Orangeman5100
Ummm? Would somebody please enlighten me on the reforms these people demanded that didn't happen?

Future U-kraine
that didn't happen? and what happen they should go home?

Orangeman5100
What?

Thomas
The country at the start had a highly dysfunctional govt so a revolt happened and right sector came to power, Russia invades Crimea so then more territories divide to pro-Russian separatists like Donetsk. Interim Government of Ukraine is referred to be fascist, in the meantime allows justification of separatist territories.

Angela3083
Wrong the USA decided who went into power in Ukraine regardless. Russia never invaded Crimea the Crimean's choose to be part of Russia without 1 person being killed. It all about gas pipes & Nato wanting a base in Ukraine. The Eastern Ukraine know the score and are defending their corner.

Blake Smith
that's wrong the Russians said they were the ones that went into crimea after the fact, and a Ukrainian solider was killed during a confrontation with the russians

jakatom
Does it matter what they want?...if it did, they wouldn't protest for a whole year. It matters what the USA and their EU lackeys want.

Blake
im pretty sure this video is about the protestors

nightlightabcd
Apparently, you want what the pro-Russian "lackeys" want!

James Murrey
The current "government" was about to pass laws banning the use of Russian language. Since 90% of Eastern Ukraine speak Russian (you know.... the native language of the land), they are now trying to split from Ukraine to not be killed by the neo-nazi(s) in power. Do you own research, even this vice dispatch hasn't been 100% truthful. Avoid Reddit, it's purely 'murrican shills spreading false propaganda (like Russian invaded Krim [Russia never sent a single military unit there; instead they hired a PMC to go in and secure the region]).

Culturebreach
Explain to people how neo-nazis are the majority in the Ukrainian protests? There is a presence of neo-nazis in Russia whilst the 3rd largest party in Russia is considered a fascist party.

BlackCousins4life
These aren't the same people who demanded reform. The people who protested against Yanukovych wanted the country to move away from Russia and closer to the European Union, for economic reasons, lessening of corruption and whatnot. When Yanukovych fled the country, they basically got their wish. The newly elected president is committed to Ukraine becoming part of the EU. These protesters have now either gone home or are fighting against separatists and Russian green men is eastern Ukraine. The people now on Maidan are not the same people, so it's hard to see them having any demands. I think they're just homeless and have settled nicely there, so they don't want to leave.

ConcordDown
you got it all figured out, you should join FOX news and make a story :) lot's of people would buy it!

Mat
has the free trade agreement gone into place yet? outside of that, they got the EU association agreement, new president, and new parliament is set. the major euromaidan demands have been met.

there's still the implementation of those reforms, though.

The88Cheat
Change takes time and all these protesters are doing is taking up valuable resources that could be used to better the country. I doubt the new government wants to waste time fighting its own people (especially when they look completely idiotic and uneducated).

Haloreach2323
No one in America said Russia invaded Ukraine. They would be stupid to say so because we all know Ukraine would be at war with Russia. Russia didn't invade, they did something worse, took the land "for the people" like bitches.

Mat 
they didn't vote, there was no actual vote you maroon. Who cares if 60% are Russian by ethnicity? That's some Anschluss thinking right there.

Haloreach2323
Doesn't matter. They still did it without the consent of Ukraine. Why not buy Crimea? Who knows? Putler probably forced the people to vote his way.

Jordan
Putin congratulated the Russian soldiers on a job well done in Crimea after it was annexed.

Was ABOUT to pass a law BANNING Russian? Are you high? First of all they tried to repeal a law that allowed Russian to be an official language. Not having Russian as official language is NOT the same as being forbidden to use Russian, you dipshit. Secondly, There are laws proposed in Russia that would ban women wearing high heels. Does it mean that anything that gets thrown up into the air becomes law? NO so you don't act on it UNLESS it becomes law. And enough with the nazi bullshit. The svoboda and right sector (parties who I assume you call nazi) ran against Poroshenko, and never got more than 1% of the Ukrainian vote. I'm willing to bet there are more xenophobic racist neo nazi skinheads in Russia than all of Europe combined. Fucking idiot.

Mat
Statistically, there are far more skinheads / neo-nazis in Russia per capita than in Ukraine by a wide margin

Look at Russia's parliament, Zhirinovsky is a racist bigot and he has the 4th largest party. The third largest, A Just Russia, supports the Russian Orthodox Army terrorist group. The second? The damn Communists!

Jordan
I find it infuriating that they have the nerve to open their mouth and call Ukrainians "neo-nazis" when they have nationalist marches in Moscow numbering THOUSANDS, with people making nazi salutes, chanting "AGAINST BLACKS" along with occasional skinhead gangs running around with bats, murdering people they don't like. Absolutely grotesque.

Jarcnus
US and EU involvement in the destabilization of the country, promotion of violence, arms and riots along with putting in puppet leadership is pretty much a fact. Whatever the FUCK Russia is doing, good or bad is reactionary. The US and west European establishment and their bankster friends wants global trade dominance. FOLLOW THE FUCK GOD DAMNED MONEY FOR ONCE. IMF nonsense abroad, austerity for the poor, international trade deal attempts and bs TPP, TTIP, TAFTA along with other nonsense. It's all to fuck over the masses in a globally run pyramid scheme. Most the wealth in the world created is fake, just so the rich can spend lavishly while the poor suffer and foot the bill.

U.S. Senators Make A Spectacle Of Themselves In Ukraine

Mat
You're so misinformed it's kind of sad.

Jarcnus
Your one sentence telling me "you're wrong" really defeated my argument, oh my.

What I learnt today
When the new president turned out to be "A strong leader for harsh times" or however the press (and people on the street) put it, i.e. the classic "fascist lie" we see in every hollywood movie.... The writing on the wall became pretty stark.

Jordan
I really wish a Russian would support his grotesque label of "fascist" even once with an actual argument. How is anyone in power in Ukraine a "fascist"? Im really curious.

Mat
It's interesting seeing as everyone calls Obama a Communist

deathtokoalas
see, it's hilarious to read these comments going back and forth. you've got multiple false narratives competing with each other, all of them promoting interests by various powerful parties. none of them have anything to do with the protests.

i had my first "aha" moment back in the late 90s, when i was still a teenager. the tv told me people were protesting against apec because of concerns over human rights abuses in china. but, that wasn't the protester's narrative - it was the narrative the state wanted, and so they replaced it. the protesters were actually concerned with the trade agreement, itself. i was a skeptical kid, i understood things were generally spun, but i never thought i'd be blatantly lied to.

the thing about the eu is not the protester's narrative, it's the state department's narrative. the reason it's the state department's narrative is that it reflects the state department's interest. so, what the tv does is show you the images of the people protesting and then tell you they're protesting for what the state department wants.

the maidan protests were/are about corruption. it was something roughly similar to the occupy movement in north america, except it got badly co-opted by a ukrainian equivalent of the tea party. the shuffle of power that happened didn't address a single one of their concerns. i guarantee you the new guy already has a slush fund and is just carrying on where the last guy left off, and the guy before him left off, and the guy before him left off....

What I learnt today
All true, except the girl before him was imprisoned for not being corruptible enough.

deathtokoalas
she was prime minister, not president, and it's not that she wasn't corruptible enough - more that she was so corrupt nobody in the sitting government could trust her.

What I learnt today
Trusting corrupt people is easy. They are predictable, just buy her. Now trusting an honest person, that is a mistake.

deathtokoalas
not really. when they're really corrupt, they're always for sale. so, you can never trust your purchase. yulia bounced around to the highest bidder, and in the end she crossed one person too many. that's why she ended up in jail.

Technology Fool
Those guys look hammered! Leave us alone more vodka

Willy
Ukraine will never be part of EU .I live in EU and nobody wants them to be part of EU.We got enough of our own problems without confronting Russian interests.Germany is the main power of EU and they have good economical relationships with Russia and depends on Russian gas. So despite the political talk Germans and rest of the EU know they cant mess with Russia.

Mat
Can't mess with Russia? Russia is nothing. It doesn't even have an economy.

What I learnt today
Russia has never needed an economy, they have resources. Not caring about all this stuff got them through WWII and will get them through again. They just don't care about anything outside Russia.

Mat
Everybody needs an economy. Oil prices drop and they're screwed. Iran or the US start exporting gas and they're sunk.

That's why you can't just be some resource sultanate.

What I learnt today
That's fine. However not how Russia thinks about it. They have a bumper crop and soon will have the pipeline to EU done. If they can beat US in Syria then the oil will flow. Until then, they laugh.

Mat
what pipeline to the EU? South Stream? That's cancelled.

What I learnt today
The overarching strategic to beat US to EU markets via Syria (or whereever US doesn't block them)  is cancelled? heh righto... Guess that's why there is CIA in Syria and Russians in Ukraine. Everything you are seeing here is directly related to those markets, US fear of price differential between Syria/EU and Kuwait/US, and Russian desire to capture the EU market. This hasn't gone away, you are watching it play out.

deathtokoalas
well, it's more directly about controlling shipping lanes through strategic military placement, but controlling shipping lanes has a lot to do with opening up (or shutting down) markets.

you need to take a bit of a step back from the idea of the americans controlling markets, though, as it's a bit of an outdated thing. the united states doesn't create anything any more, except weapons. they don't have a product to sell. i see a lot of this - people trying to understand current events through the lenses of the nineteenth century...

there's some remnants of this, and russia is certainly still under state capitalism, but to take the position that america is defending markets leads to the question of what they're selling, and the answer is nothing at all.

but, the strategic military posturing has more than a little to do with it, nonetheless. they're certainly trying to control the trade routes, as a hegemon would have to do. that definitely means frustrating russian trade...

...but it's not really about competition, it's about dominance. the nineteenth century mercentalist states may have seemed like empires, but they weren't really - they were trading conglomerates that used any means necessary to get ahead.

the united states is legitimately an empire. it has tributary states, which it "protects". and those states are closer to the traditional 19th century state capitalist idea.

which goes back to the weapons, which are the product.

there's this sort of old argument floating around between trying to understand things in terms of empires dominating the world or in terms of commercial interest competing with each other. the americans have found a sort of synthesis in this, as they dominate the world by selling weapons systems.

there has to be conflict for that to happen. the commercial transactions in weapons systems consequently drive the lust for imperial domination. it's conflict for the sake of conflict, because that's the only way that america gets paid.

put a little more succinctly...

the british "empire" created conflict to open up markets.

the american empire creates markets by ensuring endless conflict. 

What I learnt today
Just to add something "step back from the idea of the americans controlling markets".... It's not about selling stuff to markets. It's about making sure the EU can't/doesn't get oil 3¢ cheaper than the US.

deathtokoalas
there's certainly been some tension over the last few decades over some financial issues. you know who i think was behind 9/11? germany. yeah, the old german boogeyman, trying to start wwIII right? well, i think it was about the euro, primarily. it was a ploy to sink the dollar. every few months, you hear some news report talking about the "strained relationship", and it's quickly patched up in the media to counteract the optics. both sides are deeply interested in making things seem rosy, and the germans certainly remain in a vastly inferior position both economically and militarily - that is, they remain a client state. but i think the truth is that the germans and americans continue to see each other as their primary competitors in the world and relations are really downright hostile under the surface. if i was an american military strategist, i would not look at germany (or the eu in general, outside of the uk) as a reliable ally. when you've bullied somebody into doing what you want for 70 years, don't be surprised when they take the first opportunity they can to knock you out.

controlling the oil supply is a part of being a hegemonic power, but i can't see what you're suggesting as being an important aspect of american policy. what the americans seek is less to explicitly dominate everything around them and more to control the rules. so, they let british contractors into iraq, and refused french contractors - because they rejected the war. that's the reason france has fallen in line, since. the price of commodities is variable, and speculators make a lot of money from that. so, do the americans care about that kind of price fluctuation? no. why would they, so long as they get to write the rules of who sells what to who?

what does concern them is a russia that wants to ignore those rules, demand the rules be written collaboratively or even write their own rules. russia is a bigger country than iraq, but putin is being punished for the same reason that saddam was - he's not doing what he's told.

when genghis khan would approach a new city, he would send messengers to the city's government, offering them a choice. they could willingly submit, and be spared. or they could resist and be annihilated. a lot of cities were annihilated. a lot of cities were spared...

Willy
hmmm i wouldn't go that far to say Germany was behind it. I think  that would be pretty hardcore conspiracy but  hey, what do i know .At least you can think out of the box which is only good i suppose .But there sure are various reports that Germany secretly considering and negotiating with BRICS to join .Who knows maybe we will see comeback of German  mark one day lol. USA sterility to provide Germany with their gold (which they don't have since USA do not own any gold resources) and empty promises to deliver their gold in near future only assure Germany to look for alternatives to ensure their economical stability.

deathtokoalas
brics is not an alliance, it's just something cnn made up. and gold is as worthless as paper. what's valuable is guns.

Orangeman5100
And oil.

deathtokoalas
commodities, in general, sure. but it's going to fluctuate with demand. if the trends towards computerization and renewable energy both continue, it won't be long before copper (also a finite resource) is more valuable than diamonds.

this is why it's so important to understand the dominance in terms of hegemony, power and control rather than any specific, narrow aim - although, that being said, the primary purpose of anglo-american foreign policy has not wavered from containing and controlling the russians at any point since 1989, or 1789, for that matter.

Orangeman5100
Sadly yes, but it'd be a lot harder for their neighbors if we didn't control them... For example, Ukraine would probably be entirely part of Russia...

deathtokoalas
well, you've got to keep in mind that a lot of the people in ukraine want to be a part of russia...

poland is a better test case, but is poland really better off in the eu? i'm not sure there's much of an argument for it, other than enforced western bias. i'm not saying they'd be better off in russia, i'm just not sure it really makes much of a difference to the average pole, in terms of living conditions.

fucking spain would be a part of russia right now, if it weren't for american intervention in wwII. but would they be worse off?

What I learnt today
OT but everytime I hear that I think of "Fast Show - Johnny Depp": "I remember during the war you yanks were in like a shot!  I don't mean the actual fighting, you were a couple of years too late for that Sir." ;-)

deathtokoalas
yeah. the history books will eventually catch up, but they're kind of missing the point right now. there's all kinds of diplomatic cables from american ambassadors to the region in the 30s explaining that american policy was to covertly fund hitler with the hopes that he'd eliminate stalin. that is, it's the same old russian containment policy that traces back to the napoleonic period. when they did intervene, it wasn't to stop fascism or save the jews or help the british or anything of the sort, it was take over as much of europe as they could before the russians got there.

if the normandy invasion had not happened, stalin would have waltzed right through germany and france and parked itself outside franco's doorstep. how does the soviet socialist republic of france sound.....

Orangeman5100
Honestly, not very good...

the thing about the ukip and the national front is that the ukip is a lot more moderate than it's base is.

it's one thing to point out "the ukip is not the bnp" - and be absolutely correct. it's another thing to point out that there's a large overlap in the voting base. these kinds of arrangements never work out for "moderates", if that's what you want to call the libertarian wing of the ukip. the base always wins in the end. what you're stuck with, then, is this unstable coalition of nationalists and libertarians that's set to fracture the moment farage aligns himself against national front policies that are popular with his own base. it produces the inevitability of mutinies in caucus. farage can yell and scream all he wants, but his party is on a set trajectory and it's an alarming one.

the best case scenario is that the whole thing falls apart before the next election, but i think relying on that really underestimates the strength of the far right in britain. talk of tories picking up the positions is really long overdue. if winston churchill were alive today, he'd be more likely to be aligned with one of these fringe parties. there's a strong aspect of british culture intertwined within them.

so, yes, it's prudent to be careful with what labels you put on farage's head - but it's equally important to be aware of the views of the voters he's representing, which are considerably more extreme than his are.

this is the key point right now.

and, yeah, it's a threat for massive instability. but the realpolitik people don't seem to clue in: it has no end point but collapse.

http://ramenir.com/2014/09/27/the-middle-east-proxy-war-you-didnt-know-about/

In August, The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt carried out a series of secret airstrikes within Libya with the purpose of slowing down the advance of Islamist militias in Tripoli, specifically...

this article seems to get a few points backwards, though, especially in syria. my understanding is isis is primarily saudi-backed and the fsa was a turkish front group. the part about egypt is correct, though.

photo from voice of america. yeah. well, it's getting the right idea across, anyways.

egypt is often touted as "the most important arab country". what that means is it has the most people, and the largest standing army. but the historical empires in the region this side of the roman empire have been centered in mecca and istanbul. turkey has been trying for a while to reassert a level of hegemony over the last few years, partly because it's been rejected from europe. i've been over this before...

the world is uniting in trade blocs. russia is going through the same spasms, and god forbid a turko-russian union (which would be a historic shift of a nature unseen since the entente cordiale). russia and turkey have been fighting for centuries. turkey is in nato _because_ of the threat of russia. that would dismantle the world as we know it.

but, what does turkey do? it can't get into europe. the arabs don't like them any more than the european do, as there's still that level of animosity. well, 1000 years of colonialism doesn't disappear in a century. there's cultural logic in a central asia union of turkey, iran and the former ssrs, but this is infeasible in a geo-strategic standpoint, as iran remains isolated and those ssrs aren't getting out of a sino-russian entente any time soon.

turkey faces extreme isolation. this is providing it with a set of incentives to try and resurrect the ottoman empire.

so, when you look at turkish influence in syria and egypt and libya and palestine, there's a historical context that unites with a current economic one.

the saudis don't like that, for obvious reasons. they were promised control over the region during world war one, and probably would have got it if it wasn't for zionism.

so, there's a serious conflict building here between a turkey that is desperate for economic integration and an arab league that wants them the fuck out of their sphere.

the back and forth in egypt was a back and forth between turkish and saudi front groups - and the saudis won. the infighting in syria between rebel groups was a proxy war between turkey and the saudis - and the saudis won.

so, now the yankees need to step in and fix it before it explodes...

yes, the qataris are a wild card, but that's a struggle for hegemony in the arab league. the qatari-turkey alliance is one of convenience. should the qataris overtake the saudis as the controlling interest in the gulf, one would expect them to take on the same interests as the saudis.

it's fundamentally a turkish-arab conflict.

and, as i've stated, that possible russo-turko-iranian alliance is a real game changer.

"we" might "lose" turkey. it's been a real possibility now for several years.

high school records are apparently shredded, but junior high school records apparently aren't? i think one of them is wrong. they always told me the file was permanent. hrmmn. i've got stuff being forwarded, will see how that plays out before i start calling to find out...

this is going to go in your PERMANENT RECORD.

well, listen, i'm not really one for the surveillance state and shit, but when you're dealing with information that suggests a pathological condition, i think it really should be permanent. if it's shredded, that doesn't help me - and if it was worse than it is (mild vandal-type pranks, mostly), it wouldn't be in the interests of society, either.

i mean, i was always very careful and very cognizant of the well being of people around me. there were circumstances where i stood in between things happening in order to prevent harm, but nothing where i ever put anybody's safety at risk. the overriding driving force was mostly that i found the vandalism comical. what the behaviour demonstrates is more a conscious desire to flaunt rules - and some political activism, actually.

i enjoyed defacing student council propaganda, for example.

unfortunately, the really nasty pranks were mostly never uncovered. the master prank was probably the time i blew up the school mascot (with military grade dynamite) and placed it back where it was, and nobody ever caught me for that. they installed cameras in the school afterwards, but they never busted me for the best of them.

i think probably the worst situation i got caught for was the time i took the screws out of the exercise equipment in the gym, so that when buddy six-pack football dude got on the exercise bike it fell apart underneath him. that's the kind of thing that characterizes the file, if i can find it. was it funny? that's up to interpretation. the dude that sat on the bike thought it was funny. it's certainly anti-social.

the reality is that it got to the point that the school stopped providing evidence. it didn't feel the need to require it. when a prank happened, it was understood i was responsible. nobody else would have done these things. i suppose i could have been badly framed, but never was.

so, it's less that i "got caught" and more that i was obviously responsible...

....kind of a "j strikes again" type of thing...

it's a huge file, if it's out there, probably with all kinds of things i've completely forgotten about.

and, in my defence, i often caught the principal suppressing laughter. most of it legitimately WAS comical.

it's actually the same school dan aykroyd went to, and that was brought up to me more than once.

apologies to huey lewis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1-NvLJFDsw

rap news 29

eek.

i'm pretty sure i don't have ebola.

just the pizza.

phew. for a minute, there....

access to student records

jessica
hi.

i attended frank ryan from 1993-1995 under the name jason parent. i go by the name jessica, now - but anybody there that would remember me would remember me as jason.

i had some disciplinary problems when i was a student at frank ryan, which included being removed from my eighth grade class and placed in a different classroom. you could broadly classify me as a "prankster", although some of the behaviour was a little more intense than that. i was also a fairly quiet and sometimes bullied individual and a relatively good student, and these two things together got me through the process with less consequences than i may have otherwise had to deal with. it was generally understood that i was a "bright" kid and i'd "grow out of it".

however, as i've aged, it's become clear that the cause of my anti-social outbursts (which continued even after high school) is an undiagnosed personality disorder. in hindsight, i feel that this disorder should have been diagnosed while or even before i was a student at frank ryan. as it is, i'm now nearly 34 years old, remain undiagnosed and continue to demonstrate substantial symptoms. i'm currently living on odsp and trying to compile evidence of this undiagnosed personality disorder for the purposes of having that renewed.

now, the same mild mannered nature that got me off the hook in grade school is acting against me in terms of convincing physicians that there's actually a problem. there's a very big disconnect between how i come across in an interview setting (which is very respectful and "normal") and the actual record of my past behaviour (which has at times been just off the wall). i don't have a criminal record. so, the best evidence i can provide would be my behavioural records through grade school, high school and approximately ten years of university.

i would greatly appreciate it if you could send me these documents. i currently live in windsor, ontario.

now, i understand that this is a random email address that even displays an entirely different name - you have no way to know that i am who i say i am. i simply don't know what the proper process is in proving who i am. so, if you could guide me through that, that would be great. the closest i can get to coming down there in person is sending my mom...

the ottawa catholic school board
Hello Jessica,

I work in the records and archives at the Ottawa Catholic School Board.  I was sent your request by the Vice Principal at Frank Ryan

A few questions to complete your request;

Date of Birth
What schools did you attend after Frank Ryan (in Ontario or outside of Ontario)
What grade and year was your last year at school?
Did you receive your diploma?

Please let us know and we would be happy to help you with your request

Thanks

jessica
legal name: jason parent
dob: jan 13, 1981

i'd actually be looking for records for the following schools, all in ottawa:

- st bernard's (k4 - grade two)
- uplands catholic (grade three - grade six)
- frank ryan (grades seven-eight)
- st pius x (grades 9 - oac)

i finished my oac year in the spring of 2000.

the diploma question is a little shady. i completed all of the requirements except for the oac religion component, which was a part of the catholic school requirements. i took eight oacs but skipped the community service becaue i simply didn't have time for it between studying for "real courses" and working. i'm really starkly opposed to the idea of labour without compensation and refused to do the community service in an act of protest. this is a big discussion about class that i'll spare you. i'm consequently not entirely certain if a diploma actually exists. i don't think i've ever seen one. i didn't attend the graduation ceremonies (i didn't attend my university graduation ceremony, either). i did attend university and was admitted on the basis of my oac marks.

the ottawa catholic school board
Hello,

Thank you for the information.  I will be able to provide you with copies of all records we have in our archives.  We will need to order them from our off-site storage which may take a few days.  We will contact you when they are ready

jessica
i greatly appreciate that. thank you.

access to student records

jessica
hi.

i attended st. pius X from 1995-2000 (when there were five years in high school) under the name jason parent. i go by the name jessica, now - but anybody there that would remember me would remember me as jason.

i had some disciplinary problems when i was a student at st. pius - multiple suspensions, and a few points of near expulsion. you could broadly classify me as a "prankster", although some of the behaviour was a little more intense than that. i was also a fairly quiet and sometimes bullied individual and a relatively good student, and these two things together got me through the process with less consequences than i may have otherwise had to deal with. it was generally understood that i was a "bright" kid and i'd "grow out of it".

however, as i've aged, it's become clear that the cause of my anti-social outbursts (which continued after high school) is an undiagnosed personality disorder. in hindsight, i feel that this disorder should have been diagnosed before i even got to st. pius. as it is, i'm now nearly 34 years old, remain undiagnosed and continue to demonstrate substantial symptoms. i'm currently living on odsp and trying to compile evidence of this undiagnosed personality disorder for the purposes of having that renewed.

now, the same mild mannered behaviour that got me off the hook in high school is acting against me in terms of convincing physicians that there's actually a problem. there's a very big disconnect between how i come across in an interview setting (which is very respectful and "normal") and the actual record of my past behaviour (which has at times been just off the wall). i don't have a criminal record. so, the best evidence i can provide would be my behavioural records through grade school, high school and approximately ten years of university (if anybody is curious, i finished degrees in mathematics and computer science, as well as minors in law and physics - and was written up repeatedly for angry, anti-social outbursts directed at profs and students).

i would greatly appreciate it if you could send me these documents. i currently live in windsor, ontario.

now, i understand that this is a random email address that even displays an entirely different name - you have no way to know that i am who i say i am. i simply don't know what the proper process is in proving who i am. so, if you could guide me through that, that would be great. the closest i can get to coming down there in person is sending my mom... 

mr. warren
Good Morning Jessica,

I received your email and I remember you as a good student.

I now work in the Student Services Department.

After students leave high school, all documentation is destroyed after five years, except for transcripts. So all we have on file now is your transcript showing good marks and credits earned. There is nothing here regarding any issues or behaviour.

jessica
hi mr warren.

yeah, i was in your enriched math class and also your chemistry class. i think you also knew my stepmother.

frank ryan has told me that the school board keeps archived information. do you think i'd be able to find information there? if you so, do you have a contact address?

there were in fact multiple suspensions and a threat of possible expulsion that never materialized. if there's a file somewhere, it's really quite thick.

mr. warren
Hello Jessica,

Sorry, other than the OSR that was here, I am not aware of any archived files. Once students leave high school, all of the suspensions and related files are shredded after 5 years, and only the transcript is retained. You could certainly call the board office and ask if you wish.

hi....

jessica
it's jason parent.

it's been a few years, but i'm sure you remember me...

i don't think i have access to a carleton account anymore, but i can double check if you can't accept correspondence from this email. i think if you check, though, you'll see i corresponded from this address repeatedly.

i've been on odsp for two years, now. it's brought me to windsor, ontario where the cost of living is much lower. i was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder at the mission in ottawa, which was an exaggeration of symptoms i was experiencing out of concern for my homelessness at the time. i'm now up for renewal, and i'm not likely to get renewed on that basis.

however, after reflecting on my life history, i feel there's an undiagnosed personality disorder going back many years that i'd benefit from having diagnosed properly. now, you might recall that you were always impressed by how i came off in an interview context - that is that there was a large disconnect between how i presented myself to you face-to-face and the outbursts that caused you to summon me to you. that same disconnect is acting to my disadvantage. that is, i come off very normal and stable. the truth is i AM very stable in the situation that i'm in and don't really want things to change. i'm also fully cognizant that it's difficult to extrapolate my symptoms from interviewing me. i'm going to have to present an argument that's based on a long history of antisocial behaviour going back to my early childhood - and that is well documented through behavioural reports in grade school, high school and university.

so, i'm hoping you can send me the reports that you filled out about me so that i can take them to a psychiatric evaluation as evidence of this long, long undiagnosed underlying issue. even if it doesn't get me to odsp, i need it properly diagnosed and understood.

in hindsight, i actually feel i should have been diagnosed before the age of 15, at least. the argument was always that i was very "bright" and that a diagnosis would negatively impact my future. but as time has played out, it's become clear that the underlying concerns need to be dealt with and that the fact that they never were has really been far more negative than positive. i don't know what diagnosis is forthcoming - i think it's going to depend a lot on how the evidence is interpreted - but i couldn't imagine somebody sorting through the suspensions and near expulsions i experienced through a 20 year academic career without pulling something debilitating out of it.

so, i'd appreciate that tremendously. again, let me know if i need to send this from a different address. i don't know if i even still know the passwords, though...

director of student affairs, carleton university
Hi Jessica,

I remember you.   Good to hear from you.  Sounds like things are going ok.  I did my undergrad at Windsor.  Lots of memories.  I know in recent years the town hasn't been doing so hot.  Hopefully things are getting better, particularly in the downtown core.

It shouldn't be a problem for me to pull up some of my emails and then send them to you again, but I will need you to send me an email from your CU account.  I'll send the emails there and you'll have them for your records to support your appeal.  I'm suspect the process of getting back into your Carleton account is pretty straightforward.  Once you get access, let me know and I'll send you the information.

Let me know if that sounds like an acceptable course of action.

ok, i've freaked out enough today, and my creative aids are slow to arrive, so i guess it's time to get to work.

well, i've sent emails out to the four schools i've been to since grade three. i don't remember before grade three. i'm not quite sure why. anyways, we'll find out if anybody reads these things or if they're dead addresses....

give it a few days before i start calling.

i'm quite certain i'll get a response from ryan at carleton, and it may be all i need.

it's just the pizza, you don't have ebola.
it's just the pizza, you don't have ebola.
it's just the pizza, you don't have ebola.
it's just the pizza, you don't have ebola.
it's just the pizza, you don't have ebola.
it's just the pizza, you don't have ebola.
it's just the pizza, you don't have ebola.

except that i think i have a mild fever...

did they get a vaccine done, yet?

they're testing one...

http://windsorstar.com/health/windsor-paramedics-don-protective-gear-to-treat-patient-showing-ebola-symptoms
http://woodtv.com/2014/10/29/report-8-monitored-in-mi-for-ebola-virus/

the doctor i've been dealing with in the local clinic is actually from nigeria. i have no idea if she's been back and forth recently.

(i only know she's from nigeria because she speaks yoruba, and i happen to know (i'm a geek) that this is a local nigerian language group)

the only situations i can conceive of possibly being at risk are:

(1) when i took my temperature under my tongue at the hospital, but they swore it was safe.
(2) when i stole a toke on the 18th from some hippie strangers. gee, wouldn't that be awkward.

i wasn't in close enough contact with the doctor for it to even be a paranoia issue.

and i'm not sure if my "fever" is legit or the result of the temperature in here.

i have a tendency for mild paranoia. but, dammit, i could be rationalizing myself into something nasty, here.

pizza runs don't last more than 24 hours. i'll wait until tomorrow and make a decision. but i don't see any obvious path of exposure. meaning that if i'm infected, there's a pretty serious problem here in windsor.

i'm not coughing or anything. mild stomach irritation, but that's normal, given that i'm constantly drinking coffee.

let's see how my body reacts to some antacids...

see, this happens all the time, though - i get freaked out over something quasi-rational, then i carefully (even somewhat neurotically) work through it. meaning i'm able to rationalize through whatever pathology is freaking me out. but that level of control is a mask. here's the thing: i don't know what my success rate really is. let's say it's 99% - probably higher than it truly is. what that means is i'm a ticking time bomb, and you want to keep me out of stressful environments.

but, you can't diagnose it until it's too late.

i can't think of any reason why a sane person would walk into a doctor's office and try to convince them otherwise. if i really wanted to fraud the system, i'd break my back or literally shoot myself in the foot or something. accepting and pushing for a mental diagnosis is pretty strong evidence in itself that something's not right there. you know, and you try and be responsible and get help and they don't listen...

i'm needing to sit myself down and convince myself i don't have ebola. i think i'm succeeding. but it's symptomatic of a general difficulty in interpreting reality.

and if that leads to some crazy behaviour, nobody can say i didn't try and get help for it.

i don't need drugs that are going to turn me into a zombie. i just need to avoid stress.

and i want to be clear what my diagnosis is: the reagan revolution has pushed backwards conservative ideologies about social services into the system itself, and those backwards views are blocking me from gaining access to the help that i require.

i don't feel i'm dealing with a systems breakdown, a lack of funding or a broken medical infrastructure. i feel i'm dealing with doctors that are putting their political views ahead of their medical practice.

they're not doing what's best for the patient, they're reacting to a feeling of being overtaxed and seeking to behave in a way that they feel will reduce their tax burden - whether that harms the patient in front of them or not.

if you understand reality in terms of class conflict, it puts just about any doctor in a conflict of interest when it comes to approving just about any kind of disability.

if you take that to it's logical conclusion, it's an argument for a guaranteed income (because you can't cut doctor's salaries next door to a giant, unregulated market). that would probably be sufficient in my case, and sufficient in the case of many other people in this difficult to clearly diagnose grey area.

it's abundantly clear i can't work.

it's not so clear what the reason for it is.

hopefully somebody can see through this properly.

i mean, the average salary is over 300K, but they're paying 40-50% taxes on it. on top of that, they're paying property taxes - and, of course, almost all of them actually are. they have an interest in finding ways to reduce their tax burden, which will present itself in keeping costs down. so, they're not in any way an unbiased arbiter of who ought to be receiving social services. they're just not....

in order to jump through those hoops, mentally, you have to romanticize the hippocrates oath into a noble pledge and elevate them into noble warriors for justice. a moment's reflection with anybody that's dealt with a doctor knows that's fucking bunk.

you'll find a few that are something like the tv characters, putting their own health on the line for their patients.

but, my understanding is that the psychological profile of the average doctor is actually bordering on psychopathy - and has to be, because there's much less than a 100% success rate. the only way you can do a job where you fail 30-40% of the time is if you keep a certain emotional distance.

what it means is dr. house is probably the better representative, overall.

whatever diagnosis comes out of this - schizophrenia, high level autism, bpd, manic depression - is going to require a lot of discussion to uncover, and that needs a physician that's willing to invest the time in it - and quite frankly against their own financial interests.

at the most basic crude level, you'd have to think that if somebody does crazy things over and over again, or feels crazy urges over and over again, then they must be crazy. the fact that the person has been able to mostly keep out of trouble and/or gain access to a support system that's kept them out of trouble doesn't negate all the crazy things and crazy thoughts. it does, however, mean that if you remove that support system then the up-to-now not experienced consequences will produce themselves. i guess i'm just having a really hard time grasping the need to actually flip out before i'm taken seriously, partly, i guess, because it wasn't really necessary in the past.

i guess i had a very strong support system with my father that only failed around the time he wasn't able to make his own decisions due to diagnosis of cancer (and i've long suspected he was aware of the diagnosis considerably before i found out, that the events that occurred in late 2011 were a consequence of his already understood diagnosis and that the only reason i really found out at all was because of the situation. i even suspect that the reason he pushed so hard to have me move home was because he knew he was terminal, and the reason she refused so violently is also that she knew he was terminal. that fucked my situation up profoundly because it left me homeless, but there were complex reasons underlying it.). i went pretty cleanly from that support system to the state as a support system. this is really the first time i'm facing the possibility of lacking that system of support. the reality is that i haven't been able to survive without it, and i'm not going to be able to survive without it. i just simply didn't need a diagnosis or state aid because i had a family that was taking care of me, which i don't have any more.

in hindsight, i probably should have gone through all of this ten-fifteen years ago.

all of the symptoms were there. it just wasn't necessary to do.

i mean, what happened was:

(1) i can't pay my rent
(2) he convinces me to move home
(3) i give my two months
(4) i'm told i can't move home
(5) i've already given my two months, so, i'm now homeless
(6) i flip out on him
(7) i find out he has cancer
(8) the conflict just doesn't get talked through

but i think what actually happened was:

(1) he learns he has cancer
(2) i can't pay my rent
(3) he convinces me to come home - *because* he has cancer and he wants me there. he doesn't tell her...
(4) i give my two months
(5) she refuses to let me move home - *because* she knows he's terminal, and doesn't want me there after the fact, which is why he didn't tell her.
(6) i've already given my two months, so, now i'm homeless.
(7) i flip out on him.
(8) i find out he has cancer
(9) the conflict just doesn't get talked through

in all honesty? if he had told me he had cancer, i would have never given my two months....

i mean, the idea of me sharing a house with jackie after my father's death is unthinkable - for both of us.

the point is i'm not just unable to support myself all of a sudden. i was hopeless the whole time. i just had a support system.

i mean, i don't have down syndrome, but suppose i did. that person could survive just fine through their family. but if their family all of sudden ceases to be, they now require outside assistance. i'm just exaggerating the condition to make the point.

it's the same fundamental circumstance - the difference is i never got diagnosed with what i should have been diagnosed with years and years ago.

and now it seems like there was nothing wrong, when, in truth, there was something wrong the whole time.

i mean, it goes back to my earlier argument - who wants that kind of diagnosis if they don't need it? i'm pretty high functioning in the sense that i don't need help carrying out tasks, so it's easy to delude yourself into thinking you'll be ok if you can find the right path. an autism diagnosis is kind of a dead end in a lot of ways. it's not something you want to jump at. but if i can get my school records...

actually, i wonder if i *can* get my school records. that's a huge argument in my favour right now.

i really should have been diagnosed with something in grade school.

just as a corollary of my behaviour.

the argument was always that i had really high marks, and any kind of diagnosis would just hurt my future.

in fact, i think the lack of diagnosis has hurt me much more.

i went through multiple suspensions in high school, i was nearly expelled, and before that my eighth grade teacher actually removed me from her classroom (i had to switch classes halfway through the year). if i had to guess, i'd say i probably spent more time in the hallway in grade 8 than i did in the classroom.

i just spent the time in the hallway doing homework or reading; my grades were like 90-95%, so nobody wanted to "disrupt my future". it's that POTENTIAL thing again....

when i was in my early 20s, i started writing all over my walls.

graphs.

charts.

i was looking for the center of power.

i've been (i think unfairly) accused of stalking two people. trolling, definitely. not stalking.....never been charges laid, never been any justification to lay any.....but it's certainly been anti-social behaviour.

i've been fired for bad punctuality repeatedly.

around 2006, i decided that the problem of existence can be reduced to chasing immortality. the only justification to exist is to attempt to find immortality. if you fail, you've lost nothing - if you succeed, you've justified your existence. any other type of existence is a waste of time.

i still believe this, i just don't think it's feasible before quantum computing becomes a reality, and i don't think that's feasible in my lifetime. all this talk of singularities is based on this exponential growth curve that i don't think is sustainable. there's a point where moore's law is going to flatten out and we're going to find ourselves up against a brick wall. there's a solution in quantum computing, but i think it's a ways beyond us.

consider fusion. 50 years ago, it was the future. we're still waiting.

we're going to be waiting quite a while for those quantum machines to be able to do anything useful, as well.

i mean, to begin with, we've got to understand da fuck is even happening. we're fumbling around in the dark looking for a light-switch with this - over-reaching the theoretical possibilities and assuming things beyond what is actually realistic.

you will fit on a usb key one day. for now, getting you there is well beyond our computing capabilities, and it's going to be that way for a long time.

so, i've resigned myself to the meaninglessness of my existence.

as rational as this all is, it's pretty nuts.

i really think getting those school records is the right way to start. i can excise my narcissism through providing my life story. and, anybody convinced i'm sane by the end....isn't.

there you go jess, that's using that noggin...

it turns out the evaluation he wanted to send me to was to a couple of social workers with no medical credentials. the secretary and i agreed that this was essentially a waste of time, until i could state a goal to overcome - which in my case is not in a form that they can treat. if i tell them i have no motivation to live, they can try to help me work through the lack of motivation, but they can't diagnose me with anything or fill out my papers. their purpose is to help me overcome the existential dread, rather than put me on a path where i can live with it, which is not going to happen in my circumstance - because it's the consequence of a logical process.

in a statement, my position is too subtle for the workers to be able to treat. if they ask me "are you feeling suicidal?", the answer is yes. if they ask me "are you an imminent threat to harm yourself?", the answer is no - it depends on circumstances. they can't parse that because it's a logical statement, and they're trained to respond to irrational behaviour.

so, i need to speak with somebody with actual medical credentials first, to try and get a real diagnosis. if that doesn't work, i become an imminent threat to myself, and the doctor will have to determine if it's the result of a pathology that justifies disability or if i just need some "help" to "work through it".

i just hope the doctor they send me to can think in these shades of grey and put themselves into the space where they can deduce the proper conclusions from first principles. hand-waving this off to a social worker is giving me a death sentence.

stated another way, my "goal" is to have the disability papers processed - but they need a "goal" in a form that would negate the need for disability, which, in my case, does not exist.

the secretary agreed that this *sounded* pathological to her, but the social work process cannot deal with me if i have that "goal" in mind, i need a doctor.

so, i'll wait a few days and see what i hear back before i call odsp and tell them i can't see a doctor until the 12th.

for now, i need to get a drum part done...

deathtokoalas
there's a subtext to this that attaches it to a specific urban setting; i just feel the need to point out that it would be misleading to attach the behaviour to that urban setting. just yesterday, i was walking down the street in suburban areas of windsor, ontario and got hollered at twice by elderly white men from their porches, 20 feet away from the sidewalk. as a transgendered person, i'm exceedingly aware of the differences regarding walking down the street with lipstick on v. walking down the street without lipstick on - it really is staggeringly different in terms of experiences. if you're denying that, you're just not living in this reality...

Ethan Ward
You're disgusting. Tranny turd. Why did you do that to yourself you fucking faggot?

deathtokoalas
i normally delete insulting comments, but i'm going to let the ones on this post sit for a little while.

Ethan Ward
Homosexuals are still fucking faggots so I don't know what you're on about. They will always be fucking faggot and they'll always be insulted and demeaned for their disgusting acts of homosexuality.

deathtokoalas
i wouldn't identify as a homosexual, but i'm otherwise not intervening on this specific post.

Ethan Ward
So you're a straight tranny.....

Doesn't that mean that lesbians don't want you because you're a guy and straight girls don't want you because they're straight......

Pathetic...

deathtokoalas
i'm kind of pansexual in theory, but primarily asexual in practice. you're kind of cluing in on something, but you're missing the point - gay men aren't generally attracted to women. this is a complex topic, but gay men aren't generally attracted to women, right? i said that twice, but, like get it. otherwise, they wouldn't be gay, would they? so a male that would be attracted to me would be either straight or bisexual. in the context of a relationship with a male, then, that's functionally a heterosexual relationship, where i'm fulfilling the female role and the dude is fulfilling the male role.

in the context of a relationship with a women, it's more complicated. the best way to box me in in this context is to understand me as transgendered - and the female in the relationship as bisexual. the relationships i've been in with women have been multi-faceted in this context, in that they take on heterosexual and homosexual tendencies. but it's hard for me to call myself a lesbian, in that sense because i'm really filling both gender roles. it's just too narrow - and i'm kind of appropriating something.

Ethan Ward
Sounds like some perverted, sick, twisted shit. I will pray for you.

deathtokoalas
in the end, i think you're entitled to your opinion - so long as you respect my right to not particularly care what you think about me and refrain from interfering with how i choose to live my life.

i mean, i don't really think there's much to fear about your ideas of "hellfire".

Joe Heuft
As a Marxist, I couldn't agree more without with the philosophical underpinnings of their lyrics.

welcometoskyvalley
With or without?

Anthony Diaz
If you play it backwards, it says, "Send me to the collective farm because Big Brother loves me"

EndTimeRunner
A snappy reply for all the philosophers with no personal experience of how their beliefs feel when realized. Leave Marxism out of good music, this is clearly about getting rid of issues bothering the spirit, not the state. It would stink if they'd play it at ANY political convention. And don't use it for commercials either.

stephanieboyla
Marxism means no more big record companies funding albums like this...and no more fancy hair salons...

welcometoskyvalley
Thank you for sharing the fact that you have absolutely no idea what marxism is. The door is that way.

Dot Red
the state is inherently evil

stephanieboyla
Yes, there's the door out of music funded by record companies (and the big, bad profit that makes some richer than others (which, by the way, enables the generation of more music.)) - please use it!

deathtokoalas
the soviets weren't so keen on artistic freedom, and there were a lot of people (anarchists mostly, but also other types of socialists) that saw that strain in marxism coming before it happened. marxism is in fact one of the worst "work or starve" philosophies out there. when you work through it, it's clear that it doesn't really offer a solution to the enslavement of workers, it just tries to argue their condition is a perception that can be overcome.

from an artist's perspective, marxism is truly unworkable and the artists you see arguing otherwise are truly useful idiots. i'd rather suggest an essay by oscar wilde, the soul of man under socialism, as the starting point for an artist-centric brand of socialism. artists have an especially strong motive to suggest solutions that move beyond the old worker-centric calvinist work or starve status quo.

i agree that the band is generally critical of the neo-liberalism that was engulfing the world around them.

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