i can't believe i made it through the whole thing. this is the most pathetic collection of specious logic that i've ever seen put together in one place.

i actually don't think it's unlikely that early africans may have made it to south america via boat. we know that they travelled along india by boat at a very early date, and we seem to have evidence of cocaine in very old egyptian tombs, indicating that it was a possible journey.

but, i realize that the world is not flat and that it makes more sense to send them across the atlantic. that said, the documentary offers nothing in the way of such an argument.

but, near the final few minutes i all of a sudden understood: perhaps the fuegians may carry on in our genome - just like the "american aborigines" carried on in theirs.

it's subtle race-washing. in the wild.

the results are too bunched to declare a movement from the ndp to the conservatives with any certainty; it's all in the margins. and, i'd hazard a guess that the conservatives were merely underpolling at the end of the vacation season, so there's an alternate explanation for their movement upwards. but, if you expand the ranges out properly, you see a clear decrease for the ndp and a less clear increase for the conservatives. of course, the bloc are also up.

then again, if conservatives were underpolling due to being away on vacation, the same logic may suggest the ndp were simply overpolling for the same reason. the lesson may merely be that summer polls are sketchy. and we already knew that.

i mean, yeah, it looks that way on first glance; i don't deny that, and i don't claim otherwise with any force. i'm just pointing out that it's just not actually clear, yet. we'll find out next week if a trend actually develops or not. but, multiple polls have pegged the potential ndp-conservative swing around 3-5%, so there's really not a lot of movement to play with.

that said, "immigration" is pretty much the only way this happens. it's the one way that the conservatives can get into the "tim horton's socialist" part of the ndp voting base. i pointed this out a few weeks ago. but, one would expect to see the offset in ontario, if that were true. rather, it seems to be mostly happening in rural bc and in quebec. in quebec, this is easy to understand. in rural bc, i would seek an alternate explanation.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-poll-tracker-sep28-1.3247187

canada, like every country, has hawks. but, the reason that even harper has to watch his military budget is that it's an electoral liability, in a broader sense. you can present as many sober analyses and pleas to the alliance as you want, in the end it's as toxic as a tax increase - which is exactly how most canadians will interpret it. if these are your priorities, you're going to have to actually win the argument first, and that's going to be a difficult task.

i would prefer to find ways to disengage from foreign zones of conflict and refocus resources on direct defense initiatives, like norad and better integration in the coast guard. and, to go back to a structural deadweight on the system with wider implications than the media is acknowledging, i think easing prohibition on marijuana will open up a lot of resources on the border.

i'd rather invest in dykes to fight rising sea levels than guns to fight supposed bad guys and control foreign resources.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-defence-spending-brian-stewart-1.3242611

yeah. this is going to be hard to watch, too. but i almost think he has to do it, watch the tapes and see what he comes off as. just don't ask for my ears, please.

i don't think people are warming up to trudeau, exactly. i don't think he's really exceeding expectations. his style of acting is overly pretentious and faux-thespian; sometimes, it seems like he's going to launch into a musical or something. maybe a tennessee williams play. whatever it is is approved for the curriculum. if that's exceeding expectations, you must have been expecting an infomercial or something.

rather, it's more that people are warming up to the actual policy, which is perhaps exceeding expectations. and, i think we mostly get that it's the team he's got behind him that is churning it out. what's strange is that that doesn't seem to be much of a sticking point. i don't know; pile the factors on, there. sick of harper. just wanting a change. a little familiarity. in other circumstances, it could be destroying him and severely damaging the party. that people seem to be shrugging it off is more a reflection on the competition - and on the honest strength of the announcements.

i don't think he needs to demonstrate a masterful knowledge of anything tonight. it's more that he needs to avoid putting his foot in his mouth - and that means being careful about how some types of people may interpret some types of statements. and, you know, a little dry acting may even go over well, for the camp factor - because nobody's pretending, anyways. but it should maybe be toned down a little.

i don't think it will be toned down at all.

that said, i do hope to get a little bit of a clearer grasp on the liberal party's understanding of the new world order. but i think he can get away with expressing that in the form of a series of platitudes and barely formed abstractions. those who care will have little difficulty colouring in between the lines.

to put it another way? when a party runs a country for the better part of a century, there's not a lot of guesswork in their foreign policy principles or how they're expected to be applied. and, in canada, we have the added benefit of there being many books on liberal foreign policy in existence.

if he doesn't explicitly contradict specific things, people will broadly assume continuity. and that's probably for the best.

we all bicker about the liberals. left. right. but the vast majority of us actually go to the somewhat absurd extreme of actually identifying, on a civic level, specifically with established liberal policy positions - to the point that we accuse the existing government of changing the nature of the country, rather than merely being a different party with a different policy perspective. it's deep-seated. we say things like "canada is a country of peacekeepers" without even being fully cognizant of the truth underlying such a statement. his major task needs to be to not interfere with that identification, and maybe draw a little attention to it.

it's really not necessary that he try and convince anybody he's a policy wonk. he just needs to convince people that his party's values are theirs. and, the truth is that that's not hard - because, on this specific file, it is very much true.

http://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/28/will-justin-trudeau-hold-up-to-scrutiny-under-intensity-of-foreign-affairs-debate/

marauder
Got a thing about koalas ??? Having never voted Liberal in my 79 tears but now considering doing exactly that.For me anything that will defeat the fascism that has crept into our government works for me.

deathtokoalas
koalas must be destroyed due to their despicable levels of cuteness.

no.

mulcair's got some ups and some downs, sure. they all do. but, you don't want to go down this path. trust me.

i'm imagining him dumping a bottle of maple syrup on to some pancakes in a log cabin after a long day of tree chopping. statesman-like? i think his strengths are more guttural. rather, he's the cheery, gritty foot soldier that you can count on in battle and can trust to sit beside you with an axe.

don't do this, ndp. i'm not on your side this time, but it will be cringeworthy.

you really want to play this down. focus on being a good communicator. a good listener. a facilitator. you can pull that off.

there is absolutely nothing worse than trying to be statesmanlike and failing. leave that to trudeau, who will no doubt try it, so that he doesn't try it again.

ipolitics.ca/2015/09/28/mulcair-aims-to-showcase-statesman-like-competence-in-foreign-policy-debate/

so, what's going on in syria right now?

actually, yes: you do need to know. people have been talking about world war three since the americans invaded iraq. it's starting to get pretty serious. and, hey, there's a foreign policy election debate tonight, too - but don't expect any useful analysis out of it.

so, it was a few years ago now that the americans staged a chemical attack and then tried to blame it on syria. that might sound conspiratorial, and if your only source of news is cnn that's understandable, but my source on that claim is actually the united nations. that's legit, and understood by the various world powers. understanding that the united states faked a chemical attack to start a war is fundamental in realizing exactly what's happening. it's one thing to do something like that; the fact is that the americans have a long history of false flags to start wars - and that's according to history, not according to youtube. it's another thing to do something like that, get caught and have the whole world know you did it. how trustworthy are you after that? and, if it fits into a pattern of deception over many years or decades?

the united states has become a rogue state.

it's not clear what the russians said to the americans, or why the british of all people took the initiative to throw a wrench into it, but it didn't happen.

instead of bombing syria, they created a mess in ukraine by funding a coup, which set off a civil war. the purpose of this was to punish the russians for interfering in syria. then, when the russians reacted (like they were supposed to), sanctions were placed on russia that prevents them from economic relations with countries that use the united states dollar. the purpose of these sanctions is to collapse the russian economy in the hopes that it will lead to a revolution in russia that american agents can take control of in seizing power. that's not alex jones, either. that's the official policy on the state department's website.

it took the russians some time to come to terms with what is actually happening, but they have now clearly come to terms with what is happening and have dramatically changed their behaviour. this is something that we have not seen from the russians since the fall of communism: active military deployment in hot proxy wars.

the first signs that russia was beginning to reverse it's policy of pacifism came with the invasion of libya. the russians voted for the security council resolution that authorized bombing in libya, but only to protect protesters. nato took control of this mission and used it to oust ghadaffi, which is not what the russians voted for. in fact, the russians lost an important port and a lot of contracts in the process, which have been gained by nato (and particularly the french and italians). discussions in american-russian relations were focused largely around the concept of "mutual trust" throughout the cold war. i'm not sure it ever meant much to the american side. but, it meant a lot to gorbachev and it seemed to be an important principle to both putin and "smiley dmitri" medvedev, up until this point. the libya operation is the point where that mutual trust again disappeared on the russian side, thrusting us back into a cold war situation. i know this because lavrov (the longstanding russian foreign minister) has stated as much publicly. that was in 2011.

but, the ukrainian offensive was an escalation that the russians could not turn a cheek on and the clear strategy towards active regime change is something that has jolted the russians out of hibernation. it set in motion contingency plans that cannot be easily reversed. well, hey - if china were to invade mexico, you don't think the americans have a full blown military plan to react, one that was written fifty years ago and is taught in academies and is periodically updated? events trigger reactions. it's the naivete of the obama administration that is the root cause here, not the russian contingencies. but, you can't just stop these things once they get going. and, thus this is when the war starts.

as you no doubt know, they quickly seized crimea and have been fighting a war on the border of ukraine for almost two years, now. but you might not realize some of the other things they've been doing.

there was recently an iran deal. again: the american press is warping the hell out of this, and you probably don't have the slightest idea what it's about. what happened is that the russians looked at the situation and said "well, you're under sanctions. we're under sanctions. let's trade. hey, do you want some advanced anti-aircraft systems to protect you from an american invasion?".

well, of course they do.

china gets wind of the deal and says "well, what's the use of these sanctions against iran, then?". and the whole world agrees.

this forced the americans to back off. the "deal" they got is a ridiculous face-saving mechanism to obscure the fact that they have just conceded that iran is outside of their sphere. what's actually happening is that the russians are moving weapons systems in that are advanced enough that the americans need to take the option of invasion off the table and finally, after 35 years, kiss that iranian oil goodbye.

but, putin is not done, apparently.

last week, he started moving more air defenses into syria - along with offensive weapons systems. and, even more recently, he's signed agreements with iraq to move weapons into that country as well.

but, wait. isn't this exactly where the americans are fighting isis?

exactly.

the russians understand that isis is a front for saudi interests to take over the region in the presumed vacuum created by the removal of russian influence. they are responding by reminding the saudis that there is, in fact, still russian influence and no vacuum after all.

the result is a very hot war right now between the united states and russia in syria and iraq, through the proxy of saudi-backed terrorists facing off directly against russian forces. this has a serious potential of getting out of hand, as more players enter in confusing ways. the turks are a particular issue.

after an initial round of fighting, the result of this may actually be stability, as the russians reassert the previous status quo balance of power and drive isis back into the desert. but, even if this does not happen, one must remember that the americans have made it clear that they are an existential threat to the russian state in the region, and this has forced them to react how they are. that is, it is not clear exactly what they're doing, but it's clear that this is part of a broader strategy that will not end upon the defeat of isis.

the reason this becomes worrying is that it is clear that the extent of the contingency plan is not understood by washington. in the last four months, the russians have managed to occupy the entire shiite crescent with russian troops that are waging a hot war against isis rebels basically over top of american efforts to create chaos to redraw the map and have clearly caught the americans off guard repeatedly. when you've got these two countries bombing similar targets in close proximity to each other, and neither is clear what the other is doing, it creates a serious potential for misunderstanding.

it's all because of a poorly thought out set of sanctions that were meant to force the russians into submission but have instead thrown them into full rebellion.

because the tar sands oil is mostly for export, hard caps make some sense. that's different than domestic energy production (especially relating to coal), where the key issue needs to be replacing electricity generation.

but, what happens if you break the caps? are you summoned to the house of commons for a denouncement? fines are just another cost of business. hey, with prices as they are, fines could keep the oil in the ground.

yeah, i'd like to shut them down altogether, but if this is a serious proposal then it needs to come with...it needs to come with subsidies to upgrade technology. oops.

and, it means actual hard caps, too. not exchanging carbon credits with some company that claims to do business planting trees in the amazon, but is actually registered in the caymans.

i'm just not convinced we have a model for cap and trade that's reliable. in theory, ok - for the tar sands, only. in actuality? the acid rain comparison is kind of sketchy, because it coincided with deindustrialization due to nafta. the system in europe is still up in the air - there's certainly a lot of stories of corruption floating around, and it's happening at the same time as a massive grass roots movement in germany to actually change generation methods. nor has it had really big emission reduction effects. it's reasonable to suggest that the emissions reductions that have been accomplished are due to direct action, rather than indirect action. all i see from the existing cap & trade schemes is that it needs to be tied to direct action to have any results, and is arguably more or less useless altogether.

and, it's only a percentage of the problem, as well. about 10%, in canada.

the reality is that the bulk of our emissions comes from power plants and cars (together, about 80%), and that approaching that requires direct investment, not a market scheme.

it very well might increase prices if, in the end, the fine merely becomes a tax. but, i don't see anybody thinks this actually works to lower carbon, without drinking the neo-liberal kool-aid on markets.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ndp-losing-ground-as-quebec-support-slips-poll-shows/article26554222/

it's not possible to have an opinion on a secret "trade document", although if this is like any of the other "trade documents" then it will have essentially nothing to do with trade - it will be a document that gives rights to investors, and cements various tariffs that benefit various investors. traditional conservative supporters will automatically support it, as they should - it's mercantilism. the ndp base will automatically hate it, as they have since before seattle - because they're opposed to transferring power from publicly accountable governments to unaccountable kangaroo court "tribunals". but everybody else has to actually READ IT FIRST before they can form an opinion. and, that's why this is potentially so explosive.

it's not going to be supply management parts of this that are going to upset people, it's going to be the parts on intellectual property rights, primarily. and, i speak for a lot of people when i argue that we should be negotiating our way out of chapter 11, not signing yet more chapter 11 type agreements.

the liberals are useless on trade; they talked a good talk in the 80s (in favour of trade, just not the agreement - which became the consensus alter-globaliza¬tion position) and then completely capitulated. that's one of the major reasons they lost so much support to the ndp amongst gen x and y people after 2000. then, as soon as the ndp end up in striking distance, they do the exact thing that all these people have been voting for them not to do.

wait for it. mulcair could still get past oct 19th unscathed on this. i don't think he'll get past jan 1 unscathed, unless he changes tactics.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/trade-is-voters-top-foreign-policy-concern-poll-suggests/article26556164/ 

Live in Ottawa –love the leafs
Thanks comrade.

deathtokoalas
typical laughs fan in ottawa. you start talking trade, and they offer up russ courtnall for john kordic, then call people names when the nature of the deal is made public.

i really hope that what everybody learns from this is that ads are a waste of money and that a reanalysis of the last several elections is required. but, of course, what a paper like the globe sells is ads. they don't want you to know that. and, it's not a coincidence that they focus so much analysis around the effects of the product they sell. it's this stack of cards that you can't expect them to abolish. what's important is that the serious people don't get blindsided by the media coverage.

the google model is not new; it's how papers have worked for decades, if not centuries. you're not the consumer. you're the product.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/quebec-campaign-gets-nasty-but-election-ad-wars-still-muted-in-rest-of-canada/article26554648/

wait. does that mean the ndp are opposed to building a fence along the southern border? when will tom mulcair support protecting our border from illegal american immigrants, so we can have a country again?

again: the amount of contempt shown by the ndp for the electorate's intelligence seems to be inversely proportionally related to their polling numbers. they keep doing this. it keeps killing them. they're not getting it.

you can run this on the right, when your target audience is mostly high school educated, or works in the trades. but, the battle on the left is over educated voters. this kind of repeated and sustained immaturity is just consistently making them look amateur, on top of appearing contemptuous.

the way the ndp is running this election is comparable to showing up to a thesis defense and quoting dr. seuss. it was theirs to lose, as i said. and they've accomplished it, as i suggested.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/27/ndp-attack-ad-trudeau-trump_n_8203870.html

i think you're wrong, but i can't really respond to this until you correct your dates and numbers. the liberals won a majority in 1980 under trudeau due largely to the quebec vote, mulroney won a very large majority in 1984 for the conservatives that was cross-country and he then won a much smaller 21 seat majority in 1988 that was fully dependent on a 60-seat showing in quebec. chretien swept the liberals back into power in 1993 with a 29 seat majority that included 98 seats in ontario and almost every seat in the maritimes but very few seats out west.

the right was split through the 90s. the reality is that harper has only rarely hit the highs that the combined conservative & reform party vote hit in the 90s, which was consistently 35-40. it's consequently pointless to look at 90s numbers and argue you can win without quebec. i mean, sure you can - if the right is split in rural ontario. harper has struggled to reach those numbers, but he's won since then because he controls the other groupthink province in canada: alberta.

so, sure, you can win without quebec. if quebec is voting in protest and the opposition is split. or quebec is voting in protest and you have alberta.

now that things are back to normal, hopefully, it's going to be very hard to win without quebec, again.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/alain-miville-de-chane/quebec-vote-has-no-say-in_b_8201036.html

why don't we ban fat people from wearing bikinis while we're at it. i find that incredibly offensive.

and, those stupid hipster glasses, too.

also: capes. i don't want to be worried about whether somebody is secretly a vampire or not. just get rid of them.

but, listen, raheel. you can't pass this law. it's unconstitutional. you could maybe pass it in some other country. but, our government would have to suspend the rule of law to have this pass.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/raheel-raza/niqab-burka-ban-canada_b_8189112.html

so, what's going on in syria right now?

actually, yes: you do need to know. people have been talking about world war three since the americans invaded iraq. it's starting to get pretty serious. and, hey, there's a foreign policy election debate tonight, too - but don't expect any useful analysis out of it.

so, it was a few years ago now that the americans staged a chemical attack and then tried to blame it on syria. that might sound conspiratorial, and if your only source of news is cnn that's understandable, but my source on that claim is actually the united nations. that's legit, and understood by the various world powers. understanding that the united states faked a chemical attack to start a war is fundamental in realizing exactly what's happening. it's one thing to do something like that; the fact is that the americans have a long history of false flags to start wars - and that's according to history, not according to youtube. it's another thing to do something like that, get caught and have the whole world know you did it. how trustworthy are you after that? and, if it fits into a pattern of deception over many years or decades?

the united states has become a rogue state.

it's not clear what the russians said to the americans, or why the british of all people took the initiative to throw a wrench into it, but it didn't happen.

instead of bombing syria, they created a mess in ukraine by funding a coup, which set off a civil war. the purpose of this was to punish the russians for interfering in syria. then, when the russians reacted (like they were supposed to), sanctions were placed on russia that prevents them from economic relations with countries that use the united states dollar. the purpose of these sanctions is to collapse the russian economy in the hopes that it will lead to a revolution in russia that american agents can take control of in seizing power. that's not alex jones, either. that's the official policy on the state department's website.

it took the russians some time to come to terms with what is actually happening, but they have now clearly come to terms with what is happening and have dramatically changed their behaviour. this is something that we have not seen from the russians since the fall of communism: active military deployment in hot proxy wars.

the first signs that russia was beginning to reverse it's policy of pacifism came with the invasion of libya. the russians voted for the security council resolution that authorized bombing in libya, but only to protect protesters. nato took control of this mission and used it to oust ghadaffi, which is not what the russians voted for. in fact, the russians lost an important port and a lot of contracts in the process, which have been gained by nato (and particularly the french and italians). discussions in american-russian relations were focused largely around the concept of "mutual trust" throughout the cold war. i'm not sure it ever meant much to the american side. but, it meant a lot to gorbachev and it seemed to be an important principle to both putin and "smiley dmitri" medvedev, up until this point. the libya operation is the point where that mutual trust again disappeared on the russian side, thrusting us back into a cold war situation. i know this because lavrov (the longstanding russian foreign minister) has stated as much publicly. that was in 2011.

but, the ukrainian offensive was an escalation that the russians could not turn a cheek on and the clear strategy towards active regime change is something that has jolted the russians out of hibernation. it set in motion contingency plans that cannot be easily reversed. well, hey - if china were to invade mexico, you don't think the americans have a full blown military plan to react, one that was written fifty years ago and is taught in academies and is periodically updated? events trigger reactions. it's the naivete of the obama administration that is the root cause here, not the russian contingencies. but, you can't just stop these things once they get going. and, thus this is when the war starts.

as you no doubt know, they quickly seized crimea and have been fighting a war on the border of ukraine for almost two years, now. but you might not realize some of the other things they've been doing.

there was recently an iran deal. again: the american press is warping the hell out of this, and you probably don't have the slightest idea what it's about. what happened is that the russians looked at the situation and said "well, you're under sanctions. we're under sanctions. let's trade. hey, do you want some advanced anti-aircraft systems to protect you from an american invasion?".

well, of course they do.

china gets wind of the deal and says "well, what's the use of these sanctions against iran, then?". and the whole world agrees.

this forced the americans to back off. the "deal" they got is a ridiculous face-saving mechanism to obscure the fact that they have just conceded that iran is outside of their sphere. what's actually happening is that the russians are moving weapons systems in that are advanced enough that the americans need to take the option of invasion off the table and finally, after 35 years, kiss that iranian oil goodbye.

but, putin is not done, apparently.

last week, he started moving more air defenses into syria - along with offensive weapons systems. and, even more recently, he's signed agreements with iraq to move weapons into that country as well.

but, wait. isn't this exactly where the americans are fighting isis?

exactly.

the russians understand that isis is a front for saudi interests to take over the region in the presumed vacuum created by the removal of russian influence. they are responding by reminding the saudis that there is, in fact, still russian influence and no vacuum after all.

the result is a very hot war right now between the united states and russia in syria and iraq, through the proxy of saudi-backed terrorists facing off directly against russian forces. this has a serious potential of getting out of hand, as more players enter in confusing ways. the turks are a particular issue.

after an initial round of fighting, the result of this may actually be stability, as the russians reassert the previous status quo balance of power and drive isis back into the desert. but, even if this does not happen, one must remember that the americans have made it clear that they are an existential threat to the russian state in the region, and this has forced them to react how they are. that is, it is not clear exactly what they're doing, but it's clear that this is part of a broader strategy that will not end upon the defeat of isis.

the reason this becomes worrying is that it is clear that the extent of the contingency plan is not understood by washington. in the last four months, the russians have managed to occupy the entire shiite crescent with russian troops that are waging a hot war against isis rebels basically over top of american efforts to create chaos to redraw the map and have clearly caught the americans off guard repeatedly. when you've got these two countries bombing similar targets in close proximity to each other, and neither is clear what the other is doing, it creates a serious potential for misunderstanding.

it's all because of a poorly thought out set of sanctions that were meant to force the russians into submission but have instead thrown them into full rebellion.

rap news 35

who created the internet, and why?

the narrative is about stopping certain forces from taking control, as though the internet came to us free of corruption and we need to prevent it from falling into the hands of darkness.

maybe it ought to be about taking control of a system that was handed to us with a precise function that it took some time for us to become aware of.