i want to post some comments about syria, though.

it's clear at this point that if trump ever understood what he's doing then he already forgot. the premise that the turks are going to slaughter civilians by the thousands is not real, and the kurds are clearly not going to leave on their own. so, i don't know how you make sense of trump's analysis of his own behaviour. but, that's pretty normal - he's often incoherent, and he often contradicts himself in the same sentence.

a part of my position on this matter from the start is that the kurds need to pick better friends. they shouldn't have expected perpetual protection from the hegemon; that was not realistic, regardless of who is president, in the long run. this was not if, but when.

but, everybody else in the region - the russians, the turks, the syrians, the iranians, the saudis - have a much clearer understanding of what happens next. so, even if the truth is that trump got tricked into this, by who we don't know, he still made the right choice, by accident.

how is this supposed to work? well, we saw a preview of it a while back. the goal, here, is syrian territorial integrity, in the end, which requires pushing the kurds out - the war can't end until the kurds go home. they don't want to leave, though. so, how do you get them out?

1) the turks threaten to bomb them. if they just threaten them, and they're rational, that should be enough to get them to leave - they should know they can't win and give up. unfortunately, the kurds have demonstrated repeatedly that they're not rational actors, that they think they can beat the odds through manifest destiny or whatever other ridiculous thing, and you can't manipulate them through incentives or game theory like that. they don't seem to have that department in their military, unlike all the state actors involved.

2) so, if you can't treat the kurds rationally, if you have to bomb them to get them to move, what you do next is offer the syrians up as protectors. the western media is presenting this as some kind of catastrophe, but it's exactly what the plan should have been from the start. by integrating the kurds back into assad's forces, and maybe you even have them fight a few battles together, you reconstruct a concept of syrian nationality in the kurdish rebels. by fighting side by side, they once again become brothers.

3) the turks have to play along, here, in order to get this to work. yes, they have to blow up a few cities, kill a few civilians. c'est la guerre. it's not like a lot of people haven't already died, here, or the united states isn't already responsible for truly outrageous levels of carnage. but, they're not there to massacre civilians. err, i mean - tell that to the kurds, sure, let them believe that. the turks want to slaughter you like it's 1915, kurds. boo! it's not real, though - the turks know what will happen if they do that. and, what is the evidence? i think the death toll is a few dozen civilians, at this point. i'm sorry to call them collateral, but they won't leave. they won't act rationally. it is, in many ways, their own fault.

4) then, once the syrians have reestablished themselves as the dominant and rightful force in the region, the turks pull back - as they intended to from the start.

so, what is this about?

it's about scaring the kurds back into assad's arms.

and, i know that the saudis and their muppets in washington hate that, but it's the responsible way to get this done and over with.

if trump understood what he did, that's what he'd be saying, right now.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

me?

i don't give a fuck if you're so goddamned stupid that you actually think i'm a racist.

i know i'm not, and i know people that know me know i'm not, so why the fuck would i care what you think?

i want you to think that i'm honest. that's what i want.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

and, i'll remind you that these were the bc numbers in 2015:

liberals -35%
conservatives - 30%
ndp - 26%

"surging" from 14 to 23 at the last minute isn't much of a win, when you're still down 2-3 points - that's still going to lose you some seats. 

that is, if it's happening at all - if the truth isn't just that people don't want you to think they're racist.

the liberals ar5e supposed to do better than this

see, even this goofy online propaganda says the same thing.

all logic suggests that if the ndp are experiencing growth, it should be at the expense of the liberals, in some combination - in conjunction with undecideds and greens perhaps, and conservatives if it's strong, but there should be some swing, there.

but, the liberals are actually up.

there's a big swing from the undecideds, and a small swing from the conservatives and from the greens. who are the liberals pulling from, then?

i'm actually not surprised about the numbers in bc - i expected them to hold some seats there, unless the greens really picked up momentum, and they haven't. i've made this point explicitly; the spectrum is different in bc, and the ndp are broadly seen differently, there. they might even have a base there, which they don't even have in saskatchewan any more.

but, even this looks phony.

i think they're going to be disappointed, in the end.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

if i don't get a sufficient response on the plumbing, the case i file is going to focus on the heat, as well.

the law says that the heat needs to be above 20 degrees celsius. that's not an opinion - that's the law. i'd rather it was closer to 25; i would have the heat on until june, and turn it on in september. so, i need to get a thermometer down here and start documenting it...

if i get a rational response on the plumbing, i'll overlook it, as i have been for some time. but, i'm not going to hold back, if i have to file - i'm going to throw the book at him, all at once.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i had to lie down for a few hours (i didn't actually sleep. but i was so exhausted i couldn't move, for some reason that might be related to the air quality. i don't know...), but the first run through the master document is in fact now done.

it's very cold in here. and, i didn't get a chance to seriously address the drain. so, i'm going to need to deal with laundry and stuff, get something to eat and then presumably actually sleep.

i should get a second pass in soon enough, and then i'll get to start posting to pretty soon. again: there's not plot this month, it's almost entirely blogging and music. which is what i wanted....

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

also, the sewers are acting up again...

and, yes, i can tell the difference between a sewer gas and a gas leak. the sewer gas comes out of the cleanout. the gas leak comes out of the heater. given that they're on opposite sides of the closet, it's not hard to figure out, so long as you stay on top of it, which i have.

so, we're going to have to dump another 50L or so down there before i get to bed..

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

yeah, i'm putting the chances of going out tomorrow at roughly 10%.

the actual reason is that my throat is still a little raw. i never really made it up past 90% health - i may have gotten a little worse a few days ago, and then kind of flatlined around it. i'm certainly feeling relatively healthy and everything, but maybe bicycling across detroit in 15 degree weather (and back in 10 degree weather) isn't the best idea right now.

i'll see how i feel tomorrow.

it's also going to depend on if i can actually patch that tire or not, and i don't want to look at it until i wake up, which should be in the morning.

this master document tends to misbehave fairly predictably. the computer flat out crashed last night when i was sleeping; i don't seem to have lost anything, but i don't see any good reason for the crash, either. and, the document froze on me this afternoon, making me start over on the time consuming web page section, after i was half done.

i'm half done again and have it saved, at least. but it should be done by now. alas...

i was hoping for before noon; it looks like before i crash makes more sense. and, if i'm in, i should get most of it done with by the time i leave the house again next, which would be monday.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

ok.

time to shower, and get back to work,

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

what are the eight seats that the ndp have in ontario, and how safe are they?

- three in windsor
- one in london
- two in hamilton
- two in the north (one of them is sort of sudbury, the other is an "unsettled" or largely indigenous area)

the federal ndp do not currently have any seats in ottawa or toronto.

in years past, hamilton was "safe" for the ndp. but, trudeau won seats here in 2015, and it's an overwhelmingly white union town. when the numbers were hovering around 10%, this was vulnerable. at 15-16%, they could maybe hold on - but if they dip any lower than that, don't be surprised if the liberals win these seats.

the london seat is vulnerable, as it's a three-way race. the sudbury seat is vulnerable, as the liberals do well here - it's more like rural quebec than rural ontario.

the ndp has, in recent decades, done very well in the northern areas - northern quebec, northern ontario, northern manitoba, northern saskatchewan and northern bc, too. the ndp will probably hold this. if anything is safe, it's this.

what's left is windsor, and the riding i'm in is not safe, because there's a very strong challenger. the riding to the south of here actually usually leans conservative. and the riding i used to be in is actually a bit more wealthy, and arguably more vulnerable than the one i'm in. it has voted liberal in the past...

again: if the numbers are trending up, these are the places they're trending in, and there's reason to think they'll hold them. but, if there's actually a bradley effect at play, and those numbers we saw last month were more accurate, there's not really any compelling evidence to think they can hold any of these seats, except that one in the far north.

they don't really have a base of voters in this province.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

what are the fifteen seats the liberals can win in the west?

- about seven-ten seats around vancouver
- ralph
- about five-seven seats around winnipeg

what are the fifteen seats the ndp can win?

- a few in manitoba
- a few in saskatchewan
- probably not that one in edmonton
- the ndp have historically won seats in both urban and rural brtish columbia. there's likely at least ten there for them, if they're still running over 20%.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i think i'm ready to make a final forecast. i'll let you know if this changes.

these are nik's numbers for yesterday:

conservative - 28.8
liberals - 28.7
ndp 17.3
greens - 8.6
bloc - 5.6
people's - 1.6
lost - 0.4
undecided - 9.0

over the last week, the liberals and conservatives have been more or less flat, while the undecideds have moved to the ndp.

i think this is a bradley effect. but, i suspect a lot of these voters are also a little younger and unlikely to actually vote. so, i'm going to to split the difference, and readjust:

conservative - 28.8
liberals - 28.7
ndp 15.0
greens - 8.6
bloc - 5.6
people's - 1.6
lost - 0.4
undecided - 11.3

this is where turnout matters, and i where i introduce jessica's theorem, aka the fundamental principle of canadian elections: the conservatives do terrible with undecided voters. they get maybe 20% of them. the greens also tend to underperform, and while it looked otherwise earlier, it doesn't look that way anymore.  let's get them 5%. i'm also just going to give the bloc an extra 1% and the ppc an extra 0.475% and leave it at that.

that leaves 7% to distribute between the liberals and the ndp, and the results of the election will depend on how that works.

as mentioned, i think there is a bradley effect, but i'm actually going to point more to the liberal ground game. i've yet to see an election where it works out the other way, at least. so, i'm going to give the liberals 5% of this and the ndp the rest.

lib - 33.7 %
con - 31.1 %
ndp - 17.0 %
greens - 9.2%
bloc - 6.6 %
ppc - 2.1 %

those numbers are not that strange. but, you need to look regionally to understand the results.

the ndp and conservatives are outperforming their average in the west, and underperforming it in the east; the liberals, the opposite. so, i'm going to split the country in half. there are 104 seats in the west, and 231 seats in the east. there are also 3 seats in the north.

in the west, including bc, the conservatives seem likely to win by large margins, while the ndp and liberals fight it out for second place. in 2015, the totals in the west were as follows:

liberals - 29
conservatives - 54
ndp - 20
greens - 1

at current numbers, ignoring any bradley effect, the ndp may be able to keep their existing seats if the decrease in liberal support does not benefit the conservatives too much, and the increase in green support does not affect them too negatively. i think this is all too optimistic for the ndp. rather, we're going to take them down by a few seats. it does not, however, appear as though the greens are likely to make a breakthrough, after all. rather, i would expect the conservatives to gain a number of seats from the liberals in the west, and the outcome will look something like:

liberals - 15
conservatives - 70
ndp - 15
greens - 4

defeating the liberals will be pyrrhic for the anti-pipeline forces in bc, but the question really remains open: does the federal ndp even oppose the pipeline in the first place? the greens are your best bet here, in the long run. but, i'm not voting for them on monday, either - i get it.

in the east, the 2015 totals were rather different:

liberals - 152
conservatives - 45
ndp - 24
bloc - 10
greens - 0

at current numbers, the ndp are likely to lose all of their 16 seats in quebec (where they are down at least 15 points) and some, but not all, of their seats in ontario (where they are roughly flat). it would not appear as though they will gain seats in ontario, anyways; how many they lose would appear to rely on the strength of the presumed bradley effect. i see little evidence that they're going to pick up seats in the east. that will leave them with around 5 seats, at best.

the liberals are also roughly flat in ontario, but the conservatives are down dramatically, at the apparent benefit of the greens. this combination - ndp & liberals flat, conservatives down, greens up - is just about the best outcome that the liberals could possibly ask for. they may only steal a seat or two from the ndp in ontario, but they should steal 25+ from the conservatives, and in areas that are usually conservative locks, too.

expect something like this in ontario:

liberals - 110
conservatives - 6
ndp - 5

in 2015, quebec was a complicated four-way race that was difficult to call, resulting in split races with weird results. with the retreat of the ndp (mostly to the benefit of the bloc), you should see something more predictable in this election: the bloc should sweep the rural areas, while the liberals sweep montreal, gatineau and the south shore urban spaces and the conservatives nab a few seats in quebec city. that means you should expect the conservatives to lose a few seats, actually - and that the liberals may be able to hold steady, if they're lucky. but, the bloc will be the big winners here.

i do want to temper this slightly, though. i haven't seen a poll with the bloc above 30%, yet. they used to poll way, way higher than that in the duceppe years, and it does open up a few questions - is there enough lingering ndp support to help the liberals on the split? how may seats can they actually win with 30%?

i'm going to suggest the following in quebec:

liberals - 40
bloc - 30
conservatives - 8
ndp - 0

in 2015, the liberals won all 32 eastern seats, and ran over 50% in all four provinces. nobody predicted that. they have nowhere to go but down, but they are still leading the region by a good margin in all of the polling that i've seen. the greens may beat the ndp in this region, but they are taking support from the ndp itself, and i don't see any evidence that they'll actually win anywhere. that said, the east is likely to actually like elizabeth may for who she is, so some space for an upset should be accounted for.

that said, i think the reality is that the conservatives are not actually running much higher here than they were in 2015, and that the movement on the left is largely to be mostly inconsequential. it would be very unlikely for the liberals to sweep the region a second time, but nobody else is really stepping up, either.

something like the following is likely:

liberals - 27
conservatives - 5
ndp - 0
greens - 0

that adds up to a big win for the liberals in the east:

liberals - 177
bloc-  30
conservative - 19
ndp - 5

yeah. ontario...

there's three seats in the north, and they usually vote liberal.

so, here's my prediction:

liberals - 195
conservatives - 89
bloc - 30
ndp - 20
greens - 4

that would be a liberal majority.

what are some issues to draw attention to?

as mentioned, the greens are a wild card out east, but they're also a wild card in rural ontario. if they underperform in ontario, you could see the conservatives lose a few less seats; if they overperform, they could lose a few more. likewise, the greens could produce some confusing results in the east, but i'm not predicting it.

there's some possibility that the ndp could overperform these results in bc, as well, but we're talking a few seats, and i would consider that error.

in 2015, i tallied up 169 seats for the liberals - one seat short of a majority. so, my prediction was a strong liberal minority or a weak liberal majority (subject to error). most of the models actually predicted a harper minority, although some of the smarter kids clued in at the very end - but nobody that i know of predicted a liberal majority, except one forum poll released a few hours before the vote. the reason they got it right was because they picked up a last minute mass movement to the liberals in quebec, specifically. and, that was my error - i was suggesting a stronger showing by the bloc. i overestimated the bloc tally by 15 seats - the amount the liberals were short by. i was also dead-on with my conservative numbers.

if i'm wrong in 2019, it will likely be an overestimate by the liberals of roughly the same amount, and probably in ontario. but, 195 seats is actually a fairly comfortable majority, and i can eat that and still get the outcome right.

so, that's my prediction: a weak or comfortable liberal majority, but a liberal majority, nonetheless.

the liberals are still supposed to do better than this

the logic the governor-general should use is this:

1) a conservative government will certainly be short-lived.
2) a liberal government might last close to four years.
3) therefore, the liberals should get the first crack.

but, the liberals cannot need to rely on bloc support.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

trudeau and martin both represented governments that had been in power for more than ten years, and resigned because they thought they were at a dead end.

that is probably not the case, here - this is trudeau's second election, he is young, and he would have a realistic chance of quickly winning another majority, should he want one. does he actually want one?

but, what is the actual rule, here? may is technically right, but she's maybe missing the point, as per usual.

what the governor-general is supposed to do is figure out who has the best chance at forming a stable government. the overriding concern is to prevent another election. the conservatives have no clear coalition partner, so allowing them to form a government would be necessitating an election within a year or two - which is what the governor-general is supposed to act to avoid.

it's going to depend on the strength of the minority. if trudeau needs bloc support to pass a budget (in addition to ndp and green support), and the conservatives have more seats, he should resign. but, if he can present a reasonably stable coalition to the governor-general, he should do so, regardless of who has more seats - because the conservatives will fall quickly, regardless.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/scheer-modern-canadian-convention-1.5324463

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

in 2015, i didn't really vote for justin trudeau. i really voted for stephane dion. but, it was driven by the local choices - my business-liberal local candidate actually ran against nafta, and my ndp candidate was known for being an anti-science hippie in the local activist community.

if i get out of the house on monday to vote - and it should at least be nice out - i'm going to vote for the local liberal candidate, who was a left-leaning cabinet minister in the mcguinty government and a top tier leadership candidate at one point, over my sitting mp, who is a wasted seat in the house. it's one of those elections where the choice, locally, is obvious. sandra pupatello is clearly the better candidate, and if i vote for her, i'm voting for her.

but, i'm also voting for the secular legacy of the liberal party in opposition to the christian legacy of the ndp. and, i'm doing so with the intent of trying to right the party's course.

i don't feel that letting singh or may into government would advance my interests, as a secular leftist; i think it would set me back, by forcing them into consultation with the religious left. i was hoping for something different, but i have to face the facts. and, i do hope the options around a minority government are better in four years. right now, i'd rather give them back a majority, and agitate for change within the party - i think we're better off doing this then putting our hopes in the hands of a fundamentalist sikh, or an equally fundamentalist christian.

so, don't mistake my vote for an endorsement. and, don't mistake me for a trudeau supporter, either. i still want trudeau to resign asap, and i will continue to shit disturb.

i'm just doing what i think is in my own self-interest, as best as it is, in the terms i define it in.

she can win this riding, and i hope she does.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i am a hard leftist.

but, i'm also a creature of the enlightenment.

and, at the end of the day, the most important thing for me is to ensure that people motivated by religious views are not able to seize power. that's my meta-spectrum: atheism v. religion. in the name of copernicus, and socrates, and galileo...

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

if things were "normal", the conservatives and ndp would be splitting the religious vote, and the liberals would be running high as the default secularists.

but, the liberals are in an identity crisis. and, elizabeth may's hard right turn at the last minute isn't helping, either.

things will have to eventually right themselves.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

we'll see.

but, understand...

if they come in in the end at 15, 16, 17 then what that means is that the pollsters that had them higher - like nanos - were right the whole time, and that the pollsters that had them lower were wrong. that would still be a very poor showing, and they would still lose a lot of seats. with the ndp, the difference between 19 and 14 is nearly the difference between everything and nothing. but, it wouldn't be the clean wipe that they were facing when they were dwindling around 10-12 in some polls. don't argue that 17% support is a win for jagmeet singh; it's not, especially considering the circumstances. if they had run somebody like meghan leslie, they probably would have beaten the liberals.

if they come in at 10-14, then the pollsters that had them lower were right, and we'll be face to face with a bradley effect that we'll have to talk about. the media certainly set us up for it...

....and, if they do poll higher than that, it's increasingly clear that it's because they're pulling from the right of the spectrum, which is...it's not unpredictable. i predicted that, eventually. it's just ahead of schedule. they were supposed to get decimated this election, and then rebuild as a religious and right-wing party that is most attractive to recent immigrants, allowing the liberals to reclaim their historical position as secularists.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i mean, i can tell you that it was predictable that secular leftists - the core of the ndp's base since layton tried to push the religious elements out of the party - would have a hard time voting for a sikh fundamentalist. that's clearly a non-starter for their own voters, and for much of the swing on the left.

but, maybe, the idea of conservatives voting for him is a little easier to get your head around - if they're otherwise exceedingly low information, and don't particularly care about actual policy (which is a lot of conservatives, isn't it?).

and, if you want to reduce it to the religious symbols law, that makes sense, too. the only place in canada that strenuously opposes the bill is alberta - the most conservative province, by a large margin. that's the argument i've been making the whole time: this debate should be between conservatives that support tradition and religious identity, and liberals trying to get rid of it.

as mentioned: i do think there's a bradley effect, here.

but, have we finally figured out how to cut into this unmoveable conservative base?

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

i crashed around 19:00 and was up around 2:00.

and, i've got all of the local data in the master document except for the web page stuff, which is next. 70 files. if i can get it done before noon, we're in good shape.

it's a much smaller document - about half of the size of october. the focus is mostly on the music for november, as well, although there's a number of book reviews interspersed. and, dtk starts for real near the end of the month...

i should also have liner notes for inri001, inri003, inri016, inri027, inri028 and inri029 on the way.

so, this could be a productive weekend, if i stay in, as i think i will.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

the sewers have been ok, but now we're getting a gas leak.

is this just the result of turning it on for the year? or is it something more serious?

i also wonder if the two things are interrelated. well, i need a plumber, right?

i still have to run the hot water to burn it off. but, at least i can separate the smells better, now, and figure out what is what.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this

as mentioned, i'm not willing to concede movement until i see some polling over 20, and i still haven't.

...but this swing from the conservatives to the ndp continues to show up.

this is weird. the polling is suggesting a large swing from the conservative party to the socialist party - multiple firms are picking this up. unless a large amount of conservatives became socialists overnight, it's not ideologically driven - this bump, however real or not real it is, and it's still simply not clear, isn't being driven by policy.

so, i'll let you answer the question, is this:

1) random fluctuations driven by various types of sample bias, like the long weekend.
2) a bradley effect.
3) a rising south asian identity vote.

i'm going with a little bit of each.

but, i expect the final numbers to be lower.

regardless, the modelling is misinterpreting this. if we're seeing a big swing from the conservatives to the ndp amongst asian voters, that's going to happen in the 905 (and maybe in vancouver). and, it's going to help the liberals, not the ndp.

the liberals are supposed to do better than this