i'd better shut up, or somebody's gonna slip some hemlock in my beer.

"can you explain the nuances of your position in the israeli-palestinian conflict?"

*pause*

fuck christgau.

i'm on this side, dammit.

hey, i didn't say i wanted to slaughter or scatter the people.

i just said i wanted to kill their idols.

and, you'd have to destroy it good, too.

- burn it.
- bulldoze it.
- burn it again.
- ship the remains off to the ends of the earth in unmarked containers to be buried in unmarked, unknown locations.
- burn it a third time.
- pave it. 

i've got some italian in me, i guess.

but, if you want me to take a side, that's the side i'm on.

put another way: i am equally opposed to both sides in the conflict.

you'll notice that i don't tend to take sides in these sorts of things, and it's really not because i'm some kind of milquetoast fence sitter - it's because i actually don't support either side.

the faction i would support here would be a secular left that wants to tear down the temple/mosque complex and turn it into a fucking parking lot.

crazy arab: god gave me this land.
crazy jew: no. god gave me this land.

sane analysis: there is no such thing as god.

so, regarding harris' performance...

she's not such a great actor.

that is all.

what they don't have is the right to hold the people around them in inhumane living conditions to advance their own self-interest. that's not a right, it's a violation of the rights of others.

"but, then you reject israel's right to exist."

rights are things that states define; they're rules that exist within themselves. who defines the rules as to which states exist? nobody. so, states can't have rights, it's a contradiction in terms.

i would support israel's opportunity to exist, but if it gets outbred, then it loses, and that's their problem.

i pulled that out of the rebuild from oct, 2013.

maybe it's a good time to remind people that i actually reject a two-state solution in the region, because i reject the premise of ethnic nationalism. i don't think you should have separate states based on religious or ethnic identities, based on justifications from an iron age work of fiction. i think that everything about that idea is thoroughly, completely insane.

rather, i would support a single state solution where jews and arabs have equal voting rights, equal rights to buy property, etc. and, if that takes a long time to actually happen in reality, then we'll just have to wait it out.

i always say they should give it back to the neanderthals.

what i'll point out is this though: so far, this year, the jet stream has won these struggles rather handily.

in fact, it's been that way for the better part of the last five years.

if the ocean starts winning these fights, that's a signal regarding the strength of the next solar cycle.

you can really see what i mean about the jet stream, here:

it's like an evil force field.

the article attached to that picture points out that ocean temperatures in the atlantic are warmest at this time of the year, but it forgets that the sun is also bottoming out. nobody has the right data required to run this properly at a distance of more than a day or two.

but, if the spike in the ocean wins out over the dip in the solar magnets, i'm more likely to get a break down here in windsor than they are up in ottawa, which means we may get a week or two more after all.

if the jet stream overpowers, it's going to be a very early fall.

i kid.

but, no: being drunk in public doesn't disqualify her from holding office.

and, you can take your "right thinking" right out the fucking door, alright?

listen, it doesn't matter.

this has to be a protest election.

yeah, yeah, yeah.

but, i'm not running for prime minister, am i?

for better or for worse, i'm not.

really.

we're tipping over towards a green sweep faster than elizabeth may at a wedding.

this tipping point...

it's almost as tipsy as elizabeth may, herself.

canada could revolt hard this election.

https://thenarwhal.ca/canadians-in-every-riding-support-climate-action-new-research/

there's lots of great educational documentaries on youtube, so why would i want to pay to rot my brain with shit like that?

but, i mean, in context?

you'd probably have to pay me to use it, actually.

i couldn't imagine sitting around streaming sitcoms.

i'm willing to pay for one broadband connection service.

so, i don't pay for a phone, i don't pay for cable and i'm not going to pay to stream movies or music, either.

if it's not on youtube, i don't care about it.

listen: i'm not sure i even know what netflix is.

does it have a youtube channel?

'cause i'm not paying for it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_Crisis_of_1944

so, do i think that orthodox jews should be given conscientious objector status? man, that's a minefield.

i think it should be obvious that i oppose conscription in the first place. but, if conscription is necessary, then i guess i'd have to necessarily lean support towards the side that is arguing against conscription, necessarily. but, i'd want to expand the terms. that is, there should be a way out, but not just for orthodox jews. a secular pacifist should also be able to claim conscientious objector status. if you're going to do this at all...

but, hey, if we can finally get rid of netanyahu, right?

i'm not going to pretend i have a grasp on this. it's messy, and complicated. i'm just optimistic that a new era in israel is days away...

classic sequence.

https://www.tildedave.com/byron.html

also:
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/10/07/planned-obsolescence/

it would be nice to see a red tory tradition (re)-assert itself in the united states, partly because it would make it that much easier for the democrats to actually focus.

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

he reminds me a bit of hugh segal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Segal

stated differently: in canada, yang would be a conservative. clearly.

yang seemed to have a better grasp of the situation, but he seemed to think it was a secondary issue, and was constantly trying to either change the topic or relate it to something else. this is frustrating. at the end of the day, he might support some incentivizing measures, but i wouldn't expect him to support much of anything that would be in any way inconvenient to the investor class - and he's not going to be at all interested in the kind of major state-led initiatives and investments that are required to actually solve the problem, at this stage. so, despite having a better grasp of the severity of the issue, he had a far worse grasp on the steps necessary to address it, and seemed to perceive it as less important than talking to people about their wallets.

put together, he sounds like what they used to call a "moderate" republican. and, i would plead with him: everybody would be better off if these ideas were floated in that party, instead.

he's the kind of potential legislator i'd like to see a democratic minority compromise with, not the kind of potential legislator i'd want to actively vote for.