12-08-2016: listening started, but overshadowed by long rants. mp3---sansa---201s.

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

j reacts to the dangers of modelling with uniform swings while ignoring geography

this is exactly the kind of uniform swing distribution that i spent months yelling about last fall and in the end failed horribly. clinton's theoretical advantage in red states around the mississippi suggests that she should gain voters there much, much faster than she would in the western part of the red state block (rockies/prairies). so, a ten point lead nationally should give her a 15 point boost in mississippi (numbers are pulled from ass), enough to make it close, and almost no boost at all in utah. it's also ignoring what could be a significant third candidate.

i think it's too early to do this seriously, but i'll say the same thing i said about canada: you're better off trying to find a historical precedent than you are trying to find an algorithm to convert 2008 into 2016. and, one does exist. it wasn't even that long ago. and, clinton has a strong connection to him.

my best guess right now is to look at 1992 or 1996. perot got almost 20% in 1992 and less than 10% in 1996, but clinton got more electoral votes in 1996 despite winning less states. he won georgia in 1992 on the split, but won arizona in 1996 on his record. as we get closer to the election, johnson's numbers will tell us which one is a better model. but, i think that trump matches up better to bush than dole. yes, dole was seen as a doddering idiot. but, it was bush that was seen as the ideologically distant northeastern liberal.

that said, you'll have to make a couple of changes, too. it looks like she's way ahead in virginia, and she's not going to win west virginia.

but, insofar as the map starts to break? i think '92 is your road map.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-a-clinton-landslide-would-look-like/

it's a complicated debate about independent variables.

but, if you ask meteorologists, they'll tell you that you're better off finding a historical precedent than building your forecast on last season.

i'm going to be putting everything aside now to focus entirely on listening. the mri was very distracting, but i'm not as stressed out anymore - i have some answer. not what i wanted. but, the uncertainty is much less.

just to clarify...

my brain is ok regarding growths (for now), but there's something lodged in my ear. as time has progressed, i've become more and more frustrated with this ear doctor - who despite reading an mri report that indicated that something was found inside my ear, decided to discharge me. the mri demonstrated that i was right: there's something in my ear. the response is discharge? it seems like she runs a more profitable plastic surgery operation on the side. i've argued for years that cosmetic surgeons should not be allowed to run medical practices...

she got me the mri, anyways. i had to prod for it, but it wasn't a complete waste of time...

i have an appointment with another ear specialist in december that i have yet to cancel (i suspected i may want a second opinion...) and i may very well end up bringing him the mri scans. i don't have a lot of confidence in this doctor.

for right now, the second scan is scheduled for september and i'll just have to wait and see. it could be anything from a growth to a dead insect to ear wax. but, i need to be clear: the mri did pick something up. there is something in there. and, i did make the right choice in insisting i see an ear doctor rather than a neurologist.

j reacts to the question of whether bds is an environmentalist policy

you can't understand this in a vacuum. first, the green party in canada was up until this point a very unstable coalition of conservatives, right-libertarians, primitivists and environmentalists. may herself is a "progressive conservative", which nowadays is a junior leadership branch of the liberal party. she claims bds is a distraction without acknowledging that the fact that she's pro-life is a hugely unnecessary issue on the canadian left and is massively restricting their ability to gain voters. i'd be rich if you gave me a quarter for every leftist i've met that has pointed to her pro-life stance as a reason they can't vote for her. on top of that, they tend to run these market fundamentalists that are clueless about the green party platform and think the answer is more property rights - ideas that are strongly on the libertarian right. the party has no choice but to collapse in one direction or another to grow.

as it turns out, the canadian left is currently in extreme flux. after running a campaign on balanced budgets, and then being triangulated by the center-right liberals as a consequence of it, the dominant soft-left party (the ndp) is in a freefall that it might not recover from. a year ago, a lot of people were suggesting that the liberal party was dead. but, the ndp seems to have stepped in front of the bullet. this influx of green party members is coming from leftists that are fed up with the ndp and looking for a new left that is tied less to union activism and more to environmental sustainability.

in order for these leftists to take over the party, they will need to push the libertarians out of it. there's no other way this can work. may is not one of them, but she will have to go with them.

but, what does bds have to do with the environment? quite a bit, actually. and i'd like to see this point raised more often....

why do we have to support israel, again, despite the human rights atrocities? the reason is that we need a reliable ally in the middle east. is israel a reliable ally? probably not. but, the perception is that it is. so, as long as we need that reliable ally, we're stuck turning the other way as they commit this genocide in slow motion.

but, why do we need this military base in the middle east? the reason is the reliance on middle eastern oil. if we can remove our reliance on imported energy, we no longer need that ally in the middle east - and we can react accordingly. pushing for a green shift to renewables is consequently the most realistic thing that we can do, as citizens, to stand in solidarity and help stop the slaughter.

it follows that opposition to bds is the same thing as support for the fossil fuel industry, and that the greens should at least not be opposing it.

http://forward.com/opinion/347396/why-canadas-green-party-leader-might-resign-over-bds/

j reacts to the rob ford video (crack is *always* a bad idea, kids)

i think it's pretty obvious who was holding the video. this is not accidental footage. she's sober. and, she's goading him on, trying to get a reaction. the man was not intelligent enough to know who his friends and enemies were.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjdTi1r-yRQ

wait. so, the bush housing crisis is obama's fault?

this is the same kind of argument they throw around about climate change. in order to fall for it, you'd have to be literally twelve or just mentally twelve...

but, i mean, how many republicans are mentally twelve?

i won't be bothered. but, wow.

Mak Muk Was Right
It's funny because the graph he holds up shows a housing bubble and then a recovery from the housing bubble. He is painting the recovery from Bush's housing bubble as a bad thing. Totally stupid and he simply embarrasses himself more and more every day.

jessica
this isn't stupidity, it's dishonesty.

ShadowDrift
You gotta keep in mind, that during Bill's presidency he started deregulating Wall Street in the 90's, he set the ball in motion Bush just simply carried out the Legacy

jessica
you can blame it on bill, or you can blame it on the congress, who had a supermajority. it doesn't really matter anymore or have any effect on how startlingly dishonest this is.

HEY AJ
obamas fault after he become president. not only that, he didn't do anything to fix it.

jessica
but, "fixing" it means allowing the bubble to burst. the problem was that banks were lending to people who couldn't afford to pay their mortgages off. i don't want to say that home ownership rates were too high, because then i'm buying into the dishonest presentation. but you can't just hand out mortgages like welfare checks. that's why the curve flew out of control, which is why the economy collapsed in 2008.

again - your only excuse for falling for this is if you're too young to remember what happened. the only other way you fall for this is if you just don't understand what he's saying.

i don't actually think that increasing home ownership rates is a worthwhile policy goal. but, if one wanted to do this, they would create policies to increase wages - not policies to increase lending.

let's keep in mind, as well, that trump is well-positioned to benefit from a bubble in real estate should he win, as he'll be selling off his assets soon as a part of his end-of-life preparation. he's 70 years old. he'll want to skyrocket the price of land, to sell high.