i have a math degree, and completed most of a master's as electives while i was working on a second degree in computer science (although i never applied to graduate). i decided a credit short of the second degree that i didn't want to spend the rest of my life doing mathematics. i went back a little later for financial reasons to study law for a few years, while i was waiting for a disability ruling. today, i live on disability and am waiting to be declared "severely permanently disabled" in order to get my loan wiped out. over the many years i was in school, my gpa averaged out to about 10.5/12.

i feel i'm better off on disability. happier, certainly.

i'll grade a few parts of this and add a few parts.

1) marked without really reading it. that is actually absolutely accurate, but i've blamed it on the process of assigning work to ta's. what's even a bigger problem - especially in math, although i saw this in law, too - is grading a paper without understanding it. when you're doing math, you can express answers correctly in multiple different ways. and, when you're doing advanced math you can often be asked to prove statements, in which case there may be multiple correct answers. more often than not, teaching assistants will apply absolutely no effort into the process and merely mark relative to the provided solution sheet. so, if you express something differently - even if it's equivalent - or if you provide a proof that is different than expected, you will more often than not be marked wrong. thankfully, this is usually easily dealt with - you bring the paper to the prof. but, it's very inefficient and really just shouldn't happen.

2) curving grades is a thing that happens, in both directions. it would bother me less in law, as there's a process of subjectivity. in math, it makes no sense to me. i remember one course where i got a test back with 115% - because i aced it (95%) and then got a 20% bump on the curve. now, that indicates i drastically outperformed the class on that particular test. but, here's the thing: if i could get 95% on it, i don't think the kid that got 45% should have been curved up to 65%. it clearly wasn't impossible. that kid failed, dammit. i've also officially received 100% on exams (several times...) that i know i got at least one question wrong on. it's not exactly the same as averaging out, of course, but it's a pretty ridiculous thing to do in any kind of stem course. yet, it absolutely does happen.

3) i know of at least one example where a female's test scores were orchestrated to be higher than they actually were (that is, the department organized cheating on the test) in order to justify putting her in a teaching assistant position because the school had a deficit of female teaching assistants. i know this because i happen to have overheard the conversation about it. my understanding is that she was seen as a strong student, but they wanted the case to be stronger.

broadly speaking, the video is of course ridiculous. and, little of what i'm saying is connected to the sjw strawman - the first issue is due to the difficulty of finding qualified tas willing to work at or below minimum wage, while the second is a consequence of professors being evaluated on their test scores. but, this video does touch on some points worth considering, albeit largely accidentally.

jbizzybrown
+deathtokoalas Sounds like you don't really want to work and surfed from student loan welfare to the golden goose of "disability"

deathtokoalas
+jbizzybrown yeah, that's about right - although it's hardly a "golden goose".

i decided i'd rather focus on my art, and i was willing to live in poverty to do it. call it a cost-benefit analysis, if you'd like. but, it was just an honest assessment of what drives me. i'd rather be poor and spend my time doing fulfilling things than wealthy and miserable because i feel like i'm wasting my time doing something i don't care about.

i mean, if you want numbers, it works out to about 50% of what i'd make if i were working a full time minimum wage job in this province. and, i'm confident i could do a lot better than minimum wage. so, it's a huge trade-off. i've got nothing but time, but i've got very little cash to spend. but, i'd rather have a lot of time and very little money than a lot of money and very little time.

i would support a guaranteed minimum income and put it at about that - half of minimum wage. that's enough to give people like me that just don't see the point of it a way out, while still maintaining strong incentives to engage in the labour force.

jbizzybrown
+deathtokoalas ya, thank your neighbors or your "cash" and "time" because it is coming from them, scumbag flea.

deathtokoalas
+jbizzybrown that's a very unscientific concept of the accounting. i could just as easily deduct it from taxes paid by investors, who legitimately actually really do just skim wealth off the top.

i really don't see any benefit to the society around me in forcing me to make somebody sandwiches. sorry.

you may find my offering of music and writing insufficient, but it's what i have to offer - and i don't feel it's less substantial. to the contrary.

george_505
+deathtokoalas Don't complete meaningful work then don't get paid :D

deathtokoalas
+george_505 well, i'll let you know when i agree to let you decide what meaningful work is.

in the mean time, i'll suggest an essay by oscar wilde called the soul of man under socialism.

Stefan Crapper
+deathtokoalas I sense trolling. Are you really admitting that you're leeching of welfare when you're more than capable intellectually of holding a job? lol

deathtokoalas
+Stefan Crapper yup. and, i'm even suggesting this should be normalized and everybody should do it.

one thing i just want to add, though, is that i'm not rejecting labour despite of ability and intelligence. rather, i'm rejecting labour because of ability and intelligence. if i was your average dipshit, i'd be happy pushing rocks up the hill. right?

life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not duty, obligation and the obedience to norms. i'm sorry. fuck your worker hive.

jbizzybrown
+deathtokoalas you are just mad because you know deep in side that you are a completely worthless person. 

deathtokoalas
+jbizzybrown that's actually not entirely inaccurate, except i would extend a caveat - we are all useless, life is useless and everything they've got us doing to waste our time is useless. it's kind of a way to try to break the cycle of uselessness.

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas "Everybody should do it"

Then where is the money coming from? Holy crap you're entitled.

deathtokoalas
+Chameleon EDM i'd actually like to get rid of money altogether, if you want to walk down the line a few steps. in the mean time, i'm ok with printing it.

but the entitled thing is like...

sure. whatever. fuck your protestant work ethic, too.

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas So we get rid of money, instead relying on each other. Yet you have chosen art as your calling over something that would actually sustain a money-less system.

Yep, still entitled.

george_505
+deathtokoalas Socialism, really? When you state such an ideology and yet you sit at home and don't work or do anything meaningful, instead are here drawing attention to yourself. A socialist society would have place for a person such as yourself. 

jbizzybrown
+deathtokoalas Justify it to yourself however you want. You feel like shit because you are shit.

deathtokoalas
+Chameleon EDM you're not allowing yourself to think in a post-propertarian sense. the abolition of currency is desirable precisely because it allows for people to spend their time more freely.

take a look at the labour that exists around you. do we need store managers? restaurants? shop keepers? cashiers? all of these people are wasting their lives, because they are enslaved by a system of currency.

and, what is emancipation from currency? it is the freedom to live as one truly desires. to create art. to play in the snow. whatever. 

jbizzybrown
+deathtokoalas so some people should just be slaves without money so that you can do whatever the fuck you want all day while being supported by them? Nice "care," you dipshit libtard 

deathtokoalas
+george_505 i'm what you call an anarchist, which does not take the position that the state should assign people to accomplish certain tasks. i seek the abolition of property, of currency, of hierarchical relationships and of markets in exchange, but it is all to attain higher freedom of individual choice - because these things restrict individuality.

the wilde essay is really a very enjoyable read. he's not a dry writer. it's available online from several sources. please do give it a read, as he lays it all out there very well. 

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas So you'll gather your own food will you? Make your own clothes? Somehow provide yourself with basic hygiene?

Or are you expecting others do it for you while you run around painting your feelings?

Realistically, you want rid of money because you are in a crap load of debt with no job

deathtokoalas
+jbizzybrown i've explained this as well as i can to you, but you're clearly too much of an idiot to understand and i do not wish to communicate with you further.

*plonk*.

deathtokoalas
+Chameleon EDM the solution is to automate most mindless labour, and allow the rest of it to occur by volunteers. again: please read the literature i provided you with before you comment further.

george_505
+deathtokoalas you're describing everything that makes a society run, you just sit at home and do shit all everyday, day in and day out, get a job and have a purpose. Don't quote other people and state how much more intelligent you are than them because at the end of the day you're the one here sitting on your arse not working due to a 'disability'

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas Ok. What you are describing is a utopia. Yes, that would be wonderful but we aren't exactly there are we? We can't automate all mindless labour right now. It just simply isn't possible.

I just realised something. You have a maths degree. 2 years of CS. You want the technology for a utopia and your answer is to do art.

10/10 best troll world.

deathtokoalas
+george_505 i work very hard at what i do, actually. and, as stated, i feel it's more valuable work than i could accomplish through any kind of employment.

but, even if i didn't, i don't really see what your argument is. if you'd like to be a slave, that's your choice. i think it's regrettable. but, your choice to be a slave is not binding on me.

if you enjoy what you do, then we're even. if you don't, follow my lead and go on strike. but don't tell me that your decisions are binding on me. that's bullshit. 

deathtokoalas
+Chameleon EDM 19.5/20 credits on the computer science, actually - on top of the four year math degree, and seven math credits at the graduate level (five is a master's).

there really aren't any barriers to automation at this point besides a political will to put it forth, so long as you're willing to throw away the vast majority of the economy that is entirely useless to survival.

in order to implement my ideas, i'd need to build awareness first. i suppose i could write a book, but there's quite a few out there. and, if you won't read a short essay, i'm left to conclude you won't read a book. i got prodded on this - i didn't intend this discussion to go in this direction - but there's plenty of posts all over the internet where i am initiating this kind of discussion.

but, it's a cost-benefit analysis, ultimately. i don't think this can be accomplished in my life time. we're going to have to go through an economic crisis first. this is something to talk about in the 2030s. maybe. in the mean time, i have a life to live, and i'd like to spend it doing what i want, right now - not fighting for the future, so the next generation can live how i wish i did, and didn't.

i mean, i'd have a different attitude if i was getting a different attitude back. but, when i offer a strategy for emancipation and all i get is "you're trying to get out of being a slave, that's not fair!", it's easy to snicker and tell you to fuck off.

i'm a rational agent. i'm trained to be. and, if the option is to be enslaved or enslave others, however contrived of a false dichotomy that is? i'll be the slave master. fuck you. sorry.

it's your responsibility to change your attitude if that pisses you off. 

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas You're deluded

Adam russek
+Chameleon EDM I agree or she's just trolling. She's not truly an anarchist if she's living off of everyone else's wealth. I'm an anarchist as well but that just means a voluntary society with no rulers/masters. But unfortunately humanity in its current condition doesn't have the will or personal responsibility (like deathtokoalas) to create that increase in freedom. Any society that wants to remain ignorant and immoral will inevitably end up in chains 

deathtokoalas
+Adam russek anarchism rejects the concept of other people's wealth. it puts property in common. i dispute the idea that i'm living off anybody else's wealth, because i reject the idea that the wealth belongs to them in the first place.

as mentioned, i don't have a large subsidy. 65% of it goes to the landlord, and about 25% of it goes to basic necessities like food. the remaining 10% invariably gets spent on the work of other artists.

i'm only truly given enough to survive. but i've decided that's all that i need or i want.

the crux of the debate, in an anarchist framework, isn't even the value of art. virtually everybody agrees it has some value. even wingnuts like rand. the question is how that value should be determined, or if it should be determined at all.

so-called ancaps (who are really just classical liberals; anarchism necessarily rejects property rights, at the very least) will argue that art is a product to be determined by the market.

the anarchist argument against this is articulated very well in the essay i posted by wilde. but, the conclusion is that it should not be determined and that so long as artists are producing something or other then they are working and should be entitled to basic income, at least.

there's a twist in this: a lot of classical liberals (like milton friedman, for example) have argued in favour of basic incomes because they recognize the coercive nature of so-called free markets. whatever the value of markets are for however many people, they come with the defect that they produce a class of people who can only ever be enslaved by them, because their products can not be sold on them due to lack of demand. that is, markets are unable to put a meaningful price on some things - and art is the primary example. they came up with a generalized income to compensate for this. even the most ardent advocates of markets do understand the flaw that i represent, and do have ideas to make the situation more fair.

but if this meandering mess of producerist nonsense has a point, it's in that wilde essay. please do read it. wilde was an important author from the nineteenth century and lays out the argument for anarchism from the perspective of somebody in the artisan class (rather than somebody in the working class, which is where it often comes from) with refreshing clarity and insight. it's very, very much worth reading - even if you end up disagreeing dramatically with the points in it.

Lee Schneider
+deathtokoalas I understand where you are coming from, why spend your life pursuing something that is meaningless to you, but you need to consider the collective. If every capable person decided to drop their responsibilities then society wouldn't function; In assuming a role below your capacity you disenable someone less capable the right to that role.

deathtokoalas
+Lee Schneider i really strongly disagree; i feel that i do not need to consider the collective. individualism isn't necessarily selfish. i'm an advocate of reciprocal altruism (mutual aid), which is an example of how self-interest can benefit everybody if it's approached in the right way. true self-interest means respecting the people around you. but, i don't feel the responsibility you're implying i should. it strikes me as irrational.

but, i don't think the idea that i've dropped responsibilities to mathematics is accurate, either. i am a better musician than i am a mathematician. i'm not alexander grothendieck. i would feel i was dropping my responsibility to music by continuing to half-heartedly pursue math.

that said, i will come back to it. there is an age limit for composition, determined both by physical deterioration and intellectual evolution. i give myself another five years, maximum, of music as a dominant pursuit.

but, i'll let you in on something: mathematicians think a lot like artists do. the basic pressures are not altered. the truth is that it won't change my outlook much.

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas You think you have a creative window? I am so glad I do not have your brain, it seems flawed.

deathtokoalas
+Chameleon EDM we start losing our hearing in our 20s. by the time we're 40, we've lost a substantial amount of our hearing range, especially on the high end. what i do is very conscious of spectrum - it's very impressionist, very much into the idea of creating the surreal out of frequencies. there will be a time when i will be unable to hear well enough to create what i imagine.

self-awareness is thought by cognitive scientists to be an advance, but it is probably a flaw - and a tragic one. i'm aware that i do not have a lot longer left to create within. denial is pointless.

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas On listening to your music I'm sure you'll be fine with loosing some frequencies in the high end. Regardless, after listening to you music I'm just going to let you get on with life. You seem troubled enough.

deathtokoalas
+Chameleon EDM there's a great deal of detail in the high end; it's the kind of thing you need quality headphones and time to listen actively (and some marijuana helps, too) to be able to understand well. the granulated guitar overdubs at the start of my second symphony are a good example. in ten years, i likely won't be able to hear the harmonics anymore.

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas I'm always stoned, I have AKG's. A lot of what you are hearing is in your head only, thats why your mixes appear to change when you do not change them at all. At least from looking at what you comment.

Oh, and I make neuro. So im plenty trained in listening to and for high harmonics. 

Get Rich TV
+deathtokoalas I have to chime in and agree with much of your argument here, I really find that most of what we have here is a peoples fear of taking a risk in change, which is understandable but not necessarily right. People put so little value in arts but then I have to argue with them about when the last time it was that they didn't ingest some form of artistic media. The answer is pretty close to never. Visual arts, music, sculpture, writing, videogames, memes, etc. are all an ongoing feed of artistic export made by creatives... without it we'd be absolutely crushed under the weight of pure utilitarian duty, survival, responsibility and work.

I am currently working a low hour job that actually serves to sustain me financially but have been opting quite hard to push towards my true passion which is the pursuit of creative expression. I'm working on a webcomic (which I can definitely assure you is not an easy undertaking) while also trying to develop a recognizable universe in which to construct other media through, such as animation, games, writing and even going so far as to making interesting products that will extend that world into the real tangible world we live in. All to create an environment of wonder and whimsy. Without creatives living in poverty just to express themselves I doubt that many would be able to continue in the crushing grind of the workforce.

I'm glad that there are still some who believe that this current socio-economic world is a construct and has no more validity than anything else. We can disassemble, alter and upgrade it however we want and can design. Unfortunately, many will fight tooth and nail to preserve their inertia with the illusion that there is only one way, the current way.

deathtokoalas
+Chameleon EDM i resolved my driver issue last night. it turns out that there was a bug in the install package.

i'm not going to post graphs. 

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas It doesn't change the fact that a lot of what you're hearing up there your mind is creating fictitiously.

Chameleon EDM
+Get Rich TV Hey, don't get me wrong. I love the arts, I create music myself. I just don't reject the entire idea of money and having a job in order to create art while living off of other people. What you do? fantastic! Keep going!

deathtokoalas
+Chameleon EDM i'm not sure if you're aware of how complicated a point this is, or if you're just trying to suggest i'm a little crazy.

not every song is the same. some start as experiments. others come out of jams. but, pretty much everything i make has an aspect of projection. i don't want to suggest i'm spontaneously hearing sound; that's not something that any composer really experiences. but, mental composition through triggers is a really big part of writing. so, yes: sometimes, it comes entirely out of my head, even if it's driven by an existing idea. more often, i'm starting with something and create arrangements in my mind by listening to it over and over. string or horn parts. guitar solos. effects collages.

the challenge of being a sound artist is trying to create what you hear in your head - to convert the sounds you hear into your mind into something real that others can also hear. it's what the process is, what the point is. so, you're entirely right in saying that what i'm hearing is in my head, on some level. but, the struggle i was having was that what i was hearing was not the same as what was in my head,

the fact that i just spent 4.5 months freaking out over a broken driver (i simply couldn't determine what the problem was; the answer turned out to be both devastatingly simple and almost impossible to guess...i figured it out by accident) suggests that the separation between what i want to hear and what i do hear is actually pretty strong. if i was merely tripping out, i would have walked down a different path than that.

my larger works can have upwards of three hundred parts in them. it's a lot of work, and requires a lot of careful attention. that interplay between imagination and reality is vital. but, the bounds are clear - and have to be. i have to ensure they are, at all times. otherwise, i'm just living in my head.

Chameleon EDM
+deathtokoalas Everything you say sounds absolutely mad

deathtokoalas
+Chameleon EDM sigh. perhaps my diagnosis is not so arbitrary after all, then. i don't think that's true, but it's probably good for my image to come off just a little unhinged.

Alba Whiteman
+deathtokoalas ...A friend of mine was a computer programming lecturer at university and HAD to lower the pass mark level to pass more foreign students, by order of the faculty head. This is simply business for getting more asian students.

StephCurry WithTheShot
+deathtokoalas The crazy thing is, I'm starting to feel the same way you do. I bust my ass for my family. I work 70 hours a week while going to college for computer science. It's something I'm interested in, but not a passion of mine. I see it as a high salary job where I could use my brain and not my feet. Problem is, this grading process is a joke, not to mention that the material taught is being dumbed down so even the dumbest person who clearly isn't ready can pass and move on. Simple material is being repeated over and over again because the same idiots keep falling behind and I can't say anything because it will hurt their feelings and i'm supposed to be a "team player". I finish all the homework on time and I score 85-100s on tests and I get a B letter grade because I lose 10-15% on "class participation". Like, I'm sorry I don't want to be an asshole by answering everything for the rest of the class. What happens to the 10 students who never finished half the homework assignments with finals being 2 weeks away? Professor gives them all a free pass and lets them make up 3 months worth of assignments with no grade deduction. Not to mention they drop the 2 lowest test grades. I'm sitting on an A or B+ so I'm not worried about anything except my mother's mortgage. Finals come back and I got a B+ while half the class got an A. Gotta love college.

At the end of the day, knowledge is more valuable than a GPA but looking average will not get me into MIT or Berkeley. I feel like dropping out and purposely getting myself fired for unemployment so I can have the free time to self teach myself everything I would never learn with those classrooms. At the same time, with the books I read at work about coding jobs, I discovered that your team might not be that bright either. Apparently they can work 100 hour weeks with no salary increase if they are constantly behind. Maybe it's time I find a disability of my own...

deathtokoalas
+StephCurry WithTheShot ah, participation marks. that's something i forgot.

i've seen it set as high as 30% in third year, although that was a law class. gotta make sure they get their money's worth, right? see, but what it does is reward obedience. it's corporate training for the work environment. even at the university level, this is what the main purpose of schooling is.

depending on your goals, i would agree that you'll learn far better on your own than through a school. the thing is that you'd better be focused on self-employment, at least for the start.

the best way to get something out of school nowadays is through co-op. i'd even go so far as to suggest you're wasting your time, otherwise.

i've been behind the lines on this, and while this is an unnecessarily militant confrontation, you have to understand what they're thinking, first.

the basic idea is that all media is corporate controlled, and exists to smear these kinds of events. the constitutional basis of allowing media rights is both built on the presumption of, and designed to foster, the expression of a free media as a check on power. when media is owned and operated by the elite as a means of control, the entire basis of that sort of thinking dissolves. free media rights only make sense in the context of the existence of a free media. the activists are no doubt under the absolutely correct assumption that they will gain nothing by talking to the media - all they will get are inaccurate hit pieces, smear campaigns and strawmen arguments in print. absolute non-cooperation with the media, and especially the corporate media, is a rational reaction to the existing state of the media, and their solidarity on the point should actually really be applauded.

but, there's a mob mentality that is taking over here that organizers should have been acting to counteract, rather than encouraging. if the aim here is to draw attention to themselves, jumping needlessly to militant tactics against the media is going to create far worse media than talking to them ever could.

a good example is when the photographer stands on his toes to try and get a shot and one of the protesters pushes him back. that's unacceptable; it's total thug behaviour. and, when somebody gets through, you can't even think about forcibly removing them. it's public property. that's simply assault.

but, you also have to keep in mind what created this. when you raise a generation on the principle that might makes right (in foreign policy, in policing, through reality tv, through fictional media...), don't be surprised when they act that principle out against you.

this is structural. it's fun to blame mexico, but the truth is that we're being replaced by robots.

the next step is for the robots to take over those low paying jobs, too.

brains have been much racked, and there doesn't seem to be a good answer in sight. so, maybe we need to change the question.

if robots are doing all the work for us, do we really need to all have jobs?

www.cbc.ca/news/business/david-madani-jobs-employment-1.3313830

--

Rrrrrrrrrright
Why are the big unions allowed to fly under the radar on this?

jessica murray
i agree. canadian and american unions should have been doing far more organizing and solidarity work in mexico, to get living standards up there. by playing directly into nationalism, they've harmed all of us.

---

Dr. Grand
Obviously the government is the last to find this out. Duh ever since 2008 all of our good jobs have been vanishing for part time no benefits minimum wage type McJobs, why is this a story now? I guess the government can no longer hide this fact. All of their policies making it easy and penalty free for corporations to move overseas and continue to do business here is what has caused this.

jessica murray
these trends trace to the 70s.

Han-Kog
I agree with the view that this is pretty disgusting, yet I don't know of any other alternative.

If the city is facing the risk of a systemic failure in which sewage will wind up in the St. Lawrence at a random time, then isn't it best to arrange for this to happen at the least risky time?

For any of us to complain about the current approach, what exactly are the alternatives?

jessica murray
the truck idea was contemplated. it would have required something like 9000 trucks.

it could have been diverted into temporary storage for a price of approximately a billion dollars.

the crux of the decision is that the effects of the leak will not be large enough to justify the costs. and, i can't help but see the logic in this analysis.

they're looking at a flow rate of 13 L/s. the st. lawerence runs at around 7000 L/s in that area. if you scale that down, it's miniscule: rushing downstream, you're looking at 0.00186 L of sewage per L of water. and, that will break up even further as it continues flowing.

8 billion tonnes seems like a huge number, but it really pales in comparison to the amount of water running through the area.

that doesn't mean this should happen all the time. and it's nice to see the outrage, even if it's poorly placed. but, when the experts say "this isn't a big deal", they aren't just saying that. it's the consequence of studying it and coming to an informed conclusion on it.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/st-lawrence-montreal-sewage-dump-underway-1.3313623

this is totally misunderstanding the situation.

what actually happened is that they looked at the numbers, knew that harper was leaving us with a structural deficit and changed their platform to deficit spending to compensate. that is, the deficit spending promises happened because they knew harper was leaving a deficit to begin with.

consider the other scenario: suppose they had promised balanced budgets (as the ndp did - "according to harper's estimates", indicating they also realized the reality, but weren't honest about it.). they would have been unable to follow through on that promise and they would have been nailed by the media on it. so, they took the option of being honest about it and promised deficits, instead.

there were consequently two motives to this policy. the first was to manage expectations. the second was to make it clear that they were inheriting deficits, and to place the blame where it belongs.

now, we *do* need this infrastructure spending, anyways. but the idea that it's going to have a significant effect on the economy is something no economist would endorse. like, you're talking about a fraction of a percent of gdp with these kinds of modest deficits, it's all temporary and the assumptions of a closed economy on multiplier effects don't pan out. but, they knew that.

so, what effect will this have on spending? none. you've got the cause and effect backwards.

that said, there are some cost-saving mechanisms in the budget (most notably the cut in childcare handouts for rich people) and there are some possible significant revenue streams coming (like marijuana). i think you should see a surprise surplus a year or two early as a result of these changes.

but, don't confuse yourself. they knew this was coming. it's why they promised deficits.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/parliamentary-budget-officer-trudeau-plans-1.3312757

--

stillnojustice
Why didn't Trudeau's own "PBO" economists pick up on the Canadian economy continuing to go down the crapper for another 2? years after the election?

Were the Liberals expecting a miracle economic recovery after ten years of the most corrupt dictatorship that Canadians have ever seen.

jessica murray
they did.

that's why they didn't promise they could balance the budget right away; they knew they were being left with a structural deficit, and based their platform around it.

---

Guardian52
So Harper's campaign candy about balancing the budget was just a big lie? Why am I not surprised? And why wasn't this brought to light before the election?

jessica murray
it was brought to light during the election - it's the reason the liberals campaigned on deficits.

it would make a lot more sense to just reform welfare to something more reasonable. there's no use in sending the checks to people that have jobs, it's just going to drive inflation. but, if you set welfare payments to 50-75% of the minimum wage, you're getting all the good parts of it while losing the bad parts.

i want to add something about the question of incentivizing work, as well. it's less that it creates a disincentive. speaking from my own experience, my disincentive to work is the nature of work itself. there's not a thing you could do to incentivize me to really, actually want to be there. hate the tasks. hate the people. to me, it's literally slavery. the outcome is that i'd be - and have been - just about the shittiest employee you could imagine, because i would literally only be there because i was being forced to be there. i'd take any possible way out. in fact, i went back to school once (and racked up tens of thousands in debt) in order to avoid working at statscan. literally. i turned down the job and went back to school to study computer science, without any goal of getting a job when i came out. it was just to avoid the 9-5.

what does the system do with a person like me? i honestly, truly don't want to be there - you really have to drag me kicking and screaming, if not literally than coercively through market forces. and i could very well get up and walk out mid shift. nobody benefits from this.

see, but, i don't sit around watching oprah. i'm not avoiding labour for the sake of avoiding labour, i'm avoiding what i feel is unfulfilling labour to focus on what i actually want to do. you can see i spend a lot of time rambling; i've had a broken computer for some time. i'm a composer. that's where my heart is, it's what i love to do. i have a rather large body of work, in fact. hours and hours and hours. it's quite challenging sound art, though, with very little potential of being income generating; or, at least, that's my calculation of the reality of it for the course of my life time.

so, instead of talking about "disincentivizing work", i'd rather talk about creating conditions to fulfil true potential, and engage in work that is truly meaningful to the individual, even if the market may not really reward it.

i mean, love these ramblings or not, but it's a lot more productive than scanning items at a cash register or making people sandwiches.

that's a really dramatic social shift if done in the open. i get that. but, it's a lot less profound if you're just talking about boosting welfare rates to something people can actually live on, to give people the freedom to escape from the labour market. and, trust me - if somebody is going to choose to escape the labour market, employers are better off without them.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/12/23/minimum-income-basic-income_n_6370458.html

this report is actually greatly indicative of what he's left us with: a perception of "average" as being a positive response. that is, the acceptance of mediocrity.

if you interpret average as a negative response, it suggests only 23% see him positively. which is about the number of people - when turnout is adjusted for - that voted for him.

my view? he won't leave a discernible legacy at all. quick: tell me one thing louis st. laurent did. can't, can you?

almost everything he legislated will be reversed - with the one possibility being the tpp, but the american house may save us from this. what people will remember is what he *didn't* legislate: climate change, prostitution, euthanasia, marijuana....

he's passed a large number of laws that have been ruled as unconstitutional. this legacy will live on in case law far longer than anything he's left to us in the legislature.

history will see him as a backwards reactionary that successfully stunted progress for a few years and was ultimately completely erased. good or bad isn't even the right question. his ultimate place in history is to be forgotten altogether.

status: irrelevant.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/11/02/harper-legacy-poll-record-angus-reid-institute_n_8453140.html

can you run a follow-up to this in a month, please?

i'm curious to see the reaction when absolutely nothing happens.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-sewage-dump-city-will-announce-details-today-1.3311931

there are four people with indian ethnic backgrounds, and they are all clearly people of colour.

i'd like to be terse, but i think it's actually an opportunity to remind people that canada is not the united states. that applies both to the history of the country and to it's existing demographics. as others have pointed out, there are very few people of african background in canada and most have emigrated here since 1970. there's no asians in the cabinet, either; in canada, in 2015, that is a far more conspicuous omission. the legacy of slavery that underlies american structural racism is really absent here. it's disingenuous to bring in language meant for alabama or south africa. and, explicitly rejecting it is a question of being clear-thinking.

sometimes when things are invisible it's because they've been erased. but, sometimes when things are invisible it's because they really simply aren't there.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/canadas-blacks-still-waiting-for-their-moment-of-real-change/article27175310

obama has made the united states "energy independent" by pushing through massive amounts of fracking, which releases large amounts of the worst greenhouse gas - methane. if he had any interest in the climate, he'd have stopped that rather than encouraged it.

he didn't stop the pipeline on an epa review. he stopped it on a state department review. the state department determines strategic military goals - which includes controlling the supply of canadian oil.

the decision is meant to block exports to china, not to reduce emissions.

you're never going to win this argument the way you're articulating it. we rely massively on oil. you're telling people to freeze in the dark; don't be surprised when they ignore you.

the first thing that is necessary to transition from fossil fuels is investment in alternatives so that consumers have a realistic choice to reduce consumption. investment is also necessary to convert waste facilities and convert electricity generation. together, waste & electricity & heating add up to 30% of emissions - this is very low lying fruit and can get us a good way to our targets. it's done by investing in the proper technologies, in building the proper infrastructure and in modifying regulations and providing incentives (which includes lowering the price of clean electricity). the government is open in moving in this direction to the point that it was a big part of their platform.

it's a necessary condition before further action is feasible, and they want to do it. if you want to be taken seriously, you should be pushing for them to hold up to what they campaigned on first, and moving on to more stringent steps later.

another 25% comes from transportation - mostly fueled by imported oil, and increasingly from the united states. canada actually imports more fracked oil than it exports tar sands oil at this point. you should think about that. incentives can be made to get people to convert to electric cars or use public transportation, but you have to understand that people view their vehicles as investments and status symbols. this has to happen slowly. but, the alternatives have to exist first. so, we need to invest in cleaner cars first (preferably electric ones), then get people to buy them. so long as the grid gets converted, this is all good.

what's left is tar sands & industry - 35% of emissions - and the only serious way to get after this is through regulation. the big push back is how reliant our economy is on it. but, guess what? if you focus on the previous things first, the economy will shift and it will be a lot easier to get tough on regulations. so long as we're stuck with the oil industry for revenue (which is what happens when you tax them heavily), you're fighting a battle you can't win.

again: you're lucky. the government has made these choices for you. this is the order in which they will act. you just need to make sure they do it.

but, you're more likely to find success if you get with the program than fight against the current. please realize this and get with it.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/cameron-fenton/justin-trudeaus-sunny-way_b_8507460.html

Tom Robinson
And the Earth is not flat.

Terry Swidinsky
But it used to be the consensus that it was, until a few deniers started to cast dought on the whole issue.

jessica amber murray
this is a myth. flat earthers were always an extreme minority; the argument may have been biblical, but it was an interpretation created by a third party. the church actually accepted the science on this, which has been known since about 500 years before the common era. the cultures in greece & carthage were very maritime driven, and it is very hard to sail towards the horizon without realizing there is a curvature in front of you. you would have be wilfully blind to the evidence around you to think that the world is flat.

we did think the universe revolved around the earth, though.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/11/09/climate-science-indisputable-environment-minister-catherine-mckenna_n_8508708.html

--

Alice Scott Budden
I am not disputing climate change, however, I do have one question for the experts - How is raising taxes going to prevent climate change?

jessica amber murray
you're actually right, alice: taxation is not a social policy, and a carbon tax will not reduce emissions. it will just increase prices.

these people are throwing around a lot of right-wing economic theory and pretending it's progressive. the reality is that humans are not homo economicus, and pigovian taxes don't work. if we want a real solution, we need to drop the neo-liberal nonsense.

the right way to start off with this is through direct government investment: by studying the actual sources of emissions and replacing them with alternatives. once alternatives are in place, we can create incentives to switch to them.

despite fear-mongering by the media, and empty rhetoric from the ivory tower, the truth is that the liberals currently have no plans for a carbon tax. they do have plans for direct investment.

awwww.

the monarchist league of canada is worried...

awwwww.

there's no future for the queen of england in canada. so, let's get on with it and get rid of her altogether.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/11/09/trudeau-queen-portrait-foreign-affairs_n_8513004.html

this is indeed absolutely remarkable.

"people are going to think this is what yale is like."

it may be the most unintentionally ironic statement i've ever seen.

"it's not about creating an intellectual space, it's about creating a home."

what this really suggests is entitlement. you get this from students that have never received a B, consider themselves a part of an intellectual elite and look at a school as a kind of a club. they fail to realize that they coasted through school less on their intelligence and more on the mediocrity of the curriculum. what's lacking is actually a concept of work.

stated otherwise, that's a spoiled brat.

polymath7
+jessica "it may be the most unintentionally ironic statement i've ever seen. "

Pardon me, but "may be"? Can you name three others that even come close? This is not a rhetorical question. 

jessica
+polymath7 i think it's asking me a little much to be able to definitely state that anything is the most anything that i've ever experienced.

i'm not going to sit here for hours and rack my brain. but, i had a 12 year-old little sister at one point. i'm sure i could come up with something.

polymath7
+jessica That's kind of the point though, you'd have to rack your brain. I racked mine for several minutes, and came up with nothing. Nothing...

edit: I  had a cousin who once belligerently said, "I don't give a fuck what 'apathy' means" -but he was nine years old, and that's still not as egregious as this.

09-11-2015: cleaning & keystone

what i get out of his writing is something along the idea that positive liberty is tyrannical because it opposes the freedom to be irrational - and true freedom should uphold the freedom to be as ridiculous, irrational and absurd as one desires. to begin with, i don't think that is actually true. what he's doing is falsely conflating an authoritarian streak towards forcing "progress" (a good example would be stamping out the ridiculousness of christianity by the sword rather than through education, or the british colonial tradition of assimilating aboriginals.....the roots of which are in the inquisition.) with the idea of positive liberty, and then constructing a strawman to take down advocates with. in truth, if positive liberty is the freedom to be in real control of ourselves then it follows rather clearly that these controlling behaviours are in abrogation of positive liberty - and also that any level of absurdity that can be imagined comes clearly from this ideological starting point. his argument is frankly hard to follow.

but, that isn't really what he's getting at - what he's really getting at is more in the question of sanction. that is, he skips a step and takes a big leap of logic to get there and then comes up with something ridiculous with a clear political motive. the more fundamental point - and the one that is actually cogent - that he's really concerned about is the freedom to be absurd without consequence. he then compresses that together into the unified idea of the freedom to be absurd - which is either irrigorous or, more likely, consciously disingenuous.

the answer to this is in mill, and really any writings by any liberal thinker: to separate what he's slyly compressed. the freedom to be absurd is one thing, and the freedom to be absurd without consequence is another. now, if one is absurd and harms nobody then there is no basis for any kind of action by anybody - individual, state, collective or not. but, if one is absurd and that affects others negatively, it does indeed stand to reason that they should be held liable for it. to conclude that one is not truly free to be absurd if they are to be held liable for the consequences of it is itself absurd.

so, berlin's true argument is really simply that true freedom means that the absurd should not be held liable for their behaviour - even when it affects others. you'll have to excuse me for not taking that particularly seriously.

see, you get this argument from libertarians (and some right-leaning liberals) all the time - that positive freedom infringes on negative freedom because you have to take from one to give to another. but, what that argument really states is that property is incompatible with positive freedom; that is, that our entire currency-based economy is designed to prevent positive liberty. when you realize that, it becomes clear that this is actually an argument to rationalize slavery.

nobody outside the left uses this example because it emphasizes that latter point, but it's really the best way to understand the difference. it's not exactly marxist, but it's along those lines (and let's not create strawmen about stalinism, which was antithetical to any kind of freedom whatsoever). consider the issue of employment. if you are a member of the working class - that is, if you must survive by selling your labour - then you are said to have negative freedom if you live in a free labour market. that is, you are free from external restraints (ideally; not if there are race or gender barriers) to pursue the type of employment you desire, after you pursue the proper education. but, because you are a member of the proletariat, you are unfree in deciding whether to work or not. that is, societies centred around markets lack positive freedom in the most basic sense of how we choose to spend our time, unless we are exceedingly lucky or exceedingly talented. the conclusion is that negative liberty is the kind of "liberty" we assign to the lower classes, while reserving true positive liberty for the elite.

once this class division is firmly cemented, this argument about taxation being necessary for or even somehow connected to positive freedom gets trotted out - as though the only way for one worker to be more free is to take something away from another, because the elite is shielded from redistribution (both of resources and labour). the only reason you need to talk about taxation and redistribution is because the system is designed to make positive freedom almost impossible in the first place. even the examples people use - of a well-paid profession having positive freedom because they have resources - are mostly nonsense, because that supposed positive freedom is a consequence of it's non-existence. it reduces positive freedom to a type of feudalism; it presents it as an award for the paying off of one's debts. it is simply a class division on what freedom can be conceived as.

the contradiction arises simply from the class division; they're only contradictory ideas in a society divided by class. the division merely serves to uphold the capitalist status quo. so, of course libertarians and (right-leaning liberals) see the issue through this lens.

however, if we were to abolish property and currency (and hence slavery) then we would see that there is no real contradiction - that positive freedom is required for true negative freedom and vice versa, and both ideas, to be actualized fully, require that abolition.

to put it another way: we could define a free society as a society where negative and positive liberty are not contradictory but cumulative to a coherent, unified concept of liberty.

the so-called luddite fallacy has always failed in the past because somebody needs to build or run the machines. the steam engine may have displaced specific kinds of labour, but somebody had to operate it; the typewriter may have replaced the copyist, but somebody had to type. what we actually saw, mostly, was that technology actually created jobs as a consequence - you would retrain the people to fill their replacement role, and then create jobs in manufacturing the machines.

the issue with bringing robots in to replace....slaves....is that the replacement is total. we've seen this in manufacturing, where job losses have just been total. could you run a restaurant with absolutely no people? you probably wouldn't need more than two - and one is no doubt a security guard.

but, we should still need people to build the robots. except that it's increasingly the case that robots are building robots. well, then we need people to bring the materials in - except that we increasingly don't.

this is only a catastrophe if you're a capitalist. if you're on the left, it's an opportunity to break the bonds of wage slavery and allow people to enjoy true positive freedom in their day-to-day lives. that doesn't - and i would say shouldn't - necessarily mean more high paying jobs, so much as it can mean more artists living near to subsistence that are just happy to have freedom to create. we loony leftists may even go so far as to say it promises to usher in an era of civilization.

if you take this view, the challenges of this shift lay less in unemployment and more in immigration and family size. we want to keep breeding down near replacement, and no longer have economic reasons to bring people in - which is no doubt to create a different kind of racial conflict. i'd like to see a report by brookings on that topic. what are the social consequences, in terms of race harmony, of a society rooted in automated labour?

nina Zebra
Could the government be just calling it a missile to cover something up? Just a theory...

jessica
i don't think there's any question it's a missile. the question is what it is that the missile is intercepting.

so, the navy claims this is a "missile test". my guess is that's more accurate than not - but i suspect it wasn't a test. the dangers in doing a test like this over los angeles are too large for that to be feasible.

what it looks like is an object breaking up in the atmosphere, and that's no doubt what it actually is. but, if you look carefully you can see planes flying around it. there's also a second explosion that this camera shot catches briefly.

it could be decades before this is declassified. however, i think it's rather clear that something just got shot down over los angeles. what exactly that is isn't entirely clear. you're not being told what actually happened for the good reason that you'd collectively flip out.

but i pity the fool that launched it.

i'm 34 and i've never paid for cable. not just a young person thing...

want numbers as to what would pull me in?

i'd pay up to $1/month per channel for certain channels. i don't want *any* basic package. i'd be mostly interest in news channels, and maybe the comedy network.

i wouldn't pay more than $10/month.

www.cbc.ca/news/business/cord-nevers-cord-cutters-tv-1.3308072

it might hurt, but they should have waited to buy. i mean, that's how this is supposed to work. we can't keep spiralling housing prices up ten times faster than wages - this is unsustainable. this microgeneration might get nailed, but readjusting the prices to correspond more reasonably to realistic wage levels will help the next batch. the challenge is going to be in keeping it there.

it will also hurt people about to retire, but it's necessary and people need to plan for it.

it's also a good lesson. investments carry risks. investing in property is not a sure thing, and should never be treated like money in the bank.

www.cbc.ca/news/business/ccpa-housing-correction-1.3310401

do you expect the "power of business" to innovate a way to accelerate grid conversion? i can tell you the result of the brainstorming session right now: further deregulation, so they can invest in their own renewable generation.

the true power of business is, of course, collusion in price-setting. that is, passing on costs. investors have no conscience....

the conservatives had crappy policies, but i do think they would have probably implemented a tax if they thought it would work. they were right in realizing it won't.

regulation may be messy, but, you know: deal with it.

the truth is that if we can just shut down the coal plants, we're a good ways there. that really, truly shouldn't be so hard.

www.cbc.ca/news/business/paris-climate-conference-canada-provinces-1.3301615

i think it's good that these kids are out there, and i do expect them to install solar panels at the residence even if it's merely cosmetic, but i wish they'd be a little more constructive. i've been in and out of protest circles in ottawa; i know a lot of those people.

you need to realize that a lot of these kids have no real memory of living with a liberal government, and they're being driven by what are essentially ndp partisans to believe that the liberals and conservatives are as identical as the democrats and republicans. they've been set up to expect a continuation of conservative policies. in their minds, nothing happened on the 19th except a change of clothes for the corporatocracy.

i'm not a partisan liberal supporter, but i'm old enough and read enough to know that this isn't reality. the liberals are a capitalist party, there's a lot of reasons to criticize them, but they represent a significant improvement - these people will not concede that point. there's a lot of overlap with the mcguinty government, which made giant progress in reducing emissions here. the actual reality is that the liberals presented a better climate change platform than the ndp did, and if it wasn't for naomi klein's family history i have to suspect she'd have seen the value in endorsing the liberals over the ndp, relative to her own proposals. when you've got stephen lewis on your panel, and avi lewis helping with promo, it should raise some eyebrows that an endorsement didn't come out of it - that the language was about being non-partisan.

shutting down the tar sands is a good, in fact necessary, idea. but it's impossible to do this tomorrow. there has to be a push for infrastructure first. four years is being optimistic - but the government should be graded on how far they've gone, at that time.

in the mean time, it's good they're out there. naive pressure is better than no pressure. i just wish they'd see the bigger picture, and protest for step one first, rather than jumping to step eight.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/11/09/justin-trudeau-solar-panels_n_8510962.html

Cynthia Joan Morrison
The Liberals had NO climate change platform.

jessica amber murray
see, this is what i mean. it's like arguing with a cult.

the liberal platform promises 20 billion dollars in direct investment on environmental infrastructure. that is a tried and tested left-wing policy that will actually work in addressing the structural realities around infrastructure - not an experimental market scam based on neo-conservative economic theory.

the liberals put down concrete spending changes. the ndp tossed around market theory and asked us to pray to the invisible hand for guidance. but, keep chanting those slogans, maybe god will answer your prayers.

fwiw...i know this is symbolic. but, the reality is that ontario already has a green grid thanks to mcguinty. you don't reduce emissions in swapping hydro out for solar.

this isn't a free trade agreement. it's an annexation agreement.

www.cbc.ca/news/business/jim-balsillie-tpp-1.3310179

08-11-2015: another lost day

i'll answer her question.

it's because you run your society like a dark age fiefdom. half the country believes in noah's ark, and you can't even get decent health care.

the reality is that america is attracting the immigrants that it makes sense for it to attract given it's economic system. if you want to run a third world economy and a third world social system, you'll get third world immigrants. if you want the best immigrants, you want to study a country like sweden.

to put it another way...

the reason you can't attract quality immigrants is due to the nature of the society, as it was built by very stupid protestant white people.

have they ever broken 4/4 even once in their entire career?

Astreim
+deathtokoalas The messenger 2012 is close, but it's technically 4/4 I believe

deathtokoala
+Astreim i remember reading quotes from trent reznor about how funny it was watching people try to dance to march of the pigs (which is mostly in 7/8).

i understand why they stick to the steady beat. this is club music. it's just that it could be more than club music, too - if they took that extra step that they seem to be afraid of taking, or perhaps never really contemplated.

it's not just the timing. it's a lot of recycled ideas, a lot of cliches. i was just zeroing in on that because it's so obvious. and, they could still reach their potential if they approach it a little differently...

....but i get that that isn't what they're about, too.

it's somewhat of a tiring - and tired - formula and they stick precisely to the script of it. i suppose that if all you want is for somebody to do the math in front of you, it's going to do the job: right guitar tone, right drum patterns, right intervals, right vocal melodies. everything done right should make people happy. right?

they shouldn't listen to me. i'm not their fan base. but, what i'd need out of this is for them to mix it up a little bit, to breathe a bit of life into it - to take a chance in opening it up. it doesn't have to be dramatic; it doesn't necessarily have to be a breakdown into a polka or something. nor am i dissenting on the repetition, exactly. it's just that a little variation in songwriting tactics is something that is really necessary to avoid a crippling onset of monotony.

as it is, i've heard this before - and i've heard it done better, before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqEQiRZ0shs

i have to wonder if the reason people are having difficulty sleeping is that they've been told to turn the heat down at night to save energy costs. i mean, generally humans react to cold by waking up and react to warm by getting drowsy. if you want a good night's sleep, turn the heat up!

to be clear: because heat makes us tired and cold keeps us awake, the way to set your thermostat properly is to turn it up before you get to bed and turn it down when you wake up (and put on a sweater, if you're cold). that's the opposite of what most people do, because they're confused about how their bodies react to temperature. at least in ontario, that should also give you greater savings because the rates are set to be cheaper over night.

www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/heres-how-to-get-a-perfect-nights-sleep-this-winter/59418?intcmp=twn_promo_news1

Alice Ho
Our core body temperature drops during sleep. So in actual fact, a too-warm bedroom will end up causing sleep disturbance (as anyone trying to sleep on a hot summer's night knows). Sleep experts suggest a slightly cool temperature is the best for sleep. Taking a warm bath before sleeping is helpful (not because it warms the body but) because the skin capillaries vasodilate to allow the body to cool down as you are trying to fall asleep.

jessica murray
see, this is comical. if your body temperature drops during sleep, it stands to reason that you should turn the heat up to compensate, right? i can only speak for myself, but i sleep best in the summer [i'll stick with a blanket in 40 degree humidity, then sweat all night - and those are the best sleeps!]. it's those cold nights that keep me up staring at the ceiling, feeling like i should be doing something else...

from a biological perspective, you want to keep the heat up. the pop science is confused.

07-11-2015: lost day

05/06-11-2015: pinkish black

concert footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R76rg9Vd0ko

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2015/11/06.html

well, he's certainly toned down the complexity.

that's a shame.

Jack Rae
This is good and all but why does it sound like it's being played through a phone speaker?

deathtokoalas
90% of the people that listen to it will, in fact, listen to it through a phone speaker. i was waiting for the "mixing for phone speaker" movement. seems to be upon us.

06-11-2015: pinkish black - i'm all gone (detroit/ferndale)

their music:
https://pinkishblack.bandcamp.com

vlog for the day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=836P_yWZRCM

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2015/11/06.html

listen. it's not hard to understand.

the policy is to take money out of the banks of the obnoxiously rich (where it's a useless dead weight) and give it to people who will spend it.

it's not designed to increase revenue; it's designed to be revenue neutral. it's not designed to address inequality; it's actually designed to increase it. it's simply designed to give people money to spend, and targeted towards the people most likely to spend it.

that is all.

will it create jobs, though?

probably not.

it probably would if we had tariffs to protect local production.

ipolitics.ca/2015/11/06/will-the-liberals-tax-plan-kick-start-the-economy/

the flat truth of it is that it's not healthy. the primary reason is iron - but not the availability of it, so much as the way our bodies have evolved to absorb it. you'll have to take b12 pills for the rest of your life, but it's doable. the iron, though, is unavoidable.

there are cosmetic issues as well. vegans tend to age faster; they end up with droopy skin. they look like smokers. i don't get the impression that this is important to you.

but, the iron thing is important. we're evolved to get our iron from animals. that's just how it is. but, i'll explain a few points...

vegans will counter that we're evolved to be vegetarians by citing things like our teeth. see, it's not that they're wrong, it's that they're missing the bigger picture. we do have flat teeth. and it is probably because, back when we lived in trees, we mostly ate leaves. but, we haven't lived in trees for a few million years now. so, why don't we have pointy teeth, then? the reason is that we didn't need pointy teeth because we built spears. pointy teeth are an adaptation for hunting - they kill things quickly, they stop prey from getting away - rather than an adaptation to eat faster. because our period of meat eating happened in conjunction with our development of hunting tools, there simply wasn't any evolutionary pressure on us to get pointy teeth.

but, the last several million years of eating meat has changed us in other ways. the chemical pathways that we use to absorb iron efficiently require catalysts that are only found in animals. so, the fact that nuts have lots of iron doesn't help us because we can't actually absorb very much of it. in order to get as much iron out of nuts, we need to eat huge amounts of them. but, nuts are also high in cholesterol. oops. to get a sufficient amount of iron out of nuts, you're going to have to gain some weight - or spend more time working out, burning the excess fat you're taking in.

well, that's the kind of thing that happens when you put the wrong fuel into a system. your car isn't going anywhere on a tank full of water, because that's just not the right chemical reaction. and, you'll have to convert the engine if you want to use diesel.

the trade-off is that you're almost certain to feel sluggish and tired - unless you're a fitness geek and do fitness geek things, like ride your bike a lot or run everywhere or whatever else. but, then you need to ask: are these vegans getting what they think they're getting from their diet or from their lifestyle?

for most people, switching to vegan is telling your body chemistry to function inefficiently, and you should obviously expect consequences from that.

a better idea is to minimize your meat intake. it's still your best source of iron and b12. eggs have proteins with few other sources that allow your synapses to function; think about what happens when you go deficient in that. you become an idiot. fish are a good idea in theory for similar reasons, but we've unfortunately managed to screw that up. because we're evolved to take advantage of meat efficiently, we can maximize it's benefits while eating small amounts of it.

you don't need to eat meat more than a few times a week, and you don't need to eat large servings when you do. but, you want to make sure that you do.

03/04-11-2015: canadian cabinet swearing in ceremony

she seems to have a hole in her shirt. did i miss grunge coming back into style?

oh, and i don't care about star wars. remotely.

there's really nothing he's doing here that can't be done on a regular guitar with a bit of string bending. and it actually sounds very irish.

while in the office of the minister of status of women, rona ambrose voted for criminalizing abortion. that is the top issue amongst conservative donors. this selection confirms the obvious, which is that the primary aim of the conservatives over the next four years will be in reinvigorating their base.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservative-interim-leader-vote-1.3306152

Rosie
Their base will be dead in four years.

jessica murray
in the urban centers? eight, anyways.

you have to realize that the ccpa and the liberal party are approaching this from different perspectives. the ccpa is looking at it as a way to reduce inequality (and perhaps debt), while the liberals are looking at it a a way to increase disposable income to get more money moving in the economy. when you realize that, the truth is that they’re both right. while the ccpa will correctly point out that this tax cut isn’t going to get anybody out of poverty, the liberals are equally correct in their logic that it’s spending by the upper middle class (or perhaps middle middle class) that is really what they’re aiming towards.

the reality is that if you give a big tax break to people on the lower end of the scale, it’s going to end up in the bank. it’s going to pay off credit card bills, go to downpayment on mortgages, pay down student loan debt and other things of the sort. this may help people’s finances, but there’s no economic benefit.

however, the thinking is that if you give a tax break in the middle of the scale then you get people buying cars and other big ticket items and that helps with a bit of stimulus spending. the next step here – and i’m using this language consciously – is that that money trickles down into the economy, creating service jobs.

the criticism of reaganomics is less in the idea and more in the implementation. if you give millionaires tax cuts, they don’t spend more money – because they already have more money than they can spend. if you give poor people tax cuts, they don’t spend more money either – because they’re in debt. this income range was targeted specifically under the thinking that it would maximize the amount of it getting spent, rather than saved or eaten by interest.

now, will that *actually* create jobs? not in an open economy, i don’t think. or, to put it another way – it might create jobs in asia or mexico, but perhaps not many here.

but, the ccpa’s analysis – while correct – is judging the policy on the basis of something it’s not intending to accomplish. it’s meant to give people that are in a position to spend more money to spend, not to tackle issues of inequality.

the truth is that everything about this makes sense, in terms of the textbook. we’ve got millionaires sitting on billions or trillions in the bank. the economy is stuttering because the rich aren’t spending their money. it’s entirely reasonable to take steps to get the money in circulation.

but, it’s a right-wing economic policy. you just don’t recognize it because it’s actually coherently constructed in order to actually work.

…or, if you want to play games with dynasties, to get a quick comparison in?

this is what the bush tax cuts should have looked like, and would have looked like if they were implemented intelligently.

www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-truth-about-justin-trudeaus-tax-cuts/

you would expect an oil executive to support a carbon tax because it won't hurt them directly (it's just a cost of business) but it will work up opposition to climate change policies. policy makers have solutions that may work to offset the effects, but we've learned rather clearly that those solutions do not resonate nearly as strongly as fear of a "tax on everything".

step one is diversifying the economy, so that scaling down production (which is the goal here - not increasing revenue) isn't such a shock. that actually has to happen outside the environment or resources file. it's some of the other ministers - like chrystia freeland and amarjeet sohi - that have the most immediate task at hand.

step two is ensuring that alternatives exist for consumers. it's one thing to tell people to use electric cars. it's another to drive electricity rates through the roof, so that it's not a truly feasible option. but, this does not address industry, which is one of the biggest sources of pollution.

that is why step three is passing laws that force co-operation under threat of criminal penalties or loss of operating license. nothing else will actually work. all other costs will merely be passed down to the consumer. and, if options do not exist - or are infeasible due to costs to market entry - then consumers will be unable to make a choice, and will be forced to merely pay the costs. many industries must simply be forced to comply, or else.

let's start with step one and step two before we start talking about the likelihood of implementing step three.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/trudeaus-ministry-of-environment-and-climate-change-spooks-oil-patch/article27110322/

westernpatriot
Please tell us how to diversify the economy, Professor.
Then explain how you're going to ensure that alternatives exist for consumers.
I won't hold my breath...

deathtokoalas
do i get an appointment to cabinet?

we had an economy before oil, you know. it wasn't even that long ago. it was focused on exporting in two primary sectors: resources and manufacturing.

one of our biggest natural resources export industries today is illegal, and conducted over the black market. legalization of marijuana has the potential to not just be a domestic industry, but to be a powerful export economy, as well. that bc bud's got a good reputation, dontcha know.

but, i'm sure there's lots of other things we can come up with as well if we invest sufficiently in research and development - and attract firms that are interested in taking part in that research and development. we can also invest directly in initiatives, and then spin them off (or maybe not...) when they're ready.

but, an export economy also benefits from a low dollar. a low dollar also acts as a tariff, which makes domestic production more competitive. that should be a central part of any economic policy in canada, so long as we remain under the globalist free trade regime.

making energy alternatives more feasible happens in two stages. the first is of course developing them - but the truth is that we're mostly past that stage, albeit no thanks to the last ten years of policy. the second is in easing regulations (remove restrictions around electric vehicles, for example) or tightening regulations (i'd like to see the government put some really strong pressure on wynne to reverse the recent electricity hikes - or build parallel infrastructure if they won't) to allow for product availability at a reasonable price. you could also put down some tax incentives - like a rebate on an electric vehicle, for example. and, it would be nice if that vehicle has to be made in this country, too.

these aren't obscure ideas, and you won't see them all in place. but, it's the general trajectory you should expect in the first term.

i've left a few thought out responses along these lines - this is a good idea because it will hopefully attract more strong female candidates - but i don't think there's much use in bothering further. maybe, and even hopefully, in a few years the critics will actually be right. for today, look at the bright side: a stronger focus on competency for male cabinet picks is a net positive. let's hope that sticks. and let's hope that conservative voters take the issue to heart in their future nomination processes.

they put a chiropractor in charge of science.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/elizabeth-may/gender-balance-cabinet_b_8472966.html

i've been recording, i just haven't edited or uploaded because i wasn't sure which day was which. suppose you wake up at 4 pm and crash the next day at noon, then get up at 6 pm and crash the next day at 7 pm. how do you date that?

i wanted to edit tonight, but i'm already fading so it will wait until i wake up - clearly starting a new day on nov 5.

so , by tomorrow morning, there will be two vlogs for the last three days, probably with the 3rd and 4th combined into one day.

just a slight correction: because you pay the marginal rate on each bracket, you'd have to be making around $215,000 to actual see a tax increase. so, that takes it a bit closer to the 1% rule. but, they're also going to lose their child benefit checks - and that's apparently going to bring in 15 billion dollars in revenue, according to the liberal platform. if deficits are important to you, note that this simple (and eminently fair) handout revocation for the wealthy could have kept the government in the red. but, realize that that wasn't incompetence - conservatives run deficits on purpose to lower the size of government.

the key thing is that when you change the narrative from deficits to surpluses then you allow for more spending on programs that benefit low-income canadians - both in terms of social services and in terms of economic growth. in a country like canada, where we have such high minimum standards and so many of the quality-of-life indicators are in some way collectivized, the question of inequality is less about income per capita and more about access to services. a little spending money doesn't hurt, and it helps the money cycle around. but, what's important to more low wage earners is that the health and education systems are well-funded and that job opportunities exist. that's what is real - it's what the concerns are, directly in front of us. nobody's really walking around yelling about percentages or graphs, or crying that whomever gets to live off a trust fund. that stuff's just not real.

the difference is consequently a change in priorities. i wouldn't exactly expect to see this government change the numbers; the curve may flatline a little, but you're not going to see the gap really close. i do hope - expect - that government is reclaimed as something that improves our quality of life, rather than something that's seen as an obstacle to frivolous and short-sighted spending.

it's a tactic called "starve the beast". it hasn't really worked out as intended, because those governments get replaced by governments that increase spending. but, this is how it works:

1) create a structural deficit. he did this by cutting the gst and corporate tax rates, and then handing out boutique tax credits.
2) argue you have to reduce the size of government to get out of deficit. it helps if you have the media in your pocket.
3) repeat.

you can look this up, if you'd like. it's been studied in some depth.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canadas-1-per-cent-club-unchanged-but-faces-prospect-of-bigger-tax-bill/article27077119/

A- on the cabinet.

a few of the female cabinet positions were beyond softball. what is a minister for democratic institutions? or for small business and tourism? what's frustrating is that there was really no reason to do that, other than a desire for a glossy photo-op cabinet. the reality is that a few young female mps got cabinet positions because they're photogenic, while older and more qualified ones didn't because they're not photogenic. i don't like this direction - at all.

but, it's only applicable to a couple of them. mostly, the picks ranged from obvious to reasonable to acceptable.

i don't think alberta should have received two cabinet ministers. they voted for the opposition. i'd like to see them sit in it for a bit. that kind of pandering is disappointing, but at least they didn't get anything related to climate change. i hope that this does not become a theme, and that trudeau is able to have the backbone to stand up to albertans. i'm really sick of albertans running the country - and we just tossed them to curb with very serious intent.

i don't know anything at all about harjit sajjan other than that he's a veteran. ideally, i'd like to see the ministry of national defence taken over by a peace activist willing to convert it into a peace ministry. i doubt that this is that person, but i have to admit i admire the panache in putting a sikh person of colour in national defence. that is going to enrage conservatives, and i enjoy that.

there is only one pick that i actively dislike - jim carr at natural resources. i was really hoping this would go to a decidedly left-leaning voice willing to stop "business as usual". jim carr suggests that we are dealing with "business as usual" and need to immediately start protesting against pipelines.

but, over all? it's pretty good.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-trudeau-liberal-cabinet-ministers-1.3302743

you missed your true calling as a used car salesman, larry.

i've never even seen a politician present arguments this disingenuous. it wouldn't work.

what a huckster!

and i'm not even opposed to the united states exporting oil. it should get the price up a little, and hopefully take the renewable industry off life support.

i think the premise that southeast asia is seen as more connected to china than india, explicitly, is kind of wrong; it's more that southeast asia is seen as existing within the east asian sphere (of which the dominant powers are china and the united states), rather than the south asian sphere (where india is really the only significant country at all).

the reason is actually connected to the way the united states carved the world up after world war two, which itself was a consequence of the fighting during the war - this region was broadly occupied by japanese forces, and then came under american command after the war.

but, there were of course also conflicts here during the cold war, which led to chinese-backed and soviet-backed client states. india, on the other hand, was broadly non-aligned.

it's within this entire context of this conflict theatre that the association comes out both in terms of economic reality and in terms of academic categorization.

chrystia freeland will probably be confirmed as a cabinet minister in canada tomorrow; the smart money is on international trade, but there are a number of ministries that are related to foreign policy and trade initiatives, and she's a candidate for any of them - and may be shuffled around between a few of them over time. being a parliamentary democracy rather than a republic, we don't have the kind of confirmation hearings that you have in the united states. it's more like "what if the house of representatives ran the entire government". if you think on that baseline, it would be like combining the secretary of state with the house committee on foreign affairs. but, the representatives are not fixed in their roles and can be moved to any other committee/cabinet at any given time. if the liberal government sticks around a while, she'll likely get through most of the important posts, and may even one day be a contender for the prime minister's office.

if you ask around in canada, she has kind of the hillary problem - the right thinks she's a militant feminist, whereas the left thinks she's somewhat of a conservative hawk. when that happens, it's almost always the case that they're both right and they're both wrong.

what she's saying here is absolutely correct. i was posting things along these lines last year, or maybe a little earlier, suggesting that this is actually the optimal russian strategy. the reason is that the baltics are exactly where they're parking that missile defense shield, and the russians have a very dominant strategic objective in preventing this. you don't have to be a russophobe or a conspiracy theorist, or even a militant jingoist, to realize that russia has very legitimate defense concerns on their borders with nato. that's just cold objective facts. you'll get the same analysis on this from william kristol that you'll get from noam chomsky - it's not partisan, or based on a worldview, it's just the flat out reality of it.

where chrystia and i would seem to disagree is on why this is happening. see, here's the conservative hawk thing: she takes the kind of dominant washington consensus view that putin's an out of control maniac. the more subtle view, which i think is more rooted in fact, is that he's reacting to a very aggressive american foreign policy and would really rather focus on trade. when they took out ghadaffi, he didn't do anything. when they tried to take out assad, he didn't (initially) do all that much. when they went after iran, he played along. but, when they launched a coup in ukraine, he was forced to react.

to my knowledge, this isn't happening. yet. but, we have seen the russians put air defenses in iran (which is what the nuclear deal was really about) and we've seen them walk right into syria. putin's tactic seems to be to draw the center of conflict away from russia and into a proxy situation; the calculation around something like causing a ruckus in estonia is likely that it's too close to home (it's a short flight from talinn to moscow), and they'd rather fight this thing out somewhere else, if they must.

yet, given the reality, it remains entirely feasible that they could start backing oppositions not just in estonia and latvia but in poland and romania and even france. and, how she's describing this is exactly how it would happen. she knows this because it's exactly what nato did in ukraine.

americans are stupid because they're programmed to be stupid. in fact, the media and politicians are only able to present things to them the way they do because they're programmed to be stupid. it's the education system. it's parenting. it's the cultural goalposts. it's children's entertainment. there's not a stupid gene; there is a possible way out. but, it's entirely true, and it's crystal clear - unless, of course, you happen to be the topic of discussion.

bit of a twist, though: bill's not as smart as he thinks, either.

google has a history of failed rollouts.

this is really easy: don’t pay into it. tell your friends not to pay into it. share torrents of “original content”. etc.

it will be dead in six months.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL9RetC0ook

Tamitik
One per province for sure and one for the territories and the rest
3 more from BC , 2 more from Alberta , 2 more for Saskatchewan and Manitoba ,
3 more from Ontario , 2 more from Quebec and 2 more from Atlantic region.

That is fair and acceptable to the west, if we get shafted again we will separate

jessica murray
saskatchewan only has one representative, and that would suggest that three of the 4 alberta mps should be ministers. that would be 75% of the elected members from alberta.

4/184 = 2%. 2% of 30 is 0.65. one minister from alberta is being generous.

if it wasn't for the quota in regional representation, they shouldn't get anybody.

and, if they don't want to be in opposition, they should stop voting for it.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/trudeau-cabinet-ministers-toronto-gta-1.3302319

SimonYLW
I'd suggest start with the most critical cabinet positions and pick the absolute best person for the post, regardless of where they are from. Then when you get down to things like Public Safety, Transport, Employment, Heritage, State, you can pick the best of each region / province.

TruthUponYou
OMG, why not pick the best person for the job, rather then the loser.

jessica murray
it's very hard to define who the "best person for the job" is, or what that even means.

so long as we're talking about ought rather than is, the way this should be done is to look at each individual mp and determine what they best have to offer.

so, consider ralph goodale. you could plug him in anywhere. but, the thing he best has to offer as an individual is being house leader, and possibly deputy leader. somebody else can fill the other roles he's qualified for.

this is also the best way to promote new mps. for example, consider ginette petitpas taylor. she's totally off the radar. but, she's best positioned to offer a voice on the status of women, and has far more to offer on that file than anybody else.

or, consider hedy fry. she's held several portfolios. but, what she's best positioned to offer is a voice for seniors - because she is the oldest mp by a good margin.

the reason this is a better approach is that selecting cabinet positions is not an open market. you're not able to look outside of the 184 mps that are available. if we're going to do the best qualified thing, we want to call up people like john manley and anne mclellan. i'd suggest we should bring chretien back for the pm, even, and put martin back in charge of finance. but, they're not elected mps.

when faced with a restricted pool of candidates, what we ought to do is look at what we have, figure out what they're best positioned to contribute to and connect them with the appropriate ministries.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/trudeau-cabinet-ministers-toronto-gta-1.3302319

i've penciled in 9:

Minister of National Multiculturalism - navdeep bains
Minister of Health - carolyn bennett
Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness - bill blair
Minister of International Development - kristy duncan
Minister of International Trade - chrystia freeland
President of the Treasury Board - john mccallum
Minister of National Revenue - bill morneau
Minister of Industry - judy sgro
Minister of Public Works and Government Services - adam vaughn

i'll acknowledge that judy sgro may very well be left out, and that putting kristy duncan in that file is a question of continuity - she's been the critic on that file for quite a while. but, i think she makes the cabinet, somewhere. i think the rest of them are the best fits for those ministries.

that leaves plenty of space for the rest of the country - but means manitoba & alberta only get one each, and they're really both there simply out of convention of regional representation. i really wouldn't give either any, otherwise.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/trudeau-cabinet-ministers-toronto-gta-1.3302319

Tamitik
Ontario is entitled to 3-4 ministers that's all

jessica murray
you know, it's this kind of thing that continues to place westerners in low regard in the eyes of easterners. i know - it's just some random troll on the internet, it doesn't represent westerners in any meaningful way. but, the complete lack of any kind of logic underlying this is just remarkable.

we could talk about how ontario is the most populous province, or how it has the most mps, or how it's almost half of the liberal caucus.

but, there's no use. it's just ridiculous.

Mahou Shoujo
Ontario is entitled to pay its own bills.

jessica murray
it would actually help a lot if we could keep the dollar low. what albertans don't realize is that the feeling is broadly mutual. i mean, it's cheaper for ontario to import oil from the middle east than it is to import it from alberta. think that through, and ask yourself how excited ontarians ought to be about being nice to albertans. all we're going to get is being told to freeze in the dark.

Bobo Macoute
Guess you don't like to eat fruit or wear clothes. A low dollar just makes us poorer.

jessica murray
not exactly - i prefer to eat fruit grown in canada, and buy clothes that aren't made by slaves.

a low dollar is going to be especially important with the tpp opening up more opportunities for corporations to use slave labour. what it does is act as a tariff on imports, while increasing our competitiveness in the export market.

but, hey - if you want a jobless economy where we tax professionals through the roof to put everybody else on welfare, we can do that with a petrodollar, too. i'm an artist. i'm happy to live on subsidies.

your call.

to be clear: i'm not opposed to free trade, if it's really free trade. but these agreements are not actually free trade agreements. and, a comparative advantage in slave labour is a pretty dramatic distortion of ricardian theory.

free trade with the united states was always a good idea. i don't know why it's been so hard to get mexico's labour standards up to par - when they are, that will also be a good idea. free trade with most of europe, certainly western europe, is a good idea. free trade with japan is a good idea. even china is getting better, although it's still awful.

it's the countries where unions are outlawed and workers live in jails that we should not be signing agreements with.

but, we're stuck with this - and, as we are, we need to do whatever we can to mitigate the damages. devaluation is our best tactic.

---

Tamitik
All Liberal Governments have been Quebecois ,
I say his will be no different ,most positions will be covered by Quebec and Ontario .

The west will not take that kindly like in the past ...................

jessica murray
well, maybe they should stop electing conservatives, then.

if calgary & edmonton want serious representation in a liberal government, they'll need to elect serious mps.

i think kent hehr would be a good fit in some kind of queer activist role, as i believe that's what his background is. but, i see no reason that he should get a big cabinet post. he's a good candidate for a junior role to start with, and then he can work his way up.

amarjeet sohi has a lot of background in ant-racism initiatives and would be a good junior minister for multiculturalism until, again, he works his way up.

the other two seem like backbenchers, to me.

this is a far cry from anne mclellan, who, amongst other things, sat on the board of the ccla.

TruthUponYou
let's see what happens in 4 years. if we don't see competence, and and we see more and more nasty jabs, we'll bring back the conservatives.

jessica murray
keep dreaming. electoral reform is going to be designed to prevent that. the conservatives will come out of the next election as the third party.

you know, i actually think he laid this out pretty clearly.

the senate thing is obvious: you appoint those 22 senators within a week, then you set up the process and let it work for future appointments. that's just a question of simple pragmatism, and i'll concede the point of foolishness if it doesn't happen - but you act like he's taking advice from his dead dog, or something. even if he happens to be firmly entrenched in not appointing a single senator before the process is set in place, even if he's holding to it as some unmodifiable ideal....the party will talk that out of him. well, they'd better, anyways. if they can't, we're indeed in for a long four years. but, let's be realistic, here. they're not going to spend all this time writing legislation, then let it get voted down when the senate is a fifth empty. it's preposterous.

they've got at least 15 chretien era ministers they can call up, and a lot of them are in their 60s. you could even cut a deal with somebody like brian tobin to sit for three years and then resign.

for the rest of this, hey: if a tactic fails then just keep doing it, right? it worked with trickle down economics, i'm sure it will work just fine with his hair, too. you should always keep doing the same thing and continue to expect different results. that's what strong leadership is all about!

the most fundamental change that happened on the 19th is that we no longer have an elected king. i know the media would like to think otherwise. but, we're back to a parliamentary democracy - one where the prime minister is merely first amongst equals. decisions are going to be made collaboratively, with input by many people.

there's no way those senators don't get appointed almost immediately.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justin-trudeau-honeymoon-period-how-long-1.3300777

i'm going to take a guess on this.

Minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency - hunter tootoo
Minister of Foreign Affairs - david mcguinty
Minister of Public Works and Government Services - adam vaughn
President of the Treasury Board - john mccallum
Leader of the Government in the House of Commons - ralph goodale
Minister of National Defence - andrew leslie
Minister of National Multiculturalism - navdeep bains
Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food - wayne easter
Minister for La Francophonie - denis paradis
Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness - bill blair
Minister of Finance - scott brison
Minister of National Revenue - bill morneau
Minister of Natural Resources - stephane dion
Minister of Infrastructure, Communities and Intergovernmental Affairs - dominic leblanc
Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec - pablo rodriguez
Minister of State for Science & Technology - marc garneau
minister of state for multiculturalism - amarjeet sohi

Minister of aboriginal affairs - jody wilson-raybould
Minister of Justice and Attorney General for Canada - catherine mckenna
Minister of Health - carolyn bennett
Minister of International Development - kristy duncan
Minister of Industry - judy sgro
Minister of the Environment - joyce murray
Minister of Fisheries and Oceans - yvonne jones
Minister of International Trade - chrystia freeland
Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages - melanie joly
Minister of Citizenship and Immigration - alexandra mendes
Minister of Transport - maryann mihychuk
Minister for the Status of Women - ginette petitpas taylor
Minister of Employment and Social Development - judy foote
Minister of Sport - carla qualtrough
Minister of Veterans Affairs - karen mccrimmon
Minister of state for seniors - hedy fry
Minister of Labour - ??

there's just no obvious candidate - of either gender - for the labour position. which is sort of curious.

it's a very bourgeois caucus.

there's not even really anybody left on the ndp benches to try and coerce, either.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-liberal-government-trudeau-cabinet-1.3299968

the biggest thing with hedy is her age. she's 75. she's still going strong, don't get me wrong. and experience is important, to a point. but, you have to balance it out with long term planning, and it's hard to plan a ministry around somebody that should have retired an election or two ago. here's to hoping that hedy has a few more elections left in her, but to realizing that you can't plan around it.

that said, she is uniquely positioned to be a minister of state for seniors, and i think that's a good idea. there's a lot of focus in the media on presenting a younger cabinet. i understand the reasons for this. but, the liberals don't have problems with younger voters. they have problems with older voters. older voters have always skewed right, but not the way they have over the last ten years. i might suggest that this has something to do with the reality that the liberals lost an entire generation of good mps - people like allan rock and brian tobin - in the power shift from chretien to martin. my experience - this is unscientific - is that older people follow politicians the same way that younger people follow media personalities. they latch on to the ones they like, and follow them for extended periods. the fact that older boomers are drastically under-represented in the liberal caucus is no doubt a big reason why the liberals have such a hard time attracting older voters. and, putting out a cabinet full of young people is going to alienate what is almost certainly going to be the most important voting base for years to come. you can't call up hazel forever. and, putting hedy in the senior portfolio may be a mild gesture, but it's the kind of thing they have to do to win elections in the upcoming years, until we get through the demographic glut.

i know most people are pencilling dion in as environment minister, but i think there's a big misunderstanding about the role. the environment minister focuses mostly on things like wetlands and parks. this is important and everything, but it's not the most important post in terms of tackling climate change. it is the minister of natural resources that is going to be faced with these tough decisions, and that is where i would place dion.

that makes joyce murray the best remaining choice for actual environment minister.

that said.....i'm a little confused by the media rhetoric, and am starting to expect a cabinet that may not make a lot of sense. you expect a few goofy articles from the usual suspects. but, the totality of it seems to suggest that there's some co-ordination in setting expectations. it remains to be seen how much of this is just that - setting expectations. but, it seems as though he's set to make a major tactical and logical error, here.

part of the reason i felt ok about voting for a guy that has no business running for this office is that it seemed clear to me that he'd be relying on the experienced people around him. that is, that i didn't vote for trudeau as much as i voted for the liberal party machine. a choice to reject that machine in favour of a cabinet full of rookies is going to resonate very badly. but, there's a caveat to that, too.

scholars of the elder trudeau will point out that one of his major contributions to the way canada works was the dissolution of actual decision making power out of cabinet and to the civil service. the idea was that decisions should be made by life-long bureaucrats, who are appointed on merit and seniority, rather than elected people that more often than not have little real understanding of their files. when trudeau was doing interviews with mansbridge and others, he pointed out repeatedly that he rejected the centralizing approach of his father (picked up strongly by harper) to put power in the pmo and was in favour of devolving power back to the ministries. but, this is kind of a canard - what trudeau did was centralize political power, while shielding the way that ministries actually operate from the political process altogether. there's a kind of marxism in this; it's one of the more explicitly "left" parts of the whole third way approach. yet, it was assumed by everybody that what the younger trudeau meant was a return to parliamentary government, where capable ministers are in charge of their portfolios. if what he meant was that he wished to carry on with his father's movement towards separating the civil service from parliament, he was not at all clear. but, it's the only possible conclusion if he really does come out with a photo op cabinet like this, full of ministers that may accurately reflect a kind of "retail politics" but could not be described as independent or capable.

the message is that these people aren't actually doing anything. and, if that's the case, i'd rather support the abolition of cabinet altogether. i'm not opposed to taxes paying for capable ministers. but, i'd rather see that money spent on something worthwhile than to fund a glossy parliament that is just a public relations front to the civil service.

if the media is right, this is an error in multiple ways. i'm hoping the media is wrong. but, i don't have any evidence to back up the idea that he's going to be more rational about this - it's just faith. and, while i'd like to think that faith is well-placed in the party, there's no empirical reason for me to conclude that it's well-placed in the individual.

think about this...

excluding harper (who falls more into the "generation jones" category - he wasn't a true boomer), canada has managed to avoid a baby boomer prime minister. at this point, it seems safe to conclude it won't happen.

that's remarkable. they remain the largest voting group.

www.straight.com/news/568856/leak-suggests-jody-wilson-raybould-will-be-justin-trudeaus-cabinet

this argument is rooted in the idea that ensuring gender parity necessarily implies that unqualified people will be put into cabinet. i’m using that language for the reason that the idea of “most qualified” is impossible to define. for each portfolio, you’re going to have a handful of qualified people and it’s never going to be clear which is one is best qualified, or even to convincingly define why one is better qualified than the next.

that said, you have to understand the history of this. it goes back to the chretien years, where carolyn bennett was on the brink of organizing a caucus revolt over the lack of female representation in cabinet – and this is one of the reasons (there are a couple of others) why it’s clear that she’s really a lock on a cabinet position, despite some media suggesting otherwise. she won this argument. but, here’s the twist: did chretien have the advantage of having sufficiently many qualified women to allow for gender parity? it’s questionable. not clearly false, but questionable. it is, however, clear that he didn’t have a sufficient number of women with cabinet experience, but this is of course self-perpetuating.

that was twenty years ago, and it’s less that social attitudes have changed dramatically since then and more that a generation of women raised with different opportunities has presented a different caucus.

of the 50 women that have been elected, it’s not going to be hard to find plenty that have no business being discussed as potential cabinet material. but, it’s likewise not hard to find 14 that are no less qualified than any male alternative.

one could tenuously argue that this is somewhat unfair to qualified male mps and take the perspective that, rather than strict parity, it should be proportional to the number of elected female mps. but, the idea is for the cabinet to be representative of the general public, rather than representative of the caucus. further, it’s ignoring the fact that women remain underrepresented in parliament. part of the reasoning underlying this is to act as an incentive for greater female involvement.

but, the idea that gender parity is going to put unqualified people in cabinet? it may have been true in 1995, but it’s simply disingenuous in 2015.

www.therebel.media/_trudeau_getting_ready_to_unveil_his_cabinet_based

i'm not unsympathetic to the pushback, but these people *are* qualified and it's an incomplete shortlist, to boot. but, you have to keep in mind two extra factors:

1) women mps are facing the same problem all new job applicants face. you can't get the job without experience, but you can't get experience without the job. the discrimination clause in the constitution explicitly points out that programs designed to aid a disadvantaged group should be excluded from consideration. but, it doesn't append the caveat that a program of the sort should be temporary. affirmative action in the short run is necessary to reverse systemic inequality; affirmative action in the long run actually cements it in place.

2) the single, biggest reason that gender parity in caucus is a good idea is that it sends the message that if you run for office then you can make a difference. gender crusaders are important and everything, but it's easy to understand why so many women would rather live in such a way that allows them to explore opportunity than spend their time fighting against entrenched prejudices. hopefully - and i think this is the actual reason this is being done - a gender-balanced cabinet over the course of a term or two will encourage more women to run. but, the key is this - not just any women. i'd argue gender parity in cabinet is a far better idea than appointing female candidates; every single one of these women won a nomination battle and then won an election. parachuting women in is the worst possible approach. when strong women candidates run, they win. the struggle is getting more strong women candidates to actually run.

so, when you put that in context, is this something you can expect to be permanent? no. don't expect any affirmative action laws to be passed. and, don't be surprised if trudeau himself wavers on this after an election or two, if it works in increasing the number of quality female candidates.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/we-have-a-record-number-of-female-mps-but-hold-the-applause/article26887164/

02-11-2015: driver troubleshooting, part 4