the outcome of a debate like that would likely be to split the vote up further, because there's not really a clear dividing line between the ndp and the liberals. i prefer the ndp on economic issues and the liberals on issues of governance, and haven't made a real choice yet (although i'm leaning ndp). it'd be nice if mulcair could take a stronger stand on marijuana legalization. a lot of people will say the opposite, or pick other single issues. that kind of jumbled up reality on the issues is the primary problem facing the anti-harper vote. it's less that all these parties are presenting the same thing, and more that they're all segmented up into this confused stew, where the electorate is picking and choosing in this kind of piece-meal fashion.

so, there is an easily understandable tactical basis for this decision.

the flip side is that it's going to alienate a lot of people. we'll have to see how that works out - but we'll never know whether the hit he takes for it is greater or lesser than the hit he doesn't take for it.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-ndp-threatens-to-pull-out-of-broadcasters-debates-1.3175720

lady goodiva@Jessica Murray
Anyone who is leaning NDP should think long and hard about what Mulcair is doing by threatening to withdraw from these debates. He once said he would debate "anywhere, anytime." Was he lying then or is he lying now? Mulcair has either fallen into Harper's trap or the polls have gone to his head and he thinks he's PM already and can use Harper-style bullying tactics to get his way. Do your really want a PM who is just the opposite side of the Harper coin?

Jessica Murray@lady goodiva
no. i think he's trying to avoid splitting the vote. his condition is if harper shows up, and i'll take his word at that. it's not beneficial to progressive forces for us to tear each other up over specifics while harper stays at home and laughs.

harper's decision to pull out is a divide and conquer strategy. mulcair's decision to pull out is an attempt to prevent the damage of such a strategy.

as mentioned, it's going to piss some people off. might even backfire. we'll have to see.

but, this doesn't make sense.

there are no spending limits before the election is called. if the conservatives have such an advantage, they ought to wait as long as possible to prevent the spending limits from kicking in. further, the other parties are more reliant on public spending. waiting as long as possible would starve them of funds.

but, if i was a liberal, i'd be pushing for the campaign to start as soon as possible to open up those public funds and put limits on what the conservatives can do. i'm calling shenanigans on this.

however, if this is more than a media circus and there is truth to the idea [i remain skeptical] then it indicates some desperation by the conservatives. if they saw themselves in a strong position, they would wait for the reasons i just stated.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justin-trudeau-says-stephen-harper-changing-the-rules-to-hold-power-1.3175482

enrgyblogwalter@Jessica Murray
they want to stop PAC spending which is legal before the election at any amount but restricted when the writ is dropped. By forcing the parties to spend on ads it means the Connies hold the media advantage and will milk it

Jessica Murray@enrgyblogwalter
you don't think the conservatives have the corporate pac advantage over anything the ndp can squirm together with union funds?

harper has a history of kneejerk, irrational reactions. i've argued strenuously that you can't really analyze his actions through strict adherence to rational thinking. in that sense, it's sort of characteristic - but only if he sees himself in serious trouble.

NanaimoGuy@Jessica Murray
What the Conservatives care about is how much they can spend on TV ads in the last few days before election day. If the campaign in longer they have a higher limit on total spending. They are allowed under their new law to spend it at any time during the campaign. That includes the final week.

Jessica Murray@NanaimoGuy
that's still not really adding up, because the limits are the same across the parties once the election starts. the longer the conservatives have to save for ads, the longer the other parties have to save for ads.

the only actual advantage the conservatives can have in terms of funding is pre-election.

the bottom line is that the spending limits are the same for each party once the election starts. i suppose a fiscal conservative might naively think that their fundraising capacity is an advantage, but that's ignoring the ability of the other parties to borrow money. and, if you're specifically talking about an advertising blitz at the end of the election? the ndp is going to borrow until it's swimming. this might be the first, best, last chance it has at forming government. it's not going to blow that opportunity to balance it's budget.

so, there's not an actual advantage to the conservatives in doing this. they absolutely have an advantage in fundraising capacity, but if they're going to spread it out evenly then they're better off not capping themselves until the the end. and, if they're trying to blitz, well...that's the error of conservative "logic" acting against itself.

again: i think that if there's any truth to this, and i remain skeptical, then what they're trying to do is force the narrative into a campaign mode. harper tends to do a little better when dealing with concrete proposals than he does when dealing with abstract philosophical positions. the one policy advantage that the conservatives are going to have in this election is that their policies are clear and already written. but, if that's true then it's a trade-off: it's actually forfeiting their financial advantage (relatively more so than absolutely) in order to sharpen the message. and, it demonstrates a little bit of desperation

---

Chris.S.PEI
Justin is absolutely right whether or not you support the LPC.

In a time of economic recession and budget deficit Harper has chosen to spend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to benefit himself. Harper, only in it for himself.

Jessica Murray@Chris.S.PEI
see, this is a really head-scratching thing to say and it's indicative of the amount of confusion that exists in canadian politics right now. with all due respect, your sloganeering suggests you're not really a real person. i apologize if i'm being presumptuous, but real people don't tend to walk around spouting catch phrases.

harper comes from a sort of anti-intellectual school of economics that has never been very mainstream in an academic sense but managed to build a considerable amount of political support in the 80s and 90s. he would agree that it's a bad idea to spend money in a recession. unfortunately, since the 90s, a lot of liberals would also agree with him. which is why i'm leaning towards the idea that you work for the liberal party.

but, generally, economists would argue that you want to spend money in a recession. this comes out of the understanding that recessions are largely created due to a lack of money circulating in the economy, and the government being the only way to get it going in a recession [because the recession hurts demand, acting as a disincentive for private sector spending]. even harper would agree that recessions are solved by incentivizing spending, he just argues that a better way to get people to spend more is through tax cuts to corporations. this is that anti-intellectual school of economics, which has no empirical support and doesn't even make any sense when you sit down and work it out logically. tax cuts on the supply side don't incentivize spending. tax cuts to consumers may help a little, but it's the kind of thing you do in a structurally healthy economy - not one ravaged by job losses from free trade and mired in personal debt. serious recessions require government spending, which necessarily means you have to go into deficit. this isn't a negative thing. although increasing corporate tax rates would be a good start to balancing the situation a little, and increasing revenue when the situation picks up.

it's a sort of a rabbit hole situation, because liberals used to understand this and built policies around it. but, all of the evidence seems to be that they don't understand this anymore, and have drunk the anti-intellectual kool-aid that argues against deficits in recessions. and, it's not a coincidence that they're seeing this huge collapse in support amongst educated voters, who understand the economics of the situation well enough to realize that they're pushing the same broken neo-liberal economic model that the conservatives are.

liberal party voters have traditionally supported deficit spending. and, if the liberal party no longer does, then they're going to switch to a party that does.

this is a man that has drank enough koolaid to piss gaza into the sea.

i'm just trying to imagine how this might work.

up here in canada, we have a firearms registry. contrary to popular misconception, guns aren't impossible to buy here - they're just very regulated. what that means is that the cops have a system they can check to see if you have a registered gun.

in fact, they are required to check the system and take special precautions. if the system tells them you have a gun, they have to behave differently. this is particularly useful for things like domestic violence complaints.

drawing a parallel, the tailgate scenario is not a "might create problems" issue, so much as a "will create problems" issue because there will undoubtedly be certain procedures that the police are required to follow should they come into contact with people on this list. and, perhaps, there should be - if the list is reasonably constructed, rather than dragneted.

worse is that any possible positive consequences will be quickly nullified by the system's lack of practical utility. it won't take long for the cops to realize that the list is far too broad to be useful. in some places, that won't matter - because the cops are racist and/or because there are very few minorities. in more liberal areas with more diverse populations - like seattle, say - it will quickly cease to be taken seriously. on the miniscule chance that a cop might actually be dealing with somebody worth detaining, they'll just ignore the database hit as yet another false positive.

i think the answer to this is changing america's foreign policy, but no change in foreign policy is going to completely eliminate the threat of crazy people doing crazy things. and, this is just badly designed as a means to address that.

i should point out that our dipshit conservative ruling party removed this registry a few years ago, but it was a very unpopular move and it should be one of the first things that's reinstated when they lose power.

when i was a kid, growing up in the 90s, i remember how netanyahu was widely viewed as a sort of beacon of rationality on the right. i have a specific memory of a botched joke at dinner with an older member of my extended family. the way he told the joke went something like this:

"speaking of israel, netscape and yahoo just announced a merger. anybody want to guess what it's called."

dead air

i replied at the last minute:

"netanyahu. he's the opposition leader in israel."

blank stares across the dinner table, and a little surprise from the jester.

"you know, most adults don't know that."

"i read a lot on the internet."

he was relatively young. he very much presented himself as a free market conservative, stressing open economic relations over military might. almost a ron paul type, really.

how things have changed. a just war. wow.

hunting for sport is barbaric. but, lions are our oldest and most mortal enemies. they're not like cartoons in disney movies; they're worse than terrorists. they're worse than koalas. i don't exactly want to stand up for a hunter on the terms of him being a hunter. but, we ought not shed tears for dead lions. co-existence is really not possible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LzXpE1mjqA

senate reform.

none of the parties are very good on the issue. i might abstractly agree most with the liberals' position, but i don't see it as a vote changer. recent polling has upheld that this is the case amongst most voters.

our system of government really doesn't have a lot of checks and balances. i'm in favour of structural changes to reduce the power of the prime minister's office, which strikes me as a far more pressing concern than senate reform. if we can do both at once, great. so, in all honesty, i do like the idea of a chamber of "sober second thought".

but, if that was ever an accurate description of the senate, it sure isn't an accurate description of it at any point in my lifetime. there is clearly a need to reform the appointment process so that it can accomplish it's stated purpose. we don't need a house of lords, of course. i'd rather see it work as some kind of an independent, technocratic body that draws primarily from academia and is largely run by the civil service - which might not be what the liberals are actually calling for, but is philosophically very trudeauvian. and, i think, inherent with that, is salary cuts. one of the best ways to prevent it from being a patronage institution is to take the money out of it. this is directly contradictory with liberal capitalist thinking, which is going to push the idea that if you want quality candidates then you need to pay them; that's true sometimes, but in this case it's the opposite - you want candidates that are willing to do the job as a public service because they give a fuck, not in order to get a nice pension. you want to throw people looking for personal gain out of the pool of candidates.

the value of the institution is that it remains unelected - i would certainly oppose an elected senate, as harper is pushing. our separation of powers was constructed to avoid the problems with states rights in the united states, which our framers saw as the cause of the american civil war. and, continuing on with the historical approach of learning from the mistakes made in the american system, i think the gridlock they get down there is reason enough to avoid emulating their system of government. an elected senate would likely grind ottawa to a halt. but, we do need to find ways to restrict the pmo in other ways.

the ndp position is not serious. in a practical sense, the ndp can promise to abolish the senate all they want, although they seem to have retreated from that position. the reality is that they're never going to get the premiers to agree. it's a non-issue in a practical sense. it's consequently not really rational for somebody that leans liberal on the issue to take the position of not voting ndp because they want to abolish the senate, because they're never going to succeed in abolishing the senate. and, you could say the same thing about an elected senate.

we need senate reform. it's just that none of the ideas being floated around are very good - or have any real chance at success.

after all - the whole purpose of bringing the east into confederation with upper and lower canada was to break the gridlock.

because she knows why the establishment hates her [contrary to the popular narrative, her husband did everything he could to stop that, but he got overruled by a senate supermajority] and why she's been challenged so strongly by wall street candidates over the years.

it's just a part of it. they got single-payer out of the way - or so it seems. there's a list of other issues...

if you do the research, you find startling connections between the eec and the remnants of post-war fascism. almost as though they saw the german occupation as a kind of pax germanica.

i've entertained notions that this is by design, but it doesn't seem to add up. the right-wing block actually seems to have strangely close ties to russia. that's inconsistent with this idea. the destabilization seems real, and the russians are helping with it.

if there's a parallel, it's closer to a replay of the german occupation of greece. same kind of looting. but it's ultimately failed neo-liberalism. forget about the outcomes of austerity being predictable. this was predictable from the establishment of the euro - or at least was to people who hadn't drunk the kool-aid. and, i think a lot of people legitimately drank from that chalice, and expected this experiment in the gold standard to have a different result.

that said, i'd remind people that europe had repeated opportunities to accept a political union, which was a necessary corollary to the establishment of the euro, and that a political union could have prevented this. the greeks ratified this. it's not their fault. but bankers are assholes. and, i'm not willing to rule out the idea that the elite may have decided to unite the continent by force as a consequence of it's refusal to rubber stamp their initiatives.

see, this idea that there was no space or light or time and there was this spontaneous explosion that created everything out of nothing...this is as ridiculous as any religious thinking. it's just religion with more math. that needs to be explained before you can take the idea seriously.

i do think that you should take the idea seriously. i just think it's painfully incomplete, and we're deluding ourselves if we don't shift our thinking about it.

i think we need a philosophical shift in approach to a complex cosmos that is interrelated and consequently a universe that has multiple complex causes, rather than a closed universe with a single cause. it's a reclamation of naturalistic thinking away from religious thinking.

you don't need a lot of math to get your head around it, just an intuitive conception of probability. i think this change in approach is the solution to a long list of issues that have no apparent explanation in the context of a universe with a single cause.

i don't like the process of mathematically creating dimensions on a whim - there's no real reason for this. it's magical thinking. but, i think that the theoretical conclusions that m-theory have come to are the only really rational approach to this, and will no doubt eventually be arrived at through some other means. what this theory suggests is that the big bang was the result of an outside explosion - that there is energy and time outside the universe, although it might not exactly be comprehensible in the way that we understand it inside the universe. further, these explosions happen all the time. it removes the mystery from some kind of singularity, and suggests our universe is really nothing remarkable.

i can't take the idea that there are infinitely many universes seriously. but, the number may be unfathomably large. then, we don't need ideas like the universe "creating space". it would simply be expanding into space that already exists. we don't need an irrational universe that spontaneously combusts out of nothing. it would be the rational consequence of events outside of it. further, it opens up a number of questions as to how our universe might interact with other ones. for example, we can't explain why we have more matter than anti-matter; the big bang theory actually cannot explain why we exist. but, if we acknowledge that matter (and anti-matter) may possibly shift between universes, then we can maybe understand why there's an imbalance. that's not a proof. it's not even a hypothesis. but, it's an idea that is currently not acknowledged, and it's that lack of acknowledgement that is untenable. for, if there are multiple universes then they must interact in some manner or other. and it follows that our universe would not exist in a vacuum. and, if the universe does not exist in a vacuum, then this approach of explaining it with a single cause is hopeless - because it is wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKBkyN5os9s

think of it like this: imagine trying to explain the history of the earth with no understanding of things that happen outside of it. no concept of gravity, or comets, or any of the other things floating around out there. we don't have to speculate: we can look at history. and, we can see that the theories were limited by a lack of knowledge of how forces outside the earth effect what happens on the earth.

it could be centuries or millenia before we're able to grasp what is outside the universe. but, if we're to be serious in our theories, we have an obligation to recognize that our ability to understand the universe is drastically limited by our conception of it as a closed system. we may have little choice but to asterisk things for future research at some undisclosed point in the distant future. but, we should be thinking it through carefully and pointing out where outside forces may have a possible influence.

future generations may very well look back and laugh at us for believing the universe is flat, while historians argue that it's a myth, based on the writings of ancient relativistic philosophers.

cause of death: asphyxiation due to twizzler insertion.

see, you're defeating your own relevancy by confusing the issue. instead of this being an anti-trafficking issue, like it ought to be, and which would generate you cross-spectrum support, you're trying to turn it into an anti-abortion issue. and, that's going to get you ignored in the wider context.

it's quite unfortunate, because there's a rather serious concern, here - one that really needs to be addressed.

"Kerry cautioned against viewing the matter through the lens of just the US"

that's why the coverage of this is so awful. for years, it's been viewed as the hegemonic americans enforcing their will on the insolent iranians. in fact, for at least five years now, it's been a struggle between russia and america for influence over iran. nobody realizes this.

when the americans push down these brutal sanctions, what it does is create incentives to integrate further with the russians. what it's done is put the americans in a position where they've had to play catch up.

it's true that the negotiating approach was terrible and backfired badly. but, it's because it was tyrannical and oppressive, not because it was too lax.

the russians have walked out of this with all the actual control in terms of the actual material. iran is leaning towards integration into the shanghai co-operation organization, which is functionally a russian-chinese defense pact against american aggression in asia. an alliance like that takes them out of the list of countries that the americans can bomb without consequence. and, that is why the americans are pulling back - iran has squirmed out of this, with russian help.

russian help that is a direct consequence of american sanctions over ukraine.

by Guy Taylor - The Washington Times - Monday, April 13, 2015
Russia on Monday gave the green light to a long-stalled $800 million deal to deliver an advanced anti-missile rocket system to Iran, bringing sharp criticism from the White House and Israel and new political peril for President Obama’s prospective nuclear deal with Tehran.

Iran has pushed since 2007 to purchase the S-300 system from Russia — hardware that analysts say will dramatically increase Iran’s ability to defend itself from airstrikes, including a strike on its nuclear facilities from either the U.S. or Israel should international negotiations break down.

guys...

it's just a question of being less direct. the truth is that couples really do meet each other on the bus, or in the grocery store, or in random places. but, it helps to break the ice in less forward ways. there's nothing wrong with being friendly. and, there's really no reason to question whether it's true that that strip club was hiring.

it's less that these are hits. it's more that they're really bad hits.

it's more like that these guys need to really up their game.

see, this is the kind of thing that you simply don't get from corporate media due to a combination of manipulation and arrogance - but that the internet has made widely available to pretty much everybody. and, it's pretty devastating. not just for harper, but for his entire mode of economic thinking and anybody else willing to play in that sandbox. even ten years ago, you'd have to go to the library to get this, or sort for it through obscure blogs that you're only going to get to via insider link trading. so, there's really no mystery in the electorate's - and specifically educated electorate's - sudden rejection of neoliberalism and embrace of the economic left. it's just a question of being informed, in a new reality where being informed is much easier than it used to be.

rabble.ca/columnists/2015/07/worst-canadas-economy-under-harper-government

i don't think you're over-estimating the rightward pull in the liberal party so much as you're underestimating the centrist pull behind mulcair's leadership.

the liberals actually nationalized oil in the 70s. that's pretty left-wing. as we know, they've been drifting right since and have recently crossed over and become what is really a moderate conservative party. the current liberals are rather literally what one might call a "progressive conservative" party. voters are beginning to realize this, and the level that it will decimate them in the short or medium term will be determined by how strongly they hold to it before they switch back to a more populist rhetoric. despite the rightward shift over many decades, the truth on the ground remains that liberals are liberals and they don't want to vote for conservatives.

further, mulcair is not david lewis. by any metric, he's considerably to the right of pierre trudeau. this idea that the ndp is still a paragon of leftist virtue is just not reality. the truth is that there's really not a lot preventing the kind of collaboration you're speaking of - not because the liberals don't lean right, but because the ndp doesn't really lean left anymore. there's differences. there will always be differences. but the differences between the liberals and the ndp are probably lesser than the differences within either of these parties.

if the electorate polarizes and the liberals get out of this election with a small, left-leaning rump caucus led by people like stephane dion, they could actually end up to the left of the current ndp. we could see another rat pack pop up. and, they might end up pushing the ndp to keep their promises. it's for *that* reason that i'd prefer to see the alignment stabilize in a way that allows for three, distinct parties. thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis.

it's just maybe the case that time has caught up to the liberals in a hurry, and a role reversal of thesis and synthesis is what is in order.

rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/djclimenhaga/2015/07/alberta-shows-why-there-will-be-no-ndp-liberal-entente-despite-n 

i can't see him being dumb enough to fall for this. canada will *always* punish these sorts of shenanigans. as he said: everybody knows there's an election on the 19th. besides...he's actually better off restricting the opposition to funds than he is swamping himself in them.

nice try, though.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/federal-election-2015-stephen-harper-to-launch-campaign-as-early-as-sunday-1.3172602

but, if you turn a fan on, there's ventilation. and cooling. as i pointed out elsewhere, i've sat in cars for long periods with the fan on without breaking a sweat...

i'm not arguing with the premise. but it's like arguing for abstinence instead of contraception. it's ideal, but not realistic. you need to give pet owners responsible options to mitigate the effects of the heat in the situation that you have to leave your dog in the car for a few minutes.

i'd argue lengthy periods are problematic because it's confinement. if you're going to be gone a long time, drop your dog off at home first. or don't bring it in the first place. but that's not the same thing as stopping for groceries.

i'm assuming that the fan will mitigate the problem to a reasonable level. i don't have a car (or a dog) so i can't test this. but these videos should integrate two base conditions to provide for a more realistic simulation:

1) the a/c should be on for a while before you get in the car. because, if you're leaving your dog in the car, then you're driving somewhere. and, you have the a/c on.
2) leave the fan on.

i would have to think that that should at least extend the period of time you can safely leave your dog in there - if not indefinitely (and that's neglectful, anyways) then at least to a point where you can get in and out without worrying that you're killing your pet.

rap news 34

mostly spot on. the way this works is like this:

0) people like donald trump write trade treaties like nafta.
1) nafta allows a us factory to move from arizona to mexico, where it can pay workers a third of the price.
2) the workers at that factory lose their job.
3) the factory blows up the local economy in that region of mexico, forcing the locals into poverty.
4) that sets off a chain reaction of migration that pushes people out of mexico and into the united states, partially because
5) sub minimum wage pay in arizona is still more lucrative than work in mexico.
6) this benefits producers that create products for export but it reduces the pool of possible labour opportunities in arizona, creating structural unemployment levels.
7) what low education white arizonans are able to physically see and intuitively understand is that illegal mexican immigrants have jobs and they don't.
8) donald trump (carefully avoiding neatly shaved mustaches) stands up and blames it all on zee mexicans, in an attempt to generate a political base and distract from his own guilt and responsibility. mass unemployment creates social unrest that needs to be controlled.
9) the media agrees, in an attempt to construct a subscription viewer/reader base and further control the social unrest.
10) low education white arizonans vote for donald trump, but they do not expect him to reverse the policies that set off the chain of reactions.

it's a bit of a stretch to suggest it was planned from the start. but power has a tendency to perpetuate itself by profiting from it's own crises.

i think he's sort of on to something, but not really in the way that he means.

he suggests that the neo-liberals [some of them like to call themselves neo-keynesians nowadays; that's what the textbook i learned out of labelled itself] pointed to classical theory as the only scientific approach. but, if you've ever taken a look at these linear arguments with these intersecting curves...they're often naive to the point that they defy basic logic. my background is in logic; i didn't take an introductory course in economics until i got to grad school. i remember trying to tackle these arguments from a purely rational standpoint and coming to the conclusion that the models were either tautologies or useless - the assumptions required to make them hold were essentially equivalent to already knowing the outcome. i concluded that the supposedly beautiful simplicity of classical economics really ought to be a labyrinthine theory of complex suppositions and lengthy chains of confusing corollaries.

but, out of that, i think the more profound conclusion i came to is that the whole concept is really madness and should be abandoned.

humans are not electrons. the whole premise that there might be something like economic laws is rooted in the homo economicus model - which assumes perfect knowledge and perfect clarity. that much has been tackled by the behaviourists, who i think are the economic thinkers of the future, but there's really a more basic problem. it's rooted in the assumption that people even care. that was the part i ended up struggling the hardest with trying to rationalize. do people really care that they get $5 instead of $6? some people do, clearly. i'd suggest that most people probably don't. most people would probably rather spend time with their kids, or maybe have a beer with their friends, then sit around and scheme about the optimal outcome. much has been written on this protestant work ethic. in truth, i think assuming that it exists at all is a rather hefty error. and, if you come to this conclusion that people might not care what the optimal outcomes are (or measure optimal outcomes in entirely different ways) then they become entirely unpredictable - even using behaviouralist models.

if i have a desire to maximize artistic output and you have a desire to maximize financial gain then we're going to behave very differently. i might choose social assistance over a 500,000/yr job because free time is more valuable to me. there's no existing model that can make sense of that; it's total anarchism. yet, the possible motives grow very quickly when you sit down and try and enumerate them; there may be as many motives as there are people.

it breaks the causality in the models. because we're not electrons; we're individuals.

and, what a reasonable economic system needs to base itself on is the realization that you can't really aggregate human desire, and by extension you can't aggregate human behaviour through incentive systems and linear causality. you need to look at things carefully, on a case-by-case basis. you need to consult data. you need to listen to what people are saying.

economics is not a science.

STRONG LIKE BEAR

i want to see an attack ad with tchaikovsky pounding in the background, and comrade harper announcing his new  5-year plan for the economy, with the words "strong like bear" underneath. no party will do this. internet - get this done.

i'm a leftist. certainly further to the left than either of the major competitive parties. but, the liberal party of canada has historically been a pretty good compromise for a leftist living in a capitalist reality. and, i'm sick and tired of hearing them complain that they're being beaten by attack ads. i want to see them take responsibility for their own failures.

the reason these attack ads have been successful is not because they provide a reason to vote for stephen harper. and, the evidence regarding turnout is that they actually have not been successful in convincing people to vote for stephen harper. rather, what they've been successful at is suppressing liberal voters. and, the reason they've been successful is because they've been broadly accurate - they've pointed out valid reasons why liberal voters should have stayed at home over the last few elections.

dion is a bit of an exception. he had a challenging platform that nobody should have expected an easy road to governance on. and, he managed to keep harper to a minority. it's hard to rewrite history. but, on a literal level they were accurate. he was not an alpha leader. he had a consensus style of leadership. chretien and trudeau were, in fact, alpha leaders. now, i do prefer the idea of consensus leadership styles - i'm a leftist. but nobody should argue with the premise. rather, the argument should have been that we live in a democracy. we're not russia. we're not strong like bear, strong like vodka. they dropped the opportunity to make a point about democracy because they didn't understand there was a point to make. the ads didn't kill him - they were correct. he was killed by his strategists, and by himself, for not reacting on his own terms.

but, everything stated about ignatieff was accurate. he got his ass handed to him, and deserved it. he couldn't win his riding. and, he bolted the day after the election, to never be heard from again. but, the ads were just pointing out the obvious. the more important question is how the hell he ended up running for office in the first place. if you'd have told me in 2003 that the liberals would have a leader that supported the war in iraq and argues for the use of torture, i'd have laughed at you. the reform party didn't even argue for torture. pointing these things out to liberals had the effect of seeing themselves in the mirror, and they smashed the mirror in disgust. ignatieff lost because of his writings, not in spite of them.

and, who can argue with a straight face that justin trudeau ought to be running the country? the line of liberal leaders through the years has been full of experience and stability. to get to that position required years of service, work and dedication. every single one of these people had extensive cabinet experience. if you'd have told me the liberals would have a leader that's never held a cabinet position, i'd have laughed just as hard. and, when he gets beaten down, he should not have the audacity to blame it on the attack ads. he really doesn't have the slightest business being where he is. even dubya was governor of texas, first.

the liberal party needs to come to terms with this. they've thrown out bad candidates. they've refused to defend them, when they should. they've defended them when they really shouldn't. you have to acknowledge your errors before you can learn from them. but, you don't get an infinite number of chances. not even in liberal canada...

i've never paid for cable. when i moved out, it was straight to the internet.

that means i don't watch advertisements. in fact, it's almost a culture shock when i do see them. something as simple as a shampoo commercial has become strange and alienating to me.

that means i don't get political advertising thrown at me, either. rather, when i'm curious, i actively search for the information on my own.

if viewing demographics are truly shrinking that widely, that's a dramatic shift in the nature of our democracy.

i again need to point out that this case seems to suggest influence from outside the police force, and that focusing on the police is not truly getting to the root of the problem. of course, the cops should be arresting people that are suggesting they carry out hits rather than carrying them out. but, a proper investigation needs to be conducted with this understanding in mind, with the aim of getting at whomever ordered the murder.

it's kind of...

the supreme court reference did say that you need a clear majority to a clear question. but, it was only a part of the ruling. understanding the ruling is really an excellent exercise in critical legal theory.

it also said that separation was unconstitutional, unless it was done with such a force that required unconstitutional means to suppress. meaning, they can separate if they can separate; and, they can't separate if they can't. it resorted to the blunt realism of projected force. then it covered it up with ruling class language.

the clarity act helps the federal government maintain a facade of control, but it's really a facade. it seems almost extra-legal. but, the supreme court is bluntly accurate - if quebec decides it's going to separate, then it's going to separate. clarity act or not. constitution or not. a federal law saying you need an undefined majority is not going to stop it from happening if it's going to happen. and, on that note, what's more important about the ruling is that it says we can't stop it with force.

but, here's another blunt reality: the americans will have no such qualms and will instantly stop it with force. clinton was a phone call away from invading quebec in 1995. they had fighter jets stacked on the border.

it seems crass. it is - it's empty politics with no real ramification. but the clarity act is as well. this isn't even a serious issue in quebec, it's just abstract political rhetoric. but we'll see what quebeckers decide it is that they want.

because, in the end, it can only be quebeckers that decide what they want.

ipolitics.ca/2015/07/26/ndp-not-just-the-party-of-change-its-throw-the-bums-out/

LoggerheadShrike
I'm not a big fan of the Clarity Act myself, but there are vast problems with this critique. The Clarity Act doesn't regulate a separation at all. It only regulates how a separation referendum - in any province IN Canada, which is the jurisdiction of the federal government - is to be conducted, and whether or not the Canadian government will view it as legitimate. The latter is most certainly a question that Canada gets to decide - as does the rest of the world. Every nation is entitled to a foreign policy, including the power to decide what nations it recognizes.

You seem to feel that it's not necessary to define a legal separation, on the grounds that a separation can also be defacto, and therefore, nothing really matters. "if quebec decides it's going to separate, then it's going to separate. clarity act or not." This is much like saying if X is going to do an illegal act he's going to do an illegal act, law or no law, therefore there is no need for laws! In reality, it's very important whether the separation is seen as legitimate - not only by the people of Quebec, not only by Canada, but internationally. The presence or lack of legitimacy would define almost everything about the new state - its foreign relations, its economy, its domestic stability, pretty much everything.

deathtokoalas
see, the way i see it is that the reference case is a sort of non-ruling. it doesn't really state anything of value, it just runs through the possible outcomes and states them as tautologies. the clarity act does indeed state what you're saying, but it's not an entirely accurate reflection of the reference case.

if you drop the legal abstractions and focus on reality, you're left with a much more stark set of options. canada can decide what it feels is legitimate. but what is more important is if quebec decides whether canada's perception of what is legitimate is legitimate - because quebec is the actor, here. iraq can argue all day that the bombing happened in contravention of the security council resolutions; they still got bombed.

the harsh truth is that if quebec decides it's going to separate whether ottawa likes it or not then canada has two choices:

1) accept it, perhaps grudgingly, and perhaps with economic sanctions.
2) invade.

that seems overly simplified. but, it really is entirely true. if they have enough resolve, then they can only be stopped with force.

so, when the reference case points out that unilateral succession is illegal under the constitution, it's not really ruling on anything that makes any difference in the actual real world. it's really just making a political statement. that's why it's a useful exercise in critical legal theory.

what is more important is that the reference case *also* points out that it would be illegal for canada to suppress a clear democratic intention.

it's less like saying that there's no need for laws. it's more like saying that criminals break the law, whether there's a law or not. but, in this case the moral legitimacy of the law is not clear cut.

if quebec can manage to set up a budget, control a tax base and conduct it's affairs while ignoring the federal government (this is unlikely...), and it declares itself sovereign, de facto, then this may be illegal under canadian law. but that merely demonstrates the irrelevance of canadian law, in the circumstance.

the idea that quebec needs a clear majority to separate is obviously true. tautologically.

and, canada can write a law that states that. and even decide what a clear majority means.

but, at the end of the day it is only quebec that can *actually* decide what a clear majority is.

consider the following scenario.

canada writes a law that says that 60% is a clear majority. quebec passes a resolution that decides that 51% is a clear majority. they win a referendum with 55% and decide to go ahead with separation. who is going to stop them?

see, and this is where the ignored part of the reference case becomes important. because, despite stating that they need a clear majority (which is tautological; they could not succeed without one), it also states that we can't stop them if they go ahead with it.

that's the point i'm making: it ultimately doesn't matter what the feds decide a majority is. they obviously need one, or they can't do it. but, what it means can only ever be their choice.

so, the debate reduces to politics.

i'm actually not opposed to the clarity act. and i don't have any impetus to push for 51% in canadian legislation. in the abstract, i agree with the liberals. but it's just an abstract position - i know it doesn't matter. and it's not going to change how i vote.

and, it's not like my analysis is unprecedented, either.

consider the language laws in quebec. clearly unconstitutional. nobody debates this. but, there's a clause in the constitution that allows them to keep doing it. it's a blatant abuse of power; the clause is not meant for this purpose. but, who is going to stop them?

i'd say the same thing about senate reform, in terms of abstractly agreeing with the liberals, but not seeing it as a vote changer.

in all honesty, i do like the idea of a chamber of "sober second thought". our system of government really doesn't have a lot of checks and balances.

but, if that was ever an accurate description of the senate, it sure isn't an accurate description of it at any point in my lifetime. there is clearly a need to reform the appointment process so that it can accomplish it's stated purpose.

the value of the institution is that it remains unelected - i would certainly oppose an elected senate. and, continuing on with the historical approach of learning from the mistakes made in the american system, i think the gridlock they get down there is reason enough to avoid emulating their system of government.

but, in a practical sense? the ndp can promise to abolish the senate all they want, although they seem to have retreated from that position. they're never going to get the premiers to agree. it's a non-issue in a practical sense.

it's consequently not really rational to take the position of not voting ndp because they want to abolish the senate, because they're never going to succeed in abolishing the senate.

any comparison to greece is ridiculous. greece is not a money issuer. canada is entirely *unable* to enter the situation that greece is in for the simple reason that it can deflate it's own currency. greece cannot deflate it's currency because it's run by the european central bank. and, in fact, the solution to the problem in greece is very canadian - they need to implement a transfer solution. much like the federal government transfers money from the haves to the have-nots.

harper understands this. he assumes you don't. he might be right. but, don't fall for it. the structural reality is that canada cannot end up like greece, unless it were to, say, adopt the american dollar as it's currency.

regarding the deficit, he slashed taxes too low and relied on record oil prices to make up for it. on the surface, it looks rather foolish.

if greece went back to using it's own currency, it would be worth something like a quarter of the euro. that's the core of the problem: the way the eurozone is set up is incoherent. it simply doesn't make sense for the greek economy to use the same currency as the german economy. if you're going to have a financial union like that, you need to have some kind of political union that balances these things out. this is a problem we've resolved in canada. it would be nice to see him show a little leadership and suggest the obvious solution, rather than scare monger with what he damned well knows are economic fallacies.

www.cbc.ca/news/business/don-pittis-canadian-economy-needs-to-get-out-of-election-mode-1.3166265

Humans Suck @Jessica Murray
Well, they went and loaned Greece more money that they know can't be repaid. I bet the only reason they did so was because the "migrants" that the EU government loves so much will want their welfare cheques.

So, yes, I can understand Greeks rioting and backlashing at these "migrants", Golden Dawn style. If my kid was going hungry, but some foreign jerk was getting free food, yep. I think Greeks are absolutely sick of this, and that's why they tried to vote themselves OUT of the EU, so that can kick these African and Middle Eastern MOOCHERS out of their country.

Jessica Murray@Humans Suck
see, this is also a preposterous perspective. the eu has four of the g8 countries, and a lot of peripheral countries which much smaller economies. it's very similar to canada, which has a few very wealthy provinces and a number of outlying provinces.

the purpose of equalization payments is to address the fact that a province like new brunswick is unable to generate the same tax revenue as a province like alberta. in order to maintain a comparable quality of life, new brunswick takes tax transfers from alberta and spends it on services.

europe either needs to move to a federal system that recognizes that unequal tax bases require systemic wealth redistribution [that is, make these permanent bailout structural and permanent] or it needs to move to a smaller eurozone composed of countries with similarly strengthed economies. it can't have it both ways.

that has nothing to do with canada, which is a money creator and sovereign debt holder, quite unlike greece.

caulking the window

jessica
hi

i don't mind doing it, if you get me the caulk and let me use your gun.

it's good news and bad news. good news is that the pesticide is working. bad news is that there's at least a hundred dead ants in there. i'm going to leave them there for now, but i think it needs to be caulked relatively soon.

the landlord
I do have the caulking in my car. Sorry I have been busy and have not had the chance to come by. Pleae be patient I will come soon.

the canadian prime minister is warning that the opposition is going to create situations as occur in greece, should they be elected. openly fallacious fear mongering. give this a watch before you fall for it.

you kind got off topic there...

isis are some pretty bad bad guys. about the worst bad kind of bad guy that you could get. a little of it might be propaganda, but the crux of it seems pretty bad, regardless. they seem to be a front for saudi interests, and that gets to the heart of some nasty problems with american foreign policy. my analysis of this is that they're trying to stop a proxy war between saudi arabia and turkey, out of a political vacuum that's arisen in the region. essentially, the saudis and turks are fighting over control of the area in what is being (perhaps falsely) assumed as a post-russian sphere. that converts it into some kind of war against the saudis, on behalf of the turks. the saudis are trying to maintain a plausible deniability level of distance, but the americans don't really believe it.

but, i'm stealing your video to make a different point.

whatever you think about this, it places the canadian left in an ideological and policy position that needs clarification and rethinking. and, i think this is something that should be a part of the upcoming election cycle.

the ndp have held to principled foreign policy issues out of their role as a perennial protest party. now that they're looking at power, you can expect them to sound a little more like liberals. not a total abandonment of principle (the liberals were always relatively principled on foreign policy to begin with), but maybe a bit of a shot of reality into the principled perspective. the problem with this is that the liberal position has become untenable in the period of time that's elapsed since they last formed  a government.

the liberal party position on intervention has been pretty consistent since the establishment of the united nations, and it's to uphold the security council, the various conventions (including the geneva convention) and the rule of international law. their decision to go into afghanistan and serbia and stay out of iraq wasn't intuitive kneejerking, or even based on domestic politics. it was out of a very long standing tradition of moving with the un, rather than with nato. harper has realigned this position to one where canada just sticks to whatever nato (or increasingly just america) does. one would expect that an incoming liberal (or ndp) government would be likely to retreat back to the internationalist, united nations position.

...except that the iraq war has rendered the united nations useless. the russians have pointed very heavily towards the resolution on libya as the point where the un became toothless. whatever you point to as the breaking point, there has been a breaking point. this idea of the united nations as an arbiter is really out the window.

today, the united states does whatever it wants. in fact, the united states executive branch does whatever it wants. it doesn't seek approval from the united nations, and it ignores it when it votes against it. it doesn't seek approval from congress. it doesn't seek approval from nato. it follows no concept of international law, and doesn't care if it breaks it. as this has been developing, canada has had a government that has embraced their contempt.

so, where does that leave the canadian left in reformulating it's policy on intervention?

i happen to think that isis deserved a good bombing. these are really, really bad guys and if you leave them in place they'll do really, really bad things.

but, i think that there needs to be a post-un legal framework in place that allows us to come to that conclusion via more than gut instinct.

"we think the russians have been waiting for the ukrainians to do something that would justify an intervention"

really. the indiscriminate shelling isn't enough? contrary to the statements from the podium, putin was under extreme internal pressure to intervene. what we've been seeing is a strong rise in russian nationalism, and this narrative that putin (and russia) is too weak to defend it's own brethren.

rather, it seems to me that the entire point of this is to try and draw the russians into a quagmire to see them drain their resources and get them distracted. a la afghanistan. well, it worked back then. and what the americans are ultimately drawing on is their own failure in vietnam. a russia that is pre-occupied with a conflict on it's borders is a russia that is less of an annoyance in syria and other places that the americans are trying to redraw the map around.

for a while, it looked like the russians had fallen for it, but they stepped back.

note to america: if you're going to write a foreign policy with bases in an unaligned foreign country as it's strategic basis, it's a good idea to consult them before you publish it.

the arrogance was jaw-dropping to experience. and it's of no surprise that it backfired.

what a disaster....

want to know the most warped part of it? the americans have been angling for this. they want to recreate europe as an american export market, and they seem to be dipshit enough to think they can force them into against their will, and they'll just smile and eat their shit sandwich.

turkey is kind of important, guys. but europe won't interact with them on anything less pathetic than white christian supremacist terms. so, this was a matter of time due to economic isolation.

absolute, total incompetence: thy name is free market capitalism.

direct access...!!1!!

fools....

the end is near.

it is their despicable cuteness that they use for their nefarious ends.

expect policies to be crafted for eucalyptus terraforming. this should act as confirmation of my prophecies.

we may still defeat the koalas, if we act together, but we cannot expect any help from elected state officials. we must declare our own war on koalas, and we must do so at once.

i'm sorry, but why exactly were they arrested?

i think it's counter-productive. but i don't disagree with them. and i don't see any reason to remove them.

we like to pretend this is shocking, but it's old news. der speigel was doing this in the immediate post-war period. and, the new york times and washington post are also known to post stories written by intelligence. i've caught myself more than once yelling at the screen "who wrote this the fucking ci...yeah....". the idea that we have this free, open press is largely an illusion; it's just that the state manages to run it's state propaganda by coercing and intimidating the private sector, rather than taking direct control of it. it's mafia fascism, rather than direct totalitarianism.

the french are claiming they want the uk kicked out of the eu.

well, they do smell of elderberries.

the international community should have absolutely no tolerance for japan breaking chinese air space.

further, given the historical realities, china is fully justified to a response that would - and should - be viewed as offensive in just about any other circumstance. i'd argue that they have a right to shoot upon near encroachment.

it's a unique circumstance. china has no obligation to be patient, and the international community should not expect patience.

whether america is cognizant of what it is doing or not, it is aligning itself on what is not just the wrong side of some future history but the wrong side of existing history. nobody will tolerate this.

nobody should.

that goofy poll is not so strange if you look at the undecideds. it may suggest that the liberal-ndp swing just imploded. that is frustrating, but not entirely surprising.

let's be clear: stephen harper is irrelevant in the election. stephen harper has been irrelevant in every election he's run in. he'll get around 30% - higher if turnout is low. he won't swing liberals. he won't swing dippers. his numbers are stagnant, have been stagnant since he started and will remain that way until he finally goes away. he is not a popular leader. his policies are not popular. when he wins elections, as he has, it has had very little to do with him. despite him winning several elections, canada has never voted explicitly for harper. canada is not going to vote explicitly for harper. this is for the simple reason that canada does not agree with much of what harper has done, has to say or promises to do.

rather, there's an epic struggle on the left that neither party seems able to win. once that resolves itself, harper will be instantly destroyed. nary a tear shall be shed.

something that's consistent is that harper has no potential amongst undecideds - if you're going to vote for him, you've decided to already. so, when you see a poll that has tories 30%, undecideds 20%, ndp 22%, liberals 20% (or whatever it was), you can instantly translate that to: ndp 34, tories 30, liberals 28%. and, then that's every other poll.

a little bit of sneaky bs from a conservative pr firm. it won't be the last time.

but, if there's something to this idea that the undecideds are really that large, then there's reason to worry on the left.

i've said from the start: there are two possible outcomes of this election. if the left splits (as such as an undecided vote might suggest), then harper wins a sweeping majority with 33% of the vote, or whatever it is. all he needs to be is the most popular in the riding. and if the ndp and liberals split their 60% majority 30-30 across the board, he needs to average 31% to win.

unfortunately, he can do that. because that 30% is the conservative floor - outside quebec.

if one of the parties on the left pulls ahead, they sweep. the liberals basically can't do this, they can only contribute to the splitting. but if the ndp get that boost to 35-36%, then they get over the floor enough to sweep.

there will not be a minority government, as some conservative-friendly models are predicting.

nor will the uccb swing the election.

===

the tories are going to reduce turnout as much as possible, and push their own base. they have no appeal outside their base. they have to try and stop their opponents from voting.

the ndp are going to want to swing a small - but uniform - percentage point or two from the liberals. if they can stabilize at 35, they have a good chance of winning a majority.

the liberals do not have a strategy, besides hoping that the conservative base suddenly dies of old age. they would need an unrealistically large uniform swing from the ndp - upwards of ten points to compensate for their inability to compete in quebec.

this is going to be what actually sets off reform: massive anonymous leaks leading to spontaneous systemic failure.

they've acted like children. they have nobody but themselves to blame.

as difficult as the conditions in these regions are, these immigrants are raised into environments where they expect state organized health care. they expect that, regardless of everything else, the state will step in to provide care - because that is how almost the entire world works. they are shocked when they find out that this is not true in america. they cannot fathom this.

that is the sad irony of this situation.

note that the conspiracy theorists hate trnn. that means they're doing this right.

all i can contribute are my thoughts. hopefully, they're worth a little more than two cents. or two cents adjusted to inflation...

actually, i think whether he gets in those debates is a good indication of how co-opted he is.

it might seem stupid to personalize the war on a domestic level, but i think this ties very heavily into his perception of canada's involvement in the last iraq conflict. remember when he claimed he was "embarrassed"? i don't doubt that that's a legitimate feeling. most canadians look back on this decision to not involve ourselves with pride, and obama himself has been clear that he feels it was an error. that disconnect is not likely to affect him. rather, i think what harper is doing is trying to make it seem like he's personally responsible for canada "delivering" - as though it's a business deal. he's ultimately more concerned about what american defense planners think of him than he is of what canadians think of him. and he takes the nato alliance far more seriously than any previous prime minister ever has.

that very, very serious attachment to the principles of nato is something that is common across his foreign policy - as is this desire to present canada as a special, reliable partner to american defense interests. it's not something canadians have ever leaned towards on any serious level. you'd have to go back to before the arrow to even have the discussion exist, and you'd have to go back that far to really understand how he's thinking.

these are accusations that are as old as harper's time in politics is. they kind of went away. but the panel is maybe expressing more surprise than it ought to be.

why is it that child star after child star feels that prostitution is the most profitable way to move their career forwards?

there's nothing less realistic than an overweight superhero. they get lots of exercise.

maybe, if you spent more time doing actual backflips and less time telling a computer to do backflips then that body type wouldn't seem so unrealistic to you; if you behaved like the character you're playing behaves, you would be as thin as her, too.

we don't need fat superheroes. we need to collectively take better care of ourselves.

see, here's the thing.

you have to have more matter than anti-matter for this to add up. but it shouldn't happen, by it's own admission. and so the truth is that it really doesn't add up. if the explosion was as explained, we should really have this universe of pure light. but, we don't. so, it can't be quite as explained.

this is a history of the universe, rather than of the cosmos. if we have many universes [not in the many-worlds sense, i mean many different universes], you open up the possibility that the universe is not closed - that there is a possible additional source of matter from outside the universe. i think that's the right answer. but don't expect me to explain it in too much detail.

discussions on the origins of the cosmos (or really on anything outside the universe we live in) are currently outside the realm of any sort of coherent thought.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KYTJ8tBoZ8

if you conceive of many universes [not parallel ones] expanding in some kind of a space, the idea that they may in some way interfere with each other becomes almost unavoidable. you could come up with scenarios where we gained matter from a different universe that consequently has a surplus of anti-matter.

i don't have a really good argument, or anything. i guess it's sort of similar to an aspect of m-theory. it's more just probabilistic. if there's one universe, there pretty much has to be many universes. i can't fathom that our big bang could be a singular, unique event - it would have to have a naturalistic explanation, and that would have to be something that occurs repeatedly and regularly. and, then, if you accept that, arguing for a closed universe strikes me as kind of ridiculous. it becomes a question of determining how universes interact.

but, looking for any evidence of this strikes me as rather hopeless - and even pointless.

maybe an easy way to think of it is like this...

in order for the universe to expand, there has to be something outside of it to expand into. if there is some kind of block of energy or something in the way, it would not be able to expand. if there was some kind of friction slowing it down, we'd likely be able to infer it from calculations.

but what is nothing? let's not get lost in the standard kantian discussion. even if it's a vacuum, the effects of that vacuum still need to be understood on the expansion.

but, what is the likelihood of expanding into an absolute vacuum with absolutely no possibility of it interacting with anything? it seems remotely slim. i mean, we can't understand this. can't. but, it really seems obvious that there's something in the space that the universe is expanding into. and, it's going to have some effect on the way the universe expands.

so, how can we claim to have this understanding of the history of the universe, when we have no understanding of any forces acting outside of it, and it's obvious that there are forces acting outside of it?

universes might crash into each other. they might repel each other. they might stick together. there might be exotic objects flying through the cosmos that slice through universes. there might be forces that act on it's expansion.

i'm not denying that a big bang happened - there's the cosmic radiation and the experiments and the whatnot. it seems like a good basic start to understanding this.

but, i don't think we can get to a full understanding of things until we acknowledge that the universe is likely not a closed system, and that these various mysteries that seem to have no local explanation are probably actually the result of the universe interacting with the environment outside of it.

hedges is asking some important questions, but they're not the kind of questions you ask octogenarians. chomsky is still pretty sharp, but you can't expect good responses out of him on this. you're better asking him about the past than the future.

the reason manufacturing is coming back to the united states is twofold. the first is that the prison-industrial complex is offering slave labour prices, allowing firms to cut out transportation costs. the second is mechanization. neither of these will create jobs. conditions in china are improving, but not for their large prison workforce, which american industry takes massive advantage of.

if the future is mechanization and automation then we need to nationalize them. that's stated simply, but it's not a worker struggle - there aren't workers involved. so, we really need to be looking towards an understanding of labour in a post-industrial economy. it's not even about retail workers. it's about an economy with structural levels of unemployment pushing 40% because anything a worker would otherwise do is done by a machine.

my experience is that the left has been highly resistant regarding this discussion, because it threatens their entire intellectual framework. but, it's a very important psychological shift and the longer we wait the worse the consequences will be.

tersely stated, it's a choice between genocide and utopia.

the disposal (or preferably recycling) of discarded electronics is actually a fairly serious environmental concern, and these are pretty bad options. especially the barbeque. he missed an opportunity to demonstrate some level of responsibility, here, that might make him more appealing to a broader section of the electorate. but, i guess that's why he's in last place. he's not going to get much jomentum from this.

religious freedom. that strange, orwellian contradiction in terms.

for, the colonizers once carried out the same pattern everywhere. they would arrive on the shores of a distant land - be it the fringes of scandinavia or the south of africa - and begin the process of enslavement through forced conversion. the forced conversion works at the level of cultural assimilation; to become a christian was to become a roman, regardless of what one was before. and, so the expanse of northern europe became roman, as the expanse of africa became arab.

there was struggle, but in the end it was futile. the futility of the struggle against religion was less a statement of defeat and more a level of resignation. if far enough away from the centres of power, one need not actively practice the religion of the colonizers - one need only not revert to the indigenous belief systems.

but, after many years this was forgotten. we had all became romans; we had all become arabs. we quarrelled amongst ourselves as they did, arguing over specific natures of our brainwashing.

"the lord has but one nature!", cried the first slave.

"nay! it has three!", cried the second as he lunged at the first with his sword.

and, so the romans experienced blowback as a consequence of their use of religion. what was meant to control had become a means of revolt. "we demand freedom to worship as we choose!".

a sad irony that continues.

but, sadder still is that we musn't push too hard to discard the shackles. this old debate. it's because it is at the very centre of capitalist oppression that this mirror is so difficult to raise up, and results in such dramatic backlashes.

we have learned that religious persecution merely strengthens it's resolve. it's difficult to accept that. i'll be happy when the day comes that a speech like this is wildly mocked.

canada being on the verge of electing a....well, they're not really a socialist party. but they're a third party. this is a pretty big deal. we're a left-leaning country. our liberal party has swung about as far left as you can without embracing socialism. for example, we nationalized the oil industry in the 70s - under a liberal government. and the party poised to win isn't likely to do anything like that. but, it's still a big deal in the landscape of the political system.

the liberal party of canada is often called the most successful political party of the 20th century. in terms of electoral victories, it is a true statement. they won long mandates and governed for long periods. they wrote the bulk of our existing constitution. in a three party system, no party is ever completely safe from losing party status. to see the party collapse would be to lose a little piece of the country's history and culture.

but, it's looking increasingly necessary.

it's not completely unprecedented. the liberals were in this position once before, in the mid-80s. canada was the last to embrace thatcherism and did so with the least amount of zeal. in the end, the banks forced a lot of the policies that we did half-adopt on to us. even our conservatives are really liberals, and they just didn't fall for any of that 80s economic mumbo jumbo. it's largely politics rather than economics, but we were flirting with a junk status credit rating for a while - because our conservative party wouldn't make the cuts being pushed, because they knew it didn't actually make sense to get to the the end demanded of them. this is a bit of a stand that canada took against the imf that i wish was more thoroughly covered. and, it was our conservative party that took it. they privatized a few things - like the oil industry: a disastrous decision that is now politically out of bounds to discuss. but, instead of rolling off health care and other services, they took the bold policy decision of raising taxes. it destroyed the party. but it may have saved the nature of the country.

when the conservatives won in 1984 under the tide of thatcherism, it was a convincing win. mulroney got over 50% of the vote. they won, fair and square. no excuses. the liberals and the then third place party (the quasi-socialist ndp) were really at a roughly equal footing for the next couple of years. there was a lot of talk of the ndp overtaking the liberals. but, that didn't happen. rather, the liberals won a very large majority in 1993 and held on to it until 2004.

why was it different then?

a lot of analysts have focused on the fact that the ndp had a female leader over much of this period. it's not something for anybody to be proud of, but it may have had a small effect. i don't think this is the dominant factor.

i think the dominant factor is the liberals' record in government in the preceding periods, combined with their following policy proposals.

standing in 1993, one would look back at the trudeau government as a pretty progressive one. it was a liberal capitalist government, so all that criticism applies. but, it moved about as far out of that rubric as it possibly could. it created universal healthcare. it nationalized oil. it wrote a very forward-thinking constitution. i could go on for a while, but it's pointless. so, when chretien showed up and said he was going to renegotiate nafta and reorganize the gst as a luxury tax, left-leaning voters had every reason to believe him - the party had a record of it. they campaigned on the left, with a history of left-leaning policies and won based on that strength.

but, the 90s were different. canada had the imf breathing over it's shoulder and had to make some deep cuts. there's two subtleties that the left misses in this debate. the first is that the cuts were meant to be temporary, until various structural adjustments asserted themselves; the harper government has all but demolished this plan, but it was very real and did result in large funding restorations in the early 00s. the second is that the imf was pushing hard for "market liberalization", and threatening consequences; temporary funding cuts hurt people, but they were better than full privatization, which was the only other option. canada could not have continued on the path it was on and accept junk credit rating status. a hefty level of criticism should be levelled at these international bodies for their interference, but the world is as it is.

that's not the easiest debate to articulate, let alone win. looking at the liberals' 90s record today does not have the same pull to left-leaning voters as it's 70s record did to left-leaning voters in the 90s. it's a combination of fiscal conservatism and mixed market economics, pastiched together under a desire to squirm out of heavy international pressure to conform to the washington consensus amidst heavy domestic opposition to it. as a collection of policies, it's not going to appeal to anybody at all. it's only in understanding the context that it appears to even make sense, and that's beyond the realm of the average voter. educated voters don't even tend to really realize exactly what was happening.

so, they can't campaign to the left on a record of leftist policies because they haven't had leftist policies in decades.

and, the electorate's shift is consequently entirely rational. this is different.

the establishment hates clinton. she can't win. that's why they bankrolled obama to victory in 2008. i'm entirely expecting the banks to step in and bankroll somebody.

the narrative, of course, was backwards. people saw obama as the underdog, taking out the establishment candidate. the opposite was true.

i'm getting deja vu.

you're talking about sanders' fundraising as a good thing. rather, it should be a red flag. had voters listened to the people that were pointing out that obama was working for goldman sachs, we might have avoided electing him.

i think it's very important that people know where he's getting that money from. as mentioned: i was expecting them to come in and fund somebody to knock hillary out. i'm a little shellshocked that this person appears to be bernie sanders. but, i guess we all have a price.

i don't want to go through this again. the liberal media has a responsibility to vet his funding sources, and get the information out there.

i'm not saying hillary is a great choice. i'm saying i don't want to go through another wall street commercial for hope and change and end up with the heritage foundation dictating policy again.

imagine forcing everybody to go to college, or pay a fine.

i'm going to take a middle position on this. i'll argue that raising the minimum wage doesn't have an effect on jobs, but it's to a point, of course. i think that more to the point is that, somewhere along the way, we have to agree that what we call the "living wage" should not be the minimum wage - but also that there should be more living wage jobs and less minimum wage jobs. i think that we need to apply a needs-based model to get to a fair answer here. market economics aren't capable of really addressing this, as they gloss over too many details and they're approaching the issue from the wrong perspective.

the idea behind calculating the living wage is sound. lots of people have families. they require a certain amount of income to exist. wages in some sense should reflect what they need. i don't argue with this, and i agree that these are calculations that need to be done to create policies that need to be implemented.

however, the truth is that the labour force is full of plenty of people that don't have families. young people. people that are single. i'm from ontario, and we're relatively progressive, but the minimum wage has still always been considerably less than the living wage, as it's calculated here - and that varies from city to city. even so, the truth is that i've never had a problem making ends meet on minimum wage. but, there's lots of factors with that. i don't pay for cable. i don't have kids. i walk, bike or take public transportation; i don't have a car. etc. nor do i want any of these things, nor would increasing my income incentivize me to want any of these things. what the living wage calculation is missing is that i represent a fairly large fraction of the workforce; the truth is that it really doesn't make a lot of sense to pay me a minimum wage that is calculated as the minimum required for a single mother to live in a city with a car, because i'm not a single mother with a car and never will be. that's almost twice what i really need. as a rational agent, i wouldn't turn down the money. but, the truth is that i'm going to spend it on concerts and guitar effects. which is good for the economy and everything. but the point is clear. what i require as a minimum wage is considerably less than what a single mother would require as a living wage.

if you take a look at the workforce, you realize that a large percentage of minimum wage workers are older people with families. this strikes me as more of a root of the problem. there has to be way to find better jobs for these people, that pay living wages - and allow me to continue flying solo rather comfortably on the minimum wage.

so, if this is an issue for federal politics, it reduces to the need for a better jobs strategy, rather than a mandated wage increase. and, if that is deemed impossible, i'm left with the conclusion that there ought to be a legislative framework that determines salaries based on needs - and restricts discrimination on the point with the highest penalties. it's very much in contradiction with liberal market values, but i'm sorry - if i'm working the same job as a mother with two kids, you really ought to be paying her twice as much as you're paying me.

even if that's not something anybody wants to jump at, it's still not really a federal issue, because the living wage is dramatically different across the country. the only way it becomes a federal issue is if the legislation mandates action at a state or even municipal level. and, while my understanding of the united states constitution is weaker than my understanding of the canadan constitution, i'm pretty sure it's unconstitutional for the president to pass a law telling the states to pass a law.

so, i think this needs to be decoupled and approached a lot more subtly. throwing a flat number out there is easy politics, in some sense. i don't think it's good policy.

the strangest thing about this is that tony banks manages to look like the archetype of the 80s pop geek - in 1972. at least you can't accuse him of following a bad fashion trend.

the return of the giant hogweed

news reports are indicating that the giant hogweed is currently invading canada, and is indeed immune to our herbicidal battering. warnings have been produced that children should be aware of their presence. can we charge the plants with nursery crimes?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f59EKHdeyKc