the mouse is dead. it landed in a snap trap. they're quick and minimize the process. no hammers required. no bait in the trap. i found the carcass near the side entrance and got it out.

no pictures. still happened.

the squeaking has also ended.

i don't see any legitimate economic purpose in supporting amnesty for adults. i would argue, mostly, that they should be deported.

regarding the kids, it's mostly not their fault, and some kind of humanitarian rather than economic logic may be appropriate.

but if you live far away please don't expect catholic and conservative south texas hispanics to vote for libertarian immigration policies. that makes no economic sense to them. they have the papers; they have preferred status and they want to maintain it. it's not about race and you'll find little to no racial solidarity between mexican nationals and mexican-americans. they will tend to aggressively compete with each other for scarce resources.

they're basically scabs.

the system allows it because the bourgeoisie lobbies for it, then they come up with piles of nonsense to confuse people with.

the solution is not in being mean to immigrants, it's in making sure that the labour code is enforced, which means you have to hire people legally and you have to pay them legal wages with legal benefits and you face consequences if you don't.

middle class americans are the biggest welfare bums on the planet. they don't come close to paying for their own roads, etc. the idea that taxes are being taking from them is hilarious; they are major recipients of tax dollars, not sources of revenue, and that tax revenue comes mostly from corporate taxation.

i was under the impression that essentially everybody understood that nowadays. 

wait.

are there still people that think that illegal immigrants are all on welfare and stealing money from workers? i thought that idea - which was a distraction created by the conservative media - disappeared from the discourse over 30 years ago.

i have not heard anybody say anything like that in decades.

needless to state, the data doesn't support it. to begin with, welfare essentially doesn't exist in the united states anymore and to the extent that it does it's illegal to get any kind of welfare money and be illegal at the same time. i'm certainly not opposed to giving illegal immigrants food stamps and i can't imagine many people would be.

the basis of the rational and working class opposition to undocumented immigration has always been that it gives the managerial class the opportunity to circumvent labour laws, not some kind of frustration about them stealing taxes, or something. poor people don't pay taxes, anywhere. the latter is an upper class viewpoint created as a complete distraction to take attention away from more legitimate concerns about bosses evading rules in the labour code. it's also something that fascist reactionaries like vladimir lenin used to attack legitimate forms of communism with. it's perhaps the most backwards, discredited political position that i'm aware of, to the point that i haven't heard anybody anywhere say anything like it in years and years.

it's a political position that essentially ceased to exist around 1985.

i'm going to do this again, but in short form.

- the polar vortex is caused by the difference in temperature between the northern and mid latitudes. the energy in the vortex is a result of the difference in temperature at the equator v the temperature at the poles (and the earth's spin).

- the polar vortex gets stronger in the winter because the polar night increases that difference. temperatures in the north plunge. temperatures in the south go down a little, but not nearly as much.

- the polar vortex gets weaker in the spring because the return of the sun decreases that difference. temperatures in the south come up, but not nearly as much.

- it follows that a polar vortex cannot weaken due to an increase in temperature in the south leading to higher temperatures in the north, via an energy transfer (that breaks the principles of thermodynamics).

- the extremely weak polar vortex, which is leading to air that was cooled due to the polar night not getting bottled up in the north this year but instead being fed back into the mid latitude climate systems directly without that intensifying process, is the result of a decreased temperature gradient. that is, the reason there's no polar vortex is because the difference in temperature between the poles and the equator is not large enough to produce one.

- but the el nino is legitimately leading to local effects in the south. this should make it easier for the gradient to climb to the point that a vortex forms, not harder! if the vortex can't form in el nino conditions, it can only be because the temperatures at the pole are increasing faster than the el nino.

- we are in solar maximum, and solar maximum has a bigger effect in the higher parts of the atmosphere (the auroras that are visible in the north lead to sudden increases in temperature in the atmosphere), but that's not enough to account for this.

- the cause of the increased temperatures at the poles is the greenhouse effect.

- in fact, models predicted that a strong greenhouse effect would eventually slow down and shut off the polar vortex. there is no polar vortex on venus.

- the jet stream being observed right now does not require an el nino to form. it might happen in el nino conditions. however, it's also a typical late winter jet stream that happens yearly when the polar vortex weakens due to the return of sunlight.

- it follows that el nino may have had a contribution to the amplitude of the jet stream forcing.

- however, the jet stream pattern being seen right now is not the result of el nino, it's the result of the polar vortex being weakened by the greenhouse effect to the point that it may not legitimately form at all this year, which suggests that climate change feedback cycles are operating many decades ahead of schedule.

the canadian north holds a very large amount of methane. if that starts to be emitted out of anybody's control, that's when we get into spiralling effects.

this is not unpredicted. the models projected it, just not on these time scales. this was seen as something that might have started to happen in 100 years.

the polar vortex could come back next year, but the hard bursts of cold air we've seen at the end of recent winters were signs the engine was sputtering and dying and the polar vortex was ceasing to exist. it could come back. or it could not, and that is a major event to take note of and that the weather people are completely misunderstanding, either intentionally under government direction, or accidentally due to incompetence.

see, talarico is actually essentially adopting the existing republican party position on immigration, and openly saying he's likely to vote with republicans on it. if he thought he won due to backlash to immigration, he wouldn't be saying that.

bobby pulido is probably more conservative on the issue than the republican he beat. he calls himself a "blue dog" and does not support libertarian border policies.

the new batch of openly right-wing democrats is also saying they won't support chuck schumer and are presumably looking for somebody more conservative. the house leader may also face a leadership vote, and it won't be a shift to the left. 

in fact, the leftist rump in the house is likely to be completely pushed out of any delusion of power and bernie sanders is likely to end up as an opposition figure. they don't need to tolerate him any more.

the media narrative is not based in reality, but trump is an idiot, and he bases his self-worth on how he thinks people perceive him, so he's the first one to be manipulated by it. it is predictable that if trump moves to a more libertarian border policy that (1) his base will cave even further and (2) socialist-leaning working class democrats that oppose immigration in the region due to the fact that they work under the table, displace jobs and undercut wages by doing so but voted republican in recent cycles because they're also catholics (and won't vote for a woman as president, for example) are just going to bail that much harder. it's going to kill him from both sides.

the reality is that south texas is a working class region with a working class population that has far left, socialist views that are opposed to illegal immigration and has historically voted democrat and that those democrats have historically supported hardline immigration policies. it's not about total number of immigrants, or about what language they speak, or what god they pray to, it's about forcing the bosses to follow the labour code. it makes absolutely no sense to think they suddenly flipped to the democrats because they're all of a sudden in favour of open borders (which these specific democrats are definitely not).

conversely, there was clearly substantive opposition to ice policies in hard blue districts in minnesota that were going to vote 70% democrat anyways.

there is some possibility that trump may have suddenly realized he misunderstood opposition to immigration in texas and had an epiphany that he's not in solidarity with it but in solidarity with the bourgeois interests that benefit from bringing in illegal workers. i mean, that's clearly what is actually true. trump's public position on immigration has never made any sense. there are even rumours that he was a major employer of illegal immigrants, himself. trump clearly thought it was cultural, like you see in the liberal european secularist movements that want to block a return to religion in europe. that would be a minority view in texas, where the class divisions are broadly that the wealthier voters support illegal immigration because they benefit from it and the more working class voters don't because it increases the amount of competition they have for scarce resources in a very brutal market economy. 

somebody like monica de la cruz actually represents the businesses in the region, not the workers. that's why she actually supports amnesty. and it's why she lost to a hardline democrat that doesn't. 

so, did trump just pull his head out of his ass and realize he should be supporting his class interests if he wants to more seriously swing seats in the region, by holding the bourgeois vote in opposition to working class voters, which keep going back to the democrats? if so, it's too little too late, clearly.

and it doesn't change the facts or the data.

that's not what the election was about and not why democrats won seats in the region. the republican backlash, in turns of low voter turnout, has to do with the republicans under trump not being christian enough to justify continued support. republicans have been hypocrites for decades. reagan himself was a hypocrite. the reason it didn't come up in the data is that nobody asked and nobody asked because republican hypocrisy has never caved turnout before; christians have enthusiastically shown up and voted for the hypocrites in high percentages for decades. so why change now?

on some level, it's obviously finally too much.

but i'll direct you back to abortion.

it's not immigration. that makes no sense. at all.

this is an old song but sometimes old songs can have new meanings in current contexts.

it's a relatively rare cd that i found for a song at the house of guitars in rochester, new york. the album version is more readily available.

i actually need to get in the shower for the night, first. i skipped last night because i was doing laundry. i'll get back at this in the morning.

i'm posting this from the studio chromebook.

here is a playlist of the cd collection i'm cataloging, which i will keep updated:

how am i going to do this?

it's kind of an information overload. i have been forced to stop halfway through finishing most of these sites because a bunch of losers keep following me around and won't leave me alone. it's disorienting, but i don't exactly want to start over anywhere, either.

i have moved the tabs over and closed the ones on the email chromebook.

i'm going to start by cleaning up the first dozen or so pages and reorganizing them. there's a link list on the side. that will be updated over the next few days to be in the four groups:

- sites accessed and updated from the tv chromebook

- sites accessed and updated from the email chromebook

- sites accessed and updated from the studio chromebook

- sites accessed and updated from the pi

it's relatively intuitive, but it's also prettty messy. it'll be clear when i'm done if it isn't immediately.

next project, first steps:

bedroom:

speaker tables (with books)

audio and computer equipment on dresser. amazon box now disassembled, with typing pc components out.

shelving in back for books. school work for filing cabinet.

bed:

vent with mesh over it:

studio:

drums:

straps

amps (fender bass with mini marshall, orange and vox), midi guitar converter, yamaha dx100

jx-8p with dm5 drum module and zoom 1010 on top, many guitar effects in middle, mic box and winds box on bottom:

mic stand, table with pod, 88 key controller, tascam 4 track, practice amp, analog reverb device, pi system, mobo box with computer items. shelf in back for cd manufacturing. guitars on table under main table.

organizer with cords, studio chromebook, recording pcs

recording pcs desk

same, shifted

16 track recording interface & 64 bit recording pc

library:

pc components shelf. the boxes are labelled.

books:

cds:

this shoe rack will go to the side door. the empty wall will have another cd shelf (wood).

there are extra carpets and a yoga mat for this space. the yoga mat will go under a stationary bike. the chair is currently extra.

this shelf has items for the work area. both boxes have laptops.

charging area, with the bike out, and the steam mop.

the missing library space. the stationary will go where the mini guitar is. the remaining wall will have a book shelf.

listening room:

from the couch. i want to put a monitor on the wall and install a shelf for the pi. i would need a remote touchscreen.

cassette on bottom; jvc amp, 5-disc dvd-a/hd-cd player on mid shelf  

kefs, pioneer record player, monitor for pi and dvd player (maybe), sennheisers in pouch

i need to cut this:

the carpet was intended for the garage but i'd rather put it in the studio. again, i'm waiting to be sure about rodents. the empty space where the vacuum is will have another shelf for more books.

with the pillowcases:

updated bathroom pics:

there were some bugs coming in from under the toilet and this worked very well in blocking them:

this is some mesh over the vents (temporary until i buy more duct tape)

these are some updated kitchen pics (rough):

i finally cut this shelf:

counter update 1:

second under counter shelf:

counter update 2: 

ghetto hutch:

partial aluminum ceiling update

pots and pans:

these are for avocados, mangos:

kitchen markers and magnet white boards (four):

stove light. i'm waiting for the squeaking above the stove to stop for a while. turning the furnace on seems to have chased it out.

added shelf:

the door to the water closet is mostly sealed and has some various items on it:

same:

added shelf. i may add a few more but i don't need it right now.

added shelves. top is drinks glasses, second down has booze & pot, third has vitamins, fourth is extra tupperware.