this article is a lot of words to miss the basic point trump was getting across. it's focusing on the question of whether the lie was intentional, as though the crime is in the dishonesty. the crime of course is in the malice. you have to intentionally misconstrue in order to be malicious. but, it's the malice that is the crime - and the existence of harm that is the test.
our legal system is not a sunday school. you are not punished for doing wrong. rather, you are required to compensate those whom you do financial harm to. there's no moral question, here. it's dollars and cents.
the actual problem here is the character limit that twitter pushes down, which is forcing trump to truncate his arguments in such a way that they can be misinterpreted essentially at will. one of the best things he can do for himself at this point is to move to a platform that doesn't have character limits. this should be a lesson for future candidates, as well. it's practically an algorithm to be taken out of context.
had trump said "It is not ‘freedom of the press’ when newspapers and others are allowed to say and write whatever they want with the intent to harm me, in contempt of the truth !"
...then he would be right. which is of course what he means to say. nobody thinks the media is neutral.
the bottom line is that i've seen quite a few stories that he would be right to launch legal action against, and would probably win compensation regarding if he did. this is not in the realm of discourse, and does not provide a reason to vote for him. but, he is raising a very valid concern about the level of discourse and the role that an incompetent media can play in the election cycle.
this angle may be more legally successful, but it won't have any voter effect, i don't think. the reason is that everybody already know she's a liar. i mean, it's like trying a lion for killing gazelle. everybody knows that lions are assholes. yet, we somehow continue to have this strange attachment to them. you can show the lionphiles hours of footage of lions being assholes, and all you're likely to get out of them in the end is some kind of twisted admiration.
here is the surreal truth: every single clinton voter, if pressed, will acknowledge they are voting for a liar. nobody is going to defend her. they'll just rationalize it.
the reason the email angle was threatening to her had to do with how it made her seem on national security. the pay-to-play thing remains possibly damaging, but it's the kind of thing that you have to slowly explain to people and nail for weeks and then patiently wait out. and, trump isn't exactly inspiring, either.
this, on the other hand, strikes me as a waste of time.
frankly, i don't think the prime minister actually has a choice, here. a pattern is developing of contempt for the constitution, and for constitutional norms, that can't be tolerated. so, i hope that somebody challenges the nomination.
this is characteristically hokey hogwash from vox. no historical context. but, it gets the right idea. and, if you're going to pay attention to the polls over the next few months, this is what you should be looking at.
first, it's not like you can separate the population into "authoritarians" and "non-authoritarians". like every other measurable trait, everybody has some kind of authoritarian streak and it can be turned up or down depending on reactions to events.
second, it's not like trump is some kind of new phenomenon. canadians will recognize that this is the same voting base that brought us stephen harper and his "strong leadership" propaganda.
third, it's not like conservatism is historically divorced from authoritarianism. not even recently. have we forgotten george w. bush so quickly?
fourth, this isn't obscure, either. it's called neo-conservatism. it's neo-hobbesianism. it's leo strauss. it's michael ignatieff. it's all over the fucking place.
fifth, it's not like the democrats don't use this tactic, either. in fact, if this election were between clinton and jeb bush, she'd probably be the one pushing the neo-con "activation" jargon. in fact, she's tried a few times already, and may try again before november.
i do not believe that either candidate got bumps from their respective conventions. i believe that trump got a bump from the spate of terrorist attacks last month but that it faded quickly - and that any such bump will follow a similar pattern because it is emotional rather than intellectual. and, i believe that this is the factor that will "activate" potential trump voters.
those charts about terrorism, iran, russia - that was what clinton wanted to run on. but, the situation got flipped over.
there is only one scenario in which donald trump wins the election: a serious terrorist attack at exactly the right moment. and, it will not simply be people labelled "authoritarians" that vote for him. it will be an expression of mass temporary insanity brought on by the trauma of extreme rage.
if nobody gets to 270, shouldn't the sitting president get another term?
i'm not even a fan, really. it's clear. i'm just looking for a way out.
we need an undo button, here.
ctrl-z. ctrl-z. dammit...
i know there's an amendment. but if we can get congress to make a deal in the background, an active attempt to thwart anybody from getting to 270 is a way to keep her out without electing him.
wait. when did the election get overturned? i thought we elected the liberals in a landslide in order to undo what the conservatives have done over the last ten years. where does the media get off in pretending the election never happened?
this was a populist issue. unlike what he's doing to the senate and supreme court, this is something he has a mandate for. he should stay the course.
if rona ambrose wants to govern, she's going to need to win an election, first.
we have several brick walls ahead of us that are going to break the premise. the immediate future is not infinite growth. it's a millennium or more of stagnation, and quite plausibly a dark age of quantum mysticism.
....and that is, of course, if we can avoid extinction or collapse in the next century.
i might suggest that an alternate theory is more plausible: in order for a species to survive the invention of technology, it's adoption rate would have to not outstrip it's ability to adapt to it. that is, a species that innovates at an exponential rate is all but certain to destroy itself.
successful adaptation to technology presupposes linearity.
we are ourselves likely the necessary counter-example to his theory.
"the odds of life evolving are one in billions. therefore, life doesn't exist."
derrrrrrrrrp.
in fact, the probability that life might evolve given that life did evolve is one.
rare events happen.
all the time....
the error is in interpreting probability as a physical law that exists in reality, rather than merely as a purely intellectual tool of analysis that only exists in our minds.
stated differently: it is not the case that the universe somehow obeys the laws of probability theory. it is merely the case that we've invented the laws of probability theory to help us guess how the universe might work.
we have no reason at all to be surprised when the universe tells our arbitrary ratios to fuck off, and does what it pleases, anyways.
i can't prove this, but all signs are pointing to an offensive operation against russia being launched within moments of clinton taking office. it seems like this is already being put in motion. i can't and don't want to get into her head, but it may already be too late to stop it.
i cannot in good faith suggest that anybody vote for donald trump.
rather, i need to put out a somber request that the country seriously evaluate it's other options.
because dead people give a fuck, right? i can understand the argument when he's alive. when he's dead, it's completely irrelevant. what's he going to do? turn in his grave? we need a canadian jeremy bentham....
no way to force him out? well, with those deep state people, maybe there is. i don't know.
Saturday, August 13, 2016
i agree that 75 is about right for court justices. but, i think the more important concern right now is a mandatory retirement age for the president. i frankly don't think either of these candidates should be allowed to run, at their ages. 70 sounds about right as a mandatory retirement age, meaning the functional enforcement in the primaries would be 62, to allow for two terms.
it almost seems like he wants to pick a fight with the court.
i'm on the courts' side. this doofus shouldn't be fucking with things he doesn't understand.
====
Constitution of Court
4 (1) The Court shall consist of a chief justice to be called the Chief Justice of Canada, and eight puisne judges.
(2) The judges shall be appointed by the Governor in Council by letters patent under the Great Seal.
Who may be appointed judges
5 Any person may be appointed a judge who is or has been a judge of a superior court of a province or a barrister or advocate of at least ten years standing at the bar of a province.
5.1 For greater certainty, for the purpose of section 5, a person may be appointed a judge if, at any time, they were a barrister or advocate of at least 10 years standing at the bar of a province.
he is constitutionally barred from just selling it to the highest bidder, and then using 'diversity' as the excuse for the sale.
the chief justice is calling for him to quickly pick the justice. if you read between the lines, you can see she's concerned and wants the issue dealt with in a way that minimizes delays.
this is a constitutional crisis. again. that's twice - this summer.
i know he's massively popular. that's fine. great, even. it means the party has found a way to win elections. the other option is even worse. it really is. i just want the party to be making choices. maybe i'm wrong, but i just can't interpret this as the work of the party.
to be clear: "independent, non-partisan body" doesn't mean "less corrupt". it just means "almost impossible to audit".
diversity is not an end, but a means to one. i'm still convinced he's naive and needs better advisers. some of his advisers may be a little skunky. that's right: an inside job. but, how about this, junior: instead of promoting lawyers to the top bench (that are conveniently friendly to specific interests? like oil interests?), why don't we try getting some more diversity in the lower courts first, and then promote people as they distinguish themselves? in the mean time, we can continue to focus on substantive appointments for the highest court in the land. because it is, after all, the highest court in the land.
back in the 90s, carolyn bennett led somewhat of a revolt against female representation. at the time, there were simply not a lot of women mps. what could be done? well, you start by drawing attention to the problem. a few of the good ones got promoted, and they led the way for a generational overturn. today, there's enough representation for parity in cabinet without any serious debate or push back. that's obviously not true on the bench. but it might be twenty years from now, if you make the right choices at the lower courts.
this is exactly the kind of uniform swing distribution that i spent months yelling about last fall and in the end failed horribly. clinton's theoretical advantage in red states around the mississippi suggests that she should gain voters there much, much faster than she would in the western part of the red state block (rockies/prairies). so, a ten point lead nationally should give her a 15 point boost in mississippi (numbers are pulled from ass), enough to make it close, and almost no boost at all in utah. it's also ignoring what could be a significant third candidate.
i think it's too early to do this seriously, but i'll say the same thing i said about canada: you're better off trying to find a historical precedent than you are trying to find an algorithm to convert 2008 into 2016. and, one does exist. it wasn't even that long ago. and, clinton has a strong connection to him.
my best guess right now is to look at 1992 or 1996. perot got almost 20% in 1992 and less than 10% in 1996, but clinton got more electoral votes in 1996 despite winning less states. he won georgia in 1992 on the split, but won arizona in 1996 on his record. as we get closer to the election, johnson's numbers will tell us which one is a better model. but, i think that trump matches up better to bush than dole. yes, dole was seen as a doddering idiot. but, it was bush that was seen as the ideologically distant northeastern liberal.
that said, you'll have to make a couple of changes, too. it looks like she's way ahead in virginia, and she's not going to win west virginia.
but, insofar as the map starts to break? i think '92 is your road map.
it's a complicated debate about independent variables.
but, if you ask meteorologists, they'll tell you that you're better off finding a historical precedent than building your forecast on last season.
i'm going to be putting everything aside now to focus entirely on listening. the mri was very distracting, but i'm not as stressed out anymore - i have some answer. not what i wanted. but, the uncertainty is much less.
just to clarify...
my brain is ok regarding growths (for now), but there's something lodged in my ear. as time has progressed, i've become more and more frustrated with this ear doctor - who despite reading an mri report that indicated that something was found inside my ear, decided to discharge me. the mri demonstrated that i was right: there's something in my ear. the response is discharge? it seems like she runs a more profitable plastic surgery operation on the side. i've argued for years that cosmetic surgeons should not be allowed to run medical practices...
she got me the mri, anyways. i had to prod for it, but it wasn't a complete waste of time...
i have an appointment with another ear specialist in december that i have yet to cancel (i suspected i may want a second opinion...) and i may very well end up bringing him the mri scans. i don't have a lot of confidence in this doctor.
for right now, the second scan is scheduled for september and i'll just have to wait and see. it could be anything from a growth to a dead insect to ear wax. but, i need to be clear: the mri did pick something up. there is something in there. and, i did make the right choice in insisting i see an ear doctor rather than a neurologist.
you can't understand this in a vacuum. first, the green party in canada was up until this point a very unstable coalition of conservatives, right-libertarians, primitivists and environmentalists. may herself is a "progressive conservative", which nowadays is a junior leadership branch of the liberal party. she claims bds is a distraction without acknowledging that the fact that she's pro-life is a hugely unnecessary issue on the canadian left and is massively restricting their ability to gain voters. i'd be rich if you gave me a quarter for every leftist i've met that has pointed to her pro-life stance as a reason they can't vote for her. on top of that, they tend to run these market fundamentalists that are clueless about the green party platform and think the answer is more property rights - ideas that are strongly on the libertarian right. the party has no choice but to collapse in one direction or another to grow.
as it turns out, the canadian left is currently in extreme flux. after running a campaign on balanced budgets, and then being triangulated by the center-right liberals as a consequence of it, the dominant soft-left party (the ndp) is in a freefall that it might not recover from. a year ago, a lot of people were suggesting that the liberal party was dead. but, the ndp seems to have stepped in front of the bullet. this influx of green party members is coming from leftists that are fed up with the ndp and looking for a new left that is tied less to union activism and more to environmental sustainability.
in order for these leftists to take over the party, they will need to push the libertarians out of it. there's no other way this can work. may is not one of them, but she will have to go with them.
but, what does bds have to do with the environment? quite a bit, actually. and i'd like to see this point raised more often....
why do we have to support israel, again, despite the human rights atrocities? the reason is that we need a reliable ally in the middle east. is israel a reliable ally? probably not. but, the perception is that it is. so, as long as we need that reliable ally, we're stuck turning the other way as they commit this genocide in slow motion.
but, why do we need this military base in the middle east? the reason is the reliance on middle eastern oil. if we can remove our reliance on imported energy, we no longer need that ally in the middle east - and we can react accordingly. pushing for a green shift to renewables is consequently the most realistic thing that we can do, as citizens, to stand in solidarity and help stop the slaughter.
it follows that opposition to bds is the same thing as support for the fossil fuel industry, and that the greens should at least not be opposing it.
i think it's pretty obvious who was holding the video. this is not accidental footage. she's sober. and, she's goading him on, trying to get a reaction. the man was not intelligent enough to know who his friends and enemies were.
wait. so, the bush housing crisis is obama's fault?
this is the same kind of argument they throw around about climate change. in order to fall for it, you'd have to be literally twelve or just mentally twelve...
but, i mean, how many republicans are mentally twelve?
i won't be bothered. but, wow.
Mak Muk Was Right
It's funny because the graph he holds up shows a housing bubble and then a recovery from the housing bubble. He is painting the recovery from Bush's housing bubble as a bad thing. Totally stupid and he simply embarrasses himself more and more every day.
jessica
this isn't stupidity, it's dishonesty.
ShadowDrift
You gotta keep in mind, that during Bill's presidency he started deregulating Wall Street in the 90's, he set the ball in motion Bush just simply carried out the Legacy
jessica
you can blame it on bill, or you can blame it on the congress, who had a supermajority. it doesn't really matter anymore or have any effect on how startlingly dishonest this is.
HEY AJ
obamas fault after he become president. not only that, he didn't do anything to fix it.
jessica
but, "fixing" it means allowing the bubble to burst. the problem was that banks were lending to people who couldn't afford to pay their mortgages off. i don't want to say that home ownership rates were too high, because then i'm buying into the dishonest presentation. but you can't just hand out mortgages like welfare checks. that's why the curve flew out of control, which is why the economy collapsed in 2008.
again - your only excuse for falling for this is if you're too young to remember what happened. the only other way you fall for this is if you just don't understand what he's saying.
i don't actually think that increasing home ownership rates is a worthwhile policy goal. but, if one wanted to do this, they would create policies to increase wages - not policies to increase lending.
let's keep in mind, as well, that trump is well-positioned to benefit from a bubble in real estate should he win, as he'll be selling off his assets soon as a part of his end-of-life preparation. he's 70 years old. he'll want to skyrocket the price of land, to sell high.
i just want to add that mulcair's rejection of bds was one of the reasons i lost interest in the party. if the ndp wants to be the liberals, it should merge with them. and, if they're going to present themselves as the same as the liberals anyways, why not just vote for the liberals?
trudeau's popularity right now is only partly a consequence of the anti-harper confluence. it's also a consequence of apathy on the canadian left. if we're just going to get the liberals anyways, why bother splitting the vote?
the left is looking for a new vehicle and wants to take over the green party. nor can the greens move forward with her.
fwiw, i don't really think that apartheid is a good comparison, either. the south african state was a type of slavery - the blacks would do the work for the whites and live apart from them. the israelis have actually rejected calls for apartheid, which have been presented repeatedly by the americans. a commitment by israel to apartheid would be a step forwards. what the israelis want is a final solution, not slavery & apartheid. it's a full genocide that is in process. so, the south african comparison is not very good. the better comparison is to the american genocide of native americans.
i don't think bds has a high likelihood of success, but i think it's an important moral position to take.
maybe it's better to phrase it like this: i may agree that supporting bds is likely futile, but i think that rejecting it is morally reprehensible.
what they're saying is that they think there is something inside my ear, rather than inside my brain.
i was thinking that something was structurally damaged - a broken bone, or perhaps a severed nerve. something lodged inside my ear is kind of half way between both theories.
i'm going in for a second mri at the beginning of september - without the ions. until then, they can't say if it's a growth or a foreign object, or if it's benign or not.
but, it seems like my brain is safe. for now, anyways. it may be one of those "caught it early enough" things. or, it may be earwax.
i think this is the kind of story she needs to tell if she wants to bring the middle of america back to the democrats, which is where they should be. they don't benefit from republican policies.
however....
1) they can't read. that's not hyperbole. the published literacy rates were just cold war propaganda. large percentages of americans around the mississippi delta are simply unable to read an article like this. and, they're the people the democrats need to swing the most.
2) they won't read an article in the new york times. you'd might as well have published it in the guardian.
it's reflective. i'm forgiving. but, they need to get this kind of messaging across in spoken language. this is the value of the republicans' control of the churches and of talk radio. television is declining in importance. how about pod casts? youtube personalities? you can only do so much in three months.
but, as amazing as it is, you cannot forget this truth: they can't fucking read. and, you need to convince them to vote for you before you can teach them....
the united states has a long history of integrating illiterate people into the political process. there's a lot to learn by dusting off some old nineteenth century textbooks.
...and a lot to learn in realizing that it's necessary to do so.
i spoke a little about this previously, but this is one of the key problems with liberalism, and this idea of universal equality: retarded people aren't equal to non-retarded people and it's pretty stupid to suggest they are.
how about we stop pretending everybody is equal, or that it would be good if we were, and instead adopt a simple maxim:
from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.
social assistance is built upon the idea of discrimination. disabled people would die horrible deaths if they weren't discriminated against. there is nothing inherently wrong with this; to the contrary it should be embraced.
every time you let the handicapped person park in the handicapped space, guess what? that's discrimination.
every time you modify your language so the down's syndrome kid smiles at something stupid, guess what? that's discrimination.
every time you tell somebody that suffers from depression or bipolar disorder that they don't have to go to work today, or at all, guess what? that's discrimination!
and, we should embrace this to realize that we have different needs. that we cannot build a just or fair society on the principle that one size fits all, but only on the principle that we are all entitled to what it is that we need - regardless of what we can or cannot contribute.
so, go ahead and call the retard a retard. call the crazy person crazy. but, understand that this entitles people to extra needs, not that it denies them of anything.
i hold this truth to be self-evident: that we were neither created by anything, nor that we are equal. it is self-evident that we are all unique genetic combinations.
finishing the record-keeping aspect of the write-up for inri015 was an unexpectedly tedious process, but it is now done. i have not yet started my epic listening process, and will not likely do so tonight. i'm going to do a few more record-keeping type things to prepare for it, and begin the process in earnest when i get back from my appointment tomorrow.
....presuming that i'm not devastated by the discussion.
i have no idea. really. i know that there's something very wrong with my ear. i got the mri to check for structural damage - tmj type issues. i know the radiologist insisted on redoing the mri using a process that is usually intended to search for tumours. but, i have little reason to think i have a tumour.
obviously, if i come home tomorrow with the understanding that i have brain cancer, my life is going to change quite a bit. i don't expect this. but, we'll see what happens.
for right now, i'm just focusing on getting done the things i need to get done in order to pivot to a pure listening phase that i expect to last for roughly the next week. i have two more records to formally close when that is done, inri014 and inri015. i can then move on to the singles for the second record and eventually the second record itself.
the best thing that she can do for the green party is step down. she talks about bds as distracting, without realizing that her views on abortion are killing the party.
the greens need a younger, more secular leader. with the apparent collapse of the ndp, there's a big space for them in the spectrum. but, may will only prevent them from moving into it.
i don't want to say 'good riddance'. she's actually a very good mp. but they need new leadership.
nonsense, and not worth deconstructing - except to point out that it was clearly a jab at gun nuts. that is, it was the gun owners that were the butt of the joke. it's the dipshit social justice types that are (once again) missing the point - this is just another excuse to push down their authoritarianism and censorship. they'll jump at the opportunity to misconstrue things to push their morals down your throats.
i mentioned it was excellent delivery, and it really was. it was the kind of line you expect to hear in a conan monologue, or a daily show take down.
...and the takeaway is that it's increasingly clear that trump actually doesn't feel comfortable representing the base. he doesn't want to go out there and work up gun nuts and religious crazies. he's getting tired of this.
to be crystal clear and absolutely terse: trump was stating, tongue-in-cheek, that he actually supports gun control.
what do you think that donald trump really thinks of these people? do you think he's really on their side? that he'll stand up for them?
he thinks they're a bunch of pathetic, inbred losers that fell for a lot of barely strung together nonsense.
trump has a record: he's always supported gun control in the past - like every other sane northeastern liberal. and, what he's signalling is that he doesn't like the role he's playing, right now.
so, again: great delivery. 10/10.
i hope we get more of this, as it becomes increasingly clear that he's going to lose huge.
trump doesn't have a chance of winning the presidency. but, he can go out with a bang and give us some performance art that will last for centuries.
if clinton does win georgia, it should just be a reminder that vote splitting happens not as a consequence of insolent voting bases but as a consequence of poor political leadership. you should never, ever, ever, ever, ever blame voters for vote splitting.
how much is it going to cost in terms of campaign contributions to get clinton to show up to a press conference in a full out zoot suit?
we haven't seen a blowout like this in a while. reagan, i guess? it's not a prediction, it's just something to think about. i guess it's her maximum haul....
no, that's fine. send him out to have fun. write the pot off as a public expenditure. tell him to take an extra long vacation. great. that's exactly what was expected. but, i didn't vote for gerald butts, either - the party needs to take control back from the pmo.
the way she squinches her eyes indicates that this was involuntary, and her quick recovery indicates it was expected. but, those that are claiming this was not a seizure are also correct. it almost looks more like a cocaine tremor. i suspect her chai is a little special.
i've always thought this was fundamentally an anti-war song.
you could say it's about the "unknown soldier".
but, i think it's actually about the glorification of the military.
Spectacularity
Think it's more about twisting a person's image from being a hero in death to a secretive monster in life.
jessica
i think that's a kind of a generalization of what i'm proposing - the idea that the soldier is not a hero, but in fact a monster. but, there's a lot of very specific references to military protocol. i mean, you could apply that broad idea to lots of different things. i've just always gotten the feeling that the military context is what he actually intended....
see, what i'd like is for the democratic candidate to spin this around on him and claim she's going to increase taxes on the wealthy - and also on corporations. i know better. i wouldn't believe it, anyways. but the last thing the country needs right now is lower taxes at the top rate. it needs to be taking in higher income tax levels to spend on crumbling infrastructure and convert the economy away from fossil fuels. the problem with the stimulus plan was that it was too small. they need more of this, on a deeper level - and they need to generate the revenue to do it.
a strong candidate would annihilate him on his tax policy, which is clearly disastrous and flat out stupid. it's 2016, and dipshit donald still thinks tax cuts create jobs? of course he doesn't. he just wants a tax cut for himself. if i was the nominee, i wouldn't talk about anything else.
i don't always agree with krugman, but he's kind of an expert on keynesian policies. and, if we're going to implement keynesian policies, he's not just a good explainer but arguably the best currently alive. we're lucky that he spends as much time writing in newspapers as he does.
see, this is just like the tpp. they both want infrastructure spending. they're both technically right. but, i don't believe either of them - i rather think that they'll both push tax cuts and austerity.
i don't know how i'm going to get through this mess with my sanity. i need to just disengage. i keep saying that...
i ought to be pointing out that it's good that they're both taking the right approach to stimulus. instead, i'm convinced they're both lying, and they'll both do the wrong thing.
and, the evidence is really, truly on my side.
i'm in the fucking ultraparadoxical phase, again. great.
i've been very sensitive to the weather for years and years. for as long as i can remember, i've tended to get nasty stomach aches when the pressure outside changes. it's to the point that i can predict the season changes through reductio ad estomach - that is, by appeal to stomach. right now, i seem to be reacting very negatively to the reduction of humidity that came in last night. it's a really brutal sinus headache. so, loud music - and particularly absurdly loud music - is not a very good idea at the moment.
why is switching to the metric system never an issue in us elections?
i'm serious. they sign all these trade agreements that they pretend are about breaking down tariff systems. do you know how much money they could save by getting rid of the british imperial system of measurement?
surely, they must realize they've lost this war. and, it's nothing like vietnam, either. it's far worse. the rest of the world has moved so far past them on this...
i just want to see the reaction. i want to see the accusations from fox news. i want to see live interviews with people on the ground that think they're being invaded by france. and canada.
"british imperial system? no, we kicked them limeys out. i speak american, and i measure things in american."
"and they can take their statues and their fries with them!"
but, seriously. they'd save at least billions, overall, by not having to label and measure things differently for the us market. trillions, even - depending on your time scale.
"All countries except Burma (Myanmar), Liberia, and the United States of America have officially adopted the metric system, although Liberia has seen some introduction of metric units, and in 2013 Burma formally announced the beginning of its metrication program."
i suspect americans don't really realize how expensive (and annoying...) it is for the rest of the world to convert things into eighteenth century units in order to sell things there, or how expensive it is for american producers to need to convert things into modern units for export.
i'm still trying to process how and why the prime minister's office (i'm not sure he even signed anything...) thought it was a good idea to put kim fucking campbell in charge of anything, let alone in charge of a process to determine the next supreme court justice. i think she needs to immediately address the question that is on all of our minds: is a court room a proper venue to discuss serious issues?
we'll have to see what the results are.
but, what terrible judgement.
the prime minister's office recently appointed the person that approved this ad to pick the next supreme court justice of canada.
the actual truth is that the selection was probably calculated to appeal to female identity voters - ignoring the fact that she's a monster.
it would be really great if they'd stop electioneering and start governing.
it's not just bad judgement, it's also a real slap in the face.
remember: canada has a recall process. sort of. we can remove sitting prime ministers through a vote of non-confidence. we don't directly elect them, and the election is not in any way interpreted as a vote for prime minister, either formally or informally. the liberals could remove trudeau at any given point.
i think the most recent example of this was in australia.
the court nomination process is not minor. we'll see what comes out of it. but, if he appoints some "bipartisan" judge, i'd expect to hear a mutiny rumbling.
if i was there, i'd be leading the charge.
canada's greatest strength up to now has been it's court. we have very liberal courts, because we are able to appoint the judges more or less at whim. nowhere did he campaign on making it harder for liberal prime ministers to continue to appoint liberal judges. in fact, he won in a landslide.
not only is there no mandate for this, but it's directly opposite to his mandate - and entirely out of right field.
if you're on the political left, it is of the utmost importance that we retain control of the courts. i don't know where this idea of giving the courts away to a "non-partisan process" (read: corporate stacking) comes from, but it really has to be stopped.
i voted for the liberals and i want the liberals to appoint a very, very, very liberal judge. this is not complicated.
the existing selection process is not a problem, and it doesn't require a fix.
thankfully, i don't believe that what they're setting up is constitutional. ironically, the court itself will strike it down - should somebody challenge it. but, there's a lot of red flags going off regarding the amount of flat out fuckery this guy wants to push through. i don't know what it is...
his father was a law professor, a constitutional expert - perhaps not a gentleman, but certainly a scholar. justin trudeau has no meaningful academic background. and, he simply shouldn't be fucking with the way that government operates, like this.
i really think that the party has an obligation to step in.
i mean, my vote was premised upon two things that i thought would be obvious:
(1) he knew his role was to campaign, not to govern.
(2) the party was in charge.
i'm not sure either are panning out, right now.
the idea that the liberal party would have any reason to fuck with the court selection process is incoherent. he wants to one-up his father. and, he can't be allowed to fail.
if he wants to one-up his father, he should step down immediately, go back to school and run again in ten-twenty years.
as of right now, the premise is preposterous and the party cannot sit back and continue to entertain his absurd whims.
i just want to...
it's not like hw and w bush. the biggest problem is trying to compare the elder bush to the elder trudeau.
it's more like john adams and john quincy adams, in the sense that pierre trudeau was so important in drafting the country's constitution. but, john quincy adams was actually consdered a good statesman. i'm left kind of wishing that monroe or madison or even jefferson had a well-meaning but ill-equipped son. that is the right level of relative importance!
don't make the comparison, though. the elder trudeau was far too important in canadian history to compare him to a one-term president. you can't get a proper understanding of the trudeau name, that way.
let me be more explicit, but terse: if you set up an "independent, non-partisan" body then what is going to happen within minutes is that it is going to get captured by financial interests. this has been studied to death. you only do this if you're ignorant or you're corrupt - you're either not well enough read on the topic, or you actually want the body to get captured. i suspect the former.
there is no debate on the outcome. all independent bodies get captured. there are no exceptions. this is a failed policy approach.
so, when applied to a court selection process, the so-called independent body that he's setting up to prevent back room deals (a problem that doesn't exist...) can be nothing more or less than opening up the process to an open lobbying procedure in a way that is at arms-length from any accountable process. i almost want to throw orwell at you yet again, but i really do think that this is less corruption and more incompetence.
regardless, what he's done here - whether he realizes it or not - is put the seat up for sale.
his father would have rejected anything of the sort, which is just my point. it's not that he had some magical properties that the son could have inherited. he was just very educated on the topic and had the experience to see how things would logically unfold. he would not have bought into such nonsense.
again: i think most people assumed the party was in charge. very few people would have voted for a 40 year-old drama teacher, otherwise - even considering how unpopular the incumbent was. and, this is not what anybody voted for.
broadly speaking, every time you hear the terms "bipartisan" or "non-partisan", that is newspeak for "unaccountability" and "corporate oligarchy". it means that the government is relinquishing control to capital.
let's all think about how stupid the concept of ableism is, for a second. obviously, people with disabilities are as able to perform tasks as anybody else. shame on you for thinking that a disabled person may have some deficit of ability!
it's actually really scary, due to the producerism underlying it. it's an algorithm to discard the concept of being disabled and remove state aid for people with disabilities. after all, if disabled people are just as able as the rest of us (don't say they aren't! that's ableist!) then why should they get state aid?
disabled people can pull themselves up by their own boot straps just as well as anybody else, you ableist pig!
you need to be very careful with this orwellian shit. it's not just some dumb kids. it's organized. and, the ends are pretty shitty.
this is actually incredibly useful for me.
the venue is located on the campus of wayne state university and was rebranded as an electronic club in order to try and tap into the local student market. what was once the go to punk/rock bar in the city was reduced to pushing "sweaty student thursdays" and letting females in without cover. it was a state of affairs that was widely lamented. and, i don't think they ever really found the audience they wanted.
see, the magic stick was always an alternative rock or punk bar. it thrived on it's ability to take in acts that were a little different. it's a carefully built, niche audience. i think that had they approached electronic music with the same mindset, they could have found the comparable niche market. instead, they just saturated a market in a way that didn't make any sense. it wasn't upscale, so it couldn't push the douchey, bourgeois edm shit. nor was it underground enough to throw raves - there would be cops there every night. but, if medium sized artsy techno acts like squarepusher or autechre or aphex twin were to swing through here, this would be the place they should play. they got noisia (although noisia's gone to shit recently). i noticed some other stuff like tycho picked the royal oak. in the end, they didn't cultivate the right market - and detroit just doesn't seem to have it, anyways. i'd have jumped at an idm bar, rather than another edm one.
what i'm getting at is that the tweet is a good excuse to retreat back to what was. i'm not pushing a conspiracy theory; i don't know know the story. but i don't think the management is racist.
the conversion left downtown detroit without a proper small to medium sized rock venue. it was closed quickly when i moved here, but i managed to catch boris, cloud nothings, cymbals eat guitars and bob mould there. boris is through here again this week with earth and skipped detroit altogether. some of this would otherwise have moved to ferndale or a new venue opened in mexicantown - both of which are a lot harder for me to get back and forth from. the magic stick is a relatively safe half hour walk from the tunnel. so, if it reasserts itself that is useful to me regarding transit options... http://www.metrotimes.com/Blogs/archives/2016/07/21/the-magic-stick-returns-after-populux-social-media-scandal
you claim that voters in the middle of america want to vote for the person that they see themselves most in. it's not exactly identity politics in the "intersectionality" sense, but it's the broad idea.
and, then you claim they'll vote for the north-eastern liberal (donald trump) instead of the midwestern conservative (hillary clinton)? how does that make any sense?
this is why missouri is going to be so important. virginia is a different scenario: you've got expanding urbanization, migration south and just general....colonization? it's kind of the truth of it. virginia has been colonized by the north. but, missouri is actually deindustrializing..
she can't pull this off everywhere. but, that cluster of states around missouri is the real wild card. i don't think she'll win arkansas, but it very well might be closer than north carolina. i don't think she'll win tennessee, but she'll probably lose it by less than trump loses pennsylvania by. in the case of some extraneous circumstance - the rise of gary johnson? - those states are within striking distance.
i know that the media has been pushing the message for a long time now, but the reality is that hillary clinton is not a northeastern liberal. if she was a northeastern liberal, like bernie sanders, i wouldn't be so revolted by her. rather, she is a midwestern conservative. and, if the midwest really does prioritize their own over outsiders, she will be competitive there - even if missouri is the only state she can actually win.
if she swoops down there and pulls out the drawl...
who are they going to see themselves in more? the distant billionaire from new york with the very dominant foreign accent, married to some european floozy, or the woman they know well through her husband that talks and sounds and acts like them?
your argument just doesn't make any sense.
we've only had one poll from kentucky so far, back in june, but clinton was actually beating trump by 3 points. that's not so crazy to me...
the only poll in mississippi was in march, but trump was only up by 3. again: not so crazy.
that's no fair! why can they get rid of trump, when the democrats can't get rid of hillary? just more proof that the country is slanted to monied interests....
he has exceedingly limited options. the only reason that the media talks about pennsylvania, michigan & wisconsin is that there's just not a lot of real estate on the map. colorado isn't even really a swing anymore. the big wrench for the republicans is that virginia's apparent swing - which they seem to be ceding - leaves them without a viable strategy at any point in the near future.
he's in michigan on monday. michigan? well, do you have a better idea?
could you imagine dubya standing up on stage in august, 2000 and telling everybody that a vote for dubya is a vote for cheney? that would be a historical smoking gun. trump just gave it to us.
i'm just attaching some pictures of the damage created by the a/c on the front step, as well as the consequences of it on the space under the step.
i'm currently running two fans in the space to air it out. i've also left the door open and am keeping the window open over night. but, why not just put a bucket on the step to catch the water?
the investor's business daily. that doesn't invoke a lot of confidence.
but, the methodology is sound, and the results are consistent - if a little pro-republican. investor's business daily? but, that's useful variance if it's mild and the methodology checks out. it does.
so, we have four polling firms now that are worth aggregating.
the polling story for the week is that stein has seen a measurable bump. let's see if it holds into next week.
--
actually, i missed the mclatchy poll, which is also good. this is an outlier right now - clinton+14? she's not up much. it's more that trump is barely pushing 30.
they claim it's a straight sample. that's interesting to me, because i'd have expected the opposite phenomenon - that weighting would be helping clinton. weighting is another valid debate. i don't think that we can get away with not weighting at all, which is to say the data there is probably a little too raw, but i'd think that the general trend right now is to fuck with the data too much. so, again: that's probably wrong, but it's useful. and, as mentioned, it's surprising. what it suggests is that the other polling firms may be exaggerating trump's lead with white people.
so, we've got five polls, now. that's good enough, i think.
i need some new shoes and am trying to figure out if i should get something a little more designed for walking, or just stick with my characteristic frugality...
the last time i bought shoes was in mar, 2014. the pair of skate shoes somebody gave me, and were being worn all year in ottawa where there is much more snow, had developed some giant holes in them from the salt. these were expensive shoes, but salt does what salt does. realizing that salt in the winter is a fact of life in canada, i bought two pairs of very cheap ($5/each) walking shoes and expected them to meet the same fate.
but, the winters here are not as bad. even the cold doesn't necessarily bring snow, so the salt issue is just not comparable. i bought cheap shoes expecting the salt to get them within a few months, and instead got over a year out of both of them - which were in fact both worn down from sheer walking. i just walked through them...
i also quit smoking, so i'm not out in the salt 20 times a day anymore.
around the same time, i also bought a pair of sparkly pink fake cons. see, i know how i wear shoes down, so why waste money on them? but, i don't want to wear a pair of $5 walking shoes out somewhere, like a concert, either. i was down to these shoes on my compost run today and came back with sore feet. they're not worse than the cheap walking shoes, but that's kind of the point. i'm going to keep going on these four or five hour walks. so, should i spend a little and get something with better support? does it really matter?
see, here's the thing: how long can you really walk for before your feet get tired? my legs aren't tired. i'm fit enough that i could have walked another five hours. but, do shoes actually exist that can facilitate such a thing, or am i just being unrealistic and utopian again?
i think that buying the bridge would solve a lot of problems, actually. well, i wouldn't even buy it, i'd just seize it. but, the reality is that while we can lament how we got into this mess and try and learn from it, the fact that we have this bridge in private hands is a catastrophe and virtually everything and anything should be done to reverse the problem.
this is not my riding. i'm a block away, in windsor-tecumseh. and, i did vote liberal in the last election because i liked what frank schiller had to say about nafta (even though i realized he wouldn't be listened to) and, perhaps more importantly, i found cheryl hardcastle's views on gmos to be disqualifying. it wasn't the issue of gmos, exactly, but what it more broadly implied about her scientific literacy levels.
i know this may sound alien and quaint, but the place i always looked to for social leadership was actually the sciences. it took me the longest time to figure out how naive that was...
so, i remember not understanding why nobody cared about climate change. to me, it was natural for the scientists to take a leadership role in shaping society. it wasn't even progress. i didn't even see it as debatable, really. it was just obvious that society should be run by scientists.
as an adult, i can look back at myself and label myself a technocrat. i do retain the term, sometimes. in fact, that was my initial point of interest in (scientific) socialism, whatever the oxymorons in the term, and however apparent that is to me, now. why were lawyers running the country? what did they know about science? liberals, conservatives....what's this boring shit....where's the science party?
you can imagine how crushed i was when i realized that most people looked not towards scientists and academics for leadership but towards athletes and entertainers. and, this is coming from somebody that has had a deep love of music for as long as i can remember, but that understood it for what it actually is. what the fuck was wrong with people? just another factor for misanthropy, for depression, for disassociation - or to withdraw...
even in my early 20s, i couldn't really grapple with the truth of it. i got it, but i didn't really get it. it wasn't until i was able to talk to some people from outside the continent that i was able to get my head around how abnormal the society really is. university professors can hold televised news conferences in prime time in france; in korea, scientists can generate rallies that can pack sports stadiums.
the issue become apparent to me: what i truly need to grapple with is what the fuck it is that is wrong with us.
criminal negligence revolves around the concept of reasonable precaution. what is at question here is ultimately not whether he carried out an act or not, or even if he did so on purpose, but whether he took the proper precautions to ensure it didn't happen. the legal question will likely revolve around the discussion he had with the person that actually prepared the food. did he point out the allergy clearly enough on the order?
the article is poorly written - it does not provide any facts. but, if the waiter expressed the allergies with a sufficient level of force, then it falls upon the cook.
it is very difficult to see how any judge in any liberal democracy could legally fault the victim for forgetting their epipen.
but, a lot of how you react to this is going to depend on what kind of social contract you feel is best applied. i'm an advocate of the proudhonian social contract, but less so of the one promoted by rousseau. i do consequently think that the waiter has a moral, legal and social responsibility to ensure that he does not poison anybody, and that he should face collective punitive action by society should he not uphold that social contract.
i've hinted at this repeatedly, but i'm going to be explicit because it's somehow poorly understood that the soviet union collapsed not due to communism or centralized planning but due to the introduction of market reforms. we can have debates about whether things were really worse there or not, but the breaking point is not up for debate: the lines around the street for bread were because of pro-market reforms.
this is what i'm worried about with trump: that he'll let that kind of thing happen. it's the same basic problem that ron paul always presented. if you pull back funding enough, the state will collapse altogether.
it is a realistic threat.
so, i keep pushing this idea that trump will produce glasnost. i'm not going to stop, either.
i'm sorry, but i don't at all see why the question of sacrifice is remotely important. if i were trump, i would have said that i haven't made any sacrifices and aggressively asked why it's important to make sacrifices. this is supposed to be a free society. living in it is about advancing self-interest, not about making sacrifices. so, i don't know where this is coming from. is it in islam? calvinism? but, i don't identify with it.
as far as i'm concerned, their kid died needlessly for oil politics. i'd rather protest the war than go off on some conservative diatribe about "sacrifice".
i mean, trump didn't kill their kid. but, hillary set the process in motion.
i just don't get it...
"i've sacrificed. what sacrifices have you made...?"
that just doesn't resonate. sorry.
i'm the type of person to look somebody in the eye and tell them their sacrifices are their own, they have no right to enforce their sacrifices on others and nobody is responsible for their regret but themselves.
you made your sacrifices. i didn't make them. and, i'm not going to sit around and feel bad for you.
i took the mri looking for something like this, in an attempt to rule out ms. i was never looking for a growth. i'm not surprised that they couldn't find anything - i don't see any reason to take another with a contrast agent. but, there may be some subtleties in the imaging. i obviously just simply don't know. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporomandibular_joint_dysfunction
i've had a down period the last two weeks that's a consequence of a
variety of things, but i don't expect any further political commentary
that is in any way meaningful.
i have a meeting on aug
11 to discuss the mri results with the ear doctor. i expect that it will
lead to a referral to see another doctor - either a bone specialist of
some sort or possibly a dentist. there is some possibility that i may
get a bad surprise. a lot of uncertainty remains around this, and i just
have to wait.
this "hybrid double ep single" that i
left off at is in fact constructed. i just need to finish writing the
notes - which shouldn't be taking so long.
i also need to be cleaning for the rest of the week, and will need to do a compost run, soon.
