yeah.

the option is in the automated system, but there's no connection to the phone there.

what i'm going to do is assume this is a glitch and try again tomorrow. if i can't get through, i'll try the operator, instead.

what the democrats are doing is taking something that has no effect on most people, and converting it into something that visibly affects a much larger percentage of their voting base, forcing them to react in ways they shouldn't have to.

they're taking something that people may abstractly oppose, and converting into something that concretely affects them, forcing them to react in a more visceral way.

the inevitable backlash does not come in the form of "ok, i support the wall, i guess" but in the form of "i don't fucking care about the wall, but i need this service, so build it already, if that's what you have to do to get the service to operate; the service is more important to me than the wall. and who is standing in the way? it's the congress? fuck the congress."

"so, let me get this straight.

i don't get paid this week because the democrats are standing up for undocumented workers? i'm supposed to go to my landlord and tell them i can't pay them because i'm standing in solidarity with something that is undercutting my labour power? what the fuck. and, i'm paying for this, on top of it.

don't get me wrong, i don't like trump, but with allies like the democratic party..."

listen.

it's not a question of what side people take on the wall issue. as mentioned, i actually don't care if they build a wall or not. and, this isn't something that affects 95% of people directly, so that is going to be the broad response.

i've pointed out a bunch of times that i have a math degree, but i've never worked on the data side of a survey firm. i did, however, work as a survey interviewer for many years as i was going through school; my direct experience is not crunching umbers, but asking people questions. and, i know how this works better than most - you have to get somebody to answer a complicated thing with a binary response, and you get all this skewed data as a response to it.

consider the following question: would you prefer stalin or hitler?

and, the person is going to hum and haw and say they don't like either, but my responsibility as an interviewer is to get them to answer the damned question: stalin or hitler. pick. damn it.

and, if we learn that 60% of people prefer stalin to hitler, does that mean that 60% of people support stalin? remember: he's dead. he can't hurt you.

trump may not win this argument directly, but i never said that he would. so, you can do all of this polling and come up with these awful results and deduce he's losing - then end up baffled when he wins re-election with a 30% approval rating, because the democrats are running at 25%. and, this is the danger the democrats are running up against with this: you don't have to actively support the wall to get pissed off that the government is shut down. you don't have to be pro-trump to turn on the democrats for being obstructionist. you don't even have to oppose illegal immigration to get frustrated by not being able to go camping.

the error the democrats are making is in thinking that they're going to be able to deflect this all to trump. they won't - they're going to have to eat a substantial percentage of this. the last time that nancy pelosi was in charge of congress it had a 9% approval rating at it's lowest point, i believe, which makes trump look popular in comparison.

so, i will state what i said previously. the obvious kneejerk is to blame trump, and i don't know how long that holds for. but, the democrats are the one playing a dangerous game here, not trump - the longer this goes on for, the more they risk a backlash. that backlash may not translate to republican support, so much as it manifests itself in apathy towards the democrats, which is probably their bigger threat amongst certain demographics. but, they can't win this, in the long run - they can just turn voters against them.

if it was something more substantive, it could be different. but, nobody wants to suffer to avoid building a wall that doesn't affect them in any way at all. and, people are eventually just going to be looking for the easiest way to get paid - as they find themselves abandoned by a democratic party that is either more interested in questionable abstract symbolism than economic facts, or in undocumented workers than unionized labour.

that's odd.

i used to be able to get through to transcripts through the general line; it's no longer a valid option. hrmmn.

i'll try again after 1:30.

i've decided to wait. again. i just don't want to act prematurely. i got a little eager last month and want to learn from it - i want to be aggressive about this, but careful in my approach. i believe i have a year to file the discrimination lawsuit. but it's really the suit against the cops that i feel is more lucrative, and i'm not acting on that until i get the report against the cop in, which i'm now being told i'll need to wait until early february for.

i want to file everything i'm filing in the court house all at the same time....that would be the constitutional challenge against the cops and the request for original audio.

i have to reiterate the absurdity of what i'm doing: i'm asking the justice to release original recordings, under suspicion of somebody altering the record. it's only not crazy because i'm so sure that i'm right. and, until i can demonstrate my point, i understand that i'm going to be viewed as a loose cannon. i'm really dreading having to walk in and do it. but i don't have a choice, given that i'm certain it was altered.

what i need to do is talk to somebody in the transcript office about how the data is stored, and at least get some information about somebody that i can ask about it - because i don't expect the justice to know, off of the top of her head. i need to be able to prevent a clear and concise request.

so, the way this is shaping up is that i'll probably get this all filed at the same time in late february or early march. for the day, i want to make these calls.

fwiw, daddy went to work today for the first time in a while, and it seems like this kid - who does not appear to go to any sort of school - is sitting upstairs chain smoking.

i initially toyed with just ratting her out, but i can't believe he doesn't know.

so, he seems to have signed a non-smoking lease with the downstairs tenant, all the while allowing his underage daughter to smoke in the house.

i'm going to have to make a complaint at some point, but not until i'm able to follow it through, somehow, and that is going to be difficult, for a while. i'm still kind of hoping i can wait it out - that she goes to school or gets a job or moves out or something.

why is my life such a constant stream of absurdity?

ok.

i'm going to make some calls. at least. here i go...

the s-300 systems are not currently operational, as there is nobody in syria that is trained to operate them.

this is a lengthy process. it could be months, still, before they are operational - over very loud voices of protest from tel aviv.

https://www.businessinsider.com/russias-s-300-didnt-stop-israeli-from-airstrikes-on-iran-in-syria-2019-1

if you want to support an actual indigenous movement in the region, the kurds are not the people to support - they are ultimately aryan invaders from the north, some combination of scythians and mitanni with a deep, if polluted, heritage in the steppes.

as i've stated before, they should probably be relocated to iran, or even sent to siberia.

the indigenous populations of the region are semites and caucasians, specifically assyrians and armenians. and, the kurds were actually complicit in the genocide...

this is the indigenous movement to support, and it requires throwing the kurds out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_independence_movement

people pushing for a kurdistan don't really understand the history well, or don't care to as they push their own strategies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Assyrian_population_1914.svg

the kurds historically live in a region that is about 20% of the area that they're currently occupying, the balance of which is historically semitic.

this was not and cannot become a war of conquest for the kurds.

that land needs to be returned to some kind of sunni-assyrian confederacy, under broad syrian control.

well, no. the kurds don't have this kind of a say in the matter.

they are occupying an area that they liberated from fascists, but that doesn't give them the right of conquest, or something. and, see, this is why this rojava group gets contradictory reactions from anarchists....when you look under the surface, they're quickly exposed as just another stalinist cult.

the kurds did not conquer northern syria, they liberated it.

and, they need to go home, now.

the correct thing to do here is bring the united nations in.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/syrian-kurds-reject-turkey-controlled-security-zone-190116081756141.html

i'm really suffering from a lack of motivation, right now. i have very little energy, very little drive. i just want to sleep.

i called my grandmother on monday, and it took away the entire day. tuesday was mostly spent sleeping. i guess i'll try again today, but i'm just so drained....

i'm almost certain at this point that the problem is that teenager upstairs, but i'm not sure how to deal with it. it remains the case that my best way out is to sue the cops, but i have to get enough energy to fight through the effects of her habits, first.

i signed a non-smoking lease for a reason, but he can't evict his teenaged daughter. i'd have to sue for damages to my health on the way out. but, i'd have to find a way to prove it, first.

i just want a clean, healthy, stable place to live so i can work on my art, and it's very depressing that it's so difficult to find.

are there enough of a russian identity in israel for putin to do the world a favour and take a run at likud by supporting a new political party?