what did i even to today? this was a bad month, in terms of productivity, really.
i can't get it back.
but, i need to pivot dramatically and really focus. i've been scatter-brained far too long, now. let's see if i can order myself a little....
there's not any use in finishing up the legal stuff for tomorrow, i'd might as well wait until monday.
i did want to start the alter-reality when i got through the rebuild. i wanted to start it for mid-1989. i guess it's not so bad if i do catch up, but i wanted to be done the rebuild by now. i don't want to juggle that - let's just pick up the pace on the rebuild.
i can plan around cleaning in here tomorrow or the next day. the p-trap seems to have held since this morning. i think it had something to do with his air conditioning, and it's actually getting cold tonight, so maybe i've put that off for a bit.
and, i'll see what i want to do this weekend when i find out oif the cash has come ino r not.
is that everything?
i wanted to publish the 10/2013 documents before the end of september, so that's what i'll be doing tonight. i have eaten. i may have to shower later, if it gets cold in here (and the heat doesn't turn on, which it maybe should).
i'm just banging my head against the wall on the political file - we're not in a revolutionary moment, we're in a reactionary moment, and it's just a question of navigating through it.
i can't be too hard on myself, or i'll get apathetic. the uploads and planning last week weren't awful; it had to be done, at some point, and i wasn't feeling well. i got some documents filed at the beginning of the week. yesterday was largely about the gas leak, and i'm just starting today, really. it's not so bad....
i just get upset with myself, sometimes. you might imagine that i'm mad at myself for other reasons, but i actually wish i had more writing and more music available. i can't get depressed, i just need to pivot.
so, i'll have to run these files through spell checks, cross-reference everything and clean them up. hopefully, they'll be published by sunrise, or so.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
Thursday, September 26, 2019
but, we can do an accounting of this.
- the uprising in tunisia was legitimate, and did not get substantively co-opted. they're the single success case, and they should have been supported.
- the uprising in egypt was legitimate, but it got co-opted by the islamists, who were just fronts for the state. morsi wasn't leading a counter-revolution, exactly, but he was a fraud and a pawn. the end result was that the state was able to mobilize a religious movement to counter and drown out the real revolutionary movement. history records that morsi won the election, but it doesn't record that the revolutionaries understood what was happening, realized that the vote was a farce, and boycotted it out of protest. they knew that morsi was just a front for the old guard. and, when he was eventually torn down and replaced by a neo-mubarak in sisi, all the secularist left could do was shrug - we told you that that was what was happening.
- there was never a revolution in syria at all, there was just an invasion by foreign mercenaries. assad remains extremely popular in syria, and would easily win free elections, still.
- libya is what would have happened in syria if assad lacked popular support. but, talking about it like it was a revolution is disingenuous. this was a nato bombing campaign and basically a navy seals operation, more comparable to iraq or afghanistan.
- there were protest in turkey, but turkey is a democracy, and it's a different context. i'm always in solidarity with park drinking, though. especially during the day.
- there were also protests on the peninsula, but you can't do that there, and they didn't last long.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
- the uprising in tunisia was legitimate, and did not get substantively co-opted. they're the single success case, and they should have been supported.
- the uprising in egypt was legitimate, but it got co-opted by the islamists, who were just fronts for the state. morsi wasn't leading a counter-revolution, exactly, but he was a fraud and a pawn. the end result was that the state was able to mobilize a religious movement to counter and drown out the real revolutionary movement. history records that morsi won the election, but it doesn't record that the revolutionaries understood what was happening, realized that the vote was a farce, and boycotted it out of protest. they knew that morsi was just a front for the old guard. and, when he was eventually torn down and replaced by a neo-mubarak in sisi, all the secularist left could do was shrug - we told you that that was what was happening.
- there was never a revolution in syria at all, there was just an invasion by foreign mercenaries. assad remains extremely popular in syria, and would easily win free elections, still.
- libya is what would have happened in syria if assad lacked popular support. but, talking about it like it was a revolution is disingenuous. this was a nato bombing campaign and basically a navy seals operation, more comparable to iraq or afghanistan.
- there were protest in turkey, but turkey is a democracy, and it's a different context. i'm always in solidarity with park drinking, though. especially during the day.
- there were also protests on the peninsula, but you can't do that there, and they didn't last long.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
i always said that the best way to help the syrians keep the death toll down in their fight against foreign terrorist groups would be to donate them some weapons.
they were using munitions that were manufactured in the second world war! these weapons killed indiscriminately, it is true. but, after years of sanctions, it was all they had.
eventually, the russians stepped in, thank god.
but, you can't blame them for defending themselves using what they had to defend themselves with. criticism of this point is really best directed at the sanctions...
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
they were using munitions that were manufactured in the second world war! these weapons killed indiscriminately, it is true. but, after years of sanctions, it was all they had.
eventually, the russians stepped in, thank god.
but, you can't blame them for defending themselves using what they had to defend themselves with. criticism of this point is really best directed at the sanctions...
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
i don't know why google keeps sending me to the guardian, which is a bourgeois paper.
but it just demonstrates the point.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/09/egypt-hopes-betrayed-mohamed-morsi
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
but it just demonstrates the point.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/09/egypt-hopes-betrayed-mohamed-morsi
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
for clarity.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/20/saudi-arabia-coup-egypt
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/20/saudi-arabia-coup-egypt
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
i guess there's now people out there that wouldn't actually remember this.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2011/jan/31/egypt-secular-protests
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2011/jan/31/egypt-secular-protests
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
right.
in syria, the "protests" were really just a pretext for a saudi-backed invasion. i've written about this here extensively, and the search function works, but the simple statement is that it wasn't the same thing as the "arab spring".
if you're going to criticize me, i really need you to do the research on what i actually said. i can have these debates, but i don't have time for strawmen arguments, or patience for people that want to imagine my positions. there's a lot of writing here; it's very specific. do the research, first, or shut up.
the saudis essentially took advantage of the situation in egypt to invade syria - that's what actually happened. why? because assad was threatening to bring in a democracy. i know that this is essentially the exact opposite of the western media narrative, but the truth is usually the exact opposite of what the military-intelligence-media complex tells you. so, we were told that assad was trying to suppress a democratic uprising and was slaughtering civilians; the truth is that he was trying to defend his country from an assault by a bunch of foreign terrorist groups, often using very old hardware, that were trying to stop him from bringing in a democracy, and assert a theocratic totalitarian state, instead. assad inherited a position of power that he didn't want, and then just wanted to dismantle it and go home; home was london.
why would the saudis do this? because they see any embrace of democracy by the arab world, whatsoever, as an existential threat. it's the old chomsky line - the last thing the united states or it's allies want in the region is democracy (note that chomsky's primary concern here has long been the well-being of the kurds). the mess in syria is maybe the most profound example of this, and certainly the most profound example in my conscious lifetime.
however, the protests in egypt were always real. so, when the saudis intervened in 2013 to back el-sisi, they were orchestrating a counter-revolution of a legitimate, if failed, revolution.
i don't have any support for the muslim brotherhood; it's maybe a little over the top to ban it, we need to allow for freedom of association, but i offer it to no solidarity at all. my solidarity is with the egyptian secular left, which is substantive, but disorganized. unfortunately, they boycotted the vote in 2011, which let the brotherhood win - a major mistake that should not be repeated.
why now? well, i don't know. but, the saudis are experiencing a moment of weakness, so it's perhaps a good opportunity, whether that was the actual calculus, or not.
but, standing with a secular arab left means that assad is on the same side as the protestors in egypt, and that the militants in syria are on the same side as sisi. this is the point that the media has tried to confuse you on....
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/26/over-1900-arrested-as-egypt-braces-for-more-protests
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
in syria, the "protests" were really just a pretext for a saudi-backed invasion. i've written about this here extensively, and the search function works, but the simple statement is that it wasn't the same thing as the "arab spring".
if you're going to criticize me, i really need you to do the research on what i actually said. i can have these debates, but i don't have time for strawmen arguments, or patience for people that want to imagine my positions. there's a lot of writing here; it's very specific. do the research, first, or shut up.
the saudis essentially took advantage of the situation in egypt to invade syria - that's what actually happened. why? because assad was threatening to bring in a democracy. i know that this is essentially the exact opposite of the western media narrative, but the truth is usually the exact opposite of what the military-intelligence-media complex tells you. so, we were told that assad was trying to suppress a democratic uprising and was slaughtering civilians; the truth is that he was trying to defend his country from an assault by a bunch of foreign terrorist groups, often using very old hardware, that were trying to stop him from bringing in a democracy, and assert a theocratic totalitarian state, instead. assad inherited a position of power that he didn't want, and then just wanted to dismantle it and go home; home was london.
why would the saudis do this? because they see any embrace of democracy by the arab world, whatsoever, as an existential threat. it's the old chomsky line - the last thing the united states or it's allies want in the region is democracy (note that chomsky's primary concern here has long been the well-being of the kurds). the mess in syria is maybe the most profound example of this, and certainly the most profound example in my conscious lifetime.
however, the protests in egypt were always real. so, when the saudis intervened in 2013 to back el-sisi, they were orchestrating a counter-revolution of a legitimate, if failed, revolution.
i don't have any support for the muslim brotherhood; it's maybe a little over the top to ban it, we need to allow for freedom of association, but i offer it to no solidarity at all. my solidarity is with the egyptian secular left, which is substantive, but disorganized. unfortunately, they boycotted the vote in 2011, which let the brotherhood win - a major mistake that should not be repeated.
why now? well, i don't know. but, the saudis are experiencing a moment of weakness, so it's perhaps a good opportunity, whether that was the actual calculus, or not.
but, standing with a secular arab left means that assad is on the same side as the protestors in egypt, and that the militants in syria are on the same side as sisi. this is the point that the media has tried to confuse you on....
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/26/over-1900-arrested-as-egypt-braces-for-more-protests
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
so, the bloc are floating this idea of banning people from voting unless they show their faces again, and i wish they'd just drop it, because it's too far and i'm sure it's hurting them, politically. it really makes them look stupid. there are valid arguments underlying the ban on religious symbols in the workplace, especially the classroom, but it's a lot harder to make sense of why somebody needs to take off their scarves to receive public services. i think there's a strong argument that the motives underlying the services ban actually are racist, which is undermining the more valid arguments around the workplace ban.
there's a lot to unpack, here.
first, is voting even a government service? i would have thought of it as exercising a right, not receiving a service. we certainly have a whole constitutional apparatus around voting rights, and denying them based on one's clothing is about as absurd as you could get. as i stated earlier - voting rights are absolute. the only time i can think of justifiably suspending them would be from behind a jail cell.
but, even if it was a government service, are these people not taxpayers? are they not entitled to services?
with voting, specifically, there's an issue of being able to identify the voter. i'm not saying that this has ever happened, but you could potentially steal an election by sending the same handful of women in niqabs over and over, if nobody checks their id. ok. it's not particularly controversial to suggest that you need to identify yourself before voting, but there's other ways to do that besides leaving your scarf at the door. the supreme court has ruled that stating a solemn oath is good enough, which is probably too lax - equipping at least one voting centre in each riding with staff that can accommodate the request to unveil in private is probably a better idea. but, whatever rules you want to put in place, you have to make sure they have the opportunity to vote.
it's going to be interesting to me to see how the bloc's recent momentum reacts to this. one would have thought it was obvious that you should keep quiet about this, given how people have reacted to it for however many years.
they may have shot themselves in the foot.
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/national/election-2019/bloc-quebecois-calls-for-end-to-veiled-voting/wcm/10b1508e-da1c-40e5-a07c-20ccbbc9bee8
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
there's a lot to unpack, here.
first, is voting even a government service? i would have thought of it as exercising a right, not receiving a service. we certainly have a whole constitutional apparatus around voting rights, and denying them based on one's clothing is about as absurd as you could get. as i stated earlier - voting rights are absolute. the only time i can think of justifiably suspending them would be from behind a jail cell.
but, even if it was a government service, are these people not taxpayers? are they not entitled to services?
with voting, specifically, there's an issue of being able to identify the voter. i'm not saying that this has ever happened, but you could potentially steal an election by sending the same handful of women in niqabs over and over, if nobody checks their id. ok. it's not particularly controversial to suggest that you need to identify yourself before voting, but there's other ways to do that besides leaving your scarf at the door. the supreme court has ruled that stating a solemn oath is good enough, which is probably too lax - equipping at least one voting centre in each riding with staff that can accommodate the request to unveil in private is probably a better idea. but, whatever rules you want to put in place, you have to make sure they have the opportunity to vote.
it's going to be interesting to me to see how the bloc's recent momentum reacts to this. one would have thought it was obvious that you should keep quiet about this, given how people have reacted to it for however many years.
they may have shot themselves in the foot.
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/national/election-2019/bloc-quebecois-calls-for-end-to-veiled-voting/wcm/10b1508e-da1c-40e5-a07c-20ccbbc9bee8
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
i was critical about impeaching trump previously, because the message it would have broadcast to potential swing voters was that the democrats aren't interested in governing, which is why the lost the house in the first place. the best way for democrats to get these voters back would be to write detailed, quality legislation and try to push it through, even if it's a waste of time. i mean, it wouldn't be a waste of time anyways, because it could form the core of future legislation.
a democratic party that is keen on good policy would be likely to attract me, whereas a democratic party that just wants to play silly political games based on lunatic fringe msnbc conspiracy theories that are probably even actually cia propaganda would just leave me cold and turn me off. and, i'm the type of voter they need to get up and out to the polls.
but, the recent allegations are positively nixonian. there's a line that was crossed here that you can neither rationalize nor ignore. this isn't a political game any more; there's crystal clear evidence of openly criminal behavior, and they have a responsibility to move forward on it, even if it's bogs everything down.
i would rather they didn't, but now they kind of have to.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
a democratic party that is keen on good policy would be likely to attract me, whereas a democratic party that just wants to play silly political games based on lunatic fringe msnbc conspiracy theories that are probably even actually cia propaganda would just leave me cold and turn me off. and, i'm the type of voter they need to get up and out to the polls.
but, the recent allegations are positively nixonian. there's a line that was crossed here that you can neither rationalize nor ignore. this isn't a political game any more; there's crystal clear evidence of openly criminal behavior, and they have a responsibility to move forward on it, even if it's bogs everything down.
i would rather they didn't, but now they kind of have to.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
so, what about this weekend?
friday overnight might be nice, if it doesn't rain, but it's looking like it's going to be a little chilly. i'd like to hit blanck mass on friday; i don't have any clear plan for saturday.
but, whether i can do that or not is going to depend on when the money enters into my account.
i'm supposed to get paid at midnight on the 30th, which is a monday morning. the banks are closed on sundays, so they can't process it, and i'd have to wait until the morning of the 1st. they can't do that, legally, so what they do is transfer the money into the account before the weekend starts. but, i've seen a lack of consistency on this point - sometimes it comes in on the friday morning, and sometimes it comes in on the saturday morning.
we'll find out in less than 24 hours. if the money comes in, and the weather co-operates, i'll be heading back out friday night. if the money doesn't come in until saturday morning, it doesn't matter if the weather co-operates - and i'm also certainly in for the weekend.
i'm behind on everything, obviously.
but, i want to publish the 10/2013 documents before the end of the month, so i'mgoing to make that the priority over the court issue.
again: there's no deadline on the appeal, and they've hardly been punctual, themselves. i'm going to need to plan to get to toronto to file, which probably won't be until november, anyways.
as mentioned previously: i don't think that last week was terrible. i got some things done that i wanted done. further, i've had some complications in here with the air quality.
if i can get the appeal documents finished early next week, i think i'm winning.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
friday overnight might be nice, if it doesn't rain, but it's looking like it's going to be a little chilly. i'd like to hit blanck mass on friday; i don't have any clear plan for saturday.
but, whether i can do that or not is going to depend on when the money enters into my account.
i'm supposed to get paid at midnight on the 30th, which is a monday morning. the banks are closed on sundays, so they can't process it, and i'd have to wait until the morning of the 1st. they can't do that, legally, so what they do is transfer the money into the account before the weekend starts. but, i've seen a lack of consistency on this point - sometimes it comes in on the friday morning, and sometimes it comes in on the saturday morning.
we'll find out in less than 24 hours. if the money comes in, and the weather co-operates, i'll be heading back out friday night. if the money doesn't come in until saturday morning, it doesn't matter if the weather co-operates - and i'm also certainly in for the weekend.
i'm behind on everything, obviously.
but, i want to publish the 10/2013 documents before the end of the month, so i'mgoing to make that the priority over the court issue.
again: there's no deadline on the appeal, and they've hardly been punctual, themselves. i'm going to need to plan to get to toronto to file, which probably won't be until november, anyways.
as mentioned previously: i don't think that last week was terrible. i got some things done that i wanted done. further, i've had some complications in here with the air quality.
if i can get the appeal documents finished early next week, i think i'm winning.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
see, this is what the oil industry has done here in canada - they've managed to frame the issue as one of consumer consumption patterns, and greenwashed it into a product.
stopping climate change is just something you buy off the shelf, and the more you spend on it, the more you worthy you are - tapping into the culture's dormant calvinist supremacism.
don't let them do this. it's bullshit.
no, you don't have to pay out of pocket to stop climate change, nor would that even work. it's the big polluters that need to pay for this, not you.
https://globalnews.ca/news/5948758/canadians-climate-change-ipsos-poll/
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
stopping climate change is just something you buy off the shelf, and the more you spend on it, the more you worthy you are - tapping into the culture's dormant calvinist supremacism.
don't let them do this. it's bullshit.
no, you don't have to pay out of pocket to stop climate change, nor would that even work. it's the big polluters that need to pay for this, not you.
https://globalnews.ca/news/5948758/canadians-climate-change-ipsos-poll/
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
so, last night was a band from montreal called fly pan am that i remember from a few constellation records releases from the late 90s and early 00s, but mostly the late 90s. i walked into the show without having heard their brand new record, and without being very familiar with their last two, either.
this was awesome back in the day, though:
i'm going to give a shout out to montreal favourite steve hackett via fly pan am, though. yes, that's phil on drums, for those keeping track of the phil posts.
i didn't get to the bar until after 22:30, more like 22:45, expecting to have missed the opening act, but i didn't. it was some kind of mope rock, defined by a guitarist with a loop pedal and a drum machine. fairly boring...
i spent most of the money i had left for september on last weekend, which, given the current forecast for october, is looking like it was a wise choice. but i didn't want to miss fly pan am, so i held to an extra $21.79 in my account. the plan was to pre-drink on the way in, pull that $20 out at the last minute and spend the remaining $8 (along with some change i had kicking around) on two beers at the bar.
which bar?
windsor has a total of one alts-y kind of bar, called phog. there's another spot around the corner that's fairly safe, called villain's, that has a bit of a younger crowd nowadays that i'm borderline too old for, but they don't do a lot of shows, so i usually just end up in there for a few minutes at a time. there used to be a bro-ish punk bar down the street, but it was too bro, and i never even went in there once. i didn't fit in at the marijuana bar when it was open and didn't really want to hang out there, with gamers and normies. before that, there was a slightly more diverse space and absinthe bar called milk, but it's been shut down for a few years, now. if you look around town, you might find the odd thing here and there, but the only seriously interesting venue for the entire time that i've been here has been phog.
phog is a great venue, almost an institution, but it's very small, and the owner has been trying for years to open up a bigger space for bigger bands, something he keeps failing at - because the market in windsor just isn't there. the market he wants to tap into is really in suburban detroit, which is a good distance up woodward, and saturated as it is. so, he's tried working with the theatre next door, which is always empty, and that fell through. he's tried working with a bar down the street called the rondo, which has since closed. his most recent attempt to get a bigger space was to help open a renovated bar across the street from phog, an old dance club. so, this is a new bar in town, and one i may end up at from time to time. fly pan am wasn't the first show, but it was the first show i was at.
so, i hit the machine on the way in, bumped into some people outside the bar, made sure i was at the right place, plopped my $20 down and took mt $8.00 + $2.00 in quarters to the bar for a beer.
tom is working the bar, for some reason. $6 for a cherry porter, a request that confused him; he seemed to think i'd want something a little lighter. but, i'd rather have a heavy beer with a fruity tinge than a lighter beer that tastes like bread mold. don't misunderstand me; the beer was good, and it was tall, and it was fairly strong, but i just didn't have $6 on me for another one. so, when i stumbled downstairs to find a smoke, i stepped into villain's to down a beer i could afford.
i was met face to face with somebody in a ridiculous tinfoil suit that was threatening to play a 12-string guitar at the open mic inside. well, ok. it turns out that he was essentially playing bass, backing up a singer-songwriter type on an acoustic guitar. they had some people excited about them, but i found them rather boring. this is an open mic night that i've considered playing at before - and in fact did play at years ago - but that obviously isn't the right audience for what i'd want to do. like, i really actually don't like "indie rock". they'd no doubt tell me to chill out, and stop playing so loud. i don't want to come down on them too hard - they're friendly. really. - but i've picked up these question marks as to why i don't go to villain's more often and the best way for me to answer you is to suggest that you don't know me very well. they wouldn't like my music very much, and i know that; i'm rarely impressed by what i see in there, either. it's nice to have the friendly space not far from where i'd rather be, but i keep it at an arm's length for a reason.
so, i finished my beer up, bummed a smoke, caught a quick toke on somebody's thc vape and made it in for the last half or so of a set by a detroit band called pato y pato. people outside suggested they sounded like tortoise, but i didn't pick that up. to begin with, they didn't have a guitarist; it was two keyboard players playing through a haze of guitar effects. i thought a better comparison was to fuck buttons, but they didn't have the same focus on song structures, or the aggressive lyrics. in some ways, it just sounded like kraftwerk. it was an enjoyable slab of sound, but kind of not more than that. sometimes, you don't need more than that. i'd advise not skipping them.
so, i went out for another smoke between sets and found myself back out at villain's, sharing somebody's bong, but i had to get back in to catch the set. i hate to smoke and run like that. they're finally opening up a store downtown in november, so the days of me buzzing around like a fly are nearly over.
https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/windsors-first-legal-pot-shop-slated-to-open-nov-1
i had no idea what fly pan am would sound like in 2019, and i don't think i recognized anything in the set, which seems to have been mostly brand new tracks. some of it made sense, while i found some of it lacking; i wasn't sure what to expect, but i wasn't expecting a standard punk rock band, and at points that's exactly what they were. they seem to draw more from their label mates, gybe!, nowadays then they used to (and, for those wondering what happened to skinny fists era guitarist roger tellier-craig, this is the band he came from and is still in). the instrumental interludes seemed to draw as much from industrial music as they did from musique concrete, which was always a big part of what they did, but has morphed into something different altogether. the post-punk aesthetic has evolved into a motorik, and apparently taken in some influences from black metal, perhaps via the black ox orkestar? it's a starker, almost nihilistic sound from a band that i remember as dubby and warm. i think i was entertained, overall - i was impressed at points, at the points it made sense based on their history, and less so at others, when it maybe didn't. hey, they got me talking. i'm glad i went...
they have a bandcamp site up:
https://flypanam.bandcamp.com/album/cest-a
so, i get out of the show and walk across the street to phog, where there are people smoking. i have about $0.75, usd, on me. i want another beer. there's now $1.79 in my account. sol? i left $6 usd from last weekend on my stove, thinking i might be able to use it for blanck mass on friday, in a pinch...
i'd have to walk home, get the $6 and bike back. can this be done?
i spent the walk back trying to put proper mathematical bounds on this process. i left about 21:50; my bank receipt said 22:32. so, it took me about 42 minutes to walk to the machine, which is about two minutes further than phog. let's say it took 40 minutes. i left at 1:08. can i make it in half the time? probably not. 75% of the time? if i walk quickly, efficiently, that's not absurd. and, if i can make it home before 1:40, then, could i make it back to the bar before 2:00?
time on the clock when i got in: 1:36. lots of time to get back and order a beer before last call...
so, within a few minutes, i'm back at phog, ordering not one but two beers (a sneaky trick right before last call, to extend the night). tom is at the bar again, and it's now clear why - he's entertaining some old friends that are back home from out of town, and he would do so a little late, on this night, which was fine, as it gave me the chance to finish the two beers that i bought before last call. so we're all clear about that.
one of the folks at the bar was an angry croatian nationalist. he was angry all night, and seemed to enjoy it - it was a bit of a shtick. but, what is the difference between a serb and a croat, anyways?
i asked him after bumming a smoke from him, outside.
"it's mostly about the religion, right?"
that's what i always thought, anyways.
i have to tell you that i always thought they were mostly the same, really, and could never really figure this out. i knew serbs. i knew croats. one was catholic, the other orthodox - kind of a minor difference, given that they're both christians. now, the bosnians are a more complicated thing, as are the kosovars, but why the fuck are the serbians and the croats and the slovenians going after each other, anyways?
religion. as always. right.
no - and he got pretty mad at me for suggesting it, too. he claimed it had to do with a different history, but that didn't get through my bullshit filter, either. they were both under turkic domination for a while (and both resisted it), and then they were both under austrian hegemony. before that, they were in the broad grouping of slavic raiders that set up on the outskirts of the empire, and periodically plundered greece. there's no history for either serbs or croats before that, and so you're stuck trying to figure out if they're ancestrally iranian or slavic, or something in between. even if you derive them from what herodotus called the "royal scythians", you're still stuck with the reality that their only history is greek until well into the middle ages, however far back you can extend it, and with whatever speciousness.
i asked him some questions, but i couldn't get a straight answer out of him, and it just left me remembering how stupid that nationalism is, as a concept. he may have been trolling me slightly, and i got that point. but, he honestly couldn't answer my question.
he could tell you he was proud to be a croat.
he could insist that the serbians weren't like him, and that his father was in the right when he fought against them.
but, he couldn't tell me what the difference between a croat and a serb really is.
he eventually stormed off, but i think he was just looking for an excuse to get home, as it was getting fairly late. it was almost 4:00 when i got home, took a shower, made some eggs and went to sleep.
so, that was fly pan am in windsor in 2019.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
this was awesome back in the day, though:
i'm going to give a shout out to montreal favourite steve hackett via fly pan am, though. yes, that's phil on drums, for those keeping track of the phil posts.
i didn't get to the bar until after 22:30, more like 22:45, expecting to have missed the opening act, but i didn't. it was some kind of mope rock, defined by a guitarist with a loop pedal and a drum machine. fairly boring...
i spent most of the money i had left for september on last weekend, which, given the current forecast for october, is looking like it was a wise choice. but i didn't want to miss fly pan am, so i held to an extra $21.79 in my account. the plan was to pre-drink on the way in, pull that $20 out at the last minute and spend the remaining $8 (along with some change i had kicking around) on two beers at the bar.
which bar?
windsor has a total of one alts-y kind of bar, called phog. there's another spot around the corner that's fairly safe, called villain's, that has a bit of a younger crowd nowadays that i'm borderline too old for, but they don't do a lot of shows, so i usually just end up in there for a few minutes at a time. there used to be a bro-ish punk bar down the street, but it was too bro, and i never even went in there once. i didn't fit in at the marijuana bar when it was open and didn't really want to hang out there, with gamers and normies. before that, there was a slightly more diverse space and absinthe bar called milk, but it's been shut down for a few years, now. if you look around town, you might find the odd thing here and there, but the only seriously interesting venue for the entire time that i've been here has been phog.
phog is a great venue, almost an institution, but it's very small, and the owner has been trying for years to open up a bigger space for bigger bands, something he keeps failing at - because the market in windsor just isn't there. the market he wants to tap into is really in suburban detroit, which is a good distance up woodward, and saturated as it is. so, he's tried working with the theatre next door, which is always empty, and that fell through. he's tried working with a bar down the street called the rondo, which has since closed. his most recent attempt to get a bigger space was to help open a renovated bar across the street from phog, an old dance club. so, this is a new bar in town, and one i may end up at from time to time. fly pan am wasn't the first show, but it was the first show i was at.
so, i hit the machine on the way in, bumped into some people outside the bar, made sure i was at the right place, plopped my $20 down and took mt $8.00 + $2.00 in quarters to the bar for a beer.
tom is working the bar, for some reason. $6 for a cherry porter, a request that confused him; he seemed to think i'd want something a little lighter. but, i'd rather have a heavy beer with a fruity tinge than a lighter beer that tastes like bread mold. don't misunderstand me; the beer was good, and it was tall, and it was fairly strong, but i just didn't have $6 on me for another one. so, when i stumbled downstairs to find a smoke, i stepped into villain's to down a beer i could afford.
i was met face to face with somebody in a ridiculous tinfoil suit that was threatening to play a 12-string guitar at the open mic inside. well, ok. it turns out that he was essentially playing bass, backing up a singer-songwriter type on an acoustic guitar. they had some people excited about them, but i found them rather boring. this is an open mic night that i've considered playing at before - and in fact did play at years ago - but that obviously isn't the right audience for what i'd want to do. like, i really actually don't like "indie rock". they'd no doubt tell me to chill out, and stop playing so loud. i don't want to come down on them too hard - they're friendly. really. - but i've picked up these question marks as to why i don't go to villain's more often and the best way for me to answer you is to suggest that you don't know me very well. they wouldn't like my music very much, and i know that; i'm rarely impressed by what i see in there, either. it's nice to have the friendly space not far from where i'd rather be, but i keep it at an arm's length for a reason.
so, i finished my beer up, bummed a smoke, caught a quick toke on somebody's thc vape and made it in for the last half or so of a set by a detroit band called pato y pato. people outside suggested they sounded like tortoise, but i didn't pick that up. to begin with, they didn't have a guitarist; it was two keyboard players playing through a haze of guitar effects. i thought a better comparison was to fuck buttons, but they didn't have the same focus on song structures, or the aggressive lyrics. in some ways, it just sounded like kraftwerk. it was an enjoyable slab of sound, but kind of not more than that. sometimes, you don't need more than that. i'd advise not skipping them.
so, i went out for another smoke between sets and found myself back out at villain's, sharing somebody's bong, but i had to get back in to catch the set. i hate to smoke and run like that. they're finally opening up a store downtown in november, so the days of me buzzing around like a fly are nearly over.
https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/windsors-first-legal-pot-shop-slated-to-open-nov-1
i had no idea what fly pan am would sound like in 2019, and i don't think i recognized anything in the set, which seems to have been mostly brand new tracks. some of it made sense, while i found some of it lacking; i wasn't sure what to expect, but i wasn't expecting a standard punk rock band, and at points that's exactly what they were. they seem to draw more from their label mates, gybe!, nowadays then they used to (and, for those wondering what happened to skinny fists era guitarist roger tellier-craig, this is the band he came from and is still in). the instrumental interludes seemed to draw as much from industrial music as they did from musique concrete, which was always a big part of what they did, but has morphed into something different altogether. the post-punk aesthetic has evolved into a motorik, and apparently taken in some influences from black metal, perhaps via the black ox orkestar? it's a starker, almost nihilistic sound from a band that i remember as dubby and warm. i think i was entertained, overall - i was impressed at points, at the points it made sense based on their history, and less so at others, when it maybe didn't. hey, they got me talking. i'm glad i went...
they have a bandcamp site up:
https://flypanam.bandcamp.com/album/cest-a
so, i get out of the show and walk across the street to phog, where there are people smoking. i have about $0.75, usd, on me. i want another beer. there's now $1.79 in my account. sol? i left $6 usd from last weekend on my stove, thinking i might be able to use it for blanck mass on friday, in a pinch...
i'd have to walk home, get the $6 and bike back. can this be done?
i spent the walk back trying to put proper mathematical bounds on this process. i left about 21:50; my bank receipt said 22:32. so, it took me about 42 minutes to walk to the machine, which is about two minutes further than phog. let's say it took 40 minutes. i left at 1:08. can i make it in half the time? probably not. 75% of the time? if i walk quickly, efficiently, that's not absurd. and, if i can make it home before 1:40, then, could i make it back to the bar before 2:00?
time on the clock when i got in: 1:36. lots of time to get back and order a beer before last call...
so, within a few minutes, i'm back at phog, ordering not one but two beers (a sneaky trick right before last call, to extend the night). tom is at the bar again, and it's now clear why - he's entertaining some old friends that are back home from out of town, and he would do so a little late, on this night, which was fine, as it gave me the chance to finish the two beers that i bought before last call. so we're all clear about that.
one of the folks at the bar was an angry croatian nationalist. he was angry all night, and seemed to enjoy it - it was a bit of a shtick. but, what is the difference between a serb and a croat, anyways?
i asked him after bumming a smoke from him, outside.
"it's mostly about the religion, right?"
that's what i always thought, anyways.
i have to tell you that i always thought they were mostly the same, really, and could never really figure this out. i knew serbs. i knew croats. one was catholic, the other orthodox - kind of a minor difference, given that they're both christians. now, the bosnians are a more complicated thing, as are the kosovars, but why the fuck are the serbians and the croats and the slovenians going after each other, anyways?
religion. as always. right.
no - and he got pretty mad at me for suggesting it, too. he claimed it had to do with a different history, but that didn't get through my bullshit filter, either. they were both under turkic domination for a while (and both resisted it), and then they were both under austrian hegemony. before that, they were in the broad grouping of slavic raiders that set up on the outskirts of the empire, and periodically plundered greece. there's no history for either serbs or croats before that, and so you're stuck trying to figure out if they're ancestrally iranian or slavic, or something in between. even if you derive them from what herodotus called the "royal scythians", you're still stuck with the reality that their only history is greek until well into the middle ages, however far back you can extend it, and with whatever speciousness.
i asked him some questions, but i couldn't get a straight answer out of him, and it just left me remembering how stupid that nationalism is, as a concept. he may have been trolling me slightly, and i got that point. but, he honestly couldn't answer my question.
he could tell you he was proud to be a croat.
he could insist that the serbians weren't like him, and that his father was in the right when he fought against them.
but, he couldn't tell me what the difference between a croat and a serb really is.
he eventually stormed off, but i think he was just looking for an excuse to get home, as it was getting fairly late. it was almost 4:00 when i got home, took a shower, made some eggs and went to sleep.
so, that was fly pan am in windsor in 2019.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
you want me to say something about this child, greta thurnberg?
the fact that you've got a little kid up there addressing world leaders, one who barely understands what she's saying, is a reflection of the absurdity that has come of the world body.
a functioning united nations would not allow a 16-year old to address them - that would be seen as a stupid waste of time.
the world body needs serious reform.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
the fact that you've got a little kid up there addressing world leaders, one who barely understands what she's saying, is a reflection of the absurdity that has come of the world body.
a functioning united nations would not allow a 16-year old to address them - that would be seen as a stupid waste of time.
the world body needs serious reform.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
so, i met an angry croatian nationalist last night. and, what is the difference between a serb and a croat, anyways?
"it's mostly about the religion, right?"
i have to tell you that i always thought they were mostly the same, really, and could never really figure this out. i knew serbs. i knew croats. one was catholic, the other orthodox - kind of a minor difference, given that they're both christians. now, the bosnians are a more complicated thing, as are the kosovars, but why the fuck are the serbians and the croats and the slovenians going after each other, anyways?
religion. as always. right.
no - and he got pretty mad at me for suggesting it, too. he claimed it had to do with a different history, but that didn't get through my bullshit filter, either. they were both under turkic domination for a while, and then they were both under austrian hegemony. before that, they were in the broad grouping of slavic raiders that set up on the outskirts of the empire, and periodically plundered greece. there's no history for either serbs or croats before that, and so you're stuck trying to figure out if they're ancestrally iranian or slavic, or something in between. even if you derive them from what herodotus called the "royal scythians", you're still stuck with the reality that their only history is greek until well into the middle ages, however far back you can extend it, and with whatever speciousness.
i asked him some questions, but i couldn't get a straight answer out of him, and it just left me remembering how stupid that nationalism is, as a concept. he may have been trolling me slightly, and i got that point. but, he honestly couldn't answer my question.
he could tell you he was proud to be a croat.
he could insist that the serbians weren't like him, and that his father was in the right when he fought against them.
but, he couldn't tell me what the difference between a croat and a serb really is.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
"it's mostly about the religion, right?"
i have to tell you that i always thought they were mostly the same, really, and could never really figure this out. i knew serbs. i knew croats. one was catholic, the other orthodox - kind of a minor difference, given that they're both christians. now, the bosnians are a more complicated thing, as are the kosovars, but why the fuck are the serbians and the croats and the slovenians going after each other, anyways?
religion. as always. right.
no - and he got pretty mad at me for suggesting it, too. he claimed it had to do with a different history, but that didn't get through my bullshit filter, either. they were both under turkic domination for a while, and then they were both under austrian hegemony. before that, they were in the broad grouping of slavic raiders that set up on the outskirts of the empire, and periodically plundered greece. there's no history for either serbs or croats before that, and so you're stuck trying to figure out if they're ancestrally iranian or slavic, or something in between. even if you derive them from what herodotus called the "royal scythians", you're still stuck with the reality that their only history is greek until well into the middle ages, however far back you can extend it, and with whatever speciousness.
i asked him some questions, but i couldn't get a straight answer out of him, and it just left me remembering how stupid that nationalism is, as a concept. he may have been trolling me slightly, and i got that point. but, he honestly couldn't answer my question.
he could tell you he was proud to be a croat.
he could insist that the serbians weren't like him, and that his father was in the right when he fought against them.
but, he couldn't tell me what the difference between a croat and a serb really is.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
i'm going to post another update on the smell before i take a shower, which i'm hoping helps quite a bit. we'll have to see if i want to launder my sheets tonight or not, but i'm leaning towards it. i didn't get to doing this yesterday, as i was getting ready to go out to the show - the review is coming soon.
i got back on sunday close to noon and spent much of the next 36 hours tossing and turning, but i was also trying to pinpoint the exact location of the ammonia smell. i have an old cabinet in front of my bed that is turned sideways, and is useful to put a monitor on (my laptop has a burnt out screen lamp in it). so, when i'm typing, my nose is a foot from the cabinet, because my bed is pushed right up to it. the amp, which is covered in 30-40 year old carpet, was previously keeping the cabinet (which is broken) in place. the stink was landing on the amp, and taking the amp out mostly fixed it, but it was always clear that it wasn't the actual cause of anything.
when the smell came back without the amp, the place the smell was landing wasn't clear. so, i lysoled around the cabinet a few times, over the floor, around the bedframe, etc - which helped me eventually figure out that the smell was coming from a combination of the boxspring, and the underside of the mattress.
so, i dismantled the bed yesterday afternoon and went over the whole area with a lot of lemon-smelling dish soap. i left it dismantled when i went out, and put it back together when i got home this morning at about 4:00. and, that seemed to work before the p-trap dried back out and released some more gas; i might need to do this again.
for now, what i've done in here is make coffee. if i can't blow the hydrogen sulfide around, maybe i can overpower it. we'll see how that works...
so, what happened? why does the boxspring smell now, when it was the amp before?
well, it could be because somebody came in here. i need to keep pointing this possibility out, but the absolute depravity of this is getting beyond baffling.
but, an ammonia smell would be the expected result of hydrogen sulfide exposure. so, there could be sewer gas in the boxspring. i suppose that some moisture, combined with a lack of air circulation, could have brought it back out. or, there could have been some gas leakage when i was gone...
i need to understand what's happening before i can figure out how to fix it, and how to react, otherwise. i have a naturalistic explanation, and if it's correct then there should be a reasonable way to fix it, so long as i can keep the gas from coming out, or get to it as soon as it starts.
for now, the next thing to do is clean a little in the other room and take a shower. i'll get back to the show review in a bit.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
i got back on sunday close to noon and spent much of the next 36 hours tossing and turning, but i was also trying to pinpoint the exact location of the ammonia smell. i have an old cabinet in front of my bed that is turned sideways, and is useful to put a monitor on (my laptop has a burnt out screen lamp in it). so, when i'm typing, my nose is a foot from the cabinet, because my bed is pushed right up to it. the amp, which is covered in 30-40 year old carpet, was previously keeping the cabinet (which is broken) in place. the stink was landing on the amp, and taking the amp out mostly fixed it, but it was always clear that it wasn't the actual cause of anything.
when the smell came back without the amp, the place the smell was landing wasn't clear. so, i lysoled around the cabinet a few times, over the floor, around the bedframe, etc - which helped me eventually figure out that the smell was coming from a combination of the boxspring, and the underside of the mattress.
so, i dismantled the bed yesterday afternoon and went over the whole area with a lot of lemon-smelling dish soap. i left it dismantled when i went out, and put it back together when i got home this morning at about 4:00. and, that seemed to work before the p-trap dried back out and released some more gas; i might need to do this again.
for now, what i've done in here is make coffee. if i can't blow the hydrogen sulfide around, maybe i can overpower it. we'll see how that works...
so, what happened? why does the boxspring smell now, when it was the amp before?
well, it could be because somebody came in here. i need to keep pointing this possibility out, but the absolute depravity of this is getting beyond baffling.
but, an ammonia smell would be the expected result of hydrogen sulfide exposure. so, there could be sewer gas in the boxspring. i suppose that some moisture, combined with a lack of air circulation, could have brought it back out. or, there could have been some gas leakage when i was gone...
i need to understand what's happening before i can figure out how to fix it, and how to react, otherwise. i have a naturalistic explanation, and if it's correct then there should be a reasonable way to fix it, so long as i can keep the gas from coming out, or get to it as soon as it starts.
for now, the next thing to do is clean a little in the other room and take a shower. i'll get back to the show review in a bit.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
i blew the day, but i've got some writing coming...
the gas leak came back this evening around 18:00, so i had to fill the p-trap back up with water and dish soap before sealing the cleanout back up. i've blocked the leak, but not before it sent a bunch more shit into the air. i'm not going to get the fan back in here for another day or two, so it might get kind of rank.
i guess i'll have to do laundry again.....
there's a temperature gradient around the cleanout that may be contributing to the problem. i don't how normal that is, though - it goes right to the underground sewer, right? you'd kind of expect it to be a little cooler down there.
but, i suspect the bigger culprit is the dehumidifier upstairs.
i'm going to send him an email asking him to make sure that he's running water through the sinks and flushing toilets periodically, that he's not letting anything dry out.
as it is, i was up in the afternoon around 15:00-ish and haven't done much yet besides eat. lots of stuff to do, though.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
the gas leak came back this evening around 18:00, so i had to fill the p-trap back up with water and dish soap before sealing the cleanout back up. i've blocked the leak, but not before it sent a bunch more shit into the air. i'm not going to get the fan back in here for another day or two, so it might get kind of rank.
i guess i'll have to do laundry again.....
there's a temperature gradient around the cleanout that may be contributing to the problem. i don't how normal that is, though - it goes right to the underground sewer, right? you'd kind of expect it to be a little cooler down there.
but, i suspect the bigger culprit is the dehumidifier upstairs.
i'm going to send him an email asking him to make sure that he's running water through the sinks and flushing toilets periodically, that he's not letting anything dry out.
as it is, i was up in the afternoon around 15:00-ish and haven't done much yet besides eat. lots of stuff to do, though.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
nobody cares.
https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2019/09/25/green-partys-fully-costed-platform-gets-a-failing-grade-from-former-parliamentary-budget-officer.html
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2019/09/25/green-partys-fully-costed-platform-gets-a-failing-grade-from-former-parliamentary-budget-officer.html
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
the homeowner needs to be a reasonable person, it is true, but you also expect the court to be reasonable.
you could imagine a situation where a homeowner exits his house and chases the trespasser down, or doesn't give him a fair chance to leave before he shoots, or any other such aggressive behaviour. i think that most people would see something wrong with this, because our concepts of property are not absolute; the difference between you and i on this point is probably just that i'm willing to admit it, and you're not. a part of this comes in recognizing that trespassing can't be seen as an absolute wrong - he could have been in a car crash and looking for somebody to help his injured wife, or he could have been out hiking and convinced he was being hunted by a cougar, or he could be mentally ill and trying to find the end of the rainbow. you can't just assume that the motives of the trespasser are nefarious, and because you can't assume that, an over-reaction can't be justified by exposing the motives as nefarious, if they are, either. it's the homeowner's responsibility to try and establish the actual facts before acting, and they're consequently responsible for the consequences of failing to do so.
but, the court being reasonable means recognizing the limitations and stress that the homeowner is under.
i'd have to look at the exact facts fairly closely to make an informed analysis, and i'm not going to do that, but the trespasser has a hard case to make here.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-landowner-sued-by-injured-trespasser-precedent-lawyer-1.5296804
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
you could imagine a situation where a homeowner exits his house and chases the trespasser down, or doesn't give him a fair chance to leave before he shoots, or any other such aggressive behaviour. i think that most people would see something wrong with this, because our concepts of property are not absolute; the difference between you and i on this point is probably just that i'm willing to admit it, and you're not. a part of this comes in recognizing that trespassing can't be seen as an absolute wrong - he could have been in a car crash and looking for somebody to help his injured wife, or he could have been out hiking and convinced he was being hunted by a cougar, or he could be mentally ill and trying to find the end of the rainbow. you can't just assume that the motives of the trespasser are nefarious, and because you can't assume that, an over-reaction can't be justified by exposing the motives as nefarious, if they are, either. it's the homeowner's responsibility to try and establish the actual facts before acting, and they're consequently responsible for the consequences of failing to do so.
but, the court being reasonable means recognizing the limitations and stress that the homeowner is under.
i'd have to look at the exact facts fairly closely to make an informed analysis, and i'm not going to do that, but the trespasser has a hard case to make here.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-landowner-sued-by-injured-trespasser-precedent-lawyer-1.5296804
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
so, the liberals are very clear on how they see emissions reductions: it's your fault, and you have to pay to fix it. you need to pull your carbon footprints down by your own bootstraps.
they are insisting - through their policies - that this is essentially a consumption problem, and it needs to be resolved via changes in consumer behaviour. thoroughly right-wing, to the core.
we need a government that understands that this is a problem that was largely created by government and will need to be largely fixed by government, that incentives to consumers and tweaks to consumption will do very little so long as we maintain the system. the problem is not individual, not atomized, but systemic in nature.
so, this is a perfect example of the kind of policy that will not work, and should not be proposed, and should not be supported.
the greens have a better plan, here. and, this is the hard truth we need to face: if we want to fix this, we need to pay for it through public spending.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberal-climate-change-plan-home-retrofits-1.5296400
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
they are insisting - through their policies - that this is essentially a consumption problem, and it needs to be resolved via changes in consumer behaviour. thoroughly right-wing, to the core.
we need a government that understands that this is a problem that was largely created by government and will need to be largely fixed by government, that incentives to consumers and tweaks to consumption will do very little so long as we maintain the system. the problem is not individual, not atomized, but systemic in nature.
so, this is a perfect example of the kind of policy that will not work, and should not be proposed, and should not be supported.
the greens have a better plan, here. and, this is the hard truth we need to face: if we want to fix this, we need to pay for it through public spending.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberal-climate-change-plan-home-retrofits-1.5296400
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
In August 2018, Baird appeared on Saudi-owned TV station Al Arabiya to comment on the diplomatic dispute between Canada and Saudi Arabia and urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to fly to Riyadh to apologize in person to the Saudi royal family.[156] NDP MP Charlie Angus called the appearance "stunning" and suggested that the Ethics Commissioner should investigate the incident.[157]
yup.
this is the guy that broke off relations with the syrians. and, he'd better be careful in saudia arabia, too. i've said this before: don't lose your head on the peninsula, baird.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
yup.
this is the guy that broke off relations with the syrians. and, he'd better be careful in saudia arabia, too. i've said this before: don't lose your head on the peninsula, baird.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
so, will we take the lead on this as a force for multilateralism, tolerance and peace?
or will we remain shackled to the demented legacy of john baird - one of the most mindless, belligerent idiots that we've ever elected, in this country?
we made a mistake.
we're long overdue in reversing it...
so, i will repeat my call for the liberal government to take the lead in restoring international relations with the assad regime, in an attempt to move beyond the past.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/12/28/bashar-al-assad-was-diplomatic-outcast-now-former-arab-adversaries-are-restoring-ties/
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
or will we remain shackled to the demented legacy of john baird - one of the most mindless, belligerent idiots that we've ever elected, in this country?
we made a mistake.
we're long overdue in reversing it...
so, i will repeat my call for the liberal government to take the lead in restoring international relations with the assad regime, in an attempt to move beyond the past.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/12/28/bashar-al-assad-was-diplomatic-outcast-now-former-arab-adversaries-are-restoring-ties/
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
the process of reintegration has already started.
we're falling behind. we need to catch up...
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201812/29/WS5c26cd92a310d912140519bc.html
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
we're falling behind. we need to catch up...
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201812/29/WS5c26cd92a310d912140519bc.html
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
as usual, freeland is completely wrong, and totally out to lunch. she's completely incompetent and should have been removed from her post months ago. that she hasn't been is a reflection of the incompetence of the prime minister.
the need to reestablish relations in syria is something that's been predictable for a long time now. we made a mistake; stephen harper made a mistake. a big part of the sitting foreign minister's responsibility over the last two years should have been to write a policy around re-establishing relations, and it should have been put in motion after the recent american withdrawal, at the very latest.
freeland's response to the situation is an admission that she does not have a policy for reintegration.
and, that is a failure of her post, and a failure of the government, at the highest level.
this article was last year - she should have seen this coming, and it should be dealt with by now.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-when-assad-wins-syrias-civil-war-canada-faces-a-dilemma/
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
the need to reestablish relations in syria is something that's been predictable for a long time now. we made a mistake; stephen harper made a mistake. a big part of the sitting foreign minister's responsibility over the last two years should have been to write a policy around re-establishing relations, and it should have been put in motion after the recent american withdrawal, at the very latest.
freeland's response to the situation is an admission that she does not have a policy for reintegration.
and, that is a failure of her post, and a failure of the government, at the highest level.
this article was last year - she should have seen this coming, and it should be dealt with by now.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-when-assad-wins-syrias-civil-war-canada-faces-a-dilemma/
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
in all seriousness...
it should be clear at this point, now that we know that there was no actual civil war in syria and the conflict was being driven entirely by foreign terrorist organizations, largely propped up by saudi financing, that canada made a terrible mistake in severing diplomatic relations with the assad government, whom it should have been supporting in it's fight against international terrorism.
it is long overdue that canada re-establish official channels with assad and work within the channels of the united nations to restore the rule of law in a reconstituted syria with a new constitution.
i would call on the liberal party to take the lead on that issue.
unfortunately...
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
it should be clear at this point, now that we know that there was no actual civil war in syria and the conflict was being driven entirely by foreign terrorist organizations, largely propped up by saudi financing, that canada made a terrible mistake in severing diplomatic relations with the assad government, whom it should have been supporting in it's fight against international terrorism.
it is long overdue that canada re-establish official channels with assad and work within the channels of the united nations to restore the rule of law in a reconstituted syria with a new constitution.
i would call on the liberal party to take the lead on that issue.
unfortunately...
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
the liberals bought a pipeline, but they bought it as a gift for the oil queen of the alberta ndp, remember.
neither party has any credibility, at all, whatsoever, on emissions reductions.
none.
zilch.
nada....
i wouldn't even be surprised if a scheer government had better results, despite openly not giving a fuck, because he's likely to crash the economy. that's the only way we've ever seen emissions reductions to this point, conservative economic mismanagement, and probably the only foreseeable way to see them in the future, right now.
so, if you're looking at the three major parties and trying to figure out which one is most credible, keep that in mind: conservative incompetence is not just a valid option in terms of emissions reductions strategies, it's probably the most substantive one.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
neither party has any credibility, at all, whatsoever, on emissions reductions.
none.
zilch.
nada....
i wouldn't even be surprised if a scheer government had better results, despite openly not giving a fuck, because he's likely to crash the economy. that's the only way we've ever seen emissions reductions to this point, conservative economic mismanagement, and probably the only foreseeable way to see them in the future, right now.
so, if you're looking at the three major parties and trying to figure out which one is most credible, keep that in mind: conservative incompetence is not just a valid option in terms of emissions reductions strategies, it's probably the most substantive one.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
i'm not supporting any of the parties, but i want trudeau out yesterday, so i'm willing to help do that, at least.
and, there's a good internet campaign here, with this jihadi justin that is pro-isis.
it's a perfectly sound logical deduction. if you're anti-assad, you're in support of the groups fighting assad, which are a mish-mash of al qaeda and isis groups. so, being anti-assad necessarily implies being pro-isis. clearly.
a lot of voters are likely to be convincingly swayed by arguments such as these, too. you just need to get the information out to them.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
and, there's a good internet campaign here, with this jihadi justin that is pro-isis.
it's a perfectly sound logical deduction. if you're anti-assad, you're in support of the groups fighting assad, which are a mish-mash of al qaeda and isis groups. so, being anti-assad necessarily implies being pro-isis. clearly.
a lot of voters are likely to be convincingly swayed by arguments such as these, too. you just need to get the information out to them.
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
i hope they get this dealt with sooner than later, so they can clear what's left of these idiot islamists out and get back to rebuilding the country.
and, if assad stands for re-election, you should expect him to win.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/guterres-announces-formation-syria-constitutional-committee-190923144730234.html
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
and, if assad stands for re-election, you should expect him to win.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/guterres-announces-formation-syria-constitutional-committee-190923144730234.html
the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
and, if you don't realize that:
1) assad won the syrian war years ago, now and
2) the reason that assad won was that he had overwhelming internal support, meaning
3) despite being a flawed protagonist, assad is quite obviously the good guy in syria,
...then you don't know what's going on, or you're perfectly willing to lie about it to appease the americans, which is probably closer to the truth.
i mean, is trudeau trying to broadcast that he's pro-isis? because if you're not supporting assad, you're supporting isis.
you expect this kind of thing from the conservatives, but the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
1) assad won the syrian war years ago, now and
2) the reason that assad won was that he had overwhelming internal support, meaning
3) despite being a flawed protagonist, assad is quite obviously the good guy in syria,
...then you don't know what's going on, or you're perfectly willing to lie about it to appease the americans, which is probably closer to the truth.
i mean, is trudeau trying to broadcast that he's pro-isis? because if you're not supporting assad, you're supporting isis.
you expect this kind of thing from the conservatives, but the liberals are supposed to do better than this.
a few last points about the federal election.
- the conservatives are unelectable under this village idiot, andy scheer. he should be working as a bank teller or an accountant or something; this is not the kind of person you want making broad decisions about the future of the country.
- the liberals may promise things, and they may sound good, but i wouldn't believe them. what did bush say? "fool me once......shame on...fool me twice, then, won't get fooled again!". well, we met the new boss and he was the same as the old boss. if you get fooled again, shame on you.
- the liberals lie about the big picture, while the ndp are notoriously dishonest when it comes to the most basic bullshit, and it's been that way for years. i have this sneaking suspicion that layton was really strict about it, because olivia chow would string entire sentences full of lies together, and this is what has taken over the party since he died. mulcair was the most cynical, day-to-day liar i've ever seen. and, people are already wondering if singh is too dishonest to state his opponents' positions properly, or too stupid to understand them. all politicians are dishonest, but the ndp are particularly awful in the post-layton era, so please be particularly careful about what they say. i was an ndp voter through much of the 00s; the primary reason i started taking the liberals seriously again in the first place is that the ndp were just so fundamentally disingenuous all of a sudden. so, careful.
- the greens are tempting, but they have no real fundamental core ideology, so it's impossible to know what you're getting. this is ironic, because may is also the only leader that you can really easily pin down. this could help them - it's arguably what got trudeau elected, along with both obama and trump, this ability to project your own fantasy on to the candidate, because they have no beliefs of their own. but, this is dangerous, because the only thing we can say with any certainty is that she will be gone soon, and the party will change dramatically when she is. i've been saying for years that i won't be able to take the party seriously until she's gone, and ultimately upheld that position this cycle. i've also been saying that they won't breakthrough seriously until she's gone, and hope that they don't miss their chance. but, if they can get her out and clean up her mess before the next election, watch out.
- i kind of wish i could vote for the bloc, actually. my dad used to tell me that - he thought the best candidate was always duceppe, and wanted him to run for the liberals. i never quite agreed with him. but, in this dearth of serious options, they're looking appealing, and i hope they bounce back.
- maxime bernier will probably lose his seat. their economics suck. don't bother.
- the conservatives are unelectable under this village idiot, andy scheer. he should be working as a bank teller or an accountant or something; this is not the kind of person you want making broad decisions about the future of the country.
- the liberals may promise things, and they may sound good, but i wouldn't believe them. what did bush say? "fool me once......shame on...fool me twice, then, won't get fooled again!". well, we met the new boss and he was the same as the old boss. if you get fooled again, shame on you.
- the liberals lie about the big picture, while the ndp are notoriously dishonest when it comes to the most basic bullshit, and it's been that way for years. i have this sneaking suspicion that layton was really strict about it, because olivia chow would string entire sentences full of lies together, and this is what has taken over the party since he died. mulcair was the most cynical, day-to-day liar i've ever seen. and, people are already wondering if singh is too dishonest to state his opponents' positions properly, or too stupid to understand them. all politicians are dishonest, but the ndp are particularly awful in the post-layton era, so please be particularly careful about what they say. i was an ndp voter through much of the 00s; the primary reason i started taking the liberals seriously again in the first place is that the ndp were just so fundamentally disingenuous all of a sudden. so, careful.
- the greens are tempting, but they have no real fundamental core ideology, so it's impossible to know what you're getting. this is ironic, because may is also the only leader that you can really easily pin down. this could help them - it's arguably what got trudeau elected, along with both obama and trump, this ability to project your own fantasy on to the candidate, because they have no beliefs of their own. but, this is dangerous, because the only thing we can say with any certainty is that she will be gone soon, and the party will change dramatically when she is. i've been saying for years that i won't be able to take the party seriously until she's gone, and ultimately upheld that position this cycle. i've also been saying that they won't breakthrough seriously until she's gone, and hope that they don't miss their chance. but, if they can get her out and clean up her mess before the next election, watch out.
- i kind of wish i could vote for the bloc, actually. my dad used to tell me that - he thought the best candidate was always duceppe, and wanted him to run for the liberals. i never quite agreed with him. but, in this dearth of serious options, they're looking appealing, and i hope they bounce back.
- maxime bernier will probably lose his seat. their economics suck. don't bother.
yeah, the undecideds went down a little bit. so, the liberals are winning again.
say what you want about the movement back and forth from the other parties, but conservative support is clearly flat. they've received a net zero increase in support; it hasn't been enough to give the other parties a bounce, either.
this is largely playing out as a decision in the liberal base to vote for the fuckers or to just not to vote at all. i've already told you what i'm doing. but, i'm not in an important riding, either.
the bloc are trending up, which is perhaps the more valuable observation, but be careful with that.
https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.47/823.910.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/2019-1445-CTV-Globe-ELXN-September-23-2019.pdf
say what you want about the movement back and forth from the other parties, but conservative support is clearly flat. they've received a net zero increase in support; it hasn't been enough to give the other parties a bounce, either.
this is largely playing out as a decision in the liberal base to vote for the fuckers or to just not to vote at all. i've already told you what i'm doing. but, i'm not in an important riding, either.
the bloc are trending up, which is perhaps the more valuable observation, but be careful with that.
https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.47/823.910.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/2019-1445-CTV-Globe-ELXN-September-23-2019.pdf
i was thinking about it, and...
i posted that kmfdm song the other day, and it actually wasn't intended to be about me, although it could be why i got so many questions the other night.
i'm going to post this for completeness sake; it's about an mdma overdose, and is maybe more real. i didn't take mdma either night (and, don't. it's a question of purity; i don't want to even do trace amounts of meth.), but it would have been a real choice track during the shettler set.
i posted that kmfdm song the other day, and it actually wasn't intended to be about me, although it could be why i got so many questions the other night.
i'm going to post this for completeness sake; it's about an mdma overdose, and is maybe more real. i didn't take mdma either night (and, don't. it's a question of purity; i don't want to even do trace amounts of meth.), but it would have been a real choice track during the shettler set.
so, typing that form up was relatively quick, but i need the information services unit at the windsor police department to acknowledge service over email before i can file it.
it's been sent.
if i get a response before this afternoon, i should be able to file the two forms today. otherwise, i'll need to actually drop the form off at the cop shop this afternoon, which means i won't be able to file until tomorrow.
it's been sent.
if i get a response before this afternoon, i should be able to file the two forms today. otherwise, i'll need to actually drop the form off at the cop shop this afternoon, which means i won't be able to file until tomorrow.
Monday, September 23, 2019
so, this is my shortlist for the next six weeks, which is really just a peruse through.
24: fly pan am @ meteor (windsor)
27: blanck mass @ ufo
oct
02: joy formidable @ loving touch ----> defeater @ sanctuary.
03: melvins @ el club.
06: legendary pink dots @ el club.
09: caravan palace @ garden theatre
last weekend:
25: chelsea wolfe @ senate theatre
27: swervedriver @ el club
i wouldn't mind seeing the lpd, but i doubt i'll be able to afford it. rather, that joy formidable / defeater sequence may be it until the end of the month, and that's fine, as it's a more normal month. i mean, i don't normally go out 5-6 times a month like this. it's usually once or twice.
so, i think i'm more treating the show next tuesday as the end of september and then keying in on the last weekend of october. let's hope it's at least pleasant out.
i could find more stuff.
but, i want to plan around getting to toronto to file, remember. that's likely to be in november....
if it's a quiet month, that means i should also be able to do things like catch up on groceries (which i've been sparse about this month.), buy that fan and get that crack filler for the baseboards.
i don't multitask well. let's get those documents done...
24: fly pan am @ meteor (windsor)
27: blanck mass @ ufo
oct
02: joy formidable @ loving touch ----> defeater @ sanctuary.
06: legendary pink dots @ el club.
09: caravan palace @ garden theatre
last weekend:
25: chelsea wolfe @ senate theatre
27: swervedriver @ el club
i wouldn't mind seeing the lpd, but i doubt i'll be able to afford it. rather, that joy formidable / defeater sequence may be it until the end of the month, and that's fine, as it's a more normal month. i mean, i don't normally go out 5-6 times a month like this. it's usually once or twice.
so, i think i'm more treating the show next tuesday as the end of september and then keying in on the last weekend of october. let's hope it's at least pleasant out.
i could find more stuff.
but, i want to plan around getting to toronto to file, remember. that's likely to be in november....
if it's a quiet month, that means i should also be able to do things like catch up on groceries (which i've been sparse about this month.), buy that fan and get that crack filler for the baseboards.
i don't multitask well. let's get those documents done...
just to state the point in clearer detail using simple language...
i was essentially charged with stalking somebody, but i've never met that person - i don't know their address, and i don't know their phone number. you can't stalk somebody like that, so the charges were dropped. now, i want to file a human rights complaint against them for falsely charging me with stalking them, but i don't know their phone or address, so i can't do that. so, i'm going to ask the police to provide the address (it says in the report that they went to her house.) via an access to information request, and enforce it through the human rights tribunal.
there is a fundamental principle of justice that an accused be able to face their accuser, and i don't have enough information in front of me to be able to actually do that.
so, i think they have an obligation to provide the information.
i was essentially charged with stalking somebody, but i've never met that person - i don't know their address, and i don't know their phone number. you can't stalk somebody like that, so the charges were dropped. now, i want to file a human rights complaint against them for falsely charging me with stalking them, but i don't know their phone or address, so i can't do that. so, i'm going to ask the police to provide the address (it says in the report that they went to her house.) via an access to information request, and enforce it through the human rights tribunal.
there is a fundamental principle of justice that an accused be able to face their accuser, and i don't have enough information in front of me to be able to actually do that.
so, i think they have an obligation to provide the information.
so, what am i doing tonight?
when i filled out the human rights complaint against this "caroline chevalier", i had to come to terms with the fact that i didn't know her address and didn't know how to find it. i can't do this unless i know her address. so, what to do?
the only safe way for me to do this is to file an access to information request. yes, i'm going to file an access to information request to attempt to determine the identity of the person that charged me with harassment, because i know nothing about them. such is the level of absurdity underlying the charges.
but, i'd rather get them to do it, and the reason is that i can maybe avoid learning certain details that way. listen: i don't care about this person. at all. but, she manufactured this stupid situation where she thinks i do, or pretends to think i do, or...i can't psychoanalyze somebody that i've never met. the point is that this is a kind of a good faith gimmick - by asking the tribunal to get the information in confidence, i'm avoiding the delusional appearance that have any interest in tracking her down.
how, though?
i decided that i would file the complaint and then communicate with the tribunal as to how to proceed further, given that there's no obvious answer. i talked to somebody on friday, who is suggesting that i can file a request for an order from the windsor police.
so, i would essentially be asking the access to information group at the windsor police to file an affidavit with the person's address on it. i need this address to file a human rights complaint against this person for having me arrested. and, i'm not going to be able to contact the person that accused me of harassing them directly, because i don't know how to.
what i'm hoping is that the absurdity of the situation helps me in the long run. but that means i need to milk it - if i have choice between two options, i need to pick the more absurd one, at all times.
this is about as absurd as the system gets, though.
when i filled out the human rights complaint against this "caroline chevalier", i had to come to terms with the fact that i didn't know her address and didn't know how to find it. i can't do this unless i know her address. so, what to do?
the only safe way for me to do this is to file an access to information request. yes, i'm going to file an access to information request to attempt to determine the identity of the person that charged me with harassment, because i know nothing about them. such is the level of absurdity underlying the charges.
but, i'd rather get them to do it, and the reason is that i can maybe avoid learning certain details that way. listen: i don't care about this person. at all. but, she manufactured this stupid situation where she thinks i do, or pretends to think i do, or...i can't psychoanalyze somebody that i've never met. the point is that this is a kind of a good faith gimmick - by asking the tribunal to get the information in confidence, i'm avoiding the delusional appearance that have any interest in tracking her down.
how, though?
i decided that i would file the complaint and then communicate with the tribunal as to how to proceed further, given that there's no obvious answer. i talked to somebody on friday, who is suggesting that i can file a request for an order from the windsor police.
so, i would essentially be asking the access to information group at the windsor police to file an affidavit with the person's address on it. i need this address to file a human rights complaint against this person for having me arrested. and, i'm not going to be able to contact the person that accused me of harassing them directly, because i don't know how to.
what i'm hoping is that the absurdity of the situation helps me in the long run. but that means i need to milk it - if i have choice between two options, i need to pick the more absurd one, at all times.
this is about as absurd as the system gets, though.
and, what's the update on the smell?
the sewer gas leak is plugged. totally. i get a whiff of something once in a while, but it's not coming from the cleanout. so, that's fixed.
when i left on friday night, it had been cool and dry for most of the last two weeks (but hot for a few days), and the fan was running. there was no smell in the basement at all.
when i came back, the fan was off and there was an ammonia smell in the same corner i had dealt with weeks ago - and always when i was gone. i already knew that it wasn't the amp that was the cause of the smell, but having it come back when....
...when it's hot? no. it was fine when the fan was running, so, when the fan is off? or, when i'm gone, really?
i'm starting to wonder if it isn't dog urine...
i've cleaned in there a few times today already by running lysol around it, but i don't want to dismantle the whole unit to get underneath it, and i suspect i might have to.
on friday, i will need to get the fan, and i will need to prioritize sealing those cracks relatively soon, too. what's the october concert schedule like? we'll do that, soon, too.
the sewer gas leak is plugged. totally. i get a whiff of something once in a while, but it's not coming from the cleanout. so, that's fixed.
when i left on friday night, it had been cool and dry for most of the last two weeks (but hot for a few days), and the fan was running. there was no smell in the basement at all.
when i came back, the fan was off and there was an ammonia smell in the same corner i had dealt with weeks ago - and always when i was gone. i already knew that it wasn't the amp that was the cause of the smell, but having it come back when....
...when it's hot? no. it was fine when the fan was running, so, when the fan is off? or, when i'm gone, really?
i'm starting to wonder if it isn't dog urine...
i've cleaned in there a few times today already by running lysol around it, but i don't want to dismantle the whole unit to get underneath it, and i suspect i might have to.
on friday, i will need to get the fan, and i will need to prioritize sealing those cracks relatively soon, too. what's the october concert schedule like? we'll do that, soon, too.
listen, pick your favourite axiom.
here's one: do as ye will, harme none.
selling drugs harms people. fatally. therefore, you can't do it, in a free society - you'd need to be expelled or killed for it.
decriminalizing drugs means, at some point along the way, you've decided that the profit motive trumps everything else. you've said "yes, people are making a profit from killing people, but..". and, you can come up with whatever set of excuses you want, but at the end of it they're necessarily bullshit rationalizations: you're buying into the neo-liberal paradigm and accepting their set of rationalizations.
here's one: do as ye will, harme none.
selling drugs harms people. fatally. therefore, you can't do it, in a free society - you'd need to be expelled or killed for it.
decriminalizing drugs means, at some point along the way, you've decided that the profit motive trumps everything else. you've said "yes, people are making a profit from killing people, but..". and, you can come up with whatever set of excuses you want, but at the end of it they're necessarily bullshit rationalizations: you're buying into the neo-liberal paradigm and accepting their set of rationalizations.
again: in an anarchist society, we wouldn't exactly have drug laws. rather, the community would mobilize to keep drugs out with extreme force. dealers would know that if they were to get caught, they'd get lynched, and that should be the normal state of affairs, in a free society. in this case, anarchy means that nobody protects the drug dealers from harm, and freedom means a lack of restraint in enacting justice against them.
if you want a society where drugs are just another commodity on the market, what you're looking for is unrestrained capitalism, which is what we already have. it's a status quo process tied into advancing neo-liberalism, and which any resistance party needs to try to prevent.
socialists don't like drugs. we never have, and we never will.
if you want a society where drugs are just another commodity on the market, what you're looking for is unrestrained capitalism, which is what we already have. it's a status quo process tied into advancing neo-liberalism, and which any resistance party needs to try to prevent.
socialists don't like drugs. we never have, and we never will.
that hot air in the atlantic (which is climate change) is holding steady, and, if we're just that lucky, we might fluke out and get one more weekend out.
but, that cold air coming down from the jet stream (which is the sun, and not climate change) is looking pretty ominous.
i suggested a fast, brutal changeover to winter, and i'm going to avoid it for now, but much of the country isn't, and we might not be so lucky the next time.
i'm hoping that the sun is coming back; early signs appear to be that it won't be until next year.
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/classic-clash-of-the-seasons-between-western-and-eastern-canada-with-both-august-and-november-like-weather-ahead
but, that cold air coming down from the jet stream (which is the sun, and not climate change) is looking pretty ominous.
i suggested a fast, brutal changeover to winter, and i'm going to avoid it for now, but much of the country isn't, and we might not be so lucky the next time.
i'm hoping that the sun is coming back; early signs appear to be that it won't be until next year.
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/classic-clash-of-the-seasons-between-western-and-eastern-canada-with-both-august-and-november-like-weather-ahead
ok, i'm not voting for them, either.
good luck, guys. i'm sitting this one out.
my official endorsement for the 2019 canadian election is to spoil your ballot. don't vote.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/elizabeth-may-election-decriminalize-drug-possession-1.5292817
good luck, guys. i'm sitting this one out.
my official endorsement for the 2019 canadian election is to spoil your ballot. don't vote.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/elizabeth-may-election-decriminalize-drug-possession-1.5292817
yeah, i'm withdrawing my support for bernie sanders at this point.
he may claim that he needs to build a multiracial movement to win, but if doing that means morphing into the same neo-liberal candidate that he was presented as an antidote to, then there's not a lot of point in him winning.
i'm concerned about how his views on a number of social positions appear to be "evolving", and it's not for the better. i suspect he's converted to islam and hasn't told anybody; he's a stupid old man.
i'm not endorsing anybody else. and, flatly i'm not likely to even pay much attention.
he needed to attract voters like me in order to win. by doing almost the exact opposite of what he needed to do more or less across the board, he's failed to do so, and he will be lucky to finish third when it's over with.
we're all better off looking for a third party with a good health care policy. that is probably the greens, and it's better to get started now than to keep wasting time on bernie.
he may claim that he needs to build a multiracial movement to win, but if doing that means morphing into the same neo-liberal candidate that he was presented as an antidote to, then there's not a lot of point in him winning.
i'm concerned about how his views on a number of social positions appear to be "evolving", and it's not for the better. i suspect he's converted to islam and hasn't told anybody; he's a stupid old man.
i'm not endorsing anybody else. and, flatly i'm not likely to even pay much attention.
he needed to attract voters like me in order to win. by doing almost the exact opposite of what he needed to do more or less across the board, he's failed to do so, and he will be lucky to finish third when it's over with.
we're all better off looking for a third party with a good health care policy. that is probably the greens, and it's better to get started now than to keep wasting time on bernie.
i repeat: i'm not spending $50/month on electricity to run a dehumidifier to reverse the damage being caused by his a/c, and dry out all the p-traps at the same time, while making myself miserable.
it's his a/c, it's his foundation and it's ultimately his problem if his a/c ruins his foundation. i just want the smell dealt with.
all he has to do is turn the a/c off. really. it's that simple.
it's his a/c, it's his foundation and it's ultimately his problem if his a/c ruins his foundation. i just want the smell dealt with.
all he has to do is turn the a/c off. really. it's that simple.
yeah, so, if the issue with the fan is hair in the motor - the only thing that makes sense, without concluding it was vandalized - then i'm not getting it out with scissors or tweezers or anything else. in order to disassemble these fans, you need an obscure kind of screwdriver that i don't have.
the only way i'm going to fix this is to try and spin it out, which means i'll need to run it in the bathtub repeatedly to try and pass it through. the hope is that if i spin the blades strenuously enough then whatever is overpowering the motor will reverse.
in the mean time, it is absolutely gross in here, but it's also too cold to open the window, so i'm just running the hot water all day instead and hoping it clears the shit out from the pipes. so, i guess we'll have to run the hot water non-stop for the next week. i can get the laundry going overnight, too, which should help.
hey, if he wants to be an asshole and break my $20 fan, we can give him a $300 water bill in retaliation. the guy's a complete waste of oxygen. i hope it forces him to sell his car.
and, i had made a lot of progress in cleaning this place up a bit, but i guess we'll have to wait until the end of the week and start again.
and, there is no possibility at all, whatsoever, that i'm going to turn the dehumidifier on. the problem down here is that it's too dry, not that it's too damp. and, if he'd just turn off the air conditioner, there wouldn't be a problem with condensation under the floor at all.
the only way i'm going to fix this is to try and spin it out, which means i'll need to run it in the bathtub repeatedly to try and pass it through. the hope is that if i spin the blades strenuously enough then whatever is overpowering the motor will reverse.
in the mean time, it is absolutely gross in here, but it's also too cold to open the window, so i'm just running the hot water all day instead and hoping it clears the shit out from the pipes. so, i guess we'll have to run the hot water non-stop for the next week. i can get the laundry going overnight, too, which should help.
hey, if he wants to be an asshole and break my $20 fan, we can give him a $300 water bill in retaliation. the guy's a complete waste of oxygen. i hope it forces him to sell his car.
and, i had made a lot of progress in cleaning this place up a bit, but i guess we'll have to wait until the end of the week and start again.
and, there is no possibility at all, whatsoever, that i'm going to turn the dehumidifier on. the problem down here is that it's too dry, not that it's too damp. and, if he'd just turn off the air conditioner, there wouldn't be a problem with condensation under the floor at all.
so, is he going to get away with this?
the most truthful response is that he wasn't doing that well in the first place, and if it only costs him 2%, that 2% could be his majority. so, don't be glib on the numbers - it seems to only be affecting a small number of people, but if they vote (or don't vote), it could still hurt him.
are canadians racist, then? do we need to look in the mirror.
no.
listen, i think that everybody needs to stop interpreting canada through an american filter, and that's the real takeaway from this. i posted my logic: the make-up itself isn't racist, it's only racist if accompanied by the stereotypes, the brutal performance. and, the video might have been what i'm describing, but it's not clear and nobody seems to want to imagine it that way. that's more or less what people are saying: it's not racist. why do you think it's racist, it's just make-up. are you racist?
and the answer is supposed to be, "but, it's the history."
to which the canadian would say "in america? i'm not a fucking yankee, that means nothing to me. that's not my history. so, stop americanizing everything and put the thing in a canadian context, in the context of canadian history. that's what they teach us to do in school, right? did we have that here? so, i don't know what you're talking about."
the canadian is not done yet, she just paused. she continues..
"so, maybe if we were in the united states it might be racist, but we're not. so, i guess i don't get it, sort of; i'm not american, so it doesn't bug me. maybe if i was american...but i'm not..."
you might argue we're ignorant of history, but my imaginary canadian is actually right: whose history? it's not ours...that's not our context.
so, you could argue that we don't care, and be right.
but, maybe we're actually on to something, up here, about what we should and shouldn't care about?
trudeau's embrace of democratic-party style political correctness and identity politics might come naturally to him, because he's a member of the upper class elite. but, he's an alien in this country - impossible for the average canadian to relate to on the most basic level, and entirely irreflective of the average voter. the hypocrisy that is striking so many people as so profound is being misinterpreted because there was a general misunderstanding that we mostly agreed with him about all of these things in the first place. as a result, the number of people that are surprised by this seems to be quite small - the majority of canadians either already hated him for the hyper-pc everything, or they could already see through the hypocrisy of it, and didn't care.
again: don't think it won't cost him. it might, where it matters, still.
but, don't expect a mass movement to erupt based on a mis-step in the context of american history. most canadians don't see us in that way, and that should be the real takeaway: we're a foreign country, with a parallel history, and we will interpret things in the context of our own history, thank you.
https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/election-2019/how-did-canadians-react-to-trudeaus-blackface-images-with-a-big-meh-polls-suggest
the most truthful response is that he wasn't doing that well in the first place, and if it only costs him 2%, that 2% could be his majority. so, don't be glib on the numbers - it seems to only be affecting a small number of people, but if they vote (or don't vote), it could still hurt him.
are canadians racist, then? do we need to look in the mirror.
no.
listen, i think that everybody needs to stop interpreting canada through an american filter, and that's the real takeaway from this. i posted my logic: the make-up itself isn't racist, it's only racist if accompanied by the stereotypes, the brutal performance. and, the video might have been what i'm describing, but it's not clear and nobody seems to want to imagine it that way. that's more or less what people are saying: it's not racist. why do you think it's racist, it's just make-up. are you racist?
and the answer is supposed to be, "but, it's the history."
to which the canadian would say "in america? i'm not a fucking yankee, that means nothing to me. that's not my history. so, stop americanizing everything and put the thing in a canadian context, in the context of canadian history. that's what they teach us to do in school, right? did we have that here? so, i don't know what you're talking about."
the canadian is not done yet, she just paused. she continues..
"so, maybe if we were in the united states it might be racist, but we're not. so, i guess i don't get it, sort of; i'm not american, so it doesn't bug me. maybe if i was american...but i'm not..."
you might argue we're ignorant of history, but my imaginary canadian is actually right: whose history? it's not ours...that's not our context.
so, you could argue that we don't care, and be right.
but, maybe we're actually on to something, up here, about what we should and shouldn't care about?
trudeau's embrace of democratic-party style political correctness and identity politics might come naturally to him, because he's a member of the upper class elite. but, he's an alien in this country - impossible for the average canadian to relate to on the most basic level, and entirely irreflective of the average voter. the hypocrisy that is striking so many people as so profound is being misinterpreted because there was a general misunderstanding that we mostly agreed with him about all of these things in the first place. as a result, the number of people that are surprised by this seems to be quite small - the majority of canadians either already hated him for the hyper-pc everything, or they could already see through the hypocrisy of it, and didn't care.
again: don't think it won't cost him. it might, where it matters, still.
but, don't expect a mass movement to erupt based on a mis-step in the context of american history. most canadians don't see us in that way, and that should be the real takeaway: we're a foreign country, with a parallel history, and we will interpret things in the context of our own history, thank you.
https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/election-2019/how-did-canadians-react-to-trudeaus-blackface-images-with-a-big-meh-polls-suggest
how was the weekend?
i'll write a review, maybe, some other day. tunic were nice and loud, which is what i wanted. i stopped at the trumbullplex for an hour or two and commandeered somebody's bottle of wine (i asked politely, actually), before ending up at the park for a bit, where i ended up with somebody's unwanted remnant 12 of beer, which was two cans. so, it was that kind of night. then, i left the park as it cleared, and went to marble for a bit, and then went back to the park with some of the post-marble crowd.
i hope the windsorite that i met on the way in and caught back up with at marble made it back to canada safely. i did suggest the park, but she wanted to go home.
i never do balloons, but somebody handed me one and i knew i was out for the night, regardless. result: i couldn't walk for like two hours, which meant i got to enjoy the fire fizzling out. by myself. this park is a swell spot and stuff, but i've been uneasy about the way people leave fires going there on more than one occasion; on this night, it worked out relatively well.
so, i didn't get to the diner until 9:00, which meant i didn't have any time to blow in the late morning.
i ended up at a house party, next. i was initially intending to finish my coffee there and get some drinks in the afternoon, but, as it happened to be, a local brewery dropped off 250 free tall cans of beers. well, hey. right place, right time. i think i had five (it may have been six) before i left to go back to marble. i also found some marijuana edibles at some point that afternoon, and it started to hit me a little bit by the end of the night.
this house party had a lot of local djs at it, in a sense it was a who's who of underground detroit djs, and people were pretty much just hanging out and eating and stuff. i don't think i got a chance to thank anybody before i left...
i don't want to say i was messy at marble, because that's the wrong idea. closer to the truth is that i just kept nodding off and coming back; less messy, and more useless. i remember it; i wasn't blacked out or drunk, if anything was hitting me it was the edibles, but i was exceedingly tired and seeking a third wind that never really came.
so, i got a lot of people asking me if i was ok, and i may have gotten a little bit grumpy after the seventeenth time. i think i was well behaved, but i apologize if i was brusque with anybody. it just got a little annoying. there are exceptions to every rule but, generally, when somebody is sitting it out at a club, you shouldn't keep bothering them by asking them if they're ok, you should just leave them alone and let them figure it out. unless they're overdosing on something, which should be obvious when it's happening, whatever they're processing will pass, and there isn't ever going to be much that your glass of water can really actually do.
i can't blame the edibles with 100% certainty, but what i experienced is roughly consistent with other edibles experiences that i've had and i'm willing to suggest that they were probably the dominant factor, overall. they tend to make me extremely tired, or even knock me right out, but it's different than an alcohol black out because you mostly remember it..
so, i was tired, but the night isn't blurry. i remember it quite clearly, actually,
i was predominantly there to see vibert, and mostly just curious about the other sets. i really felt like being outside on this night, as well. i caught a part of his set and remembered thinking he sounded like everybody else, so i went for a smoke, and then he was doing some more warp-y kinds of stuff when i got back. but, then i started nodding and i had to sit down for a bit. so, i didn't get as much out of the set as i hoped for.
however, there was an ambient set outside by dave shettler right about then, which was actually more of what i needed at the time and something i greatly enjoyed. a lot of what he played was actually sort of similar to the experimental side of the stuff that i recently published, the cycles per second and the trivial group stuff. i can't tell you what drug was dominant, right then - the large amounts of alcohol i'd had over the last 33-35 hours, the smoked marijuana, the eaten marijuana - but it was a good combination, and the highlight of the weekend.
i was able to recover after 7:00 for two more beers and a bit more dancing, before finally getting out of there close to 10:00.
so, were the edibles a bad idea? i'm not reacting well to them, but i have no dosage guidelines, i'm not creating controls and my experiments have consequently been a little unfocused. so, i dunno. it seemed to be a little strong on this night...
i'll write a review, maybe, some other day. tunic were nice and loud, which is what i wanted. i stopped at the trumbullplex for an hour or two and commandeered somebody's bottle of wine (i asked politely, actually), before ending up at the park for a bit, where i ended up with somebody's unwanted remnant 12 of beer, which was two cans. so, it was that kind of night. then, i left the park as it cleared, and went to marble for a bit, and then went back to the park with some of the post-marble crowd.
i hope the windsorite that i met on the way in and caught back up with at marble made it back to canada safely. i did suggest the park, but she wanted to go home.
i never do balloons, but somebody handed me one and i knew i was out for the night, regardless. result: i couldn't walk for like two hours, which meant i got to enjoy the fire fizzling out. by myself. this park is a swell spot and stuff, but i've been uneasy about the way people leave fires going there on more than one occasion; on this night, it worked out relatively well.
so, i didn't get to the diner until 9:00, which meant i didn't have any time to blow in the late morning.
i ended up at a house party, next. i was initially intending to finish my coffee there and get some drinks in the afternoon, but, as it happened to be, a local brewery dropped off 250 free tall cans of beers. well, hey. right place, right time. i think i had five (it may have been six) before i left to go back to marble. i also found some marijuana edibles at some point that afternoon, and it started to hit me a little bit by the end of the night.
this house party had a lot of local djs at it, in a sense it was a who's who of underground detroit djs, and people were pretty much just hanging out and eating and stuff. i don't think i got a chance to thank anybody before i left...
i don't want to say i was messy at marble, because that's the wrong idea. closer to the truth is that i just kept nodding off and coming back; less messy, and more useless. i remember it; i wasn't blacked out or drunk, if anything was hitting me it was the edibles, but i was exceedingly tired and seeking a third wind that never really came.
so, i got a lot of people asking me if i was ok, and i may have gotten a little bit grumpy after the seventeenth time. i think i was well behaved, but i apologize if i was brusque with anybody. it just got a little annoying. there are exceptions to every rule but, generally, when somebody is sitting it out at a club, you shouldn't keep bothering them by asking them if they're ok, you should just leave them alone and let them figure it out. unless they're overdosing on something, which should be obvious when it's happening, whatever they're processing will pass, and there isn't ever going to be much that your glass of water can really actually do.
i can't blame the edibles with 100% certainty, but what i experienced is roughly consistent with other edibles experiences that i've had and i'm willing to suggest that they were probably the dominant factor, overall. they tend to make me extremely tired, or even knock me right out, but it's different than an alcohol black out because you mostly remember it..
so, i was tired, but the night isn't blurry. i remember it quite clearly, actually,
i was predominantly there to see vibert, and mostly just curious about the other sets. i really felt like being outside on this night, as well. i caught a part of his set and remembered thinking he sounded like everybody else, so i went for a smoke, and then he was doing some more warp-y kinds of stuff when i got back. but, then i started nodding and i had to sit down for a bit. so, i didn't get as much out of the set as i hoped for.
however, there was an ambient set outside by dave shettler right about then, which was actually more of what i needed at the time and something i greatly enjoyed. a lot of what he played was actually sort of similar to the experimental side of the stuff that i recently published, the cycles per second and the trivial group stuff. i can't tell you what drug was dominant, right then - the large amounts of alcohol i'd had over the last 33-35 hours, the smoked marijuana, the eaten marijuana - but it was a good combination, and the highlight of the weekend.
i was able to recover after 7:00 for two more beers and a bit more dancing, before finally getting out of there close to 10:00.
so, were the edibles a bad idea? i'm not reacting well to them, but i have no dosage guidelines, i'm not creating controls and my experiments have consequently been a little unfocused. so, i dunno. it seemed to be a little strong on this night...
there's no obvious cause, and i have no interest at all in figuring it out.
it was sitting in one spot for a long period, so the cord is not likely to be damaged. and, there's no logic in thinking something exploded.
there was a lot of hair in it, and i've got most of it out as best as i can. but, it doesn't seem like that's the right answer.
there's other signs of somebody being in here, though.
i don't know....i know that i can't deal with the dry air all week.
it was sitting in one spot for a long period, so the cord is not likely to be damaged. and, there's no logic in thinking something exploded.
there was a lot of hair in it, and i've got most of it out as best as i can. but, it doesn't seem like that's the right answer.
there's other signs of somebody being in here, though.
i don't know....i know that i can't deal with the dry air all week.
i'm going to give the fan a chance to completely dry out and try again this afternoon.
i neither have the know-how, nor the tools, nor the interest to actually fix the device. i'll just buy a new one.
but, i can't handle living in the a/c all week. i'll need to open one of the windows, somehow, to undo the a/c.
i neither have the know-how, nor the tools, nor the interest to actually fix the device. i'll just buy a new one.
but, i can't handle living in the a/c all week. i'll need to open one of the windows, somehow, to undo the a/c.
there's no visible stress point on the fan, no signs that anybody tried to dismantle it, no signs of a cut wire, etc.
it seems like there's no power. it's on the same surge protector as my laptop, and that's fine.
i keep thinking that it must be the hair that's stuck around the spindle, which is proving difficult to get off. but, as the weight in hair and dirt and dust that is slowing down the vibration is slowly done away with, i'm not getting any more evidence that i'm on the right track.
but, how do you break a fan in a way that's not obvious?
a magnet?
it seems like there's no power. it's on the same surge protector as my laptop, and that's fine.
i keep thinking that it must be the hair that's stuck around the spindle, which is proving difficult to get off. but, as the weight in hair and dirt and dust that is slowing down the vibration is slowly done away with, i'm not getting any more evidence that i'm on the right track.
but, how do you break a fan in a way that's not obvious?
a magnet?
the fan refuses to turn back on...
should i be able to hear it trying? i can hear it when it's on, but i think it's mostly the blaades.
and, it's getting cold in here from the air, now, too (.
if i can't get the fan to work this week, i may have to open one of the windows, and improvise some kind of a screen for it.
should i be able to hear it trying? i can hear it when it's on, but i think it's mostly the blaades.
and, it's getting cold in here from the air, now, too (.
if i can't get the fan to work this week, i may have to open one of the windows, and improvise some kind of a screen for it.
i still don't see where she can win. this is a projection; the numbers aren't there.
but, if the media somehow gets it's way and anoints warren, and the country lets them do it, you're all going to find yourselves incredibly disappointed by what she actually does, which is unlikely to be substantively different from the obama administration.
but, if the media somehow gets it's way and anoints warren, and the country lets them do it, you're all going to find yourselves incredibly disappointed by what she actually does, which is unlikely to be substantively different from the obama administration.
so, he hires a guy named 'faiz shakir' to be the face of his campaign, turns into a msm talking head (while they beat him up on air over and over), refuses to show up to any kind of queer event and then wonders why he can't get half the country to give him the time of day any more.
bernie does appear to have changed.
i hope he plans on running for re-election in georgia or something, because his days are numbered in vermont. and, that's the saddest part about this - they won't care when he's gone. no memorial. no plaque. no watch. he'll be pushed out without a second thought....
it's either the worst run campaign in primary history, an example of absolutely startling ineptitude, or it's planted with ops, and designed to fail.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bernie-sanders-has-a-problem-her-name-is-elizabeth-warren/2019/09/22/1223d6a6-dd57-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html
bernie does appear to have changed.
i hope he plans on running for re-election in georgia or something, because his days are numbered in vermont. and, that's the saddest part about this - they won't care when he's gone. no memorial. no plaque. no watch. he'll be pushed out without a second thought....
it's either the worst run campaign in primary history, an example of absolutely startling ineptitude, or it's planted with ops, and designed to fail.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bernie-sanders-has-a-problem-her-name-is-elizabeth-warren/2019/09/22/1223d6a6-dd57-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html
the reality that actually existing capitalism has come face-to-face with, and that to an extent is neoliberalism, is one where it's come to terms with a basic, fundamental flaw in the very fabric of it's own existence: competition is unnatural.
you have to teach kids to be competitive, they don't do it on their own. you have to create regulatory bodies to try to force firms into competing, because they won't do it on their own (at best, they might try to undercut to gain market share, but then they're in the cartel in no time. a stable market should have tiers, anyways, so that's usually harder than the simple math in the textbooks allows for.). it turns out that you need so much government to make a free market work, that you'd might as well just redistribute everything, anyways - and that the best approximation to a free market has to be almost the total opposite of the initial abstraction.
so, you don't really have this debate between governments and markets, because markets are just statist constructions that essentially give you back what you gave them (if you're lucky...). what you should have is merely an understanding of the importance of government.
and, a little wisdom should tell you that all of this energy that is created and spent on designing and enforcing markets could be better utilized elsewhere.
you have to teach kids to be competitive, they don't do it on their own. you have to create regulatory bodies to try to force firms into competing, because they won't do it on their own (at best, they might try to undercut to gain market share, but then they're in the cartel in no time. a stable market should have tiers, anyways, so that's usually harder than the simple math in the textbooks allows for.). it turns out that you need so much government to make a free market work, that you'd might as well just redistribute everything, anyways - and that the best approximation to a free market has to be almost the total opposite of the initial abstraction.
so, you don't really have this debate between governments and markets, because markets are just statist constructions that essentially give you back what you gave them (if you're lucky...). what you should have is merely an understanding of the importance of government.
and, a little wisdom should tell you that all of this energy that is created and spent on designing and enforcing markets could be better utilized elsewhere.
maybe we should have a little talk about the historical arguments that classical economics used to advance, why they're wrong and how modern economics corrects for those mistakes. i have a feeling that this is what this cycle is going to be about for me - that i'm going to end up in a lot of arguments with democrats and liberals about market theory.
you may have been told that competition reduces prices because each of the competitors wants to find ways to get the business of the consumer. when this happens, firm a and firm b get into a bidding war (essentially, a race to the bottom.) in order to save the sale. as a demanding and self-interest driven consumer, i bet that sounds like the best idea for you, because everybody wins, right? well, so long as by "everybody" you mean me, then everybody wins, and everybody...else...loses. what i'm trying to get across is that the premise is absurd on it's face: we don't live in an economic reality where the rules ensure that the consumer wins and everybody else loses.
let's have a little common sense here in understanding what actually happens. the firms don't say "competition is bad for us and good for consumers, so let's do lots of it! fuck our shareholders!". rather, what the firms say is "wait a second, you want us to compete? for you? yeah. right. we've got out our own self-interests here, and it's not you, consumer. sorry. rather, us firms are going to get together and set the prices at whatever we want it set at, and fuck you for complaining about it. and, so long as we stand together, what are you going to do, consumer? huh?"
and, i'll tell you what the consumers need to actually do, which is take control of the firm, but consumers lack revolutionary potential, so they never actually say that. rather, what they do is go crying to the government...
"reeeeegulaaaaaaaatoooooooors. these firms won't compete! it's not fair! make them compete. it's good for consumers, like me.". unfortunately, the regulators work for the firms, and they're actually there to prevent the government from forcing them to.
and, that's where we're at - this silly game where the government tries to pretend it can "spur innovation" and "incentivize competition". but, the firms don't want to compete, and the government can't actually make them. what the firms want to do is collude.
meanwhile, prices come up and down based on all other kinds of things, including the costs of mass production. socializing production is efficient. that's why firms socialize as much as they can, internally.
you may have been told that competition reduces prices because each of the competitors wants to find ways to get the business of the consumer. when this happens, firm a and firm b get into a bidding war (essentially, a race to the bottom.) in order to save the sale. as a demanding and self-interest driven consumer, i bet that sounds like the best idea for you, because everybody wins, right? well, so long as by "everybody" you mean me, then everybody wins, and everybody...else...loses. what i'm trying to get across is that the premise is absurd on it's face: we don't live in an economic reality where the rules ensure that the consumer wins and everybody else loses.
let's have a little common sense here in understanding what actually happens. the firms don't say "competition is bad for us and good for consumers, so let's do lots of it! fuck our shareholders!". rather, what the firms say is "wait a second, you want us to compete? for you? yeah. right. we've got out our own self-interests here, and it's not you, consumer. sorry. rather, us firms are going to get together and set the prices at whatever we want it set at, and fuck you for complaining about it. and, so long as we stand together, what are you going to do, consumer? huh?"
and, i'll tell you what the consumers need to actually do, which is take control of the firm, but consumers lack revolutionary potential, so they never actually say that. rather, what they do is go crying to the government...
"reeeeegulaaaaaaaatoooooooors. these firms won't compete! it's not fair! make them compete. it's good for consumers, like me.". unfortunately, the regulators work for the firms, and they're actually there to prevent the government from forcing them to.
and, that's where we're at - this silly game where the government tries to pretend it can "spur innovation" and "incentivize competition". but, the firms don't want to compete, and the government can't actually make them. what the firms want to do is collude.
meanwhile, prices come up and down based on all other kinds of things, including the costs of mass production. socializing production is efficient. that's why firms socialize as much as they can, internally.
so, i came home this morning and noticed my fan was no longer running.
it's odd, to say the least. it's not a powerful motor, so i guess there's some chance that some hair is stopping it from spinning, so i'm trying to clean it, but it's not currently helping.
i couldn't imagine that the motor blew. they're designed to be on all of the time.
so, is there some chance that somebody from upstairs came down and ruined my fan? well, if he doesn't want to listen to the fan, he can listen to me cough instead - and he's going to get a lot of it, because the difference with it off is dramatic.
and, it's ultimately pointless, because i'm going to buy another one at the first opportunity, which would be friday.
entering a tenant's apartment is considered an indictable offense in canda. it's trespassing, harassment and vandalism. there's no context where it's permissible.
we'll see if we can get the hair out of there or not. if i can't, it's going to be a long and frustrating week for everybody, as i struggle to fight against the dehumidifier and the smoke.
it's odd, to say the least. it's not a powerful motor, so i guess there's some chance that some hair is stopping it from spinning, so i'm trying to clean it, but it's not currently helping.
i couldn't imagine that the motor blew. they're designed to be on all of the time.
so, is there some chance that somebody from upstairs came down and ruined my fan? well, if he doesn't want to listen to the fan, he can listen to me cough instead - and he's going to get a lot of it, because the difference with it off is dramatic.
and, it's ultimately pointless, because i'm going to buy another one at the first opportunity, which would be friday.
entering a tenant's apartment is considered an indictable offense in canda. it's trespassing, harassment and vandalism. there's no context where it's permissible.
we'll see if we can get the hair out of there or not. if i can't, it's going to be a long and frustrating week for everybody, as i struggle to fight against the dehumidifier and the smoke.
Sunday, September 22, 2019
you might be expecting a discussion about internet costs in canada to be another opportunity for me to completely debunk market theory, but it's more complex than that.
first, anybody arguing that increasing competition will decrease prices should be laughed out of the room. that's not a serious economic position, and nobody arguing as much should be taken seriously. politicians that say things like this need to stop insulting everybody's intelligence and stop wasting everybody's time and go back to school and learn about actual economics, not a long debunked mathematical model from hundreds of years ago. but, it's not as easy as arguing that you need to get the profit motive out of it - although that's at the root of the problem and what needs to be addressed eventually.
i think you should look at data transmission lines the same way you look at roads and waterways, and that the absolute beginning point of any price reduction strategy needs to be in nationalizing the lines. if you let these private companies continue to build their own networks, and you continue to allow them to profit from transmitting data (which is rentier capitalism at it's worst), you'll never solve the basic structural root of the problem here, which is that the private companies have too much power to set the rates.
but, the real reason that the prices are so high is simply that the executives that work in these companies are greedy. they've essentially grabbed you by the pussy and said "pay up, bitch". there's not some nice little tweak that we can find to fix that at the back of the textbook, and it's not drawn out by any kind of scarcity model, you just have to smash their property rights up and put the ownership in the hands of the people.
so, that ought to be the central plank of any serious left-of-centre party in terms of what to do to get costs down. which parties realize this?
*crickets*
so, i mean, i want to come out swinging against the liberal proposal. remember when they told you that privatizing electricity would reduce costs? markets just make things more expensive...
but the other parties suck, too. and, this is a good example of the dead-end we've come to in terns of the policy desert we exist in: this is obviously a situation where we need more government to reign in the greed that markets incentivize, but all we've got across the board is a bunch of debunked neo-liberal nonsense that the smart people know doesn't work. and i want my old, more intelligent liberal party back.
i said it wasn't that simple....
canada is a very big, sparsely populated country, which means that it's going to be expensive to do things like string along transmission lines (or set up cell towers). while the primary reason for high costs might be greed, the costs to maintain the network are at least a good excuse to keep prices artificially high, and this is going to be more of a reality here than in smaller, less geographically diverse areas. that's one of the reasons that nationalizing the lines is a good idea - it'll allow for a socialization of infrastructure costs. we don't normally let private businesses build infrastructure like this, and we need to start understanding what happened as a failed experiment. but, in the mean-time, if you're insisting on a market system, and you want to take costs down, you're going to have to introduce a subsidy. prices may be high across the board due to greed, but they're especially high in hard to get places because the infrastructure is so challenging. the only way to completely undo this is to socialize it...
...but marx himself would have said that you ought to let the capitalists build the lines, and then appropriate them. so, the real question is whether they've build enough infrastructure to nationalize, yet - or if it's best to keep waiting it out.
https://globalnews.ca/news/5908780/canada-election-cellphone-internet-prices/
first, anybody arguing that increasing competition will decrease prices should be laughed out of the room. that's not a serious economic position, and nobody arguing as much should be taken seriously. politicians that say things like this need to stop insulting everybody's intelligence and stop wasting everybody's time and go back to school and learn about actual economics, not a long debunked mathematical model from hundreds of years ago. but, it's not as easy as arguing that you need to get the profit motive out of it - although that's at the root of the problem and what needs to be addressed eventually.
i think you should look at data transmission lines the same way you look at roads and waterways, and that the absolute beginning point of any price reduction strategy needs to be in nationalizing the lines. if you let these private companies continue to build their own networks, and you continue to allow them to profit from transmitting data (which is rentier capitalism at it's worst), you'll never solve the basic structural root of the problem here, which is that the private companies have too much power to set the rates.
but, the real reason that the prices are so high is simply that the executives that work in these companies are greedy. they've essentially grabbed you by the pussy and said "pay up, bitch". there's not some nice little tweak that we can find to fix that at the back of the textbook, and it's not drawn out by any kind of scarcity model, you just have to smash their property rights up and put the ownership in the hands of the people.
so, that ought to be the central plank of any serious left-of-centre party in terms of what to do to get costs down. which parties realize this?
*crickets*
so, i mean, i want to come out swinging against the liberal proposal. remember when they told you that privatizing electricity would reduce costs? markets just make things more expensive...
but the other parties suck, too. and, this is a good example of the dead-end we've come to in terns of the policy desert we exist in: this is obviously a situation where we need more government to reign in the greed that markets incentivize, but all we've got across the board is a bunch of debunked neo-liberal nonsense that the smart people know doesn't work. and i want my old, more intelligent liberal party back.
i said it wasn't that simple....
canada is a very big, sparsely populated country, which means that it's going to be expensive to do things like string along transmission lines (or set up cell towers). while the primary reason for high costs might be greed, the costs to maintain the network are at least a good excuse to keep prices artificially high, and this is going to be more of a reality here than in smaller, less geographically diverse areas. that's one of the reasons that nationalizing the lines is a good idea - it'll allow for a socialization of infrastructure costs. we don't normally let private businesses build infrastructure like this, and we need to start understanding what happened as a failed experiment. but, in the mean-time, if you're insisting on a market system, and you want to take costs down, you're going to have to introduce a subsidy. prices may be high across the board due to greed, but they're especially high in hard to get places because the infrastructure is so challenging. the only way to completely undo this is to socialize it...
...but marx himself would have said that you ought to let the capitalists build the lines, and then appropriate them. so, the real question is whether they've build enough infrastructure to nationalize, yet - or if it's best to keep waiting it out.
https://globalnews.ca/news/5908780/canada-election-cellphone-internet-prices/
Friday, September 20, 2019
well, i don't think she's going to save the world.
but, i'm not holding my breath on a zombie jesus, either.
he's dead. deal with it.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/raymond-de-souza-elizabeth-may-and-the-rise-of-messianic-politics
but, i'm not holding my breath on a zombie jesus, either.
he's dead. deal with it.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/raymond-de-souza-elizabeth-may-and-the-rise-of-messianic-politics
so, trudeau wants to meet singh to apologize.
if he accepts the apology, he broadcasts a willingness to move past it, and needs to shut up. if he refuses it, he can keep nailing him on it, but he looks bitter and small-minded while doing it.
a master tactical decision by trudeau? hardly - it's a cynical ploy that singh was dumb enough to walk into by overblowing the thing in the first place.
what we have here is dumb and dumber; don't let dumber make dumb look smart..
if he accepts the apology, he broadcasts a willingness to move past it, and needs to shut up. if he refuses it, he can keep nailing him on it, but he looks bitter and small-minded while doing it.
a master tactical decision by trudeau? hardly - it's a cynical ploy that singh was dumb enough to walk into by overblowing the thing in the first place.
what we have here is dumb and dumber; don't let dumber make dumb look smart..
and, just, if you're curious....what is my take on these black history types that think everybody was black?
they're half right.
the initial egyptians were black, but the racial mixing started happening deep into pre-history, and by the time the historical records appear they were pretty mixed.
the sumerians, it is clear, were white. and, they weren't semites, either - they were probably more like modern day georgians or armenians.
the elamites probably looked like dark-skinned indians, and probably migrated into the middle east rather than out of it. the movement of trade seems to be in that direction, and they seem to have been seen by the broader mesopotamians as outsiders. so, they were probably dark-skinned, but not exactly african.
the various semitic language group seems to have had black origins, but most of the assyrians and babylonians and jews were probably white.
the persians and historical indians were white.
the "old europeans" of gimbutas, the danube civilizations, were probably mixed, and may have been initially black, like the egyptians.
they're half right.
the initial egyptians were black, but the racial mixing started happening deep into pre-history, and by the time the historical records appear they were pretty mixed.
the sumerians, it is clear, were white. and, they weren't semites, either - they were probably more like modern day georgians or armenians.
the elamites probably looked like dark-skinned indians, and probably migrated into the middle east rather than out of it. the movement of trade seems to be in that direction, and they seem to have been seen by the broader mesopotamians as outsiders. so, they were probably dark-skinned, but not exactly african.
the various semitic language group seems to have had black origins, but most of the assyrians and babylonians and jews were probably white.
the persians and historical indians were white.
the "old europeans" of gimbutas, the danube civilizations, were probably mixed, and may have been initially black, like the egyptians.
so, i had to force myself to sleep this morning in order to do this weekend. eveyrthing's set.
i made some calls, at least, and have everything in order to get to the next stage. early next week...
there's no deadline, and, considering that i'm going to have to actually go to toronto, i'm looking at probably november at the earliest, anyways. i don't want to miss shows over this...
i need to eat and get ready to go.
i made some calls, at least, and have everything in order to get to the next stage. early next week...
there's no deadline, and, considering that i'm going to have to actually go to toronto, i'm looking at probably november at the earliest, anyways. i don't want to miss shows over this...
i need to eat and get ready to go.
actually, it's a valid question - was aladdin even black? i saw the disney film when i was a kid, but i wouldn't look to disney to get this right. wiki suggests that...
Aladdin is an impoverished young ne'er-do-well, dwelling in "one of the cities of China".
that might suggest that aladdin would have been some mix of iranic and turkic, similar to a contemporary uighur around the xinjiang area, and consequently probably actually pretty white. i guess disney got it right after all.
the arabs proper appear to have migrated originally from ethiopia, so the initial muslim invasions in the 7th century (and they weren't migrations. they were invasions.) would have been directed by pretty dark skinned people, and that is upheld via both pictorial and descriptive historical data. i'm not going to find an exact quote, but it's well understood by the historians of the time that the arabs were very, very dark-skinned, if not flat out african. but, contrary to the popular palestinian origins myth, the middle east at the time was overwhelmingly white, after years of inflows from persians, greeks and romans. there would have been very little migration from what was then the roman and persian empires into the arabian peninsula, although this increased dramatically after the muslim conquests, which is why you see so many white arabs nowadays, and particularly so many upper class white arabs - they're really mostly persian, genetically. you only really see black arabs in the southernmost parts of the peninsula, and on the far western coast of africa (for different reasons). the arabs proper were a very small group, so the migrations that revisionists want to talk about largely didn't even happen at all - it was more of a process of mass conversion.
i guess it's not surprising that trudeau would get something like that completely wrong, but i don't think it really changes the situation, much.
Aladdin is an impoverished young ne'er-do-well, dwelling in "one of the cities of China".
that might suggest that aladdin would have been some mix of iranic and turkic, similar to a contemporary uighur around the xinjiang area, and consequently probably actually pretty white. i guess disney got it right after all.
the arabs proper appear to have migrated originally from ethiopia, so the initial muslim invasions in the 7th century (and they weren't migrations. they were invasions.) would have been directed by pretty dark skinned people, and that is upheld via both pictorial and descriptive historical data. i'm not going to find an exact quote, but it's well understood by the historians of the time that the arabs were very, very dark-skinned, if not flat out african. but, contrary to the popular palestinian origins myth, the middle east at the time was overwhelmingly white, after years of inflows from persians, greeks and romans. there would have been very little migration from what was then the roman and persian empires into the arabian peninsula, although this increased dramatically after the muslim conquests, which is why you see so many white arabs nowadays, and particularly so many upper class white arabs - they're really mostly persian, genetically. you only really see black arabs in the southernmost parts of the peninsula, and on the far western coast of africa (for different reasons). the arabs proper were a very small group, so the migrations that revisionists want to talk about largely didn't even happen at all - it was more of a process of mass conversion.
i guess it's not surprising that trudeau would get something like that completely wrong, but i don't think it really changes the situation, much.
yeah, this is uncharacteristic of sanders, and consistent with the continuing concern that his campaign is being directed by religionists, particularly muslims. it's this strange string of occurrences that make you wonder who's making decisions behind the scenes, and something that i think is at the ultimate root cause of his inability to gain traction this cycle.
was bernie asked about this?
'cause, it's a pretty egregious tactical error.
and, i'm curious to hear what he has to say about it, when confronted directly - and somebody should do that.
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/09/bernie-sanders-democratic-frontrunner-will-skip-lgbtq-debates/
was bernie asked about this?
'cause, it's a pretty egregious tactical error.
and, i'm curious to hear what he has to say about it, when confronted directly - and somebody should do that.
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/09/bernie-sanders-democratic-frontrunner-will-skip-lgbtq-debates/
so, i'm in a tough spot, because both of the pseudo-left parties are in a religious orientation, at the moment. i want climate to be at the centre of my voting choice, but i don't want to vote for either of them.
i think singh is done, regardless.
but, is it going to be easier to push may out if the party elects a few more mps?
also, brian masse is a giant douche bag. i'll have to see if i like the local green better or not...
i think singh is done, regardless.
but, is it going to be easier to push may out if the party elects a few more mps?
also, brian masse is a giant douche bag. i'll have to see if i like the local green better or not...
a rights based society is something we can tweak because rights are human creations, and there's no such thing as god. so, i'll argue for more rights to fresh air and clean water, and less rights to religious beliefs or property. this is ultimately all arbitrary, and subject merely to the shifting popular consensus, and who can get an idea legislated or not; natural rights theory is complete bullshit.
but, one of the very few rights that everybody agrees with is voting rights, which are also a conscience right. what that means is that we all have the right to vote for whatever and whoever we want for whatever reasons we want, and it's not up to anybody at all to second guess that - that is a conscience right, and it's absolute.
now, you can tell me my support for environmental rights is in conflict with your support for property rights, and we can fight over that - it's a legitimate conflict of rights. i think sustainability is more important than property. you can be wrong and disagree, if you want. let's fight. that's politics.
but, voting rights vs religious rights is not an actual rights conflict in the same way, or really at all, because your so-called religious rights are designed with the purpose of infringing on the rights of others.
i'm an atheist, and i don't want to vote for a religious person, and i'm not going to, and that's a rights issue because it's an issue of conscience. the opposite argument - that not voting for somebody because they're religious is some kind of rights violation - would be to erect the right to be voted for, which is ridiculous. that's not a right, that's an entitlement, and one that can only be entertained in a society where the balance towards religious rights is too great, and needs to be pulled back on. i mean, the premise that this is even an issue that is up for debate is preposterous.
so, i'm not going to be brow beaten on this.
i don't believe in god, and i don't want to vote for people that do, and you have no say in the matter - that is an issue of conscience, and an absolute right on my behalf.
but, one of the very few rights that everybody agrees with is voting rights, which are also a conscience right. what that means is that we all have the right to vote for whatever and whoever we want for whatever reasons we want, and it's not up to anybody at all to second guess that - that is a conscience right, and it's absolute.
now, you can tell me my support for environmental rights is in conflict with your support for property rights, and we can fight over that - it's a legitimate conflict of rights. i think sustainability is more important than property. you can be wrong and disagree, if you want. let's fight. that's politics.
but, voting rights vs religious rights is not an actual rights conflict in the same way, or really at all, because your so-called religious rights are designed with the purpose of infringing on the rights of others.
i'm an atheist, and i don't want to vote for a religious person, and i'm not going to, and that's a rights issue because it's an issue of conscience. the opposite argument - that not voting for somebody because they're religious is some kind of rights violation - would be to erect the right to be voted for, which is ridiculous. that's not a right, that's an entitlement, and one that can only be entertained in a society where the balance towards religious rights is too great, and needs to be pulled back on. i mean, the premise that this is even an issue that is up for debate is preposterous.
so, i'm not going to be brow beaten on this.
i don't believe in god, and i don't want to vote for people that do, and you have no say in the matter - that is an issue of conscience, and an absolute right on my behalf.
so, what am i doing this weekend?
21:00-1:00 - tunic/reverend/teener @ pj's
(note that there is a severed heads show at city club, but...i always found ellard's work to be kind of dull.
it might not be very fun. and, i want to be outside on the last weekend of the summer!)
01:30-8:00 - ???. i don't want to go to marble on friday, it's a false solution for too many reasons. i mean, i wouldn't get there until 2:00, and the show's done at 4:00. i'd rather find an underground show that goes until 7:00 or 8:00, but right now i can't. so, i'm going to be seeking out some known outside spots looking for an outside party.
08:00-10:00 - eat.
11:00-19:00 - house/yard party. local djs.
20:00-21:00 - grlwood (magic stick) <-----maybe. or stay at house party.
21:00-22:30 - man man (magic stick)<------maybe. or stay at house party. it's $20...
23:00-00:00 - terrence dixon (marble)
00:00-02:00 - prefuse 73 (marble)
02:00-04:00 - luke vibert (marble)
04:00-06:00 - dave shettler (marble)
06:00-07:00 - soundmurderer (marble)
07:00-09:00 - local djs (marble)
21:00-1:00 - tunic/reverend/teener @ pj's
(note that there is a severed heads show at city club, but...i always found ellard's work to be kind of dull.
it might not be very fun. and, i want to be outside on the last weekend of the summer!)
01:30-8:00 - ???. i don't want to go to marble on friday, it's a false solution for too many reasons. i mean, i wouldn't get there until 2:00, and the show's done at 4:00. i'd rather find an underground show that goes until 7:00 or 8:00, but right now i can't. so, i'm going to be seeking out some known outside spots looking for an outside party.
08:00-10:00 - eat.
11:00-19:00 - house/yard party. local djs.
20:00-21:00 - grlwood (magic stick) <-----maybe. or stay at house party.
21:00-22:30 - man man (magic stick)<------maybe. or stay at house party. it's $20...
23:00-00:00 - terrence dixon (marble)
00:00-02:00 - prefuse 73 (marble)
02:00-04:00 - luke vibert (marble)
04:00-06:00 - dave shettler (marble)
06:00-07:00 - soundmurderer (marble)
07:00-09:00 - local djs (marble)
well.
calling somebody a slave for upholding capitalism from the bottom is called having an analysis. it's not racist, unless you have no historical understanding of slavery.
i mean, it's right out of marx. it's just standard leftist agitation.
and, i'd spin it around - establishment attempts to attack valid class analyses as "racist" are just status quo propaganda.
calling somebody a slave for upholding capitalism from the bottom is called having an analysis. it's not racist, unless you have no historical understanding of slavery.
i mean, it's right out of marx. it's just standard leftist agitation.
and, i'd spin it around - establishment attempts to attack valid class analyses as "racist" are just status quo propaganda.
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