j reacts to elbowgate

i've been fairly (fair, as in fair play) critical of trudeau - supportive when justified, dismissive when warranted. so, don't interpret this as a partisan liberal reaction. i identify as an anarchist and am really to the left of the entire spectrum. frankly, i'd more readily identify as a supporter of the ndp - although i'll admit i have been voting liberal regularly for the last four or five years.

what you see in this video is actually a big part of the reason why. this is the accurate analysis of the situation - and it's not isolated behaviour from the ndp, either.

here's the thing: these tricks don't work. since the ndp started with this shit, they've been nose-diving. i wouldn't expect the outcome of this to be any different.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn9Up-tjmoM

it's really not unlike the setup around trump's manager being charged with assault, which clearly helped trump when the evidence got out - and anybody with any critical thinking skills could see that nothing actually happened.

to put it another way: trudeau's elbow on brousseau may have been accidental, but brousseau's sucker punch on trudeau was fully conscious and designed with intent.

canadians are actually pretty smart. we'll mostly figure that out.

--

i was thinking about the elbowgate thing as i was eating (and watching a  richard wolff lecture) and i think there's another dynamic to this that is being missed and should really be drawn attention to. it's also a theme i went back to repeatedly during the last canadian election, so i have some personal continuity in the commenting. it's another example of the difference between old media and new media, and more evidence that the media, as a whole, has still not clued into the new reality of things.

i've been making the argument that they need to start handing out pink slips. nobody's going to starve to death, here. but, it's really getting beyond ridiculous, beyond surreal and to the point of almost being dangerous. i don't mean to pick on peter mansbridge, for example, but maybe it's time to go home when the son of the guy you started off covering gets elected?

the reality is that the way the media is covering this is like it happened twenty or thirty years ago, before we had this thing called the internet. and, let's be crystal clear: the internet is not a new thing. it's well past the point where the old folks can complain that the world is passing them by. it's to the point where if you're still operating under tv rules, you are simply out of touch and need to take stringent courses in new media or be set out to pasture. i'm sorry, but it's true. these panels you get with people like andrew coyne and chantal hebert are not just useless, but are approaching a point of dangerous anachronism - less because they are out of touch and more because so few people seem to realize it.

twenty years ago, the way people would have seen the encounter would have been framed by a handful of media sources. the corporate media would go to town with it, more out of a desire to boost ratings than anything else. the state run media and a handful of moderate sources would have set the record straight. but, you'd still be reliant on their filtering - their narrative. if they decided they didn't want to show you the video, you wouldn't see the video.

today, the way people are going to experience the exchange is something more like this:

1) they read a headline, or hear somebody talking about it or something.
2) before they even read an article about it, they will immediately go to youtube to find footage of it. in fact, they may even be hoping they get to see the prime minister pile drive some hapless mp, right. they're googling the action.
3) they will either be relieved or disappointed by the anti-climactic video evidence.
4) they're going to mumble that it's just more media bullshit, and put it in the list of reasons you shouldn't trust media.

but, that's not what you're getting from the mainstream media. it is what you're getting from independent media - which is basically the new msm for people under....it's 2016, so under 50, really. you're going to wake up one day around 2025 and realize that old media is really an idiosyncrasy of the baby boomer generation, and will disappear along with them - and their influence. but, the new media hasn't been able to interpret itself as legitimate, yet, so it's still in this phase where it's reacting.

it's not the only situation over the last few years where situations seem outright bizarre and the disconnect seems to be over the question of old and new media. one prominent example was the collapse of jeb bush; i think he just focused too much on old media, and not enough on new media. he had essentially no internet presence before the "please clap" video. and, didn't trump actually steal his domain name? outrageous.

it's the only way i can really make sense of both the msm analysis and the ndp's tactic: they have to be assuming they can control the narrative by controlling access to information. they have to be completely out of touch with reality, and ready to be put out to pasture. otherwise, everybody from the top down, from the left to right, would have to realize that 90% of the people that care at all are going to take the ten seconds it requires to google the event, and conclude they're being maliciously lied to.

20-05-2016: consolidating archives (and ranting...)

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

j reacts to logic around whether trump should run to the right or to the left of clinton

trump will lose if he uses this tactic. the popular perception is in line with the objective facts: not only is clinton not "weak" on foreign policy, but she's a frightening hawk who will start multiple wars. the fear with clinton is not that she's too "weak", it's that she's far too strong. she's not the kind of person that you want in charge of delicate situations, because she has a tendency to just strong arm her way through everything - like a bull in a china shop. he's just making himself sound stupid.

trump will win if he runs as an anti-war candidate with strong libertarian leanings. in fact, i will go so far as stating the following: the republicans will not win another presidential election until they run a libertarian candidate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N7e9aRflO8

the reality is that trying to run to the right of clinton is a very narrow path. that's going to be her tactic, of course - to control not just the center of the road, but a good portion of the right of it. she's going to try to muscle him off on to the curb - and she's not just smarter than him....she's got bigger arms, too. if he lets her do this, she's going to body slam into the ditch. and, this is the popular reading of the election - she gets 65% of the vote and wins all the red states by presenting herself as the more reasonable and more moderate conservative, while he sputters out with gun nuts and kooky nationalists.

he's not strong enough to push back. she's got the establishment and the media on her side. it's a losing fight; she will crush him like a bug.

the only way for him to get out of this is to swing out and try and rally her left flank to mutiny. they're not going to need a lot of convincing, either. they're just going to need something halfways articulate and convincingly sane. but, that's kind of a tough sell - and getting tougher every day.

19-05-2016: exploring southwest detroit in the day and the night (to see chelsea wolfe)

show footage:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/kOp6AxyO6g8?list=PLrHImg7oLm2aa6hPQlp4A8E8FjYuYnm2t

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/05/19.html

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

19-05-2016: chelsea wolfe (detroit)

their music:
https://chelseawolfe.bandcamp.com/

vlog for the day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlSVl2gKhlU

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/05/19.html

i was dreaming this morning. and, in case you're curious....

the truth is that i'm actually very content with the life that i live right now. it would be nice if disability could be a bit more, but i'm actually not complaining - there's really no point you could set it at where it wouldn't be nice if it were a bit more. i'm truly well fed and consider myself to have a very high quality of life.

so, if i were to do it all over again, what would i do? well, i'd be moving towards getting to where i am today faster, not trying to get to somewhere else. that may have meant applying for disability at a younger age. or, perhaps i may have focused on investment.

if i had the advantage of foresight, i would have probably studied finance and then not spent the time afterwards working but trying to rip people off on the various markets, until i could approximate the lifestyle i have now. it might mean $3000/month off dividends rather than $1000/month off government assistance. but, that actually doesn't really scale into a substantial difference. less walking, more cabs. more pizza, maybe? buying software instead of pirating it?

i just get the impression sometimes that people think i expected more out of myself. but, what that really means is that they weren't actually listening to what i was saying. i was never about winning the game; i was always about trying to get out of the obligation of having to play it. that's my conception of freedom: walking away.

seasons 001-006 (bd-1) [introducing myself]

06. trying to move forward, but just can't stay awake... (dvd 6)

18-05-2016: sorting through old email (ending season 6, starting the summer)

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

typical alex jones - needs to pick on children to make his argument. are any of those kids even old enough to vote? i'd guess not. you should really be applauding them for having the initiative to participate at 15 or 16.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OC7z__uKbA

see, i'd actually like to see this twisted around. i think the people of libya might have something to say about clinton surrogates claiming that violence and intimidation are never acceptable under any circumstances. i guess there's different ways to read into this, but the broad truth is: bullshit.

so, prophesy > science, apparently. all those frauds just making stuff up after the fact. if they were true geniuses, like cenk, they'd be able to just predict what's going to happen beforehand.

ugh. idiots.

but, listen: it's the predictable consequence of hetero-patriarchal capitalist brainwashing. the ego. the self. it's not about learning and growing, it's about winning and cultivating the cult of the self.

when is the channel going to start covering nostradamus?

Susu Fierce
Sorrry, I didn't get 1/2 of what you wrote! Could you please clarify for me? Thanks. I'm not being disrespectful or sarcastic. I mean it.

jessica
i'm mostly talking to myself, anyways.

do you have a habit of betting against rothschilds, bill?

j reacts to updated data on sanders' path (the democratic primary outcome is a tie!)

so, after epically failing in the closed northeastern primaries, sanders has unexpectedly rebounded and done a little better than i thought plausible in a few places: indiana, kentucky and west virginia. does that mean sanders has a chance after all?

well, we have some more data to play with. i'm going to do a little update.

june 5

a few weeks ago, i would have suggested that puerto rico should favour clinton because it's offshore. since then, we've seen that logic fail to pan out - and we've also learned that clinton doesn't really have any meaningful advantage with hispanics, except in closed primaries, which is more of a reflection on class than on language. puerto rico is an open primary and it doesn't have the wealthy, educated (and older...) hispanic voters that have backed clinton in places like florida. so, sanders really ought to be given a fighting chance, here. let's be a little more optimistic than we should be and say he can win 60%. sanders +12.

june 7

california

some people are making note of the fact that oregon wasn't a blowout, but the more important thing to pull out is that it's actually the first closed primary that sanders has won in the whole process. let's say that independents in california can hit 30% of the vote, and sanders can win 75% of them - not unreasonable numbers. then, assuming that democrats vote the same way they did in oregon, you'd get the following percentage of voters for sanders:

.55*.7 + .75*.3 = 61%. so, a big win is really perfectly reasonable.

now, let's be a little optimistic: let's say the state erupts and you get independents at 40% of the vote, and he wins 80% of them. well....

.55*.6 + .8*.4 = 65%. so, we see diminishing returns. but, let's take that 65% as a less than absurd possibility. sanders +143.

that's sanders +155.

new jersey

new jersey allows independents to vote, so the closest thing to it that we can base information on would have to be rhode island, where sanders got to 55%.  but, new jersey has been hit hard by deindustrialization, too. so, let's be optimistic and go for 60%. sanders +26.

that's sanders +181.

montana & the dakotas

well, he did well in the surrounding states, so why not project 75%? sanders +29.

that's sanders +210.

new mexico & dc

these are both closed primaries, and the data is pretty clear about what happens to sanders in closed primaries, everywhere except the most progressive state in the country. i previously strongly suggested that sanders has to win dc as a statement on his ability to win liberal blacks, but the closed primary rules have demonstrated themselves far too restrictive to even contemplate it. if she loses a closed primary in dc, she should conclude her coalition has completely evaporated and immediately withdraw. clinton +20.

let's round it down to sanders +175. the current difference is around clinton +275. so, the end result is clinton +100. let's say it's under 100: 90, 80 - something like that.

so, does he have any chance of winning? not by the delegate count.

but, let's say that he actually pulls that off and keeps her to under 100 in pledged delegates. there's 4051 delegates. 100/4051 = 2.5%.

is that really a win for clinton? if she can't win independents, anywhere? if she gets hammered on the last day? if she has no momentum at all? where do you draw the line at a functional draw?

i think the democratic party has broadcast it's plans pretty clearly; his chance of getting the nomination are not slim, they're infinitesimal. but, he does still have the opportunity to make them look incredibly stupid in forcing them to cut off their collective noses to spite their collective faces.

and, cruz may end up being right about something after all: those responsible for trump's victory will be judged very harshly.

17-05-2016: another tuesday lost partially to primary nerdery (and some rants...)

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

j reacts to the kentucky primary

the votes are still coming in, but it seems likely that clinton will win kentucky on the strength of her urban dominance.

so, which is right: did her obvious demographic advantage with southern white christians get her the win, or does the unexpected closeness of the race suggest she's caving in key constituencies?

both.

forget about the east of the state. that's the jackass vote that's been brainwashed by talk radio into irrational clinton-hating. i mean, there's lots of reasons to not like clinton and everything, don't get me wrong here. but, none of those reasons suggest you support sanders if you're a rural, conservative kentuckian. that area will vote overwhelmingly for trump. it means nothing to sanders, his campaign or his chances as an independent - nor does it mean anything to clinton and whether she's holding her voters.

but, she should have won in the south by large numbers. she carried whites in tennessee by a substantial margin. and, she should have won in the suburbs around cinci, lexington and louisville; that's not coal country, it's basically ohio. also, note that kentucky is a closed primary, so she didn't get flooded with independents. she for real here got beat in one of her core demographics.

she did well enough in the cities that she can avoid going into crisis mode, but the results should nonetheless be very concerning to her campaign. all evidence suggests that if this vote was on super tuesday, she would have probably got close to 65%. what happens if you let them vote in july?

these studies often lack a discussion of any kind of mechanism - it's just straight correlations with no attempts at explanation. as such, you don't actually learn anything.

what are potatoes? they're highly concentrated sugar. so one should expect that high potato consumption with low exercise would certainly lead to excess weight and high blood pressure. one would also expect that high potato consumption with high activity levels would lead to increased muscle mass, as your body converts the excess sugar into muscle.

you should neither be shocked nor particularly enlightened by any this.

www.cbc.ca/news/health/potato-consumption-hypertension-1.3586370

PshyeahV2.0
Didn't they already have equal rights?

jessica amber murray
it's actually a contentious point. the previous government made the argument that gender identity came under sexual orientation, but that was actually obviously wrong. however, i've long argued that it should be covered under 'analogous grounds' - the issue has apparently never been tested in court. now it's explicit, anyways.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-transgender-rights-1.3584482

j reacts to the canadian transgender human rights code amendment

this is an interesting juxtaposition when contrasted to us coverage, isn't it? watch the video at the bottom, where a conservative senator explains why he's going to vote in favour of trans rights and a second conservative talking head gets emotional describing the absurdity of the debates that she knows are going to come up at the convention (the conservatives will choose a replacement for stephen harper in 2017).

the first guest on the panel suggests there's a political aspect to this, and i entirely agree. but, note in itself what that implies. it's a very different context than in the states, where obama is just finishing out his term and can basically do whatever he wants without fearing any consequences. trudeau is standing up in favour of trans rights because he thinks it's a political winner. and, he's actually probably right, too.

what about the legislation?

these bills have come and gone and they never really excite me. do i think that gender expression should be protected under canadian human rights law and barred as a legal means of discrimination? do i think that violence against trans people is a hate crime? sure. and, so i do certainly support the bill in the literal sense. but, do i think that the solution to discrimination and marginalization is for the parliament to amend the human rights code? i don't.

this isn't a political issue in any way except as a vehicle for opportunism and a way to push identity politics. it's entirely a social issue. and, the work that needs to be done is at a social outreach level.

the comparison to gay marriage is consequently badly misplaced. letting gay people get married is a positive right that can be enacted with the stroke of a pen. ensuring that trans people are safe from violence and allowed to participate in society without discrimination is a negative right that has many decades worth of fighting before it comes to fruition.

but, sure: it's nice to have the prime minister in your corner, anyways.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-transgender-rights-1.3584482

dear america,

again: let's get this straight.

jill stein is a liberal.
bernie sanders is a conservative democrat.
elizabeth warren is a moderate republican.
hillary clinton is a right-wing extremist.

you're just confused because you've been pulled right by a system that is structurally designed to constantly nudge you in that direction.

you've had the carpet shifted under your feet.

regards,
canadian leftist

16-05-2016: selling off some old cds to make it through the heavy may show schedule...

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

j reacts to the imminent and irreversible demise of pewdiepie

i told you this was coming. i did. you can't look it up, because i deleted it. but it's back there in the repressed part of your memory.

this is cyclical. it happens to all young teen crazes. for my age group, it was with the new kids on the block. the way it works is like this:

1) something gets popular with 12-13 year olds.
2) they grow out of it at 17-18.
3) they make fun of it as a part of the process of growing out of it.
4) the next batch of 12-13 year olds hears the 17-18 year olds making fun of it, and mimics them - thereby robbing the thing of the audience it needs to regenerate.
5) that pushes to the younger group.
6) the thing is dead, as a fad.
7) 20 years later, it's retro.

this video is at stage (5) of the process; the pewds is a dead man walking.

---

so, pewds..

when are you starting a metal band?

i mean, you've got the beard and the disgruntled swedish glower. it's gotta be leading to something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJIgq5n7WDc

15-05-2016: day spent reading...

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

shit hillary said, vol 1-59

i am suspending the shit hillary said campaign

shit hillary said vol 59

shit hillary said vol 58

shit hillary said vol 57

season 6

j reacts to the deficit of polling in oregon

reality check: it's sunday afternoon and the only poll i've seen in oregon has clinton winning by 15 points. now, it's a fox poll, so you can take it skeptically. regardless...

14-05-2016: taking time between unwanted naps to see basic nature in windsor

concert footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmTDg-hSLHA

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/05/14.html

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

there's a very simple, one-line rebuttal: if his plans were more expensive, the industry would support them. it doesn't. therefore, they're more cost-effective. qed.

this is the best foofighters track i've heard in years - and maybe something trump could use in rallies without getting sued? really. donald, man, this is your tune. grasp it. make it yours.

sidney blumenthal has been clinton's closest adviser for twenty years - to the point that i wouldn't be surprised if they've had a few nights together. there was a fiasco when she tried to bring him into the state department; obama hates him. if she wins, he's going to get a super plum post. maybe even chief of staff. so, it's maybe a little bit of a stretch to suggest he's just there to clean up the mess. regardless of everything else, you are likely to be hearing a lot from sidney blumenthal for the rest of the cycle - and even more from him if she wins. so, while i agree that the situation is curious, i think this is grasping at straws.

in the grander scheme of things, they have to be able to grasp just how much credibility this would give to sanders. trump is in the process of selling out. if they go through this process, sanders is going to come out of it bigger than jesus. what i mean is that they're figuratively martyring him. he's going to start swinging trump voters, and he could be competitive in places that nobody would even consider.

they may be arrogant and everything, but they can't be that stupid.

14-05-2016: basic nature - gone (windsor)

their music:
https://dubditchpicnic.bandcamp.com/album/circles-and-lines

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/05/14.html

vlog for the day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz5UVuUKIAg

my music:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com

not going to do anything about it? or, maybe, leaked accidentally-on-purpose. the controlled leak is a pretty common thing.

i actually don't expect hillary to follow through with this, as she seems to be much more beholden to israeli interests, but there's been some move in this administration to try and do an asset swap around the saudis and the iranians. it's less that the asset swap has yielded any meaningful results and more that the saudis seem to be in the process of spinning themselves off into an ipo (and putin seems to be putting down quite a bit of cash). the american-saudi relationship was always very uneasy. the americans have never fully trusted the saudis, and really shouldn't have. the saudis have shown little hesitation in turning the knife. but, they need the oil, right. today, they're exporting oil and keeping the price down...

if hillary wins, she's going to make it an immediate priority to try and patch things up. however, it's not really clear how feasible it is. if the saudis want out, they want out. and, old man kissinger may end up withdrawing his endorsement.

this may consequently be a bit of an attempt to set the ball rolling in ways that she can't stop, and try and force her to focus more on shifting towards stronger ties with iran.

13-05-2016: the inheritance is worthless, for now

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

j reacts to speculation on what jesus may have actually looked like

"If sheep, aud swiue, and lions strong, and all the bovine crew, Could paint with cunning hands, and do what clever mortals do, Depend upon it, every pig with snout so broad and blunt, Would make a Jove that like himself would thunder with a grunt; And every lion's god would roar, aud every bull's would bellow, And every sheep's would baa, and every beast his worshipped fellow Would find in some immortal form, aud naught exist divine But had the gait of lion, sheep, or ox, or grunting swine." - xenophanes fragment, from a long time ago in what is now turkey.

additionally.

"Ethiopians say that their gods are snub–nosed and black
Thracians that they are pale and red-haired"

see, i just came across an article criticizing white europeans for the representations of jesus as white. but, everybody does this. the book claims god created us in it's image. but, even the greek philosophers knew that in truth we constantly create our gods in our own image.

the truth is that there have been as many jesuses as there have been cultures that worship him, and they've all reflected, in some way, the indigenous cultures that the localized syncretic concepts of christianity have been constructed around. you get jesus as warrior-king, jesus as sage, jesus as fire-breathing zealot - it's a kind of blank slate to scrawl over.

if you actually trace the different representations of jesus through time, you get a variety of different representations. jesus seems to get a little whiter from the medieval period into the renaissance, as he becomes less italian looking. the byzantine jesus looks pretty greek. and, before that? well, he looks pretty jewish - that is, kind of tanned, but ultimately pretty caucasian.

i'm just pushing back against the idea that jesus would have looked like an arab, because it's pretty ahistorical. the arab migration into the region didn't happen for a few more hundred years. rather, at the time of jesus, migration into the levant would have been mostly moving from the north and the east: iranians, greeks and italians. and, so, it's not particularly strange that 4th or 5th century depictions of jesus make him look more iranian than arab.

i know. modern historians want continuity. but, this doesn't work with the full scale of evidence, it's just an ideological attempt to reject racism. see, i don't think we need to make shit up to reject racism - i think the evidence in front of us is strong enough.

the three different types of jews that exist today are all of various mixed ancestry: the ashkenazi have absorbed a lot of turkic and slavic, and the sephardi and mizrahi have both absorbed a lot of arab. if you work out the genetics, the closest thing we have to an ancestral population of jews is actually the kurds. this is a complicated and contested thing to try and sort through and understand but just about everybody agrees that it's actually true.

the conclusion is that jesus probably didn't look like an arab or a palestinian jew but actually probably looked something like this guy.

j reacts to whether nate silver is biased, or just defending his model

i've never talked to nate silver, and so i'll acknowledge i don't know his personality well. but, it's probably less about bias and more about ego. yet, this itself is rooted in a warped concept of what an election is - and i've seen this a whole bunch of times with a whole bunch of other people and have been pushing back about it for quite a while.

the error is common and widespread across academic disciplines; it's called generalizing the specific. here's how this works. nate comes up with a pretty good model for the 2008 election - and it was a pretty good model. then, he assumes that this model is universally applicable, perhaps with just minor tweaks. so, he should be able to apply it to every other election. this is how you do science, after all, right?

but, understanding elections is not like building physical laws. the basis of science is repeatably demonstrable experiments. if you drop an apple on monday, it falls. if you drop it on tuesday, it falls. if you drop it next friday, it falls. it's always the same. that's physics. well, that's newtonian physics, anyways. but, what if you were to change the gravitational constant sometime in the middle of the week? well, you can't - not when you're doing physics, anyways. they're constants.

when you're analyzing elections, the constants are going to fluctuate dramatically year over year or even month over month. you could wake up to a single event that will throw everything out of balance. or, demographics could shift midway through the cycle. that is where nate's error really is: he's assuming that his 2008 model is a universal truth, rather than a good analysis of a specific election.

because he's made this bad assumption, he then needs to defend it. see, you're misinterpreting this as some kind of bias. it's really just his ego trying to uphold the universality of his model, based on the flawed assumption that you can have a universal theory of elections in the first place.

trump's win is largely a function of his opponents' errors and the weakness of the field. i don't think anybody really saw it coming from a distance, but when you saw the way things unfolded, it became obvious what was happening. there simply wasn't an electable candidate in the field. i don't know if you blame bush for being lacklustre or if you blame the banks for taking too long to figure it out. i don't know if you blame rubio for being transparently false or if you blame cruz for splitting the vote. but, he won by controlling the centre of the republican spectrum in the vacuum of a moderate candidate. i still think that kasich would have cleaned his clock, one-on-one, from an early point - if he had comparable media coverage. but, it just upheld what we know about open competition: it's not the best candidate that wins, but the one that is the most violent. if he had to fight against a strong, centrist candidate over a smaller field then he would have probably lost every state. so, i don't think he was wrong; i actually said something very similar, and i do stand by it. i just think trump's opponents were particularly incompetent, in ways that were hard to predict from a distance.

what he should have done with the democratic primary was build a new model with new information. reality is that there's lots of blacks that voted for obama because he was black, and it was reasonable to build a model around it. but, nobody is voting for clinton because obama is black. people may be voting for clinton because she's methodist, because she's female, because she's a hawk, because she's more conservative, because she'll tax them less - or, because they're old. that's the biggest takeaway, right. clinton wins when the voters are older, and loses when they're younger. had he crunched those numbers and built a new model, with new data, it would have probably been pretty good.

but, universalizing the specific means you don't do that. it means you assume the apple falls the same way every time. and, it means you have to defend your work against scrutiny.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP7fxNdAs5E

you have to expect the conservatives to yell and scream and have a temper tantrum over this, because the process will rightly have the end result of removing their ability to win majorities with a minority of support (and, you can't compare the liberal's 40% to the conservatives' 40% due to the way the spectrum aligns - it's just yet another dishonest argument from tom mulcair). but, that's too bad - the liberals have a majority, here, and should use it to plow through the av as quick as possible, so that voters have time to understand it.

the worst thing that can happen is for this to drag on until a month before the election, as the backlash could push them out. they want to push it through quickly so that people have time to calm down and realize it's a net benefit to the stability of the country.

and, that's going to mean ignoring the temper tantrums, until the opposition tires itself out and goes to sleep.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wherry-liberals-electoral-reform-1.3579651

who is going to do a better job fulfilling the unstated role - an by all accounts capable woman who just happens to be the prime minister's wife, or people that have some training and legitimate interest in the topic? who will be more accountable?

it's kind of a broader issue. what is more efficient: private charity (which is what she's being expected to do...) that is accountable to nobody or public servants that are accountable in the traditional manners? i vote for public sector services over private sector charity.

...which means that she should have an office, it should be accountable to the house and it should be handed over to the next wife or husband

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/sophie-gregoire-trudeau-overwhelmed-1.3580164

11/12-05-2016: analyzing the value of my inheritance...

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

10-05-2016: boreal sons, west virginia & an unexpected early crash

concert footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfGU586YyVY

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/05/10.html

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

this media narrative is going to fall flat. the vast majority of sanders supporters don't see any material difference between clinton and trump, anyways - and may even lean a little closer to trump on foreign policy and trade. the really interesting question is whether jill stein can get these supporters, not if clinton can. but, the warped truth is that she'll probably win anyways, because republican support for trump is even lower.

www.cbc.ca/news/world/clinton-sanders-sound-bite-trump-1.3576362

Mollybloom
As if -- Canadian comments on U.S. politics matter a damn to anyone south-of-us. Nevertheless, this collective purgative does have momentary solace as we stop crapping in our own backyard.
But for gawd's sake Bernie, remember Ralph and ponder whether you guys would have got anywhere near Iraq with Gore.

jessica amber murray
i am absolutely certain that gore would have bombed iraq. in fact, he'd probably have also avoided the protests.

www.cbc.ca/news/world/clinton-sanders-sound-bite-trump-1.3576362

shit hillary said vol 56

"I wouldn’t raise it [the capital gains investment tax] above 20% if I raised it at all."

j reacts to whether kentucky is similar to west virginia...or not.

so, how similar is kentucky to west virginia?

well, in fact, a substantial amount of the population of kentucky is a part of a border city. cincinatti and lousville together make up 35% of the population. i think that the following map is a pretty strong argument that clinton ought to be favoured in these cities - and that if she loses those cities, we can talk about shifts in voting intentions.

that would really be a smoking gun, i think. i mean, half of louisville already voted - for clinton. and, half of cincinatti did, too. we actually have the privilege of a nearly apples-to-apples comparison, there. if she wins the ohio side of cinci in march, and loses the kentucky side in may? that strongly suggests that her support is, in fact, caving. but, indiana was last week. how can you expect different results?

lexington houses another 20% of the population and it is truly barely outside the city limits of both lousville and cincinatti, so why would anybody expect significantly different results? so, you're now around 50% of the population in these three geographically proximate cities.

i still haven't seen any polling in kentucky. but, i think this graphic of indiana glued to ohio makes it clear as day that if she doesn't carry this tri-city area then she's definitely bleeding support. even some mixed results are going to point in that direction.

there may be remnant excuses in the rest of the state, although note that i've also attached a combination of tennessee and virginia, and think it pretty clearly implies she should win the southern parts of kentucky as well. i mean, what changes on the border, there? there's not even a river or anything. it's about as arbitrary as the sykes-picot line. how's she going to sweep tennessee like that and then lose kentucky? that wouldn't be as much of a smoking gun, but it would be a pretty strong argument that she's losing support in her base.

it may be that some of the counties in the very east of the state are lost in the same kind of non-reality that exists in west virginia, but i think i've convinced myself that we can make some real conclusions from kentucky - regardless of what clinton has said or how important it is.

losing louisville - at least - is going to suggest the campaign should go into crisis mode.

it's also going to suggest that sanders' argument is strengthening, not weakening.

but, again - i don't see any good reason at all to think the map of kentucky won't look like the map of tennessee.

j reacts to west virginia (it's opposites-land)

so, can we conclude that sanders would win in the south if there was a rematch tomorrow?

the exit polls are throwing a few wrenches into it.

1) the democrats have higher turnout than the republicans. that's hard to make sense of in west virginia, which is an open primary. so, voter registration is entirely irrelevant, because you can vote for either party (or both parties) regardless of how you're registered. would west virginia be in play in the general? well, hardly.

now, it is true that trump told people to stay home. so, you can at least understand the decrease in republican turnout that way. but, then, you can't argue that sanders is winning crossover trump votes - he must be winning voters that are not at all interested in the republicans.

2) yet, the exit polls are also suggesting that the voters self-identify as right-of-centre. that is inconsistent with the low republican turnout. it's just a contradiction, flat out.

3) sanders is apparently doing well with coal miners, which is another contradiction - as his climate policies are far tougher than hers are. i mean, i saw this narrative, but i rejected it as propaganda. the reality is that sanders will actually eliminate coal jobs (although he'll compensate them for it); who would actually believe that clinton is going to do anything other than flop on that, for the right price? i mean, i know what she said. but, who would possibly believe her? i suppose you could argue that it's just not thought through well. but, then, why is turnout for trump so low? if you're voting in favour of coal jobs, you'd have to be remarkably clueless to vote solely for sanders. even if you laughably believe what hillary said, you'd think you'd vote for trump as well as for sanders.

i do think that this is quite ominous for clinton, as the demographics in west virginia should overwhelmingly favour her. but, i can't rule out the possibility that what you're seeing is an ignorant reaction to a bald-faced lie, rather than a general shift in voting intentions amongst southern conservatives.

but, the evidence is mounting that there has been a big shift in southern support. let's see how she does in kentucky, first.

---

yeah.

see, this is what sanders said:

“While I strongly believe we need to combat climate change to make our planet habitable for our children and our grandchildren, let me be clear: We cannot abandon communities that have been dependent on coal and other fossil fuels,” he said, according to prepared remarks of his speech. “In my view, we have got to invest $41 billion rebuilding coal mining communities and making sure that Americans in McDowell County and all over this country receive the job training they need for the clean energy jobs of the future.”

when somebody puts aside $40 billion dollars for retraining in coal communities, you can be pretty sure they're going to shut down the industry more or less for good. so, this idea that they were voting for sanders as a reaction to clinton's coal comments is something that you ought to discard. it doesn't actually make any sense.

so, i mean, it's not like i didn't realize that the comments were likely to upset people. it's just that i couldn't imagine anybody voting for sanders as a response. the rational thing to do is vote for trump.

but, voters don't have perfect information. in fact, in places like west virginia, they tend to have very low information. i think it's entirely reasonable to suggest that they didn't do their research, and just foolishly kneejerked. that is, they heard something on the news (or talk radio) that they didn't like and they voted against that.

but, here's another strange statistic: apparently upwards of 40% of voters in the democratic primary are planning to vote for trump.

remember: this is also a state where you get significant numbers of write-ins.

i think the broader take-away from west virginia is that it's gone down the rabbit hole. what you really see in the numbers is a level of cynicism that exists only in the realm of the surreal. and, so, trying to predict results, or analyze results, is sort of pointless - you're assuming an inherent rationality that isn't actually there.

i think it's clear that my analysis was accurate: voters in the democratic primary were overwhelmingly conservative and broadly fit the same demographic patterns that voted heavily for clinton in surrounding states. they just refused to behave rationally.

i've pointed out a few times that i'm not an american; while i certainly know more about american geography than most americans know about canadian geography, i do have limits in my understanding. so, this is the question that i need a real answer to: just how similar is kentucky to west virginia? are we going to get these same kind of surreal results, that defy any kind of real logic? or is it going to align more with states like tennessee?

it's a big question, because it really defines whether sanders is still competitive. is he winning due to cynicism or enthusiasm? and, can it be projected to states that voted weeks or months ago or not?

wait. when did tucker carlson hit puberty?

i actually don't have much bad to say about this. it's facile, and kind of stupid, but you can say the same thing about any other political slogan, right? and, the reality is that shit doesn't happen unless it comes from the bottom up. i mean, you don't expect people to go out and start chanting mill or something, do you? that's not a gendered comment, it's a human comment. if there's something j-lo is good at, it's getting people to pay attention to her. so, this is really an absolutely respectable attempt to get some people pushing for something that is really long overdue.

i'm just not sure she's backing the right candidate.

hey, listen: it's not like i don't think hillary's on your side, intellectually. i just don't think you're going to get what you're hoping for.

10-05-2016: boreal sons - sleepwalker (windsor)

their music:
https://borealsons.bandcamp.com/

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/05/10.html

vlog for the day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3T9Aqn4Hfs

my music:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com

i agree with council, and would add that this is an abuse of power. he has no mandate to tax people and send it out of the city as a political gimmick. that $300,000 could and should certainly go to helping the disadvantaged in sarnia.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/sarnia-mayor-s-proposal-to-send-25k-to-fort-mcmurray-falls-flat-1.3575075

09-05-2016: a series of rants, with a coincidental focus on the money supply

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

j reacts to misplaced confidence in hillary clinton's reasoning skills

but, i mean, remember....

hillary is always wrong about everything.

if you think you've got the best idea, and you're right, she'll probably do something else. and, if she picks x over y, it's probably the wrong choice.

what i'm getting at - and this is important - is that if you want to understand what she's going to do, you need to throw any kind of concept of optimization under the bus. she's never going to do the thing that makes the most sense or is most likely to succeed - we have decades of public records that indicates she never does, so why do you think she will now, all of a sudden? no. rather, you need to try and get into her head, which means making a number of substitutions. one example....

instead of thinking about what is best for the country, or the planet, or whatever other collective concept of things, you need to always analyze decisions in terms of what is best for hillary's career. the importance of self-interest is truly paramount. i think this is where she loses a lot of leftists in not understanding her. like, consider iraq, for example. it was obviously the wrong choice in just about every context - except the context of her own career advancement. which, it turns out, she was wrong about. but, to understand why she made the choice, you need to look at questions of self-promotion - and not at what the iaea said, or what the united nations voted for.

so, i mean, it's not like i'm denying some logic in picking warren. it could even be the right choice. but, if it is, you can be sure she won't make it.

rather, you should expect that the choice that she does make will backfire in some way.

j reacts to donald trump perpetuating the republican talking points on government debt

so, you're making the standard right-wing error of confusing personal debt with government debt. do you see what's happening, here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f00njIl9iAM

ok. i read the article, and it points out that the united states cannot actually default, unless it does so on purpose - which is a correction of the error that the right-wing demagogues were pushing through as political theatre in the fiscal cliff non-issue.

but, it doesn't change the fact that this is something that trump can't actually do. his claim that he can default on sovereign debt is about as ridiculous as promising a peace dividend of unicorns.

the correct conclusion from yglesias is that what it exposes is total ignorance. you, on the other hand, are just parroting the same, stupid right-wing scare-mongering you hear from the right on a fairly regular basis.

j reacts to elizabeth warren sounding like a moderate republican

see, here's the actual truth: it was exceedingly confusing as to why anybody ever really interpreted warren as a leftist in the first place. she doesn't even seem to be a keynesian, she's more of a literal classical liberal. at least bernie is mostly pushing a new deal type of framework. warren is all teddy roosevelt. and, there's simply nothing leftist about this - it's really just a type of moderate conservatism.

that said, even if she's pushing for it, i don't think that hillary will pick her, but not for the reasons being bandied about. i think hillary is likely to view warren as a liability - she's too easy a target by the demagogues on the right, who will cast her as some kind of communist - while she's quoting adam smith. and, frankly, if you interpret the world through the kind of warped filters that hillary and her handlers interpret the world through? it's a correct perception. i mean, if you thought the smear on obama as a commie was rough....

hillary might be the only mainstream sort-of-liberal democrat that they can't do that to, because everybody knows she's an opportunist. this is beyond cynical. but it's the way these people think. you can't frame her...

i know it's going to be extremely deflating when she picks some right-leaning democrat, or possibly even a "left-leaning" republican. but, you're getting her logic all backwards, and twisting around what's likely to actually happen.

her ideal is not elizabeth warren, but condoleeza rice. and i think she'd actually jump through some hoops to get it accomplished, if she can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itAcRvNy7bw

i didn't know this, but it sure makes a lot of sense.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/04/27/3431303/warren-left-gop/

shit hillary said vol 55

I've looked at the legislation that Senator Sanders has proposed. And basically, he does eliminate the Affordable Care Act, eliminates private insurance, eliminates Medicare, eliminates Medicaid, Tricare, children's health insurance program. Puts it all together in a big program which he then hands over to the states to administer.

And I have to tell you, I would not want, if I lived in Iowa, Terry Branstad administering my healthcare. I-- I think-- I think as Democrats, we ought to proudly support the Affordable Care Act, improve it, and make it the model that we know it can be--

BERNIE SANDERS: We don't-- we don't eliminate Medicare. We expand Medicare to all people. And we will not, under this proposal, have a situation that we have right now with the Affordable Care Act. We've got states like South Carolina and many other Republican states that because of their right-wing political ideology are denying millions of people the expansion of Medicaid that we passed in the Affordable Care Act. Ultimately, we have got to say as a nation, Secretary Clinton, is healthcare a right of all people or is it not? I--

shit hillary said vol 54

COOPER: Secretary Clinton, do you regret your vote on the Patriot Act?

CLINTON: No, I don’t. I think that it was necessary to make sure that we were able after 9/11 to put in place the security that we needed.

08-05-2016: more editing (and sorting through show listings, and reading articles)

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

j reacts to another example of why no humans should ever have guns, ever

smug bullshit aside, there is a serious point here, and it's that all of the logic in the world doesn't prevent the temporary loss of reasoning associated with most rage killings.

he says he doesn't remember what happened. he probably really doesn't.

you can put child locks on it, put it in a safe, hide it where nobody else knows where it is - it doesn't matter. the issue is not the need to take precautions. it's rooted in the reality that human beings are dumb apes that are driven by hormones, not rational entities driven by logic.

it's true that he could have grabbed a butcher knife, but it isn't particularly relevant. the reality is that the only way to really address gun violence is to ban them altogether.

it's really unfortunate that you have that constitutional amendment, down there. we don't have anything of the sort in our constitution. and, we're really better off for it.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/08/us/man-allegedly-kills-brother-over-cheeseburger/?iid=ob_lockedrail_topeditorial

j reacts to free university vs "debt-free" university (eight years of high school?)

i'm broadly a fan of the internet - at least as a replacement for tv. certainly, internet >>> tv. but, it would be a lot better if we didn't have a for profit print media that acts as a disincentive.

this actually got published:

"In West Virginia, Bernie is ahead in both of the state’s most recent primary polls. Last week, Public Policy Polling released its findings from a survey of 549 likely Democratic voters. In that poll, Sanders came out ahead of Clinton by eight percentage points, snagging 45 percent compared to her 37 percent. Even with the 3.9 percent margin of error, Bernie will still easily triumph over Hillary if these numbers prove to be accurate."

really. you know what i think the reporter here actually thinks? the thought process, here?

"well, if he's winning by eight and there's a four point margin of error, he's four points better than the margin, so he wins easily."

this is actually exactly why bernie is right. in today's world, you really need statistical literacy to get by - and the level of literacy we actually have is absolutely deplorable. but, you can't cram it all into four years.

i'd even take it to another step - and i've proposed this previously, going back many years. i actually think we should have eight years of actual high school.

shit hillary said vol 53

"For a lot of people, again, who take their vote seriously and who really see this as a crossroads kind of election, I am asking people to come join this campaign. And I've had a lot of outreach on Republicans in the last days who say that they are interested in talking about that."

07-05-2016: whateverfest

concert footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9LyMr3_RSE

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/05/07.html

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

i find stiglitz such a treat to listen to, for the precise reason that he's such a master logician. his arguments are just lucid. i'm constantly finding myself practically finishing his sentences - and not because i have any deeper insight, beyond being decently read on the topic, and simply because he's got that much flow.

what he's really doing in this presentation is masterfully explaining why classical economic theory is useless unless it is applied to an agrarian economy, which is a boat that sailed nearly two hundred years ago over most of the planet.

07-05-2016: pile - #3 hit single? (detroit)

their music:

https://pile.bandcamp.com/

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/05/07.html

vlog for the day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eum0fDZHzHU

my music:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com

06-05-2016: turning the recording machine back on....

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

shit hillary said vol 52

"We have given the Iraqis the precious gift of freedom."

j reacts to west virginia polling, and what a surprise sanders win *actually* implies

there's some polls coming up in west virginia, and they're kind of splitting the difference - the racist models are suggesting he should win in a landslide (because there are few blacks), where as i actually think a better projection ought to be clinton by about 10-15. the polls i've seen are in the margin of error, suggesting a split, but they're also small samples and wonky sources...

forget how many blacks are in west virginia. it's a boneheaded way to go about this. instead, let's look at how she did amongst whites in the neighbouring states - all of which were open primaries.

virginia: 57% of whites voted for clinton
ohio: 53% of whites voted for clinton
tennessee: 57% of whites voted for clinton
kentucky: hasn't voted.

so, given that west virginia is mostly white, why exactly would you expect sanders to win?

?

but, i'm data driven. so, i'm going to suggest a way out, and it's this - shit happens. people change.

again: i think some skepticism is in order with the polling. we don't have anything really solid right now. but, if sanders does win west virginia, what i would suggest is that voting intentions in the south have shifted since march.

this is likely a fruitless request: if you were to do some rigorous polling in tennessee or virginia, today, what would the results be? because if sanders wins west virginia (after winning indiana), and is then at least competitive in kentucky, it's hard to see how the results from the early primaries can be current.

again: if you want to take the information you have and apply it to west virginia, you should get a big clinton win. if sanders wins, it strongly suggests that southerners, or at least white ones, are actually abandoning clinton.

let's not get carried away, though. i actually still expect clinton to win in west virginia. and kentucky.

my response would have been something like "well, if you don't like the food stamps program, i can always start a riot and burn your house down and steal the food out of your fridge instead.".

welfare isn't charity. it's a way to prevent class warfare and ensure that the property rights dictatorship is not overwhelmed with sheer force. it was understood some time in the last century that the best way to stop the poor from taking what they are entitled to, by force, is to give them enough to survive on. it's a bribe.

if people like her want to get cocky about it, they'll eventually have to deal with the consequences of it.

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

j reacts to "self-driving cars"

i can't imagine there's any kind of market for this.

i bet the nsa would love it if they had control of your vehicle, though.

why aren't we building more electric vehicles? this is idiotic.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/no-promise-windsor-will-have-role-in-self-driving-chrysler-pacifica-1.3569919

05-05-2016: wasted day....

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

j reacts to the new radiohead single/video

predictable attempt to relive lost glory years after fading into irrelevance; a little paranoid android, much, eh?

it's good that thom has realized that he does require jonny to make a good record. but, this is egos clashing - it's not collaborative. thom is really doing everything he possibly can to drown out the strings. an epic mix manages to save a catastrophe. although, i'm sure there's more than one patch on that processor? we've heard quite a lot of that one.

this isn't going to turn out well if the process is that thom shows up after jonny's done all the work, like it's just another side project, and howls out some half formed nonsense. he couldn't even be bothered to write a second verse. a band is supposed to be a collaborative affair. i don't know how a band can go more than a decade without remembering that.

i'm not disappointed, i'm just jaded; cynical, even. i've been soooo over this band since 2003. really.

but, there's a bit of a tease here: this is actually new material, not just the same recycled sound they've been stripping down forever, to the point of parody. but, if he wants to go down this orchestral path, i wish he'd be a little more aspirational. i mean, it's not like it's avant garde - listen to eleanor rigby. or how to disappear completely and never be found. this just seems pedestrian, in comparison.

but, if moaning about radiohead were an olympic sport, i'd be competitive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI2oS2hoL0k

shit hillary said vol 51

shit hillary said vol 50

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wA5U_tmILs

j reacts to the idea of a trump/gingrich ticket

marillyn hewson would be a better vp pick than newt gingrich. might balance out the identity politics a little.

picking gingrich would certainly send a message, but that message is something like "you might as well have voted for ted cruz, 'cause that's what you're getting".

we need a hipster meme for newt.

i shut down congress

....before it was uncool.

i'll admit this, though: a cruz/gingrich ticket is bad enough that i'd happily vote for hillary. you'd expect them to go on strike, or something.

it ought to be crazy talk. but, you're batshit to try and read any sense into the campaign.

j reacts to apparent pressure from breitbart for trump to flop on trade

i've said this before: what mexico needs to do is get it's labour standards up. it needs more regulation. it needs higher wages. that's the actual ideal here, rather than ripping nafta up: getting mexico up to code. if mexico had comparable wages, standards and regulations to the united states and canada, they wouldn't have this labour advantage and other factors would determine where the factories end up.

there's a legitimate level of moral outrage over the idea that the comparative advantage is a race to the bottom. i'm no fan of market logic or competitive economies, but you'd get a lot less pushback if the competitive aspect was over who is better, not who is worse. for that reason, this issue is never going to go away. you can throw as many skewed statistics around as you want, you're ultimately not addressing the actual issue.

now, on the one hand, the argument was always that nafta would pull them up to code. on the other hand, everybody always knew that was bullshit - that the point of nafta was for the corporations to escape the code.

enough time has now passed to make the following conclusion: if the purpose of nafta was to pull mexico up to code, then it has failed. there's been some progress, sure, but not enough. and, this should be the focus from the next president, and perhaps the president after that.

so, the way this should work is like this: the president should put some demands down on the mexican political system, and provide it with a timetable to meet those demands. i'm not proposing anything onerous, only that mexico bring itself up to code so that there's an even playing field across the three countries. should it meet those demands, nafta stays. should it reject them, nafta ends.

but, i want to be clear that i don't think the failure here is at a legislative level. nobody seriously ought to expect that a parliament will pass these kinds of laws without pressure from below. i know that mexico has a history of labour repression, but newsflash: so does the united states. and, in fact, so does canada. there may be a difference of scale. but, why has mexican labour not risen up and demanded more? where are the mexican consumer watch dog groups? where is the mexican left?

again: they've had enough time to get this sorted out, and they're not doing it. so, they need some pressure from the outside. and, if they won't do it, the agreement can't continue.

http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/05/05/former-mexican-president-vicente-fox-nafta-miracle/

04-05-2016: within the twilight of archiving (and japanese girls in windsor)

concert footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JS7MfHCjn4

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/05/04.html

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

04-05-2016: japanese girls - circulation (windsor)

their music:
https://jpnsgrls.bandcamp.com/

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/05/04.html

vlog for the day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BKkpLGWgPU

my music:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com

j reacts to kasich dropping out (and trump's coming conversion into the establishment)

i think kasich would have actually seen his numbers go up without cruz. it wouldn't have been from cruz voters, exactly. but, a lot of people that were voting for trump to stop cruz may have eased up.

the thing is that the states that are left are not the right states - except maybe california. that would have been awkward, huh? kasich winning california, and preventing trump from clinching? then, what?

well, nothing, probably. he just wins on the second ballot.

like i say: this is only feasible now that cruz is gone. so long as cruz is running, trump wins in a landslide, because nobody wants to take the chance that cruz might win. but, when cruz is out, the stakes are not so dramatic, and there's a little more room to go with what they really want...

that's not what happened, though. what happened was that john got a call from head office, informing him that it's done: trump's the guy. and, they don't want to take the chance that he might frustrate the process.

this has been clear for a few days already, but watch it really pivot, now, in the next few weeks. he's going to be rebranding himself, more or less by the book. expect flip-flops on certain issues. expect gushing media coverage from people that were criticizing him last week. expect every ridiculous thing you can imagine.

....and hopefully, maybe, expect a little but of coaching and for it to begin to show.

j reacts to reports that clinton is courting bush administration officials for cabinet

she takes the left for granted. what are they going to do? vote for trump?

dammit, bernie. i know you can't say it yet. but, let's start being a little vague, alright?

they won't vote for trump. they might vote for jill stein. they will vote for bernie sanders.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/05/03/steve_schmidt_the_candidate_most_like_bush_and_cheney_is_hillary_clinton.html

02/03-05-2016: ranting between recovering from the long walks

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

shit hillary said vol 49

"The president did close Guantanamo."

shit hillary said vol 48

shit hillary said vol 47

KING: So maybe a Republican or two in the cabinet?

CLINTON: I think we should look at that. We need to try to have a bipartisan government. We've got to restore confidence and competence to the American government.

j reacts to the indiana primary results

well, he got his unlikely split. exit polling suggests he actually managed to win women. yeah. and, he's doing better and better with young minorities - so long as they're allowed to vote. he apparently split non-white voters under 50 - although the numbers always come out skewed because young people of colour are not voting at the same frequency as young white people are.

i don't think it really changes anything, though. i mean, it suggests he got high turnout - he was able to overwhelm. but, the explanation could very well be that he was piggybacking on trump voters, who see sanders as their second choice. you can vote twice in these open primaries.

i'm all for open primaries. but i really think you should only be able to vote for one party.

you'll note that she won all the southern counties, which are bordering kentucky. that's a better predictor of what's coming. he's not going to lose kentucky or west virgnia because of minorities. he's going to lose white men in these states, as he did in tennessee and the other states in the immediate vicinity.

but, the fact that his numbers are improving with minorities, at least in the north, is promising - should he run outside the party.