if they do these tests and they come back with low immunity levels, one wonders if it is a testament to the high level of isolation that people in these communities face.

my own hunch is twofold: (1) that addicts are sick all of the time anyways and may have had other reasons to avoid the er and (2) that the spike in opioid deaths over the last months might be evidence of some kind of interaction of the virus with the tolerance levels of opioid addicts. 

vancouver is indeed a very wealthy, educated city, but it does have this impoverished underbelly as well. my understanding when i was there is that the city is almost designed to prevent that educated part of the city from interacting with the impoverished underbelly - which may work out to the latter's benefit in a scenario where a pathogen is introduced into the region largely via outside travel, at least to start. education breeds it's own sort of herd immunity, in that way, because let's be real - this thing is stopped pretty easily with basic hygiene.

so, yeah, there's lots of poor people in vancouver, too, but the character of the city is very well-to-do, and that is an increasing phenomenon. i'm interested in the results, but i stand by my statement.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-covid-downtown-eastside-1.5652316

when you watch something like this, and realize how foolish the previous generation was in terms of understanding human behaviour, it is not surprising that we stand here more than ten years later without having advanced an inch in solving the problem (in fact, it has merely gotten worse).

the neo-liberals insisted this was a moral problem that had to be changed by altering human behaviour, but then they modeled us as homo economicus, and every single thing they did failed.

they could have just spent the money on direct government spending to actually transition, and that would have worked. but, they did this stupid experiment on the efficacy of market theory instead, and the consequences have (predictably.) been catastrophic.

it is important to realize, then, that the crisis we face really isn't one of technology. nor is it really an issue of popular will. rather, the country is gripped in the throes of an ideological backwardsness that is preventing it from doing anything.

the closest historical example that i know to this is the byzantines, who, after thousands of years of being the smartest people on the planet (by far.) eventually succumbed to the stupidity of their own means of control. in the end, constantinople fell because the residents truly believed it was the end of the world and jesus was coming back any minute. how they went from what they were to what they became, and so quickly, is a testament to the power of a damaging ideology to completely dismantle a powerful empire.

as christianity destroyed rome, market theory is destroying america. but, it's taking the rest of the world down with it...

there's a young gavin newsom here, and we see the kind of people he associates himself with - market theorists, republican policy makers, etc. hindsight is 20/20, but there's all kinds of red flags about what he would turn into in this video, as well. but, the dominant takeaway is how much of a slimy, sleazy politician he really is - and how obvious it is.

in the end, the climate crisis will not be solved by utilizing market theory, but only by subverting it.

i want to be clear about what i've been saying, in summary, as we get out of this inflection point regarding the sun, because people find it confusing. i've done write-ups like this before, but this is a good time to resummarize it.

the reason people get confused is that they see arguments that they've heard from denialists juxtaposed with arguments they've heard from the ipcc and don't know how to interpret where i stand on the argument. and, my answer is that you just don't know what the fuck you're talking about. so, i could argue that i'm synthesizing the views in a dialectic rather than setting them against each other, but the truth is that if you understand the ipcc reports, you know that the sun is central to them.

so, what was the main finding of the ipcc report, all those years ago? what was it that the ipcc demonstrated to show that the warming being measured was anthropogenic?

the answer is that it separated the effects from the sun. that's the point! that's what climate change science is - the recognition and study of the fact that this planet is warming in ways that are not explainable by solar output.

but, why did we do that?

because if you follow the data backwards, you see that changes in the climate were closely correlated with solar output, for as far back as we can measure it. climate change is the realization that we have disrupted a system that is otherwise absolutely dominated by the sun - which is why the thing we had to prove is that what the sun was doing (namely weakening.) doesn't explain the warming.

so, this was the contradiction that the ipcc presented, to prove that climate change is anthropogenic: it showed that temperatures were dramatically increasing, while solar output was falling. that's something that only becomes apparent after about 1980.

now, this opens up a reasonable question: recognizing that the observed warming cannot be caused by the sun because the sun is dimming, just how quickly is that sun actually dimming? is it possible that it could start dimming so quickly and so much that it could actually overpower the warming, which is being caused by a separate process, namely atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gasses?

while the answer is yes, in theory, i believe that the scientific consensus is that we should not expect the sun to shut down that much any time soon. our sun is a star, and like all stars it will die, but the way our sun will die will lead to increasing solar output first, not decreasing solar output. what the scientists are saying is that if you do the math based on reasonable projections then you come to the conclusion that the most likely outcome is that a very quiet sun will merely slow the warming down by a degree or two at most.

however, this isn't a debate about whether we're heading to maunder minimum (i actually don't think we are), or what effect it will have on the climate. what i'm trying to establish here is the truth that, yes, the sun does have an effect on the climate, and that the ipcc report does not make any sense unless you acknowledge it. there is no contradiction, then, in trying to apply solar science to climate change or understanding the effects that changing solar output may have on the weather in the context of increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

when we say that the solar output has been decreasing, what we mean is that the peaks of the 11-year solar cycle have been trending downwards. but, we also exist within the 11-year cycles themselves, and that is what i actually spend more time talking about.

so, if you live in central or eastern north america, you might have noticed that it actually seems like it's been getting colder over the last few years, even as you look around the rest of the world and realize that the global average mean temperature is going up. in fact, if you removed the area that i live in as an outlier, the effects of global warming would just be that much more exaggerated in terms of mean averages. for years, now, eastern canada has been pulling down the rate of warming by posting record cold, even in the summer. so, what's been going on?

well, that's about the same time that the last solar cycle, which also peaked at a weak maximum, started decreasing down to a very low minimum, which we're just coming out of now. we again have correlations going back as far as we can measure that show that this area of the world experiences colder weather when the 11-year solar cycle is at a minimum, for the reason that the jet stream tends to dip more often, pushing colder air further south. the mechanism of this action is thought to have to do with the solar field's effects on the various oscillations that define how the jetstream behaves.

as warming is happening independently of solar effects, that means variation in solar output should continue to have a noticeable effect on the weather, like this. and, here in canada, the effects of the weakening sun have largely overpowered the effects of global warming since about 2016. look at the data. it's just true.

so, over the last few years, what we've seen is the sun pulling temperatures down, here, counteracting the felt effects of climate change.

what's happening now, as we move at out of minimum, is that increasing solar output should exaggerate the effects of climate change in this area. once again, we have strong correlations going back many years that show that temperatures here are usually warmer during solar maximum.

i know that i may end up confusing you. just last year, i was arguing that the sun was muting climate change; now i'm arguing it's exaggerating it! did i flip-flop? do i not know what i'm saying? am i hypocrite?

this is the level of discourse, people. no, it is.

the sun is changing. always. and it's relationship to climate change will change along with it.

so, i will make a bold prediction - i will flip-flop my analysis again in 6, 7, 8 years, or something. that is, if the acceleration to climate change brought on by the increasing solar output doesn't render the solar output as a minimal factor.

so, all of that to say this: i'm reading about the heat waves in the arctic, and i'm wondering if the feedback cycles are here. i've suggested previously that the solar cycle we are entering is likely our last opportunity to stop the warming. if that methane is releasing, now, we're fucked - it's just going to get worse.

yeah. that's about on target.

https://leaderpost.com/news/local-news/sask-posts-highest-ever-daily-increase-in-covid-19-cases

ok, so i've got my workstation set back up.

one more, and then i want to get to work for the night.

while i recognize the right to a fair and open trial, i think the idea that this is upending the justice system is misguided. rather, i'm kind of frazzled by the volume of posts.

if you have a handful of accusations, the people being accused are easily identified, and it is possible that somebody could end up badly defamed. however, when you have scores and scores of accusations, what you end up with is so many that nobody keeps track of them. you end up with accusations that nobody hears. you end up with a media that only cares about the celebrities. so, what these people are actually accidentally doing is normalizing the act of being accused of assault.

does that just demonstrate the extent of the problem? i mean, is assault normal? a lot of the stats suggest it kind of is, actually.

so, i'd really look at this less like an issue where the rights of the accused are being infringed upon and more as a mass letter writing campaign, or almost a digital monument of some sort.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/online-allegations-sexual-misconduct-quebec-1.5650629

i could criticize the randomness of the study, but the results seem to be consistent with the general picture - there's far more spread than has been measured by testing, but british columbia's sort of unique geographic breakdown, where pretty much every region is naturally isolated, makes it well suited to prevent widespread community spread without much intervention from the authorities. the okanagan valley is it's own thing, the island is it's own thing, the city is it's own thing - and there are oceans and mountains separating them.

as i've stated previously, measuring low immunity in a population suggests that it is still at high risk of a substantive outbreak. so, it could be argued that a targeted release may be beneficial to help build immunity - or, at the least, that it may benefit british columbians in the long run to facilitate the spread somewhat in the healthy population. but, if it's been kept low this long by the geography, what reason is there to think the geography won't continue to act as a buffer? yet, if so, what are the benefits of maintaining restrictions?

that said, i'd suspect that kelowna probably has higher prevalence than vancouver, and that testing there may reveal higher immunity. i've been through the region, and i know that the cultural differences between lifestyles in kelowna and lifestyles in vancouver suggest that kelowna is the more likely vector, and place to pay closer attention to in terms of a likely serious outbreak. vancouver is an upper middle class city full of highly educated professionals, whereas kelowna is a large town full of agricultural labourers, many of whom live in tents over the summer and party pretty hard over night. wild sex parties involving multiple partners outside in the woods seems to be a normal part of the okanagan valley lifestyle. i would be baffled to find out that these people are observing any sort of distancing at all.

whatever the reason for it, bc does seem to have been unusually successful in stopping the spread of the virus, yet at the expense of remaining unusually vulnerable. so, now what? it consequently remains to be seen, in the end, if that is to it's benefit or not.

https://www.citynews1130.com/2020/07/16/covid-19-study-bc-second-wave/

when we were at a clearer place in the cycle, it was easier to be more assertive. but, we're turning around an inflection point, so attributing cause is a little less obvious and it will remain that way for a few years.

regardless, the general trend for the next decade should be substantively and increasingly warmer weather in most of the habitable parts of canada.

i posted all of this stuff years ago - it's in here somewhere if you want to look for it - but the way i understood what i read is that when the sun reverses polarity it more or less reverses the jetstream in the northern hemisphere, and if you sit and think about this for a second, it's actually kind of intuitive and easy to grasp. if you imagine the jetstream as a wave with an amplitude in the presence of a magnetic field, then flipping the field really ought to flip the jetstream, too.

anything oscillating in a field should flip if you flip the field. and, that's essentially all that the research says, albeit in a complicated way - the sun shifts polarity, which flips the oscillations, which shifts the jetstream.

the last string of exceedingly hot summers ended here about 2016, which would have been a few years after the last peak. the near future, in this region of the world, will be at least a little warmer, as we move into the next cycle.

but, are we there yet? we shouldn't be; if we are, we don't understand why. then, is it variation? or is it an example of the solar effects being overrun by the oceans?

except that it's so gorgeous out this week.

i got some sleep this morning, and i think i needed that.

i'm going to slow it down a little, but i don't want to waste the weather. it's not a predictive statement, but, statistical norms being what they are, it seems more likely than not that the second half of summer will balance out the first; otherwise, this is going to be a scorching summer.

does any of this have to do with the sun?

well, we've seen some signs of the magnetic reversal that these solar cycles are really about, and that i keep pointing out is really what i'm talking about. and, the shift in the jet stream that is responsible for this heat is consistent with what we expect to see with a more active sun. however, the model that suggests that colder temperatures over landmasses in the northern hemisphere are correlated with lower sunspot activity (due to the effects of the fields created by the sunspots on jetstream activity) also suggests a fair amount of variability and that, due to the nature of what a jetstream is, a cold area over one part of the hemisphere will generally be offset by a warmer spell in another. so, you don't have this iron law that says "if low sunspot then cold in canada and russia", but rather a tendency for that particular pattern to be dominant over other weather events (like hot air masses moving north) when the sun is in that configuration.

the reality is that we haven't seen any actual substantive solar activity yet, just some burps. but, i feel we should be finding ways to measure the effect of the sun's magnetic field, itself, regardless. we might find out in the end that the sunspots are an effect of the correlation, rather than the cause of them. so, maybe we've flipped over but can't see it yet, and we're already into the stretch of warmer years, where the habitable part of canada escapes this protective bubble that's shielded it from the most dramatic effects of the warming.

or, maybe it hasn't flipped over, and it's just variation. and, maybe the polar vortex has suffered a devastating blow, in the face of global warming.

what i'm concerned about is not wasting the heat, just right now.

ok, so my little veg-out period is done, now.

i'm going to do some cleaning in here, including laundry, and then we're shifting to forcing myself into a goal-oriented marijuana reality for a while. as i stated previously, i'm going to need to find a way to condition myself towards normalcy.

i bought some cigarettes for the ride yesterday, but that's done, now. no more smoking after joints. i can get used to that quickly, i think.

and, what i'm going to do is train myself, for a while, to complete a task first, and then smoke. the goal is that, eventually, having a small amount of pot in the house for whatever will become normal, like it is with alcohol. i have 75% of a 26er of vodka in my cupboard that i haven't touched since march, and haven't had the urge to touch since march. it's just normal for me to have alcohol in the house, and i simply don't want to drink it, unless i'm going out. normalizing myself to marijuana means training myself to that kind of sporadic use, which i just don't have a history of.

unfortunately, i think that the cop upstairs has taken advantage of the situation and started smoking inside again, because it's become very stuffy in here, all of a sudden. i can't smell that well right now. but, as things will normalize in a day or two, my sense of smell will return. and, i don't want to smell anything, or be sent into any asthma-induced coughing fits as a consequence of an inside smoker. lets hope this doesn't become an issue, again - because it wasn't one for quite a while, previously.

after i do some cleaning in here, i'm going to want to get back to rescanning over the 2013-2014 period, looking for consistency in the posts. it is only once i complete that task that i will roll and smoke another joint.

so, let's get to this.

it's his job to paint a horror picture about the existing reality. the truth whatever it may be, presidential candidates essentially always argue that we're in a terrible crisis, and the sitting president failed, and you need to elect the candidate to solve the crisis. and, however great the candidate might sound in it's plan to solve the crisis, the class war always asserts itself, in the end. i'm more interested in his climate change comments.

so, he starts off by arguing that he wants to spend billions on fixing the roads and bridges, and then continues with an argument to increase network connectivity in rural regions. in order to "get our kids to market", we need to "modernize the infrastructure". and, the republicans have failed to deliver these things (which is true).

he then went on to brag about all of the roads he fixed when he was vice president, which he refers to continually as a "clean energy economy".

so, it seems like the message here is that in order to solve the climate crisis, we need to fix the roads. because fixing the roads creates construction and automotive jobs. also, everybody should switch to led, because it create jobs, too.

and, people have questioned his commitment to climate change. c'mon. can't you see how dedicated he is? he's committing to fixing the roads in order to fix the climate. what else could these eco-socialists want?

i've heard all of these ideas before, and some of them are better than others, but none of them ever get done. what happens is that ideas get distorted in implementation, lobbyists win at the last minute and you end up with poor implementation and minimal effects.

it would be hard to be as bad as trump on the climate, granted. but, this is an economic policy, it's not a climate change policy. you might like it as an economic policy, but very little of what he said will substantively reduce emissions.

there's also a few red flags. for example, there's a part about 14:00 in where he promises that we'll extend battery life and reduce battery cost because "we know how to do this". that's such an absurdly false statement, that it's hard to believe it isn't a conscious lie; storage solutions are the single biggest problem we have to solve, and there's no guarantee that we will ever solve it.

he's doing the teleprompter thing, and it seems to have minimized the number of times he stumbled over his words, although not entirely eliminated it. he's coming off a little bit slowed down, but he's not trailing off. they can't manage him forever like this, but he seems to have gotten through this for now...

so, we're through the second lecture series, now. i'm going to watch a talk on public policy around climate change, and then the third series is on "quantum entanglements", and we might get our talk about bell either after or during it. given what i've seen from susskind so far, i'm expecting a mathematically truncated but theoretically thorough formulation of entanglement, which should once again give me some space to actually learn something.

this is presented as an introduction to classical mechanics, so i assumed the pre-requisite would be very introductory calculus and he'd just work out some basic newtonian equations for engineers. i only decided to watch it as review, really.

in fact, this is an exceedingly abstract course that would more or less need to be presented at the graduate level as almost a kind of philosophy course and, if presented with a more thorough mathematical development, would have third to fourth year mathematical prerequisites. he hints at a lot of pretty esoteric math that i, myself, barely touched upon, but he doesn't actually do any of it, he presents these kind of intuitive, ad hoc approaches that reduce some pretty hefty math to a kind of half-hacked out differential calculus. i can honestly argue that if i had tried to present some of these proofs in a paper in a math program, i'd have received a failing grade; however, very little of the audience for this specific lecture series could have followed these arguments if properly formalized, so he kind of had little choice but to chop his way through it, allowing an audience that is interested in mechanics at this level to follow a series of arguments that they really shouldn't be able to follow. that said, much of the calculus in this course is at a second year level, and i don't really recall working with any kind of abstract algebra until the second part of second year. so, even with the intuitive sloshes through topological spaces and measure theory, amongst other things, you'd still need to be an upper level undergrad to even start to follow this, and i'd imagine few people would have the incentive to relearn classical mechanics, except as a weird and sort of meta elective.

i was hoping that he'd develop some more known physics from these systems, but he didn't have time, and so instead focused strictly on developing the algorithm. he claims that the algorithm will then allow you to derive the equations of motion of any system, and he did manage to convince me of it, but he didn't actually do much of it, like i'd hoped.

i remember taking courses like this near the end of my time studying math, and they have their place, but don't be fooled - this isn't for beginners. what this is is a demonstration of how very advanced physicists do very basic physics, and it's consequently only going to be of interest to the general populace as a point of curiosity, rather than a serious course.

stated differently, if you can follow the math, then you already know all of the physics and it's only interesting as a philosophy course. but, if you can't follow the math, even with it simplified, you're not learning much about physics by following along - you're better off checking out the pre-reqs.

well, they always said alberta was the texas of canada.

in fact, alberta's timing on the curve is maybe closer to that of the deep south than it is to that of eastern canada - they had minimal impacts to start, opened early and are now seeing a spike in cases.

the population of alberta is 4.5 million people, so it's very sparsely populated, largely. if you translate that proportion of cases in the population of alberta to the population of texas, you get to roughly 1500 cases.

29*(230/4.5) = 1482, but i'm underestimating the population of texas and overestimating the population of alberta so a round up to 1500 is a reasonable correction.

that was roughly the number of cases that texas was seeing near the end of may, which actually puts it in line with the rest of canada, surprisingly - but that would then be an example of time variance, and the need to view the curve in terms of being an abstract, malleable shape rather than a fixed, physical thing.

https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/230-covid-19-cases-over-weekend-government-urges-albertans-to-use-masks-1.5022039

i can just imagine the wall of blank stares coming back at him, as doug afford announces in front of a packed room of seniors that they'll never be warm again.

and, eventually, after however many seconds of absolute silence, a solitary voice may cry out in the crowd...

i'm cold.

i'm not fucking around. really.

https://training.mmlearn.org/blog/is-grandma-always-cold-heres-why...and-what-you-can-do-about-it

hey, doug.

maybe that old folks home that you broke a sweat in, which pissed you off so much, was hot because....


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wait for it.

keep going.

scroll.

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ready?

still want to know?

so, maybe the old folks home that doug ford broke a sweat in, which pissed him off so much that he's mandating air conditioning in the homes was hot because....

.....the residents like it that way.

fyi.

https://caregiver.com/articles/why-seniors-cold/

i am happy to see the creation of new care facilities, and hope that there is enough capacity in the end to prevent overcrowding.

and, i hope that tenants are, in the end, given control over their own thermostats - and allowed to vote on their preferred temperatures in common areas.

maybe we should just hire a train of slaves to follow doug around, and toss rose petals in front of him when he walks, like an emperor, or at least a petty tyrant.

that way, he'll never break a sweat ever again.

like, ever.

i bet this guy hasn't exercised for more than five minutes since high school.

i think maybe doug ford often gets a little sweaty, and maybe he's mandating what he would like, rather than what the people that live in these facilities would actually want.

that way, when doug goes into the facilities, he won't be uncomfortable, himself.

have you ever heard an old person say "it's too hot in here."

no, really. have you?

all i've ever heard old people say is "it's freezing in here, turn the heat up".

the sad reality is that if you mandate air conditioning in these facilities, what you're going to end up with is a lot of old people complaining that it's too cold.

because old people love to complain that it's too cold. if you've ever known any...

but, what if a resident doesn't want air conditioning in their unit?

in fact, older people tend to like it warmer. that's one of the ways that your body changes, as you age.

but, it's a good example of the kind of warped mindset that this fat, privileged piece of shit really has.

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-makes-air-conditioning-mandatory-in-nursing-homes-announces-indoor-visits-to-restart-soon-1.5024837

see, this guy should be getting meals on wheels or something. i know i'm completely avoiding the debate, but that is the truth of it - this person should not be in public, right now, for much of any reason, and he should have access to a service that delivers him the necessities, while that's happening. that's the safest thing for him to do...

my experience is that these cards are not necessary, and while i wouldn't advise using them, i think it's kind of harmless, if it makes people feel less anxiety about being judged for going out without a mask. i think that the real reflection, here, ought to be about the unnecessary stress that this is clearly causing people.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/anti-masking-rules-1.5649288

so, i'm vegging today. and we'll get back to work tomorrow, or perhaps tonight.

so, if you want to understand how to transform the canadian epidemiology into the american, and back, the formula should be something like this:

u(f(t)) = 10*c(t)

where,

u(t) = american deaths at time t
c(t) = canadian deaths at time t
f(t) is an equation that relates the domains of the two functions.

if we measure t in weeks and allow it to be linear, even though we know it isn't, and f(t) is roughly t-6 then,

u(t - 6) = 10*c(t),

so,

c(t) = 0.1*u(t-6)

to be a little more complicated, you'd need to derive a fourth order differential equation for t and solve it. you'd want it to be fourth order so that the derivative of the acceleration is still a non-scalar function of t. that is, the acceleration is not constant. and, this is an empirical question, so you could fit this, if you sat down and did it...

stop.

these are the two key observations in comparing the american and canadian responses to the pandemic, right now.

1) the united states has about ten times the population of canada, so should be expected to have about 10 times the number of deaths.
2) canada appears to be experiencing a very similar epidemiology to what's happening in the united states, except that we're lagging behind them by a few months. i don't want to be too precise because i wouldn't expect this transformation to be time-invariant, in the end - it's not like you can pick up one graph and drop it on the other, you're going to have to think more abstractly than that and look at the general shape of the curve, and transform it around where the inflection points are. the field of mathematics that deals with these kinds of transformations is called topology; we're not going to be converting coffee cups into donuts and back, but we're dealing with classes of curves that we can stretch and condense, and expand and contract, and stuff.

so, we've seen a huge spike of cases recently down there. but, the states that are getting nailed right now didn't reopen last week - they reopened months ago. texas reopened at the end of april; it took two months for cases to build quietly amongst the young and healthy before it flipped over. cases in the united states actually decreased for weeks after the economy started going again, about 10 weeks ago or so.

as reopening in canada started happening about 4 weeks ago, that would suggest that we have another 6 weeks or so to wait before the build-up of cases via community spread flips over, if we continue to follow the americans via a time lag. but, as mentioned, time is variable, here - that 6 weeks could be 4 weeks, or it could be 10 weeks.

you'll note that the weather also flipped over late in most of canada, especially relative to the american deep south, and that may contribute to the time lag, as well.

now, let's see what kind of time lag we get with total deaths, and how close it is to the time lag i just pointed out.

first, we have to multiply the total number of deaths in canada to get a good comparison. so, to see how far behind the united states we are on the curve, we need to ask when it is that the united states had not 9,000 deaths but 90,000 deaths, and the answer to that question is around the may 15th-20th period, which is a bit more than six weeks ago, but not much more.

is that inevitable? is there anything we can do to prevent this? well, you could put the military on the street, distribute food door-to-door and order anybody who leaves their house shot dead. that would work. so, no - it's not unpreventable.

but, with the rules we have in place (and with the rules we are willing to follow), it is, indeed, inevitable.

and, your mask won't save you, or the people around you.

"but, we're trying to stop the spread of the virus. we can't wait."

then argue your abuse of power is justified, don't pretend it's not an abuse of power.

i don't agree, myself. and, i don't expect that mask laws will help much, in the end.

so, i think this summarizes where actual, really existing science is right now with the whole mask thing:
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/06/controversy-covid-19-mask-study-spotlights-messiness-science-during

what the article says is that we don't really have any useful science that demonstrates the effectiveness of mask wearing, but it seems like it makes sense (hrmmn.), so we should probably all do it, under the assumption that eventually the science will work itself out.

see, i'm not even going to really argue with my own summary of the article; i may have been a little snide, but i don't think i've constructed a strawman or otherwise misattributed, and it's almost tautological in terms of presentation - who is going to argue that mask use doesn't make sense in principle, if everybody does it right?

but, that's a suggestion. it's a hunch. it's the articulation of an idea that seems reasonable - but also a mea culpa that we don't actually know if it's actually true or not. it's certainly not a law, or an order, or a decree.

hey, let's be current and trendy in our thinking, in a way that is unusually substantive. this is a scenario where policymakers should be carefully seeking out the intersection of science and law, which i'm actually unusually qualified to talk about. seeking out true intersectionality here requires the ability to interpret the evidence from both components of the intersection, and erect them in a way that is unique to the intersection area.

understanding the legal area means realizing that science needs to be understood in terms of uncertainty, that sometimes scientists will tell you something is certainly true (such as evolution, or anthropogenically induced climate change) and sometimes scientists will tell you something is probably true (like genetic determinants for sexual identity, or the masslessness of specific particles) and sometimes scientists will tell you that they just imagine that something is true without having any evidence to back it up (like the existence of life outside of the solar system, or the idea that mask use stops the spread of viruses in a pandemic). the legal side of the equation needs to understand where the science is on any specific point before legislating, if it seeks to consult it properly. if something is certainly true, specific legal legislation is absolutely required to address it, and so forth, whereas if something really only exists in the mind of the imaginer then the issue is generally best left to whatever research departments, and the legal question reduces to what kind of funding seems reasonable, relative to the magnitude of any social or capital accruement that may come from the thought developing itself into actual science.

understanding the science area means realizing the need to be clear to policy makers about the nature of the reports being presented, under the realization that the issue is going to policy makers that ought to judge it as previously stated. it means being able to understand the science well enough to make that determination, and understanding what that determination actually means, in terms of what kind of funding or specific action is required.

so, then what to say about the quebec mask law and the backlash to it?
https://globalnews.ca/news/7178624/quebec-ombudsman-masks-coronavirus/

i don't have a general concern with the ombudsman, or any other government official, articulating a suggestion to wear masks. that is indeed in line with the science, which is currently at exactly that point, of suggesting that it is probably a good idea.

but, as the science is nether at the probably stage nor the certainty stage, there would not appear to be a sufficient scientific justification at this point for the mandating of masks, and the government of quebec is consequently jumping ahead of itself in implementation. this law is not informed by the science, as it exists, and should be overturned for that reason. there must be clear evidence to infringe on an individual's right to the "security of the person" in such an invasive manner, and the current evidence simply doesn't fit the bar to do so.

that said, i think that most people are interpreting the law as a suggestion. i live in a mask-mandated region, and mask use is not at all widespread, here. i highly doubt that the police are enforcing the law, or doing much of anything at all to uphold it. if you pass a law and the only people that follow it would have followed it without the law existing, and don't enforce it, then it's not really a law, is it? it's just a suggestion...

so, i'm going to wait until they start dragging people away before i get particularly concerned.

science, in general, is the opposite of what conservatives call "common sense".

i will usually strenuously oppose "common sense" policies because i'm in solidarity with science.

and, these trumpist border closures - which make intuitive sense to the uneducated, but are not backed by science - are a perfect example of this.

again: i would expect this kind of stupidity from a conservative government, but the liberals are supposed to argue that science > "common science". and, they're not.

there's some things that a government can do that are disappointing, and there are others that indicate a fundamental shift in governing philosophy. this is the latter.

i don't think there's any other liberal government in canadian history that would have tossed the science in the trash and caved into populist ignorance, like this. it's in line with my analysis over many years now, but it's really historic - this is an ideological shift in the ruling party, and one that is going to dramatically alter my view of the liberals as a science-based party for many years into the future.

and, they can't win without people like me, even if i'm currently in a dead riding.

https://theconversation.com/we-cant-trust-common-sense-but-we-can-trust-science-53042

so, that's what i did yesterday. the map cuts off, but the town i ended up in was tilbury....for a few minutes, anyways - enough to buy the pills and smoke a joint in a farmer's field and get out.

while it's about the same distance to leamington as it is to tilbury (my route is about 5 km's shorter than google's in either direction), this was a slightly longer ride, because a large part of it was through a residential area, and there were a lot more lights. i left at about 13:00, i got to the store about 17:30, i left about 18:30 and i was home before 23:00. so, i got the space covered in around 4.5 hours in either direction. considering that i stopped for at least five smoke & mt dew breaks in both directions, 3-3.5 hours of actual biking is about right. hey, if you can do that without stopping, then sign up for the olympics; in reality, you actually take the car to the corner store to get milk, don't you? ugh.

i got home, took a shower and slept for quite a while. i haven't even eaten yet...

how big is windsor, really? it's a weird layout for a city, and i suspect it's the same thing all around the peninsula - i don't feel like i left fully urban civilization until i got out of saint joachim., but it's only because i took the lakeshore drive, and i got some pictures of lac st clair (something i hadn't seen before). it's probably the same thing around the detroit river into lake erie, but i haven't done the trek, yet.

i'm not exaggerating - it's just a string of houses up the road along the lake for miles, of varying composition. some of these houses i drove by were legit 30 room mansions, while there was one section of particularly old and dilapidated housing that seemed like it might have been a small indigenous reserve (i don't know if that's true). i'm sure that the wealth disparity has a lot to do with which areas are more flood prone, but for the purposes of biking, that's not all that important. i'm just pointing out the long string of housing up the coast of the lake that makes it seem like you're still in the city, after you've left it behind miles and miles ago. there's small communities on the main road, county road 2, but if i had taken that route, i'd have been taking an old highway with no shoulders through much of it, and often driving through fields, making it seem more like a ride through the country. indeed, you'll note that i ended up back on a road that runs directly from windsor  (where it is called cabana road) to tilbury (where it is called mill street) and that i may have saved some time by just staying on it, but the trade-off is that cabana switches to rural almost right off the 401, so almost the entire road would have been through farmland and old roads. they actually announced a project to uplift the road recently, and if i could put in a request to mayor dilbert to just extend the bike line all the way to tilbury...

i got 40 days worth, though!

how much further can i go than tilbury? i felt this ride, near the end, more than i felt the last one, even if the distance was about the same. so, i don't know. i know that if i have to go to chatham-kent, or to some other small town on the way to london and/or hamilton (and/or niagara) then i'm going to need to leave earlier.

keeping the windows closed overnight actually seems to have resolved the issue i was dealing with yesterday, but only because i've got some latent heat built up in the floors, now, i think. it's about time to open them for the day...

this border closure is not a way to stick-it to the americans. it hurts us far more than it hurts them.

and, the liberals right now are run by sophomoric idiots that should go back to school, so nobody should be surprised that they threw away what will probably be their best, last chance at a majority, before justin trudeau ends up in the dung-heap of history, where he belongs.

no.

the closed border is a symbol of the triumph of trumpism. you're all trumpists, now.

and, you're all too stupid to understand it.

...and, guess what, you fucking idiots?

if you've fallen for this?

if you're all gung-ho about closing borders to keep the diseased americans out, based on nothing but debunked science and xenophobic rhetoric?

you've bought into trumpism. you're a trumpist. and, trump has now won. congratulations.

we need a government that's going to look at the science soberly with an analytic mind and apply it rigorously, not one that's happy to throw the science under the bus for all of this right-wing, xenophobic, populist rhetoric about "common sense".

stop.

do you think this is the only example in history where border closures actually worked?

that it's the one, magical counter-example to the mountains of peer-reviewed science that reject border closures as pseudo-science?

grow up. we need real world solutions to real world problems, not magical thinking based on pseudo-science.

i repeat: closing the border is not about science. the science is crystal clear: closing borders does nothing to stop the spread of diseases, at all. no, it is not working. we're just behind them on the curve.

what closing borders as a result of this is about is the government pushing a xenophobic, populist agenda to try to create enough of a distraction for them to avoid an election that they are unlikely to do well in.

and, here's the sneaky part: they'd actually be better off to dissolve parliament, while the opposition is in disarray. if you had an election tomorrow, the liberals might win back a majority. their chances of such a thing will decrease daily, as we continue to catch up to the americans on the curve.

...and, as much as i'm frustrated by the government's unscientific handling of the situation, if we go through all of this twitter-feed pseudo-science and come off no better than the united states in the end, except now with a 90% debt-to-gdp ratio, which we could have avoided by following the science, will that lead to some clearer thinking in the population about putting people with guns on the streets and telling people where they can or can't go?

and, why am i cheering on the spread of the virus?

because i want the border to reopen to commercial traffic asap, meaning i want the policy to fail asap, and for a public backlash to develop against it.

so, with the most recent border extension, i'm now in the awkward position of actively cheering on the spread of this virus in canada....

there is no science underlying the border "closures", which are truly no such thing, and no meaningful reason at all (except the logical fallacy of "common sense", which almost always leads to faulty deductions) to think they're having any effect whatsoever on the spread of the virus in canada. there is no reason, at all, right now, to expect that canada will not follow the united states into a major outbreak within the next two-three months, as it has had roughly similar infection rates, relative to population numbers, once you control for the fact that we are about 2-3 months behind the united states on the pandemic curve.

so, i don't think the canadian response to this virus has been very impressive, at all, actually.

i don't think we're doing a better job in containing the virus than they are - the data doesn't support that deduction, remotely.

i don't think that the border closures will stop the upcoming outbreak, which is likely currently in a process of development. wait for it.

and, i don't expect that the outbreak will be any different here when it happens, after you've given it some time to build roots in various communities and maybe even get into some local animals as reservoirs. i saw a shallow grave on somebody's lawn yesterday, and it got me to thinking about this thing getting into the raccoon or fox population, in which case we should expect periodic zoonotic transmission effects, like rabies.

so, what is this utter stupidity that we continue to be subjected to by this backwards, hard-right, populist-nationalist (the word for this is fascist) government?

well, i just described it didn't i?

the border is not closed because of the virus, the border is closed because a very weak liberal minority government is attempting to co-opt a trumpist foreign policy to maintain it's hold on power. not only have they managed to avoid elections (it's very likely that this government would have fallen this month, otherwise), but they haven't even passed a budget. it's a godsend for them, really.

all i can do is request that you don't fall for it.

but, you probably will.

because you're not very smart.

i want to be clear, though.

i didn't spend the morning complaining that i'm cold.

i spent the morning - since i woke up not long after midnight - physically unable to do much of anything because i was too cold to actually function. i did the things i usually do when i'm cold - dishes in hot water, cooking pasta on the stove, two sweaters and a winter jacket at one point and then three hot showers, but they were fleeting and i just ended up in my blanket after each one.

i don't know what would have happened had i tried to shiver through it. what i know is that i was cold enough that i instinctively didn't do that, and i assume my instincts asserted themselves for good reason.

ok. one, two...go...

in the short run, i'm realizing that i can't live with older white men that have recent genetic history in the northern parts of eurasia. we're just not evolved for the same environmental conditions - he likes it cool and dry, because he's adapted to it; i like it hot and humid, because that's my own adaptation.

even if the issue right now is more about outside than inside...

it's looking like it's popped up a little closer to 25, so i'm going to see if i can get out of bed and get dressed.

should we do this?

should atheists get a bunch of guns and just show up somewhere near the equator and throw the muslims and/or catholics (or jews. whatever.) in the ocean and take it?

we don't have a homeland, and our aristocrats are afraid of us, and keep bringing the abrahamists here to overrun us. it's kind of like...

if you guys want canada, maybe we can trade, or something?

so, do i want to go back to where i came from?

well, if i knew where i came from...

maybe.

the problem i have with warm climates is that they're full of muslims and felids. i think i can mostly avoid the crocs, but the leopards will come right in the house to get you, if you let them. muslims, too. if there was a forward thinking, atheistic-driven, anti-abrahamic society near the equator and the ocean somewhere...

there isn't.

i'd pick south america over the muslim countries in asia and africa, but they're all catholic, and consequently not very appealing as destinations to move to.

if i could design my own planet, right? i'd make all the muslims white and send them to the north pole, so that we could build atheistic utopias in the more appealing places. after we ban hurricanes by instituting daily pole reversals. or, maybe you just make the planet all land, except lakes, and put the fresh water underground. yeah...

i get these nasty cases of the chills, from time to time, but they tend to pass after an hour or two. i've been shivering since i woke up around 3:00, unable to stop my teeth from chattering for hours at a time. why is this happening?

the air conditioner upstairs is no doubt a part of the problem, and i hate air conditioners and would disown my children for ever using them, but i think what actually happened is that the temperature caved in very far, very fast. so, it went from 35 degrees to 17 degrees in a few days. while 17 degrees is not particularly cold, the difference is quite massive. i've essentially been unable to adjust, and been unable to do anything until it passes.

i've taken three scalding hot showers this morning, each upwards of an hour in length, and i still just can't stop shivering. i can't escape this blanket, which is at least trapping my body heat from escaping.

still. it's reminding me that my genes are not from the north, and that whatever epigenetic reactions occurred in last week's blissfully beautiful heat wave don't exactly want to let go. it's like you let the cytosine loose in a candy shop, creating what may be referred to as a cytosine storm.

yeah. well, this whole migration thing is kind of undoing evolution in a way, isn't it? you're not supposed to dramatically change climates within a few generations. my dna was in warmer climates for thousands, if not millions, of years; i evolved to live in humid, hot places. that's what i am. and, i wonder if i shouldn't undo the mistake made in my genome's recent history, and get these genes back into the climate they were adapted to.

they're not proliferating up here, in this igloo carved out of the side of a glacier, that's for sure. i'm not evolved for it, and the other genomes seem to realize it.

it would help if i could figure out where the genome needs to go to get back home, to the adapted latitude.

for now, we should get some more summer-like temperatures this afternoon. as it is, i'm basically forced to put the day on hold and sit inside until i stop shivering. and, i'm feeling a tad better as i'm typing...

so, i found some more brand name meds. hopefully, this is dealt with soon.

i'm not going to tell you where yet exactly. i'll tell you when i get back.

if the entire world knows you won't use your superpowers, then you're not actually a superpower, are you?

they have this fixation on carter.

listen. i'll be 40 in a few months, and jimmy carter had been removed from office before i was even born. it's a matter of days, but it's true. that means that nobody under 40 has the slightest recollection, and you'd really have to be pushing into your 60s...

is that the point, though? is this really about older voters? it's a playbook that's running thin, to say the least. they said clinton was just like carter, and to an extent he actually was, but it didn't help them win (ross perot, notwithstanding). they said obama was just like carter, and he won twice on the back of a youth vote that probably largely couldn't tell the difference between carter and clinton if you held up pictures of them - something that is only more true now. if this is the best they got...

it's not. it's a lazy article, and that in itself may be reflective of something.

honestly? if i was a hawk, i would pick biden. trump's decision to not bomb iran at the beginning of the year really turned him into a paper tiger. he's not remotely scary to anybody, because everybody knows that he bluffs 100% of the time, and folds 100% of the time. he's actually probably the most predictable commander-in-chief, ever - and the predictability is around the reality that he's both an isolationist and a pacifist.

biden, on the other hand, like clinton one may recall, is getting the endorsement of neo-cons and interventionists more or less across the board. he's not likely to base his foreign policy on bluffing, and he's far more likely to actually utilize the substantive hard power at his availability, to advance the interests of his clients (who is whose client, really, though?).

it's a very hard choice, if you're standing outside the country and primarily concerned about international issues, including global warming and foreign policy. nothing i said should be meant to even suggest that trump won't cave and do something stupid at the last minute. an invasion of the faulklands, or maybe grenada if they can't even figure out how to get by the argentinians, is increasingly seemingly less like satire - it's exactly the kind of surreal theatre that this administration would see the upside in.

but, despite being abominable on the climate, trump's track record and general demeanour seems like the less scary option, in the long run, if you're looking to seriously minimize war over the next 4-8 years. he's the isolationist, here; biden's the internationalist. and, i hope the country at least understands the decision it has in front of it, if this becomes a ballot issue, which it likely won't.

the election is probably going to mostly be about the virus, and in the end may largely reduce to a referendum on forced distancing measures and mandatory mask use. the talking heads may not even get a microphone, this time - americans are going to have more pressing details directly in front of them than trying to sort through an altruistic decision about empire-building.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/12/biden-is-wrong-choice-lead-west-through-cold-war-20/

i'm not old enough to unplug, yet.

the divisional court office is still not answering the phone, although they at least have a voice message set up, now

i'm getting the impression that this process may take a long time, but i have little choice but to wait. i'm not going to let the system just throw this case aside; this case will at least be heard, and we'll see what the next judge up the ladder says, in the end.

what i'm waiting for is the actual office to open, because they've told me that they can't really check anything until they're physically back in the office. so, i'll try again in a few days. i really don't have any other option.

i got distracted this morning with...

this:
https://deathtokoalas.blogspot.com/2017/02/zgoombah-lot-of-confused-soccer-moms.html

that's actually the end of the dtk sequence, meaning it's the last major thread that came up and continued, even as posts (obviously) continue forward.

but, i noticed some censorship, so i got it down asap.

the world needs more scandalous people.

really. it does.

so, call me scandalous, if you want. i might like it.

unexpected crash, there. i don't think i lost anything.

what's going on with me?

1) this is the most current pertinent information involving the court case:

For cases that were scheduled prior to the suspension of normal court operations to dates after September 4, 2020, hearings will be proceed on the scheduled dates.  The Divisional Court will provide further directions at a later date as to whether these matters will proceed in person or remotely, and whether documents are to be filed electronically in accordance with this Notice to the Profession.

All previously scheduled in-person matters that are now cancelled may be rescheduled for hearing by videoconference or other means directed by the court pursuant to this Notice to the Profession.

Any previously scheduled in-person matters that are now cancelled, and which are not rescheduled for hearing by videoconference, will not be scheduled for in-person hearings until further Notice to the Profession, and will be scheduled thereafter in accordance with a scheduling protocol that will be provided by way of Notice to the Profession at a future date.

so, first i'm going to need to wait until they allow in-person hearings and then i'll need to reschedule...

the office that i'm suing is probably closed for the summer, or at least the lawyers are probably at home. i guess there's not really anywhere else to go. there's an off chance they might be open because of that, actually.

so, i'll be lucky if i get this rescheduled by this time next year, frankly.

i actually think that this is more or less the worst way to digitize this. the serving and filing process is archaic, and for largely no obvious reason at this point, but there's a certain level of reality in having a judge in front of you that i find more comforting. for a case like this, where i'm suing the police and likely to keep going kind of thing, i know that the system is stacked against me. it would be convenient if i lost my connection, then, wouldn't it?

i'd have to go to the library or something because i don't want the pipe into my house to be very big. i've been over that. i want a skinny, stable line into the house in order to frustrate the intelligence agencies, and what i have actually doesn't fit zoom's minimum requirements (although i can stream over youtube just fine. i'm sure it would work...).

but, i don't want to mess with this in this way. if this was a divorce hearing or something, ok, fine. but, when i'm suing the police for brutality, i want my time directly in front of the judge, and i want to be able to get into a shouting match on the floor if i need to without being able to be muted or shut down. they can drag me out if they have to, but they're not just unplugging me, i won't let it be that easy to get rid of me.

i'm going to call in the morning, though, to see if they're open and if we can talk about all of these motions i've got running. will they be scheduling requests for written motions during this time? because maybe we might want to get this dealt with first, anyways.

2) i've now made it through four quarters of legal marijuana, which adds up to an ounce, since the second week of june when i kind of gave up on detroit for the year. what's the report on this?

i last complained about a solei brand that had much less thc in it than advertised, and didn't really succeed in actually getting me high, it just made me very tired. i could have smoked more of it, i suppose, but that's not what i want to do - i want to smoke pinners for about a week, and get consistently stoned due to low tolerance, and note that this was always successful with black market bud - i could roll up an 1/8th in a cigarette and feel it for four hours, so long as it was the first couple of rolls on the quarter, and i hadn't been smoking much or at all in a while. while i was not at all impressed, the border closure put me in a bit of a fit; i decided that i could either sit inside and bitch at the neighbours all summer or just adjust for a bit, and i chose the latter. so, i bought something else...

the store had a deal on something called raider kush, which was coming in around 21% thc, so i took a run at it. again: i ended up spending less than $65 for a quarter, after taxes. i can't complain about this on a price level, it's not that bad, so long as the product is acceptable.

i found this brand acceptable, if not outstanding. the first batch produced me 40 joints and lasted ten days, which is about in line with what i noticed previously, but the pot was a little bit stronger. i started picking up a bit of tolerance near the end of the second quarter, but i still managed 38 joints out of it. that is suggesting to me that i'm going to need to get through at least a half an ounce before i start building tolerance, for future head caves. but, i'm also thinking about ways to adjust consumption.

i mentioned this. i suggested i might binge when it's legalized if i can find something i like (a process that took a while), but, in the long run, legalization is likely to dramatically cut my usage down. see, the reason i smoked everything when i bought it is that i didn't want it in the house! so, for example, i'd buy a quarter around dec 17th or so and essentially smoke through saturnalia, usually stopping in the first week of january (supply depending) but leaving a nice spliff for my birthday on the 13th. i might keep doing something like that, even if i lose my july headcave, in the end (although i'm enjoying the heat, that's the real reason i've kept going). but, the reason i started doing it is that i didn't want there to randomly be drugs in the house, in case any of these cops that likes to follow me around ever decided to come in...it really developed out of a habit of buying too much to make sure i had enough and then smoking it really fast to get rid of it...

these concerns are, of course, no longer very pressing. so, i don't need to binge smoke - i can leave some in the cupboard, for later. ok. but, how do i get used to that? that's a huge change, after 25 years of treating it as this reactive thing that needs to be consumed as fast as possible.

first, i need to switch to rolling tobacco as filler rather than cigarettes, a switch i made on the first quarter but couldn't entirely extricate myself from, as having a pack means having a smoke as a chaser on the way back. but, i can't be doing that, as a habit. so, i actually spent the first three quarters psyching myself up about trying to smoke pot without a cigarette chaser, and finally got to it on the fourth. having rolling tobacco in the house means exactly that, and as a former smoker i'm apprehensive about it. but, i at least got through most of the fourth quarter without the chaser. that's a start in normalizing myself to this new reality.

after the second quarter, i guesstimated i'd have about 20 joints left in the 50 g pack of rolling tobacco i bought, so i bought a third quarter, and i actually only got 27 joints of it. as i was noticing some tolerance at the end, and a more potent brand had come on to the market, i tried the more potent brand, instead. why did i get so few joints? what i'll say is this - i noticed almost no stems in the first two, and probably close to a gram worth of stems in the third. i may have been rolling slightly bigger joints, but there's no question that this was a shitty count. the offender here was wappa by redecan, who probably sold me a gram worth of stems.

in the olden days, when a scammer sold you stems, you reacted firmly: you didn't buy from that guy anymore. that was unforgiveable. so, i went back to the raider kush for quarter #4.

the smaller number of joints produced meant that the baggie of tobacco mostly got me through the third quarter, and i had to get another for the fourth, with the intent to slowly normalize - even if i wasn't sure entirely how. i got 32 joints out of the fourth, which confirms the wappa as being a variety with a low count, and is reflective of slightly larger joints being rolled; i'm moving from 1/5th-1/6th down to 1/4th-1/5th. that's fine, for now.

i'm probably going to smoke through a fifth quarter, with two aims in mind: (1) to further cement the non-chaser habit to ensure i'm more used to it as normal and (2) so that i'm able to put a sixth quarter in the cupboard along with the remaining tobacco in the pouch for more targeted use, which means for use whenever i finish a project or otherwise want to celebrate something. "normal" is going to be more like four joints/month than four joints/day.

3) for now, the last few days have been a little unproductive, as i've struggled with my sleeping patterns. i hate sleeping, especially when i'm stoned. so, i want to get a few things in order before i get that fifth quarter, like finishing up to the end of 2014, finally. that is something i want to do before i get back into it, and after that i just need to devise some rules for myself and put them in place, so i'm changing my habits around using this stuff. i like to smoke a joint once in a while, but i don't want to be stoned all of the time. balancing that is something i have to learn how to do, and i will, when i actually do it...

"volunteer work" is, in most cases, merely reducible to "slave labour".

"volunteer work" is a contradiction in terms.

if somebody is truly volunteering, they are not working; if somebody is working, they should be paid subject to existing labour regulations, and those labour regulations should be viciously enforced at the end of a shotgun.

and, don't let them try to whitewash over the issue by claiming that this labour is for "volunteer work", either. that's just some orwellian newspeak; labour is labour, and it should always be compensated for.

did i break the we corporation scandal?

well, did i break snc-lavelin?

listen: i don't care about who in the corporation did favours for who on behalf of whatever member of the governing clique. we live in a system called capitalism, and everything i've seen described about the situation is just a function of the way that this economic system functions - when you get elected, you do favours for your friends. i'm in favour of abolishing the entire society from the bottom up, it is true, but some crony capitalism at a corporate charity is hardly the thing that's going to get me out there, ripping up parliament.

rather, my concern is about the class war ramifications of the government coming in and offering students work at two-thirds of the minimum wage. the prime minister should resign immediately, but due to his skirting of minimum wage laws and how it affects the labour force in this sector, and not do to some funny accounting that, ultimately, nobody actually cares about.

and, the corollary of that position is that the government owes students a substantive work program at a living wage, as well.

listen.

i don't exactly want to claim the ideas in john bolton's book are false. how the fuck would i know?

but, this is john bolton - a man who is a professional liar, and appears to have been thrown out of the white house for trying to lie his way into starting another war.

so, you need to consider the source, here, before you jump to too many conclusions.

i don't know. i really don't. but, i'd probably be more likely to trust the word of a small, hyperactive child than the word of john bolton, who has about as much credibility as a walrus denying getting into the fish pen.

a walrus would probably sound like scooby doo.

"i didn't eat the fish."

sure you didn't....

it's really a measure of the sad decline of any kind of liberal-left, though, when the contemporary fake left is built on the twin pillars of anti-russian conspiracy theories and tell-alls by disgusting neo-cons that have the gall to call other people liars.

this is rock bottom, for the american left. it really is.

what does it mean to say that herd immunity will save us from the pandemic? as though it is some kind of "strategy" to get 70% of the population sick to prevent, what? 70% of the population from getting sick? what? this is an absurd narrative, built on a strawman that nobody ever presented.

so, again: we don't have a choice to choose herd immunity as a way out of anything. it's not a way out. rather, suggesting that public policy be based around the inevitability of herd immunity is coming to terms with accepting the reality that there isn't a way out, that this mess doesn't end until we all get the damn virus, and it just more or less burns itself out. we're then left with ways to try to shape the path to this endpoint, rather than deny it's inevitability.

so, if you want to talk about a strategy, that strategy would be trying to prevent the most vulnerable of people from getting the virus, as it inevitably spreads. but, that strategy does not involve the utilization of herd immunity as something that can be deployed, but rather seeks to adjust to it as reality as it presents itself. it would follow that restrictions on the vulnerable could lessen once the population reaches a substantive level of immunity. it's meant as an algorithm for least mortality.

and, if you realize that the algorithm for least mortality necessarily requires sheltering a substantive number of the population, it makes sense to actually bring in policies that would speed up the process.

but, this isn't a decision that we can make, and to suggest that reaching some place of herd immunity will stop an outbreak is asinine; herd immunity is the consequence of the outbreak, and a place we can get to quickly or slowly. that's the policy decisions...

now, what we've learned is that an immunity level of over 20% would appear to be enough to substantively slow the spread of the virus, even if we're only starting just right now to see very high levels of immunity in the hardest hit areas, like new york city.

now, that doesn't mean that every area that got hit hard will develop widespread immunity. it seems to be a developing sad reality that the vectors of spread in some regions were restricted almost entirely to medical facilities; that is, it doesn't seem like there was much spread outside of the actual hospitals, in some regions. that may mean that these regions are still vulnerable to the virus and may see another round of it, but it just brings up the point - this won't end until we get immunity up, one way or the other.

there have been some studies that suggest that asymptomatic carriers may not develop substantive antibodies. but, understand that what this is essentially saying is that the body wiped it out with something else - like t-cells - before the immune system could produce a response. so, it may be the case that people that catch the virus and eliminate it before getting sick don't produce antibodies for it, but that's not a reason to overturn the field of immunology and declare this virus to be unlike any other that we've ever seen. if the virus makes you sick, you will develop immunity to it, even if some people may be able to clear it without invoking an immune response...because it's so weak, in fact.

or, at least, you'd better hope that's true, or you're never going to get a vaccine to work.

all of these things may, indeed, slow down the process of developing mass immunity to this virus, but it doesn't change the inevitable outcome - we will be dealing with this in one way or another until we get to mass immunity, whether we like it or not.

and, it may change in the process, too, forcing us to start all over again. repeatedly...

"mom, why isn't there a vaccine for the common cold?"

i'm distracted.

i'm going to try to refocus, now...

what kind of a demographic effect is this virus having on the united states, in terms of who it is removing from the voter pool?

it seems to have killed off a lot of older new yorkers, most of whom were probably democrats. new york's voting outcomes seem unlikely to be affected much. but, if this case spike in the deep south leads to a lot of deaths amongst older republicans in states like florida and georgia and arizona, it could accelerate some of the demographic trends that democratic strategists have been pointing to for some time now, and i keep claiming are too far down the road to seriously consider.

in georgia, for example, the republicans won in 2016 by 250,000 votes. now, i think democrats have been hoping that the demographic trends in the region are on their side, and that the 2020 election will be a lot closer than that - maybe down to the 50,000 vote tally. to be clear, i think everybody still expects that donald trump is favoured in georgia, it's just that the democrats might be in a good position to give him a good run in 2020 - and could maybe more realistically take the state in 2024 or 2028.

so, if trump's voting pool decreases by upwards of 20,000 people by the time the election happens (an admittedly morbid projection, given that the number of deaths in georgia is currently around 3000, but the number of cases is skyrocketing...), it could give biden a razor thin win, if he's extremely lucky.

in florida, which is seeing very high case loads, the spread was less than 120,000 votes. can trump afford to lose 20-30,000 retiree votes in florida? 

as mentioned, these are demographic changes that were occurring, anyways. it's frustrating that the face of generational renewal in the united states after covid-19 may end up being joe biden, but what we see could end up shaped by it in a real way.

and, that opens up the next question, and it's becoming a more serious question - what happens if biden and/or trump actually catch this virus? it'd be likely to make either of them extremely sick, at least. 

i'm sorry, joe, but it would be a fitting way for the election to turn.

and, if the full effects of this change in the voting pool are not felt in the 2020 presidential election, or in 2020 congressional elections, they will be felt in the 2022 congressional elections; a substantial increase in the die-off rate of the older generation will shift a lot of urban races in republican states, and very quickly.

i'm not going to do a point by point so much as present a general perception of each candidate. this is the third of three debates, at this point.

https://www.facebook.com/GreenPartyofManitoba/videos/vb.43307539939/959665857837160/?type=2&theater

i'm going to ignore dylan percival-maxwell and courtney howard because one has been disqualified and the other doesn't show up. that leaves 8 candidates. which i'm going to order here in what i consider to be a ranked order.

candidates i might consider voting for:

1) glen murray. i stated previously that glen is the obvious front-runner on paper, and while he has certainly made that point obvious both in terms of his demonstration of wonkery and his general demeanour, he's also appeared frustrated at the kind of hokiness of the whole thing. he's giving off the impression that he thinks these are a bunch of amateurs, and he needs to be careful to avoid being arrogant; on the other hand, a little bit of critical self-analysis is also useful, and if the impression i'm getting is that he thinks this seems poorly run, he's probably right. he just ranted over his rebuttal time twice, and while that might be interpreted by some as not following the rules, what it really does is (accidentally, perhaps) succeed in drawing attention to the futility of the format. the weird thing is that, in addition to being the candidate that is most experienced and most connected, he's actually well to the left of most of the other candidates, even while demonstrating what might be called a set of more reasonable filters than much of the rest of the field. that is, there were certain issues that are currently associated with the contemporary non-populist left that murray had the political intuition to entirely avoid, and almost everybody else just delved into immediately, without any caveats. so, i'm going to state this as clearly as i can: murray is obviously the most qualified candidate here, by a long shot. that doesn't mean he's going to win, but it does mean that how well he does should be gauged as a measure of how serious the party is. it's going to be hard for me to take them seriously, moving forward, if they pick more or less anybody else over murray.

2) dimitri lascaris. i was a little skeptical, but i knew dimitri was well-spoken, at least. he has a strong camera presence, which is increasingly important. his tone of voice sometimes lapsed to a newscaster voice, which he needs to be cognizant of. i wouldn't claim i have a high total level of agreement with dimitri in terms of precise policy views, but he seems to operate in the same ideological space that i do, and in a weak field, that's something. but, this should be read less as an endorsement of lascaris and more as a level of disappointment in the rest of the field.

3) judy green - she comes off as a party-line rule pusher. we would hate each other, as she seems very strict and ordered, and i'm exactly the opposite of that. but, if she implements the platform word for word, as best she can, she's probably as close to the most base definition of an acceptable candidate as is possible.

candidates that i'm not sure if i'd vote for yet or not:

4) amita kuttner - while she initially came off as somewhat of a space cadet, listening to her talk a little more has uncovered that it's more that she's not the best at communicating. i think that she's trying to articulate a vision of a society run from the top down by perfectly trained bureaucrats, who use their superior expertise and knowledge to save the world. in a sense, it's almost disappointing in it's caricature of the scientist that thinks the nerds will save the world (spoiler alert: they won't). she'd be acting at cross-purposes, then, to a leftist like lascaris, who wants to build a populist movement, and maybe more in conjunction with a technocrat like murray. but, the idea i'm getting across is that she seems to believe that the issue will resolve itself as soon as you get the right system of authority in place. this is worryingly misguided, and she might even deny it, but i can see through it. the question is where she ends up coming down on specific issues, and if this kind of misguided authoritarianism ends up being an asset for a party that seeks to be the country's social conscience, or not. that is, i might put that issue aside if i feel she's a legitimate vote of conscience against a government that needs one, even if i think it's misguided. but, i'd rather support a candidate that is more attached to building a bottom up process than a top down one, and i'm going to have fundamental disagreements with her worldview as a result of that.

candidates that i would never vote for:

5) miriam beddard - she comes off as an arrogant pseudo-intellectual that couldn't organize her way out of a toilet papering.

6) andrew west. andrew is clearly a fiscal conservative from a rural region, and while we know that the greens have these kinds of supporters (mike schreiner is one.), how well he does is going to be an interesting measure of where the green membership actually stands. they've seen an influx in membership, recently, and many of the candidates want to lean left, along with the party itself. where does that leave somebody like andrew west in the future of the green movement? i can tell you that if they pick him, i'll never even consider voting green, ever again, as it would indicate that the minds of the feet on the ground are in actuality too far way from me to treat as temporary allies.

7) david mercer. no right-wing liberals. a priori.

8) anamie paul - her literal flaunting of godwin's law means she automatically loses. that's the rules of the internet, kids. sorry.

how far would she have had to swim?

well, the scale here is just copy and pasted from the scale in the lower right-hand corner of the screen shot. i just opened it up in paste and copied it across.

it's roughly 1 km. if she was out a bit, it'd be less than that. that's a workout, no doubt, but it's not insurmountable, for somebody in athletic shape. i bicycled 110 km a few weeks ago, out of the blue.

the kid says he didn't see her leave the water, but what does that mean? are you going to rely on a child's ability to discern characters a km in the distance, over open water? i dunno.

hey, if they find her mutilated corpse, desecrated by a tree branch, snapped at the sternum three ways, the sanctity of her existence irrelevant to the forces of physics, then so be it.

but, if they don't?

if she vanishes without a trace?

that's a doable swim. certainly. does naya swim?

so, is it possible that naya rivera could have swam out to the other side of the lake and got out and taken off?

it's weird that her life jacket was left in the boat. if she was going for a leisurely swim, she surely would have worn it - she took it with her, and if not for that reason than for what reason? so, was she suicidal? then, why bring it at all? and why bring the kid?

it's almost like she left the life jacket there as evidence that she was last seen in the boat.

it's a very strange situation, all around. and, if they don't find her? well, maybe she's not there...

nobody gets a point for the question about facebook. the right answer is that we need to teach kids better critical thinking skills, so the disinformation stops working.

nobody gets a point for the question about rural v urban, which they all reduced to a question about internet access. there are deep changes coming to rural areas that are going to blur the difference between urban and rural, and fundamentally change the concept of a rural settlement. increasing internet access to these regions is going to a part of the changing infrastructure, but it's such a shallow point to hit on. the actual answer is that the growth of exurban regions is likely to blur the differences between rural and urban regions, as rural north america really goes through a sort of reformation.

nobody gets a point for the question about how to work with indigenous groups, as everybody just produced politically correct boilerplate.

there were apparently no questions about climate change policy, and almost no discussion of it at all.

i believe in free voting, although it may be reasonable to bring up the issue with certain members that consistently vote against the party. nobody gets a point for that.

on the question of vote splitting with the ndp, i think the greens should actually be aggressively positioning themselves to replace the ndp. but, can you represent multiple parties in canada? that would be the answer, of course - have somebody run simultaneously for the greens and ndp and then run that one person for both parties. standing down is a goofy idea. but, this is something that a preferential ballot would address best...

nobody gets a point for the second thing, either.

i'm going to zero out the third question as well, and note simply that it is somewhat unusual for a moderator to ask about threats to democracy at a green party debate and get mostly answers about inequality and identity; only one of them mentioned the climate crisis, and only in french.

the second question actually seemed to be phishing for a discussion of the guaranteed income, but it got a mishmash of answers that i'm going to zero out across the board.

i would support redistricting to allow for a more equitable population distribution across ridings before i supported any kind of mmp or whatever hybrid system.

here's a question.

is proportional representation so unpopular in canada that the ndp might have gained more influence by dropping support for it than they would have gained by implementing it?

cause it's this albatross around the neck of the canadian left; support for pr has long been a massively unpopular major reason that the left can't break through here, but it sees it as it's only path to power...

maybe the apparatchiks are wrong. maybe the left would be better off leaving this idea behind and putting more focus back into more participatory forms of democracy...

so, i'm sorting through this.

i don't consider the first question to be worth grading. the second question was about proportional representation.

again - i liked dimitri lascaris' answer on proportional representation the best, even though i don't actually support proportional representation. he's pushing the right strategy for aggressive, leftist reform, even if i think this particular reform is neither very left wing nor a very good idea (i would support ranked ballots to help prevent false majorities, but i want to maintain a strong traditional riding system and flat out reject party lists outright. no taxation without representation.). i don't consider my opposition to proportional representation to be a reason to vote against the greens or ndp, even if i actually agree more with the left side of the liberal party, as represented by a stephane dion, on this particular issue than i do with the protest parties. glenn murray was also thinking tactically instead of idealistically, which is good to see/hear. anamie paul was right to question merner & haddad for their horrifically anti-democratic responses, but she basically just reproduced the broken liberal plan.

judy green claims people keep voting against pr because they don't understand it, rather than that they don't support it. amita kuttner claims she'll figure it out when she forms government, suggesting she's maybe been spending too much time under the telescope, lately. these weren't serious answers and deserve particular ridicule.

so, these are the scores for the first question:

lascaris: +1
murray: +1
paul: 0
merner: -1
haddad: -1
kuttner: -2
green -2

just as a reality check, i've carefully sorted through posts until the end of august, 2013 (a few days into september, actually) and found 16 posts to add to the travel blog and 0 to add to the others. so, it's clear enough what i'm going to need to do, just let me finish it up until the end of january.

ok, so we're starting to see the kinds of numbers, now, that we were hoping to see at the end of april, it's just taken a little longer.

new york was hit first, so you're looking at what? 5-6 months to get to herd immunity?

we also saw transmission flatten enough to allow for a manageable case load at around 20-30%, although my error analysis suggested the true prevalence of antibodies may have been much higher than reported. subsequent testing on these antibody tests have in fact indicated that they tend to produce more false negatives than false positives, so i had the right line of thinking. but, the point i'm making is that merely having a moderate level of immunity actually seems to have slowed this virus down a lot, meaning it's probably only that initial couple of weeks where immunity is at near zero that hospitals needs to seriously concern themselves about reaching capacity. distancing aside, 20% immunity seems to be putting enough of a dent in transmission to make it manageable...

so, that's just what's happening in the south right now - the virus is running through a population with almost no immunity. this is the first wave. it may take a long time to burn itself out, but it should slow down considerably when immunity gets to around 20%.

up here in canada, it's harder to tell if we've been slowly and quietly inching towards those initial ramp down numbers, or if we managed to actually stop it at a lower rate of precedence through public health measures. you know what i think, but we don't actually know. there's some randomized bloodbank tests underway that should give a better picture...and this will help us understand how vulnerable we remain...

you have to understand that my position from the start of this is that herd immunity isn't a policy decision, it's an inevitable reality. we can't decide to have herd immunity or not; we will have it, whether we like it or not. so, i'm quite adamantly avoiding this idea of needing to take this position that one thing is more important than the other; i'm rather arguing that the public health measures are only going to, at most, slow it down - at great cost.

is new york the first place to actually measure this? are they first to the end of this? they won't be the last - this is going to be reality in most places in the world, in a year, while the anti-immunity idiots sit around waiting for a vaccine.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/10/health/queens-antibody-testing-coronavirus/index.html