i'm glad i got a nice walk in today, at least. judging from last year, talk of "last nice day of the year" doesn't really apply to windsor. we'll get days in the mid teens throughout the winter, here. it'll rain significantly through each of the winter months. the severity of the weather seems to be defined by the severity of the air masses moving south, with a moderately mild climate in between. that is to say that the average winter day here really hovers around 0, and we only get worse than that when we get blasted by that north wind - but we'll also get much, much nicer than that when humid air masses come from the south. that's a big difference from ottawa, where you can expect week long blasts of -30 in between weeks of highs around -10. but it may be the last day of 20+ weather for a while, so i'm glad i got out to enjoy it. even if i had to deal with some rain...

the rest of the day was a bit more frustrating.

i started with the odsp worker. she wasn't able to suggest a doctor, and even seemed somewhat taken aback by the suggestion, as though it was a corrupt request. after some prodding, i got the suggestion of trying the canadian association for mental health, as they may have better leads.

i spent a while talking to somebody there and the conclusion was twofold.

1) camh is indeed probably my best bet - certainly a better idea than randomly keying in on specific doctors. however,
2) i need to go through a lengthy process of analysis.

i have no doubt that i'm easily diagnosed, if you give me the proper session time. it's actually probably the best approach forward from a larger perspective, as once i get that more serious diagnosis it'll stick with me permanently. i want to get the fucking paperwork done and move on, but i need to be patient about it.

so it means i'm looking at what will probably be weekly sessions for the next few months and not having this worked out until the last minute. i won't be able to see an actual physician that can fill out the papers until jan 12, which is a day before i need to get them in.

if it works out, it's kind of perfect because i wanted to wait until the last minute, anyways. but if it doesn't work out this is probably the end of me...

again: i need to not let it stress me out too much, and just keep my head in the tunes. i just need to make some phone calls tomorrow, and then i should have it off my mind for a while.

i just hope they're not thinking that putting it to the last minute is going to alter my behaviour, because it isn't.

i've expressed myself clearly. i don't think the guy i was speaking to today was really taking me seriously. i think a substantial part of the diagnosis presenting itself needs to exist in believing me when i say this is it - this gets done, or i'm dead.

the moment that logical process is understood as more than a hollow threat is the moment a pathology is established.

the annoying thing about it is it always takes the same form "you should have a good job and be making significant money. you have so much potential. you're too smart to off yourself.". what has to be understood is that the reality is "no amount of income is sufficient to compensate for time wasted in employment. when presented with that choice, i'm too smart to not kill myself.".

the other thing is like....if i think the first couple of sessions are a waste of time, i won't bother completing them, i'll just set the gears in motion....

it's this or broke, really. there's not another option.

i'm resigned to this. i need to try, but i'm not confident in the outcome.

work: the confusing phenomenon wherein people spend their entire day doing things they don't want to be doing, and accept it without violent struggle as "normal". see also: wage slavery.

actually, i think he's worse than a troll - he's a cia agent. he's maybe taken over hitchens' place in pushing neo-con doctrine to liberals. there's a point where cenk, in a round about manner, suggests he's taking money from oil companies. i think that's the right answer...

no, i don't have evidence. but he's pushing all the same talking points, like he's getting the same memos.

corbett is thought provoking enough to pay attention to, even if you find yourself largely in disagreement with him. i just want to add my own analysis to this because i find some of the deconstruction to be lacking in a broader narrative.

the american geopolitical goal in the middle east is to maintain a careful balance of power. the americans want each of the powers fighting against each other, without any of them taking control. they'll shift the balances to ensure that this power stays in place. the primary architect of this system was kissinger, who was drawing mostly from bismarck. it's that kind of realpolitik.

so, if the americans wake up and decide that the saudis are getting out of hand, they may covertly support the iranians to balance it out. if they decide the turks are gaining too much influence, they may produce instability in the kurdish regions. if israel is demonstrating too much strength, they may force a concession out of them. of course, these are all american allies, and everything that happens is in the context of each country's dependence on america - which is what america wishes to maintain. the description of "great satan" is actually quite apt, in the way that america sows chaos amongst it's own allies.

isis may have come from al qaeda in iraq, but what's happening right now is a corollary of the arab spring, which was used as an opportunity to reshape the region into an empire centered around riyadh. the thing that defines the new leadership in the middle east is that it is all very closely aligned with the saudis. but, there has been some disagreement about the way it's been done. if you want to look at an existing caliphate, the reality is that iraq and syria are the last remaining arab states that are not under the control of the saudis.

assad, in particular, made an error that cannot be forgiven - he threatened to call elections. this is unacceptable to a saudi regime that sees democracy as it's greatest threat. that democracy may be less real than we'd like, but it's not the point. it's the idea that cannot be tolerated. the israelis seem to share a lot of these real hard line attitudes, for their own reasons.

on the other hand, you have a coalition including the qataris and turks that considers the saudis to be too extreme and wishes to temper their influence. this was the fight between "moderate" and "islamist" forces in syria - and remember they were legitimately killing each other. it was a proxy war between turkey and saudi arabia, and the turks lost.

now, we have this situation: the saudis are getting out of control, so the americans need to step in on behalf of the turks to clean up the border region. but, not to the point that isis is demolished. that would tip the balance of power...

is it an excuse into syria? it seems like an opportunity, but i don't believe the united states army requires an excuse to do anything at all at this point. it's really about pushing the saudis away from turkey, to prevent them from fighting each other and maintain that balance of power. all the other layers (russia v us, saudi v iran, etc) are there, but i think that this is the key one.

i refuse to watch a buzzfeed video that wants to tell me what to eat.

nope. never. won't do it....

why isn't anybody challenging the idea that this is a "terrorist attack"?

re-uploading the wave (inri053) as a single file

i also got the file length restriction on my account lifted, meaning i'm uploading the wave in one file as it should be. that should be done in a few minutes...

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

pfft. she just stopped smoking pot...

deathtokoalas
you don't think that mulcair or trudeau are going to shut down oil production, do you?

i mean, i'd like to see it shut down. but, nothing short of instability from a civil war is going to actually do it.

Slasherhorror19801
Of course you want it shut down it won't have any effect on you what so ever.

Who cares if tons of people are out of work.

No they wouldn't shut it down ,but they would do there best to sabotage it.

deathtokoalas
well, i think it's well established that it'll have a pretty big effect on the climate if we don't shut it down, actually.

the factor nobody understands is that that much oil on the border of the empire is a national security issue. it's in the hands of the military.

Jay Dubeta
actually she's not joking. Google it an you'll find out that the last election was rigged by the conservatives, similar to how there was a voter recall scam when Gore was up against Bush in 2000 - right before 911.

Here, I did it for you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Canadian_federal_election_voter_suppression_scandal

http://o.canada.com/news/federal-judge-confirms-election-fraud-in-2011-vote

deathtokoalas
this is largely propaganda, and i wish they'd drop it because it's annoying. there were some attempts to send voters to the wrong polls. while those kinds of tactics are illegal here, it's well established that it didn't affect the outcome of the election.

around '05 or so, i got a job working as a survey interviewer to give me some spending money when i was in school. i ended up going back to the place between jobs for many years afterwards, as there's a huge turnover in these places and the management liked me. some time between '05 and '11 the company converted itself from doing mostly ekos overflow to doing work for political candidates. the odd poll for liberal candidates came in, but, in hindsight, i wonder if they were legit; by the time of the '11 election, the firm was almost solely doing surveys for the conservative party.

the "surveys" mostly took the same form - call the number, ask them if they can "rely on the vote" of a conservative candidate and move to the next call. but, there were some funny aspects.

they had us harassing people in helena guergis' riding, for example. we were supposedly calling on her behalf. i doubt that. the numbers weren't refreshing, so we were just calling the same people over and over again. the purpose seemed to be to piss people off - "on behalf of helena guergis".

i was in the building the day of the election, but i was taken off the phone to do database work. at the beginning of the shift, the owner of the company gave a little speech to the room telling people to NOT read the part of the script explaining that the polling place had changed. he was very adamant about this, and stressed it throughout the day.

the firm disappeared within about a month of the election. but, that's the answer you're looking for - they weren't "robocalls", they were just kids reading a script. the fraud was being carried out by a series of polling firms connected to the conservative party. this particular firm did not co-operate, and seems to have lost the contract as a result.

but, if you've worked one of these jobs you know that:

1) 70% of people hang up without any conversation.
2) nobody believes what a polling douche tells them.

as mentioned, it's slimy. sure. but, it's a new way to do something that is endemic. and there's no evidence it made any difference.

i haven't been paying attention recently, but it's becoming more clear what's going on.

deathtokoalas
putting aside the events of earlier this week, which i do not believe fit the description of a "terrorist attack", and reflecting purely on the domestic politics...

....it sounds very nice, but the problem is that i don't believe what he says. it's less a question of his trustworthiness and more a function of not being entirely aware of the way the world has changed over the last ten years. the kind of military sovereignty that canada enjoyed through the second half of the twentieth century is not likely to be restored any time soon. our military decisions are being made in washington and brussels. he's speaking of decisions that the office he aspires to no longer has control over, and making promises he can't keep.

the liberals have not been in office during the period that power has shifted out of ottawa and are likely to experience a possibly unworkable culture shock if or when they are re-elected.

i don't know if the events have changed his policy. they shouldn't. these isolated attacks (if they are even that) have no effect on the correctness of his analysis - if anything, they demonstrate it's strength. the unfortunate truth is that it doesn't matter, because these decisions are being made over the head of the office he aspires to.

this is a solid analysis, even if it's from a distance.

something that's not being reported is that the guards in front of the monument are fairly recent. the monument is a wwI thing, mostly. there's been some vandalism at war monuments across the country. wwI was....kind of not a good war to fight, especially not from a distance over in canada. we got slaughtered. the brits used us as cannon fodder. but, this is a guns & flags patriotic conservative government so they put guards in front of the monument.

the irony is immediately apparent. in the sense that we fought for something in at least the second world war, it was to fight against police states. then, you go and put some guards in front of the monument. there is actually significant opposition to this in canada, but it's the kind of populist opposition that is without any kind of representation.

regardless, the target is sort of curious, isn't it?

Chadi Beydoun
Why didn't they load the guns?

deathtokoalas
a lot of canadians would argue they shouldn't be standing there at all. we fought to abolish police states, not to uphold them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVtmKNV4CR4

that's funny, sam. i saw you on maher the other day pushing the point that "liberals" don't take "radical islam" seriously - and throwing shit around like a legitimate demagogue. then, you argue you won't misrepresent your opponents? laughable. if sam harris had any credibility at one point, it's gone now. now he's something like ann coulter - somebody that says crazy things to sell books.

i haven't seen enough of this to know if cenk is making the mistake of taking him seriously or playing along, but people need to clue in - he's a troll.

regarding the polling, you have to keep in mind that there is very little freedom of expression in the "muslim world", however you define it. it's kind of like how stalin had a 99% approval rating. if you put that kind of poll in action in saudi arabia or iran, it's going to be interpreted as a government witch hunt for non-believers. if you ask these questions amongst recent emigrants, the fear has yet to wear off, and you get the same kind of response as you'd get from polish immigrants while the soviet dictatorships were still in power.

see, and here's the thing: i think harris knows this and rather than temper the results to counteract for the bias he's exploiting them for profit.

so, unfortunately, cenk can't seem to get his head around the idea of there not existing a total ordering on the messianic religions - that they can be generally roughly the same and totally different in different ways at the same time. this is actually why i don't watch his show. he's not so good at subtlety of thought. kind of an oaf sometimes. it's not really a debate that's going on here....

he almost made a good point about religion being used by states rather than the other way around, which is a point i've never seen harris acknowledge. but, again, i think he realizes that acknowledging it would take some edge out of his position. i'm hoping they get to this point because it's the proper way to deal with sam harris.

he suggests that oppression against homosexuality wouldn't happen if it weren't in the book. yet, it wasn't put in the book by accident. if it were taken out of the book somehow, the elite would write a new book. as the religion is pushed down, you don't change things by stamping out the religion, you change things by stamping out the hierarchy that pushes the religion down.

Dana Zikas
Without realizing it i  think youve just supported Harris' position regarding the "real" mainstream of Islam. These polls also were conducted in more open societies of Indonesia and Turkey, not merely thought-police states like Saudi Arabia and Iran.  So your point is that these polls of adherents are skewed because theyre all too terrified of telling the truth because of...ummm...THE APPLICATION OF ISLAMIC LAW???

deathtokoalas
religions have historically been systems of totalitarianism designed specifically to uphold statist control. that's as true in indonesia, china, uganda, the united states or russia as it is in saudi arabia. that is and always has been the liberal position on religion.

but, the control is more violent in islamic societies, so you can't go around asking them what their views on religion are. i means, it's exactly what isis is doing. they're not just killing christians and yazidis, they're also slaughtering the shia as "heretics", often with little more evidence than a passport or a place of birth. if they were to get a hold of a study like this, the respondents would be systematically targeted. and, note that iraq was a secular society before the catastrophe happened.

so, somebody phoning you up and asking you what your interpretation of islam is is consequently - rationally - to be interpreted as a matter of life or death in the responses. do 90% of muslims believe apostates should be killed, or are 90% of muslims afraid of telling an interviewer their thoughts on the matter should they become the murdered heretic?

it's important to realize the difference, because it converts people living in muslim countries from backwards savages into repressed victims.

i'm not agreeing with sam harris at all, i'm merely stating the liberal position that he routinely mischaracterizes.

MathVids4All
simple question - do specific beliefs manifest as specific actions?  If your answer is yes, then you align with Harris.  If your answer is no, then you align with the "Liberal" apologists who deny that religious people actually believe the things they claim to, or that their beliefs have any influence on their actions.

deathtokoalas
again, you're constructing a straw man in misrepresenting the views of "liberals" on the topic. this straw man is what defines harris' position.

in order to understand how religion affects somebody, you need to look at a broader picture, the most important aspect being the social and economic conditions the individual is living in. as stated famously, religion is the opiate of the masses. it is the drug that gives the poor solace.

now, of course, the exact reaction is dependent on the nature of the nonsense, but nobody is going to deny that. what liberals will do is point out that the root cause of the violence is the levels of social inequality that produce the desperation, and that if the inequality was abolished then what was in the books wouldn't matter.

the liberal position consequently reduces - and always has reduced - to the position that the way to abolish religion is to abolish poverty first, and the state second.

so, do i think people actually believe this stuff? some do, others don't.

generally, i don't think the people organizing the religions believe the stuff - the bankers, the princes, the pastors, the rabbis, the imams, etc. their role is to control people. generally, they're nihilists. they push the belief system that serves as a means to an end. the nature of what they're pushing matters, but they pick what they want to push; the debate misses the point about religion being a system of hierarchical control.

do i think the victims of religion believe in it? i think it provides them with something to hold on to in an otherwise difficult existence.

i recently lost my father to cancer. he was a pretty rational guy through most of his life, but he started turning to what more or less reduces to magical potions near the end. i couldn't take any of it seriously, but what do you tell a terminal cancer patient? "don't eat the mushrooms, dad. the mushrooms won't help. accept your death.". it's harsh. but, did he believe the mushrooms would help? it's hard to say. on some level, i think he probably did. he had to put his faith somewhere.

if there was a cure to this disease, i wouldn't be asking these questions. and, if we can reverse poverty i think we'll stop having to ask questions about whether believers really believe or not, too.

it's a question of separating between the rulers and the ruled, and you could say the same thing about any other system of control. you could say the same thing about democracy. the senate house leaders, the president and the people that pay them out have no actual delusions about democracy, and don't really believe in it's application. yet, they stand on the podium and yell it out. do the people on the ground believe in what they say? on some level, sure.

==

i'm still not done watching this yet, but cenk has articulated himself a little better as it goes on and touched on a lot of these points.

you want to look at religion as a catalyst in violent behaviour. the ireland/palestine conflict is actually a good example, because you couldn't possibly compare the "oppression" that catholics in ireland experienced to the fucking oppression that palestinians experience, and yet you see them adopt roughly the same tactics. how about the guy that set himself on fire in tunisia? or the people committing suicide in greece? or the violent attacks in ukraine? but in all these circumstances what you have is an economic basis.

from what i know about cenk, he's not going to want to align himself firmly with this kind of marxist interpretation of history, but it's really almost always the right approach. even with historical jihad. i don't think anybody really takes this idea of religious zealotry driving the muslim expansion seriously anymore - it's generally explained in terms of a marginalized population taking advantage of two collapsing empires, to the point that the old narrative is largely even discarded as "racist" (although i think that's a bit of a provocative exaggeration). now, yes, there's been some whitewashing of history: the muslims had a three front invasion of europe happening through spain, italy and the balkans so the crusades were far from unprovoked aggression. but the crusaders spent as much time attacking the byzantines as they did attacking the muslims. even with the crusades, the primary example of religious zealotry, the religion was largely an excuse to carry out geostrategic manoeuvres.

in situation after situation, the economics and politics of the situation really dominates. you're hard pressed to find much of any example at all where religion acts as a better explanation - except as a means of convincing people to die for the rulers.

even isis is being funded by incredibly wealthy interests in saudi arabia. all the propaganda, all the training camps - this stuff costs money, and the people paying for it have interests they're promoting. you hear periodic reports that explain that large amounts of the foreign fighters don't even know what theatre they're fighting in. they think they're fighting the jews rather than stamping out a regime that is unfriendly to saudi interests.

i've never seen anybody argue that the actual fighters don't believe the religion, but it's a relatively trivial point when you put it into the context of what's actually happening. if you want to make the argument "this wouldn't happen if they didn't have religion as a tool of control", you have to weigh it against all the other tools of control and conclude that it's probably not true. "this wouldn't happen if people weren't in desperate situations" is probably the better approach, because there's always some way to take control of people that have nothing to lose.

MathVids4All
As for your views, I see a number of problems.   If you look at the private words and consistent behavior of people such as Osama bin Laden, it is plainly evident that although control may have been one thing that was on his mind, it is impossible for him to have been the secular nihilist like you think he is.  Moreover, if poverty is the driver, then why would Osama bin Laden leave a wealthy, privileged life in order to live in the caves of Afghanistan and fight Soviets as a rebel?  The only thing that makes sense is if he actually believed in paradise as he claimed to.

deathtokoalas
well, my understanding is that osama didn't really give up much luxury - he had people waiting on him, as a south african aristocrat might. i don't think you can really read that much into a preference for the bush over the palace. but, for that precise example, there's vendettas and whatnot involved, as well. if you take it back to the question of why he got involved in the mujahideen in the first place, it's clear the answer is control over afghanistan. i mean, for all the rhetoric of expelling the atheist communists, there's a tax base waiting once the situation stabilizes itself. i think there's been substantial naivete on that point from all angles.

i also think there's a certain cultural basis that goes beyond the religion that we're really not that far removed from in the west. we still have a house of lords in britain, for example. but the conqueror-prince has extinguished itself here, while it hasn't quite extinguished itself yet in the arab lore.

if you do the thing that nobody in the west wants you to do - actually analyze al qaeda's demands - you realize that it's really just a spin on the anti-colonial struggle that's defined 20th century global politics. you need to take the stuff about the caliphate back to promises the british made during world war one (they were supposed to set up an arab caliphate in exchange for fighting against the turks), but at the end of the day the reality is that the caliphate is really little more than the indigenous form of government in the arab world. the stuff about getting american bases out of saudi arabia isn't really much different than kicking the british out of india, it just has a different spin to it. and, who denies that the western-backed dictators in the region are legitimately tyrants? if you really disassemble it carefully and rationally, what you get out of al qaeda is the perfect example of a nationalist or anti-colonialist struggle interpreting itself through it's indigenous culture, which happens to be islam. it's just that you have to work through incredible amounts of propaganda to get yourself to that point.

you could throw the counter-argument out there: if he really believed in heaven, why did he hide in a cave for ten years and deny responsibility for the attacks the west claimed he was responsible for? why didn't he blow himself up instead of paying or coercing people to do the work for him? there's another layer of complexity there in trying to determine which accusations are valid and which aren't, but at the end of the day the actions simply don't suggest somebody with an unwavering belief in an afterlife - they suggest somebody with an ability to manipulate people into doing what he wants.

just to clarify: i'm not taking a conspiratorial view. but the reality is that the state department never presented a case against al qaeda for 9/11. whatever evidence exists remains classified. further, he repeatedly denied responsibility. so, in that situation (according to western customs, at least), the proper approach is "innocent until proven guilty". that trial simply never happened. so, was he hiding and denying because he was falsely accused or because he feared the consequences? neither is the action of a fundamentalist.

i'll just point out the obvious: terrorist groups usually take responsibility for their attacks. generally, they're political statements. knowing that a specific group is behind a specific action is the entire point of the action in the first place. so, it's....curious...that al qaeda never took responsibility for these attacks.

there should be a sobering process attached to the reaction to this video: equality is a partisan issue, not a populist one. the widespread idea that the kids are being used to push a "partisan agenda" (rather than stating universal values) indicates we have a lot further to go than we thought. perhaps it's even a measure of the extreme levels of regression we've experienced since the 80s. but it needs to wake some people up: gender equality is considered a "left-wing special interest" in the united states.

nobody believes a word you say, stephen.

here's the thing: there has been a stream of reports about an upcoming "terrorist attack" coming out of ottawa - enough to put together that the state was planning something. so, many people (including myself) were expecting something.

this was clearly not planned by an outside group, and the idea that isis cares about canada is laughable. i've been careful to point out that the idea of an isolated lunatic cannot be ruled out. but, the sum of the evidence suggests a staged event.

the severity of the conflict in the middle east is spiraling out of control. we're legitimately on the brink of a world war - one we're expected to play a role in. but, canadians are isolationists. we don't want this. something like this is necessary to change our minds.

it might not be enough to change our minds, partially because it's so transparent. enough people can clearly process what's going on that it might not work. if you're confused right now, that's by design. but you need to prepare yourself for massive escalation in the middle east and possible canadian casualties along with that escalation. this is your filter to understanding this. it's what you're supposed to remember every time you have doubts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy8acMKab1A

https://www.c-span.org/video/?322288-1/canadian-prime-minister-harper-address-ottawa-shootings

the zionist/aipac (i heard apec at first, i guess aipac makes more sense) yelling isn't helping, but this is the right approach. protesters, in general, should not bother with major media. you're not going to be the lucky one that gets the story through. they're going to frame it, skew it and present it inaccurately. that's why they're there in the first place.

we day is the perfect clicktivist generation action - by doing absolutely nothing, to the point where there isn't even a coherent statement of purpose, you can accomplish everything! young people today would have it no differently. it's what they were taught...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWABa0L-PcA

Derekzz4
Why the hell would anyone want to kill the Canadian prime minister? Everyone loves canda

deathtokoalas
if you kill harper, you take control of the tar sands. duh...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVtmKNV4CR4

Y2K Core
Because ISIS hates everyone.

arkenfel
lets be real why all of a sudden it has to be isis there are many other groups this was home grown or a lone wolf

deathtokoalas
isis, as an organization, has about as much interest in canada as a lion has in hunting seals. the most cursory analysis rejects it from the set of contemplated possibilities, as so unlikely that it's not worth contemplating.

and, yet the pm jumped right to it. therefore, it's bullshit.

beyond a basic logical deconstruction, this simply doesn't fit the profile of a sophisticated terrorist group.

we know from his past attempts to lie to us that stephen doesn't think we're very smart

bluntly: i think the orders came from washington, under threat of tremendous consequences. there was little he could have done to stop it. but, the contempt for our intelligence in which this was carried out is really a new low for a government that has shown nothing but contempt for us.

the idea that this is an isis plot to kill stephen harper is nothing short of hilarious. you're looking at two realistic scenarios:

1) false flag. most likely.
2) crazy person being crazy.

i'm initially from ottawa, and i'm opposed to the state putting guards in front of the war monument - or armed soldiers in any public space at all. that's a fairly widely held view. but, obviously, few people are sanctioning that kind of response.

in fact, the name actually sounds familiar. i wouldn't read into this at all. but, if you're going to, i think you're probably dealing with a self-described libertarian (but, in reality, crazy person being crazy) rather than a muslim extremist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVtmKNV4CR4

expect a stronger canadian response in syria than has been the norm in canada since the second world war (excluding the gulf war, i suppose).

that war in the middle east is on the brink of boiling over into wwIII, with nato forces directly fighting against russian and iranian ones. the canadian people won't be told this. but, the canadian government is expected to take this conflict seriously.

ottawa "terrorist attack" is probably a false flag to justify a larger canadian presence in the escalating syrian war.

however, there is significant local opposition to the stationing of guards in front of this memorial. i'm opposed to it, myself. it may have been a kook that was "fighting the police state". if so, he really didn't help his cause.

....but probably not.

it's pretty obvious....

On Tuesday, Canada sent six warplanes to the Middle East to participate in U.S.-led air strikes against Islamic State militants who have taken over parts of Iraq.

great...

Harper pledged to speed up a plan already under way to bolster Canadian laws and police powers in the areas of "surveillance, detention and arrest".

yeah.

bullshit.

the day i saw you cry (first demo)

this is a messy folk punk first run through of the second incarnation of this track, which was initially meant to be an industrial/punk song. it would be nice to have another take of this, but i don't have one, so it's better if you interpret this as a bonus track. there are completed versions of this, but they're not like this...

recorded feb 19, 2002.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-day-i-saw-you-cry-first-demo

9:16 outside of the magenta box

this is the original demo, that the main track was built over. it is completely unaltered from the 2002 file, which was recorded on feb 5, 2002. 

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/9-16-outside-the-magenta-box

time (rabit is wolf mix)

hrmmn. i'm actually thinking i'm going to need to squeeze another single in to explore time as a techno/hip-hop "thing".

i think this is a good quirky early 00s pop song in the style of garbage or the smashing pumpkins, but the mix never resolved itself and the vocals are, in hindsight, somewhat of a noose around it...

listening to each part separately through headphones is just reminding me how thick it is and how poorly i got the thickness across.

written & recorded in late 2001 and early 2002 and mixed in early 2002.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/time

right, so what you need to do is throw out the model of cladistics - the "tree of life". the model keeps shifting, but it's unworkable. you need to think of it more like a complex graph of genetic interplay...

there would have likely been a handful of related primate species around a few million years ago that could have interbred with each other. so, you would have had the genes flowing around in a complicated web of flow that went through various transitional stages and ended with the three species.

there is not one common ancestor that the three species shares. there are several, and they've left us their genes in a complicated, non-linear way.

http://www.upf.edu/enoticies/en/1112/0309.html#.VEjnCBCGrZ4

this'll get them going: in a crude sense, it is probably true that a distant human ancestor was created through the hybridization of gorilla and chimpanzee ancestors.

this was actually the first thing that crossed my mind when this shit erupted. you'll see it if you scroll down a bit.

http://www.businessinsider.com/putin-offered-to-partition-ukraine-with-poland-2014-10

"He went on to say Ukraine is an artificial country and that Lwow is a Polish city and why don’t we just sort it out together."

not poland, exactly. but nato. poland here is a euphemism for nato; poland does not have an independent foreign policy, as it is not a sovereign state.

poles are moving up in the world though, eh?

they're not atheists and, as an atheist, i really refuse to treat them differently than any other theist. it's some kind of weird combination of pseudo-scientific magical disney-like thinking and blatant nihilism. like, at least you can construct the bulk of humanism out of christianity due to the shared roots in natural law. these guys don't even have that kind of basic grounding in rationalism. not only can you consequently not get anything at all worthwhile out of it, merely a set of ridiculous delusions, but it's decidedly more dangerous than the rest of them. so, satanism needs to be killed. with fire...

a real atheist would consider that ritual to be a stupid waste of time.

the concept of a "public place" doesn't negate the harassment. the courts don't operate like computers, they demonstrate a lot of flexibility. most of the time, they use that flexibility to screw over poor people, but once in a while they use it to clarify the laws.

you can use some common sense to come up with the right decision.

legal: casually flying over a topless tanner and coincidentally getting footage of it.
harassment: swerving in and out of a topless tanner's personal space, trying to get a good shot.

it's not really a question of establishing the legality of drones, it's more a question of establishing a level of etiquette in using them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WcukJ4Vs-4

i hear you should invest in high tech stocks. what? it didn't work out last time? shut up, they weren't born yet...

Kazikox
Aren't they all atheists?

deathtokoalas
atheism is faith that the deity does not exist. agnosticism is a lack of belief.

satanists believe in magic. there must be a supernatural force that has the ability to produce the magic. therefore, satanists are not atheists.

PRHILL9696
Satanism is a subset of atheism. Satanists are elite atheists it is that simple

deathtokoalas
just because you believe something is true doesn't mean it actually is.

do you accept that you believe in magic? then you're not an atheist. deal with it.

further, there's nothing "elite" about satanism. you're a bunch of fucking delusional dipshits, as far as i can see. if it's elite, it's elite in the same way that certain classes are for the "special" kids.

PRHILL9696
you talk like a small child. I am trying to have an adult talk here can you try and do the same. I am giving facts and you are not it is that simple

deathtokoalas
the fact is that if you believe in magic then you are not an atheist and no amount of magical thinking will change that fact - no matter how elite you claim to be.

this is what you need to do when you find a satanist - throw it in their face. contradict their solipsism. prove them wrong in front of their own eyes. break the delusion. destroy the cult.

Painless1992
Nah, if you believe in Satan, it means you also believe in God, because Lucifer is part(character) of the bible and stands for the exact opposite of what God will stand for and "provide" you with. So this guy saying that they don't believe in afterlife, isn'tsatanist of it's essence, for them "hell" should be the afterlife but not from the point of view as Christians see it or the concept of it. For me it looks like he doesn't even know what he stands for. If he was "satanist in his belief", he would worship Satan as his lord and that there is some sort of different existence after this life. But if he believes there's no spiritual connection with anything and that there isn't any sort of other life besides the one you're living, he should be Atheist and shouldn't worship anything, because he doesn't believe in anything of the cult.

PRHILL9696
Satanists are not christians they are elite atheists who love life and deny the supernatural which is why so many atheistic groups embrace them

Painless1992
I never said satanists were christians, all I said is if you believe in satan as unholy force, you also believe in god. Don't mix atheists with satanists, because as I explained before, atheists don't believe in any of the religious cults, while satanists are opposite force to christians and "fight", represent the opposite of what christians stand for.

PRHILL9696
But satanism is a subset of atheism they are atheists, atheism is one of the components of the Satanic philosophy which is why many atheistic groups support them

deathtokoalas
pr hill sure seems rather.....

....brainwashed...

....doesn't he...?

like he's under the control of a cult, or something.

it's almost as though he's been influenced by a religion...

hey, mr "elite atheist", can you tell us something that differs from what you've been brainwashed with? can you think for yourself?

let me guess. you're going to respond by stating the dogma a 27th time.

PRHILL9696
Satanists are elitists  who think for themselves which is something your cult is against as they want to control people. I am just happy more and more people are getting out of that shit and now lead happy normal lives as they should as they are good people

deathtokoalas
mmhhhmm

Painless1992
Buddy, no offence, but you sound hilarious.

PRHILL9696
no offense taken because I know I am stating facts and there is nothing funny about that

paul
Fact: genetically black Africans are more distant from white Europeans than polar bears are from brown bears.

Vlad I
Let me tell you why that's bullshit, because you obviously are retarded, Ok now use your big boy words because I don't want your head to hurt too much (I'm being condescending for a reason) ok buddy, Brown Bear known as Ursus arctos is a completely different species of animal than a polar bear which is known as Ursus maritimus, ok so a white person is known as a Homo sapiens sapiens, and now a black person is known as a homo sapiens sapiens, do you know why that is? BECAUSE WE ARE THE SAME FUCKING SPECIES YOU FUCKING MONGOLOID IGNORANT AND JUST PLAIN STUPID RACIST FUCKTARD!

paul
Its based on the last common ancestor . Source:  Research carried out by Alywyn Scalley and Richard Durbin from the University of Cambridge which puts the out of Africa migration event at between 100 - 120 thousand years ago whereas polar bears split from brown bears 343,000 to 479 ,000 years ago. Non Africans also have some Neanderthal add-mixture which means European also have neanderthal ancestry which means their last common ancestor with Africans must be the last neanderthal - Africans common ancestor at 700,000 to 1,000000 years ago. 

TheLaLa1
fact: genetically, light colored cocker spaniels are more distant from dark colored cocker spaniels than black Africans are from white Europeans.

Isaac
Don't like the use of the word Mongoloid there, but well done none the less.

deathtokoalas
the actual fact is that you can't even define the terms "genetically black africans" or "white europeans". almost everybody in europe is a mix of asian and african; almost everybody in africa has experienced genetic backflow from back migration. there's even areas of black africa with r1b as dominant. race has no biological meaning.

google quickly informs me that scalley & durbin have published some papers discussing the mutation rate in humans and arguing that the assumptions underlying the mutation rate are flawed. that's a valid academic discussion that exists in multiple conversations. while i haven't read these papers, i've read enough to state clearly that the idea that anything related to mutation rates is a "fact" is simply wrong. mutation rates are very fragile estimates. it seems that the crux of their argument is how fragile the estimates are, not how "factual" they are.

further, if the implication is that you can determine how different groups are from their common ancestor by taking a fixed rate and dividing for age then the answer is "no". emphatically. it's absurd. crocodiles and sharks have been virtually identical over that period, while dozens of species of birds have radiated quickly on islands. i can't believe they would publish something like that. so, are you drawing these conclusions yourself or is somebody lying to you? if the latter, who is it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on0mT8MQ-Wg

paul
Starting with the outlandish lie that most Europeans are African - Asian hybrids really pulls the rug out from under you're credibility. Race is a taxonomy term, By saying a taxonomy term has no biological meaning is painting yourself as a loon. I partially accept you're criticism of mutation rates. Evidently changing environmental conditions is the catalyst for rapid evolution and accelerated mutations rates. In this regard humans and polar bears share obvious parallels.

deathtokoalas
actually, there's a great deal of admixture in both.

1) while the sahara has acted as a mild geographic boundary, it hasn't prevented gene flow around it, specifically up the nile and around the arabian peninsula, as well as through what is now called morocco. this is something you can measure in the y dna. the most obvious way to make sense of it is to look at the semitic language group, which is thought to have originated in modern somalia and worked it's way up through the middle east. that is to say the jews and arabs speak a language that developed amongst dark skinned people in eastern africa - and you can trace the gene flow along with it through the spread of farming and right into central europe.

2) the r1* type probably originated in central asia and simultaneously moved south and west along with the indo-european language group. this movement of asian peoples into europe with r1* went as far west as you can go - right into ireland. the original carriers of r1*, which dominates in europe, were probably not pasty white.

3) there's also been large amounts of genetic movement from the far east of asia - and this can be measured in historical terms with movements of turkic and mongolian peoples. again, it's right into central europe.

if there was an "indigenous european genetic type", it's primarily tied to what are today the basque people. there's some further remnants in the british isles. for the most part, though, the genetics of europe are defined by those two gradients from the east and the south - which are from asia and africa, respectively - and not through a process of isolation or stasis.

further, the idea that race is a sociological concept with absolutely no biological basis is the consensus view today. i'm sorry if you've been led astray, but that's what virtually any scientific-minded person will tell you about it. what i'm telling you is the reason why. you simply cannot connect skin colour to any genetic trait other than skin colour. there's been far too much gene flow across phenotypic barriers to allow for it to make sense.

you can even find examples of white people born to two very black parents, or black people born to two very white parents.

now, with the mutation rates, the argument that the rate changes as a result of the environment is what is called orthogenesis. that requires a supernatural cause as a mechanism to explain it. it's bollocks. you may see selection act more strongly as a result of climate changes, but that doesn't imply a faster mutation rate.

the entire idea of a "mutation rate" is really deeply flawed. you could measure something statistically if you had enough data, but it's a totally abstract and largely imaginary idea.

mutations are random. the rate doesn't increase or decrease. how fast they happen isn't even important. what's important is the selective pressure.

i'm going to carefully agree that europeans are going to have different selective pressures than africans. but, as i've mentioned, there's been a lot of gene flow.

with humans, the truth is that our selective pressures are largely sexual rather than environmental. with the twerking craze, we're seeing attention drawn to the asses of women of colour. that's not environmental. it's sexual. similarly, blond hair colour amongst white people seems to be driven by sexual selection.

TheLaLa1
"painting yourself as a loon"? most leading anthropologists and geneticists these days all say that race is not a biological term.. the same scientists that write the papers you read.. so are they loons?

paul
A persons race can be determined with just about 100% accuracy by analysing their DNA. A persons race can also be identified using bone morphology. If its measurable then it is biologically real. Saying race is a social construct is simply political correctness imposed on biological reality. In view of the morphological and genetic differences among human populations, how can such differences be "constructs"

"All say race is a not a biological term"  So you have spoken to all of them then?

African or Asian admixture is basically at trace levels and is mostly restricted to southern Europe. Its also does not negate the integrity of human races or subspecies. For example polar bears on occasion interbreed with brown bears producing  hybrid offspring and Coyotes are known to interbreed with Grey wolves. Every organism on this planet shares at the very least 60 genes with any other. A blue whale shares some of its genes with bacteria. Biology is fuzzy borders, hence the species problem. You're add mixture argument is meaningless.

Lastly. I will concede you're point on mutations.

deathtokoalas
the entire r1* "white gene" is asian in origin. what we today call celts were living in afghanistan and practicing something closely resembling hinduism a few thousand years ago, living as one with ancestors of modern indians. it's not that i'm arguing that europeans aren't "pure", and more that i'm arguing that the entire idea of "racial purity" is impossible to define. you've got the finns. they're bottlenecked. otherwise, european populations are defined by immigration into the region, not by stasis since the ice age. it consequently just doesn't make any sense to try and say "this is white, this is black" regarding anything other than the skin colour itself.

the old cranial type typology regarding bone morphology has been thoroughly debunked. it's been demonstrated that human bone structure is defined by plasticity, not genetics. you can expect that europeans in california will demonstrate convergent evolution in their bone structures and melanin levels and eventually look similarly to the indigenous people of the region. another example of convergence is to compare people in the amazon with people from polynesia. they're very difficult to distinguish from each other in terms of morphology, but share almost no gene flow (amazonians descending from siberia over the bering land bridge, with polynesians coming relatively recently from "indochina"). the typology you're referencing is incomplete, overlaps with itself and is unreliable in characterizing what it wishes to typify. in short, it's useless at doing what it claims to be able to do.

the dna thing is also a weird argument. there's been tons of european r1* admixture into north america since colonization. substantial numbers of people living on reserves have european patrilineal lineages, with indigenous genes everywhere else on the family tree. so, are these people indigenous or european? again: the problem is that you can't define what this means.

antred11
Maybe they are. Now explain why that should matter.

deathtokoalas
they aren't. this idea of separate, equal races is just as wrong as racism is...

(deleted response)

deathtokoalas
i'm not sure if this person decided not to read what i wrote, or if this person was unable to follow what i wrote. laziness or stupidity? even when it seems obvious, it's never really entirely clear... 

(deleted response)

paul
" A persons geographical background can be determined rather than race/subspecies"  As with any other divergent subspecies of animal, both geographical ancestry and race or subspecies can be determined from genetic markers. Geographical isolation is part of the set criteria for determining if a populations is a divergent  subspecies or not. Morphologically distinguishable populations that arise from geographically isolated populations are generally categorized as subspecies. Human subspecies / races meet the scientific criteria for subspecies therefore are just as valid or invalid as any other subspecies of animal.

Species / races concept is Darwinian in origins. Race denial is the corruption of science for political purposes.

As I have previously stated that there is continuous gene flow between polar bears and brown bears and also Grey Wolves and coyotes to name just  two examples. If you want to persist with the add mixture argument then to be consistent you would also have to label the taxonomy category of species meaningless on precisely the same grounds. 

Anthropologist in crime labs across the United States are still using skeletal features to identify a persons race.

deathtokoalas
i've already corrected the points, there's no use in continuing - i'm not trying to convince "paul smith" so much as i'm trying to moderate his youtube graffiti.

the only other thing i want to point out is that "the legal system does it" is about the worst argument possible, given the legal system routinely ignores science in favour of ideology. they may very well be using these ideas, but they shouldn't be.

again: the defining factor for bone structure is not genetics, and trying to use bone structure to determine origin is going to produce unreliable results, at best.

further studies have deduced that population variation has reduced what you're talking about to an unreliable marker. that is, it may be the case that 75% of germans (many of whom have yiddish, turkish or roman ancestry) and 25% of spaniards (many of whom descend from german visigoths, and many of whom are part arabic - and many of whom are both) have some trait. that reduces testing for the trait to a statement involving a probability.

as you're dealing with populations that demonstrate variability rather than homogeneity, you can never know with any certainty whether an individual is of "northern european" or "mediterranean" background by looking at their bones - you can merely produce statements like "60% chance of north germanic ancestry".

paul
Anthropologist analyse skeletal remains for racial pointers because it yields pretty reliable results.

No one is claiming that Northern and Southern Europeans are different races.

As I have already pointed out, some add mixture does not even invalidate species status never mind subspecies or race. Some add mixture. So what, 

Its markers, And I doubt that population variation has reduced by any meaningful extent in ten years.

People started categorizing people into races when they started to encounter different peoples in the middle ages. Later the ideas featured in Darwin,s Origin Of species shaped how people viewed the natural world with its endless variation of organisms including humans. Calling Darwinian,s of the period " Haters " is ignorant.

Ethiopians aren't that hard to distinguish from Southern Indians. Given that Ethiopians have considerable caucasian add mixture similarities between the two populations reflects this. I note you didn't hold up Congo pygmies and Norwegians as examples or even Aborigines and Eskimos.

Obviously from you're comment you're denial of race is politically motivated.

deathtokoalas
the variation was always there. you're going to find caucasoid-types in east asia and africoid-types in scandinavia, they're just at lower percentages of the population.

paul
Before the insanity of open borders what percentage of africoid types were present in Scandinavia prior to the war. Give a percentage and a reliable source.

deathtokoalas
that question is not articulated well. you're dealing with combinations of skull shape, nose size, etc. so, you've got various combinations of "dolicephalic" or "brachycephalic" shapes in both populations. none of these characteristics are unique to any population, but you will see them differ in terms of proportions.

so, you'll end up with bones in scandinavian graveyards that have "negroid" types but in fact belonged to white people that may have had blonde hair and blue eyes; conversely, you'll end up with "caucasoid" bone structures in the middle of africa that came from people that were black.

now, if you're going to do an archaeological dig in these regions, you can make reasonable guesses about what these people looked like based on what we know about the historical population dynamics in the region. but, if you're going to unearth a recent graveyard in north carolina (for example) and you don't know the physical characteristics of the individual involved, the best you can come up with is a probability or an estimate of likelihood - because anything "negroid" has a minority variance in the "caucasoid" population and vice versa.

so, you're asking me for statistics about something that doesn't actually exist. somebody might have tried to compile them anyways (x% of scandinavians are doli or y% are brachy) but i'm not going looking for them.

stated clearly and simply: the typology is false, and at best unreliable.

paul
Anthropologist claim 85% accuracy in determining race which is extremely impressive considering South America and North America have large hybrid populations. I suspect a direct comparison between a Europeans Skull and a sub Saharan Africans skull would yield even higher accuracy.  Considering the skulls of subspecies of tigers are indistinguishable from each other, and lions and tigers skulls are quite difficult to tell apart, the accuracy claimed by anthropologist is profound.

deathtokoalas
well, i don't know where the number 85% came from, but i think that's a proper place to stop as it's an implicit concession of what i'm getting across.

John
So your point is?

He has no point because there isn't one.  Nothing to see here but a dolt.

Jen
Hmm.....so I am a light skinned African American whose parents are Haitian American & with a great grandfather who is white.......what does that make me? If you want to be racist, be a racist, whatever, you're still the minority so bask in your own racist bullshit in your own mind...good for you.......but the fact that you are using bullshit "facts" to support your own racism and bigotry is simply cowardly and pathetic. Come out of the racist closet & accept your racism for what it is, hatred, not logic, so stop trying to mask it as something that it is not. Good day my fellow bear. LOL

LudeMasta991
Gotta love the socialist progressive blowing a gasket.

deathtokoalas
there's nothing progressive about leninism. dude's a fascist and pretty clearly demonstrated it.

paul 
So I am a fascist and every anthropologist in America is seeing things. You need sanctioning.

deathtokoalas
i didn't previously claim you were a fascist, but i'm currently questioning your skills in reading comprehension.

we've been through this - populations exhibit variation in terms of skull size and skull shape.

alex 
I love how you fail to provide any type of scientific evidence to actually prove him wrong.

You bitch and rant about him being a racist then call him a "mongoloid". That's pretty ironic. Since you are obviously ignorant as to why it is I'll tell you that "mongoloid" is actually a racial slur.

His comment wasn't even racist. It was a interesting bit of knowledge that your "white knight" mind immediately interpreted as racist. Lol fuck off Vladdy.

Vlad I
Well actually you pretentious ass I did, I basically stated that science refers to us as one species while they are two different bear species, if black people were that genetically different from white people they would not be Homo sapiens sapiens they would be different, and mongoloid has two differing definitions one the Asian facial features they other would be referring to mentally slow individuals which I was referring to, ans was being used as if someone would use the word retarded.

Oh and it was racist he was implying in genetic standpoints that whites and blacks are as distant from each other as a bonobo is to an orangutan which is plain insulting.

deathtokoalas
you know, vlad, it seems to me that you were probably partially tatar, yourself.

can you piece together why equating "mongoloid" with "retard" is racist?

the biggest problem with communism is communists. sad truth.

i'm just going to leave this here, and remove myself from the thread:
http://www.livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/human-skulls-boas-head-shape/

the connection between race and skull size/shape was debunked decades ago, but the science continues to be ignored by people with ulterior motives in determining "biological race". it's not the only area of biology where people just refuse to get it, but it's one of the more frustrating examples of it because this idea of racial categorization is just so engrained, despite being so wrong.

generally, you get these sorts of arguments from older people, and i'm consequently going to guess that paul smith is probably older than 50. he may have even learned this in an accredited educational institution when he was younger. but it's completely out of date.

you know, and it's not like you can say "they're still uncovering it, they're still working on it".

to the contrary, just about everything has been tried, because a biological racial categorization is what so many people want, and nothing works. it can't be done with any level of certainty or rigour...

you can make probabilistic statements, based on genes and environment. but it's variation that dominates, not characteristics that can be put into boxes and labelled.

you could also read this...

http://physanth.org/about/position-statements/biological-aspects-race/

ALEX
Mongoloid is a racist slur period. What you are doing is basically calling someone a nigger then saying "oh no I meant the other kind of nigger"

Vlad I
Actually the Merriam Websters has two definitions for mongoloid which are both mentioned, and the physical characteristics associated with the Asian people is not considered a pejorative term it is simply a phenotype the same as one would say someone from a Native American would have the traditional characteristics of darker skin, higher cheek bones and jet black hair. Now you would know this if you knew what a homonym was, because the word has two modern meanings the same as faggot in America and faggot in England, I don't think you would get on a Brit's case for using fag would you? I simply was meaning to scold the idiot OP as he is a disgrace to the human race, for his backwardness and plain assholery. I'm sure the moron also believes in Phrenology as well.

deathtokoalas
the usage of the word "mongoloid" as an insult stems from it's use as a racial slur. the idea was that mongoloid types were of inferior intelligence. it's not a coincidence, it's a question of the etymology of the word.

a faggot is a bundle of sticks, which developed independently in two different directions. cigarettes and homosexuals are both things that are sometimes lit on fire, as bundles of sticks are.

"nigger" is the better comparison. the word has a meaning as a "slave" or "ignorant person", but it has a racial context that is not separable from it's use as an insult.

as an aside: you could always try not insulting people.

so, it's actually kind of topical, ironically, because the insult stems from a misperception that the mongoloid skull shape (it's an archaic anthropological term) indicated an affinity with mental retardation. that is, that the facial features of north asians were connected to the facial features of people with autism or down syndrome, and this was presented as an explanation for their inferior intellect. his insult is based on precisely what he's arguing against.

the reality is that he probably didn't understand what he was saying. the correct thing to do is to acknowledge the error and adjust his vocabulary.

Vlad I
I know what mongoloid means (Trust me I know both definitions beforehand, I didn't look it up I just happen to have a pretty good vocabulary), and I have heard it many times in my life, hell we learned both meanings one week for a vocabulary test in English, and I have never heard it once used as a pejorative phrase for someone of Asian descent. My English teachers would use it all the time to point out the dullards in class. I have heard many people use it, never once to an Asian person, but as a basically a synonym for the word retard. When most people use the word retard they do not mean it as insult to the mentally handicapped, they mean to use it as an advanced form of idiocy. Most people I know use words like these not out of hate or dislike for another group, but simply as an adjective for stupidity. Mongoloid may have it's roots in a racist term but it's modern definition has changed from that, I assume you probably say the word retard every now and then, which is considered an insult to the mentally ill, but you are simply referring to someone as a stupid person, because for the most part the societal definition of the word has changed.

deathtokoalas
personally, i'm sensitive enough to avoid the word "retard".

listen: this has been explained to you. the world can't stop you from being an asshole, but don't be surprised when people react badly when you talk like that.

Vlad I
You're being a little judgemental, what about this makes me an asshole, you're just more sensitive to a certain subject than I am, I personally don't believe in bad words, they are just a way to express an emotion such as my anger and disbelief considering OP's just plain stupid comment, what he said was basically equivocating that there is essentially a species gap between two races of people. Ignorant comments like his feed other peoples racism that they have within them when they see that other people believe the stupid shit they believe, they tend to wholeheartedly feel that their racism is ok then. As an individual with a staunch hate of racism his comment enraged me causing me to use unflattering words to characterize him, and I stand behind my decision to use them, because ignorant bigotry such as his is why there is such a gap in living conditions still today between the white experience and the black experience in America, leading to an unfair advantage to caucasians in life.

deathtokoalas
i need to be honest that i don't understand how you can express yourself so hypocritically, other than reducing it the pride of youth. you've let on that you're a young person. your teacher was using a word inappropriately, and you've copied it. your teacher is as much to blame as you are. if you really believe what you're saying, you should thank the posters here for correcting you and confront your teacher on the language. i somehow doubt your teacher didn't understand the language; it's not language that should be used in a classroom.

gantzisballs
Do you even know what the definition of a species is? When Polar bears and Brown bears breed, they produce hybrids, like when lions and tigers breed or when horses and donkeys breed. Hybrids are sterile and don't produce offspring because different species BY DEFINITION, can't create viable offspring. When black and white humans have children, those children are NOT sterile, because black and white humans belong to the same species. A less completely idiotic argument you could make is that different races are different sub-species, but it goes against the quota that generally defines a subspecies. Two separate populations that don't intermix are considered sub-species when at least 15% of species genetic diversity is between those 2 groups. With humans, the most distant genetic distance is between Africans and native Americans and even that is roughly 10% and thusly under the quota for a sub-species. The best argument you could make is that different races look different and therefore can be considered morphological sub-species despite the genetic similarity, since in biology some sub-species were divided based on looks over genes. I believe that Homo-Neanderthalis and Homo-Denisova were the last actual sub-species. Genetic evidence suggests these groups likely bred with homo sapiens and therefore were not separate species, but the last homo-sapien sub-species. They are currently dead (besides Ben Roethelisberger) and only Homo Sapiens Sapiens remains. I honestly don't know why I bothered to post this. Racists are usually far too stupid to comprehend basic biology and generally lack the attention span or reading comprehension to tackle long paragraphs.

deathtokoalas
i have to point out that the species definition is actually considered outdated at this point. it came from a combination of noah's ark and aristotlian classification, culminating in the linnaean classification. all of this happened way, way before we understood the idea of common descent. this system was rooted in the underlying assumption that, because god created each species separately, they could not mix with each other.

we know today that none of the assumptions underlying the aristotlian classification are true, but the idea hasn't died yet. aristotle needs to die hard, but just refuses to! so, we still look at species as independent units rather than existing in a shared tree of life.

if you take a course in biology today, they don't present the old classification anymore. instead, they use a system called cladistics that organizes descent in terms of common ancestors. it's a step forward in breaking free from aristotle's system, but it's not "there yet".

there's also the question of plant biology, which is far more complex. it's common to find plants that are actually hybrids of several species!

a proper system would look more like a directed graph, with all kinds of crossings. "species" would meet in the graph as often as they branch from each other.

it is true that hybrids are sometimes sterile. however, they are often viable and sometimes actually superior. there's a concept in evolutionary biology called hybrid vigour that describes the widespread phenomenon of hybrids outcompeting their ancestor species.

there's a plethora of examples of this happening in front of our faces, but i'm going to point to two examples that are in the news. one of them is the "killer bees" that have moved north from brazil into the united states, decimating local bee populations. the killer bee is a hybrid of african and european species. but, you might argue that these were artificially selected. a natural hybrid that's been occurring recently in the eastern part of north america is between coyotes and wolves, producing the coywolf. these animals are replacing both coyotes and wolves in their respective niches.

the conclusion to draw is actually that the species concept is too simplistic to be useful. one could turn around and define a species as a group of animals that are able to interbreed with each other, but if one were to do this then the entire aristotlian hierarchy would collapse.

it's known that grizzlies and polar bears can in fact produce viable offspring. using the definition of species presented, you'd end up arguing that bears are one species rather than that humans are multiple species.

but, that would be missing the point that we share a common descent and the only way to figure out if animals that look sort of similar can breed or not is to try it - on the individual level, rather than the species level.

gantzisballs
You are correct that that the Ernst Mayr definition of species that I was using is considered outdated by many in current evolutionary biology. Mayr's definition was created in the late 1940s when molecular genetics didn't exist yet and genetics in general was still in its "infancy" so to speak. Unfortunately, this definition is still widely used in US colleges for undergraduate biology courses. The more detailed, accurate, and modern methods are only taught at graduate level biology courses. I was a chemistry major and I am currently in medical school, so I have never had a graduate level course in evolutionary biology or species taxonomy. I was trying to correct Paul on what I felt was an idiotic statement, but I don't wish to debate you, deathtokoalas, since I am clearly outmatched in this topic.

deathtokoalas
fwiw, my academic background is in mathematics. i've never bothered to take any kind of science (except physics) beyond the 100 level because i find the lab work to be a tremendous waste of time, given that i don't have any aspirations to work in an actual lab. that said, i would have certainly taken higher level bio courses when i was in school if i didn't have to do the lab work. it's a topic of interest to me. but i'm in no way an authority on the topic, i'm just a typical math geek that's widely read up on this particular topic for the purposes of my own amusement.

hybridization, in particular, is something that was looked at very negatively for a long time. it was almost viewed as something subversive, in the way that it undercuts the species concept and the religious and philosophical aspects of it. but it's now widely established as a common way for species to form. and i may hypothesize (from the point of view of a mathematician-philosopher) that it may even have something to do with solving the gould-dawkins debate.

gantzisballs
The thing is with the Gould/Dawkins debate is that both are extremely dogmatic and inflexible. One is genes =everything and often completly ignores the effects of the environment on turning genes on or off (epigenetics). The other is a classical darwinist who is almost all environmental selection and ignores the effects of random mutation, or considers mutations too rare or insignificant. Both are right in some areas, but short sighted and wrong in other areas. Both are popular science writers that are actually better at writing books and making political statements than either are as actual scientists. The only thing Dawkins ever really contributed to science was the "meme" concept, which he himself largely ignores because it isn't genetic in nature. Gould created punctuated equalibrium, which was an important step, but his extreme dislike of eugenics led him to be highly skeptical of any gene centered models of evolution. In the end, the nature vs nurture debate is largely idiotic because both forces work together and one effects the other.

deathtokoalas
it's really a question of what causes the "punctuated equilibrium" that you see in the fossil record. as i pointed out above, the idea that the environment has an effect on mutation rates is orthogenesis. it can have an effect on the speed of selection, but that's not the same thing. so, any suggestion that the environment causes mutation rates to increase or decrease cannot be taken seriously (unless the cause is radiation).

rather, changes in climate should often have the opposite effect of the allopatric model. if species are to split in half when a mountain splits their range, it follows that they should recombine when erosion tears the mountain down - presuming they are still able to mate.

that's what happening with coywolves, and may also happen with grizzlies and polar bears. as the ice melts in the arctic, polar bears will move south; as the temperature warms, grizzlies will move north. the end result will be a hybrid species in the north of the range, and maybe some genetic isolation in the south.

when you look at the fossil record fifty thousand years from now, you're going to see these sudden morphological shifts that are correlated with changes in climate. we can see the cause of this in front of us, but we're still just not willing to let aristotle go...

gantzisballs
If I am not mistaken, Gould argues for Sympatric speciation at least as much if not more than allopatric speciation. the environment effects selection pressure, but few would argue that it directly effects the rate at which mutations happen. My point in bringing up epigenetics was a bit of a tangent and was not referring to the process of speciation, but in terms of undertanding human behavior and health for a single generation, which Gould and Dawkins would often argue over. Actually, the Dawkins fued was just "inherited" so to speak from Gould's fued with Dawkin's mentor EO Wilson. However, each viewed the other with at least some level of professional respect. The truly nasty and bitter fueds that Gould had were against psychologists like Jenson, Lynn, Rushton, and all of those guys that attempted to use IQ tests to prove the genetic superiority of East Asians and Northern Europeans (Nordics). Jenson was himself trained by a guy named Hans Eysenk, who was an ex member of the Gestapo and was once punched in the face after calling a Jewish protestor an Untermenschen. Gould was Jewish and did not enjoy being called "sub-human" vermin by a guy that was trained by an unrepentent Nazi war criminal. Unfortunately for the field of psychology, Eysenk switched sides after 1943 when he fled to Britain after it was obvious Germany was going to lose. He was like a real life version of Hans Landa from Inglorious Basterds. The field of psychology was swayed during the late 1980s and early 1990s by Eysenk and Jenson's more math based approach (albeit with massive experimental design problems) as opposed to the "touchy, feely" hippy crap that dominated psychology during the 1960s and 1970s under the leadership of Abraham Maslow.

deathtokoalas
yeah. i was referring specifically to the question of the gaps in the fossil record: is it "incomplete" as those who would align with dawkins would say, or is it fairly complete and there are simply spurts within it? i agree that both dawkins and gould were both primarily working under sympatric assumptions, and pointing this out is necessary context for the debate to actually make sense, but i would argue that the solution to the problem may be in abandoning sympatric assumptions in favour of a sort of "reverse allopatric model". that is, the "gaps in the fossil record" are neither the result of it being incomplete (in general - maybe sometimes) nor evidence of mutation rates adjusting to the environment (although i wouldn't deny that selection rates might, sometimes), but actually evidence of hybridization's dominant role in evolution. if you take this view, the debate resolves itself in realizing that the wrong model is being applied.

something you'll see if you sort carefully through the palaeontological literature is this pattern that i need to do in point form to articulate clearly:

- you have two related species. let's say one is bigger, one is smaller.
- you can track micro changes in both species over a decent period of time. let's say the smaller is getting a little bigger.
- a rapid evolution takes place in one (let's say the smaller gets bigger all of a sudden), which is correlated with the geological record to suggest changes in climate.
- the other species disappears.

this has generally been interpreted by both sides (who are both assuming sympatric models) as the smaller species evolving to out compete the larger. the debate then comes into how that works, exactly. but, this is a pattern that you see over and over again. a reverse allopatric model would argue that the populations are actually merging due to climate shifts, and neither competition nor extinction are truly happening.

again, that's a change in model, so it's bound to be resisted. now, i'm not the first person to point this out, but the (rather persistent) suggestions that hybridization may be a dominant factor in evolution have historically been rejected under the arguments you presented, which i believe are primarily excuses to uphold the aristotlian conception, which nobody really wants to abandon.

part of the problem is that bones are very ambiguous. dna is a better way to sort this out, and the computing power to do it has only been available to us for a few years. they did a study a few months ago that deduced that there wasn't a linear way to organize chimps, gorillas and humans. there's dna that only humans and chimps share, only humans and gorillas share and only chimps and gorillas share. you can't really make sense of this by using cladistics and competition, unless you start talking about things being deleted, and the timescales are too short for that. rather, you have to bring in a "species complex" that produced multiple hybrids that evolved in different directions. that is, all three of these primate species must have emerged from separate hybridization events of the same common ancestors. so, you get crossings in the tree - a significant point of complication.

again: we're not really "there yet" in terms of the academic establishment embracing the role of hybridization, or reverse allopatrism as a mechanism for it. but i think it's the direction the field is heading in.

to go back to the initial point, i believe the initial question is an empirical one. bears can breed, and should be viewed as the same species if that is the metric; humans can breed, as well. so, the question of which has a greater genetic distance is one to phrase in the form of a hypothesis and carry out research to determine. there's nothing particularly wrong with the question, itself. what is the genetic difference between breeds of dogs? between subspecies of squirrels? are they greater or less than the difference between humans? well, get the data and work it out...

rather, i responded because i do not believe that the op understood the research he was citing, nor do i think that the research suggests what he suggested it suggests (and he conceded most of these points). first, i think the evidence demonstrates that gene flow amongst humans has been too dramatic through the entire historical period at least (i think there's some evidence that it may have been less during the last ice age), and probably at least since the domestication of the horse, to even be able to phrase the question in a way that it can be investigated. the idea that europeans and africans "separated" at some point in the past seems to be entirely wrong. second, his dates were absurd. he separated "europeans" with the neanderthals, ignoring the out-of-africa fact. in actuality, the out-of-africa migration is more recent than when we would currently split polar bears off from brown bears, which negates the basis of his argument. third, he had to make assumptions about rates of change that are not consistent with the paper he cited, and seemed to actually be the opposite of the ideas expressed in it. even if it were true that polar bears separated more recently than out of africa, it wouldn't necessarily imply anything about genetic distance.

just as an aside: we know that dogs separated from wolves relatively recently, certainly more recently than out of africa.

that doesn't necessarily mean that dogs are closer to wolves than native americans are to africans (and there's arguably enough of a block in gene flow there, or was before colonization, to have the idea make sense). dogs have been through intense amounts of artificial selection. but, it's a valid empirical question that i don't know the answer to.

i finally got around to watching (listening) to this and it is in fact a quite insightful and forward thinking analysis of the situation, as spoken from the mid 70s. i just really wish that he didn't throw the word socialism around like he does...

you have to wonder if he's even trying to take advantage of the cold war propaganda in speaking of the identified enemy. if you actually read his books, you'll learn that the "socialists" he speaks of are high finance bankers and ultra capitalists that are perverting marxist theory for their own goals, in order to "capture foreign markets". he manages to call them socialists, then describe them as hegemonic globalist capitalists. he makes this clear on repeated occasions - he doesn't actually think they're actually socialists, he knows it's all a cynical ploy. further, the system he often references - and there are strong parallels in the three types of collectivism - has nothing to do with workers running their own factories...

the problem is that it makes it hard to recommend his work. you have to read it very critically. but it's very much worth exploring.

history is useful when you can tie it into current events.

what sutton is saying here is important in understanding how the european (and some american) elites are likely to react to continuing american sanctions against russia. you hear these mumblings that europe isn't happy about it; it's not like the eu has much of a choice to disobey american dictates right now. but, what you see in official policy is rarely what happens behind the scenes.

uploading already completed tracks to inri055

1) http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/dnnng


2) this is a little messy, but such is the charm of acoustic demos. this was recorded live through a tascam four-track into cool edit (running on a PIII), with sean on the right channel and myself on the left channel and then mixed into stereo afterwards. unfortunately, you can hear the hard drive recorder skip at a few points; i ended up working it into the composition, but it wasn't initially intentional.

this was meant to purely be a demo, but i ended up just building the mix on top of it.

written and recorded in early 2002. track released feb 5, 2002.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/9-16-outside-the-magenta-box-acoustic-demo


3) this is the original vocal mix from 2002, and also appears on the rabit is wolf demo.

written and recorded in early 2002. track released february 8, 2002.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/9-46-outside-the-magenta-box-original-full-mix