the emails and pictures are fully pasted into the master document, which has now bloated to 750 pages - 8x11 - for the month, but includes some duplicates and what is probably hundreds of pages of superfluous email trails. i'm sure that i pasted entire email conversations in over and over, and i will need to clean that up as i edit it through. regardless, it seems like quite a substantial amount of data.
i'm going to stop to eat, and copy the messenger data over when i'm done.
Sunday, April 21, 2019
so, i'm about halfway through copying the emails and photos into the master document, and it seems like this is going to be a lengthy digest after all, meaning the quarterly, itself a half quarter for now with a long wait period for resolution with the first half, in fact the entire alter-reality, is going to be pushing the length of a full novel. how about that for unexpected.
the emails drastically curtail in september. i think. but, i've still got some story to tell for august...
there was no traveling, and not much youtube activity, although i did set up the studio, which is key to the music journal narrative, actually. so, it's not just all personal narrative, there's actually some substantive music journal entries. ok. i think i may have done some writing at the end of the month, as well. so, it should be a more balanced entry, actually, even if the personal narrative remains weighty.
the emails drastically curtail in september. i think. but, i've still got some story to tell for august...
there was no traveling, and not much youtube activity, although i did set up the studio, which is key to the music journal narrative, actually. so, it's not just all personal narrative, there's actually some substantive music journal entries. ok. i think i may have done some writing at the end of the month, as well. so, it should be a more balanced entry, actually, even if the personal narrative remains weighty.
at
14:11
if my idea about the multidimensionality of string theory being a crude model for the expansion of space time in all directions is correct, you may want to actually look towards very high number of dimensions in your string theory - infinite numbers of dimensions, even, as you'd be getting a better approximation of the expanding space-time as the number of dimensions approaches infinity. i'm sure that most logic would have suggested the number of dimensions should be minimized, up to this point. it's some math to play with, anyways.
at
00:36
i think that it's well understood that there were substantial western assets on the ground in the islamic state, and they're likely to be recycled back to the front.
it doesn't matter: you still have to fight it.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/kosovo-isis-fighters-families-syria-return-1.5105732
it doesn't matter: you still have to fight it.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/kosovo-isis-fighters-families-syria-return-1.5105732
at
00:28
Saturday, April 20, 2019
there's now a link to a consolidated rss feed, the 6 blogs + 4 youtube sites, which is the best i can do. i will update this link as it improves itself.
but, i cannot get rss feeds from bandcamp, noise trade, patreon or facebook, unfortunately. in a sense, that is irrelevant, as i should cross-reference everything to the blogs; this feed will give you everything, and double or triple a lot of it.
http://www.rssmix.com/u/8317252/rss.xml
but, i cannot get rss feeds from bandcamp, noise trade, patreon or facebook, unfortunately. in a sense, that is irrelevant, as i should cross-reference everything to the blogs; this feed will give you everything, and double or triple a lot of it.
http://www.rssmix.com/u/8317252/rss.xml
at
22:49
unlike notley, trudeau actually has a realistic chance to win the upcoming election.
you'd have to think that there are still a sizeable number of people apprehensive about the conservative party, which was thrown out of power in a coalition intent on removing it, specifically; notley won against a split majority. the conservatives are still a minority nationwide, arguably even a weak one. the fundamental position of strength is on the liberals' sides, in terms of pure numbers. the hard question all of these people are having to face is if it's a better strategy to support the party, or try and work against it, but it's ultimately a meaningless question, because you have to unite in the end, anyways, to actually accomplish anything; if the liberals can build any kind of coalition around anything at all, they should have the pure numbers to win everywhere, decisively, so tactics towards unity should be aggressively deployed by anybody looking to do anything, and it follows that a liberal win becomes eminently plausible, which is believable because the liberals have held government for a disproportionate period of time over the last 100+ years. stated differently, this is a constant in canadian politics: the liberals always have an excellent chance of forming government.
unfortunately, the liberal party dismantled a large amount of that coalition when they came to power. it appears to be trying to reach deep into ethnic communities to make up the difference in voters, but i think it's a numerical miscalculation to conclude that this is even plausible. the uniform spread of something like election reform can't be replaced by a couple of localized sikh communities, even if the political financing involved in the latter is much greater. it seems to have been quite foolish to entirely throw these issues away, given the strategic value they had in the previous election.
it's just probably not going to be very hard to come up with a good reason why these ignored liberal left voters should cast a skeptical vote, even if they have to do a little bit better than basing a campaign around the negation of godwin's law.
so, of course the liberals can win the election. they just need to figure out how, first.
you'd have to think that there are still a sizeable number of people apprehensive about the conservative party, which was thrown out of power in a coalition intent on removing it, specifically; notley won against a split majority. the conservatives are still a minority nationwide, arguably even a weak one. the fundamental position of strength is on the liberals' sides, in terms of pure numbers. the hard question all of these people are having to face is if it's a better strategy to support the party, or try and work against it, but it's ultimately a meaningless question, because you have to unite in the end, anyways, to actually accomplish anything; if the liberals can build any kind of coalition around anything at all, they should have the pure numbers to win everywhere, decisively, so tactics towards unity should be aggressively deployed by anybody looking to do anything, and it follows that a liberal win becomes eminently plausible, which is believable because the liberals have held government for a disproportionate period of time over the last 100+ years. stated differently, this is a constant in canadian politics: the liberals always have an excellent chance of forming government.
unfortunately, the liberal party dismantled a large amount of that coalition when they came to power. it appears to be trying to reach deep into ethnic communities to make up the difference in voters, but i think it's a numerical miscalculation to conclude that this is even plausible. the uniform spread of something like election reform can't be replaced by a couple of localized sikh communities, even if the political financing involved in the latter is much greater. it seems to have been quite foolish to entirely throw these issues away, given the strategic value they had in the previous election.
it's just probably not going to be very hard to come up with a good reason why these ignored liberal left voters should cast a skeptical vote, even if they have to do a little bit better than basing a campaign around the negation of godwin's law.
so, of course the liberals can win the election. they just need to figure out how, first.
at
19:20
so, i'm caught up with the reviews and ready to get to the august rebuild.
i'm sure you caught the date.
i'm going to go for a walk.
i'm sure you caught the date.
i'm going to go for a walk.
at
17:47
these analyses of the alberta election that are claiming that notley was done in by negative campaigning are completely off-base.
to begin with, she had little chance of getting more than 40%. the idea that the election was really in play is not a serious premise, so this idea that she didn't do what was necessary to convince people to vote for her is delusional. she had no chance of winning the election by running on the economy, because there simply weren't enough votes in play for her to do so, and because her own base doesn't care about such things. she was simply never going to convince a substantial number of conservatives to vote for her, no matter what she did, and no matter how bad the other candidate was.
i misread the data, granted. but, it doesn't really change the necessary tactic. as she could at best get a plurality (she had no chance at a majority), and the opposition was no longer split, she had to figure out how to do two things:
1) maximize her own turnout.
2) minimize her opponent's turnout.
"appeal to your opponent's base" was not an option, here.
the truth is that she failed at both tasks, but the approach she took to try to minimize her opponent's turnout was the correct one. if anything, she should have been more aggressive about it. the greater failure is that she governed in opposition to her own base, and that should cost her her party's leadership. i look forward to her being fired by her own people, and her replacement realigning itself with the federal and bc wings.
but, in politics, sometimes failure doesn't occur because you did something wrong.
sometimes, you fail because there's simply no path.
there's nothing she could have done differently; she had little chance, at all.
to begin with, she had little chance of getting more than 40%. the idea that the election was really in play is not a serious premise, so this idea that she didn't do what was necessary to convince people to vote for her is delusional. she had no chance of winning the election by running on the economy, because there simply weren't enough votes in play for her to do so, and because her own base doesn't care about such things. she was simply never going to convince a substantial number of conservatives to vote for her, no matter what she did, and no matter how bad the other candidate was.
i misread the data, granted. but, it doesn't really change the necessary tactic. as she could at best get a plurality (she had no chance at a majority), and the opposition was no longer split, she had to figure out how to do two things:
1) maximize her own turnout.
2) minimize her opponent's turnout.
"appeal to your opponent's base" was not an option, here.
the truth is that she failed at both tasks, but the approach she took to try to minimize her opponent's turnout was the correct one. if anything, she should have been more aggressive about it. the greater failure is that she governed in opposition to her own base, and that should cost her her party's leadership. i look forward to her being fired by her own people, and her replacement realigning itself with the federal and bc wings.
but, in politics, sometimes failure doesn't occur because you did something wrong.
sometimes, you fail because there's simply no path.
there's nothing she could have done differently; she had little chance, at all.
at
17:26
i also attended a yamantaka // sonic titan show on monday night, before i left for toronto early on tuesday morning. i knew this was coming, but didn't want to commit until the last minute, because i didn't want to put missing the bus in question, and i knew it would be a long day. in the end, i decided i wasn't sleeping anyways, so i'd might as well go.
also, i hadn't been to a show in windsor in a long time and have reason to think i might not be to another one here in a long time, as well. there's just not much happening in the city that i'd be interested in...
...and, i needed the fresh air....
i decided to try an experiment with my new drink on the way in. i had already determined, through careful measurement, that the volume of a pill bottle (that is, the area of the circular opening of the cylinder as a cross-section of the imaginary plane that intersects the cylinder orthogonally, multiplied by the length of the cylinder itself) is roughly the amount of vodka required to emulate a mix of my now unavailable rock star vodka, and that simply dumping a pill bottle of vodka into an empty bottle of mountain dew, and then filling that bottle up with mountain dew, would be an easy way to rebuild the drink. while my sense of smell has it's limitations, i was not able to sense the slightest indication of the alcoholic nature of the drink, nor was i able to remotely taste the alcohol in it. success...
the walk was a little longer than intended, and i wasn't sure i was going to get in. the initial request was in fact denied, so i took a walk around the corner to think it through and came back with a compromise:
i know you're sold out, but i'm here, and i was actually just looking to see the first band, anyways. so, would it be possible to let me in for the first set, and then we can figure out who is staying and who is leaving?
"yeah, that works, just find me after the first set."
i'm not sneaky, i'm just rational. honest.
in fact, i wasn't sure if i was going to stay for the whole show or not; it was an honest claim of intent, due to the scheduling concerns around the bus ride out. i think i had decided that it was going to depend on whether i found some drugs or not, and of course i did, and rather fast.
it's legal, but you can't buy it anywhere.
"yeah. never stopped me before."
i had seen yamantaka // sonic titan previously, at zaphod's in ottawa, back in early 2012. i remember the show being kind of intense in a noisy kind of way, even while delving into this kind of japanese opera that just came off as kind of strange. i remember not fully understanding it, and not being particularly driven to; it was a strange cultural synthesis in the sense that it was a japanese noise rock band (something i thought i understood.), albeit from canada, that came off as more traditionally japanese than any japanese noise rock band i'd ever heard before, and i was really willing to just leave it at that. i've missed them several times since, but never at this small venue here in windsor, which is itself a draw when it gets the right acts in.
listening to the new(est) record a few times before the show led me to the conclusion that they'd toned their sound down a lot, and by incorporating a kind of syrupy pop layer that, to be consistent, almost sounded k-pop or j-pop in origin. but, the band the new record reminded me most of was actually ghost, in it's combination of prog-metal type guitar riffs with keith emerson style organ masturbating and sappy pop hooks, right down to the face-painting. i might normally write something like this off as silly, but i decided on this night that it was good enough for the walk...
it's a small venue, capacity less than 100, so you literally can't be more than ten feet from the stage. as such, an aspect of the show was the rawness of it. i must say that i wasn't expecting to get the full vocal treatment with the handheld drum and the whole bit, but that the first singer (they have two singers.) really managed to fill the room up with her voice, including for the tracks that i am presuming are traditional japanese chants, but could be easily mistaken for native american singing. the show was otherwise a competent working through a sampling of the slicker, glossier and proggier side of their discography.
i needed to get out of the house, and it was worth it....
i will eventually upload the last track they did, which was a cover, but there's a recent set here, for now:
as expected, i was allowed to stay for the second set.
i had seen the acid mothers temple before as well, and i'm really not much of a fan, although i do have a fond memory of the show as i got to watch a band i'd never heard of, mammatus, completely blow them off the stage. so, i remember that acid mothers show in ottawa as the night i found mammatus. if i weren't for the mammatus set, though, i would not remember the night so well, as the acid mothers were just kind of prodding and largely boring, terms i would use to describe them in general.
i will acknowledge that they were in truth better on this night than they were on that night in ottawa, more than ten years ago, and that a lot of it had to do with their drummer doing this kind of keith moon routine, where he demonstrated his displeasure with the mopiness of the singer by descending into these cacophonous outbursts, and then got visibly scolded and even drowned out by the guitarist for it. while i think that the routine was actually real - that there is a legitimate conflict over musical direction between the singer and the drummer - it could have just as well have been an act, and considering how frequently this band cites legacy rock cliches, nobody would have questioned it, either. as it was, intentional or not, i got the reference and a bit of a kick out of it on that level. but, the basic boringness of the act remains clear, and had the drummer not repeatedly misbehaved, i would have walked away from it without much to say.
this appears to be the set from the same show as above:
the walk home was pleasant, and while i told myself i'd get everything ready before i napped, i had to succumb to the intoxicants and get some rest. but, this was actually useful to me, as it ensured i got some actual sleep before i went into toronto.
also, i hadn't been to a show in windsor in a long time and have reason to think i might not be to another one here in a long time, as well. there's just not much happening in the city that i'd be interested in...
...and, i needed the fresh air....
i decided to try an experiment with my new drink on the way in. i had already determined, through careful measurement, that the volume of a pill bottle (that is, the area of the circular opening of the cylinder as a cross-section of the imaginary plane that intersects the cylinder orthogonally, multiplied by the length of the cylinder itself) is roughly the amount of vodka required to emulate a mix of my now unavailable rock star vodka, and that simply dumping a pill bottle of vodka into an empty bottle of mountain dew, and then filling that bottle up with mountain dew, would be an easy way to rebuild the drink. while my sense of smell has it's limitations, i was not able to sense the slightest indication of the alcoholic nature of the drink, nor was i able to remotely taste the alcohol in it. success...
the walk was a little longer than intended, and i wasn't sure i was going to get in. the initial request was in fact denied, so i took a walk around the corner to think it through and came back with a compromise:
i know you're sold out, but i'm here, and i was actually just looking to see the first band, anyways. so, would it be possible to let me in for the first set, and then we can figure out who is staying and who is leaving?
"yeah, that works, just find me after the first set."
i'm not sneaky, i'm just rational. honest.
in fact, i wasn't sure if i was going to stay for the whole show or not; it was an honest claim of intent, due to the scheduling concerns around the bus ride out. i think i had decided that it was going to depend on whether i found some drugs or not, and of course i did, and rather fast.
it's legal, but you can't buy it anywhere.
"yeah. never stopped me before."
i had seen yamantaka // sonic titan previously, at zaphod's in ottawa, back in early 2012. i remember the show being kind of intense in a noisy kind of way, even while delving into this kind of japanese opera that just came off as kind of strange. i remember not fully understanding it, and not being particularly driven to; it was a strange cultural synthesis in the sense that it was a japanese noise rock band (something i thought i understood.), albeit from canada, that came off as more traditionally japanese than any japanese noise rock band i'd ever heard before, and i was really willing to just leave it at that. i've missed them several times since, but never at this small venue here in windsor, which is itself a draw when it gets the right acts in.
listening to the new(est) record a few times before the show led me to the conclusion that they'd toned their sound down a lot, and by incorporating a kind of syrupy pop layer that, to be consistent, almost sounded k-pop or j-pop in origin. but, the band the new record reminded me most of was actually ghost, in it's combination of prog-metal type guitar riffs with keith emerson style organ masturbating and sappy pop hooks, right down to the face-painting. i might normally write something like this off as silly, but i decided on this night that it was good enough for the walk...
it's a small venue, capacity less than 100, so you literally can't be more than ten feet from the stage. as such, an aspect of the show was the rawness of it. i must say that i wasn't expecting to get the full vocal treatment with the handheld drum and the whole bit, but that the first singer (they have two singers.) really managed to fill the room up with her voice, including for the tracks that i am presuming are traditional japanese chants, but could be easily mistaken for native american singing. the show was otherwise a competent working through a sampling of the slicker, glossier and proggier side of their discography.
i needed to get out of the house, and it was worth it....
i will eventually upload the last track they did, which was a cover, but there's a recent set here, for now:
as expected, i was allowed to stay for the second set.
i had seen the acid mothers temple before as well, and i'm really not much of a fan, although i do have a fond memory of the show as i got to watch a band i'd never heard of, mammatus, completely blow them off the stage. so, i remember that acid mothers show in ottawa as the night i found mammatus. if i weren't for the mammatus set, though, i would not remember the night so well, as the acid mothers were just kind of prodding and largely boring, terms i would use to describe them in general.
i will acknowledge that they were in truth better on this night than they were on that night in ottawa, more than ten years ago, and that a lot of it had to do with their drummer doing this kind of keith moon routine, where he demonstrated his displeasure with the mopiness of the singer by descending into these cacophonous outbursts, and then got visibly scolded and even drowned out by the guitarist for it. while i think that the routine was actually real - that there is a legitimate conflict over musical direction between the singer and the drummer - it could have just as well have been an act, and considering how frequently this band cites legacy rock cliches, nobody would have questioned it, either. as it was, intentional or not, i got the reference and a bit of a kick out of it on that level. but, the basic boringness of the act remains clear, and had the drummer not repeatedly misbehaved, i would have walked away from it without much to say.
this appears to be the set from the same show as above:
the walk home was pleasant, and while i told myself i'd get everything ready before i napped, i had to succumb to the intoxicants and get some rest. but, this was actually useful to me, as it ensured i got some actual sleep before i went into toronto.
at
17:02
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
so, where am i posting these concert reviews to? and where am i not posting them?
i used to have two blogs - one for the music journal & one for politics, which was also a general blog. i always intended to introduce a third one for music reviews. the travel blog was never planned, but is an idea i will probably stick with for some time; it's a reasonable subset, and i like the premise. i can build a nice history up around this. & it might even get me out of the house a bit more...
but, the breakdown that existed was kind of insufficient to get a proper partition, and things ended up kind of weird. now that i have four blogs instead of two, let's think this through better.
1) concert reviews should appear at the travel blog when they involve traveling, and not otherwise. i think that's clear enough.
2) concert reviews should always appear at the review site because they're reviews. so, this isn't complicated, yet.
3) the idea of having concert reviews at the music journal is that a concert is always an influential experience, even if it's less than inspiring. i'm going to hold to this.
4) i did not previously post reviews to the general blog, but i think i'm going to be more explicit about the general blog being general, and start doing so.
so, the la dispute review will actually appear at all four blogs, whereas the yamantaka review (to be written shortly) will not appear at the travel blog, but will appear at the other four.
as i close these blogs, i will be juggling the information around accordingly.
i used to have two blogs - one for the music journal & one for politics, which was also a general blog. i always intended to introduce a third one for music reviews. the travel blog was never planned, but is an idea i will probably stick with for some time; it's a reasonable subset, and i like the premise. i can build a nice history up around this. & it might even get me out of the house a bit more...
but, the breakdown that existed was kind of insufficient to get a proper partition, and things ended up kind of weird. now that i have four blogs instead of two, let's think this through better.
1) concert reviews should appear at the travel blog when they involve traveling, and not otherwise. i think that's clear enough.
2) concert reviews should always appear at the review site because they're reviews. so, this isn't complicated, yet.
3) the idea of having concert reviews at the music journal is that a concert is always an influential experience, even if it's less than inspiring. i'm going to hold to this.
4) i did not previously post reviews to the general blog, but i think i'm going to be more explicit about the general blog being general, and start doing so.
so, the la dispute review will actually appear at all four blogs, whereas the yamantaka review (to be written shortly) will not appear at the travel blog, but will appear at the other four.
as i close these blogs, i will be juggling the information around accordingly.
at
13:09
so, i wanted to get something done last night, but it was instead another ten hours of sleep after a very short day, which is continually frustrating.
i hate sleeping...
i'm awake now, anyways, so let's see if i can get started on this or not.
i hate sleeping...
i'm awake now, anyways, so let's see if i can get started on this or not.
at
11:24
i just want to point to this as another exhibit of the root cause of why this government is probably going to fall in some way in october, be it halfway to minority or all the way out the door, and that reason being that it's a government composed of people that live an arm's distance from everybody else.
the government has a message about the carbon tax, and it wants to get past the media filters and directly to young people, so it does up a little video to talk directly to voters. then, it posts it on the internet.
great, right - it's using modern technology to get through the media, and that's the smart thing to do, clearly.
...except they posted it on twitter. and, probably from an iphone, too.
https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjm1Z2y4d7hAhUmTd8KHQWbDjkQwqsBMAp6BAhNEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FJustinTrudeau%2Fstatus%2F1119006107622674432&usg=AOvVaw1X-jVb12wBhvIxTBwu4gZ0
i apologize for the google link, but i actually have a *twitter* line in my ad-blocking software to stop the embeds from showing up in newsfeeds. that is, i've purposefully blocked my browser from accessing the link to the video, as spam.
most people aren't going to go to such lengths to take twitter out of their lives, but my inability to even hit the link is indicative of the poor tactic being employed, here, which is itself a reflection of the bubble that the government exists within.
the reason they posted it to twitter is, of course, because they all use twitter, and that's obvious enough from observing them. they're the kinds of people that are glued to the twitter feeds on their (i)phones 24/7, and that are surrounded by other people that are glued to the twitter feeds on their (i)phones 24/7. in the absence of a representative sample, such uniformity of behaviour might actually appear normal to somebody that is behind this obfuscating veil of twitter-tinted sunglasses. but, a cursory analysis using things like statistics and market research would quickly collapse the bubble, were it to be actually carried out - pretty much the only people that use twitter are upper class liberals, that is people that act and think just like the people in the pmo. call it a circle jerk or a chant in the choir; you'd probably pick the latter, if you use twitter, even if the former is more widely stated.
and, if you were to ask them "why didn't you post it to youtube or facebook?", you might even get back some kind of snobbish response about youtube users being inferior to twitter users.
and, that's why they're going to lose.
the government has a message about the carbon tax, and it wants to get past the media filters and directly to young people, so it does up a little video to talk directly to voters. then, it posts it on the internet.
great, right - it's using modern technology to get through the media, and that's the smart thing to do, clearly.
...except they posted it on twitter. and, probably from an iphone, too.
https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjm1Z2y4d7hAhUmTd8KHQWbDjkQwqsBMAp6BAhNEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FJustinTrudeau%2Fstatus%2F1119006107622674432&usg=AOvVaw1X-jVb12wBhvIxTBwu4gZ0
i apologize for the google link, but i actually have a *twitter* line in my ad-blocking software to stop the embeds from showing up in newsfeeds. that is, i've purposefully blocked my browser from accessing the link to the video, as spam.
most people aren't going to go to such lengths to take twitter out of their lives, but my inability to even hit the link is indicative of the poor tactic being employed, here, which is itself a reflection of the bubble that the government exists within.
the reason they posted it to twitter is, of course, because they all use twitter, and that's obvious enough from observing them. they're the kinds of people that are glued to the twitter feeds on their (i)phones 24/7, and that are surrounded by other people that are glued to the twitter feeds on their (i)phones 24/7. in the absence of a representative sample, such uniformity of behaviour might actually appear normal to somebody that is behind this obfuscating veil of twitter-tinted sunglasses. but, a cursory analysis using things like statistics and market research would quickly collapse the bubble, were it to be actually carried out - pretty much the only people that use twitter are upper class liberals, that is people that act and think just like the people in the pmo. call it a circle jerk or a chant in the choir; you'd probably pick the latter, if you use twitter, even if the former is more widely stated.
and, if you were to ask them "why didn't you post it to youtube or facebook?", you might even get back some kind of snobbish response about youtube users being inferior to twitter users.
and, that's why they're going to lose.
at
09:37
Friday, April 19, 2019
i think the evidence would suggest that the child's work was in fact rather pathetic.
and, i might expand on the point by suggesting that the idea of firing or disciplining the teacher for pointing it out is also deeply pathetic.
we would be left with the conclusion that the people of pennsylvania are, all around, fairly pathetic - they send their kids to school unprepared and ignorant, then try to fire the teachers when they get evaluated. it's pretty sad, indeed.
but, we can leave pennsylvania in a state of blissful ignorance if it insists.
those jobs will just go to china, instead - where they actually teach their kids math.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/petition-calls-for-removal-of-secondgrade-teacher-after-note-reading-absolutely-pathetic-on-students-work-goes-viral-011213250.html
and, i might expand on the point by suggesting that the idea of firing or disciplining the teacher for pointing it out is also deeply pathetic.
we would be left with the conclusion that the people of pennsylvania are, all around, fairly pathetic - they send their kids to school unprepared and ignorant, then try to fire the teachers when they get evaluated. it's pretty sad, indeed.
but, we can leave pennsylvania in a state of blissful ignorance if it insists.
those jobs will just go to china, instead - where they actually teach their kids math.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/petition-calls-for-removal-of-secondgrade-teacher-after-note-reading-absolutely-pathetic-on-students-work-goes-viral-011213250.html
at
16:32
well, i got the review done, but then i crashed for another 13 hours.
let's see if i can resurrect myself...
i wanted to make some calls today, but i forgot it was a christian holiday, so i'll have to wait until monday. this is really the only way i interact with religion, nowadays - the annoyance of things being closed on weekdays.
and, the tradition of cross-posting heresy to all of my social media sites on good friday:
so, call me an arian. whatever.
i have no plans this weekend. but, i haven't eaten since tuesday morning, and need to at least catch up on the smoothies.
i expect to be back to the next archive by the end of the night.
let's see if i can resurrect myself...
i wanted to make some calls today, but i forgot it was a christian holiday, so i'll have to wait until monday. this is really the only way i interact with religion, nowadays - the annoyance of things being closed on weekdays.
and, the tradition of cross-posting heresy to all of my social media sites on good friday:
so, call me an arian. whatever.
i have no plans this weekend. but, i haven't eaten since tuesday morning, and need to at least catch up on the smoothies.
i expect to be back to the next archive by the end of the night.
at
11:17
Thursday, April 18, 2019
i almost never vomit, actually. but, i was feeling it all morning; it
was inevitable, and probably not entirely caused by the vodka, but also
contributed to by my diet and the travelling and even the coffee. it
could have happened hours earlier, really. as it is, it was the tums
that triggered it.
i often bring antacids with me when i'm drinking, because the things we drink alcohol with are so inherently acidic. how many of us assume that that stomach ache you get after your third drink is because you've had too much alcohol? in fact, it's probably acid reflux, because you've consumed a litre of carbonated pop or whatever else in the process. maybe you want to take it as a cue to quit drinking, or maybe you don't - maybe you just want to pop a few grams of calcium to balance it out, and keep going. i find the latter usually works just fine...
so, i didn't think much about it when i started to feel it in my gut - i just got some tums at the corner store, scarfed them down and went back to browsing in the coffee shop. it was a little before 18:00, when i had to run outside...
i didn't take it seriously, at first. i put a shot in my coffee on the way in, but it was a tall cup, tall enough that i could have put in two. further, it took me five hours to drink it. so, i was only on my third drink in 10 hours. sure, i just had a big cup of coffee; sure, i hadn't eaten since early in the morning. but, i wasn't going to puke on three drinks in 10 hours was i? that would be lame.
so, i just sat outside the shop for a minute and waited. it's not going to happen...
...but, yes. it is going to happen.
i made it just past the band's vans for the first iteration, which was unfortunately directly on the sidewalk. well, i wasn't taking the situation seriously. i was able to get across the street into an alleyway for round two, to the concerns of some onlookers that were smoking something in the back.
"i'm alright. just a little too much vodka. nothing serious. i'll be fine in a few minutes. sorry for freaking you out."
this was met with some visually cautious skepticism, but at least the concern faded to indifference.
but, was it really too much vodka? i've never had difficulty with such little vodka, before. while i'll acknowledge that i hadn't had any alcohol at all since last may, it still seems like an absurdly low tolerance level. so, i'm going to reject the claim that i drank too much, and rather assert quite sternly that i wasn't even drunk. rather, i suspect that the coffee and the extra strength tums may have created an acid-base reaction that actually stimulated vomiting as a pressure release; this was more like a volcanic eruption in a grade school science fair project than alcohol poisoning.
i needed a third round before i was done and able to walk off.
"i'm fine. really. i'm sorry."
that was apparently more convincing, as i got a laugh and a wave.
the reality is that i wasn't feeling drunk before i puked, and i wasn't feeling drunk after i puked, either; the nausea faded a little, if not totally, but it didn't really make much of a difference at all, in terms of how i was feeling.
i made a choice, however, to stand outside, just in case - and to put my coffee away. it was about an hour's wait until doors.
there were some kids lined up early, so i just got in line behind them and waited.
"my friend is convinced he's in a coma and everything is just a dream."
"that's so ridiculously stupid, really. obviously false."
"i agree, but, like, how do you prove to him that it's wrong?"
"actually, maybe you can't do that, can you?"
*ahem*
that's right, kids. what you'd say is that that's not even wrong, that you could never disprove it and that it is therefore worthless as a hypothesis.
"makes sense."
the fact is that i've been to lots of shows with knapsacks, and nobody has ever given me a hard time about it before, so i couldn't imagine anybody giving me a hard time about it here. i expected there would be some kind of mosh pit, but moshing (or really dancing at all) to la dispute is like dancing at a funeral - it's inappropriate, in context. they're technically a hardcore band still, but they've always leaned towards beatnik poetry, and they're coming up on a flip over the cusp, to the point that i do suspect that there will be a time in a few years when the shows are almost entirely abandoned by hardcore fans. i didn't expect that to be true of this show, but my intent was to stand a little further back, out of the pit, while sipping on a beer and listening to the lyrics.
this isn't a rejection of the pit, it's just that la dispute is not really body music, it's more of an intellectual kind of thing, something that might even be better experienced at a seated venue than a general admission punk show. if you're showing up to a la dispute concert looking to dance it up and have a good time, you're kind of missing the plot.
so, in my mind, it wouldn't be much of a problem if i brought my bag in, considering i was going to be standing in the back, anyways. but, i wasn't able to get the point across to security, who just insisted they were sold out. well, they couldn't be that sold out; surely, they're not being reasonable. but, i simply wasn't getting in with the bag, so i had to relent and leave it at coat check, along with everything in it. they insisted it was safe...
so, i get in and learn it's $9 for a beer at the opera house in toronto. it was at least a big beer, but i only got one...
the place was about half full for the first act, called slow mass, which didn't make much of an impression on me. what they sound like is a parody of mopey 90s alt rock, without even the minimal amounts of tension that you got out of a genre that was intended to town done. there were some unnecessary outbursts of noise by the drummer and guitarist, but it just kind of added to the buttoned up feel of the show by telling the audience that the band itself recognizes that they are actually boring, and are even bored with being boring. while the self-awareness is perhaps a positive step, i don't have much else to say about this, other than to point out that this is indiscernible from any of the other thousand bands that have sounded exactly like this over the last forty years.
i let them finish, downed my beer and then went to retrieve my marijuana
from my bag, which i had absent-mindedly left in there when i was
unexpectedly coat-checked. i wasn't sure if it would be a hassle or
not...
"sorry, there's just too many bags."
and, there were, indeed, a lot of bags.
"listen, i could understand if there was a long line-up here and i was in your way, but it looks like the place has mostly filled up, and you're just kind of sitting around, so..."
"were you in recently or near the start?"
"i was one of the first people in."
"so, i'm going to have to sort through this to the bottom. there's no way."
"well, you're going to have to do this eventually, right?"
"what?"
"well, i'm going to eventually pick the bag up."
"but, that's only if you're here at the start of the line."
"i need to catch a bus out."
"so, i'll have to do it anyways. ugh. fine. i'm making you pay to recheck it, though: $4."
it was a good night for logic in toronto, at least.
i've rolled up a lot of marijuana in a lot of toilet stalls in a lot of cities, but this was the first time it was actually legal.....
a few minutes later, and i'm overhearing some lesbians talk to each other, as they're standing a few feet in front of me.
"my grandmother thinks we're all monsters. like, she seriously thinks we're evil. it's crazy. i love my grandmother and everything, but it kind of scares me. so, i'm just never telling her. ever. we're just not having this talk. she'll die thinking i'm straight."
i had to interject.
until she starts bothering you about having kids, then you're going to have to bring it up.
laughs from the crowd, as always.
"she already bugs me."
it's just going to get worse.
"well, it's not like i don't plan to have kids. i'll have kids, just not with a dude."
you're still going to have to bring it up.
"well..."
listen, studies have been done on this. your grandmother is an individual, but homophobic people often find themselves with a change of opinion when they are confronted with queer family members, as it presents them with a reality rather than an abstraction. i mean, she's going to go to some church or something..
"mosque."
right. whatever. so, she's going to go to that mosque, and they're going to say all kinds of hateful, damaging things about queer people as though they're some distant other, as though they don't actually exist as human beings, but then she's going to go home and see somebody she loves, and she's going to have to make a choice to trust these words that are thrown at her abstractly by this stranger on a podium, or a person in front of her that she know and loves and trusts.
"i'm not telling her."
that bad, huh?
a passing homeless person then interrupted the conversation with a request for change, of which neither of us had any. but, the other lesbian was upset about it.
"i wish i had some change. i once gave somebody $20."
the male member of the group that included the two lesbians is upset about this.
"you gave him $20?"
"i'm a generous person."
"but, they're all drug addicts. it's really hard to be homeless in canada, you know."
ugh. not on my sidewalk.
poverty does exist, you know. i mean, it might be true that there's a high percentage of drug addicts in the homeless population, but you can't just jump to the conclusion that if you're homeless then you're a drug addict. that would just be wrong.
(some applause on the street)
but, he didn't want a debate; he went inside, and i followed not far behind him.
the fiasco with the bag, and subsequent detour rolling and smoking, meant i actually missed most of the second band's set. the place also filled up to the brim in the time i was gone, forcing me to watch from the landing, which was actually the plan anyways, but perhaps not in the space i ended up in. gouge away are named after a pixies track, and sounded like it. the following audiotree set has some generic pixies-type tracks and some noisier hardcore; the bit of the set that i caught was in the generic pixies-type track style, and didn't appeal much to me. in fact, i decided to find somewhere to sit and take a rest...
i went directly back to the floor when the set was done, trying to
measure the size of the crowd and how to set up and came to the
conclusion that the place was packed as tight as possible; they weren't
exaggerating about the place being sold out, and there really wasn't
room to stand with a bag. that said, leaving my bag in coat check didn't
all of a sudden make me want to go into the pit - i was still hoping to
hang back a little and just watch. but there was barely even anywhere
to stand. so, i decided i'd wait the pit out a little and then try and
work my way in.
they started off with some less intense tracks, so i couldn't really get a feel on the size of the pit, or what was going to happen when they clicked in. if i could get some separation so that i could stand on the edge of the pit, it could work, but there just didn't look like there was much space. i was hoping to wait a little longer, wait for them to tire themselves out, so i could move up. but, the opposite happened: i saw the train of frat boys walk by me from the back a few songs in, and realized i was going to need to hang back.
if i had a chance to escape the back at that point, it closed pretty quickly, as this annoying teenage girl decided she was going to dance in front of me all night. i've been through this before; the girl wants to dance, but she doesn't want to get molested at the punk show, so she parks herself directly on top of the obvious fag, after testing it first to make sure it's safe. it's then my instant responsibility to make sure she's safe until she walks off, whether i asked for it or not and she inevitably gets pissy when i don't react, which is really quite the contradiction. if you check my reviews, you'll see me point to this happening repeatedly, and pretty much always at punk shows. in general, i can handle this - i can even enjoy dancing, and often do - but the lack of space on this floor, combined with the nature of the music, just made the scenario comical. even if there was space to dance, i would not have wanted to on this night - i wanted to watch the band. a lot of these lyrics are really quite morbid. and, this girl wanted to dance too - bumping into me repeatedly, flipping her hair around and just generally trying to get me grooving. nope...
in order to get by her, i would have had to shove her out of the way, and i wasn't going to do that. i didn't see any obvious space, anyway, as the pit seemed to take up most of the floor, and nothing was opening up. so, i spent most of the concert trying to dodge tassled hair flying into my face from this hyperactive kid that was hopping all over me, apparently desiring some kind of response.
if they had played for another hour, i would have moved up. alas...
and, what of these moshers? is it not somewhat perverse to mosh to la dispute? if anything, they ate it up. it was lines like "we buried our son today!" that got the pit in motion. i'm not going to pretend i understand that, but so be it. i'd rather be a little bit more sombre about such things and watch quietly from the side...
how was the show, though?
this is the third time i saw la dispute, but the second time was an acoustic set in detroit. the first time i saw them was with touche amore & balance & composure at maverick's in ottawa in 2011, and what i remember about the show is that the songs were unrecognizable when compared to the recordings. at the time, i decided that i hadn't listened to the material that much, and i was just not following it because i didn't know it. but, the same thing happened in toronto, on this night - i could sort of make out the songs, but not really. i mean, some of them were clear, but some of them seemed radically different and hard to follow.
i'm left to wonder if the band radically rearranges it's studio material for performance - or perhaps radically rearranges it's live material in studio - and if there's an entirely parallel discography that i'm not aware of. the other option is that the sound tech is terrible, but this seems unlikely, given that i experienced the same thing in two different bars, in two different cities and separated by 7.5 years.
a quick run through the setlist suggests that it may have mostly been tracks from rooms of the house that were rearranged, and i guess i can get my head around that, even if it threw me for a bit of a loop. there's some bands you go to see just expecting something new, and there's some that you go to see with the discography burned directly into your cortex, and la dispute are really in the latter category.
i don't want to play the show down; i enjoyed the components that i recognized, even as i was spitting the hair out of my mouth and craning my neck around to get a view. but, there were tracks i only half-recognized, and it left me wondering what was really going on.
i can't currently find a recent show on youtube and don't want to post an old one, so we'll leave this space open until one appears.
(insert youtube link)
i wasn't first in line, but i was near the front of the line, and the coat check had it ready for me.
"see, this is actually better, right? 'cause the line moves faster."
"oh, shut up."
"ok. have a good night.."
i had to step into the bathroom for a few minutes, again.
i was out before 11:30, so i just walked back to the greyhound. the subways were all closed, unfortunately, so no late night sub on the bus. it was a short wait, meaning i have a working model, even if this is not a frequent trip.
the migraine and the rain started almost immediately, and almost simultaneously, leaving me crunched up in pain and kind of freaked out, at the same time. i tried to sleep the migraine off, but it wouldn't come. the rain was so heavy that you could barely see the streetlamps, making it hard to tell where i actually was. yet, the driver of this express bus was not interested in slowing down, regardless of visibility, of the slippery roads or of the potholes that the bus was ripping through. but, it actually seemed like a short ride, somehow. and, i was in windsor and off the bus in no time - and home by around 6:30 in the morning.
so, would i do that again? yeah, for the right act. i just wish the weather was a little nicer.
i often bring antacids with me when i'm drinking, because the things we drink alcohol with are so inherently acidic. how many of us assume that that stomach ache you get after your third drink is because you've had too much alcohol? in fact, it's probably acid reflux, because you've consumed a litre of carbonated pop or whatever else in the process. maybe you want to take it as a cue to quit drinking, or maybe you don't - maybe you just want to pop a few grams of calcium to balance it out, and keep going. i find the latter usually works just fine...
so, i didn't think much about it when i started to feel it in my gut - i just got some tums at the corner store, scarfed them down and went back to browsing in the coffee shop. it was a little before 18:00, when i had to run outside...
i didn't take it seriously, at first. i put a shot in my coffee on the way in, but it was a tall cup, tall enough that i could have put in two. further, it took me five hours to drink it. so, i was only on my third drink in 10 hours. sure, i just had a big cup of coffee; sure, i hadn't eaten since early in the morning. but, i wasn't going to puke on three drinks in 10 hours was i? that would be lame.
so, i just sat outside the shop for a minute and waited. it's not going to happen...
...but, yes. it is going to happen.
i made it just past the band's vans for the first iteration, which was unfortunately directly on the sidewalk. well, i wasn't taking the situation seriously. i was able to get across the street into an alleyway for round two, to the concerns of some onlookers that were smoking something in the back.
"i'm alright. just a little too much vodka. nothing serious. i'll be fine in a few minutes. sorry for freaking you out."
this was met with some visually cautious skepticism, but at least the concern faded to indifference.
but, was it really too much vodka? i've never had difficulty with such little vodka, before. while i'll acknowledge that i hadn't had any alcohol at all since last may, it still seems like an absurdly low tolerance level. so, i'm going to reject the claim that i drank too much, and rather assert quite sternly that i wasn't even drunk. rather, i suspect that the coffee and the extra strength tums may have created an acid-base reaction that actually stimulated vomiting as a pressure release; this was more like a volcanic eruption in a grade school science fair project than alcohol poisoning.
i needed a third round before i was done and able to walk off.
"i'm fine. really. i'm sorry."
that was apparently more convincing, as i got a laugh and a wave.
the reality is that i wasn't feeling drunk before i puked, and i wasn't feeling drunk after i puked, either; the nausea faded a little, if not totally, but it didn't really make much of a difference at all, in terms of how i was feeling.
i made a choice, however, to stand outside, just in case - and to put my coffee away. it was about an hour's wait until doors.
there were some kids lined up early, so i just got in line behind them and waited.
"my friend is convinced he's in a coma and everything is just a dream."
"that's so ridiculously stupid, really. obviously false."
"i agree, but, like, how do you prove to him that it's wrong?"
"actually, maybe you can't do that, can you?"
*ahem*
that's right, kids. what you'd say is that that's not even wrong, that you could never disprove it and that it is therefore worthless as a hypothesis.
"makes sense."
the fact is that i've been to lots of shows with knapsacks, and nobody has ever given me a hard time about it before, so i couldn't imagine anybody giving me a hard time about it here. i expected there would be some kind of mosh pit, but moshing (or really dancing at all) to la dispute is like dancing at a funeral - it's inappropriate, in context. they're technically a hardcore band still, but they've always leaned towards beatnik poetry, and they're coming up on a flip over the cusp, to the point that i do suspect that there will be a time in a few years when the shows are almost entirely abandoned by hardcore fans. i didn't expect that to be true of this show, but my intent was to stand a little further back, out of the pit, while sipping on a beer and listening to the lyrics.
this isn't a rejection of the pit, it's just that la dispute is not really body music, it's more of an intellectual kind of thing, something that might even be better experienced at a seated venue than a general admission punk show. if you're showing up to a la dispute concert looking to dance it up and have a good time, you're kind of missing the plot.
so, in my mind, it wouldn't be much of a problem if i brought my bag in, considering i was going to be standing in the back, anyways. but, i wasn't able to get the point across to security, who just insisted they were sold out. well, they couldn't be that sold out; surely, they're not being reasonable. but, i simply wasn't getting in with the bag, so i had to relent and leave it at coat check, along with everything in it. they insisted it was safe...
so, i get in and learn it's $9 for a beer at the opera house in toronto. it was at least a big beer, but i only got one...
the place was about half full for the first act, called slow mass, which didn't make much of an impression on me. what they sound like is a parody of mopey 90s alt rock, without even the minimal amounts of tension that you got out of a genre that was intended to town done. there were some unnecessary outbursts of noise by the drummer and guitarist, but it just kind of added to the buttoned up feel of the show by telling the audience that the band itself recognizes that they are actually boring, and are even bored with being boring. while the self-awareness is perhaps a positive step, i don't have much else to say about this, other than to point out that this is indiscernible from any of the other thousand bands that have sounded exactly like this over the last forty years.
"sorry, there's just too many bags."
and, there were, indeed, a lot of bags.
"listen, i could understand if there was a long line-up here and i was in your way, but it looks like the place has mostly filled up, and you're just kind of sitting around, so..."
"were you in recently or near the start?"
"i was one of the first people in."
"so, i'm going to have to sort through this to the bottom. there's no way."
"well, you're going to have to do this eventually, right?"
"what?"
"well, i'm going to eventually pick the bag up."
"but, that's only if you're here at the start of the line."
"i need to catch a bus out."
"so, i'll have to do it anyways. ugh. fine. i'm making you pay to recheck it, though: $4."
it was a good night for logic in toronto, at least.
i've rolled up a lot of marijuana in a lot of toilet stalls in a lot of cities, but this was the first time it was actually legal.....
a few minutes later, and i'm overhearing some lesbians talk to each other, as they're standing a few feet in front of me.
"my grandmother thinks we're all monsters. like, she seriously thinks we're evil. it's crazy. i love my grandmother and everything, but it kind of scares me. so, i'm just never telling her. ever. we're just not having this talk. she'll die thinking i'm straight."
i had to interject.
until she starts bothering you about having kids, then you're going to have to bring it up.
laughs from the crowd, as always.
"she already bugs me."
it's just going to get worse.
"well, it's not like i don't plan to have kids. i'll have kids, just not with a dude."
you're still going to have to bring it up.
"well..."
listen, studies have been done on this. your grandmother is an individual, but homophobic people often find themselves with a change of opinion when they are confronted with queer family members, as it presents them with a reality rather than an abstraction. i mean, she's going to go to some church or something..
"mosque."
right. whatever. so, she's going to go to that mosque, and they're going to say all kinds of hateful, damaging things about queer people as though they're some distant other, as though they don't actually exist as human beings, but then she's going to go home and see somebody she loves, and she's going to have to make a choice to trust these words that are thrown at her abstractly by this stranger on a podium, or a person in front of her that she know and loves and trusts.
"i'm not telling her."
that bad, huh?
a passing homeless person then interrupted the conversation with a request for change, of which neither of us had any. but, the other lesbian was upset about it.
"i wish i had some change. i once gave somebody $20."
the male member of the group that included the two lesbians is upset about this.
"you gave him $20?"
"i'm a generous person."
"but, they're all drug addicts. it's really hard to be homeless in canada, you know."
ugh. not on my sidewalk.
poverty does exist, you know. i mean, it might be true that there's a high percentage of drug addicts in the homeless population, but you can't just jump to the conclusion that if you're homeless then you're a drug addict. that would just be wrong.
(some applause on the street)
but, he didn't want a debate; he went inside, and i followed not far behind him.
the fiasco with the bag, and subsequent detour rolling and smoking, meant i actually missed most of the second band's set. the place also filled up to the brim in the time i was gone, forcing me to watch from the landing, which was actually the plan anyways, but perhaps not in the space i ended up in. gouge away are named after a pixies track, and sounded like it. the following audiotree set has some generic pixies-type tracks and some noisier hardcore; the bit of the set that i caught was in the generic pixies-type track style, and didn't appeal much to me. in fact, i decided to find somewhere to sit and take a rest...
they started off with some less intense tracks, so i couldn't really get a feel on the size of the pit, or what was going to happen when they clicked in. if i could get some separation so that i could stand on the edge of the pit, it could work, but there just didn't look like there was much space. i was hoping to wait a little longer, wait for them to tire themselves out, so i could move up. but, the opposite happened: i saw the train of frat boys walk by me from the back a few songs in, and realized i was going to need to hang back.
if i had a chance to escape the back at that point, it closed pretty quickly, as this annoying teenage girl decided she was going to dance in front of me all night. i've been through this before; the girl wants to dance, but she doesn't want to get molested at the punk show, so she parks herself directly on top of the obvious fag, after testing it first to make sure it's safe. it's then my instant responsibility to make sure she's safe until she walks off, whether i asked for it or not and she inevitably gets pissy when i don't react, which is really quite the contradiction. if you check my reviews, you'll see me point to this happening repeatedly, and pretty much always at punk shows. in general, i can handle this - i can even enjoy dancing, and often do - but the lack of space on this floor, combined with the nature of the music, just made the scenario comical. even if there was space to dance, i would not have wanted to on this night - i wanted to watch the band. a lot of these lyrics are really quite morbid. and, this girl wanted to dance too - bumping into me repeatedly, flipping her hair around and just generally trying to get me grooving. nope...
in order to get by her, i would have had to shove her out of the way, and i wasn't going to do that. i didn't see any obvious space, anyway, as the pit seemed to take up most of the floor, and nothing was opening up. so, i spent most of the concert trying to dodge tassled hair flying into my face from this hyperactive kid that was hopping all over me, apparently desiring some kind of response.
if they had played for another hour, i would have moved up. alas...
and, what of these moshers? is it not somewhat perverse to mosh to la dispute? if anything, they ate it up. it was lines like "we buried our son today!" that got the pit in motion. i'm not going to pretend i understand that, but so be it. i'd rather be a little bit more sombre about such things and watch quietly from the side...
how was the show, though?
this is the third time i saw la dispute, but the second time was an acoustic set in detroit. the first time i saw them was with touche amore & balance & composure at maverick's in ottawa in 2011, and what i remember about the show is that the songs were unrecognizable when compared to the recordings. at the time, i decided that i hadn't listened to the material that much, and i was just not following it because i didn't know it. but, the same thing happened in toronto, on this night - i could sort of make out the songs, but not really. i mean, some of them were clear, but some of them seemed radically different and hard to follow.
i'm left to wonder if the band radically rearranges it's studio material for performance - or perhaps radically rearranges it's live material in studio - and if there's an entirely parallel discography that i'm not aware of. the other option is that the sound tech is terrible, but this seems unlikely, given that i experienced the same thing in two different bars, in two different cities and separated by 7.5 years.
a quick run through the setlist suggests that it may have mostly been tracks from rooms of the house that were rearranged, and i guess i can get my head around that, even if it threw me for a bit of a loop. there's some bands you go to see just expecting something new, and there's some that you go to see with the discography burned directly into your cortex, and la dispute are really in the latter category.
i don't want to play the show down; i enjoyed the components that i recognized, even as i was spitting the hair out of my mouth and craning my neck around to get a view. but, there were tracks i only half-recognized, and it left me wondering what was really going on.
i can't currently find a recent show on youtube and don't want to post an old one, so we'll leave this space open until one appears.
(insert youtube link)
i wasn't first in line, but i was near the front of the line, and the coat check had it ready for me.
"see, this is actually better, right? 'cause the line moves faster."
"oh, shut up."
"ok. have a good night.."
i had to step into the bathroom for a few minutes, again.
i was out before 11:30, so i just walked back to the greyhound. the subways were all closed, unfortunately, so no late night sub on the bus. it was a short wait, meaning i have a working model, even if this is not a frequent trip.
the migraine and the rain started almost immediately, and almost simultaneously, leaving me crunched up in pain and kind of freaked out, at the same time. i tried to sleep the migraine off, but it wouldn't come. the rain was so heavy that you could barely see the streetlamps, making it hard to tell where i actually was. yet, the driver of this express bus was not interested in slowing down, regardless of visibility, of the slippery roads or of the potholes that the bus was ripping through. but, it actually seemed like a short ride, somehow. and, i was in windsor and off the bus in no time - and home by around 6:30 in the morning.
so, would i do that again? yeah, for the right act. i just wish the weather was a little nicer.
at
20:24
it's now thursday afternoon, and i'm typing from home in windsor. i
wanted to do some typing on the bus on the way home, but the migraine
hit as soon as i sat down, and i was really just done for the ride; i
wasn't able to sleep it off as i like to, but i nonetheless didn't want
to do anything except roll up in a ball. as mentioned, i was nauseous on
the way in as well, so i'm thinking it was partly to do with the air
quality on the bus. the third hand smoke was noticeable - even after i'd
smoked a few myself - but i'm wondering if it was more about a lack of
circulation. it was also raining very hard through a lot of the ride,
and i know i'm sensitive to the weather. whatever it was, it actually
made the trip seem very short, as uncomfortable as it was.
i wanted to eat and shower first, but i was passed out within minutes of coming in on wednesday morning. i've tried to wake up a few times since yesterday afternoon, but it hasn't really succeeded; i've mostly been asleep since i got home. well, i'm up now, so i'm going to pick up where i left off...
i wanted to eat and shower first, but i was passed out within minutes of coming in on wednesday morning. i've tried to wake up a few times since yesterday afternoon, but it hasn't really succeeded; i've mostly been asleep since i got home. well, i'm up now, so i'm going to pick up where i left off...
at
16:03
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
so, i got a large amount of sleep....
i hadn't slept much in days; i crashed when i got in yesterday morning, then again last night, and then again this morning. so, i was awake for a few hours yesterday, and a few hours this morning, but never really got up. i think i'm finally awake...
i wasn't hungry when i got in, either, which is extra strange.
i wanted to make some calls today, but i guess it will need to wait until tomorrow.
so, i'm going to get to finishing up those reviews at the travel blog, and cross-post them properly, and then get back to rebuilding the archive for august, 2013 - which should be much shorter than the one for july. let's try to get this done for the weekend...
i hadn't slept much in days; i crashed when i got in yesterday morning, then again last night, and then again this morning. so, i was awake for a few hours yesterday, and a few hours this morning, but never really got up. i think i'm finally awake...
i wasn't hungry when i got in, either, which is extra strange.
i wanted to make some calls today, but i guess it will need to wait until tomorrow.
so, i'm going to get to finishing up those reviews at the travel blog, and cross-post them properly, and then get back to rebuilding the archive for august, 2013 - which should be much shorter than the one for july. let's try to get this done for the weekend...
at
15:03
the more that i listen to the arguments against the secularism bill in quebec, the more i'm beginning to understand the debate as an argument between american and french concepts of secularism.
this was recently released in a statement by the mayor of montreal, who opposes the bill.
that the City of Montreal reaffirm the importance of the secularism of municipal rules debated and passed in our democratic institutions, without regard for the religion of those who make the rules, debate them or apply them.
that is essentially the establishment clause of the first amendment to the united states constitution - it is a quintessentially american way to understand secularism.
the french revolution produced the following statement:
Article X – No one may be disturbed for his opinions, even religious ones, provided that their manifestation does not trouble the public order established by the law.
this is a dramatically different statement. whereas the american constitution rejects any sort of law about religion at all, the french revolutionaries rather argued for conditions in which the state has the authority to intervene and produce laws that restrict "religious freedom", under the condition that the religion is troubling the public order as established by the law, which i think is clearly the case when it comes to allowing teachers to bring religious symbols into the classroom.
it wasn't really clear until they wrote it down, but once they did, it became clear what is happening here: the (largely anglophone) opposition is trying to apply an american concept of religious freedom to quebec law, whereas quebeckers are overwhelmingly pushing back with a more francophone conception of it, rooted in their own history and their own revolutionary discourse.
and, what do the laws in canada say? are they more like the establishment clause, that forbids any religious legislation, or more like article X, which sets a condition on appropriate state regulation?
our constitutional and human rights documents simply list "freedom of religion" in a list of freedoms that a person has, with little further clarification. our constitution certainly has nothing at all like an establishment clause, but it does allow for two ways to suspend rights: (1) through judicial interpretation and (2) through the notwithstanding clause. so, our human rights framework when it comes to religion is substantively more similar to that which exists in france than that which exists in the united states.
i haven't changed my views: i support the thrust of the law, but think it should be subject to judicial interpretation to smooth the edges out around it.
but, the arguments coming from the opposition are perhaps demonstrating more about their mindset than they realize.
quebec is not a part of the united states, and does not share a legal or political history with the thirteen colonies. it was rather a rival colony, from an entirely different country, with an entirely different legal tradition, and, whether anybody realizes it or not, showing up in montreal and citing jeffersonian arguments from the united states constitution as an argument against the rights of the state to enforce a policy of secularism is exactly the kind of cultural infringement they're trying to prevent; the more that valerie plante pushes the establishment clause over article X, the more she demonstrates the need for the law.
this was recently released in a statement by the mayor of montreal, who opposes the bill.
that the City of Montreal reaffirm the importance of the secularism of municipal rules debated and passed in our democratic institutions, without regard for the religion of those who make the rules, debate them or apply them.
that is essentially the establishment clause of the first amendment to the united states constitution - it is a quintessentially american way to understand secularism.
the french revolution produced the following statement:
Article X – No one may be disturbed for his opinions, even religious ones, provided that their manifestation does not trouble the public order established by the law.
this is a dramatically different statement. whereas the american constitution rejects any sort of law about religion at all, the french revolutionaries rather argued for conditions in which the state has the authority to intervene and produce laws that restrict "religious freedom", under the condition that the religion is troubling the public order as established by the law, which i think is clearly the case when it comes to allowing teachers to bring religious symbols into the classroom.
it wasn't really clear until they wrote it down, but once they did, it became clear what is happening here: the (largely anglophone) opposition is trying to apply an american concept of religious freedom to quebec law, whereas quebeckers are overwhelmingly pushing back with a more francophone conception of it, rooted in their own history and their own revolutionary discourse.
and, what do the laws in canada say? are they more like the establishment clause, that forbids any religious legislation, or more like article X, which sets a condition on appropriate state regulation?
our constitutional and human rights documents simply list "freedom of religion" in a list of freedoms that a person has, with little further clarification. our constitution certainly has nothing at all like an establishment clause, but it does allow for two ways to suspend rights: (1) through judicial interpretation and (2) through the notwithstanding clause. so, our human rights framework when it comes to religion is substantively more similar to that which exists in france than that which exists in the united states.
i haven't changed my views: i support the thrust of the law, but think it should be subject to judicial interpretation to smooth the edges out around it.
but, the arguments coming from the opposition are perhaps demonstrating more about their mindset than they realize.
quebec is not a part of the united states, and does not share a legal or political history with the thirteen colonies. it was rather a rival colony, from an entirely different country, with an entirely different legal tradition, and, whether anybody realizes it or not, showing up in montreal and citing jeffersonian arguments from the united states constitution as an argument against the rights of the state to enforce a policy of secularism is exactly the kind of cultural infringement they're trying to prevent; the more that valerie plante pushes the establishment clause over article X, the more she demonstrates the need for the law.
at
14:19
it would be nice if people would send me some links, though.
i have this moderate perception that there's an entire, alternate reality of which i'm a part of, and that i don't actually know exists. and, i simply don't have the social network required to find it. somebody is going to have to tell me where it is...
i have this moderate perception that there's an entire, alternate reality of which i'm a part of, and that i don't actually know exists. and, i simply don't have the social network required to find it. somebody is going to have to tell me where it is...
at
03:02
see, this is the fun part, though - because i have no interest in exerting any kind of power over anybody, and i don't remotely care what you think of me, i'll still be here typing when all of today's politicians are out of the papers.
so, you can smear me all you want; i really, honestly don't give a fuck. anybody that actually wants to read what i have to say can come here and learn the truth, and if you're too stupid to do that then i can't be bothered with you, anyways. the smears won't silence me, or keep me away. and, over time, honesty always wins, because people eventually check the facts.
so, you can smear me all you want; i really, honestly don't give a fuck. anybody that actually wants to read what i have to say can come here and learn the truth, and if you're too stupid to do that then i can't be bothered with you, anyways. the smears won't silence me, or keep me away. and, over time, honesty always wins, because people eventually check the facts.
at
03:00
i've spent my whole life trying to avoid responsibility in order to maximize my own freedom.
it would be entirely incoherent for me to decide all of a sudden that i want responsibility over everybody else.
it would be entirely incoherent for me to decide all of a sudden that i want responsibility over everybody else.
at
02:42
there's a strain in socratic philosophy that argues that it is better to watch the olympic games than take part, as it is a more enjoyable experience to observe and analyze from a distance than to participate or compete directly on the ground.
my head has been in that space since i was a kid, when i didn't care that i never got picked because i'd rather watch anyways.
and, this is the other point about asking me what kind of politician it is that i'm like. politicians have to win elections, which means they have to have some kind of interest in the popular will, be willing to present themselves in a way that is appealing to the masses, etc. i don't have the slightest fucking interest in being popular, i never did and i'm not going to develop one to get a job that i don't actually want.
if you're coming at me from this angle, you're hopelessly wrong. i'm an activist, i'm an artist, i'm a thinker, i'm a rambler - i'm not an actor, or a dictator, or a leader or much of a participant in much of anything at all.
i have always stood from a distance and watched, and i will continue to do so, as long as i can.
my head has been in that space since i was a kid, when i didn't care that i never got picked because i'd rather watch anyways.
and, this is the other point about asking me what kind of politician it is that i'm like. politicians have to win elections, which means they have to have some kind of interest in the popular will, be willing to present themselves in a way that is appealing to the masses, etc. i don't have the slightest fucking interest in being popular, i never did and i'm not going to develop one to get a job that i don't actually want.
if you're coming at me from this angle, you're hopelessly wrong. i'm an activist, i'm an artist, i'm a thinker, i'm a rambler - i'm not an actor, or a dictator, or a leader or much of a participant in much of anything at all.
i have always stood from a distance and watched, and i will continue to do so, as long as i can.
at
02:31
what politician am i most like, in terms of personality traits?
i would be a terrible politician, and i don't want to be one, and i don't know why anybody would think i would want to be one. what i am is a left-wing social activist that places the abolition of property rights as my most pressing political concern, and rejects the concept of state authority.
to be a politician, you have to be able to at least feign working in groups - something i am absolutely terrible at, regardless of context. i couldn't work in groups - even groups of two - at school. i was the kid that insisted on doing the group project by myself. i can't work with other musicians. i wasn't able to work in teams at work, either. technically speaking, the reason i live on disability is that i can't work in groups due to the presence of overwhelming social anxiety, and you have to be able to work in groups to do much of anything.
or, if you can't work as a team, you have to be a dictator, and i can't even handle ordering a pet around. sit. lay down. oh, whatever, i don't give a fuck. "power is the province of miserable pricks".
so, the answer to the question is that i don't have a personality type that is well-suited for politics, and there really isn't a very close comparison in the spectrum. i am not a politician, but a political analyst; not an actor, but an observer. so, if you want a comparison, you need to look away from the stage and more towards the sidelines, where you start seeing better comparisons: chomsky, voltaire, paine, etc.
i would be a terrible politician, and i don't want to be one, and i don't know why anybody would think i would want to be one. what i am is a left-wing social activist that places the abolition of property rights as my most pressing political concern, and rejects the concept of state authority.
to be a politician, you have to be able to at least feign working in groups - something i am absolutely terrible at, regardless of context. i couldn't work in groups - even groups of two - at school. i was the kid that insisted on doing the group project by myself. i can't work with other musicians. i wasn't able to work in teams at work, either. technically speaking, the reason i live on disability is that i can't work in groups due to the presence of overwhelming social anxiety, and you have to be able to work in groups to do much of anything.
or, if you can't work as a team, you have to be a dictator, and i can't even handle ordering a pet around. sit. lay down. oh, whatever, i don't give a fuck. "power is the province of miserable pricks".
so, the answer to the question is that i don't have a personality type that is well-suited for politics, and there really isn't a very close comparison in the spectrum. i am not a politician, but a political analyst; not an actor, but an observer. so, if you want a comparison, you need to look away from the stage and more towards the sidelines, where you start seeing better comparisons: chomsky, voltaire, paine, etc.
at
02:13
that cathedral in france was always a sign of christian colonialism and roman occupation. they should tear it down to the ground and build a museum for celtic studies on the former site.
at
00:54
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
the way that trudeau uses the term "diversity" is actually quite similar to the way that upper-class, white southerners, usually democrats, always racist, would use the term "colour" before the 1960s.
at
18:30
kenney has problems with the gays, but his racism is actually quite subtle, as he fully realizes that the kind of socially conservative immigrant that he wants comes from the religious societies in asia and africa, and not the liberal countries of europe or south america. he may be unlikely to accept a coalition with non-white leadership, but he's more open to the ideas that immigrants bring in with them, because they're not very different from his own ideas. so, kenney sees the immigrant as an ally in his quest for a more conservative world, even if he wishes to retain power for himself and his own kind - it's racism lite, a subtler way to be white.
trudeau's racism is more visceral, which is ever the more obvious given that he fucks up every once and again with outbursts of disdain and superiority. there's a list of pretty brutal comments, at this point. the jig is up, really. so, he hides his hate in these choreographed displays of "diversity", using clinical language out of a marketing class. his white supremacy is more absolute, in that he's happy to parade as many different-looking people around him as he can find, but he doesn't have the slightest interest in listening to a word that they actually say, or offering up any kind of position of real authority. how about the bizarre reaction to the raybould resignation/firing, which really had nothing to do with race: diversity only works when it is rooted in trust. what the actual fuck does that even mean? it may appear as incomprehensible word salad on first glance, but it really reveals a fundamentally racist world view: she really was just a token indian in cabinet. so, trudeau sees the immigrant as a voter to control at a distance within a class hierarchy with a white, liberal elite at the top. it's racism with a smile, and you just don't talk about it, because it's not polite.
while the reality is that trudeau is probably defaulting to this because he wants to create a wedge issue with minority voters and can't figure anything else out, that by vilifying kenney as a racist he's essentially acknowledging that he can't compete with him on ideas with immigrant voters and is stuck trying to scare people instead, what you're going to get out of trudeau on this is a lot of projection. most of what trudeau is going to throw out there about his opponents is going to be more true of himself than of them, and it's exactly the reason he's going to throw it out there.
and, a part of the reason that the tories tend to win the immigrant vote in canada is because immigrants can see through this clearly enough. the conservatives are actually willing to accept them for who they are and reflect their actual values; the liberals just pander to them for votes with fake appeals to togetherness, while then passing laws that they stringently oppose.
the liberals are at a dead-end with this. they've tried to build a party around cultural inclusion, only to find out that majorities in all of these different cultures would rather live in a christian society than a secular one, and that the path to multiculturalism is through the destruction of liberalism, rather than the elevation of it. in the mean time, they've alienated swaths of white voters, who are actually liberal and secular in their beliefs.
but, trudeau doesn't live in reality, he lives in a bubble that is curated by his advisors. and, he could very well spend the next six months tilting at these aforementioned windmills, slaying the monster that is the projection of his own inner, racist demons.
trudeau's racism is more visceral, which is ever the more obvious given that he fucks up every once and again with outbursts of disdain and superiority. there's a list of pretty brutal comments, at this point. the jig is up, really. so, he hides his hate in these choreographed displays of "diversity", using clinical language out of a marketing class. his white supremacy is more absolute, in that he's happy to parade as many different-looking people around him as he can find, but he doesn't have the slightest interest in listening to a word that they actually say, or offering up any kind of position of real authority. how about the bizarre reaction to the raybould resignation/firing, which really had nothing to do with race: diversity only works when it is rooted in trust. what the actual fuck does that even mean? it may appear as incomprehensible word salad on first glance, but it really reveals a fundamentally racist world view: she really was just a token indian in cabinet. so, trudeau sees the immigrant as a voter to control at a distance within a class hierarchy with a white, liberal elite at the top. it's racism with a smile, and you just don't talk about it, because it's not polite.
while the reality is that trudeau is probably defaulting to this because he wants to create a wedge issue with minority voters and can't figure anything else out, that by vilifying kenney as a racist he's essentially acknowledging that he can't compete with him on ideas with immigrant voters and is stuck trying to scare people instead, what you're going to get out of trudeau on this is a lot of projection. most of what trudeau is going to throw out there about his opponents is going to be more true of himself than of them, and it's exactly the reason he's going to throw it out there.
and, a part of the reason that the tories tend to win the immigrant vote in canada is because immigrants can see through this clearly enough. the conservatives are actually willing to accept them for who they are and reflect their actual values; the liberals just pander to them for votes with fake appeals to togetherness, while then passing laws that they stringently oppose.
the liberals are at a dead-end with this. they've tried to build a party around cultural inclusion, only to find out that majorities in all of these different cultures would rather live in a christian society than a secular one, and that the path to multiculturalism is through the destruction of liberalism, rather than the elevation of it. in the mean time, they've alienated swaths of white voters, who are actually liberal and secular in their beliefs.
but, trudeau doesn't live in reality, he lives in a bubble that is curated by his advisors. and, he could very well spend the next six months tilting at these aforementioned windmills, slaying the monster that is the projection of his own inner, racist demons.
at
17:57
and, just to be clear: justin trudeau and jason kenney are both racists, but justin trudeau is way more racist than jason kenney is.
jason kenney is actually the architect of the immigration policies that trudeau likes to take credit for. so, if they want to make the election about "diversity", which is such a ridiculously clinical and racist way to take about immigration from the start, it's the language you hear in a $500/plate fundraiser with a bunch of upper-class old money white people that are trying very hard to hide their racism, i'm going to go out of my way to throw that in their faces.
immigration levels are historically higher under conservative governments, who have been using the process as a way to shift the population to the right and solidify their own voting base, and recent immigrants to canada should support kenney over trudeau - they agree with him more on core governing issues, and kenney likes them better than trudeau does, too.
jason kenney is actually the architect of the immigration policies that trudeau likes to take credit for. so, if they want to make the election about "diversity", which is such a ridiculously clinical and racist way to take about immigration from the start, it's the language you hear in a $500/plate fundraiser with a bunch of upper-class old money white people that are trying very hard to hide their racism, i'm going to go out of my way to throw that in their faces.
immigration levels are historically higher under conservative governments, who have been using the process as a way to shift the population to the right and solidify their own voting base, and recent immigrants to canada should support kenney over trudeau - they agree with him more on core governing issues, and kenney likes them better than trudeau does, too.
at
16:46
so, when i looked through all of these polls and saw that the ndp and conservatives were barely separated by the margin, and there were 15% undecided, a number larger than the spread, it seemed clear enough that the election was almost in play - that they had some chance of keeping the conservatives to a minority, if those undecideds were located in calgary and leaning slightly left, and not reporting it due to a bradley effect (being afraid to tell people they weren't conservatives).
but, now that the numbers have come in, it seems more likely that the bradley effect was on the right, and it was the closeness of the election that was an illusion. it seems like it was former wildrose supporters that didn't want to tell pollsters that they were considering bailing, and that the real takeaway is that infighting on the albertan right may continue to make elections competitive there.
but, now that the numbers have come in, it seems more likely that the bradley effect was on the right, and it was the closeness of the election that was an illusion. it seems like it was former wildrose supporters that didn't want to tell pollsters that they were considering bailing, and that the real takeaway is that infighting on the albertan right may continue to make elections competitive there.
at
16:31
that was some sleep. needed that. and, i woke up to some clarity of thought.
i will repeat that a shy tory effect makes no sense in alberta, but there is another party to their right called the alberta freedom party that is one of these faux right-libertarian parties. they believe in freedom of thought, so long as you're a christian; they believe in private property rights, so long as they don't end up excluded, and etc. it's really a "status quo" party, that uses these vague appeals to liberal ideology in order to justify their own dominance. i have a lot of sympathy for libertarians in principle, when they're honest they're the real liberals, but it's so hard to find any that actually are honest and consistent about it, or that even realize their own contradictions. some of my favourite arguments have been with right-libertarians, partly because we're able to better focus on the actual underlying issues - which is so frequently how we address property in this society.
anyways.
in the last election, there were two major parties on the right - the old "progressive conservative party" (which i claim is a redundancy rather than an oxymoron), the tories, and the wildrose party, which was a bunch of these upstart, pro-christian fake libertarians. between the two of them, the tories and the libertarians won a clear plurality, but, in a fitting outcome for the capitalist parties, their competition destroyed each other, and the ndp were able to come up the middle. now, that wouldn't have mattered had ndp turnout not been stronger than expected, but notley would not have won against a united right, and everybody knows that.
so, i might have actually made the same mistake i've been so carefully warning against for so long. i've been yelling for years that when you look at national polls, "undecided" usually means "undecided on the left", rather than "undecided in the centre", and i've cited actual polls that indicate as much, through direct querying. you will no doubt see the same kind of polling come up over the next few months, that asks people if they're undecided, then who they're leaning towards, then who they won't vote for, etc in order to try and build a set of causal inferences around it. caveat: the liberal majority may have thrown a wrench into this, as the opposition is no longer united against the government, and i'm not going to carry this forward, a priori. we'll see what evidence appears about this. but, the logic is nonetheless sound enough: when the tories are in power, the undecided vote comes up on the left, because we're predominantly a liberal society.
but, alberta is a conservative society, and the ndp were in power. so, these high numbers of undecideds and uncommitteds may have actually been wary about the conservatives not being faux christian libertarian enough, and sitting between the conservatives and the freedom party. in the end, they made a pragmatic choice to remove the government, even if they'd prefer a more right-wing option.
it would make the data both consistent and sensible, at least.
i will repeat that a shy tory effect makes no sense in alberta, but there is another party to their right called the alberta freedom party that is one of these faux right-libertarian parties. they believe in freedom of thought, so long as you're a christian; they believe in private property rights, so long as they don't end up excluded, and etc. it's really a "status quo" party, that uses these vague appeals to liberal ideology in order to justify their own dominance. i have a lot of sympathy for libertarians in principle, when they're honest they're the real liberals, but it's so hard to find any that actually are honest and consistent about it, or that even realize their own contradictions. some of my favourite arguments have been with right-libertarians, partly because we're able to better focus on the actual underlying issues - which is so frequently how we address property in this society.
anyways.
in the last election, there were two major parties on the right - the old "progressive conservative party" (which i claim is a redundancy rather than an oxymoron), the tories, and the wildrose party, which was a bunch of these upstart, pro-christian fake libertarians. between the two of them, the tories and the libertarians won a clear plurality, but, in a fitting outcome for the capitalist parties, their competition destroyed each other, and the ndp were able to come up the middle. now, that wouldn't have mattered had ndp turnout not been stronger than expected, but notley would not have won against a united right, and everybody knows that.
so, i might have actually made the same mistake i've been so carefully warning against for so long. i've been yelling for years that when you look at national polls, "undecided" usually means "undecided on the left", rather than "undecided in the centre", and i've cited actual polls that indicate as much, through direct querying. you will no doubt see the same kind of polling come up over the next few months, that asks people if they're undecided, then who they're leaning towards, then who they won't vote for, etc in order to try and build a set of causal inferences around it. caveat: the liberal majority may have thrown a wrench into this, as the opposition is no longer united against the government, and i'm not going to carry this forward, a priori. we'll see what evidence appears about this. but, the logic is nonetheless sound enough: when the tories are in power, the undecided vote comes up on the left, because we're predominantly a liberal society.
but, alberta is a conservative society, and the ndp were in power. so, these high numbers of undecideds and uncommitteds may have actually been wary about the conservatives not being faux christian libertarian enough, and sitting between the conservatives and the freedom party. in the end, they made a pragmatic choice to remove the government, even if they'd prefer a more right-wing option.
it would make the data both consistent and sensible, at least.
at
16:19
and, i have made it home from toronto. my plan to type on the bus was ruined by a migraine; it's bad circulation on the bus, or something. reviews when i wake up, even if it's just a nap.
at
07:17
so, it turns out that that big swing of undecideds went disproportionately to the conservatives in alberta. if you look at the numbers, it comes up to a 90% swing in the undecideds. that should be tempered slightly - i suspect they probably made sure they were going to win in calgary, whether it changed the results or not. but, it's still a pretty hard swing in a scenario where you wouldn't expect a bias in the data of that sort. alberta is such a conservative society, that you don't expect a shy tory effect there; you expect that to work the other way around, for everybody to honk around at church in their pickups by day, but maybe go home and secretly think something else. i might rather suspect that the ndp are going to analyze their data and realize there was low turnout - they couldn't get their base out. there's some evidence of this in edmonton, where a tighter than expected outcome would be more likely representative of apathy than conversion.
well, she governed like an oil despot. it's easy to understand a level of deflation. i mentioned previously that it was a lesser catastrophe calculation, rather than a lesser evil one. and, while the political reality in alberta is different now, notley may have seriously damaged the party's long term ability to attract left-wing voters.
to be clear: i'm sure there was excitement about the conservative party and everything, but the quick crunch is that the dominant factor was most likely low turnout on the ndp side. that's how you get these inflated conservative numbers in the undecided swings.
it was a hard task, and nobody gave her a chance, and rightly so. but, the data did suggest some possibility of a minority outcome, if the undecideds leaned that direction. they didn't, apparently. i think a little oddly.
and, were people just legitimately undecided until the last minute? i'm not sure what about. kenny himself?
whatever it was, it's not surprising, if even not as disturbing as it should be. the ndp largely governed like conservatives.
if the numbers come back as i suspect them to, the ndp in alberta are going to have a lot of contemplating to do, as it would mean that their base abandoned them for the sin of governing, and it might be hard to get it back.
well, she governed like an oil despot. it's easy to understand a level of deflation. i mentioned previously that it was a lesser catastrophe calculation, rather than a lesser evil one. and, while the political reality in alberta is different now, notley may have seriously damaged the party's long term ability to attract left-wing voters.
to be clear: i'm sure there was excitement about the conservative party and everything, but the quick crunch is that the dominant factor was most likely low turnout on the ndp side. that's how you get these inflated conservative numbers in the undecided swings.
it was a hard task, and nobody gave her a chance, and rightly so. but, the data did suggest some possibility of a minority outcome, if the undecideds leaned that direction. they didn't, apparently. i think a little oddly.
and, were people just legitimately undecided until the last minute? i'm not sure what about. kenny himself?
whatever it was, it's not surprising, if even not as disturbing as it should be. the ndp largely governed like conservatives.
if the numbers come back as i suspect them to, the ndp in alberta are going to have a lot of contemplating to do, as it would mean that their base abandoned them for the sin of governing, and it might be hard to get it back.
at
07:16
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
so, i'm in toronto, at the opera house grill, a small coffee shop directly beside/below the venue in toronto.
i believe that i'm listening to the drum tech doing sound check upstairs, and it's pretty intense in it's monotony.
the ride in was fairly uneventful, if a little bit cramped and a tad long. but, i spent the ride evaluating the band's discography, and i think there's a chance that this is their most substantive record so far, which is not to say it's their best necessarily, but that it is their most mature and consistent one. there were very strong tracks on both of their first two records, but they had different levels of inconsistency - there are some plodding hardcore tracks on their first record, although the vocals are really next-level throughout; the second record is bloated by lyrical filler that probably should have been cut off as bsides, if done at all. the first record needs to stand as it is, regardless of any flaws; it's too unique as a cohesive whole to split up. but, the second record could have been cut in half.
i think that the third largely missed the mark on both fronts.
this new record is a movement in a different direction, musically, if not too radically so, as the pieces of it already existed. but, it is for the first time a record that doesn't have some cringey tracks on it. not only is this so, but the lyricist seems to have returned to the kind of flow that existed on the first record. it's really a huge step forward for the band, and i'm excited about hearing them develop what they're doing further.
something else i'm noticing is that la dispute is in some ways very similar to my own dead project, rabit is wolf. sean didn't have the chance to write anything profound as la dispute, and i don't know if he could, but he has a very similar voice to the singer for the band, whose name i am not entirely sure of. jordan something, i think. i'm not going to look it up. but, some of the more plaintive guitar & vocal work strikes me as a very plausible end goal for rabbit, should it have carried forwads. and, it's interesting to me that you can hear sean and i play around with the same ideas that la dispute do/did, but way back in 2002. the record is too musically different, but you could probably trick somebody into thinking that acoustic demo ep was a lost la dispute demo.
i actually felt a little sick for much of the bus ride. stale air combined with third hand smoke and little bit of vodka in my stomach combined to get me a little oozy. the person that sat down beside me then added to that by eating an oiniony sub and a bag of doritos, which just had me on the verging of vomiting. it wasn't one thing but all of them...but i made it through....
i got off the bus and walked in the wrong direction, then corrected myself after a block. i had the map memorized, but i had to properly orient myself first. first stop was the marijuana store.
am i feeling over the permabuzz enough to get back to moderate use again? well, i want to go to the show, and that's what i do at the show, so it's like i have to move on with life, regardless. i may run the risk of imagining a more coherent state of existence than is realistic; i don't have a control, in the question of measuring the coherence of consciousness. it shouldn't take this long to wear off. this is probably as good as it gets.
but, my habits are likely to change now that i'm not worried about getting it out of the house. i'll likely hang on to the small amount that i bought for quite a while, just bringing it out occasionally.
i was there at about 1:30 on a cloudy, grey tuesday afternoon, and they were lined up around the corner, and carding people at the door. patrons were allowed in slowly, and asked to meet with a "budtender" who was supposed to help you find what you wanted. i knew that i was in search of a high thc:cbd ratio at the lowest price on offer, and informed the "budtender" of this fact. he proceeded to bring me to the sativa area, and sell me on a 15:9 ratio hybrid. i asked him repeatedly if that he was the highest ratio he had, and he said it was. this seemed unlikely to me, but he insisted. he then sold me an 1/8th, told me to go to the counter to buy it and said "but, feel free to look around". i then walked into the indica section and found what i actually wanted.
i'm not sure what the purpose of the detour was, but it's of little concern in the end, other than to put out a warning to be careful about these so-called budtenders. if he works on commission, he may have been trying to squeeze out a sativa sale; if true, the misdirection would be management's fault. but, i should have looked at a menu coming in, and will next time.
i picked one of the cheapest options, and it was still at the highest end of an acceptable price. when you buy in bulk from your friend, it's $5-7/gram. when you make a business transaction with your dealer, the expected price is $10/gram. and, when you're forced to find a pusher on the street, you pay $12/g for something you're afraid to actually smoke.
the cheapest option in the store was $11.99. to me, that is a warning shot to what should now be called independent growers - the corporate growers aren't planning on competing with them over a free market. when the government charges you $12/gram, that broadcasts that they're planning on enforcing the laws.
fulton street blaring at me from next door.
the transaction took roughly an hour, in total, and it was then less than an hour's walk up queen street to the venue, which is where i am right now, having a coffee. i of course made a detour to try out the product.
i'm kind of fried right now, regardless. i had a restless weekend, with little solid sleep. i then caught yamantaka // sonic titan and the acid mothers temple at phog last night, after having barely slept all weekend. this experience was at least enough to stimulate some actual sleep in me early this morning, but i was up at 5:30 to catch the bus for 8:00, and then sat on the bus for almost six hours. but, i bought a high thc strain because i like an uplifting buzz rather than a draining stone, and because i like to smoke pinners, infrequently - a small amount should last a long time. i may have sampled slightly too much. i'll be fine soon enough.
i think doors are at 7:00, so i've got some time to waste...
i believe that i'm listening to the drum tech doing sound check upstairs, and it's pretty intense in it's monotony.
the ride in was fairly uneventful, if a little bit cramped and a tad long. but, i spent the ride evaluating the band's discography, and i think there's a chance that this is their most substantive record so far, which is not to say it's their best necessarily, but that it is their most mature and consistent one. there were very strong tracks on both of their first two records, but they had different levels of inconsistency - there are some plodding hardcore tracks on their first record, although the vocals are really next-level throughout; the second record is bloated by lyrical filler that probably should have been cut off as bsides, if done at all. the first record needs to stand as it is, regardless of any flaws; it's too unique as a cohesive whole to split up. but, the second record could have been cut in half.
i think that the third largely missed the mark on both fronts.
this new record is a movement in a different direction, musically, if not too radically so, as the pieces of it already existed. but, it is for the first time a record that doesn't have some cringey tracks on it. not only is this so, but the lyricist seems to have returned to the kind of flow that existed on the first record. it's really a huge step forward for the band, and i'm excited about hearing them develop what they're doing further.
something else i'm noticing is that la dispute is in some ways very similar to my own dead project, rabit is wolf. sean didn't have the chance to write anything profound as la dispute, and i don't know if he could, but he has a very similar voice to the singer for the band, whose name i am not entirely sure of. jordan something, i think. i'm not going to look it up. but, some of the more plaintive guitar & vocal work strikes me as a very plausible end goal for rabbit, should it have carried forwads. and, it's interesting to me that you can hear sean and i play around with the same ideas that la dispute do/did, but way back in 2002. the record is too musically different, but you could probably trick somebody into thinking that acoustic demo ep was a lost la dispute demo.
i actually felt a little sick for much of the bus ride. stale air combined with third hand smoke and little bit of vodka in my stomach combined to get me a little oozy. the person that sat down beside me then added to that by eating an oiniony sub and a bag of doritos, which just had me on the verging of vomiting. it wasn't one thing but all of them...but i made it through....
i got off the bus and walked in the wrong direction, then corrected myself after a block. i had the map memorized, but i had to properly orient myself first. first stop was the marijuana store.
am i feeling over the permabuzz enough to get back to moderate use again? well, i want to go to the show, and that's what i do at the show, so it's like i have to move on with life, regardless. i may run the risk of imagining a more coherent state of existence than is realistic; i don't have a control, in the question of measuring the coherence of consciousness. it shouldn't take this long to wear off. this is probably as good as it gets.
but, my habits are likely to change now that i'm not worried about getting it out of the house. i'll likely hang on to the small amount that i bought for quite a while, just bringing it out occasionally.
i was there at about 1:30 on a cloudy, grey tuesday afternoon, and they were lined up around the corner, and carding people at the door. patrons were allowed in slowly, and asked to meet with a "budtender" who was supposed to help you find what you wanted. i knew that i was in search of a high thc:cbd ratio at the lowest price on offer, and informed the "budtender" of this fact. he proceeded to bring me to the sativa area, and sell me on a 15:9 ratio hybrid. i asked him repeatedly if that he was the highest ratio he had, and he said it was. this seemed unlikely to me, but he insisted. he then sold me an 1/8th, told me to go to the counter to buy it and said "but, feel free to look around". i then walked into the indica section and found what i actually wanted.
i'm not sure what the purpose of the detour was, but it's of little concern in the end, other than to put out a warning to be careful about these so-called budtenders. if he works on commission, he may have been trying to squeeze out a sativa sale; if true, the misdirection would be management's fault. but, i should have looked at a menu coming in, and will next time.
i picked one of the cheapest options, and it was still at the highest end of an acceptable price. when you buy in bulk from your friend, it's $5-7/gram. when you make a business transaction with your dealer, the expected price is $10/gram. and, when you're forced to find a pusher on the street, you pay $12/g for something you're afraid to actually smoke.
the cheapest option in the store was $11.99. to me, that is a warning shot to what should now be called independent growers - the corporate growers aren't planning on competing with them over a free market. when the government charges you $12/gram, that broadcasts that they're planning on enforcing the laws.
fulton street blaring at me from next door.
the transaction took roughly an hour, in total, and it was then less than an hour's walk up queen street to the venue, which is where i am right now, having a coffee. i of course made a detour to try out the product.
i'm kind of fried right now, regardless. i had a restless weekend, with little solid sleep. i then caught yamantaka // sonic titan and the acid mothers temple at phog last night, after having barely slept all weekend. this experience was at least enough to stimulate some actual sleep in me early this morning, but i was up at 5:30 to catch the bus for 8:00, and then sat on the bus for almost six hours. but, i bought a high thc strain because i like an uplifting buzz rather than a draining stone, and because i like to smoke pinners, infrequently - a small amount should last a long time. i may have sampled slightly too much. i'll be fine soon enough.
i think doors are at 7:00, so i've got some time to waste...
at
16:40
Location:
Toronto, ON, Canada
Monday, April 15, 2019
i'm not even sure if the $154 that was applied is a minimum payment on the loan.
i suspect that it isn't.
so, they withheld a refund amount that is probably less than a month's worth of interest on the balance.
no previous government in my memory has ever been that petty. but, like i say - i suspect this is incompetence rather than malice.
i suspect that it isn't.
so, they withheld a refund amount that is probably less than a month's worth of interest on the balance.
no previous government in my memory has ever been that petty. but, like i say - i suspect this is incompetence rather than malice.
at
15:43
i don't drive, and my carbon footprint is extremely low. my biggest crime is importing fruit, but imports are exempt from the tax, which is part of the reason it's not likely to be effective.
if i start noticing the price of food go up, i might react differently, but i don't expect that to happen.
so, this isn't really going to cost me anything, because i didn't need to be hit over the head with a tax to be responsible - i already was, and i would be anyways.
so, i'm not going to react because i don't expect to get hit, anyways.
but, the way it's designed is going to disproportionately affect low income voters with outstanding debts. if you're a cab driver with an outstanding loan, for example, you're going to get nailed, and you're not going to get it back. it is consequently correct to label this a tax on poor people, even if it's as a consequence of a poor design rather than a malicious ploy.
normally, when the conservatives make arguments like this, it's based on a misunderstanding of the policy, because the liberals are smart enough to see it coming and make the proper adjustments ahead of time. not so, here - the expected naive & wrong attack is actually going to be correct.
it's one thing to take a risk like this on a policy that's probably not going to work. it's another to completely fuck it up....
so, how many people are going to get an unpleasant surprise in the mail? and how is that going to affect voting decisions?
if i start noticing the price of food go up, i might react differently, but i don't expect that to happen.
so, this isn't really going to cost me anything, because i didn't need to be hit over the head with a tax to be responsible - i already was, and i would be anyways.
so, i'm not going to react because i don't expect to get hit, anyways.
but, the way it's designed is going to disproportionately affect low income voters with outstanding debts. if you're a cab driver with an outstanding loan, for example, you're going to get nailed, and you're not going to get it back. it is consequently correct to label this a tax on poor people, even if it's as a consequence of a poor design rather than a malicious ploy.
normally, when the conservatives make arguments like this, it's based on a misunderstanding of the policy, because the liberals are smart enough to see it coming and make the proper adjustments ahead of time. not so, here - the expected naive & wrong attack is actually going to be correct.
it's one thing to take a risk like this on a policy that's probably not going to work. it's another to completely fuck it up....
so, how many people are going to get an unpleasant surprise in the mail? and how is that going to affect voting decisions?
at
15:36
i guess it's one way to forgive a loan, right?
it's amateur hour. really.
from an economics standpoint, we'd all be better off if i spent that money tipping a local bartender.
they should have offered the credit as a rebate.
it's amateur hour. really.
from an economics standpoint, we'd all be better off if i spent that money tipping a local bartender.
they should have offered the credit as a rebate.
at
15:19
yeah. they transferred my carbon tax credit to pay down my student loan balance.
student loan balance before tax return applied: 67889.96.
current student loan balance: 67735.96
current bank account balance: ~ $1800.00
well, the price of carbon goes up every year, right?
i'm not wasting my time with this...
student loan balance before tax return applied: 67889.96.
current student loan balance: 67735.96
current bank account balance: ~ $1800.00
well, the price of carbon goes up every year, right?
i'm not wasting my time with this...
at
15:16
some shit disturbing from nik, here.
that's a six point spread at the edges of the margin, with 15% undecided and a high number of uncommitted voters. based solely on this one poll, it is statistically possible that she might actually win.
what was supposed to be a sure thing now looks more like a province that doesn't know what it wants.
does she have enough support in calgary to hold him to a minority? i think that's the open question.
http://www.nanos.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/2019-1424-Globe-Nanos-Alberta-Election-Populated-Report-with-tabulations.pdf
that's a six point spread at the edges of the margin, with 15% undecided and a high number of uncommitted voters. based solely on this one poll, it is statistically possible that she might actually win.
what was supposed to be a sure thing now looks more like a province that doesn't know what it wants.
does she have enough support in calgary to hold him to a minority? i think that's the open question.
http://www.nanos.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/2019-1424-Globe-Nanos-Alberta-Election-Populated-Report-with-tabulations.pdf
at
14:56
and, i need to point out once again that all of my sites are listed on the sidebar, and sites that are not listed on the sidebar are not my sites.
i am aware that there is a person that lives in detroit that has been confused for me, to some problematic outcomes. i have met that person, but i am not her, and in truth have little in common with her. i do not want to be associated with her.
i am rather a canadian citizen that lives in windsor.
i do not have dual citizenship.
i do not live in detroit.
i am aware that there is a person that lives in detroit that has been confused for me, to some problematic outcomes. i have met that person, but i am not her, and in truth have little in common with her. i do not want to be associated with her.
i am rather a canadian citizen that lives in windsor.
i do not have dual citizenship.
i do not live in detroit.
at
12:23
it is a matter of historical fact that the term "progressive" is associated with some of the most horrific crimes of systemic racism, conservative reactionaryism and hierarchical oppression in american history, and this idea of romanticizing it as an era of positive change is something that needs to be attacked head-on. it's a total whitewashing of history.
this was a period in american history where human rights were discarded as meaningless, and religious fundamentalism nearly drove the country into totalitarianism; it is a period where the country dodged a bullet, as it teetered on the brink of fascism.
progressive should be a bad word, something that people on the left distance themselves from, and not some way to disassociate yourself from corporatism. as an actual leftist, i see progressivism as a movement that exists on the right, and the word as interchangeable with conservatism.
some history of the progressive movement:
1) in america, it was progressives that were advocates of eugenics - not liberals or socialists. today, california continues to regularly sterilize people, with no opposition from progressives. leftists thoroughly oppose eugenics as pseudo-science.
https://fee.org/articles/the-progressive-ideas-that-fueled-america-s-eugenics-movement/
2) it was progressives that were the force behind the puritanical christian temperance movement, which it took decades to defeat. these were basically the rad fems of their era. leftists were and still are in diametric opposition to everything about this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman%27s_Christian_Temperance_Union
3) it was progressives that were behind the tyrannical roosevelt corollary, and the colonialism of the roosevelt presidency, in general. leftists oppose colonialism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roosevelt_Corollary
4) it was progressives that argued that anti-trust legislation is required to maintain competitive practices within the framework of free market capitalism. leftists refer to competition as "anarchy in production" and instead argue for planned economies, either centralized or decentralized.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Antitrust_Act_of_1914
progressives had a few good ideas, too. so did hitler. so did stalin.
but, progressivism needs to be defined by the policies that were legislated in the progressive era, and none of this is remotely left-wing, at all.
so, my claim is that progressives and conservatives are the same thing, and that leftists should reject the term progressive due to it's historical association with terrible legislative acts and backwards, repressive ideals. i can and will back my argument up with specific references, reasoned arguments and facts.
i guess you can react by calling me names, if you really want.
this was a period in american history where human rights were discarded as meaningless, and religious fundamentalism nearly drove the country into totalitarianism; it is a period where the country dodged a bullet, as it teetered on the brink of fascism.
progressive should be a bad word, something that people on the left distance themselves from, and not some way to disassociate yourself from corporatism. as an actual leftist, i see progressivism as a movement that exists on the right, and the word as interchangeable with conservatism.
some history of the progressive movement:
1) in america, it was progressives that were advocates of eugenics - not liberals or socialists. today, california continues to regularly sterilize people, with no opposition from progressives. leftists thoroughly oppose eugenics as pseudo-science.
https://fee.org/articles/the-progressive-ideas-that-fueled-america-s-eugenics-movement/
2) it was progressives that were the force behind the puritanical christian temperance movement, which it took decades to defeat. these were basically the rad fems of their era. leftists were and still are in diametric opposition to everything about this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman%27s_Christian_Temperance_Union
3) it was progressives that were behind the tyrannical roosevelt corollary, and the colonialism of the roosevelt presidency, in general. leftists oppose colonialism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roosevelt_Corollary
4) it was progressives that argued that anti-trust legislation is required to maintain competitive practices within the framework of free market capitalism. leftists refer to competition as "anarchy in production" and instead argue for planned economies, either centralized or decentralized.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Antitrust_Act_of_1914
progressives had a few good ideas, too. so did hitler. so did stalin.
but, progressivism needs to be defined by the policies that were legislated in the progressive era, and none of this is remotely left-wing, at all.
so, my claim is that progressives and conservatives are the same thing, and that leftists should reject the term progressive due to it's historical association with terrible legislative acts and backwards, repressive ideals. i can and will back my argument up with specific references, reasoned arguments and facts.
i guess you can react by calling me names, if you really want.
at
12:20
i am now totally, completely done with july and ready to move on to august.
but, i have things to do and deal with this week, so don't expect me to get a serious start on it until mid-week.
but, i have things to do and deal with this week, so don't expect me to get a serious start on it until mid-week.
at
07:19
what states are really in play in the rust belt?
well, it's hard to understand how minnesota was ever in play to begin with. the democrats can certainly win minnesota.
the democrats are going to need some help from the new governor in wisconsin to reverse the mess that scott walker created in terms of voting rights, but wisconsin is certainly in play - if that happens. if there is not fast, decisive action on that front, wisconsin could be more of a challenge than you think.
iowa is winnable in theory, but it's a murky task. i think it's driven by a demographic conflict, where you have a lot of students and a lot of farmers. the traditional tactic is to go to iowa and talk about corn subsidies, but the democrats probably actually need to appeal to the youth vote if they want to win in iowa. that's probably actually why obama did well there in his first term, which would indicate that it is particularly winnable for sanders. it's actually probably about getting kids out to vote.
kansas is urbanizing, while missouri is collapsing. it's probably more of a question of local politics. i've been arguing for years that missouri should be seen as the bellweather state that it used to be - that a competitive democrat should be able to win in missouri, and easily. but, there's some recent evidence that my logic around missouri may be better applied to kansas, as the state's financial center shifts west, and the bulk of missouri ends up swallowed by arkansas. this discussion may end up better applied to the next cycle, but the evidence right now may suggest that the democrats' traditional attempts to win back missouri may be better applied to kansas.
so long as chicago is chicago, illinois will not be in play. but note that detroit is no longer detroit, and michigan is now in play. things can change, but don't expect it to happen in 2020.
then, you tun into indiana. while obama did win in indiana, it was some kind of weird fluke; the republicans have consistently held indiana since lincoln. it didn't even realign in the 60s; this is probably the most republican state in the country. if the democrats end up winning indiana, it will be as a symptom of a sweep and nothing more. it is really not in play and really never has been.
likewise, i don't actually think that ohio is a swing state. ohio is a red state. the democrats should not sink themselves trying to win in ohio. they have a better chance in virginia and a better chance in north carolina.
michigan is winnable but, like wisconsin, there needs to be some active effort put into undoing the suppression tactics put in place by rick snyder. if democrats don't address this, they could be in for another nasty surprise.
and, the same thing needs to be said of pennsylvania: the democrats should easily win here, but they need to undo the suppression tactics....
well, it's hard to understand how minnesota was ever in play to begin with. the democrats can certainly win minnesota.
the democrats are going to need some help from the new governor in wisconsin to reverse the mess that scott walker created in terms of voting rights, but wisconsin is certainly in play - if that happens. if there is not fast, decisive action on that front, wisconsin could be more of a challenge than you think.
iowa is winnable in theory, but it's a murky task. i think it's driven by a demographic conflict, where you have a lot of students and a lot of farmers. the traditional tactic is to go to iowa and talk about corn subsidies, but the democrats probably actually need to appeal to the youth vote if they want to win in iowa. that's probably actually why obama did well there in his first term, which would indicate that it is particularly winnable for sanders. it's actually probably about getting kids out to vote.
kansas is urbanizing, while missouri is collapsing. it's probably more of a question of local politics. i've been arguing for years that missouri should be seen as the bellweather state that it used to be - that a competitive democrat should be able to win in missouri, and easily. but, there's some recent evidence that my logic around missouri may be better applied to kansas, as the state's financial center shifts west, and the bulk of missouri ends up swallowed by arkansas. this discussion may end up better applied to the next cycle, but the evidence right now may suggest that the democrats' traditional attempts to win back missouri may be better applied to kansas.
so long as chicago is chicago, illinois will not be in play. but note that detroit is no longer detroit, and michigan is now in play. things can change, but don't expect it to happen in 2020.
then, you tun into indiana. while obama did win in indiana, it was some kind of weird fluke; the republicans have consistently held indiana since lincoln. it didn't even realign in the 60s; this is probably the most republican state in the country. if the democrats end up winning indiana, it will be as a symptom of a sweep and nothing more. it is really not in play and really never has been.
likewise, i don't actually think that ohio is a swing state. ohio is a red state. the democrats should not sink themselves trying to win in ohio. they have a better chance in virginia and a better chance in north carolina.
michigan is winnable but, like wisconsin, there needs to be some active effort put into undoing the suppression tactics put in place by rick snyder. if democrats don't address this, they could be in for another nasty surprise.
and, the same thing needs to be said of pennsylvania: the democrats should easily win here, but they need to undo the suppression tactics....
at
05:09
Sunday, April 14, 2019
in defense of working canadians, the fact is that singh hasn't integrated. it would be one thing if there was this kind of a reaction against an ujjal dosanjh or a niki haley - that would simply be racist. these people have integrated; they're just like us. but, singh's claim to fame was fighting against helmet laws on religious grounds. he wears a ridiculous beard, and he won't take his turban off. an aversion to this kind of thing isn't inherently racist, as there is a political basis underlying the argument. by refusing to integrate, he's wearing a set of political beliefs and ideologies on his sleeves that voters have every right to back away from.
i might rather make the opposite point - that electing somebody that refuses to shave off his magic beard would be a massive step backwards into the void of pre-modern ignorance.
i just wish we had a better option.
i might rather make the opposite point - that electing somebody that refuses to shave off his magic beard would be a massive step backwards into the void of pre-modern ignorance.
i just wish we had a better option.
at
21:32
it was easy to predict that core ndp voters were not going to like jagmeet singh very much.
unfortunately, it's starting to look like they may be unwilling to support the liberals for more or less the same reason.
as the ndp and the liberals one-up each other to pander to ethnic voters, there appears to be a large migration from the ndp to the conservatives underway, and it is probably being driven by a backlash against the pandering.
the beneficiary of the coming ndp collapse may turn out to be andrew scheer, and that is not rational - because he supports the same policies, and many that are worse, too.
unfortunately, it's starting to look like they may be unwilling to support the liberals for more or less the same reason.
as the ndp and the liberals one-up each other to pander to ethnic voters, there appears to be a large migration from the ndp to the conservatives underway, and it is probably being driven by a backlash against the pandering.
the beneficiary of the coming ndp collapse may turn out to be andrew scheer, and that is not rational - because he supports the same policies, and many that are worse, too.
at
20:32
here is the noise trade smashwords link for the july archive of this blog:
https://books.noisetrade.com/j/072013-dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja-22
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1026589
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1026589
at
18:53
i first
decided to remove myself from facebook some time around the end of 2013,
not due to any kind of security concern but due to being fed up by the
terrible interface and incredibly slow servers. a few years later, i
found myself with a similar desire to extricate myself from the youtube
comments section, as the interface changes made it almost impossible to
actually use. but, old habits die hard, and it took several attempts
before i could really pry myself off, not having any kind of permanent
success until i designated the migration as a time-wasting tactic while i
successfully kicked the tobacco addiction, in the first half of 2016.
this left me with thousands of pages of writing that i was going to need
to eventually repost to a more user-friendly platform, which ended up
being the blogger interface on google. faced with the need to build
liner notes for my very first recording at the end of 1996, it was at
the beginning of 2017 that i first sat down with the intent to rebuild
my music journal as a singular whole, with the eventual plan of cutting
it up and appending it in installments within the discography.
my life hit a roadblock in the middle of 2017 as a consequence of a shift in ownership of the building i was living in, which led to multiple legal battles (still ongoing) and two separate moves. the situation eventually worked itself out for the better, but it slowed me down dramatically and left me with a very large back log in working through the loose ends around closing my first two period discs that i am only finally beginning to clear in the spring of 2019. this added period of reflection has allowed me to think this through over and over, and add increasing levels of detail to the journal, and subsequent pending liner notes. while not every month is going to be equally exciting, the level of detail in what was initially a journal is now more like a series of novellas. the first entry, which is only the second half of july, is 222 pages long.
i am not going to summarize the story, but it is available on the web over here: musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2013/07/.
this is a compilation of written correspondences that includes facebook posts, messenger chats and emails with friends and family members, in an attempt to build the context around my move from ottawa to windsor in early august, 2013. this was a pretty heavy two weeks, and the narrative consequently has an arc of it's own, but the story being told here is how i rebuilt my studio over the second half of 2013. the contents of this download are the dummy track, a word doc file and a pdf file, both written in a more readable, chronological ordering. i've also added the respective files for my other three blogs, for general interest.
the events documented in this journal occurred in july, 2013 and were compiled into a narrative in several stages over the years 2014-2019. journal completed on mar 31, 2019. released and finalized in doc and pdf format on april 14, 2019. doc0713.
my life hit a roadblock in the middle of 2017 as a consequence of a shift in ownership of the building i was living in, which led to multiple legal battles (still ongoing) and two separate moves. the situation eventually worked itself out for the better, but it slowed me down dramatically and left me with a very large back log in working through the loose ends around closing my first two period discs that i am only finally beginning to clear in the spring of 2019. this added period of reflection has allowed me to think this through over and over, and add increasing levels of detail to the journal, and subsequent pending liner notes. while not every month is going to be equally exciting, the level of detail in what was initially a journal is now more like a series of novellas. the first entry, which is only the second half of july, is 222 pages long.
i am not going to summarize the story, but it is available on the web over here: musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.com/2013/07/.
this is a compilation of written correspondences that includes facebook posts, messenger chats and emails with friends and family members, in an attempt to build the context around my move from ottawa to windsor in early august, 2013. this was a pretty heavy two weeks, and the narrative consequently has an arc of it's own, but the story being told here is how i rebuilt my studio over the second half of 2013. the contents of this download are the dummy track, a word doc file and a pdf file, both written in a more readable, chronological ordering. i've also added the respective files for my other three blogs, for general interest.
the events documented in this journal occurred in july, 2013 and were compiled into a narrative in several stages over the years 2014-2019. journal completed on mar 31, 2019. released and finalized in doc and pdf format on april 14, 2019. doc0713.
credits
released August 1, 2013
j - editing, participant
esa - participant
illuminous - participant
mom - participant
sister - participant
nana - participant
step-mother - participant
the youngest aunt - participant
jeff - participant
dad - participant
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/07-2013-music-journal-2-2
j - editing, participant
esa - participant
illuminous - participant
mom - participant
sister - participant
nana - participant
step-mother - participant
the youngest aunt - participant
jeff - participant
dad - participant
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/07-2013-music-journal-2-2
at
17:33
unfortunately, noise trade did not work out as a hosting solution, and i never got a clear answer as to why. but, i decided in the end that the site was full of ads and unworkable, anyways.
readable archives are now at the following sites:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/deathtokoalas
https://www.lulu.com/search?contributor=jessica+murray
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NI_sEi1t9NxTeOB9Es3A2Ge8ji4iTXit?usp=sharing
at
13:59
i still haven't really slept all weekend - a couple of two-three hour slots, that's it. it's a welcome change, but i'm still getting re-used to it.
the clean-up operation on 07/2013 is now done. i have four dynamic documents - one for the travel blog, one for the dtk site, one for this site and one for the music journal. what i'll want to do is set up a subscription for each one, somehow, and then got on to august asap.
now, i need to eat, and we'll see how much longer i'm awake for.
the clean-up operation on 07/2013 is now done. i have four dynamic documents - one for the travel blog, one for the dtk site, one for this site and one for the music journal. what i'll want to do is set up a subscription for each one, somehow, and then got on to august asap.
now, i need to eat, and we'll see how much longer i'm awake for.
at
11:01
i don't know anything about these groups, but this is something that should not happen in a free and democratic society. further, they have no due process - no way to defend themselves.
on a democratic internet with a concept of due process and a functioning rule of law, facebook would be required to seek an injunction and get a court order before it is able to do this, and these groups would be entitled to appeal the decision in a court of law.
https://globalnews.ca/news/5141557/facebook-bans-extremism-hate-policy/
on a democratic internet with a concept of due process and a functioning rule of law, facebook would be required to seek an injunction and get a court order before it is able to do this, and these groups would be entitled to appeal the decision in a court of law.
https://globalnews.ca/news/5141557/facebook-bans-extremism-hate-policy/
at
04:53
there are lots of reasons that i'm disappointed in this government, even if i didn't really have high expectations for it.
and, this isn't the reason i'm not voting for it; the reason i'm not voting for it is that it has utterly failed to take any meaningful action towards reducing emissions at all, whatsoever. emissions are up and are going to continue to rise. in my view, they had one job and they failed.
but, this is the kind of thing that i'm going to be actively campaigning against.
the idea of separating the behaviour of a religious group from it's own ideology, or of arguing that religion is not an ideology, is directly out of 1984. this is doublespeak, and it is wrong; this is an ignorant, anti-intellectual decision that sets a dangerous, worrisome precedent that must be rigorously countered.
it's not about the sikhs precisely, it's about the broader implications. this makes me embarrassed to be a canadian.
all things otherwise aside, i do not want to live in the kind of society that this decision projects. and, as great as a threat that climate change is to the planet, it is this kind of backwards thinking that is a far greater threat to the country.
i will obviously not be voting for the conservatives. i remain a leftist; this is a left-wing critique. but, when i vote against trudeau in the upcoming election, this is the idiocracy that i'm voting against, more-so than anything else.
and, i will not separate my decision from the ideology that informed it
https://globalnews.ca/news/5162913/goodale-terror-report-language/
and, this isn't the reason i'm not voting for it; the reason i'm not voting for it is that it has utterly failed to take any meaningful action towards reducing emissions at all, whatsoever. emissions are up and are going to continue to rise. in my view, they had one job and they failed.
but, this is the kind of thing that i'm going to be actively campaigning against.
the idea of separating the behaviour of a religious group from it's own ideology, or of arguing that religion is not an ideology, is directly out of 1984. this is doublespeak, and it is wrong; this is an ignorant, anti-intellectual decision that sets a dangerous, worrisome precedent that must be rigorously countered.
it's not about the sikhs precisely, it's about the broader implications. this makes me embarrassed to be a canadian.
all things otherwise aside, i do not want to live in the kind of society that this decision projects. and, as great as a threat that climate change is to the planet, it is this kind of backwards thinking that is a far greater threat to the country.
i will obviously not be voting for the conservatives. i remain a leftist; this is a left-wing critique. but, when i vote against trudeau in the upcoming election, this is the idiocracy that i'm voting against, more-so than anything else.
and, i will not separate my decision from the ideology that informed it
https://globalnews.ca/news/5162913/goodale-terror-report-language/
at
04:44
Saturday, April 13, 2019
the new nafta still sucks but it is an improvement over the old one, and while sanders needs to campaign on an even better one, i actually expect that he'll vote for it, in the end.
i'm actually interested in how this debate unfolds, because sanders is in a very delicate and wonkish position that may be difficult to get across to voters.
canada's liberal party had this problem in the 1987 election - it took a complex position on nafta, and then couldn't get voters to understand it. in the end, they got squeezed between the party that was clearly for it (the conservatives) and the party that was clearly against it (the ndp).
but, is this a ballot issue in 2019?
if you were thirty years old in 1987 and lost your job in the 90s, you'd be nearing retirement at this point.
we're coming up on a point of generational overturn on this; this might be our last chance on it.
i'm actually interested in how this debate unfolds, because sanders is in a very delicate and wonkish position that may be difficult to get across to voters.
canada's liberal party had this problem in the 1987 election - it took a complex position on nafta, and then couldn't get voters to understand it. in the end, they got squeezed between the party that was clearly for it (the conservatives) and the party that was clearly against it (the ndp).
but, is this a ballot issue in 2019?
if you were thirty years old in 1987 and lost your job in the 90s, you'd be nearing retirement at this point.
we're coming up on a point of generational overturn on this; this might be our last chance on it.
at
22:48
but, simply on it's face?
he's 77 years old.
he's been working his whole life.
he should have a comfortable nest egg.
he's 77 years old.
he's been working his whole life.
he should have a comfortable nest egg.
at
17:09
if you look at just his salary since 1990, 29 years ago, i'm sure it's at least two million dollars, after taxes.
he currently makes $174,000/yr. that number has certainly gone up since 1990, but he's also had investments, and there's also been inflation. if we take a naive - and no doubt wrong - calculation, 29*174,000 = $5,046,000. so, that's over five million dollars. all you have to do is cut that in half to account for taxes and overestimates to get to two and half million dollars.
which brings up another point that i think is more valid - should he be accepting social security payments? i think that's a more valid criticism than merely pointing at his net wealth.
he currently makes $174,000/yr. that number has certainly gone up since 1990, but he's also had investments, and there's also been inflation. if we take a naive - and no doubt wrong - calculation, 29*174,000 = $5,046,000. so, that's over five million dollars. all you have to do is cut that in half to account for taxes and overestimates to get to two and half million dollars.
which brings up another point that i think is more valid - should he be accepting social security payments? i think that's a more valid criticism than merely pointing at his net wealth.
at
17:07
according to 2016 numbers, a net worth of $2.5 million is at the 95th percentile, which means you're almost in the top 5%. these are united states numbers.
but there has been some inflation since, so it's going to be somewhere between the top 5% and 10% of americans.
i don't think that's unreasonable for a serious presidential candidate, but i might wonder if it hurts his fundraising.
but there has been some inflation since, so it's going to be somewhere between the top 5% and 10% of americans.
i don't think that's unreasonable for a serious presidential candidate, but i might wonder if it hurts his fundraising.
at
16:56
i've been waiting to see how this thing about bernie's net worth plays out, because i wanted to see what angle the media was going to use with it.
personally, i never thought that bernie sanders was a poor person. he's been in congress for a long time, and i'm aware that it's a relatively high-paying job. so, anybody feigning shock is either being naive or dishonest. further, i knew that he's written books in the past, and doesn't seem to have had difficulty getting them published. if anything, for a man of his age and experience, a net worth of $2.5 million seems a little bit paltry. where's the rest of it? we've had a lot of inflation since the nineteenth century; it's arguably in the realm of' 'upper middle class'. this is maybe top 10%, but certainly not 1%. the clintons are worth 50x that.
that said, my view on the topic is that it is irrelevant, anyways, as net wealth is not a policy position. but, that leads me to wonder why anybody would take the dissenting view - why would people think it's important? and, the answer has to do with identity politics, which makes it easy to see why the media is pushing it.
according to the media, people just vote for whomever is most like them; policies don't matter, it's just all identity. it would follow that if bernie is a millionaire (whether it's a surprise or not), then the poor white voters that he attracts to his base would no longer identify with him. they then deduce they can take him down this way.
but, we're supposed to be trying to win the election by swinging trump voters. so, there's clearly some blurry thinking, there.
i wonder how much of it is lingering bitterness amongst former clinton supporters, who think she lost because she was "out of touch" and "elite". but, again, there's not a lot of clear thinking here, as she lost to somebody who is more out of touch and more elite than she is.
bernie is getting baited on it, and it looks like he's biting. he needs the discipline not to get goaded. while i don't expect that most of his voters thought he was poor, he does run the risk of making awkward comments if he allows himself to be baited.
i think it's only an issue if he misplays it; there's no reason for people to care about it, per se.
personally, i never thought that bernie sanders was a poor person. he's been in congress for a long time, and i'm aware that it's a relatively high-paying job. so, anybody feigning shock is either being naive or dishonest. further, i knew that he's written books in the past, and doesn't seem to have had difficulty getting them published. if anything, for a man of his age and experience, a net worth of $2.5 million seems a little bit paltry. where's the rest of it? we've had a lot of inflation since the nineteenth century; it's arguably in the realm of' 'upper middle class'. this is maybe top 10%, but certainly not 1%. the clintons are worth 50x that.
that said, my view on the topic is that it is irrelevant, anyways, as net wealth is not a policy position. but, that leads me to wonder why anybody would take the dissenting view - why would people think it's important? and, the answer has to do with identity politics, which makes it easy to see why the media is pushing it.
according to the media, people just vote for whomever is most like them; policies don't matter, it's just all identity. it would follow that if bernie is a millionaire (whether it's a surprise or not), then the poor white voters that he attracts to his base would no longer identify with him. they then deduce they can take him down this way.
but, we're supposed to be trying to win the election by swinging trump voters. so, there's clearly some blurry thinking, there.
i wonder how much of it is lingering bitterness amongst former clinton supporters, who think she lost because she was "out of touch" and "elite". but, again, there's not a lot of clear thinking here, as she lost to somebody who is more out of touch and more elite than she is.
bernie is getting baited on it, and it looks like he's biting. he needs the discipline not to get goaded. while i don't expect that most of his voters thought he was poor, he does run the risk of making awkward comments if he allows himself to be baited.
i think it's only an issue if he misplays it; there's no reason for people to care about it, per se.
at
16:42
whatever ridiculous narrative that the press wants to spin, i think it's fairly obvious that assange was being fed information by the cia and manipulated as a useful idiot.
i'm sure we're going to see a collapse in the rule of law around this, and there's a good place for principled lawyerly critique, here. but, it's really better for everybody that he's done, and i'm not going to dwell much upon it.
i'm sure we're going to see a collapse in the rule of law around this, and there's a good place for principled lawyerly critique, here. but, it's really better for everybody that he's done, and i'm not going to dwell much upon it.
at
13:28
here's an americanism that omar's "different cultural experience" may not have had her veil pierced with, yet.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.
i'm done.
#ignoreilhan.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.
i'm done.
#ignoreilhan.
at
12:17
there needs to be a collective effort to stop giving her any kind of media time, to just completely cut her off.
so, this space is now ilhan free - i will not mention her again. ever. she no longer exists.
#ignoreilhan.
so, this space is now ilhan free - i will not mention her again. ever. she no longer exists.
#ignoreilhan.
at
11:35
the democrats are really making a terrible tactical mistake by continuing to defend ilhan omar. this is a woman that clearly has a startlingly low level of intelligence, and is never going to be anything more than a liability. they need to cut her loose and throw her under the bus.
i neither want to stand with her, nor do i think that ripping her apart (again) is a useful expenditure of my time.
her fifteen minutes are up. i'm tired of hearing about her, and wish she'd just shut up and go away.
i neither want to stand with her, nor do i think that ripping her apart (again) is a useful expenditure of my time.
her fifteen minutes are up. i'm tired of hearing about her, and wish she'd just shut up and go away.
at
11:33
just a note on the language and labels, and this is one of the things i have to repost every so often because people forget, or it never sunk in. there's so many terms that are synonymous on the left.
if you look up, you can see where i am in the political compass, which is but one test, but nonetheless provides a physical co-ordinate. this is where i exist in space. and, what are the correct adjectives?
to begin with, i thoroughly reject the term progressive. i almost never use it, and when i do it's in a limited context, or out of laziness or irony. that is one hint at detecting my own irony, which is sometimes pretty thick. but, if you look at the issues, i don't align well with progressivism: i am not in favour of christian temperance, i reject sterilization and eugenics, i oppose the premise of retributive justice, i reject manifest destiny and the monroe doctrine and i don't think that encouraging competition throughout antitrust laws is the proper role of the federal government. i certainly have some kind of overlap with progressives, but i also have some kind of overlap with conservatives, and i might suggest these labels are in truth closer to each other in space-time than i am to either one of them.
i prefer the term liberal, but only in the historical sense, and in a contemporary way that is almost directly contrary to the way it is so often used today. marx, paine, bakunin, proudhon - these people would have all identified as liberals in their time, even if most contemporary self-identified liberals would refuse to identify with them, at this time. if i use this term, and i will, it is usually in reference to some sweeping idea, or some specific aspect of history.
i would really prefer the term socialist, but i do not use the same adverb that you see so often today. democracy has always been a blurry idea, in the sense that it is really so difficult to define the authority of a democratic structure to enforce it's will on those of others. in context, this is extremely important.
i'd rather use the adverb libertarian than democratic. it's a subtle difference in some ways, but it flips the situation over on it's head; it's a difference between positive and negative freedom, in a sense. the democratic socialist is still a statist and hence defers to the state as a tool of authority to impose it's will on others; democracy, in context, means justifying that use of force by pointing to the democratic will as legitimizing. the libertarian socialist sees some approximation of statism, in the form of councils and collectives, as existing for the purpose of helping the individual achieve it's own goals, without any bias or guidance. so, the democratic socialist is into negative freedom, whereas the libertarian socialist is into positive freedom.
and, a libertarian socialist is also called an anarchist.
if we can get the thing straight once and for all, please.
if you look up, you can see where i am in the political compass, which is but one test, but nonetheless provides a physical co-ordinate. this is where i exist in space. and, what are the correct adjectives?
to begin with, i thoroughly reject the term progressive. i almost never use it, and when i do it's in a limited context, or out of laziness or irony. that is one hint at detecting my own irony, which is sometimes pretty thick. but, if you look at the issues, i don't align well with progressivism: i am not in favour of christian temperance, i reject sterilization and eugenics, i oppose the premise of retributive justice, i reject manifest destiny and the monroe doctrine and i don't think that encouraging competition throughout antitrust laws is the proper role of the federal government. i certainly have some kind of overlap with progressives, but i also have some kind of overlap with conservatives, and i might suggest these labels are in truth closer to each other in space-time than i am to either one of them.
i prefer the term liberal, but only in the historical sense, and in a contemporary way that is almost directly contrary to the way it is so often used today. marx, paine, bakunin, proudhon - these people would have all identified as liberals in their time, even if most contemporary self-identified liberals would refuse to identify with them, at this time. if i use this term, and i will, it is usually in reference to some sweeping idea, or some specific aspect of history.
i would really prefer the term socialist, but i do not use the same adverb that you see so often today. democracy has always been a blurry idea, in the sense that it is really so difficult to define the authority of a democratic structure to enforce it's will on those of others. in context, this is extremely important.
i'd rather use the adverb libertarian than democratic. it's a subtle difference in some ways, but it flips the situation over on it's head; it's a difference between positive and negative freedom, in a sense. the democratic socialist is still a statist and hence defers to the state as a tool of authority to impose it's will on others; democracy, in context, means justifying that use of force by pointing to the democratic will as legitimizing. the libertarian socialist sees some approximation of statism, in the form of councils and collectives, as existing for the purpose of helping the individual achieve it's own goals, without any bias or guidance. so, the democratic socialist is into negative freedom, whereas the libertarian socialist is into positive freedom.
and, a libertarian socialist is also called an anarchist.
if we can get the thing straight once and for all, please.
at
07:49
the rockstar vodkas that i would normally buy are about $3.55 cdn. fwiw, these drinks do not contain hundreds of milligrams of caffeine, nor do they contain taurine or most of the other things you associate with energy drinks. they do contain ginseng, as well as 15 mg of guarana and a measly 30 mg of caffeine, per 330 mg can, although i would buy them in 473 ml cans in ontario. they're 7% alcohol.
i can source that:
https://www.inspq.qc.ca/pdf/publications/1669_BoissonsEnergisantes.pdf
that's actually more comparable to a can of pop like mountain dew (52 mg/355 ml) or pepsi max (69 mg / 355 ml) than it is to an energy drink. so, it's really just a prepackaged mixed drink.
so, as stated, i have purchased a 750 ml bottle of cherry-infused 40 proof vodka, instead, for $27.20. i have also purchased two 2L bottles of mountain dew for $2 each. i will now proceed to mix my own drinks, however messy that may be.
have i saved any money?
a "drink" of vodka in canada is 43 ml of 40 proof vodka. while i understand enough chemistry to know why this is (conceptually) wrong, i'm going to carry through with the calculation, anyways - (43/5)*2 + 43 ~ 60. so, i will need to put approximately 60 ml of vodka in my mountain dew.
(60/750 = .08)*27.20 = $2.18. i should get around 12 drinks out of the bottle.
(473 - 60 = 413)/1000 = .413. so, the mountain dew will cost $0.41.
and, $2.18 + $0.41 = $2.59.
i've saved enough to buy a beer from doug ford.
so, i guess i should thank the government for saving me some money, even if it hasn't had any effect on my health.
but, i will reiterate my preference for the prepackaged drink, as it is far more convenient.
i can source that:
https://www.inspq.qc.ca/pdf/publications/1669_BoissonsEnergisantes.pdf
that's actually more comparable to a can of pop like mountain dew (52 mg/355 ml) or pepsi max (69 mg / 355 ml) than it is to an energy drink. so, it's really just a prepackaged mixed drink.
so, as stated, i have purchased a 750 ml bottle of cherry-infused 40 proof vodka, instead, for $27.20. i have also purchased two 2L bottles of mountain dew for $2 each. i will now proceed to mix my own drinks, however messy that may be.
have i saved any money?
a "drink" of vodka in canada is 43 ml of 40 proof vodka. while i understand enough chemistry to know why this is (conceptually) wrong, i'm going to carry through with the calculation, anyways - (43/5)*2 + 43 ~ 60. so, i will need to put approximately 60 ml of vodka in my mountain dew.
(60/750 = .08)*27.20 = $2.18. i should get around 12 drinks out of the bottle.
(473 - 60 = 413)/1000 = .413. so, the mountain dew will cost $0.41.
and, $2.18 + $0.41 = $2.59.
i've saved enough to buy a beer from doug ford.
so, i guess i should thank the government for saving me some money, even if it hasn't had any effect on my health.
but, i will reiterate my preference for the prepackaged drink, as it is far more convenient.
at
01:23
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)