tues at 4:30pm

sister
santa

http://www.cpr.ca/holiday-train/schedule-canada

jessica
i'm sorry, but i don't understand this email.

sister
you live in windsor? the train is coming through on tues at 4:30.

jessica
ok. but, like...so...?

sister
lol, are you so bah humbug? thought it might be fun to see so sent it to you.

nothing deep or profound to understand otherwise.

jessica
are you going to be on the train, or are you just informing me of the existence of said train?

(pause)

ok. so the train exists. thank you for the information.

i haven't celebrated christmas in something like 20 years. and even then it wasn't really a thing.

sister
would you like us to visit?

jessica
frankly, not really.

listen: you asked that question.

(pause)

i'm finishing a major discography update that's taken me far too long.

i completed two synth-pop records in the late 90s. unfortunately, they had awful vocals that make listening to them difficult. i've spent the last two years stripping the vocals out of them and reconstructing them as best as i can. that, and fighting with environmental noise.

first (1998/2016 - inri015):
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-3

second(1999/2016 - inri021):
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched

there's an elaborate sequence of singles to accompany these releases.

and, i'm back offline for a few more hours....

http://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.ca/2016/11/i-thought-i-had-inri019-done-but-i.html

j reacts to the supreme congressional authority on trade deals (not trump's choice...)

you need to understand that the president doesn't decide whether a trade deal goes through or not. this is a congressional responsibility. and, they can override him. and, he can't veto it.

as mentioned: he may be setting up a make believe fight, where he feigns opposition, only to be defeated by a supermajority - or decides in the end not to fight it. that's how clinton did his make believe fight against the repeal of glass-steagall. they had a supermajority; he couldn't have stopped it. so, he didn't bother fighting it. and, now everybody blames him for it...

i still think he's going to come around to it.

but, you have to understand that it doesn't mean anything for the president to declare he's going to pull out of the tpp on day one - and that itself should be instructive that this is a pr stunt. he can't do that. he's not the dictator, yet.

likewise, when he says he's not going to pursue charges against clinton, that is completely meaningless because he couldn't have pursued charges against clinton, anyways. there's an independent judicial system in the united states.

almost everything he said was nonsense. just about the only thing he said that isn't nonsense is that he wants to start a war with china. and, that's what the tpp is about.

-

it is not donald trump that will determine the fate of the tpp. a senate supermajority is already all but certain. the major player is actually paul ryan.

http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/08/01/paul-ryan-standing-ovation-koch-donors-retreat/

it's not unheard of for the president to disagree with congress on international agreements, either. clinton couldn't get kyoto through congress. or the rome statute, either. there may be a broader precedent to look for there, in understanding what trump's relationship with his congress is going to be like.

 somebody else that had huge problems with his congress on international agreements was woodrow wilson.

but, like i say: i expect him to come around on this.

ok. i'm off again, and probably until it's done, this time.

j reacts to trump's obvious eventual support for the tpp as a metric for his sanity

i actually still don't think that trump is going to pull out of the tpp. he may be setting up some kind of optical charade with congress...

...but what i actually think is that he fundamentally does not understand what the tpp actually is. i think he probably thinks that it's a trade deal with china. when his advisers sit him down and explain that it's a containment strategy of china - that is, that it is completely consistent with the anti-chinese strain in his foreign policy - i believe he'll prove obama right and come around to it.

i just can't comprehend how they're going to let him abandon east asia to china after seventy years. and, that's the truth of it: pulling out of the tpp is handing over the entire region to china. including japan and australia.

so, i remain convinced that he's still totally clueless - and, that the situation may be severe enough that his life may depend on cluing in.

if they're going to do it, they'll do it fast.

i mean, the guy campaigns on getting tough on china and then hands over trillions of dollars of gdp to them on day one?

you need to believe him on getting tougher on china. it just needs to be explained to him that the tpp is all about getting tougher on china...

-

see, this is what's driving him.

"The TPP is a horrible deal, a deal that is going to lead to nothing but trouble. It’s a deal that was designed for China to come in, as they always do, through the back door, and totally take advantage of everyone." - donald trump

he believes that. somehow. still.

the truth is the exact opposite: it's a containment policy. which is exactly what he wants.

somebody will eventually set him straight. it will get signed.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/11/10/donald_trump_says_tpp_is_a_nefarious_plot_by_china.html?wpsrc=sh_all_mob_tw_top

i mean, don't get me wrong. i'm no fan of the agreement. i'd like to see it stopped. but, you don't hear trump talking about the isds mechanisms, and you don't see him talking about labour or environmental standards. he honestly thinks it's a trade deal with china. he just truly doesn't understand it. he's going to have to eventually understand it. and, when he does, he'll realize he supports it.

we've reached a level of total absurdity here, by the way. this is beyond the pale.

but, peeling away all the layers of obstruction and ignorance leaves us with a simple truth: donald trump wants less trade with china and more conflict with them. signing the tpp is the rational way to get less trade and more conflict with china. therefore, donald trump will sign the tpp. qed.

-

this is exactly what trump has been broadcasting.

if he doesn't bend on this, he'll prove that he's being driven entirely by ego: that he cannot accept the premise that he might be mistaken and is willing to do any and every absurd thing imaginable to avoid admitting error.

one of his core messages was getting tough on china. and, that's a message that no doubt resonated with the establishment that put him in power.

he will either understand the agreement and sign it, or he will refuse to understand the agreement and tear it up out of spite. and, while i oppose the agreement, i think that such a reaction of narcissism over reason will send a message that should be taken with the utmost seriousness - that would be a broadcast to the world that he is unreachable.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/07/china-tpp-trans-pacific-partnership-obama-us-trade-xi/

http://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.ca/2016/11/i-spent-all-night-fighting-with.html

ok, i'm going to do the dishes and try and get back to work.

j reacts to the request to suspend critical thinking around trudeau's senate reform

this is nice rhetoric and everything, but there's going to be hell to pay if they ever interfere with the democratic authority of the house - and it's simply irresponsible to them to suggest that they have any kind of meaningful mandate.

the way i see this unfolding is one of two ways. either this fizzles out, and things go back to the way they were or it doesn't and it generates a movement to abolish the senate.

i may even go so far as arguing that, if a time ever comes that the senate overrules the house, then canadians should ignore the senate's ruling and behave as though the legislation is law.

this is a potential break in the social contract. it's a potential justification for revolt.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/appointing-independent-senators-leave-the-skepticism-behind/article32658198/

i don't want a fucking guardian council.

this body is inherently illegitimate as a governing structure. and, there is no desirable way to convert it into one.

senators should be seen and not heard.

http://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.ca/2016/11/im-back-online-because-my-tongue-is.html

hrmmn. yeast infection, huh? i just ate, but i haven't been eating any of that lately.

you have to wonder if that's the kind of thing that can get passed around via food workers or something...?

but, it started when i woke up on sunday night. and i haven't left the house since i got the monitor last monday. like, at all. literally. so, how does that happen.....

actually, you know what? i had the window open for a good part of the weekend, and i live close enough to the walkerville brewery that i can often smell the yeast.

it's a distinct possibility.

better than a seizure.

i'd have to think my immune system can handle some candida, though. c'mon, you phagocytes. stop sleeping on the job, get to work...

some time ago, i dated a girl that was epileptic when she was a teenager. she never had any seizures when we were dating. she believed that marijuana was a cure, and smoked quite a bit as a result - but i think this was probably a rationalization for the pot habit. apparently, it's fairly normal to just "grow out of" epilepsy. that's probably what actually happened.

but, the way she described it was that her tongue would go numb. every once in a while, she'd have a scare - "my tongue is numb". and, sometimes she'd have a hard time talking for a few minutes.

that's just all i could think about when my tongue started tingling, so i sat down. well, just in case, right? but, i think it's passed now without any effects at all.

j reacts to krugman's take on the supposed infrastructure plan

i think krugman is actually giving him too much credit.

my bet is that the infrastructure plan reduces to a tweet to ask investors to invest more in infrastructure, maybe followed by another tweet calling paul ryan some mean names for supposedly blocking it.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/infrastructure-build-or-privatization-scam/

there's actually precedence for this: whenever obama was faced with doing anything complicated, he wrote a speech explaining that congress should do it.

j reacts to the impossibility of keynesianism in the neo-liberal era (by design)

the primary reason that i endorsed justin trudeau was also for stimulus spending, and specifically an idea he floated in his platform around a "green infrastructure bank". that's a far better idea than a carbon tax...

the economy in the country is such that we can't reasonably expect that anybody is going to shut down the oil industry on a dime, especially not after the previous government, which operated loosely like a petro-state. we spent nine years of increasing integration with the oil economy. and, that just made it harder to disengage.

so, trudeau is going to support pipelines. he has to. and, we're going to have to stop them using direct action and court orders.

but, what trudeau can do is set the ball in motion around a larger systemic change by setting up a financial industry around the green sector. and, yes you have to do it like this. i'm not an advocate of historical materialism, but the ideas floated by naomi klein and others are getting the causality backwards - you need capital investment first, and then a worker's movement. marx understood that.

and, so trudeau can play a very important facilitative role, here. given that we exist in the existing neo-liberal order, what he's floating is really a pre-requisite for a serious economic shift to renewables. that's why i endorsed him. well, that and the pot...

he's been taking some steps in this direction, and the media is trying to change the topic by pointing out that he's floating the bank as a public-private investment. you can make the argument that this is exactly the same error that his father made in shifting to more private borrowing, which some people pinpoint as the source of our debt problems in the 80s. and, you'd be right to argue this was an error - but you'd be wrong to argue this was trudeau's error. the error came out of an international agreement around the dismantlement of bretton woods. canada would have faced penalties had it ignored it. rather than point to trudeau's implementation as an error, one should look at his incomplete implementation as a partial victory. the reasons we didn't get nailed on the housing collapse ultimately stem back to trudeau pushing back, however carefully, on this international consensus, as it developed in the early 70s. and he had to be careful, too. extremely careful. he had both the brits and the americans lined up against him.

the idea that the private-public partnership is being compared against, that is a new infrastructure bank set up as a subsidiary of the bank of canada, is certainly a superior one in the eyes of this commentator. that would allow the country to arbitrarily print money for infrastructure. there is some misinformation floating around on this point that seems to ultimately stem from paul hellyer; canada never printed all of it's money debt-free. but, it certainly had a higher percentage of it printed debt-free, in the past. and, this did keep our debt down. but, while superior, this idea is also illegal under our international trade agreements. justin has little choice but to compromise, as his father did in the 70s.

we need a thought experiment, here. but, this experiment is also very real - it happened recently in ontario, and many of trudeau's closest advisers lived it first hand. let's say that trudeau sets up the green bank and uses it to subsidize local technology companies. what that does is open up the government to legal action under the wto, under nafta, under the tpp (should it come into force....) and under the ceta, too, for "anti-competitive investment practices". we would never win such a case. rather, these agreements were designed partially to prevent public investment strategies. we would have to shut the bank down and pay out exorbitant sums to the entities launching legal action. it can happen here - it already did.

the irony is that many of the people pushing the alarm on the involvement of private investment are also in support of the agreements that necessitate it. this is not nefarious, it is ignorance - which has been the problem the whole time. activists tried to warn people that these agreements would tie the hands of government, years down the road. this reality is upon us, and the media still refuses to see it.

i would rather see a subsidiary of the bank of canada, as was promised. but, i knew at the time that such a subsidiary would require leaving the wto, first. i held out hope for the latter, but expected that private money would be involved in the long run - either immediately or through eventual privatization. but if you want public funding of infrastructure, as i do, then let's get the steps in order: we'll have to get out of the wto, first. oops? no. we told you...

if we want major infrastructure projects right now, this is the only way to do it. it's not ideal. but, i support it.

the effects of the stimulus are not different, if the money is private. and, that's what we need.

debt is ultimately just an abstraction, it's not real. we can deal with that later.

infrastructure is real. and, we needed dramatic spending boosts years ago.

in the long run, if the investors become an annoyance then we can just nationalize. simple.

for right now? take their money. and put it to good use.

it's a path of least resistance. it's smart. and it's why this party works, and this country works - despite being surrounded by a world that is often irrational.

http://www.budget.gc.ca/fes-eea/2016/docs/themes/infrastructure-en.html

publishing inri018

this track represents my first serious attempt to break out of the synth-pop sound i'd been developing over the first half of 1998 and into the more epic electro-noise-rock that defines the next period. while i'd been careening in this direction the whole time, and the track is ultimately a failed experiment, this is really the portal i go through that ultimately opens the way for what follows.

conceptually, the track was initially meant to mock the news cycle; the circus riff was tongue-in-cheek. you can imagine wolf blitzer and judy woodruff getting out of their clown cars and reading their teleprompter, type of thing. while i've eliminated the vocals from the official release, and there were never any produced for the re-recording, the bonus tracks are both early vocal mixes. it's admittedly hard to ignore the conceptual history of the track in explaining why i have a punk song built around the circus theme, but by the time i got to re-recording the track in late 1998 i'd truly moved past the concept.

yet, i wanted to retain the musical ideas in the track and even take it to a different level. the way the track is sequenced here retains a memory of how i wanted the track to unfold into a lengthy, multi-part epic separated by long sections of guitar-effects generated and digitally shaped ambience. this is not just an idea that would resurface in my next piece, my second symphony, but also something that would follow me for my entire musical career. these collages are crude, but this is where the idea first developed.

conceptual issues aside, i also had a lot of difficulty getting the guitar tone i wanted for the track - a problem i really hadn't previously had on this kind of scale. in hindsight, i think i'd just become a little more aware of the tonal options in front of me. up to this point, when i ran into the problem of the evasive tone, putting it down for a few days and approaching it fresh solved it, but that wasn't working. this track was dragging on for months. i was lost in production...

then, out of the blue, there was a power outage that knocked my computer out as i was running a part of the track through an ambient transform. the track - and all the digital additions i had added to it - were largely destroyed. what was left was this completely corrupted wave file of disjointed guitar fragments. i've never been a religious person (obviously), and i don't want to say i took at as a sign or something. yet, i let chance assert itself; the corrupted wave file became the final version of the track, and i moved on to the next thing.

the actual, proper track was then forgotten about for years. i'm only finally dusting it off now, in 2016, and releasing it here as a single, along with a collection of experimental collages that approximate what the track was meant to sound like. this ep should really be thought of as consisting of two versions of the song, separated by the two minutes of silence after the fifth track. the track was abandoned for good reason; the motif is silly. so, my frustrations with the composition shall have to be recorded in the annals of time.

initially written in 1997. recreated and reconceptualized in late 1998. salvaged somewhat at the end of 1999. remastered in 2013. compiled on nov 13, 2016. finalized on nov 19, 2016. as always, please use headphones.

the album version of this track appears on my second record:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched

this release is compiled in the following places:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/merch/inri-box-set

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1997, 1998, 2013, 2016).

*download only

credits

released December 1, 1998

j - guitars, effects, bass, drum kit, synthesizers, sequencers, drum programming, noise generators, sound design, sampling, found sounds, tapes, digital wave editing, cool edit synthesis, loops, vocals, chance, production

publishing inri017

these three tracks were not initially connected in any way, other than being the lead sequence on my second record. they are not even connected in time: the first section was written in late 1997 around the ry30, the second section was written in early 1997 around an octaver and the last section was written in mid 1998 as a sound design experiment. however, they've been connected together since they were sequenced together in early 1999.

it was in early 2014 that i first got the idea of splitting the opening sequence into it's own release, in order to upload the tracks together to youtube. i eventually ruled against it as it didn't have a deep enough conceptual unity to justify.

the idea has come back with the revisitation of my first period and the construction of a series of experimental singles. for reasons of chronology, it was somewhat necessary for me to release a single for idiotic in the summer of 1998. but what made the single worthwhile to me in this form was the ability to reversion the concept using the different glitch mixes of the first and third tracks. the result is a challenging and epic listen, and i hope you enjoy it.

--

section 2...

i was violently anti-tobacco in my teens. to an extent, i still am. but, i was also largely just repeating things that had been said to me, without the critical filter that comes with defining a sense of individuality. i think we probably all remember a time when we repeated things told to us by teachers, parents and the media without fully thinking them through. we don't, however, all have demos of songs that we wrote before we'd come to understand who we really are, as individuals.

looking back at the initial recording, i mostly just wish that i had articulated myself a little bit better. i never dropped my opposition to tobacco, not even when i was a smoker. i'm not sure that i ever really even admitted to myself that i was a smoker. so, i don't want to distance myself particularly far from the basic crux of my opinion that smoking tobacco is really pretty stupid - i never really altered that opinion. what i do want to distance myself from is some of the precise language and arguments that i used, as they are not reflective of my own thoughts.

for example, i wouldn't present the health care argument. first, i'm a strong advocate of universal health care. second, the accounting underlying the idea is not well defined, and difficult to construct. third, i reject the entire concept of currency. nor do i think we'd have to make resource-based decisions about health care if it weren't for the limits provided by currency. so, i'm retracting that statement - along with many others.

by the time i got to recording a second version of the track in mid 1998, i'd smoked a few other things and enjoyed them. a purely anti-tobacco song no longer seemed all that relevant to me; more relevant to me was a song comparing marijuana use to tobacco use. so, i hid the vocals through a very heavy vocoder effect and piled a lot of silly samples, many about marijuana, on top of the track. it stayed that way for almost fifteen years.

when i sat down to remaster in late 2013, removing samples was a dominant priority. thankfully, i actually had an archived instrumental version from back in 1998. this allowed me to replace the track with only minimal editing.

there were continuity reasons why i went with the sample version the first time around, but it was against my better judgement, even then. i should have followed my gut.

-

section 1...

i had earlier recorded a vocal version of this, but i had the good sense to realize it was awful and replaced the vocal parts with synth sections, creating an electronic/ambient piece with a liberal use of noise. it's admittedly a little elevator-music sounding, but i think that's sort of part of it's charm. it's very precious sounding.

this is one of my favourite early pieces. i used to just sit and play the simple guitar outro, with drum loop in my sennheiser 440-IIs, for hours at a time...

the decision to remove the vocals on this track was largely a reflection of my growing confidence in the quality of the music to stand up on it's own. over the '98-'99 period, i was largely aware of how cringeworthy my lyrics were and put them into three overlapping categories: (1) comedy/satire, in which case i let them stand as they were, (2) cries for help, in which case i upheld them as they were hoping somebody would listen, (3) songs that i had no lyrical idea for but that i felt needed lyrics, in which case i felt trapped by the genre conventions and upheld ideas that i truly didn't even like at the time simply so the songs would have vocals. over time, i eventually got to the point where i had enough confidence in the music that i no longer felt that the songs required lyrics, and i started to look at it as something to use sparingly based on whether i actually had an idea to express. while there are definitely songs in this period that i wish i had kept instrumental versions of, the final mixes only include a couple with lyrics that i actively regret. this is the first time i was able to mentally push back against myself and say "no. this song does not need lyrics.".

--

section 3...

this is what it sounds like when you open dlls with a wave editor. there was some strategic reshaping, but that's where the bulk of the sound comes from.

--

initially written over the course of 1997. recreated and expanded over the course of 1998. lead track first sequenced in this form in feb, 1999. further remixes generated over the course of 1999. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013, and another in late 2015. remastered in november, 2016 from various sources, 1997-2015. finalized on nov 17, 2016. as always, please use headphones.

the album version of this track appears on my second record:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched

this release is compiled in the following places:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/merch/inri-box-set

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1997, 1998, 1999, 2013, 2015, 2016).

*download only

credits

released August 5, 1998

j - guitars, effects, bass, drum kit, synthesizers, sequencers, vocoders, octavers, drum programming, noise generators, sound design, sampling, digital wave editing, loops, a broken tape deck, production

i'd rather follow sarkozy's lead, pull out of nafta and put a carbon tariff up. there's more than one way to even the playing field.

the world needs to show some backbone in dealing with trump.

they don't make anything anymore, anyways.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wherry-trump-climate-change-1.3850223

it was CH4 that i was worried about, not CO

i just want to clarify that point - the reason i asked for the CO detector was because i hoped it would also have a CH4 detector in it, which i was worried about due to the rotting egg smell and the subsequent headaches. and, i'd just point out that if you're going to rewire the smoke alarm anyways, it would probably make sense to include a CH4 (that is, methane) detection in it. 'cause you're doing it anyways, right?

i mean, i use the stove down here all of the time. if there ever is a leak, and i don't notice it....

j

(no subject)

mom
Is this email address still working?   Cause, I want to permanently delete my facebook... Do I have to be on facebook to be in contact with you on your stuff?  Let me know...

jessica
this is my main email address. i don't check it every day, but i'm definitely reachable here.

continuing gas leak & carbon monoxide alarm

hi.

my nose suggests to me that the fumes are coming in via the ventilation system.

i know you had a co alarm for me, and it never got installed, but with the headache-inducing fumes down here, i need to insist.

and, it has been the law for a few years.

"17.    Do all existing residential buildings require CO alarms?

Existing residential occupancies that contain at least one
fuel-burning appliance (e.g., gas water heater or gas furnace),
fireplace or an attached garage, require the installation of a CO
alarm.

[Div. B, 2.16.1.1.(1)]"

http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/english/FireMarshal/CarbonMonoxideAlarms/QuestionsandAnswers/OFM_COAlarms_QandA.html

the thing is that the co alarm is probably also a methane alarm. and if it's not, i'm going to need to find a way to test the air down here.

j

gas leak

hi.

i'm guessing you turned the gas on around the first because there appears to be a gas leak upstairs. i'm getting the smell of rotting eggs and mild headaches. this may be the cause of the migraines i was having last year.

i'm not going to be putting myself through the same literal headache this year. until this is resolved, i will be leaving the windows open to ensure a fresh air supply and turning the heat up to compensate.

j

it's not the first military & intelligence backed republican coup. you had bush in 2000. reagan in 1980. nixon in 1968. this isn't a rare occurrence at all.

but, it's becoming increasingly clear that we're stuck with trump whether we like it or not.

don't pretend like picking sanders over clinton would have gotten us out of this, either.

this is a really hack job. they're not even trying to hide it.

trump is the establishment candidate, now. and the establishment always wins.

well, "wins", anyways.

the abc tracking poll is beyond herding. that kind of movement, out of nowhere, and with no back-up, isn't even worth debunking. but, that's the poll that you're going to hear about.

there are going to be some massive contradictions. you'll never get a good answer. you'll just be expected to swallow them.

we did go through this once before. but, i fear that most of us didn't learn the correct lesson, which is that there wasn't a serious choice on offer. there was never actually an election between bush and gore. it was predetermined...

clinton may be putting up more of a fight, but that doesn't make the outcome any less certain.

i don't want to claim any insider knowledge. i'm not pretending i'm a psychic. i'm just pointing out the obvious.

that poll cannot merely be herding. it's too absurd for that, even.

in the end, the historical record will probably record that it was the emails - even though those of us that lived through it, and were paying close attention, will remember that they shifted the aggregates first, and then created their claimed reason for it afterwards.

and, in fact, this is evidence. if you start seeing the media claim that the numbers came down because of the emails? that's confirmation that this is a setup. because the numbers came down first. or, so they claim

oops?

no.

don't expect a good explanation. you'll never get it.

so, what is trump going to be like, then?

bush. reagan. nixon.

shrug

grab your pitchforks...

or go smoke a joint. whatever. it clearly doesn't matter much.

he's a puppet of the military. and, it's not even that people are too stupid to figure it out. it's that they don't care if people have figured it out or not. because what are we going to do about it?

it's brazen.

zero fucks given.

don't ask me exactly how they're doing this. but expect to guffaw, i think. he's going to "win" michigan, or something.

it will be outlandish...

and, don't expect an answer. you'll never get one.

it's not your fault, america. you didn't have a choice.

ok, i think i need to take a step back.

the intelligence industry is not a leviathan, and "the establishment" is not of a monolithic mind. we tend to get these notions in our heads that the elite operates in lock step. if it did, we wouldn't have wars.

i pointed out several months ago that there appears to be a part of the security establishment, specifically, that wants clinton barred from office. i don't think that this insight has proven wrong so much as that it seems that hillary is actually outflanking them. i understand that the security agencies are blaming things on russia, but these are exactly the same networks that seem like they're in control.

let's try a thought experiment.

suppose that you're deep state and you want to leak documents to julian assange to make hillary clinton look bad. assange doesn't need to know where he's getting the documents from. is there a non-zero probability that you wouldn't blame it on russia? i mean, all the other bad guys are gone, except that dipshit in north korea that nobody is going to believe can even spell his own name.

so, if you're trying to take her down from the inside, that's exactly what you do: you leak the documents and you blame it on russia.

the reason i've been avoiding this topic is not that the scenario is unclear so much as that it hasn't mattered. and, one could easily make the case that re-opening the email case isn't going to matter, either, because it's not an issue of much importance to anybody except the most extreme elements within the republican party - elements she was never going to reach, even if she's at least as good a candidate by their own metrics. i'd accept the argument, still.

however...

i'm a little uncomfortable about the way some of the polling is being manipulated. the abc tracking poll is particularly outrageous to me - this data is obviously being squeezed. why? well, ratings looks like a good reason. but, what if it's designed to provide evidence for a trump come back?

abc has very strong historical links to the security establishment that seems to be active in the election.

they have been accused, repeatedly, of acting as the propaganda arm of the security establishment.

something else that i pointed out at the time was that there may be some legitimate justification for this kind of deep state security interference. educated opinion on the topic does seem to be that there's a high chance that her foreign policy is essentially for sale. the emails and the benghazi thing may be largely frivolous, but that is a legitimate national security issue: the idea that she's for sale. if you're deep state, you likely know the answer with a higher degree of certainty. and, what if the details are bad enough that it's actually tripped us into a war game, a contingency plan?

i know this sounds outlandish. but, you need to adjust your mental goal posts. it really isn't.

what i'm getting at is that the idea of a rigged election to ensure the establishment candidate wins is perhaps not so absurd. it is basically what happened in 2000. but, maybe we should be more careful in determining what the establishment - the real establishment - actually is, and who their preferred candidate is.

however this works, it is absolutely clear that clinton has serious enemies in the deep state and that if the election is allowed to happen fairly then she's going to be spending her entire term fighting them.

clinton can't rig the election by herself. the security establishment can. and, i think it's clear that they're backing trump.

just keep this in mind: if trump ends up as president, it's not some accident. it's not some victory of the unwashed & ignorant. it's what the bastards actually want.

you don't defeat the establishment. especially not if you're donald fucking trump.

and, if you're one of these idiots that thinks otherwise, just remember: he only got there because he made a deal.

"nobody knows more about corruption than me, folks."

you could get donald trump to literally fuck himself in the ass if you dangle a dollar in front of him. you can't even get hillary clinton to drink a glass of water. who's going to be easier to control? the woman that thinks she's the second coming? or the guy that couldn't find benghazi on a map?

i'm not saying this is clear, yet. i'm saying it looks like it. i don't see any evidence that the polling has shifted - i think she's still ahead 9-10 points. in the end, that might not mean anything.

the surviving uncle
Been wondering how you're dealing with all that fucking humidity. Do you like Windsor? Seems to me, there must be all kinds of shit happening right across the border.Music, hockey, other things... It's been awhile so I'm gonna throw in a few things. What did you think of the Subban/Weber trade? Ever heard this? What do you think? Hear it through, it gets interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdQTYN05wqs

jessica
i actually love the humidity. i'd be happiest in malaysia or something - except that i have somewhat of an irrational fear of large cats, so i'd be constantly on the lookout for tigers.

what's pissing me off is that the guy upstairs wants the building bone dry and 15 degrees. he turned the air on in march and hasn't turned it off yet...

....so i actually had the windows open to let the humidity in and the heat set to 33 degrees all summer. and it was still cold in here, sometimes.

i would suppose that living in windsor is probably not a lot different than living in hull, except that detroit is a lot bigger than ottawa. it's dirt cheap. the small downtown core is nice, but the rest of it is falling apart, until you get out to the suburbs. there's lots of drunks. they smoke in church. i actually haven't been in a church
here, but indoor smoking is pretty standard...

i have been paying absolutely no attention to any sports at all whatsoever. that's the first i've heard of subban getting traded. but, my immediate impression would be that, from what i remember, weber always looked better on paper.

the music scene in windsor is actually fairly lively, but it's completely outside of my spectrum. i did not know before moving down here that windsor is a very active place for heavy metal. it's actually a bit annoying because the kinds of smaller, house party punk shows i would have gone to in ottawa are metal shows here; i have essentially no interest in the music scene here, as a result of it. i can get out to a few math rock shows, but they're infrequent.

detroit is actually not a lot better. the way that detroit has deindustrialized has turned it into a collection of loosely connected small towns, rather than an integrated metropolis. imagine the gta, without toronto. the result is a whole bunch of very small music scenes, none of which are of much note.

they get touring bands in, though. sort of. some of them won't even come into town, they make you transit out. i'm still getting to know the area, and floating around from place to place to see this or that band has actually really helped me do it.

i've always found the neo-prog thing to have lost the plot somewhere. it just doesn't have the excitement of novelty, and instead loses itself in this kind of bland product replication. but, you also have to understand that i grew up in the 90s, not the 70s. so, i see that stuff in a historical context. some of those records - not all of them - are legitimate works of art. when i pick up a crimson or floyd record or something, i'm not connecting with a memory or a point of  identity so much as i'm understanding a relic of the culture i exist in. listening to 70s prog isn't a lot different, to me, than listening to debussy or beethoven or something - and i mean that fully experientially. so, what is the point of reliving neo-prog to somebody that didn't live through it in the first place?

i'm usually going to want to get something at the source. but, my own logic kind of breaks down with a couple of types of punk rock. i'll listen to sonic youth knock-off artists by the bucketful, without enforcing any kind of artistic integrity on them because i just like the head cave. so, i get what you're coming from. i'm just very much attached to a different era.

i've taken to vlogging recently, which is the same thing as blogging except with a video camera. which basically means i'm running a video journal. so, i actually have quite a bit of footage built up of
concerts i've seen in detroit. it's up here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH9y-_dCwf0&list=PLrHImg7oLm2aBNQYDAsBZrz0eVnScD5yT

it's not completely comprehensive, but it's actually pretty close. i'm not sure how much of it you'll like but it's there...

life is otherwise actually pretty good. i'm focusing on finishing my own body of compositions, and while i got a little side tracked the last year or so i do think i'm back on track.

j

nana wants me to call her...

jessica
i'm going to.

but, i'm going to be calling her from a pay phone outside of a 7/11. i just never got a phone. i don't need one....

i'm a little apprehensive. are you aware of any reasons why nana would want me to call her? and am i better off getting them in an email than outside a 7/11?

i'm still vlogging daily adventures, however exciting or trivial:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCinQSeEtF0vSN1XVhQGfwKA

sister
why don't you use gmail to call? that's how i do it. i don't have a phone either.

at its most simple, i can only think that she wants to talk with you. i'm not aware of any kind of 'situation' having occurred that might be relevant.

i hope all is well. let me know if you'd like to remain in contact otherwise. we are still in montreal.

(pause)

in a freak coincidence, i clicked on a random video and you are talking about mri results?

i have this in my anterior left lobe:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arteriovenous_malformation

after numerous scans, etc., i was told that they don't usually find something like this unless an autopsy is requested/performed (as a result of an unexplained death due to a brain related incident).

anyway, the more you know.

jessica
the last time i checked, that didn't work in canada. maybe it does now.

my vascular loop is behind my ear. i'm getting the hemi-facial spasms and the vertigo. there's some hearing loss. i had a period of aphasia last year that they told me was a common migraine side effect. except that i don't really have a history of migraines.

i managed to catch myself on camera sputtering out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgNetAISshM

it's after a long rant about the wisconsin primaries..and i'll warn you that it's pretty disturbing.

(although i didn't mention in the video that somebody gave me a handful of marinols of unknown dose at the son lux show the night before and i hadn't slept much in several days)

i don't how related this all is. the doctor wanted to check for a tumor, but i didn't think that was right. it's hard for me to explain what it feels like, other than that something in there is crooked - as though i feel off a bike and it never healed right or something. i was thinking i had a pinched nerve or a dislocation or even a bone fragment. the vascular loop is sort of like a pinched nerve, actually - what they're saying is that a specific nerve is tangled up with some blood vessels behind my cochlea.

i'm actually going this afternoon to talk to an ear doctor about a broader understanding and some tactics. my understanding is that there may be a surgical procedure to untangle the vein from the nerve. i can deal with a little bit of a facial spasm, but i want to save my hearing! i'm not done with recording yet...

and, you basically have the same thing. i guess that's a strong argument for genetics, especially considering what happened to dad. when they scanned you, did they inject you with gadolinium? because i refused this. i just don't have symptoms of cancer, and it's been bothering me for years. i'm wondering, now, if maybe i should request a deeper scan.

i sent you the email because my immediate thought is that it has something to do with mom. i would think, otherwise, that if nana wanted to talk to me, she'd ask mom to send me something over facebook. well, i'm going to call her soon...

sister
if gadolinium is the stuff that makes you feel like you peed your pants, then yes. fucking weird. i had multiple mri scans as well as a full cat.

they told me what i have is basically a clump of veins that doesn't drain properly, resulting in an intense feeling of pressure at the base of my head where it meets my neck. i, however, DO have a history of migraines, although i strongly believe them to have been hormone and diet related, as i have not experience one in a very long time.

do you also have pressure or discomfort in your sinuses or anything? that's all related in there. you may recall that i had my tonsils removed at the age of 27 (apparently THE MOST painful adult surgery), due to extreme inflammation. it definitely had effected my hearing, though i was not aware of any quantifiable difference until after they had been removed.

anyway, keep me posted, i'm interested to hear what they have to say (pardon the pun).

jessica
i'm actually going to get the sinus thing clarified today. it said something like "mild sinusitis". which i'm interpreting as meaning i had a cold..

i sneeze a lot. i tell people i'm allergic to nitrogen (and i'll probably marry the first person that actually gets the joke, rather than asks me what season that allergy is in). it's never bothered me enough to really figure out.

but they did pull something out on the scan.

gadolinium is a radioactive isotope designed to make bumps in the scan glow a little. one of the things i wanted tested for was ms lesions. it just struck me as an insane to inject me with a radioactive isotope of an earth metal when i had no real symptoms of cancer. but, it's apparently standard.

if they injected you with something, it was probably that.

the reason i'm asking is that the scans say the brain is "grossly normal", which *actually* means they can't see anything but can't rule out that a deeper scan would find something. i was happy with that until an hour ago... 

sister
i was never asked whether i wanted it or not, it was simply a part of the procedure so far as i understood. if my neurologist considered it necessary, i didn't really think to reflect on it first.

ground control to major tom.

also, in case you were not informed at some point, you have a niece. 

jessica
yeah. i'm not letting anybody inject me with anything until i figure out what it is first. it's a low probability concern, and probably at least as safe as a vaccine, but there are some potential neurogenerative side effects and what i think is a pretty high certainty that it's going to linger in your fatty tissues. what they're doing is basically injecting you with something that is completely foreign to your system (it's a specific isotope of an *earth metal*) and then assuming that your liver and pancreas can flush it out of your system. but, not only do i think that assumption is sketchy, i even think it's kind of obviously wrong. you could think of mercury as a comparison. small amounts of mercury that you ingest will stay in your body for years and years. in fact, if you ingest mercury, you're probably ingesting it from an animal that ingested it - and it got stuck in that animal's tissue, then isn't going to break down in your stomach and will instead get stuck in your tissue. and, sure enough, if you do a little research online, you'll see that there is evidence that that's exactly what's happening with gadolinium. so, you may be walking around now with some glowing earth metal build-up in your fatty tissue....

but, i mean, nothing's completely safe, right. i just saw it as a question of risk management. if i thought i had an advanced stage of cancer or something, a little bit of gadolinium in my fatty tissue would be a minor concern - and the small risk of a reaction would be reasonable to take. as it is, i saw no good reason to gamble on it.

it's the kind of thing that your doctor didn't design. the radiology department knows how to operate the machine and read the scan. the "contrast agent" is coming to you from a chemical company - like bayer or dow. and, these have historically been pretty disinterested in anything but maximizing profit. bayer ran the fucking gas chambers in nazi germany. and, google "bhopal incident" if you're not aware of it. so, i'm not saying not to trust your doctor. but, i am saying that you might want to think twice about trusting the corporations that are manufacturing the technology that the doctor is using, under the realization that your doctor is not a chemist or a technologist and probably doesn't know much more about how it actually works than you do.

i went down a winding path to end up at the doctor today. my gp initially wanted to send me to a neurologist, but i insisted on ruling out an ear infection before i jumped to something more complex. i didn't have an ear infection, but i remained convinced that there was something fundamentally wrong with my ear so the ear doctor suggested i do a hearing test to see if they could infer something, and it did come back with some hearing loss that she deduced must be due to pressure behind the ear. so, i went for the initial scan to check for a tumour. i was always skeptical about this but i thought the scan may pick something else up. the initial scan was inconclusive, so they wanted me to come back for a second one with the gadolinium; i did the second scan, but without the gadolinium. this is where they picked up the vascular loop, which i should point out is a controversial cause of the symptoms i'm experiencing (but which *is* associated, however weakly, with essentially all of them).

what the ent told me today was that because the vascular loop is behind the cochlea, it's out of her expertise and i need to see a neurologist. i'll need to see the gp again in early november.

sounds like a waste of time, but i actually think it worked out the way i wanted it to because now i can go in to the neurologist with some specific information about my ear and with ear related issues ruled out. i think being thorough is more important than playing probabilities.

sister
i care so little about the majority of the medical profession at this point that none of us have a doctor. if there is an emergency situation, i will deal with it then, instead of having 'regular checkups' with someone burnt out, not necessarily relevant, and barely in re/cognition of myself or my family.

my tests were done almost 10 years ago. i know the thing is there, but i would never have a surgery to deal with it, so it is what it is. i'm not aware of any hearing loss, though i do feel some pressure in my head still sometimes.

you can also tell the neurologist that your sister has an AVM, and your father was afflicted with a GBM. that will more than likely affect the way you are perceived and potentially diagnosed if there is any deeper or further cause.

as for the test, are you really so concerned about the metal in your system? i mean, you smoked for over a decade...just saying. 

jessica
but, i also quit smoking. mostly. habitually. i'm still smoking a little bit. like i say: it's risk management. but i think that maybe the disconnect is in realizing that we're talking about metal poisoning. if somebody told you they were going to crush a metallic rock up into a powder and inject it into your veins, you'd probably want to think about that; if the doctor just says "hold still, this is going to hurt for a second", it just never registers. 

sister
you call yet? 

jessica
yeah, i just got off the phone with her over google voice. an hour and a half. typical nana. but there was no issue, she just wanted to talk...

i have a voip mailbox that costs me a buck a month, which is useful for doctors and government agencies and stuff, and i've just been using a payphone for years to make outgoing calls when i have to. google voice is actually what i wanted to do when i moved down here, but it wasn't available here at the time. so, this is useful to know.

i will eventually get a used android phone and connect it to voip. for now, this is going to save me from standing outside and dropping coins on answering machines.

sister
do you want me to add you to my 'updates email' list? once a month or so, i send an email to a bunch of folks with pics of the kids, etc.

jessica
not really, no.

hillary is at best a teenager. but, trump is a screaming toddler.

www.cbc.ca/news/world/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-ohio-voters-1.3801038

finalizing inri015

it took eighteen years and multiple attempts at a construction, but this record is finally permanently completed as an instrumental electronic work and i am finally proud to refer to it as my first record.

while most of these songs have defined concepts underlying them, i have ejected these concepts from the final recording and left them in a series of singles. i would prefer that this album be understood solely as the instrumental recording of electronic music that i am presenting it as.

written and demoed in multiple stages from 1994-1998. initially constructed in this form in june, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. reconstructed and resequenced jan 6-10, 2016 from parts that were rebuilt over 2013-2016. audio permanently closed on aug 10, 2016. finalized on oct 10, 2016. this is my first official record; as always, please use headphones.

the original, unaltered files are also available (along with the original 1998 cd sequence, the failed 2013 remasters and the final reconstructions - all in flac) as 112 kbps mp3s, as i found them, on inriℵ0:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/merch/inri-box-set

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1996, 1997, 1998, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016).
credits
released June 20, 1998

j - guitars, effects, bass, synthesizers, drum programming, orchestral & other sequencing, sampling, vocal relics, cool edit synthesis, windows 95 sound recorder, production, found sounds, strategies, soundraider, hammerhead, sound design, metronome, digital wave editing, production

the rendered electronic orchestra includes piano, organ, electric guitar, orchestra hit, pizzicato strings, synth pads, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, electric bass, sitar, tubular bells, tinkle bells, synthesizer effects and flute.

finalizing inri014

i'm moving slower than i'd like, but here's the first one, anyways:

--

this single was created by running tracks 9,10 and 11 on the cd together; it was never meant to be a unified track. 9 and 11 are proper tracks, whereas 10 is an experimental segue directly into 11. the process of compiling singles kind of accidentally led to this construction as a very natural combination and i'm now very content with it as the permanent home for both of these pieces.

these songs were both always musically driven, with kind of throwaway vocals that i don't really have any meaningful analysis for. neither of these tracks was ever conceptual or confessional or ever meant much to me on a personal level, so they don't have the kind of stories or explanations that the other tracks that were important to me do. i have not remixed the vocals into either of these songs; all of the tracks on the physical release are entirely instrumental. why bother releasing a single, then?

the reason is that i ended up with a number of mixes for both of them and just needed a place to house them. of course, that's not actually any kind of an interesting concept to build a single around. it was precisely because there was no retained concept underlying either of these tracks that the singles seemed pointless. but, once they were connected via the segue, the purpose of a single became readily apparent in that connection, itself.

the decision was sealed by a curious synchronicity in time. they were both originally written for the 1996 cassette demo, and separated there by a guitar/bass cover of "mellon collie and the infinite sadness". the entanglement is probably not entirely coincidental; i have a vague recollection of checking the tape to ensure i didn't forget any songs, and i may very well have repeated recording them in succession for that reason. however that happened to be, the synchronicity is a big part of what allowed me to create this ep the way that i've created it as it allowed me to label demo versions of the track with the same title.

while neither of these tracks have meaningful vocals, they are both important in my musical development. schizoid features my first multi-part string accompaniment and terrorists is a serious step forward in harmonic complexity. even the segue (titled "abusive") is something different: it's my first run at a 909 emulator, and a step out to lunch in abstract sound design.

so, as the last piece completed for my first record, this is somewhat of a portal to transit through, in terms of the developing complexity in my compositional abilities. but, it does not and never did have any worthwhile conceptual meaning to me. as such, there is no story to tell.

initially written in 1996. recreated mostly in feb, 1998 (schizoid, terrorists) but also partly in june, 1998 (abusive). sequenced in this form in june, 1998. a failed rescue was attempted in 2013. "terrorists" was reclaimed june 28-29, 2015 & remixed july 15, 2015. the main mix was corrected on nov 19, 2015. "schizoid" was reclaimed on july 12, 2015 & reprogrammed on dec 31, 2015. the main mix was corrected on jan 3, 2016 and remixed repeatedly jan 3-5, 2016. the lead track was sequenced on jan 5, 2016 and split back apart on jan 8, 2016. audio permanently closed on aug 1, 2016. release finalized on oct 9, 2016. as always, please use headphones.

the album version of this track appears on my first record:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-3

this release is compiled on inriℵ0.
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/merch/inri-box-set

this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1996, 1998, 2013, 2015, 2016).

* - download only
credits
released June 16, 1998

j - guitars, effects, bass, vocals, synths, drum kit, drum programming, sequencing, soundraider, hammerhead, cool edit synthesis, tapes, noises, found sounds, sound design, sampling, digital wave editing, production.

the rendered electronic orchestra includes organ, sitar, bells, violin, viola, cello, contrabass and synthesizer effects.

how about this, guys?

it doesn't make any difference at all. it's just politics. the government is pretending it's doing something about the problem, while the opposition is pretending that it's going to be a catastrophe.

if you have a lot of wealth and use a lot of energy then your taxes will go up (you're supposed to use less energy, not complain about your taxes). if you're poor and use minimal energy then you'll get a rebate. if you're in the middle, it will truly be revenue neutral. the right answer is that lisa's friends will probably get a check at the end of the month at the expense of trudeau's family, which will get a tax increase.

the media has a responsibility to explain this. but, they'll sell far more papers scare-mongering about tax increases. which is why it's essential that the government implements the policy immediately so the checks are already out by the next writ drop. which, of course, they're not doing.

so, that's the money question: as wealth is strongly correlated with energy use, the policy will redistribute wealth from the top to the bottom through the intermediary of taxation. those that are legitimately concerned about the poor should look at the policy more carefully and understand that it is in their benefit. beware of demagogues that try and take advantage of the ignorant and uneducated in order to scare them.

but, what about emissions? will it reduce them?

the answer is that this doesn't work as an emissions reduction plan. the rich eat the costs because they can afford it, anyways. again: it's going to offset with the middle classes. and, the poor (who don't use much energy...) will get checks in the mail from it.

i'm poor. i don't have a car. most of the food here is imported. i couldn't do much more to reduce emissions if i wanted to. but, i'm likely to get a nice check in the mail. to me, this is just money from the sky. it's not going to change my behaviour...

if i was in the middle class, it would balance out. i need to be clear: i don't expect this to drive inflation and nobody else does, either. you won't find a working economist that thinks prices are going up. it's just scare mongering, really. but, they'll spend a little more on energy and then get it back through tax cuts. how does that change behaviour if it comes out in the wash?

if i was rich, i'd spend a lot of money on energy and i wouldn't care if taxes go up because i have a lot of money, anyways. they don't change behaviour, either, then.

so, if nobody has a meaningful incentive to reduce their use, how do emissions reduce?

here's the thing, then - do you want some wealth redistribution? are you down with that? do you think it's a good idea to tax the rich a little more and give it to the poor? well, this is a good way to do that. it *will* work in accomplishing *this* task.

but, do you really want emissions to come down, too? are you concerned that we're not meeting our international obligations? well, you might want to push for a different policy, like direct investment in converting infrastructure.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wherry-climate-change-trudeau-raitt-1.3792865

his platform didn't talk about carbon pricing, it talked about an investment bank for green infrastructure. if you care about something that will be *effective* in reducing emissions, the infrastructure bank in the platform was a far superior approach. in fact, it's the primary reason i voted for the liberals.

the truth is that this isn't a serious discussion. the science is in: carbon pricing doesn't work in reducing emissions. rather, this is smoke and mirrors for political purposes.

but, i'm frankly not opposed to that, if it has the effect of keeping the conservatives out of power. i don't care if they do this or not. what i want to see is that infrastructure bank set up and put in motion in actually converting infrastructure.

put another way: i don't care who pays for this. i'm tired of stalling over budgets. i want to see shovels in the ground.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-trudeau-climate-change-1.3788825

j reacts to the "right-libertarian" fantasy reality about police and property rights

actually, when i loudly throw in the faces of right-libertarians that the cops standing down would lead to riots and looting, i don't see that as a negative or a reason to argue in favour of policing or the state. i'm an anarchist, remember. what i'm pointing out is that their concept of statelessness is impossible: that real statelessness would not have the consequence of spontaneous order and people basically obeying the status quo (as though the cops are merely extraneous, unnecessary bureaucracy....), but of spontaneous redistribution of wealth.

and, i'm in favour of this.

what the right-libertarians don't understand is that the state exists to protect property rights. see, as an anarcho-communist, an actual anarchist, i don't like calling them libertarians - i'd rather just call them liberals. but, people that call themselves liberals almost universally understand the simple truth that the state exists explicitly to uphold property. not as a corollary. not as an accident. as it's primary and at times singular purpose. the state is property rights.

to argue you can have property rights without a state is incoherent.

that is my point.

right-libertarians want everything the state provides, but without a state itself. or to put it another way: they want a state, but they don't want to be taxed to pay for it.

the cops are never going to stand down, of course. but, if they did, i would expect that the looting and rioting would be temporary and fizzle out along with the inequality that exists as a function of the property that can't exist without them.

but, the looting would be legitimate. it would be a process of distributive justice.

that's what the revolution is, right?

you don't throw away the state for no reason. you throw it away because it upholds property, and property is at the root of all injustice.

what the revolution means is abolishing property.

so, how can you say there can be property after the revolution? this is counter-revolutionary, at best. but it's just status quo-ism, truly.

right-libertarians don't believe in a commons, though. they believe that the commons should be converted into private property. they'll argue that rivers and lakes and even sections of the air should be sold off, that nothing at all should be under common ownership. in fact, that's the most common answer you hear from them to the global warming issue: property rights. in their minds, if you sold all the green spaces off to private owners then those private owners would ensure the land is taken care of. if you sold the air off to private investors, they would keep it clean to maximize their investment. and, then they can sue each other over rights-infringements whenever somebody pollutes their air.

j reacts to push back on the requirement that supreme court judges be bilingual

i actually have no problem with the bilingual requirement, though. actually, i would insist upon it - and argue that those arguing otherwise are just being dense. it's a functional job requirement to be able to hear cases from quebec, which means you need to be able to understand the vernacular. you simply can't do this job if you don't speak french, and if you don't realize this then you just don't understand what the job is.

the bilingual requirement is not identity politics. it's not francocentric.

it's a basic job requirement.

and, it's long past due that this is formally enforced.

no, stop. it's actually really, really outrageous for an anglophone canadian to stand there and claim that a francophone canadian is not entitled to justice in their native language. how would you feel about going up against a court that only speaks french, and only understands civil law? you'd feel like you were living in a foreign country.

this is not a serious debate. and, it's kind of depressing that there are people that think that it is.

http://business.financialpost.com/legal-post/beverley-mclachlin-says-bilingualism-necessary-for-some-judges

j reacts to the polling situation going into the debates

i want to be clear as the week ends: my analysis of the polling is that donald trump has not actually made up any ground at all, but that various polling firms - no doubt in cahoots with the media -  have manipulated data to make the race appear closer than it actually is. this has been done via a decision to eliminate minorities and young people from the polling results under the argument that they're less likely to vote. this change happened across the board in september; it seems to be organized. the motive is to avoid the appearance of an uncompetitive race and the low ratings such a scenario would bring.

when polling results have been released this week that include the raw data, it can be seen that the actual story is stasis since late august. the numbers have not changed. the way they're being reported has.

while i continue to believe that clinton is very vulnerable to a terrorist attack, both on account of being a democrat and on account of being a woman, as well as in contrast to trump's messaging, the recent terrorist attacks did not gain the media traction that i feared they would and consequently do not seem to have had a polling effect. a future attack still might. i also continue to believe that clinton's best strategy is to run on economic and otherwise fiscal issues, including the strength of the stock market. i also believe that she needs to focus less on winning young voters (who will likely only be swayed by marijuana legalization) and more on winning older voters.

the broad takeaway is that clinton is currently safe in at least 270 electoral votes, which means the current state of the election is to determine the size and shape of her victory.

this poll did not provide raw data, suggesting they're hiding something.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article103597232.ece/BINARY/The%20full%20McClatchy-Marist%20poll

i never identified well as a capricorn. apparently, the math was all wrong and i was a sagittarius all along. i don't actually know what that means or if it fits better.

http://kdvr.com/2016/09/22/your-horoscope-may-have-just-changed-nasa-reveals-13th-zodiac-sign/

meh. the independent, emotionally detached philosopher part fits well. the extroverted, outdoorsy socialite part doesn't at all.

this will be instantly turned into a joke-meme and ridiculed for months after the election.

the candidates suck. they offer nothing to young people. you're wasting time and resources. go after older voters.

maybe the democrats should open the primaries up a little, if they don't want old people picking candidates that young people can't stand?

the bed is made.

you have to win boomers.

yeah. i'm getting 500-1000 views a day here. what's the deal with that, anyways?

who are these people?

again - she's up by 6-8 in this one, as though nothing has happened in weeks.

http://ap-gfkpoll.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/September-2016-AP-GfK-Poll-Topline-Clinton.pdf

j reacts to the idea that clinton is a lock on 270 ev, but less certain to win

see, now we're very close to a point of agreement. i'd just question the idea that the margins cited are nearly as meaningful as suggested (especially between ohio and pennsylvania, which have often voted differently). that's the same question of demographics being predictive or not, which, remember, i largely reject.

and, i'd have to wonder aloud how anybody could agree that it is almost certain that she's going to win at least 270 electoral votes, and yet much less certain that she's going to win the election. because if that isn't a contradiction (it is), it's at least cognitive dissonance.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/clintons-leading-in-exactly-the-states-she-needs-to-win/

(independent random variables should be very familiar not just to statisticians, but to anybody with a remotely mathematical background - computer scientists, physicists, engineers. you may not have even ventured past them, if you're less theoretical and more practical.

you couldn't do this in canada - and if you could, it wouldn't really mean anything. but, given that there is ample data for states in the american election, and the unit of the state is paramount, i might suggest that the way to model elections is to assign each state as an independent random variable. this assumes that data in ohio and pennsylvania (and in any other two states) is entirely independent. and, i think this is correct.

this isn't exotic. it's textbook. it's just a different assumption. but, if anybody knows of anybody doing modelling like this, i'd like to see it.

https://www.probabilitycourse.com/chapter3/3_1_4_independent_random_var.php)

(i'm just trying to tersely explain what an independent random variable is for random onlookers.)

j reacts to the estate tax hike as bad politics (this election is about winning boomers)

this is good policy.

but, in a year when disproportionately wealthy aging boomers are going to determine the election, the reality is that it's terrible politics.

you want to do it. but, you want to bury it somewhere.

i just don't get it: the inability to adapt. broadly. what, is it supposed to attract young voters? because they don't want to inherit anything? i...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clinton-proposes-65-tax-on-largest-estates-1474559914

again...

who picked clinton over sanders? boomers.
who picked trump over the field? boomers.
who are the issues directed at? boomers.
what is the age of the candidates? boomers.
who are going to vote in the largest numbers? boomers.

here's a (not so) bold prediction: whomever wins boomers will be the next president.

hopefully, this is a last hurrah. an end of an era.

but they created this election, and it is theirs to decide.

while the battles of that generation go through their final motions, the kids are going to remain off in the distance smoking a joint and laughing about how absurd the charade is.

nobody's going to swing them. not these candidates. accept it...

you have to win boomers, democrats.

ok. i'm confident in stating i'm over it, even if i feel a little rough in the morning for the next five or six days. but, when you're sick for four days, it really feels like one big long day that never starts. you wake up, you eat, you fall asleep. repeat.

i happen to have gotten a lot of ranting in, so i could upload four separate vlogs full of rants. but, if i were to remove the ranting, there wouldn't be anything left except talking about how i'm sick. see, i try to separate my vlogs by chunks of consciousness. normally, that works by partitioning over sleeps, meaning i'll connect together several days through the property of awakeness. in this case, i basically slept for four days, so it would be consistent in a broader sense to combine them all together through the property of asleepness, even if i happen to have woken up for a few hours in between to do things like eat and rant.

i just feel that the best way to do this is to combine it all together into a single sick vlog in order to capture that experience as a single, uninterrupted whole. which means a relatively lengthy vlog for the 18th-21st (inclusive) will come up on the 29th.

there will be nightly reacts videos published as they are appropriate.

17-09-2016: strange, beautiful music?

show footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLrHImg7oLm2bSDSUjouBjmlxDDpHYKf8p&v=Srwfn616CMc

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/09/17.html

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

17-09-2016: strange beautiful music IX (detroit)

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/09/17.html

vlog for the day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17zX0Orny4k

j reacts to everybody moving to "likely voter" polling at the exact same time

i'm retracting my statement that the polls are tightening. on closer look, i actually think we have no valid data at all.

i'm not joking. look at this:

"The sample of likely voters is modeled among registered voters (N=1,433), assigning each respondent a probability of voting based on their responses. The margin of error for the sample of likely voters is plus or minus three points."

...meaning it's completely arbitrary, and probably designed to manufacture a race where there isn't one.

listen: i get that not everybody is going to vote. but, what these companies are doing is just making shit up. what they're doing makes the polling useless.

this is my honest take on the polls recently.

can we please get a good telephone poll of registered voters that isn't full of manipulated data?

i'm not saying clinton is still winning by a big margin. i'm saying the polling is useless, and we actually have no real idea at all.

i'm not exaggerating. every single one of those polls is trash.

that's all polls, so far, for september.

how's that for cherry-picking?

what they should be doing is reporting decided voters, leaning voters and completely undecided voters separately, not pulling probabilities out of their asses.

remember: the media doesn't care who wins. well...trump is less boring. but, they just want an exciting race. they want ratings.

the effect of this data manipulation appears to be that they are removing young people and minorities from the responses, under the argument that they won't vote. which is almost like they're modelling voter suppression.

of course that's going to inflate trump's numbers....

i mean, you can't even get polled in america anymore if you're latino or black? wtf...

"these polls are going to hurt ratings, so we'll just delete minority opinions. they don't watch us, anyways."

i'm glad i live up here. i really am.

and, with that, i think i'm going to legitimately follow through on my longstanding threat to tune out, which i haven't been able to do up to this point. what's the use in analyzing cooked data?

but, get this: i've been arguing they're both racists. i may have missed the larger point. which is that the system is already racist. and, this fear that electing somebody with white supremacist support is going to be some kind of change is really just willful blindness.

they're modelling voter suppression.

i'm sure the health thing has had some negative effect. but, the reason the polls have changed is because everybody changed the way they poll at the same time. and, it does seem like collusion....

what you're missing here is a class analysis. that is, we still don't know why these words are "bad".

you'll notice that the crude words are all very german sounding, and that they start to develop a crude context around the time of the norman takeover. english is of course a german language (spoken by invading angles and saxons). the norman ruling class mostly spoke french.

so, you ended up with certain words being looked down upon because they were only used by the non-aristocratic classes. to use these words would define you that way. avoiding them was consequently of the utmost importance, to maximize social advancement.

we don't swear like dukes, or duchesses. we swear like sailors.

the flaw in jimmy's reasoning is that, if he's right, what it does is set the stage for the democrats to sweep back into power with a big tent that bleeds into the center right. think of it like this: if you put bush back in power, the end result is that obama gets elected again.

it's an algorithm that pulls the democrats further and further to the right...

there's a video on my channel where i go over this. but, bernie is absolutely right. if you see them as interchangeable (and i do, mostly), then you should let hillary become the villain. the backlash has to be against the democrats, not co-opted by them.

i have the drivers uninstalled, myself.

and the device disabled.

15/16-09-2016: still floating through in a confused haze

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

actually, assumptions are required to make deductions.

basic rule of inference.

there's nothing shameful with being wrong in your assumptions, either. what's important is that you state them at the start, so that the reader knows what they are.

they are, after all, assumptions. they are required. but, they are also arbitrary.

i mean, if you think that you can present to me an argument that is void of assumptions, be prepared for me to find one.

that's ok. as mentioned: assumptions are necessary. what's important is knowing where they are.

the american white woman remains amongst the most (mentally) enslaved people on the planet

while racism lingers, the actual economic system of slavery was abolished. the economic system of patriarchy (marriage) continues to exist.

it is white women that have this enforced through culture more strongly than any other women. and, you hear it if you pay attention. you see it. even amongst those who gain power as they advance through their lives.

privilege, for the white woman, is something that is taught in the private schools of the upper classes. you're born into it through wealth, but it must be taught. you don't inherit it with skin colour. and not everybody learns it.

but, to the poor white woman, the white woman born without status or wealth, those mental chains are daunting. wealth itself will not break them, it will only lead to insane decisions. that mirror must be held up, first.

bicycles are way sexier than motorcycles. sorry.

work it, bitch.

no, really.

motorcycles are gross. the exhaust is flat out disgusting, ok? in my ideal city, there would be an absolute ban.

have you ever been walking down the street and got stuck with a lung full of motorcycle exhaust? it's up there with the most disgusting things one could possibly think of.

like, falling in dog shit.

worse, is they think they're "cool".

so, no motorcycles. yuck. gross.

bicycles, on the other hand, are a workout. upper body, too. when you see somebody ride by on a bicycle, you know they exercise. you know they're in good shape. and, you'll probably get a nice smell, too.

i mean, compare smells.

a) motorcycle: exhaust fume.
b) bicycle: pheromones.

which sounds more attractive?

not everybody is going to agree with me. but, the smart ones will.

this is going to backfire, but let's say it doesn't. what does he want? a general strike?

you can't turn the clock back on abortion. you'll get riots. mass civil disobedience. the doctors will keep doing it. the marches will be unheard of.

it's always been an empty threat, for that reason.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/09/16/trump_steps_up_anti-abortion_stance_taps_dannenfelser_131809.html

j reacts to the idea of canada on the united nations security council

why? so we can vote with the americans on every issue? and, think about what might happen if we don't. we should be avoiding this....there's better ways to have influence than to baldly challenge the hegemon.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justin-trudeau-united-nations-security-council-1.3764441

also, it would be useful to acknowledge that the rise of all of this xenophobia is a consequence of the failure of the free trade regime, rather than pretend the answer is more of the problem.

season 10 v2 cropped