and, just to be clear: justin trudeau and jason kenney are both racists, but justin trudeau is way more racist than jason kenney is.

jason kenney is actually the architect of the immigration policies that trudeau likes to take credit for. so, if they want to make the election about "diversity", which is such a ridiculously clinical and racist way to take about immigration from the start, it's the language you hear in a $500/plate fundraiser with a bunch of upper-class old money white people that are trying very hard to hide their racism, i'm going to go out of my way to throw that in their faces.

immigration levels are historically higher under conservative governments, who have been using the process as a way to shift the population to the right and solidify their own voting base, and recent immigrants to canada should support kenney over trudeau - they agree with him more on core governing issues, and kenney likes them better than trudeau does, too.

at 16:46

Wednesday, April 17, 2019

kenney has problems with the gays, but his racism is actually quite subtle, as he fully realizes that the kind of socially conservative immigrant that he wants comes from the religious societies in asia and africa, and not the liberal countries of europe or south america. he may be unlikely to accept a coalition with non-white leadership, but he's more open to the ideas that immigrants bring in with them, because they're not very different from his own ideas. so, kenney sees the immigrant as an ally in his quest for a more conservative world, even if he wishes to retain power for himself and his own kind - it's racism lite, a subtler way to be white.

trudeau's racism is more visceral, which is ever the more obvious given that he fucks up every once and again with outbursts of disdain and superiority. there's a list of pretty brutal comments, at this point. the jig is up, really. so, he hides his hate in these choreographed displays of "diversity", using clinical language out of a marketing class. his white supremacy is more absolute, in that he's happy to parade as many different-looking people around him as he can find, but he doesn't have the slightest interest in listening to a word that they actually say, or offering up any kind of position of real authority. how about the bizarre reaction to the raybould resignation/firing, which really had nothing to do with race: diversity only works when it is rooted in trust. what the actual fuck does that even mean? it may appear as incomprehensible word salad on first glance, but it really reveals a fundamentally racist world view: she really was just a token indian in cabinet. so, trudeau sees the immigrant as a voter to control at a distance within a class hierarchy with a white, liberal elite at the top. it's racism with a smile, and you just don't talk about it, because it's not polite.

while the reality is that trudeau is probably defaulting to this because he wants to create a wedge issue with minority voters and can't figure anything else out, that by vilifying kenney as a racist he's essentially acknowledging that he can't compete with him on ideas with immigrant voters and is stuck trying to scare people instead, what you're going to get out of trudeau on this is a lot of projection. most of what trudeau is going to throw out there about his opponents is going to be more true of himself than of them, and it's exactly the reason he's going to throw it out there.

and, a part of the reason that the tories tend to win the immigrant vote in canada is because immigrants can see through this clearly enough. the conservatives are actually willing to accept them for who they are and reflect their actual values; the liberals just pander to them for votes with fake appeals to togetherness, while then passing laws that they stringently oppose.

the liberals are at a dead-end with this. they've tried to build a party around cultural inclusion, only to find out that majorities in all of these different cultures would rather live in a christian society than a secular one, and that the path to multiculturalism is through the destruction of liberalism, rather than the elevation of it. in the mean time, they've alienated swaths of white voters, who are actually liberal and secular in their beliefs.

but, trudeau doesn't live in reality, he lives in a bubble that is curated by his advisors. and, he could very well spend the next six months tilting at these aforementioned windmills, slaying the monster that is the projection of his own inner, racist demons.

at 17:57

the dancing thing is potentially worse than the gala, but it's inconclusive, and, even if you conclude that his motives were nefarious, you have to realize he was a teenager, or maybe a very young adult. who let him go on stage and do that?

again: i'm not sure this is racist, but i'm keen on hoping that the fallout helps take them down to a minority. and, no, it's not a reason to vote for a guy that thinks he has a magic beard.

i am sure, however, that there are lots of far better reasons to call trudeau and his handlers racist, and if you sort through the last four years of this blog, i point out a fair number of them.

https://globalnews.ca/news/5922861/justin-trudeau-brownface-video/

bernie.

bernie.

listen.

call al franken - not to ask him to come back, and not to ask him for support in iowa, although it might help, but to ask him what it's like to get pushed out.

you're not a democrat, bernie. you know that. they know that. and, they dislike you so much that they'd rather pick a republican. ok?

bernie has to get the point and run for a third party before it's too late. fuck that pledge, they've been dishonest with him, and they'll screw him over at every chance.

and, if bernie can't face the facts here, his movement needs to get on with it and organize a third party movement without him.

he needed critical mass, and he's not getting it.

again: i don't care if this guy wants to be a 55 year old pothead. they're all 55, though, aren't they?

but i signed a non-smoking lease because i didn't want to live with a smelly, old pothead.

i have every right to expect him to uphold it.

there's a weak, background of pot tonight. the stench isn't as strong as it was last night, but i'm feeling oozy from it, and i avoided it last night. it's partly where it is; it was on the other side of the apartment last night.

i don't want to be stoned right now. at all. i'm at home. being stoned at home by yourself is boring as fuck.

i'm going to get something to eat and finally get started on what i should have been doing this week.

so, we're going to stop there at the end of period 3.

that is by no means comprehensive or exhaustive, but it's a good teaser (and a good plan) for what i've got in front of me for period 3, which was about 08/2003-03/2007.

most of it is mostly done. there's really just the lost symphony, the throatmotor fragment, the crash and the matlab project....

inri11x

inri092?

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/percussive-works

inri11x

inri091?

most of my songs begin as conventional guitar songs before they get ripped apart and demented into various abstract concoctions. that means that a lot of my pieces have two different versions. i've always deferred the raw guitar versions to eventual live performances, but i'm at a space in life where i realize that these live performances are not likely to ever materialize. so, i'm going to compile the live/guitar versions of my larger pieces here.

it's unclear to me at this point where i will space this in my discography, but it will probably be around 2008.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/genesis

inri101

inri090?

this is the introduction of a symphony i started at the end of 2006 and have since placed on indefinite hold.

this introduction is very noisy, and i'm somewhat impressed by myself listening to at the moment.

but, the second - incomplete and unreleased - section sounds like al di meola jamming with the aphex twin, and that's a better way to describe the overall intent.

this might end up as a tetris release and is probably the end of period 3.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-crash

inri093

inri088?

this is the upcoming ninth album. disc 1 is the first two tracks, disc two is the second two.

for now, just fast forward through the three minutes of silence. the lost symphony will be the fourth track; to an extent, xenophanes is just the introduction to it.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/e

inri092

inri087?

this extended ep will be a comprehensive exploration of all of the versions of this recording. i've never been fully certain if this recording is done or not, but i'll have to decide sooner than later.

for now, here is the newest version that exists, which is instrumental (there are vocals.) and from early 2007.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/xenophanes

inri097

inri086?

these are actually rock songs, albeit weird ones. i was shopping them around in the mid-00s, and nobody bit. we'll have a compilation demo up here as i found it, but i'm also going to need to actually finish them up.

i didn't want this to be a studio project, but what do you want me to tell you? i can't find anybody to jam with...and i've been looking for twenty years....

the cd-r from 2005 that i have consists of the first eight tracks, and i'm going to publish it that way, as is. i was considering adding a ninth track that i cut at some point, but decided against it - this will come up elsewhere. there is also a tenth demo in this collection that was dismantled into different tracks, and will eventually come up as a part of a similar collection dated to mid-2004.

there are two different types of tracks in this collection. some of these tracks will be worked into the trivial group or proverbs symphonies, whereas others will need to be completed as standalones in the 2004-2005 space, depending on where i think they best fit.

see, i'm tempted to label this proverbs, but don't actually want to. the tracks that weren't put aside for it don't have vocals. but, they weren't supposed to be trivial group, they were supposed to be a band project. i was using the pseudonym "whore to culture" for a little bit, but, in hindsight, i don't really like it - and i never finished anything under the label. i think that was mostly xenophanes, which is definitely trivial group, now.

on the other hand, were any of the trivial group tracks intended to be studio projects? no...they just all ended up that way...so that's less a difference and more a commonality...

and, are these tracks that different than trivial group? not in the form they're in. if i were to just play the trivial group tracks on guitar, they'd be sort of similar, wouldn't they?

in fact, i could conceivably expand this collection by isolating some of the other guitar tracks in the other trivial group stuff, but i don't want to do that, either. i mean, i could take the style way back - this isn't my first demonstration of impressionist jazz punk. i may consider creating a second companion disc that just has the guitar parts from all of the trivial group material, but i want to leave this specific disc exactly as it is, which is exactly as i found it.

these specific tracks were written at various points between 2003-2005 and performed via a line-in directly into my soundcard, with no effects, in my apartment on prince of wales in ottawa on august 21, 2005. a handful of cds were then burned, and left out randomly at various places around town where i hoped a drummer would find them. ripped back to digital on april 12, 2014. uploaded and published without further modification on sept 19, 2019. as always, please use headphones.

cover art by sarah. 

credits

released August 21, 2005

j - guitar 

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/impressionist-jazz-punk

inri096

is this inri085?

i don't know. i'll need to do something with this, but i may work it into one of the other pieces...

there's about another 15 minutes to this piece, btw.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/throatmotor-fragment

again: i'm pretty sure i'm right on this, but you can be mad if you want, i don't really care.

i'm more excited about the ability of taking advantage of some potential fallout.

racism is when you do things that are intended to harm, disparage or attack people of a specific race.

does wearing make-up do that? not necessarily.

stated tersely: i simply don't see the causal connection between wearing makeup and being racist.

now, if you could imagine somebody wearing blackface and portraying africans as particularly ignorant or backwards, more so than would be considered reasonable by a reasonable person, then, sure, that would be racist. but, it's not the make-up that's racist in this scenario, it's the behaviour. i think we can agree that the portrayal would still be racist if that theoretical person took the make-up off, right? so, why is it still racist if you leave the make-up on and stop the portrayal?

and, i mean, you can be offended if you insist, but it's not actually an argument, and it doesn't mean you're actually right.

i don't know the context of the picture, but it looks to me like he went on a date with an iranian woman and dressed up as aladdin, as a part of a gag. i guess you'd have to ask her how she felt about it. but, the premise of being on the date with the iranian suggests that there wasn't any particular level of dislike going on.

i'm just happy to see an opportunity here that the greens, specifically, can take advantage of.

i want a minority parliament. anything that takes trudeau down a few notches is a good idea, to me.

listen - i certainly don't remember donning black makeup as a joke, but it's because it's something i wouldn't do. and, if i did do it, i would probably defend it as harmless - and tell anybody offended by it to fuck off.

i have been accused of wearing cover-up that was slightly darker than my skin colour, but i'm not going to apologize for not bringing my make-up artist to the drug store. to the extent that there may have been a point, it had to do with it being may rather than august, and not having the money to buy different coloured foundation depending on the exact amount of tanning i'm experiencing.

the reality is that i have a lot of brown-skinned ancestors and i get pretty dark-skinned in the summer. if i used pasty white make-up, it would look pretty awful.

if you want to accuse me of anything in the media you see of me, it should be of lightening my skin by using bright lights, but it's never been intentional when it's happened.

but, the reality is that i think this whole thing is stupid, and i'm not likely to take you very seriously, anyways.

i think these constant kneejerk reactions about wearing blackface are, in general, over blown. i don't really see what the big deal is, honestly.

you're going to tell me "that's racist!", and i'm going to say "no, it isn't". and, we can have that debate if you catch me in the right forum, but, for right now, i'm just going to say that i think it's kind of a trivial concern to get yourself worked up over.

but, those pictures are going to piss people off.

and, the people that it's going to piss off aren't going to vote conservative...

there's something else worth pointing out about the canadian election, and i don't know exactly what the best way to parse it is, yet.

scheer - 30-something
singh - 30-something
trudeau - 40-something going on 12
may - 60-something

it's easy enough to suggest that may is an old woman and should retire.

but, i think a part of the reason that she handily won the first debate is because she came off as the only adult in the room.

inri091

inri084?

the very beginning of a long paused project built around the idea of converting ratios directly into music using matlab.

i'm going to leave this as a one-track single dated to november, 2004 and finish the idea, for release in....2020?

this was created for the requirements of math 4822, a course on wavelet theory, at carleton university in the fall semester of 2004. programmed entirely in matlab over a weekend in nov, 2004. uploaded and published without further modification on sept 19, 2019. as always, please use headphones.

credits

released November 30, 2004

j - matlab programming, digital wave editing.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-spontaneous-combustion-of-leonardo-pisano

inri088

inri082?

this extended ep will be a comprehensive exploration of all of the versions of this recording.

for now, here is the maximal version, which contains a poem that was written in mid-2004 but not added to the track until 2011 (and will be removed for the album version).

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/interplanetary-isomorphism

inri081

inri079. seventh record.

audio needs to be replaced, items need to close..

...except that i think i did replace the audio, already. so, i'm just looking at final sequencing decisions; this is just about done.

it's the sample-free, (mostly) instrumental reclamation of my seventh lp.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa

publishing inri079

an art show demo, uploaded as is. inri079.

it's not a complex story - sarah wanted to have a showing of some of her paintings in her apartment, so she asked me to write some music for it. i just took some of the things i was working on and put them together.

this is the sum total of material worked on in my mother's apartment, where i stayed from about december, 2003 to about may, 2004.

this would eventually become the core of the next symphony.

initially written and recorded over the second half of 2003 and the very beginning of 2004. compiled on january 18, 2004. ripped from cd-r on april 11, 2014. finally uploaded and published without further modification on sept 18, 2019. as always, please use headphones.

released january 18, 2004

j - electric & acoustic & classical guitars, effects, vocals, flute, synthesizers, electric air reed organ, drum programming, piano programming, sound design, noise generators, sequencers, generative synthesis, audiomulch, sounder, digital wave editing, sampling, composition, production

sarah - cover art photo, as taken from the top of the alexandra bridge in ottawa, ontario, during the winter of 2003/2004.

the acoustic guitar played on quantum psychosis belonged to heather.

inri079

an art show demo, uploaded as is. inri078.

it's not a complex story - sarah wanted to have a showing of some of her paintings in her apartment, so she asked me to write some music for it. i just took some of the things i was working on and put them together.

this would eventually become the core of the next symphony.

initially written and recorded over the second half of 2003 and the very beginning of 2004. compiled on january 23, 2004. ripped from cd-r on april 11, 2014. finally uploaded and published without further modification on sept 18, 2019. as always, please use headphones.

credits

released January 23, 2004

j - all sound

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/art-show-demo

inri077

inri077.

these are some demos that i recorded on my 4-track in sarah and heather's apartment on dalhousie in ottawa in late 2003. i still have the tape, but i haven't digitized, yet.

the only thing i transferred was a section that became "like divine amoebas", because i was using it, directly. the non-digitized sections were mostly for the lost symphony, iirc.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/bedroom-cassette-demoes

first inri078 upload

i will finally complete this symphony, soon.

for now, here's a demo that was recorded in the winter of 2007.

inri076.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-lost-symphony

inri075

inri075.

i wrote this song on a beach in kelowna in mid 2003. it looked a lot like the picture...

there's a lot of space in the track, which is intentional. in the final recording, i filled it out with birds chirping, but the initial intent was something out of a john cage piece - listen to what's around you. relax...

that said, a live version of the track at the time would have featured me playing multiple parts at once, which were separated in the recording for tonal variance. i'm hoping that i find a fuller recording, but here's a background track, for now.


https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/kelowna

so, we're going to put some teasers up for inri075-inri???.

here we go...

it's been too long, so i should remind people what the next stage is, once i get all this journal writing done.

period 3 is next and will start in seriousness when i get back from bc in mid-2003.
this period was unstable, and unfocused, overall, but i got a fair number of demoes down, at least.

i've also made some tracks public that were previously hidden, even though it's going to take forever to do it.

1) inri075 needs to be cleaned up, but is essentially done.
it's some demos recorded over the second half of the summer of 2003 in a psychedelic-prog style that document my immediate feelings after getting back.
this should be an ep.
sept 1, 2003.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/kelowna

2) inri076 is the second of four half hour epics that will make up the trivial group 2xlp.
there are rough demoes dated to much later, but i'd be starting this from scratch, and it will be a major project to finish.
there are no serious demoes because i was living on sarah's floor at the time, due to being thrown out of my parents' basement.
i don't even remember why. i think i called my stepmother psychotic (which was just a statement of fact).
this will likely be a lengthy ep that will at least include instrumental and vocal versions.
this is more of a rock symphony than reflections, but the end project will be quite psychedelic.
i had been listening to a lot of 'soundtracks for the blind', and you can tell.
this would be symphony 9.
nov 1, 2003.
note, however, that i may have to extend the inri numbers if i decide to release some singles dated to october, 2003.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-lost-symphony

3) inri077 is literally a couple of four-track acoustic demoes that i recorded on sarah's floor.
these pop up elsewhere, but they're their own thing, too.
this should come up as is, i'm just waiting for inri #s.
dec 1, 2003
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/bedroom-cassette-demoes

4) inri078 is a recording that sarah asked me to create for an "art show" she put on in her apartment.
it's just some rough versions of some things i was doing, but it's it's own document, too.
this should come up as is.
jan 23, 2004.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/art-show-demo

5) inri079 is the ftaa lp, which is my sixth official record.
i'm dating it to june 1, 2004 because that's when i first constructed it, but the audio needs to be replaced with final versions of each of the tracks.
there is an older version of the record there, already.
this should otherwise be quick.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa

6) the tenth symphony is dated to aug 15, 2004. while it is done, a nice compilation will need to be constructed.
no audio here, yet.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/interplanetary-isomorphism

7) the cycles per second ep came out of a course on wavelet compression that i took in 2004.
this ep is done, it just needs an inri #.
it's also the front-end for a noisy matlab project that will be entirely prgrammed and will be my eight or ninth record.
if i ever get through this, it may be the template for further post-discography composition.
nov 1, 2004.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-spontaneous-combustion-of-leonardo-pisano

8) i briefly played bass, as a favour to the guitarist, for an ottawa pop-punk band called throatmotor.
there was some discussion around doing actual interesting music, but it never materialized.
this is an attempt on my behalf to contribute to the writing which was, as always, simply ignored.
i'm not exactly sure what will be done with this, yet.
may 1, 2005
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/throatmotor-fragment

9)  this is the trivial group lp, which i have dated to june, 2005 but will probably move to past the fourth symphony, xenophanes.
the components will be reflections (8th), the lost symphony (9th), interplanetary isomorphism (10th) & xenophanes (11th).
the first and last two are largely done, while i haven't started recording the second.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/e

10) i made an attempt over mid 2005 to start a more conventional rock band by floating some rock songs that i described, at the time, as "impressionist jazz punk".
these tracks were actually written between mid-2003 and mid-2005, but they never got beyond the guitar stage, because i wanted to perform them with an actual band.
the compilation is dated to mid-2005, but we'll have to see what i do about actually completing them.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/impressionist-jazz-punk

11) this is the fourth trivial group symphony and 11th overall, entitled 'xenophanes'.
dated to sept 1, 2005 for now.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/xenophanes

12) when i get there, i'll create an lp of music i created from 1998-2006 for a scholastic reason.
dated to may, 2006.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/scholastic-pieces

13) this is the introduction of a symphony i started at the end of 2006 and had to place on indefinite hold due to life circumstances. this introduction is very noisy, and i'm somewhat impressed by myself listening to it at the moment. but, the second - incomplete and unreleased - section sounds like al di meola jamming with the aphex twin, and that's a better way to describe the overall intent. this might end up as a tetris release and is probably the end of period 3.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-crash

period 4....the bronson years.

14) this is a good way to start period 4.
it will need to compile just the guitar parts for all of the later period symphonies.
dating it to early 2007 makes sense, but we'll see if it's actually right or not when i get there.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/genesis

15) this will need to come up at the end of period 3, and will be a collection of midi percussion renders for tracks composed over 2000-2007.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/percussive-works

16) this is a messy, out of sync demo that represents the beginnings of what was supposed to be the tetris project.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/evil-is-a-human-construction

17) by combining this with the guitar demos, it is possible to get a rough idea of what the first three movements of this lp will sound like. there are five written movements.
dating is unclear.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/proverbs

18) i started writing this concept record weeks before i got evicted from the apartment on bronson, in mid-2011.
it's very much the end point of the discography, at this point.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/orb-symphony

actually, maybe this is useful as a snapshot of where i left off after period 2.

that's the 'music video' link to the side.

there's the link to all 75 records, inri000-inri074:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3JSjmqp0cbvbF58VKPkic-68bkZZ-4pn

if you flip through the youtube profile, you'll see links to specific projects, as well.

so, i'm done with the uploads.

i'm not going to pretend that this wasn't an inefficient use of time, but so be it.

it'll be just a bit longer before i start on this in seriousness.

so, this is what we've come to right now.

1) conservatives. they're not even in contention, they never are.
2) people's party. i don't like their positions on economics or science, and i don't really agree with them on immigration, either. they're not under serious consideration.
3) liberals. under the control of stupid people, they've become the stupid party.
4) ndp. they used to be the stupid party, but now they're just next level. say no to magic beards in office.
5) greens. i don't like her either, but she can't win. is the local candidate worth supporting? that's what i need to figure out.
6) mlm. this is the first election where i've seriously considered it, but, if they win, it might be the last one i'll get the chance to consider it. there's almost no chance.
7) spoiled ballot. that's running a close second, right now.

i've been stating for years that i'm not comfortable with elizabeth may's religious beliefs, either. this is a big part of the reason that i'm hesitating - i don't really want to vote for her, either. but, she's a known entity, and it's a difference of scale.

she's not helping herself by running her mouth off.

i would support jagmeet singh's right to practice his silly religion, or express his cultural homogeneity, or however he sees it, at a private law practice, as he sees fit. i'm not going to bother him at work, even if i might support policies to get to his kids.

and, a savvy lawyer could charge a magic fee for access to his magic beard.

but, there's not a fucking chance in hell i'd ever vote for him - and i know i'm right, so don't bother calling me names about it.

and, for the last time, i'm not running for office, and i haven't endorsed anybody yet.

i'm running to restore some fucking sanity in a world that's losing it's grip on all sides.

and, they give me a check every month for being crazy.

"meh. magic beards, science, what's the difference?"

the guy thinks he has a magic beard, and he wants executive power.

no, i'll just never be ready for that.

what a "progressive" (and i'm just co-opting the term, here, with a dictionary definition) politics should be based around is helping people out of these cults - which means providing them with support to break free from them. that holds for sikhism, islam, christianity, judaism and all the rest.

the last thing that a "progressive" politics should be doing is giving these religious groups a platform, or helping to put them into power.

electing a guy with a turban would be a step backwards, and let's hope we're never "ready" for it.

so, i'll put it to you this way - my ancestors in the medieval period would have been more "ready" to elect a guy with a turban than i ever will be.

and, that's progress.

sikhism is particularly absurd on this point, because it's not even really a religion, it's more of a uniform designed to enforce ethnic uniformity - essentially a racist cult.

stated differently: progress does not look like a "multicultural" society, where we accept any and all manners of lousy thinking as equally valid. and, "diversity of thought" is not about a diversity of mindlessness. religion is the opposite of free-thinking.

rather, diversity of thought requires the abolition of organized religion as a pre-condition - we can't be independent thinkers and tolerant of the conformity of religious sameness at the same time, it's an impossible contradiction. fighting for diversity means fighting against these cults.

further, progress is a secular society where we don't see the world through these backwards prisms of childishness and make-believe any more; progress happens when religion ceases to exist.

and, this isn't alt anything. it's standard, basic leftism. what you want is a traditional, conservative society defined by people like edmund burke.

no, stop.

progress is not electing a guy with a turban.

progress is getting them all to take their damn turbans off.

that seems to be the legacy of this, as far as i can see: just another way to generate smelly old people.

and, it is old people.

it's old people that can't get laid...that's who's stinking up your street.

the kids know better than that.

if the result of legalization is that we all have to suffer these old people smoking drugs by themselves on their porches and stinking up the neighbourhood, maybe we should go back to making it so they can't find it.

it's a social drug.

you do it outside.

with people...

and, not all the time.

ugh.

have a beer, grandpa. the pot stinks, and your neghbours have the right to complain about it.

so, "are we ready" for a pm with a turban?

i don't know.

i wonder if we're "ready" for other things, though, too.

are we "ready" to accept that the earth is flat?

there's really probably lots of things that we're not "ready" for, and may never be "ready" for. maybe it's for the best.

i was woken up by a brutal skunk smell this morning, and it was strong and concentrated enough that i'm going to conclude it was actually a skunk. i've seen them around; they're native to the area.

or, maybe i'm being more patient than i'm legally required to be.

after showering and eating, and redoing the laundry that had just finished, i think i can get back to sleep.

so, socialists broadly argue that the progressive insistence that you can regulate capitalism is based on the flawed idea that there are just bad people in bad places, and once you put an eye on them then everything will be ok. we argue that this is wrong because the problem isn't the individual people in the equation, but rather the system that created them and put them there. so, we don't argue for regulation, we argue for revolution; you can't fix the system, you need to tear it down.

so, it's not that power corrupts people. that's what warren would say, and is maybe how she's rationalizing this. rather, it's that people are only minor players in a system that functions around corruption as it's operating procedure. it's not that good people are corruptible, it's that it's impossible to uncorrupt the system.

but, i've noticed a few people point this out before - warren likes to write rules. she doesn't like to follow them, though. she might think that's pragmatic - because she thinks she's special - but smart people should realize that that's dangerous.

we have a rule of law for a reason, and everybody needs to follow it, even the self-appointed vanguard.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/09/working-families-party-elizabeth-warren-endorsement

listen: i don't care much for bernier's broader economic positions. i'm a strong supporter of supply management, and my primary vote driver is climate policy.

but, conservative voters are true believers. they don't swing.

the parties that bernier are going to potentially hurt are the liberals and the ndp, but particularly the liberals, as ndp voters tend to be far more economically socialist.

the type of voter that bernier is going to appeal to is a libertarian liberal, and there are in fact quite a few of them up here. you saw that in the recent by-elections in bc. that 2-3% that he's running at is coming directly at trudeau's expense.

the liberals don't seem to understand that.

...because they're stupid people. it's just more evidence.

i understand that gantz is not much better than netanyahu, but i'd openly support satan if i thought he could get the guy out of office, at this point.

and, i'm not a satanist, i'm an atheist.

the israeli spectrum is complicated, and i don't know the ins and outs. i know the generalities. so, i understand that it may be hard for gantz to form a coalition - and that he may even need to rely on the arabs.

but, that would be a big step forward, i think. remember: i support a one-state solution, with equal rights.

this could all collapse into a grand coalition, which would probably be a caretaker government. but, let's hope it works out.

but, i've asked this before.

could all of you so-called liberals (pfft.) that want to stand up for "religious freedom" in the context of bill 21 please write me an essay explaining your views on publicly displaying the ten commandments in courthouses or in schools?

thanks.

maybe another way to look at the differences between bill 21 and the ban on face coverings at citizenship ceremonies is to ask yourself what kind of voter is likely to be attracted to the different policies, and realize that there's a standard right-left divide at play, even in a basic liberal v conservative concept of the separation of church and state.

so, i called the citizenship ceremony "trivial", which would be more of a standard leftist position. conservatives may not think such a thing is trivial, because they're all into pledges and oaths and shit. they care about flags and they stand for anthems and the whole thing; symbolic gestures are important to them. i don't give a fuck about any of that - imagine there's no countries. and, no religion, too. so, conservatives may see a valid role for the state to play here, while leftists mostly wouldn't think this is very important, even if they don't like the actual garments very much.

when you introduce the question of power, you change the scenario. and, i hate foucault, actually. but, when you bring in the power dynamic, you're now entering an arena where liberals and leftists tend to want to enforce a firewall of separation and conservatives want to uphold state institutions. so, leftists don't want the ten commandments at the courthouse or in the schools, and we wouldn't want other religious symbols, like niqabs, on display, either; conservatives may argue that such things are foundational and cultural and should be preserved.

by reducing the issue to identity, or "racism", you're just cutting the actual substance out of the debate. it's both a strawman and a red herring and a pejorative. but, it's the level of discourse we should really expect.

is it a ballot issue? i don't want it to be this cycle - i want to vote for climate action, and the sitting government's lack of meaningful movement on it. the political configuration to make it a ballot issue isn't in front of me. in another scenario, i could see it as a wedge issue, and i could see it as a swing ballot issue, absolutely.

if faced with a choice between two parties with similar climate change platforms, i would vote for the party that supports bill 21, not the one that opposes it.

i don't think that children should be exposed to religion.

at all.

so, that was another unexpected crash. i guess i didn't sleep well this weekend, as i was fighting the coughs and headaches.

somebody at the bus station suggested i was going to catch a cold because i was wearing a tank top. we didn't have a discussion about the germ theory of disease, or the subtleties involved in immune system response during periods of wet weather, but i knew i'd have to actually catch a virus to actually get sick, and i suppose, in the end, that i did. fluky guess.

i do feel better.

but, i'm going to wait until tonight to get started on this.

i know. but, i want to get these files up, first.

but, expect this: these tory media commentators are just going to write off support for the bill as <affleck> they're racist! </affleck>. it's a dumb position, taken by dumb people that don't want to actually grapple with the actual issue.

then, when the contradictions add up, they'll say that people don't understand what they're voting for - when the truth is that they don't understand the issue.

bill 21 is not about attacking people that look different, and it's not about race. it's about preventing our children from being exposed to the evils of organized religion, and otherwise keeping religious people out of positions of power.

also, conflating the niqab ban with bill 21 is a false equivalency, and you'd only make it if you didn't really understand what bill 21 is actually about - if you think it's just state-sponsored discrimination, and the whole argument is just some kind of an excuse, or something. you'd have to swallow the bullshit, ignorant line from jagmeet singh about it being about "looking different".

that's not what it's about at all.

i opposed the niqab ban, because who cares? but, you'll note that, in opposing the niqab ban, i also supported the right to dress as spiderman or wear garbage bags over your head to the citizenship ceremony. i wasn't standing with muslims on the grounds of upholding a religious right, i was pointing out the stupidity of legislating the fashion police at a ceremony of trivial significance. and, i would still oppose the niqab ban, because who cares?

but, i support bill 21 because it's an entirely different concern. this is something we should care about, because we're talking about exposing our children to cults, here. when we leave our kids in state care, we should be confident that they won't be exposed to anybody's religious beliefs. we can't do that when the teachers are so brainwashed by some superstitious nonsense that they can't even take off their scarves.

so, don't conflate this. don't think there's overlap. don't think the motives are the same.

the only place in the country that really opposes the bill is right-wing, rural christian alberta.

see, it's not just an issue in quebec, either. i'm not on the fence this election - i've already decided that i will not be voting for the liberals. but, if i was, a commitment by trudeau to fight the issue in court, or even a refusal to commit to not doing it, would lead me towards refraining from voting for him.

there's two reasons for this.

the first is that i support quebec's sovereignty rights, in this case. people forget that national unity isn't just an issue in quebec, it's one that resonates throughout the country. i'm not a quebcois identity voter or something, but, whether it was because of the way i was raised by a french canadian father or just because they're by far the most left-leaning place in north america, i tend to be on quebec's side more often than not. there's a lot of ontarians (and manitobans. and easterners.) like me that will essentially stand in solidarity with quebeckers from a distance. on the other hand, in alberta, you can win an election by attacking quebec.

one of the reasons i refrained from voting ndp in 2015 was their stance on quebec sovereignty. the liberals are usually the better national unity option here. but, as has generally been the case with trudeau, he's flipping that issue on it's head, and taking the side of the party's historical opponents.

the second is that i'm one of the 40+% of ontarians that would actually vote in favour of such a ban in this province should it be put up for a referendum. i'm just actually in support of the law.

so, don't think it's just quebeckers that trudeau needs to worry about in coming out shooting against this law. it could cost him the election.

https://www.thestar.com/politics/political-opinion/2019/09/16/bill-21-pushed-to-forefront-of-federal-election-talk-in-quebec.html

i'm compressing the last pile in the batch of 75 records that makes up periods 1 and 2. they'll come up tonight.

so, it's finally time to refocus. do i have time? well, i have no real deadlines. so, let's get at it.

i had an unexpected crash this morning, and now i am getting distracted.

i've spent the last few days uploading everything to youtube as 128 kbps mp3s. why am i doing this? well, why did i do it in the first place?

i took everything down because i wasn't getting any traffic to the bandcamp site, but i was operating under a different mindset. i know that people think they're going to make money via ad revenue, but there's two problems with this: (1) i'm never going to do that because i'm an independent artist going for a niche market (i.e. i don't write pop music, and don't want to) and (2) even if i could potentially generate that kind of traffic, i wouldn't want to ruin the art with ads.

i mean, think through what we're talking about. i'm putting up music on the internet, and expecting to get paid by letting people sprinkle ads into the recording. that's disgusting as a business model in general, and impossible when you consider that i write lengthy, conceptual records. i routinely write 30-50 minute tracks, or track suites. i don't want any fucking ads in there!

so, the intent was to subvert the thing - they've got this all backwards. i don't want to make money by letting people ruin my art with their ads. fuck them. rather, i want to use youtube as an advertising platform, in itself. there were two ways i did this, initially: (1) via trying to commandeer the comments section and (2) via posting samples to the youtube site, with the intent to direct traffic to bandcamp.

then, they shadow-banned me, so nobody could see my comments. and, traffic from the samples demonstrated itself as a waste of time. so, i shut the site down.

since then, i've been struggling to organize all of this data (while fighting legal battles and trying to find smoke-free housing), but i've finally got a handle on it, so it's time to switch over.

there's still almost 300 subscribers at the deathtokoalas/koala central command site. that's down from around 340 at it's maximum point. but, those 340 people were useless to me because they weren't buying records. part of the time out was to let them drift off. yet, there's still 300 of them there....

i've been planning on this for a while; it was the completion of inri000 in the journal that triggered me to do it, and they're coming up in the order they were finished (over 2013-20118).

am i going to go back to posting? maybe. not in the same way, i don't think - it drew attention to myself, but it didn't work in building a fan base. i think i want to be a little more sincere, moving forwards. regardless, it's time to rebuild that advertising archive at youtube.

but, let's be clear: the videos are ads. they're not a product. the product is at bandcamp. so, they're up at 128 kbps, as teasers, and you can stream them all you want - but they don't sound great, and they can't. buy the record...

and, yes, i'd like to give this stuff away for free. i mean, i do work for free - let's not pretend that i don't. but, i don't want to get a job. i don't want this to be a hobby. this is labour, this is work, this is full-time employment. i need a paywall...

we're getting closer to the weekend, and that warm pacific air is still being forecast to dominate, hurricane or not.

looks like it'll be nice. better enjoy it....

i'm agreeing with this forecast, except that i'm still expecting the jet stream to defeat the ocean, in the end. so, i think we're going to get cold very fast, again, like last year. and, i'm holding out hope for an early spring. if not this year, then next year. soon...

i just want to clarify the point again: we've got two things, here. the warm ocean is mostly the result of climate change - not always, but usually. the blob would be an example of an ocean anomaly that may be solar in origin. on the other hand, the wobbly jet stream is mostly the sun. so, where i am, you get these things fighting with each other, and the weathers end up moving in extremes.

but, the sun is coming back, soon - which means they won't be fighting with each other any more, and it'll just be flat hot. the jet stream will retreat to the north, and we'll be dominated by pacific air for years, like we were in the mid 00s. and, they'll blame it on el nino, and be partly right, if it is.

so, the solar cycle is currently masking the warming effects at the latitude i'm at.

i have to keep pointing this out because people get confused.

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/2019-canada-fall-forecast-winter-outlook-temperature-precipitation

i know it's seems like i've been distracted, but i've actually been kind of sick.

i need to do some cleaning in here and take a shower, and then i'll get to what i was doing overnight. i don't think it will take long...

i need to reiterate the point: what states do you expect warren to win?

she's not doing well in the south. biden's set to sweep, and sanders is doing much better with black voters.

i haven't actually seen any polls in the west, which is a bit of a problem - california isn't the last state any more. where's the polling?

she's doing better in the midwest and northeast, but the only polls i've seen have her tied for second, at best - and usually in the third.

it was a while ago, but the only polling i'd seen in massachusetts had her in third.

"well, biden's going to drop", you say. well, i don't agree - maybe he should drop but that doesn't mean he will. and, i agree that this is necessary for her, but it hardly seems sufficient.

if biden drops, sanders should pick up most of his support in the south, so that doesn't help her. it opens up a space in the west, but you've still got to deal with harris, even if sanders can't get traction, and if her base is educated woman, she's a potential block. there's at the least no clear path, and no evidence she'd do well. and, given that this viagra vote seems to be a real thing, biden dropping could very well help sanders more than warren, in the midwest and northeast. i think a fair assumption at this point is that it's a split, and then she's still not actually winning.

so, where's her base?

what states can she actually win?

and, if she can't win any, what's her plan? to limp into the convention with 35% of the votes, and hope they pick her without winning any actual states?

(and, bizarrely, there's a decent chance that they might.)

so, what happens if bernie drops out, then? well, there's your wild card - but what are the chances? regardless, is that her plan?

because, if it's not her plan, it doesn't seem that she actually has one.

logic tells me that she's going to look at the data and realize that she needs to drop out before iowa. but, i have this sneaking suspicion that the whole point of what she's doing is to try and muddy the field up - that she's running for vice president, and essentially just blocking sanders.

if this three way race lingers on, the only person that can win is biden, and it's going to be a messy process, as he does it.

meanwhile, all the ndp seems to care about is saving union jobs in the automotive sector.

https://blackburnnews.com/windsor/windsor-news/2019/09/16/ndp-announces-auto-strategy/

the next section, on "good governance", is mostly about ethics and stuff, and seems intended mostly to appeal to conservatives. good luck, guys: they don't swing. but, i don't really care one way or the other about most of this stuff....

i would support forcing cops to get warrants before they can eavesdrop, or get data from isps. i'm otherwise largely apathetic about privacy laws, and tend to preach individual responsibility when it comes to online behaviour. people need to stop giving the data out.

they don't mention proportional representation in the section on electoral reform. interesting. are they open to discussion about preferential ballots?

on criminal justice reform, i would support the elimination of mandatory minimums, which have largely been struck down by the courts. i would oppose solitary confinement, although i'd also support the opposite - i don't think prisoners should be forced out of their cells and into the general population if they don't want to be, either. i'm in favour of rehabilitation, where it's mentally possible. i appreciate the recognition that the gun problem mostly exists at the border.

so, i actually don't agree with any of that, either.

---------

that is a strong platform, in my opinion. there are some omissions, but the only point of real disagreement that i would have with them would be on immigration policy, which i don't consider to be a ballot issue.

it's a very fact-based document, and that's refreshing in a spectrum that is often driven by bad data, demagoguery and emotional manipulation.

they get almost everything right.

so, who's my local candidate, anyways?

the next section is called "advancing the just society", and...

the "just society" was a historical policy by the elder trudeau, which was sort of ripped from lbj's "great society". so, it's kind of a part of the canadian lexicon, and it's not odd to see it pop up here and there. this platform is going to town with it, though, in a rather clear attempt to undermine both the liberal party and it's current leader. the messaging is clear - the green party and elizabeth may, not the liberal party and justin trudeau, are the true protectors of the legacy of pierre trudeau - for better or for worse, i suppose.

it's ballsy. pierre was ballsy. is it true? they'd have to govern; we'd have to watch them do it. but, there's a good case for it, at least.

i enthusiastically support all of these kinds of things, i always do.

but, the thing i want to point out is that the section on sex work gets it right, and maybe it's because it was written by a woman - they want to liberalize the sex work laws, but they point to the gai (as well as the free tuition.) as a way out, indicating that they get the point that sex work may be a choice for some people, but should never be the only choice available for anybody.

it's otherwise a statement of solidarity and support for women, queer people and minority language rights, the latter being a quintessentially canadian thing. no criticisms, here.

the next section is called 'renewing the social contract' and is a series of commitments to the social safety net in a social democracy. canada's system is largely functioning, so these commitments are largely just upholding the status quo, if suggesting ways to improve it, and ultimately promising to maintain it.

while we need more investments in housing, the big novel proposal is the gai, and the details are scant. it's mentioned that the intention is to be livable, and that's what you want to see, but some more details would be nice. and, if the answer is "we'll work out the details in committee", you should interpret it for what it is - aspirational.

these are otherwise the nuts and bolts of governing in canada, kind of thing, and i have nothing but support across the board for all this stuff.

there's a section on "invoking ecological wisdom", whatever that means.

i don't think a ban on single-use plastics is a smart approach, as it won't actually solve the problem. this is maybe an example of what is now an aging party adopting a fashionable position that isn't well thought through.

but, i recognize that there aren't good solutions with bio-plastics right now, either.

this isn't the same kind of pressing concern that emissions reduction is - we're not in a race against time, and we could potentially find ways to clean the oceans up. we've found plastic eating microbes; if there is magic in nature, it's called evolution. we know we can't ban energy, we need to transition from dirty to clean. and, likewise, we're going to have to shift from oil-based plastics to biologically derived ones, and we're going to have to be smart in pushing it through.

beside that, the section was about things like species conservation, and i don't have much criticism to drop regarding it.

- i don't have any direct criticism on the transitioning workers section, but i'll point out that this isn't really my concern. i mean, it's a problem that kind of solves itself, if you actually do this right. i am in support of retraining programs.

- i don't really care about the tax code, one way or the other. you're neither going to attract me with a good tax policy nor repel me with a bad one. it's just irrelevant to me.

- with the retreat of the ndp from the left and towards the neo-liberal consensus, the greens have recently become the last alter-globalization party. if you're still opposed to nafta, regardless of the changes to it, the greens are the only party that still opposes it, and other deals like it. they are the only party opposed to the isds provisions. since 2015, this has become another reason to actively support them.

=================

immigration is something where i may have less agreement with them, although they don't seem to be terrible on this, either. they're not explicitly arguing for increases in immigration. they want more money for integration, including for english and french instruction, which is good. they want to ban the "temporary foreign workers program", which is good. they want to focus on professional accreditation, which is good. i would also support policies designed to strengthen civil rights at the border, and ensure that the rule of law is being upheld for non-citizens.

i don't know if being a climate refugee ought to be grounds for opening the doors, though. my positions on this are subtle:  i don't support deportation in much of any context, even for criminals (i don't think that foreign countries appreciate us deporting criminals. put them in jail, and try to rehabilitate them.), but i think you have to have a good reason to get in, because we don't have infinite resources. i mean, there's a contradiction here: the greens know we don't have infinite economic growth, so they should conclude that we can't have infinite refugee inflows. i think the primary policy ought to be to help potential climate refugees adapt by working with their local governments - and that this should be seen as a primary foreign aid goal.

i don't think that we should abolish the safe third country agreement with the united states, either. that's a knee-jerk reaction to a president you don't like, it's not a carefully thought-through long term policy. we will come to regret that.

i do not think that family reunification should be given priority status in evaluating immigration or refugee claims.

and, i would oppose giving "cultural institutions" charitable status, as well. rather, if there's a tax policy i'd be likely to actively support, it would be in taxing churches, mosques and other religious groups.

but, these are minor concerns to me, overall, and my disagreement with this part of the platform is unlikely to prevent me from voting for the party. immigration is not a ballot issue for me. i would rather work to shift the party's positions on this through internal debate than attack it from the outside, as this is not where my core political allegiances exist, one way or the other. but, i'm not going to silence or censor myself, either - i'm going to insist on the debate, and insist it's up for debate.

======================

- while i would support converting the relevant vehicles to electric cars, i'm not a particularly strong advocate for postal workers. we should keep a state-run system of easily accessible post offices, but i don't mind picking up my own mail. again: that's not a ballot issue.

================

the section on sustainable farming is refreshing to see in the sense that it avoids most of the nonsense you see floating around on the internet today (although, i wonder how some people would react to that, if they're legitimately concerned and don't know better.).i just have a few minor points.

while i agree with the need to cut down on pesticide use as well as the need to cut down on transportation costs, i am far more concerned about the safety of urban farming than i am concerned about, say, gmos. i'd be more likely to eat a gmo tomato grown in a field than i would be to eat an organic tomato grown in a rooftop in toronto, and the reason is that the air and soil quality is likely to be terrible, in the latter. in a lot of ways, this is a question of regulation. but, due to toxicity concerns, i'd argue for labeling of urban products, so people know what they're getting. i like the controlled conditions for urban greenhouses (perhaps in conjunction with things like hydroponics) better than rooftops or backyards....

i would also like to see some kind of explicit federal support for the idea of insect farming, as it's a more healthy, sustainable and humane way than veganism to generate protein for human consumption.

lastly, while it's mostly a provincial issue, doing something with compost would help with that 2.5% from landfills.

=============================

the fisheries thing is complicated, and while i support management, i'll leave that one to the experts, other than to point something out - being where we are in canada, so long as we're not overfishing, there's almost no way we can lose on this. swordfishing in nova scotia? we have salmon in bc, how about tuna in newfoundland? quotas are key...and relevant quotas that understand changing migration patterns are paramount.

===================

- as a low income artist, the best way to support me is via a livable gai and through actualizing real, affordable housing. i'm never going to sell my product; it will be left to fiuture generations to evaluate it.

- what are the serious opportunities for industrial cannabis waste to aid in the shift to bio-plastics? but, that's an r&d question, something that needs funding.

"but, you'd be replacing the climate debt with a financial debt."

no. that's why you use the bank of canada. and, i actually agree that you need to have limits on printing money, but this is an emergency - we don't have any more time to waste on market theory, we need to do it now. that's what interest-free printing is for.

but, like....we can always cancel the debt, anyways. people forget that. if it was up to me, i'd just wipe out the national debt by legislation.

the section on identifying what the crisis is and how to solve it is central to any support i may give to the green party - and, remember, i haven't decided to actually vote for them yet, i've just ruled out the other options and reduced the decision to green or spoil.

in canada, the liberals have historically supported infrastructure spending by printing interest-free money through the bank of canada, although it was only ever a minor part of the funding, and it was mostly phased out by the elder trudeau (this was a part of canada's reaction to the nixon shock). but, from roughly 1940-1970, we printed a lot of money, and we used that money to built much of the infrastructure that is today causing much of the problems - bridges and roads but also power plants, which were at the time mostly publicly owned. it is frustrating that the liberals argued that we didn't have to pay the bankers when we were causing the problem, but are now insisting that the bankers get their cut when it's time to solve it. like most decent people, i really hate the vampires in the insurance industry. and, yet, despite all my rage...

let's avoid that.

so, it was easy to believe the liberals when they said they were going to do this, and deflating to see what they've actually done.

the plank in the green party platform specifies no P3s, and that's a good thing, it's what i want to hear. this is the way we solve this - not through tax incentives or faith in the markets but by printing the money and fucking doing it.

so, i would float this document to the various democratic leadership campaigns as a funding policy and general strategy that i can actually support.

so, that's the good stuff.

i could nitpick the language in the indigenous section, which is a good chunk of the document, but i'm not going to. what's more important to me is that the government eventually adopts the general idea that the colonial state needs to take a step away from overseeing indigenous communities as protectorates, and finds ways to allow them to define what sovereignty actually means. it's easy enough to come into this with a collection of preconceived notions, and the undrip is just another set of them, but if you look into this what you'll see is that what these people actually want is a complicated, messy thing with a lot of tribe-by-tribe specifics and very few universalized approaches. you could never write a policy paper on this, not in 2000 pages, let alone 20.

so, what we need is a commitment to the democratic process, which sounds almost trivial, but is deeply lacking in our present and in our history. unfortunately, this is going to be exceedingly difficult because what we are is a colonial state. asking canada to stop being a colonial state is like asking a lion not to hunt. it's a fundamental transformation that is going to require not just a deep reanalysis of the indian act - and a commitment to democracy means understanding the subtlety around the abolition v replacement debate within indigenous communities - but probably a reanalysis of confederation, and an overhaul of the constitution. we took a first attempt at this under the elder trudeau, but he really just laid the groundwork for future reforms, something that was deeply understood but that we couldn't get through (see meech lake), as the discussion turned to globalization in the late 80s.

so, they get the general idea right. and, that's all you can ask for in a document like this.

but, i also want to make a foundational point: the future of the green party and the indigenous sovereignty movement are almost certainly intrinsically interwoven. it is long overdue for the greens to make a serious outreach attempt for indigenous voters, and i hope their efforts work out. this should be their base.

so, i flipped through this, and it's pretty much the same document they've been kicking around since the 90s. it's never been perfect, and i've always had some serious disagreements, which is a part of the reason i've largely avoided voting for them, but i know where they stand; they're a lot like bernie sanders, in that respect - they've been saying the same thing for as long as they've existed.

https://www.greenparty.ca/sites/default/files/platform_2019_en_web_update_09-16.pdf

there's questions around timeframes closing, including around elizabeth may's lifespan. and, while they deny being utopian, a lot of this stuff can't be done fast enough to make the difference it needs to make anymore. if there's a broader criticism of this document, it's that it represents an optimism to actually substantively reverse the damage that probably can't be accomplished any more. so, it needs a greater focus on mitigation and adaptation, and i would suspect that will be the theme for the party in the next few cycles.

but, i'd rather start by telling you what i want.

i'm a low-income, highly urban artist nearing the age of 40 that doesn't even have a driver's license and will probably never get one. i prefer to bicycle; when i can't bike anymore, i'll have to resort to walking or relying on public transit. this isn't some kind of exercise in zen buddhism or stoicism or something, or an unwanted consequence of poverty, but a conscious lifestyle decision that reflects the kind of world i want to actually live in. it's leadership by example, even if you might not want to follow - although i hope you do.

so, i want to live in an urban green space that is largely self-sustainable, which includes being free of both car exhaust and tobacco and marijuana smoke, and i want to live amongst educated people that have sophisticated self-interests that are not necessarily market-driven. i think that the best way to get to this endpoint is to socialize the means of production, but i recognize that my existence is finite, and i've long accepted the idea of a minimum income as a way to allow people like me to live the lifestyles they actually want to live.

but, i think that proportional representation is a bad idea - i would rather see a preferential ballot. further, there is almost no room for religion in my environmental-technological utopia, except as a veneration of the earth. i can almost tolerate a type of mystical gaia theory, so long as it is empirical, in the end. i have essentially no patience for the abrahamic faiths, and see no place for them in the future.

so, what are some specific points of contention, then? let me put these in separate posts.

mr. trump,

as you know, the saudis were voluntarily keeping production low on request of the united states. this has artificially kept the price high. while iran may have their own interests in the region, as is their right, it makes little sense for them to attack an oil field in saudi arabia, so long as production is being voluntarily curtailed.

the obvious conclusion, sir, is that you're being played. the question is who, and there are only two reasonable answers: israel and russia.

my immediate hypothesis is that this is the walrus' attempt to manipulate you into doing what you wouldn't. and, rather than bomb iran, what you need to do is get tough on netanyahu - he just tried to play you like a fool.

some advice, that's all, from
the infamous koala hating canadian

this is the debate i'm talking about:

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/federal-election-debate-from-a-catholic-perspective-tickets-64374772678

i'm merely going to boycott it, but feel free to get some rowdy protesters out there to shut it down, too, if you want.

so, i'm going to call for a general boycott of the religious debate in canada. i'm frankly baffled that this exists.

i'm not watching it - i'm not supporting it through ad revenue, and i'm not commenting on it.

i would encourage you to boycott it, as well.

i'll tell you this, though: they were run over by a train, and were tied to the tracks when it happened.

so, it didn't appear to be accidental.

so, that's my father's mother's parents that were killed in a mob hit when she was very small. her given last name is....zito. yeah. i just know stories, i've never done the research.

my father's father's parents were a white woman from quebec and a dark-skinned man of unknown ancestry that nobody has pictures of and nobody remembers - but appears to have been indigenous, african and jewish.

welcome to canada.

what i've stated repeatedly is that my father would have identified as french or italian. but, he knew he had a more complex background. he's told me stories about kids asking him what tribe he was from when he was playing shinny and, clueless, he would say "italian".

i was just told i was french on his side, and i never really thought about it until i got out of high school - although other people certainly felt the need to think about it for me, and i did get a fair amount of stares and comments that it took me a long time to really figure out.

i know that my paternal grandmother was adopted, and the story is that her parents were killed in a mob hit. there may have been a mixed jewish-italian romance at the heart of it. these are just stories. but, the kind of unstated, understood fact about my grandfather's father is that he wasn't around, and nobody really knows.

and, listen - i'm not a damn jew.

or, at least, i'm not a member of the jewish faith. and, i know. i wrote the damn post.

i don't know my father's ethnicity with certainty, and i have reasons to suspect some near eastern heritage, but he wasn't a damn jew, either.

and, his father wasn't, either. nor was his mother. catholics, the lot of them.

i don't know, when you go back further than that, and i suspect that my paternal great-grandfather may have been the identity politics unicorn of a hebrew-african-indigenous mix. further, if he did have some african in him, it was probably from, like madagascar, because he has a rare, austronesian blood type. the only other way to make sense of the blood type is through some kind of inuit background.

i should probably take the damn test.

but, the fact is that i've never been in a synagogue in my life, and i doubt that my father ever had been, and i doubt that his father ever had been, either.

in ontario, it's 42%. in favour.

that's more than governing parties usually get.

yeah.

they did a poll, and 45% of british columbians support the religious symbols ban in quebec. that's the highest for any province outside of quebec.

the more you know, huh?

do i think that similar legislation could ever pass in other provinces?

i'm not aware of any movement for it.

i'm going to guess that the calculation at the federal level amongst all of the parties is that, while it may gain passive support with passive voters, it's not worth whipping up the opposition. it's one of those things where you might get 51% of passive voters to passively support it, but that 15% that is going to strongly oppose it is going to cause a havoc, when they do. it's a loud, vocal opposition - and it's not worth the headache, especially given that i don't think that any of the sitting leaders have any particular conviction for it. trudeau is an empty vessel, and to an extent it doesn't really matter what he thinks, as a person.

quebec has a weird spectrum that is at the root of this as a political issue. in provinces like ontario and manitoba that maintain the traditional 3 + 1 or 3 + 2 canadian spectrum (that is liberal, conservative, ndp and a usual fourth, sometimes fifth, party), the same calculation as exists at the federal level is probably dominant, but in the provinces that have less stable spectrums, one could see it coming up as a potential issue.

the province with the highest incidence of non-belief in canada is not ontario or quebec but british columbia. could the bc liberals support something like this? alberta is perhaps too conservative to talk about something like this, but saskatchewan is a more interesting test case. these are places where a secular left could use it as a wedge issue against a pseudo-left party that is embracing tory multiculturalism as a core identity. how many atheist asians in bc would support this?

i think you'd have to see it in a second or third province before the liberals in ontario took it seriously - and i would expect both the ndp and the conservatives to strenuously oppose it, here. it would have to be the liberals, if it were to happen at all.

i couldn't really imagine it gaining traction anywhere in the united states, but america is a much more religious country. canada is more european, in that sense.

i'm not making predictions, i'm just thinking out loud. but, i do have a feeling that it's a policy that we're going to see more of, not less of.

let's hope we don't have to talk about this again, now.

i mean, i say this over and over again: i'm in total solidarity with the apostates.

i'm not just saying that.

i really mean it.

i'll march with them.

like, when i bump into an arab at a gay beer having a beer, i don't generally have to worry too much about them trying to crucify me.

in general.

they're cool.

thanks.

but, i want to talk about something important this election, please.

and, i always have to say this, because people get easily confused: it is very important for the secular left to realize (if perhaps not necessary to actually state.) that, as we are shifting our primary opponents from christianity to islam as a result of existing and projected shifts in demographic, that we do not make the mistake of assuming that people from specific backgrounds hold specific beliefs.

not all arabs are sunnis. there are plenty of arab atheists, and they should be embraced as any other atheist would be.

not all persians are shias. there are plenty of godless iranians, and they should be embraced as any other heathen would be.

and, further it's important to be proportionate, too. crescent earrings are not niqabs, and not everybody that you meet that calls themselves a muslim wants to round up the apostates and burn them. you have to be sure to properly interpolate what you see in front of you.

but, as atheists, we need to get used to the fact that we're going to be struggling less and less against christians and more and more against muslims, as the proportion and power of them wanes and shifts - until, in the end, they just merge.

i mean, that is the future of canada - an overwhelmingly secular society, where muslims are the most populous religious minority and christianity has been largely discarded.

that means that, as atheists, we need to start changing the goal posts. we need to re-evaluate who our opponents are.

but, it doesn't mean that we're under imminent threat of sharia law - or, at least, it doesn't, if we remain vigilant against it.

the facts are pretty clear that we're on the path towards a majority atheist electorate, now, within a couple of cycles.

there is admittedly a threat to this that comes from overwhelmingly high levels of right-leaning recent immigrants, and it's something that atheists need to take seriously, but so long as we're vigilant about it and conscious enough about pushing for real integration - which the bill in quebec is an example of - it's something we should be able to handily overcome and convincingly defeat.

i try very hard to avoid being alarmist about immigration, while sticking to the facts the best i can. the facts are that high levels of low-income immigration into the urban cores where i live hurts low income people by straining the social system, and you can choose to blame that on underfunding or on immigration, but the basic fact of the matter holds itself steady - it creates a higher level of competition amongst people that are already having a hard time competing, and you'd only deny that if you're ignorant or stupid. people in the suburbs or in rural areas are more likely to be wealthy and consequently less likely to be affected by the increasing competition, even if they're more like likely to be christians. in the long run, we should expect christians and muslims to form an alliance with each other, because they're basically the same.

but, the facts are also that the power of atheism in the very near future should absolutely dwarf that of muslims. we might live in a country with 20% muslims within a generation or two - and that's a big change. but, such a society would also have 60% atheists.

so, i know who my biggest threats are, and i know what i need to be wary of. the sitting government is certainly moving in the wrong direction, on this, without question. but, i'm far more excited about the coming atheist supermajority than i am worried about the eclipse of christianity by islam.

we're going to win, it's going to be ok.

i mean, it's a trick right out of orwell to suggest that rejecting a regression to medievalism is "conservatism" because it's pushing back against change, while supporting a societal regression is liberal because it's promoting "change".

and, i don't think that orwell invented the term reactionaryism.

we could just use a little bit of help, rather than hindrance, in our goal of heathenizing the immigrants by governments that claim to be liberal, that's all.

it may take a change of titular power, but, in the end, the liberal party will support this bill, and the conservative party will oppose it.

no, it isn't, and tory media talking heads like john ibbitson can fuck right off for trying to make it one.

the party leaders need to be clear that this is a local issue that is intrinsically tied to quebecois self-determination, and the federal government has no role to play in interfering, before or after the election.

but, as a non-quebecker, the blunt, basic truth is that the election is too important to waste on a triviality that only exists inside of quebec. i don't fucking care, one way or the other.

the rest of the country has more important things to concern itself with.

worse, i'm flat out sick of muslims being at the centre of the political discourse. they're a small, privileged minority in this country and should not receive such a disproportionately high amount of space in the discussion. they're over-represented just about everywhere. we're a secular society that upholds liberal concepts of law, and we're going to get more secular and more liberal, if we can find a way to grapple with the demographic bulge and convert them all to heathenism. the discourse should better reflect it.

atheists intend to win this fight, you know.

again: i think they should have let the court clean it up. but, i don't think the basic purpose of the law is unconstitutional, and the reality is that you have to take an exceedingly conservative view of the constitution to think that it is, a view that may be popular in the institutions but has minimal support in actual case law.

i'd rather talk about the recent ruling on assisted suicide.

and, i insist this election be about anything else.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-quebecs-religious-symbols-ban-a-major-issue-in-federal-election/

so, there's an election in canada, and this is an issue: what's the correct take on the new nafta? is this better or worse?

it's not obvious...

i followed the discussions relatively closely up to a point, and then i more or less tuned out entirely, and there's a series of reasons for it. one of the more embarrassing things to have to deal with during the process was realizing that canada was taking an explicitly pro-investor position on the deal, while trump was legitimately pushing for workers' rights. trudeau is several degrees to the right of trump on this issue; trudeau isn't even a corporatist democrat like obama, he's more of a market conservative like elizabeth warren or paul ryan. like, you couldn't even get one of those trademark platitudes out of trudeau on the issue - he was strictly, 100% concerned about the rights of canadian investors. that's the actual reason he tried to build a common front with mexico - his dominant interest was insuring that the investor class didn't take a hit.

on the issue of environmental and labour standards, trump did come through on this, even if he had to cut trudeau out of the discussion and make the deal directly with mexico. enforcement is always another question, but at least the text of the deal is better for workers, on it's face.

i would have liked to completely abolish chapter 19, as it has done nothing but harm for workers on both sides of the border. unfortunately, our government - interested solely in the rights of investors - refused to sign on unless it was included. that this position was insisted upon by a liberal government is to our great shame and national embarrassment.

so, i'm standing over here on the far left and that's twice that i agree with trump on free trade and disagree with trudeau.

yes, it's going to give the pharmaceuticals more patent rights for a specific class of new drugs, but if we can bring in pharmacare then we can socialize the cost of it. so, it's a different discussion up here. i may oppose it in principle, but i'm more in support of pharmacare than i am in opposition to intellectual property rights, so it's the former i'd rather focus on (and the best way to do that is to reduce the liberals to a minority and then let them take credit for it as a vote-buying scheme, not to elect an ndp government that is going to see it die in committee). might a spike in costs actually help piss people off?

there's some opening up of the dairy market that was probably unnecessary, but that's not sustainable in the long run. quebec will start a civil war before it gives up supply management. and, what consultation was there with quebec, who has not signed our constitution? they may even just ignore the agreement.

trade experts claim it'll probably be a wash, in terms of gdp, with the united states benefiting slightly at the expense of canada and mexico. i can't blame them for that. i have to blame my own government for that.

so, i almost want to suggest separating apathy over the deal from opposition to my own government around it. i neither see a reason to oppose the deal any more strenuously than i already opposed it, nor a reason to ease up on my existing strenuous opposition. so, i'm still of the opinion that we need to renegotiate nafta, and i'm still likely to vote for people arguing for a renegotiation of nafta. in that sense, the whole thing was really just a stupid waste of time. but, the process badly exposed both the deep incompetence of justin trudeau and the deep incompetence of his team, particularly the incompetence of chrystia freeland, who i would really like to see lose her seat in this election.

so, given that abolition is not an option and the choice is between the old nafta and the new nafta, do you support this or not?

i don't think there's a clear answer. you need to look at it closely and figure out what your self-interests are.

back at the end of july or the beginning of august, i suggested that we might have the last serious weekend of the summer as early as the first or second weekend of august. that's a crazy suggestion, right? was i right?

well, let's first understand that i'm talking about overnights. in mid-summer, i'm often going to leave the house at 20:00 or 21:00 and come back at 9:00 or 10:00 the next morning. to me, that's a good summer night. so, i want warm temperatures overnight! i know some people may even hate me for it, but the mid-afternoon heat is kind of irrelevant to me, if i'm sleeping through it.

further, warm temperatures overnight should mean that the low is not much lower than 20 degrees - so, like, 17, minimum. when it came to weekends, we didn't get many more after the 4th. one, in fact - the 16th-18th, due to the hurricane. next weekend may be a nice surprise, but we'll see what happens...

so, there may have been some hot days this august, and that's not surprising. it's august. where were the hot nights? again: some of you may even be happy about it. but, i like the heat...

blue checks are the days i was outside partying in some way or another.  highlighted dates are the warm overnights. underlined reds are the cold-ish ones. black xes are the weekends i stayed in.
 

...but, here in the north, we're also about to embark on our yearly retreat from the sun.

i wasn't planning on going anywhere this week anyways, but they've cut the temperature down a little. it's not cold this weekend, exactly, but the overnights are dipping to below 15 degrees celsius, and it's not going to be fun to be out in at 5:00 or 6:00.

the forecast for next weekend looks a tad better, but i somehow doubt that's going to actually happen. we'll see, i guess.

and what causes those high pressure systems? atmospheric cooling.

there may be potential for something like this to push the jetstream in the east, where i am, down even further. the way that would work would be that the warm temperatures in the north pacific would keep the jetstream high up over alaska, thereby plunging it south through the middle of the continent. this would result in a warmer than usual fall in the west, and deep freezes in the east - along with serious late fall tornado activity in the plain states. so, it could be the kind of year here you get frost days in florida.

it would go away when the high pressure system lifts, and the imminent return of the sun would have to help.

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/the-2019-blob-pacific-ocean-weather-patterns-autumn-fall

this is a simple, easy-to-understand summary of what i was saying that cites a recently released report for relevance:

https://theconversation.com/ipccs-land-report-shows-the-problem-with-farming-based-around-oil-not-soil-121643