briefly, then:
1) unilateral declarations of independence may be unconstitutional in individual countries. however,
2) international law is that the right to declare independence trumps everything and
3) liberal courts have generally agreed that democratic states should not use force to repress established independence movements.
4) the referendum in crimea is consequently illegal under ukrainian law but legal under international law. further, it would be contrary to international norms for ukraine to react with force to suppress an independence movement.
however, the reality is that neither side cares about national or international law.
as far as i can tell, the western media line that the referendum was illegal and should not be recognized is rejecting international law on the subject, which is that sovereign states have no rights whatsoever in preventing independent movements.
people are talking kosovo, but the example i understand best is quebec. (yes, i've studied this formally).
there's been a subtle supreme court ruling on the matter in canada, which is best to toss in the garbage as utter bullshit. those are strong words and i mean them. it's that bad. really. the succession reference case in canada is actually a breathtaking example of blatant historical whitewashing and revisionism to create a trumped up pretext to uphold state interests. it is now all but illegal for quebec to separate from canada, but if they decide to do it anyways is it legal to stop them?
this is where the ruling becomes subtle. it's all but illegal to separate, yet equally illegal to try and stop them, should they succeed in declaring independence. further, a successful declaration of independence is defined by the ability to assert sovereignty, which is essentially the ability to prevent canada from stopping them. the ruling consequently purposefully states nothing of value about quebec's functional right to unilateral succession (despite being clear it would be all but illegal in canadian law), but it does put restrictions on canada's ability to prevent it by force.
on that point, the court did pick out the more interesting question. anybody can claim anything. who that opposes this is going to stop them? the more pressing question is what kind of rights exist in suppressing independence movements, and when worded like that it becomes clear that these rights must be limited or perhaps even non-existent. regardless of what crimea's rights may or may not be, to what extent is ukraine justified in actively preventing an expression of sovereignty? the reference case's rejection of a right of canada to use force to reassert sovereignty essentially negates the relevance of the canadian constitution, should quebec decide to forcefully declare it's own interests as an expression of it's own will. i couldn't see how a ukrainian court of any remotely liberal lean could rule differently over crimea.
the international law is consistent with this position. in international law, declarations of independence trump everything else. they certainly trump constitutions. i think the above discussion provides some context as to why that is.
now, that's not to deny that something sneaky has become apparent over time. the russians have not been transparent about this. in order to regain lost credibility with me, they would have to reject the referendum and reassert crimea's place in ukraine. this was their initial position, which they've now flopped on. the position is extremely important in the context of them moving military people to the region - it's one thing to temporarily invade to protect a base, it's another to invade with the goal of annexation. rejecting the request to join russia is not the same thing as rejecting the validity of the referendum. and pointing out russian dishonesty is not the same thing as unilaterally rewriting international law. it's consistent to both disagree with the russian position on the annexation and uphold the legality of the vote. that seems to be the correct position.
briefly, then:
1) unilateral declarations of independence may be unconstitutional in individual countries. however,
2) international law is that the right to declare independence trumps everything and
3) liberal courts have generally agreed that democratic states should not use force to repress established independence movements.
4) the referendum in crimea is consequently illegal under ukrainian law but legal under international law. further, it would be contrary to international norms for ukraine to react with force to suppress an independence movement.
however, the reality is that neither side cares about national or international law.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
click.
hope.
fail.
groan.
repeat.
i'm getting a rough directory structure, but almost all the actual data is garbled. that's useful in triggering my memory in reconstructing things, at least.
i've decided on the following plan:
1) finish trying to recover as much as i can.
2) back up everything else i might want to back up.
3) while i'm waiting to see if i can recover, upload some things that are already complete. that is, jump ahead.
4) make further decisions based on what i can recover.
so, there should be some new (old) tracks up in the next few days, after all.
hope.
fail.
groan.
repeat.
i'm getting a rough directory structure, but almost all the actual data is garbled. that's useful in triggering my memory in reconstructing things, at least.
i've decided on the following plan:
1) finish trying to recover as much as i can.
2) back up everything else i might want to back up.
3) while i'm waiting to see if i can recover, upload some things that are already complete. that is, jump ahead.
4) make further decisions based on what i can recover.
so, there should be some new (old) tracks up in the next few days, after all.
Saturday, March 15, 2014
deathtokoalas
i know they're indignant over an act of barbarism, but why aren't these protest movements seizing factories and farms instead of getting beat up by riot cops in downtown parks?
Michael IV
That would be the best option if their aim was to start a civil war but it isn't. They simply want to be heard by their government, not create a new one on their own.
deathtokoalas
yeah, there's this impossible problem we've created by not educating our citizens. as a result of living in almost total historical ignorance, they grow up thinking ridiculous ideas, like that there's some kind of culture of democracy in the western world. this leads them into protest movements that demand change from this inane, supernatural force they call 'government' - rather than realizing that government is they themselves, and their inaction (a function of their terrible education) is a function of the system's planned failure.
a better education would teach them that the class war is perpetual. the civil war is not determined by dates and events, but is always carried out between those who own capital and those who do not. there is consequently no solution other than to attack those who own property, and redistribute it to the people.
yet, so long as we are kept ignorant, we will gather in squares and chant slogans instead.
Abayarde718
Yo bro you're the fucking man. That was brilliant. If we gathered to grow public gardens and make abundance the norm it would be 10000X more effective than shouting words in anger. If we grew food and cannabis, our own medicines, to become independent of the need for so much capital and consuming, we could crash the economy. People Dont want real change. They want nanny states. Peave to u.
deathtokoalas
i think it's worse than that, actually. they seem to legitimately want things to change (or, in the case of turkey and many other places, perhaps not change), but they're fundamentally incapable of carrying out that change, which is by design. a big part of the problem is that we're taught all kinds of lies about how our governments represent us, rather than the truth, which is that they represent the interests of capital (banks and big corporations, still mostly resource and extraction based at this high a political level). this leads us to the delusional (religious, really) belief system underlying these demonstrations - prayers to the state will be heeded if they are loud enough and targeted enough. that's less a desire for a nanny state, and more blowback from social engineering.
in truth, demonstrators are doing precisely what they're taught to do, and being beaten up by a demonstration of state force like they're supposed to be. cries of "human rights violations!" exist in some parallel universe, full of rainbow unicorns prancing through fields of money trees. you've all confused the state for an entity that actually gives a fuck.
the handful of examples of large scale successful demonstrations have not been peaceful. in actual fact, gandhi was demonstrating to the british authorities the size of a potential army (and the hopelessness of their position, tactically). it was the threat of force that won him his aims (which were full of far more fail than win). likewise, the civil rights protests would have been entirely useless if the demonstrators weren't armed (they don't teach us that). in order for "non-violent protest" to be effective, it must come with the threat of imminent violence. that is to say that, when effective, it is not truly non-violent at all, but merely a more enlightened type of violence.
but, it's the government's desire to keep us ignorant and stupid that is both at the core of these protest movements and the reason they offer no hope for the future. the reason they sit in squares and sing songs isn't that they don't want to improve their own lives, it's that they don't know how to. they only know how to ask their state deity to solve problems for them - just as they're supposed to.
these protests are consequently the exact opposite of a hopeful youth movement. rather, they are evidence of the impending doom that we face as a consequence of not educating our young people.
"you mean, you shouldn't put gatorade on the crops?"
Michael IV
The people will always be ignorant, there's is a slow change. It's the leaders that are the ones who can bring true change and quickly. Therefore people should study for themselves and learn for themselves and then lead their people. Instead of teaching the whole populace, which seems quite impossible.
deathtokoalas
ach, no. no gods, no masters. smashing the state is the only possible way to bring back history....this just isn't the way to do it.
leaders never represent people. they always represent capital. putting hope into leadership is only possible through not understanding the inherently exploitative nature of capitalism.
Michael IV
There will always be leaders in this world, that's an inevitability. There are those who follow and those who lead. The only chose we have is who are the ones to lead.
deathtokoalas
see, michael is terribly brainwashed. he thinks there are only those who follow and those who lead. that allows him to internally validate an authoritarian system as irreplaceable in one form or another. it may convince him, one day, to pick up a gun to protect a flag, rather than attack those who handed him the gun.
leaders are those who follow from the front. the quality that defines a good leader is an ability to understand the tendencies in the herd, then repeat it back in a way that justifies their use of power. there is consequently no real difference between a leader and a follower, except where they exist in the hierarchy. if we are to be reduced to only leaders and followers, we're destined to stumble around in circles. only the blind may lead, and only the deaf may follow.
there is, however, a difference between those who engage and those who do not. rather than thinking in terms of this silly leader/follower distinction, it would rather behoove you to conceive of situations in a philosopher/actor sort of distinction. actors are leaders and followers - people who take part in the group. philosophers are those who sit back and watch the leaders follow themselves around in circles. from this point of abstraction, they are able to conceive of problems in the way people behave.
it's not that we need more philosophers. we have plenty. it's that we need to start listening to them.
Michael IV
We've had plenty of Scientific revolutions and extreme changes in knowledge over the years. We've all listened to plenty of philosophers and learned from them, but much of the world is deaf to sense and reason. That is why we still have wars, that is why we still have strife, because the populace fails to listen. Like Sun Tzu said, deception simply has a bad connotation. If the deaf populace is led by an enlightened leader, then there is no need to fight the redundant battle of trying to convince everyone of "the right way to think". Only one person has to understand everything, and that is the leader.
deathtokoalas
you're deifying your government leaders; the concept you seek is called "god", and the system you envision is called "fundamentalism". it's the kind of thing that exists in iran, and that once existed in rome. there are three reasons why these systems fail. the first is that human wisdom is not only finite but bounded much lower than our imagination would like. we're dumb apes. the second is that power corrupts; there is no enlightened sage that will reform a corrupt system, it is the system itself that needs to be abolished. removing bush did not end targeted assassination programs. removing yanukovich will not end endemic ukrainian corruption. removing erdogan will not dismantle the turkish military-industrial complex. the third is that society is collaborative by definition and must function through consent to be stable. hierarchical, authoritarian societies are constantly in rearrangement, perpetually on the brink of implosion and collapse. it's these shifting class divisions, and desires to maintain power within them, that are the reason we continue to fight. there is no way to abolish conflict (this, again, is delusional religious thinking), but only a way to abolish want, making conflict difficult on an organized scale. so long as leaders may raise armies, they may start wars.
i don't wish to write off the masses. i am a member of these masses. i stand with them. rather, i point out that we are losing the fight against the leaders that wish to enslave us by reducing us to ignorant fools that are dependent upon them for survival. this is a created condition, not an endemic one.
i don't wish to continue this discussion.
scrbble
I haven't read a well thought out comment on youtube in a while, thanks for that.
Kim Jong-un
deathtokoalas please marry me!
deathtokoalas
i'm the biggest loner in the world, it wouldn't work out.
Kim Jong-un
I'd make it work. Just text me if you change your mind.
Cristian Sosa
I wish people could start to seize government buildings around the world, and rise in an utopian anarchism. But sadly mankind is eons behind to be ready to leave in peace without the need of a government. And a change of politics in the government, say from Capitalism to Socialism for instance, would be like placing a band aid on a major laceration. We are broken, and fixing our entire society must be one of the hardest things humanity has yet to face.
deathtokoalas
i'm not really in agreement with the idea that we're centuries away from actual freedom. if there's a temporal component, it's in the technology and i actually think that automated production has the potential to revolutionize the mode of production within our lifetime, and the social system will have no choice but to adjust to that extreme economic reorganization.
but, if it's true, the end point can only be accomplished by failing dozens or hundreds of times. there's no teleology in history - not marx' teleology of historical materialism, nor hegel's end of history, nor the dreaded orthogenesis that came out of trying to reconcile darwin with genesis. we will not get to an end point as a function of time, we need to push our way there. and there may be a few messes along the way...
i know they're indignant over an act of barbarism, but why aren't these protest movements seizing factories and farms instead of getting beat up by riot cops in downtown parks?
Michael IV
That would be the best option if their aim was to start a civil war but it isn't. They simply want to be heard by their government, not create a new one on their own.
deathtokoalas
yeah, there's this impossible problem we've created by not educating our citizens. as a result of living in almost total historical ignorance, they grow up thinking ridiculous ideas, like that there's some kind of culture of democracy in the western world. this leads them into protest movements that demand change from this inane, supernatural force they call 'government' - rather than realizing that government is they themselves, and their inaction (a function of their terrible education) is a function of the system's planned failure.
a better education would teach them that the class war is perpetual. the civil war is not determined by dates and events, but is always carried out between those who own capital and those who do not. there is consequently no solution other than to attack those who own property, and redistribute it to the people.
yet, so long as we are kept ignorant, we will gather in squares and chant slogans instead.
Abayarde718
Yo bro you're the fucking man. That was brilliant. If we gathered to grow public gardens and make abundance the norm it would be 10000X more effective than shouting words in anger. If we grew food and cannabis, our own medicines, to become independent of the need for so much capital and consuming, we could crash the economy. People Dont want real change. They want nanny states. Peave to u.
deathtokoalas
i think it's worse than that, actually. they seem to legitimately want things to change (or, in the case of turkey and many other places, perhaps not change), but they're fundamentally incapable of carrying out that change, which is by design. a big part of the problem is that we're taught all kinds of lies about how our governments represent us, rather than the truth, which is that they represent the interests of capital (banks and big corporations, still mostly resource and extraction based at this high a political level). this leads us to the delusional (religious, really) belief system underlying these demonstrations - prayers to the state will be heeded if they are loud enough and targeted enough. that's less a desire for a nanny state, and more blowback from social engineering.
in truth, demonstrators are doing precisely what they're taught to do, and being beaten up by a demonstration of state force like they're supposed to be. cries of "human rights violations!" exist in some parallel universe, full of rainbow unicorns prancing through fields of money trees. you've all confused the state for an entity that actually gives a fuck.
the handful of examples of large scale successful demonstrations have not been peaceful. in actual fact, gandhi was demonstrating to the british authorities the size of a potential army (and the hopelessness of their position, tactically). it was the threat of force that won him his aims (which were full of far more fail than win). likewise, the civil rights protests would have been entirely useless if the demonstrators weren't armed (they don't teach us that). in order for "non-violent protest" to be effective, it must come with the threat of imminent violence. that is to say that, when effective, it is not truly non-violent at all, but merely a more enlightened type of violence.
but, it's the government's desire to keep us ignorant and stupid that is both at the core of these protest movements and the reason they offer no hope for the future. the reason they sit in squares and sing songs isn't that they don't want to improve their own lives, it's that they don't know how to. they only know how to ask their state deity to solve problems for them - just as they're supposed to.
these protests are consequently the exact opposite of a hopeful youth movement. rather, they are evidence of the impending doom that we face as a consequence of not educating our young people.
"you mean, you shouldn't put gatorade on the crops?"
Michael IV
The people will always be ignorant, there's is a slow change. It's the leaders that are the ones who can bring true change and quickly. Therefore people should study for themselves and learn for themselves and then lead their people. Instead of teaching the whole populace, which seems quite impossible.
deathtokoalas
ach, no. no gods, no masters. smashing the state is the only possible way to bring back history....this just isn't the way to do it.
leaders never represent people. they always represent capital. putting hope into leadership is only possible through not understanding the inherently exploitative nature of capitalism.
Michael IV
There will always be leaders in this world, that's an inevitability. There are those who follow and those who lead. The only chose we have is who are the ones to lead.
deathtokoalas
see, michael is terribly brainwashed. he thinks there are only those who follow and those who lead. that allows him to internally validate an authoritarian system as irreplaceable in one form or another. it may convince him, one day, to pick up a gun to protect a flag, rather than attack those who handed him the gun.
leaders are those who follow from the front. the quality that defines a good leader is an ability to understand the tendencies in the herd, then repeat it back in a way that justifies their use of power. there is consequently no real difference between a leader and a follower, except where they exist in the hierarchy. if we are to be reduced to only leaders and followers, we're destined to stumble around in circles. only the blind may lead, and only the deaf may follow.
there is, however, a difference between those who engage and those who do not. rather than thinking in terms of this silly leader/follower distinction, it would rather behoove you to conceive of situations in a philosopher/actor sort of distinction. actors are leaders and followers - people who take part in the group. philosophers are those who sit back and watch the leaders follow themselves around in circles. from this point of abstraction, they are able to conceive of problems in the way people behave.
it's not that we need more philosophers. we have plenty. it's that we need to start listening to them.
Michael IV
We've had plenty of Scientific revolutions and extreme changes in knowledge over the years. We've all listened to plenty of philosophers and learned from them, but much of the world is deaf to sense and reason. That is why we still have wars, that is why we still have strife, because the populace fails to listen. Like Sun Tzu said, deception simply has a bad connotation. If the deaf populace is led by an enlightened leader, then there is no need to fight the redundant battle of trying to convince everyone of "the right way to think". Only one person has to understand everything, and that is the leader.
deathtokoalas
you're deifying your government leaders; the concept you seek is called "god", and the system you envision is called "fundamentalism". it's the kind of thing that exists in iran, and that once existed in rome. there are three reasons why these systems fail. the first is that human wisdom is not only finite but bounded much lower than our imagination would like. we're dumb apes. the second is that power corrupts; there is no enlightened sage that will reform a corrupt system, it is the system itself that needs to be abolished. removing bush did not end targeted assassination programs. removing yanukovich will not end endemic ukrainian corruption. removing erdogan will not dismantle the turkish military-industrial complex. the third is that society is collaborative by definition and must function through consent to be stable. hierarchical, authoritarian societies are constantly in rearrangement, perpetually on the brink of implosion and collapse. it's these shifting class divisions, and desires to maintain power within them, that are the reason we continue to fight. there is no way to abolish conflict (this, again, is delusional religious thinking), but only a way to abolish want, making conflict difficult on an organized scale. so long as leaders may raise armies, they may start wars.
i don't wish to write off the masses. i am a member of these masses. i stand with them. rather, i point out that we are losing the fight against the leaders that wish to enslave us by reducing us to ignorant fools that are dependent upon them for survival. this is a created condition, not an endemic one.
i don't wish to continue this discussion.
scrbble
I haven't read a well thought out comment on youtube in a while, thanks for that.
Kim Jong-un
deathtokoalas please marry me!
deathtokoalas
i'm the biggest loner in the world, it wouldn't work out.
Kim Jong-un
I'd make it work. Just text me if you change your mind.
Cristian Sosa
I wish people could start to seize government buildings around the world, and rise in an utopian anarchism. But sadly mankind is eons behind to be ready to leave in peace without the need of a government. And a change of politics in the government, say from Capitalism to Socialism for instance, would be like placing a band aid on a major laceration. We are broken, and fixing our entire society must be one of the hardest things humanity has yet to face.
deathtokoalas
i'm not really in agreement with the idea that we're centuries away from actual freedom. if there's a temporal component, it's in the technology and i actually think that automated production has the potential to revolutionize the mode of production within our lifetime, and the social system will have no choice but to adjust to that extreme economic reorganization.
but, if it's true, the end point can only be accomplished by failing dozens or hundreds of times. there's no teleology in history - not marx' teleology of historical materialism, nor hegel's end of history, nor the dreaded orthogenesis that came out of trying to reconcile darwin with genesis. we will not get to an end point as a function of time, we need to push our way there. and there may be a few messes along the way...
so, venezuela has an excess demand for milk and butter, driving street protests. if you just decrease the demand (by increasing taxes and reducing imports), inflation will go down, thereby stopping the protests.
brilliant!
i'll keep that in mind if we ever have a problem with inflation in the price of water.
less sardonically, this is what happens when you approach economics as applied algebra.
if you ignore the prevalence of the black market (which seems to be the creation of government policy), it might be more effective if the demand for milk and butter was more elastic. but, then there probably wouldn't be a problem in the first place. it's hard to imagine people attacking cops over the price of computers.
as it is, decreasing demand for food sounds like an algorithm for depopulation.
maybe the solution is that venezuela needs to focus more on domestic production of food, including reducing exports? the root cause of the problem seems to be their dependence on food imports.
now, if you could just get somebody out there explaining to people that seizing farms and factories and building networks of food distribution is a better idea than throwing molotov cocktails at riot police...
alas, such a prophet escapes us, the world over.
hundreds of thousands of people on the street there, and in brazil, and in turkey, and in ukraine, greece, egypt and spain - and i'm not convinced that the thought of seizing production even entered anybody's minds.
brilliant!
i'll keep that in mind if we ever have a problem with inflation in the price of water.
less sardonically, this is what happens when you approach economics as applied algebra.
if you ignore the prevalence of the black market (which seems to be the creation of government policy), it might be more effective if the demand for milk and butter was more elastic. but, then there probably wouldn't be a problem in the first place. it's hard to imagine people attacking cops over the price of computers.
as it is, decreasing demand for food sounds like an algorithm for depopulation.
maybe the solution is that venezuela needs to focus more on domestic production of food, including reducing exports? the root cause of the problem seems to be their dependence on food imports.
now, if you could just get somebody out there explaining to people that seizing farms and factories and building networks of food distribution is a better idea than throwing molotov cocktails at riot police...
alas, such a prophet escapes us, the world over.
hundreds of thousands of people on the street there, and in brazil, and in turkey, and in ukraine, greece, egypt and spain - and i'm not convinced that the thought of seizing production even entered anybody's minds.
i have these strange straight edge behavioural remnants that i've never really gotten over.
i won't take anything for headaches, ever. not aspirin, not acetaminophen, not ibuprofen and certainly not codeine. i'll get moderately intense migraines, too: blurred vision, vomiting.
i'll actually mostly just ignore it.
"j, you don't look so good".
"yeah, i'm having a migraine."
"you look like you need some help."
"nah."
"i really think..."
"i'm fine."
in truth, i'm in horrific pain, but it's the kind of pain you get used to. i mean, the only other way to deal with it is to go fall asleep somewhere dark, and that's not always an option.
i'm glad it's an option right now, though, because i'm still refusing myself aspirin.
i won't take anything for headaches, ever. not aspirin, not acetaminophen, not ibuprofen and certainly not codeine. i'll get moderately intense migraines, too: blurred vision, vomiting.
i'll actually mostly just ignore it.
"j, you don't look so good".
"yeah, i'm having a migraine."
"you look like you need some help."
"nah."
"i really think..."
"i'm fine."
in truth, i'm in horrific pain, but it's the kind of pain you get used to. i mean, the only other way to deal with it is to go fall asleep somewhere dark, and that's not always an option.
i'm glad it's an option right now, though, because i'm still refusing myself aspirin.
some bad news with my hard drive, if you follow the comments.
i'm kicking myself for not backing up when i had the opportunity. in fact, i was actually going to do it right at the very moment i discovered the last blue screen. just a few hours too late. ugh. *bashes head against wall*.
i've had a little time to think about it. there's an off chance that i may be able to recover parts or all of the install partition because i was moving a lot of files around from drive to drive. if i can do that, i can reinstall the machine, and i will.
if i can't, i'm not sure if i'm going to let it sit and hope i can recover the data by bringing it to a store, maybe read a bit instead, or if i'd rather upgrade to 64 bit vista (which is what i have sitting around). see, it's going to take probably close to a week to get it up and running. given that reality, waiting might be a better plan.
pretty depressed about it, though. that's pretty much everything i've done since i moved here - as well as the culmination of eight years worth of scripting - that is possibly just kablooey.
i'm kicking myself for not backing up when i had the opportunity. in fact, i was actually going to do it right at the very moment i discovered the last blue screen. just a few hours too late. ugh. *bashes head against wall*.
i've had a little time to think about it. there's an off chance that i may be able to recover parts or all of the install partition because i was moving a lot of files around from drive to drive. if i can do that, i can reinstall the machine, and i will.
if i can't, i'm not sure if i'm going to let it sit and hope i can recover the data by bringing it to a store, maybe read a bit instead, or if i'd rather upgrade to 64 bit vista (which is what i have sitting around). see, it's going to take probably close to a week to get it up and running. given that reality, waiting might be a better plan.
pretty depressed about it, though. that's pretty much everything i've done since i moved here - as well as the culmination of eight years worth of scripting - that is possibly just kablooey.
well, it connects with a vanilla sp3 install, but i can't run that on
the living room machine, it's too old. the image is designed to run a
static ip. it worked with the old router, so i'm hoping i can just
modify a few things to align it, but it didn't work the first time so i
may have to reimage it for dhcp....
minor. it'll be working in a day or two.
minor. it'll be working in a day or two.
turkey is a nato member, us ally and supposed democracy. that's very different than the other countries that have seen protest movements. egypt is the closest comparison, but it's not close.
it'll be interesting to see how this works out, but it's not likely that american or eu interests will side with the protests.
it'll be interesting to see how this works out, but it's not likely that american or eu interests will side with the protests.
deathtokoalas
i know it's hugely counter-intuitive, but what the saudis actually want is to prevent democracy in syria. this is the reason they're trying to oust assad.
--
commandoslayer
First they are saying they want Assad out of power and let the people elect a new leader now they dont want an election to be held in Syria.
deathtokoalas
the saudi aim has always been to prevent democracy in syria. that's what this conflict is actually about.
it's the same reason they have a hate-on for iran, and that they engineered the coup in egypt. before the shit hit the fan, assad had been trying to engineer an orderly retreat from power for several years (that's all changed now, as he can hardly hand over power to extremists). the saudis want to get in there and take over the government before populist forces do, so they don't have "another iran" causing destabilization and giving their own people any ideas. the americans and israelis are going along with it because british imperialism has always preferred dictatorships over democracies in the region, for a broadly similar set of reasons. democracies are unstable. properly bribed dictatorships are easy to control - so long as they control their own people in return.
the propaganda is just that. america never fights for democracy, but always in opposition to it.
commandoslayer
The syrian people have two choices a dictator who has a secular government or terrorists who want to impose sharia law. Who would you prefer to run the country?
Assad has a secular government. I never said that he or his family were all good people and yes there are FSA soldiers who are against Assad and against the jihadist but the odds of them winning are very low. How do you expect them to win against Al-Qaeda and Al-Nusra and at the same time fight Hezbollah and Assad? You are the one funny living in the fantasy world where the prince will rescue the princess from the dragon.
I thought the Kurds wanted an independent state in the Middle East, independent from Turkey and Syria. Anyway the chances of the YPG and Kurds in Syria winning is also low because they are not only fighting the FSA, Assad and the Jihadist but Turkey as well. The Turkish Government is allowing foerign jihadist to attack your people in Syria and if you dont believe me watch this video watch?v=p2zxlFQxkQ4
Just asking: So are ok with the Turkish government allowing Jihadist to kill your Kurdish brothers and sisters in Syria? The Kurdish are a beautiful people who I truly understand their cause.
I am watching moderate news and watch video footage and talking to people of Syria from all sides. Kurdish people are fighting the Jihadist and the FSA which part of it is allied with Al-Qaeda and Al-Nusra who want the Kurdish people out of Syria, many Kurds have left Syria because of the ethnic cleansing commited by those forgein terrorists. If Assad loses it is high likley the civil war will continue with rebel factions fighting each other but the hatred towards your people will still continue.
Can you imagine they prefer foregin terrorists rather than the beautiful Kurdish who were born in those lands and have lived there all their lives?
Then you are the Sunni against Shia type? Because if i remember correctly Assad is an Alawite muslim.
I am not claiming anything I never claimed that Assad is a good choice seen in my first reply. What I am saying what will happen to the minorities in Syria like the christians, kurds and Alawites? Will the FSA be able to protect them if not will they join the jihadist to murder them? Will the Sunnis be stripped from their freedom and have a country with Sharia law? How will the FSA get rid of the Jihadist they let enter in the first place and who do you think the Saudis would support?
deathtokoalas
the old kurdish rebel trick, eh?
that's the oldest trick in the book.
not only do i not believe a word you say, i also think you're a cia agent. and am consequently blocking you.
i know it's hugely counter-intuitive, but what the saudis actually want is to prevent democracy in syria. this is the reason they're trying to oust assad.
--
commandoslayer
First they are saying they want Assad out of power and let the people elect a new leader now they dont want an election to be held in Syria.
deathtokoalas
the saudi aim has always been to prevent democracy in syria. that's what this conflict is actually about.
it's the same reason they have a hate-on for iran, and that they engineered the coup in egypt. before the shit hit the fan, assad had been trying to engineer an orderly retreat from power for several years (that's all changed now, as he can hardly hand over power to extremists). the saudis want to get in there and take over the government before populist forces do, so they don't have "another iran" causing destabilization and giving their own people any ideas. the americans and israelis are going along with it because british imperialism has always preferred dictatorships over democracies in the region, for a broadly similar set of reasons. democracies are unstable. properly bribed dictatorships are easy to control - so long as they control their own people in return.
the propaganda is just that. america never fights for democracy, but always in opposition to it.
commandoslayer
The syrian people have two choices a dictator who has a secular government or terrorists who want to impose sharia law. Who would you prefer to run the country?
Assad has a secular government. I never said that he or his family were all good people and yes there are FSA soldiers who are against Assad and against the jihadist but the odds of them winning are very low. How do you expect them to win against Al-Qaeda and Al-Nusra and at the same time fight Hezbollah and Assad? You are the one funny living in the fantasy world where the prince will rescue the princess from the dragon.
I thought the Kurds wanted an independent state in the Middle East, independent from Turkey and Syria. Anyway the chances of the YPG and Kurds in Syria winning is also low because they are not only fighting the FSA, Assad and the Jihadist but Turkey as well. The Turkish Government is allowing foerign jihadist to attack your people in Syria and if you dont believe me watch this video watch?v=p2zxlFQxkQ4
Just asking: So are ok with the Turkish government allowing Jihadist to kill your Kurdish brothers and sisters in Syria? The Kurdish are a beautiful people who I truly understand their cause.
I am watching moderate news and watch video footage and talking to people of Syria from all sides. Kurdish people are fighting the Jihadist and the FSA which part of it is allied with Al-Qaeda and Al-Nusra who want the Kurdish people out of Syria, many Kurds have left Syria because of the ethnic cleansing commited by those forgein terrorists. If Assad loses it is high likley the civil war will continue with rebel factions fighting each other but the hatred towards your people will still continue.
Can you imagine they prefer foregin terrorists rather than the beautiful Kurdish who were born in those lands and have lived there all their lives?
Then you are the Sunni against Shia type? Because if i remember correctly Assad is an Alawite muslim.
I am not claiming anything I never claimed that Assad is a good choice seen in my first reply. What I am saying what will happen to the minorities in Syria like the christians, kurds and Alawites? Will the FSA be able to protect them if not will they join the jihadist to murder them? Will the Sunnis be stripped from their freedom and have a country with Sharia law? How will the FSA get rid of the Jihadist they let enter in the first place and who do you think the Saudis would support?
deathtokoalas
the old kurdish rebel trick, eh?
that's the oldest trick in the book.
not only do i not believe a word you say, i also think you're a cia agent. and am consequently blocking you.
i agree we need to be careful with assigning too much to monetary policy. but this guy's answer is some kind of ultra-paradoxical position.
there is no "natural cause" of an increase in the money supply. it's a decision made by a bureaucrat because.....who knows, really. it could be anything. a bribe. an academic policy. an electoral mandate. the point is that it's a deliberate decision made by a human, not some kind of naturalistic phenomena. it could be applied in a way that makes sense, or in a way that doesn't make sense - and consequently be either beneficial or disastrous.
now, it's reasonable to speak of things happening as a result of monetary policy. from where i'm sitting, i think debt is artificial, and so long as we have money at all (i am opposed to currency on a conceptual level, but i live in reality) we should be controlling how much we have centrally. simple demographic pressures are enough of a justification. as the population increases, the supply must increase as well. history teaches me that the thing we want to avoid at all costs is shortages, not surpluses.
but these decisions have an effect. that's why they're done. and one of them is possibly inflation, under the kinds of conditions greg points out.
that doesn't mean increasing the money supply will always turn us into weimar republic germany. it's not a single cause. but actions have effects. it's really head-scratching to deny that, then argue that conscious, human-produced actions have easily defined causes.
so, yes, boosting the money supply is a tool that should be used under the right circumstances, and we shouldn't allow people to scare us into thinking otherwise. but we also have to understand that it can be inflationary.
and we certainly can't be thinking that we're just automatons defined by pressures in the global economy, either.
and then there's the stuff about reducing excess aggregate demand by increasing taxes, which is just frightening.
so, venezuela has an excess demand for milk and butter, driving street protests. if you just decrease the demand (by increasing taxes and reducing imports), then the demand will decrease and inflation will go down.
brilliant!
there is no "natural cause" of an increase in the money supply. it's a decision made by a bureaucrat because.....who knows, really. it could be anything. a bribe. an academic policy. an electoral mandate. the point is that it's a deliberate decision made by a human, not some kind of naturalistic phenomena. it could be applied in a way that makes sense, or in a way that doesn't make sense - and consequently be either beneficial or disastrous.
now, it's reasonable to speak of things happening as a result of monetary policy. from where i'm sitting, i think debt is artificial, and so long as we have money at all (i am opposed to currency on a conceptual level, but i live in reality) we should be controlling how much we have centrally. simple demographic pressures are enough of a justification. as the population increases, the supply must increase as well. history teaches me that the thing we want to avoid at all costs is shortages, not surpluses.
but these decisions have an effect. that's why they're done. and one of them is possibly inflation, under the kinds of conditions greg points out.
that doesn't mean increasing the money supply will always turn us into weimar republic germany. it's not a single cause. but actions have effects. it's really head-scratching to deny that, then argue that conscious, human-produced actions have easily defined causes.
so, yes, boosting the money supply is a tool that should be used under the right circumstances, and we shouldn't allow people to scare us into thinking otherwise. but we also have to understand that it can be inflationary.
and we certainly can't be thinking that we're just automatons defined by pressures in the global economy, either.
and then there's the stuff about reducing excess aggregate demand by increasing taxes, which is just frightening.
so, venezuela has an excess demand for milk and butter, driving street protests. if you just decrease the demand (by increasing taxes and reducing imports), then the demand will decrease and inflation will go down.
brilliant!
Friday, March 14, 2014
and, what is with this capitalizing Leader stuff, like she lives in north korea?
the conservatives have been doing this for years...
his name is justin. he's a fallible and very flawed human being. i don't think he's that good looking, either. if you punch him in the face, his skull will deform.
i've been ignoring this for a reason. the ignatieff fiasco was a comedy of errors. what a buffoon he proved himself to be! i'm not tuning into this, it's just going to piss me off...
...but i don't, at this point, see any kind of substantial differences between the conservative and liberal parties. they're both hard right, neo-liberal parties in the hands of the investor class. they both want to dismantle the welfare state.
there's no longer any use in caring, except to mobilize a new third party (the ndp is also dead).
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/read-christine-innes-letter-to-supporters-here-1.2571817
the conservatives have been doing this for years...
his name is justin. he's a fallible and very flawed human being. i don't think he's that good looking, either. if you punch him in the face, his skull will deform.
i've been ignoring this for a reason. the ignatieff fiasco was a comedy of errors. what a buffoon he proved himself to be! i'm not tuning into this, it's just going to piss me off...
...but i don't, at this point, see any kind of substantial differences between the conservative and liberal parties. they're both hard right, neo-liberal parties in the hands of the investor class. they both want to dismantle the welfare state.
there's no longer any use in caring, except to mobilize a new third party (the ndp is also dead).
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/read-christine-innes-letter-to-supporters-here-1.2571817
"We're not going to go back to the days of the Hatfields and McCoys in the Liberal Party."
well, then you're going to have the party fracture. 'cause chrystia freeland isn't even a conservative, she's a democrat. that's several orders of magnitude too far to the right for a large percentage of the party to swallow.
that should have been what happened in the first place, really. the centre-left would be far stronger right now had the party just faced the obvious and split in half.
http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/justin-trudeau-blocks-candidacy-of-ex-mps-wife-over-bullying-1
well, then you're going to have the party fracture. 'cause chrystia freeland isn't even a conservative, she's a democrat. that's several orders of magnitude too far to the right for a large percentage of the party to swallow.
that should have been what happened in the first place, really. the centre-left would be far stronger right now had the party just faced the obvious and split in half.
http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/justin-trudeau-blocks-candidacy-of-ex-mps-wife-over-bullying-1
found an it company going out of business that sold me four wired
routers for $20. at least one of them works. that's some breathing room
if one breaks.
particularly, it means finally setting the tv up to youtube, which means not having to eat in bed anymore. it's a subversive habit, to say the least.
particularly, it means finally setting the tv up to youtube, which means not having to eat in bed anymore. it's a subversive habit, to say the least.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
i'm certainly not going to bother rescripting it. that took months. it's not worth it.
well, now that i'm forced to, i'm going to try and upgrade to 64 bit. all my scripts were for a 32 bit xp. some of the drivers have updated over the last several years, too, which was the other problem.
maybe it'll help offset the bloat.
scripted, that machine was super fast. it's only a 3.6 dual core, but it's way faster than this brand new five core hp laptop bogged down by windows 7. i was proud of that...
and, as mentioned, it was supposed to be modular. as depressed as i am right now, i'm really mad at myself for not backing it up yesterday afternoon. i would merely be annoyed right now, had i done that.
*sigh*.
in my defense, it wouldn't have been easy to back this stuff up. the script partition was 40 gb of software, the temp partition was 20 gb of iso files and avis.
further, most of my script partition is backed up in the storage drive, so i haven't lost much actual software. it's the script i lost, but i suspect i may have something close to it somewhere. i couldn't have backed up that much data onto a disc. and the reason it isn't imaged onto a series of ten or fifteen dvds is that i liked the flexibility of a script. who wants to go through 20 dvds every month?
...and the temp drive was just that. it was sitting there awaiting back-up to an external hd, once i got one big enough to hold all my music files. i was going to put that drive away somewhere.
further, everything that was on the temp drive is backed up across a dozen dvds - *except* the videos (some of which are on this laptop) and the remastered or modified files, which are all up at bandcamp. i can redo this, minus a handful of minor differences that if lost are lost. but, dammit...
well, now that i'm forced to, i'm going to try and upgrade to 64 bit. all my scripts were for a 32 bit xp. some of the drivers have updated over the last several years, too, which was the other problem.
maybe it'll help offset the bloat.
scripted, that machine was super fast. it's only a 3.6 dual core, but it's way faster than this brand new five core hp laptop bogged down by windows 7. i was proud of that...
and, as mentioned, it was supposed to be modular. as depressed as i am right now, i'm really mad at myself for not backing it up yesterday afternoon. i would merely be annoyed right now, had i done that.
*sigh*.
in my defense, it wouldn't have been easy to back this stuff up. the script partition was 40 gb of software, the temp partition was 20 gb of iso files and avis.
further, most of my script partition is backed up in the storage drive, so i haven't lost much actual software. it's the script i lost, but i suspect i may have something close to it somewhere. i couldn't have backed up that much data onto a disc. and the reason it isn't imaged onto a series of ten or fifteen dvds is that i liked the flexibility of a script. who wants to go through 20 dvds every month?
...and the temp drive was just that. it was sitting there awaiting back-up to an external hd, once i got one big enough to hold all my music files. i was going to put that drive away somewhere.
further, everything that was on the temp drive is backed up across a dozen dvds - *except* the videos (some of which are on this laptop) and the remastered or modified files, which are all up at bandcamp. i can redo this, minus a handful of minor differences that if lost are lost. but, dammit...
no. that drive's dead.
but i'm going to have to let it sit until april, anyways. maybe somebody at a data recovery shop will be able to get what i want out of it.
or maybe that's long enough to let it think it's back at the factory. that's ultimately what i think happened to the magically reworking laptop.
until then, i'm going to have to just keep going. i have one more trick to try - maybe it'll read through an external sata in. if not, i'm going to wait until i see if i can recover the data before i start downloading gigs of wave files from bandcamp.
but i'm going to have to let it sit until april, anyways. maybe somebody at a data recovery shop will be able to get what i want out of it.
or maybe that's long enough to let it think it's back at the factory. that's ultimately what i think happened to the magically reworking laptop.
until then, i'm going to have to just keep going. i have one more trick to try - maybe it'll read through an external sata in. if not, i'm going to wait until i see if i can recover the data before i start downloading gigs of wave files from bandcamp.
here's some hope: windows knows there's a disc plugged in. it says
it's "unknown", but it at least knows it's there. that's more than the
bios can say. so, i'm going to throw on a temp install and see if it
reads it...
i had a problem with my laptop's hard drive last month that in the end turned out to be a corrupted mbr. regarding the laptop, it was minor in the end cause....just reformat and that's that. but i cannot format this drive under any circumstance. and i even don't care about the hardware. it's almost ten years old. i don't think 250 gb drives are even on the market anymore.
i had a problem with my laptop's hard drive last month that in the end turned out to be a corrupted mbr. regarding the laptop, it was minor in the end cause....just reformat and that's that. but i cannot format this drive under any circumstance. and i even don't care about the hardware. it's almost ten years old. i don't think 250 gb drives are even on the market anymore.
it's doing something very strange that is both worrying me and giving
me some hope. it's only reading the empty drive if the failing one is
not plugged in. i mean at a bios stage. i've reset the cmos and it's not
helping.
so i'm going to start swapping cords around. i don't see why plugging in the failing hard drive should stop me from reading a functional one.
if it's a board problem, that's a bigger issue. but it might mean i can get the info off. which is what's important. i can replace a dead drive relatively easily. i can't replace some of what's on it without a great deal of effort.
so i'm going to start swapping cords around. i don't see why plugging in the failing hard drive should stop me from reading a functional one.
if it's a board problem, that's a bigger issue. but it might mean i can get the info off. which is what's important. i can replace a dead drive relatively easily. i can't replace some of what's on it without a great deal of effort.
i spoke too soon. the drive is not reading at all. i should have taken the data off while i had the chance.
the c: partition is designed to be throwaway. there are two smaller partitions that are not. one is an install partition with reinstall scripts. the other is a temporary partition that currently holds all of my temporary recording material.
i think i can reconstruct the last one, although it will be a lot of work. that's the most important, by far. i can't reinstall the machine as it is without the second, but i can get around that.
it could conceivably cost me a month. so i'm hoping i can get the data off somehow.
lesson learned: a chkdsk may stop a hard drive from whirring, but it doesn't mean it's fixed it. and i should have worried about it.
grargh.
so, i'm going quiet here *again* for the foreseeable future. *sigh*.
the c: partition is designed to be throwaway. there are two smaller partitions that are not. one is an install partition with reinstall scripts. the other is a temporary partition that currently holds all of my temporary recording material.
i think i can reconstruct the last one, although it will be a lot of work. that's the most important, by far. i can't reinstall the machine as it is without the second, but i can get around that.
it could conceivably cost me a month. so i'm hoping i can get the data off somehow.
lesson learned: a chkdsk may stop a hard drive from whirring, but it doesn't mean it's fixed it. and i should have worried about it.
grargh.
so, i'm going quiet here *again* for the foreseeable future. *sigh*.
that was a scare. hard drive started whirring on me....
it would have mostly been an annoyance. i built the pc to be modular. 1 tb total memory, over four 250 gb hard drives. rather than use something like raid, i've just left one empty. if a drive begins to die, and this hasn't happened yet, the plan is just to copy it over to the empty drive, unplug it and replace it. worst case, i might have to reinstall, but the process is automated.
as it is, a chkdsk stopped the whir and i'm not going to worry myself about it. but i blew the morning on that...
it would have mostly been an annoyance. i built the pc to be modular. 1 tb total memory, over four 250 gb hard drives. rather than use something like raid, i've just left one empty. if a drive begins to die, and this hasn't happened yet, the plan is just to copy it over to the empty drive, unplug it and replace it. worst case, i might have to reinstall, but the process is automated.
as it is, a chkdsk stopped the whir and i'm not going to worry myself about it. but i blew the morning on that...
well, i got the stuff printed on monday, then spent 6 hours walking on tuesday to finish up most necessary spring shopping, did spring cleaning (and much sleeping) on wednesday in the midst of a horrific blizzard and should get a start on the track today, after i do my taxes, duck student loan repayments for another six months and fill out some other necessary paperwork.
don't get me wrong. i appreciate the six hundred some dollars i'm getting back from rent. it's almost a month of rent. in theory, that's substantial.
but, if the government thinks it's doing me or the economy a favour by dividing it by twelve and giving me $50/month for the year, it's really sadly mistaken. what i'd like to do is spend the money on furniture. bookshelves and tables, specifically. at $50 a month, it's going to take all year to do something i'd rather do quickly. it's going to mean i'm going to have to save the money up over the course of a few months and probably go shopping every two months or so with roughly $100.
....except that it's a virtual certainty that i'm not going to do that. instead, i'm going to waste it on nothing of any importance, and mostly on items that are not taxable due to repressive laws.
i'm well aware that the idea is to prevent low income people from wasting it on drugs, or beer and popcorn, but whomever thought that up has obviously never been low income or done drugs, or drank beer and ate popcorn. there's not much chance i'm going to spend $650 all at once. that would be pretty much smoking myself stupid. however, there's a pretty good chance i'm going to pitter away what is more or less smoke money, at $50/month. the way to stop me from pissing it away is to give it to me all at once so i can spend it; the way to have me waste it is to give it to me in monthly installments that aren't enough to buy anything with.
as policy, it's just not very intelligently thought through.
i'm actually considering not claiming the energy credit, so the refund is under $360 and it just comes in in one chunk.
now, that's this year, when i just moved into a new place.
next year, $650 might buy me some gear if it comes in at once. if i played video games (i don't) it might have bought a new system, rather than a new game for an old one every month.
some people could use it to pay down credit card debts. $50/month just keeps them on the interest paying hamster wheel. useless.
...all to try and combat the imaginary problem of people blowing their tax returns on beer by budgeting them monthly beer money instead....
the other options are both more economically useful and more functionally useful.
of course if i was a real economist, i'd say something about investing it somewhere. which is probably true of a small number of people. you'd think that would be what they'd want.
but what i'm irked about is the idea that giving me a small amount will help me spend it more responsibly, because i'm too irresponsible to spend a lump sum. i'll even concede that i'm irresponsible, but they've got the whole thing backwards.
at least give me the choice how to adjust to my inherent irresponsibility, rather than trying to enforce a model of fiscal responsibility on me that is alien to what i know my nature is.
that sort of forced fiscal planning always fails.
but, if the government thinks it's doing me or the economy a favour by dividing it by twelve and giving me $50/month for the year, it's really sadly mistaken. what i'd like to do is spend the money on furniture. bookshelves and tables, specifically. at $50 a month, it's going to take all year to do something i'd rather do quickly. it's going to mean i'm going to have to save the money up over the course of a few months and probably go shopping every two months or so with roughly $100.
....except that it's a virtual certainty that i'm not going to do that. instead, i'm going to waste it on nothing of any importance, and mostly on items that are not taxable due to repressive laws.
i'm well aware that the idea is to prevent low income people from wasting it on drugs, or beer and popcorn, but whomever thought that up has obviously never been low income or done drugs, or drank beer and ate popcorn. there's not much chance i'm going to spend $650 all at once. that would be pretty much smoking myself stupid. however, there's a pretty good chance i'm going to pitter away what is more or less smoke money, at $50/month. the way to stop me from pissing it away is to give it to me all at once so i can spend it; the way to have me waste it is to give it to me in monthly installments that aren't enough to buy anything with.
as policy, it's just not very intelligently thought through.
i'm actually considering not claiming the energy credit, so the refund is under $360 and it just comes in in one chunk.
now, that's this year, when i just moved into a new place.
next year, $650 might buy me some gear if it comes in at once. if i played video games (i don't) it might have bought a new system, rather than a new game for an old one every month.
some people could use it to pay down credit card debts. $50/month just keeps them on the interest paying hamster wheel. useless.
...all to try and combat the imaginary problem of people blowing their tax returns on beer by budgeting them monthly beer money instead....
the other options are both more economically useful and more functionally useful.
of course if i was a real economist, i'd say something about investing it somewhere. which is probably true of a small number of people. you'd think that would be what they'd want.
but what i'm irked about is the idea that giving me a small amount will help me spend it more responsibly, because i'm too irresponsible to spend a lump sum. i'll even concede that i'm irresponsible, but they've got the whole thing backwards.
at least give me the choice how to adjust to my inherent irresponsibility, rather than trying to enforce a model of fiscal responsibility on me that is alien to what i know my nature is.
that sort of forced fiscal planning always fails.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
you ever helped a bug get from a to b, or maybe moved it out of the sink because you're doing the dishes (but didn't want to kill it because it's a beneficial insect) by coercing it on to a spoon and then carrying the spoon across to a crack in the floor?
might that insect think it just had an experience with god, or perhaps was abducted by an air monster?
might that insect think it just had an experience with god, or perhaps was abducted by an air monster?
those shoes were actually split right down the sole, both feet. if somebody told me that a nefarious shoe vandal broke in overnight and used a machete to slice right through the bottom, i'd agree it was a plausible explanation of the state the shoes are in, if a little less credulous an explanation regarding the path of them getting there.
i hadn't checked the bottom until now. well, i could see holes on the front, so i didn't have to get that far to come to the conclusion that the shoes have holes. the rubber is worn through around the places the sole is cut, creating what is almost a "sinkhole" kind of effect.
just literally worn out.
....meaning i'd need more than epoxy or shoe goo to fix these things. i'd need plastic and rubber. and a 3-d printer might be useful. really, it would cost less in both labour and currency to replace them. they're dead.
so, they are now drying in the sink, until i can get them to a proper disposal centre along with a bunch of electronics and other things i've put aside. they were a pair of gravis skate shoes that lasted close to five years, which is not bad at all considering how much walking i do.
nothing to be done about that.
you should be able to see the slice through the material.
i'm actually surprised i couldn't feel this, except for the wet.
i hadn't checked the bottom until now. well, i could see holes on the front, so i didn't have to get that far to come to the conclusion that the shoes have holes. the rubber is worn through around the places the sole is cut, creating what is almost a "sinkhole" kind of effect.
just literally worn out.
....meaning i'd need more than epoxy or shoe goo to fix these things. i'd need plastic and rubber. and a 3-d printer might be useful. really, it would cost less in both labour and currency to replace them. they're dead.
so, they are now drying in the sink, until i can get them to a proper disposal centre along with a bunch of electronics and other things i've put aside. they were a pair of gravis skate shoes that lasted close to five years, which is not bad at all considering how much walking i do.
nothing to be done about that.
you should be able to see the slice through the material.
i'm actually surprised i couldn't feel this, except for the wet.
routers are universally marketed as wireless nowadays, but it turns out a lot of them are also wired - which is what i need. always have to ask, though...
i got the following response back from somebody:
"it has five wired ports in the back"
so, i think - a five port router? unusual, but not unheard of. i only need four, but why not...
i got the following response back from somebody:
"it has five wired ports in the back"
so, i think - a five port router? unusual, but not unheard of. i only need four, but why not...
ugh.
price after exchange rate conversion: $30.02
paypal balance: $30.
amount of time to wait to transfer the extra few cents: 8-10 days.
hopefully, the exchange rate will modify slightly in my favour before then.
actually, it already has.
a live rate says it should be $29.17.
and, you know, they advertise being up to date. bullshit. well, unless there's a hidden service fee.
i'm going to put it through and see what happens...
yeah, the rate they're using is just flat out wrong. 0.874590. but it hasn't gone that low in years. it's been down a little over the last month, but never below 0.89.
the rate hasn't been that low since summer, 2009.
some up to date exchange rate...
ok, there's a hidden fee, at 2.5%. adding 0.025 gets the current rate.
that two cents is still an incredible annoyance. hopefully, they just put it through. if not, it's not particularly unlikely that the rate will go up over .9 in the next day or two...
it was even over .9 this afternoon. low close.
lol...
it doesn't matter, because it's an e-check anyways, meaning i actually just wasted a week. ugh again.
<----- clearly using paypal for the first time. well, with a bank account anyways.
now my bank account is basically frozen for a week as i wait for the $30.02 to come out through e-check and the $30 to go back into the bank account from the paypal account, as i only had $45 in there. it should wash itself out, but i don't want to go under $31 as the e-check will probably clear before the transfer back in does.
*shrug*. i've got enough to eat for a few days.
price after exchange rate conversion: $30.02
paypal balance: $30.
amount of time to wait to transfer the extra few cents: 8-10 days.
hopefully, the exchange rate will modify slightly in my favour before then.
actually, it already has.
a live rate says it should be $29.17.
and, you know, they advertise being up to date. bullshit. well, unless there's a hidden service fee.
i'm going to put it through and see what happens...
yeah, the rate they're using is just flat out wrong. 0.874590. but it hasn't gone that low in years. it's been down a little over the last month, but never below 0.89.
the rate hasn't been that low since summer, 2009.
some up to date exchange rate...
ok, there's a hidden fee, at 2.5%. adding 0.025 gets the current rate.
that two cents is still an incredible annoyance. hopefully, they just put it through. if not, it's not particularly unlikely that the rate will go up over .9 in the next day or two...
it was even over .9 this afternoon. low close.
lol...
it doesn't matter, because it's an e-check anyways, meaning i actually just wasted a week. ugh again.
<----- clearly using paypal for the first time. well, with a bank account anyways.
now my bank account is basically frozen for a week as i wait for the $30.02 to come out through e-check and the $30 to go back into the bank account from the paypal account, as i only had $45 in there. it should wash itself out, but i don't want to go under $31 as the e-check will probably clear before the transfer back in does.
*shrug*. i've got enough to eat for a few days.
this is the closest thing i've yet to find to an unbiased report from the region. it's not unbiased in intent. but, it works itself out that way. see, basically, the guy is trying really hard to find something juicy, but isn't willing or able to fabricate it, so is instead demonstrating that the situation is very calm and under control.
Lee Grove
"Center for American Progress"? How is it funded?
Actually, I was serious. I have a friend at Morgan Stanley that says it is a Koch shell. And Orwell, surely, is bruising the backs of his hands applauding the Newspeak...
deathtokoalas
they're generally acknowledged as being exceedingly cozy with the white house. this guy is noticeably pushing talking points, and it's not an accident - but it's more about political support for the democratic party, rather than direct industry support.
"Center for American Progress"? How is it funded?
Actually, I was serious. I have a friend at Morgan Stanley that says it is a Koch shell. And Orwell, surely, is bruising the backs of his hands applauding the Newspeak...
deathtokoalas
they're generally acknowledged as being exceedingly cozy with the white house. this guy is noticeably pushing talking points, and it's not an accident - but it's more about political support for the democratic party, rather than direct industry support.
see, it's not actually a jewish state anyways...not any more than america is a christian one or...well, i guess the saudis are a muslim one...
if the so-called jewish state will not protect jews, isn't it time to abandon the delusion of israel as a jewish state and abolish the nation-state as an international principle?
i may not want much to do with ultra-orthodox members of any religion, and i doubt they'd extend the same respect to me. but they should not be forced to serve. nobody should be forced to serve in any army.
that being said, this opens up a can of worms. israel is currently on a path to being dominated by ultra-orthodox israelis and palestinians (or arab israelis), leaving secular jews as a tiny ruling elite. if the orthodox will not serve, who will? and, if the nation believes that prayers are more powerful than guns, is it worth saving from it's own stupidity?
simply moving to a secular, inclusive democracy where all races and religions are equal would end all of these middle age problems. i can't support the right to exist of any ethnic state, be it jewish or arab or any other identity.
if the so-called jewish state will not protect jews, isn't it time to abandon the delusion of israel as a jewish state and abolish the nation-state as an international principle?
i may not want much to do with ultra-orthodox members of any religion, and i doubt they'd extend the same respect to me. but they should not be forced to serve. nobody should be forced to serve in any army.
that being said, this opens up a can of worms. israel is currently on a path to being dominated by ultra-orthodox israelis and palestinians (or arab israelis), leaving secular jews as a tiny ruling elite. if the orthodox will not serve, who will? and, if the nation believes that prayers are more powerful than guns, is it worth saving from it's own stupidity?
simply moving to a secular, inclusive democracy where all races and religions are equal would end all of these middle age problems. i can't support the right to exist of any ethnic state, be it jewish or arab or any other identity.
i don't agree with her position, but i don't think she's being inconsistent. it's a standard (if incoherent) statist liberal position about the government upholding the "rule of law". which is to say that she's not stepping back from her support of government spying, she's just upset that the elected government isn't able to properly manage the unelected part.
...although she does also seem to be trying to change the subject.
...although she does also seem to be trying to change the subject.
weird dream.
and i don't think i'm doing much over the next 24 hours or so. very sore from 6 hours of walking yesterday...
it always astounds me how many self-identified socialists will go on and on about the benefits of small businesses, especially v. big business. sticking it to the man. that kind of bullshit.
what they seem to not realize is that their arguments consistently reduce to free market arguments, as their vision certainly aligns with a free market society: small, independent businesses everywhere that are competing with each other.
what astounds me is that workers are never mentioned by any of these self-identified socialists. the rhetoric about hating the establishment at no point translates into questions of working conditions.
so, can the local diner afford a dental plan for their dishwasher? can mom & pop afford sick days for their cashiers? do they have any kind of union representation for disagreements?
of course not, nor are they feasible in the liberal fantasy world of open markets and contract theory. rather, these things are only made possible by unions that develop out of large businesses.
it follows that socialists should boycott small businesses and shop purely at large businesses. yet, try debating that without getting an earful of liberal market theory thrown at you.
now, that doesn't mean that there aren't moral questions to ask in engaging in commerce. i've bought some sneakers over the last few days and had little option but to get shoes made by children in asia, because that is what exists. on the other hand, i tend to buy jeans and shirts second hand. if i know one grocery store is not unionized and another is, i'll choose the unionized one. likewise, walmart is never my first choice.
...but a bourgeois society based on private ownership of small business, which is made possible by workers that are essentially personal slaves and exist solely to generate profit for bosses, is something to fight against, rather than uphold - and the preferred socialist model as an alternative to that liberal society is rooted in economies of scale made possible by collectivized labour and redistributed profit, which is something that is very big in nature.
and i don't think i'm doing much over the next 24 hours or so. very sore from 6 hours of walking yesterday...
it always astounds me how many self-identified socialists will go on and on about the benefits of small businesses, especially v. big business. sticking it to the man. that kind of bullshit.
what they seem to not realize is that their arguments consistently reduce to free market arguments, as their vision certainly aligns with a free market society: small, independent businesses everywhere that are competing with each other.
what astounds me is that workers are never mentioned by any of these self-identified socialists. the rhetoric about hating the establishment at no point translates into questions of working conditions.
so, can the local diner afford a dental plan for their dishwasher? can mom & pop afford sick days for their cashiers? do they have any kind of union representation for disagreements?
of course not, nor are they feasible in the liberal fantasy world of open markets and contract theory. rather, these things are only made possible by unions that develop out of large businesses.
it follows that socialists should boycott small businesses and shop purely at large businesses. yet, try debating that without getting an earful of liberal market theory thrown at you.
now, that doesn't mean that there aren't moral questions to ask in engaging in commerce. i've bought some sneakers over the last few days and had little option but to get shoes made by children in asia, because that is what exists. on the other hand, i tend to buy jeans and shirts second hand. if i know one grocery store is not unionized and another is, i'll choose the unionized one. likewise, walmart is never my first choice.
...but a bourgeois society based on private ownership of small business, which is made possible by workers that are essentially personal slaves and exist solely to generate profit for bosses, is something to fight against, rather than uphold - and the preferred socialist model as an alternative to that liberal society is rooted in economies of scale made possible by collectivized labour and redistributed profit, which is something that is very big in nature.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
6 hour walk.
dead feet. tender calves.
...but a few tasks completed.
for a small city, it is about as scattered as possible. i want to say it's badly planned, and it is, especially the lack of sidewalks, but it's more like it's planned as a giant suburb of detroit rather than a city of it's own.
so, the necessity of fixing my bike is quite apparent.
one of the things i needed to get was some water resistant spray for some shoes. there's plenty of options, but they're all at least an hour walk one way or the other. how can that be? i'm not sure, but i'm going to take a guess....
see, if i walk down the street that comprises the business district closest to me, it's pretty sketchy. there are some successful businesses, and some very old ones. but a lot of the storefronts are either boarded up or for rent.
could these have previously been somewhere to get shoe spray? it's a reasonable deduction, i think.
for twice the price that it's sold at walmart.
so, i'm going to hypothesize that windsor is in that middle phase where the big box stores have decimated local businesses and they haven't moved into the core yet.
i have to think that there will eventually be a mall built downtown. right now, it's just strip malls a km or two in either direction and a half dead city in the core.
which is why the rent is cheap.
which is why i'm here...
with the spray specifically, i think there's a few places around here i could try and i'd guess at least one would stock it. it's an example of limited actual applicability. i wouldn't have gone as far as i did just for that, and probably wouldn't have actually had to. any kind of electronics would be a better example.
dead feet. tender calves.
...but a few tasks completed.
for a small city, it is about as scattered as possible. i want to say it's badly planned, and it is, especially the lack of sidewalks, but it's more like it's planned as a giant suburb of detroit rather than a city of it's own.
so, the necessity of fixing my bike is quite apparent.
one of the things i needed to get was some water resistant spray for some shoes. there's plenty of options, but they're all at least an hour walk one way or the other. how can that be? i'm not sure, but i'm going to take a guess....
see, if i walk down the street that comprises the business district closest to me, it's pretty sketchy. there are some successful businesses, and some very old ones. but a lot of the storefronts are either boarded up or for rent.
could these have previously been somewhere to get shoe spray? it's a reasonable deduction, i think.
for twice the price that it's sold at walmart.
so, i'm going to hypothesize that windsor is in that middle phase where the big box stores have decimated local businesses and they haven't moved into the core yet.
i have to think that there will eventually be a mall built downtown. right now, it's just strip malls a km or two in either direction and a half dead city in the core.
which is why the rent is cheap.
which is why i'm here...
with the spray specifically, i think there's a few places around here i could try and i'd guess at least one would stock it. it's an example of limited actual applicability. i wouldn't have gone as far as i did just for that, and probably wouldn't have actually had to. any kind of electronics would be a better example.
man, this guy is out of it. the eu is run by hard-right franco-german neo-liberals, not scandinavian social democrats.
and iraq was not a nato operation.
now, if you'll excuse me, i'm hungry. i'm going to have some freedom fries. with gravy. and cheese.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11557
he's right about the base though.
russia cannot allow nato forces into crimea.
and iraq was not a nato operation.
now, if you'll excuse me, i'm hungry. i'm going to have some freedom fries. with gravy. and cheese.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11557
he's right about the base though.
russia cannot allow nato forces into crimea.
Monday, March 10, 2014
adrian belew - desire caught by the tail
benchmark
this was belew's first serious solo attempt, and his last for many years. it's also a record of quite subtle merits, but revolutionary in it's own sphere.
there's a lot of accusations one could honestly level at belew on this, without the need for much of an argument or the production of much dissent. does he really know how to write tangos or "gypsy music"? does he know anything of substance about the impressionism and serialism he's leaning towards? well, it's rather apparent that he doesn't, really. he consequently falls into a number of clichés in the process of being pretentious about the whole thing. the reality is that he doesn't have a phd in ethnomusicology and it very much shows.
so, he's not al di meola.
....but if you want a di meola disc, there are plenty to choose from. this is a different animal altogether, in the sense that it is apparently entirely synthesized. if you've flipped on a synth, you know how this works. you start by perusing the preset banks for a bit, pushing a few keys and just kind of jamming. when you get to the last preset bank, you're presented with a series of instruments you've never heard of before. you think "gee. what's an ocarina?", as you hack some asian sounding thing out. within twenty minutes, you've got the board split to gongs on the bottom half (which you're mashing with your palm) and a synthesized wind chime on the other, and you're pretending as though you know what it would feel like to discover a pristine, untouched lake on the china/tibet border...
after an hour or so, the guy that owns the store hits you with a mallet and you snap out of it. it was fun while it lasted...
....you certainly never contemplate releasing what you just did on island records, then expecting it to sell more than ten copies. note that this disc is currently many years out of print.
so, it's easy to deduce that this is how a lot of the non-western sounds found their way into this: simple curiosity spurred on by playing with the presets on a synthesizer. yet, the sound on this record isn't being produced by a traditional keyboard synthesizer. rather, it's being produced by a cutting edge roland guitar synthesizer. for that reason, i'm very much willing to forgive the pretension. see, it's what the record is: a self-taught, abstract guitarist playing around with a toy that wasn't just new to him, but pretty much new to the world. if you remove a handful of words from the title tracks, what you're left with is music that sounds like it came from nowhere on this planet at all.
that's not to say that the songs are badly constructed. the clichés are at times heavy-handed, but the record is stronger for them. take the third track, for instance. it sounds exactly like a self-taught guitarist pretending he knows how to write ethnic roma music, which is precisely what it is. yet, breaking through the pretension produces a bizarre jam that stands up well on it's own, when taken out of that context. i mean, i wouldn't have otherwise thought to think that. the second track combines circus music with a standard blues progression, all through a haze of synthesized guitar work, in a way that leaves you scratching your head and wondering what you just listened to. so, stripping out the hackneyed attempt at ethnic music would deny the record of it's charm and leave what is yet another experiment in frippertronics. that doesn't mean that the hackneyed attempt at ethnic music needs to be interpreted as ethnic music at all; rather, it's nature as a hackneyed attempt makes it very easy to completely ignore. a more substantial criticism is that the tracks are obviously mostly improvised, and might be perceived to meander a little. yet, that meandering can also be perceived as comprehensively exploring the synth tones. i don't personally find that it drags, but i realize that my own bias on the point (being a fan of abstract guitar music) is likely substantial.
the result is admittedly a record that is defined more by the tools used to create it than by the notes within it; insofar as it is the latter rather than the former, it's a substantial piece of music in a historical context. this is the sole reason i'm grading it as highly as i am. the last point is really central: i am a fan of abstract guitar music. if you are not, this might not be for you. if you are, you'll likely at least appreciate the record as carving out a unique space in the spectrum of guitar music. no, it may not excel as a conventional piece of music in much of any way, but as an unconventional piece of music it's not really convincingly comparable to anything else i've ever heard. that makes it something to isolate as unique and still potentially genre-defining, as well as an essential record to explore - if not an essential record to love.
stream:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mpb8sKnQAZ8yQ8ZEuMGji1pNwXFR8l6_o
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/music/artists/AdrianBelew/1986-DesireCaughtByTheTail/index.html
adrian belew - here
listenable
musical success is a difficult thing to understand in the era of big labels and mass marketed products. what seems to cut through the haze of aggressively marketed plastic images is often a sense of accidental honesty (sometimes accidentally on purpose). belew had the right combination of talent and eccentricity that he may have potentially been able to tap into this back door to large scale success had he simply done the things that made him unique. instead, he lost a few years in the early 90s trying way too hard and falling flat on his face. this site reviews my personal collection, which does not include the records he released in 1989, 1990 or 1992 because they do not overlap with my tastes - and more or less precisely for the aforementioned reason.
nor was he at all coy about it. 1989's mr. music head opens with a duet with his young daughter that declares that he's going to make it to the big time. gabriel references aside, there's a certain desperation in his projection that seems utterly forced. this was followed up quickly by a collaboration with david bowie, 1990's young lions, that is as notable for bowie sounding tired, clichéd and ten years out of date as it is for belew trying to piggyback him to greater success. these records do not veer far from belew's out of touch sense of popular music, which happens to also be a blatant attempt to emulate the bands he had previously done session work with.
it's not that this record veers particularly far from what he was doing in the early 90s. there is a noticeably heightened beatles influence, but that was always present. he's still drawing heavily on both berlin-era bowie and on the talking heads. it's more that he seems to have regained some perspective about who he is as an artist. the fourth track on this record, fly, seems to end the thought that began mr. music head:
after all, i'm only sand
to irritate the oyster and
to wait for a pearl
and even though i must concede
greatness has eluded me
i'd still miss the world
he actually seems to be contemplating (and firmly rejecting) thoughts of suicide stemming from what he's interpreted as a failed career as a pop musician, opting instead for a resignation towards the meaninglessness of existence. the track is absolutely gorgeous, and a fan favourite, but it's also a turning point in his career. from this point on, his concern shifts purely to producing abstract music. this is where he seems to have finally found himself, in his mid 40s.
for the disc at hand, this does not manifest itself in a radical change but in a greater focus on both the depth of the songwriting and in the nature of the production. he sounds refocused and more down to earth. the hooks are more fluid, the flourishes more idiosyncratic, the solos more heartfelt. ironically, it's once he gives up that he produces something that could have been a left-field alternative rock hit in the late 80s. by '94, though, the music world had changed far too much for any chance of this selling beyond his existing fan base. regardless, i'd argue it's the best of his handful of pure pop records.
so, there's maybe a lesson here about staying true to yourself.
stream:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKoDHRV0ImP-Ur3lR19tRb7ZypFZJT4N1
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/music/artists/AdrianBelew/1994-Here/index.html
"we want democracy, like they have in america"
*sigh*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU68dGqLe0Q
what the report is doing is drawing attention to the false dichotomy that is presented in over-simplified news reports. it's not just in ukraine that we see this. we see it essentially anywhere there is public action. the media consistently wants to ignore the actual views of protestors on the ground by folding them into what the political opposition is dictating. the projected perception is that protests are organized by establishment groups in the opposition, in order to carry out their aims. the reality is usually that establishment groups co-opt the protests and use them as an excuse to ram through their already existing ideas.
this is exactly what's happened there. the government that has taken over is a coalition of nationalist extremists (svoboda) and the established conservative party, which is composed of eu-backed bankers and ukrainian oligarchs. they're taking advantage of the situation (in a shock doctrine sort of way) to ram through imf policies designed to loot the country and destroy the economy.
so, a popular revolution? hardly. if the republicans seized power from a democratic administration as a result of escalating street protests, that wouldn't be considered a revolution in america because nothing would have actually changed. likewise, what happened in ukraine was that power was handed over from the left-leaning section of the elite to the right-leaning section of it. the elite remain dominant.
so, what of the people? what do they think? where is their voice, in the crosstalk between factions of the ukrainian elite?
there's been almost complete media silence on the issue.
*sigh*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU68dGqLe0Q
what the report is doing is drawing attention to the false dichotomy that is presented in over-simplified news reports. it's not just in ukraine that we see this. we see it essentially anywhere there is public action. the media consistently wants to ignore the actual views of protestors on the ground by folding them into what the political opposition is dictating. the projected perception is that protests are organized by establishment groups in the opposition, in order to carry out their aims. the reality is usually that establishment groups co-opt the protests and use them as an excuse to ram through their already existing ideas.
this is exactly what's happened there. the government that has taken over is a coalition of nationalist extremists (svoboda) and the established conservative party, which is composed of eu-backed bankers and ukrainian oligarchs. they're taking advantage of the situation (in a shock doctrine sort of way) to ram through imf policies designed to loot the country and destroy the economy.
so, a popular revolution? hardly. if the republicans seized power from a democratic administration as a result of escalating street protests, that wouldn't be considered a revolution in america because nothing would have actually changed. likewise, what happened in ukraine was that power was handed over from the left-leaning section of the elite to the right-leaning section of it. the elite remain dominant.
so, what of the people? what do they think? where is their voice, in the crosstalk between factions of the ukrainian elite?
there's been almost complete media silence on the issue.
freakishly small feet strike again.
a few months ago, i bought a pair of little girl's rainboots because they fit and they were only $6. not sized.
my shoes are demoed to the point that walking on moist ground produces wet socks, so i took a walk around. i'll get some goo later and save them for emergency; i just wanted to see if i could get something cheap, as that's easier. it turns out i'm a children's size 6, and just about any pair of adult shoes is literally not made in my size.
seriously. i spent an hour in the adult section looking for something small enough, before i walked over to the kid's aisle...
i actually can't remember the last time i bought a pair of sneakers. for years, i've been inheriting shoes from my sister, who has a habit of ending up with shoes that are too small, somehow. i don't ask questions, i just take the shoes. but it means i'm not sizing my feet. the ones she gives me are usually a tad big, but i deal with it.
well, now i know. and there's an upside to it, as kids shoes seem to be cheaper...
the ones i picked up were in a weird store a few blocks down that is something like a cross between a dollar store and a kmart. everything in the place is cheap. they actually had a two-for-one sale, which is the only reason i bothered. even if they are gone at the end of the year, two pairs of shoes for $15 is something i can deal with in the short run.
i think i'll make 'em last longer, though. i've been known to wear $10 shoes for three or four years - until they develop holes, basically.
with stuff like shoes, i'm actually convinced it all more or less comes off the same assembly line. $10 walmart shoes and $150 nike shoes are made by the same children in asia, they just have different labels stamped on them. i don't see any reason to pay more than the least amount possible for it.
it's less that the inexpensive shoes aren't cheap and more that the expensive ones are just as cheap and preposterously priced.
the handful of counter-examples seem to mostly be skateboarding shoes, which are built differently because there's a higher wear level. i have tended to gravitate towards them for that reason.
it actually seems to be the salt that finally ate through a part of the pair i just replaced. i'm thinking if i clean them up, then patch them with the rest of the epoxy i have left that should extend their life. but i needed something with better grip, anyways.
for me, a big part of "urban living" is walking everywhere. this isn't currently the best city for that lifestyle, which just puts extra stress on the shoes. when you're regularly walking five or more km, it doesn't matter what the label on your shoes is - they're going to fall apart. so, you'd might as well try and strengthen them.
i think with the salted through ones, the epoxy will actually make them stronger.
a few months ago, i bought a pair of little girl's rainboots because they fit and they were only $6. not sized.
my shoes are demoed to the point that walking on moist ground produces wet socks, so i took a walk around. i'll get some goo later and save them for emergency; i just wanted to see if i could get something cheap, as that's easier. it turns out i'm a children's size 6, and just about any pair of adult shoes is literally not made in my size.
seriously. i spent an hour in the adult section looking for something small enough, before i walked over to the kid's aisle...
i actually can't remember the last time i bought a pair of sneakers. for years, i've been inheriting shoes from my sister, who has a habit of ending up with shoes that are too small, somehow. i don't ask questions, i just take the shoes. but it means i'm not sizing my feet. the ones she gives me are usually a tad big, but i deal with it.
well, now i know. and there's an upside to it, as kids shoes seem to be cheaper...
the ones i picked up were in a weird store a few blocks down that is something like a cross between a dollar store and a kmart. everything in the place is cheap. they actually had a two-for-one sale, which is the only reason i bothered. even if they are gone at the end of the year, two pairs of shoes for $15 is something i can deal with in the short run.
i think i'll make 'em last longer, though. i've been known to wear $10 shoes for three or four years - until they develop holes, basically.
with stuff like shoes, i'm actually convinced it all more or less comes off the same assembly line. $10 walmart shoes and $150 nike shoes are made by the same children in asia, they just have different labels stamped on them. i don't see any reason to pay more than the least amount possible for it.
it's less that the inexpensive shoes aren't cheap and more that the expensive ones are just as cheap and preposterously priced.
the handful of counter-examples seem to mostly be skateboarding shoes, which are built differently because there's a higher wear level. i have tended to gravitate towards them for that reason.
it actually seems to be the salt that finally ate through a part of the pair i just replaced. i'm thinking if i clean them up, then patch them with the rest of the epoxy i have left that should extend their life. but i needed something with better grip, anyways.
for me, a big part of "urban living" is walking everywhere. this isn't currently the best city for that lifestyle, which just puts extra stress on the shoes. when you're regularly walking five or more km, it doesn't matter what the label on your shoes is - they're going to fall apart. so, you'd might as well try and strengthen them.
i think with the salted through ones, the epoxy will actually make them stronger.
Sunday, March 9, 2014
the gateway drug argument is a classical logical fallacy, and the way that fallacy is being bludgeoned here by nancy grace (the demagogue) is absolutely classic fox news. my head shakes every time.
if a person does hard drugs, they began with soft drugs
x does soft drugs
therefore, x will "graduate" to hard drugs
most people that have finished grade ten can intuitively see the flaw in that logic. if they can't, they probably wouldn't get through first year. it's literally logic 101.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbc-Sbx5ckA
if a person does hard drugs, they began with soft drugs
x does soft drugs
therefore, x will "graduate" to hard drugs
most people that have finished grade ten can intuitively see the flaw in that logic. if they can't, they probably wouldn't get through first year. it's literally logic 101.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbc-Sbx5ckA
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/13/frjp-j13.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/14/iran-j14.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/16/pers-j16.html
a lot of nonsense.
but political prisoners aren't randomly released. what's going on?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl4l7GgSF58
worse, the "interim government" doesn't have a mandate to make these kinds of big decisions. it's a caretaker government, not a revolutionary one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C28FekEyufI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lfmmXiCY1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WSgKQK7x_s
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/14/iran-j14.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/16/pers-j16.html
a lot of nonsense.
but political prisoners aren't randomly released. what's going on?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl4l7GgSF58
worse, the "interim government" doesn't have a mandate to make these kinds of big decisions. it's a caretaker government, not a revolutionary one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C28FekEyufI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lfmmXiCY1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WSgKQK7x_s
Saturday, March 8, 2014
this is a really irresponsible article. not because it's wrong, exactly, but because it's completely speculative - and not in an academic sense. it's just "well, maybe white people come from asia". maybe they come from uranus.
or maybe it's completely ridiculous to think that a single dna sample describes the entirety of genetic diversity in western europe 7,000 years ago. maybe there was a gradient.
maybe it's actually even totally obvious that there was a gradient.
europe has never been entirely white in the historical era. most spaniards, italians and greeks are of a tanned complexion. this is a combination of genetic drift from the south and plasticity, rather than any kind of selection. to understand the plasticity look at a californian of scandinavian ancestry. pasty white? hardly. why think europe would or even could have been of a homogenous skin tone 10,000 years ago? there's an implicit purity myth underlying that. and, that's not a myth that required further debunking.
so, there was a gradient. they found somebody on one end of it. they'll find people on the other end of it as time goes on. and the understanding will be a continuity of high variation deep into the past, not implications about some kind of fantastical past that had these ideal types living in some abstracted racial purity.
in actuality, there's no such thing as white people - and no such thing as black people. there's a lot of people that exist in a spectrum. that is all.
it's interesting that he cites sforza, though, because his data really isn't consistent. what sforza demonstrates is what remains - to my knowledge - the dominant theory of the origin of caucasian peoples in general, namely that they developed in isolated packets on the other side of the ice sheets and moved south when the sheets started melting (not just into europe, but also into central and eastern asia. that creates a common light-skinned ancestor between europeans and both west and east asians dating to about 15000 years ago). he sees three general migrations. that first migration was starting around 10,000 years ago - enough time that it would have penetrated spain, but not eliminated all variation with skin type. but it was about superior hunting technology,not skin colour. as far as we know, spain has never been homogenous in regards to skin tone. ever. and it's always seen substantial migration coming from the south. the second migration came with agriculture, which moved near eastern peoples into europe. what colour these people were is an interesting question, but i think it's almost certain that they weren't white in the scandinavian sense. the third migration brought indo-european languages in through the dominance of horse domestication. we can isolate the indo-european homeland quite well to the area north of ukraine, which makes it seem as though they were probably white. there's some debate over whether that means pasty white or more of a turkish white.
so let's carefully understand what i just said. that's a movement of white people south, and then the replacement of those white people by "swarmy" people moving north from the middle east, followed by another movement of white peoples. that is to say that the dominant understanding of the migration of european peoples is not related to racial dominance or skin colour evolving to an environment (the vitamin d thing is bollocks), but to technological innovation. if skin colour had anything at all to do with it, it was merely coincidental.
but it moved back and forth. that's what i'm getting at: brown, white, tanned, white. and, again, that would have created a spectrum full of diversity, not something homogenous.
another place to see this variation is iran. skin colour has a wide spectrum in iran, because it's been invaded by many different peoples. but you'll note that there's no pattern regarding one colour being more dominant than the other. lighter skinned iranians defeated darker skinned elamites, then darker skinned arabs defeated the iranians, and lighter skinned turks and mongols defeated the arabs. today, they're all there in iran, all mixed up. so, there's a great amount of diversity.
where you see the homogeneity develop is only in areas with very small amounts of gene flow. that would include scandinavia, as well as central africa - but not eastern africa, where a gradient also exists.
so, we can drop the silliness. this discovery neither backs up the silly and blatantly racist idea that vitamin d absorption provides an evolutionary advantage (one would expect the inuit and eastern native americans to be pasty white, and yet they are not), nor does it demonstrate much of anything at all about the diversity of the population in spain 7000 years ago.
it's just one sample.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/07/where-did-white-people-come-from/
the way to abolish the perceived racial hierarchy isn't to wave it away with a lot of shoddy science.
it's simply to point out that the idea that white people have been dominant throughout history is nothing more than a myth in the first place.
similarly with the eyes...
finding a dark skinned person with blue eyes 7000 years ago doesn't say anything about where the mutation developed. it's just as plausible that it developed in central europe and drifted south as it did that it developed in africa and drifted north.
but, that offends american sensibilities regarding "inter-racial" offspring. there's an assumption that white and black could not have interbred. it's implicit, unstated - because it's perceived of as obvious.
but it's not obvious at all. and, yes, it's completely fucking racist.
or maybe it's completely ridiculous to think that a single dna sample describes the entirety of genetic diversity in western europe 7,000 years ago. maybe there was a gradient.
maybe it's actually even totally obvious that there was a gradient.
europe has never been entirely white in the historical era. most spaniards, italians and greeks are of a tanned complexion. this is a combination of genetic drift from the south and plasticity, rather than any kind of selection. to understand the plasticity look at a californian of scandinavian ancestry. pasty white? hardly. why think europe would or even could have been of a homogenous skin tone 10,000 years ago? there's an implicit purity myth underlying that. and, that's not a myth that required further debunking.
so, there was a gradient. they found somebody on one end of it. they'll find people on the other end of it as time goes on. and the understanding will be a continuity of high variation deep into the past, not implications about some kind of fantastical past that had these ideal types living in some abstracted racial purity.
in actuality, there's no such thing as white people - and no such thing as black people. there's a lot of people that exist in a spectrum. that is all.
it's interesting that he cites sforza, though, because his data really isn't consistent. what sforza demonstrates is what remains - to my knowledge - the dominant theory of the origin of caucasian peoples in general, namely that they developed in isolated packets on the other side of the ice sheets and moved south when the sheets started melting (not just into europe, but also into central and eastern asia. that creates a common light-skinned ancestor between europeans and both west and east asians dating to about 15000 years ago). he sees three general migrations. that first migration was starting around 10,000 years ago - enough time that it would have penetrated spain, but not eliminated all variation with skin type. but it was about superior hunting technology,not skin colour. as far as we know, spain has never been homogenous in regards to skin tone. ever. and it's always seen substantial migration coming from the south. the second migration came with agriculture, which moved near eastern peoples into europe. what colour these people were is an interesting question, but i think it's almost certain that they weren't white in the scandinavian sense. the third migration brought indo-european languages in through the dominance of horse domestication. we can isolate the indo-european homeland quite well to the area north of ukraine, which makes it seem as though they were probably white. there's some debate over whether that means pasty white or more of a turkish white.
so let's carefully understand what i just said. that's a movement of white people south, and then the replacement of those white people by "swarmy" people moving north from the middle east, followed by another movement of white peoples. that is to say that the dominant understanding of the migration of european peoples is not related to racial dominance or skin colour evolving to an environment (the vitamin d thing is bollocks), but to technological innovation. if skin colour had anything at all to do with it, it was merely coincidental.
but it moved back and forth. that's what i'm getting at: brown, white, tanned, white. and, again, that would have created a spectrum full of diversity, not something homogenous.
another place to see this variation is iran. skin colour has a wide spectrum in iran, because it's been invaded by many different peoples. but you'll note that there's no pattern regarding one colour being more dominant than the other. lighter skinned iranians defeated darker skinned elamites, then darker skinned arabs defeated the iranians, and lighter skinned turks and mongols defeated the arabs. today, they're all there in iran, all mixed up. so, there's a great amount of diversity.
where you see the homogeneity develop is only in areas with very small amounts of gene flow. that would include scandinavia, as well as central africa - but not eastern africa, where a gradient also exists.
so, we can drop the silliness. this discovery neither backs up the silly and blatantly racist idea that vitamin d absorption provides an evolutionary advantage (one would expect the inuit and eastern native americans to be pasty white, and yet they are not), nor does it demonstrate much of anything at all about the diversity of the population in spain 7000 years ago.
it's just one sample.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/07/where-did-white-people-come-from/
the way to abolish the perceived racial hierarchy isn't to wave it away with a lot of shoddy science.
it's simply to point out that the idea that white people have been dominant throughout history is nothing more than a myth in the first place.
similarly with the eyes...
finding a dark skinned person with blue eyes 7000 years ago doesn't say anything about where the mutation developed. it's just as plausible that it developed in central europe and drifted south as it did that it developed in africa and drifted north.
but, that offends american sensibilities regarding "inter-racial" offspring. there's an assumption that white and black could not have interbred. it's implicit, unstated - because it's perceived of as obvious.
but it's not obvious at all. and, yes, it's completely fucking racist.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/03/07/spyi-m07.html
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/06/the_presidents_man
http://on.rt.com/y5e40w
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/06/ukraine-through-the-fog-of-the-presstitutes/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R7chF70UTw
http://bitly.com/1mQvh6p
http://on.rt.com/zq8occ
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20140307/188197242/Russia-Warns-US-Sanctions-Would-Have-Boomerang-Effect.html
http://on.rt.com/yx4zrx
http://www.cnas.org/content/lure-nationalism#.UxjlRvldXvw
http://on.cfr.org/1fW50OF
http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/north-london-council-evict-1500-tenants-unauthorised-living-industrial-warehouses/
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/04/islamic_front_isis_syria
http://blogs.cfr.org/asia/2014/03/03/doctors-without-borders-kicked-out-of-myanmar-hatred-rising/?cid=soc-facebook-in-doctors_without_borders_kicked_out_of_myanmar_hatred_rising-030314
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/03/03/germany_and_us_diverge_over_russia_sanctions
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/07/obama_is_more_eisenhower_than_carter_putin_crimea
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/03/07/people-havent-left-kievs-maidan-heres-what-it-looks-and-feels-like-now/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/07/crimea-this-time/
http://en.ria.ru/world/20140307/188188127/Russias-Gazprom-Warns-Ukraine-of-New-Gas-War.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/03/07/ukra-m07.html
http://fpif.org/saving-blue-future/
http://fpif.org/behind-karzais-stubbornness/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/05/ukraine-and-the-great-asian-enclosure/
http://on.rt.com/7l2or9
http://on.rt.com/z1i9bg
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/04/crimea-river/
http://www.fpri.org/articles/2014/03/ukraine-and-misunderstood-budapest-memorandum
http://www.euronews.com/2014/03/07/china-rejects-sanctions-as-a-way-to-resolve-ukraine-crisis/
http://indrus.in/blogs/2014/03/06/why_a_militarily_powerful_russia_is_good_for_the_world_33561.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/henry-kissinger-to-settle-the-ukraine-crisis-start-at-the-end/2014/03/05/46dad868-a496-11e3-8466-d34c451760b9_story.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/01/30/the-politics-of-starvation-in-syria/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/03/03/kaza-m03.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/03/ukraine-intervention-and-americas-doublethink/
http://on.rt.com/k1bkw8
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/03/the-dark-side-of-the-ukraine-revolt/
http://rt.com/news/syria-saudi-missiles-russia-741/
http://wapo.st/1icrLBd
http://en.trend.az/news/incident/2249083.html
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/who-does-putin-want-as-ukrainian-president/495810.html
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/politics/yatseniuk-ukraine-to-sign-deal-with-eu-within-weeks-338707.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/31/profits-may-rise-profits-may-fall-the-capitalist-system-doesnt-care-at-all/
http://fpif.org/u-s-continues-stand-bahrain/
http://fpif.org/open-fire-open-markets-asia-pacific-pivot-trans-pacific-partnership/
http://fpif.org/al-qaeda-seizure-falluja-throws-u-s-attitudes-toward-iraq-sharp-relief/
http://fpif.org/sun-also-rises-resisting-militarism-japan/
http://fpif.org/netanyahu-vs-spooks/
http://fpif.org/thailands-deep-divide/
http://fpif.org/united-nations-description-burmas-rohingya-friendless-true/
http://fpif.org/asia-pacific-pivot-smoke-firepower/
http://fpif.org/thailands-protests-global-economy/
http://fpif.org/color-wars/
http://fpif.org/will-gulf-cooperation-council-react-u-s-iran-nuclear-deal/
http://fpif.org/riding-u-s-iran-nuclear-rollercoaster/
http://fpif.org/abe-road/
as i think more about this, i'm beginning to realize that europe's non-reaction to the right-wing elements in the ukrainian parliament is a functioning of the normalization of far right politics in eastern europe. essentially every country in western europe, even, has a politically measurable far right party. well, they said the eec was put together by ex-nazis from the start. and as time has gone on, the same coalition between politics and banks has developed, even if the cartel systems have been removed as the middle man. i don't think the existing politicians even know what's coming. whether intended or not, what was once a conspiracy theory is quickly becoming reality: the eu is the political descendant of the third reich and behaving more and more that way every year.
http://fpif.org/greatest-threat-europe/
http://fpif.org/military-humanitarian-intervention-shock-doctrine-applied-syria/
http://fpif.org/venezuela-protests-view-west-caracas/
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/01/14/gag_order
http://complex.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/02/01/exclusive_new_investigator_probes_alleged_marine_corps_cover-up
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/02/05/irans_censors_just_tried_to_muzzle_hassan_rouhani
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/04/camb-j04.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/04/pove-j04.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/09/obam-j09.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/09/pers-j09.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/09/iran-j09.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/11/jobs-j11.html
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/06/the_presidents_man
http://on.rt.com/y5e40w
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/06/ukraine-through-the-fog-of-the-presstitutes/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R7chF70UTw
http://bitly.com/1mQvh6p
http://on.rt.com/zq8occ
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20140307/188197242/Russia-Warns-US-Sanctions-Would-Have-Boomerang-Effect.html
http://on.rt.com/yx4zrx
http://www.cnas.org/content/lure-nationalism#.UxjlRvldXvw
http://on.cfr.org/1fW50OF
http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/north-london-council-evict-1500-tenants-unauthorised-living-industrial-warehouses/
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/04/islamic_front_isis_syria
http://blogs.cfr.org/asia/2014/03/03/doctors-without-borders-kicked-out-of-myanmar-hatred-rising/?cid=soc-facebook-in-doctors_without_borders_kicked_out_of_myanmar_hatred_rising-030314
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/03/03/germany_and_us_diverge_over_russia_sanctions
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/07/obama_is_more_eisenhower_than_carter_putin_crimea
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/03/07/people-havent-left-kievs-maidan-heres-what-it-looks-and-feels-like-now/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/07/crimea-this-time/
http://en.ria.ru/world/20140307/188188127/Russias-Gazprom-Warns-Ukraine-of-New-Gas-War.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/03/07/ukra-m07.html
http://fpif.org/saving-blue-future/
http://fpif.org/behind-karzais-stubbornness/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/05/ukraine-and-the-great-asian-enclosure/
http://on.rt.com/7l2or9
http://on.rt.com/z1i9bg
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/04/crimea-river/
http://www.fpri.org/articles/2014/03/ukraine-and-misunderstood-budapest-memorandum
http://www.euronews.com/2014/03/07/china-rejects-sanctions-as-a-way-to-resolve-ukraine-crisis/
http://indrus.in/blogs/2014/03/06/why_a_militarily_powerful_russia_is_good_for_the_world_33561.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/henry-kissinger-to-settle-the-ukraine-crisis-start-at-the-end/2014/03/05/46dad868-a496-11e3-8466-d34c451760b9_story.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/01/30/the-politics-of-starvation-in-syria/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/03/03/kaza-m03.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/03/ukraine-intervention-and-americas-doublethink/
http://on.rt.com/k1bkw8
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/03/the-dark-side-of-the-ukraine-revolt/
http://rt.com/news/syria-saudi-missiles-russia-741/
http://wapo.st/1icrLBd
http://en.trend.az/news/incident/2249083.html
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/who-does-putin-want-as-ukrainian-president/495810.html
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/politics/yatseniuk-ukraine-to-sign-deal-with-eu-within-weeks-338707.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/31/profits-may-rise-profits-may-fall-the-capitalist-system-doesnt-care-at-all/
http://fpif.org/u-s-continues-stand-bahrain/
http://fpif.org/open-fire-open-markets-asia-pacific-pivot-trans-pacific-partnership/
http://fpif.org/al-qaeda-seizure-falluja-throws-u-s-attitudes-toward-iraq-sharp-relief/
http://fpif.org/sun-also-rises-resisting-militarism-japan/
http://fpif.org/netanyahu-vs-spooks/
http://fpif.org/thailands-deep-divide/
http://fpif.org/united-nations-description-burmas-rohingya-friendless-true/
http://fpif.org/asia-pacific-pivot-smoke-firepower/
http://fpif.org/thailands-protests-global-economy/
http://fpif.org/color-wars/
http://fpif.org/will-gulf-cooperation-council-react-u-s-iran-nuclear-deal/
http://fpif.org/riding-u-s-iran-nuclear-rollercoaster/
http://fpif.org/abe-road/
as i think more about this, i'm beginning to realize that europe's non-reaction to the right-wing elements in the ukrainian parliament is a functioning of the normalization of far right politics in eastern europe. essentially every country in western europe, even, has a politically measurable far right party. well, they said the eec was put together by ex-nazis from the start. and as time has gone on, the same coalition between politics and banks has developed, even if the cartel systems have been removed as the middle man. i don't think the existing politicians even know what's coming. whether intended or not, what was once a conspiracy theory is quickly becoming reality: the eu is the political descendant of the third reich and behaving more and more that way every year.
http://fpif.org/greatest-threat-europe/
http://fpif.org/military-humanitarian-intervention-shock-doctrine-applied-syria/
http://fpif.org/venezuela-protests-view-west-caracas/
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/01/14/gag_order
http://complex.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/02/01/exclusive_new_investigator_probes_alleged_marine_corps_cover-up
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/02/05/irans_censors_just_tried_to_muzzle_hassan_rouhani
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/04/camb-j04.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/04/pove-j04.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/09/obam-j09.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/09/pers-j09.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/09/iran-j09.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/11/jobs-j11.html
yes. spectacularly.
http://fpif.org/nonviolence-fail-egypt/
the article doesn't get the point, though, that if they want any long term success then the masses of people should be focusing on building new economic relationships, seizing productive capacities for the people, etc rather than recreating the perpetual disappointment and failure that is parliamentary democracy.
the better conclusion is that movements must be spontaneous, focused on changing living conditions outside of government structures and constantly vigilant against co-option from political forces. there was a critical mass assembled in egypt. had they stormed the factories and the fields instead of the parliament, they might have actually accomplished something.
http://fpif.org/nonviolence-fail-egypt/
the article doesn't get the point, though, that if they want any long term success then the masses of people should be focusing on building new economic relationships, seizing productive capacities for the people, etc rather than recreating the perpetual disappointment and failure that is parliamentary democracy.
the better conclusion is that movements must be spontaneous, focused on changing living conditions outside of government structures and constantly vigilant against co-option from political forces. there was a critical mass assembled in egypt. had they stormed the factories and the fields instead of the parliament, they might have actually accomplished something.
hrmmn.
or maybe keynesian war spending might do wonders for russia.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/condoleezza-rice-will-america-heed-the-wake-up-call-of-ukraine/2014/03/07/cf087f74-a630-11e3-84d4-e59b1709222c_story.html
or maybe keynesian war spending might do wonders for russia.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/condoleezza-rice-will-america-heed-the-wake-up-call-of-ukraine/2014/03/07/cf087f74-a630-11e3-84d4-e59b1709222c_story.html
Kiev must have no participation in any anti-Moscow alliance, writes Zbigniew Brzezinski
As chaos explodes in Ukraine and the threat of Russian intervention persists, the responsibility of the west to help attain a constructive outcome becomes more self-evident.
Viktor Yanukovich has shown himself to be a mendacious schemer, a coward and a thief. His palatial personal residence in an impoverished country speaks for itself. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin would be making a fatal mistake by backing him.
But Russia can still plunge Ukraine into a destructive and internationally dangerous civil war. It can prompt and then support the secession of Crimea and some of the industrial eastern portions of the country.
Mr Putin may choose to ignore the fact that such aggression would guarantee the enduring hatred of Russia by the majority of Ukrainians, irrespective of the short-run outcome of any civil war abetted by Moscow.
That in turn would also mean his nostalgic dream of heading a Russian “Eurasian Union” would be exposed as an enterprise based on intimidation and coercion – not exactly an attractive vision for any of the recently sovereign components of the former Soviet Union.
It is probable Ukrainian national self-assertion is already fortifying the post-Soviet republics of central Asia, notably Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, to stiffen resistance to Moscow’s continuing effort to deprive them of sovereignty. The newly assertive and increasingly nationalistic political and business elites of these states have no desire again to become part of a Russian empire named by Mr Putin the “Eurasian Union”.
The west, however, needs to play a constructive role in forestalling the potential explosion of regional violence in Ukraine abetted from Russia. That will take concerted action by the US and the EU.
The US could and should convey clearly to Mr Putin that it is prepared to use its influence to make certain a truly independent and territorially undivided Ukraine will pursue policies towards Russia similar to those so effectively practised by Finland: mutually respectful neighbours with wide-ranging economic relations with Russia and the EU; no participation in any military alliance viewed by Moscow as directed at itself but expanding its European connectivity.
In brief, the Finnish model is ideal for Ukraine, the EU and Russia in any larger east-west strategic accommodation.
But to be credible to the Kremlin, the US needs also to spell out privately that attempts to destabilise the emerging democracy in Kiev or detach parts of Ukraine – not to mention even overt or covert Russian participation in its neighbour’s domestic conflicts – would compel Washington to use its influence internationally to prompt steps that would be economically costly to Moscow.
Options to that effect can range from unilateral individual and state-to-state financial sanctions to a review of Russia’s status in the World Trade Organisation, the World Bank and the Group of Eight leading industrial nations.
Obviously, the EU would need to be a solid partner in any such effort, since it is a significant trader with Russia. Contemporary Russia is not economically invulnerable to the consequences.
But even more urgent is the need for the EU to formulate a significant financial emergency package for Ukraine. Otherwise, the country will plunge into destructive financial chaos.
The lead in Europe should be taken by Germany and the UK. The latter’s role as a haven for Russian and Ukrainian financial oligarchs gives London special leverage. But every EU country should make some sacrifice in an effort to avert a potentially catastrophic Ukrainian economic collapse.
The Europeans and especially the UK might be more inclined to undertake such a collective effort if the top 10 Ukrainian oligarchs ¬– principal beneficiaries of the country’s stunningly widespread corruption – were all “persuaded” to donate $1bn each to their country’s financial rehabilitation.
Mr Yanukovich’s fabulously wealthy dentist son should be able to match the resulting $10bn. The Ukrainian public would certainly welcome such a collective contribution.
Obviously the US and the EU, hopefully with Russia’s constructive co-operation, should continue to press the dominant democratic forces in Kiev to adopt a stance not of revenge and retribution but of national unification and political moderation. That is achievable given the crucial leaders who emerged in Maidan Square are moderates.
Irrespective of what happens in the near future, I continue to believe that sooner rather than later Ukraine will be truly a part of democratic Europe. Later rather than sooner, Russia will follow unless it isolates itself and becomes a semi-stagnant imperialistic relic.
The writer was national security adviser to US president Jimmy Carter and wrote ‘Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power’
As chaos explodes in Ukraine and the threat of Russian intervention persists, the responsibility of the west to help attain a constructive outcome becomes more self-evident.
Viktor Yanukovich has shown himself to be a mendacious schemer, a coward and a thief. His palatial personal residence in an impoverished country speaks for itself. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin would be making a fatal mistake by backing him.
But Russia can still plunge Ukraine into a destructive and internationally dangerous civil war. It can prompt and then support the secession of Crimea and some of the industrial eastern portions of the country.
Mr Putin may choose to ignore the fact that such aggression would guarantee the enduring hatred of Russia by the majority of Ukrainians, irrespective of the short-run outcome of any civil war abetted by Moscow.
That in turn would also mean his nostalgic dream of heading a Russian “Eurasian Union” would be exposed as an enterprise based on intimidation and coercion – not exactly an attractive vision for any of the recently sovereign components of the former Soviet Union.
It is probable Ukrainian national self-assertion is already fortifying the post-Soviet republics of central Asia, notably Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, to stiffen resistance to Moscow’s continuing effort to deprive them of sovereignty. The newly assertive and increasingly nationalistic political and business elites of these states have no desire again to become part of a Russian empire named by Mr Putin the “Eurasian Union”.
The west, however, needs to play a constructive role in forestalling the potential explosion of regional violence in Ukraine abetted from Russia. That will take concerted action by the US and the EU.
The US could and should convey clearly to Mr Putin that it is prepared to use its influence to make certain a truly independent and territorially undivided Ukraine will pursue policies towards Russia similar to those so effectively practised by Finland: mutually respectful neighbours with wide-ranging economic relations with Russia and the EU; no participation in any military alliance viewed by Moscow as directed at itself but expanding its European connectivity.
In brief, the Finnish model is ideal for Ukraine, the EU and Russia in any larger east-west strategic accommodation.
But to be credible to the Kremlin, the US needs also to spell out privately that attempts to destabilise the emerging democracy in Kiev or detach parts of Ukraine – not to mention even overt or covert Russian participation in its neighbour’s domestic conflicts – would compel Washington to use its influence internationally to prompt steps that would be economically costly to Moscow.
Options to that effect can range from unilateral individual and state-to-state financial sanctions to a review of Russia’s status in the World Trade Organisation, the World Bank and the Group of Eight leading industrial nations.
Obviously, the EU would need to be a solid partner in any such effort, since it is a significant trader with Russia. Contemporary Russia is not economically invulnerable to the consequences.
But even more urgent is the need for the EU to formulate a significant financial emergency package for Ukraine. Otherwise, the country will plunge into destructive financial chaos.
The lead in Europe should be taken by Germany and the UK. The latter’s role as a haven for Russian and Ukrainian financial oligarchs gives London special leverage. But every EU country should make some sacrifice in an effort to avert a potentially catastrophic Ukrainian economic collapse.
The Europeans and especially the UK might be more inclined to undertake such a collective effort if the top 10 Ukrainian oligarchs ¬– principal beneficiaries of the country’s stunningly widespread corruption – were all “persuaded” to donate $1bn each to their country’s financial rehabilitation.
Mr Yanukovich’s fabulously wealthy dentist son should be able to match the resulting $10bn. The Ukrainian public would certainly welcome such a collective contribution.
Obviously the US and the EU, hopefully with Russia’s constructive co-operation, should continue to press the dominant democratic forces in Kiev to adopt a stance not of revenge and retribution but of national unification and political moderation. That is achievable given the crucial leaders who emerged in Maidan Square are moderates.
Irrespective of what happens in the near future, I continue to believe that sooner rather than later Ukraine will be truly a part of democratic Europe. Later rather than sooner, Russia will follow unless it isolates itself and becomes a semi-stagnant imperialistic relic.
The writer was national security adviser to US president Jimmy Carter and wrote ‘Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power’
that cia deal bezos whipped up has got his paper pulling in all the decision makers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/zbigniew-brzezinski-after-putins-aggression-in-ukraine-the-west-must-be-ready-to-respond/2014/03/03/25b3f928-a2f5-11e3-84d4-e59b1709222c_story.html
free media my ass...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/zbigniew-brzezinski-after-putins-aggression-in-ukraine-the-west-must-be-ready-to-respond/2014/03/03/25b3f928-a2f5-11e3-84d4-e59b1709222c_story.html
free media my ass...
israeli colonization of the region has made this the only option. there isn't a palestine left to form a state with....
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/02/america_plan_israel_two_state
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/02/america_plan_israel_two_state
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