do you realize?

this song always makes me cry in a good way and feel better.

i <3 cunspircy th33ri3s

i was looking for some information about censoring the internet, when i came across a story on with the headline "Obama Information Czar Outlined Plan For Government To Infiltrate Conspiracy Groups". i downloaded the paper written by cass sunstein. it was written in 2008 and is called "Conspiracy Theories".

the whole thing is crazy, but here is one paragraph from pg. 14.

What can government do about conspiracy theories? Among the things it can do, what should it do? We can readily imagine a series of possible responses. (1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing. (2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories. (3) Government might itself engage in counterspeech, marshaling arguments to discredit conspiracy theories. (4) Government might formally hire credible private parties to engage in counterspeech. (5) Government might engage in informal communication with such parties, encouraging them to help. Each instrument has a distinctive set of potential effects, or costs and benefits, and each will have a place under imaginable conditions. However, our main policy idea is that government should engage in cognitive infiltration of the groups that produce conspiracy theories, which involves a mix of (3), (4) and (5).

taxing conspiracy theories?!??! infiltrating groups?! geeeezuz.

here's the link to the abstract and where you can download it:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585

the paper is does talk about the proposed "infiltration" and claims it wouldn't be secretive and all affiliations would be made known. and this isn't actual policy or anything, just an article written for the Journal of Political Philosophy. but still... fucked up. but so are a million other things taking place right now. terrorism, terrorism, terrorism (apparently books are banned on flights to the US, if you have an unlucky name, good luck at the airport, sucka , try not to have a seizure around any cops or you might get tazed, bro)

oh well, what can you do...

so, i've had a shitty week and i'm taking refuge in planning our B(ike).C. trip. one part of that is figuring out what to do with all the stuff we have collected. let me know if you want to take any of my worldly possessions. maybe i'll put a list of books and records and movies and crystals and other shit up in a bit.

i'm also hyped up and respectfully nervous about our weekend plans - ayahuasca! i'll let ya'll know how it goes. phew.

love and silliness,
kelsey

ps - THE CIA KILLED JFK!!!

two thousand and ten

heyyylo,
i'm feeling pretty fine right now with some extra time, so i thought i'd drop into the blog zone ya'll.

had some pretty good holidays. paul came with me to vermilion with me for 5 days and hung out with my parents, grandparents, and caylie. nice to be back though with books to read and hammocks to lay in. i'm reading a ton of books right now, all of them are really good. i have going:
The End of Money & the Future of Civilization by Thomas Greco
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Change your brain by Tim Leary
No Gods No Masters: An Anthology of Anarchism by Daniel Guerin


new years eve, resolutions blah blah. apparently i didn't put any down in the blog last new year, which is disappointing. i'd like to look back and see what my priorities were.

anyway, here are my 2010 resolutions:


1. be more connected with people. my friends who i suck at keeping in touch with. new friends who i will never meet if i keep this shit up. my family even. ways i will do this: more hanging out, letter writing, getting more out of time spent, being a better listener, cultivating hobbies, creating circles of people. ways i will probably not do this: facebooking, phone talking, making plans in advance.

2. learn to knit. for fuckin' realz.

3. keep learning, reading, and getting smarter. improve on communicating ideas. open mindedness and peace. get better with bikes.

4. write more letters to politicians.

feelin' weird today. bad soup maybe?

so i'm heading home for christmas and i'm actually quite happy about it. i haven't been there for a couple of years already. i used to kind of dread it. seeing everybody and catching up can be exhausting and then i run out of stuff to do and end up sitting in my parents house watching the seinfeld.
this trip should be good though. i hope so. paul is coming, my bro-dur will be home, and we won't be there too long. yea, should be good. it will be nice to see family, and the town. if i run into people from high school it will be ok and i won't be awkward. right?




Note: I found this post as a draft and retroactively published it on 18/11/2010

hint?

so itunes has this new thing called itunes U, the description of which is "Educator-selected collections from across iTunes U that can help ensure learning continues in the case of a pandemic of natural disaster".



what do you know itunes!?!

big fines

i can't believe this shit, BUT it's true.
i am no longer welcome at the library. ME?!

keep watching. or we'll FIND YOU.

i was trying to watch some clip of a ctv show (long story sorta) and had to sit through a commercial for desperate housewives. i found myself kind of drawn into it, thinking "dang you can watch it for free online... hmm" (ugh, i know, what's wrong with me?!), and then this screen came up.



ahhh!
it almost sounds like a threat.
needless to say i realized i was being hypnotized and closed the window.

"fucking idiot"?

yesterday was the first "blizzard" of the year, with some crazy winds and a lot of snow everywhere. my ride TO work at 4:30 am was normal, but it snowed ALL day, so the ride home was the challenge. around 5, after paul finished work, we decided to ride to kensington, then go up 10th street, and then hit up the home depot on 16th ave before going home. so how'd i do? RIDICULOUS. the bike pathways on the way to kensington was sketchy and i fell once. couldn't make it up 10th street on the road, so had to walk up the snow drift sidewalk. then we decided to ride right on 16th ave because it's 1000% easier and although it's a highway, traffic was going pretty slow. i still had someone shriek "fucking IDIOT!" at me, and paul got "ride on the sidewalk!!!!". not sure if our friend tom, who was ahead of us (him with gears, us on fixies) got a third insult or not. getting home from this point was the trial of my life. i cried, i threw my bike, i slid out and fell like 30 times. it took us SO LONG to get home. riding on majorish roads was the easiest part, but then you have to deal with cars. sidewalks and alleys were just plain fucked. i know that most people are having the same experiences in this weather (as i type this i can hear a car revving and revving and revving, obviously stuck), but this was my first time doing it on a bike (my fixie with 700c slick tires), and it was pretty hilarious, so i wanted to document it.

oh, the reward of the home depot trek was a hook for our hammock, which paul set up last night in our room. excited for that. i wish i could say i am just going to stay inside all day/weekend and hammock it up, but... not so. things to do, ice to slip on.

get your own bike!

ugh, i hate you bike thieves.

apollo = stolen.

out of my garage. ugh.

good stuff.

does everyone already know how awesome bill hicks is (besides me?) i've been missing out big time.


The World Is Like a Ride in an Amusement Park - Bill Hicks -



also, i already posted this on facebook and bike calgary, but bear with me, i'm proud!



i got the raleigh up and running and i LOVE it. i could probably take a better picture of it; this was snapped right after the first test ride. it's so streamlined and sexy. paul ordered me some gold pedals for it too.
i still have a lot of "fixie training" to do so i can really rip around downtown and such.