i can't date this exactly. i know it was the first half of the second semester of grade 12, which was spring of 1999. further, i'm taking it forward to about midway because the first part of the course was about voice-leading and i spent it orchestrating the beatles' something. i don't have any files.

i was lucky: i went to a high school with a big music department. not an arts school, mind you. just a school that had enough funding to run a wide array of course options that are outside the basic core topics. there were three main assignments in the course, and while i don't remember the exact assignment questions, i do have two pieces to show for it.

this, here, is a conceptual piece about pop music. all of the sounds are created from pop cans. yes, puns are fun. the samples run from pouring water out of pop cans into the sink, to crushing and smashing pop cans, to opening them, to exploding them, etc.

i used the tab of a pop can as a pick as i played the ambient guitar parts. it's all thrown together, processed, warped and perfected in a wave editor.

constructed over a few days in april, 1999. ripped back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017. as always, please use headphones.

this track appears unmodified on my third record:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1999, 2013, 2017). 

credits

released April 15, 1999

j - guitars, effects, samples, loops, digital wave editing 

somebody asked me to do this for them for a school project in the second half of grade 12, which was early 1999. we're both italian. silly joke, no offense intended.

i never saw the final version, but the guy described it to me. it was an anti drinking and driving ad (think madd) for a marketing class. they sequenced it up with shots of one of them stumbling towards a car, getting in and driving off. very clownish, apparently.

i didn't spend a lot of time on this, so i didn't charge them for it or anything. i think i was more hoping that it would float around a little, but if it did i'm not aware of it.

streamed to disk in one take on the afternoon of march 9, 1999. ripped back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017. as always, please use headphones.

this track appears in slightly modified form on my third record:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1999, 2013, 2017).

credits

released March 9, 1999

j - hammerhead (909 emulator), digital wave editing

publishing inri026

i went through a string of extremely cold basements in the late 90s. it was half heating costs; on that level, i could even agree for environmental reasons. however, it was half because my step-mother legitimately prefers absolutely frigid, air-conditioner-level temperatures and didn't want hot air rising from the basement to ruin the freezing temperature upstairs. you can understand how that might get frustrating sometimes.

i was offered a room upstairs, but then i'd have to go to bed at 10:00 pm rather than stay up until 4:00 am recording music and chatting on the internet, which was clearly unacceptable.

the song is more than a surreal commentary, it is a morbid fantasy i was legitimately having. there wasn't any real chance that i was going to light the basement on fire; if i were to do that, i might ruin my guitar, and then i'd be worse off. the story runs a little off the rails, but that is it's charm.

this was the last song recorded for inclusion on my second record, inriched (inri021), and initially sequenced as the penultimate track (as the viewless/suicide sequence had already been decided upon as the ending track). the song was finished on the evening of the 5th; i finished the cover art on the evening of the 6th. it remained in that position, as the 14th track, from february, 1999 until jan, 2016 when it was split off for the technical reason that i wasn't able to remove the vocals because i didn't retain source material. this is frustrating, because it's by far the most interesting song on the record, from a musical perspective.

however, i've always viewed the track as transitional; i realized, even at the time, that i was starting something new rather than ending something, with this. in hindsight, the elaborate electro-prog explored by the track is certainly more similar to what would follow than what i was closing down. it is actually fitting that the track was removed due to a lack of source material, as that defines what i created over 1999 (which i'm retroactively labelling period 1.3).

as the track was still on inriched through 2013, it was remastered along with the rest of the record. a version was also produced for the deleted inricycled b compilation, which included some extra mastering and the removal of the opening sample. these versions were both mastered to fit into their respective sequences; while they're both improvements, neither really captured the essence of the track as it's own thing. so, a final standalone mix was constructed in sept, 2017 to permanently close the ep.

initially written and recorded in the winter of 1999. remixed in late 2013 and again in early 2014. this track was separated from my second record in january, 2016 but the single was not completed until it was remixed one last time in sept, 2017. as always, please use headphones.

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1999, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017). 

credits

released February 5, 1999

j - guitars, effects, bass, sequencing, drum programming, synths, vocals, loops, samples, digital wave editing 

 

i've read quite a large number of the sagas, and they certainly stand out for their female protaganists - which one might point out were also prominent in celtic societies.

it kind of bugs me that so many feminists are so insistent on this idea of perpetual patriarchy. they seem to openly doom themselves to subservience, by providing the most extreme exit plan possible. so many of them are convinced that civilization itself is inherently patriarchal, and you have to go back to the very beginnings of human culture to overturn it. give me patriarchy, or give me death.

i don't think the evidence is there. frankly, i think the evidence is much stronger that patriarchy is a fundamentally jewish concept, and that it's been usurped and brutally enforced by christians and muslims, but that the indigenous groups both in christian europe and in the middle east tended to range from broadly egalitarian to questionably matriarchal. you don't even have to go full gimbutas on this. we have historical records of the power of priestesses in the pre-islamic semitic world - as well as the greek world, for that matter. the hellenic world was quite often dominated by powerful female monarchs (propped up by court eunuchs) - it was quite normal, not the anomaly that it was in western europe, save britain, which largely kept it's celtic traditions and both in england and in scotland.

tied into this is unquestionably the fact that so many historical feminists have been so religious. many of them seem to have even defined the question of feminism as the process of winning the right to participate in the church. the situation is far from irreversible,  but it does require overturning the system that so many seemed to long to be a part of. the only logical way out is to collapse into parmenides and deny the possibility of change: patriarchy is irreversible, so it does not hurt to join the church.

if patriarchy is intrinsically connected to abrahamic religion, however, it can be abolished along with the religion. and, i would promote that positive view.

we don't need to go back to the norse sagas. but, we can see the society as proof that there are alternate paths to this place in time and space.

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/09/11/high-ranking-viking-warrior-was-female-dna-tests-prove.html

i may have literally been the first to argue that canadian social positions are politics, but i was being cynical - these are the things i want in an agreement.

and, it's easy enough to make the case for environmental & labour standards, as these things are what the agreement is actually about.

as a canadian, i can even understand the indigenous rights part, although the jurisprudence is a bit behind in the united states and, as far as i know, non-existent in mexico. but, even basic language on consultation would be hugely positive. that said, perhaps the prime minister could start at home.

it's the gender section that doesn't actually make any sense to me, in context. what, exactly, does a gender chapter in nafta contain, if anything at all? i'm just not able to imagine what they're imagining. it could take the form of a basic list of rights, i guess, but that would be supplemental - because women are people, too. that's settled case law. i guess i'm aware that the harshest work is disproportionately done by women, but i don't know what that translates to in a nafta chapter that wouldn't, and shouldn't, be approached more broadly.

nafta certainly isn't about political representation or any of the things that the liberals routinely invoke gender around - except, unfortunately, in one way, which is as a distraction.

so, now i see the headlines focusing on the topic, and the prime minister going out of his way to use it as a talking point, which is worrying, because when he does that it almost always means he's hiding something unpopular.

it's very cynical of me, but if you know then you know and i know that the likely truth is that this is intended as a bait and switch.

i just hope we don't wake up to a patent regime or a border arrangements or a resource sharing agreement that was rushed through while everybody was talking about something else.

actually, this is better: somebody do me a favour and immediately launch a charter challenge on a law that forbids all outside smoking. people can deal with rules in trafficked areas, and that's fine - they'll do it. but, to suggest that you may only smoke inside is clearly overly broad and, in fact, rather cruel and unusual.

the case law would be far more useful, in the long run. let's just get it going, please. pronto.

who am i kidding - where am i going to find that won't have the same problem?

a law that says you have to smoke inside is, in fact, sentencing every poor kid in the province to inhalation problems.

if dad smokes, the way to make sure the kids watch it is to send him inside - where they have to inhale it, too.

it is genuinely, truly, legitimately a consequence of utter stupidity. and, the person that proposed it should resign in disgrace.

for fuck's sake, send them outside.

it's probably government pot: smells horrible & doesn't get you high, just gives you a headache and knocks you out.

...and, listen: i'm not the anti-drug zealot. i'm even a moderate user: socially, when i'm with people. but, even i can't handle living in a space with a daily smoker. it's just putrid.

send them outside, for fuck's sake. and, they'll go willingly, so long as you don't threaten them with a fine - because they know.

i've been fighting with these people for months and have essentially refused to budge.

but, i don't want to live in a vape lounge. and, if the stench (and contact buzz, which is actually just giving me a headache) doesn't relent, they've finally found a way to get me out of here.

one of my upstairs neighbours appears to have decided that he's not allowed to smoke pot outside anymore, and has moved inside. the law is, indeed, coming.

he was no doubt smoking outside, previously, out of courtesy to the other tenants.

i don't know what the fuck he's smoking, but it is absolutely rank. the entire building now smells like somebody lit a skunk on fire.

up until yesterday, this was easily manageable: he simply went outside to smoke.

this is a law that is going to plummet property values if it isn't reversed, and it's what happens when you put hopeless geeks in charge of public policy - and this is coming from a nerd of epic proportions. wynne has converted the party into a collection of people that have never been to a party before in their lives. they're hopelessly out of touch; the simple reality is that the liberal party of ontario has absolutely no experience with marijuana whatsoever, and no clue at all how to legislate on the topic as a consequence of it.

and, it's hard to understand how a liberal party got like this. these are the most socially hopeless people you could fathom.

the law should be pushing people outside, where it doesn't bother anybody. the status quo is that you smoke in the park, or perhaps in your car. the best place to smoke in an apartment building would be the roof. what we're going to end up with, now, are buildings where pot is and isn't allowed (after lengthy court battles). and, the buildings where pot is allowed are going to end up falling apart.

this is a socially acceptable drug and has been for decades. your kids are going to have to navigate this. and, dragging the stigma along is just going to create a lot of problems.

i repeat: forcing people to smoke inside is going to be a nightmare for property values. it is a legitimately stupid law, because it is legitimately clueless, and it is going to have to be reversed.

i guess only racists support social systems. racial equality means we can all compete equally on the market, right?

(psst: that's called neo-liberalism)

do you know where this guy came from? he built his career on opposing the sex-ed curriculum, on the backs of votes from insular religious communities that don't want their kids to know that queer people exist.

this is becoming standard, nowadays: these parties that used to represent the left have become the voice of disenfranchised brown conservatives, because they were the only parties that would sign them up.

my understanding is that jagmeet singh remains third or fourth in polls in the race, and that despite the establishment talking points, he is still a longshot candidate. but, take note of what the party is doing, here - because it will do it again, and it might work next time.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2017/07/26/ndp-leadership-rebel-jagmeet-singh-takes-aim-at-old-age-security-walkom.html

this is the narrative that the party wants to run on.

the reality is that singh is actually quite a bit like obama - he's a social conservative to the core, who is  constantly forced to explain his way out of it, often unconvincingly. and, he's clearly the establishment candidate in the party - as obama clearly was, too.

a lot of people will fall for this. but, they will be greatly disappointed in the outcome.

the ndp is not becoming liberal lite; it is becoming the party of right-wing immigrants, who would only join the conservative party, if it weren't for the racial animus within it. in the end, we will have two conservative parties, and be left without an option on the left.

http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/get-real-jagmeet-singh-has-been-dealing-with-racist-hecklers-for-months/

i'm reading all of these opinion pieces on trump "cancelling" daca (and if you present it in those terms, you're wrong to start off with), and they're all getting it wrong on an empirical, factual level. this isn't an error in analysis. it's an error in fact.

and, some of it is feigned, no doubt - it's easier to go with the flow than it is to rock the boats. if everybody is misinformed, why would it be the media's role to correct them? it's far more profitable to just capitalize off of their ignorance.

but, some of it seems sincere, and it's all rooted in a set of mental gymnastics that lead to the following conclusion: a very large number of americans seem to actually want to live in an empire. they just want trump to pass immigration reform by decree, and they don't seem to understand why there was a problem when obama did it. i suppose there's a level of pragmatism underlying a desire for results, but i'm pulling out something a little deeper, here - and, in act, especially on the pseudo-left, that has been criticized so strongly for it's authoritarianism.

i've lived most of my life concerned about creeping corporate fascism on the right, and with good reason. but, you don't see these arguments on the right - this kind of flat out contempt for congress as some kind of obsolete instrument.

the contemporary left seems to truly be more into enlightened despotism than it is into democracy. and, marx' biases in favour of the form aside, that's something that intellectuals on the left ought to be addressing more seriously.

i just want to be clear on a point....

the new ontario pot law says you're only to smoke inside your house.

but, i have never smoked pot inside my house before, and i have absolutely no intention to ever do so in the future.

i will continue to take a walk, or maybe take a bike ride. i'll smoke in the park, or at the bar. and, i don't care if there are kids around - because i don't think it's something kids should be sheltered from.

i don't expect anybody to even try to enforce this law, either.

i'm in full support of legalization. but, the last thing in the world that i want is for my apartment to smell like marijuana.

yesterday was a weird day; i was up fairly early, and got to work around noon, but i blew the entire day trying to reconstruct the mix from the day before, only to conclude the difference file was reverb from random sampling...

i dunno, though. i tried a few things, and it all ended up inconclusive. i think there's an underlying issue. i went to sleep in the evening with the intent of checking the output file when i woke up. i mean, the point of verifying the out was to tweak - if i didn't need to tweak, i wouldn't need to verify anything.

i've been distracted by the hurricane and other things this morning, but i'm actually content with the mix. so, i'm going to close the ep. 

i should get through at least two more by the end of the night, and hope i can ship the first package on monday at some point...

this strikes me as a setup to generate media coverage, actually.

she's clearly an actress, by her tone of voice. and, not a good one.

"is it better with the mic away from me?"

you can definitely hear her better once you take the mic away from you - and once the sound person turns her up.

the worst part about the whole thing is that this is what the party actually wants to run on. the cynicism underlying this is where the real racists are living....

his candidacy is popular in the party's bureaucratic wing due to the same kind of cynicism that thinks they can win minority ridings by running a minority, but is not catching on amongst members. the ndp doesn't actually have a choice, here: it needs to listen to it's members, because if it doesn't then it won't be a party, any more.

and, this was the problem in the first place: if it had listened to it's members, it wouldn't have swung so far right in the last election.

the country wants to elect a party that doesn't exist: it wants the historical ndp back. everybody - including the liberals - seems to realize this, except for the existing ndp, itself. so long as that surreal situation manifests itself, we're going to be stuck with liberals or conservatives.

i don't have a fundamental opposition to electing a guy with a turban, although i'll admit it's hard for me to imagine a way in which i could harmonize my vision of a secular society with the vision of somebody that wears a turban (i'd imagine a sikh i could actually vote for would probably look more like nikki haley than jagmeet singh). but, the reality is that this guy is simply a bad candidate for a left-wing party.

it's not what's on his head that i don't like, it's what's between his ears.

...and, as this process has played out, what he's really exposed is how corrupt the party is as a vessel: this guy is an empty turban, and the machine behind him is not something anybody on the left should be supporting.

"well, they're misinformed. look at the kind of left-wing conspiracy theories that are rampant in the left-wing media..."

get yourself together, guys.

i, for one, will not tow your line - i will tear you down.

i'd support the raise act, anyways.

my understanding is that it's actually built on legislation that the canadian liberal party pioneered in the 1960s, and was strongly defended by the current prime minister's father. as such, it's actually an absolutely logical corollary of lbj's "great society" program.

i'd also support - and in fact have repeatedly called for - stricter enforcement of labour standards. that's the actual solution, here. lax enforcement of labour standards is the actual problem.

and, i wouldn't mince words directed at democrats that stand up for corporate greed at the expense of the enforcement of labour standards, then try to hide behind some neo-liberal identity politics or nonsensical accusations of racism. these people are just corporate stooges. they don't care about workers, they're just cashing a check. and, they're the crux of the problem. don't fall for that bullshit - call it out for what it is. primary their ass, and get rid of them.

https://www.good.is/articles/how-congress-can-replace-daca-and-make-it-better

whatever you think of nuclear - and i'd like to see funding directed at the research needed to make it more feasible, but don't think it really is, even now - these plants should not be in florida.

i had these arguments about japan. i actually think they ought to evacuate japan to russia, and declare the entire island uninhabitable. and, you know what's crazy? serious people have actually considered this. you can look it up.

but, whatever you think of nuclear power, the plants should be located somewhere less dangerous. this was inevitable - completely predictable. and, here it is.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/as-irma-approaches-nuclear-plants-in-florida-lessons-from-andrew-resonate/

this is close to the reality of it.

i'm hoping michigan legalizes soon. and, i suspect people in ottawa will buy most of their pot in quebec.

toronto is not going to be able to shut down the black market if this is their approach towards it.

...and, this is consequently a potential election issue. hopefully, the ndp has some better ideas about how to do this.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/reevely-ontario-plans-150-government-run-pot-shops-by-2020

the ontario government released it's plans to sell marijuana behind counters in closed drawers, like it does cigarettes.

i'm left to conclude that we're only going to have one strain of medical available to us. this strain is designed for people that suffer from depression. i've run into it on the street: it's a powerful body numbing high, and it gives me a headache.

i'd ask the premier to imagine walking into the wine store and being give the single option of a red with a high alcohol content, and being forced to order it at a store front, and have the clerk come back with it. would you not buy your wine out of province?

full legalization was a necessary step, but it's only the first part. what they announced the other day is going to be a disaster - the stores will fail, and we're going to have to listen to people complaining about how high the costs were. we still have a long fight ahead of us to actually liberalize access.

i don't mind the premise of the government operating the stores, but we need to have some consumer choice in terms of purchasing different types of marijuana, and that's going to require a broad liberalization around production.

as it stands, you couldn't give me the stuff being produced by health canada for free.

this is such a powerful demonstration of the power the state has to control you through mental obedience.

not only is everybody just sitting there (excluding the few rebels that decided that everybody hurts....sometimes), but i bet you're looking at the picture thinking "wow. i can't imagine being stuck in that traffic".

i guess nobody wants to get a ticket for driving on the wrong side of the road.

i'd be zooming right past them.

"see ya."

"The meteorological equipment used by the Cuban government to determine the wind speed was broken by this powerful storm," Oppmann told CBC News.

ah, fidel. and, things could have been so great. but, i tell you: when these storms that the americans have created wipe themselves out, we will still be here to rebuild. viva la revolucion!

ok, so why is this different now? they had years to pass the dream act. i'm supposed to be a rationalist, aren't i being naive?

no. because paul ryan is not john boehner. or, at least, he isn't to anybody besides his wife. and, you can have fun misinterpreting that all you like.

(at least that's what his wife thinks, right?)

the votes were there. the votes are still there. but, the former speaker was a complete and utter asshole.

paul ryan is merely a contemptible jerk.

they could put the thing down, as it was years ago, and it would pass. everybody knows it. they just have to fucking do it. and, boehner would not do it, due to some tactic of wanting to cripple the executive.

bush signed deferred action. reagan signed amnesty.

this is going to happen.

they're distributing again, which is an error. you need to include undecideds.

they're not even measured. fail.

the best thing you have here is this:

undecided - 37%
brown (pc) - 27%
horwath (ndp) - 21%
wynne (lib) - 15%

if you reduce the sample, you end up with:

brown (pc) - 43%
horwath (ndp) - 33%
wynne (lib) - 24%

that is actually roughly consistent with the published results, which have brown at 40% and the other two at 27% and 25%. you'll note that the greens are at the difference, at 6%. but, that's a coincidence.

the way you should read this poll is actually like this:

conservatives - 30%
not conservatives - 70%

that is, brown has his diehard support, and everybody else is disgusted by the spectrum, but knows they don't want conservatives. that 37% is mostly disappointed liberal voters, who could swing anyway except right. and, that's pretty much exactly what we saw in the last federal election around this time. the ndp were able to briefly jump ahead, but in the end lost because they moved right in an attempt to win the centre, which backfired.

this is why it's an error to distribute.

this is a different situation, because the liberals are incumbents. if there's a change vote coming up, the ndp should swing most of it.

yes, we should wait for the second-choice data to be sure. but, what you'll find is the same thing you saw two years ago, because nothing has changed since...

wynne doesn't have a lot of credibility in moving left, right now. but, horwath should come out and start ranting like a raving socialist - because it's what the province wants, and is fed up that it can't find anywhere.

http://poll.forumresearch.com/data/fae42e93-d6a3-47b5-8395-c451571b0b0aFOLJ%20ON%20Horserace%20Aug%2025%20.pdf

federal canadian elections were certainly an important consideration in the initial talks in the 80s and 90s.

i think wilbur ross is just old. this is something that happens when you get older; you start getting timelines crossed in your mind. you speak to your spouse as they were forty years ago. you think your children are still children. and, you hold to a canadian political discourse that the conventional wisdom claims is out-of-date.

but, you might accidentally provide some insight, in the process.

the liberal party's position on nafta has always been complicated, and the media has never understood it, but it has never been in lockstep with the conservative party. yes - the left should prepare to be disappointed. but, there's also an opportunity for ideological renewal in the party (that is, an opportunity to move away from neo-liberalism), and there is some sign that this is happening - along with some evidence that it is being cemented as the party's dominant position. the liberals in canada have always been strange animals, in that they will surprise you from time to time but also in that they are fundamentally unstable. but, however the cards fall on this, everybody should expect the current iteration of the federal liberal party to sign something - and all existing provincial liberal governments to demonstrate little opposition.

where the spectrum in canada gets a little more interesting is when you look at the parties to the left of the liberals, which are essential in the spectrum but which the media tends to pretend don't exist.

the pq are dying in quebec, but an anti-nafta tirade is the kind of thing that could bring them back to life, if it's tied to some concept of declining sovereignty. and, how quebec obeys the separation of powers in the constitution is not always defined by the constitution, which they've actually refused to sign.

the ruling liberals in ontario are almost certainly going to lose, which is providing the ndp with an opportunity they haven't had in decades. a deal that threatens certain resources, like water, could give them a lot of ammunition, if the race collapses to conservative v. ndp. certainly, one would expect the conservatives to take unpopular positions, should trudeau offer those unpopular positions to them.

but, if mr, ross' accidental insight is to be acknowledged, what he should be suggesting is that he's better off waiting until after the election - that is, if his mind holds out that long.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wilbur-ross-record-breaking-nafta-speed-1.4280761

However, one court struck down the Obama administration’s effort to create a similar deferred action program for undocumented parents of US children, ruling that the Obama administration failed to follow the notice and comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Plaintiffs are sure to argue that the APA also applies to terminating the DACA program, and that the Trump administration failed to do that here. 

this is the best argument i've seen so far. it's a technicality, and just extends the process, but it's at least plausible. lower courts can make curious decisions at times, but the stuff about equal rights doesn't strike me as remotely relevant, in context - it's essentially an argument that it's ok to break the law if you're not white, and that trying to enforce the law on non-white people is therefore just being racist. what these arguments are really doing is warping around the equal rights amendment into an argument for special status for brown people. what equal rights actually means is that the law applies the same to everybody, and everybody needs to be prosecuted the same way - if you're mexican or latvian or whatever else. higher courts won't even entertain these kinds of arguments.

but, it doesn't change the fact that it doesn't make sense to fight for a return of deferred action when the congress appears ready to legislate.

i don't think this is going to be what happens. or, at least not for most people; there's a realistic chance they could hunt down people on social services, which is going to turn into a deportation of people on disability amidst disgusting rants about welfare queens. i think that's the real struggle, here.

but, it could happen. and, if this drags on through trump renewing daca, it very well might eventually happen. so, it needs to be a part of the conversation.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/paaj8v/a-former-daca-recipient-explains-all-the-data-ice-can-use-to-go-after-dreamers

it seems like i'll be in bed early tonight, and that's ok. well, i've been awake since 3:00 this morning...and it's a quiet night in detroit. there's this ancient tradition happening tomorrow, and i'm not sure i'm keen about it, given the weather. i've been drinking enough this summer; i need to get some work done. widowspeak, on tuesday, is more likely. and, i'm not going to miss goldie on saturday.

i had a dog named goldie. of course she was a retriever.

i managed to get my printer back online this afternoon, so i've printed the first disc in this order: it is ready to ship. but, i'm going to ship them two at a time out of courtesy, to keep costs down. he's going to get a free order at the end of it, due to overpaying for shipping. i have an obligation to be economical, then. order one is potentially on monday, but it depends on how much i get finished.

i also finished a potential mix of this track. after controlling for interference, and using good headphones, the cool edit salvage of this was better than i thought. but, i have more sophisticated tools in cubase and i've used them to positive effect.

i'll have to do some listening when i wake up. it's tentative, but probable. watch out for the bottom end - that is very crunchy bass.

miami is not going to fully recover from this storm.

they're finding old roman ruins of the coast of the mare nostrum all the time. not hurricanes, but earthquakes. it's not hard to imagine a future civilization - or perhaps a future species - doing surveys along the coast and finding these sunken metropolises.

we can name them: new orleans, houston, miami.

which will be the first to sink into the ruins of the future?

10 years. that's the waiting time for subsidized housing.

needless to say, i'll have to figure something else out.

for right now, i'm staying in this weekend; it's too cold to go out. so, i'm going to do a little cleaning, take a shower and get ready to do some real discography work.

do i have an opinion on trudeau's decision to cut tax loopholes for the upper middle class by preventing them from incorporating?

not really.

i mean, it's probably fair. but, it strikes me as more of a political ploy than a serious revenue generator. if they wanted to seriously generate revenue, they'd raise the corporate tax rate.

i wasn't supposed to put that together, though. and that was a part of the point of it.

i don't expect that many canadians will care much, either. nor will they forget about how low corporate taxes are.

....except for the bourgeoisie that's being affected, of course - which is actually the liberal party's fundraising base.

i read an article where gerald butts pats himself on the back, claiming that raising taxes on rich people is a kind of political license. i would rather expect to see it hurt the party's finances, and rather dramatically.

i'm ignoring this stuff for good reason, as it's insane. but, let's see what they found.

1) the ads did not include election content.
2) the ads were not targeted towards any election outcome.
3) the ads were not targeted towards any specific demographic.
4) the ads were not connected to any political party.

but...

5) the ads "probably" originated in russia because they were purchased in russian.

therefore, russia interfered in the election!

by that logic, budweiser is interfering in russian elections whenever it runs ads for beer in russia.

hey - they said trump wanted to bring the country back to the 50s. well, there you go, i guess.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/06/facebook-political-ads-russia-us-election-trump-clinton?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

if this was entirely political, i'd just ignore it as opportunistic - and concede it will probably work.

but, these arguments are not even close to being correct, they're in truth barely even formed, and should the case get to trial (which it probably wouldn't; these arguments are so bad that the case could and probably should be dismissed) they could have a devastating impact on the ability of future presidents to pass similar legislation.

the only possible outcome of this trial is to place future legal restrictions on what the president can't do.

migrant rights activists should be opposing this suit, due to the dangers of these unforeseen consequences. and, i will publicly call for these states to withdraw this response as poorly thought through, and even to apologize for putting the lives of migrants at risk.

this has to be dealt with in congress. you can find any number of clips by obama himself, pointing that out. and, it may perhaps be useful to get a recent statement on the topic from the former president, who has an opportunity for responsible civilian leadership in front of him.

it's been known for years that the votes exist in congress, but the congressional leaders couldn't put it to a vote. paul ryan, at the least, has changed his mind. the focus needs to be on targetting mitch mcconnell, to make sure he puts the legislation through.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/06/politics/daca-trump-states-lawsuits/index.html

i made it to the office late in the morning, but it's closed on wednesdays. oops.

at least the forms are printed and ready. i'll need to get them there in the morning.

i spent the rest of the afternoon doing grocery shopping for the month, as i didn't do it around the first. i'll need to pick up some fruit in a few days, but it should otherwise be a very cheap month, grocery-wise. that is good...

i was up around midnight and am getting back to inri026 just about right now.

some honest reporting from independent media on the left, which is so tied up in the cartoon villain narrative...

what is the actual discussion ahead of congress?

1) can you stay if you've committed a crime? well, it's not my country, but.....let's say you won't see me at the 'let the criminals stay' rally.
2) can you stay if you can't find a job? immigration law generally has rules about self-sufficiency. it's still not my country, but i'd be far more likely to go to the 'let the disabled stay' or 'let the unemployed stay' rally.

i posted elsewhere that nobody's getting deported, and i maybe spoke too soon: the congress could very well target people that live on social assistance. and, this is probably the real battle coming up.

but, if you came to the united states as a kid and you have a job then you should not expect a deportation order, so long as you educated yourself about what is happening. and, that is the real thing that the independent media on the left should be ashamed of: instead of disseminating information that these people need access to in order to avoid having their lives uprooted, it is scaremongering for click bait.

bravo to this guy for being honest and for being real.

i'll say this again: people are always like "i don't see any evidence that orwell is right. read huxley, instead.".

but orwell's primary argument was that you're all too stupid to see how right he is, that you're all a bunch of hopeless primates, in the end. if we were all able to understand what he said, and see his analysis, he would, in truth, actually be wrong.

and, it follows that you fucking plebs need people like me to explain to you how frighteningly right he actually was.

and, that you'll continue to deny it, too.

sorry, one more thing, in case you were confused.

adam smith was a capitalist. a middle of the road altruistic liberal that the contemporary right would despise, but a capitalist nonetheless.

david ricardo, however, was a socialist.

nafta is not built on the idea of comparative advantage, but on the idea of giving mexico an absolute advantage in the cost of labour. this is smith. this is capitalism. but, it is not free trade, which came from ricardo.

free trade is socialism.

...and, that's exactly why they sold it to you as capitalism.

get it, yet?

one more thing: if the economics are so obvious, why do the governments in canada and the united states keep doing this?

because they don't work for you. they work for capital. they told you it would trickle down, but they didn't actually believe it. that's how capitalism works: big money buys influence and the rest of us can die in the street.

unless we fight back. it's a pressure point, perhaps - a way to save the system rather than topple it - but it's there, and we've stopped using it.

here's the thing: i don't sound like trump. trump sounds like me. trump sounds like thousands of unnamed leftist free trade protestors in the 80s and 90s. he somehow ended up representing this radical right coalition that opposes nafta because they think it's some kind of move towards world government - it's the old quasi-fascist john birch society narrative. but, he himself actually sounds like a socialist when you hear him talk about this.

i don't mind get attacked by the fraser institute or the cato institute or whatever other market fundamentalist you want to throw at me. in fact, i think it's imperative that the left does not get lost in a common front, or allow the capitalist press to gloss over the differences. we're not going to get very far in fighting against capitalism if we ended up co-opted by it. i don't want to be on the same side as these people.

i didn't initially take him seriously. but, i told you this: if i thought i could take him seriously on trade (and on foreign policy), i'd endorse him over clinton (who we all know is horrific on trade) and because i'm a socialist rather than in spite of it. it makes sense to hear liberals and conservatives push back against trump on trade, but it makes a lot less sense to hear anarchists and socialists do it, considering he's saying so much of what any of us would want him to say.

i'm not there yet, though. he's mixing socialist rhetoric with imperialist decrees, and everybody should expect the imperialist decrees to win out. but, we haven't had a discussion like this around trade in a long time and we should really be taking advantage of it.

if we don't, capital will win in the end - as it always seems to.

put very simply - a nation does not generate wealth by buying things at the lowest price it can find, but by selling things at the highest price that can be found. an economic model designed to keep consumer prices low at the expense of producing and selling items, which is what nafta is, is consequently a recipe for extreme wealth disparity and mass impoverishment.

as much as i rail against the oil industry, nafta would have left canada flat out bankrupt if it weren't for oil coming in and saving the day. the smart analysis is to realize that the effects of oil production on the economy are actually masking the damage that nafta has done.

ok, ok - i should clarify that last point about not trading with countries that have an absolute advantage, as it seems like i'm ignoring an opportunity cost. but, i actually addressed that in my bit about mercantilism.

if you're the king of portugal, you need to make such decisions as you're trading with the queen of england. things are a little different in a modern nation state, which doesn't have that kind of centralized economic decision making.

the idea of an opportunity cost allows for a second-best answer as an optimal use of resources. so, if one country is better at doing both things, but so much better at doing one thing that everybody loses out if it does both, then it should focus it's resources on the thing it does the best and let the other country do the other thing.

the reality in nafta is that you can't even derive a thing of the sort, because mexico has that absolute advantage in labour costs and more than sufficient amounts of labour to produce anything at all. the caveat in the argument for a comparative advantage doesn't hold, and isn't going to hold in any situation where the dominant input is labour due to it being kept artificially low. it blows up the whole theory. no, we don't have to make these choices about offsetting things: we can just produce everything in mexico and exploit that absolute advantage. if you do the math with the opportunity costs, that is what you will see.

if mexico had a smaller labour force, as one example, that wouldn't work. another reason it wouldn't work is if there were restrictions on foreign investment. then, you can bring in the theory of comparative advantage. but, these are precisely the things that nafta is designed to abolish - because the purpose was to establish the absolute advantage.

and, yes, you can make the same points about china - and about how a similar trade agreement with china would turn the continent into a captured market of the chinese empire. it would be quite similar to what the british did to the indians. why did the rich country of india become impoverished? imperialism is an answer, but the economic mechanism was that it was turned into a market and not allowed or able to produce anything. in that way, the wealth flowed out but did not come back in.

if mexico has an absolute advantage in production due to artificially low labour costs, and no restrictions on utilizing it, there is no comparative advantage in trading with them - and you should indeed not do so because what you will get is that race to the bottom to undercut the mexican police force, and the inevitable eventual impoverishment of everybody except mexican producers, who end up just sucking all the wealth out.

there was a time, recently, when the wealthiest person in the world was a mexican capitalist. that is nafta at work.

but, i want to be a little bit careful: let's remember that it is largely american companies moving into mexico to take advantage of the absolute advantage in labour costs. these things are most profitable when scaled.

no serious economist would argue that mexico has a comparative advantage in slave labour. it's a contradiction in terms to use low labour standards as a comparative advantage in the context of free trade; you would need to have that discussion in the context of mercantilism, which is indeed what nafta was designed as.

so, what the article is actually arguing is that labour standards threaten to allow for an even playing field which may allow for actual free trade - which is not what the publication wants.

what is a comparative advantage? it's when a country can make more profit trading for a good than it can producing it, so it focuses on producing something else in order to trade for that good. i know that sounds like a weird definition, but it's how the term is used in actual parlance. there's less focus on what you have a comparative advantage in, and more focus on what you have a comparative disadvantage in.

and, what is free trade? it's when we all acknowledge these comparative advantages, and recognize the logic in abolishing the anarchy in production that comes from ignoring them. free trade is actually fundamentally a decision to not compete in markets you have a disadvantage in, and rather forfeit it to those that have the advantage.

mexico has a comparative advantage in lots of things, in the nafta context. one would be bananas. so, it should trade bananas to countries like canada, in exchange for things it can't produce as well, like maple syrup. then, we all have bananas and we all have maple syrup and we're all able to afford it because it's all produced at it's maximum efficiency.

the other option is canadians cursing the weather when their banana crops fail, and mexicans doing snow dances in august.

if you're building a car and want to determine which location has a comparative advantage, you're not supposed to look at wages but at inputs like the cost of steel, the cost of electricty or the abundance of fresh water.

if you reduce the issue solely to labour costs, which are artificially kept low by an oppressive government, you're not talking about comparative advantage but about absolute advantage. and, it is true: mexico has an absolute advantage in the cost of labour, right now. but, what that means is that you shouldn't trade with them at all!

you need something close to common labour standards to even have this discussion. otherwise, you're in an orwellian fantasy, where every day is opposites day - which is what we've all been living in for 30 years.

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/trudeau-and-trump-both-agree-the-new-nafta-should-screw-over-poor-workers

and, behold: the financial post goes full orwellian dystopia, delving directly into a sea of backkwards newspeak.

i don't have time to disassemble this. but, i'm reminded very now again that i didn't live through this the first time.

what nonsense.

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/trudeau-and-trump-both-agree-the-new-nafta-should-screw-over-poor-workers

so, i am back to work on this today, and i was hoping i could just get a quick finish for inri26, but i have to remaster the thing, it's not an acceptable sound quality to drop in after doing all of that work on the other tracks from the period.

i have a problem, though: i have virtually no source material for this. what i have is a midi file. i don't have guitar parts, i don't have drum loops...there's nothing...

...which means i can't remove the vocals, either. but, it's not the biggest liability. this will end up on the second vocal comp, but it's no longer an album track, and precisely for that reason: i can't get the vocals out.

when i get through remixing it, i'm going to have a new version along with two failed remasters (one from inricycled b and one from the first inriched, and they both sound awful), a cd rip and the original mp3 from 1999. i'm not going to include all of these tracks on the single, i'll probably just include the mp3 version; it will probably be two tracks.

the weather is still crappy, but i have to get out and do some things this morning. i'll get back to this in the early afternoon. it could be a long day.

after that, i don't think much else is going to require actual production. but, i'm going to listen, too, and see.

inri027 & inri028 are also one track singles, due to the nature of what they are. inri029 cannot be modified due to what it is, which is a conceptual ep - but i'm going to add an alternate version to it as d/l only. inri030 is an ep single from the first disc and is done but needs finalization. that's going to be a little something else.

inri031 should require a little attention....that's the one that does...

inri032 is the covers disc and really can't be touched, and neither can inri033, which is the third official record and the point i need to finish up to before i can ship this guy his first package.

i will at least get ink today. and, if i can finish inri026 before i sleep, i should be able to get through the next chunk pretty quickly.

but, everything else aside, i need to get the subsidized housing bit in today. i can put everything else off except that.

sanders' purpose in the primary was to swing clinton to the left, which is why he picked up so much support.

for clinton to react by complaining - and she really is a whiner, isn't she? - that he was trying to pull her to the left is to state an obvious purposeful truth, and then bray at the moon.

yes, hillary: bernie's entire purpose was to try and shift you to the left. and, had you relented, you might have won.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/05/politics/cilizza-krieg-convo/?iid=ob_article_footer_expansion

again: cancelling deferred action does not make sense to american capital, which relies on the labour, and will prove deeply unpopular in the long run - which is what trump actually cares about.

trump's rhetoric was never anything more than a way to get the vote out in his base. he was never going to actually do anything like this - it would both be against his own class interests and against his own political interests.

what they're doing is sending it to congress, not abolishing it. that's what obama wasn't able to do, because the republican party had congress locked in a purely obstructionist tactic. now that the republicans have control of the white house, they're going to pass the bills obama wanted to pass in the first place. and, you might see a pattern develop out of this.

obama was always the status quo, corporatist, establishment candidate. the reason he pushed this through in the first place is that it's what the big money interests wanted. trump is not going to turn on those interests, as they are what put him in power and what he represents.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/05/politics/daca-trump-congress/index.html

the weather's kind of crappy today...

...and i think i have a new poop-throwing suspect: it's the husband. he mowed the lawn yesterday and seemed to stop to place objects. i thought he was stealing the citrus release again, but it's still there. the space was clear yesterday, but i picked up 7 clumps this morning after smelling it last night - distributed in a way that seemed designed for maximum annoyance.

it's kind of outrageously obvious - like the eviction notice is.

but, the situation is fundamentally different, now. i don't have the urge to sue that i did, previously; the reason is that i know there's no solution. the reality is that they're brazenly and maliciously harassing me, like the retarded white trash that they are. they're not going to stop if i win the case, so why bother? i'm better off just ignoring it until they sell the building.

...except that it looks like they're going through with the false eviction, so i have to counter-sue.

if i can get them to drop the nonsense around that, i'm really just going to withdraw. i mean, i'll keep taking notes and stuff - it could, in the end, be necessary for a master case. but the way you deal with spoiled children is that you stop feeding into it and then wait until they tire themselves out...

so, it's tuesday morning and i'm picking back up where i let off on friday night.

friday was a bit of an adventure, whereas saturday was a bit more of a normal overnight. i've recently picked up the habit of drinking too much caffeine when i get in and not substantively sleeping when i get home on sunday until monday morning; i slept all day monday.

before i left on friday, i noticed the paralegal had sent me back an email pretending that he didn't know anything about the eviction process. right.

the purpose of the harassment case was not an extractive process, but a vehicle to come up with a way to correct destructive behaviour and end the ongoing pattern of harassment. a settlement is not a solution, but a punishment (the restitution in the case is meaningful, but abstract). what i wanted was a solution, and not a punishment. unfortunately, i felt the need to introduce the court to arrive at a solution, as the property owners were entirely non-cooperative.

the introduction of a paralegal was unexpected (i did not know he would be there until i got there), but it presented a possibility to arrive at a solution without resorting to punishment. that is to say that it's much closer to what i wanted out of the process; what i wanted was a solution, and not a punishment. so, i took that approach.

but, it's now absolutely clear that nobody ever intended to arrive at a solution. so, we need to revisit the court process.

i told the paralegal that he's full of shit, but suggested he can prevent he and his client from a making a fool of themselves by indicating to me that the second part of the form would not be filled. i did not receive a response, so i am planning on mailing on wednesday.

this morning, i need to get to the subsidized housing space and drop off that form, get some printer ink, do some grocery shopping and in the end pick up the forms needed to reopen the case. i'll then get everything mailed tomorrow morning...

so, what's the rationalist read on this?

as should be obvious to most people by now, if it wasn't always, trump's attacks on migrants were always intended to generate votes - throwing people who grew up in the united states out of the country is literally an act of self-harm, by definition. but, the point from trump's perspective is that it has to be a popular decision.

trump is hardly an everyman, but he had some advisors that helped him take advantage of a certain streak of xenophobia with a particularly powerful caveat - it came with mass denial from more moderate voters.

so, you have voter a and voter b. voter a is voting for trump because he's a racist and doesn't give a fuck about anything else (including self-interest), whereas voter b is voting for trump because he has the same class interests (or at least imagines that he does) and in spite of his racial policies, which may leave him a little uneasy.

trump's decision is going to be based on what he thinks is more popular - on what will give him better ratings. and, there are some encouraging signs that he's realizing that cancelling daca would be broadly unpopular with more populous b type voters, while remaining violently popular with a type ones.

i'd like to think trump will take the next six months to do some polling, but you can't be sure with this guy. regardless, that's what he's doing - he's waiting the situation out, and will test the waters early next year to see if the deportation is more popular, all of a sudden.

i wouldn't expect anything to come out of this.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/04/politics/daca-congress-trump-decision/index.html

want to hear a fun conspiracy theory?

i'm not saying you should take it seriously. i'm just thinking out loud...

obama's period as the grand master will likely be recorded in history as fairly uneventful: a lot of continuity, with the seeming intent to act as a caretaker. due to trump, the long view may be unable to separate obama from bush, relegating obama to a kind of echo of bush. if hillary had won in october, the right historical question would have been why the country bothered voting for obama in the first place; as it is, the bush and obama years are likely to end up merged into bush-obama.

but, there is a specific anomaly in his presidency that will likely live on for a long time in climatological records: there weren't any hurricanes under obama.

it's curious how it played out. we had record temperatures near the end, year over year, but no increase in atlantic hurricanes.

i know, i know: you can't blame the hurricane directly on the carbon. but, we were supposed to have them in increasing intensity and increasing frequency.

i've been wondering for a while if he 'flipped a switch'. which means what?

well, the official rational explanation (tm) no doubt argues that the atmospheric patterns over north america were coincidentally such that they kept large storms offshore. perfectly reasonable.

look at what is happening in houston right now - the storm is being blocked from moving north. and, it could be a lingering coincidence.

but, maybe this new guy flipped the switch back - because it's just a bunch of bullshit anyways, right?

the next guy could always flip it back, again - if there's any record left of it ever existing.

what i'll say is this: i think this curious low in atlantic hurricanes under obama will fascinate scientists for a very long time.

if rate changes don't seriously affect currency prices, what should government do regarding monetary policy?

probably the best way to use monetary policy is as a kind of a distraction to offset other things. so, for example, canada might be concerned that a short-term spike in oil prices might pull the dollar too high. it could manipulate rates to act against that spike and try and smooth out the curve.

yes - i'd define that as currency manipulation. but, it's the best you can hope to do.

the real purpose of a central bank is not to control inflation but to ensure that the state maintains sovereignty over it's money supply.

this is a bunch of nonsense.

junk economics....

the dollar is stronger because oil prices are coming up. the strong spike this week is actually due to the hurricane. and, so long as american policy is tied to increasing oil prices - which appears to be the case - we can expect the canadian dollar to come up.

any effects that the rate hikes have will be self-fulfilling but very short term. that is, the bank can manipulate investors into doing what it wants, but this is just conditioning within a process of mental herding. if you could condition investors to donate money to charity whenever there's a rate hike, they'd do it - but it's just an exercise in propaganda. that would perhaps be a better use of state resources.

it is absolutely true that the country's export industries, which are largely located outside of the west, are in an existential struggle with the country's oil industry and that if it weren't for depleting resources it might be reasonable to predict dissolution over it. canada was intended to be an economic union; it's purpose hinges on the plausibility of economic co-operation and mutual well-being.

for now, you should expect the dollar to continue to rise - regardless of what the feds do.

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/canadian-dollar-briefly-surges-past-81-cents-as-economy-booms/article36151461/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&

the article is repeating the debunked neo-liberal dogma about rate hikes, which in fact have no effect on inflation at all.

they don't even mention the oil.

the purpose is to back up the point that the inflation is actually happening.

https://www.ft.com/content/8e70bf6b-bed1-3490-894a-296972c29a51

this is probably mostly about the canadian government trying to avoid looking like it's picking on mexico.

in canada, we neither have statistically large numbers of spanish speakers nor significant numbers of people with (recent) african ancestry (we're all africans...). our largest non-white ethnic groups are from south and east asia; everything's english/french bilingual, but if we were to add a third language, it would be cantonese or punjabi rather than spanish, which is probably something more like 8th. although we do have ethnic districts (i can think of sikh districts, italian districts and ukrainian districts, specifically) there is probably nowhere in canada where an urbanized spanish-speaking constituency holds any real political power. we have chinatowns and little italies and growing arabic neighbourhoods, but we don't have mexicantowns - although there is one in detroit.

so, the realities on the ground are very different, politically. the spanish-american political organizations that are so central to politics across the american south really don't exist here. our government doesn't have that pressure point. but, the neo-liberal left being what it is today, this government is exceedingly concerned about producing race optics that could be manipulated against them. there's a broad consistency, there, in going out of their way to ensure that they do not look like they're racist.

of course, i'm opposed to right-to-work laws - they certainly depress wages. while it's probably not constitutional for the president, or the congress, to pass a federal ban on right-to-work laws, it would certainly be a welcome, if surprising, step from the existing republican party. it's kind of a sandersesque barb, really: if you seriously want to help workers in wisconsin and michigan, it's one of the best things you can do. but it's hardly something worth taking seriously as an honest negotiating position. frankly, it would signal a dramatic spectrum shift, and out of a vacuum: nowhere are there republicans that are agitating for this.

further, it's disingenuous to draw an equivalency. labour law in the united states has certainly been moving backwards for quite a while and needs a course correction, but it is still not remotely comparable to labour law in mexico.

what canada is really doing here is trying it's best to not look racist.

but, what i wanted to talk about was the oil. the globe is not the wall street journal, but it occupies a similar place on bay street, in toronto: it's the paper of choice for torontonian investors, who, like in the united states, are actually pretty liberal, but nonetheless exceedingly wealthy. it's the paper of the laurentian upper class: the well-educated liberals that make up the country's elite.

so, it's not surprising that they forgot to mention the riots happening in mexico due to rising oil prices, as a consequence of the recent "market liberalization" undertaken in the mexican oil sector.

it's true that the mexican police are a violent force that works actively to suppress and silence labour, but suppression has it's limits and is only effective in the presence of certain conditions, the most important, in the mexican example, being the low cost of living in mexico. the storm troopers are useful and everything, but you can only keep wages as low as they are there for any measurable time frame by keeping down the cost of living, which requires controlling inflation. and, contrary to the reigning neo-liberal theory, it is not central banks that control inflation but ultimately the price of oil that does. so, the best way to control inflation is to control the oil sector.

i would like to see it move the other way: i would like to see canada renationalize it's oil sector, which is something we were moving towards in the 70s as a reaction to the oil embargo. we certainly have our own cost-of-living problems here that can be directly tied to lax and ineffective regulations around oil prices which ultimately just reduces to price gouging. but, whether the right-to-work position is genuine or not, we can be certain that nobody is going to propose stronger government regulations around oil prices.

what i'm getting to is that the fact that mexico has had such strong regulations around oil prices has been at the center of it's ability to depress wages: if you keep oil low, you keep inflation down, which controls labour unrest and in turn lets manufacturers keep wages stagnant.

so, what happens when you let the market set the price for oil, then? you get inflation, which creates labour unrest that in turn creates upward pressure on wages. that is actually what is happening right now, as this left populist mayor rides a wave of indignant mass protest over the inflation that the policy is causing.

this is creating a kind of a contradiction. as a leftist, i want to support both of these things: i want public ownership of resources and i also want strong labour movements. but, the best way to build a strong labour movement in mexico is to let the privatization process wreak it's havoc, as a kind of shock doctrine; conversely, a return to nationalized oil will no doubt just perpetuate further stagnant wages, and reinforce the status quo of mexico as the intentional laggard, in the deal. there doesn't appear to be a causal path right now to this ideal outcome of a strong labour movement in control of public resources. it's almost like you have to let mexico go through it's capitalist phase, first, and then have an indigenous middle class take control of it's own sovereignty.

but, on the note of shock doctrines: i'll note that i've also seen recent reports that mexicio is investing heavily in it's police force. this is actually not a brilliant conspiracy on behalf of the mexicans; if they want a return to an easier to control work force, they should just undo the privatization. you can't take people that are already poor, put through policies designed to create inflation and then suppress them with a paramilitary - you will get a civil war out of it, in some abstraction. but, that is what they appear to be doing.

as i've stated here repeatedly, the purpose of nafta was to give american capital a manufacturing option that would allow it to circumvent labour and environmental laws. market liberalization in mexico - especially in the oil sector - actually undermines the purpose of the agreement. but, we've seen a generational overturn bring younger people into power that have only ever understood the effects of the propagandist kool-aid.

market reforms in mexico will undo nafta on it's own - regardless of anything trump does or doesn't do. and, that's what the smart analysis really ought to be focusing around, here.

is nafta even sustainable?

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/canada-demands-us-end-right-to-work-laws-as-part-of-nafta-talks/article36160015/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&

sept 2-3, 2017 vlog, where i go to a dead industrial night in mexicantown and then to a populated over night antwon faulkner set in a warehouse. 

also: i ended up in a tree fort, at one point, last night - after i'd been asked to put on a hunter s. thompson costume.

i'll indulge most harmless whims. i'm like that.

and, i had to ponder whether that was a valid empirical metric as to whether a good night was had - if it was perhaps the correct test to apply in an adjudicative process in order to determine objective truth.

she had to talk me into it a little bit, and later claimed she kidnapped me, but in the end i did get into the car. it's about 4:00 am.

"when the genocide was over, i went outside to play in the park with my dad and...."

what.

i guess when you live through things, you need to talk about them sometimes, and you have to talk about them in ways you can concretize. and, these turns of phrase are just communicative necessities. it's just language. just expression.

but, the nonchalant recollection of tragedy can sometimes hit you hard in it's absurdity.

i'm really a sucker for the surreal.

sept 1, 2017 vlog, where i go to a labour day party in hamtramck to see human eye, then get kidnapped by the locals and held in a tree fort, before they released me to my bicycle.

i would like to wait until the eviction process plays itself out before i re-open the file for harassment. that would let me forget about it and do something else for a while. but, i can't actually do that.

as mentioned, i do not think that the paralegal expects the process to go to court: i think he thinks it's leverage to force me out. they'll offer me a few months at mediation, and expect me to take it. it won't matter that it's a fake notice, because it won't go to court. and, if i sue them after, it'll be for the two months they offered me, anyways.

i'll tell you right now that i won't bother mediating an obviously fabricated eviction charge, i'll just get right to ripping it apart in court.

if i can do so effectively, i'll have smoking gun evidence that they were harassing me for the purpose of eviction - which is technically what i sued them for. if i can't, i'll wait until the listing comes up and file for a false eviction notice.

i want the eviction process to go through first, and i want to win the case. but, i need to have the mediation settlement broken before that happens, in case i need to refile after they relist from a distance.

the ideal would be to just wait it out and launch a single, comprehensive process. but, it's not prudent. i need to immediately indicate that the mediation was signed in poor faith.

i did get a disc burned this morning, but i didn't have any ink to print the cover art and i just wasn't awake enough to get to the store to buy some.

i will probably get some ink on sunday. but, it seems like i'm going to have a busy day on monday, in getting all the forms out to the right places and the right items in the right envelopes.

i should be able to ship two packages at a time, as well. it makes more sense to wait until inridiculous is done, anyways.

i know it's somebody's parent.

i know one of them lives upstairs and the other one lives "on oulette", which is at least as close to a hospital, and probably a lot nicer.

this family is wealthy; it's inherited wealth. this is kind of the family reject house - it's the disabled son (it may even be brain damage from a stroke or something, i really don't know), and his retarded daughter (she's more obviously asd, and i suspect likely adhd). they're put away here, kind of thing - taken care of, but out of people's hair.

if i can figure out where this person lives, i can no doubt make an argument for absurdity.

....because i'm sure that mom's place is much nicer. not a little bit sure, either. absolutely certain.

i'm looking through the addresses to include in the subsidized rent form, and it really seems like almost every building in town is offering subsidized rent.

i'm kind of skeptical that the waiting list is going to be too long.

ok. it's true. if i can get a two bedroom apartment on the third or fourth floor with a solid air intake, i'll take it as an improvement. i guess i'm a little older, and there's a few things i'm more picky about.

it's not that i don't like basements - i love basements - it's that i don't like air conditioners, and living in the basement means you're stuck with all of the air conditioners on top of you. if i can get up a little, i can reverse the effect.

being up a few floors also means you can open the window without having to worry about smokers at ground level, or cars i suppose, which is more important to me now than it was a few years ago.

it takes losing access to fresh air to realize how valuable it really is. it's something you take for granted, until it's gone.

i'd also like to be a little closer to the downtown core so i have easier access to the tunnel and i'm not missing the bus every time i go to detroit. i'm a concrete jungle type - i don't have much attachment to green spaces. they just end up full of cat shit. i like sidewalks and parking lots. sorry.

i still don't want to uproot. non-smokers really need to start standing their ground and not falling into these  strange narratives around "smokers rights", which is just another way to label a license to pollute. but, i'm realizing that i have better options than i thought.

it's a backup plan. and, i'm glad it's there.

there is nothing on the market that would be acceptable to me at this point; anything comparable to this unit is considerably outside of my price range. it just stresses the importance of standing my ground in the face of persistent harassment, and letting the system come to a correct conclusion in the face of fraudulent reports.

the sad reality surrounding the whole thing is that they won't be able to rent this unit to anybody in the long term. the basement is full of cockroaches. the odours are terrible: cigarettes in the hallways, sewer gas in the back space and pollution from the windows most of the year. when you can get some fresh air, you have to deal with nuisance cats shitting everywhere and neighbours chain smoking in their driveway. you can imagine the kind of undesirable that this wouldn't bother: maybe a 45 year old single male that chain smokes, lives on welfare and is drunk most of the time.

i was told the previous tenant had to end their tenancy because they were sent to jail.

there's essentially no insulation in the back wall. so you have to deal with the air conditioner upstairs in the summer and the basement draft in the winter. if they succeed in converting the unit to gas and the tenancy to paid utilities, paying rent here will mean you're heating the entire basement, and most of the upstairs - because he doesn't turn his heat on unless it's -20. so, the basement tenant is essentially going to be paying heating costs for the entire building.

the tenant they're looking to attract is consequently going to be a low-income chain smoker that doesn't mind living in filth and is willing to overpay for utilities for no apparent reason i can see. i hear he rides a unicorn to church.

i am the best they will get. at least the old guy realized that. i guess he had a little experience with the previous tenants down here, and what a unit like it is able to attract.

i am going to take a precautionary step, though: i am going to apply for subsidized housing. and, i am going to claim that i am in an abusive situation, because i am.

i should have been put in subsidized housing years ago. i mean, i'm on permanent disability, it's what the program is for. i applied for it in ottawa, but i wasn't able to stay with my grandmother long enough to wait it out and had to leave the city, instead. they eventually approved me, but i was already here, and it didn't make the slightest bit of sense to go back.

i've been here long enough now that i can apply, here. i don't know how long it will take...

...but it's really the only way out of this that i can put a positive spin on: i could conceivably get a comparable space, and actually end up with a reduced price. and, good luck to them getting somebody else in here.

but, i'm going to stand my ground. i'm going to make them prove the case. because i presume that they can't. and, everything aside, i don't want to leave.

i just hate moving. if i could snap my fingers, i'd take myself up to a third or fourth floor apartment with windows that open to fresher air and walls that keep the neighbours' a/c out. but, getting from a to b isn't worth it. i'd rather stay here and hold my ground.

i need to state again that i do not intend to leave windsor until i complete my discography because i will not be able to afford the space required to hold my gear much of anywhere else. i could have been done by now, but i've wasted much of the last two years on nonsense. if i leave for waterloo, which is my most likely next destination, i will probably sell my gear before i go.

the idea of moving to waterloo is to shift from an artistic purpose to an academic (mathematical) one. i could very well end up living in the library for a while. but, i was not expecting to end up in waterloo until i hit my mid-40s or early 50s. i'll likely be in windsor for another 10-15 years before i move on.

i intend to eventually end up in the northern end of the province, in my twilight years.

i will not end up back in ottawa, unless it is homeless and penniless and in the short term, before i move away again. i simply cannot afford to live in the city.

so, i woke up to an eviction order - signed hours after the mediation process - that i needed to leave so that a parent could move in.

which one? the obese man's ex-wife?

does she like cockroaches?

they can do this in ontario. sort of. they have to demonstrate a need to put the parent there, which is probably going to be difficult. they can't just decide that they're going to stick mom in there for a year for the fun of it, they have to have a good reason. and, it has to be true, in the first place.

they have the burden of proof to demonstrate it, and they can expect a rigorous cross-examination.

frankly, even if they do have a parent to move in, and they need to, it's going to be hard for them to convince a judge that they just forgot to tell me that in mediation and that this has nothing to do with the last several months of harassment. so, we have bad faith on two levels:

1) the mediation agreement was arrived at in bad faith, and is consequently void.
2) the eviction order was provided in bad faith, and will fail. in fact, i think it's toothless: it's an intimidation tactic. i don't expect it to actually go to court. it's just supposed to scare me into moving.

i was hoping to push this forward into september. but, they broke the agreement in less than 24 hours.

again: was i fool to put it off? the answer is no: this would have happened anyways. putting the file on hold did not lead to a fake eviction notice, they would have done it anyways. but, it does allow me to put the harassment proceedings - and the fake eviction notice will be a part of them - into a single case, which both makes me seem less interested in conflict (which is true.) and less interested in financial gain (which is also true.). in the long run, it just strengthens my argument that there is a pattern of consistent harassment.

if anybody is capitalizing, it is the paralegal, who appears to be more interested in taking advantage of clueless property owners than building his own reputation. and, if i made an error it was in hoping for good faith from a lawyer. the ideal outcome remains in helping these people better understand what the law says; unfortunately, this guy seems like he wants to just take advantage of them.

i am going to have to spend some time in the next few days looking at moving options, as a backup plan, but that will not void any of the legal proceedings - including the inevitable filing of a false eviction claim, which i can theoretically file after moving. if that ends up happening, it will pay for the process. i don't expect my options to be very good (to avoid moving backwards, i will need to find a two bedroom all-inclusive apartment for less than $700/month - and, remember, i am legally incapable of working), but i have to explore them.

if i were to move out, and i saw that they relisted the apartment, re-opening the file under that premise would be a very strong argument: months of harassment culminating in a fake eviction notice would indeed land me a sum. and, if i'm moving out, i'll take it.

i need to do some cleaning tonight, and then get a few things mailed in the morning. i'll take a look at this over the next few days, with the aim to mail some things on monday.

aug 29-30 vlog, where i prepare the case against the landlord for harassment, go to court and withdraw, with the hope that the issue might resolve.

if they want this to end, it's really simple: all they have to do is leave me alone.

i actually put this truth in the court documents: even if i were to walk out of the court room with the full settlement (which has now inched up to 4679.46), we'd still have to find a mediation process, afterwards, or i'm just going to take them to court every month.

i even offered to give some of it to charity. it's really not the point.

that number can keep growing. the bigger it gets, the larger a fraction of it gets, too. it can eventually get to a point where i shouldn't expect to see it, even if i win it. but, that's fine, because it's not the actual answer to anything.

the preferred answer was an epiphany. i was hoping i could help. sure, it's still possible. right now, the right answer is a legal mentor to get them to follow common sense legal principles - to tell them when they're fucking up and tell them not to.

that is infinitely more valuable to me than an unending court battle that i keep winning.

they fucked up within hours: i have two more examples of harassment, just this evening.

but, things are different, now: i have a paralegal that has at least taken a couple of courses to run it through, and he has to tell his clients whether or not these things are worth doing.

they are minor concerns, in isolation: removing an air freshener from my window sill, changing the speed of the fan that i won by court order so that it's barely working. neither of these actions cost me anything. more importantly, refraining from these actions doesn't cost the landlord anything - but carrying them out could cost her a whole lot.

any decent paralegal should look at the situation and say the following,

"well, jessica is correct: you cannot be vandalizing her window sill, as it is an extension of her living space. anything on the sill is her property. removing an item from the window sill is the same thing as removing an item from her apartment. and, she won the court order on the fan, too, so you should basically never touch it, for any reason. if these situations were one-offs, this would be a waste of time. but, they are part of a pattern of harassment that could land you in a lot of trouble. this isn't worth fighting, and this isn't worth doing. you should sign the paper - and you should leave the fan alone, and leave items on her window sill alone, too."

that is dramatically more productive from my perspective than getting into a stupid shouting match and dragging the thing to a judge.

but, i don't expect this to evaporate tomorrow. it's going to be the paralegal's responsibility for the near future to get these people to start acting like grown-ups. it could take a long time. but, in the long run, if the behaviour is slowly corrected, the issue is resolved.

otherwise, we go back to court within weeks - and i'll do it, because it's the pattern that matters, not the precise issue.

i gave them another chance...

.....to fuck up.

well, it's kind of true.

what i did was put the case on hold in order to deal with a paralegal. it's easy enough to scoff at me: i gave them a chance to get a lawyer involved? am i daft? or just imbued with gentlemanly concepts of fair play? but, it's actually better in the long run.

see, i'm far better off giving them as many chances as i can, like a tiger playing with a kill, than i am in trying to devour them multiple times. i'm going to get annoying if i take this to a judge every few weeks, and i want to avoid seeming aggressive: i am, after all, suing for harassment. i'm the victim, here. it needs to be unambiguous. i'm more likely to get a big settlement if it's at the end of incredible patience than i am if it looks like i'm coming back for seconds and thirds like a greedy glutton.

beyond tactical considerations, i'm actually genuine: what i want is for the shenanigans to end at no cost to me. it is perhaps true that the root cause of the problem is that they're all so legally clueless. perhaps a good deal of this would not have happened if they had sought proper legal advice. so, there is some reason to think that putting a lawyer between us could have a seriously positive effect.

also, i'm intuitive enough to realize that what this paralegal really wanted was to avoid the court date out of fear of being beaten by an amateur. the truth is that i actually intimidated him. he's not going to shape up in the course of weeks or months, but he may give the case less formlessness, and actually make it easier to sue as a consequence.

i actually hope that this is the end of it; they gave me back the $50 filing fee, but left me on the hook for the other $40 i spent on paper and mailing costs. i'd be surprised if it is; i should be able to add those costs on to the next date.

if i refile i can add all of the things that have happened since july 20th as further examples - at no extra cost - and increase the fine to six or potentially seven months at a better probability of winning and potentially with better evidence.

i'm sleepy. but i'll be getting to better and more productive things when i wake up.