bcaetano
Washington State is not the model to follow. In Washington State, the price of legal recreational Cannabis is over $20 per gram. That price is far too high and does not keep the black market away.

Jessica Murray
this is true, but i want people to think about something. there has to be reasonable expectations set about this.

marijuana was priced at $10/gram most of the time - $12 if there's a lot of hands and $6 if it's your friend selling it to you, or if you're buying in larger quantities - in 1996. it's still priced at $10/gram today, and higher if you're paying too many people and lower if you're paying in bulk, or from a friend. that's absolutely no inflation for at least twenty years; i can't talk about prices before 1996.

there's absolutely nothing else on the market that has prices that stable. and, this is actually a reflection of the black market. i have no idea what the profit margin is, but it must be pretty substantial if there's been zero inflation for decades. but, that's only possible due to a lack of taxes and a general operation outside of any sort of real accounting, or accountability to boards of directors.

they must be just reaping it in if they're selling it for $20/gram in washington. based on my understanding of the market, it would actually have to be profitable through the black market at as low as $5/gram - or even $3/gram. it's the only way to explain how the prices could remain so stable, when production costs must have come up along with everything else. and, the producers have to have been taking hits on inflation in production costs all these years, because prices have not increased.

the government has indicated that it understands that it has to undercut the black market to be successful. but, if you think about the economics, it's almost impossible - there's no traditional salaries involved, no taxes, etc. when you work in all these extra costs that gangs aren't paying, the best we can expect is to match the black market. but, the black market will always be able to undercut the state on this, due to these lower production costs - unless the state takes a loss to drive them out of business, which is naive in the long run.

i have to think that a big part of the reason that people stopped going to speakeasies and started going to bars was simply that they were sick of breaking the law. but, the abolition of prohibition also came with a crack down on bootlegging. they didn't just legalize alcohol. they also cracked down on illegal production.

in the short run, it has to be competitive to work. but, in the long run, the reality is that we're introducing costs and we're introducing market realities that assert the necessity of eventual inflation. there's no way around this: you're going to need to pay a little more, in the long run. but, i think it's better than the alternative...

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/trudeau-s-pledge-to-legalize-pot-he-may-want-to-look-south-1.3283698

i don't know how you skip carolyn bennett & stephane dion - and those are just the most obvious ones.

he's got tons of experience on the benches, and i think you should expect him to rely on it rather than dump a bunch of inexperienced people in. the proper relationship is to put the experienced ministers in now and let the younger mps take secondary roles, to learn portfolios under tutelage. you know: earning your way up. appointments on merit, not ethnicity. that's how the liberals have always functioned, because they've always had the benefit of being able to orchestrate an orderly generational transition. the martin purge hurt that a little, but not enough to dismantle it.

there's no deficit of qualified female candidates, either. he's got plenty to work with. he doesn't need an affirmative action program. i mean, i'd question the logic if he did - but he doesn't.

the truth is that trudeau knows he's going to have to rely on his elders quite a bit himself, for the next couple of years. the bennetts, dions, goodales, mccallums and whatnot are going to be key for the next couple of years. and, that shouldn't be a secret to the ottawa citizen.

ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/cabinet-making-whos-on-trudeaus-shortlist

Don Betton
Based on your arguement if the women have the experince and skils they will get selcted without a quota to maybe more than 50% of the Cabinet. However setting a quota is unacceptable. You are now justifying discrimination based on sex....try to think of the situation reversed. A comparable situation would be promoting 50% men if there were 75% women in a workplace......would you accept such an approach in reverse???

Jessica Amber Murray

yes, actually.

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my comment disappeared fast. lol.

it's the liberal party, lee. it's not the diversity committee at the occupy encampment. the gender thing is legit, and there shouldn't be a serious debate about it. but, they don't appoint you to cabinet for being italian. they tell you to get in line and work your way to the top.

well, i blew the day learning how to edit videos. it should be a faster process, moving forward. it turned out to be fairly intuitive. but, it was also a learning process regarding a few things. the camera jitter was more than i expected; it turns out there's an easy fix ("stabilize"), but i should be more aware of it. also, i recorded today at 320p because i wanted to conserve memory card space on the way to the store to get a bigger card, and i don't think it's quite good enough. exposure in the basement is bad, but it turns out i can fix it in editing. the audio on the device is fine. all in all, i think i can work quite well with this device. today's upload is going to look pretty amateur, but hopefully that will resolve itself in a few days.

i'll post the first vlog here when it's done uploading, but i won't post them here daily. this site is for music updates. if you want to follow the vlog, follow the vlog. that is, on youtube.

so, no testing today. i think i should get some done tomorrow.

yeah, i'm...

i'm not going to dissuade standing up to a bully. but the thing is that it doesn't work. telling kids they're being mean, when they're intentionally being mean, is actually just reinforcing them. it's rewarding negative behaviour with the attention that they're consciously seeking.

schoolyard bullying is all about establishing hierarchies - pecking orders. it's about establishing dominance and submission. i know it's natural for an adult to want to cuddle a child that's being teased, but it's the same basic twinge of empathy you get when you see a wolf pack fighting for dominance, or even a lion killing a zebra. it's very much a normal, cycle of life kind of thing. and, when you intervene like this you're just reinforcing the premise - that this child is an easy target, at the bottom of the hierarchy.

a better idea is to give the kid that's being bullied the tools to defend itself. in extreme cases, that it is legitimately going to require physical force. i used to get picked on when i was a kid because i was a scrawny, passive bookworm. i'd come home with bruises from being pushed around. my parents' reaction to this was to put me in karate - and i'll tell you that a few ninja moves did a lot to get some kids to back off, even if i never had to actually use it. and, in fact they teach you that when you take self-defense - it's never meant to be used, it's just meant to look scary. i'll acknowledge that i was maybe the exception in being smart enough to realize that at nine-ten years old and use it to my advantage. it didn't work in changing my attitudes towards things (i never got over my shyness enough to actually engage in any kind of sparring at the dojo, and i didn't keep up with it past the age of twelve - i really hated it), but sending me to these classes gave me an incredibly useful tool of intimidation when it was necessary. and, it was probably the only thing that ever could have worked because i remained an easy target.

in less extreme circumstances, like depicted here, the key is getting the kids to have the self-assurance to realize that what these kids say doesn't matter, or even to counter with comebacks.

the old cliche that you have to stand up to a bully is the flat truth of it.

nah, that's bullshit - the innocence is a ruse. it's like that episode of the simpsons, with the preacher's daughter, jessica, who gets bart in all kinds of trouble. the ones that pretend to be innocent are actually the truly evil ones. it's a mask. trust me on this.

and, those yoga instructors? nine out of ten know the game they're playing. get them out behind the studio, smoke a joint with them, and they'll tell you it's just all a lot of bullshit and they know it, but it pays the rent and gets them laid, so why not go with it?

but, to the guy that's asking the question: she likes older guys. it's not at all uncommon. there's lots of reasons. experience. money. other, creepier things. once, it's a thrill. over months? continually? she's thinking about moving in, at the time. doesn't matter if he's married. it's instant everything, including instant adulthood, and that's key. no period of struggle - just a red carpet to financial freedom. a house. a car. and, listen: why not? why go through the difficulty of sticking with some 20 year-old that could flunk out of college next week, when you can get a guy with a nest egg? it's entirely rational, which is why it's not uncommon.

what that means is that she's waiting you out. she's thinking you have a path to wealth; if you do, it probably works out. if you don't, she's going to drop you in a second to find that guy in his mid-life crisis that'll treat her like a princess for long enough to get some cash out of him.

you're 22. world's rough. deal with it.

so, the truth is that she's consistently out of key, but she's consistently out of key in exactly the same way every time.

it's easy to say "well, she's doing it on purpose. she's singing in microtones". that's rather unlikely, in pop music of this nature. the truth is likely more along the lines of that she's truly tone deaf, and she's not able to hear the wrong notes (or correct notes) properly. it's actually relatively common in pop singers, but somebody usually gets in the way and fixes it - in the past by yelling at the singer to practice, and nowadays, more often than not, by simply using autotune.

despite that, the dissonance is sort of compelling - or would be if it wasn't so repetitive. but, the repetition is a genre marker. the industry refers to this monotony with the term "hook".

there's only one singer that i'm aware of that's been able to convert being tone deaf into an actual asset, and it's the original singer from alice in chains, layne staley. he could yell pretty well, but he couldn't hit a note if his life depended on it. but, the guitarist in the band really played off of this to create all these harmonies that are just completely outside of western music theory, and the whole thing was wrapped up in a thematic package that really took it to the next level. you can hear the difference in listening to older songs performed by their new singer. the new singer is not tone deaf - he actually hits the right notes. and, the songs lose this kind of intangible (not really - i just explained it) as a consequence of it. you expect the singer to be off by that quarter tone, and are offset when the correct note is produced.

success in pop music is driven by factors that are often very far removed from musical talent, creativity or ability. i'm not suggesting her career is over, because it does not seem to have been dependent on her actual singing ability in the first place. but, it's not the first time that it's been blatantly clear that she's either tone deaf or singing in microtones, and it's really only the former that is at all likely.

a few more releases like this, though, where the most memorable part of the song is how badly it is sung, and people are going to start noticing in larger numbers.

this is extremely heavily focus grouped.

the dancers in the video are a reflection of a statistical cross-section of his audience's demographics: mostly middle aged women.

there's a valid point in here somewhere, but as is generally the case with south park, it's not articulated well - because the writers for the program are just not very smart.

the basic premise in the episode is that social media comments represent reality, and ignoring them represents escaping reality. now, i do a lot of commenting - i think it's an underappreciated medium - but this premise is comically absurd. the vast majority of comments, negative or positive, are written at a level that is below grade school - they are often incoherent, at best, and are largely written in languages that linguistics has yet to actually define.

blocking, deleting or disabling comments is consequently not in any way equivalent to tuning reality out, unless you're willing to entirely conflate reality with unbearable idiocy. it's really more equivalent to standing on your balcony and screaming to the masses, over loudspeakers: i don't fucking care what you think. and, that's relatively healthy in terms of asserting individualism.

(deleted)

but, it's an absurd premise as to why people block others. i use my killfile very liberally. it has nothing to do with my feelings; i just don't have any patience for fucking idiots, and don't think i have any obligation to give them a platform. it is absolutely not my responsibility to hear them out, ponder what they have to say and thoughtfully respond - i have every right to just smite them from my internet altogether, and be on with it.

free speech does not imply an obligation to listen.

so, telling somebody to shut the fuck up doesn't always mean you're hiding from something, or can't deal with something. quite often, what it means is that the person talking is a hopeless, irredeemable dipshit that isn't worth the thirty seconds required to block them.

but, as mentioned, there is a point in there, somewhere, buried underneath piles of absolute nonsense.