actually, i would expect that annexing belarus into russia would be very popular in belarus, as it was in crimea.
we don't really seem to care much about what the people in the region actually want, and never really did. but, belarus (unlike latvia or ukraine) is really just a lost province of russia, and would in truth be happy to rejoin it.
the thing is that the russians have historically seen the need for a buffer state. so, they'd really rather not do it for that reason. but, as eastern european state after eastern european state finds itself absorbed by an aggressive, expansionist nato, that kind of logic may find itself outdated.
if the germans are trying to orchestrate a pro-western putsch, at what point do the russians say "enough" and just move in?
and, when do the russians finally retaliate?
likewise, while i don't support mandating helmets while motorcycling or bicycling as i feel that is an infringement on personal liberty (and have been firm on my refusal to wear a helmet while bicycling for years), i would be adamantly opposed to any legal regime that allows for exceptions to the rule based on "religious beliefs".
they should abolish the helmet laws....
....but, if you're going to pass a helmet law, if you must, then it should apply equally to everybody, regardless of physical characteristics or personal beliefs.
...and, if you are insistent that the law is unjust when applied to one group of people due to their beliefs, then you should conclude that it is unjust to all groups of people, and abolish it altogether.
again: i don't see a reason why fancy masks are being mandated on rcmp officers and would question the validity of the premise.
but, if the rule is that all officers have to wear a mask then all officers should have to wear a mask!
the purpose of a constitution should not be to ensure that special interest groups like sikhs are given special treatment under the law - and we should all be outraged by the premise, and outraged with anybody making arguments of the sort. again: these are burkean style arguments about tolerance. they have nothing to do with liberalism, and even less to do with socialism.
the purpose of a constitution in a system such as canada's should be to ensure that everybody has equal access to services - that women are not denied driver's licenses and transgendered people are not denied access to health care.
because, in a liberal democracy, we are not special, we are equal - whether you want equality, liberty and fraternity or you want to declare a truth as self-evident.
and, we have a responsibility, as the demos, to right this backwards sailing ship before it crashes back into the harbour.
"but, your socialist party is run by a crazy religious extremist."
exactly.
they're a controlled opposition. that's how you do it.
actual canadian leftists tend to have a lot of negative opinions about the ndp, and always have.
if you're walking around arguing for "religious freedom" and calling yourself a socialist, you've entirely missed the plot, altogether - you lost your way somewhere from a to b, you took a wrong detour and you ended up in the wrong place.
it is fundamental to any meaningful analysis of the left to oppose religion in all of it's forms.
we will never get to communism, otherwise.
leftists oppose religion as a means of statist control by the aristocracy.
"religious freedom" always was, and still is, a strictly conservative idea.
it has no place in the politics of the left. at all.
i'm a radical egalitarian. flat out.
i have no interest in this right-wing, conservative bullshit about "religious accommodation".
and, listen - i'm not going to retreat on my position regarding the absolute bullshit that is "religious freedom". this should have never found it's way into the constitution, and should be removed from it at the earliest opportunity.
all humans should be treated equally under the law, which means they should all follow the same damned rules.
having a belief doesn't make you special.
and, i will not accommodate you for it - and you can fuck off if you don't like it.
"but, it's my belief!"
that's really not a compelling argument, at all.
sorry.
if you must wear a scarf at work, you can always quit your job and find another one where you're allowed to wear a scarf.
but, i'm not given a way out with a mask law - and that's the difference, and why one thing is clearly an infringement of personal liberty, and the other really isn't at all.
and, again, this is drastically different than bill 21, which doesn't force anybody to do anything, but gives people a choice to conform to a dress code if they want to keep a job.
telling me i have to wear a mask or else is a direct threat against my security, as an individual. that's a right worth fighting for.
telling me i have to uphold a dress code or lose my job might hurt my feelings, but is ultimately giving me a choice as to what i want to do. it's not a direct threat on my security at all, and suggestions that it is are just whiny bullshit.
and, i've been clear enough that if certain businesses don't want my money then i'll go shop somewhere else.
my legal opinion around mandated mask use - which is a law i refuse to recognize. - is that the infringement of s. 7 is unquestionable. there is really no debate around this issue - a law mandating mask use is a clear infringement of the security of the person, and no judge at any level would entertain an argument, otherwise. that is just blatantly, clearly obvious.
the ambiguity is around s. 1 - because, in canada, you can pass an unconstitutional law and then argue it's justified "in a free and democratic society".
my position on this has been crystal clear from the start - the science supporting mask use is entirely non-existent, and rather leaning in the opposite direction, and has been for decades. nobody that is familiar with the literature on the topic will honestly uphold the efficacy of mask use. and, there is actually quite a lot of evidence that suggests that they can be quite dangerous in a real pandemic (ie not the common cold), if not handled properly.
citing the opinion of a "health expert" is not a valid legal argument. it's just, like, their opinion. really.
so, the legal debate at hand is really about the efficacy of mask use, and that's an argument i'm certain i would win.
i haven't been bothered about this yet, but i'm willing to take it to the supreme court if pushed on it.
it's reflective of the power that the sikh lobby has as a special interest group in this country. they're a group that is dramatically over-represented at every level of the political system, for the reason that they have very deep pockets.
i oppose the mask laws, outright - i think this is a personal choice, and any mask law is an infringement of s. 7. so, i wouldn't support forcing anybody to wear a mask at work, unless you can come up with some reason that it should be a part of the uniform - which would apply strictly to nurses and doctors, and maybe cooks.
but, if you're going to have a mask law, it should apply equally to everybody. these kinds of arguments about "religious exemptions" are specious bullshit and should be eradicated from the constitution altogether. it was the single biggest mistake his father made (under heavy pressure from people like ralph klein peter lougheed, in truth), and, sadly, just about the only thing he seems to have inherited from him.
and, while they're at it, they should force these mounties to clean themselves up a little and shave that tree off their face. there was a time when that was considered a part of basic decorum. it's just gross.
actually, this is the irony that you're probably missing:
it's actually trump that needs minority voters to win in the sun belt.
and, it's biden that needs to maintain support amongst older white voters in the rust belt.
there's some encouraging polling in ohio that is at least consistent, even if i'm skeptical about it. older white people seem to like joe biden - even if he doesn't represent them, and a vote for him is more or less against their self-interest.
so, it's sort of flipped over.
and, in the sense that it's a popularity contest rather than a political contest, biden is well positioned - for now.
and to clarify a point...
when we left for bc in mid 2003, sarah was a few months shy of 19 and i had just turned 22. so, she would have been ending first year (if she had decided to cash in her basketball scholarship) and i would have been ending third year if i had gone for the full semester, but i was born in january, which meant i was always a year older, and i was in the last class that had grade 13 (she ended at grade 12).
we were both immature, in different ways.
just dumb kids.
while i've mentioned that she ended up impregnated by somebody nearly three times her age, i don't think either of us felt the age difference was particularly daunting at the time, and i'd be surprised to hear her speak negatively of it, now.
generally, independent young women around that age seek out somebody a few years older, and sexually immature people like myself (for whatever reason) find themselves more comfortable looking beyond their direct peer groups.
she initiated everything. but, it was otherwise pretty "normal".
to be clear.
if you get sick, you will produce an immune response, and your body will remember it. your body does not forget how to fight a virus, once it's seen it. those suggesting otherwise are pushing nonsense.
however, the virus is so weak, and so easy to clear without antibodies, that a very high percentage of people don't need to produce an immune response. most of the time, that's fine; your immune system just eats it, and that's the end of it, although there are also going to be a small number of people that go into septic shock. these are the really unlucky people - the ones that have bodies that don't respond to the virus at all, until it's too late, and then end up going into this weird reaction, where your immune system essentially commits suicide.
so,
a) you can produce an immune response. that's what being sick is.
i) you win
ii) you lose.
b) you cannot produce an immune response, either
i) because you don't need one, you clear it too easily.
ii) because your body doesn't recognize the new virus as a pathogen at all, until it's too late. then, you kill yourself off, involuntarily.
vaccination heavily relies on the feasibility of option (a).
but, this virus produces option (b)(i) so often that we should expect lower success rates than virtually any other virus we've ever seen - something that admittedly took me by surprise.
it's a virus that is, generally, weaker than the common cold - so long as we're strong enough to take it.
the only reason it's dangerous for the elderly is that they've never seen it before, and age reduces your ability to fight against new invaders. and, it is actually true that, when you get to a certain age, or to a certain advanced stage with certain diseases like hiv, you will die of the common cold - which is exactly what's happening, with this.
if vaccination is a coin toss, or worse, it's only going to be worth it for the weakest amongst us.
the rest of us will still need to fight it off - and may need to catch it a few times before we even have to.
i'm not saying the vaccine "won't work".
i'm reminding you that vaccines have success rates, and they're determined by a variety of factors like (1) how vicious the virus is and (2) how fast it mutates. so, some vaccines - like the measles vaccine - have a very high success rate, because the virus is relatively stable and pretty much necessary to fight off. others, like the flu, have lower success rates because the virus they're trying to protect against mutates so quickly. and, this is really in a new category - the virus has been relatively stable (so far. we'll see if an attempt at vaccination spurs it to mutate.), but it's extraordinarily weak. so, there's no guarantee your body will generate antibodies at all.
it will help, surely.
but, it's not going to be the end of this, and especially not if we continue to try to shelter ourselves.
so, if you think we just need to hide in a cave until the vaccine is ready, think again. that's not going to be how this plays out - we're still going to need to develop natural immunity, in the long run.
let's take a step back here, because we're being collectively stupid again.
vaccines aren't like an antidote in a movie, or something. this isn't superman.
a vaccine, if targeted, mighthelp protect certain vulnerable groups in the sense that it would reduce the likelihood of acquiring the virus, but you have to look at these numbers carefully. we know this virus is very contagious. so, if we estimate that you have a 90% chance of catching it if exposed to it, and the vaccine has a 60% success rate in stimulating antibodies (about on par with the flu), the chances of a vaccine protecting you are .9*.6 = 54%.
that is risk reduction, clearly.
but, you wanted better numbers than that, didn't you?
the tricky thing is that the virus is so weak, and i've admitted that i've had to walk myself back a little - one of the few things i've walked myself back on. because the virus is so weak, it doesn't always produce an immune response. what that means is that you should expect it to be one of the least effective vaccines we've ever created, because it's one of the weakest viruses we've ever tried to vaccinate against.
if you're old, you should get vaccinated. don't misunderstand me.
but, there is no real way around the reality that we have to let this circulate in order to beat it.
it should really surprise nobody that trudeau is tilting at windmills, here.
i just wish his stupidity had less profound ramifications on everybody else's freedom.
and, again - i know that there are some people out there that are some combination of stupid and dishonest that want to strawman me by tying me to ideas and movements that i'm deeply critical of.
the best thing i can tell you is to just read my blog. honesty is the best antidote to stupidity and lies.
so, don't listen to those idiots - consider who they are, how trustworthy they are as sources, and read what i have to say directly, rather than allow them to frame and misconstrue me.
there's a lot of writing here, and there's a search function on the side, as well. there should be minimal ambiguity as to what i mean to say, at this point.
don't let them lie to you.
and, when you catch them in a blatant fib, remember it.
to clear out some tabs, here's another article from the smithsonian about the possibility that maybe bananas fit nicely in our hands because our hands evolved to hold them, rather than the other way around.
i've been on the ground in these left-wing protest movements enough to know that they often don't think before they act - they react. and, while that is often the cause of their failure, it's rarely very important.
this is different.
we need to think very carefully before we act, this time.
they're targeting what they perceive of as "sinful behaviour".
the virus is just a pretext to go after sinners.
let's understand that first, before we decide how to react.
i'm still waiting for people to really understand what is happening around us.
there's no real possibility for a leftist uprising against these conservative policies until we can get our head around what's happening, first.
so, what i'm focusing on right now is education - subversion, critical thinking, dissent.
do these policies really make sense? if you concede they don't make sense, are there ways to make better sense of what the policy is, outside of the context/justification being presented?
this appears to be very carefully organized, so any resistance needs to be equally careful. and, it has to be rooted in a growing awareness that we're being manipulated to uphold to a certain concept of piety, as we're being colonized by a new wave of abrahamic backwardsness.
from each according to their ability means from each according to their means.
and, to each according to their needs.
i don't want a yacht or a mansion. i just want a safe, healthy place to create in.
i have no patience for rich people that don't want to contribute.
tell them to get the fuck out of here.
i've made this argument before - if corporations are people, why don't we tax them like they're people?
because they're not "natural people". we have a strict distinction in our constitution, but it's not to our benefit.
if we tax humans at 50% over a specific income, we should tax corporations the same way, too. really.
and, if they don't want to do business here, fine - seize their assets, throw them out of the country and set up a crown corporation in their place.
i agree that he's right that a wealth tax - as presented by elizabeth warren - is indeed a dumb idea. she presents it as a way to prevent avoidance, but she's absolutely wrong - it's a way to maximize avoidance.
so, if you want to pretend you're taxing the rich without actually taxing the rich, that's what you do, you talk about a wealth tax. that's why you hear it from the mouthpiece of the boston upper crust - which is what warren actually is, after all. and, it's probably why you hear it from justin trudeau, too.
but, the idea that there's not enough wealth at the top to tax is pretty dumb, itself. you just need to go after it where it exists - in the market, in property, etc. what's true is that rich people don't tend to work, so you can't really tax their incomes. but, you can tax their property, you can tax their financial transactions, you can tax their luxury purchases and you can tax their corporations. and, you can stop giving them so many loopholes to weasel their way out of it.
and, if they'd rather leave than pay their fair share then good riddance to them.
it's the arbitrariness that suggests this is based in politics, and not in health recommendations.
if you can go to the gym at 3:00 am, but you can't get a beer at 23:30 at night, your government isn't really trying to end a pandemic, they're just trying to enforce an arbitrary system of morals on you - as they appease a certain far right, conservative demographic that wants authority and order over freedom and anarchy.
they tell you it's not permanent, but i'm not so sure.
there's a lot of people out there that would like it to be, and they need to be resisted.
i would highly, highly advise against communicating with anybody trying to greet you as you enter a store, right now, for any reason.
it's theatre. but, it's worse, because it's not empty.
remember when grocery stores had the front staff on hand sanitizer duty? well, who do you think was the most likely source of spread?
remember when you had to stand in line at the grocery store, between gross people with facial hair (indicating poor hygiene levels) for ten-twenty minutes at a time, thereby forcing you to stand five-six metres away from people you normally wouldn't go within 50 metres of, and for extended periods at that?
these measures were annoying. but, if we didn't understand how harmful they were then, we should now. the last thing we should be doing is queuing people in lines when they don't need to be, or forcing everybody to greet the same person when they walk into a store. these measures are just going to increase the spread of the virus...
likewise, if they put somebody in the store screening for symptoms, that person is merely going to spread the virus further. if you're concerned about catching this, you should avoid that person like they have the plague.
again: there's certain policies that suggest ignorance, and there's certain policies that suggest theatre (red meat for the base), there's certain policies that suggest negligence and there's certain policies that suggest malice. this comes off as empty red meat tossed at his base (closing bars & strip clubs instead of schools and sports clubs is arbitrary and probably discriminatory), but there's been this consistent streak in these policies that make you wonder about malice.
like, how could they not realize that putting a greeter in a store to check your temperature goes beyond empty theatre, and is in truth the dumbest idea possible?
it's so like a bunch of nerdy mid-twentieth century hetero white guys to think that the thing that pushed the species forward was access to tool-making though, right?
isn't it obvious that those guys got as much tail three million years ago as they do now?
bananas, baby. that's where the genome is really at.
those guys with the tools and shit were a bunch of nerds
it was the early homos with all of the bananas that were getting laid.
so, the banana is our true maker.
all hail bananas!
the current understanding is that thumbs evolved to help us hold tools and throw weapons, but that's so 20th century - the kind of arrogant anthropocentrism that leads anthropologists astray all the time. they're getting better. slowly.
this article floats the idea that maybe chimps actually have more evolved hands than us, and is able to tie it to fruit consumption, once the blinders of our role in the universe, as taught to us by judaic religion, have been removed.
i'd vote for holding fruit over holding spears, as a stronger adaptive trait. women like access to a good banana more than they like protection with a sharp sword.
it's always worthwhile to spend some time with the classics.
ugh.
christianity is stupid.
give up.
but, it opens up a valid question - how important was banana consumption (or fruit consumption, in general) in the evolution of human hands?
i mean, maybe he's actually on to something, but, if he is, he's got it backwards - bananas weren't created for us, we were created for bananas.
in evangelical america new zealand, god create you!
see, i guess we're quick to forget that, as primates, we've evolved these opposable thumbs that makes us different than most other animals that would want to eat bananas.
a deer, for example, would have a pretty hard time with a banana peel.
and, that is why they taste like shit.
but, i want a spectroscopic analysis in the form of a peer reviewed lab report, not a bunch of fucking syllogisms.
it's a banana peel, guys. nothing could be more readily available. so, if you have access to the right kinds of centrifuges and shit, can you figure this out for me and publish it somewhere i can find it?
thanks.
let's dwell on this point about the monkeys a bit further, though, because it's particularly stupid, it really is.
so, why do banana peels taste like shit? is it proof that they're not worth eating?
maybe if you're a creationist - if you think this world exists around us for our benefit. then, god would make things we want to eat taste good, right? therefore, we should avoid vegetables and eat more candy.
in fact, bananas no doubt evolved to have a bitter outer shell to dissuade animals, like birds and monkeys and humans, from eating them for the precise reason that they are, actually, nutritious. evolution doesn't generally invite us to do things that make sense, like a deity would; rather, evolution tries to trick us into doing stupid things, to ensure the survival of other species.
if they weren't healthy, nobody would want to eat them, and they wouldn't taste so bad.
it's a better argument than "monkey see, monkey do", anyways.
scared?
full out commie nanners.
straight up.
i actually figured that there wouldn't be enough peel to bother with in a smoothie, on it's own. the point of putting the peels in the freezer was that i thought i'd need it to build up. that appears to be completely backwards.
so, if i eat the peel with the fruit bowl (that is, right away) instead of putting it away for later, and those numbers for the stems & flowers are roughly accurate, what do i get, instead?
well, you halve the amount for four.
1) about 4% rdi for C
2) 5-6% rdi for thiamin (b1) [13% if consumed in a soy smoothie]
3) ~3% rdi for riboflavin (b2) [28% ""]
4) ~20% of rdi for b3 [30% ""]
5) ~2.5% rdi for b5 [17.5 ""]
6) ~7% rdi for b6 [13% ""]
you'll notice that this is rather similar to a slice of whole wheat bread without the soy, and a good chunk of bs with it. in conjunction with those nutrition packets....
the extra soy would also boost my a (+10), my b12 (+50) and my d (+45). it's the excuse i needed to double the soy, in a sense.
i just wish i had a clearer understanding of what i'm actually consuming :\.
so, i'm going to pencil this in as an idea for now, and see whether it's really a good idea or not when i get better bounds around the rest of it.
yeah....
banana peel: 60% carbs.
spaghetti: 30% carbs.
no wonder i'm full.
so, screw that. unfortunately, i'll need to figure something else out...
so, i've been struggling with this banana peel smoothie all night. am i doing this or not?
i'm not "leaving the peel on". and, i'm not doing it to reduce waste, either - up until last week, i put my banana peels in the freezer and tossed them into the woods every few weeks, to let them decompose naturally, thereby keeping them out of the landfill and helping to clean the fucking car exhaust out of this absolutely filthy city.
what i'm trying very explicitly to do is recover usable vitamins, and very specifically recover vitamin e, which i'm coming up short on by keeping my total fat intake down. consuming e requires consuming types of fat that i don't want to consume. so, how do you get the e without all the dangerous fat? banana peels are one way, potentially.
i need to address this crazy claim that banana peels have vitamin b12, though, because it comes up in every search on the topic. b12 is widely understood to only come from animal sources. it's not a protein, and you can't get it from beans. you can get it in places like soy milk, but only because it's added.
so, it seems like there's just one source, and it's some nutritionist from san diego. this woman was wrong. that said, she's so wrong that i suspect she was probably misquoted. she probably meant to say b2, and appears to have been wrong even there, but there's at least b2 in the more commonly-seen-as-edible part of the fruit. the internet seems to make all sorts of claims about the peels that are true about the fruit, or true about species of banana that we don't actually eat. for example, there are red bananas, and they have lots of carotenoids, but that doesn't help those of us eating the yellow varieties all that much; it's kind of like how red peppers have 100% of the beta-carotene you need, and yellow peppers have basically 0%.
so, essentially everything you see about banana peels in a basic google search appears to be complete bullshit.
i also want to address this absolutely stupid remark:
"Go ahead and google 'monkey eating a banana,' and you'll see that even most monkeys are peeling the banana before eating it. If monkeys are smart enough to figure this out, we should be, too."
that seems to be a widely shared view.
well, go ahead and google "monkey eating it's own shit" while you're at it.
them monkeys sure are smart, huh?
it's perfectly plausible that monkeys and humans are both too fucking stupid to realize the nutritional value of banana peels. it's hardly intuitive, and just watch a buckley's commercial to realize the correlation between taste and nutrition.
so, instead of citing the wisdom of monkeys, why don't we try to do some fucking science and figure this out?
with all of the claims floating around about what is in the peels, and an apparently high level of confusion regarding what is in the peel vs what is in the fruit (that is, people seeming to speciously assume that if it's in the fruit, it must be in the peel, too), and even claims to defer to simian intelligence on the matter, a perusal through this analysis of what is actually in the peel is perhaps of some use:
that is, unfortunately, the best source i can find about the peels, directly. however, this is an extract, and i'm wary about relying on it for data.
so, there would not appear to be any b12, any a, or any c in the extract. it does seem to have a few antioxidants, some phytates and an exceedingly high amount of vitamin e.
but, note that vitamin c is water soluble, and you might expect it to get destroyed in an extraction process of that sort, along with anything else that is water soluble. what do you really get if you calculate that?
let's take a step back, first.
i have now made the smoothie and must admit it doesn't taste great, but i don't care. it's s not awful - it's better than buckleys - but its because i overpowered it with chocolate soy. it doesn't taste dissimilar to orange pekoe tea, really. first, how did i make it?
when i made my daily fruit bowls starting last week, i washed the peels and chopped them. i then put the cleaned and chopped peels into a tupperware container, and put that container in the freezer waiting for it to pile up. note that studies demonstrate that e can freeze for short periods with minimal loss, but with that kind of concentration, i may even want a little loss. i initially hoped that each container would house a week's worth of peels, which was 7. then, i doubled my banana consumption, bringing it up to 14 peels/week. then, i realized i could only really fit closer to six peels in a container. and, now i'm realizing that i can only really fit four in the blender - meaning i should only be putting two day's worth of bananas in the smoothies and should be packaging them in fours. so, this should be an every other day thing, rather than a once a week thing.
so, if i'm throwing four peels into a smoothie every other day, and each peel is about 20 g, that's about 80 g total. let's work with that.
well, .43*80 = 35 g which is a potentially toxic amount. and, it can hardly be actually right. rather, it would seem as though the extract has 40% vitamin e, after it's stripped away everything water soluble, meaning it's one of the few things that survived the process of extraction. you may consequently want to be careful with banana peel extracts, as they would appear to have dangerous concentrations of vitamin e.
what other information can i find?
this study measures the amount in the stems and the flowers. why not the peels, then? i don't know:
it produces an average of roughly 0.15 mg/100g. so, for 80 g, .80*.15 = .12 mg. that's an average of 1% of the rdi - if the peels are roughly similar to the stems and flowers.
are those two results consistent? i don't know.....it seems like a big gulf....
note that, if those numbers are close to applicable to the peel, i'm also getting the following from those four peels:
1) about 8% rdi for C
2) 10-12% rdi for thiamin (b1)
3) ~6% rdi for riboflavin (b2)
4) ~40% of rdi for b3 <------is that what the nutritionist meant?
5) ~5% rdi for b5
6) ~14% rdi for b6
if that's right, it doesn't seem worth it for the e.
is it worth it for the b3, though? it might be. i'd like to think i can figure something else out.
and, try as i may, i cannot find better data than this.
so, what is more useful? is it the data about the peel extract? or the data about the stems and flowers?
more to the point, i'm finding it difficult to finish it - not because of the taste, but because of what i presume is a high carb concentration. i drank about half of it, and i'm full. this suggests to me that if i'm doing it to get at some e to keep fats and sugars down, it's misguided, anyways - this seems like a fattening meal, according to my gut reaction. and, while my gut is not a spectroscopic lab, it's pretty good at judging how many calories i just consumed.
does it make sense to think these things have some e? well, kiwi skins have a lot of e. there's e in broccoli leaves, in the entire pepper plant, in kale - it seems like the right idea, really.
but, i can't prove it in a way i'd like to.
so, i'm going to hope i can find a better idea....
if you can get me some clearer info on this, please contact me.
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