can you win a blockade fight using gandhian tactics?

well, let's understand what gandhi did. 

there's a lot of ignorance around this, mostly coming from dumb hippies. but, what gandhi did was say "dear british, look at the size of my army! they are not currently armed - for both your sake and mine. but, suppose i were to arm them. would you stand a chance against a force this size?".

and the british, who were rational, which is the key part of the whole thing, said "no. we cannot win.", and moved out.

could a native blockade conceivably make an argument of the sort? it would have to have immense popular support that is willing to mobilize with a credible threat, which is the opposite of the status quo. you would essentially have to have an argument like this: "dear canada, look at the amount of support we have. it is not currently mobilized, but we might mobilize it. and, would you survive if we did?".

if the threat was credible, and our government was rational, which is not an obvious assumption, then a blockade might work on that level.

but, with the reality as it is, what the state is juggling is perception. nobody thinks critical mass is likely, unless you're talking about the potential of counter-demonstrators.

i want to support tactics that can win.

this one might feel good. you might think it's moral, and that might matter to you. but they can't win....

a blockade is in theory an effective action, if you can actually defend it when challenged. what's the logic, though?

the ultimate in effective actions is, of course, the sit-down strike. with a sit-down strike, the company is crippled - it can't even hire scabs. it has to negotiate, or fail. but, what is the key factor in ensuring that a sit down strike is effective? it is that the strikers can actually prevent the police from entering the building. even with a sit-down strike, they're still fucked if the cops can just move in and arrest everybody for trespassing.

a blockade could potentially work for the same reason as a sit-down strike - it can cripple production. it hits them where it hurts. that's what you want, so it's smart in a way.

but, the next question is "can we protect the blockade?", and the answer is that you never can. they can snipe you from the trees if they have to. they can water cannon you from the sky. once you get to the inevitable stage of actual conflict, there is no way to hold a blockade against a military or even a police force. it is a losing tactic, without question.

the protesters would need to build substantive fortifications over the tracks, somehow. they'd need to treat it like trench warfare and have some serious background in how to do it. 

this is moving more quickly here for two reasons:

1) there are no actual indigenous groups involved

2) it's alberta

but, if they wanted, they could have them charged with terrorism under canadian law, because there's a provision in the terrorism act public works protection act for rail infrastructure.

again: i want to stand with any kind of substantive action, and i'll morally stand with these protesters in alberta, even if i basically think they're retarded. but, what did they accomplish here? they just got themselves fined and arrested - it was completely pointless.

and, this is what will happen here, too, eventually.

i want to support meaningful direct action, and if you want to call me a traitor or whatever for pulling back on this, that's fine - i think you're a buffoon for fighting quixotic losing battles, and setting up binary choices around complex concerns. i don't mind if stupid people claim i'm not standing with them; they're stupid, so who cares?

i want to actually stop the pipeline, not join a club or have a circle jerk.

marches and demonstrations are one thing, but there's no way these blockades end well. i won't denounce them, but i do wish they'd stop, for their own good. it makes you wonder if these are even provocateurs, really, that are just trying to kill popular support for the indigenous groups.

but, that's the guy that is beating out bernie for black votes in the deep south, as biden (himself a racist.) collapses in the polls.

don't let them tell you it has nothing to do with his heritage.

umm.

he's running against trump, apparently. and is doing well with blacks. 

you know what the truth is, though? if he had just not mentioned "black and latino", if he had restricted his comments to young people in general, he'd have been expressing more or less a status quo opinion in corporate america, and one that isn't entirely void of evidence.

i'll state this - there are a lot of young people that have no understanding of business normality at all.

i don't see how this goes anywhere.

https://nypost.com/2020/02/18/bloomberg-in-2011-black-and-latino-men-dont-know-how-to-behave-in-the-workplace/

and, let's be clear, here.

i speak for me. strictly. and, i try to speak for objectivity and science and facts as best i can.

but, i am not a spokesperson for anybody except myself.

the premise of the conservatives tabling a non-confidence motion is an intriguing one, as they would no doubt do well with their base, just right now. i'm not convinced it would change the balance of power, though.

really, it demonstrates why scheer should have been replaced with an interim leader when he stepped down.

and, as much as i insist that the prime minister should be roundly condemned for excluding the opposition leader, it is itself a good reason for scheer to step down, immediately - we can't go into an election with a lame duck opposition leader, it turns the process into a farce.

the opposition is supposed to be a government in waiting, and if it's going to be triggering elections then it had really better be. that's the premise underlying the way the system is designed. right now, they are anything but, and should not be thinking about this until they are.

are there grounds for it? well, the conservatives have clearly lost confidence, and are clearly presenting an alternate course of action. i don't agree with them; i rarely do. but, they have a reasonable ballot question to put before the people, and governments have fallen over more trivial issues than this.

they need to get their house in order first. scheer should step down immediately. 

i'll admit i'd like to see a gay president on some level, but i'm not supporting buttigieg, he's far too right-wing for me. there's no way.

remember: since i've pulled back from sanders, for me, this is just a math problem.

an eight point bump in south carolina, though, and the possibility of viability, is something to think about. this is an online poll, so there's reasons to be skeptical, but i would expect to see more movement than i have, and am sort of curious as to why i haven't.

if 80% of the south carolina democratic party vote is black, that means 20% isn't. the flip side of sanders salvaging the state by splitting the black vote is that somebody could in theory be competitive by doing overwhelmingly well with the white vote. could buttigieg potentially appeal to a john edwards type constituency in the south? it might have been a dead end with the black vote consolidated, but with it split, it opens up a path.

at the least, it seems like nobody is going to run away with the south this cycle, which is good, as it will prevent it from distorting the results. that was a problem the last cycle, as these states are not likely to be very competitive in the general.

note the specific role of tom steyer, who has no serious chance of winning, but is effectively siphoning out enough black voters to prevent them from deciding who the nominee is. reparations are an enticing promise, aren't they?

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/483577-biden-sanders-tied-for-first-place-in-south-carolina-poll

i mean, if it was all about name recognition, if that actually worked, then biden would have won the first two contests, right?

clearly, that hypothesis fails somewhere.

i'm not saying that the support won't stay there, it very well might, i'm just saying that the bump is probably more about which name people recognize on the survey than anything else, and it may not represent an actual voter preference.

let us see how the numbers stabilize; right now, they're in flux, and that's the read.

i do have a question, though.

i've been suggesting warren has a chip on her shoulder and that's why she won't drop.

but, is she running for 2024, really?

so, how do you read this?

i think this might be the first bump for sanders that i've yet to see that is legitimately ahead of the margins. this is a real bump. 

but, it's in a situation of extreme flux.

the way to read the poll is essentially that a lot of people are saying something like this: 

"well, we thought biden was the guy, right? but, now, the tv is saying he's actually losing. so, the other guy we know is sanders."

the other guy we know is sanders might actually be closer to how elections actually work in the united states than nerds like me want to actually admit. but, it's extremely weak in terms of building support, especially considering that the guy we know is biden appears to be how his numbers got so high in the first place.

so, the way to read this is that biden is done, and people don't know what to do about it, and are defaulting to sanders in response - which is an opportunity, but one he needs to approach carefully.

maybe it's that easy. maybe it's all name recognition. maybe people just vote for the name they've seen somewhere before; maybe information is truly that low. just maybe...

....but, i suspect that sanders' numbers will come down a little, as people settle on who they're actually supporting, now that biden is cooked.

that, however, is a projection.

the read is that the meters are currently going haywire, as the mighty joe biden falls down, and you should take any precise measurements with a grain of salt - the message is that we're in a moment of mayhem, in which order will follow.

this might be the last fluctuation, though. where the scales fall, this time, might be the end of the race.

https://www.langerresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/1211a12020Politics.pdf

i still can't wake up...

the reality is that what the six nations are doing would not actually qualify as "free expression" in much of any legal context, and suggestions that it would should be qualified very carefully.

the case law around freedom of expression requires you to demonstrate a rational connection to your behaviour.

so, when i was blaring merzbow to get my neighbours to smoke somewhere else, i had a rational argument underlying my claim to freedom of expression. i was breaking noise bylaws, but i was doing so with a clear purpose of expressing myself. and, i was kind of daring the cops to move in. we ended up with a different constitutional battle, in the end.

what is the rational connection between blocking a rail line in ontario and stopping a pipeline in bc? there isn't one, and no court will erect one. 

if there was any connection at all, i'd probably support it, but this is really kind of just wanton hooliganism, it really is. it's still important to be careful in deescalating, regardless of how lopsided the court battles end up, in the end.

have i actually produced an opinion on this, yet? i think i've produced vague statements of solidarity for the blockades.

the thing about this is that the law really isn't ambiguous, when it comes to these blockades in ontario and quebec. it's a different issue in the actual area around the actual pipeline, and i've tried to clarify these points. so, are you asking me if i support the decision of indigenous groups in ontario to brazenly break the law in protest at something on the other side of the country, then? i don't understand the question, really. what does that mean?

it's kind of indefensible.

so, you don't really support or oppose the actions, so much as you take positions on what the right way to undo the problem is. i would take the side of deescalation here, for the reason that they aren't actively harming anybody. if they were acting more aggressively, i'd take a different stance. but, going in there with tanks is just going to make the situation worse. if i thought otherwise, i might support a stronger crackdown.

but, i would reject the accusation that my kind of disinterest in what the six nations are doing (it's pointless and counterproductive - they will most likely just end up in jail, in the end. they have no valid protest purpose, here. they will lose the most basic arguments in court, and have to rely on the mercy of the judge, which they might get.) extends to what the groups in bc, who have a clear and valid protest purpose, are doing.  

do i support them, yes or no? morally, but not functionally. i won't condemn them, but i think they should stop. 

https://globalnews.ca/news/6567463/wetsuweten-rail-port-blockades-coastal-gaslink-pipeline-poll-canada/

google is just so hopelessly fucking useless nowadays without a good search filter to block out the capitalists and religionists and i can't install anything from this guest account.

so, i can't do anything at all on this chromebook. i keep saying that. but, i'm operating on distractions anyways - i should be focusing on inri023, not looking up proper histories of the christian recolonization of britain, that undo the mythologized official church narrative (which is complete and utter bullshit).

essentially everything at the top of the google results for essentially every topic is just nonsense. and, it's making me understand these arguments that technology is making people ignorant...

if i was forced to rely on the results at the top of the google results, then, yeah, that would be about right. i know better, at least. but, i need the right tools to undo the ignorance of market stupidity, and i don't have them in front of me.

the (re)christianization of britain was a horribly brutal, bloody mess that undid an indigenous revolution, brought on by the tribal invasions that overturned the roman occupation. it should really be thought of as a clash of civilizations. it was a thousand year long civil war with multiple phases, the last of which was the viking phase, when the nobility realized the value of christianity as a tool over their conquered peasants. the vikings initially moved south as a response to charlemagne's genocide of the saxons.

britain itself is actually a little bit frustrating, because it kept getting reconquered by pagan forces, and the fact that this happened so frequently should be indicative of what side the people were really on. when your cities fall to pagan forces over and over and over again....

but, you don't get as brutal of a history there as you do elsewhere, for that reason - the christians really had a hard time holding the island at all. the mythology suggests that the reconversion happened in the 7th century. the reality is that the purpose of this mythology is to gloss over the centuries of civil war that followed, and the fact that the clergy was still struggling with very widespread pagan "reversions" (what a bullshit term.) past the invasion of william the conqueror, into the period of peasant revolts that followed the plague and all the way to the renaissance. we can condemn the inquisition for killing witches, but doing so means recognizing the continued, lingering importance of indigenous european belief systems.

in britain, specifically, it was a slow process of gradual assimilation and passive resistance. like the indigenous people of canada, the indigenous people of britain seemed to give the church a questionable amount of actual authority. they seemed to prefer to avoid and ignore them than fight them. and, in the long run, that was probably a successful strategy - religion is not very prevalent in britain, these days. the pagans have, largely, won the fight.

it's hard to google this, though. i'm just going to get the official line of absolute bullshit from the depository of bullshit that is the anglican church, as backed up by mainstream "scholarship". i need to be able to get around that in order to get to substantive research, and it's very time consuming without these filters i've built up over the years that remove religious sites from the search results. i'm not going to waste my time with it.

i was hoping that the link i posted would be helpful, but it's not.

yeah.

that text is a good example of the kind of whitewashed, colonial, christian-mythologized history that you want to avoid.

i apologize for posting the link.

don't read it. it's a lot of nonsense, and a waste of time.

that link i posted starts off scholarly, but picks up a disappointingly pro-christian tone halfway through and ultimately isn't what i expected it to be, which was an exploration of the violent methods used to spread christianity in britain. rather, it simply repeats the standard christian mythology of terrorizing german tribes, and then attempts to whitewash the violence of the church by blaming it on the germans, themselves - the spread of christianity wasn't violent because of the colonizers, but because of the colonized. this is a kind of victim-blaming and should be properly denounced.

i did not endorse the text, i pointed out what i had searched for and explained that i was going to spend some time sorting through it. i appear to have made a poor assumption about it's contents.

the basic analogy between the indigenous peoples of europe and america is apparent if you read between the lines, though, even if i strongly disagree with the pro-christian, anti-german slant of the text.

no. passed out again. fuck.

there are jungle people, there are desert people, there are mountain people, there are arctic people....

we are the people of the forests.

we should recognize our shared responsibility to protect it. and, we should stick together.

as i've said many times now,

decolonization means dechristianization, deislamification, etc.

and, if we all do this together, we we will see how similar we are, together, up here, in our northern arboreal lands - because we are products of such similar climates.

and, yes, other people are welcome in my proposed indigenous-european coalition, asians would be a rational third partner, and anybody else, but there are obvious historical reasons why pointing to cultural overlap between these specific groups is a particularly fertile proposition for a lasting synthesis.

i'm not saying anything outside of history, either.

in canada, we actually have an entire category of people called metis that intend to be a synthesis of european and amerindian indigenous groups. in america, there is this constant theme through your history of defecting to the indians - because it happened. all of the time. and, the dna that's left is kind of startling, with some indigenous groups being majority r1*, at this point.

but, i'm not the first person to propose an alliance of indigenous and european commoners against the power of the church and the state.

people like me have existed since contact....

i'm not suggesting that we all ought to go back to the dark ages...

....but, i've said this before: the similarities between indigenous europe and indigenous america are actually pretty startling, and there's actually kind of a powerful potential for a hybrid culture if our own tendency towards this kind of post-reductionist scientific atheism hybridizes with their own emancipation of the superstitious into the ecological.

the truth is that we used to be just like them, actually, and that they can teach us how to get back to what we were, as much as we can teach them to evolve out of their shells.

we got off to a bad start. but, a few centuries is a short period, in the broader scheme of things.

i'm going to flip through this tonight while i wait for my neck to heal. it doesn't seem to be bruised, just very stiff.

https://thekeep.eiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1292&context=theses

this wasn't a thought i entertained for very long, you have to understand. i got through about 15 credits, but i gave up on it pretty fast.

but, for a few months, i was contemplating the idea of being the kind of lawyer that goes after big mining firms, for example. or, perhaps, the kind of lawyer that tries to use the judicial system to strengthen civil rights protections around free speech, which is the closest thing that ended up actually happening.

i got very cynical very fast. i don't think there's much of a path, here, for substantive change, after all.

when i was studying law, i was interested in constitutional law, in tort law, in indigenous law and in other types of administrative and legislative law.

the requirements to complete a sociology of law degree include a single half credit course in criminal law, which i took and disliked, and that is the depth of criminal law that i studied.

i think it's partly how they presented the material, which was as a police foundations course. if they had presented criminal law from the perspective of a defence attorney, i may have had more interest in it.

but, i've never been the kind of person that wants to align with the state. my interest from the start was in tearing down the state, and never in aligning with it to eliminate subversive elements from society. i'm an anarchist, i'm not a conservative, or a progressive, for that matter.

so, you might notice that i don't post much about criminal defense issues.

the reason is that i'm not remotely interested in them.

Clinical trials prior to two years ago have shown little to no significant effects of cannabis in reducing seizures. These trials seem to be underpowered, with a sample size less than 15. In contrast, more recent studies that have included over 100 participants showed that CBD use resulted in a significant reduction in seizure frequency. Adverse effects of CBD overall appear to be benign, while more concerning adverse effects (e.g., elevated liver enzymes) improve with continued CBD use or dose reduction.

In most of the trials, CBD is used in adjunct with epilepsy medication, therefore it remains to be determined whether CBD is itself antiepileptic or a potentiator of traditional antiepileptic medications. Future trials may evaluate the efficacy of CBD in treating seizures due to specific etiologies (e.g., post-traumatic, post-stroke, idiopathic).

==========

in other words, they weren't able to find any evidence of this claim until they started using cbd together with the epilepsy medication.

right.

great trials, guys. really convincing. good job with that.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6235654/

even with the kids, it's like...

does it really cure epilepsy in kids? or does it cure the idea of epilepsy in the minds of their parents?

the claim is the efficacy fell over time, but i wonder if the efficacy wasn't exaggerated in the first place.

i don't have my blocklist on the chromebook, so i'd have to sort through thousands of pop science sites and piles of hippie bullshit to get to some actual, decent research. i'm not going to do that.

but, i would not endorse the claim that cbd reduces seizures in anybody, regardless of their age. sorry.

https://www.contemporarypediatrics.com/pediatrics/cbd-oils-effect-may-wane-managing-seizures

i am overwhelmingly skeptical, myself.

but, i support recreational legalization, anyways - i'd just like to see some bylaws around residential use.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cbd-product-boom-science-research-hemp-marijuana

"The relation between marijuana use and epileptic seizures is still controversial. "

that's a polite way to put it. 

i don't think i have late onset epilepsy, and i don't think it's being cause by marijuana abuse, which i've never had an issue with.

but, could pot cause seizures? the answer is that it does actually make sense, unlike the opposite argument, which really doesn't.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4121386/

but, i mean, the place could have also been empty because everybody left because the manager called the fucking cops, too.

i keep saying i'm getting up to eat.

so, it's one thing to call the cops on a green out at 11:00, when you're there until close to 3:00, that would be unnecessary, probably, and another to call them at 2:30, when you're trying to close the bar and go home.

the place was empty when i was talking to the cops....

...but that would mean i got drugged....

data. i need data.

and i need linguine.

when i called the pot smoker below me in a couple of years ago, it wasn't being done with the intent to have her arrested, or with the intent to serve or protect anybody. i was very intentionally attempting to create an occurrence for the purpose of a court process, and i actually told them that when they got there.

if there was some other way i could have proven in court that the person below me was smoking inside, i would have walked down that path, instead. but, the legal precedent is getting a police report, so i did that in order to win the court case.

as i had asked her to smoke somewhere else repeatedly, and she didn't care about my lungs or my sobriety, i decided i didn't care much about what happened to her, either. but i wasn't calling the cops for the sake of calling the cops, i was just doing what was required to get out of the lease. there wasn't another answer - that's what the court wants as proof, in that scenario. that's the sitting precedent....

it's a different kind of argument, and one i can maybe draw a parallel to on the issue of "i just want to go home". and, i guess that's where the generational gap is likely to assert itself - i would actually find it less upsetting to have a call in a situation where she's trying to close the bar and go home than i would in an overbearing situation where she's trying to, like, mother me and make sure i'm safe. i thought i was home at like 11:00, but i'm questioning that, now. is that actually true? it's kind of important.

ok, i'm going to eat.

i'm an anarchist - i don't buy into this idea of the police existing to serve or protect, unless you own property. so, i'm going to kneejerk pretty brutally against anybody calling the police.

but, the bartender drove me home.

and, even if i don't agree with what happened, i can maybe make a better attempt to understand the generational or income gap underlying it, if they really did find themselves with somebody unable to move, at or close to closing time, especially considering that i would have had to have been drugged - if i picked up that deduction right, it was correct, and the same one i'm presenting.

i may remain a little uneasy about it, i may continue to be apprehensive about the safety of entering the space for a while, but i can sort of adjust a little to it. it's like the introduction of a difference of scale, a kind of hierarchy of "noooooo".

the fact is that this is very blurry.

- i finished my second beer
- i went out for a smoke

- somebody handed me a joint and said "this is strong. careful.", and i smoked it anyways. i even said i was done and changed my mind and took more. i take some responsibility here, i'm just insisting on clarifying the agent.

- i asked for another beer, and was told i looked a little rough and to come back in an hour or two. i didn't totally agree, but i shrugged this off. note that i actually would have left at this point if i hadn't been given a free beer, because i had budgeted for two; i wasn't planning on staying much longer. so, the refusal didn't really bug me. as the karaoke was starting, i was thinking about going to the jazz bar down the street instead, anyways. but, i decided to sit down for a few minutes and think about what the best thing to do actually was.
- and, the next thing i remember is sitting a few feet away with somebody hovering over me, giving me juice.

i initially assumed that there was just a few moments in between these two events - that i had a seizure, and then i had people hovering over me right after. this is because this is how this happened before.

but, with the exceeding amounts of tiredness that have followed, and the recollection that i was having such a hard time getting up, i'm increasingly wondering:

1) how much time occurred between when i sat down and when people were giving me juice?
2) just how long was i sitting there struggling to get up for?

it's the time dilation that is messing with me, and, because i didn't check the time when i got in, i don't have the frame of reference. i'm going to need somebody to answer that question for me.

if i was just passed out for a few seconds like i initially thought, it would seem as though i had a very, very bad reaction to the pot.

but, if this process was actually more drawn out than i initially thought it was, if i was struggling with awakeness for a long while, then i basically had to have been drugged.

so, i guess i was up at close to 17:00 and i haven't been sure how awake i actually am. i got some fruit, warmed back up and spent some time ranting, to make sure i was actually awake. and, i think that i am.

my neck is unusually stiff, and i had some kind of migraine on monday morning. no significant bruising has developed. i never developed any sort of nausea. i've just been oppressively, overwhelmingly tired.

i haven't had any kind of hallucinations, if you're wondering about the stiff neck.

so, i don't know. i actually posted at the bar's facebook page, and i'm hoping to get some information about some time frames. i didn't actually check a clock. and, the more i kind of feel it through in my head, the more i'm wondering how long i was passed out for. was the bar even closed when i left? i don't have any recollection of the karaoke.

so, what if i was passed out in the bar for like 4 hours? at that point i guess maybe you either need to call the cops, or an ambulance, if the person can't move - you want to go home. but, in context, i would think that would make a roofie almost certain. i just didn't drink that much...

so, i think that, to an extent, my initial reaction, in a continued slightly confused state, should be taken with a grain of salt. i'm realizing that i maybe don't have a clear enough understanding of what happened to be able to make a choice.

it wasn't the alcohol; i either had a pot-related seizure, or i got drugged. let's hope i can get enough information by the end of the night to figure that out. and, i might undo the nasty review, if i was actually passed out for hours. because what do you do? and, there was some realization of the possibility of a drugging - she did tell me she was calling the cops because she didn't want me to get raped.

maybe, with a little better reflection, with better data, with better clarity, i can put these pieces together differently.

right now, i'm awake enough that i'm going to stop to eat.

that's not the messaging i'm getting, here.

the messaging i'm getting is that he thinks he has a higher purpose, and a special role to fulfill, and it's this special purpose and role that gives him the entitlement to act like a spoiled child.

and, that's scaring the hell out of me - that's how we walk down the path to dictatorship.

justin trudeau may think he's special.

he's not.

and, justin trudeau may think he's been chosen. he hasn't been.

what justin trudeau is is lucky. very, very, very lucky. 

and, his one opportunity to prove he has some intelligence is to demonstrate that he recognizes the importance of chance over destiny in how he got to the role that he's in.

if the rule of law in this country is to start anywhere, it must start in holding the prime minister accountable for his outrageous and unacceptable behaviour, today.

scheer may be saying crazy things that you cannot really take seriously in order to rouse up his base. that's what politicians do.

but, trudeau's behaviour is beyond the pale, and cannot be tolerated by the members of the house. he should be censured, in no uncertain terms.

i don't know if justin trudeau actually believes what he says when he stands up and presents all of this flowery language about democracy and the rule of law, or if he's just pulling your crank on purpose.

but, whether he's entirely delusional or completely dishonest, he's thoroughly full of shit, either way.

he's an authoritarian to the core, and a fascist dictator waiting to happen.

this guy is a dictator and he needs to be thrown out of power.

it's a historical constant - it's what happens when you put the pampered children of leaders into power, they grow up thinking they're intended for the role and start thinking they have some kind of inherent authority.

they don't. and, he doesn't. 

he's just a relatively uneducated person that's been given far more power than he's earned or deserves.

the irony here is, of course, that the government fully supports the pipeline. and, they will crack down on these protesters, eventually - trust me. it's just a question of doing so in a way that avoids the optics of the war measures act.

it was not very long ago when canada was one of the more libertarian western countries, in terms of the political spectrum. i'm not sure how we woke up with this current surreal debate, between two different strains of literal fascism. but, this is how the liberals co-opt and confuse you - they present themselves as a lesser evil, while continuing to shift the discourse to the hard right.

the prime minister has an obligation to listen to the opposition, whether he likes what they have to say or not. insisting otherwise is an egregious abuse of power and a step towards authoritarianism and must be denounced and resisted.

i would call on the other opposition parties to refuse to meet further with the prime minister until he drops his fascistic and, frankly, somewhat childish, strongarm tactics.

https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/justin-trudeau-ejects-a-protester/

how about nevada?

i know i'm cherry-picking, but the only poll here without an obvious bias (and it doesn't help to verify the results if the polling is all funded by partisan actors) is this one:

Sanders 35%
Warren 16%
Buttigieg 15%
Biden 14%
Steyer 10%
Klobuchar 9%
Gabbard 2%

...and it's also the one that aligns best with the non-literal, intuitive regression model that i erected in my head (stated differently, this is the one that best reflects the direction of the trendlines).

those numbers are a little better for buttigieg, but it's still not clear that he'll end up viable, and i'm not ready to project that he will.

they're very good for sanders, though, who, once again, could nearly take the pot by splitting the field, if that was the actual outcome.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-d/nevada/

ok, so we're starting to see some shape with this.

the headlines are claiming sanders is in the lead, bloomberg is up & biden is down. they forgot to mention that buttigieg is up more than bloomberg. klobuchar's +2 is statistically a flat outcome.

so, biden is in free fall and the support appears to be splitting between buttigieg and bloomberg. if he falls another few points, buttigieg could maybe end up viable in some of these southern states, which is probably the best he can hope for. the rest of the field is roughly flat.

and, sanders? well, if the field stays the way it is, and he's the only guy that can clear 15%....

warren seems to be dragging a grudge around first and foremost, but biden is actually trying to win and will give up when it's clear that he can't, which might not be too far in the future. when that happens, some other candidate should emerge as a rising second, either bloomberg or buttigieg.

i don't understand who would vote for mike bloomberg, or why. i specifically can't imagine black voters staying with bloomberg, even if they refuse to vote for the jew or the gay. so, what do they do, exactly? i dunno. i will acknowledge that bloomberg is throwing a little bit of a wrench into my projections with this, but i think he has a relatively low ceiling. and, like biden, he will quit fairly quickly when his path is blocked. he won't drag this on, he will move on to something else. so, when you take them both off the ballot, who's next in line? steyer?

what's clear enough is that they're realigning against sanders rather than with him, and that sanders may have had this thing in the bag right now had he tried to organize around them rather than with them. instead, he's ceded a lot of ground to buttigieg & klobuchar & warren, while chasing outcomes that were never very likely.

he appears to be getting a bit of a break, though - he appears to be getting a bit of luck.

i told you months ago that sanders was going to have to split the black vote to win the nomination, then got frustrated with and eventually alienated by his refusal to face the facts on the matter, and instead contort his positions and destroy his legacy by chasing value systems that belong in the last century. now, here he is, observing his chances of winning the nomination increase dramatically by a developing split in the black vote that is developing as a consequence of his own negligence in consolidating white voters.

i also said months ago that he's going to have to heal the divisions after he splits the vote, if he wants to win the general. he might want to get to thinking about that by finding ways to reach out to these southern black groups that, frankly, simply don't like him.

he's done everything wrong, and it's not confidence-inducing. but, the incompetence and inability of his opponents to work together is opening up a gigantic hole for him to run through. and, they're running out of time to figure it out.

...if this isn't actually just theatre, anyways. of course.

the story is that biden's vote is splitting roughly evenly between buttigieg and bloomberg, both of whom may overtake him in the next round of polls. sanders, on the other hand, remains flat, but well ahead of the split field.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/18/nbcwsj-poll-sanders-leads-by-double-digits-as-biden-sinks-bloomberg-rises.html

after passing out hard for another 10+ hours over what was supposed to be a twenty minute nap, and feeling like i'm going to sleep another 10 hours, i'm left with the need to ask the question i should have asked in the first place.

there's no way at all that the totality of this is alcohol related - i'd have had to have drank at least twice as much as i did. and, while i've had some bad reactions to marijuana recently, this is starting to feel like something more than that, as well.

was i drugged on sunday night? did somebody put something in my drink when i was having a smoke?

there weren't a lot of people in the bar from 7:30-10:00 on sunday night. they have a weekly karaoke feature, and it was starting to pick up when i fell asleep. there were maybe five or six people in the bar, pretty much all male, with the exception of a bartender and a small group of females tucked away on the very far side of the bar, which i didn't make it over to, as it would have been out of the way.

of the guys in the bar, i actually think i've met most of them before and would consider essentially all of them to be exceedingly low risk. i would characterize this bar as a nerd hangout and pretty low risk, over all.

i did not purchase my second drink, though. it was bought for me after i had a conversation with somebody about the native african language they were speaking at the bar. they were impressed by my knowledge of the geography of eastern africa, and my usage of terms like "nilotic". and, i scored a drink out of it. i didn't think much of it.

now, though...

i shouldn't be experiencing this kind of overwhelming effect from a couple of drinks and a few tokes. this is an epic hangover, the kind of thing you get after a major bender. 

so, did somebody put something in my drink?

if not, what exactly was i handed?

i've been asleep since 3:00 this morning and i think i'm going back to it.

so, i have a tentative 72 page document done for inri023, but i appear to have flubbed the process the first time around (this is an lp, like inri015 or inri021, but i treated it like an ep, like inri022. i have to reverse that.) and will need to go through it very carefully to make sure i haven't missed anything.

unlike the last three updates, inri023 only has one html5 frontend in the package and will not include discarded remasters. that's something that was sort of unique to those specific recordings.

in fact, the html5 part of this should be pretty quick, i just have to actually get it done.

i think i'm going to take a nap just right now, though. i hope it's short...

i can measure how much alcohol i'm consuming by reading labels and via experience. that's something i have control over, and that i'm actually pretty good at figuring out. i actually don't tend to find myself very drunk very often, although it happens to everybody sometimes.

however, when somebody hands you a joint, you have no idea how potent it is, or if it's even really marijuana in the first place. 

so, if somebody hands you a potent joint and it knocks you out flat on your ass, did you do something irresponsible? or did you just get unlucky?

you could have controlled the situation by not smoking at all, granted. but, you didn't have control of the pot that was given to you, you were at the whim of somebody else. is it actually your fault, really?

imagine if it was alcohol. if somebody gives you a cup worth of beer, it probably won't do much to you; on the other hand, if somebody gives you a cup worth of vodka, and you swig it, it could knock you out right on the spot. the difference between a cbd joint rolled with mostly tobacco and a pure marijuana cigarette at 30% thc is just as profound. 

if somebody gave you a glass of beer, you'd drink it, if you trust them. you would know better than to drink a glass of vodka, though. with marijuana, you don't have the opportunity to make that discretion, and, if you have low tolerance like i do, you can find yourself passed right out relatively quickly, if you take too long a haul on too powerful of a joint. if you had the ability to understand what you're smoking in the first place, you might not make those mistakes.

the potency of marijuana has apparently come up a lot over the last few decades, and i guess my reactions to the drug are reflective of that. 

again, i don't want to come off as unappreciative or entitled.

but, this was a part of the argument for legalization in the first place, and it would be nice if they could get a move on it. this was supposed to have been dealt with quite a while ago, already.

turns out today was a holiday in ontario.

the more you know...

like, there's a difference between passing out and falling asleep.

i wasn't passed out. i was woken up every few minutes, and nobody had any difficulty getting me up. i was just overwhelmed by tiredness, knocked on my ass by strong pot, and had no option but to sleep it off.

there was one night where i was actually drunk, namely the night before beethoven's fifth, back in october.

the fact that i remember her fussing over me repeatedly is itself proof that i wasn't drunk - if i was drunk, i wouldn't remember struggling to wake up like that, it would just be ejected from memory altogether. greenouts will suck your life force out of you, turning you into a kind of vegetable until it passes. they're not pleasant; they suck. but, you don't wake up the next day and wonder what happened last night. that difference has been important in helping me understand what's been happening to me....

i mean, one of the reasons that i'm blaming this on marijuana instead of alcohol is that i didn't lose any time. there's no black out period.

ignoring the actual amount that i drank, and the obvious reality that it's not going to get anybody pass out drunk, being drunk means blacking out. if you don't black out, you're not that drunk...

there's no question that i was out of it for a small amount of time, i'm not denying that point - i was very, very stoned, so stoned i couldn't move. but, going instantly from full alertness and total recall to being unable to move is a marijuana thing, not an alcohol thing. so, if i had a seizure, or suffered a sudden drop in blood pressure, or whatever else, it didn't erase any of my actual memory - the time i lost is strictly reduced to the period that i was actually passed out. which isn't what happens with alcohol poisoning...

i did not vomit or feel sick, not even when i got home. i did have a headache, and woke up with a migraine.

even explaining it as a thc overdose, a greenout, is, i think, just putting off the point. the marijuana is triggering the events, and i hope it's dose-specific, but i suspect there's some underlying factor.

so, i have slept for most of the day, now. i just finally got out of the shower....

i'm less hungry than i should be. oddly.

i'm told that i fell off a chair, but i just remember sitting down in one place and being teleported to the other and a different bartender giving me juice; i'm going to guess there was no more than a few minutes of time in between. so, i'm guessing i just fell off the chair, maybe seized slightly on the ground, and either got up or was helped up in the closest chair. and, i then couldn't move for about 20-30 minutes until i got up and got in a car and was driven home.

as mentioned, this has happened to me before after smoking marijuana. the amount of alcohol i've drank doesn't seem to be a factor, it seems to be strictly about the pot. i'm guessing it's just too strong for me...

i don't remember falling over. so, i checked my body for bumps or scrapes. the last time i had a seizure like this was back in july, and i ended up with a couple of wounds. i did notice that my hair was a little bit matted, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but the closest thing i can find to signs of trauma is just a little bit of a bruise behind my ear. i can't see anything just quite right there without setting up a sequence of mirrors, which i don't really have in here. there's no other visible signs of trauma from falling...

i've got some final touches for inri022 to clean up, locally. and, i should hopefully have a rough draft of inri023 up by sunrise.

i thought i posted this earlier...

i kind of half want to argue that the court should reject the extension, and strike down the law, leaving assisted suicide unregulated - like abortion is.

on principle, decisions around when a person chooses to end their own life doesn't seem to me like something the government should really be very involved with. i would lean in the direction of as few restrictions as are possible.

but, i think there needs to be a requirement for a contract in law, at least - there has to be a way to actually prove that the individual seeks the end of their life. my own mother has said some eyebrow raising things to me about my grandmother, who owns a large amount of stocks. my mother, who is very poor, would benefit dramatically from my grandmother's death (or at least she thinks she would - i'm not sure she understands the law, there). as it is, my grandmother, who is 79 and suffering from dementia, would have probably written this into her will, if she had the option to, before she lost the ability to legally make decisions for herself. but, now that she doesn't have that ability, this decision surely can't be left to her daughters, who would drive her off the cliff themselves, if they could find a way to get away with it.

abortion doesn't have that dimension to it, it's more the opposite - people may abort because they can't afford to raise their kids, and that's something that's been accepted as a valid argument.

so, that's a false equivalency. there has to be a contract requirement, with this, it can't be left totally unregulated, even if the regulations ought to be as light as possible.

well, maybe if they didn't prorogue parliament after the election...

the incompetence, across the board on this, is staggering. they should have never passed such a restrictive law in the first place.

people are suffering. they need to stop globetrotting and get on with it.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/medical-assistance-in-dying-quebec-1.5466556

i just want to remind the groups protesting in bc that the people the government is going to send, the carolyn bennetts and the bob raes, are known for being very sneaky in their discussions.

it's very important that you analyze their proposals very carefully, and you should expect them to be full of trick clauses and language that is worded in confusing ways that they can reactivate in future years.

they will tell you otherwise, and they may be very convincing, too, but you must realize that they are essentially no different than the colonial agents from 150 years ago.

i will acknowledge that the length of the green-out was perhaps concerning, but, the effects of marijuana overconsumption being what they are, the consequence of it should have been realized, as well. this is just what happens when you smoke too much - you fall asleep for a few minutes.

the bar manager is not trained to tell the difference between a green out and a blackout, and just kept coming back to me like an overprotective mother, fussing over my clothing and how it affected my safety, and telling me how "lovely" and "gorgeous" i look, making me wonder who the tranny in the room actually was.

i was actually wearing a heavy red overcoat.

like i say - i don't want to get mad at her, but i feel micromanaged. things would have been fine. it wasn't necessary. really.

how much did i have to drink last night? i avoided answering that question and don't think i did.

- two shots of vodka in my mountain dew, 1:45-2:35.

- one tall mike's hard, 2:45-3:20

- one corona, 3:20-4:00

- one heineken, 4:00-5:00

- one tall hamm's, 6:00-7:00

- two james ready, 7:30-11:00

that is not an excessive amount of alcohol, and i was not particularly drunk.

i was, however, exceedingly stoned, as a consequence of smoking on a couple of joints outside the bar, so stoned that i fell asleep on the bar stool. i was actually warned of the strength of the pot as it was being passed to me, and i have a history of similar reactions to strong pot. so, it's not an unexpected reaction, but i would have been fine in a few minutes, once my body metabolized it.

so, it was the marijuana that passed me out, not the alcohol. and i've been through this before...

i enjoyed the show and ended up at villain's after. i smoked some pot outside and ended up needing to sit down for a few minutes. an overzealous bar manager was convinced i was going to get raped (i don't know whether to thank her or yell at her) and called the police to escort me home, which is, like, the worst thing to do, but that's not how she saw it. you can't convince them you can walk home after they show up....somebody at the bar had to volunteer to get me home.....

i passed out pretty hard when i got home and need to eat and shower.

i don't want to get angry. but, i don't think i'll go back there.

i was not drunk, i was stoned, and i would have been fine, and they should have avoided calling the police, who are not there to serve or protect but to control and dominate.

inri022 updated and tested

this is tested and working on the chromebook and on firefox on the windows 7 box.

what's in there, now?

- the 10 songs on the record
- cover.jpg. this release is download only, because these tracks are thoroughly rejected.
- a playlist.m3u file stored as raw text
- a 23 page doc file of liner notes over the fall of 2013
- a 23 page pdf file (same)
- an instructions file
- inri022.html.7z.txt is a 50 mb document that must be renamed and unzipped and contains (1) an html version of the liner note package, including an html5 player that can load the purchased audio in the browser and (2) deleted masters of the record from 2013, in standalone 320 kbps mp3 and embedded into the html file.

the full download, in flac, is 304 mb.

there will be further updates to the liner notes as i run through the alter-reality, and as i run through the remastering period that took place over 2015-2016. but, this is likely the last major revision to this period 1.2 outtakes collection, which is nearing a point of final completion.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inrijected

it's time to stop to eat and shower.

so, i crashed this morning during testing. i'm up now and have finished testing the windows box. it won't be long before i'm done here and i should have a post up soon.

i'm still planning on getting to the dso, but it depends on timeframes. i might miss it. it's streaming...

the landlord/main-cop is back and the stinky cop seems to be gone. can i make a request to the force, which i know is reading this, to keep that gross, smelly cop away from here? surely, you can find a cop to stake me out that i can't smell from a distance of 100 yards?

very soon, and then i'll get back to inri023 when i get back, if i go.

it's done. 

final testing.

soon.

there's one more after this...

this one is much shorter, and it will be done quite shortly. soon.

why isn't the fake left press covering this?

https://thearabweekly.com/undeterred-clerics-intimidation-iraqi-women-press-protests

first liner note release for inri022

this is a collection of rejected tracks from the inri/inriched period. it's just chronologically sequenced. download only.

recorded over 1998. compiled and remastered in late 2013. released dec 27, 2013. corrected to normalize for stereo in september, 2014. expanded incrementally between dec, 2014 and dec, 2016. merged with inricycled b and then finalized and re-released on december 16, 2016. first liner note release added on feb 15, 2020, to include the initial 2013 release in 192 kbps mp3 only. as always, please use headphones.

this release will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1996-1999, 2013-2020). as of feb 15, 2020, the release includes a 23 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process over sept-dec, 2013, as well as the initial 2013 release in 192 kbps mp3 only.

credits

released January 27, 1999

j - guitars, effects, bass, bass synth, synthesizers, vocoders, octavers, drum programming, sequencers, noise generators, sound design, vocals, found sounds, cool edit synthesis, digital wave editing, loops, windows 95 sound recorder, sampling, production.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inrijected

it turns out that poll in nevada was commissioned by an explicitly republican polling firm. that might explain a few things.

i need a better source than that.

i quit smoking years ago.

and, i shouldn't have to go to any great lengths to prove that statement - it should be taken on face value.

i have not been cold turkey for a while.

but, i functionally quit smoking in january, 2016, and anybody pushing back against that is just being dishonest in their argument.

i've had maybe ten cigarettes in the past ten weeks.

and, i haven't bought a pack of smokes for casual, habitual use since the end of 2017.

fwiw, i have not bought a pack of smokes since i got back from toronto in mid december. i've bummed maybe 10 smokes in that period, while i'm out grocery shopping.

it's actually a subconscious factor in staying in tonight - i know that i'll buy a pack if i got out for the night and i don't really want to. i can probably avoid that if i just go to the show tomorrow afternoon, instead. i might bum a couple...

so, the fact that these cops are smoking upstairs is exceedingly frustrating to me. but i just have to focus on winning these court cases and getting out of here.

that means that i should get inri022 up by the end of the night.

i was badly distracted yesterday. we know that happens when i get cabin fever. and, it actually means i need to get out. tomorrow.

yeah, the wind chill tonight is still pretty bad, coming off the deep freeze yesterday morning. and, the change in the lineup at the psych show means the combination of the night falls apart.

i'm going to wait and go tomorrow afternoon, instead.

iran is an advanced society under the thumb of a brutal dictatorship.

they don't need the kinds of social programs that senegal needs. what they need is solidarity on the ground.

don't waste my time with your morality.

it's bullshit.

like, i don't even want to talk to the kind of conservative idiot that would try to frame complicated social problems in terms of morality. we diverge from first principles.

your morals are of absolutely no concern to me at all.

yes, you have to get to root causes before you can fix problems, but that's not an argument against the use of force, it's an explanation of when it's useful and when it isn't.

arguing for root causes as a means of pacifism is a co-option of socialism by religious groups. anybody that's actually read any kind of socialist literature at all will tell you of the importance of violent overthrow in the model.

it's a question of restricting the use of force to scenarios where doing so is productive and can lead to a substantive outcome. for that reason, blowing up senegal would be pointless, whereas very careful support for the revolutionary forces in iran could actually be decisive.

but, it's not some kind of moral issue. it's a tactical question.

"separating religion and state is much better then separating males and females", 

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2020/02/14/hundreds-of-thousands-take-part-in-million-women-march-in-iraq/

yay!

https://peoplesdispatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Womens-protest-in-Iraq-1536x864.jpg

On Thursday, ahead of the protests, he (sadr) again slammed the protests as being rife with "nudity, promiscuity, drunkenness, immorality, debauchery ... and non-believers."

finally - a contemporary movement in the middle east i can stand in solidarity with!

debauchery forever! drunkenness for all!

solidar, solidarity!

no, seriously. this is a positive development in iraq as of late, and i hope it has a secularizing effect, and i hope that secularizing effect spills over.

and, if there's anything we can do to help....

https://www.dw.com/en/women-and-men-stick-together-in-iraq-after-cleric-al-sadr-criticizes-protesters-immorality/a-52372819

that's an encouraging development.

i can stand with this.

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/02/iraq-protests-feminism-women.html

also, the turks need to immediately cease all support for the rebels in idlib, and i fully support any actions by the syrians and their russian backers to restore syrian sovereignty to the area.

i would then hope that the russians recognize the need for regime change in syria once the country is properly stabilized, and assad himself sees the need to make way for a civilian government.

for right now, wiping out these islamofascist nazis needs to be the primary purpose, and the turks should be ashamed of the actors they're supporting in order to advance their narrow self-interest.

this is quite different from what bernie has done in the democratic primary, which is to very purposefully distance himself from queer activists so as to not upset his chances at winning black voters.

and, as punishment for his cynical failure of leadership on this point, he will probably lose both demographics, and rather badly.

i feel obligated to respond to this, although i'd actually rather not.

first, i'll reiterate that i'm not a supporter of justin trudeau or the liberal party. there happened to be a relatively good liberal candidate running in my riding, and i did vote for her because i thought she had a good chance of getting rid of the rather useless ndp back bencher that we've had here for far too long, but i spent months insisting i'd vote for the greens, and would have if it weren't for the strength of the local liberal candidate. i didn't vote for him, i voted for her - both technically and symbolically.

so, trudeau can't lose my support because he doesn't have it in the first place.

but, the issue of homosexual oppression in africa is extremely widespread and baked directly into the culture, there. there aren't even really substantive allies to connect with. i need to be able to present an alternative course of action before i can criticize somebody for doing something, and there really isn't much of one, here.

if the implication is that trudeau sold out queer rights for a security council seat, then that would be deplorable and worthy of condemnation in the starkest terms possible, and possibly even grounds to demand an immediate resignation. i would hope that other countries would look at something like that and vote for norway instead, as we clearly wouldn't be worthy of sitting on the security council if we were going to behave in such an undignified manner as that. as a canadian, that would leave me feeling ashamed and embarrassed. but, i don't think that's what actually happened.

what can canada do with these countries like senegal that just refuse to modernize around this issue, and so many others? well, pulling investment isn't going to help anybody. nor is boycotting them. as an anarchist, i completely reject the premise that market theory is a force for social change. this is a longstanding liberal position, though, that is challenged mostly by conservative zealots on the fake left that insist on upholding these purity tests in who they interact with - that's not a position i'd ever advance or advocate. so, for example, i'll follow chomsky on his criticism of bds, in arguing that it's likely to backfire. and, while a bds movement against africa on queer rights might feel good, it's not likely to materially aid any queer people in africa; i might support such a thing abstractly, but i'd never actually advocate it, as i'd expect the outcome to be terrible for the people i'd be trying to support.

nor is trudeau standing there and saying things going to mean anything to anybody. nobody cares.

we could slaughter the leadership in the hopes of an uprising, but that would never work in africa. i've been very careful to point to iran as a specific example where there is a lot of opposition to the state, and a powerful modernizing force on the ground, and i've tried to frame the issue around the likelihood of critical mass. i would never argue for a second that slaughtering the african leadership would lead to a modernizing uprising, so the justification for doing so wouldn't exist. i am cognizant of the fact that the self-righteous moral zealots will call me a hypocrite, but that's rooted in the fact that they're too stupid to understand the argument i'm presenting. if you read this post and conclude i'm a hypocrite, you're an imbecile - but you might, and i expect as much from a certain collection of people that think with their hearts instead of their heads.

the best thing we can do is try to provide support and hope it helps to change attitudes on the ground in the long run, and my understanding is that that's actually what we're doing. i may have other criticisms for the economic projects that exist beyond this, but i would reject the explicit argument that they should be pulled to help the queer movement get off the ground - i do not think that this is a well thought through argument.

likewise, i'm hardly going to have a melt down about the prime minister attending a meeting with the iranian foreign minister. i've been clear that i'd support a very tactical strike to remove the religious leadership, explicitly, in the hopes that it would lead to a secularist uprising, if the likelihood of such a thing could be established beforehand. zarif is actually a part of the civilian leadership, and not really representative of the theocracy. again: what can canada do in or with iran? and, if you believe that it should be seeking to prop up secularist voices and minimize religious ones then isolating or excluding the civilian leadership would not be consistent with any kind of progress, even if it makes you feel good about yourself for doing it. in context, there are clearly some discussions that need to be had between the countries, and i don't see any value in preventing that.

i would support a targeted strike against the ayatollah, though. that's the source of oppression here, the religion; the civilian government, if anything, is a buffer against that.

i hope i've clarified any confusion that might exist.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/pm-defends-not-publicly-supporting-lgbtq-rights-in-senegal-photo-with-iranian-minister-1.4812426

if you put money down on andrew yang to win the presidency, i have a bandcamp site to send you to.

i think the error here is thinking this is a serious projection, rather than a way for fools to part with their money.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/2/14/21137882/prediction-markets-bloomberg-sanders-president

this is explored in greater detail in the dawkins film 'nice guys finish first'.

there's lots of examples in this primary, but klobuchar v warren is particularly clear. if they continue to compete, they're going to end up both getting <15% across the board. but, if they cooperate by picking a ticket and sticking with it, they could give bernie a run for his money.

buttigieg and biden is another example, but it's not as clear, yet.

i suspect i'll be talking a lot about this in the upcoming weeks.

if you don't know what it is....

...and i like the advertising example, in context.

i'm forced to live inside the system that is erected around me.

but, you would find the depth of my rejection of capitalism to be shocking, should i ever choose to get involved with politics in a serious manner. the groups i would support would be extremely radical, and i would not stand with groups in the centre, at all.

if you were to see me in action, you might begin to understand why i reject bourgeois politics so thoroughly.

but, my art is more important than my politics, and is where my energy will be focused for the near future.

and, why don't i go to shows in windsor?

because there aren't any. or, there aren't any worth going to, anyways. it would be far easier if there were, trust me. but, there aren't.

it's a small city. i'm a big city person...i need a large metropolitan area to be able to generate the kind of art i'm interested in. 

my focus, right now, is my art.

i'm not done yet.

i am a canadian citizen and live in windsor. i just go to detroit to party, because it's the closest major city. if there was a closer city on this side of the border, i would go there, instead.

i have no interest in detroit politics, and would even consider engaging myself within them to be an example of foreign interference. i may make comments or observations about things that are meaningful to me, but it's intentionally done from a great distance.

i would involve myself with issues on this side of the border, strictly, if i were to decide to make that choice. but, i am not likely to find myself interested in bourgeois politics any time soon. i would be more likely to involve myself with ngos and anarchist groups.

we have a special place in our law for indigenous groups that take direct action against groups that would infringe upon their constitutionally defined rights, it is true.

but, that place doesn't extend to people acting in solidarity with other groups, even if popular opinion is on their side.

actually, the issue here in ontario is pretty cut and dry, although scheer's suggestion (and trudeau could order the rcmp in if he wanted) is pretty hamfisted, in terms of public relations, and intended more for a political audience.

but, that's my point - everybody loves the phrase "rule of law" nowadays, even if few people seem to know what it means, but that's not really the point on either side.

the government doesn't want to create any martyrs, and should not be overly aggressive in it's actions. if they were blocking somebody from entering their own territory to lay a pipeline here, the courts would interpret the situation in a different manner than they do with run of the mill vandalism, even if that's technically what they're doing. but, this isn't what's happening. you can stand with them and agree with them, and i do to an extent, but this is going to end with mass arrests and convictions for garden variety offences like mischief and trespassing. what the police are really waiting for is for the topic to exit the news cycle - it's an entirely political response, through and through.

likewise, scheer surely knows that calling for tanks in the streets in canada is just an authoritarian right pipe dream to rev up his racist political base, although it demonstrates why so much of the country refused to even consider his candidacy. it's just crazy talk from somebody that will never hold any power.

https://globalnews.ca/news/6551391/wetsuweten-protests-trudeau-scheer/

i need to repeat the point.

if sanders is the only person that gets over 15%, he gets 100% of the delegates.

so, he could in theory get 22% of the vote and 100% of the delegates if the second place finisher gets 14%, and the field is bunched up behind him. and, that looks like what's going to happen, if buttigieg can't clear that hurdle.

there is no polling support for anybody else besides sanders and maybe biden clearing 15%. not warren, not steyer. and, the polling support for biden is rather weak (i'll get to that).

my intuition is that buttigieg remains the most likely second place finisher, but we're running out of time to build polling support, and if the data doesn't come in soon, that will need to be abandoned. i won't run on gut feelings in any scenario besides the complete absence of data, which is what we're faced with. my gut is not a convincing oracle, nor is yours. this telephone poll has a very small sample size, though, and isn't enough to go all in on - we're still forced to rely on guessing.

but, i think it's more likely that they both fail than that biden succeeds at buttigieg's expense. i mean, you've got three options:

1) buttigieg takes votes from biden and ends up viable while biden doesn't. i still consider this likely, in nevada, in the end.
2) biden recovers support from buttigieg and ends up viable while buttigieg doesn't. i can't imagine that happening, anywhere, anymore, not after listening to biden speak, recently. he's a senile idiot. you'd have to be retarded to vote for him. i'd vote against him, explicitly, if i could. he should be in a retirement home, not running for president..."too old" is maybe not a fixed number, but biden really is too old.
3) they split their own vote and both get under 15%. this is currently the second option and is increasingly looking more likely.

you could say something similar about klobuchar and warren, except that all evidence at this point suggests they're going to split and both end with nothing. they're in a classic prisoner's dilemma, and failing badly.

how likely is it that biden will be viable? polling at 18% with a 5% moe means you're between (13,23), 99% of the time. as he has tended to underperform his polling just about everywhere, it seems likely that he'll end up on the bottom end of this, that is below 18 rather than above it, so it's not strong evidence that he'll end up viable. and, these are higher numbers than i expected to see.

so, if we don't get any polling evidence that buttigieg or at least klobuchar have a shot at viability, if the polls continue to suggest that it's just biden & sanders, you should prepare yourself for the strong likelihood that sanders takes the pot, here.

these numbers are roughly in line with what i suggested, with the open questions being how much support will flow to buttigieg from biden and how much will flow from warren to klobuchar. i am skeptical that biden will run that high in the end (he's demonstrated himself to be a doddering idiot, and if being "diverse" means you're more likely to vote for a moron then that reflects poorly on diversity, doesn't it? i'm not buying into that, that's racist.), but we'll see what happens. 

note that if these numbers are roughly correct and nobody can get to 15% then sanders actually gets all of the delegates, in the end.

https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada/sanders-holds-lead-heading-into-nevadas-democratic-caucuses-poll-finds-1957583/

inri021 updated and tested

this is tested and working on the chromebook and on firefox on the windows 7 box.

what's in there, now?

- the 17 songs on the record
- cover.jpg & a jpg of the backsheet for cd-r printing (the insert for the spine)
- a playlist.m3u file stored as raw text
- a 126 page doc file of liner notes over the fall of 2013
- a 126 page pdf file (same)
- an instructions file
- inri021.html.7z.txt is a 175 mb document that must be renamed and unzipped and contains (1) an html version of the liner note package, including an html5 player that can load the purchased audio in the browser and (2) deleted masters of the record from 1999 and 2013, in standalone 192 kbps mp3 and embedded into the html file.

the full download, in flac, is 570 mb.

there will be further updates to the liner notes as i run through the alter-reality, and as i run through the remastering period that took place over 2015-2016. but, this is likely the last major revision to my second record, which is nearing a point of final completion.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inriched

it's time to stop to eat and shower.

i'm done testing on windows.

the chromebook testing should be relatively quick. soon....

is sanders the front-runner?

right now, he is, yes. maybe he shouldn't be, and maybe he won't be next month, and maybe the fact that he is right now is a reflection of the field being unsettled, but he's the only guy you can place a bet on to get over 15% in any particular state.

it's not often that "getting over 15%" means you're in first place, but that's the reality that exists, right now.

i keep pointing out that it seems like this is intentional, and the longer these goofs keeping running into each other for, the more likely that will seem. 

ok, so i've finally got those typos i told you about on tuesday afternoon updated.

- i removed a "/p>" from the html frontend for inri002 and inri015.
- i removed an extra "</p>" from the html frontend for inri015.
- i unscratched out a track from the html frontend for inri015.

that's it. but, it means reuploading the 7z.txt package and redownloading the end point in flac for archiving.

inri002:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inricycled

inri015:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-3

the (hopefully) final update (for now) for inri021 should be up soon, i hope.

and, i may have to make some pasta in the wee hours of the morning because it's -30 out for the first and hopefully last time this year.

if the demographics in new hampshire preferred klobuchar over warren, cheating or not, it's hard for me to think that the demographics in nevada would reverse that.

warren is more white, older & a little less socially conservative. they ought to prefer klobuchar.

but, black churchies in south carolina ought to like buttigieg, too.

should i post about nevada? i have an hour and a half to blow before i turn the pc on, which i turned off early this morning to go to sleep. i have slept most of the day....

i suggested a little earlier that i basically think this "diversity" line is just an excuse and that, notwithstanding the clear reality that southern blacks are neither going to vote for a jew nor a gay male in any kind of substantive numbers, i don't really think that nevada is going to be as different from the first two states as is often surmised.

the polls that exist are ancient, now - early january. but, the trendline is actually more or less the same as we've seen elsewhere - biden & warren are falling, while sanders is stable and buttigieg is climbing, by capitalizing on support wandering from biden & warren. is there some kind of accompanying klobuchar bounce? we'd need fresh polling to conclude that, but, frankly, i'd expect something or other.

the only thing that really looks like it might be different in nevada is that steyer may be polling substantively higher, presumably cutting into the same voter pool as warren, biden, buttigieg & klobuchar. if you start with new hampshire results and you take 2% from each of those candidates and give it to steyer, you end up with:

sanders - 26%
buttigieg - 22%
klobuchar - 18%
steyer - 12%
warren - 7%
biden - 6%

and, if i was to take a guess, a priori, which is a terrible idea, that's probably not far from what you'd end up with - on the first ballot. the only tweak i'd make would be to move some of klobuchar's vote to warren.

sanders - 26%
buttigieg - 22%
klobuchar - 15%
steyer - 12%
warren - 10%
biden - 6%

what that means is that you're probably actually looking at the same three candidates in nevada - maybe. steyer is probably just going to kill off biden, without getting over the threshold, himself. and, klobuchar and warren may destroy each other.

the last thing that i want to take note of is yang, whose suspended campaign doesn't have an obvious beneficiary in nevada but who could potentially help a candidate become viable if they move together. warren is a curious possibility and maybe the best fit, but i don't know if it's enough. yang himself has suggested sanders, but sanders has not responded favourably to yang's proposals, and frankly seems to be a bit of a productionist. on the other hand, if turnout just comes down by a few points, it will have the effect of inflating totals by any candidates right on the bubble.

if we get some polling, great, and i'll change my analysis to react to it. but, maybe this is better read as how i'm expecting any polling to come up.

south carolina may be a very different story. but, i don't actually expect nevada to come in that different than the first two states, which will hopefully undercut this goofy narrative about "diversity" helping biden. his numbers were already falling there; i think he's going to do terribly, and i think warren is going to tank, too.

the real question mark is if klobuchar and steyer can get viable or not.

so, splitting yang's three between warren & sanders, my tentative first ballot hypothesis in nevada is going to be something like:

sanders - 27%
buttigieg - 22%
klobuchar - 15%
steyer - 12%
warren - 12%
biden - 6%
rest - 6%

if klobuchar clears the hurdle, she's going to split support from warren & biden voters.

what about steyer? his selling point appears to be openly supporting reparations, something klobuchar has rejected, sanders has been dismissive about and buttigieg has been most supportive of. i don't know, so let's split it equally.

and, you get something like:

sanders - 27 + 4 (steyer) + 2 (warren) + 2 (rest) = 35%
buttigieg -  22 + 4 (steyer) + 5(waren) + 3 (biden) + 2 (rest) = 36%
klobuchar - 15 + 4 (steyer) + 5 (warren) + 3 (biden) + 2 (rest) = 29%

i understand that i made a mistake in completely redistributing second votes, and that a lot of people just won't vote a second time. so, you should take everybody down 5-6%, probably.

regardless, i'm basically suggesting that the results will be essentially the same as in new hampshire, after the second vote - that sanders & buttigieg will be in a toss-up for first, with klobuchar a ways behind.

...if she's viable.

if she isn't? well, most of that 29% goes to buttigieg, and you could see him pull off his first consolidation of moderate forces, something bernie is going to not want to see happen again.

so, if the other candidates split the moderate vote badly enough that only buttigieg ends up viable, expect massive recombining in the second round, and a potential landslide victory on the order of 55% to 30%.

we simply don't have the polling to make predictions, though. i'm just thinking out loud.

if that result were to happen in a primary state, it would benefit sanders, as all of the unviable centrists would just get crossed out. so, the fact that nevada is a caucus could end up costing him, if the results end up a specific way.

but, if klobuchar is viable more often than not, and the other middle three eek out some district wins, i think you're looking at a tie between the same players as previously, and some hard decisions for warren, particularly.

now, let's hope we get some polling...

chances are that you wouldn't last very long under a system of traditional indigenous law, and i wouldn't condemn anybody to an existence i couldn't tolerate myself - i will stand with those agitating for overthrow, revolution and change. because i'm on the left, and that's what we do...

but, these colonial band councils aren't the right answer, either.

so, to summarize:

- our courts should require a treaty to define who has jurisdiction before they even try to interpret a contract.
- we should not be enforcing the indian act on groups that have never signed treaties.
- aboriginal title in canada is not allodial in scope.
- the right type of law here is international law, not canadian constitutional law.
- i generally stand with those seeking to overthrow tradition, not those seeking to uphold it, but
- pipelines are always evil and must always be stopped.

it's important to avoid treating indigenous legal traditions as a monolith, so i don't want to fall into either stereotype. the stereotype of the commie indian is largely inapplicable to the remnants of indigenous law as they exist today; what's left is more conservative in scope and leans more towards religion as a guiding force in society, and i have to strenuously reject that and support anybody seeking to fight against it.

but, there are ideas kind of buried in indigenous history that i would stand more strongly with, if elements in the society would dust them off and bring them back.

but, i don't stand with creators or spiritualism or tradition for the sake of it - i stand with science and change and secularism, and i assign these people their rights based on my own axioms, not theirs.

the indian act should not be enforced on groups that have not signed any treaties.

think of it like this: i may find myself on the same side as these conservative indigenous groups on the specific issue of pipelines, but i'm going to support those that are agitating to overthrow them in pretty much any other context. it's a question of temporary allies. 

it's not unusual, though, for a contemporary leftist to end up stuck like this. what are my choices, here? i can stand with the liberal capitalists or i can stand with the traditionalist conservatives. in truth, i'm a socialistic anarchist, and i don't actually stand with either side. the side i stand with is the one that is fighting to overthrow both the traditional aristocracy and the enforced colonial system, and introduce a system of egalitarian self-government and distributive justice. i'm a communist everywhere, and i'm not interested in these relativist arguments.

i'm aware that the perspectives of these people are often comically ignorant. a lot of them seem to think that if they sit together and pray then god will take the capitalists away. if you've read any marx, you realize how vicious he was on people like this. i don't see the point.

so, my solidarity with these traditionalist groups is really very narrow. i'm broadly more interested in standing with agents of change within the society, but not the ones that would argue for things like property rights or capitalist expropriation.

but, i'm not a conservative, and i don't stand with tradition or aristocracy.

i'm an anarchist, and i stand with egalitarianism and the acceptance of change.

i want to be clear on a point, though.

while i would stand with the rights of indigenous groups to self-determination, i would not stand with the traditionalist elements within their society, and would rather stand with the groups advocating for change within the society. and, if you can present me with situations where indigenous groups are oppressing minorities within their ranks, like happens routinely in iran, then i would support intervening with the use of force, because my solidarity is always with the oppressed and never with the oppressors.

there is this kind of tendency to define the issue in ethnic terms, nowadays, and i will reject this idea on it's face. i'm not interested in even contemplating the idea of siding with the indians against the white people - that's not the way i'm going to approach the issue, and i'll reject those terms of framing it. what i'm interested in is standing with specific elements within the indigenous community against other elements within that same community.

so, i will stand with the rights of queer indigenous people in the face of the views of their religious traditions, and i will stand with the scientific over the spiritual, and i will stand with the socialistic over the capitalistic & etc.

so, in the sense that this is about indigenous rights, i'm going to define those a little bit differently than you frequently see on the fake left, nowadays. the fake left is essentially what we used to call toryism. it wants to preserve tradition in the face of change. i'm having none of that. rather, i'm interested in solidarity with those that would stand against the band councils and against the traditional leadership, and seek to liberalize and socialize the society - as i stand with those that reject the state, everywhere else.

at the end of the day, these matriarchs are just statists and should be torn down and replaced with a council.

but, so long as they aren't giving us good reasons to dismantle their society by force, they need to sign a treaty before we can take it upon ourselves to apply our laws on their lands. we can't just show up and start legislating - not by our own legal standards.