it. i don't want to be on the same side as these people.

i didn't initially take him seriously. but, i told you this: if i thought i could take him seriously on trade (and on foreign policy), i'd endorse him over clinton (who we all know is horrific on trade) and because i'm a socialist rather than in spite of it. it makes sense to hear liberals and conservatives push back against trump on trade, but it makes a lot less sense to hear anarchists and socialists do it, considering he's saying so much of what any of us would want him to say.

i'm not there yet, though. he's mixing socialist rhetoric with imperialist decrees, and everybody should expect the imperialist decrees to win out. but, we haven't had a discussion like this around trade in a long time and we should really be taking advantage of it.

if we don't, capital will win in the end - as it always seems to.

put very simply - a nation does not generate wealth by buying things at the lowest price it can find, but by selling things at the highest price that can be found. an economic model designed to keep consumer prices low at the expense of producing and selling items, which is what nafta is, is consequently a recipe for extreme wealth disparity and mass impoverishment.

as much as i rail against the oil industry, nafta would have left canada flat out bankrupt if it weren't for oil coming in and saving the day. the smart analysis is to realize that the effects of oil production on the economy are actually masking the damage that nafta has done.

ok, ok - i should clarify that last point about not trading with countries that have an absolute advantage, as it seems like i'm ignoring an opportunity cost. but, i actually addressed that in my bit about mercantilism.

if you're the king of portugal, you need to make such decisions as you're trading with the queen of england. things are a little different in a modern nation state, which doesn't have that kind of centralized economic decision making.

the idea of an opportunity cost allows for a second-best answer as an optimal use of resources. so, if one country is better at doing both things, but so much better at doing one thing that everybody loses out if it does both, then it should focus it's resources on the thing it does the best and let the other country do the other thing.

the reality in nafta is that you can't even derive a thing of the sort, because mexico has that absolute advantage in labour costs and more than sufficient amounts of labour to produce anything at all. the caveat in the argument for a comparative advantage doesn't hold, and isn't going to hold in any situation where the dominant input is labour due to it being kept artificially low. it blows up the whole theory. no, we don't have to make these choices about offsetting things: we can just produce everything in mexico and exploit that absolute advantage. if you do the math with the opportunity costs, that is what you will see.

if mexico had a smaller labour force, as one example, that wouldn't work. another reason it wouldn't work is if there were restrictions on foreign investment. then, you can bring in the theory of comparative advantage. but, these are precisely the things that nafta is designed to abolish - because the purpose was to establish the absolute advantage.

and, yes, you can make the same points about china - and about how a similar trade agreement with china would turn the continent into a captured market of the chinese empire. it would be quite similar to what the british did to the indians. why did the rich country of india become impoverished? imperialism is an answer, but the economic mechanism was that it was turned into a market and not allowed or able to produce anything. in that way, the wealth flowed out but did not come back in.

if mexico has an absolute advantage in production due to artificially low labour costs, and no restrictions on utilizing it, there is no comparative advantage in trading with them - and you should indeed not do so because what you will get is that race to the bottom to undercut the mexican police force, and the inevitable eventual impoverishment of everybody except mexican producers, who end up just sucking all the wealth out.

there was a time, recently, when the wealthiest person in the world was a mexican capitalist. that is nafta at work.

but, i want to be a little bit careful: let's remember that it is largely american companies moving into mexico to take advantage of the absolute advantage in labour costs. these things are most profitable when scaled.

no serious economist would argue that mexico has a comparative advantage in slave labour. it's a contradiction in terms to use low labour standards as a comparative advantage in the context of free trade; you would need to have that discussion in the context of mercantilism, which is indeed what nafta was designed as.

so, what the article is actually arguing is that labour standards threaten to allow for an even playing field which may allow for actual free trade - which is not what the publication wants.

what is a comparative advantage? it's when a country can make more profit trading for a good than it can producing it, so it focuses on producing something else in order to trade for that good. i know that sounds like a weird definition, but it's how the term is used in actual parlance. there's less focus on what you have a comparative advantage in, and more focus on what you have a comparative disadvantage in.

and, what is free trade? it's when we all acknowledge these comparative advantages, and recognize the logic in abolishing the anarchy in production that comes from ignoring them. free trade is actually fundamentally a decision to not compete in markets you have a disadvantage in, and rather forfeit it to those that have the advantage.

mexico has a comparative advantage in lots of things, in the nafta context. one would be bananas. so, it should trade bananas to countries like canada, in exchange for things it can't produce as well, like maple syrup. then, we all have bananas and we all have maple syrup and we're all able to afford it because it's all produced at it's maximum efficiency.

the other option is canadians cursing the weather when their banana crops fail, and mexicans doing snow dances in august.

if you're building a car and want to determine which location has a comparative advantage, you're not supposed to look at wages but at inputs like the cost of steel, the cost of electricty or the abundance of fresh water.

if you reduce the issue solely to labour costs, which are artificially kept low by an oppressive government, you're not talking about comparative advantage but about absolute advantage. and, it is true: mexico has an absolute advantage in the cost of labour, right now. but, what that means is that you shouldn't trade with them at all!

you need something close to common labour standards to even have this discussion. otherwise, you're in an orwellian fantasy, where every day is opposites day - which is what we've all been living in for 30 years.

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/trudeau-and-trump-both-agree-the-new-nafta-should-screw-over-poor-workers

and, behold: the financial post goes full orwellian dystopia, delving directly into a sea of backkwards newspeak.

i don't have time to disassemble this. but, i'm reminded very now again that i didn't live through this the first time.

what nonsense.

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/trudeau-and-trump-both-agree-the-new-nafta-should-screw-over-poor-workers

so, i am back to work on this today, and i was hoping i could just get a quick finish for inri26, but i have to remaster the thing, it's not an acceptable sound quality to drop in after doing all of that work on the other tracks from the period.

i have a problem, though: i have virtually no source material for this. what i have is a midi file. i don't have guitar parts, i don't have drum loops...there's nothing...

...which means i can't remove the vocals, either. but, it's not the biggest liability. this will end up on the second vocal comp, but it's no longer an album track, and precisely for that reason: i can't get the vocals out.

when i get through remixing it, i'm going to have a new version along with two failed remasters (one from inricycled b and one from the first inriched, and they both sound awful), a cd rip and the original mp3 from 1999. i'm not going to include all of these tracks on the single, i'll probably just include the mp3 version; it will probably be two tracks.

the weather is still crappy, but i have to get out and do some things this morning. i'll get back to this in the early afternoon. it could be a long day.

after that, i don't think much else is going to require actual production. but, i'm going to listen, too, and see.

inri027 & inri028 are also one track singles, due to the nature of what they are. inri029 cannot be modified due to what it is, which is a conceptual ep - but i'm going to add an alternate version to it as d/l only. inri030 is an ep single from the first disc and is done but needs finalization. that's going to be a little something else.

inri031 should require a little attention....that's the one that does...

inri032 is the covers disc and really can't be touched, and neither can inri033, which is the third official record and the point i need to finish up to before i can ship this guy his first package.

i will at least get ink today. and, if i can finish inri026 before i sleep, i should be able to get through the next chunk pretty quickly.

but, everything else aside, i need to get the subsidized housing bit in today. i can put everything else off except that.

sanders' purpose in the primary was to swing clinton to the left, which is why he picked up so much support.

for clinton to react by complaining - and she really is a whiner, isn't she? - that he was trying to pull her to the left is to state an obvious purposeful truth, and then bray at the moon.

yes, hillary: bernie's entire purpose was to try and shift you to the left. and, had you relented, you might have won.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/05/politics/cilizza-krieg-convo/?iid=ob_article_footer_expansion

again: cancelling deferred action does not make sense to american capital, which relies on the labour, and will prove deeply unpopular in the long run - which is what trump actually cares about.

trump's rhetoric was never anything more than a way to get the vote out in his base. he was never going to actually do anything like this - it would both be against his own class interests and against his own political interests.

what they're doing is sending it to congress, not abolishing it. that's what obama wasn't able to do, because the republican party had congress locked in a purely obstructionist tactic. now that the republicans have control of the white house, they're going to pass the bills obama wanted to pass in the first place. and, you might see a pattern develop out of this.

obama was always the status quo, corporatist, establishment candidate. the reason he pushed this through in the first place is that it's what the big money interests wanted. trump is not going to turn on those interests, as they are what put him in power and what he represents.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/05/politics/daca-trump-congress/index.html