so, where was i?

- i was back from toronto on dec 11th, but i was sick.
- the show reviews finished up on the 16th.
- i got the response from the onhrc on the 16th.
- i have to wait until jan 21st to file a deferral.
- machine up and down from 18th-21st.
- html5 template worked out from 19th-22nd
- addendum first sent on 21st
-  22nd-27th - liner note updates for 11/2013 releases
- 24th: motions first sent
- 28th: seeds for december releases
- 28th-30th -master document
- 30th - printed & mailed the motions

- 31st-1st   - procrastinating
- 2nd-6th - posting for 12/2013
- 2nd-13th - posting for january shows in detroit
- 6th-15th - fighting with computer
- 9th - motion heard
- 10th - received record of application

so, i don't want to get cocky, but, so far so good.

the service workers don't appear to have turned back on.

the firewall log is still running.

i have noticed explorer reference some weird files, but i can't currently tie it to anything sketchy.

there's no email from the oiprd or the court, and the property owner has until the 21st to react, at which point i'll need to send the request to put the file on hold until the outcome of the divisional court ruling to the human rights tribunal. so, there's nothing pressing, there.

further, i've archived all the posts to this space in my email. so, i'm tentatively ready to get back to what i was doing.

the problem is that it's been so long that i'm hazy as to what it was that i was actually doing. so, i'm going to read up on each of the blogs to reacquaint myself with the process, and then i could conceivably be back to posting by the end of the night. of course, this depends on the system remaining stable...

it's very dry in here still, which is making it hard to smell anything at all. your nose needs moisture to work. i'm not getting that. my lips are chapped, my cheeks are bleeding, my hair is knotted up - it's really brutal. i'm trying to drink a lot of water, and get into the shower regularly to compensate, but the combination of things - the heaters, the dehumidifier and the smoke/pollution - is just horrific. he claims this is helping him; i'd suggest it's probably the cause of his problems more than the solution to them. i mean, he claims he gets migraines. well, i'd guess he's brutally dehydrated. but, he's apparently back to not working, so i'm wondering about the smoking, too. i heard him come in on the evening of new year's eve, and may have heard him crying. he seems to be unable to get over an exwife.

there was also an appraiser here the other day, meaning he's either getting a mortgage or selling the place.

but, for me, the dryness (and pollution, presumably) is really making me tired, spaced out and unable to focus. it's so dry that i can't smell well enough to know if i'm breathing in second hand marijuana smoke, but i feel tired enough and disoriented enough to suspect it. i'm also strangely hungry, which is making me that much weaker (and i'm on an eating schedule that i'm not interested in breaking, so i will sit here and suffer). i'm trying to drink a lot of coffee to compensate, but it's not really working. so, i'm operating at a degraded capacity, and we'll see what kind of effect it has on me.

if he decides to sell the place and moves out, that could be a net positive for me, if the next tenant ("owner") is a little bit more clean and a little bit less fanatic about the dry air. it'd be nice to get rid of the dog, too. a non-smoking clean freak female without pets or kids would be nice.

so, yeah....i'm half here right now, kind of fuzzy from the dehydration, and not entirely sure where i left off. but, once i figure it out, i'll be back to rebuilding the dec/2013 archive.

....which was close to being done, actually. promise.

i mean, even the idea that warren beat a republican incumbent is..

this is ted kennedy's old seat. the republican win was a total fluke. the democrats could have run a house plant and won that seat back...

on top of that, he essentially ran as an independent.

and, personally?

my position on warren has been more or less the same for years.

i actually saw this coming.

twitter is essentially the electronic equivalent of an angry lynch mob.

"i believe you because you're a woman" is not a progressive statement.

it's either white knight chauvinism or female supremacism, and egregiously sexist either way. it's absolutely backwards and totally reactionary.

belief must be based on evidence, not appeals to gender. truth does not have a gender bias. i'm even willing to label it a new fallacy - reductio ad genus.

i know that the twitter crowd will disagree, but these people don't think very clearly and what they think basically doesn't matter.

but, can a woman beat donald trump?

it's a goofy question. what woman? under what circumstances? are they going to literally have a pissing contest? it really shouldn't matter...

i think it's fair to say that a woman is likely to face certain challenges against donald trump that a man wouldn't, but the opposite is also true.

so, it's kind of a dumb topic and it sort of hurts my brain to try to articulate a coherent response to it. in principle, sure - but they'd better show up ready for a bloodbath.

do i think that these specific women could beat donald trump? i'd give klobuchar a better chance than warren, but i don't think warren's challenges are going to have as much to do with her gender as they are going to have to do with her politics, and her demeanor. the truth is that we've seen this in america over and over and over again. trump v warren, as unlikely as it is, may be indiscernible from trump v clinton, and warren may not have much control over that. but, it's the same thing that bush did to dukakis, or eisenhower did to stevenson.

northeastern eggheads don't tend to do well, nationally.

so, she set up a nice strawman to knock down, and everything. but, you should really just take it as another flag - another sign of her demagoguery and persistent dishonesty.

you should not trust elizabeth warren. and i mean, generally...

fwiw, warren has run a dishonest campaign from the start, and i'm far more inclined to believe that she's lying for sympathy votes than that bernie is trying to avoid getting into hot water over this.

so, i don't have any problems telling elizabeth warren she's a liar, because there's quite a bit of evidence that she's lied about all kind of other things.

that said, i wasn't there. i can't know.

but, it's not enough to just believe her because she's a woman, and that kind of thinking has no place in the modern world.

there are things you play politics with, and there are things you be pragmatic about.

the old bernie knew where to draw the line.

the new bernie doesn't, apparently.

nafta still sucks.

but, a sitting senator has the unique opportunity to try to make it better. and, that's something i haven't seen from sanders, at this point.

this bill is going to pass. so, sanders should be proposing specific amendments to the agreement to try to make it as good as it can get. instead, he's trying to turn it into a purity test, and it's going to hurt him, in the end.

but, it does still suck.

clearly.

regarding afghanistan.

there's reality, and then there's what the politicians tell you to try to get you to vote for them, and the reality is that there was never any intent to leave afghanistan.

the americans have been in japan and korea, now, for 74 years. and, there are still troops in germany, too, although they don't seem to mind as much.

they've been in the philippines since 1898, and have made a state out of hawaii. puerto rico may become a state one day too, if it doesn't sink into the ocean due to neglect, first.

there are countries in latin america and africa that have been occupied for most of the last 100 years. and, iraq itself has been occupied almost constantly since the collapse of the ottoman empire in world war one.

nor did the americans leave vietnam - they were driven out. they hung on until the embassy got stormed. you might hear things about a congressional authorization being withdrawn, but the actual reality is that they just lost the war. they didn't withdraw so much as they fled. if they could have held their ground, they'd still be there.

the reality is that the united states will not be leaving afghanistan unless they are pushed out by force.

when a politician tries to tell you otherwise, you should be skeptical of their other promises - it's a flag that they're slimy and dishonest. it's demagoguery in the literal sense - they know they're lying to you. they just think you're too stupid to figure it out...

i updated this:

https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2020/01/so-to-recap-what-are-my-political.html

i might imagine that i'm presenting a new left in american politics that is centred in science as a guiding principle towards a technocratic, post-industrial full communism.

but, that would depend on how many people agree with me.

so, to recap, what are my political positions in the american cycle?

- i support single payer health care and the abolition of private insurance, and this would be my primary ballot concern.
-  i would support a manhatten-project style approach to addressing climate change - trillions of dollars in government expenditures on research, mitigation and adaptation. it should be the centre of all government policy, moving forwards.
- while i would oppose any movement towards regime change in syria, i would support targeted actions towards regime change in iran. i also think it's important to continue to keep an eye on isis.
- i would support detente with russia and the removal of nato troops from eastern europe
- i would recognize a broad chinese sphere of influence in the eastern hemisphere, but continue to support the japanese, particularly.
- i would support a 'good neighbour' policy in latin america
- i would support raising taxes on high incomes to mid twentieth century levels.
- i would support a universal basic income that is meaningful, not the small amount yang is presenting
- education should be free if you can get in, but it should be much harder to get in. jobs programs should focus on more targeted training that employers actually ask for.
- i would argue that immigration is a legal issue, not a political one, and take steps to get politicians out of the way, to allow the courts to do their job. "the best interests of the child" is the existing legal precedent, and it should be more closely adhered to.
- i would support constitutional protections for queer people as a means of freedom of expression and argue that this should be a primary focus of judicial appointments.
- abortion is closed
- faith has no place in politics; science is everything. i would support the elimination of "religious freedom" as a constitutionally protected right.
- i would support massive investments in public housing, with an eventual eye towards the abolition of private property altogether. property is impossible in a free society.
- i would be less inclined towards syndicalism and more inclined towards nationalization of industry; i think that industries should be owned by everybody, not just the workers that work in them. production should be geared towards demand and need, rather than profit.
- i would tend to not support plans to break up industry; i prefer nationalization. i don't believe in markets.
- nafta still sucks.
- broadly speaking, i would rather put people in jail than deport them; there is almost no scenario where i would support deportation. but, i think the laws need to be enforced. so, i would end up forcing illegals to do their time.
- migrant workers are entitled to the same protections and privileges and wages as non-migrant workers. that means that businesses that hire migrant workers under the table at substandard wages should be fully prosecuted to the full extent of the law. and, maybe the law could be a little more severe, too.
- in the long run, i would support a schengen-style arrangement in the nafta area, but the application of such an arrangement must be dependent on the improvement of mexican labour laws.
- reparations should be approached as a re-distributive policy under a socialist model. i would not support reparations in the context of a capitalist model, or on the basis of skin colour or family history. the past was what it was, but we have to be equal, in the future.

so, as mentioned previously, i don't have a lot of points of agreement with either party.

i am a communist, which means i tend to lean towards the democrats. but, i'm not one and i don't want to be one and i'm never going to feel comfortable supporting them.

i feel much more comfortable leaning towards a more radical alternative, like the greens.

i need to get in and out of the shower before 7:00. but i guess i'm bright and early today. let's hope i can make it a long day....although i still don't really feel very energetic. i'm just dehydrated and sluggish.

i knew there was some kind of issue with firefox connecting to something. i appear to have found and resolved that. we'll see if it fixes it or not.

but, i'm going to try and get some work done after i get out of the shower.

a little while back, firefox had an issue where all of the plugins stopped working due to a verification issue. i installed the developer edition of firefox to get around it, and never switched back to the regular version.

there's this thing it does called "servicing" where websites can push information down to the browser, and i found a list of sites, some sketchier looking than others. but this is apparently also a known exploit because the information is easily intercepted and spoofed.

there were some weird text documents showing up in my user directory, with sites i'd never been to in them.

i have turned that off as best i can and the text documents appear to have stopped. we'll need to see if that works or not.

....but this dry air makes me so tired....zzzzzzzzz.......

so, the error that i'm reproducing appears to be an access error. that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, unless something is damaging a file in the botched driver install.

i mean, i can access the files when i reimage. then, a few hours later, the machine restarts, and i can't access the file? what?

could it be a failing hard drive? that doesn't make sense either, not after so many reinstalls. it shouldn't be the same thing over and over. and, the drive should find the corrupted sector, too.

it seems more like a script is running and appending to the file, and then i can't access it because it's not signed. this is, like, the one windows process i won't turn off, too....and for good reason....

so, we're reformatting again and i'm just going to put this down vanilla to get it to boot. i haven't actually gotten anywhere, but i want to check my email.

i would consider this to be a good reason to leave the commonwealth, quite frankly.

harry whatshisface apparently has a net worth of $40 million. he has no elected or appointed purpose in canada, and would even be stripped of his title under the nickle resolution.

the idea that taxpayers should send them a nickel is outrageous and, as it is a money issue, i would like to see the government fall over it, should it actually be budgeted.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/bill-morneau-security-costs-harry-meghan-1.5424988

and, i would suggest to the iranian government that they ought to arrest the people that fired the missiles, not the people that filmed the missiles hitting the plane.

i would not support or vote for him, but i would clearly still prefer sanders win the nomination.

i don't think he has a serious chance, i think that if biden fails then his support moves to a younger, centrist candidate like buttigieg or, less likely, klobuchar. 

but, you're going to hear calls from the pseudo-left for warren to stand down to avoid splitting the vote, and these should be muted. it is probably true that warren was sent by the cabal to split the vote - that's an accurate analysis. but, her support is eating into biden's far more, and if she drops out it will help biden far more than it will help sanders.

if you're a sanders supporter, you want warren to stick around and bleed that upper class support from biden.

but, it just underscores the problems with bernie, right now. as these candidates drop, biden's numbers are going to come up, not fall down. it looks competitive right now, but it's kind of an illusion - the conditions bernie needs to stay competitive really aren't sustainable.

i'm not willing to call it for biden just yet, as i think he can still fuck up, or fall over and be unable to get up. but, bernie will be leapfrogged if that happens....

also: i already told you that i'm not watching the debates.

well.

probably not, anyways.

i've already decided that i'll be supporting the socialist/green candidate this election.

i think i've got a lead on the firefox backdoor, though - they seem to be installing an extension somehow and then deleting it. that extension seems to be what's triggering all of the things.

the group policy doesn't have a firefox setting for obvious reasons, so maybe there's some user prefs to look at, there.

it still doesn't really answer anything...

if i can just find the driver, right?

i get the feeling it won't be that easy - that it will bluescreen if i try to dismantle it.

but it looks right now like the immediate problem is dfsc.sys, which is again pointing to somebody trying to slave the system to a domain in order to keep an eye on me.

so, i passed out last night after i took a shower and have spent most of the day sleeping. i decided i needed to catch up on rest.

but, i'm struggling with how to approach this. as much as i want to bitch about not wanting to spend my time troubleshooting driver issues, it's obvious that what i'm doing isn't working.

unfortunately, i've reproduced the issue on the pc without connecting to the internet, so whatever's going on seems to be in the registry or otherwise exists locally. i'm still convinced that the reboots are being triggered remotely. but, the bad driver is already on my system, and whatever's triggering it seems to already be in the boot sequence.

so, i may have to rewind to an older image, which means backtracking on the server issue.

if i can get a basic linux install on this thing, then i should be able to launch xp in a virtual machine and that might be good enough.

up in canada, we recently had a prime minister named stephen harper that the media often claimed was usually the smartest person in the room - a claim that seems laughable, until you realize that mr. harper is a pretty partisan guy.

i get the impression that cory booker is usually the smartest guy in the room, and he stood out, to me, for that reason.

but i just didn't like his politics that much. his health care position was particularly weak.

but, if his path was identity, i think it's clear enough that this didn't actually add up, in the end. obama was an insider, but he could sound like a normal black man. booker had a disconnect...

i didn't get a lot of actual sleep, but i shut down for a few hours.

i need to reiterate the point i've made several times, now: i post my entire life to the internet. i'm never far from a typing device, and i'm not shy about expressing myself.

so, what is the value of law enforcement eavesdropping on me?

is there some concern that i'm not who i claim i am? if so, how would i even have time?

am i not sharing enough information? not sharing the right kind of information? is there maybe some kind of delusional imagination that i'm not sharing things that aren't actually happening?

it's just hard for me to get my head around this. i post to the internet all day every day, and the cops seem to want to install surveillance software to determine what i'm doing when i'm not posting? what?

listen - what you see is what you get, with me. there is no secret life of jessica. i'm not hiding anything. i just want to get back to work.

so, it might take me a few tries to delete any traces of these tunneling drivers from my system, and then what? are you going to try to install some other surveillance software? why?

why not just read the fucking blog?

but, let's remember a few things:

1) the laptop i'm using to connect to the internet does not have a webcam or a microphone in it.

2) i have physically removed the wireless card from the machine.

3) the wired internet connection is 6 mbps. max.

4) the laptop has 4 gb of ram, which is the maximum the board can take. it's running a 64-bit os.

5) it's a dual core processor from 2006. 

6) the laptop initially shipped with windows vista, but is running a legal copy of windows 7. i got the product key from the licensing centre at carleton university. it is not an evaluation copy, and does not expire.

7) i will not allow unsigned drivers on my system, so any attempt to install them is going to lead to errors.

i don't know what you're looking for, but i assure you it's not here.

so, to recap.

as far as i can tell, what was happening initially is that they were trying to install a server, and it errored out when it tried to load an unsigned driver.

so, i deleted all the server files...

now, they're trying to install a vpn, and it's erroring out when it tries to load an unsigned driver.

so, i'll have to delete all the vpn files...

this stuff has been uninstalled on my machine for years. but, it sits on your drive. it's how windows works. and, if you know where to find it...

with the way i locked the group policy down, this guy has to have some kind of serious back door, too. it shouldn't be possible to do anything remotely. and, yet...

*shrug*.

i don't want those files there anyways. 

but, like i say, i'm getting fed up.

so, i was back up this morning around 4:00 and i got knocked off again around 12:00. i decided against reinstalling until later tonight, and tried to get some sleep, but i'm fucking pissy about this and couldn't nod off...

i decided that i'd might as well try and figure out what's going on, why i'm getting these blue screens. i mean, it's clear enough that i'm under cyber attack, but what can i do about it...

the reason i'm getting a different error - a blue screen instead of the lock screen - is that they appear to have changed their tactic. i was able to boot into the os by disabling driver verification again, only to realize a few things:

1) they deleted the firewall logfile. so, i don't have an ip.

2) instead of trying to install a server, now they're trying to install a vpn.

so, as far as i can tell, i was able to successfully delete the server from the winsxs folder. now, they're trying to install a vpn instead.

so, now i have to delete the vpn files from the winsxs folder...

it's bizarre. this person just won't give up. every time i find a way to block a path, they find some other vector. and, what exactly are they looking for?

i was initially under the impression that the purpose of this was to knock me offline, but it seems more clear, now, that they're trying to spy on me, and keep fucking up. so, i still can't imagine this is a kid - this is too much. but what i thought was a tenacious network admin working for an intelligence agency that was trying very hard to knock me offline now appears to be an agent that is actually trying desperately to keep an eye on me.

i don't know how to fix the underlying problem. obviously, he shouldn't be able to hack in via firefox in the first place. but, i seem to be defenseless against it...

so, if he wants me to delete all these infs files and tunneling drivers, i can do that.

ugh.

when can i stop wasting my time? when i'm dead? it's just endless....

i'll be back up by the morning.

it's depressing is what it is.

i'm very frustrated.

it's my birthday. i'd like to focus. the stench is worse than i can remember it, but it...

it smells like a cross between sweaty ass, bad breath and skunk weed.

just fucking rank.

if there's one day of the year where it would be nice to be cold sober and read without having to deal with my neighbours' gross habits, i would hope it would be on my birthday. *sigh*.

i don't see any use in getting angry. he doesn't care, and he's dishonest. i'll just get into the shower a little after 19:00.

donald trump didn't shoot the plane down.

the fascist iranian regime shot the plane down.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/maple-leaf-foods-ceo-ps752-us-iran-1.5424530

i'd rather use serbia as a model than iraq.

if american troops stormed tehran, would the iranians treat them us liberators?

well, that seems unlikely.

but, american air power (precision strikes targeting the clerics, specifically) could conceivably create a tipping point that allows the protestors to seize power - that would be the ideal.

but, as mentioned, i wonder if they wouldn't be better off with a classic imperial deposition, via whatever carnage it necessitates.

it's worth remembering what the argument against the invasion of iraq actually was, on the left.

nobody argued it was immoral. nobody - on the left - argued it was costly. there was a scholarly argument against the legality of it, but the implication was that it would have been fine, if the united nations hadn't voted against it, which made it a sort of a red herring on the question of if it was actually justified. and, nobody argued in terms of cultural relativism, either, if you want to even imagine what that means, as applied to the baathist regime of saddam hussein.

rather, the argument was "we can't do it for them. they have to do it themselves.".

and, there was no movement on the ground in iraq, except a movement towards backwardsness. bush went on tv and argued that they'd treat us as liberators; smart people knew better.

the situation is reversed in iran. it is still true - they have to do it themselves. but, they're trying. i'd like to help.

do i think that iran is building a nuclear weapon?

the evidence i've seen suggests otherwise.

but, i don't think that this really has much to do with what's actually happening, and it doesn't have much of an effect on my support of or opposition to military action against them.

like, i'm not trying to take a side here.

i stand with the iranian people against the tyranny of the iranian state.

fwiw, i would also support military action for the purposes of regime change to secular democracy in saudi arabia.

i'm somewhere not far from hitchens on iran, if you want a reference. i disagreed with him about iraq, but this is a contextual thing - there was no serious opposition on the ground, and the bombing was punitive rather than productive.

i also opposed the action in libya (for similar reasons) and continue to oppose military action in syria (against assad, i mean. i supported the bombing of isis.).

but, i might have supported an invasion of iran in 2003, and i might support one tomorrow, or in 2023.

i don't think that governments should pretend they can determine what's "moral" and what isn't, but i would challenge the claim that military action against iran would be immoral.

the iranian regime is one of the most brutally vicious regimes on the planet, and has been for the entire extent of my lifetime. the oppression suffered by the iranian people since the 1979 counter-revolution has been worse than those suffered by almost any other people on earth.

i am an insurrectionary anarchist; i am in favour of struggle, of revolution. there is no place on earth where such a revolution is more justified than iran. there is no government anywhere that deserves to be torn down more than the one in iran.

and, no leftist would write off the oppression perpetuated by the iranian government by appeals to cultural relativism. the iranian people have spoken out about their hardships. to assign the iranian people a lesser concept of freedom, or a lesser concept of democracy, based on the tyrannical dictates and brutality of their existing ruling class would be blatantly racist. their women deserve the same rights as women everywhere else. their queers deserve the same rights as queers everywhere else. and, if you will not stand with them against the government and the religion that oppresses them, you have no reasonable claim to stand on the left - you are a reactionary liberal and must stand with the bourgeois rulers you sympathize with.

so, my solidarity is where it has always been - with the secular left in iran, the socialists, the atheists and those seeking to overthrow the totalitarian state.

i have nothing but disdain for those that would stand with the mullahs. you are on the wrong side of history. you will be struck down.

i know that probably comes off as selfish and spoiled, but it was really more of a control issue. as mentioned, the premise of being in a room with all of these people, and having them pay all this attention to you....if you're an extrovert (and sarah is extraordinarily extroverted), that probably sounds great. if you're the kind of severely introverted person that i am, it's actually a kind of a hellish proposition - beyond a chore, but actually a sort of a nightmare. 

so, coming face to face with the reality of needing to deal with everybody i know on short notice....i couldn't deal with it, psychologically. it was too much. i shut down, and stormed off.

there was one year when sarah tried to throw me a surprise party and i actually got really angry about it; i took it as an invasion of privacy, a betrayal of trust.

so, i refused to go. instead, i sat in my room by myself like i always did, and still always do. and, they had the party without me. 

it's probably the only birthday party i'll ever have.

i think the last time i had a birthday party was when i was about twelve years old.

and, while i realize this is unusual, i'm not particularly phased by it. 

but, am i getting fed up?

sure.

i might have to get something with a screen in it at a pawn shop.

i don't want to spend another second troubleshooting operating systems problems on this laptop.

i'll reformat twice a day, if i have to.

it's true that i haven't had a person in my life that i'd consider a friend in well over ten years, which is...i don't think that friendship is consistent with capitalism. what capitalism does is reduce friendship to a market relationship, a quid pro quo, and i don't have any interest in that. actual friendship cannot exist in a market society, it's impossible. so, i tend to avoid people, under the full understanding that they're just in it for themselves.

i'd like to meet some people that actually act and think like anarchists, but it's hard when the system pushes things down the way it does. the reality is that i don't really like hardly anybody.

so, i'm spending another birthday by myself, and it's true that i don't have any friends to spend it with. but, it's also true that i didn't actually celebrate birthdays when i did have friends.

if you ask the people that i've called friends in the past, i can't imagine that any of them will actually know when my birthday actually is, and the reason is that i've probably never actually told them. the exceptions would be some people that knew me when i was very young, and the single ex-girlfriend i have, from 15 years ago. i wouldn't expect anybody else that's known me to know, because i've never celebrated it.

why haven't i celebrated it? well, i've always thought it was kind of pompous. but, the real truth is that i was just that introverted. if the premise was that a birthday is my day, a day where i'm special, the last thing i'd want to do is bring people over to my house and entertain them. if it's my special day, then leave me the fuck alone, thank you.

but, i'll be 39 years old at just past midnight.

that means i've got 12 months left of being 30-something.

i was hoping that the machine would stay stable, but the bluescreen came back almost immediately. this chromebook simply doesn't have the software i need to do the things i do, and i wouldn't for a second think to leave my personal data in the cloud either (that's insane - i leave it on an external drive).

but, i have some show lookaheads to do while i'm reformatting. i should be multitasking, but if i can't then whatever....

k, so i'm back up on the laptop.

i'll need to check some loose ends before i get back online, clean some posts up and get back to what i was doing. which was...uh....

i was working on 12/2013. and listening. i was almost done...

i'm sorry.

i slept far too much. i think i'm awake...going to make some eggs, before i hit the shower...

i think the stripper we really want to see, though, is queen harriet.

if 'prince harry' was a handle for a gay stripper, you know what you'd get don't you?

that's a bear. clearly.

canadians are pretty welcoming to people that are claiming refugee status, which is abstractly the right concept, here.

we don't want to support a royal family.

we already have to support the trudeaus.

i'm not referring to anybody as prince anything, unless it's a stage name for a band or a handle for a gay stripper.

if harry...what is his last name, even?....harry windsor? harry wettin? 

if harry whatshisface and megan markle want to come to canada as private citizens and get jobs and pay taxes, then that is a question for immigration to ponder. i wouldn't imagine myself qualified to make a decision such as that.

but, as a canadian, i feel no particular attachment to the monarchy, and do not want to see the country placed in a situation where it needs to accommodate a bunch of aristocrats that appear to be being expelled from their aristocracy due to base racism. 

i mean, it's always sad when a family refuses to accept people because they're different, sure. and, like i say - it's up to immigration to rule on immigration claims. but, canada is not a colony of the british empire, and not an escape mechanism for feuds within the royal family.

so, that took a lot longer to rebuild than i want to see happen again. i was multitasking by sorting through shows...

i ran a full chkdsk this morning in addition to the reformat. i reinstalled. and, i copied the known good back over, with the updated files.

i'm going to take yet another nap, because i never really fully recovered from that event yesterday. then, i'm going to get something to eat and take a shower when i get up. and, if everything is fine, i should boot into a stable install that i intend to be on for the next several days. 

see, i'd like to give those protesters in iran some air support.

i know....it's overly simplistic.

but, i would.

https://www.tvo.org/article/were-not-tragically-hip-fans-and-yes-were-canadian

no.

i'll double down.

maybe you can't see yourself in the mirror. maybe you don't realize what you actually look like.

but, if you honestly think that gord fucking downie belongs on the $5 bill, you look a lot like bob and/or doug, or julian and/or ricky, to me.

that is what your average tragically hip fan was like - pickup truck driving, beer swilling, low iq, white bread retards.

or, maybe we can put julian & ricky on the $20.

the queen's almost dead, anyways.

fuck, why don't we just put julian's shot glass on the front, and a giant blunt on the back.

somebody needs to write a defence of laurier. he belongs there. these other clowns don't.

hey, after we put gord downey on the $5, maybe we can put bob on the loonie and doug on the toonie.

you fucking hosers.

laurier is probably the best leader that this country will ever have.

it will be a sad, backwards day in this country's history if you replace him on the five with an overrated rock star that wrote trite garbage and trafficked in the worst cliches imaginable.

i've still actually never heard of viola desmond, or know why she's on the bill, other than that she was black, and they wanted a black person on the bill.

wouldn't that be embarrassing..

i hate what this country has become. truly.

https://www.narcity.com/news/ca/canadas-five-dollar-bill-redesign-consultation-has-people-voting-for-gord-downie

i think laurier should stay on the bill.

but, i think mackenzie-king should have stayed on the $50, too.

they should take that piece of shit borden off the $100...

https://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/bank-of-canada-to-seek-nominations-for-who-should-be-on-the-new-5-bill

i was very, very tired.

i don't know if it had anything to do with the seizure/attack this afternoon. i'm still not feeling very good. 

pollution kills people. smoke = death. it's not required to make this argument again in this space. but, if i can't escape the smoke, i'm going to die from it....

the machine is reformatting one more time, i know this isn't final, but i'm hoping to at least avoid rebooting the machine for a long while.

the stop error suggests a kernel conflict.

i don't want to fix this. i'm going to reformat it.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/may/13/rush-nme-interview-1978-rocks-backpages

my dad didn't have the attention span to read a rand novel. thankfully.

i'd read more rand by the time i was 15 than he did in his entire 55 odd years, and i couldn't get through any of it, i thought it was boring. 

i don't suspect he would have liked objectivism much, if he had bothered to learn much about it. he was a profoundly unselfish person.

but, peart really did warp his mind in pretty shitty ways.

"She's just a very brilliant woman, an excellent writer, but a brilliant thinker as well. She has a great clarity of thought." - neal peart on ayn rand

i will not be mourning the passing of neil peart at all

my father loved rush, but i could never stand them. we used to argue about this, actually. 

neil peart was known as the drummer for rush, and i would argue he was overrated as a drummer, but he was also the band's lyricist and thematic director, and i would argue he was even more overrated in that category. i also believe that his lyrics had a profoundly backwards influence on my father's broader outlook on life. they really corrupted his critical thinking abilities in a dramatic way.

and, so the question i would ask neil's memory in his passing due to a brain cancer that nobody survives, in fact the same cancer that got my dad, is - where's your free will now? huh?

does he not realize that by not making a choice to avoid all causes of brain tumours, he's still made a choice to die of cancer, and it's consequently his own stupid fault?

there are some bands that are overrated, and it ultimately doesn't matter. nobody cares what gord downey thought, in the end - his views were harmless enough. but, rush were worse than overrated, they were dangerous because they were ignorant, and yet seen as enlightened by a fanbase that bought into the pretension.

and, on some level, i would actually state "good riddance".

yeah.

so, that was merely the record of proceedings, which really didn't have anything i haven't already seen. i was maybe hoping for some deeper disclosure around the actual investigation, which i'll need to eventually approach via access requests. i still need to wait for the factum, which is what i really want.

the deadline is the 31st.

i'm going to send them a response, but i'm going to get my laptop working, first.

they seem to want to argue that the scope of the investigation is limited to the initial complaint. but, they're actually wrong. i sent all kinds of emails out before the investigation started, and they should have been worked into the investigation, by statutory provision.

this is s. 154 of the new "comprehensive" police services act.

Public complaints

154 (1) Any person may make a complaint to the Complaints Director about the conduct of a person referred to in section 152, subject to subsection (2).

Restriction

(2) A complaint may not be made under subsection (1) by,

(a) the Minister;

(b) the Inspector General, a deputy Inspector General or an inspector appointed under section 111;

(c) a deputy Complaints Director, an employee in the Law Enforcement Complaints Agency or an investigator;

(d) the SIU Director or an employee or investigator in the Special Investigations Unit;

(e) a member of a police service, in respect of another member of that police service;

(f) a special constable employed by the Niagara Parks Commission, in respect of another special constable employed by the Niagara Parks Commission;

(g) the Niagara Parks Commission, in respect of a special constable employed by the Niagara Parks Commission;

(h) a member or employee of a police service board, in respect of a member of a police service maintained by the board;

(i) a person selected by the council of a municipality to advise another municipality's police service board under subsection 26 (2), in respect of a police officer who is a member of a police service maintained by that board; or

(j) any other person who may be prescribed.

Complainant on behalf of minor, incapable person

(3) A complaint may be made under subsection (1) on behalf of,

(a) a person who is a minor, by the person's parent or guardian; and

(b) a person who is incapable as defined in the Substitute Decisions Act, 1992 and who is not a minor, by his or her substitute decision-maker under that Act.

Complaint through agent

(4) A complainant may act through an agent in respect of a complaint made under this Part.

Same

(5) If a complainant acts through an agent, a requirement under this Part to give notice to the complainant may be met by giving notice to the complainant's agent.

Same, restricted persons

(6) For greater certainty, a person referred to in subsection (2) may not make a complaint by acting through an agent under subsection (4).

Forwarding complaints to the Complaints Director

155 (1) If a person who may make a complaint under subsection 154 (1) to the Complaints Director instead makes the complaint to any of the following persons, that person shall forward the complaint to the Complaints Director, inform the person who made the complaint that the complaint has been forwarded, and provide the person with information about the role of the Complaints Director:

1. The Minister.

2. The Inspector General, a deputy Inspector General or an inspector appointed under section 111.

3. The SIU Director or an employee or investigator in the Special Investigations Unit.

4. A chief of police.

5. A police service board or a member of a police service board.

6. An O.P.P. detachment board or a member of an O.P.P. detachment board.

7. A First Nation O.P.P. board or a member of a First Nation O.P.P. Board.

8. The Advisory Council or a member of the Advisory Council.

9. A special constable employer.

10. A prescribed entity.

11. A prescribed policing provider.

12. Any other person or entity prescribed by the Minister.

Same

(2) If a person who may make a complaint to the Complaints Director under subsection 154 (1) instead makes the complaint to a member of a police service other than a chief of police or to a special constable who is not a member of a police service, the member of a police service or special constable shall notify his or her chief of police or special constable employer of the complaint, and subsection (1) of this section applies, with necessary modifications, as if the complaint had been made to the chief of police or special constable employer.

Same

(3) The complaint of a person that is forwarded to the Complaints Director under this section is deemed for the purposes of this Part to have been made by the person directly to the Complaints Director

what that means is that they had to act on the emails i sent. and they didn't....

i'm going to draw their attention to that, as they might not realize it.

so, i thought i had 500 pages of reports to sort through.

rather, it seems like 400+ of these pages are documents i wrote myself.

it's a little levity. 

i really do write a lot, don't i?

i actually had some kind of attack this afternoon, the first one in quite a while, and forced myself to sleep. i woke up in the desert and am going to drink a gallon of water....

every other time i've had an attack like this, it's preceded a migraine, so i was expecting one, but none came, which is kind of worrying. i've had periodic symptoms of early onset multiple sclerosis for a long time. it's a part of the reason i quit smoking, and want to stay away from second hand smoke. yes: ms is one of the long list of diseases that appears to be at least triggered, if not outright caused, by exposure to smoke and pollution.

so, my best guess is it's the pollution, whatever that means - second hand smoke, building exhaust, just bad urban air quality. yes, it still seems like he's smoking. now, it's giving me seizures....again...

the seizures are a predictable consequence of exposure to secondhand smoke, actually.

it started as a tingle in my left arm, and went up my arm before manifesting in my face, as a kind of palsy. it eventually passed, as it always does. but, i wasn't left with a crippling migraine like i always am, i was just left feeling tired.

i dunno.

i know i'm extremely dehydrated and need to drink a huge amount of water.

guess i slept all day.

it's the weekend. 

but, i want to prioritize getting through this reading first, so i'm going to stay on the chromebook for a bit. if i can stay awake, i should hopefully get back to fixing the laptop by sunrise.

as mentioned previously, it is very unlikely that i'll do any partying until the spring. i just don't like going out in the cold.

yeah, i'm not convinced that i've thrown them off, yet.

the audio was very thin sounding. this is actually the return of an older problem, which i thought i had gotten rid of, and that is some kind of loopback on the audio. as a recording artist, this is particularly egregious to me. it's almost torture, really.

so, i reinstalled the audio drivers, and while it did help, it also required a reboot, which came up as a blue screen. i can actually probably fix that without reimaging, but we'll have to see whether i think it's actually worth it or not.

i don't have the interest in it, right now.

the files were sent to me in pdf, so i can read them on the chromebook. and, i'll get back to that later tonight.

so, let's get to doing some reading, then.

aaacctually.

....i'm still on the laptop, and i think i may have hit a bit of a breakthrough with those update files. i think i actually managed to completely get rid of them. finally....

i decided that if i was going to reimage a little later anyways then i'd might as well finish updating the group policy settings. so, i spent some time finalizing a lockdown that i had put on hold the other day when i got the lock screen on the reboot halfway through.

i decided to try a reboot, and it actually came up. surprisingly...

to recall - what was happening was that something was being pushed down from somewhere, leaving a trail in the firefox temp directories, and then leading to a windows update process trying to install a list of packages that i strangely had sitting in several directories and couldn't figure out how to get rid of, which updated the cryptographic files in the catroot directory and left some errors in the dberr.txt file. there were random reboots. it seemed to be trying to install an unsigned driver, which brought up a lock screen on a known issue - because i have that disabled. if i were to disable it, it would install a bunch of sketchy looking servers...

something else is happening, now. instead of a failed install and a lock screen on an unsigned driver, the status of the catroot files is suggesting to me that these packages are actually uninstalled. the log files have updated, but they've updated to tell me that the files are gone.

to be clear: it still looks like this process was triggered remotely. but, deleting the files out of the winsxs directory seems to have been what i needed to do to get the subsystem to fuck off. they might keep trying to deploy, but i might have succeeded in getting rid of the packages they're trying to deploy, and the files might just error out.

the group policy is that much stricter now, too.

as stated previously, i'm resigned to needing to reimage regularly. but, i'm going to hold off for now and see where this goes....

...but i want to make a point clear. it should already be clear...

...but if i don't go to your shows, or review your records, or otherwise acknowledge your existence, chances are pretty high that the reason is that i think you suck. and, there's a lot of bad music in detroit, controlled by a lot of filters with very bad taste.

so, i mean, if i'm not "supporting your scene", it's not some kind of accident. it's because i don't like it. and, i don't care how cool you think you are, either.

broadly speaking, art should not and cannot be thought of as a transactional process. this idea of "supporting the scene" is exactly why there's so much garbage out there - people get shows because they did somebody a favour, and are consequently expected to buy into a system before they can get something out of it. it's pay to play. and, it's bullshit, and i won't have anything to do with it.

i understand that i need to meet people and network, that i can't just create the greatest thing ever and expect it to magically sell, that i have to find some way to market it. i understand that i live in a capitalist reality, whether i like it or not.

but, i'm not remotely interested in any sort of "scene" that rewards loyalty over talent. that scene is going to suck, and it won't take long before it's full of dumbass macho bros sitting around by themselves wondering why nobody shows up.

i need you to evaluate my art on it's merit and i want to be a part of a scene that values my talent, not one  that rewards me for seniority and for showing up.

there's reasons i'm at the age i'm at and have kept an arms-length distance from every scene i've ever been near. after a while, i basically hate virtually everybody, and the feeling is often fairly mutual.

but, i need it to be about the value of the art, or i don't want to show up at all.

500 pages...

you know, i can do this on the chromebook, instead.

yeah.

it's 400 pages to sort through, that should take the day.

this is shutting down, and i'll reimage tonight.

i had to go out for a few hours this afternoon. would i come back to another infiltrated machine?

well, it came out of hibernation ok. but, i started poking around and found a bunch more weird deployment files that i don't recognize, which got deleted. but, there were no obvious problems, yet.

i lost the week, which means it's time to do another lookahead for shows for next week...

i made some tweaks, first in the gpedit and then in the firewall.

then, i decided to check my email before i got started and found the notice from the oiprd at a dropbox link.

activists beware: dropbox is a spook site. you can look this up. never click a dropbox link or install software from dropbox, it will install police surveillance software on your machine.

and, i then got my dberr updates, as expected. so, i suspect i'm running on borrowed time, and i'll need to reinstall by the next reboot. 

i'm not certain if the trigger was the email from the cops or updating one of the mmc plugins.

so, i'm torn between forcing the reinstall and waiting, but i think that so long as i don't open any documents, what they can do is limited. it's all backed up. repeatedly...

i actually kind of want to see what happens by letting it sit.

but, i expect to need to reimage after the next reboot, and that's ok.

for the day, i need to look ahead another week and then read through these documents. and, i'll reimage tonight.

the plane thing is...it's not as tricky as you want it to be.

the missile attack was clearly an act of war, and the act of war was directed at nato, which canada is a part of, so i do think we should be at war with iran right now. but, the plane itself was a passenger jet transiting from iran to ukraine that just happened, coincidentally, to get in the way and just happened, coincidentally, to get shot down.

it also happened, coincidentally, to be full of canadians.

if we were at war with iran, it might be an emotional subplot. maybe you could put a few bombs aside for the families, if that's what they'd want - which is entirely dubious. i'm imagining wwII propaganda, which came out of centuries of ethnic tensions; in reality, most of the victims have family in iran. revenge probably isn't the most relevant feeling. the most relevant feeling is grief, and exasperation, and a longing to hold on to what's left. these people don't want their remaining families bombed.....

as it is, we're clearly not at war with iran, and the alliance clearly doesn't want to be.

i think the canadian government should be pushing iran for financial compensation for the victims, on both continents. it's not sufficient, but it's all there is.

and, it is an opportunity for iran to prove they can be grown-ups.

hey, i'll bet you a beer that that ugly ass beard trudeau is dragging around is as fake as his jive-ass makeup.

he actually got busted a while back with fake eyebrows.

whether it's real or not, he's an actor. and, this is wardrobe. but it's a wardrobe malfunction...

he looks like a goof and it will cost him if he doesn't address it almost immediately.

ok.

so, i went to call the court and got the completed motions sent to me via email, which is actually fairly useful. so, that's actually already done.

- they accepted the addendum.

- the oiprd has until january 31st to file the application review.

what i asked for was a hard deadline. that is a hard deadline. it's also a month grace, plus holidays, so it should be more than enough.

getting the judge to push the deadline down is actually a major step forward, even if it seems minor. now, if they miss it, they're missing a court order.

the machine seems better, but who knows. i'm taking a nap...

and, that plane.

well.

it sure seems like it got shot down...

how do you classify such a thing? while clearly accidental in specific scope, those missiles were intended to kill people, and in the end they did.

canada is a nato country with good relations with most of the p5+1, but i wouldn't expect anybody to bat an eyelash.

it wasn't a terrorist attack, either. it was a military accident.

it's a good reminder of what happens when you play with matches.

i live in the heart of the empire, and i'm willing to be a critical voice, but i understand how that benefits me.

and, i don't think the iranians are offering a very attractive alternative model.

guess trump's not much of a bully after all, is he?

america doesn't maintain it's place in the world by appeals to puppydogs and sunshine, or even by appeals to freedom and democracy.

america is a bully. it maintains control through the threat - and realization - of extreme violence.

it is obvious what will happen if you take that away.

i can criticize these past presidents for picking on these little countries, but what happened in iraq the other night is not a comparable scenario. this is not an accusation, not a fabrication, not an imagined threat.

the iranian government sent several ballistic missiles directly at american military bases.

if the bully doesn't throw a punch, their reign of terror is over.

and, no, i'm not a "hawk". i would prefer to avoid war whenever possible.

but, i don't think what happened the other day is a scenario where the hegemon should have stepped down - it was a scenario where the empire had to strike back, or risk losing it's status as the empire.

trump's a wimp.

and a sheep.

baaaaaaaaa.

what trump just proved is that he's not cut out for this job - the part of the job that is substantive, that only he can do, that actually matters.

and, the rest of the world should take advantage of it while they can.

it's not like i don't understand trump's reluctance.

but, the presidency is not an economic position. it's not a domestic role. the president doesn't cut taxes, or design health care systems.

the presidency is explicitly a military role; it's an elected dictatorship. he's commander in chief.

and, what i would tell him is that if he doesn't want to be the emperor, if he doesn't have this machiavellian streak, if he doesn't have the balls for it, then he should accept he's not cut out for it and step down.

i'm not fan of empire. i get it. but, this is a failure of american hegemony, and the actors involved will not stop at the precipice - they will interpret it as weakness (which it is) and pounce.

my attitude here, in context, is an asset. you have to approach this from a psychopathic kind of neo-pagan, almost stoic, kind of perspective.

trump's presidency has been far from spectacular, but it's only in the last week that it's failed.

i mean, have you noticed that, as critical as i am of the republicans, i don't actually agree with the democrats on much of anything, either?

what i said before was that i agreed with clinton and trump roughly equally often, it was just on different things. so, i might disagree with trump, like, 90% of the time - meaning i agree with him about 10% of the time. that's a very high level of disagreement, it's true, and i'd be unlikely to vote for him, certainly.

but, i disagreed with clinton about 90% of the time, too; the 10% was just in a different group of topics.

i don't like either of the parties, and i've been yelling it for years. we can disagree; we will, surely. but, don't act surprised.

and, no, drugs aren't freedom.

drugs are slavery.

smart people know that.

religion or freedom?

pick your side.

you're going to have to, soon.

are you on the side of religion and order and liberal-conservative values?

...or are you on the side of freedom and chaos and the abolition of normative thought?

...or i can walk through the front door of the mosque in a tank and bright lipstick.

these are your choices.

i won't respect your beliefs, and it's not up for debate.

listen.

i'd be a rather stupid atheist queer standing around waiting for the muslims to come to my rally for secular liberalism.

we're not on the same side of the struggle.

what side are you on?

i might have found the secret cache of update files in the winsxs folder.

the machinery is probably still in the registry, but the scripts should just error out, now.

my pc does not have a network card in it.

yet, the files in the "safe image" appear to have been appended to at some point. i've compared it to an earlier backup, and the most recent has all kinds of sysprep files and scripts and shit. somebody has altered this image....

that would suggest three possibilities:

1) somebody has physically entered the premises. and, if that's reality, i have no solutions. i can't know what they did. i can't undo a set of infinite possibilities. i can't protect against that.

i actually remember this topic coming up in the mscse training. the topic was networking security, and somebody kept asking "but what if they're there?". like, after every slide, as though it was a systematic analysis. over and over.

eventually, the trainer got fed up and actually called his boss in seattle (he was actually from redmond, and sent to ottawa to train us) to ask her what to do with this guy, and i'll never forget the response.

"i actually called my boss in seattle, and i'm going to give you an official response from microsoft - if the bad guys can actually touch your computer, you're officially fucked. that's officially not supported."

and, he stopped asking.

i have to go get groceries sometimes. i have to shower. and, i'm going to party, from time to time, too. i can't protect against people coming in here and installing things...

that should be against the law, but it seems like it's the police that are doing it. if this is reality, i'll just have to cope.

1b) somebody installed a wireless communication device somewhere, and i don't know where it is. they're then altering the image that way. again: i can't protect against a device i'm not aware of, even if i'm almost certain it's there. and, what would stop them from reinstalling it if i found it?

2) i'm schizophrenic and imagining this.

when i catch things, i'll delete them, but the premise that something is broken and i can fix it and it will be better after seems to be flawed. this appears to be perpetual. somebody is going to be bothering me forever.

the sewer stench just came back, too.

no other president in the history of the country would have let the iranians get away with that.

i am back up on the laptop. for now.

sorting through the files, i've decided that what i was doing was a fool's errand. i thought that if i could just get the thing in a specific state of being, i'd eventually be stable, and that would be that. i was trying to "fix" it.

but, i seem to have little control over these scripts, and little ability to maintain the sanctity of anything at all. i need to embrace the reality that i'm going to need to reimage every couple of days, every few reboots, and just be on with it. i should stop pretending that i can fix this.

every time i reboot in an attempt to secure the image, i just end up advancing the update scripts.

and, the flat reality is that i simply don't care. i just want to work on my art.

so, i'm going to stop trying to fix it, and just try to avoid rebooting as much as possible.

i've got days worth of loose ends to sort through before i can get back to what i was doing.

his choice may have been more popular than the alternative, perhaps.

but, i'm sure the christians were popular, too - as they rotted out the empire from the inside.

i want to be clear.

i think that - as per usual - trump made the wrong choice in standing down in iran. this is a tremendous loss of american prestige. it is the wrong choice, historically. it is the wrong choice, logically. it is the wrong choice, morally. it is the wrong choice all around.

but, what's new?

there is absolutely no previous historical precedent for a country to be able to bomb american forces with impunity. they've launched major wars over far less, and that's part of what makes america america, and what makes america feared across the world.

the zero tolerance dominance that has been in place since the spanish-american war is no longer in place.

the world can have it's way with america.

that is not wise. that is not tolerant. and, that is not smart. it will have longterm consequences that will accelerate the dismantling of american empire, and the onset of american decline.

my analysis was historical; trump has broken with history, and he's done so in a way that puts the country on a path towards collapse.

i'm not enjoying this.

this isn't fun.

again: if somebody wants me to have a deeper background in this topic, i'm sorry, but i don't.

and, i don't want to be spending my time doing this right now, either.

so, i'm literally just going to reboot a few times and see what happens.

i should be able to compare what the drive looks like afterwards to what it looks like stored and go from there.

again - i'd rather be doing anything, but there's nothing else to do until i get the machine back up, or can potentially buy a new laptop.

if i can't figure out what it's doing on the most recent image, i can try one of the backup images.

that's what they're there for.

it's just going to be very annoying to rebuild it.

the only thing i can figure out is that windows update is running in the background, and it's installing a driver that is crashing the system.

i don't seem to be able to disable the update.

and, i don't want to install this driver at all.

so, this lock screen seems to come up almost immediately, no matter what i do at this point, and i haven't the slightest understanding as to why. that makes no sense to me. i didn't change anything.

i'm going to have to see if i can figure out which files are altering by opening up the broken install and sorting through it.

this is different than before. before, it was obvious that i was being hacked in real time. now, the machine isn't even connected to the internet. there's not even a network card in it.

i'm really completely at a loss. i don't have the slightest idea...

...but, i'm going to have to figure it out, because it's the only computer i can access my email on, and the only computer with microsoft word on it.

well, that was anti-climatic.

it's also reflective of the onset of american decline. 

never did i think i'd see a puny, insignificant, backwards little country like iran attack an american military base and manage to get away with it. 

it's kind of shameful. kind of shocking...

i know it's annoying, but you'd imagine the importance of securing the place right now.

i think that, with the amount of drama put into this, they've kind of given it away.

iran is fucked.

if you're there, get out.

again: i don't really know what the point is.

clearly, i'm still online.

i'm watching the news conference.

the only other thing i can thing of is that it's an activation thing, but how does it know? 

all i can do is reinstall over and over and over and over again until i figure it out.

how many times am i going to reinstall?

as many times as i have to, obviously.

what can i do besides try again?

if i did something on sunday, and it had one result, and i did exactly the same thing again on wednesday, it should have the same result.

that's not what's happening. somehow, the machine is finding a way to install these updates now, when it couldn't before.

i don't understand how that's possible.

see, i'm not surprised that the level of the attacks is increasing.

what i don't understand is what they're using to access the system. that pc has no internet connection.

i understand what it's doing - it's installing a windows update, which is preventing me from booting.

i don't understand how to stop it. i've turned the process off at every stage.

but, i have nothing else to do except keep trying.

two questions.

1) would you support bombing franco? how can you oppose bombing the ayatollah, then?

2) can you think of any other historical example where somebody openly attacked american bases like this and got away with it?

so, am i "supporting" the invasion of iran?

i don't know what that would mean, in context. what i'm pointing out is that the united states cannot allow iran to challenge it's hegemony like this. 

america is the empire. and, the empire cannot allow for this kind of insolence and disrespect from minor players like iran. it has to assert it's authority. that's how empire works.

but, i'm also pointing out that i don't care much for the iranian regime.

in the context of an actual war, my interests are not on either side, but rather with the opposition. there have been scenarios - the spanish civil war, world war two - where the left has supported the bombing of a particularly egregious regime, because it is particularly egregious.

i'm not saying this is like world war two. but, it's not like the invasion of iraq, which was foolish all around, either. i would suggest that it's maybe somewhere midway between the 2003 invasion of iraq and the spanish civil war. 

as previously noted, however, i'm not naive on the point. i don't expect american bombs to be working in the interests of iranian civil rights, but rather in the interests of saudi theocrats. once the mullahs are knocked out of power, the forces that the americans end up backing will likely be the most backwards-thinking on the ground, because that is what america has always supported. it would be a cruel turn of events if i "supported" an invasion in the name of democracy, and ended up with the shah's grandson back in power. it is likely that i would change sides as soon as the government fell.

so, what i'm saying is twofold:

1) iran's reaction was stupid, and america will need to react with extreme force. the media is out to lunch on this. the iranians need to be put in line and taught what their place is.
2) i do actually support some kind of regime change in iran, where there is a viable opposition on the ground, and would in no way want to oppose something that may help them in the end.
3) fuck the ayatollah, solidarity with iranian secularism.

there's a background file system called 'clfs' that i've never heard of before. it seems to have been invented and deployed after my years doing vista support (which was 2006-2007) and active directory support (2007-2008). i haven't done any tech support since 2008.

but, it seems to be a deployment tool that runs in the background and does more or less what i'm observing. i suspect that this is what they're doing.

i don't know if it's possible to dismantle it or not. but, i'm just as happy to break it, if it gets me back up and running. 

so, we're going to do another format/reimage, then avoid giving the system ownership of the files and then go from there.

if it's stable for a while, i'll figure out what's going on later. i don't care, really..

ok, so this isn't quite what i thought, but...

i think i was right about fixing the user permissions, but not in the way that i thought.

the funny semaphores do actually appear to be attached to the image backup, not the bios in the laptop. i don't know what's launching them.

but, what seems to be happening is that as soon as i fix the user permissions, the windows update succeeds, some of the shit gets installed and i get the lock screen, when it can't find the driver.

so, i was worried about the funny user names being remote users using backdoors to get in. rather, i think that the broken permissions were preventing the script from running.

again: i actually don't want to do this. i want to work on the liner notes. 

so....

.....if the machine is stable so long as i keep the permissions broken, i should keep the permissions broken. 

that means that i'm going to explicitly not reset the permissions, which i guess is why i was getting the errors, and we'll see how long i'm good for with that.

but, i'm also getting kind of fed up with the arrangement, and am willing, at this point, to look at options in just getting a new laptop at the pawn shop...

as a precaution, i have:

- unplugged the laptop

- removed the laptop's battery

- disconnected the laptop's cmos battery

- disconnected the laptop's ram

if there's still something in there after that, i'm going to have to flash or reprogram the board, and i wonder - can i do it with a bus pirate?

what am i doing?

i slept most of the day, was up around 11:00. my plan to carefully rebuild the image by copying one thing over at a time failed as i faced a mismatch between the user files in the fresh install and the archived one. so, i'm going to have to plow through, instead. 

i'm convinced that the thing that broke the install was a permissions issue, so i've added an extra step to the rebuild, around resetting the permissions from the install disc before i boot back up. i'm hoping that this is the "correct " way to get rid of these extra user permissions, which i suspect may be granting the authority to run the background scripts.

at this point, i am relatively convinced that there is not a worm in the classic sense on the loose, as it would have infected the various drives and bioses, and there's no sign of it. when i reboot, i'll need to check to see if i see any sign of the funny semaphores before i go to the other machine. 

if i convincingly test this and come up with a clean pc, and then get infected almost immediately upon installing it back into the laptop, it's clear enough what the answer is, and what the next step is.

that's where i'm leaning right now...i just kind of have to show myself the truth of it....

there's this idea that the fact that the united states didn't immediately respond indicates some kind of restraint.

under american law, it is the congress that has the power to declare war. there is one exception, and that's when america is attacked. see, and that's part of why what the iranians did here was so overwhelmingly stupid.

the united states is not currently at war against iran. so, if they had done just about anything else, trump would have been forced to introduce the measure into congress. as it is, he may claim the authority to declare a war, because they were attacked.

but, i think the correct reading of the delay is to deal with the legalities. i don't know what they think the best idea is, here, but it's going to be some combination of existing legislation, new legislation and executive order. it was probably pre-written.

it looks to me like iran essentially fell into a trap - trump wanted a war, but knew he couldn't get the congress to vote for one, so he goaded them into attacking him.

if he introduces it into congress, it could be as more of a political stunt then an actual governing decision. i know that a component of the democratic base thinks this is a no-brainer, but trust me when i say that this is going to be a bit of a problem for a klobuchar or a warren or even a sanders to have to deal with.

biden, buttigieg and bloomberg will at least be able to avoid a technical vote, but they're still in a difficult position of arguing against declaring a war against a country that attacked us troops. that's supposed to be an automatic war, basically. there's really no way out of this.

so, we'll see what he does. but, i'd expect him to do some combination of the following:

1) introduce legislation to declare war against iran
2) point to the ndaa in iraq as an authorization for some force
3) point to the part in the constitution where it says you can react to an attack

this is probably going to be a choreographed, big deal type of thing.

and, the iranians could have avoided it by being smart instead of being stupid. that's what putin should be looking at, here.

will the russians step in, though?

i don't think it's rational, at this point. 

the russians should support regime change, and try to build ties with the new government.

i hope that, at the end of this process, the iranian people are able to erect a secular democracy where they can govern themselves based on modern concepts.

but, their government has to be dismantled.

it's long overdue.

it just made it's last dumb mistake.

and, trump just killed his own legacy at this point, too.

he has now started a war; that was the one thing he previously had going for him - "at least he hasn't started a war".

he can't blame it on pelosi; i can blame it on pelosi, but he'll need to eat it.

that knocks him down the list a good ways.

let this be a lesson to future generations - this is what happens when you put stupid people in charge.

there's no way out of this, at this point.

buckle up. we're at war....

we're at war with iran.

they directly attacked us troops with uniformed personnel.

that's an act of war.

it may be true that the correct analysis is that this is why trump shouldn't have started this. this is why this was stupid.

but, that doesn't change the reality that the iranians just made a very, very, very bad choice and will need to be severely punished for it.

...but the truth is that they're probably selling them weapons behind the scenes, and it's just an excuse to increase defense spending.

if it were up to me, i'd tell the ayatalloh to kiss his ass goodbye...

an attack on american troops like that is an invitation for invasion, and i'd support one to get the point across.

up until this point, we could broadly rely on the iranians to act like adults in the face of american childishness.

i guess that's out the window. 

and, if it is, they will need to be annihilated.

we can't let them bomb nato troops...it doesn't matter what the circumstances are, that can't be tolerated.

they probably fired some rockets into the ocean.

regardless, this is still stupid and they still deserve what they get.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51028954

ok, so i snuck in and out. hopefully, my decoy worked.

well, these guys are motherfuckers.

i got a two line email from the oiprd suggesting they consent to allowing the addendum and informing me that they'll serve me by the end of the week. but, they said that last month.

i guess i'll call the court tomorrow morning, then.

and, hopefully the forwarding works from here on in. that also gives me a backup email archive...

and, really?

if you're going to spend a month on a beach, you might want to think twice about looking like a bum when you get back.

'cause people might think you kind of are one.

the conservatives should get those pictures out into ads, pronto.

all of a sudden, sexy justin is absolutely revolting and gross.

canadians will not vote for a man in a beard. it's unprofessional and dirty looking.

beards are disgusting under all contexts, and trudeau looks like an idiot and should shave it pronto.

facial hair has an exceedingly poor track record on politicians in canada. 

and, i'll tell you this flat out - he'll lose the next election if he walks into it with a beard. full stop.

what i should do is set up forwarding to the fake address when i get back in.

and, listen.

as shitty as this is, at least i don't have a boss telling me what to do. as wasteful as this is, at least i'm not wasting my time making a profit. 

i'm sitting buck naked in my bed typing. i can sleep if i want to. i can read if i want to.

it could be a lot better. but it could be a lot worse.

nope.

the machine seems free of anything problematic, though.

i should perhaps point out that if i can't get into the hard drive because i can't load the sata drivers because i can't see the install screen....

yeah. i think i'm being too optimistic in ruling out the bios. what can i do, though, besides edit the registry offline?

well, i guess i could do that.

as a troubleshooting step, it seems over the top...

this was why i didn't install clean in the first place, i'm remembering.

the truth is that it was a logical shortcut; if i could prove it was the bios, i'd have to turf the board and buy a new one. but, if i could rule out the bios, and i had a virus in the install, i'd have to clean it anyways.

so, i should just work my way through the issues with the machine, first, and see what happens, see when things get messy.

one of the things i've noticed through these installs is that the registry doesn't wipe itself out entirely. certain persistent issues reappear on reinstall that i thought were dealt with. i suppose it will be useful to figure out when, exactly, these things jump back up.

so, this is going to be a bit of a process, then. and, i'm considering how to check my email, in the mean time.

i'm using a fake address here so i don't expose my password, but how much sense am i making, given that my machine is so compromised? that pc hasn't been on the internet in years, and i'm skeptical about letting it back on. but, this driver issue appears lengthy.

based on previous experience, even a few seconds exposure could be catastrophic. i'm under attack by pros, here.

as it is, the issue kind of ruled itself out as the operating system will no longer read my input devices. they work fine. i'm going to assume that my drivers got screwed up. but, i had to reset the bios and i'm going to reformat and start again.

what is going on with the court stuff right now? i'm waiting for responses. it's not like anything that the oiprd sends me is worth any kind of immediate acknowledgement, and i'm not interested in mediation or settlement. the singular point of this process is to get the issue in front of a judge. i want the data, but i don't need it immediately. and, if there's concerns about the safety of my network, they are more important.

but, i don't trust this chromebook connection.

i'll wait...