the bizarre truth about detroit is that all of the bars and the party district in general is relocating to the only muslim-majority municipality in north america. it is a separate city that is literally surrounded by the city of detroit.

i wonder why that is. are there different bylaws? if so, they may be setting themselves up for a collapse. it is the only muslim majority municipality in north america.

in fact, there was a recent legal case in hammtramck (a previously polish-majority working class area that got nailed by the auto recession) that ended with the courts upholding the ban on a public call to prayer in the region. that's that thing muslims do to intimidate people into praying, and is intimidation, purposefully, it's the point. they yell into microphones, or play loud music, or whatever. it's open, public coercion. the ban came down, and as far as i know they were forced to stop, but the point i'm making is that there are enough muslims in this strip for that to have actually happened, before it was stopped. now, it's quickly becoming detroit's sin strip...

and, like i say - the council is separate from detroit. that may be great for now. but, if the city's entire bar district ends up on this strip, and a muslim city council shuts it down, the city is going to find itself dry.

it's not like i don't understand this. the same economic pressures that brought me to windsor brought a lot of muslims here; the rent is cheap. i get it.

but, it's a strange juxtaposition.

if i can get my own shit worked out, not having to worry about not being able to go to this particular bar is actually a very good thing.

for me.

so long as something else opens up...

that bar i got banned from got shut down.

ahahahahahaha.

in all seriousness, it's sad to see it go - i know it was there for a long time. but, at the same time, the only reason that most people went there is that it was open all night. it was really, truly a shitty bar in every way.

i have reasons to hope that the niche is filled by different owners. but, nobody wants to see detroit lose it's overnight scene...

really.

that's the thing that's happening in detroit this weekend.

television.

i mean, i could go see television at el club. sure.

but, it's 2019, not 1979.

i want to be clear: i'm not banned from going to detroit. my nexus card remains valid. so, i can try, if i want. and, it could very well be a hassle-free scenario - i might cross without being checked.

but, i don't know what that database says.

if they decide to run me, something might come up. and, here's the problem: as a non-american, i can't get that information out, if it's in. then, i could get banned, even though i insist i didn't do anything wrong - and there are no charges pending against me.

"but they wouldn't do that. you have a nexus card and a clean record."

heh.

do you know how much a waiver costs? it wouldn't be smart in the broad sense if you look at america as a whole. that is, telling me i need to pay for a waiver is just going to cost the local economy the money i'd bring into it, because i'm never going to be able to afford it. we're talking thousands. but, the border guard is just going to see the financial opportunity to make me pay, and they're going to take it if they can. they're not going to give a fuck.

there is a long-term solution. once the record is destroyed, the border cops won't see it anymore, and there won't be anything to pull.

in the mean time, i'm not keen on taking chances. if there's an end-around, i'd rather take it...

it's cinco de mayo. but, i'm not mexican, and it's going to be cold. and, there's not anything that would draw me out...

what i'd like to do is find a good rock concert and then hit a dance club on the way home. but, without the rock concert, the dance club is kinda eh. it'll be around 8-10 degrees from 11 pm to 6 am. meh.

and, i don't know if my bike is still there or not, either.

listen. if something comes up, i won't skip it. i'll figure it out. i still don't think i've missed much, recently. really. it's been slow...

but, i'm not going to take a risk to go out to a run of the mill dance party on a cold night in may. it's not worth it.

send your outrage to the windsor police.

the noise trade site is now working again.

the relevant links are:
https://books.noisetrade.com/j/082013-dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja

and

https://books.noisetrade.com/j/072013-082013

unfortunately, noise trade did not work out as a hosting solution, and i never got a clear answer as to why. but, i decided in the end that the site was full of ads and unworkable, anyways.

the readable version of the august, 2013 archive for this blog is now available as a standalone in the music journal package at bandcamp:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/08-2013-music-journal

...or as a standalone at smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1026597

...or as a component in the first reconstruction phase archive, available in the following places:
https://www.lulu.com/shop/jessica-murray/full-first-reconstruction-phase-dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja-blog/ebook/product-qg9g54.html
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jUcWrb6mdiufR5oyyvWWiBXmV8CtNSur/view

noise trade is working again, so the links will be up and postable soon...

i'm changing the pricing from $0.025/page to $.0/01 page at noise trade and setting a flat rate of $3/journal for the bandcamp site.

well, the developer version is up and running with all the plugins, now.

i don't see any particular thing i want to use in this browser, but it at least works with the signatures off, and it might even be a touch faster.

i'm going to treat it as temporary for now. we'll see if it sticks or not.

i need to do some things in the kitchen, but i'll hopefully be back were i was at by sunrise.

so, downgrading wasn't an answer because half the plugins were too new.

the reddit thread had a half-answer workaround, but i have restartable plugins that i can't load into ram. and, frankly, i don't want the functionality - what i want is to turn the signing off. permanently.

so, i'm going to install a developer edition with the intent to just x this out in the prefs. hopefully, this works...

i mean, i understand what happened. but, i don't need to sign my plugins in the first place.

this is a widespread problem...

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/bkcjoa/all_of_my_addons_got_disabled_and_they_are_all/

the latest annoyance with firefox is that they disabled all my plugins because they're unsigned.

so, i downgraded to a version that allows unsigned plugins.

they seem to be targeting the adblocker and a plugin that i'm using to remove religious sites from google searches. i just got fed up with religious sites coming back on searches for science, so i've completely blocked anything remotely religious. and, i want you to think about this.

if i can't get the thing to work, am i going to read these sites? if i do a search for something to do with evolutionary biology and "answers in genesis" appears, does that mean i'm likely to click the link? the answer is that i'm not going to be more likely to hit the link, and if i end up at a creationist site by accident, i'm not going to finish reading what i'm reading; i'm going to x it out and leave immediately. so, functionally speaking, all that preventing me from removing these sites from my results is going to do is slow me down. there is no meaningful, honest debate between religion and science anymore, there's just religious people wasting everybody's time - and i don't want to have to sort through thousands of pages of worthless nonsense in order to get to what i actually want.

likewise, would turning off adblock actually make me more likely to click the ads? of course not. i went through this with chrome for a while, and i did things like mute the sound. the more you push ads in my face, the more i'm going to find ways to tune them out. i'm just simply not interested...

these plugins are really just useful to me because they allow me to use my time more efficiently. in the end, the result will not be any different - i'm not going to watch any more ads, or read any more religious websites, i'm just going to spend more time trying to get to what i actually want.

i think the downgrade should fix the problem, but we'll see what happens.

stop.

there is a zero percent possibility i would have consented to have sex with any female in a sober state. i made that choice a long time ago and i've stuck to it. it's important to me.

there's some possibility i may have consented to sex with a male. it's remote, but non-zero.

and, if sex with a female did actually happen when i was drunk, i can assure you she didn't enjoy it very much, because i don't have the ability to be sexually aggressive. i can't, won't, don't fuck. like, i'm too sub to even be gay. i might take it in the ass, but i won't give it out. so, the process would have been something like me getting tackled and sitting there with my eyes closed, waiting for it to finished. rape is not a bad way to describe what it would have had to have been like.

the reality is that i'm completely abstinent via a fully conscious and very permanent decision.

deal with it.

so, i wanted to get some things done today, but instead slept for a solid 12 hours.

i'll need to plan to be at the doctor's office to pick up the new bloodwork sheets early on monday morning. there's no possibility that i'm giving them a sheet that says that i've recently had sex with a female.

the fundamental fact is that it simply isn't true. i really don't think i've had sex with a female in at least 12 years, and if i have, it was blacked out and not consensual. that is, if some female thinks they've had sex with me recently, then i want them charged with rape, because i would not have consented in a sober state. it would not be difficult to find women i've turned down in both detroit and in windsor over the last five years; there's at least ten of them that i've rejected. and, i simply don't know why it wasn't obvious to them that i wasn't interested from the start. i make a very clear effort to present myself as female-identifying, and that should make it rather clear that i'm really not into sex with women.

but, what i can say? the world's an irrational place.

yet, i'm legitimately worried about the information being misconstrued. if a cop were to pull the file, they might try to use it as evidence that i'm not really queer. my perception of the situation is that i was arrested for my gender expression, under the argument that it is evidence i'm some kind of pervert. this is the actual reality for queer people in canada in 2019, despite the popular perception.

so, it's not trivial and i need this changed before i get any bloodwork done. i need the doctor to put my letter in my file and i need him to change the record on his machine, and print it out for me.

if i can't get a hold of him before next week, i'll show up to my next appointment and explain it to him in his office.

for the weekend, i know i said i was working on the law suit, but i need to plan a trip to london or toronto around the concert listings, so my primary goal is actually catching up on the shows listings. it will only be once i'm a little bit ahead in the list that i'll be able to seriously focus on the legal proceedings.

it's going to be an epic process to serve everybody..

but, i at least have the pieces put together to file everything all at once.

so, that's the weekend, if i can stay awake - sorting through show listings to plan a trip to london and/or toronto to file.

the weather remains terrible.

and, yes - it's hot everywhere else, right now. i get that.

it's cold here, though.

and, that's what i was saying - you get this combination of warming from the carbon everywhere else, but canada, and especially eastern canada, stuck behind this falling jet stream as a consequence of decreased solar output. it's just a function of where we are on the planet, a function of being in the north on the tilt.

so, we'll be up here shivering while the americans are burning....

so, what's going on with this?

it's those damned h-es.  both of them. they're evil.

things will get better when those high pressure systems break up or otherwise just go away, which should be soon right?

alas...

this is what i was saying about understanding this being more like imagining magnets hovering around the earth. that jet stream is not unfamiliar - we see it all of the time. in january. summer is defined by a jet stream that runs over the northwest territories, not a winter blocking pattern like this.

here's the trick: the reason this happens in the winter is that the amount of sunlight decreases over the northern hemisphere, due to the tilt in the earth's axis. you don't want to think of it in terms of tsi, though, it's more about the ultraviolet radiation hitting the earth's surfaces and rippling outwards, creating waves and fields and ultimately low pressure systems in the northern hemisphere. that giant h over greenland is the actual reason we have winter in canada, meaning the sun is only the indirect cause.

and, this is the kind of thing you see at a local solar minimum. yes, we're tilting back towards the sun, as we do every year, but the fact that the sun has turned itself down means we're getting the same kind of behaviour in the atmosphere that you see in the winter, even as we're tilting back.

there's lots of things that could happen to break the h up, even a hurricane.

but, if the dominant factor remains the sun, that giant h could be there for a while - and this could be a shitty summer.

i believe that the correct way to do this should be to make an access request through the province or through the feds.

the cops should not be in charge of this...the law is correct.

i also got the denial on the freedom of information request from the province yesterday. the guy on the phone said he couldn't find the file; they sent it back to me, without cashing the check.

so, to recap:

1) the feds can't get the information because it's presented by a provincial institution.
2) the province denied the request, claiming i need to work through the police.
3) the police are prohibited by law from providing the information i want. this is recent.

i am going to send all of this information to the feds, so they can see the situation that is unfolding. but, i will need to file the appeal through the provincial fippa act - which is the actual reason i made the request.

that should have said september, not spring.

meh.

my name is jessica (jason) parent. i had an appointment with dr. ********** on may 2 @ 13:00. i am faxing to the office to request a change to a form that was made, and while this may seem trivial, i’ve recently learned that it is important that my medical records be kept accurate and up-to-date, as hostile actors may decide to use it against me. and, for that reason, i would like this fax to be kept in my file. i may be the victim of some ongoing police or other government harassment; i have an ongoing investigation into a member of the windsor police department that is seeking his termination for harassing me, and that i intend to win. i don’t want any misinformation to make it’s way to court.

for that reason, i’m going to be explicit about this - i am talking through reception here and to the file. i apologize if it’s tmi.

in the course of a conversation with dr. ************, he questioned my sexual history, and i was honest and blunt with him: my last recollection of a consensual encounter was indeed with a female some time around 2006 or 2007. i’ve forgotten the date. i have had some concerns about blackouts since and will get to this, but any sex i’ve had since has not been consensual on my behalf. there was lingering sexual contact from a romantic relationship over the period between 2002-2005, that incidentally ended largely under the mutual understanding that i was “gay”. sex with this partner generally took the form of me fantasizing about her in a male role and even of her physically humping me; in the end, neither of us found this satisfying, and we realized we both had to move on.

i had not had sex with anybody at all before i met this person, and have not had conscious or consensual sex with anybody at all since. so, i have had a total of one consensual sex partner in my life, roughly in the years 2002-2007, with a relationship over 2002-2005 and some lingering sex afterwards.

my experience with heterosexual sex over this period was an experiment that was initiated on her behalf. she knew that i identified as transgendered and had a desire to detransition me and convert me back, although she initially approached me with the intent of accepting me as female. i fell for a bait and switch; i wouldn’t have gotten involved with her on the basis of the relationship being heterosexual, but i found myself overcome with the emotions of losing my virginity once i did, and it took me a long time to pull away as a result of it. i wanted her to accept me as female right up until the very end. the lesson we learned from this process is that she actually failed at this task - she did not detransition me, she did not “turn me straight” and i was neither interested nor able to have satisfying sex with her in a male role, as she desired. all i could do for years was imagine her as male, and all i wanted from her was acceptance as a female. so, we tried the experiment and learned from it - a heterosexual male gender role is not the right thing for me. i have had absolutely no interest at all in a heterosexual relationship with anybody else, since.

however, the reason i have not had any sex at all since, inside or outside a relationship, is not due to a lack of interest or opportunity. rather, i made a decision around 2009 or 2010 (again, this was a long time ago, now) that i would refrain from any kind of sexual behaviour until after i’d completed a vaginoplasty; my abstinence is ideological, and no amount of opportunity is ever going to reverse it. i decided a long time ago that it is not possible for me to have satisfying sex within the confines of a male gender role, and have consciously chosen abstinence in order to deal with this. in this period, i have explicitly turned down both men and women for sex.

i should also point out that dr. ********* is aware that i take 100 mg of cyproterone acetate daily, an amount that makes my ability to carry through with a male sexual function nearly impossible. it’s not completely impossible, i do get random erections, mostly during sleep, but i’m essentially impossible to arouse upon command - i have absolutely no sex drive, whatsoever. i am certainly unable to ejaculate, and have been for years. while i can’t say for sure because i haven’t tried, i would probably be unable to have sex with a female at this point, and have probably been unable to for many years. i have also made multiple requests for an orchiectomy, although i have been unable to find a doctor willing to do it. i am hoping to pick this back up again this year.

for all of these reasons, i’m somewhat surprised that dr. ********* filled out “sex with female” as a risk category for hiv exposure. i guess he may have misunderstood me. while i suspect that i may have had sex in a blackout space with a male in the spring of 2016, i nowhere indicated to him that i have recently had sex with a female - and have no reason to think that i have, for all the reasons i’ve pointed out.

the reason i think i may have had blackout sex with a male in the spring of 2016 is that i woke up in the front seat of a car after blacking out, and when i woke up there was a male that was actively trying to have sex with me. i would not classify my memory of the incident as constituting assault on his behalf; it was more of a verbal process. i had been drinking at a dance club in detroit, but not too much, and think i blacked out because i was drugged. i have no evidence of being drugged, besides suspicion around the amount of alcohol being too low to black me out. i declined sex with this male when i woke up. but, i noticed swelling around my anus, and have a missing period of a few hours, so i came in for hiv testing, which eventually came clean.

i do not want it stated in my medical records that i believe i have recently had sex with a female - i will categorically state again that i do not believe i have recently had sex with a female, nor do i think that such a thing would be physically possible when blacked out from alcohol. if i’m unable to get an erection on command sober, i don’t see how i could get one drunk.

for this reason, i would like dr. *********** to correct the blood labwork that he printed out for me yesterday to state “sex with male” in the risk category, as that is what we are testing for. as mentioned, i think this is important for legal reasons, and not as trivial as it may appear on first glance; i have reasons to fear being set up.

i would like to pick up the new print out later in the afternoon and would appreciate a response either to death.to.koalas@gmail.com or a voicemail left at 5199161358. i cannot be reached directly by phone and cannot get through to your office over google voice.

jason kenney will not be on the ballot in october.

i'm going to evaluate the pmo on it's record, and the fact is that it's not very good.

"why am i here?" is actually just a stupid question. and, yes, there are stupid questions.

the question is rooted in the premise that there's some external force that created you, and defined your purpose and being. it then follows that answering the question of "why you're here" would come from getting a better understanding of whatever this external force is.

but, there is no such external force. and, if you fully grasp that, then you wouldn't ask the question of why you're here, because it would be incoherently defined.

a better question to ask is "what do i want out of life?". that shifts the premise from the false assumption that something created and defines you, and to the more modernist assumption that you're actually on your own in the universe, and need to figure that shit out yourself.

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

this is perhaps the most confusing, intricate and difficult topic in canadian politics: the indigenous community's approach to the indian act.

indigenous activists will loudly stand up and denounce the legislation as racist, and they're right to do so. but, when give the opportunity to dismantle it, they demur - to a man or woman. the reason is that they don't want to be assimilated.

it's easy enough to accuse them of not wanting to give away what is even quickly becoming a strawman. as people leave the reserves, the scope of the indian act continues to wane. there have been attempts to introduce blood quantum rules that would amount to assimilation in a few generations. so, the easiest way to get rid of the indian act may actually be to stop amending it - to let it collapse into obsolescence.

but, this is a minefield, up here. - and it is legitimately hard, because it is not actually a contradiction. they want sovereignty and equality at the same time, to be the one and the other, the same and different - or separate, yet equal. by request.

the elder trudeau wanted assimilation, and he didn't get it. the younger trudeau may end up with little more than a confused mess.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/edmonton-afn-forum-policy-changes-1.5119133

"but, who feeds you and clothes you while you're off carrying through with your enlightened purpose?"

it's a neat trick they play on you. first, they define this idea called property that ensures that anybody that doesn't own a substantive amount of it is unable to exist independently. then, they tell you that you're living off the system when you refuse to roll over at the extortion.

i'll tell you what my answer is: i have no sympathy for people that buy into the system, and then complain about the people that don't. my answer is: get out of the system, which is not a response of insolence but is actually one of self-interest.

i would rather feed and clothe myself. i'm happy to do it, but you won't let me - you insist on controlling the property. and, i'll look you in the eye and say it to your face: you can't have it both ways.

so, let's call the welfare check a redistribution of property rights, then.

somebody should do an experiment.

stand outside a fast food restaurant and record how angry and alienated people are as they walk by.

but, this is what capitalism does to people: it turns them into these self-loathing ticking time bombs that are so full of hate at themselves and everybody else that they're set to explode at random people they meet on the street.

we have the power to change our own culture. this isn't inevitable. we can end this.

the bottom line is this: you made the choice to go to work and waste your life. it's not my fault that you're miserable, so don't take it out on me - take responsibility for your own failures and turn your life around by quitting the job that you hate.

once you've emancipated yourself, maybe you'll lose the urge to start fights with people standing around waiting for the weather to clear. maybe you'll stop hating yourself that much. eh?

if you want some kind of purpose, some kind of meaning, to "do something with your life", you must begin by taking yourself back from the collectivist horde of market capitalism.

you must first define yourself.

and, if you're not intelligent enough to do that, you're a lost cause. enjoy your slavery.

"i have purpose. i have kids."

that's pathetic. your kids rely on you. that's not purpose, it's responsibility.

"well, i have a job."

are you the boss?

"sort of..."

a middle manager is not a boss.

"ok, i'm not the boss."

so, your purpose is doing what you're told? pfft. some purpose.

"but i have religion."

religion is not a purpose, but the absence of it.

"but..."

...but nothing.

i'll tell you what you lack. individuality. you're not a person. you're a slave. and, that's what you're struggling to figure out.

i am in fact driven very powerfully by my artwork. i dedicate long hours to it, and it gives me great meaning and great purpose.

the truth is that all of these dipshits criticizing me could be so lucky as to find as powerful of a driving force.

i already have what they think i lack - and they lack what they think i need.

as is so often the case, it's all about the blind leading the blind.

i got stuck doing groceries in the rain, so i stopped to get a sub. the rain was still going when i was done, so i stood outside the door, waiting for it to pass.

some idiot showed up and couldn't figure out how to get past me, and had a hissy fit about it, essentially trying to pick a fight with me in the process.

i'm never going to back down from a shouting match with anybody. i will stand my ground. i don't care who the fuck you are. you get in my face, i'll get right back in yours.

but, this guy was clearly not very bright. and, i'll leave it at that.

put another way: the market is a collectivist dictatorship that excels in one thing and one thing only, and that is stamping out the ambitions of creative individuals to accomplish their own goals and dreams.

in the end, you'll wake up retired and wonder where your life disappeared to.

and the answer is that you wasted it at work.

the reason we have such high levels of depression in this society is because we center it around employment, and then try to define ourselves that way, as though the market has the ability to provide meaning and purpose to existence.

it doesn't.

all that any job will ever do is prevent you from getting to where you want to in life by wasting your energy and your focus and your resources.

people that want to "do something with their life" don't get jobs, as though there's a category of people that have decided not to do anything with their life, as though that isn't a contradiction in terms.

people that want to "do something with their life" quit their jobs in order to do it.

which is actually where i am in life.

if you're curious.

it's a long process ahead of me.

the next step is filing in superior court.

i'm a victim, here.

and i deserve the compensation i am seeking.

harassment is a serious crime, i don't doubt this.

that's why i've never harassed anybody.

and, it's why i'm going to ensure that the people responsible for falsely charging me are held accountable for their own crimes in harassing myself.

the facts are that i was falsely accused and the charges were dropped. as the guilty party is a police officer, i understand that i have an uphill battle in getting him charged. however, i'm confident that the evidence is on my side and that i will eventually prevail in the matter.

so, i mean...

can they do better than trump? certainly. could they do worse? absolutely.

and, might the democratic nominee end up less appealing? it's a distinct possibility...

i want to make my viewpoint clear on this.

how bad is trump? or how not so bad is he, really?

these are the presidents over the last fifty years - a list that both jfk and lbj are no longer on.

- nixon
- ford
- carter
- reagan
- bush I
- clinton
- bush II
- obama
- trump

where does trump fall in the list?

well, it's not such an impressive list, is it? you can be a really shitty president, and still end up somewhere in the middle. that's the real problem we're facing in trying to understand trump: his contemporaries were not very impressive.

who were the really, really bad presidents that you put at the very bottom? nixon has a bad reputation, but he had nader on his ass, so you got things like the epa out of him. i would not put nixon at the bottom of this list, or even near it. of the presidents in this pile, bush II is in sole contention for the bottom of the list. so, you take him right out - he was probably the worst the country's seen, and may be the worst the country ever does see. pointless wars, collapsed economy - nobody comes close to this.

are there any near the top? no. i don't think any of these presidents are worth identifying as having done a good job.

are there any that kind of just sat on the throne for a while, keeping it warm? if doing no harm is better than creating harm, you put the caretaker presidents at the top.

so, it follows that the best president of the last fifty years would be gerald ford, because at least he didn't fuck anything up. you'd need to put carter in as a close second, because he didn't accomplish very much, either. the next least memorable president would be obama.

that leaves nixon, reagan, bush, clinton and trump left to place in the middle.

reagan and bush may not have been the disasters that dubya was, but i can't think of a single good policy that they did while in office, and there was certainly a lot of bad, so i'm going to list them together at 7/8. at this stage in history, i can't think of any positive policy that clinton pushed through either, and he really only tweaked the bush-reagan legacy, so he barely comes in at number 6.

trump, on the other hand, may end up with a positive trade legacy - it's hard to say. he has a mixed bag on the military front, but if he ends up being responsible for a serious withdrawal from the middle east, that's more than clinton - who bombed the fuck out of iraq - can claim. if he gets through his term without bombing latin america, he could be the most pro-peace president in the list, with the potential exception of carter.

but, neither clinton nor trump can compete with the positive legacy of nixon, even if he was being pushed by nader, and even if it was on the tail end of the lbj administration. nixon may be responsible for the direction the republicans took in later years, but his legacy in terms of positive policy still stands out in this particular list. if it weren't for all of the terrible things he did, if we were to measure him solely by his positive contributions, he'd clearly be the best in this list.

so, here's your answer. here's a ranking of the presidents of the last fifty years:

1. ford
2. carter
3. obama
4. nixon
5. trump - tentatively
6. clinton
7/8. bush-reagan
9. bush II

this is harassment - this is why there are laws on the book.

you have a verbal warning being left, with what is determined to be a credible threat of harm. it's up to the state to show that the threat to harm bernie is indeed credible, and, if so, that would be in the small list of things that speech doesn't cover.

the key point is harm - there has to be a credible concept of harm.

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/us/2019/05/01/florida-man-guilty-of-leaving-threats-for-bernie-sanders.html

i've been clear, but i'll say it again.

when i said "i'd move to singapore, if it weren't for the muslims", that wasn't hyperbolic or an exaggeration.

they would literally imprison me. and they might kill me.

due to the religious laws in place in the society, that's not an option for relocation.

do you think you could fight off a tiger?

how about a police squadron?

or a mob of people looking to lynch you?

i would be imprisoned and probably killed if i moved to singapore.

that's not an exaggeration: the muslims would be as dangerous to me as the animals would.

i'm not the nazi, they are. that's my point.

i will not need to file an appeal on the file destruction request, at least.

except for the fact that i can't upload anything to noise trade because they won't accept any cover art, august of 2013 is totally done.

i'm going to be spending the morning readying myself for an appointment, and my fridge is almost empty. but, i'll actually be focusing on the court case, next - and getting back to the fall semester of 2013 only when i have a rough outline of what i'm filing.

it looks like i will need to file the following:

1) appeal of the oiprd decision
2) appeal of the access request
3) constitutional challenge on the legality of the arrest
4) human rights complaint against the property owner

i'm experiencing a total failure in the legal system and am going after it all at once.

i might not get to london until the end of july, but we'll see.

but, it's time to finally get to writing the papers.

so, the only way to get the chronologically ordered pdf file for this blog for right now is here:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/08-2013-music-journal

i will not be posting these files to my google drive, moving forward.

so, no other site does what i want, besides noise trade.

bandcamp, it is. for now.

this blog & the music blog are both up at the link, and they will soon be joined by the dtk blog and the travel blog, as well as a zip of txt files.

to be clear.

i'm not "holding out" on spotify. i don't want higher royalties. i don't want them to change their approach. i'm not waiting for a better deal.

i am completely and permanently rejecting the premise of paying a third party to subscribe to music as a service; this will never be acceptable to me, no matter how they tweak it.

i refuse to participate in subscription services, either. ever. so, no spotify, no itunes, no google play and no scribd. to me, this represents the absolute death of art. i want a direct relationship, even if i need a bourgeois layer.

ugh.

so, what i want is a site that i can personalize (i want it to be *my* site, not just a searchable market) that will host the files for free and let you send me a donation if you want. noise trade does this, but virtually everything else is centered around amazon and kindles.

i can't upload this to amazon, because it's not a work of fiction. esa is a real person, and those are her actual words. those are actual emails exchanged between my stepmother, my sister and i. those are actual conversations with my actual mother.

like, it's not a work of fiction. so, i don't own the copyright...

but, i don't want my blogs for sale on amazon, either. that's disgusting. it's amazon. i want an independent site...

noise trade might be the only way to do this, and if it's shutting down or otherwise breaking then we're going to have to let it sit at bandcamp.

what i want is essentially a site for books that operates exactly like bandcamp....

so, the politics archive is finished, but i can't publish it to noise trade because it won't accept cover art submissions, which is stupid to begin with. i'm not selling pictures, i'm selling words. nobody cares about cover art...

the site was recently purchased by paste magazine, who have apparently ruined it in roughly a week.

i have no patience for this, so i'm going to be spending some time looking for a different site to host the files, and i'll just delete the account there once i find it. 

the reason i picked noise trade is that it allows for free downloads, but, for the time being, you'll have to get it at bandcamp (for a fee), instead.

if it weren't for the muslims and the wild animals, i'd move to singapore or something if i had the cash. purely climatically, i'd be happiest in a rainforest. give me more heat, give me more humidity....

i was slowed down tonight by a brutal asthma attack and lost roughly an hour as a consequence of it. just when i thought it had gotten better...

...but the shifts in weather (it's been cold this week, and the heater has been on) have reduced me down to one of two possibilities:

1) the source of shit in the air is the heaters. they might be dirty, or i might be reacting to dry air. but, there seems to be a correlation, at least.
2) if it's not the dirty heaters, then the only thing really left is that i can't really tell if he's smoking upstairs unless he closes the windows. when he does close the windows, when it's cold or when it's raining, i get swamped by the smoke from upstairs.

so far, the rain has been correlated with cold and dreary weather so the heat has come on. but, we're going to finally get some nice humid weather today at the same time as some rain, and that's consequently something that i'll be able to check.

i at least finished the cross-referencing on the politics blog archive. i will need to format it after i eat, and could post it before noon.

so, how am i doing this?

i'm going to keep the bandcamp downloads as monthly updates, and leave the semesterly (i may say quarterly, but we're doing thirds and not quarters) downloads for the noise trade site. and, i'll build that up into yearly downloads and even period downloads as well, but keep it all isolated at that space, while only putting up monthly updates at the bandcamp site (along with liner notes and eventual period disc html front ends).

what i'm worried about is ending up with too many duplicate journal entries at the bandcamp site, and double or triple charging people for it. so, i can either do it by semester only or monthly only. the monthly updates should keep the journals more readable and succinct as  go forward...

so, all of the updates for the music blog for 08/13 are now done, and i'm moving on to building up the politics site. the music journal for the second half of the summer semester is 441 pages and ready to publish, but i'll wait until i'm done each of of the august entries first.

the second entry in the music journal series, which is the whole month of august, 2013 and is 220 pages long. i am not going to summarize the story, but it is available on the web over here: musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2013/08/.

this is a compilation of written correspondences that occurred around me over august, 2013. it includes facebook posts, messenger chats and emails with friends and family members, in an attempt to tell the story of the move from ottawa to windsor. the contents of this download are the dummy track, a word doc file and a pdf file, both written in a more readable, chronological ordering. i've also added the respective files for my other three blogs, for general interest, as well as 17 separate txt documents (essays, notes and scripts) that are referenced in the journal.

the events documented in this journal occurred in august, 2013 and were compiled into a narrative in several stages over the years 2014-2019. journal completed on april 30, 2019. released and finalized in doc and pdf format on may 1, 2019. doc0813.

credits

released September 1, 2013

j - editing, participant

esa - participant
mom - participant
sister - participant
nana - participant
step-mother - participant
the surviving uncle - participant
d - participant
jeff - participant
rli - participant
ms. jeffreys - participant
mackaye - participant

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/08-2013-music-journal

maybe what we really need in order to get past the authoritarian left is a more labour activist focused kind of christianity, where it's all about the apostles overthrowing the despotic rule of the tyrannical jesus.

"who do you think you are? the son of god?"

cut out the middleman...

judas had the right idea. really.

crucify your boss.

Jesus Christ himself isn’t worth 500 times his median worker’s pay

that's not what judas said.

although, judas didn't actually get paid until he went full anarchist, did he? 500*0 = 0.

it's not that he's wrong. but, i don't know where he's going with this.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/disney-heiress-jesus-christ-himself-doesnt-deserve-this-much-money-2019-03-07

i'm not going to have time for geopolitics in the near future, but to tie up a few loose ends.

the amount of nonsense around venezuela right now is just...

so, the russians stepped in and that's the end of that. if only khruschev had the technology to get the bombs to cuba before anybody noticed, right? whatever you think of what they (the trump administration) were up to, the incompetence here is just baffling.

and, now trump has got this thing all wrong. what he needs to do is find a nice little island resort to invade. like grenada. or maybe the falklands. here's an interesting idea: why doesn't he just invade puerto rico?

the more i'm looking at what happened in the israeli election, the more i'm wondering if the coup wasn't to get rid of the new right party to ease a bit of pressure on netanyahu. as bad as netanyahu is, it's the parties to his right that are the bigger problem. the russians just want to stop the superfluous israeli attacks...

but, if the purpose of shifting the conflict from ukraine to syria was to give the russians some space, the american withdrawal and subsequent shift of the conflict from syria to venezuela largely neutralizes russian motives for further interference. if the americans are truly leaving, the russians may not find the goal of reestablishing syrian sovereignty to be all that pressing, any longer. so, you may instead see the russians succumb to some of their own corrupt instincts; s-400s for all. well, it might be good for deterrence. or, it might start an arms race...

we'll have to see how this pans out. but, the set of conflicts that has defined the last twenty years may be undergoing a transformation, and the next set of conflicts may not be clear, yet.

there are some people that you just can't fix, and just have to lock up.

so, if i don't believe in retribution, and i don't believe in deterrence, why would i put anybody in jail in the first place?

i mostly wouldn't.

i do think that there is a valid justification for incarceration, and that is to protect the community. the logic here is that the rights of the community to protect itself overpower the rights of the individual to freedom. now, this is subject to due process and habeas corpus and all that kind of stuff, but, at the end of day the only reason i'm going to support incarceration at all is if i think that this person being incarcerated poses a threat to the people around it. and, there are some twists to this. for example, i would interpret "not criminally responsible" as a life sentence, rather than an acquittal, because the issue isn't whether you disobeyed the king but whether you're a threat to reoffend. further, it would necessarily follow that detention facilities should function more like hospitals than jails, because the people being housed in them are there precisely because they can't be reintegrated due to some kind of mental incapacity. if there's any way out at all, the system should accommodate for it.

given that i would argue that the purpose of a jail is to prevent the people in it from further harming the community, i don't see any kind of moral problem with telling these people they can't vote; they're being held in quarantine, they're being cast out, they're there explicitly because they're being excluded.

and, the real exercise of democracy here is in the community exercising it's right to exclude those that might harm it.

bernie's old enough to make his own choices and choose his own battles. if he wants to go down in flames on this, it's his choice, but he's wrong and should step back from it.

so, i confirmed my appointment with the doctor's office. that's good to go. although i had to send them a fax...

i left a message with the oiprd indicating that if they're not going to communicate with me in an effective manner i'll just leapfrog them and go right to court. i'll give that a day or two.

and, the solicitor general's office is pretending that it lost my access to information request. they're claiming i should try again tomorrow. mmmhmmm. well, as mentioned, i want to file everything all at the same time...

i actually disagree with this, and i've stated why: voting is a function of citizenship, so the suspension of citizenship that occurs during incarceration should imply the suspension of the rights that flow from it, including but not limited to the right to vote.

there should be a ten thousand foot firewall that separates inmates from the public - they should not be affecting decisions that are made in the communities that they've been removed from in any way at all, whatsoever. but, they should also be reintegrated quickly upon release, if they are released.

however, it's a different issue in canada because the incarceration rate is that much lower. we have 20,000 prisoners out of a population of 30 million. america has 2 million prisoners in a population of 300 million. so, it's a factor of ten, once adjusted for proportion.

again: i'm not concerned about punishing people. i don't believe in punishment. my concern is that it is fundamentally undemocratic to allow people in a jail cell to swing elections in communities that they don't even live in. democracy is a living, breathing thing that you participate in in a tactile way. you meet people, you have debates and discussions face to face, you build coalitions, etc. you can't do that from behind bars, so you're devaluing the process by reducing it to a ballot.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-prisoners-voting-1.3202010

this is a completely preposterous comparison.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/30/politics/bernie-sanders-felons-voting-medicare-for-all-cnntv/index.html

so, i was able to cut the august document down to 220 pages - 5 by 8 - by replacing the external files with links to the blog. there would have been 200 pages of windows scripts, otherwise, and that would have just been unreadable.

it's done, but i'm going to stop to eat before i run out of time on the off-rate electricity and finish it up afterwards.

that means the half-quarterly will be a nice little 450 page novel.

i'm going to guess that the politics side of it will add an extra 30-50 pages.

i suspect i may spend the rest of the week on the lawsuit. we'll see what happens when i start making calls. i have to pay bills today, too.

but, the document is done, and i'll be at least ready to move to q4/13 within hours.

i didn't get to the calls today like i wanted, but i'm on my last load of laundry and ready to get back to work.

i need to cross-reference everything before i publish. so, i'll start with the music journal, then rebuild the other three using it as a template.

first, i'll need to make sure i didn't miss anything by cross-referencing it with the master document. then, i'll need to make sure that the local document is the same as the online document. then, i can rebuild.

i don't want to present an eta - this hasn't worked well, and i'm going to be multitasking by checking show listings, which at times may take all of my attention - but i don't expect it to be a lengthy process, and there should be something up in a day or two.

it won't take a month to post the next entry. or, at least, it had better not...

if this works, it's likely that i'll never smoke anything at all ever again.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/02/19/cannabis-infused-beverages-to-launch-in-canada-by.aspx

i would rather drink the stuff, frankly.

i prefer to actually quarantine my smoking solely to bars.

i don't want it in the house.

i don't want it near the house.

i want to be clear about a point, if it wasn't: i don't smoke inside. ever. and, i never did.

in seven months, i have smoked precisely nothing inside of this basement. i smoked precisely nothing in the previous apartment. and, while i may have repurposed the back area into a smoking space in the last apartment, it was behind a door with heavy weatherproofing and very effectively isolated from the rest of the apartment. in the four and a half years i was there, i smoked precisely nothing inside of the apartment itself.

so, when i had my little binge last week, i took a walk whenever i had a smoke.

there's two reasons i do this.

1) i spend roughly 98% of my time sober. therefore, i don't want to be around drugs or cigarettes roughly 98% of the time. it follows that i wouldn't want to smoke in my apartment, for the reason that the residue it leaves behind is, in fact, absolutely fucking disgusting. by going outside to smoke - in fact taking a walk around the block - i'm able to keep all of the disgusting chemicals in marijuana and tobacco smoke outside of my living space, where i spend almost all of my time in a starkly sober state.
2) i'm asthmatic. second-hand smoke makes me hack like a cancer patient. it's unpleasant.

so, yes, i was smoking pot last week...

...outside.

and, in fact, down the street.

so, they converted.

it's not complicated.

let's be clear about this.

when the romans annexed (through a mix of conquest and other means) what was at the time the remnants of the conquests of alexander (a collection of loosely affiliated greek kingdoms), they set up two provinces around the dead sea, the first of which was named iudea after what they thought were the indigenous peoples of the region - a claim that we think today is probably false given that there is no archaeological evidence to support it, even if the ultimate origin of the israeli people remains somewhat unclear. i tend to lean towards a west asian hypothesis, which is actually their own origin myth in that they claim that abraham came from persia. they seem to essentially be a zoroastrian iranian nation that was absorbed by the local (west) semitic culture upon migration, but that refused to give up it's monotheism. judaism seems to be a syncretic mix of zoroastrianism and local canaanite lore. there does not even appear to be a kernel of truth in the exodus story - it appears to be entirely fabricated from whole cloth, a work of complete fiction, probably invented out of nothing at all, during the captivity. the romans also set up on arab province around the city of petra, on the red sea, but there would not have been arabs living on the coast of the mediterranean during this period, even if the province of arabia did briefly touch the sea west of gaza in modern day egypt. the arabs of this period were illiterate desert nomads that were frequently used as soldiers by the empires of the region, but lacked any centralized state of their own; this area would have been primarily greek-speaking and greek in culture, like the rest of the eastern part of the empire (including egypt and what we now call iraq). the province was really what is called a march, a concept that has created existing states like austria (literally translated to the eastern borderlands) and ukraine (also literally translated as border area). the romans had similar marches on the border areas with the germanic tribes. so, what the naming of the province really meant was "this is a buffer state between the empire of the civilized world and the desert barbarians outside of it".

so, during the roman period, the jews were inside the boundaries of the empire and the arabs were not; the jews had a province, and the arabs had a march.

as is widely known, the jews were a restive people that sought a nation state defined by their own laws and refused to submit to the roman emperor. their religion prophesied a warrior-king they called a messiah that would lead them to autonomy, so, with every potential rebel that appeared, the people saw some kind of divine revelation. so, the province of iudea was frequently in revolt. the romans found the jews to be a great annoyance, as they had little taxable wealth but were sitting on top of one of the most strategically important regions of land on the planet. as they could not grant autonomy in this region due to it's strategic importance, and the jews would not submit on account of their religious beliefs, it was eventually decided that they should just be destroyed altogether. in truth, the attempted genocide of the jews was one of many attempted genocides by the romans (the most famous being the carthaginian genocide), but also probably the least successful. the jews were said to be scattered (although it is understood today that many of them stayed) and the area was renamed from iudea to palestinia, after the historical tribe of philistines (who had long disappeared from history).

the philistines are mentioned in hebrew scripture as a race of giants, and actually explicitly referred to as originating from greece. while the bible is usually a questionable source, at best, we can actually corroborate this fairly well with the destruction horizon around 1200 bce. during this period, the entire eastern mediterranean, from greece all the way around to egypt, was invaded by a shady group of characters that we call sea peoples because they appear to have come from the sea. this invasion led to a widespread collapse of civilization and a lengthy dark age outside of egypt (which was transformed, but survived). when the dust settles, we have these people the egyptians called pelesets settled just outside of their borders, on the coast. it is widely accepted that these pelesets were a greek tribe that tried to invade egypt but were repelled, and that they are in fact the same people as the philistines, which is the etymological origin of the palestinians.

so, palestine is not a term that is historically connected to an indigenous group of arabs in the levant, which in truth never existed, but rather a term that is historically connected to a group of europeans that settled in the region roughly 3200 years ago. about 1800 years ago, the romans renamed the region after the philistines in an explicit attempt to destroy the semitic history of the region and europeanize it in a colonial roman image. so, your palestinians are both european in historical origin and resurrected from long historical death by different europeans in order to colonize the area. some indigenous group.

but, if the indigenous people of the region were neither jews nor arabs, who are they? it's maybe impossible to be specific beyond pointing to a concept of (north)west semitic as a cultural grouping, a group that is referred to in the very ancient world as canaanite and after the destruction horizon of 1200 as phoenician. these were important people, in world history. but, they were neither arabs nor jews, even if the jews were eventually absorbed by them after they invaded the region.

while there would no doubt have been some arab migration into the region in the upcoming centuries, the empire's borders held fairly firm for quite some time, well past the conversion of the region to christianity. palestine, jewish or not, remained inside the now christian empire, while the arabs remained outside of it. conflict in the region mostly took the form of civil wars around theological aspects of christianity, and the continuing thousand year war with the persians. an arab in the levant in this period would have probably been a mercenary in a roman legion, and not a roman citizen or inhabitant inside the empire.

it was the thousand year war with the persians that led to the decline of both empires by around the year 600. neither of them saw an arab uprising coming, and it's unclear if either could have stopped it.

as it is, while the dates around the arab conquests are blurry, and the invasion of the levant was not a singular event, it was certainly the case that the roman provinces of palestine were under the control of arab forces by the year 700. it was only after this point that you have a process called arabization take place, where the peoples that were conquered by the arabs became arabs in culture and language. there was romanization, hellenization and even iranization before this, so there is actually some historical process at play. the region would later undergo a turkicization, as well. arabization was successful throughout northern africa (including egypt) and parts of the middle east, but it was rejected in iran and asia minor, who insisted on maintaining their own culture. turkicization eventually succeeded in asia minor, where arabization failed.

while it was initially thought by modern scholars that arabization was a migration process - that is, that large amounts of arabs moved into the region and displaced the local inhabitants - this hypothesis failed to live up to much scrutiny. the historical records might have led somebody to believe that, but it just didn't add up when faced with any kind of scrutiny. how can a small amount of arab nomads repopulate not one but two empires? that's absurd on it's face. however, it wasn't until the advent of dna testing that the issue became an empirical question. who were the palestinians? were they arabs that invaded after the 7th century? were they greeks from antiquity? phoenicians?

and, we now have the science to state it.

the palestinians are the descendants of the jews that lived in the region in antiquity.

i have no way to reconstruct how i decided that it was monday yesterday, or how i decided it was sunday the day before, and need to let it go.

there's a vlog entry very early on the 27th. in the entry, i know it's saturday. but, i woke up thinking it was sunday.

i really think i must have confused myself in trying to catch up on the eating. i have absolutely no other explanation.

i could have cleaned today, rather than forced myself to go to sleep and wait until 7:00.

moving on...

it's actually a little unsettling. what? i kind of want to understand this.

monday seems to be somewhat of a black hole in that there are no posts here. but, posts were a little light all week on account of being stoned (contrary to popular perception, the volume here is not a consequence of drug use, unless you include coffee. marijuana tends to have a distinctly negative effect on my ability to type, write, order thoughts or really do anything creative at all. i don't do other drugs. the dip in volume is a normal consequence of smoking through a few grams and something you can pull out a clear pattern around, given how much is now here...you might even be able to deduce a period of marijuana use is taking place by observing a decrease in posts....), of being more interested in show listings and of being focused on the rebuild. it's unusual for me to skip a day on this blog, which is creating some pause for me, but occam's razor is that i was focused on something else, and the narrative i have is at least consistent with that.

i didn't lose a day, i skipped one. was it monday? or thursday? or some other day?

i came back from toronto with $10 worth of loonies in my pocket. i didn't want to buy a pack of cigarettes on 4/20 because i wasn't planning on smoking through what i had, and i had all this change, so i just went out and tried to buy a few "loosies". it would be useful if i could buy packs of 5s or maybe 10s for rolling purposes. as it happened, i very quickly found two cigarettes for $2, and that was actually enough for the night. i also spent $4 in change on doritos, so that's $6, but i remember being strangely unhungry when i went to eat them. i was then out again for a nice walk around brunch time on sunday morning, and was given two - for free - by a random dude in a car outside the timmy's. i spent the day working before stopping to eat the reheated nachos on sunday night and then am pretty sure i napped for a few hours. i don't think i was planning on smoking any more of it when i fell asleep, but then convinced myself otherwise when i woke up. well, it's a long weekend...

i was out again very early on monday - like 2:00 am-ish. i have a receipt from a circle k (still listed as a mac's by the bank) for mountain dew, and i would have gone to get mountain dew anyways because my throat hurt, but i was really out looking to bum a few smokes to roll with. i thought the circle k would be live enough, but learned it wasn't, so i took a walk down to the 24/7 mcdonald's instead and carried through with the transaction, for two more. that's $8. i took another nap in the afternoon, and then was back out for another walk in the afternoon, under the argument that the long weekend is still carrying on. i have a receipt for doritos from the afternoon, and think i bummed a smoke from a guy at a bus stop. he wouldn't take the change. i then tried to bum one from a guy outside the food basics, and he wouldn't take the change either.

there are a few posts to the music blog on monday night, but the next post to this blog is tuesday morning, and i have to assume i was just too hard at work to post, although i do think i started writing some posts and ended up deleting them. i also think it was on monday night that i took a quick walk to the store around the corner, and bought one from the guy that works there, on his way home. so, that's $9.

i gave out the last loonie - along with four quarters - for two more on tuesday morning. as it was now the fourth day of a long weekend, and there was only around a gram left, i decided to carry through until i either ran out of change or ran out of pot, and was at this point down to four quarters, so assumed it would be pretty quick. i went out a second time on tuesday afternoon, and while i managed to pick up a few cigarettes, i couldn't get anybody to take my change.

i'm sure i went for a walk to get my meds on the afternoon of wed the 24th - this is what my memory says, and i have receipts to prove it. i came back with three cigarettes; nobody took the quarters. this was enough to finish off the pot on wednesday night and thursday morning.

so, given that i started on saturday night and finished on thursday morning, that's around 4.5 days. 3.5/4.5 ~ 0.75, and i smoke quarter gram pinners because i have no tolerance, so i'm looking at three small joints a day over what amounted to five calendar days. i wasn't actually counting, but if you told me i got 15 joints out of that little container, i'd say that sounds right. sometimes, i would roll with half a cigarette and smoke the other half; other times, i'd roll both halves. i understand that this is very minimal consumption, but it's usually more than enough for me.

i had been eating doritos all week, and was consequently behind on my smoothies. so, i do distinctly recall waking up on thursday afternoon and deciding to catch up. further, i distinctly recall knowing it was thursday, because i counted back from the previous date. rather than have six smoothies, which would be absurd, and cost a lot of electricity, i put the equivalent of six smoothies in some tupperware containers and ate it with a spoon. this would be six bananas, six kiwis, 120 blueberries, 30 strawberries, six scoops of ice cream and roughly a box of vanilla soy milk. i then ended up very cold from the six scoops of ice cream and passed out...

the reason i'm sure that i knew it was thursday is that six smoothies would catch me up to wednesday, and i wanted to wait for the meal to carry on with thursday. and, i'm starting to understand this, i think - i got confused by my eating schedule.

and, i actually do have a recording from thursday afternoon that states it is thursday afternoon. i initially thought this recording was on friday by analyzing the dates on it, that i was stating it was thursday despite it actually being friday, but this appears to be a bad deduction - the recording was clearly actually on thursday. and the date on the device doesn't really appear to be reliable. ok. so, i'm pretty sure i haven't lost track of time yet, by thursday.

when i woke up on thursday night, i remember deciding to wait until i was caught up on the rebuild before i approached a meal. that didn't happen - i fell asleep at about 9:00 am on friday morning, without finishing the rebuild and without eating.

i woke up late in the afternoon, and sent an email to the oiprd, fully aware that it was friday afternoon. i did not stop to eat until late on friday night (eggs), but i still wasn't done the rebuild, yet. the next vlog entry states it is early on saturday morning, and  i do now think this was actually true. i would have then fallen asleep early on saturday morning, and woken up again on saturday afternoon. i had eggs a second time on sunday morning, after i finished the rebuild - but by this time i thought it was monday morning.

so, i seem to have mentally skipped forwards to sunday at some point on saturday afternoon, and didn't catch it until sunday night around 22:00. i still don't understand this, but i can at least localize it. let me check the footage again...

maybe i'm just moving so fast right now that time is slowing down.

i spent all day yesterday thinking it was sunday, too.

woah.

have you ever realized at 10:00 pm on monday night that it's actually not monday at all, but really sunday?

i don't actually think the science is predictive, at this point.

but, this is what they're releasing:
https://www.weather.gov/news/190504-sun-activity-in-solar-cycle

i've crossed over that bridge a thousand times in all kinds of states, on foot and on bike, and i've never seen it like that.

the fact is that we got a lot of snow this year and this is largely a consequence of runoff. the high amount of snow may have been partially a consequence of increasing amounts of precipitation, but the fact that it came down as snow, and then sat, isn't predictive of the long term effects of climate change in this particular region. if these increased amounts of precipitation increasingly fall as rain, or at least don't build up into piles of snow and then melt, the river may end up a little deeper year round but this kind of thing will end up avoided.

regardless, it's a reminder of just how much water runs through the valley, and how swamped the region is going to end up if faced with increasing amounts of torrential rain in the summer, which is the real concern. this region wasn't built with the expectation of weathering tropical storms....

getting out of ottawa may have been a better idea than i really realized.

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/videos/gallery/too-much-water-is-slamming-ottawa-bridge-officials-close-it-down/sharevideo/6030811660001/most_popular

so, i'm going to get something to eat and get a start on the end of the month cleaning, even if i have to wait until tonight to vacuum and do laundary. i won't be back to cleaning this up until later tonight.

actually, i found the specific post from the end of august that i was looking for in a separate word document dated to sept 1 and have redated it appropriately.

that's a fluke, though.

there will be posts out of context, coming up.

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2013/08/its-finally-time-to-step-away-from.html

i just also want to point something out about posts for september and maybe october and it's that gmail empties your recycle bin for you after a certain amount of time. i didn't realize that....

i did save a substantial number of occupy-related posts over 2011-2013, and they will come up in the alter-reality some time after 2031. but, archiving is so time consuming. i noticed that the files i wanted were saved in my email and decided they were safe there. they weren't....

so, i lost a substantial amount of my own posts to the various groups i was a part of, while maintaining a number of conversations about those posts.

i've decided to post these conversations out of context, rather than discard them, but unless i can find these posts somewhere (and i've already looked everywhere.) you're going to have to read between the lines regarding what they're actually about.

so, i've finished posting up until the end of august, 2013. i'm going to need to cross-reference it and recheck it, so the story will alter a little bit, but it's up in it's basic form. this was lengthier than i wanted it to be - 10 days instead of 3 - but i got a lot of listening done, too. i was slowed down by sorting through event listings. i was also slowed down by the pot, which i did in fact smoke through over last weekend, and into most of last week. if you noticed i picked up a bit on thursday, the reason is that i smoked through it.

well, i didn't start the 4/20 weekend until late on saturday night, and it was a four-day weekend, so i didn't feel bad about smoking through it up until the end of tuesday. but, then there wasn't much left, so i just finished it off on wednesday night and into thursday morning.

i wanted to let it wear off a little before i commented, and i'm feeling fine now. i'm not young any more, and i have a long history with marijuana, even if i prefer to avoid it completely for 28 days out of the average month. there's nothing confusing or contradictory about that, it's just called moderation - an idea that seems to have fallen by the way side, nowadays. so, i'm not a kid trying pot for the first time, and i'm not a heavy user, either - i'm a long time moderate to sporadic user that knows what i want out of it. i made sure i got a strain with no cbd because i didn't want the stuff to pass me out like a heroin addict, and, even with getting the strongest strain of thc i could find, i have to report that the government pot is pretty weak. it was acceptable for the first couple of joints, but it fell right off after a few grams. if i was a pothead, i'd quickly find myself smoking the stuff like it's tobacco.....except that i wouldn't actually do that. i'd find a stronger strain.

tolerance is a thing that happens when you smoke too much, and the right answer is to smoke less. but, the government drugs really had the tolerance come on faster than i've ever experienced. and, i have no tolerance. so, when my tolerance clicks in after only a few days, you know it's weak pot.

the simple answer is that they need to put some stronger strains on the market if they're serious about commanding it, but for right now, for me, it means that i'll need to ensure i'm spacing it out. i should be in london again in a few weeks, to file the paperwork, and i'm sure i'll pick a few more up.

i pared the music journal down to 230 pages, from 850, although the politics side will be more than that. that's actually about twice as long as the previous journal, indicating some consistency in terms of length. that said, i'm going to cut about 100 pages out of the pdfs because it's registry scripts - i'll link to the blogspot site, instead. but, the whole thing blows up in september...

i'm going to push through until the end of 2013 before i throw myself back into the alter-reality for the entire second half of 2013. so, i'm just going to continue on with what i'm doing for a few more weeks, at least.

i will make some calls on monday morning. drs. the report from the opird should be finished by now, so i'll need to call if i don't get a good response by noon-ish.

i understand that trudeau is a symptom and not a cause.

and, it is a sad thing that he's probably still the best option we have.

but, if he wants to graduate from dauphin to philosopher king, he needs a better set of tutors.

and, to answer a stupid question: anarchists place a massive focus on public education.

the actual idealization is that anarchists would be intelligent and educated enough to realize that you need to defer to expertise on a topic like this. you don't volunteer to be a surgeon; that's an abuse of the concept of voluntaryism. likewise, this is an engineering problem, and consequently requires engineers to solve. the idea is that the abolition of the state would actually remove the barriers that are preventing the society from carrying through with the rational action of electing an engineer to solve an engineering problem.

put another way, the athenians would have known better - they would have decided by popular decree to put a mathematician in charge. and, they would have. why isn't that obvious? why isn't that happening? because the state imposes cost restraints that a real democracy would have no concern about at all.

i mean, why do we pay taxes in the first place?

there may be other situations where a division of labour is unjust, sure. but, what anarchism means, in context, is getting the state out of the way so that actually rational decisions can be made, and an educated populace would clearly and quickly understand it's need to defer to expertise and it's need to place itself under a command.

anarchism is not the collapse of state institutions, or the abdication of state responsibilities to faith-based organizations - or, in ghastlier scenarios, to the market. it is abdication to the market that is when the affair becomes truly sordid. the abdication of state responsibilities to the church is also an abdication of democracy, as the church is less democratic than the state. and, the market is even less democratic than the church. but, democracy aside, the basic point of failure here is that a church is not an engineering firm; if the dark ages were defined by the slow dominance of the church over affairs that ought to be purely secular and ought to be defined in scientific terms, then thatcherism is in fact a road back to serfdom.

in order for a state to approximate this, it would have to begin with the good sense of an educated mob. but, it doesn't appear to have it.

we are living through the collapse of our civilization at the hands of thatcherism.

we have unqualified citizens out on the street trying to stop their homes from flooding, while stem graduates sit in their parents' basements because there aren't any job opportunities.

and, so few of us are cognizant of it.

well, at least the system hasn't completely collapsed - we're not entirely lost in a dark age, even if the prime minister seems to think we are.

what the prime minister should do in this situation is to tell citizens to remain calm and to request that people steer clear of the area in order to ensure that they are not interfering with the work of professionals, that is soldiers and engineers, who have the situation under control.

what the prime minister should not do is take his fucking kids down to play on the beach, in an airheaded attempt to teach them about the social values underlying thatcherism, namely that the state is abdicating it's responsibilities to the church.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/canadian-forces-to-focus-on-constance-bay-britannia-and-morin-road-areas-military-working-at-sandbagging

this should be the responsibility of professionals in the army, not of volunteers in the community.

trudeau's example is consequently wrongheaded, regardless of the sincerity of his intent - it's the wrong thing for him to do, in the position of authority that he's in; what he's trying to present as a responsible gesture is in truth an irresponsible abdication of his own responsibilities, and he's no doubt completely clueless about it. but, it's wrong-headed in exactly the way that neo-liberalism always is - it cuts out the functions of government, it discards the reasons we need some approximation for the state, while leaving the systems of dominance and control and tyranny and corruption in place.

if he wants to lead by example, he should restore funding to disaster management in order to kickstart a rebuilding of our collapsing civilization, not help carry forward the disastrous legacy of neo-liberalism to the next generation.

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/04/27/flood-weary-communities-in-ontario-quebec-brace-for-more-rain/

biden might actually be the most self-centered, conceited, in-it-for-himself candidate in american history.

he has zero policy agenda.

he just wants to be president.

i warned you about biden.

but, listen. biden has been clear enough that he's operating solely out of careerism. joe isn't even running for wall street; joe is running solely for joe, for his resume, for his legacy.

i guess you can't fault him, if he wants it.

but, you should frankly be ashamed of yourself for sending him money - or for casting a ballot for him. he represents nobody and nothing. he has no policy vision. so, why are you sending him money? and, why are you supporting his candidacy?

he doesn't care about you. why do you care about him?

he waited until the last minute and then raised a lot of money on the first day. that suggests he's not going to fade, that he does have a substantive base - or at least substantive enough of one to compete in a crowded field.

now that he's in, bernie's tactic needs to be to try to prevent as many people from dropping as possible. when booker gives up, joe gets a bump. when harris realizes that the rest of the country isn't actually very much like california after all, it's joe that gets the bump. even warren supporters are saying something by supporting her, namely that they won't back a leftist candidate.

so, joe has a process here: he's the center of gravity. he's got to try and build up as much jomentum as possible, as he runs through the space-time of the primary field. history may not be on his side, but time is.

there's a point where the field narrows, the situation flips and you get a stop biden movement in the same way that you had a stop clinton movement. but, that's a reaction - a reaction to a biden victory.

biden is a huge problem for bernie.

again: it's not about budget deficits, it never is, but is rather a reflection of the endless stupidity of their voting base.

take that, trees. ford showed ya.

yes, they're that fucking stupid.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2019/04/25/even-the-trees-fall-to-the-ford-governments-budget-axe.html

i want to clarify what i was saying about this.

suppose you're in jail over a triviality, either to fund the prison-industrial complex or just because you're black. what good is a vote to you? it's farcical. and, how does one react to a system that will take away all of your rights, except the right to vote? the argument is that voting is fundamental, inherent to the individual; i might rather argue that allowing prisoners to vote from inside a cell actually devalues voting. you wouldn't even have to be free to vote, anymore. the cynic in me may argue that it's an accurate accounting of the value of a vote, but i think we ought to strive for a more meaningful concept of democracy than that. voting is something that should flow from some concept of privilege in society, even if that privilege is something as basic as near-universal citizenship status, and not merely from birthright.

so, i don't support the measure, for reasons i've attempted to make clear.

that said, i have no interest in the kind of childish gotcha-reaction being pushed by the christian right, that wants to turn the issue into some kind of "moral" quandary that is about listening to "bad" people talk, or something. if the debate is to be reduced to whether the restriction of voting rights is an acceptable "punishment" for any sort of crime, then i'm going to cut you off before you start because i fully reject the premise underlying retribution, as a means of so-called justice. retribution is a religious idea that has no place in a scientific society.

as jurisdiction is a human construct, there are ways to get around the jurisdictional issues. sure.

i don't like the idea of voting via absentee ballot from jail, as these people are in no way a part of the communities that they're trying to vote in. that might seem trivial if you're in a big city, like new york or los angeles. but, the reality is that the inmate vote, as large as it is in america, has the legitimate potential to swing smaller races for city offices, or things like school board races where the total votes cast may only be in the dozens. if the intent is to strengthen democracy, i might again question if it's thought through well - i don't think that the premise of a mayoral race in small town america being swung from the county jail is something that would strengthen democracy in america, but rather something that would devalue it.

a better idea may be to consider the inmate population in the context of redistricting. if a county jail has a large enough of a population to justify a seat in the state or federal legislature, maybe you just give them one. this would prevent them from voting in their communities while they are displaced from them - which i will reiterate that i don't like on grounds that it would put the administration of democracy into disrepute, rather than on appeals to retribution.

but, however you fix the jurisdictional problems, you're still left with the absurdity of voting from a jail cell, and the devaluation of democracy that is attached to the premise of doing so - as well as the futility of the process, as very little that occurs outside of the jail will have much of an effect on what occurs within it.

if somebody wanted to stand up for the rights of prisoners, they would be better off supporting their rights to unionize, to strike and to generally act in protest at their own conditions, and this is something i would have more support for. prisoners will not have their living conditions bettered by pressure from the outside, they will need to organize and fight to win their own struggle, on their own terms. the ability to take part in a democracy from inside the institution would be immeasurably more valuable than the ability to take part in a democracy that exists outside of it.

of course, allowing prisoners to vote from prison would also be an open door for voter fraud. you'd have all kinds of dead people voting in no time, as well as people voting from prison that have already been released. and, it would be the democrats that would do this, not the republicans.

if i was an american, i wouldn't consider this a ballot issue. if this is your best reason to vote against bernie sanders, you maybe shouldn't vote at all. but, i think he's wrong on this point and should revisit it.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/440736-graham-says-senate-should-vote-on-sanders-prisoner-voting-idea

9/11700 = 7.69 x 10^-4. that is 0.076% of the budget deficit.

when your calculator resorts to scientific notation to get a percentage, it is not a substantial cost reduction. this is a fraction of any kind of error on the budget, and is quite obviously not being done to save money. rather, it's an example of capitalism at work - the government is eliminating a public service in order to line the pockets of it's buddies in the private sector. it's just good old corruption.

i live on the border, and i can't afford to buy insurance. nor am i going to allow that to affect my travel plans. so, i will now have no choice but to travel without insurance, and i guess we'll just need to create an international incident, if i get hit by a car while i'm out.

don't buy into the false narrative about budget cuts; this is privatization by stealth, and it's representative of how this government is going to operate, in general.

in canada, we have little ability to oppose a sitting government on an issue like this. but, the opposition should take it as an invitation to involve itself in the private insurance industry, when it rewins the government. if they want to open this can up, the opposition should take advantage of it in the long run in erecting a pretext for further meddling, when it reverses it.

and, yes, you should expect the next government to reverse this, because it's just flat out stupid.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-ohip-out-of-country-emergency-coverage-1.5109027

i guess the engineers will have a lot of work to do.

it's like reading about roman citizens in the dark age, who were prevented from reading their own language by the tyranny of the church, who demanded they live like children in febrile servitude, and eventually forgot their own civilization, having to relearn it from translations into other languages. in canada, we are experiencing lost knowledge, how about that. hooray for neo-liberalism.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-poor-flood-risk-maps-or-none-at-all-are-keeping-canadian-communities/

the recent ipcc reports have been clear that mitigation and adaptation ought to be a part of the strategies taken by policy institutions to reduce the effects of climate change. some warming has already occurred, and some more is inevitable even under the best case scenarios, and there is no evidence we are anywhere near any best case scenario. governments need to react to science to prepare for the future, and all evidence right now suggests we are heading into a rapidly warming future; of course, it needs to present adaptation strategies. in context, that's it's job.

however, adaptation policies shouldn't ever be seen as a replacement for emissions reductions legislation; pointing to the inevitability of substantive change in the recent future doesn't negate the requirement to minimize it, but in fact should draw attention to the importance of doing so. no species has an infinite ability to adapt. i worry that the government may be pivoting out of a file it's really made a mess of, and was maybe never as committed to as they advertised they were. the carbon tax didn't work as a license to pollute; maybe, "it's evolution, baby!" will give them the sideways glances that they seek. i've been arguing that the government needs to find a way to counteract the cynicism in order to survive; meanwhile, they're actually broadcasting that they're considering running on it.

there's little question that many municipalities in canada are going to require some engineering help in controlling the water surrounding their communities, and that most solutions will need to be paid for with state funds. if we're talking about reality, it is that the state needs to adopt a development stance in order to adapt, which means prioritizing the flow of public funds to mass infrastructure projects. talking about adapting is empty rhetoric, if there's no actual action being taken. adapting is expensive, hard work.

so, yes - flooding is the new normal. yes - we need to adapt to that. but, we shouldn't let the acknowledgement of this truth cloud us to the continuing need to get emissions under control.