qahveh save me

Qahveh being the original word for coffee, which I only know because of Dunnett. All the threads lead back to her. Of course I can’t get Dave to read l’œuvre but at this point if he ever did I’d have to own up to all the shit of hers that I outright thieved for various aspects of my own work, and how embarrassing would that be. Besides, he doesn’t read ‘light’ fiction as a general rule, although it was kind of him to read Totally Boned. Speaking of which Suzanne is finishing up Totally Boned yes. and yes there are Dunnett squeaks all through TB.

Suzanne is not having a good birthday week. She found out about two weeks ago that her youngest son’s gf was pregnant, but since nobody told S that she was VERY pregnant, the birth announcement this week was a bit of a surprise. Learning that you have a new grandson who’s detoxing in the NICU when you have zero access must be a horrifying experience. mOm asked me to send her a hug and a kind word and I will.

On the plus side, this week somebody sent the most good looking man you can imagine – to offer himself sexually to her – WHILE SHE WAS SITTING RYKER so after she unswallowed her tongue and ungoggled her eyes she said, er, no, and he wandered off to find the woman he’d been prepaid to bang. (This is the kind of stuff that only happens in novels so I’m going to steal the anecdote for a fanfic because he showed up in house slippers and a revealing outfit and said he was ‘auditioning for the bedroom’. I can see it all now, hommina hommina)

ALRIGHTY THEN. and at no point did Suzanne say anything othering about the sex worker. Damn I love that woman. I should get the rugs she washed out of the dryer. The washers in her building are crap and SUPER expensive so she’s ALSO been doing laundry here.

She said Ryker loves coming to Grammy’s house; he gets second breakfast, he has a million versions of Lightning McQueen, CARS runs hot and cold in the background, and there’s a cat to chase. WHAT COULD BE BETTER. He’s learned to say MCQUEEN and he apparently never stops.

I do not have Alex until Tuesday, but I’ll see him for a Thanksgiving meal. Apparently Peggy’s old friend is going to deep fry a couple of turkeys at church and I’m simply overwhelmed at the prospects for catastrophe why I may even bring a camera.

Putin claiming that Prigozhin died ’cause Wagner soldiers were providing in-flight entertainment by tossing live grenades is like an entire Russian army of MOODS.

WROTE almost a thousand words yesterday on an aziracrow fanfic that no one but me will ever look at. Nobody asked for it and it’s fundamentally flawed but I wrote it anyway. The new Brad and Omar story has a shape and I will slowly pursue it.

Laid out my pills for a week just now.

Whatever shall I do with no childcare required of me until Tuesday morning??

Congrats to Leo and Linda on getting the last kid married off (Kevin, and of course I have embarrassing memories from his last visit to us LOL which I will NOT share) and this is all teasing because of course they didn’t do anything but help celebrate!!! it’s not like they hosed’em down and pitchforked ’em to the ceremony…. anyway it’s happy family news and the pics were lovely thank you.

weird you want weird you get

So… apparently, there’s a company called Prestige Biotech, and it, apparently, is owned by Xiuquin Yao, and sometime in March of this year it was discovered that this company is renting a ‘storage facility’ in Reedley, a town SE of Fresno CA, which was jam-packed with infectious agents, moribund mice (almost a thousand were euthanized).

From Beth Mole’s Arstechnica article from three days ago:

Local and federal authorities have shut down what seems to be an illegal medical lab hidden in a California warehouse that contained nearly 1,000 laboratory mice, hundreds of unknown chemicals, refrigerators and freezers, vials of biohazardous materials, including blood, incubators, and at least 20 infectious agents, including SARS-CoV-2, HIV, and a herpes virus.

A criminal investigation is ongoing. The tenant of the warehouse is listed as Prestige Biotech. Prado told KSEE that the company’s president, Xiuquin Yao, was not forthcoming with information. According to the court documents, Yao told officials that his company had moved assets belonging to a defunct company called Universal Meditech Inc. (UMI), to the Reedley warehouse from another Fresno location where UMI had operated before it was evicted. Prestige was identified as a creditor to UMI. But, Prestige allegedly failed to provide any licensing or permit that would explain the laboratory activity at the warehouse.

All biological materials were secured by July 7.

drugs achieved

Paul and I ran errands, walked at Fraser Foreshore (the bird song was well nigh deafening, no joke), and Paul got an early lunch at Foreshore restaurant (he had the manhattan style chowder and the schnitzel on a portuguese bun, I just had coffee because I’d had an enormous breakfast). I reupped the amilzide.

It’s now 2 in the afternoon and I am contemplating how best to spend the rest of my day. I was supposed to help Paul with his packing but bowed out. We had a good time; Paul and I were both stiff old crocks but we had a lovely day.

SADLY some MOTHERFUCKER backed into the Echo and now the left rear tail light is cracked and the trunk lid is fucked up (still closes). I have no idea when that happened, but I think it happened when we were parked; it wasn’t busted Monday when I drove Lois to the airport.

120GLP – worst and rudest driver in Burnaby this morning. Hey White Audi driver thanks for completely supporting everything I already thought about Audi drivers. And Fuck You most sincerely.

May I be conducted to hell

with ‘certain parties’ as my escort.

That was without a doubt (music aside) the most bland and unobjectionable spring festival service I’ve ever been to. There were many mitigating factors so I won’t linger but A. bless her came up to me afterward and said there was entiiiiirely too much God in that service and I could not but agree. Of course if you’re going to suck up to the three remaining and three closeted theists in the group, Easter’s the time to pull da bunny fum da sack. The bunny in this case being a fantastical holy-ish trinity of Reb Jeshua, Ramadan and the seder. I remind myself of mitigating factors and turn to

HOW I GOTS MISTOOK FOR A MAN TODAY while wearing a dress

and earrings that matched my

tights that matched my

decorative scarf in pretty colours that my mother made, and I haven’t worn all those things together in likely a decade at this point, probably church the last time too…. L. greeted me most sweetly and kindly but I was somewhat reserved as I had just put my mask on and my – you know – social anxiety spikes when I’m indoors and masked however ecstatic I am to see various people.

I digress to think about what happens to middle aged women wearing face masks. Bigots don’t want people wearing face masks because they want to be able to ‘clock’ you. You are assigned a gender at birth and wherever you migrate on your gender journey, most people want to believe they can tell and understand when presenting and presumed gender at birth don’t line up. But that doesn’t actually have any bearing on the reason I was mistook for a man…. I be somewhat digressing again, the thing, the evil thing I do for effect.

So I sing tenor now among other things (I recently checked my vocal range and …) and Keith got asked if he was the one providing the harmony. LOLOLOL I was literally as gender presenting as I can physically manage at this point and MY VOICE gave me away as a man, hiding behind a mask I MEAN LITERALLY folks for those who understand …. .

& I don’t mean to boast, but this life of mine gives me the most perfect moments of clarity and solidarity. I’ve been gender non-conforming all my life. I have no problem with my assigned whatever-as-normative, but I keep having little moments like that, and it pleases me. It’s not just the autism that makes me gender divergent; there’s something in me, neither brain nor frame, that makes me other than ‘woman’. Not 100%. Sure, able to do the madonna thing, co nursing your children how hard core. But I am not 100% woman, and I was like that before having Keith literally

And then I fucked it up totally by going off in a classic autistic meltdown with C. May I be conducted to hell. Which was where we came in. But somehow, you know,

—- SCROLL DOWN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I DIGRESS

Peggy was there and fled as someone else arrived, but I don’t know if the two events were connected so she just might have felt like walking home. I’m going to call her. Maybe she just got sick of the service. As far as I could tell they were still getting people drifting in at half time, including a previously called minister.  (Love what she’s done with her hair.) Rob W was there and sat next to me during the service. In case anyone in the audio radiance thinks there’s anything between us, he told me I was too fat when I approached him after Paul and I broke up and I’ve only gotten fatter since, and I’ve reached the age when perfect isolation from romantic relationships is accompanied by nearly perfect peace. Had a few words with Rose, Marilyn, collected a hug from John, and it was all good. Even with me being a complete ass I still feel better, and Keith bless him dragged me out in good time AND I mailed a letter on the way home. Cast your bread upon the waters (it was a letter to the landlord asking if she had any vacancies this summer), and may Christ and his sanctified angels come to your aid in terms of finding food for delivery in this town today….. I reject McDonalds on this Holy Sunday.

omnibus again

  1. today’s wordle can best be solved if you put the word ‘Arrrr!’ in front of it.
  2. Halibut for lunch yesterday. It was so capacious it served for the rest of the day. I know it’s got a lot of salt but goddam I want the leftover poutine for brekky
  3. Pork chops for lunch or supper today. Johnson Pork is superior, just mentioning it again.
  4. No word comes from Caspell Junction. Is Janice there? Is she not there? I’m almost scairt to ask.
  5. Fascist brand ‘Diagolon’ leader Jeremy MacKenzie has been fired by Scotiabank. He reports to the Western Standard “I have 30 days to find alternative means of financing the mortgage on the home, where my children live & everything else you could imagine.”  I can imagine a lot of scummy things living with a neoNazi so thanks for that little kick at the end of sentence there. I personally have no beef with this kids, who will either turn out to be just like him or the BUCKwildest climate activists in Canada, that’s just how things turn. In a letter he received from the bank, no other reason than, “The bank has determined this relationship is outside of its risk appetite,” was given. LOLOLOL
  6. I was disturbed to view a Hudson & Rex episode (S5E7) in which the writers came out firmly against MAiD being offered after a deliberate medical failure to treat illness – regarding prisoners, in jail. Not a peep about disabled people tho… only watch the show for Mayko Nguyen and the dog, Diesel, anyway, I grumpily add. Once you start looking for the Canadian cultural lietmotif of disability erasure it’s frelling everywhere. thank you @mssinenomine for helping shift my viewpoint (which still needs work, my internalized ableism IS IMMENSE) *this item copied from my twitter
  7. Everything peaceful around here.  Time to locate caffeine and squeeeeeky cheese curds on poutine.

Anthony Rapp’s response + miscellany

What Rapp says is so dignified. Kevin Spacey is still a predatory asshole and I’ll sing it from the housetops.

 

“I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to have my case heard before a jury, and I thank the members of the jury for their service.”

“Bringing this lawsuit was always about shining a light, as part of the larger movement to stand up against all forms of sexual violence.”

“I pledge to keep on advocating for efforts to ensure that we can live and work in a world that is free from sexual violence of any kind. I sincerely hope that victims can continue to tell their stories and fight for accountability.”

Laryssa Gervan of Vancouver came up with a lovely GRAVE ON FOODS so much mortality in store check out Halloween display

Laryssa Gervan of Vancouver came up with a lovely Halloween display, photo credit to her.

There’s more and more news saying that plastic recycling levels are dropping even as plastic consumption rises.

Don’t buy plastic if you can avoid it. (Link goes to a pop up Christmas store at the 28,000-square-foot Potters Nursery & Garden Centre in Surrey, now till Christmas. BLEAUGH I MEAN IT’S LITERALLY 28000 SQUARE FEET OF TOXIC PLASTIC FROM CHINA AND ELSEWHERE FILLED WITH LEAD AND CADMIUM.)

8649 words on Part II

Still loving Sharpe and Hornblower shows.

RNC demonstrates that it and the ignorant goofballs running it are incapable of understanding spam filters. They have sued Google. Good luck with that, all you Chucks and Karens.

Callister Brewing Company’s Wee Laird Wee Heavy Scottish Ale has won the Canada Beer Cup out of 1000 entrants. What can I say, Vancouver is a beery good place to live, eat and drink.

In more beer news, someone stole Steamworks Brewing’s newest beermobile. IT’S BRIGHT FUCKING ORANGE PEOPLE. This town needs an enema, and I’m unsure where to jam that nozzle cause there be so so so very many bums. Steamworks Beer Mobile Vancouver

Liz Truss, folks

Nathan @churchofwolves <—- the author and a ‘mutual’ on twitter (we follow each other – he lives in Glasgow.)

Truss fails upwards, tanks the economy, eats shit on the international stage and nets herself 12x the state pension annually for life. Burn this fucking country to the ground.

LizTruss will be entitled to claim up to £115,000 per year from the taxpayer for the rest of her life once she leaves office, despite likely being one of the shortest-serving prime ministers in history.

https://nationalworld.com/news/politics/public-duties-cost-allowance-liz-truss-will-be-able-to-claim-up-to-ps115000-per-year-to-maintain-public-duties-after-leaving-office-3882642

Based on average life expectancy that’s upwards of FOUR MILLION QUID for TWO MONTHS of being an unmitigated omnishambles.

I’m going to be raging about this all day, fuck.

 

 

I just had to share unmitigated omnishambles with you.

So… someone in the UK slapped two googly eyes on a head of lettuce and asked the internet to bet if it would outlast Liz Truss. Current betting is …. not looking good.

WHILE I WAS TYPING THAT I LEARNED SHE RESIGNED.

Much love to Ontie Mary this morning. I told the story to Jeff over breakfast yesterday of what happened when she watched Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope with her kids in the theatre. As I recollect the story she sussed the movie as being CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD and cheered the heroes and yelled at the villains ….

and got told to behave by her kids.

no.

says.

aunt.

Mary.

Omnibus of suck Part the nth

Pierre Poilievre is the leader of the conservatives in Canada. Proud supporter and handshaker of Nazis, when asked what he’d do about COVID-19 he said he’d lower taxes. He’s sucked on the teat of the taxpayer since he was 24 years old and worshipped Stephen Harper.

I hope he experiences all the electoral success he deserves.

Article from Ed Yong about ‘brain fog’. Interestingly it mentions the Montreal test. Please read this – and remember that all three of my immediate family have had COVID already. I don’t have any proof I got it in March 2020 but I’ve had to deal with what felt like brain fog, and cognitive crashing, for years now. My apparent intelligence does not match my functional intelligence. And the fall of my writing output is no surprise. I do what I can on a daily basis, but even the small array of techniques I had for managing my output doesn’t seem to work any more.

I am starting to read for pleasure again but I have to not do it for more than about 15 minutes at a time. I am also rereading books, not reading them for the first time.

I am starting to understand why the internet suits my cognitive deficits right now. I feel like the mom, Hazel Bergeron, in Harrison Bergeron, that story by Kurt Vonnegut.

The amount I sleep has abruptly gone up by 1.5 – 2 hours a day, and I’m doing my best not to nap any more during the day. So really I’m sleeping the same amount but doing it all at night.

Jeff and I looked at each other around 6 pm last night and realized that the worst of the ground smoke had lifted, and it was such a relief. We didn’t even run the a/c yesterday so the house is kind of sticky this morning. It didn’t help that there was a recycling centre on fire in Vancouver for most of the weekend. On the way back from Bowen we crested one of the many hills coming into the city from Horseshoe Bay and at one point we could smell burning plastic all the way down to our navels, it was just a horrible sensation. AS IN we should be driving away, not toward.

Buster trained HARD but briefly this morning. He did the headbutt on my left leg thing repeatedly to indicate that he was HERE TO TRAIN. He doesn’t normally do pawclaps ‘backwards’ ie with his back to me, but he did it twice this morning, then did some run and chase, and then VWIP out the door (Jeff left the back door open for the cool morning air.)

3979 words. I think I’ll have some to send mOm in the next couple of days.

Robot Chicken and Alex Jones

  1. after years of saying we would, Jeff and I are finally rewatching Robot Chicken to make a goodies reel. Jeff, we need to include the danceoff, I changed my mind.
  2. Picture if you will a man who lies for a living. After 9/11, he fused the internet as we mostly now know it to lies about how 9/11 was a ‘false flag’ operation. Many people mostly on the right decided that there was no way 9/11 could have happened UNLESS high government officials and the standard issue global cabal had CAUSED it to happen; this man made money selling dietary supplements (which are also bunkum) to the people who took comfort in this worldview. Many millions of dollars of income later, he said that the shooting deaths of a bunch of children in a school shooting (Sandy Hook) was a false flag operation. That those kids didn’t die. Now, those kids did die, and even though the man who lies for a living knew they didn’t die, and said they didn’t die because people who are against the right to carry guns wanted to change the laws, his attitude toward the truth was not all that great, so the parents sued him for defamation.
  3. he lost. Total amounts owing along the lines of $50 million. Two more lawsuits in a similar vein are coming. His total net worth is in the vicinity of $150 Mil.
  4. perhaps he lost but he’s still very popular, as per “What does the Internet Think” website. 
  5. and in case you think this is bullshit, I give you Lee Pace’s results from the same website, BECAUSE NO ONE IS INDIFFERENT TO LEE PACE (ALSO I DO NOT APPEAR ON THIS WEBSITE LOL I CHECKED):
  6. while he was losing his lawyer’s employee accidentally (OR DID SHE LOL) sent two years’ worth of text and email messages from his phone to the plaintiffs’ lawyers. The lawyers promptly asked the January 6 committee if they wanted the messages, which was truly inconvenient for the man who lies for a living.
  7. and his ex wife Kelly probably will be getting them too. She is – quite rightly – in a custody battle, and now his utter unfitness to have access to his children will soon be a matter of public record. She calls him “truly mentally ill” and a danger to society but what the hell else can you expect from an ex wife hunh?
  8. to recap, Alex Jones is a foam-flecked liar, and now he will be paying for it. It won’t stop him, and he’ll fundraise on it, but at least someone slowed him down for two seconds and between his wife, his involvement with the January 6 traitors and the Sandy Hook parents his wealth will get a shellacking.
  9. Watched ‘Prey’ which is a new film in the Predator franchise GODDAMN I LOVED IT. It’s set in Comanche territory in 1719. The French are the bad guys, just like life’s supposed to be (this is a family joke, not reality.)
  10. That dog was not trained. They had to use that dog because it’s very close to what an Indigenous dog would have looked like at the time, so holy shit the director had to put up with a lot from that dog.
  11. A version completely in Comanche is available.
  12. Watched the new Minions movie. It had a few good laughs and was about standard for the franchise.
  13. I’m feeling quite a bit better, but the weather’s gone hot again so the next couple of days will probably be uncomfortable.
  14. There’s a cat rescue outfit in Vancouver which would rather EUTHANIZE a cat that adopt it out to a transgender person. Infuriating, like it’s a REASON.
  15. 1207 words on new section, still going very slow also worked on fanfic ‘landslide’
  16. Watched the Frontline about the people living in Kharkiv for the first three months after the Russian invasion. Very scary, moving and the people there seem admirable in their resolve. The impact of the war on the elderly and disabled is just gross.
  17. For settler saturday consider a donation to Indigenous language revitalization.

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Hope to keep writing and doing laundry today

Also hoping to get out for a walk.

My new fan left five kudos overnight, sweet lady.

14187 on ‘Totally Boned’

I have lots of opinions on many subjects this morning but the major things on my mind are:

from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free

and no, it doesn’t rhyme in Arabic.

I mourn the death of Shireen Abu Akleh, murdered by IDF. State armies murdering journalists is so 21st century…

the 170K people in Mariupol who can’t get food in and can’t get people out

the way Russia keeps trying to arm up Snake Island and keeps getting punched in the nose

the way China continues to build up its military forces in a pretty obvious push to remove Taiwan from the list of democracies, plus how it’s arresting people in HK

Tony Hawk doing skateboard stuff in 1/6 G (in the vomit comet)

The fact that you’re expected as a disabled person in BC to get by – rent food etc on 1400 bucks a month. I COULDN’T DO IT. It terrifies me.

Doug Ford acting like he didn’t prepare for the debate yesterday. Autistic child waitlist for care and assessment has doubled on his watch. a thousand seniors died in care and his friends are still allowed to build care homes FUCK DOUG FORD thank you

Gove (who has previously admitted to cocaine use) appearing on UK breakfast television higher than Fearless Freep on cocaine in the same week that cocaine addicts complain about how the new five pound note will scratch your nose when you’re doing a bump and yet somehow Boris Johnson appears in public with a scratch on his nose and everybody in the UK from pundits to punters is going MMMMHHHMMMM could it be that the terrible performance of virtually every Tory minister??? …. naw, couldn’t be.

being sad about not seeing my grandkids for a while since people keep insisting on catching COVID

wondering if mOm and pOp still have the 1963 vinyl album “My Fellow Canadians”

War crimes

I hope with the following rather long post I can establish that no matter which particular rhetorical stab you make at it, Russia is guilty of war crimes.

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

Article 8

War Crimes

  1. The Court shall have jurisdiction in respect of war crimes in particular when committed as part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes.
  2. For the purpose of this Statute, ‘war crimes’ means:
    1. Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely, any of the following acts against persons or property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention:
      1. Wilful killing  (reported by 18-year-old Kateryna Tkachova in Verkel)
      2. Torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments; (recently reported that UA PoWs are being held at a former military contaminated waste facility in Russia)
      3. Wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health; (look no further than Mariupol)
      4. Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly; (See, once again, Mariupol)
      5. Compelling a prisoner of war or other protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power; (Russians are now offering Ukrainian PoWs the chance to serve Putin – at gunpoint)
      6. Wilfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial; (I don’t have a specific example but Russia kidnapping UA mayors and holding them without trial is kind of an ongoing problem.)
      7. Unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement; (at least 100000 people transported out of Ukraine into Russia, and in some cases Belarus although that hasn’t been confirmed)
      8. Taking of hostages. (I’ve lost track of how many Ukrainian civic mayors the Russian forces have kidnapped. Sometimes they’re released and sometimes they’re killed and sometimes they just… disappear.)
    2. Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict, within the established framework of international law, namely, any of the following acts:
      1. Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities; (I have watched many videos at this point of journalists and civilians, including children, the disabled and pets, trying to escape UA cities along ‘humanitarian corridors’ while taking dozens of rounds of sniper fire)
      2. Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives; (WWII monuments across UA, especially those to do with memorializing Jewish dead, have been torn from the map)
      3. Intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, as long as they are entitled to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under the international law of armed conflict; (the Red Cross pulled out of Mariupol, need I say more)
      4. Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated; (Bus station bombing)
      5. Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives; (the entire road to Kyiv, for example, and the towns and villages on either side)
      6. Killing or wounding a combatant who, having laid down his arms or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion; (I really think this depends on the Russian commander. It has happened, but currently two live UA military personnel are worth six dead Russians (yeah, I know, weird, but those are the current rules) so the Russians are getting cagier about shooting them after capture.)
      7. Making improper use of a flag of truce, of the flag or of the military insignia and uniform of the enemy or of the United Nations, as well as of the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions, resulting in death or serious personal injury; (I haven’t heard this, but watch this space)
      8. The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory; (Well, the Russians already did this in Donbas, so I’m going to take this as ongoing, since it is.)
      9. Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives; (Russians bombed a theatre full of evacuated children; April 15 2022 bombed the WCKitchen in Kharkiv, which fed 15k people a day, destroying it and wounding 4 prep chefs.)
      10. Subjecting persons who are in the power of an adverse party to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are neither justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the person concerned nor carried out in his or her interest, and which cause death to or seriously endanger the health of such person or persons; (apparently not, or not yet, or not reported yet)
      11. Killing or wounding treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army; (it’s happened, not proven)
      12. Declaring that no quarter will be given; (not proven)
      13. Destroying or seizing the enemy’s property unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war; (Christ alive, they walked off with every washing machine in Eastern UA.)
      14. Declaring abolished, suspended or inadmissible in a court of law the rights and actions of the nationals of the hostile party; (Russian newscasters have said it but I don’t know if an authority in the zone of hostilities has done that. I do know that they’ve replaced town councils with Russian plants.)
      15. Compelling the nationals of the hostile party to take part in the operations of war directed against their own country, even if they were in the belligerent’s service before the commencement of the war; (This is already happening)
      16. Pillaging a town or place, even when taken by assault; (This has happened so often that it’s not even worthy of commentary by UA media any more, it’s just assumed that the Russian forces are a plague of locusts who will remove everything portable of value)
      17. Employing poison or poisoned weapons; (not proven)
      18. Employing asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and all analogous liquids, materials or devices; (Not proven)
      19. Employing bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not entirely cover the core or is pierced with incisions; (likely true but not proven)
      20. Employing weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare which are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict, provided that such weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare are the subject of a comprehensive prohibition and are included in an annex to this Statute, by an amendment in accordance with the relevant provisions set forth in articles 121 and 123; (Russian forces have used cluster bombs; “The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has previously said it had received credible allegations that Russian armed forces have used cluster munitions in populated areas in Ukraine. The nongovernmental organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) has also confirmed Russia’s use of cluster munitions throughout the conflict” – as per CNN online today.)
      21. Committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment; (Filming captured UA military personnel for rebroadcast in Russia and on Youtube.) PLEASE NOTE THAT THE UKRAINIANS ARE DOING THIS AND WILL HAVE TO ANSWER FOR IT. They’ve been sending photos of dead soldiers id’d through facial rec to moms in Russia and SCUSE ME THAT’S A WAR CRIME.
      22. Committing rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, as defined in article 7, paragraph 2 (f), enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence also constituting a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions; (First report of gang rape in Eastern Ukraine was two days after the invasion started on Reddit, there have been hundreds upon hundreds since, including forced pregnancy, and the rape of an 11 year old boy in front of his mother tied to a chair, and the soldier and the wife who had a conversation in which she gave him permission to rape Ukrainian women have been identified (man, how embarrassing is that /s))
      23. Utilizing the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations; (Use of human shields has not been common but it has been reported)
      24. Intentionally directing attacks against buildings, material, medical units and transport, and personnel using the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions in conformity with international law; (Once again, the Red Cross abandoned Mariupol specifically because their personnel and equipment was being targeted for strikes by Russian forces.)
      25. Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions; (This has been multiply reported by multiple sources.)
      26. Conscripting or enlisting children under the age of fifteen years into the national armed forces or using them to participate actively in hostilities. (They’ve stolen enough UA boy children to have enough time to propagandize them and turn them into soldiers in large numbers in a couple of years, and the genocidal theft continues.)   

Most of this shown below is a repeat, but it shows that EVEN IF Putin declares that this military adventure is an internal matter for the Russian government to deal with… that it is an armed conflict not of an international character ….  the FUCKING RULES ABOUT WAR CRIMES – the crimes for which you can be tried – still apply.

RUSSIA IS A SIGNATORY TO ALL OF THIS. <——- so Putin can’t skate on this as not being war crimes, EVEN IF it’s an armed conflict not of an international character or a ‘special military operation’ or whatever the fuck bogus locution in any language whatsoever that he throws at it.

        1. In the case of an armed conflict not of an international character, serious violations of article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely, any of the following acts committed against persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention or any other cause:
          1. Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
          2. Committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;
          3. Taking of hostages;
          4. The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgement pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all judicial guarantees which are generally recognized as indispensable.
        2. Paragraph 2 (c) applies to armed conflicts not of an international character and thus does not apply to situations of internal disturbances and tensions, such as riots, isolated and sporadic acts of violence or other acts of a similar nature.
        3. Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in armed conflicts not of an international character, within the established framework of international law, namely, any of the following acts:
          1. Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities;
          2. Intentionally directing attacks against buildings, material, medical units and transport, and personnel using the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions in conformity with international law;
          3. Intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, as long as they are entitled to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under the international law of armed conflict;
          4. Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives;
          5. Pillaging a town or place, even when taken by assault;
          6. Committing rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, as defined in article 7, paragraph 2 (f), enforced sterilization, and any other form of sexual violence also constituting a serious violation of article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions;
          7. Conscripting or enlisting children under the age of fifteen years into armed forces or groups or using them to participate actively in hostilities;
          8. Ordering the displacement of the civilian population for reasons related to the conflict, unless the security of the civilians involved or imperative military reasons so demand;
          9. Killing or wounding treacherously a combatant adversary;
          10. Declaring that no quarter will be given;
          11. Subjecting persons who are in the power of another party to the conflict to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are neither justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the person concerned nor carried out in his or her interest, and which cause death to or seriously endanger the health of such person or persons;
          12. Destroying or seizing the property of an adversary unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of the conflict;
        4. Paragraph 2 (e) applies to armed conflicts not of an international character and thus does not apply to situations of internal disturbances and tensions, such as riots, isolated and sporadic acts of violence or other acts of a similar nature. It applies to armed conflicts that take place in the territory of a State when there is protracted armed conflict between governmental authorities and organized armed groups or between such groups.
  1. Nothing in paragraph 2 (c) and (e) shall affect the responsibility of a Government to maintain or re-establish law and order in the State or to defend the unity and territorial integrity of the State, by all legitimate means.

 

 

Image

 

how does he plan to pull the pin

this is the picture of a man who threatened to blow up a casino with a grenade he had previously secreted up his ass…. The face of a man who conned a policeman into giving him a free prostate exam…

Brian Gower, 46, faces one count of making threats of conveying false information concerning an act of terrorism after the incident Friday morning.

According to police, Gower was arrested at The Strat Hotel and Casino after threatening to “blow the building up,” officers wrote in an arrest report.
by: David Charns

Posted: Feb 7, 2022 / 05:54 PM PST / Updated: Feb 7, 2022 / 11:21 PM PST

 

Got the absolute longest, sweetest and most detailed message about one of my fics this am… great way to start the day. Still no letter for Mary.

Got to feel chickadees landing on my hand yesterday. I am not supposed to feed wild birds in parks but I was feeding them ORGANIC Styrian raw unsalted sunflower seeds at 20 bucks a bag so NO COMPLAINTS AND THEN Paul and I got to watch seven mountain jays appear screeching out of the trees … in their breeding plumage AND THEN we got to see one of the local red-winged blackbirds from two meters away and the sun was on it as it grabbed millet from a stump and it too was it its breeding plumage, and the world is better than it was yesterday.

Came up with another fic idea, this one about a part time driving instructor and his socially awkward adult student. I think this one may be 25 -40 k… I have lots of ideas.

Speaking of lots of ideas Jarmo has tons of them now for businesses and products, now that he’s retired. Some of them sound massively wacky, but one in particular? THAT ONE I want to bankroll, because it’s an accessibility idea for computers…

two loads of laundry yesterday and fed Paul lunch of lentil soup and cole slaw. Got fish and chips delivered for supper.

Jeff and I are thinking of actually going out for breakfast, which is insane, but we got told about a new breakfast place by Chris Campbell at the Burnaby Now. I want him to stop being an editor and merely do restaurant reviews. If you go to r/Burnaby people hate on him so fucking much, but I love him because he has an honest and distinctive human voice and BELIEVE ME not all local journos do.

at wit’s end

My doc was a no show for my last appointment, when I was supposed to get my prescriptions updated, and I got victim blamed after half an hour of trying to get through to the clinic for not realizing she doesn’t do phone renewals. I knew that, I just COULDN’T GET A FUCKING APPT and now I can’t for FOUR WEEKS.

I’m about to run out of meds that, if I don’t take them, will cause me to be at risk of stroke or brain bleed so FUCK MY BLOOD PRESSURE DURING A PANDEMIC, RIGHT?

ANYWAY if I die, please ask Jeff who my doctor was so you can send her my regards posthumously. I’m so angry and scared I’m losing it, hard.

AND I WAS SUPPOSED TO GIVE BLOOD TODAY and I can’t because I was reluctantly given an emergency appointment that my doc may very well bail on that falls at the same time. I’M TRYING TO BE SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE HERE and fuck my life, seriously.

 

a remarkable piece of clueless self-indulgence

So, there’s a very energetically written and on-the-surface well-thought-out think piece at Palladium. I read stuff like this from time to time to energize me, give me new ideas and to refine my thinking on such matters as productivity and the zeitgeist. Also, although I didn’t want to quit, I’ve had to quit my last jobs because they were either actively trying to kill me or had made it clear that they wanted a worker who would work more and comment less and I was just plain not working my way around to the boss’s way of thinking, not for a pay cheque that just barely made it over minimum wage. So I wanted to see what this guy thought was what.

After I read the piece, I looked up where his remaining relatives are in Vancouver, and they’re in ritzy parts of town. I just wanted to see if this guy’s attitude was groomed by intergenerational wealth. I can’t prove anything from addresses of course, so I guess I am forced to assume that he’s like me; he had a lot of advantages from his birth family and that they are comfortably placed in terms of acquired wealth. Difference between me and Wolf is that I mention mine, ie, that I would quite literally starve in the street if my parents weren’t supporting me at the moment. (Until the moment that I ended up living at Caspell Junction, I mean, because part of my intergenerational wealth is my healthy grown family and I can’t see Katie letting me live and or starve in the street.)

First paragraph BOLD MOVE quitting your job and looking for a life companion. In that economy? Anyway, one must admire an optimist. And he’s an engineer! practical, dynamic, responsible for maintaining civilization (The Great Leslie smiles and emits a photon! ting!)

Second paragraph, okay, now I actively am on guard against you, whoever you are, cheerfully and casually admitting that you negged your future wife the first time you met her. Perhaps she didn’t get your measure, but I think men who do that are crap in a can, and I am now reading your piece with my back up and a sour expression on my generally sour puss. Oh, Providence is on yer side is it pet, get back to me when she’s divorced you. As I can guarantee she will, if she isn’t planning on it already.

Third paragraph: okay, you’re the world’s most efficient and possibly classiest mooch and user, got it. Got your friends to pay for/ arrange your wedding, nicely done! Married a woman even more frugal than you are, score! It’s hard finding someone who agrees with you on the big issues. Well done.

Fourth paragraph: what in the entire fuck, dude. I shall ditto it in its entirety, because unpacking the assumptions therein is chewing through my cycles at a ghastly rate so I need it in front of me.

When I wasn’t lifting and courting, I was building a network of intellectuals interested in problems of governance from beyond the established liberal democratic paradigm. I didn’t know why it was interesting. In fact, I thought it was a vice. “This is bad for your career,” said the little wage-slave voice in my head, “you should be focusing on more lucrative projects.”

Okay. After preening about his sociobiological fitness, he says that he’s building a network of intellectuals interested in problems of governance from beyond the established liberal democratic paradigm.

Cool. That means OF COURSE that you’re consulting with Indigenous activists, academics, and knowledge keepers and

Nope.

I’m a fat old white lady living in Burnaby, and you just cannot reasonably expect anyone who cares about ‘problems in governance’ –– without dealing with land theft and the practices of the Indigenous people of this place –– and this gentleman can’t be bothered to think or write about either.

The implication is that he’s only considering the thoughts of other white men when it comes to ‘problems in governance’. I mean WHAT DO YOU THINK a white man MEANS when he says NETWORK OF INTELLECTUALS? After ten years on twitter and twenty on social media I sure’s fuck know what it means to me, but I’m, you know, dark-hearted.

Lacks prove nothing, but don’t you think this absence is a teeny tiny suspicious? I’m on guard against his continued utterances with absolutely no further magnanimity, because he’s shown enough of his true self to appear about as convincingly genuine and smart as Boris Johnson.

“I didn’t know why it was interesting.”

This looks like “My most trivial thoughts are important.”

Yeah, dude, I often have that sensation as well. Keeping a blog since 2004 has fixed me for that. My most trivial thoughts are trivial. They may become important later, if they are integrated into something more important like a song or artwork or writing, but most of what’s in my head is junk. It’s true, something can start small and get important, but this sentence that he’s written also makes me think things like, “If you don’t understand what your moral purpose is, it’s hard to connect one random thing to another in a structurally sound, clear and useful way.”

“In fact, I thought it was a vice.”

OOf. Thinking in anti-capitalist ways is a vice, got it. Or you used to think that. Okay.

“This is bad for your career,” said the little wage-slave voice in my head, “you should be focusing on more lucrative projects.”

Paul used to say things like this to me whenever I was writing. Or he’d tell me to concentrate on poetry, since it was classy or something. Until Paul apologized for the ways in which he’d blocked my songwriting – 25 years in, and obviously too late – this was the real live voice I had next to me in bed at night, so I get where Wolf (the author) is coming from here. Some sympathy. But not much.

Fifth paragraph:

It was through those networks.

Okay Wolf, just confirming that it was a coterie of white guys that helped you, since you’re not mentioning how your intellectual cheer squad is made up in any way of marginalized people. Maybe it’s jam-packed with them, but in 20fucking22 you aren’t mentioning it, so, once again, it’s the lack, lack, baby.

Then more patting himself on the back… I’m not sure he can help himself …

Me ‘n’ my friends put a show on in the barn?

Anyway, if you want a transcript of what this guy sounds like? Not saying you do, but here it is. “Growing up in BC made me an environmentalist.” LOL NO DUDE IT MADE YOU A HIKER, British Columbians have the worst record in Canada for throwing grease down their drains and environmentally degrading megaprojects. “Growing up in Canada meant I didn’t have the American political paradigm” RISIBLE Then he says he was raised Unitarian. LOL I wrote a homily called the tyranny of nice specifically for self-deluding Unitarians, so now I have an even better insight into the kind of self-calming behaviour this guy is demonstrating.

And do you not find it interesting that he considers California to be the centre of the universe and FLEES TO BC for COVID? Okay, enough of picking on this poor mecheng.

Back to the main stage:

I’ma skip ahead to the parts that made my blood run cold:

His spirited defence of Elon Musk, raised rich by racist emerald mine owners. DUDE THIS IS NOT A STEP AWAY FROM NEOLIBERALISM, this IS NEOLIBERALISM.

Fuck ya.

and then this paragraph, which drove the breath from my body with its ableism and eugenics fluffing language

Yes, even the bane of Darwin’s faith—the humble ichneumon wasp that lays its maggots inside the living bodies of caterpillars to eat them from the inside and burst out on maturity like some alien xenomorph—is a beautiful creature with a sacred task. Like many parasites, its role in the great chain of being is to test the health and defenses of its caterpillar host population. Its predation weeds out the sickly, preventing the much uglier injustice of collective weakness and disease, and spurring the evolution of stronger and even more beautiful life. Even fearsome Nemesis, born from chaos via night and darkness, is ultimately the hand of God and the minister of justice. Even the supposed exceptions to justice prove its rule.

So COVID disproportionately killing disabled people is ‘spurring the evolution of stronger and even more beautiful life’. By his logic. Absolutely disgusting, and he DOESN’T EVEN REALIZE HE’S DOING IT.

Because if you asked him how he feels about disabled people, he wouldn’t say anything of the sort, certainly not while the mic was live, but he’s okay with using metaphors that would pinch out disabled lives without a backward glance AND HE HAS NO ONE IN HIS LIFE OR EDITORIAL CIRCLE WHO WILL CATCH HIM ON IT.

I tire of these efforts, so I’ll end with this. This man, well-intentioned, well-educated, and whiter than boiled chicken thighs on rice, has NO FUCKING BUSINESS setting himself up as an expert on governance.

Any more than I do…. which is why I don’t. I have opinions, but I’m not an expert.

Please, if you’re going to be supporting ‘alternatives in thinking about governance’ give your money to the people of colour who’ve DONE THE WORK.