so, i got a start on this. i'm taking what i think will probably be a more efficient aproach this time, so it should be a bit faster.

but, i just want to stop for a second to double down on what i'm projecting in the election.

first, i'll remind you that i do have a four year degree in mathematics, plus enough credits for a masters (taken while working out a degree in computer science that i stopped a credit short of). i made a hard turn out of academia, because i decided i wanted to be a musician and i was wasting my time with it. i then ended up doing a lot of political activism, and ended up as a prolific blogger, so here i am. i've also worked in polling, as a student. so, referring to me as an "amateur" is a bit of stretch; i'm as qualified to speak on this topic as anybody else that you'll meet.

and i need to get this point across very clearly: it's not that i'm too lazy to model, it's that i actually think it's a bad approach because the sampling frames suck. i'm explicitly dissenting; they're trying to ram square pegs into round holes, and more often than not end up completely wrong regarding anything that's not already obvious. in order to statistically model canadian elections with any kind of accuracy, the way that the computers accept the data has to change very radically. right now, it's largely just garbage in, garbage out.

so, this isn't an amateur approaching this from an ad hoc perspective; this is an expert that is offering a dissenting opinion around the existing methods, and offering a different approach. 

but, how do i get a liberal majority when they can barely get 30%, and might not even win the popular vote, and everybody else is suggesting a coin flip minority?

because the regional numbers actually aren't even close.

the conservatives are at 70% in alberta and saskatchewan, the liberals are at 45% in ontario and quebec is a clean split between the liberals and the bloc. when you add it all up, they're tied, nationally, sure. but, in actual fact, the liberals are going sweep the east, and the conservatives are going to sweep the west, as we've seen however many times since wwII - and i don't need a sophisticated modelling algorithm (one that the greens running at 10% in ontario, concentrated into urban ridings, is going to completely break, i might add) to tell me that.

my dissenting opinion is that we're better off fitting the data to past results than trying to interpolate it in real-time.

and, for ontario, which is going to decide this election, the numbers are most similar to the ones in 2000 - where the pcs and reform split the rural vote, handing the liberals a huge majority.

even if that doesn't happen, the conservative numbers in ontario appear to be very low, right now. the rural split with the greens might be stretching, right now. but, a liberal sweep over the 905 is a reasonable projection, and the conservatives simply can't win an election when that's the reality in front of them.

we've seen very weird election results in canada, in the past. run the 1979 data into your model and tell me what it says - i promise you that you won't get a clark minority.

these results could be awful, from a democratic perspective, but that's the norm, here.

don't let that huge conservative lead in alberta skew your analysis - they're not running well in the east, right now, and are not going to win the election.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i took a look at the tube on my bike a little more closely, and i can't figure out where the hole is. so, i filled it back up, and it came back down again after about an hour.

i can't help but feel i can save this tube, but it'll need to wait a few days. going out on saturday is, in fact, dependent on the bike, due to the distance i'll need to travel. i could in theory hop the rail to grand, but it's still a long ass walk to hamtramck. and, i am morally opposed to using a car (at all.), unless i have to. so, no cabs, no uber. and, i don't have or want a phone, anyways. pretty much the only valid use of combustion engines are ambulances and fire trucks, imo. i'm pretty strict on myself about that...

the options are really walking or biking, and this place is too far to walk and not on any reasonable bus route.

i don't want to take my other bike to detroit, that's what i bought this one for.

so, if i make the choice to go tomorrow or the next day, i'll have to take the whole tire apart, patch it and put it back together again.

for right now, i want to work on the rebuild for the end of 2013.

the sewers held overnight. i'm going to see if i can push it the whole day....

as it is, i'm showered and fed and ready to get at it.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

indeed, pelosi can always be expected to stand up for what's wrong - even when she's in the minority.

she has a history of standing up for what's wrong.

she has a history of standing up for saudi blood money.

and, she has a history of standing up for imperialist wars, too.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

yeah.

so, the legal stuff is put aside for a few days, and i'm going to put a major push to try to finish 2013 before the end of the weekend.

seriously.

there's minimal amounts of communication with the outside world, at this point, so i think we can rocket through this...

i'm not currently excited about saturday. we'll see how i feel on saturday.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

...and, if there is a strong bradley effect, along with a last minute liberal surge in the urban areas, then those 2000 results may be the right model, subject to a reasonable error.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

back in the 90s, the liberals were running a little higher in ontario - around 50% - and the ndp were running a little lower, around 10% (or lower). but, that's not why the liberals virtually swept ontario in three successive elections - 1993, 1997 and 2000. rather, the reason that the liberals swept ontario is that the reform party and "progressive conservative" party split the vote on the right in rural areas, allowing them to come up the middle.

these were the 2000 numbers:

liberals: 51.5%, 100 seats.
reform: 23.6%, 2 seats.
pcs: 14.4%, 0 seats.
ndp: 8.3%, 1 seat.

the ndp appear to be running a little higher, which you can take away from the liberals. this should get the ndp a small number of union seats if they actually run at 15% - but may not even be good for that if they dip much lower.

but, current green numbers are not that different than those pc numbers, and current conservative numbers are not that different than those reform numbers.

so, you can see what might happen.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

there was brutal flooding in ontario a few months ago, and the rural areas are the ones that got hit.

the conservatives want to lay a pipeline through the carnage.

it's easy to understand the backlash.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

the national numbers continue to flatline. but, nik posted some ontario numbers. thanks, nik.

there are large margins here. and it's one poll. so, be careful. but....

if that is close to being right, what does it say?

liberals: -3.4%
cons: -6.6
greens: +8.2

the ndp are +0.8 which is statistically flat, but i also suspect a bradley effect. i'm not taking their numbers seriously, right now. in the end, i expect they'll be down a few points.

you can look at the file yourself, but i pulled this out for a reason. at 44.8% last election, the liberals won 80 seats in ontario. if the ndp are flat (or down) and the conservatives are way down, they're not just going to keep almost all of those 80 seats, but they're going to pick up an extra dozen urban seats from the conservatives and ndp.

even better for them, that huge boost in green support is actually rural. that's right - the greens are way up in conservative ridings. and the conservatives are way down. that means the greens could actually be handing seats to the liberals on the split.

again, the margins are huge, and i'm operating in them. so, if we end up with the following, in the end:

liberals: 45%
conservatives: 26%
ndp: 15%
greens: 12%
ppc: 2%

....the liberals are going to win 110+ seats in ontario. like, 115, even

and, that's why i think they're on track for a majority.

we'll see what happens.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

fwiw, we were a part of the initial bombing attack on isis. that was a choice made by harper. trudeau actually ran on withdrawing (like his father should have...), and what happened was that we did a kind of juggling act - we pulled the planes out and shifted support to "training the kurds" instead, which meant we had a small contingent of special forces there. at the time, it seemed like the liberals were doing two things - (1) listening to the experts on the ground, that argued that bombing was not sufficient to actually defeat isis and (2) upholding their historical position on requiring a un mandate to actually fight.

i did support the bombing campaign on isis, which is very rare for me. and, when the commanders said "we need boots on the ground", i supported that, too, as was required. i opposed the 2003 invasion. there are only two imperialist wars i've ever supported, and the other one is wwII. that means i'm drawing a clear parallel between nazis and islamists, but, in fact, i do that all of the time and am actually baffled that others don't see the obvious similarities. what exactly is the difference between a nazi and an islamist? they seem like the same thing, to me. hence, the only good islamist is a dead one! bombing the shit out of them sounded like the right idea, to me; i listened to the generals when they said they need ground troops, too.

over time, it became less clear what was actually happening on the ground. where we fighting isis or supporting it? the liberals had pr reasons for shifting to a support-the-kurds mission, but the whole thing was always shady,

apparently, this ended some time last year. they were pretty quiet about it, because i don't remember hearing about it. but, it kind of just upholds the point - canada left syria 15 months ago, because we decided we'd won. why, exactly, are the americans still there?

and, why is chrystia freeland pushing saudi talking points on the matter, in apparent contradiction to her government's own policies?

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-canada-no-longer-training-kurdish-troops-in-iraq-amid-fight-against/

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

and, yes - we can all be glad that trump is, in fact, pulling out...like his father should have done.

now, as for trudeau...it would be nice, anyways.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

hey, hey, pelosi!
how many kids did you kill today?

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

where is the grassroots backlash to the democrats voting to extend the war?

where are the protestors?

that's the side i'm on, here.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

they're switching back...

https://www.salon.com/2019/07/05/how-did-the-republican-party-become-so-conservative/

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

is it too late for a liberal republican to primary trump from the left?

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i don't know what colour pill you need to take, but you'd better start popping them, 'cause you're going to need to wake up with this sooner than later.

there's no future in the democrats.

a third party is necessary. and, you'd better get to it, to stop it from ending up in the same co-opted, backwards mess that sanders' campaign ended up in.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

everything that you hate about the republicans is now true of the democrats.

deal with it.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i don't care about this dumb and dumber school yard spat between trump and pelosi. they're both idiots.

but, something substantive just happened: the democratic house - including aoc and her friends, apparently - just voted to try and continue a war that the republican president tried to end. this is a massive, paradigm shift in the pro-war lobby. it's a realignment.

and, then, when the president lashed out (reasonably.), the democrats claimed they would "pray for him". as though magical thinking has any effect on reality...

if you're still supporting the democrats after this, you need to give your head a shake. this should be more than enough to turn any clear-minded, thinking person away from this backwards-thinking party for a very, very long time.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

they've all been terrible from the start.

and, then we learned recently that the one decent candidate - sanders - is actually a complete bigot in his attitude towards queer people.

so, what's the point, other than to wallow in misanthropy and defeatism?

https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-debate-ratings-low-viewership

\the liberals are supposed to do better than this

it started to act up again this afternoon, and then really did take another 50 L of water, this evening. it's just a function of how dry it is in here - and it is exceedingly dry in here.

it's really obvious enough what's happening - his dehumidifier is drying the drains out. should i get a re-humidifier? that's what i wanted to do in the last basement, but it didn't happen. let's get a plumber in here, first.

but i ultimately i have no idea where all of this water is going. i mean, that's a lot of water. but, i don't really have a choice but to do it - and it's a consequence of his negligence. i'm right to do it, and he won't win that argument, or at least not on the merits.

frankly, my impression of him is that he's kind of dumb, in a typical male way. i initially had a better impression of him, but it turns out that he's just kind of a dumb, jockish sort of guy that seems to have difficulty with understanding abstract concepts. so, if he makes the excuse that he just misunderstood the plumbing, i might accept it. we have to work through it, though - we need to turn the dehumidifier off, or otherwise adjust for what it's doing.

i took another nap after dumping the 50L down, and before i could shower, and i might regret it; i might have to do my sheets again. i dunno. i didn't get any laundry done last night, and i didn't look much at the legal stuff today, but i have cleared the shows out for another week. that's what i did today.

there's a record release on saturday that is a long shot, depending on the weather. but i'm probably in until next tuesday, when i'll need to pick up the balance on the prescription (i hate that they do this.). and, i'm probably not going to another show until wednesday at the earliest, and the things i have lined up are iffy.

so, what's next?

well, i need to take that last look through the notice of appeal. i mean, it's done. i just need to check it over.

and, i'm double-guessing my thoughts about the timing of the constitutional rights challenge...

there's no deadline on a charter challenge, and i think i'm better off doing one thing at a time. as it is, i might have to pause the human rights challenge until after the appeal, but i had to launch it, because there is a statutory deadline, there.

but, i obviously want to minimize the trips to toronto, too. so, i'm going to double check if i can file this in the superior court here or not.

it's a frustration. there's a superior court in windsor, but there isn't a divisional court. so, i might be able to file the challenge - which goes to superior court - here. but, i can't find the appeal - which go to divisional court - here. it's frustrating because the divisional court is a subset of the superior court, so you'd think you can file in the superior court, right? and, i can to an extent, but they'll just forward it to london or toronto, and then i'll need to file everything else there.

as it is, i need to serve several offices in toronto, so it makes sense to do it in person, there, when i'm there.

but, if i can file here, i think it's a better idea to wait for the charter challenge until we're done with the cops, at least.

so, that means i should be able to get back to work for the next week.

i know i mentioned that i wanted to get a start on period 3, but i've changed my mind. i was hoping i could have the fan off; this is partly an electrical issue, as i get a certain amount free every month that i'm straddling very closely. i am certainly going to need to fire up the other machine relatively soon to do some file transferring. but, i think i'd rather wait until i get through this phase of rebuilding, which will end in january, 2014. so, i think i should get three more months (and the end of 2013 stuff) up first. it won't be much longer, though - when i do that, i'll get to filing things and maybe even to some new uploads. we'll see. i need to multitask around the stuff that just needs to be reorganized and hone in on what needs to actually be worked out, this documentation phase is just taking too long...

so, that's my write-up for the day.

i don't know if the nap was enough, but i seem alert. so, i'm going to eat and potentially shower and try to get back to it.

fwiw, i'm feeling essentially no urge at all to check out the democratic debates. i'm expecting that i'll be leaning third-party, this cycle - and that i'm not going to interpret any of these candidates as substantively more appealing than trump around any issue that i actually care about.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

should obama have endorsed trudeau?

probably not, no.

but, he's at the least an informed actor. and, if you need an american to tell you how to vote, he's a better source of information than most.

the liberals are suppose d to do better than this

there has been some movement since august - the liberals are down a few points, and the bloc have taken that away from them. that's real.

the conservatives are flat around 31-32.

the ndp are flat around 15-16.

and, the greens are flat, too, around 9-10.

so, the key is turnout. 

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i started smelling the sewer again this morning, and i started freaking out. it might have been paranoid, but i took action - and noticed that the drain had indeed drained almost entirely, very quickly.

it's probably draining out through something upstairs that needs to be flushed. i guess that's what's happens when he leaves for days at a time...

as more data is collected, i understand it better.

as it is, i've decided that i'm not fucking around with this anymore. i'm not waiting to react. we've now got a schedule.

every 12 hours i will dump 30 litres of pure water down the hole. that's about what it took to fill it up this time. i'll then add another 5 or so litres of dish soapy water.

this will happen until we get a plumber down here...

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

so, yes - the numbers pushed the brink. it looked like a trend. it really did.

but, they seem to be readjusting around a mean of about 16%, +/- 4.

this process simply isn't more precise than that.....

i mentioned that nanos had them consistently higher the whole time - 15ish when other people had them closer to 10. so, the lack of movement in his numbers is particularly instructive - they're running at about 16%, give or take, and have been the whole time. that's not high enough to be a serious factor in the election.

also, the fact that singh's numbers are climbing higher than the party's is more evidence of a wilder effect. so, that's my take on what's going on...

1) nik had them higher the whole time. he was right.
2) but, that means the movement was illusory - statistical fluctuation.
3) i've noticed a few times now that the ndp numbers seem to go up over long weekends, only to crash again after. this may be a phenomenon in sampling bias.
4) there's a wilder effect happening. for real.

https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.47/823.910.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2019-1445-CTV-Globe-ELXN-2019-10-15.pdf

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

actually, i had to crash, clearly.

i mentioned i hadn't slept much the last few days....

that was a lengthy sleep, and it's time to get to what i said i was doing.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

and, they would even stone you in public for being stoned in public. 

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i mean, i'm stoned and queer in public all of the time.

but, islam puts a new spin on the idea.

i should have the ability to avoid them...

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

it's more like 5%, maybe a bit more.

it just stresses my point.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

to be clear: i'd rather vote with my feet on this. that's the right option. if i walk up to the checkout line, i'd rather make the choice to avoid, at that junction. but, it's not just the case nowadays that i don't have that choice at the check out line in any specific store - it's the case that if i go to the store down the street, and then store down the street after that, i still won't be able to find somebody to ring me in without religious wear.

it's not like i'm not going to freak out or anything. i can handle it. i'm more annoyed than angry. and, i miss the stereotypical bubbly teenage checkout chick, which it seems like has been pushed out.

when every single cashier has a hijab in a region where muslims are maybe 20% of the population at most, whatever subsidies the government is providing are clearly working far too well.

i don't blame the cashiers, they're just trying to survive. nor do i blame the companies, actually, who are clearly profiting from the arrangement. but, i should have the ability to vote with my feet on this - i shouldn't be forced to go through the checkout line with somebody that probably thinks i ought to be crucified in public. and, i'd consequently support adjusting or abolishing those subsidies.

i'm not a free marketeer, you know that. but, this is doing more than balancing things - it's tilting things towards a specific outcome, and in the process has become corporate welfare. and, that really shouldn't be.

the liberals are supposed to do better than that

so, the gas was an issue again this evening.

i'm going to wash my sheets again. it's partly because i think i'm in for most of the month. it did warm up by the time i got home, but i was reminded of how far the temperature has fallen outside when i left the house this afternoon; even with a sweater, it was pretty miserable. it might be nice during the day on saturday, but it doesn't matter much if i don't leave the house until 22:00, when it's already ten degrees. and, i don't generally like day things, much. i could convince myself otherwise, and the weather could flip over, but i think we're down to more specific shows, at this point - chelsea wolfe near the end of the month, anamanaguchi, la dispute w/_ touche amore that one more last time...

but, we're taking a change in approach to the sewer, until i get a plumber in. previously, i thought i could fix this and put everything back together again and that would be that. now, i'm operating under the assumption that this is going to require constant effort to react to. so, we're going to keep the dresser disassembled until further notice, and jump on the issue as soon as it redevelops. if that means dumping 20 L down the hole every other day, so be it.

what do i need for this task?

1) tape. check.
2) 2 L bottle. check.
3) dish soap. check.

everything's set up now for easy access.

i just showered a few hours ago, but i'm going to need to take another one, now. well, i'm going to eat first, and then shower.

for the night, we'll be doing laundry, and we'll also be combo scratching out shows and working through the rest of the legal stuff. i got the document for the plumber printed this afternoon. once i get the other two things finalized, i can look at planning to serve and file them.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

it makes you wonder.

what happens when a pretty, friendly teenage girl applies for a job as a cashier nowadays?

it doesn't seem like anybody's hiring.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

there really does seems to be a monopoly of hijabed or niqabed muslim women on service industry jobs in this city, and if you don't believe me just walk around.

i guess it's probably some kind of government program - the employers probably get a deal on it. they're still a distinct minority, here, and you see it as soon as you leave the store. i might even go so far as to say that the only time i see muslim women anywhere is as cashiers at the store; if it wasn't for that, i wouldn't really know they were even here. i mean, you don't see them at concerts. you don't see them at the bars...

i've made a few comments about this before, along the lines of mentioning that i'd avoid them if i could, but it's actually kind of challenging at points. i went to three grocery stores today (not for that reason...), and it was the same face of conformity at all of them.

but, what i'm thinking about right now is what was there before them. i mean, i think about what's going to happen if they force me to get a job sometimes, and i'm going to end up applying for these jobs. i'm not going to want to wear a hijab or a niqab - i'm going to want to wear tight-fitting clothing and makeup. and, wasn't that the norm a year or two ago?

what happened to the pretty, friendly girl at the cash register?

she doesn't seem to exist anymore. what we have now is the drab conservatism of a religion that most of the people in this area don't care much for.

and, it does feel like you're getting invaded, even if the truth is closer to corporate welfare for businesses that hire women that cover-up - which is an incentive of exceedingly questionable merit.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

so, i'm walking by the school on the way home from doing errands and a young mom tells her kid "i can't hear you".

the kid tries to speak.

mom, repeats "i still can't hear you".

and, the mental jukebox kicks right in.

those damned politicians....

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

ok, so i've got the document for my landlord typed up, which sort of inserted itself as a priority.

i need to get pills before or around noon. it's actually hovering around the freezing mark right now, in windsor. but it's going to warm up; i have to go early, so i might miss it. but, i'm going to want to wait as long as i can, kind of thing, too.

this morning, i'll be scratching things off the list for the week, so the next thing to do is a couple of reviews.

remember: i'm not filing the review until november. so, i don't need to print it for a while.

what could i catch in toronto, though?

i'll see. i'm going to want it to be something that's not here.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

nanos doesn't seem to have polled yesterday, which was thanksgiving monday in canada.

this is the other daily tracking poll, and it is upholding the idea of little to no movement.

if the liberals both get a majority and lose the popular vote, how will they address electoral reform in the next parliament?

https://ipolitics.ca/2019/10/14/liberals-conservatives-once-again-in-statistical-tie-in-latest-mainstreet-polling/

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

"The American people and our allies expect and deserve real leadership from Washington," Pelosi said in the statement. 

translation: the american congress is bought and paid for by the saudi theocracy, and will jump at any opportunity to prop up it's financial interests.

again: this is stupid. there's no other way to describe it.

...unless you're invested in saudi businesses, who will reap the benefits.

never fail to take advantage of a crisis, right? it's disaster capitalism at it's worst...

it's a good time to invest in bin laden's construction company, though. for real.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/465784-pelosi-says-trump-sanctions-package-on-turkey-falls-very-short

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

rubio would have been infinitely worse than trump, trust me.

let us dispel with any notions otherwise.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

and, i guess i spent some time talking over turkey this weekend after all, didn't i?

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

listen: putin made obama look stupid, too.

this isn't a trump thing, it's a putin thing. and, perhaps, it's a congressional thing, and maybe a pentagon thing.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

and, i don't think that putting sanctions on the turks is very smart, either.

that means we have iran, turkey and russia all under sanctions. pushing these three countries together is the dumbest thing they could possibly do...

pushing the kurds out of syria was the right strategy. but, we don't want to be pushing for another proxy war between the turks and saudis, which is exactly what the sanctions are going to do.

i am usually in 100% diametrical opposition to the marco rubios and lindsey grahams of the world, so there's no real surprise here. but, that's my position - something needs to be done to put restraints on the turks, but sanctions are a dumb response. what putin is doing is the more intelligent approach to this...

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

marijuana and alcohol just aren't the drugs that have the effects that i'd be likely to get hooked on. they're fun here and there, and especially in social situations. but, i'm just not an alcoholic, just not a pothead - being drunk and/or stoned all the time would make me so depressed that i'd want to kill myself. broadly speaking, i can't stand being drunk and/or stoned at home, by myself. i need sobriety, need to focus.

i've beaten nicotine addiction, but that was my vice, not pot or booze. and, what's left is large amounts of coffee. huge amounts of coffee.

if i was ever going to get badly addicted to something, it would be an upper, not a downer. cocaine. meth. i've never done them, and don't want to, but those are the drugs that would "get" me, not alcohol or pot.

i've never done it, but i think i'd hate heroin. don't misunderstand me: i'm not interested in playing chicken with this. get that shit away from me - no thank you. i'm happy to admit i can't handle it. but, i actually suspect i'd try it and hate it so much that i'd never go near it again. if i ever found myself addicted to a downer, it would necessarily change me into an entirely different person - the person i am, and always have been, would just hate it, i'm sure of it.

that was a crazy summer. i'm almost 40. how many more will i have left?

but, most of the time, i just want more coffee, thanks.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i tried to sleep all day yesterday and couldn't. so, i was in a haze yesterday and couldn't really do anything - it was that awful feeling you get when you're exhausted, but can't actually sleep. so, i kept sitting down to do something and kept concluding "nope. too tired.", only to not be able to sleep.

i drink a lot of coffee. i guess that fighting off everything from last week - getting over strep throat, dealing with the hangover, and getting used to not smoking, again - all at the same time meant it lifting all at the same time. then, your body ends up under the dominant influence of large doses of caffeine without being strong enough to deal with it, and you just end up dragging. those moments of purgatory can both be incredibly rewarding if you're in the middle of something and are pushing your self to finish it and incredibly brutal if you're not. it's all context.

right now, i want to be fresh and able to think clearly in order to do legal writing. it's a bad time for me to be unable to focus. so, this was just a wasted day spent cleaning and ranting when i wasn't tossing and turning, and when i wanted to be focused and productive. *shrug*.

this is probably the new normal for me, until the spring. i tend to smoke and drink very, very little in the winter. last year, i was completely straight edge from october 1st (actually, since the end of may - movement, 2018) until mid-april (the acid mothers show at phog). it was a good 11 months of total abstinence. again - that's only usual for me in terms of it being 11 months instead of three or six months, these long period of complete sobriety are a normal part of my life. so, i could be straight edge for months, now. and, if i can buy legal marijuana on both sides of the border in the spring, i may have smoked my last cigarette, ever, too. the timing remains unclear, but that is something that will happen within the next little while....

in fact, it's imminent. date of last smoke: sunday, oct  6th, 2019. is that the end of smoking j? stay tuned.

but, i finally got some sleep this evening and think i might be awake. i'm going to get some fruit, to start, and we'll see when i sit down to do something - if i'm still unable to focus, it's back to sleep.

how's my health?

well, it seemed like i was just about there, but then the sewers reasserted themselves. i'll remind you that i was sick all week, so just how bad the p-traps were isn't totally clear. but, the initial symptoms i felt when this started last came back when i first noticed the smell - dried throat, dried sinuses, even the headache (although much weaker, as of yet). it makes you wonder what the actual cause was - did i actually catch strep throat when i was out, or did i get sick from breathing in sewer gas when i got home, unable to tell because i was smoking all weekend, and then not able to figure it out because it made me sick?

you need a swab to figure that out.

i mentioned previously that i'd go to a clinic if i was still sick on monday, and i didn't initially think it was necessary, but now i'm less sure. after waking up, the most pressing concern is that i have a very large "frog" in my throat, and a bit of a dry cough. i should be able to expel this with water and the sheer force of hacking, and then we'll see what's next. but, i feel congested again. i didn't yesterday...

it's unclear whether the lingering smell is a consequence of the previous sewer eruption or signs of a continuing problem. if the root cause of the problem is disuse, and he's been gone a few days, the lines upstairs may be too dry for anything i do down here to make a difference, in which case i just have to keep running the water until he gets back. if i could just get somebody up there to flush the toilet...

i need to go out and do some running around tomorrow. i'll get that letter printed when i'm out.

again: my intent here is not to drag this guy through court. i won't feel bad about it, if i have to, granted, and am preparing for it. but, what i want is for him to fix the problem, and i'm actually hoping that he's rational about it without being ordered to be - that he doesn't need a judge to tell him to do the right thing, here.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

he claims he's gone this week, and i do think he's been gone for a few days, which might be a part of the problem. although i also think there's somebody up there...

i'm going to have to write up the letter and leave it in the box, then.

and, in the mean time, i have little option but to run the water.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

yes - we can have a situation where the liberals and conservatives are tied in the popular vote, but the liberals win 135 more seats.

our electoral system isn't fair.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

no. stop.

i think the numbers right now suggest an outcome more like this:

liberals - 210
conservatives - 75
bloc - 40
ndp - 10
greens - 5

yes, the conservatives sweep the west. yes, the bloc is back. but, this is driven by substantive gains by the liberals in ontario, at the expense of both of the other parties - and not even because the liberals are up, but because the other parties are down.

it gets spooky if the ndp start polling higher in ontario. that's when the numbers start flopping around.

i know the models are suggesting something entirely different, but they have a very poor track record, and that is the case because they're not very well constructed. i've deconstructed this before, you can sort through it if you insist.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

there are seats in the 905 - like lisa raitt's - that you wouldn't immediately think might be in danger of swinging liberal.

but, if the ndp attract enough south asian voters away from the conservatives, the liberals could sneak in up the middle.

it might actually be the liberals that benefit from splitting. i'm just speculating...

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

the narrative is on the poor liberal numbers, and how that might help scheer into power with a minority.

but, it's obscuring a point - the conservatives are actually at historical lows, right now, too.

they haven't run this low in forty years.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i've been clear who i'm not voting for.

are the ndp splitting the vote, though?

i actually think the conservatives are running too low. at 30% nationally, and not much better in ontario, it's going to be hard for them to compete in most urban centres, even with the vote splitting. i actually think that's going to be a major outcome of this election - a lot of these ridings that the conservatives have been winning on the split since 2000 or so are going to just flat out swing liberal, and not because the liberals are up that much, but because the conservatives are down that much, with their vote...their vote is dying. that's why they're running at 25% in places they were running at 30% a few years ago - their voters are just dead, of old age, and aren't getting replaced, or at least not in those ridings. so, you might see everybody - including the greens and ppc - up a half a point or something. that's not what's happening. what's happening is the conservatives are dying off....

the conservatives need a way to connect with groups like south asians and muslims if they want to replenish their vote in these regions, and while harper and kenney were good at that, scheer doesn't seem like he can compete with trudeau on that point. i'm also still curious about what kind of south asian identity vote ends up backing singh. it could kill scheer in the 905, where the ndp are not usually competitive.

it's become a part of the discourse to vote liberal to prevent vote splitting, and it was a real problem back when the conservatives were running in the mid to high 30s, and competitive in toronto. when they're running in the low 30s (or maybe the high 20s, depending on turnout), and getting beaten badly in ontario, vote splitting is really a less pressing issue than it was.

of course, if the ndp comes out of nowhere in ontario at the last minute and pulls the liberals way down then this calculus implodes. but, at the moment, i wouldn't worry much about it - vote for who you want. i'm an advocate of that, anyways.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

maybe he's used to just running away from his problems instead of facing them. that's the impression i get - this guy just doesn't deal with shit.

i don't live like that.

i identify problems and i fix them.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

ok, so that was p-trap problem #3. i got out of the shower, took a nap and woke up to it smelling pretty rank.

so, we did the same routine, and it seems to have cleared up relatively quickly - i guess i got it early. i'm sure we're looking at a few days to clear out, at least. and, i was just finishing my last batch of laundry, too. ugh.

but, i've got enough data now to understand what's going on  i fixed this in mid-august, mid-september and then mid-october. so, roughly once a month, give or take. that's too frequently to be acceptable - we need to find a way to fix this.

i have now sent three emails to the landlord about this, and received no response.

so...

what happens if he doesn't fix it?

1) i need to run hot water to keep the drains wet, and otherwise clear the air out.
2) i need to shower more frequently.
3) i need to run the fans.
4) i need to do extra laundry.

this is all expensive and frustrating for him, and he's mentioned it. the rational thing to do is fix the sewer issue, so we can fix these other issues. but he doesn't appear to be a rational agent - he seems to neither recognize his responsibility to fix the issue, nor does he seem to think i have much of a right to complain about it. the messaging i'm getting is that he basically doesn't think it's his problem...

i can't prove he's smoking, so i can't do anything about it. and, it took forever for me to figure out the issue with the gas, too. but, now that i understand what's happening, i have enough information to force him to do something.

the easiest thing for him to do would be to transform into a rational agent and fix the sewer line, whatever that means. step one would clearly be to call a plumber. that would be ideal.

the hardest thing for him to do would be to ignore me. but, that's what i'm actually expecting, because that seems to be what he's like. he'll claim it's stressful, or he's too busy or something - clearly bullshit excuses, and maybe his ex-wife accepts them, but they're not excuses a court will accept.

so, what's next?

1) i'll wait three days for an email response
2) if i get no email response, i'll leave a letter in his box and give him until november 1st to respond. this letter will clearly lay out reality and he'll have the choice of how to deal with it.
3) if i still get no response, i'll get the landlord and tenant board to order him to pay for a plumber. that's how this works - you take him to the board, and the board makes him do it.

i'm not a plumber. i don't know what to do next, besides call one.

but, this is an uninhabitable scenario. again. and i have to react appropriately, if he won't respond.

there is some chance that the plumber may decide he can't fix it, and we'll have to go from there if he does.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this.

research has shown that jagmeet singh supporters are most likely to pick up the phone and answer questions on thanksgiving saturday night.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

as expected, the ndp flatlined....

hey, i'm baffled they got this far. i'm not being cocky about this.

so, what does this mean?

it means that there's not yet compelling evidence that there was any real movement. it doesn't mean there wasn't any real movement (yet). it doesn't mean he's "plateaued". what he did was hit the top of the margin and bounce back, which you can't deduce is anything more than random fluctuations until or unless it breaks through the barricades.

as an aside: these are three day averages. so, if he went from 19.7 to 19.2 in the average, that means he was polling at 18 point something (max) last night.

it's a long weekend in canada, and the sample on saturday night (when he may have peaked) would be particularly sketchy.

we actually saw this last election, too, when the ndp peaked on one of the holiday weekends. i can't remember which one. if there's something to pull out here, it's maybe a tendency for ndp voters to be more available for surveys on long weekends, which kind of makes sense. you could call it the "lonely dipper" effect.

https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.47/823.910.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2019-1445-CTV-Globe-ELXN-2019-10-13.pdf

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

you seem to want a world that operates on the principle of "i do something for you, you do something for me". and, then you don't care what those people think or believe, so long as there's a quid pro quo. that's capitalism.

that's not the world i want.

i want a world that operates on the principle "we agree with each other, so let's do something together". which means that i do care about what you think and believe and why you're doing it. and, it means i don't care if there's a quid pro quo or not - it won't affect my behaviour. that's socialism.

if the turks get out of hand, there will need to be a reaction. as it is, they are doing the right thing in driving the kurds - who were in the wrong - out. that's what's important, not who did what for who yesterday or the day before.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i don't think that alliances or solidarity should be transactional. this idea that "they fought for us, so we should stand with them" is backwards thinking.

we don't have a debt to the kurds; in fact, they cost us a lot of money.

war shouldn't be evaluated in these market-theoretic terms of exchange, or in these kind of bro-ish concepts of "having your back", or whatever weird idea it is that you're bringing in here. that's how they think. we're supposed to be more enlightened and sophisticated than that.

rather, we need to ask the question: do the kurds want peace in the region? and, you'd be disingenuous if you thought that they did. so, i don't want to support them for that reason - we don't have common cause. they want to fight until they get their own state, and i want to shut the war down and get out.

i guess that if you actually support the endless war, then you might see them as a preferable ally, and you might have common cause. but, then, that's the difference between you and i - you want to keep going with this, and i don't.

but, broadly speaking, i want to stand with people i agree with and have common cause with, and not just people that were loyal to me.

maybe it's cause i'm a woman - maybe that's how women think. and, maybe you're insistence on loyalty is a male thing. just a thought.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

to answer the obvious: would i support a kurdish homeland?

no.

they're iranians.

i may support expanding the territory of iran to include kurdish regions, if it's democratic and consensual all around. and, they can talk with tehran about what that means in terms of autonomy.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

see, this is good - this is what i wanted to see, the reason i supported threatening the kurds with turkish force, although i was hoping that the force of threat would have been enough, that it wouldn't be necessary to actually send the turks in to do it. it's the outcome that will best facilitate the return of syrian refugees to the country, the reconstruction of syria's territorial integrity and the establishment of a long-term peace in the region.

and, this could have been avoided if the kurds had just agreed to work with the regime in the first place. but, game theory only works when your actors are rational, and the kurds have been irrational in their insistence on holding on to lands that are not theirs.

this might not have been what trump had in mind, granted. and, i don't care what the republicrats in congress or their saudi controllers think. but, it's a positive step for the region - whether by accident or not.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/syrian-army-deploy-turkey-border-orders-pullback-191013191238367.html

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

actually, i think that's done already.

what took so long?

well, i got it on the 4th of september, ranted about it all day and then wanted to finish the rebuild for october, 2013 first, which was done on the 10th. i was at a show on the 11th and slept most of the day on the 12th. i spent the 13th & 14th watching debates, the 15th reading the green platform, the 15th-18th uploading everything to youtube, the 18th-19th uploading teasers for period 3, the 20th on the phone, the 20th-22nd at a long detroit party, the 23rd-24th writing the order for the human rights campaign, the 24th at fly pan am, the 25th sleeping, the 26th-30th finalizing the 10/13 archive and inri000 rough draft and republishing the three new period 3 releases, the 30th doing groceries, the 1st-3rd doing facebook x-references and show look aheads , the 4th-6th in detroit and the 7th-12th recovering from being sick, while writing.

it's the 13th. it's done.

hopefully.

let me check when i wake up.

so, that's two of four suits. the fourth was the review of the access request, and it's...yes, i missed my date on that, but i think i can get them to waive it. more to the point is that it's not affecting me. i'm not going to have time.

if something funny happens, i'm going to have to push it. right now, it doesn't seem like it's worth it.

so, the last thing to write is the constitutional challenge, and it'll be a doozy.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

to be clear.

i made a complaint about police misconduct before i was arrested, in sept, 2018. i finally got an answer in mar, 2019 and immediately appealed it on a correctness basis. basically, they tried to argue reasonable cause on a crime where the law is explicit that reasonable cause is not good enough - you need a warrant to arrest. i was able to prove that the cop lied in his report, which was completely ignored. so, i appealed it on a correctness basis - and was explicit in pointing out that the cops were just flat out fucking wrong. i finally got a response more than three months later that the review was reasonable because it - i'm not bullshitting this - "cited case law". they again ignored the lying.

so, i'm asking for the judge to use certiorari to pull the case to use the correct basis of review and prosecute the cop for lying.

because they were fucking flat out wrong. and i can prove he lied.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

ok.

here we go.

finally.

and, fwiw - i spent a lot of money last weekend, almost accidentally. i spent about $200 on groceries up front, because i had let things go. i needed stuff like toilet paper and coffee and caesar dressing - just things you need and i had let run down to almost nothing. then i spent $245 on the actual weekend, which is a lot, but i mean...i didn't really realize it until i was standing at the bus stop on the way over. it was like "wait a second".

it was $120 cash, us. but, that's $165 cdn.
i spent $20 on customs,
and another $20 at the phog show.
i had a pre-bought marble ticket for $13.50, which was $18 cdn.
the shots on the way over cost me $10.
and, i spent the balance on a pack of smokes on friday night, before i went over.
that is, indeed, $245. oops.

and, i came back with nothing...

so, $450 of the $500 i had to spend this month (which was inflated by the gst refund - it's usually $400) was gone instantly on the crazy weekend. if i wasn't sick and had gone out to see that show on friday, it would have been it for the month.

i'm feeling that much better; i'm over it, it's just down to a dry cough. but, i'm not buying tickets to toronto until after hallowe'en, at this point, which is partly why i'm taking my time. it actually doesn't matter if i'm done tomorrow or next week because i'm not filing until late november at the earliest, anyways...

i might be able to file the constitutional rights challenge a little earlier, if i can do it here. we'll see what the exact process is.

but, here we go. let's get to it...

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

see, i'm not worried about this, because i think they should have just killed them, anyways.

what were we going to do with these people? give them 90 day jail sentences? try to reintegrate them? the best outcome would have been for the kurds to just kill them.

let the russians finish the job.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/13/kurds-say-785-isis-affiliates-have-escaped-camp-after-turkish-shelling

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

why am i being hard-headed about this?

it's true that i don't think it makes any sense. this is absurdity. the guy's a goof.

but, the numbers just really aren't there.

look, this is what we've got in front of us since the beginning of august:

the liberals have run between 31.5% and 36.9%. that's 5.4%. 5.4/2 = 2.7%. the margin is 2.8-3%. there's no statistically meaningful movement, there - they're running at 34% +/- 3%.

the conservative spread is 7.1, the green spread is 6.7% & the ndp is 7.9%. these are a little bit outside of the margin, which would be 6% at it's maximum extent. but, not substantively so. the fact that the bloc and ndp are at highs and the liberals are at a low is not as important as you probably think.

you have to really move a good distance with these kinds of polls, especially when you're coming out of a lull.

it could be in a day or two that we could look back at this as the start of a trend. or, we could look back at it and say that it's just a blip. the liberal and conservative numbers have been coming up and down for weeks - you can't draw anything from that. trying to draw conclusions from just a small part of the graph would be cherry-picking data. it's just too early to do it.

the liberals are supposed to do better than that

rihanna should invite jagmeet over for a few beers to talk it out and see how much she actually likes him after that.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

they can always redeem themselves by writing detailed essays explaining the specific policy proposals taken by the ndp and jagmeet singh that define their support for him.

i'm not holding my breath.

let's hope it's a blip.

or, let's hope that these low information voters don't actually vote.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

rihanna and trevor noah should really probably just shut up.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i would rather that completely uninformed and totally ignorant american celebrities didn't interfere in our election, but what do you do?

they did.

they shouldn't have. but, they did.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

no, i'm not going to follow the herd.

i'm not a follower. i never have been. i will stand up for what's unpopular - i always have. but, those that fear the magic beard veto may want to be concerned about it, if it turns out that this is being driven more by trevor noah and rihanna than by the debates.

if we have a pop culture zombie apocalypse amongst low information voters upon us, we may be forced to deal with this idiot, after all.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

the document says 20, but it's actually 19.7, so it's not yet over my stated threshold.

if the next batch of sample comes in and the ndp is higher than 20%, then that's signal. if it flops around at 18-19%, then the signal is fading. and, if it falls down, it's just fluctuation around the mean - and likely explained by the long weekend, rather than the debate or a bradley effect.

the numbers are less weird, here, though. more to the point is that the number of undecideds is falling.

the actual numbers are:

liberals 28.0
conservatives 28.8
ndp 17.8
green 8.0
undecided 10.9

the undecideds were closer to 15% a few days ago. that's where the real movement is. the liberals and conservatives are each down a point or two, which is just static at this point; the real break seems to be from the undecided, which took a big leap to the ndp.

i guess they found singh's deep arguments at the debate to be compelling. "mr. delay and mr. deny". profound stuff. lol.

i'm going to give it one more day, but there's very close to almost being a signal. i'm baffled, but so be it.

i will say, though, that the movement from the undecideds is particularly suggestive of a bradley effect, but, you can't know that until it actually happens.

https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.47/823.910.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2019-1445-CTV-Globe-ELXN-2019-10-12.pdf

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

who are the kurds? where did they come from? how long have they been there?

there's not really accepted answers to these questions, but i do think there are obvious ones, so i'm going to avoid citations, here. you'll have to take me as an authority on this. and, maybe i even am.

what can we observe about the kurds? well, they speak an offshoot of persian, indicating they're not indigenous to the region. dna studies are sometimes trotted out to back up this or that theory, but this area is too genetically complicated for that - all you can learn from dna is that they've interbred with the people around them, it doesn't tell us anything about where they came from or how long they've been there.

so, some people may try to build some theories that suggest that they're actually the descendants of the medes, but these are built largely on what linguists call false cognates. kurds like these theories for obvious reasons - it extends their history back quite far. and, on some level, iranian-speakers in the region today have some reason to extend their heritage to iranian speakers in antiquity - there is obviously some descent, there. but, there's no compelling evidence to suggest that the kurds are particularly descendant from any specific tribe or group in any specific tribe or place, based on dna or language.

what do the historical records say? this is the fertile crescent, we have a long history here. but, the kurds simply do not appear in history until many years after the islamic conquest of persia. i'll let you look up the exact dates, but i believe the first mention of the term 'kurd' is in the ninth century...CE.  so, that's about a hundred years or so after the fall of persia to islamic soldiers. the term, as it is used in the sources, appears to be less of an ethnic term and more of a word that meant "refugee", "wanderer" or "tent dweller", and they were said to live in remote regions, in the mountains. so, the kurds first show up in history as iranian speaking refugees of the islamic conquests, in hard to get places.

it's always baffled me why this isn't good enough, why it's necessary to figure out the secret ancient history of this group, that appears in the mountains out of nowhere. the first-person histories that we have of the islamic conquests are not exactly the best sources of information, obviously - there's kind of a clear bias, there. they weren't particularly concerned about the fate of retreating infidels, but they were exceedingly interested in making themselves seem wise and legitimate. so, documenting how many people escaped the killing and fled into the mountains wasn't really their major priority. yet, the fact that we have this substantive group of persian-speaking refugees appear out of nowhere does seem to imply that there was quite a bit of fleeing.

so, my hypothesis is that the kurds were actually persian refugees from the islamic conquests, that they are people that fled the (at the time) persian-speaking cities of mesopotamia and fled off into the mountains. over time, they appear to have been converted, and to have retained a prominent place in the region - they were soldiers and governors, and, less often, scholars. but, they were basically just the descendants of the persians that had been there since cyrus.

where would that place them in history? kind of uniquely. they would be expelled conquerors that got stuck in an accident of history. generally, conquerors are either expelled or assimilated - they don't just hang out for thousands of years, while other groups successively conquer.

but, it also means that they are quintessentially iranians and, one way or another, should ultimately exist within a greater iran.

because the region has such a long history, we know who was there before the iranians/persians moved in. the armenians lived to the north, and the assyrians lived to the south. they fought wars against each other; the assyrians won. but, these are the indigenous groups here, not the kurds.

sadly, the kurds were the foot soldiers - the actual killers - in a series of genocidal attacks against the indigenous armenians and assyrians that started in the first world war, and is usually said to have ended in the second world war. but, has it ended? or is it ongoing?

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

so, how am i feeling?

i got something to eat a little after midnight. no headache. yet. i think i'm safe. i only napped in the evening, though - i might need to actually sleep. or, maybe a long day is a good sign.

the nasal congestion is clearing. i'm still coughing, but it's loosening up - i'm absolutely getting better.

the summers over; the heat clicked in yesterday. so, i'm hoping i can get the fan off, and i'm hoping we're done with the issue with the sewers, at least for a bit. i just shifted my fan to under the desk, bit seems like it took minutes for the smoke to assert itself - there's somebody smoking very heavily upstairs.

if i'm in for the year, i may not have another cigarette until march or april. i need people to respect that i don't smoke in the house, and don't smoke at all in the winter. i'm going to get livid if this becomes an issue based on somebody's flawed concept of addiction - no, what i do outside of the house is not a license for you to do things inside of the house. it's not complicated. and, yes, i can smell it - always. well, unless i'm sick...

yes, it's perfectly predictable that i'll go six months without smoking. i've been doing that periodically for 15 years.

so, i may have to put the fan back on top of the desk, which i don't want to do now that i know that the primary issue is with the p-trap. ugh. this is the kind of bullshit that allowing for residential smoking creates....

so, i'm operating at about 85% strength at this point.

i'm way past due. but, i've eaten. so, i'm going to refresh my coffee, brush my teeth and finally get started on this.

we'll see how i feel about the chelsea wolfe show, but there's a good chance that i'm in for the month. 

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-anti-kurdish-protests-in-eastern-syria-could-endanger-us-plans/

https://www.ft.com/content/40dabd50-d072-11e7-b781-794ce08b24dc

https://www.barakabooks.com/the-myth-of-the-kurdish-ypgs-moral-excellence-stephen-gowans/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9c-X2arfW3o7QzcN-ccKwQ/videos

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-kurds-protests/arabs-in-syrias-deir-al-zor-protest-against-ruling-kurdish-militia-residents-idUSKCN1S40RD

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

again: canada's position should be obvious, here.

we should be supporting a un peacekeeping force to come in, phase the kurds out, allow the refugees to return and bring the country back to a concept of normalcy.

https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2019/05/23/the-kurds-are-creating-a-state-of-their-own-in-northern-syria

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

trump's withdrawal has upset saudi ambitions in the region.

that is why the entire establishment has heaved over it, tout ensemble.

it has nothing to do with the kurds.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

when you look at the situation from a distance, it is really clear that the european policy is just carrying on with it's old imperialist ambitions and colonial self.

and, while they're hiding behind a facade of human rights, what they're really doing is aligning with saudi oil money.

there are no good answers in the region. but, i'll pick the turks over the saudis as the hegemon in the region any day, thanks.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

what the european powers should be doing in syria is spending a lot of money to establish a peacekeeping force along the turkish border that helps facilitate the withdrawal of kurdish militants and the return of syrian refugees.

that is their end goal, right? to facilitate the return of syrian refugees?

instead, they're threatening to suspend turkey from nato.

this is like breaking a product at a store, and then threatening to boycott the store when they ask you to pay for it. the europeans are out to fucking lunch on this; their reaction is truly outrageous, and should be invoking outrage by the liberal classes in this country.

again: i'd rather the united nations were taking the lead on this. this is exactly what a un peacekeeping force ought to be doing. we have an occupation by kurdish forces on arab lands, and an occupying force that is largely peaceful but won't leave. so, we should be able to orchestrate a staged, peaceful withdrawal.

but, the actors are taking absurd and outrageous positions that seem to have more to do with oil politics and conservative value systems than they do with human rights - so what should be the obvious outcome has become an impossibility, abandoning the turks to do the dirty work that the world should be helping them do.

europe needs to take responsibility for the situation, not pretend they're taking the high road by condemning an operation they should be a part of. their position is beyond wrong, and people supporting their position are beyond wrong, too.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

actually, i would like to watch the townhall on queer issues, more as entertainment than education as i'm not going to support any of these candidates unless they embrace universal healthcare as a starting point, but it hasn't been uploaded anywhere.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-abandoning-the-dairy-supply-management-system-would-create-more/

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

from the communists at the financial post:

https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/counterpoint-ending-supply-management-didnt-help-australians-and-it-wont-help-canadians

the prices won't come down; the fuckers will just take the extra cash. it's obvious.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

would i actually vote bloc if i was in quebec?

it would really depend on the candidate.

i don't think this debate was likely to change anybody's mind, unless you were a green supporter - while may was plucky and aggressive in the english debate, she came off as whiny and annoying, here. singh came off as a clown in both debates, imo. trudeau does in fact continue to remind me of harper, but what do you do when the opposition is this bad?

that leaves blanchet, and while i'm not sure his performance would have swayed my vote, he didn't do anything to lose it - except that strange comment about supply management that i think should be followed up on.

so, i guess my takeaway is that if the election wasn't between trudeau and blanchet when the night started then it was by the time it ended.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

the argument you hear from free marketers is that supply management inflates prices, but it's largely garbage.

abolishing supply management will lead to higher profits for the bourgeois layer, which is why they want to do it, and it will help american farmers, but it won't reduce prices; don't let the free market fundamentalists trick you into thinking it will.

market theory just simply doesn't describe the reality we live in, and you're not going to get much of anywhere trying to apply it to get meaningful results. all that following market theory will do is mislead you into making bad policy decisions.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i get the idea that blanchet is maybe a little bit to the right of the last couple of bloc leaders and this is kind of well understood and being broadly overlooked. they're attracting swaths of ndp voters, many of whom were bloc voters a few cycles ago, but they seem to think it has more to do with legault. i think this is a miscalculation...

regardless, for them to come out against supply management out of nowhere would be a major policy shift, and i'm not sure anybody's had that discussion.

i think blanchet should clarify his position on the matter.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i'm watching the french debate, and that jagmeet singh, it's...

he's facile.

i remember reading those mr and mrs. books when i was a kid, but it's a childish thing to say at a debate. and, how about the pledge to "personally" do everything he can to stop climate change, as though his costume is really just code that he's actually a superhero (apologies to cory booker).

the things he's saying are just ridiculous. i can't, for a second, believe that this is convincing anybody. but, how powerful is the concept of identity in the south asian community?

but, i'm posting more to draw attention to a sideswipe that yves blanchet makes at supply management, which really took me off guard.

is the bloc changing it's position on supply management? what the fuck was that all about?

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

when i agree with the ndp on social policy, it's usually by accident - they generally take a path that involves a lot of moralizing and soul-searching, whereas i just want to look at the evidence.

so, with the gays, for example.

the ndp were awful on queer issues for a long time, because they were a christian party. but, as the christian left has evolved, they've taken on your usual contrived christian-left positions. you love the sinner, but hate the sin. you accept god's creation. all that kind of bullshit.

so, you look at their policies on the surface, and they seem relatively decent, but when you scratch the surface, you realize they're actually awful.

trudeau's father had the famous line - the government has no place in the bedrooms of the nation. and, i'm far more in agreement with this than i am with some mental gymnastics about religious tolerance.

but, my actual position is that the science is pretty clear that we actually exist in nature - that this is just biologically normal.

this is just one example. these subtleties are across the spectrum of issues, and underlie my extreme discomfort in supporting so-called left-religionists - our agreement is actually quite shallow, and any coalition is unlikely to last very long.

i need to be supporting secularism as best as i can, not pretending i agree with these groups, when i don't.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

so, i want a secular party with a science-based policy agenda. let's look at the options.

1) are the conservatives a secular party with a science-based policy agenda? no. they're a conservative values party with a religion-centered policy agenda. next.

2) are the liberals a secular party with a science-based policy agenda? you know, they used to be one, and they still talk that way. it's kind of up in the air. but, they at least have a history of it.

3) are the ndp a secular party with a science-based policy agenda? no. they came out of the prairie gospel, built themselves up on the back of a christian eugenicist and are being led by a fundamentalist sikh. they've historically been the christian left, and they still don't seem to care much about science as an operating policy.

4) are the greens a secular party with a science-based policy agenda? i was hoping they would be. and, maybe they might become one. but, not with their "jesus is my daddy" current leader.

5) are the bloc a secular party with a science-based policy agenda? yes. but, i can't vote for them.

6) is the ppc a secular party with a science-based policy agenda? no. they reject science, outright.

so, while i'm actually an anarcho-communist, i'm a natural liberal, here, in this spectrum. there's no bakuninist-kropotkinist party. as an anarchist, a secularist and an atheist, there are reasons i tend to lean towards the liberals - and not the so-called "christian left".

but, the liberals want to abandon their legacy, and the greens are not yet ready to move into it.

if i could find a way to get a secularist, science-focused green party to hover over trudeau until he's gone, that would be a step forwards. but, i don't want the "left-religionist" ndp hovering over him - that would be a step backwards.

the best i can do is do my part to put the liberals back in and keep shit disturbing.

and, the way they're going to win this is to take seats away from the conservatives and the ndp in ontario. i can make a difference. i should.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i know i'm disenfranchised. i've known that for years.

i'm not looking for a party to identify with; there isn't one i'm going to identify with. they're all terrible.

i'm trying to methodically work through the options and, with very careful attention to evidence and logic, weigh out which option is the least worst.

so, don't misinterpret my vote as an endorsement. it's not one.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

the fundamental problem right now is that the liberals are having an identity crisis.

i'm the liberal, here.

trudeau's a fucking conservative.

so, how do we organize a way to let the liberals retake control of the liberal party? a minority government would be step one. but, these options are worse - i'm not cutting off my nose to spite my face.

brian masse is a douchebag and a waste of a seat in the commons. i'll be happy to see him go.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i mean, this isn't a new position. i've known this the whole time.

if what i want is secularism and a science-based society, then my best vehicle is the liberals - even if it means starting a fight internally. i'm not getting that from the conservatives.

my goal here the whole time was to force trudeau to resign, to trigger a leadership battle. i never really jumped ship. this was a tactic from the start. i am hoping that trudeau's replacement will be more committed to secularist values, and more interested in putting science at the centre of policy. trudeau talks the talk here, but it's lip service. i want somebody that takes these things seriously.

i'm not a christian. i'm not into saving the country's heritage (i'm not celebrating thanksgiving, this weekend). i don't want free markets. i don't want a petro-state.

i want full communism - and i actually think the liberals are the best way to get there.

so, i mean, i still want trudeau to resign immediately, even if i have to vote for him.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

the conservatives are awful on economics.

it's a non-starter.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

so, why don't i just vote conservative?

because i'm a communist - i don't believe in free markets, i want high taxes for the rich, etc.

this is the fundamental point i'm trying to get across: the pseudo-left is too liberal, meaning not socialist enough. if the ndp and greens are just going to run as pro-market liberal parties, what's the point? just let the liberals govern.

i'm not a values voter. i don't want to "save the country's heritage". i'm an atheist - i want to move forwards into a science-focused reality.

the party with the neo-con christian minister doesn't seem very socialist to me; nor does the party with the straight edge sikh that is so religious that he won't cut his beard.

if there was an actual leftist party here that supported actual left-wing principles, i'd be all over it. but we don't have that - we have three liberal parties, and i'm more comfortable with the real thing than the fakers.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

if you flip through this, you'll see i've made repeated reference to this idea of the ndp becoming an ethnic conservative party - "conservatives for brown people", more or less.

i thought that was a cycle or two away, though.

well, we have a hypothesis, anyways. i guess i can make some sense of it.

let's see where the numbers are on tuesday.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

but, if we are seeing a movement of south asian identity voters from the conservatives to the ndp, who does that help?

well, it would help the liberals, actually.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

and, yes - the conservatives tend to do well with, and sometimes outright win, the south asian vote. so, there's plenty of voters to potentially target based on identity.

the assumption for years amongst everybody was that this happens because they're inclined towards conservative value systems.

so, if that's the crux of the movement, it would have to be gut-driven, because he's not offering them anything they've historically been attracted to. i guess there could have been a mass epiphany in the south asian community, but you'd have to provide me with some evidence.

as mentioned: i'm skeptical. i think this is a blip. but, if it isn't, what is it? that's my guess - south asian identity voters moving from blue to orange.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

but, if you're going to take the data at face value, what's it actually saying?

i would guess that it's saying that there's a movement amongst recent immigrant voters away from the conservatives to the ndp, and it would be driven mostly by identity. how else do you parse that?

so, is it possible that a lot of recent indian immigrants turned on the debate and said "actually, i like the guy that looks like me better"?

i guess.

but, why were they voting conservative, then?

i know better than to get too rational about identity politics - they don't make sense, and you shouldn't pretend they do. it's voting with your gut. you can't work it out.

but, if that's what we're seeing, it's emergent - this is something we've never seen in this country, before.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i expect that they'll come back down to around 15% or so. that's what the mean seems to be.

so, it does seem to be that the firms having them in the lower end - 13 or worse - have been coming in a little out of bounds, and are underestimating them.

at 15%, they're still not likely to do very well, if it's still mostly localized in bc.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i just find the premise of voting for this guy to be too baffling to take seriously.

it seemed clear for a long time that we just weren't going to do that, and i don't see what changed over the last week, besides, perhaps, a lot of conservatives going to the cottage for the weekend.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

and, am i going to keep making fun of his beard into perpetuity?

absolutely.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

yeah. i'm sorry. i'm hungry, and sick, and impatient and jumpy - i should have looked at this a little more closely before i posted.

look at this picture:

it's movement from 13 to 18, if you start at 13. but, it's not movement from 13 to 18 if you start at 15, which is what should actually be done here. i (accidentally) cherry picked the data. a better picture of it indicates that, while 18 is at the top of the range, it's nothing to get excited about, just yet.

it's maybe the very beginning of movement. or it's maybe just a trick in the sample.

so, i'm not conceding a signal, after all; i'm only conceding that there is evidence of a signal developing.

you've gotta give this a few more days. so, let's lay down conditions before hand.

if the next batch of sample comes in and the ndp is higher than 20%, then that's signal. if it flops around at 18-19%, then the signal is fading. and, if it falls down, it's just fluctuation around the mean - and likely explained by the long weekend, rather than the debate or a bradley effect.

what that does, perhaps, is give us a better understanding of where they're actually at.

so, calm down.

we're not under imminent threat of the magic beard veto, just yet.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i mean, consider the premise, here.

i actually have to go out and vote to make sure that a guy that thinks he has a magic beard doesn't have a veto in government.

it's absurd.

we should have never got this far into the process in the first place, where i have to take this possibility seriously.

c'mon, canada. wake up.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i don't want a guy that thinks he has a magic beard holding the balance of power.

i didn't take him seriously enough to meaningfully worry about it, and at this point i'm kind of disappointed in the country for making me have to actually be afraid of that. yikes. but, so be it...

the liberals are supposed to do better than this.

there's something odd in the numbers, though - it seems like the ndp is eating more into the conservatives than the liberals. that's hard to make sense of in any other way besides a bradley effect, or just random fluctuations.

it's also a long weekend in canada.

yeah, i'm backing myself up on that - i'm retracting my statement. these numbers are weird. i want more data before i conclude there's a signal. it could just be that it's harder to reach conservatives this weekend, and easier to reach new democrats - because conservatives are going to care more about thanksgiving, and be more likely to go away and stuff like that.

i wish he'd post the regional breakdowns...

i have to concede that there is movement, and it is substantive. but, it's weird. and i'm not convinced it's real - this might be a bradley effect, and it might be a sample bias over the weekend.

we'll see how it works out.

but, it spooked me into committing to actually getting out to vote against singh, and i'm not backtracking on that.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

we might be dealing with a bradley effect, given the media coverage - the numbers might not pan out, in the end.

but, i'm not taking any chances - i'm voting liberal.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

well, i guess it's just more evidence that the people in this country aren't that bright.

he came off as a complete idiot at the debate...

https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.47/823.910.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2019-1445-CTV-Globe-ELXN-2019-10-11.pdf

but, yeah - there's a signal developing. it's disappointing. and, it looks like i'm going to have to vote liberal to do my part to try to stop it...

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

again - i don't have memories of head trauma. maybe that's the point, though? maybe i wasn't drunk; maybe i hit my head. naw....

there's no bumps. no scrapes. i had a couple of small bruises on my arms and legs that could have been from anything and are mostly healed. there's really no sign of this...

it's gotta be bacteria.

and, my mind keeps coming back to that shit that was floating in my beer.

i'm not even 40 yet, i shouldn't need penicillin, unless i hit it hard. maybe i hit a really crusty, diseased bong on friday at the earthless show. hey, kids. it's not a joke - you need to protect yourself from crusty bongs. crusty dongs, too. but, we're talking about crusty bongs...

bong condoms? well, we all want to reduce the risk, right?

and, dude, if you're reading this: clean your bong. your dong, too. but this is about your bong.

what if i'm allergic to penicillin, though? i'm trying to remember the last time i had some. wisdom teeth, maybe? that was, like, 2000 or something.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

ok.

the headache came back. again.

i'm assuming the bacteria from the strep throat got into my sinuses, and i'm having a hard time getting it out.

i'll get some penicillin on monday, if it's not cleared up, yet.

i guess i'm napping.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i mean, do you think that jagmeet singh is running for prime minister, and was elected leader of the ndp, on the strength of the merits of his legislative accomplishments?

i'll let you look those up.

so, if it's not the merits of his legislative achievements, what is the reason he's representing the ndp?

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

does white privilege exist in canada?

again: this is an american concept, it's not a canadian one, and it's certainly not a universal one; you can't just take an idea that is specifically derived from the legacy of chattel slavery in a very small geographic area and apply it to a country and a culture where that never existed. that would be called "universalizing the specific", and is an error in logic. it's ahistorical. it's wrong...

so, if you want to talk about privilege in canada, you need to separate it from the legacy of slavery in the united states and place it in the context of canada's own race relations. in canada, we had the underground railroad, and we wrote our constitution specifically to restrict "states' rights". where anti-black racism existed, and it did, it was mostly carried out by citizens, and opposed and fought against by the state; our government almost always intervened on the side of the blacks, in an attempt to fight against the white supremacists. the history is almost totally reversed, in that sense.

does something like white privilege exist in canada? kind of. sort of...

in canada, privilege is mostly about our relationships with indigenous groups. we didn't have chattel slavery, but we did and still do have the indian act. the thrust of our colonial state was always directed at the indians, not at the blacks - who we went out of our way to free and help settle here, even though they chose not to stay for very long.

to an extent, privilege is more of a perception than a reality, and if you're convinced that it's real then it becomes real. it's a kind of solipsism, in that sense. so, it's really important to actually go out and talk to people about it...

for example, i had a conversation a few weeks ago with an asian person that was convinced he had asian privilege. there's some debate over this - is it a real thing? well, he was asian (i suppose he's still asian.), and he was convinced it did. that's his perception, i guess.

so, does somebody like jagmeet singh have asian privilege? he's not really black, of course. well, i don't know, i guess you'd have to ask him what his perception of that is. i can tell you what the statistics say about second-generation south asians in canada, and it's a pretty well off group.

and, i can point out that he's a 38 year-old with no meaningful life experience running for prime minister at the head of canada's historical third party - an opportunity that somebody with his background would be unlikely to get in pretty much any other place in the world, and that one wonders if he'd have here if he wasn't asian.

so, i don't exactly want to reject critical race theory. i'm broadly in support of critical legal theories, as ideas. but, we can't just take the american crt and apply it here. canada needs it's own crt, and nobody's really developed it, yet. i don't think...

the liberals are supposed to do better than this