this is the oldest option - from july, 2002. it's probably close to the maximum extent, although i do have a file from may, 2003, as well. the list tended to shrink after that, overall.

if i can get access to epilag archives, i should be able to attach exact dates to most purchases from mid 1997 to this point. and, after that, i can make solid guesses.

there are older versions of this file, and an off chance i could get some from the carleton server. i need to make this request more broadly as well, as i don't have my page dated very well.

inri's Stuff.

Music CD's

o

Artist	Release	Year	Type	Label	Catalog #
1-speed bike	droopy butt begone!	2001	LP	constellation	14
54-40	Dear Dear	1992	LP	Columbia	05440
	Smilin' Buddha Cabaret	1994	LP	Columbia	80190
1000 Homo DJ's	Supernaut	1990	EP	Wax Trax!/TVT	8133
Alice In Chains	Facelift	1990	LP	Columbia	46075
	Dirt	1992	LP	Columbia	52475
	Jar Of Flies	1993	EP	Columbia	57628
	Alice In Chains	1995	LP	Columbia	67248
	Nothing Safe	1999	LP	Columbia	63649
antonin dvorak	symphonies no. 8 & 9	1892/1893/1997	LP	emi/seraphim	73286
A Perfect Circle	Mer de Noms	2000	LP	Virgin	49253
Aphex Twin	Come To Daddy	1997	EP	Sire	31001
	Melodies From Mars	1999	CD-R	n/a	n/a
arnold schoenberg	verklarte nacht & pelleas et melisande	1995	LP	deutsche grammophon	469 690
arvo part	Alina/Spiegel Im Spiegel	1999	LP	ECM	1591
	orchestral works; tabula rasa, symphony no. 3, collage uber bach	2000	LP	Naxos	8.554591
A Silver Mt. Zion	He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts Of Light Still Grace The Corners Of Our Rooms	2000	LP	Constellation	009
	born into trouble as the sparks fly upward	2001	LP	Constellation	018
Autechre	BASSCAD	1994	EP	Wax Trax!/TVT	8717
	Anti	1994	EP	Warp	54
	peel sessions 2	2000	LP	Warp	150
Barenaked Ladies	Gordon	1992	LP	Sire/Reprise	26956
	Born On A Pirate Ship	1995	LP	Reprise	46128
	Rock Spectacle	1996	EP	Reprise	46393
Barry Adamson	The Negro Inside Me	1993	LP	Mute	61610
Blue Rodeo	5 Days In July	1993	LP	wea	93846
Brian Eno	Discreet Music	1975	LP	EG	303
	Ambient 1/Music For Airports	1978	LP	Virgin	87185
	the drop	1997	LP	thirsty ear	66032
Bruce Cockburn	Stealing Fire	1984	LP	True North	57
Bryan Adams	Reckless	1984	LP	A&M	5013
	Into The Fire	1987	LP	A&M	5039
Bush	Sixteen Stone	1994	LP	Interscope/Trauma	25314
	Razorblade Suitcase	1996	LP	Interscope/Trauma	90091
	Deconstructed	1997	LP	Interscope/Trauma	90161
	The Science Of Things	1999	LP	Universal/Trauma	0694904832
California Guitar Trio	Live at the key club	2001	lp	papa paldo	???
Can	Horror Trip	1973	CDR	n/a	n/a
	live music (live 1971-1978)	1999	lp	mute	69102
Candlebox	Candlebox	1993	LP	maverick	53134
	Lucy	1995	LP	maverick	59624
cEvin Key	Music For Cats	1997	LP	Metropolis/Subconscious	075/016
	the ghosts of each room	2001	LP	metropolis/subconscious	...
Chris Connelly	Phenobarb Bambalam	1992	LP	Wax Trax!	7189
Chris Cornell	Euphoria Morning	1999	LP	Universal/A&M	0694904122
Claude Debussy	Preludes, Livres I & II	1987	LP	EMI	7610042
	"Orchestral Music"	1988	LP	BMG	212932
Coil	050883	1983	Boot Dub	-	-
	Panic/Tainted Love	1984	Single	Wax Trax!/TVT	7013
	Horse Rotorvator	1987	LP	SOME BIZARRE	1
	Love's Secret Domain	1991	LP	Wax Trax!/TVT	7143
	The Snow	1992	EP	Wax Trax!/TVT	8644
	Summer Solstice: Bee Stings	1998	EP	World Serpent/Eskaton	14
	Musick To Play In The Dark Vol. 1	1999	LP	Chalice/World Serpent	003
	Songs Of The Week	1999	2XCDR	n/a	n/a
	Astral Disaster	1999	CD-R	n/a	n/a
	Backwards Demos	1999	CD-R	n/a	n/a
	Time Machines (Live)	2000	EP	Eskaton	25
	Musick To Play In The Dark Vol. 2	2000	LP	Eskaton	5
Collective Soul	Hints, Allegations & Things Left Unsaid	1993	LP	atlantic	82596
Coma Lodge	What Kind Of Mind Do You Have?	199x	LP	?	60350
Cop Shoot Cop	White Noise	1991	LP	Big Cat	29
Curve	pubic fruit	1991	LP	virgin/charisma	86531
	cuckoo	1993	LP	virgin/charisma	39061
Cyberaktif	Temper	1990	Single	TVT Records	8617
David Bowie	Space Oddity	1969	LP	RCA	4813
	Ziggy Stardust	1972	LP	RYKODISC	10134
	Aladdin Sane	1973	LP	RYKODISC	10135
	Heroes	1977	LP	RCA	1-2522
	Scary Monsters	1980	LP	RCA	1-3647
	Changesbowie	1990	LP	RYKODISC	20171
	black tie white noise	1993	LP	savage/arista/bmg	02122
	Outside	1995	LP	virgin	40711
	The Heart's Filthy Lesson	1995	EP	virgin	38518
	Earthling	1997	LP	virgin	42627
	Earthling In The City	1997	Promo	virgin	n/a
	I'm Afraid Of Americans	1997	EP	virgin	38618
	Hours...	1999	LP	virgin	48157
David Gilmour	David Gilmour	1978	LP	Columbia	35388
	About Face	1984	LP	Columbia	39296
Dead Kennedys	Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables	1980	LP	Virus	1
	Bedtime For Democracy	1986	LP	Virus	50
Dead Voices On Air	New Words Machine	1995	LP	Hypnotic	9535
	Hafted Maul	1995	LP	Invisible	038
	Piss Frond	1998	2XLP	Invisible	120
Delerium	Semantic Spaces	1994	LP	nettwerk	30092
deny everything.	deny everything.	2000	lp	inri records	6
Die Warzau	Big Electric Metal Bass Face	1991	LP	Atlantic	82295
	Engine	1996	LP	Wax Trax!/TVT	7216
Do Make Say Think	Do Make Say Think	1997	LP	Constellation	005
	Goodbye Enemy Airship	2000	LP	Constellation	010
	& yet & yet	2002	LP	Constellation	020
Doubting Thomas	Father Don't Cry	1994	EP	Metropolis/Subconscious	065/009
download	furnace	1995	LP	Cleopatra/Subconscious	9644/002
	microscopic	1996	LP	Cleopatra/Subconscious	9658/003
	the eyes of stanley pain	1996	LP	Nettwerk/Subconscious	30102/008
	sidewinder	1996	EP	Nettwerk/Subconscious	6322/010
	051296	1996	Boot Dub	-	-
	charlie's family	1997	LP	Metropolis/Subconscious	045/005b
	III	1997	LP	Nettwerk/Subconscious	30118/013
DMSO:DRUGMURDERSEXORGY	Marezine Halloween	1998	DEMO	n/a	n/a
	Phantom Freakshow	1999	DEMO	n/a	n/a
	Demo #3	1999	DEMO	n/a	n/a
Eco-Hed	Eco-Hed	1998	LP	Positron!	002
Econoline Crush	Purge	1994	LP	EMI	28989
	Affliction	1995	LP	EMI	32072
	The Devil You Know	1997	LP	EMI	38244
Einsturzende Neubauten	Strategies against architecture (80-83)	1984	LP	Mute	61677
	Haus Der Luege	1989	LP	Thirsty Ear	57017
	Tabula Rasa	1993	LP	Mute	61458
	interim	1993	ep	Mute	61509
	silence is sexy	2000	2XLP	Mute	9132-2
Eleven	Eleven	1993	LP	Third Rail	61516
Emerson, Lake & Palmer	Brain Salad Surgery	1973	LP	Atlantic	19124
Evelyn glennie	drumming	1996	LP	Catalyst / bmg	68195
Exhaust	s/t	1998	LP	Constellation	4
Filter	Erkenntnis Theorie Demo	1994	CD-R	n/a	n/a
	Short Bus	1995	LP	Reprise	45864
	Title Of Record	1999	LP	Reprise	47388
Firewater	Green Light Promo	1998	PROMO	Universal	n/a
fly pan am	s/t	1999	LP	constellation	08
	sedatif en frequences et sillons	2000	LP	constellation	11
Foetus	Thaw	1988	LP	Some Bizarre	5
	Butterfly Potion	1990	EP	Wax Trax!	9111
	gash	1995	LP	columbia!?	66461
	Boil	1996	LP	Cleopatra	9789
	Null/Void	1997	2XLP	Cleopatra	9931
	flow	2001	LP	thirsty ear	57102
Foo Fighters	Foo Fighters	1995	LP	EMI	34027
	Big Me	1996	EP	Capitol	58530
	The Colour And The Shape	1997	LP	Capitol	55832
Frank Zappa	Apostrophe'/Overnite Sensation	1973	LP	RYKODISC	40025
	Roxy & Elsewhere	1974	LP	RYKODISC	10520
	Bongo Fury	1975	LP	RYKODISC	10097
	Zoot Allures	1976	LP	RYKODISC	10523
	Zappa in New York	1977	2XLP	RYKODISC	10524/10525
	Joe's Garage	1979	2XLP	RYKODISC	10530/10531
	Tinseltown Rebellion	1981	LP	RYKODISC	10532
frankie sparo	my red scare	2000	LP	constellation	13
	arena hostile	2001	EP	constellation	17
Fripp & Eno	Evening Star Star	1975	LP	EG	3
Garbage	Garbage	1995	LP	almo	80004
	Version 1.0 Rarities	1998	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Live in S.F. 20-05-98	1998	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Version 2.0	1998	LP	Universal	80018
	beautiful	2001	LP	Universal	???
Genesis	Trespass	1970	LP	MCA	1653
	Foxtrot	1972	LP	Atlantic	82674
	Selling England By The Pound	1973	LP	Atlantic	19277
	Plays Live	1973	2XLP	Charisma	?
	The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway	1974	2XLP	ATCO	401
	Wind & Wuthering	1976	LP	Atlantic	38100
	A Trick Of The Tail	1976	LP	Atlantic	38101
	Mama	1983	Single	Atlantic	7869830
	Invisible Touch	1986	LP	Atlantic	81641
	We Can't Dance	1991	LP	Atlantic	82344
God Lives Underwater	God Lives Underwater	1995	LP	American	43022
	Life In The So-Called Space Age	1998	LP	1500/A&M	871
	Rearrange	1998	CDR	n/a	n/a
Godspeed You Black Emperor!	F#A#oo (vinyl)	1997	LP	Constellation	3
	F#A#oo	1998	LP	Kranky	27
	041999	1999	2XCDR	n/a	n/a
	Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada	1999	EP	Kranky	34
	090999	1999	CDR	n/a	n/a
	"Lift yr. skinny fists like antennas to heaven!"	2000	2XLP	kranky	43
Goldie	timeless	1994	LP	ffrr/metalheads	828 646-2
Gowan	Strange Animal	1985	LP	Columbia	80099
Gravity Kills	Gravity Kills	1996	LP	TVT	5910
	Manipulated	1997	LP	TVT	5916
	Perversion	1998	LP	TVT	5920
Gustav Holst	The Planets	1918/1994	LP	RCA	74321179052
Hater	Hater	1993	LP	A&M	137
Hanged up	s/t	2001	LP	Constellation	16
Henryk Gorecki	Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs	1994	LP	Universal	468150
Hilt	Get Stuck	1989	EP	Nettwerk	3042
	Call The Ambulence Before I Hurt Myself	1989	LP	Nettwerk	30044
	Journey to the Centre Of The Bowl	1991	LP	Nettwerk	30056
Hum	Downward Is Heavenward	1997	LP	RCA	67446
	Learn Guitar Overnight	1998	LP	Hum	001
I Mother Earth	Dig	1993	LP	EMI	98912
	Scenery And Fish	1996	LP	EMI	32919
	Blue Green Orange	1999	LP	EMI	46246
inri	inri	1998	LP	inri records	1
	inriched	1999	LP	inri records	2
	Warning	1999	EP	inri records	3
	inrimake	1999	LP	inri records	4
	inridiculous	1999	LP	inri records	5
Jane's Addiction	Nothing's Shocking	1988	LP	Warner Bros.	25727
Jean Michel Jarre	Rendez Vous	1986	LP	Polygram	829125
Jesus H. Christ	Residue	1998	demo tape	--	--
Jimi Hendrix	Are You Experienced?	1967	LP	Reprise	6261
	The Ultimate Experience	1993	LP	MCA	10829
Johann Sebastian Bach	Bach: Lute Music, Vol. II by John Williams	1967	LP	Sony	62973
John Cage	The Seasons (and other pieces)	2000	LP	ECM	1696
John Lennon	Shaved Fish	1972	LP	Capitol	46642
	Lennon Legend	1997	LP	EMI	21954
Joy Division	Closer	1980	LP	Factory	28219
	Still	1981	LP	London Records	684
juliana hatfield	become what you are	1993	LP	attic	1380
karlheinz stockhausen	helikopter-streichquartett	1999	EP	montagne	782097
Killing Joke	Change	1992	EP	virgin	1432
King Crimson	In The Court Of The Crimson King	1969	LP	Atlantic	8245
	Larks' Tongues In Aspic	1970	LP	virgin	86775
	The Concise King Crimson	1993	LP	virgin	88296
	AAA Sampler	1995	EP	virgin	n/a
KMFDM	Demos	1984-1986	Boot Dub	n/a	n/a
	UAIOE	1989	LP	Wax Trax!/TVT	7083
	Angst	1993	LP	Wax Trax!/TVT	7202
	Light	1994	EP	Wax Trax!/TVT	8712
	Sin, Sex & Salvation	1994	EP	Wax Trax!/TVT	8723
	Naive(Hell To Go)	1994	LP	Wax Trax!/TVT	7213
	Nihil	1995	LP	Wax Trax!/TVT	7199
	Brute	1995	EP	Wax Trax!/TVT	8733
	XTORT	1996	LP	Wax Trax!/TVT	7242
	Adios	1999	LP	Wax Trax!/TVT	7258
Korn	Korn	1994	LP	Sony	66633
	Follow The Leader	1998	LP	Sony	69001
Kraftwerk	The Man Machine	1978	EP	Capitol	46039
Labradford	Labradford	1996	LP	Kranky	13
	Fixed:Content	2001	LP	Kranky	47
Lard	Power Of Lard	1989	LP	Virus	72
Lead Into Gold	Age Of Reason	1990	LP	Wax Trax!	7116
Lenny Breau	Boy Wonder	1998	LP	True North	172
Limblifter	Limblifter	1996	LP	mca	81001
Liona Boyd	The Guitar	1974	LP	Boot	3002
Live	Mental Jewelry	1991	LP	radioactive	10346
	Throwing Copper	1994	LP	radioactive	10997
	Secret Samadhi	1997	LP	radioactive	11590
	The Distance To Here	1999	LP	Radioactive	08811966
lou reed	new york	1989	LP	sire	25829
Ludwig Van Beethoven	Concerto no. 2 ; Symphony no.7	1990	LP	Pilz	2067
	Symphony no. 9	1992	LP	point productions	2650262
Machine Gun Kelly	Boy in a Mansuit	1997	LP	MGK	2
Machines Of Loving Grace	Machines Of Loving Grace	1991	LP	Mammoth	29
Mad Season	Above	1995	LP	columbia	67057
Man or astroman?	experiment zero	1996	LP	touch & go	157
	eeviac: operational index and reference guide, including other modern computational devices	1999	LP	touch & go	189
Mark Lanegan	Whiskey For The Holy Ghost	1993	LP	Sub Pop	132
Meathead	Dick Smoker	1996	LP	Fifth Column	63256
Meat Puppets	Too High Too Die	1994	LP	polygram	28484
	No Joke	1995	LP	polygram	28665
medeski, martin & wood	the dropper	2000	LP	capital [blue note]	22841
Megadeth	Youthanasia	1994	LP	capital	29004
Merzbow	hybrid noisebloom	1997	LP	vinyl communications	113
Micronaut	Micronaut	1998	LP	Positron!	1
Mike Oldfield	Tubular Bells	1973	LP	Virgin	86007
	Hergest Ridge	1974	LP	Virgin	109
	Ommadawn	1975	LP	Virgin	552
	5 Miles Out	1982	LP	Virgin	2237
	Q.E.2.	1984	LP	Virgin	2181
	islands	1987	LP	Virgin	2466
	Tubular Bells III	1998	LP	WEA	24349
Miles Davis	Bitches Brew	1969	2XLP	Columbia	40577
	Tutu	1986	LP	Columbia	25490
Ministry	Twelve Inch Singles(1981-1984)	198x	LP	Wax Trax/TVT	7035
	Twitch	1986	LP	Warner Brothers	25309
	The Land Of Rape And Honey	1988	LP	Warner Brothers	25799
	The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste	1989	LP	Warner Brothers	26004
	In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up (LIVE)	1990	LP	Warner Brothers	26266
	KEIANH	1992	LP	Warner Brothers	26727
	Filth Pig	1995	LP	Warner Brothers	45838
	Dark Side Of The Spoon	1999	LP	Warner Brothers	47311
Moby	Animal Rights	1996	LP	Mute	150
	Honey	1998	Single	Mute	218
	Play	1999	LP	BMG	27049
Mogwai	EP + 2	1999	LP	Matador	4122
	Rock Action	2001	LP	Matador	490-2
Moist	silver	1994	LP	emi	29608
My life with the thrill kill kult	confessions of a knife...	1990	LP	tvt/wax trax!	7089
Mother Love Bone	Mother Love Bone	1992	2XLP	Mercury	12884
Muslimgauze	Maroon	1995	LP	Soleilmoon	84
Neil Young	Live Rust	1978	LP	Reprise	2296
	Mirrorball	1995	LP	Reprise	45934
Nine Inch Nails	Purest Feeling	1988	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Down In It	1989	Single	TVT	2611
	Pretty Hate Machine	1989	LP	TVT	2610
	By Bizarre Hands	1990	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Head Like A Hole	1990	Single	Island Records	484
	Head Like A Hole	1990	EP	TVT	2615
	Sin	1990	Single	TVT	2617
	Broken	1992	EP	Interscope	92213
	Fixed	1992	EP	Interscope	96093
	Demo's and Remixes	1992	CDR	n/a	n/a
	The Broken Movie/Multimedia Disc	1999	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Broken Rarities	1999	CDR	n/a	n/a
	March Of The Pigs	1994	Single	Interscope	95938
	The Downward Spiral	1994	EP	Interscope	92346
	Closer To God	1994	EP	Interscope	95905
	Closer	1994	2XEP	Interscope	854059/061
	Disturbed	1994	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Further Down The Spiral	1995	LP	Interscope	95811
	Crossed Nails	1995	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Blue Lies	1995	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Children Of The Night	1995	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Further Down The Spiral	1995	LP	Interscope	524 125
	Quake Soundtrack	1996	CDR	n/a	n/a
	The Perfect Drug Versions	1997	EP	Interscope	95007
	The Perfect Drug(Complete)	1997	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Videos (89-98)	1998	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Related Side Projects Vol. 1	1999	CDR	n/a	n/a
	The Day The World Went Away	1999	Single	Interscope	97026
	The Fragile	1999	2XLP	Universal	0694904732
	still	2002	LP	Universal	0694931842
Nirvana	100889	1989	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Bleach	1989	LP	Sub Pop	34
	082591	1991	CDR	n/a	n/a
	101491	1991	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Smells Like Teen Spirit	1991	Single	Geffen	21673
	Nevermind	1991	LP	Geffen	24425
	Lithium	1992	Single	Geffen	21815
	Incesticide	1992	LP	Geffen	24504
	In Utero	1993	LP	Geffen	24601
	Heart Shaped Box	1993	Single	Geffen	21849
	Unplugged In New York	1994	LP	Geffen	24727
	Roma	1994	CDR	n/a	n/a
	The Bleeding Years	????	Boot Dub	--	--
Nitzer Ebb	Showtime	1990	LP	Geffen	24284
	Ebbhead	1991	LP	Geffen	24456
	Godhead	1992	EP	geffen	21705
not breathing	sangre azul	1996	lp	invisible	77
option 30	Option 30	1983	cdr	n/a	n/a
our lady peace	naveed	1994	lp	columbia	80191
	Clumsy	1997	lp	columbia	80242
	happiness is not a fish that you can catch	1999	lp	columbia	63707
pearl jam	011090	1990	cdr	n/a	n/a
	Ten	1991	LP	epic	47857
	Vitalogy	1994	LP	epic	?
	No Code	1996	LP	epic	67500
	Merkinball	1995	EP	Epic/Sony	78199
	Yield	1998	LP	Epic/Sony	68164
Peter Gabriel	Peter Gabriel	1977	LP	Atlantic	36147
	Peter Gabriel	1980	LP	Charisma	1-225
	Security	1982	LP	Geffen	2011
	So	1986	LP	Geffen	24088
	Passion	1989	LP	Geffen	24206
	Us	1992	LP	Geffen	24473
	the story of ovo	2000	LP	real world	9
Philip Glass	Koyaanisqatsi	1983	LP	Warner	79506
Phil Western	The Escapist	1998	LP	Map	204
Pigface	Truth Will Out	1993	LP	Invisible	26
Pink Floyd	Relics	1971	LP	EMI	35603
	Meddle	1971	LP	SMAS	832
	re-actor	1971	LP	--	--
	time	1972	LP	gdr	4
	The Dark Side Of The Moon	1973	LP	Harvest	46001
	Wish You Were Here	1975	LP	Columbia	33453
	Animals	1977	LP	Columbia	34474
	A Collection Of Great Dance Hits	1981	LP	Columbia	37680
	The Final Cut	1983	LP	Columbia	38243
	A Momentary Lapse Of Reason	1987	LP	Columbia	40599
Prick	Prick	1995	LP	Interscope	92395
Prodigy	The Fat Of The Land	1997	LP	XL Recordings	121
PTP	Rubber Glove Seduction	1989	LP	Wax Trax!/TVT	8715
Puff Daddy & The Family	Victory(Remixes)	1998	LP	BMG	79164
Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky	Nutcracker Suite (For guitar)	1990	LP	Sugo	8501
	Nutcracker	1991	LP	Naxos	8.550515
Queen	Sheer Heart Attack	1974	LP	Hollywood	61036
Queensryche	Promised Land	1994	LP	emi	30711
Radiohead	Pablo Honey	1993	LP	EMI	81409
	The Bends	1995	LP	EMI	29626
	Live from the 10 Spot	1997	CDR	n/a	n/a
	OK Computer	1997	LP	EMI	55229
	Karma Police	1997	Single	EMI	84162
	Kid A	2000	LP	EMI	27753
	Amnesiac	2001	LP	EMI	32764
Ramones	Mondo Bizarro	1992	LP	Radioactive	10615
	Substitute	1993	PROMO	Radioactive	2896
Re:	mnant	2001	LP	Constellation	15
Red Hot Chili Peppers	What Hits?	1992	LP	EMI	94762
	The Best of	1994	LP	EMI	19706
	One Hot Minute	1995	LP	EMI	57334
	Californication	1999	LP	Warner Bros.	47386
REM	Murmur	1983	LP	IRS	70604
	Reconstruction of the fables	1985	LP	IRS	5592
	Life's Rich Pageant	1986	LP	IRs	5783
	Green	1988	LP	Warner Bros.	25795
	Epononymous	1988	LP	IRS	6262
	Out Of Time	1991	LP	wb	64964
	Automatic For The People	1992	LP	Warner Bros.	45055
	Monster	1994	LP	Warner Bros.	45750
	bang and blame	1994	ep	Warner Bros.	41857
	New Adventures In HiFi	1996	LP	Warner Bros.	63204
	E-Bow The Letter	1996	EP	Warner Bros.	43765
	Daysleeper	1998	Single	Warner Bros.	17129
	Up	1998	LP	Warner Bros.	47112
Revolting Cocks	Beers, Steers + Queers	1990	LP	Wax Trax/TVT	7063
	Beers, Steers + Queers	1990	EP	Wax Trax/TVT	8649
Ric Ocasek	Troublizing	1997	LP	Columbia	67962
Ritalin	Bedside Toxicology	1998	LP	invisible	91
Robert Fripp	And The League Of Crafty Guitarists Live!	1986	LP	EG	43
Rocket From The Crypt	All Systems Go 2	1999	LP	swaami	2001
Ryuichi Sakamoto	Cinemage	1999	LP	Sony Classical	60780
	Back To The Basics	1999	LP	Sony Classical	89079
Sackville	The Principles of Science	1999	LP	Constellation	007
Scott Weiland	12 Bar Blues	1998	LP	atlantic	83084
sergei rachmaninov	piano concertos no. 2 & 3	1984	LP	BMG	242112
severed heads	hot with fleas	1987	LP	Nettwerk	3011
	rotund for success	1989	lp	nettwerk	30035
shalabi effect	shalabi effect	2000	lp	alien8	22
Shudder To Think	First Love, Last Rites	1998	LP	Sony	69029
Silverchair	Frogstomp	1995	LP	murmur	91054
Sister Machine Gun	Sins Of The Flesh	1992	LP	Wax Trax!/TVT	7187
	Burn	1995	LP	Wax Trax!/TVT	7229
	Metropolis	1997	LP	Wax Trax!/TVT	7244
	[R]evolution	1999	LP	Positron	3
Skinny Puppy	remission	1984	LP	Nettwerk	30082
	bites	1985	LP	Nettwerk	30002
	fractal zoom	1986	CDR	n/a	n/a
	live in horst	1986	CDR	n/a	n/a
	addiction	1987	Single	Nettwerk	3010
	cleanse, fold & manipulate	1987	LP	Nettwerk	30011
	VIVIsectVI	1988	LP	Nettwerk	30021
	testure	1989	Single	Nettwerk	33052
	rabies	1989	LP	Nettwerk	93007
	worlock	1990	Single	Nettwerk	3071
	12 inch anthology	1990	LP	Nettwerk	30041
	tormentor	1990	Single	Nettwerk	33072
	too dark park	1990	LP	Nettwerk	30068
	ain't it dead yet?	1991	LP	Nettwerk	30061
	last rights	1992	LP	Nettwerk	30072
	inquisition	1992	Single	Nettwerk	33066
	Rabies (American Remaster)	1993	LP	Capitol	93007
	brap	1996	2XLP	Nettwerk/Subconscious	30103/4
	the process	1996	LP	American/Subconscious	43057/6
	The Process Demoes And Outtakes	1996	LP	n/a	n/a
	remix dystemper	1998	LP	Nettwerk	30128
Skold	Skold	1998	LP	BMG	66579
Sofa	New Era Building	1996	EP	Constellation	1
	Grey	1997	LP	Constellation	2
Sonic Youth	Confusion Is Sex/Kill Yr. Idols	1983	LP	Geffen	24511
	EVOL	1986	LP	Geffen	24513
	Sister	1987	LP	Geffen	24514
	Daydream Nation	1988	LP	Geffen	24515
	Goo	1990	LP	Geffen	24297
	Dirty	1992	LP	Geffen	24485
	Washing Machine	1995	LP	Geffen	24825
	Musicales Perspectives	1997	EP	SYR	1
	Muzikale Vergezichten	1997	EP	SYR	2
	Muzikaj Perspektivoj	1997	EP	SYR	3
	Silver Sessions (For Jason Knuth)	1998	EP	SKR	1
	NYC Ghosts and Flowers	2000	LP	Universal/Geffen	069490650
	murray street	2002	LP	Universal/Geffen	069493319
Soundgarden	Flower	1989	Single	SST	231
	Louder Than Love	1989	LP	A&M	5252
	Big Dumb Sex	1990	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Badmotorfinger/SOMMS	1991	2XLP	A&M	5401
	Superunknown	1994	LP	A&M	0198
	Spoonman	1994	Promo	A&M	535
	Songs From The Superunknown	1995	EP	A&M	1255
	Down On The Upside	1996	LP	A&M	0526
	Live In Austin Texas	1996	LP	n/a	n/a
South Pacific	Constance	1999	LP	Turnbuckle	019
SPK	Breathless 12"	1987	Promo	Nettwerk	342
Sponge	Rotting Pinata	1994	LP	columbia	57800
	Wax Ecstatic	1996	LP	columbia	67578
	New Pop Sunday	1999	LP	BMG	78038
Squarepusher	Big Loada	1996	LP	Interscope	90257
	Music is Rotted One Note	1998	LP	Interscope	90294
Stabbing Westward	Early Demoes	1990	EP	n/a	n/a
	Ungod	1994	LP	Columbia	53614
	Wither, Blister, Burn + Peel	1996	LP	Columbia	66152
	Darkest Days	1998	LP	Columbia	68006
Steve Reich	Reich Remixed (V/A)	1999	LP	Nonesuch	79481-2
	Bang On A Can	2000	LP	Nonesuch	79481-2
Stevie Ray Vaughn	Texas Flood	1983	LP	Columbia	38734
	Couldn't Stand The Weather	1984	LP	Columbia	39304
	Soul To Soul	1985	LP	Columbia	40036
	In Step	1989	LP	Columbia	45024
	The Sky Is Crying	1991	LP	Columbia	47390
Stone Temple Pilots	Core	1992	LP	Atlantic	24184
	Purple	1994	LP	Atlantic	82607
Stoned Poets	present...	1994	LP	self released	n/a
Sunny Day Real Estate	Sunny Day Real Estate	1995	LP	Sub Pop	316
	Radio Sampler	1998	EP	Sub Pop	n/a
Swans	Omniscience	1992	LP	Young God Records	5160
	soundtracks for the blind	1996	2XLP	Young God Records	01
Sweet 75	Sweet 75	1997	LP	Geffen	25140
Talkshow	Talkshow	1997	LP	Atlantic	83040
Tangerine Dream	optical race	1988	LP	private	82042
	Turn Of The Tides	1994	LP	Miramax/BMG	2806
Tarantel	Looking For Things, Searching For Things	2000	LP	Resonant	2
Tears For Fears	Songs From The Big Chair	1984	LP	vertigo	3353
Temple Of The Dog	Temple Of The Dog	1991	LP	A&M	5350
The Beatles	Revolver	1966	LP	EMI	46441
	Magical Mystery Tour	1967	LP	EMI	48062
	The Beatles	1968	2XLP	EMI	46443
	Abbey Road	1969	LP	EMI	46446
	Let It Be	1970	LP	EMI	46447
The Black Heart Procession	2	1999	LP	Touch And Go	194
The Clash	On Broadway-3	1991	LP	Sony/Epic	46991
The Dave Brubeck Quartet	Time Out	1959	LP	columbia	65122
The Innocent	Livin' In The Street	1985	CDR	n/a	n/a
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion	Orange	1994	LP	Matador	105
	Talk About The Blues	1998	EP	Mute	226
The KLF	Doctorin' The Tardis	1991	EP	TVT	4025
	The White Room	1991	LP	BMG	8657
The Offspring	Ignition	1992	LP	epitaph	86424
	Smash	1994	LP	epitaph	???
	Ixnay On The Hombre	1997	LP	columbia	67810
	The Year That Punk Broke	1994	CDR	n/a	n/a
The Reverend Horton Heat	Liquor in the front, poker in the back	1994	LP	sub pop/interscope	92364
The Sea And Cake	Oui	2000	LP	thrill jockey	086
The Smashing Pumpkins	100588	1988	CDR	n/a	n/a
	89 Demoes	1989	CDR	n/a	n/a
	890316	1989	CDR	n/a	n/a
	061690	1990	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Gish	1991	LP	Virgin	86754
	Lull	1991	EP	Virgin	1465
	020991	1991	CDR	n/a	n/a
	021291	1991	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Peel Sessions	1992	EP	Hut	17
	I Am One	1992	Single	Hut	18
	Cherub Rock	1993	Single	Hut	31
	Siamese Dream	1993	LP	Virgin	88267
	Today	1993	Single	Hut	37
	Mashed Potatoes?	1993	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Disarm	1994	Single	Hut	43
	Pisces Iscariot	1994	LP	Virgin	39834
	Earphoria	1994	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Double Door	1995	2XCDR	n/a	n/a
	Sequence 4	1995	CDR	n/a	n/a
	666	1995	CDR	n/a	n/a
	95 Demo's	1995	CDR	n/a	n/a
	The World Is A Vampire	1995	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness	1995	2XLP	Virgin	40864
	Bullet With Butterfly Wings	1996	EP	Virgin	38565
	1979	1996	EP	Virgin	38566
	Mellow Jolly and the Infinite Madness	1996	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Tonight, Tonight	1996	EP	Virgin	38567
	33	1996	EP	Virgin	38568
	Zero	1996	EP	Virgin	38573
	The Aeroplane Flies High (Condensed)	1996	CDR	n/a	n/a
	1979 Mixes	1996	EP	Virgin	93470
	The End Is The Beginning Is The End Remixes	1997	CDR	n/a	n/a
	The End Is The Beginning Is The End Fluke Remixes	1997	EP	Warner Bros	3021
	Children Of Gotham	1997	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Viper Room Sessions	1998	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Ava Adore	1998	Single	Virgin	38647
	Adore	1998	LP	Virgin	45879
	051998	1998	2XCDR	n/a	n/a
	Intimate And Interactve	1998	CDR	n/a	n/a
	103198	1998	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Perfect	1998	Single	Virgin	95360
	Perfect	1998	EP	Virgin	38650
	041999	1999	2XCDR	n/a	n/a
	042399	1999	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Vinyl	1999	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Still Becoming Apart	2000	EP	Virgin	49021
	Machina/The Machines Of God	2000	LP	Virgin	48936
	MachinaII/Friends & Enemies Of Modern Music	2000	CDR	n/a	n/a
The Tea Party	The Tea Party	1991	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Splendor Solis	1994	LP	emi	89419
	The Edges Of Twilight	1995	LP	EMI	32350
	Alhambra	1996	EP	EMI	37240
	Transmission	1997	LP	EMI	55308
	TRIPtych	1999	LP	EMI	96545
the tear garden	tired eyes slowly burning	1987	LP	Nettwerk	30019
	the last man to fly	1993	LP	Nettwerk	30107
	to be an angel blind, the crippled soul divide	1996	LP	Nettwerk/Subconscious	30074/7
The Who	Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy	1971	LP	MCA	37001
	Who's Next?	1971	LP	MCA	37217
	Quadrophenia	1973	2XLP	MCA	6895
throbbing gristle	092977	1977	cdr	--	--
	020881	1981	cdr	--	--
Tool	Undertow	1993	LP	Zoo	11052
	Aenima	1996	LP	Zoo	31087
	Lateralus	2001	LP	volcano	33017
tori amos	little earthquakes	1991	LP	wea	82358
	under the pink	1994	LP	atlantic/wea	82567
Tortoise	Millions now living will never die	1996	LP	Thrill Jockey	25
	tnt	1998	LP	thrill jockey	50
	Derrick Carter Remixes	1998	LP	City Slang	3353
	Tortoise & The Ex (Tortex)	1999	LP	Konkurrent/fish	5
	Standards	2001	LP	thrill jockey	89
U2	Boy	1980	LP	Island	8709
	War	1983	LP	Island	112
	Under A Blood Red Sky	1983	EP	Island	113
	The Joshua Tree	1987	LP	Island	1127
	Mysterious Ways	1991	Single	Island	189
	Achtung Baby	1991	LP	Island	10347
	The Fly	1991	Single	Island	..
	Even Better Than The Real Thing	1992	Single	Island	..
	Zooropa	1993	LP	Island	18047
	Pop	1997	LP	Island	24334
	Last Night On Earth	1997	Single	Island	..
	Please	1997	Single	Island	72129
	The Best Of 1980-1990	1998	2XLP	Island	24612
Various	The Tyranny Of The Beat - Original Soundtracks From The Grey Area	1991	LP	Mute	61237
	In Defense Of Animals	1993	LP	Restless	72747
	Escape From L.A.	1996	LP	Atlantic	92714
	Lost Highway	1996	LP	Interscope	90090
	Ransom	1996	LP	Hollywood	62086
	Sweet Relief II	1996	LP	Columbia	67573
	Idiots Guide To Jazz	1997	LP	BMG	68502
	Paradigm Shift	1997	LP	Nettwerk/Subconscious	30110/12
	Spawn	1997	LP	Sony	68494
	Foxtrot	1998	LP	Chalice	1
	Hymns Of The Warlock (Sic)	1998	LP	n/a	n/a
	Nothing Changes	1998	LP	Interscope	5450
	Songs Of The Witchblade	1998	LP	Dreamworks	50102
	Stigmata	1999	LP	virgin	47753
	The Souls That Create	1999	CDR	n/a	n/a
	Wild Planet	2000	LP	nettwerk/subconscious	30146/17
	Singles	1992	LP	columbia	52476
	heat	1995	LP	wb	46144
Voivod	The Lost Machine/Jack Luminous	1993	EP	MCA	2668
Weather Report	Heavy Weather	1977	LP	Columbia	34418
Weezer	III	2001	LP	Geffen	0694930452
White Zombie	Astro-Creep:2000	1995	LP	Geffen	24806
	Supersexy Swingin' Sounds	1996	LP	Geffen	24976
Wellwater Conspiracy	Brotherhood of Electric: Operational Directive	1999	LP	BMG	43523
William Orbit	Pieces in a Modern Style	2000	LP	Wea	3984289572
William S. Burroughs And Kurt Cobain	The "Priest" They Called Him	1992	EP	Tim Kerr	92
Wiseblood	PTTM	1991	EP	Big Cat	30

what the democrats are doing is trying to charge the president with the crime of disobeying the constitution, with the apparent intent to create a show trial around it.

it might be good theatre, in the end - but it makes no legal sense. at all.

yeah. the democrats want to argue that declaring a national emergency to get around congress is unconstitutional because it is giving the executive branch control of a financial bill, and they're completely, unequivocally wrong about it. the precise error that they're making is in treating the issue as a criminal case - they are essentially trying to establish a motive.

but, constitutional law is not criminal law, and the president's motives are irrelevant. in fact, not only are they irrelevant, but they are even explicitly outside of the scope of judicial review, by the very same legal clause that they're trying to cite.

what the democrats are imagining would look very different than what trump is actually doing. in order to breach the constitutional rule that the democrats are pointing to, trump would have to literally produce an executive order that gives him control of the country's finances, which would likely be overturned by congress without requiring a court battle.

and, on that note, it is not clear to me that the president has two thirds support in the senate for this. the easiest way to overturn this might be for congress to override the veto.

but, if the argument being produced by the democrats is that he's using a dirty trick to get around congress, then what they're doing is essentially crying foul for being outmanoeuvred. there's a rule against overstepping your bounds, but there's no rule against finding a way around them; that's not unconstitutional, it's just finding a way to govern in a system that is designed to prevent it.

so, if the democrats go in and make this argument that he's trying to circumvent congress, it's not the case that they're wrong. it's rather the case that what they're saying doesn't matter. they might be able to get some pothead in the san francisco circuit to buy their arguments, which are political rather than legal, but as soon as it gets into a real court, the judiciary is going to immediately put a block on any attempt to question the president's motives, because it is beyond the jurisdiction of the judicial branch to do so. the court will need to look at the actual issue at hand, which is whether there is a reasonable grounds for an emergency, and not at some conspiracy theory cooked up by some criminal law attorneys.

if the democrats actually launch this action properly - which is a judicial review case - they could win it with minimal effort. but, if they politicize it into a constitutional law case, and then misapply bad criminal law arguments that have no merit in a constitutional law discussion, they're going to get laughed out of the court room.

again - 2:1 that they fuck it up.

i think they've already broadcasted that they will.

i understand that there is some plausible deniability around the tuskegee experiment, and it has even been Officially Debunked By The Internet.

but, the story around tuskegee has changed over time, and the denials should not be taken absolutely.

the story of experimentation in guatemala doesn't have the same plausible deniability attached to it. or, at least not yet. and, you should ask the question: if you believe they did it in guatemala, why don't you believe they did it in alabama?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jun/08/guatemala-victims-us-syphilis-study

there is a caveat, and that has to do with foreign aid work. if i were an african, i might be queasy about letting some aid worker from some american foundation put something in my arm - because there's an unfortunate history around eugenics. the issue here isn't around the safety of vaccines, but around what is actually being injected.

even in the united states, there's the tuskegee experiment, where they injected blacks with syphilis. this is something that happened, and it can't be completely dismissed when making decisions.

but, regular school vaccinations should be mandatory.

i have no patience for anti-vaxxers, whatsoever.

see, if i were writing the laws, i'd spin the situation around: refusing to vaccionate your children would be considered child abuse, and grounds to place a child in foster care.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4957561/teens-vaccines-canada-consent-rules/?utm_source=Article&utm_medium=Outbrain&utm_campaign=2015

in evolution, there are winners and losers. why should government pick and choose?

these endangered species just couldn't compete on the market, and should be let to fail.

there's more than sarcasm, here. one must remember that the malthuses of their day were influenced more by market economics than darwinian selection, and that attempting to apply market theory to biology has led to some of the worst human rights disasters in human history.

ford is entering a very dangerous space with this.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/01/18/news/doug-ford-reviewing-endangered-species-act-find-efficiencies-businesses

also: the secondhand smoke is back.

gross.

i'm going to have to take a hot shower, put the fan back on and determine what my next step is.

the discourse is just a confusing mess.

the right claims that the point of a carbon tax is not to fight climate change but to raise revenue, and in a sense they're right. but, given that we have a structural deficit caused by undertaxation, i'm willing to support the thing on those grounds, nonethelesss.

but, it does not change the need for an infrastructure-driven carbon transition plan.

see, in the context of a province that won't tax businesses at a reasonable rate, i'll welcome the revenue from a provincial carbon tax - even if its less than they would have pulled in from california, by selling these phony licenses to pollute to them.

but, this should not in any way be confused for or misconstrued as a meaningful climate change policy.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/12/news/doug-fords-government-just-proposed-plan-looks-lot-carbon-tax

that's right: our corporate tax rates are too low, which has created a structural deficit. but, it's only a problem if you don't understand how government accounting operates.

the best thing to do would be to roll out infrastructure spending to boost tax revenue.

but, we're stuck in a race to the bottom, and held hostage by an ideologically backwards approach to governing that thinks that government is the problem in society.

a rational person might see a report like this as an argument that austerity in this province is already at a breaking point. but, the government is likely to interpret it as a green light to sell off public assets, because they don't actually care about fiscal deficits in the first place - it's just smoke and mirrors for a pro-market agenda.

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2019/02/14/doug-ford-vows-to-find-waste-after-financial-watchdog-warns-theres-little-to-cut_a_23669935/

i don't want to have a debate about "combatants" v "non-combatants" either, as though that makes some kind of difference.

you don't have to pick up a gun to provide material support to a terrorist group; mothering more fighters is an act of material support.

and, we cannot even have a debate over whether we can tolerate this or not.

they should clearly be sent directly to jail with no chance of parole, and no debate on the topic is reasonable.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/isis-canadians-syria-prosecutions-1.5019971

doug ford: wasting money on chasing the jobs of yesterday. he'll line up at centre field to fight against chronos and win! let's all get together and turn back the clocks.

again: what an embarrassing doofus.

it's 2019. the combustion engine is dead. that money would be better spent retooling factories for renewable energy production.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/autos/doug-ford-announces-40m-for-ontario-auto-sector-plan-1.4297180

see, i'm not even going to try to understand how a corruption case about a canadian construction firm's behaviour in libya is about indigenous rights or feminism.

the discourse is pathetic.

if you want to take the president to court over whether this is a national emergency or not, you have to understand the question in front of the court, and i expect that the democrats are going to fuck this up because they have a history of politicizing it.

the first murmurs i've heard are saying things like "it's a collapse of the separation of powers!" and "he's just trying to overturn congress!".

true. probably.

but, this can never be a question in front of a serious judge. in a sense, it doesn't even fucking matter why he's doing it. the judiciary cannot second guess the president! that, itself, would be a collapse in the separation of powers, and if it's the argument the democrats move forward with then they're going to lose.

as it was with the travel ban, you have to accept the premise, because the court has no jurisdiction to challenge it. if the president says there's a national emergency, then there's a national emergency. period. it doesn't matter if it's stupid, the president has executive power, and you have to deal with that.

the question before the court is not going to be whether there's a national emergency, or whether he's being racist, or whether he's overturning congress, but whether his actions are a rational means to address the national emergency. and, the way he words the things is going to be important.

so, let's say he decides that there's a national emergency because drugs are coming in through the border. it doesn't matter that this isn't true. what matters is whether a wall is a rational means to address it - and it's actually not hard to show that it isn't, so long as you understand that's what you're supposed to do.

everybody can intuitively grasp that he shouldn't be able to do this, but you're actually wrong - in theory this is well within his executive power. what the judiciary can do is hold him accountable in the sense of making sure he's not being irrational. but, the president is the president, and the judiciary is the judiciary, and democrats have to make sure they understand what the different roles are before they fuck this up.

my odds are 2:1 that they fuck it up.

3. If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.

so, i slept all day tuesday and i slept all day wednesday - i was up in spurts, never more than a few hours at a time - and now i feel like i'm alert, after walking up early this morning.

i really don't know...

i can still save the week if i get everything properly organized by monday.

apparently, this guy was a bus driver before he was president.

he's not exactly a rhodes scholar.

what i said was:

if the americans wanted to get rid of maduro, they'd run an oil blockade for five minutes and watch the military take over. 
(http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2019/01/if-americans-wanted-to-get-rid-of.html)

i've said that more than once, and i had to go back to check the language - i did say blockade, which is good, because it's what i meant.

a blockade is not an economic policy. it's not sanctions. a blockade is a military policy that means physically sending ships to venezuela to stop the movement of oil out of the country. and, while it is an act of war, the venezuelans would be insane to carry it through to it's logical conclusion. the venezuelan military would intervene after roughly five minutes.

so long as venezuela has a way to export the oil, it will at least try to do so. and, right now, america does not appear to have the standing - or the diplomatic ability - to stop that from happening. they're just stuck lookng at a nuclear-armed india down the barrel of a gun and saying "or else".

or else what?

not much, frankly.

but, the answer is to keep waiting. venezuela is simply too reliant on the united states for any scheme like this to last very long, and if maduro was more intelligent then he'd realize that and step away.

game theory assumes a rational opponent; you sometimes have to adjust for irrationality, but stupidity cannot overturn inevitability. and, there is simply no way out.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/venezuelas-maduro-shows-no-sign-of-leaving-now-what-11550097501

there are laws against aiding a terrorist group, and anybody trying to enter canada after joining isis should be charged under them.

further, if the existing laws do not have the proper strength or jurisdiction to land anybody trying to enter the country in jail, they should be altered so that they do.

i've been clear that i would like to limit the amount of support we provide to refugees, or at least subject them to the same criteria we have for immigrants. we can argue over that. but, i don't think that arguing over whether we should provide a safe-haven for terrorists is in the realm of reasonable discourse.

i simply don't see any argument for tolerance on this point.

and, how is the air quality in here?

it's dry. it looks like we have one more cold snap, and then we might at least be back to seasonal weather - which is around freezing. it doesn't usually actually warm up until late april, but it's the cold that forces the dry air. it's too early to say, but let's hope we're past the worst of it, after one more snap next week.

besides that, i actually can't detect anything. i was getting some kind of second hand smoke up until a few weeks ago, but it seems to have lifted. i also left the fan in the bathroom running for about two weeks in order to clear a sewer gas smell out (i might need to clean the p-traps, which is a normal maintenance thing), and i'm not noticing it any more - although i'll admit that it might be because the ground is frozen. there's still some dust in here, but it's now my dust, if you understand, so it's not as bothersome.

i would rather the air moisten up a little, sure, but i don't have anything concrete to complain about, or to tie the health issues to. i haven't picked up any whiffs of pot in weeks.

it could be the weather; i'm known to react poorly to it sometimes, but not usually like this. i could be dehydrated, although i'm feeling like that would by a symptom rather than a cause. my skin tone has also fallen several shades since i've moved in; i'm back in a basement, with blinds, and not getting any sunlight. so, i could be going through some kind of vitamin d withdrawal or something.

i mentioned that it feels like i drank too much coffee and can't come down, and i want to stick with that - withdrawal is the right way to describe it. but, it's withdrawal mixed with some kind of upper. i've actually never done mdma (although it's in the list of drugs i would try if i knew the source...the problem is that they tell you it's molly, then sell you meth.), but i might imagine that what i'm feeling is not very different from a broken dopamine receptor. and, the nature of the experience of a stimulant is really clear - right down to the clenched teeth.

the weird thing is that i went through this last year, too, and initially thought it was a consequence of the neighbour smoking meth. fwiw, i never convinced myself that she wasn't smoking meth, at least at first - there was a nasty smell of burning plastic that moved from downstairs to outside, even as the stench of burning marijuana parked itself in place. i'm still convinced that i was dealing with a reaction to some kind of stimulant at the end of february of last year. and, if i were to describe what i'm going through right now, it would be relatively similar.

i don't have any reason to think it's true, but it almost seems like somebody spiked my water supply with meth.

all i can do is try to sleep it off.

"my new lung transplant is sinking, man - and i don't want to hack.

*cough*"

hey, i've got some ideas for strain names for the tragically hip's new marijuana line.

10. blown brain cells at high dumb
09. the tragic-saline drip
08. a head in the last century
07. systolic equipment attached to the back of a motorized wheelchair
06. 50 mission ct-scan
05. new lung transplant is sinking
04. saliva trickling down
03. disgrace, too.
02. an inch an hour
01. head cave

they were always too pompous to understand irony, and wouldn't understand it if explained to them, now. the band that lost their singer to cancer at 53 is now selling marijuana. astounding.

they've always been a microcosm of everything that is wrong with canada, so i guess this is kind of an expectation.

i felt a little better this morning, but i'm still woozy and slept most of the day.

i dunno

socialism has always been a means to an end, not an end to itself.

if you think that history ends with socialism, you've lost the plot.

and, we're increasingly entered a new economic reality where time has passed socialism by.

uch-o.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/mark-carney-marxism-automation-bank-of-england-governor-job-losses-capitalism-a8304706.html

so, what's the deal with communism, anyways?

we hear a lot about communists, but we don't really know who they are. who are these people?

communism is a theoretical social order where production is automated, and held in common. you might think it's a bunch of other things, but it isn't - it's automation. that's it. communism = automation.

so, if you're a communist, you support automation; if you support automation, you're a communist.

there's the caveat that you have to get rid of private property, but that's an inevitability, because private property is impossible in the face of automation; it's a redundancy to talk about "production being automated and held in common", it's enough to just talk about automation - and the inevitable struggle as a consequence of it.

automation is fast approaching. does that mean we're on the way to communism? by definition, yes.

now, nobody knows how we get there, or what happens in between, but if you adhere to any level of technological determinism at all then it's unavoidable by anything short of nuclear holocaust. so, not only are we quickly moving towards communism, but there's nothing that capitalism can do to stop it. the question is what kind of a path we take - and we have infinitely many choices.

we could end up killing 70% of the world's population, first, for example. but, if that's what happens, then what will be left will be communism...

or, the capitalists could step down without a fight. who knows.

we can be dialectical, but that would be silly - the actual outcome is likely somewhere in between.

but, that's the deal with communism - it's automation, it's happening and nobody can stop it.

so, why is israel so important in american politics? is it because of money? aipac? jewish bankers?

no.

the money flows the other way - we send them money. billions. and, the money that israel gets for "self-defense" is a downpayment on america's ability to control the region's oil supply. this is a policy that was designed by henry kissinger during the nixon presidency.

if you're concerned about gaza, and recognize that israel is only able to act with impunity because it is following american dictates, then you need to look at the root cause, which is the policy put in place by kissinger. it has nothing to do with benjamins, with aipac, with jewish bankers or even with the evangelical right - it is a harsh realpolitik around controlling the oil. reversing israel's impunity means reversing america's strategic reliance on middle eastern oil imports.

the best way to help people in gaza is to support renewable energy projects in the united states. and, that may very well mean asking some jewish bankers for some interest-bearing loans.

see, this was always the potential blowback, and it's essentially the same risk that the united states has always faced in pushing down sanctions on iran - it's imperative that you work with your allies to ensure that you aren't just redirecting oil away from the mainland, and ultimately isolating yourself.

russia is at this point actively acting against us interests, but they're also a major oil exporter, which is something that the countries that the united states isolates has in common. i mean, venezuela isn't going to get very far trying to export oil to iran, right. i figured the only way out was china, but that they'd buckle eventually. china likes to push buttons, but they remain reluctant and disinterested in challenging american dictates directly. that's bound to change, eventually.

india is even more of a wildcard than china, partly because of the rivalry between them and the complicated mess in pakistan. they seem to have reacted exceedingly negatively to hillary's asia pivot, which appears to have pencilled them into a security triangle with australia and japan without asking them, first. that seems to be the moment that the indians starting pushing back, in apparent concern over their sovereignty - and they are of course a rising power that doesn't appear to be keen on being told what to do. the indians were fundamental in unravelling the iran deal, too. we still tend to see them as being under us hegemony, i guess due to america's taking over the commonwealth after wwII, but this isn't really in line with reality, any more.

there is a large indian minority in that particular subregion - the north of south america and the islands off the coast - but i'm not sure if that's really important, here. it might be.

i'll clarify a point: i meant a literal oil embargo. like, sending the navy seals in, sort of thing. the kind of thing the british used to do all of the time...

regardless, i still can't imagine this actually working. but, if the indians are beginning to align more firmly with the sco, and willing to offer venezuela a market, that could have bigger implications in the long run.

there's a difference between an india that is distant and disengaged (non-aligned) and an india that is actively hostile.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-crude-exports/venezuela-turns-to-india-for-oil-exports-as-u-s-sanctions-bite-idUSKCN1Q12GI

just a quick life update.

i'm almost done organizing all of these things. i can't find about two year's worth of email. i'm about half done reorganizing books and files by year and think i lost a box somewhere between the last basement and this one. i'll probably organize the cds the same way and vaguely feel like some are missing but can't really tell.

the cds are probably all rotten at this point, anyways.

a few more days at most, hopefully. there's daylight, at least.

it seems like i'll need to wait until the very last moment until i get the report on the cop. i'm not doing anything else until i do.

i've also felt just awful over the last few days, like i drank far too much coffee and can't come down. my teeth are just clenched shut; my eyeballs are burning from the back in. and, my entire body feels like it's in a tension vice. i dunno what this is about, but i feel like i need to sleep it off.

i'm very disappointed in gavin newsome's decision to abandon a clean-energy transportation project.

i guess chevron got their money's worth, in the end.

and, yes - she had to resign.

that said...

the toronto transit system is not a municipal system at this point, it is a component of a large, regional system that spans a number of municipalities, as well as a collection of rural regions. this is a system that already extends deep into ontario in every direction and could very well find itself overseeing electric rail connections to detroit, to sudbury and to montreal within the next few decades.

i would support the integration of the ttc with the go trains under the model of a kind of crown corporation. the reality of regional transit means the surrounding cities need a say, too - not just the toronto city council. but, i'd like to see the operating decisions made at the municipal level.

one possibility would be a board that has x number of members from the different cities, perhaps even chosen directly. so, toronto may get 60% of the seats or something, but cities like hamilton and kitchener would get some seats, too.

a pure upload is dangerous, as it is giving the government a valuable asset to sell for a song to it's buddies. but, it's probably not the right idea, anyways.

they're going to sell it off to their cronies.

https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/2019/02/12/province-and-city-release-framework-for-deal-to-upload-torontos-subway-to-queens-park.html

see, and what you have to understand is that this isn't a financial decision, it's a social engineering tactic by a government that wants to turn the clocks back - and has an alarming amount of support for it.

https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/2019/02/06/experts-call-ontarios-full-day-kindergarten-visionary-the-ford-government-is-eyeing-changes.html

"for your crimes against the market, you shall be sentenced to actually read atlas shrugged out loud under the careful supervision of jon lovitz. all of it. no skipsies."

it's like playing whack-a-mole: you round up a bunch of suits on corruption charges, and the system just regenerates them instantly.

you have to get to the root cause, which means abolishing capitalism itself.

in the mean time, we have a choice of equally corrupt bourgeois parties with differing social policies and competing social visions. that's what elections need to be about, not some red herring about corruption.

"this just in, frank...

there are new allegations coming in tonight that capitalism is corrupt. i repeat: there are allegations coming in that capitalism is corrupt. are these claims credible, frank?"

*pause*

*snicker*

*click*

"we appear to have lost frank. but, we'll be following these shocking revelations as more information comes in."

THE FUTURE OF THE FREE MARKET IS AT STAKE.

awww.

those poor capitalist contractors weren't able to compete freely on an open market.

awww.

i suspect that most people don't care about construction firms buying contracts in libya any more than i do. the thing is that the media might insist that they ought to.

i think trudeau can get out of this fairly easily by creating a good distraction.

i would like to see the liberals knocked down to a minority, and trudeau slowly pushed out, but i don't want to see the conservatives sweep to power on a corruption scandal. yuck.

so, i have to point this out every once in a while because there really does seem to be some evidence that somebody is masquerading as me, or at the least not going out of their way to deny a misidentification.

i am an openly transgendered male to female canadian citizen in my late 30s. i was born in ottawa, ontario in the early 1980s and have lived in windsor, ontario since mid-2013. both of my parents were born in canada, and to my knowledge all of my grandparents were born in canada, as well (albeit rather scattered across the country). i currently have grandparents in victoria, ottawa, florida and presumably hell, if anywhere at all. my mother lives in ottawa; my father is dead.

my mother is of mixed european and asian heritage, but would identify as european. my father's ancestry is not entirely clear, but probably includes jewish, italian, quebecois and native american ancestry. he may also have some african american ancestry. he never did a dna test, to my knowledge, but my step-mother was a lab technician at the red cross, and confirmed that he had a rare blood type which is indicative of the presence of some kind of south asian ancestry, which he was unable to explain via his family's legends. two possibilities are some kind of inuit ancestry (possible inuit/cree mixing) and potentially some kind of gypsy ancestor. it's his own father that seems to have been of a complex ancestry. his mother was adopted, and raised a zito.

i was raised without a religion, identify as an atheist and would consider myself culturally white, if ethnically mixed. i was told and assumed i was of white european ancestry until i was in my early 20s, although in hindsight it seems as though people at school and work made different assumptions. i have spent most of my life completely oblivious to this.

my skin colour is in fact highly reactive to variations in sunlight, and will modulate from nordic white to a heavy italian brown based on how much time i've recently spent in the sun. i tan easily, and don't burn.

i have recently made an attempt to centralize my internet presence around this blog and can in good faith claim that profiles not listed from this account do not belong to me. i repeat: if you cannot link to a profile from this page, you should have a high level of confidence that the person that owns that profile is not me.

specifically:

- i rarely post at facebook nowadays. this blog was meant to provide me with a way to migrate out of facebook. i have one profile (jessica amber murray) and some pages related to the music. that is all.
- i have one reddit account with no more than a handful of posts. i do not frequent reddit, and have little intellectual respect for it as a community. i would celebrate if the servers were hit by an asteroid, and the site was forever abolished.
- i have one twitter account that is essentially a parody. i just really don't tweet.
- while i did finally purchase a smart phone in mid-2017, i do not have a sim card, and rarely use it. i purchased a chromebook in late 2018 that i expect to use much more frequently.
- i have not been to detroit since may, 2018 and may not be back for some time, still.
- i do not play any video games at all whatsoever, and have never had an interest in first-person type shooter games. i have never owned a modern game console; i had a sega genesis in the early 90s, but i had entirely lost interest in it by the time i was 15 and never upgraded it to something newer. i played a lot of civ 2 in high school, but i haven't touched it in years.
- i don't know anything about 4chan or trade bitcoins or use tor or go into the darkweb or anything like that.

as mentioned: it should be easy to identify if a profile belongs to me because i will link to it from this page. and, if i don't link to it from this page, you should have confidence that it is not my profile.

clearly, any imposters have decided they have something to gain from the charade, and if they continue to trick you then it's worth their time. i'm simply not going to spend my time chasing these people down. there is one specific high school student in new york that i am aware of that uses my previous youtube handle as a twitter id, and that i have confronted, but it should be clear that this person is not me. i am also vaguely aware of a supposed "doppelganger" in detroit that i may have even spent some time partying with, but i can only clarify that i live in canada and let you figure it out.

it is ultimately your responsibility to take me seriously when i tell you what profiles are mine and which ones aren't - and the longer you feed the imposters, the longer they'll carry on the charade.

this "job uncertainty" with the federal shutdown is probably driving people nuts. trump almost certainly missed his chance to sway the democrats, i already went over why stopping and starting is a losing strategy and why his only real chance now is to shut the government down until the next election and hope the apathy completely dismantles the democrats, but it's some pretty nasty psychological warfare on the actual workers.

so, i'm trying to see it from their perspective. what would i do?

the actual reality is that if i had a government job in dc, i'd be single in a cheap apartment. i wouldn't own a car or even pay for public transit - i'd bike or walk. no kids. so, i'd be spending something like 30% of my income on rent and food and putting the other 70% away for retirement.

if you told me i don't have to go to work for the next six months, i'd take advantage of the opportunity to go out and live an actual life.

in fact, you might have a hard time getting me to come back...

i point the same thing out every time these cash-for-influence stories come up.

first, i want to point out that there's a difference between the kind of corruption you saw in something like the sponsorship scandal - which i think is harmless - and the kind of kind of corruption you see in the ford government, where they're essentially selling off public services to campaign donors, which is extremely dangerous. there's a big difference between what you might call "political favouritism", which is a longstanding issue for the liberals, and literally putting the government up for sale, which is what the tories tend to do - and you shouldn't conflate favouritism with restructuring. one is an inevitable consequence of democracy, while the other is absolutely toxic to it.

but, what i have to point out whenever this comes up is how horribly ignorant people sound when they try to make the influence of money an issue in elections, as though this is something that can be reformed or gotten rid of. it's one thing to hear an idealistic teenager talk like this, but have these people not read the republic? plato's argument remains the most cogent exploration of the topic i've seen. this used to be required reading to get out of high school; nowadays, you can write major op-eds in national papers completely ignoring it, or even run for president by loudly demonstrating that you've never even heard of it - because so many voters haven't read it.

plato lays down the flat truth by explaining that corruption is a necessary trade-off for the freedoms provided by democracy, and then actually uses it as an argument against democracy (and in favour of what the enlightenment resurrected as enlightened despotism). we don't have to follow him in his conclusion to accept the basic point, in the convincing terms he lays it out in: that you can't have democracy without corruption, and any successful reforms within a democracy to root out corruption would necessarily render that democracy a tyranny. freedom and corruption are, in fact, exactly the same thing.

so, we need to make a choice - if we want to live in a democracy, we have to accept some level of corruption as normal. and, if we don't want to tolerate some level of corruption, then we need to embrace some form of autocratic government instead.

if the accusations surrounding snc-lavelin are true, i don't know how that affects me, as an artist living in windsor. i don't see any particular reason to care; to me, this is an acceptable level of corruption for me to exchange for my freedom. i can't even articulate an argument to the contrary.

so, don't expect much analysis from this space - i don't care about political interference around contracts for construction firms in libya.

this lisa mcleod character is really demonstrating herself to be horrifically incompetent, and this is a good example of the kind of idiocy that one expects from a conservative government in this country. they don't even operate under a right-wing ideology, they're just openly nihilistic and destructive.

autism is a lifelong problem. and, yes - it's expensive. but, that's exactly why it needs to be socialized; it's the perfect example of when a government should step in, according to any conservative ideology i've ever read. if you were to ask any conservative philosopher that's ever existed what a government should actually do, "take care of autistic people" would be in the list of core responsibilities, along with jailing poor people and conquering savages in order to steal their resources.

the reason is that it's a full time job for whomever has to do it. if you force a family into this role, you're completely eliminating any ability they have to be self-sufficient. if it's a two income family, it becomes a one income family; if it's a one income family, it ends up reliant on some kind of assistance. so, any economist will tell you that the consequences of trying to save money like this are just going to end up costing you more.

but, beyond that, there's a human element to this. having an autistic child in a society without a social support system is a brutal life sentence. what is the argument? god's will? it's so pathetically backwards...

and, for what? an accounting identity?

there's no question that previous governments have underfunded the system. but, what lisa mcleod is doing with this is not how an advanced civilization deals with a complex social problem, it's how barbarians cull the weak.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/autism-services-funding-parents-react-1.5010316

we imprisoned these people here - in the middle of nowhere, with no way in or out, no economy, no future.

we can let them out, if we want.

ok.

so, it seems like cory booker is a black democrat (tm), whereas kamala harris just a democrat who happens to be dark-skinned.

it's too early, still. but, harris - a californian elitist - may have a hard-time competing with a guy that knows how to sing in the choir; don't be surprised if she's actually barely competitive in the south. the flip side is that harris may end up destroying booker in the bigger liberal cities like chicago, new york, detroit.

the left's chance to capitalize on this may rely on harris' ability to cut deeply enough into booker's lead in the south, to force him into what are pyrrhic victories, while having no chance of winning, herself.

i know the media likes her chances, but she's dominated. if she ends up with booker running strong in the south, and a left liberal running strong in the north, she gets squeezed out.

i guess her best chance is to try to run as the leftist candidate. that might not be believable on it's face, but if the left doesn't show up, that's her path.

booker, meanwhile needs to stop her from killing them both off.

the south may surprise me, though. i know that the demographics are changing, and the traditional church circuit is becoming less important. i couldn't imagine that this is the election where urban secularism finally overpowers the black church, but it could expose some weaknesses. the best case scenario is probably that it just hopelessly splits the vote for both of them.

i don't expect warren to make it iowa. and i don't expect biden to actually run.

lol.

it doesn't matter what's true, right?

https://www.rt.com/news/450925-pompeo-america-obligated-fights-iran-venezuela/

i'm going to reiterate what i just said: the federal liberals seem to be very close-minded when it comes to policy discussions around immigration.

that's not going to serve them well.

it already hasn't.

this sounds like a technologically-driven, rational way to deal with skills shortages without allowing the culture to be overrun with labour surpluses. it has some obvious potential for abuse, but i've been clear that i think the problem we're having is that we're relying too much on market theory, and not doing enough planning. so, this sounds like the right change in approach, at least.

and, of course, such a program could and should be used to prioritize local employment needs over immigration.

the caveat is that this is quebec, where they often come up with superior ideas and then fudge the implementation. but, let's hope they get it right - because it sounds like it could be a model to be exported.

i would like to see the feds listen and react, and they do tend to be more open to different ideas from quebec, for obvious electoral reasons, rather than condemn and attack in a manner that is both tone deaf and counterproductive. the 20th century model of immigration does need to change with the technology, and adjust to differing immigration pushes and pulls.

this sounds so simple and obvious that it just might work.....

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/coalition-avenir-quebec-immigration-bill-1.5009402

i don't know anything more about corruption in the pmo than anybody else, although any sane analysis of democracy (beginning with plato) would argue it must be there.

but, i immediately pointed out that the most likely cause of the indigenous attorney getting sacked was a refusal - or the perception of a refusal - to take particular types of instruction.

i wouldn't be surprised if the story ends up being that the pmo didn't feel comfortable intervening, rather than that they actually did.

but, i'm sure there's a story there. and, i would expect that conspiracy theorists will find more salacious details by focusing on the new appointee rather than the old one.

as ted is a sophisticated financial expert, he surely understand that if you taxed poor people at...really at all....then they wouldn't be able to buy anything and the economy would collapse. then, stocks would fall, and his hard done by parasitic upper class would have to get jobs - with wages so low that they can't pay taxes.

if there's a structural problem here, and i'm not convinced there is, then it doesn't help to get the rich angry at the poor.

the problem is that wages are too low. if you support policies that boost wages, then you pull people into higher tax brackets.

but, it's just an accounting trick, at the end of the day, because the monetary system is circular - it doesn't really matter if you force employers to pay out or you send people checks. what's important is making sure that poor people have enough money to spend.

https://business.financialpost.com/personal-finance/taxes/trudeau-is-right-40-of-canadians-dont-pay-income-taxes-which-means-someone-else-is-picking-up-the-bill

that said, my experience suggests that there may be a serious ignorance problem with low wage workers around the question of what kind of tax return they're entitled to, if they'd actually do their taxes. i would suspect that millions of dollars in refunds probably go unclaimed because legions of minimum wage workers are simply too stupid to fill out the forms.

i used to have this argument with people that i worked with all of the time, when they complained about the money being taken off their check. and, i'd ask them point blank - did you do your taxes?

"no. but, don't tell anybody, i don't want to get in trouble."

i can't count the number of people i tried to explain this to, and essentially nobody believed me when i did. they seemed to expect that if they did their taxes, they'd have to pay them - so they just don't do them. they had no idea that there's a check with their name on it sitting at the cra. really...

i guess it's a cost-benefit analysis as to whether non-tory governments want to get the word out or not. they might pick up some working class voters - but at the cost of giving them their taxes back.

as a poor person, i can confirm that i do not pay income taxes. even when i was working, i always received tax refunds at the end of the year to the point that i can say with clear confidence that i have not ever paid any income taxes at all.

while i do pay consumption taxes in theory, essentially all of the money that i actually spend is on food, which is not taxed. while i do not receive yearly tax refunds on disability, because i do not pay payroll taxes, i do get gst and hst rebates that work out to about $65/month from the province and $100, quarterly, from the feds. so, i get back about $90/month in taxes - and might spent $5, tops, most months.

by my calculations, harper's gst cut put something like $10/year back in my pocket.

in fact, i'd like to spin the situation around on the tories - and demand that they stop with the nonsense about how cutting taxes benefits the poor, because it doesn't, considering that it's usually tied to cuts in services.

laverdiere should just up and join the liberal party, already.

don't be surprised if she crosses. and good riddance.

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/ndp-shifts-position-on-sensitive-venezuela-issue-despite-differences-of-opinion-inside-party

so, these are not the timelines i wanted, but i at least managed to get all of the email sorted into folders over the last two days.

you can't finish doing all of the things unless you do all of the things, first. so, that's one of the things. finished. just keep going...

i think i should have heard something back on the print destruction request by now, and will need to look into next steps. i am preparing myself for the need to sue the rcmp over this - which i'm willing to do on principle. any law that allows that cops to keep prints on an arrest for being annoying in applying for an apartment is clearly overly broad and needs to be struck down by the court.

i mean, it'll be easier if they just do it.

but, i'm willing to go to the supreme court if they don't.

well, the media is reporting that the s-300 missile defense system is finally operational in syria.

i don't want to be dismissive of the israeli capabilities - it's quite well known that they have very well trained pilots and, perhaps more importantly, very advanced hacking and espionage abilities, which is especially important in contrast with the russians, who are still dominant in hardware manufacturing but are decades behind on the software side. the israelis may very well find themselves able to shut the system down remotely with minimal effort; i would not expect the russians to be able to defend themselves from an israeli systems blitz, in the long run - the israelis will eventually solve this problem.

if the system is at least operational in the short run, the next question to ask is what kind of coverage exists. i would suspect that there will remain weak spots that can be exploited, and the israelis will find them. it will be up to the russians to adjust.

but, if the israelis are serious about these attacks until at least election day, we'll see how serious the defenses are.

this is the same bullshit conspiracy theory the us state department was pushing.

https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2019/01/statement-on-health-and-security-of-canadian-diplomatic-staff-in-havana-cuba.html

one would have expected the old liberals to push back.

but, the new liberals will no doubt make it a point to rhetorically impugn the cuban government as war criminals.

if pressed on the point, freeland may even move to align on the blockade.

our policies have changed.

https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/mckenna-trump-trudeau-on-collision-course-over-cuba-sanctions-281906/

when america purchased louisiana, the french in the area really assimilated remarkably well. i don't know how much emigration occurred, but i know the french are still there - i meet some of them in detroit.

on the other hand, the british conquered the french settlements in canada, which at the time included a chunk of the american upper midwest, with the final battle happening in 1763. i suspect the difference between conquest and purchase is the reason our french remain french - just as your spanish remain spanish.

so, the proper way to convert what american textbooks say about hispanics is to replace them with references to the french. and, the french are indeed the second largest ethnic group in canada, by a good distance. while there was some early spanish exploration up the coast, the british and spanish did not come into anything resembling a conflict in the areas we now call canada. besides the conquered french settlements, the only other european power we found ourselves in competition with was the russians - a competition that of course continues to this day over the arctic. well, i guess we've had some skirmishes with the danes over greenland, too.

but, we didn't have this tapestry of european colonies. delaware was a swedish colony. new york was a dutch colony. pennsylvania was a german colony. there's nothing like that, here - it's just the british and the french, with the russians to the north and the far west. it's true that we settled large amounts of northern and eastern europeans on the plains, but that was directed - there weren't ukrainian or finish or norwegian colonies, just large amounts of migration.

the scots and welsh came with the brits, as elsewhere in the empire. and we took in a lot of irish in the nineteenth century, as the americans did, too - as well as italians in the early 20th. but, up until 1970, we really didn't have the kind of diversity that the united states had, with all of these conquered territories being organized into semi-autonomous states. we had the british and the french. and the natives...

so, there's the comparison between the french in canada and the hispanics in the united states. there is also a comparison between blacks in the united states and indigenous groups in canada, although it is much weaker. and, where immigration is shared (irish, italians) you can draw those comparisons. beyond that, much of the demographic analysis really breaks down as incoherent.

our largest visible minority group is "south asians". american demographics don't generally - from what i've seen - separate between south and east and west asians, but just put "asian" on the survey and leave it at that, which is kind of useless if you want any meaningful analysis. if you add it up, canada is nearly 15% "asian" - meaning asians are numerically as important in canada as blacks are in the united states, although they don't tend to vote as a block. in fact, south asians tend to vote liberal while east asians tend to vote conservative, which i might argue ought to be the other way around, but is based on weird historicisms that are hard to explain in this space. it's not hard to understand why chinese immigrants may have an attachment to free market economics, but they tend to be less social conservative; on the other hand, south asian immigrants tend to be very traditional and kind of ideal conservative voters, but often end up voting liberal (or ndp) due to the left being a little more inviting. i would hazard a guess that this might flip over in the second or third generation. it might have already happened in toronto.

the point is that, behind the french, which occupy the role in canada that hispanics do in the united states, the next largest voting bloc is recent immigrants from asia - mostly middle or upper class, highly educated and generally relatively pro-market, a stark contrast with the bloc of black voters in the united states.

you'd think the liberals would know this, right? it's increasingly unclear.

i'm going to hope that it's just one prominent advisor that can get axed, and not systemic. but, it might be.

but, i need to point something else out, because there's a consistency at play around it - somebody in the pmo is using an american textbook or something, because they seem to be basing their policy on american demographics.

trudeau seems to care more about black history month than trump does. but, it's directed at 0.5% of the population. the remaining african-canadian population is mostly carribbean (or directly from africa) and does not have the same history, or any attachment to "black history month". the pmo just thinks it's governing from sacramento.

likewise, our "latino" population - spanish-speaking canadians - is something like 1% of the population, and not localized in any specific region, except perhaps toronto. they're mostly middle class, and a variety of racial categories - many from south america, and pasty white. so, we don't have a mass of hispanic voters with a defined agenda to kowtow to. we don't have a miami. we have normalized trade relations with cuba.

there are more people of chinese, indian and philipino descent in canada than there are hispanics - and, as of 2016, are nearly as many arabs. given population growth, in 2019, there must already be more arabs than hispanics in canada.

yet, if you were to look at canadian foreign policy across the board since 2015, from nafta to venezuela, you'd think trudeau had a powerful hispanic bloc to answer to.

it must be in the textbook, it's the only explanation, but it's just not there in real life.

in purely geostrategic terms - if we want to get into it - what canada wants is for venezuela to stop producing, or start exporting solely to china, or something, just anything to stop them from contributing to the glut in american oil supply, because our resources are landlocked and we're currently getting ripped off.

helping the americans get venezuela back on track is a policy that is directly harmful to us.

yet...

see, we kind of went through this in the middle east, as well, and these analyses are so weirdly american-centric, in ways that i'm not sure the government even has it's head around.

let's suppose that this useful idiot guaido can pull off a bloodless coup, and manage to get elections up and running in the country. what happens on the day after?

well, the oil starts pumping.

and prices go down.

good for america, right?

well, did they think this through? they didn't. because, in purely geostrategic terms, we are in competition with venezuela for the american oil market - and we benefit by anything that keeps the country unstable, and the oil off the market.

i hardly think a slash in global oil prices is what the liberals are hoping for the day before the election.

the only thing this government is thinking about is brown-nosing the president. it's sad that we've been reduced to this. but, here we are.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canadas-leadership-on-venezuela-is-misguided-misdirected-and-a/

the irony is, of course, that canadian mining companies are some of the worst human rights abusers in the hemisphere.

i have a different proposal for how the rome statute should be used, namely to bring canadian mining companies to justice.

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/thoughts/essays/conflictoflaw.html

this is actually completely outrageous.

what a horrible mockery of the rome statute.

http://www.oas.org/documents/eng/press/Venezuela-Executive-Summary.pdf

i can pinpoint the exact moment.

it was when optimus prime died.

that's when i lost all hope in this universe, and adopted the cold ways of a distant cynic.

i am in fact not alone. there's a literature on the topic, if you care to look.

a generation died on that day.

the media wants you to believe that this election was rigged.

but, the opposition boycotted the vote.

so, it's quite clear that maduro won - the opposition refused to vote.

a more pressing question is what would have happened if the opposition would have shown up. as this has been going on for years, it's not clear how close it would be.

and, i mean, of course there's going to be some irregularities - there are everywhere. but, you fundamentally cannot claim an election was rigged when the opposition didn't show up; the government wasn't even given the opportunity to meaningfully rig it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/world/americas/venezuela-election-opposition-boycott.html

to clarify a specific point about the elections in venezuela, though.

the corporatist media presents a half-truth when they point out that the opposition doesn't take part in the elections. that much is actually true - and i don't think anybody debates the point. what the media declines to clarify is that the opposition routinely boycotts the elections.

even if maduro were to give in to the ridiculous demand from the eu to call an election (and, can maduro demand a new vote on brexit while we're at it?), recent history suggests that the opposition would be unlikely to take part in it.

there is consequently somewhat of a level of uncertainty attached to the outcome, but it isn't due to state repression. the reality is that it's not entirely clear just how big the opposition actually is, because they've been boycotting elections for the last ten years. marches are a bad metric - they could be representative of a very well organized bourgeois minority, as is generally assumed, or they could be representative of a much larger bloc. but, they don't vote. so, we don't know - we're robbed of the ability to compare what we see in the pictures to what we can quantitatively analyse, and are left to our biases to try and work it through.

they want to make you think that the opposition is outlawed, oppressed, intimidated - and that is a lie. rather, they are holding strong to what are now very old accusations, always presented without proof, to uphold a years-long boycott.

and, we just don't know what the numbers really are, at this point.

cotler's history on speech makes dershowitz seem consistent and reasonable.

the guy's a nut.

oh, i see irwin cotler is on it.

this is a guy that wants to put people in jail for saying mean things to people - and has fought hard to enforce the laws. when i say that canada is somewhat of an embarrassment on free speech laws, irwin cotler is one of the primary reasons why.

some "human rights expert".

but, one may also note how strange it is to see the post pushing talking points by irwin fucking cotler, of all people.

an Organization of American States panel of human rights experts 

how do you even finish reading an article with that line in it?

yikes.

was kissinger on the board? how about oliver north?

they no doubt meant to say an OAS panel of liberal interventionists and neoconservative war criminals...

i have not seen a single credible source criticize the elections in venezuela since, like, 1999, or whenever it was that chavez won. all i've seen is a periodic, if tiring, repudiation of all of these right-wing smear campaigns.

what is "right" here is to stand up for the rule of law, respect their sovereignty and avoid interfering in their country. what is "wrong" here is to intervene in the situation for our own economic self-interest.

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/canadian-unions-helped-fund-delegation-that-gave-glowing-review-of-venezuela-election-widely-seen-as-illegitimate?video_autoplay=true

“I think we can do that,” Simons said. “I just don’t think this bill, as currently written, accomplishes what it sets out to do.”

well, then resign your post on the fucking guardian council, and run for elected office on a mandate to change it.

https://nationalpost.com/news/senators-promise-robust-review-of-bill-c-69-as-provincial-angst-deepens-over-trudeau-energy-reforms

and, is bernier a threat in quebec?

well, he has two positions that most people know about - he wants to modify immigration policies (which is likely to do well in the rural areas) and he wants to end supply management (which is likely to do terribly in rural areas).

he would, in theory, make more sense in alberta, but he's a distant francophone. bernier lost to scheer in quebec, remember - and that's in a province with a small conservative movement, and little centre of gravity. in quebec, nobody joins the conservative party looking for career advancement.

so, if i'm a dairy farmer in quebec - the target of his immigration policies - am i going to vote against my economic self-interest to uphold some cultural attachment to quebec? not unless i'm a buffoon - and the quebecois don't vote against themselves like this, like kentuckians do. and, especially not if the bloc are offering the same nationalist policies without the attack on supply management.

he's apparently running around 6% in quebec, but we see this with the greens all of the time - it's a mirage. it's partly the math of sampling. but, you should also read into it as apathy.

regardless, even if he can muster 4%, i would expect that to be broadly distributed rather than localized. quebec is known for close races, so a 2-3% swing could absolutely lose the conservatives a few seats. but, it would be difficult to isolate from the noise.

the media is unlikely to step away from this, as it seems to like the narrative of bernier playing spoiler. but, i don't suspect the numbers will actually pan out - this is just statistical noise, in the end.

in canada, support for the international rule of law - for better or worse, whatever the consequence - is one of the things that makes a liberal a liberal. and, because our right has historically been moderate, it has broad, nationalist support as a model, as well.

if you're willing or eager to act outside of the united nations on this kind of thing, you're in the wrong party - and broadly even in the wrong country.

fuck, do a caucus vote and see where people stand on this.

the liberal party has been taken over by a bunch of fucking democrats.

somebody do a poll on whether donating, card-carrying members of the liberal party support acting outside of the united nations in venezuela. and word it like that. don't talk about supporting one faction or the other, as though we have any business doing so - talk about whether you support the institution of the united nations and adherence to the international rule of law or not.

i wouldn't expect more than 10% of them would support what the government is doing. i wouldn't even expect much more than 40% of conservatives would support this kind of thing. it's completely unheard of, here.

support for the united nations as the basis of canadian foreign policy is foundational in the party base - as important as support for universal health care. it's one of the key, defining issues of canadian liberalism. canada simply doesn't stand with the united states when it acts outside of the un, it just doesn't do this, it goes to the un and seeks an international consensus, then seeks to find a way to moderate america's policies around the edges.

i'm not even willing to get into a debate about the merits of the action, it's too absurd to even bother. the point here is ideological.

this is the kind of thing that got ignatieff completely routed. and, if the party holds to it, it should be looking at 2011 for a baseline, even if it's unclear who steps into the void.

the bloc are at least ready to step in in quebec. the greens might step in a few places elsewhere....

whatever they're projecting, here - some kind of rfk-style anti-communism or something - it isn't canadian. and, canadians are not going to stand for it.

i was initially leaning towards the liberals losing their majority in october.

but. if they continue walking down the path they're on, they're going to lose outright.

it's one thing when the government does this kind of thing behind the scenes, as a part of a careful balancing of various powers. but, there is no appetite for white supremacist imperialist war mongering in canada, especially not as a kind of jingoist electioneering tactic.

it is a ballot issue amongst enough voters to matter - not because of the specific situation, but because of the general tone.

canada is supposed to act through the united nations on situations such as these. and, i would call on the liberal party to stop obsequiously supporting the monroe doctrine and reassert it's party's historical policies on this matter.

why not just write the check to lockheed martin?

this is disgusting. and, they should expect it to backfire - this will be unpopular, here.

it's not the money, it's a tone issue.

unfortunately, there is no opposition in the country that is able to hit them on this.

https://globalnews.ca/video/4922143/trudeau-announces-53-million-investment-to-support-venezuelans

the new york times seems to be more pro-war than fox news, right now.

are we ready for the democrats to be the hawks in the 2020 election?

it seems to be what the "liberal" media wants.

this took far too long, but it's done. sort of.

i still need to organize it to by month and zip it up for later.

it runs from sept, 2003 to may, 2016, with a gap in mid 2004 (when i did not have internet access) and another gap from mid 2008 to mid 2010, but i think can fill in the second gap with an archive put away on a dvd somewhere.

and, that is the last step in the tree i'm building: i'll need to go through all of the physical media i've got lying around and file it by year.

once that's finished, i'll swing myself back around to mid-2013 in order to get back to the rebuild, one more time. i expect to be back to where i was (late 2016) relatively quickly. and, getting to the end of 2016 means getting back to the alter-reality, and ultimately trying to finish the period one disc by the end of the year.

i was hoping for some good shots of sexy eskimos, though.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/02/this-polar-vortex-should-have-been-colder/

Michigan passed a law to criminalise the practice in 2017, following the start of the case, but the law is not retrospective, and Nagarwala and others cannot be tried for past alleged offences.

fuck.

they could charge her with assault, though - and should.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/22/us-is-moving-backwards-female-genital-mutilation-ruling-a-blow-to-girls-at-risk

this is one of those things where canadian law is exactly the opposite - we have no provincial criminal code at all, all criminal cases are prosecuted at the federal level, and commercial issues of the sort referenced are dealt with by the provinces.

if ontario tried to pass legislation banning fgm under jail time, the same thing would happen. so, i understand the ruling.

but, shouldn't the attorney general in michigan immediately take over the case, then?

this is very much the kind of nightmare scenario that leftists imagine when they warn about the dangers of "religious freedom". there has to be some way out of essentially condoning this as an allowable religious practice.

they should have just charged her with assault with a deadly weapon.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2018/11/20/female-genital-mutilation-michigan/1991712002/

trying to prevent another tsunami, i suppose.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/01/asia/indonesia-teens-publicly-flogged-for-cuddling-intl/

as the situation unfolds, what trump is demonstrating with the border wall funding issue is that the government doesn't operate anything at all like a business, and that he doesn't understand that.

i pointed out that an extended shut down would likely lead to a revolt in the democratic base, which would be unlikely to hold to solidarity on opposition to a border wall in the face of meaningful inconvenience, and the slow understanding that the party's policies on migrants are not in their self-interest. i pointed out that the initial reaction would be to attack trump, but this would slowly lead to apathy all around, which would harm the democrats more than the republicans. trump's best strategy was consequently to hold to his guns until the democrats gave up. if you wanted to compare this to a market transaction, he'd be undercuttting the competition with his superior resources in a more dedicated and ideological base of core supporters.

but, he folded at what seemed like the worst possible moment. now, he's talking about shutting the government down again, which is flatly insane - he just lost the fight, now he wants to do it again? what? he had a clear winning strategy, and threw it away. now, if he follows through with this, he's going to get primaried and lose...

it's taken me some time to clue in, but i think that the reason this isn't making any sense is that he's approaching the situation like a business deal, rather than a government negotiation. this was in some sense obvious, but i guess we all miss the obvious some times, particularly when it's entirely irrational. you would, frankly, expect the point to be corrected by now. i don't remember the reagan administration, but what i've read about it suggests that even the gipper, that old dumbass, had the ability to learn in office. trump's stupidity seems to really be singular...

...and, here we have it: trump thinks the government is just like a business, and that he's carrying out some kind of business negotiation. he's the ceo of the republican party, while pelosi is the ceo of the democratic party. and, he thinks they are both driven by an obligation to maximize profit for shareholders.

it's the last point where the whole thing breaks down as incoherent, and you start to understand what he's doing.

so, rather than wait pelosi out, what trump was initially trying to do was intimidate her. it was some kind of dominance tactic. if they actually were both ceos of corporations, he would be costing her a lot of money by withholding the contract. the temporary re-opening of the government would be intended to remind her shareholders of how much money they're losing, and what they stand to gain by signing the contract. then, taking that away would push the shareholders into pressuring pelosi into making concessions, to prevent them from losing money.

his tactics are anti-social, and in the long-run would no doubt create a reputation that precedes him - donald trump would become a man that you try to avoid doing business with. but, they would probably be effective when applied as necessary, so long as the dominant motive is about profit.

but, nancy pelosi does not have a group of shareholders to pressure her, or at least not literally. what she has are voters that want to elect her - electors in the proletariat. their self-interest is very different; they are not looking to make money by signing a contract, but to keep the government open to access services (and, in some cases, to avoid signing the contract at all). there is no way to apply the model.

opening and closing the government like this is just going to make it clear that the president is responsible for it.

observers are looking at trump and wondering if he's off his rocker. but, this is simply what happens when you let a business person run for office - this is the inevitable consequence of applying business world realities and tactics to political negotiations. he's simply living in a parallel reality.

so, he will no doubt continue to do outlandish things, until this gets resolved, or he gets thrown out. but, try and keep what i'm saying in mind as you try to understand what he's doing - you might find it to be a useful decryption algorithm.

no, you scientifically illiterate idiots.

the polar vortex is neither evidence for nor against global warming, but an isolated event that is occurring independently of the slow increase in global temperatures. it is variation in the climate system. and, it is driven entirely by the sun.

...except to point out that the premise that the media hoopla is based on is actually wrong: the effects of the polar vortex on mid latitudes is not increasing, but decreasing. we're not experiencing colder winters, but warmer ones.

the climate models point out that we should be seeing weaker winters, on average. and, those models are absolutely correct - our winters are getting shorter and less intense. and, this is the consensus view amongst climate scientists: our winters will continue to get shorter and less powerful, over time.

but, again: i'm not arguing with the science. the science agrees with me, or, to be more succinct, i'm simply stating the science.

what i'm arguing with is click bait by the "liberal" media, which is ultimately not helping the movement against the oil industry, by publishing dubious articles that damage their own credibility.

so, to recap. and i'm done with this until next year:

1) the polar vortex is a strictly solar phenomenon that has nothing to do with global warming.
2) our winters at the current solar minima have been less intense than they were in previous solar minimas. that is, the polar vortex is retreating, on the longer scale.
3) the polar vortex is retreating on the longer scale due to global warming - which will lead to shorter, less intense winters.
4) that said, as we are at solar minima, our current cold blast is a consequence of the solar cycle. and, if the sun has an extended minima, this could slow down global warming, with exaggerated effects in the northern hemisphere.
5) the media is pushing a series of strawmen, false dichotomies and red herrings around the topic that are merely serving to confuse the fuck out of people, for clickbait and ideological purity.

you're no doubt horribly confused. that's a shame.

all three of the major parties are nearing rock bottom, here, in terms of historic levels of unpopularity.

the ndp has a narrow path, still.

if they don't take it, this could end up unlike anything we've ever seen, here.

if trudeau thinks he's the most likely recipient of an anti-ford backlash, he's got another thing coming.

the feds might want to take a closer look at the results of the last provincial election. as baffling as doug ford is, he couldn't exist without the liberals being unpopular here, in whatever demographics they're unpopular in. trudeau is very much an extension of the mcguinty-wynne government, and not much of an antidote.

normally, this would be fertile ground for the ndp, but they've evaporated. and, if the ndp can't get themselves in order quickly, ontario is consequently going to be a very serious wild card in october, as the populace struggles to find somewhere to turn to.

https://torontosun.com/news/national/lilley-liberal-mp-says-lets-whack-ontario-premier-doug-ford