every time i stand in line at a grocery store, or some other place with music playing, i become convinced that the worst part about living through 8 years of trump/pence is going to be 8 more years of 80s radio pop.
why can't we get rid of this shit? we've tried over and over again to burn it, behead it and bury it but it keeps fucking coming back.
it's 2017. there is absolutely no reason why i should be subjected to bonnie raitt. all i wanted was a kiwi...
Friday, May 19, 2017
do you enjoy getting up and going to work every day?
if not, then why do you wish misery upon others? see, you can call me names if you'd like, but i think that makes you small-minded and vindictive and petty - and ultimately flatly pathetic.
here's an idea: instead of demanding everybody be as miserable as you've made yourself, why don't you seek to emancipate yourself?
it's your choice. but, i'd request that you keep your misery to yourself. i'm not having any of it, and don't feel any empathy towards your condition, if you just get up everyday and take it with a smile.
if not, then why do you wish misery upon others? see, you can call me names if you'd like, but i think that makes you small-minded and vindictive and petty - and ultimately flatly pathetic.
here's an idea: instead of demanding everybody be as miserable as you've made yourself, why don't you seek to emancipate yourself?
it's your choice. but, i'd request that you keep your misery to yourself. i'm not having any of it, and don't feel any empathy towards your condition, if you just get up everyday and take it with a smile.
i have conflicting interests with the exchange rate...
personally, because i'm right on the border and party in detroit on a fixed income, i want a higher canadian dollar. my direct personal interest is in parity.
but, i recognize that the economic strength of the region i live in depends on a lower dollar - and also that the economic strength of the country over all demands a higher one.
i'm really pulled in a lot of directions.
but, it seems to me that the canadian dollar is trying to climb. every time a new report is released, it is accompanied by international headlines declaring a higher dollar. but, then trump opens his mouth and the canadian dollar falls.
it's a pattern, but it has to break. so, i'm putting out a call: stop listening to trump. look at the data.
personally, because i'm right on the border and party in detroit on a fixed income, i want a higher canadian dollar. my direct personal interest is in parity.
but, i recognize that the economic strength of the region i live in depends on a lower dollar - and also that the economic strength of the country over all demands a higher one.
i'm really pulled in a lot of directions.
but, it seems to me that the canadian dollar is trying to climb. every time a new report is released, it is accompanied by international headlines declaring a higher dollar. but, then trump opens his mouth and the canadian dollar falls.
it's a pattern, but it has to break. so, i'm putting out a call: stop listening to trump. look at the data.
there is no space for religion in my revolution, and that is a firm position; if the currents wish to move in a different direction at this point where centrists are being pushed into opposition by a neo-liberal establishment, then i will have to keep my support withdrawn until the opposition realigns with a more traditional anti-hierarchical left.
and, i'll take a chance at sabotage when i can. you need to fight hierarchy wherever it exists, and all religion is hierarchy.
centrists will always exist (under capitalism). it's the left that needs to find itself, again, in this period of realignment.
there cannot be a pro-religious left. this issue was discussed at length in the nineteenth century, and is settled. a pro-religious left is never actually a left, but always a conservative movement in disguise. we see this with progressives, both historical and modern.
the longer you drag this religious baggage around, the longer we will endure capitalism for.
and, i'll take a chance at sabotage when i can. you need to fight hierarchy wherever it exists, and all religion is hierarchy.
centrists will always exist (under capitalism). it's the left that needs to find itself, again, in this period of realignment.
there cannot be a pro-religious left. this issue was discussed at length in the nineteenth century, and is settled. a pro-religious left is never actually a left, but always a conservative movement in disguise. we see this with progressives, both historical and modern.
the longer you drag this religious baggage around, the longer we will endure capitalism for.
and, russophobia is a very old word.
i first ran across it in a history textbook that i nabbed from my dead step grandfather's shelf, it was written in the 30s or 40s, to describe nineteenth century british tory policy under disraeli.
the idea can be traced at least as far back as thomas paine, who realized that the british empire would collapse if it did not have a russian bogeyman to justify it's waste of resources on militarism. but, the fear of russian expansion goes back to genghis khan and even atilla the hun.
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/empire/ljb1.html
i first ran across it in a history textbook that i nabbed from my dead step grandfather's shelf, it was written in the 30s or 40s, to describe nineteenth century british tory policy under disraeli.
the idea can be traced at least as far back as thomas paine, who realized that the british empire would collapse if it did not have a russian bogeyman to justify it's waste of resources on militarism. but, the fear of russian expansion goes back to genghis khan and even atilla the hun.
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/empire/ljb1.html
canada is a lot bigger than sweden, so there are deficits in the comparison. but, we should be looking towards the swedes, and perhaps the germans, for models in trying to exist between the united states and the russians, without being absorbed by either one.
geography may be destiny, but the geography is changing.
the arctic ocean is just a big baltic sea, now.
geography may be destiny, but the geography is changing.
the arctic ocean is just a big baltic sea, now.
this is the first i've heard of the expansion to windsor, which may seem superfluous at first - until you realize that it becomes very easy to integrate into detroit, which has amtrak services running to chicago.
would i hop on the train to toronto to see a show? it's about 330 km, according to google. the train will run between 250 km/h to 300 km/h, but it will also need to stop a few times. i could conceivably get to toronto on the train about as quickly as i can get to ferndale on the bus.
i guess the change, for me, would be that it would open up the possibility of going to toronto without having to stay the night. but, i would expect it to be kind of expensive, too.
it's years away, still...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/high-speed-rail-train-toronto-windsor-kitchener-london-1.4121663
would i hop on the train to toronto to see a show? it's about 330 km, according to google. the train will run between 250 km/h to 300 km/h, but it will also need to stop a few times. i could conceivably get to toronto on the train about as quickly as i can get to ferndale on the bus.
i guess the change, for me, would be that it would open up the possibility of going to toronto without having to stay the night. but, i would expect it to be kind of expensive, too.
it's years away, still...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/high-speed-rail-train-toronto-windsor-kitchener-london-1.4121663
if your goal is to isolate human rights abusers, then doing so by going after russia - rather than israel or the saudis or the united states - is flatly farcical.
you can't take this seriously. it's just a propaganda smear.
the truth is that this woman is a deep russophobe and that that should have disqualified her from cabinet. her job's prerogative is to advance canada's interests, not to advance the interests of the democratic party in the united states.
and, the reality is that this is very short-sighted. it doesn't take a lot of vision to realize that a warming arctic is going to require canada to develop closer ties with the russians, and that attacking them is acting against the country's self-interest - and in the self-interest of american capital.
freeland should resign her post (under necessary pressure) and move back to the united states. and, i'm not being trite about this. this policy position is so pro-american, and so against canada's long term strategic interests, that it's not outlandish to suggest it's a type of treason.
she's made it very clear who she's working for.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/russia-warns-canada-magnitsky-1.4122758
you can't take this seriously. it's just a propaganda smear.
the truth is that this woman is a deep russophobe and that that should have disqualified her from cabinet. her job's prerogative is to advance canada's interests, not to advance the interests of the democratic party in the united states.
and, the reality is that this is very short-sighted. it doesn't take a lot of vision to realize that a warming arctic is going to require canada to develop closer ties with the russians, and that attacking them is acting against the country's self-interest - and in the self-interest of american capital.
freeland should resign her post (under necessary pressure) and move back to the united states. and, i'm not being trite about this. this policy position is so pro-american, and so against canada's long term strategic interests, that it's not outlandish to suggest it's a type of treason.
she's made it very clear who she's working for.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/russia-warns-canada-magnitsky-1.4122758
Thursday, May 18, 2017
this was the final compass, based on positions before the election.
i'm still in the far corner, the libertarian left.
and you'll notice something: the compass actually corrects itself and puts hillary to the right of trump on economic issues, while conceding that he's a lot more authoritarian. and, i think what we've seen so far actually upholds that.
i wish there was at least a third axis for foreign policy.
i'm sorry: i'm not going to tow the party line.
i'm still in the far corner, the libertarian left.
and you'll notice something: the compass actually corrects itself and puts hillary to the right of trump on economic issues, while conceding that he's a lot more authoritarian. and, i think what we've seen so far actually upholds that.
i wish there was at least a third axis for foreign policy.
i'm sorry: i'm not going to tow the party line.
no. you don't get it.
very reluctantly agreeing to vote for the democrats as a barely lesser evil (and not even being sure i was right...) does not imply campaigning for them between elections. it implies trying to build a third party between elections, which implies campaigning against them.
but, i'm a canadian. i can't be building parties in a different country.
worse is that i know better, otherwise i'd be active up here.
i want to be working on my art, and will be back to it once i get through this pile of things i have to get through in order to get back to it. but, if i was going to be active, it would be in trying to reclaim spaces in this ghost town of industrial ruins.
my politics have no outlet in a bourgeois parliament.
...and, that's the whole point: it's the reason i'm a valuable observer. i don't have any party allegiances, so i'm not going to get blinded by partisan bullshit.
very reluctantly agreeing to vote for the democrats as a barely lesser evil (and not even being sure i was right...) does not imply campaigning for them between elections. it implies trying to build a third party between elections, which implies campaigning against them.
but, i'm a canadian. i can't be building parties in a different country.
worse is that i know better, otherwise i'd be active up here.
i want to be working on my art, and will be back to it once i get through this pile of things i have to get through in order to get back to it. but, if i was going to be active, it would be in trying to reclaim spaces in this ghost town of industrial ruins.
my politics have no outlet in a bourgeois parliament.
...and, that's the whole point: it's the reason i'm a valuable observer. i don't have any party allegiances, so i'm not going to get blinded by partisan bullshit.
i've at no point presented myself as pro-trump. rather, i've repeatedly stressed the point that the major parties are all terrible and i don't really prefer one over the other.
i guess you didn't believe me.
i'd be no less critical of clinton on most things, especially her foreign policy but also probably her tax cuts, and no less willing to support a few of the prerogatives i agree with, like keynesian infrastructure spending and climate change mitigation strategies.
what i'm most opposed to is being dishonest in order to advance partisan political positions, especially in the context of not identifying with any of the major political parties.
i'm not on anybody's "side"; i'm only on the side of truth and integrity and honest policy-making.
i don't give a fuck about your party. i don't give a fuck about your career. i don't give a fuck about your culture. i'm interested in issues, in a concrete sense. policies. details.
the truth is that there is no real story around russia, except the story of a deep state that wants leverage over an unpredictable president. i have no interest in pretending that there is a story, in order to politically aid a party i'm largely opposed to.
you'll have to look elsewhere for the hack you want. i'm not it.
but, if you want an honest analysis from outside of the restricted spectrum, i'll keep it coming.
i guess you didn't believe me.
i'd be no less critical of clinton on most things, especially her foreign policy but also probably her tax cuts, and no less willing to support a few of the prerogatives i agree with, like keynesian infrastructure spending and climate change mitigation strategies.
what i'm most opposed to is being dishonest in order to advance partisan political positions, especially in the context of not identifying with any of the major political parties.
i'm not on anybody's "side"; i'm only on the side of truth and integrity and honest policy-making.
i don't give a fuck about your party. i don't give a fuck about your career. i don't give a fuck about your culture. i'm interested in issues, in a concrete sense. policies. details.
the truth is that there is no real story around russia, except the story of a deep state that wants leverage over an unpredictable president. i have no interest in pretending that there is a story, in order to politically aid a party i'm largely opposed to.
you'll have to look elsewhere for the hack you want. i'm not it.
but, if you want an honest analysis from outside of the restricted spectrum, i'll keep it coming.
if el nino is an increase in ocean temperatures relative to the average, and the average is increasing due to climate change, is it not wise to question whether we are returning to el nino or merely observing climate change?
i suppose that what you'd need to do is measure the temperature differential. it is, after all, temperature differences that drive local climate events, rather than temperatures themselves.
if the entire system has increased, we may not be dealing with something we would recognize as "el nino". i mean, we may be dealing with something, for sure. just not el nino....
i suppose that what you'd need to do is measure the temperature differential. it is, after all, temperature differences that drive local climate events, rather than temperatures themselves.
if the entire system has increased, we may not be dealing with something we would recognize as "el nino". i mean, we may be dealing with something, for sure. just not el nino....
to be clear: i'm not condoning anything, i'm just drawing attention to the continuity.
your enemy is the state.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/17/james-risen-obama-greatest-enemy-press-freedom-generation
your enemy is the state.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/17/james-risen-obama-greatest-enemy-press-freedom-generation
i'm not joking, the band has acknowledged the problem with their fan base (it's largely why they broke up), and my experiences with rage fans are not unusual.
it wasn't just rage, either, it was that whole style of music and the entire culture around it. when they did the neo-woodstock thing in '99, a lot of those bands played and there were people getting beat up and raped in the mosh pit.
but, i mean listen to it for five minutes and tell me you think you're going to get a different outcome. it's obviously designed to make people violent. the intent is to get people worked up to go smash a bank, i get it, but it didn't work out very well. they just got mad and lashed out at whatever they could.
http://www.mtv.com/news/1592211/rage-against-the-machine-fight-the-good-fight-their-fans-fight-everyone-else-in-bigger-than-the-sound/
it wasn't just rage, either, it was that whole style of music and the entire culture around it. when they did the neo-woodstock thing in '99, a lot of those bands played and there were people getting beat up and raped in the mosh pit.
but, i mean listen to it for five minutes and tell me you think you're going to get a different outcome. it's obviously designed to make people violent. the intent is to get people worked up to go smash a bank, i get it, but it didn't work out very well. they just got mad and lashed out at whatever they could.
http://www.mtv.com/news/1592211/rage-against-the-machine-fight-the-good-fight-their-fans-fight-everyone-else-in-bigger-than-the-sound/
my opinion of rage against the machine is in the public record, but i'll repeat it here.
i really didn't have much experience with them, besides the fact that the only serious issue i ever had with a bully had to do with a guy that often wore rage against the machine shirts - along with slayer and metallica shirts. that guy did massive negative advertising for the band, in my mind. i associated them with him for years, and in large part still do.
the internet was still developing in the period that rage were relevant, and i didn't have any friends that liked them. the actual reality is that i don't have any recollection of ever even listening to a rage record at all. ever. i may have heard a single a handful of times on the radio around '97 or so.
during the period that rage were at the height of popularity, i was listening to more introverted types of music, like radiohead and sunny day real estate and autechre. i was also at the height of my industrial kick. while i was technically a teenage boy, the truth is that angry music for teenage boys really wasn't on my radar or something i was at all interested in. my cd collection was more what you would have expected from a bookish teenage girl. in hindsight, that's what you should actually expect.
nobody was really sure how old this bully with the rage shirt was. rumour had it that he was on his third try at grade 10. the difference in physical strength between a bookish 16 year-old and a jockish 19 year-old is usually going to be large, and that held in this circumstance. he liked to throw me into lockers. i had no real means of defense.
even at the presumed age of 19, he would sit in grade 10 science class and just listen to his walkman at full blast. the teacher was visibly afraid of him.
he was raging against the machine, alright. and, it's safe to assume that he ended up in jail.
i ended up pushing him down the stairs and breaking his leg, then escaped reprimand because he wouldn't admit he got beat up by a fag.
my understanding is that the band realizes that what they were trying to do had unintended consequences, and that all they really did was provide a soundtrack for bullies and delinquents that didn't understand their messaging at all.
soundgarden came from a very different space, culturally. so, i was never impressed by cornell's decision to join audioslave and never really listened to them much. i found myself more interested in the wellwater conspiracy, and in looking for rare kim thayil sightings.
i really didn't have much experience with them, besides the fact that the only serious issue i ever had with a bully had to do with a guy that often wore rage against the machine shirts - along with slayer and metallica shirts. that guy did massive negative advertising for the band, in my mind. i associated them with him for years, and in large part still do.
the internet was still developing in the period that rage were relevant, and i didn't have any friends that liked them. the actual reality is that i don't have any recollection of ever even listening to a rage record at all. ever. i may have heard a single a handful of times on the radio around '97 or so.
during the period that rage were at the height of popularity, i was listening to more introverted types of music, like radiohead and sunny day real estate and autechre. i was also at the height of my industrial kick. while i was technically a teenage boy, the truth is that angry music for teenage boys really wasn't on my radar or something i was at all interested in. my cd collection was more what you would have expected from a bookish teenage girl. in hindsight, that's what you should actually expect.
nobody was really sure how old this bully with the rage shirt was. rumour had it that he was on his third try at grade 10. the difference in physical strength between a bookish 16 year-old and a jockish 19 year-old is usually going to be large, and that held in this circumstance. he liked to throw me into lockers. i had no real means of defense.
even at the presumed age of 19, he would sit in grade 10 science class and just listen to his walkman at full blast. the teacher was visibly afraid of him.
he was raging against the machine, alright. and, it's safe to assume that he ended up in jail.
i ended up pushing him down the stairs and breaking his leg, then escaped reprimand because he wouldn't admit he got beat up by a fag.
my understanding is that the band realizes that what they were trying to do had unintended consequences, and that all they really did was provide a soundtrack for bullies and delinquents that didn't understand their messaging at all.
soundgarden came from a very different space, culturally. so, i was never impressed by cornell's decision to join audioslave and never really listened to them much. i found myself more interested in the wellwater conspiracy, and in looking for rare kim thayil sightings.
they're saying it was a suicide...
soundgarden was in detroit last night. i knew they were here. but, i can't spend 60 dollars, us, on a concert, unless it's the one and only thing i do that month, and the frank truth is that i haven't been listening to much soundgarden over the last 20 years. the belew show was simply more affordable, and actually even more relevant, as he's released more interesting records over the last decade or so.
tears for fears were here, too.
i missed them at the ottawa bluesfest a few years ago for basically the same reason. in the end, i did not get a chance to see the band.
i would have rather seen them before they reformed, for obvious reasons.
detroit is a mostly black city nowadays, and i suspect a lot of people in the region had to make the same basic economic decision: yeah, i'd like to see soundgarden (maybe again...maybe for the first time in years....), but not at that price or in that venue.
so, i hope he didn't make a rash decision based on turnout last night.
....because the band was no doubt always better in smaller spaces, anyways.
soundgarden was in detroit last night. i knew they were here. but, i can't spend 60 dollars, us, on a concert, unless it's the one and only thing i do that month, and the frank truth is that i haven't been listening to much soundgarden over the last 20 years. the belew show was simply more affordable, and actually even more relevant, as he's released more interesting records over the last decade or so.
tears for fears were here, too.
i missed them at the ottawa bluesfest a few years ago for basically the same reason. in the end, i did not get a chance to see the band.
i would have rather seen them before they reformed, for obvious reasons.
detroit is a mostly black city nowadays, and i suspect a lot of people in the region had to make the same basic economic decision: yeah, i'd like to see soundgarden (maybe again...maybe for the first time in years....), but not at that price or in that venue.
so, i hope he didn't make a rash decision based on turnout last night.
....because the band was no doubt always better in smaller spaces, anyways.
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
the vlog for february 16th is ready to go. not tonight but tomorrow night, at 12:00. so, in 26 hours.
the vlogs will carry forward on a normal schedule from there. surely, three months is enough time that i shouldn't get backed up again.
in case you missed it, the way this is going to work is that it's staggered by one season. so, it's calibrated in such a way that the march 21st vlog will be published on june 21st. this will usually be about three months. it's just weird right now due to february.
i'm going to try to have a longer day today, and continuing forwards on this, at least until the end of season 13, is what i'll be doing with it.
the vlogs will carry forward on a normal schedule from there. surely, three months is enough time that i shouldn't get backed up again.
in case you missed it, the way this is going to work is that it's staggered by one season. so, it's calibrated in such a way that the march 21st vlog will be published on june 21st. this will usually be about three months. it's just weird right now due to february.
i'm going to try to have a longer day today, and continuing forwards on this, at least until the end of season 13, is what i'll be doing with it.
people that are concerned that canada is benefiting from a lower dollar are not understanding our economy very well. a lower dollar is beneficial to our manufacturing sector, which is located largely in the east of the country. but, the political and social power of the country, nowadays, is in the oil sector, which is in the west of the country.
our dollar is de facto pegged to the price of oil. it is low right now because oil is low. the way to get the dollar up is to increase the price of oil. and, raising the canadian currency is certainly one input factor that would help american manufacturers compete against canadian ones.
but, increasing the price of oil also hurts the competitiveness of some american manufacturers.
worse is that, if you're out to get canada, you're misunderstanding it's interests: our political elite from all three parties would gleefully throw the manufacturing sector back under the bus to get a slice of higher oil profits. if oil gets high enough, the liberals may even balance the budget. we also have wealth distribution systems that transfer wealth from the oil industry to manufacturing regions, so the people in these areas will not be hit hard, so much as they'll shift back to social assistance.
some punishment.
if the americans are serious about addressing currency manipulation, what they need to do is write stricter regulations around currency trading, and crack down on short-term bond yield differentials. but, these are minor inputs.
we're an independent country in a complicated global economy, and unless trump wants to invade us, he's going to have to learn to deal with the reality of things.
our dollar is de facto pegged to the price of oil. it is low right now because oil is low. the way to get the dollar up is to increase the price of oil. and, raising the canadian currency is certainly one input factor that would help american manufacturers compete against canadian ones.
but, increasing the price of oil also hurts the competitiveness of some american manufacturers.
worse is that, if you're out to get canada, you're misunderstanding it's interests: our political elite from all three parties would gleefully throw the manufacturing sector back under the bus to get a slice of higher oil profits. if oil gets high enough, the liberals may even balance the budget. we also have wealth distribution systems that transfer wealth from the oil industry to manufacturing regions, so the people in these areas will not be hit hard, so much as they'll shift back to social assistance.
some punishment.
if the americans are serious about addressing currency manipulation, what they need to do is write stricter regulations around currency trading, and crack down on short-term bond yield differentials. but, these are minor inputs.
we're an independent country in a complicated global economy, and unless trump wants to invade us, he's going to have to learn to deal with the reality of things.
this is a non-starter and, frankly, a dumb idea.
what would happen, instantly, is that everybody would sell all of their canadian dollars for us dollars, thereby crashing the currency. we'd just all end up using american money. that's not going to help american manufacturers, either, as they'd lose their advantages in economies of scale.
do you know what policy would actually succeed in getting what donald trump wants? he'd have to invade and occupy mexico and canada. nothing else is going to get him what he wants.
don't tell him that, though.
it's becoming increasingly clear that canada is best off ripping up the deal and waiting for the next president to renegotiate. let's not forget that this is an option: we could always just sit still and wait for him to die.
http://globalnews.ca/news/3458565/nafta-trade-deal-currency-clause/
what would happen, instantly, is that everybody would sell all of their canadian dollars for us dollars, thereby crashing the currency. we'd just all end up using american money. that's not going to help american manufacturers, either, as they'd lose their advantages in economies of scale.
do you know what policy would actually succeed in getting what donald trump wants? he'd have to invade and occupy mexico and canada. nothing else is going to get him what he wants.
don't tell him that, though.
it's becoming increasingly clear that canada is best off ripping up the deal and waiting for the next president to renegotiate. let's not forget that this is an option: we could always just sit still and wait for him to die.
http://globalnews.ca/news/3458565/nafta-trade-deal-currency-clause/
the short story on the infrastructure bank...
after the second world war, canada, like the other allies, found itself with an unemployment problem. one of the things that it did to fix the unemployment problem was that it invested heavily in roads. and, how did it pay for that? louis st. laurent used to brag that he balanced the budget, so it couldn't have been with too much bank debt.
in fact, money for infrastructure in canada - as well as in most places in the western world - was merely generated out of thin air, by the bank of canada. you need to be careful with the claims of people like paul hellyer and ellen brown as much of it is exaggerated, but it is legitimately true that the bank of canada printed almost all of the money it used for infrastructure.
this did not create meaningful debt because the money wasn't borrowed. it just came into being with the wave of a wand.
this changed in the early 70s, when an international agreement came into force that insisted that this kind of money generation was the cause of the inflation that countries in the west were experiencing.
today, we know that the theory of monetarism is false. it's questionable whether anybody should have ever taken it seriously, as the inflation was obviously tied to the opec embargo and the nixon shock. that is, there's a good argument that the banks pulled one over on us in getting people to accept the idea of monetarism in the first place - as they did with trickle down ten years later. but, canada was not able to push back against both nixon and heath at the same time and relented to a pledge to shift funding for government projects from public to private financing.
this was supposed to reduce inflation. but, canadians know that inflation increased in the 70s, and that debt ballooned in the 80s. trudeau figured out that the cause of the inflation was not public borrowing but the oil crisis, and created a national energy program to adjust to it. but, under international pressure to hold to monetarism, he never returned to public borrowing, and we today have a large national debt as a consequence of this.
in the 90s, we had to restructure dramatically to deal with the consequences of this debt, as the imf was threatening us with sanctions. and, in the 00s we faced a war of attrition by a government that wanted to destroy the country through the weapon of international finance.
i'm not here to rant about the debt. i don't have conservative values. i don't see the value in saving, or fiscal conservatism, in general. rather, i'll point out that the status quo debt/gdp ratio is manageable - so long as we don't have the need for any large scale spending, like we did in the 50s.
today, we do need this kind of large scale spending on infrastructure to adjust to the effects of the changing climate in front of us. and, given that the theory that led us to private financing is thoroughly debunked, we should be seriously contemplating the value of a return to public financing in order to do it.
after the second world war, canada, like the other allies, found itself with an unemployment problem. one of the things that it did to fix the unemployment problem was that it invested heavily in roads. and, how did it pay for that? louis st. laurent used to brag that he balanced the budget, so it couldn't have been with too much bank debt.
in fact, money for infrastructure in canada - as well as in most places in the western world - was merely generated out of thin air, by the bank of canada. you need to be careful with the claims of people like paul hellyer and ellen brown as much of it is exaggerated, but it is legitimately true that the bank of canada printed almost all of the money it used for infrastructure.
this did not create meaningful debt because the money wasn't borrowed. it just came into being with the wave of a wand.
this changed in the early 70s, when an international agreement came into force that insisted that this kind of money generation was the cause of the inflation that countries in the west were experiencing.
today, we know that the theory of monetarism is false. it's questionable whether anybody should have ever taken it seriously, as the inflation was obviously tied to the opec embargo and the nixon shock. that is, there's a good argument that the banks pulled one over on us in getting people to accept the idea of monetarism in the first place - as they did with trickle down ten years later. but, canada was not able to push back against both nixon and heath at the same time and relented to a pledge to shift funding for government projects from public to private financing.
this was supposed to reduce inflation. but, canadians know that inflation increased in the 70s, and that debt ballooned in the 80s. trudeau figured out that the cause of the inflation was not public borrowing but the oil crisis, and created a national energy program to adjust to it. but, under international pressure to hold to monetarism, he never returned to public borrowing, and we today have a large national debt as a consequence of this.
in the 90s, we had to restructure dramatically to deal with the consequences of this debt, as the imf was threatening us with sanctions. and, in the 00s we faced a war of attrition by a government that wanted to destroy the country through the weapon of international finance.
i'm not here to rant about the debt. i don't have conservative values. i don't see the value in saving, or fiscal conservatism, in general. rather, i'll point out that the status quo debt/gdp ratio is manageable - so long as we don't have the need for any large scale spending, like we did in the 50s.
today, we do need this kind of large scale spending on infrastructure to adjust to the effects of the changing climate in front of us. and, given that the theory that led us to private financing is thoroughly debunked, we should be seriously contemplating the value of a return to public financing in order to do it.
this is kind of more what i was hoping for, but it's not what he's going to be doing....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlrCPMQ23k8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlrCPMQ23k8
yeah.
i had second thoughts. could i scrounge together some cash?
but, it's a greatest hits set....which is not really what i was thinking....or something i'd really get into...
i mean, it's being promoted as the "power trio". i thought that meant the focus would be on his more recent fusion-y instrumental work.
i'd even be stoked if it was just all crimson covers, but this is kind of a shitty setlist. he has this ego problem; he just can't let go of the fact that he's not a pop star.
so, i'm not going. decided.
http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/adrian-belew-power-trio/2017/virgin-mobile-mod-club-toronto-on-canada-63e7fafb.html
i had second thoughts. could i scrounge together some cash?
but, it's a greatest hits set....which is not really what i was thinking....or something i'd really get into...
i mean, it's being promoted as the "power trio". i thought that meant the focus would be on his more recent fusion-y instrumental work.
i'd even be stoked if it was just all crimson covers, but this is kind of a shitty setlist. he has this ego problem; he just can't let go of the fact that he's not a pop star.
so, i'm not going. decided.
http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/adrian-belew-power-trio/2017/virgin-mobile-mod-club-toronto-on-canada-63e7fafb.html
actually, i think that what this demonstrates is how inefficient that graveyards are. again: this is often prime real estate, in the middle of the city. people could be living on this land.
do the world a favour and get yourself cremated so you're not blocking progress in three hundred years. the needs of the living are important; the needs of the dead are simply not. they're dead.
we should tear every graveyard in the province up and build social housing on the land, instead.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/11/18/vaughan-church-grieves-for-bones-unearthed-to-build-pool.html
do the world a favour and get yourself cremated so you're not blocking progress in three hundred years. the needs of the living are important; the needs of the dead are simply not. they're dead.
we should tear every graveyard in the province up and build social housing on the land, instead.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/11/18/vaughan-church-grieves-for-bones-unearthed-to-build-pool.html
i've never understood this weird tendency of leftists to align with conservatives on issues of "cultural heritage". i'm in favour of tearing it all down and rebuilding without the baggage of the past...
the city would be better off with a property owner in this space that pays taxes. i mean, it's prime real estate. why would anybody want an eyesore of a 150 year-old church there?
i might consequently suggest that the mall should fight the court case with the intent of bankrupting the church and forcing them to sell - perhaps even to the mall, itself, who could convert it into a parking lot.
https://www.thestar.com/business/2017/05/16/church-of-the-holy-trinity-files-claim-against-toronto-eaton-centre-over-cracked-walls.html
the city would be better off with a property owner in this space that pays taxes. i mean, it's prime real estate. why would anybody want an eyesore of a 150 year-old church there?
i might consequently suggest that the mall should fight the court case with the intent of bankrupting the church and forcing them to sell - perhaps even to the mall, itself, who could convert it into a parking lot.
https://www.thestar.com/business/2017/05/16/church-of-the-holy-trinity-files-claim-against-toronto-eaton-centre-over-cracked-walls.html
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
signs of life in the laptop...
the board itself actually seems to not have a short in it. the short appears to be connected to the video cable. but, it's bad enough that it's setting off some kind of shut down on the board or something. i don't understand it quite yet...
i decided i was going to fix it rather than sell it. if there was something blown on the board, and it was really bad, i should be able to see it. so, i took it apart to check to see if i could find any blown capacitors or otherwise wonky seeming parts. now, swapping out parts on a board is...i know how to do it, in theory, but i wouldn't bother actually doing it, because i know the outcome. i mean, i know how to take a laptop apart, too, but i couldn't actually do it.
when i was a kid, i wanted to be a surgeon, but i abandoned it because i realized i could barely write my name on the lines. it was actually kind of a profound experience. i've got all this knowledge in my head, but my hands are fucking useless to me.
did i mention i was a nerd?
so, i took it apart and quickly realized there wasn't anything visibly wrong with it. so, i plugged it in for a lark and it got power on the led, indicating the actual board is ok.
the next thing to do is to put it back together piece by piece, checking to see when it stops. and, it stops when i plug the video in.
i've played with it enough to know that's where the break is, but i'm not yet convinced that the part is broken. it may not be snug enough, or may require some tape. i'm going to ask around on the forums before i give up and order the part.
but, the board is fine, and that's a huge relief.
the board itself actually seems to not have a short in it. the short appears to be connected to the video cable. but, it's bad enough that it's setting off some kind of shut down on the board or something. i don't understand it quite yet...
i decided i was going to fix it rather than sell it. if there was something blown on the board, and it was really bad, i should be able to see it. so, i took it apart to check to see if i could find any blown capacitors or otherwise wonky seeming parts. now, swapping out parts on a board is...i know how to do it, in theory, but i wouldn't bother actually doing it, because i know the outcome. i mean, i know how to take a laptop apart, too, but i couldn't actually do it.
when i was a kid, i wanted to be a surgeon, but i abandoned it because i realized i could barely write my name on the lines. it was actually kind of a profound experience. i've got all this knowledge in my head, but my hands are fucking useless to me.
did i mention i was a nerd?
so, i took it apart and quickly realized there wasn't anything visibly wrong with it. so, i plugged it in for a lark and it got power on the led, indicating the actual board is ok.
the next thing to do is to put it back together piece by piece, checking to see when it stops. and, it stops when i plug the video in.
i've played with it enough to know that's where the break is, but i'm not yet convinced that the part is broken. it may not be snug enough, or may require some tape. i'm going to ask around on the forums before i give up and order the part.
but, the board is fine, and that's a huge relief.
the conservative party of canada has this stubborn ignorance of history that insists it cannot do well in quebec due to the reality that it tends to elect leaders from outside quebec, rather than because it's policies are not appealing to quebecers. this has something to do with brian mulroney, who in fact just happened to be in the right place at the right time. i mean, quebec just picked the younger trudeau over the irish-quebecer mulroney-clone, muclair.
worse, it insists that it's policies are appealing to quebecers, and quebecers just won't vote for people from outside quebec. quebecers don't react well to that kind of dismissive attitude, or the kind of pandering that the party clearly wants to promote.
the reality is that it is not likely that the conservatives will do well in quebec any time soon for the reason that quebecers lean well to the left of the conservative party. there is no answer for them, besides repeating mulroney's march to the centre - which will lead to a revolt in the grassroots.
maxime bernier is not a progressive conservative. so, i do not think that maxime bernier poses justin trudeau much of a threat.
the winning strategy for the conservative party requires winning large amounts of seats in ontario, and particularly around toronto. they will need to win back moderate suburbanites in the 905. bernier will not be able to do that, either - because he's quite clearly not very bright. to ontarians, bernier is the same dumb conservative that the ontario pcs have been running for years: he looks good in a suit, but doesn't have a thought in his head.
the only candidate that poses a serious threat is lisa raitt.
worse, it insists that it's policies are appealing to quebecers, and quebecers just won't vote for people from outside quebec. quebecers don't react well to that kind of dismissive attitude, or the kind of pandering that the party clearly wants to promote.
the reality is that it is not likely that the conservatives will do well in quebec any time soon for the reason that quebecers lean well to the left of the conservative party. there is no answer for them, besides repeating mulroney's march to the centre - which will lead to a revolt in the grassroots.
maxime bernier is not a progressive conservative. so, i do not think that maxime bernier poses justin trudeau much of a threat.
the winning strategy for the conservative party requires winning large amounts of seats in ontario, and particularly around toronto. they will need to win back moderate suburbanites in the 905. bernier will not be able to do that, either - because he's quite clearly not very bright. to ontarians, bernier is the same dumb conservative that the ontario pcs have been running for years: he looks good in a suit, but doesn't have a thought in his head.
the only candidate that poses a serious threat is lisa raitt.
A recent C.D. Howe Institute report found 90 per cent of the black
market would disappear if pot cost $9 per gram, projecting $675 million a
year in federal and provincial revenues if governments only applied
existing sales taxes.
i think this is probably close to right, so long as an economy of scale is maintained. otherwise, the predictable outcome is that the legal market only reaches young people, while older people keep the black market running.
i think this is probably close to right, so long as an economy of scale is maintained. otherwise, the predictable outcome is that the legal market only reaches young people, while older people keep the black market running.
Monday, May 15, 2017
so, i'm looking at the propaganda on my coffee cup...
kids. camp. i dunno if this is worthy or not.
i went to camp once....for a few minutes. it was my mom that insisted on it, actually. this was in the olden days, before the internet. if it was tomorrow, i'd certainly bring a laptop - and probably be the only one without one if i didn't. as it was, i brought a stack of books and a guitar; i'll admit i was a little unclear on the concept. they actually attempted to confiscate the books, and i immediately walked out in protest.
maybe that's just the point; i don't really understand what the benefit is. i mean in my gut, as intuition. i guess i could read a sociology essay explaining how it builds friendships and tests adversity, but that strikes me as an idealization that most participants never actually experience. is there any data to uphold the argument, or are you just going to cite mark twain or something?
i'd cautiously suggest that sending kids to summer school would be more productive.
but, that's probably why i'm a nerd.
kids. camp. i dunno if this is worthy or not.
i went to camp once....for a few minutes. it was my mom that insisted on it, actually. this was in the olden days, before the internet. if it was tomorrow, i'd certainly bring a laptop - and probably be the only one without one if i didn't. as it was, i brought a stack of books and a guitar; i'll admit i was a little unclear on the concept. they actually attempted to confiscate the books, and i immediately walked out in protest.
maybe that's just the point; i don't really understand what the benefit is. i mean in my gut, as intuition. i guess i could read a sociology essay explaining how it builds friendships and tests adversity, but that strikes me as an idealization that most participants never actually experience. is there any data to uphold the argument, or are you just going to cite mark twain or something?
i'd cautiously suggest that sending kids to summer school would be more productive.
but, that's probably why i'm a nerd.
so, after losing the last month to editing for court, i'm going to try to get back on track this week.
the february 17th vlog will publish at midnight on the 19th, and there are then vlogs ready to go from that day until mid august. i'll need to deal with that.
part of what that means is working through the concert reviews backwards, or at least more or less catching up. i'll want to be back to the larger overhaul soon, but there's just a long list of random things i'm trying to get a handle on. that has to be the week: all these various things need to get done.
the february 17th vlog will publish at midnight on the 19th, and there are then vlogs ready to go from that day until mid august. i'll need to deal with that.
part of what that means is working through the concert reviews backwards, or at least more or less catching up. i'll want to be back to the larger overhaul soon, but there's just a long list of random things i'm trying to get a handle on. that has to be the week: all these various things need to get done.
mccain...
well, he made it the eight years, anyways. if that was your major argument, it turned out to be flawed.
i've stated repeatedly that, on the issues as they were articulated, clinton really barely swayed me; it was like a 51-49 split. you could even argue that i got triangulated, and i was on the very furthest fringe of anybody willing to actually vote for her. that is, you could argue that this is what the clinton brand is all about: you give liberals a millimetre, then stand back and watch while they work it out and eventually take it. and, i wasn't happy about it at all.
obama beat mccain in my mind by a bigger margin, but it was more like obama was mccain-lite. by being mccain-lite (he wasn't even romney lite....he was a mirror reflection of romney....), he managed to dominate him. but, the thing is that that also meant that he lacked mccain's broader insight.
i don't want to be confusing, so i'll state it clearly: mccain is unstable. he's constantly lying. and, the beach boys are overrated. but, he understands what's going on around him better than pretty much anybody else, right now. obama probably stopped some of mccain's excesses from spiralling out of control, but he also made some mistakes that mccain wouldn't have made.
if trump does in the end start world war three, you almost want him to run as a churchillian candidate.
they say history repeats as farce...
well, he made it the eight years, anyways. if that was your major argument, it turned out to be flawed.
i've stated repeatedly that, on the issues as they were articulated, clinton really barely swayed me; it was like a 51-49 split. you could even argue that i got triangulated, and i was on the very furthest fringe of anybody willing to actually vote for her. that is, you could argue that this is what the clinton brand is all about: you give liberals a millimetre, then stand back and watch while they work it out and eventually take it. and, i wasn't happy about it at all.
obama beat mccain in my mind by a bigger margin, but it was more like obama was mccain-lite. by being mccain-lite (he wasn't even romney lite....he was a mirror reflection of romney....), he managed to dominate him. but, the thing is that that also meant that he lacked mccain's broader insight.
i don't want to be confusing, so i'll state it clearly: mccain is unstable. he's constantly lying. and, the beach boys are overrated. but, he understands what's going on around him better than pretty much anybody else, right now. obama probably stopped some of mccain's excesses from spiralling out of control, but he also made some mistakes that mccain wouldn't have made.
if trump does in the end start world war three, you almost want him to run as a churchillian candidate.
they say history repeats as farce...
what mccain is talking about, here, is propaganda.
but, he's right.
america's hegemony relies on it's perception as the good cop. it's always been bullshit. but, it's imperative that the myth be upheld, or the empire will fall apart.
i'll fill in the blanks that mccain was afraid to even type lest somebody piece together the implication: if by "realism", you mean the idea that america can rule the world by threatening and bullying other nations into doing what it wants, then that is a perversion of the concept of reality: that is the world that you wish existed, not the one that actually exists.
in the world that actually exists, america is only as powerful as it's reputation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/opinion/john-mccain-rex-tillerson-human-rights.html
but, he's right.
america's hegemony relies on it's perception as the good cop. it's always been bullshit. but, it's imperative that the myth be upheld, or the empire will fall apart.
i'll fill in the blanks that mccain was afraid to even type lest somebody piece together the implication: if by "realism", you mean the idea that america can rule the world by threatening and bullying other nations into doing what it wants, then that is a perversion of the concept of reality: that is the world that you wish existed, not the one that actually exists.
in the world that actually exists, america is only as powerful as it's reputation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/opinion/john-mccain-rex-tillerson-human-rights.html
they're not supposed to win in aghanistan.
if they were to win, they'd have to pull out.
what they're supposed to do is occupy the country. and, they need a bullshit reason to distract from the real reason, which is to frustrate chinese shipping interests and otherwise just have guns in the sky overlooking asia from all directions.
this war will never end, and if you're waiting for it to end, or criticizing people for not being able to "win" it, you're not understanding it.
nato wants perpetual war in afghanistan to justify the bases.
if they were to win, they'd have to pull out.
what they're supposed to do is occupy the country. and, they need a bullshit reason to distract from the real reason, which is to frustrate chinese shipping interests and otherwise just have guns in the sky overlooking asia from all directions.
this war will never end, and if you're waiting for it to end, or criticizing people for not being able to "win" it, you're not understanding it.
nato wants perpetual war in afghanistan to justify the bases.
i just want to say something about the walk through the eastern part of downtown detroit, which i'd never wandered through before and will probably not wander through again, if i can avoid it.
it's really legitimately gone. i was a five minute drive from downtown, and i was walking through abandoned lots, and glowering at coyotes in the shadows. coyotes actually don't camouflage well in the city because the grey reflects in the moonlight. they'd do much better in the snow, mind you. see, the eastern coyotes nowadays are actually half wolf; the lighter colour in a warmer climate is not a winning combination, which is possibly a factor in the migration into cities. they'll stand there and watch you from a safe point, calculating whether they think they can win a fight with you or not. what you need to do in that situation is walk in the middle of the road. they think they're better camouflaged than they actually are and won't want to walk towards the streetlights. i'll just say that i saw more than one.
the habitat is actually ideal. these were either big lots when they had houses on them, or they're the culmination of several abandoned lots side by side. there's nothing left. no foundation. no driveway. if you didn't know better, you'd think there was never anything there.
you'd be forgiven for thinking it makes downtown detroit feel like a forgotten ghetto. i wasn't here a few years ago; maybe there was a time when that was true. today, even the ghetto is gone. it's not like that at all. and, it's not even like suburbia. it feels more like you're walking through the very edges of a city, that point where civilization meets the forest. when you come out of it, you don't expect to come across a city street so much as you expect to come across a farm, or a truckstop diner on the interstate....
i don't know what's to come of this place. maybe, in the end, they'll just let the trees go, and allow it to establish itself as an urban park. right now, it's just weird to experience.
....and, as i continually point out, the real danger is not people but wild canids.
it's really legitimately gone. i was a five minute drive from downtown, and i was walking through abandoned lots, and glowering at coyotes in the shadows. coyotes actually don't camouflage well in the city because the grey reflects in the moonlight. they'd do much better in the snow, mind you. see, the eastern coyotes nowadays are actually half wolf; the lighter colour in a warmer climate is not a winning combination, which is possibly a factor in the migration into cities. they'll stand there and watch you from a safe point, calculating whether they think they can win a fight with you or not. what you need to do in that situation is walk in the middle of the road. they think they're better camouflaged than they actually are and won't want to walk towards the streetlights. i'll just say that i saw more than one.
the habitat is actually ideal. these were either big lots when they had houses on them, or they're the culmination of several abandoned lots side by side. there's nothing left. no foundation. no driveway. if you didn't know better, you'd think there was never anything there.
you'd be forgiven for thinking it makes downtown detroit feel like a forgotten ghetto. i wasn't here a few years ago; maybe there was a time when that was true. today, even the ghetto is gone. it's not like that at all. and, it's not even like suburbia. it feels more like you're walking through the very edges of a city, that point where civilization meets the forest. when you come out of it, you don't expect to come across a city street so much as you expect to come across a farm, or a truckstop diner on the interstate....
i don't know what's to come of this place. maybe, in the end, they'll just let the trees go, and allow it to establish itself as an urban park. right now, it's just weird to experience.
....and, as i continually point out, the real danger is not people but wild canids.
i was actually expecting saturday night, which i'm just waking up from now, to be an inexpensive evening. i didn't get home until 10:00 am.
the bar i was at had the sole option of over-priced gluten-free* beer (it was at least tasty.), but i wasn't about to accept the doldrums of sobriety, so i ate the unexpected cost and come home with $3.00 instead of $30.00. but, that's a disincentive around the bar, to say the least. the way i deal with this when i run into it is to pay out the first time and then take it as a learning experience: it's a place you want to pre-drink for, and then show up to as late as possible.
i wasn't going to have a lot of money for the rest of the month anyways, but there's now no chance of hitting adrian belew on wednesday. i'm planning for the weekend instead.
that's ok. there's lots of things i should do this week, including doing a lot of walking around outside. it's the first week of summer....
* according to the fine print on the can, (1) the company cannot guarantee that the beer is gluten free, (2) the product may contain gluten and (3) the product does, in fact, contain gluten.
the bar i was at had the sole option of over-priced gluten-free* beer (it was at least tasty.), but i wasn't about to accept the doldrums of sobriety, so i ate the unexpected cost and come home with $3.00 instead of $30.00. but, that's a disincentive around the bar, to say the least. the way i deal with this when i run into it is to pay out the first time and then take it as a learning experience: it's a place you want to pre-drink for, and then show up to as late as possible.
i wasn't going to have a lot of money for the rest of the month anyways, but there's now no chance of hitting adrian belew on wednesday. i'm planning for the weekend instead.
that's ok. there's lots of things i should do this week, including doing a lot of walking around outside. it's the first week of summer....
* according to the fine print on the can, (1) the company cannot guarantee that the beer is gluten free, (2) the product may contain gluten and (3) the product does, in fact, contain gluten.
Sunday, May 14, 2017
if you want to get into the history of it, you have to begin with the
recognition that assad's father was actually in the same political party
as saddam hussein, namely the ba'ath party, which was initially a
soviet front exporting the global revolution to arabs with a set of
ideological tweaks designed to accommodate the culture. they wrapped
this up and called it arabic socialism and used it to take power in
iraq and syria.
while assad is not his father, his father was every bit as brutal as saddam hussein was. the reason that usually informed actors find it so easy to lapse into fantasy on contemporary syria is that they remember the brutality of his father.
the calls for regime change in the early years of the younger assad's regime (and, it is a regime....) were tied into a call to democratize the country upon his father's death. at the time, you could even call it a call for debaathification. i supported those calls, and for good reason: there was an opportunity to peacefully democratize the country, as it opened up after the death of it's stalinist dictator. and, you have to understand how intertwined the process of democratization needs to be with the process of demilitarization, and removing inherited military power from the hands of elite families.
in fact, one of the strongest proponents for reform was the younger assad, himself, who was not groomed for power and only found himself in charge due to the assassination of his brother. assad is western-educated and had to actually be brought home in order to be installed. before the war opened up, assad was in the process of an orderly transition to a democratic government.
in fact, this is the reason that the saudis have invaded syria: they welcome assad's removal, but they do not want a democratization. they want a syria that is either under the control of conservative clerics, or at least dominated by a friendly dictator like al-sisi.
that's right: the truth in syria is that we are backing rebels to prevent democracy, which is what the regime actually wants. and, i do not believe that assad has ever indicated that he has changed his viewpoint on the matter. but, you can't have a democratic transition in the midst of a foreign invasion.
that said, it is not likely at this point, now, that the russians would back a transition to a democracy, either. that window has closed for the immediate future.
while assad is not his father, his father was every bit as brutal as saddam hussein was. the reason that usually informed actors find it so easy to lapse into fantasy on contemporary syria is that they remember the brutality of his father.
the calls for regime change in the early years of the younger assad's regime (and, it is a regime....) were tied into a call to democratize the country upon his father's death. at the time, you could even call it a call for debaathification. i supported those calls, and for good reason: there was an opportunity to peacefully democratize the country, as it opened up after the death of it's stalinist dictator. and, you have to understand how intertwined the process of democratization needs to be with the process of demilitarization, and removing inherited military power from the hands of elite families.
in fact, one of the strongest proponents for reform was the younger assad, himself, who was not groomed for power and only found himself in charge due to the assassination of his brother. assad is western-educated and had to actually be brought home in order to be installed. before the war opened up, assad was in the process of an orderly transition to a democratic government.
in fact, this is the reason that the saudis have invaded syria: they welcome assad's removal, but they do not want a democratization. they want a syria that is either under the control of conservative clerics, or at least dominated by a friendly dictator like al-sisi.
that's right: the truth in syria is that we are backing rebels to prevent democracy, which is what the regime actually wants. and, i do not believe that assad has ever indicated that he has changed his viewpoint on the matter. but, you can't have a democratic transition in the midst of a foreign invasion.
that said, it is not likely at this point, now, that the russians would back a transition to a democracy, either. that window has closed for the immediate future.
i also need to point out that countries like japan and new zealand continue to send signals on the tpp that are in contradiction to what the president has said, as though they're being instructed to carry on.
remember: pence was a big tpp supporter.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/03/trump-nafta-renegotiation-environment-trade
remember: pence was a big tpp supporter.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/03/trump-nafta-renegotiation-environment-trade
so, what is the trump administration, rather than trump himself, going to push on nafta, in the end? i think that the chances are that the confluence of policies on the tpp and nafta is going to piss you off that much more. you thought you were going to maybe get a win on this right? ha.
see, the way you manipulate trump into doing what you want on this is that you feed him tpp provisions as improvements to nafta. in the end, "renegotiating nafta and cancelling the tpp" morphs into "replacing nafta with the tpp".
he won't know that they're tpp revisions, because he doesn't actually know what was actually in the tpp. i'll repeat that he wouldn't have actually opposed the tpp if he understood it. the one concrete difference may be in throwing the geo-strategic and security-minded people out of the trade policy discussions, but that will just mean pursuing the same outcomes in two different processes. that sounds like the kind of thing that billionaires want to bicker over. people pushing for this point may win this battle.
i'm actually interested to see how well this works in reconverting republican voters, at least, back to trade orthodoxy, which has to be a key social engineering goal in the party, right now. i expect that the left won't fall for it. and, it would actually be nice for the left to get it's issue back, actually - these anti-globalization groups on the right are not temporary allies. we need to resurrect the kind of trade politics on the left that we had in the 90s; this was an effective vehicle for mobilization, before the war broke it up. now, the right has taken it. and, it's a neat trick, right? if it works, you end up with these typical clueless anti-everything trump voters actually providing the political cover for the tpp, because they think passing tpp revisions is dismantling nafta. and, don't think they won't fall for it. after all: they're in favour of the aca, and opposed to obamacare. this is considerably more complicated, and that much easier to hoodwink them with.
remember when we stopped pipa and sopa? they were actually both in the tpp, though. and, expect them both to resurface in nafta talks.
i know that everybody wants to be optimistic on this. and, i think there's some chance that the one thing we could get some concrete wins on is in curbing the isds powers, as that fits into trump's economic nationalism - we can play this game ourselves, in pushing the idea that the isds process harms american sovereignty, which is absolutely true. it's been awful for canadian sovereignty, certainly. unions and other left-leaning forces that have a voice should prioritize this, as they can win this.
but, brace yourself - because if you get your hopes up, you're going to get crushed.
see, the way you manipulate trump into doing what you want on this is that you feed him tpp provisions as improvements to nafta. in the end, "renegotiating nafta and cancelling the tpp" morphs into "replacing nafta with the tpp".
he won't know that they're tpp revisions, because he doesn't actually know what was actually in the tpp. i'll repeat that he wouldn't have actually opposed the tpp if he understood it. the one concrete difference may be in throwing the geo-strategic and security-minded people out of the trade policy discussions, but that will just mean pursuing the same outcomes in two different processes. that sounds like the kind of thing that billionaires want to bicker over. people pushing for this point may win this battle.
i'm actually interested to see how well this works in reconverting republican voters, at least, back to trade orthodoxy, which has to be a key social engineering goal in the party, right now. i expect that the left won't fall for it. and, it would actually be nice for the left to get it's issue back, actually - these anti-globalization groups on the right are not temporary allies. we need to resurrect the kind of trade politics on the left that we had in the 90s; this was an effective vehicle for mobilization, before the war broke it up. now, the right has taken it. and, it's a neat trick, right? if it works, you end up with these typical clueless anti-everything trump voters actually providing the political cover for the tpp, because they think passing tpp revisions is dismantling nafta. and, don't think they won't fall for it. after all: they're in favour of the aca, and opposed to obamacare. this is considerably more complicated, and that much easier to hoodwink them with.
remember when we stopped pipa and sopa? they were actually both in the tpp, though. and, expect them both to resurface in nafta talks.
i know that everybody wants to be optimistic on this. and, i think there's some chance that the one thing we could get some concrete wins on is in curbing the isds powers, as that fits into trump's economic nationalism - we can play this game ourselves, in pushing the idea that the isds process harms american sovereignty, which is absolutely true. it's been awful for canadian sovereignty, certainly. unions and other left-leaning forces that have a voice should prioritize this, as they can win this.
but, brace yourself - because if you get your hopes up, you're going to get crushed.
Saturday, May 13, 2017
while the vancover rape crisis center is ultimately doing a disservice to the people it claims it wants to help in telling somebody they're not welcome, the case strikes me as frivolous, as it was a volunteer position. and, i think that gets to the crux of the issue.
every generalization has a counter-example...
...but trans-women don't generally want to go where they're not wanted, and are usually bright enough to realize the differences.
passing these kinds of laws aren't serious answers to discrimination. most people don't have the resources to fight decades long court battles. what the article really draws attention to is the continuing bigotry that exists in the second-wave and radical feminist communities, and that's a social issue rather than a legal one. but, it's being addressed as well; most feminists today reject the second-wave.
i've never been raped. but, one day, i might be. i mean, i hope not. but, in that scenario, i'm going to go to the groups that accept me, and reject the ones that don't. that experience will repeat itself over time, leaving groups that push exclusionary policies on the outside, looking in. and, they'll complain it's not fair. but, that's how we evolve, socially.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/transgender-rights-bill-female-born-spaces-1.4110634
every generalization has a counter-example...
...but trans-women don't generally want to go where they're not wanted, and are usually bright enough to realize the differences.
passing these kinds of laws aren't serious answers to discrimination. most people don't have the resources to fight decades long court battles. what the article really draws attention to is the continuing bigotry that exists in the second-wave and radical feminist communities, and that's a social issue rather than a legal one. but, it's being addressed as well; most feminists today reject the second-wave.
i've never been raped. but, one day, i might be. i mean, i hope not. but, in that scenario, i'm going to go to the groups that accept me, and reject the ones that don't. that experience will repeat itself over time, leaving groups that push exclusionary policies on the outside, looking in. and, they'll complain it's not fair. but, that's how we evolve, socially.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/transgender-rights-bill-female-born-spaces-1.4110634
watch the video.
it's exactly the right answer. and, the idea that it's expensive is some kind of disincentive is the wrong thinking anyways; building stuff is always good for the economy.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-tour-floods-gatineau-1.4109872
it's exactly the right answer. and, the idea that it's expensive is some kind of disincentive is the wrong thinking anyways; building stuff is always good for the economy.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-tour-floods-gatineau-1.4109872
we used to just print money for infrastructure projects.
i was initially under the impression that this was the purpose of the bank
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/the-house-sohi-infrastructure-bank-1.4113681
i was initially under the impression that this was the purpose of the bank
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/the-house-sohi-infrastructure-bank-1.4113681
the precondition for the invasion of syria was taking the air defences
out from the ground, and we see how hard that's been. short of breaking
the russian-iranian alliance, which appears to be strengthening, it's
hard to see how an invasion of iran is even a viable option. i don't
think it's truly on the table; the strategy is cold war, by necessity,
for the foreseeable future. i suspect trump would rather pick on a
country like nicaragua and tie it to immigration.
good analysis, though.
good analysis, though.
you have to wonder if these butt-hurt corporate liberal stooges were upset when they fired mccarthy, too.
BREAKING STORY: arthur watkins admits that he censured mccarthy because of his activities in the senate.
stop.
cite me some real evidence, or let the story fade into the tabloid trash that it is - and let us take note of who pushed it, and allow it to harm their journalistic credibility.
the guy was making a mockery of the fbi - first with clinton, and now with trump.
it could still swing the senate, if not the house. i get it. voters aren't the brightest, nowadays. but, i'm sick of the bullshit.
BREAKING STORY: arthur watkins admits that he censured mccarthy because of his activities in the senate.
stop.
cite me some real evidence, or let the story fade into the tabloid trash that it is - and let us take note of who pushed it, and allow it to harm their journalistic credibility.
the guy was making a mockery of the fbi - first with clinton, and now with trump.
it could still swing the senate, if not the house. i get it. voters aren't the brightest, nowadays. but, i'm sick of the bullshit.
Ignoring the issue and legalizing pot anyway puts Canada, historically a strong supporter of the UN and other international organizations, in the position of violating international law.
i'm still not convinced that this happens, but if it does happen, then this is how it's going to happen.
the reality is that this government has already signalled that it is going to follow the lead of the united states in abandoning the united nations - hence it's support of unilateral bombing in syria without so much as an apparent thought to the illegality of it. i might even support it as a tactic. the main enforcer here is of course the united states. how can the americans think they can enforce drug treaties, when they ignore climate treaties and randomly bomb whomever they like with impunity? and, how do they expect to enforce this treaty internationally, when they will not enforce it locally?
i'm a strong supporter of the united nations, in principle, but the americans destroyed the institution a long time ago. i put this question out there during the last election: how will this new government react to a world without a rule of law? will it seek to build a new rule of law, or adjust itself to the absence of one? and, trudeau responded very clearly that he would respond to the absence of one.
it's not an answer i liked. but, don't act shocked. this government is, broadly, an extension of the previous one. the policy on the un, like so many other things, is an extension of the previous government's policy, itself a reaction to the united states' rejection of the united nations as a functional body.
this is reality: the united nations is dead.
i would like to rebuild it.
but, do not expect leadership from this government. they're followers; expect them to follow.
i'm still not convinced that this happens, but if it does happen, then this is how it's going to happen.
the reality is that this government has already signalled that it is going to follow the lead of the united states in abandoning the united nations - hence it's support of unilateral bombing in syria without so much as an apparent thought to the illegality of it. i might even support it as a tactic. the main enforcer here is of course the united states. how can the americans think they can enforce drug treaties, when they ignore climate treaties and randomly bomb whomever they like with impunity? and, how do they expect to enforce this treaty internationally, when they will not enforce it locally?
i'm a strong supporter of the united nations, in principle, but the americans destroyed the institution a long time ago. i put this question out there during the last election: how will this new government react to a world without a rule of law? will it seek to build a new rule of law, or adjust itself to the absence of one? and, trudeau responded very clearly that he would respond to the absence of one.
it's not an answer i liked. but, don't act shocked. this government is, broadly, an extension of the previous one. the policy on the un, like so many other things, is an extension of the previous government's policy, itself a reaction to the united states' rejection of the united nations as a functional body.
this is reality: the united nations is dead.
i would like to rebuild it.
but, do not expect leadership from this government. they're followers; expect them to follow.
Concert
halls and arenas along the route have more than 200 events per year. So
there’s little doubt the streetcar will be full of bar-hopping hipsters
and fans of Detroit’s four sports teams.
not if it stops at midnight, it won't.
it would have to run until at least 1:00, and ideally 3:00. but, then, it had might as well always run.
it's the same issue that they have with the tunnel bus. the last bus is at 1:00, which just doesn't make any sense. either you're out late or you're not. so, the people that take the bus take the 11:00 or the 12:00 bus, and the people that stay late come back in the morning. i'm almost always the only person on the thing, but it's only because i so routinely walk distances that people can't fathom. if i cabbed, i'd take the 11:00 or 12:00 bus, when i do.
i mean, i'm glad the 1:00 bus is there, sure. but, given that i'm usually the only person on it, it must run empty most nights. it doesn't actually make sense. what would make sense would be to stop early, or run late. given that the bars close at 2:00, there should be a 2:30 bus - and if there was one, i assure you it would have more demand than the 1:00 bus.
i don't know if this is really what they want this thing to be. but, if it is what they want it to be, they're going to need to extend the hours of it to fit the demand for it.
not if it stops at midnight, it won't.
it would have to run until at least 1:00, and ideally 3:00. but, then, it had might as well always run.
it's the same issue that they have with the tunnel bus. the last bus is at 1:00, which just doesn't make any sense. either you're out late or you're not. so, the people that take the bus take the 11:00 or the 12:00 bus, and the people that stay late come back in the morning. i'm almost always the only person on the thing, but it's only because i so routinely walk distances that people can't fathom. if i cabbed, i'd take the 11:00 or 12:00 bus, when i do.
i mean, i'm glad the 1:00 bus is there, sure. but, given that i'm usually the only person on it, it must run empty most nights. it doesn't actually make sense. what would make sense would be to stop early, or run late. given that the bars close at 2:00, there should be a 2:30 bus - and if there was one, i assure you it would have more demand than the 1:00 bus.
i don't know if this is really what they want this thing to be. but, if it is what they want it to be, they're going to need to extend the hours of it to fit the demand for it.
so, it turns out that the streetcar is operational in detroit, as of yesterday. it's free this weekend - and i suspect, for many people, it always will be.
my honest assessment is that it's not likely that i'll use it during peak hours. to me, it's utility would be getting me back to the tunnel to catch the 1:09 bus, or maybe zooming me between bars, after hours. if the last run ends before 00:00, i'll never not prefer to walk, with the possible exception of wanting to flee the rain.
i'm not sure they'll see a demand for all night streetcars. but, that's the only use i'd really have for them.
my honest assessment is that it's not likely that i'll use it during peak hours. to me, it's utility would be getting me back to the tunnel to catch the 1:09 bus, or maybe zooming me between bars, after hours. if the last run ends before 00:00, i'll never not prefer to walk, with the possible exception of wanting to flee the rain.
i'm not sure they'll see a demand for all night streetcars. but, that's the only use i'd really have for them.
Friday, May 12, 2017
this is step one - realizing that trump himself has little control over what's happening around him.
but, step two is realizing that, while trump himself may be basically retarded, the state around him is not. i don't mean the whitehouse, i mean the state. frankly, i don't think that steve bannon is that bright, either. and, i don't think that jared kushner is even interested in actually governing. pence may end up president in the end, but he can't walk and chew gum at the same time, either.
there isn't anybody in the actual white house that knows what they're doing; all of the direction is coming, ultimately, from different arms of the actual state. the article presents trump's stupidity as unusual, but it is not: the stupid president is really the norm since the second world war. clinton was really the sole counter-example. trump is a buffoon, but so was obama and dubya and reagan and carter and ford and nixon and johnson and kennedy and eisenhower, too. the elder bush' buffoonery is at best questionable. as a literal rhodes scholar, clinton truly stands alone as the only halfways-intelligent president the country has had in the lifetime of most living people.
but, they all had smart people around them. what is different about trump is that he does not. and, he is going to need to find some smart people to help him.
in the mean time, what that means is recognizing the increased power of the state around him. i should clarify that when anarchists throw this term state around, it means more than the government - it means the collusion between the government and the market, and refers mostly to the upper echelons of capital. so, lockheed martin is the state. robert mercer is the state. the koch brothers are the state. steve mnuchin and goldman sachs are the state. the heritage institute is the state. and, the more you understand how stupid trump is, and how incompetent the people directly around him are, the more you realize how important these state actors are, in their ability to manipulate what he does.
so, step one is realizing that trump is, indeed, hopelessly transparent. he's even transparent when he's trying to bluff; hopelessly, so. but, step two is realizing that this distributes power to the state around him, who are much better poker players and can and must be analysed in order to get your head around the policy that they hand to the president in order for him to sign into law.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/12/15621140/interpret-trump
but, step two is realizing that, while trump himself may be basically retarded, the state around him is not. i don't mean the whitehouse, i mean the state. frankly, i don't think that steve bannon is that bright, either. and, i don't think that jared kushner is even interested in actually governing. pence may end up president in the end, but he can't walk and chew gum at the same time, either.
there isn't anybody in the actual white house that knows what they're doing; all of the direction is coming, ultimately, from different arms of the actual state. the article presents trump's stupidity as unusual, but it is not: the stupid president is really the norm since the second world war. clinton was really the sole counter-example. trump is a buffoon, but so was obama and dubya and reagan and carter and ford and nixon and johnson and kennedy and eisenhower, too. the elder bush' buffoonery is at best questionable. as a literal rhodes scholar, clinton truly stands alone as the only halfways-intelligent president the country has had in the lifetime of most living people.
but, they all had smart people around them. what is different about trump is that he does not. and, he is going to need to find some smart people to help him.
in the mean time, what that means is recognizing the increased power of the state around him. i should clarify that when anarchists throw this term state around, it means more than the government - it means the collusion between the government and the market, and refers mostly to the upper echelons of capital. so, lockheed martin is the state. robert mercer is the state. the koch brothers are the state. steve mnuchin and goldman sachs are the state. the heritage institute is the state. and, the more you understand how stupid trump is, and how incompetent the people directly around him are, the more you realize how important these state actors are, in their ability to manipulate what he does.
so, step one is realizing that trump is, indeed, hopelessly transparent. he's even transparent when he's trying to bluff; hopelessly, so. but, step two is realizing that this distributes power to the state around him, who are much better poker players and can and must be analysed in order to get your head around the policy that they hand to the president in order for him to sign into law.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/12/15621140/interpret-trump
fwiw, i meant to see pile tonight.
knowing it was an early show, and reasoning that if i'm going to pay cover i'd like to hang out a bit, i looked into what was happening at the bar after the show and learned that:
1) the show is over at 10:30.
2) if i wanted to stay past 10:30, i'd have to pay cover a second time.
it's friday. i don't really want to pay to get into a bar at 9:00 and then be told i have to leave at 10:30. whatever scheduling conflicts exist, that's a shitty deal all around. i actually really don't mind the early show, it's the whole getting pushed out thing that's kind of unjustifiable.
it's not really the bar's fault, though, either. there's a production company in between that shouldn't have let that happen. again: not because it's an early show, and not because there's another event afterwards, but because cover expires at 10:30. i mean, who heard of such a thing, right?
even so, i'd probably have trekked out anyways if there was an all-night option but for some reason everything is closing early tonight. i don't know why. just a slow night, for whatever reason.
if there was a conflict at the venue, the show really should have been moved. as it is, it's just not worth getting down there...
fwiw, i've also seen pile twice, recently.
knowing it was an early show, and reasoning that if i'm going to pay cover i'd like to hang out a bit, i looked into what was happening at the bar after the show and learned that:
1) the show is over at 10:30.
2) if i wanted to stay past 10:30, i'd have to pay cover a second time.
it's friday. i don't really want to pay to get into a bar at 9:00 and then be told i have to leave at 10:30. whatever scheduling conflicts exist, that's a shitty deal all around. i actually really don't mind the early show, it's the whole getting pushed out thing that's kind of unjustifiable.
it's not really the bar's fault, though, either. there's a production company in between that shouldn't have let that happen. again: not because it's an early show, and not because there's another event afterwards, but because cover expires at 10:30. i mean, who heard of such a thing, right?
even so, i'd probably have trekked out anyways if there was an all-night option but for some reason everything is closing early tonight. i don't know why. just a slow night, for whatever reason.
if there was a conflict at the venue, the show really should have been moved. as it is, it's just not worth getting down there...
fwiw, i've also seen pile twice, recently.
so, this is literally a solution in search of a problem.
...and the media is criticizing the government for not finding the problem fast enough.
the absurdity just escalates.
i've been over this several times: the purpose of canadian peacekeeping was always to avoid the proxy conflicts of the cold war. various liberal governments, and especially his father's, were keen to avoid conflicts like vietnam, and so instead offered to provide logistical support in what amounted to empire building. a lot of the criticism on the left points to peacekeeping as this orwellian concept, and it's not exactly that it was ever wrong so much as that it always misses the pragmatism of it; it may be true that canada has been functionally occupying large swaths of africa for decades, but that's a better option than carpet bombing southeast asia ever was.
with the cessation of the cold war proxy conflicts, and requests for canadian contributions, the tactic of using peacekeeping as an escape tactic fell into disuse, as it should have.
the thing is that canadians see it as a source of national pride. it's more than national pride, even, it's existential. this is why the media is latching on to it, as an antidote to the lingering unpopularity and cynicism of the previous government - which lingers on in seemingly non-negotiable but very unpopular policy directions.
so, what trudeau is doing, here, is political. it's for internal consumption. but, it's misguided on both fronts.
1) the russians do not have presences in africa or latin america to counter. the functional value of peacekeeping as an escape is no longer existent. this is not going to appease trump the way it appeased nixon.
2) thanks to the effects of koch brothers propaganda, canadians under the age of 70 don't have the same attachment to the idea of a global police force that they once did. to young people, this is globalism. it's the new world order.
i don't know how to get out of the obligation to participate in the colonial project, at this point. the liberals are going to have to put their brains together and think something up. maybe, we could contribute to an anti-terrorism force. and, what africa needs, today, is engineers. but, i do know that this is likely to backfire, as a pr tactic.
it's an idea whose time has passed.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/05/12/trudeau-says-government-taking-appropriate-time-to-decide-peace-mission.html
...and the media is criticizing the government for not finding the problem fast enough.
the absurdity just escalates.
i've been over this several times: the purpose of canadian peacekeeping was always to avoid the proxy conflicts of the cold war. various liberal governments, and especially his father's, were keen to avoid conflicts like vietnam, and so instead offered to provide logistical support in what amounted to empire building. a lot of the criticism on the left points to peacekeeping as this orwellian concept, and it's not exactly that it was ever wrong so much as that it always misses the pragmatism of it; it may be true that canada has been functionally occupying large swaths of africa for decades, but that's a better option than carpet bombing southeast asia ever was.
with the cessation of the cold war proxy conflicts, and requests for canadian contributions, the tactic of using peacekeeping as an escape tactic fell into disuse, as it should have.
the thing is that canadians see it as a source of national pride. it's more than national pride, even, it's existential. this is why the media is latching on to it, as an antidote to the lingering unpopularity and cynicism of the previous government - which lingers on in seemingly non-negotiable but very unpopular policy directions.
so, what trudeau is doing, here, is political. it's for internal consumption. but, it's misguided on both fronts.
1) the russians do not have presences in africa or latin america to counter. the functional value of peacekeeping as an escape is no longer existent. this is not going to appease trump the way it appeased nixon.
2) thanks to the effects of koch brothers propaganda, canadians under the age of 70 don't have the same attachment to the idea of a global police force that they once did. to young people, this is globalism. it's the new world order.
i don't know how to get out of the obligation to participate in the colonial project, at this point. the liberals are going to have to put their brains together and think something up. maybe, we could contribute to an anti-terrorism force. and, what africa needs, today, is engineers. but, i do know that this is likely to backfire, as a pr tactic.
it's an idea whose time has passed.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/05/12/trudeau-says-government-taking-appropriate-time-to-decide-peace-mission.html
the correct person to explain this would be chretien, though.
"well, you know, i knew pierre and i knew prime minister blair, and they were of course very different. i don't know what..."
they mean the third way.
"the third way? well, when we talked about the third way, we meant asia. india. i don't know what..."
clinton also called himself "third way".
"well, i don't know what you mean. if we had a third way, and they had a third way, but maybe i had the same third way, you know with clinton and blair, even if it was different. so, maybe i had two third ways."
wouldn't that be a fourth way?
"no, because they're two different third ways."
but, if you are to enumerate the number of ways, sir...
"no, because it's still third, it's just two different times."
*pause*
"i don't know what this other third way is. our third way was about nixon. you know, he didn't like pierre much, and we wanted independence from the queen, so we had to look at the rest of the world. and, we didn't want to, you know, join with the russians, either, although we didn't want to hate them, too. it's just silly to go around hating countries. we want peace. so, we thought it made sense to have relationships with other countries, too. and, india was a big country in the commonwealth, with similar ideas about independence and about mixed markets, so we thought maybe we could build closer ties. i think prime minister blair was just a kid. i don't know this other third way, but if it's clinton and blair, it's probably me too."
"well, you know, i knew pierre and i knew prime minister blair, and they were of course very different. i don't know what..."
they mean the third way.
"the third way? well, when we talked about the third way, we meant asia. india. i don't know what..."
clinton also called himself "third way".
"well, i don't know what you mean. if we had a third way, and they had a third way, but maybe i had the same third way, you know with clinton and blair, even if it was different. so, maybe i had two third ways."
wouldn't that be a fourth way?
"no, because they're two different third ways."
but, if you are to enumerate the number of ways, sir...
"no, because it's still third, it's just two different times."
*pause*
"i don't know what this other third way is. our third way was about nixon. you know, he didn't like pierre much, and we wanted independence from the queen, so we had to look at the rest of the world. and, we didn't want to, you know, join with the russians, either, although we didn't want to hate them, too. it's just silly to go around hating countries. we want peace. so, we thought it made sense to have relationships with other countries, too. and, india was a big country in the commonwealth, with similar ideas about independence and about mixed markets, so we thought maybe we could build closer ties. i think prime minister blair was just a kid. i don't know this other third way, but if it's clinton and blair, it's probably me too."
the reason that michael hudson is repeating things he was told by partisan ndp hacks is that he didn't bother to question their honesty. and, that's his fault.
but, the reason they told him what they told him comes down to projection. the current outgoing leader of the federal ndp, thomas mulcair, was damaged badly in the last election by pro-thatcher comments that he had made in the past, and which made him seem decidedly blairite.
it's a shame that dr. hudson didn't take the time to verify the things he was told before he repeated them.
but, the reason they told him what they told him comes down to projection. the current outgoing leader of the federal ndp, thomas mulcair, was damaged badly in the last election by pro-thatcher comments that he had made in the past, and which made him seem decidedly blairite.
it's a shame that dr. hudson didn't take the time to verify the things he was told before he repeated them.
so, what was pierre trudeau actually like?
castro is maybe not so good....
a better comparison is to hugo chavez. the elder trudeau was a fiery, charismatic, populist orator with a strong authoritarian streak, as demonstrated most famously in what canadians know as the october crisis. he nationalized the oil industry in the 70s (with support from the ndp...), with the intent to use oil revenue to fund social services, like universal health care. he was a very strong advocate of multilateral institutions, and tended to piss off the americans a lot due to this; canada was actually on the brink of joining the non-aligned movement in the 70s. we were trying to kind of sidestep nato by building closer ties with india. if trudeau called this a "third way", it had nothing to do with blairism.
reagan fucking hated him.
like chavez, he's also responsible for rewriting the country's constitution to place his own ideological biases of social liberalism at the constitutional centre of the country.
there's a stronger comparison between tony blair and jean chretien, but even that is a ridiculous stretch of the imagination. chretien opposed iraq, for example.
we never really got to our blairite moment until recently.
castro is maybe not so good....
a better comparison is to hugo chavez. the elder trudeau was a fiery, charismatic, populist orator with a strong authoritarian streak, as demonstrated most famously in what canadians know as the october crisis. he nationalized the oil industry in the 70s (with support from the ndp...), with the intent to use oil revenue to fund social services, like universal health care. he was a very strong advocate of multilateral institutions, and tended to piss off the americans a lot due to this; canada was actually on the brink of joining the non-aligned movement in the 70s. we were trying to kind of sidestep nato by building closer ties with india. if trudeau called this a "third way", it had nothing to do with blairism.
reagan fucking hated him.
like chavez, he's also responsible for rewriting the country's constitution to place his own ideological biases of social liberalism at the constitutional centre of the country.
there's a stronger comparison between tony blair and jean chretien, but even that is a ridiculous stretch of the imagination. chretien opposed iraq, for example.
we never really got to our blairite moment until recently.
"pierre trudeau was something like tony blair" - michael hudson demonstrating his ignorance of canadian history
"a brilliant and courageous politician." - fidel castro describing pierre trudeau, who was in fact a close friend of his.
i'm not saying that what castro said is right or wrong, i'm just asking you to consider the source. the right spent years attacking him as a communist.
and, unfortunately, you have to consult the right-wing smear campaigns to get an honest assessment of the man, at this point, as the canadian left is more interested in partisan attacks than responsible history.
as the chinese would say, maybe it's too soon to write the history, anyways.
"a brilliant and courageous politician." - fidel castro describing pierre trudeau, who was in fact a close friend of his.
i'm not saying that what castro said is right or wrong, i'm just asking you to consider the source. the right spent years attacking him as a communist.
and, unfortunately, you have to consult the right-wing smear campaigns to get an honest assessment of the man, at this point, as the canadian left is more interested in partisan attacks than responsible history.
as the chinese would say, maybe it's too soon to write the history, anyways.
i wrote extensively on this point before and after the election, and it's there in the side (you can even search...), but i'll summarize the point for the greater good.
we're unravelling many layers, here. i'll admit that my very recent statements can be easily misunderstood if you haven't been reading this space for the last several months.
1) i spent a lot of time analysing polls, and concluded that they were generally skewed in favour of donald trump by using sneaky sampling tricks.
2) i argued strongly that the media was overwhelmingly pro-trump from the very start, although this was often done in sneaky ways, like bringing kellyanne conway on and then letting her win the argument (and letting her put down all kinds of code).
3) putting the situation in context, i developed the following theory - before the election actually happened:
a) the clinton emails were leaked not by russia, but by the fbi.
b) the purpose of leaking the emails was to create an official story that the media and establishment could cite as to how it is that trump could possibly win, because:
c) the deep state had already decided that it was going to pick trump over clinton.
so, yes - it's an establishment cover. but, that doesn't relieve comey of responsibility so much as it is the explanation of why it's his responsibility.
i further speculated, citing some specific and curious quotes, that clinton appeared to be at war with specific sections of the security establishment, who saw a clinton presidency as a potential security nightmare. i don't think assange is an intelligence agent, but i think he was badly manipulated by american intelligence (and that he has no idea what's actually happening in the world anymore). specifically, clinton was for sale to foreign influences. she couldn't be allowed to win.
i didn't know how they were doing this, i just knew that it was obvious that it was happening. after the election, the methods were revealed: software like crosscheck, voter id laws (this is what carried wisconsin, not opposition to nafta), restricted access to voting stations (arizona was brutal...), etc.
so, when i said that comey was directly responsible, i should have clarified the point a little. but, i do still think it is the case.
and, i cannot in good faith oppose his firing.
i will also add that i predicted, before the election, that the deep state was going to use the russian conspiracy theory both as a distraction from it's own responsibility in controlling the outcome of the election and as a vehicle to carry out the final phase of operation "fuck clinton" - the installation of mike pence as president. that was the plan from the start.
we're unravelling many layers, here. i'll admit that my very recent statements can be easily misunderstood if you haven't been reading this space for the last several months.
1) i spent a lot of time analysing polls, and concluded that they were generally skewed in favour of donald trump by using sneaky sampling tricks.
2) i argued strongly that the media was overwhelmingly pro-trump from the very start, although this was often done in sneaky ways, like bringing kellyanne conway on and then letting her win the argument (and letting her put down all kinds of code).
3) putting the situation in context, i developed the following theory - before the election actually happened:
a) the clinton emails were leaked not by russia, but by the fbi.
b) the purpose of leaking the emails was to create an official story that the media and establishment could cite as to how it is that trump could possibly win, because:
c) the deep state had already decided that it was going to pick trump over clinton.
so, yes - it's an establishment cover. but, that doesn't relieve comey of responsibility so much as it is the explanation of why it's his responsibility.
i further speculated, citing some specific and curious quotes, that clinton appeared to be at war with specific sections of the security establishment, who saw a clinton presidency as a potential security nightmare. i don't think assange is an intelligence agent, but i think he was badly manipulated by american intelligence (and that he has no idea what's actually happening in the world anymore). specifically, clinton was for sale to foreign influences. she couldn't be allowed to win.
i didn't know how they were doing this, i just knew that it was obvious that it was happening. after the election, the methods were revealed: software like crosscheck, voter id laws (this is what carried wisconsin, not opposition to nafta), restricted access to voting stations (arizona was brutal...), etc.
so, when i said that comey was directly responsible, i should have clarified the point a little. but, i do still think it is the case.
and, i cannot in good faith oppose his firing.
i will also add that i predicted, before the election, that the deep state was going to use the russian conspiracy theory both as a distraction from it's own responsibility in controlling the outcome of the election and as a vehicle to carry out the final phase of operation "fuck clinton" - the installation of mike pence as president. that was the plan from the start.
the british spectrum is fucked.
to begin with, labour can't win without entering into a coalition arrangement with the snp. but, that's not actually the story behind their collapse into perpetual opposition status.
the reality is that labour has been cratered by the ukip. and, this is the same basic story as exists in france, as well as in the united states.
neither side of the labour split really understands what it needs to do to win. the corbyn wing isn't going to magically create left of centre votes out of nothing (and, like sanders, corbyn is hardly a leftist ideologue). nor are moderate tory voters going to move to some concept of new labour. further, the liberals are as moribund as they ever were...
snp can and should be dealt with in a coalition. the place where the votes that labour needs are sitting with is ukip. so, how can labour disarm their prejudices and bring them back into a class-focused party?
it doesn't matter who their leader is; so long as labour is bleeding support to ukip, the tories will remain in power.
to begin with, labour can't win without entering into a coalition arrangement with the snp. but, that's not actually the story behind their collapse into perpetual opposition status.
the reality is that labour has been cratered by the ukip. and, this is the same basic story as exists in france, as well as in the united states.
neither side of the labour split really understands what it needs to do to win. the corbyn wing isn't going to magically create left of centre votes out of nothing (and, like sanders, corbyn is hardly a leftist ideologue). nor are moderate tory voters going to move to some concept of new labour. further, the liberals are as moribund as they ever were...
snp can and should be dealt with in a coalition. the place where the votes that labour needs are sitting with is ukip. so, how can labour disarm their prejudices and bring them back into a class-focused party?
it doesn't matter who their leader is; so long as labour is bleeding support to ukip, the tories will remain in power.
Thursday, May 11, 2017
the ruling is coming via mail.
it's not at all clear when that will be. by june, if i'm lucky, i think. so, i want to say i'm glad it's over, buuuut....
i think the judge accepted the basic premise of my position: if the area has a second hand smoke problem, they are obligated to "do something", and this whole refusal to do anything thing is bullshit. i could get the wall, and have the smokers pay for it. or, they could just let me run the fucking fan, already, and pay me costs for wasting my time. but, have i established that there's actually a problem?
she pushed the idea of an air quality test, and i'm all about empiricism, of course, but i had to push back that there are limits to empiricism and that the tort i'm suing over has generally accepted a lesser standard of subjective experience, in the form of journals or witnesses. is there an established ppm?
it took me some convincing to get her to take the usb key seriously. but, i'm convinced that she did, in the end, and that the reason she's doing this by mail is that she wants to examine the video evidence, to determine if i've made my case or not.
i think it would be hard to deduce i haven't.
but, i think this is the basic premise: she agrees that i'm right, if i've demonstrated a problem exists, but she left open the idea, because she seemed apprehensive about the vlog as evidence.
i'll find out in a few weeks.
it's not at all clear when that will be. by june, if i'm lucky, i think. so, i want to say i'm glad it's over, buuuut....
i think the judge accepted the basic premise of my position: if the area has a second hand smoke problem, they are obligated to "do something", and this whole refusal to do anything thing is bullshit. i could get the wall, and have the smokers pay for it. or, they could just let me run the fucking fan, already, and pay me costs for wasting my time. but, have i established that there's actually a problem?
she pushed the idea of an air quality test, and i'm all about empiricism, of course, but i had to push back that there are limits to empiricism and that the tort i'm suing over has generally accepted a lesser standard of subjective experience, in the form of journals or witnesses. is there an established ppm?
it took me some convincing to get her to take the usb key seriously. but, i'm convinced that she did, in the end, and that the reason she's doing this by mail is that she wants to examine the video evidence, to determine if i've made my case or not.
i think it would be hard to deduce i haven't.
but, i think this is the basic premise: she agrees that i'm right, if i've demonstrated a problem exists, but she left open the idea, because she seemed apprehensive about the vlog as evidence.
i'll find out in a few weeks.
see, this isn't the right way to deal with it. what we need to do is keep them out of the cities, not open up hunting season in the outback.
why do we have to do everything in such extremes, and reduce everything down into these caricatures?
we don't need to exterminate them in order to cull them. we just need more freedom to deal with the problem in urban regions. and, we need more leadership by the proper authorities - animal control, law enforcement, etc.
there's no benefit to having coyotes running around in cities. they're going to eat your pets. and, don't tell me to lock up my dog; i shouldn't have to live in fear or reduce my dog's freedom for the benefit of a fucking coyote. it's like telling your daughter to wear pants if she doesn't want to get raped.
as far as i'm concerned, they should be treated like serial killers.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/wolves-mnrf-hunting-coyotes-1.3522065
why do we have to do everything in such extremes, and reduce everything down into these caricatures?
we don't need to exterminate them in order to cull them. we just need more freedom to deal with the problem in urban regions. and, we need more leadership by the proper authorities - animal control, law enforcement, etc.
there's no benefit to having coyotes running around in cities. they're going to eat your pets. and, don't tell me to lock up my dog; i shouldn't have to live in fear or reduce my dog's freedom for the benefit of a fucking coyote. it's like telling your daughter to wear pants if she doesn't want to get raped.
as far as i'm concerned, they should be treated like serial killers.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/wolves-mnrf-hunting-coyotes-1.3522065
i just want to say something about the bc election, though.
it's easy to have a culture shock when you look at the results:
liberals - 41%
socialists - 40%
greens - 17%
there is a conservative party in bc, and it got around 2%.
oh - canada! ...?
well, not really, actually.
the story actually lies in watching the bc conservatives go up and down in pre-election cycles, and they might be a part of the reason that bc is so hard to predict (although i'll state it flat out - i think the liberals routinely carry out massive voter fraud, too). the same thing happens every cycle. the conservatives peak around 10% a few weeks before the election, which moves the socialists ahead in the polls - and then the conservatives all come running back to the liberals.
in fact, the conservatives and liberals once formed a coalition to keep the socialists out of power, although that was a long time ago, when the socialists were actually socialists. the liberal party in the province has since absorbed everything to the right of center, which is partly why the greens are doing so well in the first place.
so, the party labels make the province seem dreamy - sure. but, if you were to convert the party policies into more realistic labels, it would look more like this:
progressive conservatives - 41% [they're conservatives. but, they're moderates, too.]
liberals - 40%
socialists - 17%
it's still a nice place to live. but, it's more like washington than it is like sweden.
it's easy to have a culture shock when you look at the results:
liberals - 41%
socialists - 40%
greens - 17%
there is a conservative party in bc, and it got around 2%.
oh - canada! ...?
well, not really, actually.
the story actually lies in watching the bc conservatives go up and down in pre-election cycles, and they might be a part of the reason that bc is so hard to predict (although i'll state it flat out - i think the liberals routinely carry out massive voter fraud, too). the same thing happens every cycle. the conservatives peak around 10% a few weeks before the election, which moves the socialists ahead in the polls - and then the conservatives all come running back to the liberals.
in fact, the conservatives and liberals once formed a coalition to keep the socialists out of power, although that was a long time ago, when the socialists were actually socialists. the liberal party in the province has since absorbed everything to the right of center, which is partly why the greens are doing so well in the first place.
so, the party labels make the province seem dreamy - sure. but, if you were to convert the party policies into more realistic labels, it would look more like this:
progressive conservatives - 41% [they're conservatives. but, they're moderates, too.]
liberals - 40%
socialists - 17%
it's still a nice place to live. but, it's more like washington than it is like sweden.
what the reaction to the comey fiasco truly demonstrates is just how feeble-minded and willing to prostrate to power it is that democrats and progressives truly are.
it was just a few weeks ago that this guy interfered in the election. people will make other arguments, but i don't agree: james comey is probably the single biggest reason that clinton lost. then, he makes a play on behalf of the pentagon and they're willing to rally around him, as though he's now on their side.
he was never on trump's side, and he's not now on the democrat's side. he was a pretend republican appointed by a pretend democrat; the only side he was ever on was the side of power.
and, by standing up for comey, you are standing up for power.
but, that's what you really want to do, anyways.
because you're a fucking tool.
it was just a few weeks ago that this guy interfered in the election. people will make other arguments, but i don't agree: james comey is probably the single biggest reason that clinton lost. then, he makes a play on behalf of the pentagon and they're willing to rally around him, as though he's now on their side.
he was never on trump's side, and he's not now on the democrat's side. he was a pretend republican appointed by a pretend democrat; the only side he was ever on was the side of power.
and, by standing up for comey, you are standing up for power.
but, that's what you really want to do, anyways.
because you're a fucking tool.
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
but, seriously.
the next time that harper gets together with his buddies to do his oldies set at the corner bar, he should make this song front and centre. he should work it into his regular setlist...
the true prime sinister? well, maggie did a lot of serious harm. maybe if the british had a constitution, she couldn't have.
again: i don't know of any real comparison. he ruled for almost a decade, and he didn't do anything substantial except write case law in the process of getting smacked down by the courts over and over and over again. but, because of that, his legacy will outlive almost everybody.
he will live on in infamy for decades to come.
the next time that harper gets together with his buddies to do his oldies set at the corner bar, he should make this song front and centre. he should work it into his regular setlist...
the true prime sinister? well, maggie did a lot of serious harm. maybe if the british had a constitution, she couldn't have.
again: i don't know of any real comparison. he ruled for almost a decade, and he didn't do anything substantial except write case law in the process of getting smacked down by the courts over and over and over again. but, because of that, his legacy will outlive almost everybody.
he will live on in infamy for decades to come.
harper never expected this to hold up, it was just red meat for his base. there's a dozen or so examples of this, too.
it's easy to give him shit for wasting everybody's time but that's actually not the right way to look at it in the longer lens of history. i've stated repeatedly that harper's most enduring - and perhaps singular - legacy is going to be all of the laws that he had struck down. he's actually going to end up as a very important prime minister, for that reason alone. he's done more to shape constitutional law than any other leader since the elder trudeau.
100 years from now, nobody's going to be able to cite anything he wrote or anything he built. but, law students will study the multiple important and enduring precedents that were set when his laws were struck down.
i really don't know of anybody that's comparable. anywhere.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/federal-court-citizenship-act-1.4108346
it's easy to give him shit for wasting everybody's time but that's actually not the right way to look at it in the longer lens of history. i've stated repeatedly that harper's most enduring - and perhaps singular - legacy is going to be all of the laws that he had struck down. he's actually going to end up as a very important prime minister, for that reason alone. he's done more to shape constitutional law than any other leader since the elder trudeau.
100 years from now, nobody's going to be able to cite anything he wrote or anything he built. but, law students will study the multiple important and enduring precedents that were set when his laws were struck down.
i really don't know of anybody that's comparable. anywhere.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/federal-court-citizenship-act-1.4108346
it sounds to me like what they need is a dam up the ottawa to slow the tributaries down. i guess that at the time they built the seaway, ottawa was mostly just sending logs down the river, and nobody was really worried about climate change.
if you need a dam, it's worth a turbine.
this is actually a good example of what i was hoping the infrastructure bank would be used for.
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/flooding-along-st-lawrence-could-worsen-if-ny-politics-wins/82113/
if you need a dam, it's worth a turbine.
this is actually a good example of what i was hoping the infrastructure bank would be used for.
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/flooding-along-st-lawrence-could-worsen-if-ny-politics-wins/82113/
no.
the light is a circuit.
so, either:
1) the electricity is coming in, and not coming back or
2) it's never getting in at all.
a measurable voltage difference still doesn't absolutely mean it's getting there. but, it would be pretty obscure, i'd think...
it also heated up on me, indicating the current is moving.
i'm going to need to try to reflow it. i just need to figure out where it's cut, and i'm going to need some help to do it.
i wonder if i could try hackforge. hrmmn.
the light is a circuit.
so, either:
1) the electricity is coming in, and not coming back or
2) it's never getting in at all.
a measurable voltage difference still doesn't absolutely mean it's getting there. but, it would be pretty obscure, i'd think...
it also heated up on me, indicating the current is moving.
i'm going to need to try to reflow it. i just need to figure out where it's cut, and i'm going to need some help to do it.
i wonder if i could try hackforge. hrmmn.
this laptop...
there's a guy in town who will identify things. he may even have a heat gun. i think i want to go down this route:
1) figure out where the break is.
2) see if i can reflow it.
i could always even be wrong.
see, i'm not understanding the led in the power jack. is the led supposed to tell you the circuit is complete, or that the jack is receiving power? because the circuit completion seems superfluous. what i want to know is if the jack is broken. i would want the led to tell me the jack works, and the dead led to mean the jack is busted.
but, i might be being clinically rational at my own peril. again. reality isn't a fucking logic gate, j.
but the existence of a current, after all, doesn't necessarily mean the jack isn't broken. it's more than a relay. i may have tricked myself.
so, why don't i bring the thing in and see if i can get him to test it better. i won't pay him $40 for a jack, but i'll at least buy it from him. and, if it's not the jack, maybe we can figure out where the break is and see if we can heat gun it. i might pay him $40 for that if it works. or, if he doesn't have a heat gun, maybe i can hit it with a hair dryer.
if not, maybe i can sell him the board and the parts i don't want. what i'll have left is 4 gb of ram that i'm going to want to convert into 2 gb of ram, and maybe a square monitor if he's willing.
i'm done the video editing for court. i'm going to just take the 90s laptop. so, the last thing i need to do is compile documents.
there's a guy in town who will identify things. he may even have a heat gun. i think i want to go down this route:
1) figure out where the break is.
2) see if i can reflow it.
i could always even be wrong.
see, i'm not understanding the led in the power jack. is the led supposed to tell you the circuit is complete, or that the jack is receiving power? because the circuit completion seems superfluous. what i want to know is if the jack is broken. i would want the led to tell me the jack works, and the dead led to mean the jack is busted.
but, i might be being clinically rational at my own peril. again. reality isn't a fucking logic gate, j.
but the existence of a current, after all, doesn't necessarily mean the jack isn't broken. it's more than a relay. i may have tricked myself.
so, why don't i bring the thing in and see if i can get him to test it better. i won't pay him $40 for a jack, but i'll at least buy it from him. and, if it's not the jack, maybe we can figure out where the break is and see if we can heat gun it. i might pay him $40 for that if it works. or, if he doesn't have a heat gun, maybe i can hit it with a hair dryer.
if not, maybe i can sell him the board and the parts i don't want. what i'll have left is 4 gb of ram that i'm going to want to convert into 2 gb of ram, and maybe a square monitor if he's willing.
i'm done the video editing for court. i'm going to just take the 90s laptop. so, the last thing i need to do is compile documents.
andrew weaver should put the ndp in power and make them hold to their promises - or suffer the consequences.
as an environmentalist, albeit a distant eastern one, this is kind of a dream scenario. i don't at all trust the ndp. the greens have a unique opportunity, here, to put them in power and then pull the plug if they don't perform - or stand back and let them govern, if they do.
as an environmentalist, albeit a distant eastern one, this is kind of a dream scenario. i don't at all trust the ndp. the greens have a unique opportunity, here, to put them in power and then pull the plug if they don't perform - or stand back and let them govern, if they do.
no, you don't under...
i would have held a press conference, in prime time, on the first day...
"you're fired."
i would have filmed him being escorted out of the building, too.
why?
ok - it's good theatre, granted. but, it also sends the message that what he did wasn't ok, and that just because it advantaged me doesn't mean i'm going to look the other way.
if you're going to criticize him for firing this goof, the basis of the criticism should be that he took so long to do it.
i would have held a press conference, in prime time, on the first day...
"you're fired."
i would have filmed him being escorted out of the building, too.
why?
ok - it's good theatre, granted. but, it also sends the message that what he did wasn't ok, and that just because it advantaged me doesn't mean i'm going to look the other way.
if you're going to criticize him for firing this goof, the basis of the criticism should be that he took so long to do it.
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
this is closer to the operating mindset that the government should be adopting in dealing with the demographic problem.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/genymoney/geny-millennial-employment-jobs-canada/article34867183/
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/genymoney/geny-millennial-employment-jobs-canada/article34867183/
again: i'm in favour of a pretty open free trade deal with the united states (not nafta. a free trade deal.), but think we need trade realism with mexico until they reform their system to allow for labour rights - and would support policies designed to coerce them into doing so.
we can't have a bilateral free trade deal with mexico. it's incoherent, in it's face.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/us-withdrawl-from-nafta-is-back-on-table-wilbur-ross/article34934318/
we can't have a bilateral free trade deal with mexico. it's incoherent, in it's face.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/us-withdrawl-from-nafta-is-back-on-table-wilbur-ross/article34934318/
but, i'd rather see them abolish the tax exemption than write laws that restrict political activity. how can a charity not be political? and, how can a church not be political?
of course, if you take a look at who was affected by the conservative law, what you see is a lot of things they were opposed to. they didn't just go after environmental groups (who are universally disappointed with this government - don't think this is helping friendly parties. this government is getting sued from every direction for carrying on the policies of the previous one.), they also went after overseas abortion providers and were particularly harsh on pro-palestinian groups.
so, i don't oppose lifting political restrictions on charities. it's hardly an issue i'm passionate about, but whatever. but, i am in very strong opposition to the idea that donations to charities should be tax exempt.
here's the thing: when you make donations to charities tax-exempt, what you're doing is evading social responsibility for your policies, and making it contingent on a set of ideological principles. so, you end up perverting anti-poverty work into religious proselytizing. and, you allow people to divert what should be redistributed tax money into institutions that are potentially oppressing people.
i've made life choices for myself that have left me in perpetual poverty; there's a trade-off on this, in that i never need to be anywhere in the morning. i'd rather be poor. and i don't currently need to use food banks. but, i shouldn't have to deal with a religious person in order to eat - in whatever abstraction that is. these kinds of services should be run by secular groups and open to everybody without any basis of coercion.
this is an extreme example, but i've heard stories (primary sources.) about religious compounds in haiti literally exchanging food for conversion. don't think this kind of coercion is a scare story. it's a reality in the developing world. and, it's only possible because the secular society isn't doing what it needs to be doing in order to prevent it.
of course, charities can also be used as money laundering fronts...
....but i'm really more interested in ensuring that these resources end up collectivized, and directed by popular consensus, rather than left up to the individual whims of wealthy donors, who may or may not be acting in the public good.
http://www.torontosun.com/2017/05/08/charities-too-political-under-trudeau
of course, if you take a look at who was affected by the conservative law, what you see is a lot of things they were opposed to. they didn't just go after environmental groups (who are universally disappointed with this government - don't think this is helping friendly parties. this government is getting sued from every direction for carrying on the policies of the previous one.), they also went after overseas abortion providers and were particularly harsh on pro-palestinian groups.
so, i don't oppose lifting political restrictions on charities. it's hardly an issue i'm passionate about, but whatever. but, i am in very strong opposition to the idea that donations to charities should be tax exempt.
here's the thing: when you make donations to charities tax-exempt, what you're doing is evading social responsibility for your policies, and making it contingent on a set of ideological principles. so, you end up perverting anti-poverty work into religious proselytizing. and, you allow people to divert what should be redistributed tax money into institutions that are potentially oppressing people.
i've made life choices for myself that have left me in perpetual poverty; there's a trade-off on this, in that i never need to be anywhere in the morning. i'd rather be poor. and i don't currently need to use food banks. but, i shouldn't have to deal with a religious person in order to eat - in whatever abstraction that is. these kinds of services should be run by secular groups and open to everybody without any basis of coercion.
this is an extreme example, but i've heard stories (primary sources.) about religious compounds in haiti literally exchanging food for conversion. don't think this kind of coercion is a scare story. it's a reality in the developing world. and, it's only possible because the secular society isn't doing what it needs to be doing in order to prevent it.
of course, charities can also be used as money laundering fronts...
....but i'm really more interested in ensuring that these resources end up collectivized, and directed by popular consensus, rather than left up to the individual whims of wealthy donors, who may or may not be acting in the public good.
http://www.torontosun.com/2017/05/08/charities-too-political-under-trudeau
the more i think about it, i have to point out that it seems like the laptop was already damaged before i opened it.
to begin with, it had been emitting a foul odor for quite a while. the smell was like burning dust, though, so it wasn't clear if it was blown or just dirty.
to be clear: the fan needed to be cleaned, i knew it needed to be cleaned a good while before i actually opened it and when i did open it up i took out a huge pile of dust that was clearly preventing it from spinning. in fact, i may have exacerbated the problem by running a lysol wipe over the vent, thereby dropping the dust off the vent and down into the fan. what i'm thinking is that i may have been too late: the clogged up fan may have already damaged something before i opened it up.
i was also dealing with some strange issues around the usb ports on that side, and what seemed like a possessed touchpad. i actually suspected that i might be dealing with some kind of cia keylogger that was trying to force me to use the touchpad to navigate. see, i use a usb mouse, because i'm old enough that i'm not touchpad-native. well, it's a term, now. it's not just that i'm old, it's that i spent a very large amount of time typing as a teenager and really held to it. at this point, i'll never get used to any kind of mobile device: i need a keyboard and i need a mouse. this is non-negotiable. i'll throw the thing through a window before i start using a touchpad...
if the cia were using some kind of windows backdoor, it would probably be written to utilize the touchpad driver, which is for both typing and pointing. so, my insistence on a usb mouse may have accidentally broken their surveillance software.
i fixed it by disabling the driver altogether. but, it's just as easy to conclude that the hardware was malfunctioning due to faulty wiring.
but, the usb port on that side also got sticky when it was hot. this was repeatably demonstrable, too: whenever it warmed up, i would need to push the usb connection upwards. that's an obvious electrical short.
the fact that the fan stopped may itself have been at least as much of an electrical problem as it was a dust problem.
so, it's hard to say how long it would have remained functional had i not opened it, or if it was even functional at all at that point in time. and, i'm not retreating from the claim that the design is horrific - nor am i the first to make the claim. but, on closer introspection, i think it's obvious that the thing was already in rough shape, and if it wasn't already broken, it probably could not have survived any disassembly at all.
i need to reiterate that i knew what i was doing and did not do anything that should have led to a short. it was either already broken, or impossibly fragile - or, potentially, both.
to begin with, it had been emitting a foul odor for quite a while. the smell was like burning dust, though, so it wasn't clear if it was blown or just dirty.
to be clear: the fan needed to be cleaned, i knew it needed to be cleaned a good while before i actually opened it and when i did open it up i took out a huge pile of dust that was clearly preventing it from spinning. in fact, i may have exacerbated the problem by running a lysol wipe over the vent, thereby dropping the dust off the vent and down into the fan. what i'm thinking is that i may have been too late: the clogged up fan may have already damaged something before i opened it up.
i was also dealing with some strange issues around the usb ports on that side, and what seemed like a possessed touchpad. i actually suspected that i might be dealing with some kind of cia keylogger that was trying to force me to use the touchpad to navigate. see, i use a usb mouse, because i'm old enough that i'm not touchpad-native. well, it's a term, now. it's not just that i'm old, it's that i spent a very large amount of time typing as a teenager and really held to it. at this point, i'll never get used to any kind of mobile device: i need a keyboard and i need a mouse. this is non-negotiable. i'll throw the thing through a window before i start using a touchpad...
if the cia were using some kind of windows backdoor, it would probably be written to utilize the touchpad driver, which is for both typing and pointing. so, my insistence on a usb mouse may have accidentally broken their surveillance software.
i fixed it by disabling the driver altogether. but, it's just as easy to conclude that the hardware was malfunctioning due to faulty wiring.
but, the usb port on that side also got sticky when it was hot. this was repeatably demonstrable, too: whenever it warmed up, i would need to push the usb connection upwards. that's an obvious electrical short.
the fact that the fan stopped may itself have been at least as much of an electrical problem as it was a dust problem.
so, it's hard to say how long it would have remained functional had i not opened it, or if it was even functional at all at that point in time. and, i'm not retreating from the claim that the design is horrific - nor am i the first to make the claim. but, on closer introspection, i think it's obvious that the thing was already in rough shape, and if it wasn't already broken, it probably could not have survived any disassembly at all.
i need to reiterate that i knew what i was doing and did not do anything that should have led to a short. it was either already broken, or impossibly fragile - or, potentially, both.
i need to spend the rest of the day getting documents together.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1159404#answer-966458
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1159404#answer-966458
i can imagine a row of preachers lined up on a fast rising coast line, and citizens walking towards it, in single file, and carefully volunteering to be baptized - before they are thrown into the crushing current.
they're not dying, they're just going to the next life!
a helicopter pan zooms upwards, to reveal the gulf of mexico full of floating dead bodies.
the lord works in mysterious ways.
they're not dying, they're just going to the next life!
a helicopter pan zooms upwards, to reveal the gulf of mexico full of floating dead bodies.
the lord works in mysterious ways.
as the flood waters rise in the american south, they will stand in the water, knee-deep and bible in hand, and question imaginary creatures in the sky as to what it is that they did that created such wrath.
they will not consult the science. they will not mitigate. they will not adapt.
what they will do, instead, is pray.
some will pray for forgiveness, whereas others will welcome the end times, comfortable in their own self-righteousness and awaiting a future of eternal life. all of it as the byzantines did centuries earlier, as the barbarians closed in from all sides.
such is the inevitable downfall of a society rooted in faith.
and, if there is somehow a god, such stupidity is truly worthy of it's wrath and contempt.
they will not consult the science. they will not mitigate. they will not adapt.
what they will do, instead, is pray.
some will pray for forgiveness, whereas others will welcome the end times, comfortable in their own self-righteousness and awaiting a future of eternal life. all of it as the byzantines did centuries earlier, as the barbarians closed in from all sides.
such is the inevitable downfall of a society rooted in faith.
and, if there is somehow a god, such stupidity is truly worthy of it's wrath and contempt.
Monday, May 8, 2017
farcical considering the source? sure.
but, it's fairly obvious that the right answer is that nobody thought it through, and somebody needs to point out that they need to think this through, lest they ruin international law without even realizing it.
this is beyond surreal. but get used to it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/world/middleeast/syria-united-protect-democracy-trump-lawsuit.html?_r=0
but, it's fairly obvious that the right answer is that nobody thought it through, and somebody needs to point out that they need to think this through, lest they ruin international law without even realizing it.
this is beyond surreal. but get used to it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/world/middleeast/syria-united-protect-democracy-trump-lawsuit.html?_r=0
again, my self-interest is not in "job creation" (i don't want a job...), but in maximizing the tax base while minimizing the number of people on social assistance, as the services that exist become less and less effective as more and more people use them.
my self-interest is also in minimizing the power of socially conservative bodies, like organized religions, which also means fighting to reduce the number of adherents, as well as actively working to convert people away from their influence.
these are the normal, historical priorities of self-interested parties on the left.
my self-interest is also in minimizing the power of socially conservative bodies, like organized religions, which also means fighting to reduce the number of adherents, as well as actively working to convert people away from their influence.
these are the normal, historical priorities of self-interested parties on the left.
the way to protect against such a nefarious ploy is to always wear an aluminum hat.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4484760/North-Korea-preparing-EMP-strike-US.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4484760/North-Korea-preparing-EMP-strike-US.html
so, what's going on with me?
i've been focusing primarily on editing since about the 10th of april - so about a month. i've been to a lot of concerts in the last month. but, the life goal has been about editing.
i didn't want it to turn out like this, where i'd do no editing for months, and then spend a month editing. it will slow down dramatically in the next few days. but, i wanted to gather the material i needed for my court date, which is on thursday morning...
it's easy to criticize me for being slow about it, but it was actually a lot of work to edit two and half months of vlogging, watch those vlogs, upload them and cut out the parts that are relevant. i was cut up to the 28th of april - which was caught up.
it was a week ago now that my laptop told me that the fan wasn't running anymore. it didn't take long for me to realize that it was clogged with dust. it's a thing that happens. but, the design on the laptop requires disassembling the entire laptop and removing the motherboard and heatsink in order to clean the fan. fans are going to get dirty, that is normal; it is the design of the laptop that is the root cause of the problem i now have to deal with.
i can't run a laptop without a fan. so, i took it apart to clean it. it took me a few days to get some thermal paste for the heatsink, but when i finally put it back together this morning i got no power. no lights. nothing.
i would think that i should at least get an led beside the power for merely plugging it in, right? i wasn't even getting that. so, i reasoned that there's a break in the circuit, somewhere.
i don't have a multimeter, but i have a bus pirate that i bought a few years ago when i fucked up my recording pc by trying to flash it from inside windows (doh...) and a set of probes. so, i had to install it as a serial port on my 90s laptop in order to convert it into a voltmeter. it turns out the jack is drawing electricity normally, so i'm left to conclude that there's a short in the board.
but, i have a sign of life: the area of the motherboard closest to the plug is now warm. it was not previously. i'm going to put it back together and leave it plugged in, hoping that the current can re-establish itself.
i'm typing this on my backup laptop. i had to pull the hard drive out of my main laptop and put it in this one, and it seems to work fine, so if the board ends up lost it's really a minor annoyance. this machine only has two gigs of ram in it, and no built in microphone, but if the other machine is now parts i can at least salvage the ram.
i'm pissed off, but not at myself. i know how to open a laptop. i couldn't have done it better. it's a shoddy design to make it impossible to clean the fan without trashing it. but, they teach graduate courses on this - it's called forced obsolescence.
if it was the jack, i could have fixed it for a few dollars. but, the cost of replacing the system board makes the project a waste of time.
for now, it looks like i'm moving to the backup laptop. but, in the long run, i probably won't replace this machine at all, i'll probably just go back to the desktop.
i'm going to sleep shortly. but, when i wake up, i'll need to pick up where i left off.
i've been focusing primarily on editing since about the 10th of april - so about a month. i've been to a lot of concerts in the last month. but, the life goal has been about editing.
i didn't want it to turn out like this, where i'd do no editing for months, and then spend a month editing. it will slow down dramatically in the next few days. but, i wanted to gather the material i needed for my court date, which is on thursday morning...
it's easy to criticize me for being slow about it, but it was actually a lot of work to edit two and half months of vlogging, watch those vlogs, upload them and cut out the parts that are relevant. i was cut up to the 28th of april - which was caught up.
it was a week ago now that my laptop told me that the fan wasn't running anymore. it didn't take long for me to realize that it was clogged with dust. it's a thing that happens. but, the design on the laptop requires disassembling the entire laptop and removing the motherboard and heatsink in order to clean the fan. fans are going to get dirty, that is normal; it is the design of the laptop that is the root cause of the problem i now have to deal with.
i can't run a laptop without a fan. so, i took it apart to clean it. it took me a few days to get some thermal paste for the heatsink, but when i finally put it back together this morning i got no power. no lights. nothing.
i would think that i should at least get an led beside the power for merely plugging it in, right? i wasn't even getting that. so, i reasoned that there's a break in the circuit, somewhere.
i don't have a multimeter, but i have a bus pirate that i bought a few years ago when i fucked up my recording pc by trying to flash it from inside windows (doh...) and a set of probes. so, i had to install it as a serial port on my 90s laptop in order to convert it into a voltmeter. it turns out the jack is drawing electricity normally, so i'm left to conclude that there's a short in the board.
but, i have a sign of life: the area of the motherboard closest to the plug is now warm. it was not previously. i'm going to put it back together and leave it plugged in, hoping that the current can re-establish itself.
i'm typing this on my backup laptop. i had to pull the hard drive out of my main laptop and put it in this one, and it seems to work fine, so if the board ends up lost it's really a minor annoyance. this machine only has two gigs of ram in it, and no built in microphone, but if the other machine is now parts i can at least salvage the ram.
i'm pissed off, but not at myself. i know how to open a laptop. i couldn't have done it better. it's a shoddy design to make it impossible to clean the fan without trashing it. but, they teach graduate courses on this - it's called forced obsolescence.
if it was the jack, i could have fixed it for a few dollars. but, the cost of replacing the system board makes the project a waste of time.
for now, it looks like i'm moving to the backup laptop. but, in the long run, i probably won't replace this machine at all, i'll probably just go back to the desktop.
i'm going to sleep shortly. but, when i wake up, i'll need to pick up where i left off.
i don't think anybody will ever know what france would have been like under the presidency of marine le pen. my understanding is that the party behind her is as unhappy about her projections as she was about their past, and that she will probably be replaced - potentially by her much more racist niece - for the next election.
i suspect she would have been far more moderate than some had feared.
but, we'll never know.
what we know is that macron is going to amplify the embrace of neo-liberalism that put le pen into the second round, and carry on with the austerity that is fueling the rise of xenophobia in the country. nobody should expect him to be any less enthusiastic about bombing people in the middle east or the north of africa, or to ease the increasing police state crack down, either. he probably won't even lift the burka ban that has already been in place for many years - and i don't even think that anybody even expects him to.
the left would have been preferable, of course. but, unfortunately, i suspect that we will look back on this election in five years and lament that we did not give a more moderate nationalist voice a chance to undo the effects of corporatism and austerity, as we are fighting off actual nazis.
macron will be a disaster; i will repeat that i think le pen would have been the lesser evil.
i suspect she would have been far more moderate than some had feared.
but, we'll never know.
what we know is that macron is going to amplify the embrace of neo-liberalism that put le pen into the second round, and carry on with the austerity that is fueling the rise of xenophobia in the country. nobody should expect him to be any less enthusiastic about bombing people in the middle east or the north of africa, or to ease the increasing police state crack down, either. he probably won't even lift the burka ban that has already been in place for many years - and i don't even think that anybody even expects him to.
the left would have been preferable, of course. but, unfortunately, i suspect that we will look back on this election in five years and lament that we did not give a more moderate nationalist voice a chance to undo the effects of corporatism and austerity, as we are fighting off actual nazis.
macron will be a disaster; i will repeat that i think le pen would have been the lesser evil.
Sunday, May 7, 2017
i'd tweak this a little bit, in investing more effort into separating between mlms and communists. i'd identify as both an anarchist and a communist, but not as a marxist (despite citing marx fairly frequently) and certainly not at all as any kind of leninist or maoist. nihilism is likewise a complicated term, and the author is actually using it wrong, here; i would certainly identify as an existential nihilist, while rejecting colloquial uses of either term.
but, i think this gets an idea across.
http://www.spunk.org/texts/intro/sp001550.html
but, i think this gets an idea across.
http://www.spunk.org/texts/intro/sp001550.html
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