PCRF communiqué

Date: October 14, 2023

A Humanitarian Catastrophe Unfolds in Gaza – An Appeal to the International Community

A catastrophe of unprecedented proportions is unfolding in what many refer to as “the most densely populated territory on earth”…the Gaza Strip.  Over the course of the last week, Gaza has plunged into a deep trail of destruction and unimaginable human suffering. The non-stop Israeli military bombardment of the civilian population in Gaza has now claimed over 1800 innocent lives, one-third of whom are children.  Over 500,000 people have been displaced and are seeking shelter in UN schools that have reached capacity. The IDF ordered one million people to evacuate northern Gaza for the south within 24 hours (as of yesterday, October 13th) in anticipation of an Israeli ground invasion.  This is being done without guarantees of safety or return to their homes, and what international legal experts say amounts to the forced transfer of inhabitants in violation of international law.

Essential resources like electricity, water, and food have been deliberately cut off, pushing the civilian population to the brink of desperation. The deliberate severing of vital services such as electricity, water, and food has magnified the suffering of Gaza’s people. Hospitals are overwhelmed and unable to provide adequate medical care due to the lack of medical supplies, electricity, and clean water. Emergency medical aid is being denied entry, ambulances are being bombed and vehicles carrying aid are being targeted by airstrikes. The urgent intervention of the international community is critical now more than ever.

In the face of this grave humanitarian crisis, it is imperative that the international community responds with unprecedented urgency and determination. The situation demands decisive, immediate action to alleviate the immense suffering of the over 2 million people trapped in a 140 sq. mile territory, roughly twice the size of Washington, D.C.

PCRF joins other humanitarian organizations and people of goodwill in calling on the international community to provide immediate humanitarian aid, intensify diplomatic efforts for an immediate ceasefire, ensure accountability for violations of international law, and actively support Gaza’s reconstruction. Silence in the face of such tragedy is complicity, and the time to act is now.

For any inquiries, please contact: Steve@pcrf.net

To Donate to PCRF’s Gaza Relief Efforts,  go to our website at www.pcrf.net

The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (“PCRF”) is a 501(c)(3) Federal Tax-Exempt U.S. Organization that provides free medical care to thousands of injured and ill children annually who lack local access to care within the local healthcare system in Palestine and other countries in the Middle East.

I’ve donated to PCRF twice, once a couple of years back and once in the last week. My donations were miniscule but I made them.

If you would prefer to donate in North America to try to stop this mess, here’s an interesting alternative.

them Ukrainians, lord lord

The link

 

David Axe Forbes staff, wrote

While any tank can be temperamental, the list of malfunctions Kochevnik was dealing with might speak to inconsistent workmanship at Uralvagonzavod’s factories.

A Russian who gave his name as Aleksander Anatolevich, who clearly was unaware that Kochevnik is a Ukrainian soldier, promised he’d bring up the problems with the design bureau in Nizhny Tagil—and that he’d also contact the engine-manufacturer in Chelyabinsk.

Kochevnik wasn’t done trolling. He also got ahold of Andrey Abakumov, a Uralvagonzavod director. Abakumov asked Kochevnik to describe the tank’s problems in detail on WhatsApp.

That’s when Kochevnik finally revealed he’s Ukrainian, and his army had captured the problematic T-72 around Izium late last year.

Laughing, Kochevnik ended the call.

sorry I missed a post yesterday

Good thing I won’t have to do this – being this blog-  more in a couple of months. Yup, After November 16th it will be THE PRIVATE DIGEST OF ALLEGRA SLOMAN, sent specifically to you for your deletion, consumption, or hoarding for later, being a week’s worth of my ramblings, including whatever I’ve been writing in terms of fiction as a subsection ALWAYS WITH TRIGGER WARNINGS. I mean, if you don’t want to read smut, you would want a warning. If I’m never leaving the house I might as well be able to prove I’ve been busy, even if it’s for such a low life enterprise. You’ll even get my game scores so you can track my cognitive decline, what could be more exciting.

Alex continues to be wonderful. He got to interact with his other Grammy yesterday because SUZANNE was here and the enshinening happened, and she got emailed the entire ms for Totally Boned.

I get him for the whole day today. Childcare for an ADD family involves having the child tell you about the PRO-D day because his mom forgot. Katie is BUSY past ENDURANCE these days. She was apologetic and Suzanne and she and I stood on the front stoop laughing and hollering like trailer trash while two men of colour glared at us from across the street. White women, I tell ya. Anyway I’m going to take him

In other ‘that side of the family’ news, Unca Steve got two tags this year, one for a moose and one for an elk. (Dax is up there hunting with him right now which will also partly account for Katie’s state, since he pulls weight at home.) Anyway another hunter had a moose tag and gave up in disgust and gave the tag to Unca Steve and Steve bagged one and will get a cut of the carcass. (Unca Steve is a “this harvested animal will be consumed as food” kind of hunter.) So he got three tags for the price of two and his reputation as the family Nimrod is secure. (in the old as opposed to the cartoon sense of the word.)

Completed my rewatch of S1 GOmens but have not watched anything else since Jeff departed.

One of my music fans messaged me yesterday about a song, to tell me it meant a lot to him, and that was …. honestly so sweet and welcome.

Intelligent readers will skip the next paragraph / wall of blithering text. re fanfic.

The new Good Omens fanfic is posted on A03. I am going to retire the rest of the destiel fic I was working on (we’re talking a number of words not unadjacent to 300K of work, if I’m including the 200K unfinished doorstop ‘The Sword That Cries ‘Ruin!” which has the single best Own Character from all my fanfic, in my view, an ancient creature representing herself as a woman (she’s actually a sentient tree, of a species with a heritage older than earth because she’s ‘not from around here’ and she falls in love with Sam and he has to bury her in the ground so she doesn’t die because of her species’ life cycle, and it’s just so tragic and amazing and sad and glorious and beautiful and the smut I wrote about their goodbye tryst (have sex with me now and bury in the morning LOL) is so pure and awesome and then she wakes up twenty years later after her transformation and, because Dean’s been peeing on her grave (he HATES HER thinks she RUINED SAM’S LIFE) every time he’s at the bunker to visit Sam, when she wakes up she’s a foot taller. the explanation for this is also molto hilarious. I further wrote a crapstack of stuff about the hunter kids Cas and Dean adopt, one of whom takes on Crowley IN HELL and bests him (different Crowley – there’s a Crowley in Supernatural AND Good Omens.) Although it has been pointed out in tumblr that a) both Crowleys USE THE SAME THRONE – the side by side pics are HILARIOUS) AND B) AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, THE SIGIL IN THE CENTRE OF THE CIRCLE THAT AZIRAPHALE WARDS IN S1 IS A COMPLETELY MADE UP SIGIL FROM SUPERNATURAL – NOT EVEN ENOCHIAN – which according to rumour ‘was not deliberate’ which is the single funniest thing I have ever heard in my life about crossover media, whether or NOT IT’S TRUE.  AND in ‘Ruin’ THERE IS A TALKING CAT NAMED FELIS CATUS WHO IS ACTUALLY AN ALIEN WITCH’S FAMILIAR AND GETS HIMSELF PREGNANT AND GIVES BIRTH TO SENTIENT CATS i mean this story has damned close to every wacky witch trope I could jam down its gullet and parts of it are so terrifying and hilarious it’s among the best I ever wrote, AND THERE’S A LOT OF HIGHLY TECHNICAL B&D SEX BETWEEN CAS AND DEAN AND DISCUSSIONS ABOUT HOW IT’S HARD TO HAVE A GOOD DOM SUB RELATIONSHIP WHEN YOU’VE GOT TEENAGERS CRAWLING IN AND OUT OF YOUR HOUSE DAY AND NIGHT). Yeah. You can understand why I need 200K words for that.                                           BUT I was thinking of just plain deleting it all – good and bad – off Scrivener as a sacrifice to Erato, but who knows, maybe the sparkle will come back. I’m only four or five thousand words from the end of ‘Ruin’ but I can’t bring myself to unfray the knot.

I believe I’ll enjoy writing Brad and Omar stories more, anyway. I love my lively lads. They’re on a farm in Eastern Ontario right now, thinking about putting up a yurt. And yaks. Brad’s going to have a ‘newborn yak adventure’.

 

 

 

 

Sunday roundup

  • Paul’s in Seattle. He drove himself. There will be a family council (we hope) when he returns.
  • Typhoon Merbok is screwing up coastal Alaska
  • The gyrations involved in getting Trump squared up for his ‘day in court’ continue. His most recent legal beagle asked for three million dollars cash up front and as I said on Twitter, the lawyer is still going to get his ass cheated off his body.
  • Mass graves continue to be discovered in Eastern Ukraine. Putin and his wolf pack have a lot to answer for. India and China are pulling away from him, except insofar as whatever they can pick off what’s looking like a particularly unappetizing piece of global carrion.
  • 13368 words on Landslide, 4197 on Totally Boned
  • I’m incubating a couple of poems, more when I actually figure out why I want to use heavily charged and coded words and even more when I write them. I think one of them wants to be a very dry list of my mental health symptoms
  • Almost 600 Americans are still dying every day from COVID. It’s the second highest reported cause of death in the US this week. BC reported infections and rate of infections are currently dropping, and about 200 people a week are catching it, with a very low death rate. Whether we’ll ever get anything but nonsense and bluster out of BC for the mass disabling event that is COVID is an open question; Keith thinks it’s a possibility and as a family we’re thinking of all getting tested.
  • Alex comes today, still don’t know exactly when.
  • There is a memorial for Queen Elizabeth in Queen’s Park in New Westminster at 1 pm today. I will not be there, I merely note its existence
  • Twitter is full of Brits queuing to file past the Queen. Out of towners who don’t give a shit about the monarchy are also complaining about getting stuck in traffic and the idea of voluntarily driving around London the weekend before they plant the HRH is ludicrous to me.
  • Hungary’s getting subsidy money from the EU cut because they’re a bunch of anti abortion, anti gay, corrupt fuckwits. We’re talking billions of Euros. The poor of Hungary will hurt the most, as always.
  • QUIT FEEDING THE GODDAMNED BEARS North Vancouver I am looking at you; do you suppose the conservation officers ENJOY SHOOTING BEARS I can tell you to your face they don’t, ya collection of buhs.
  • To recap: Buh is the bih-bah word that substitutes for crazy. Crazy isn’t acceptable. Buh covers: disgusting (stop being a goddamned sex pest, I don’t want to see your penis or your ass, or hear about what you want to do to me while you drive by in your best friend’s car), dirty (please maintain basic hygiene), dangerous (please do not jump onto moving cars, please do not drive cars impaired, please do not aim your car at protesters or tourists), bothersome (please leash/muzzle your pet and don’t run air tools at 3 am, please do not pull the panic stop on Skytrain for no reason, please drink/toke/inject responsibly, please wear a mask), noisy (keep it under 65 dB f’Chrissakes), wilfully destructive (seems obvious) and violent (why are you knifing me).
  • ‘Confess Fletch’ with Jon Hamm is entertaining as hell, great script, laughed my ass off. Also sticks the landing in 90 – all action movies and comedies should try to get in at 90. I’ll give superhero movies an extra half for all the eyecandy bloody CGI

the saanich bank robbers were stochastic terrorism standard issue white guys

I was going to call it on twitter and thought THEIR POOR PARENTS. I’m glad I had the sense and decency to restrain myself even if that’s where they likely learned it. I hope the lads enjoyed their brief moment of liberatory violence.
And congrats you dead guys, you just made it inevitable that the taxpayers of Saanich will hear the police say, “Open your wallets and repeat after me, Help Yourself!” when it comes to better training for … er … terroristic right wing assaults. They’ll all have to go to Hawaii for training (or some such venue), and come back even bigger dicks than when they left. After all Victoria is a provincial capital of a G8 country, it should have a world class terrerizm response team, correct?
I can hear my auntie Mary cackling; who knows why, she’s not here, but I do hear things occasionally.

low key day

23828 is the count.

Yesterday I wrote 870 words ran the dishwasher did my brain exercises got the Wordle in 5 played waffle half the day (it’s a game on the cbc website) watched a Burn Notice (season three summer finale, Michael finally shoots Strickler and joy was unrefined) gave someone 30$ on Paypal to honour my Settler Saturday commitment so she can get away from a bad domestic situation, skritched the cat and talked to Dave on the phone.

He’s got a book coming out and his description of the difficulties involved with punctuation was (probably not to him) quite comical. (Once upon a time I had an Anelia font Brother printer and I helped lay out one of his poems and let’s just say it’s better left to experts. And I don’t think he’s overly fussy about any of it, it’s a component of his greatness as a poet; I’m just not as particular and definitely not as internally consistent, go go Allegra ADD.) I spent rather more of the conversation than I should have telling him WHICH social media platform he should be on, of course twitter, and how he should go about ‘developing content’ for it now that he’s a luminary of Canadian letters. I even told him that if he felt like paying for it I’d jump on a train and come visit him (but he’d also have to pay to get rid of me, ALAS TIS THE ALLEGRAGELD which considering how I eat shouldn’t be too hard a sell) if he wanted to do a reading or (bless) won an award. He even riffed on an account name, which I won’t repeat in case he decides to actually do it, and I nearly laughed my lungs up through my nose.

I got a thousand karma points on reddit yesterday by saying something uplifting about someone’s stepdad for father’s day. Happy father’s day Paul: you were a good one. Things change. We get older and less useful to our children (in some cases) but the gratitude for the experience of having been a ‘working parent’ remains.

Happy father’s day pOp, you are one of the sweetest men ever. You were a little crusty when I was growing up and Liz was scared of you remember when I told you she said of you “King Fear gripped my heart with icy fingers” which is (truth be told) a quote from a Lobsang Rampa book (and DID YOU KNOW that after being hounded out of England as a goddamned phoney he moved to Calgary and died there in the 80s?, I mean what would an Allegra father’s day greeting be without a completely parenthetical comment?) but honestly, with mOm’s help you were the best dad out of all of the dads of all the kids I knew. I did have a few minutes when I thought you and mOm must have adopted me because you – ¿ARE YOU KIDDING? – set reasonable limits on my movements and what you spent money on for me but other than that, it was pretty clear you were . the . best . dad, and your continuing kindness and support for everyone in your family, is but one external token of how wonderful you are.

Did you know that there isn’t a single googleable picture of him on the internet? if I post pics of him I don’t put his name in the alt or the metadata

ALL PRAISE THE MASTER OF NOT CARING WHAT THE WORLD THINKS.

I’ve been laying off posting about Ukraine, but check this out, open in new page if you can’t read it:

armed fucking standoffs between officers and troops on the white blue and red side? g’damn.

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

 

Okay so a little about Ukraine

Alex’s drawing in the correct colours.

It is reported that a swarm of bees killed 3 Russian soldiers. It’s propaganda, most likely, but great propaganda.

Just watched a two minute video of two technically sane but very risk-friendly Ukrainians driving through their EXTREMELY RECENTLY LIBERATED town, catching sniper fire from Russian stragglers, stopping in the middle of the street to talk to two pedestrians with much the same plan (we stuck our heads out to find out what’s going on in our own fucking town! sez they), saying fuckitifwediewedie, admiring the stuff that’s still burning, saying that Russians are evil cowards, and speaking so casually about being fired on you’d think they were entirely fearless. (Then one says, no expression in his voice, “I’m fucking losing it.”)

It’s being reported that Putin travels with a small army of doctors and that he has thyroid cancer. Once again propaganda, but it sure cheered up a lot of Ukrainians.

AND ON A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT NOTE

Pontifex HAS APOLOGIZED FOR THE HARM DONE TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLES in what is now Canada BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

I fucking NEVER thought to live to see this day. The Indigenous delegation in Rome is in a state of mind you rarely see publicly. The generally expressed sentiment is that healing is now possible in a way that it simply was not before. I wept like a fool when I heard.

 

Kyiv is still Ukrainian

Putin’s a month into his war and he’s achieved so few of his original objectives that some commentators, while not exactly mocking him, are starting to worry that he’s being thwarted, which makes him prone to lash out and be dangerous and threaten nukes, repeatedly. He’s already put at least two hundred children in the ground. Why, if it wasn’t for the wars on the populations of Yemen and Syria, which Russia’s armed forces have helped to prosecute these past many years, and previous Russian outings in Ukraine and Chechnya, I wouldn’t have anything to compare it to.

Learned about SKIF’s, the Ukrainian country/urban tank killer, whose name literally means ‘Scythian’. They’re ferociously effective in modern warfare, cheap like borscht compared to the arms it can kill. It’s a modern day crossbow in terms of its asymmetrical warfare effects – it can take down a person, a vehicle, a tank, a chopper OR – with luck – a jet.

Two kudos overnight, very surprised by one of them; one of the stories I posted to AO3 is a complete outlier because the central character dyad is not destiel, it’s a three person triad that turns into a polyamorous household full of kids, and all this while the lead character is dealing with CRUSHING depression, new fatherhood, and coming to terms with being bisexual. So it has a million feels and some very dramatic and technical sex scenes and it’s not like anything else I’ve posted. (SO it doesn’t get much love.) The other kudo, from another person, is for my most popular fic, which has more than 6000 hits now, and a 4% kudo to hit ratio.

Weather kinda miserable and damp.

very complex ‘tholian web’  migraine imagery just now. It’s probably pollen triggered, it’s just been HORRIBLE, how crappy the allergens have been making me and Jeff feel. I feel brain dead, and then I perk up a bit, and then there’s another puff of cedar pollen and BRAIN DED AGIN. Now it’s a square full of vibrating chevrons; now it’s fuzz. Now it’s fading. dammit I need coffee.

Report has come that one of the Dunnetteers from Toronto has passed of cancer. The kind words are coming in and people are speaking well of the dead; she sounds like she was a superior sort of person and we’re also told she was well cared for, and having been through sitting with Tom (even though it wasn’t much and I didn’t materially assist, not really) I am glad that she was, and that no one stinted on the morphine.

Wordle in three this morning. Somebody I follow on twitter made a hint, that the word seemed apropos today, and that really helped. Didn’t hurt that I guessed the first letter of the word right out of the gate.

R value across Canada has dipped way below one. We’ll still get another surge as the new variant comes through (BA.2) but it won’t be as bad. I feel safer and I’m not as worried about my loved ones, especially my immunocompromised loved ones, but you have to watch the numbers…

Laundry’s all done, now I have to haul it upstairs and put it away. The rug survived being laundered, thank god, often the plastic backing comes off and then Jeff has to disassembled the machine to clear it out.

Time to go back to the world of Omar and Brad and Blossom.

Katie’s making plans to go back to work; I think childcare is going to be split between Suzanne and the (humph, advised not to post this descriptive but possibly offensive soubriquet) other grandma, with me as a backup I guess. There are many advantages to this as one can see, and one can only marvel at Ryker’s good fortune that when so many kids have no grandma’s he ended up somehow with three.

March Madness continues, and I’m adding new words to my conlang, admiring the hairdos of the contestants and their ability to pluck balls out of midair, steal them from each other and otherwise perform feats of athletic magic.

Ted Cruz the douche extraordinaire, brandishing a book which he very obviously has neither opened nor read, repurposed by the lovelies at Working Class History (on finer social media platforms everywhere):

This was a possible Hair Sinister cover:

JEEEEEZ

 

There is so much misinformation, disinformation, cheerful lies, tankie mischief and plum bullshit out there about Ukraine and the Russian invasion that walking away from twitter feels like pulling your lips away from the firehose.

The war is costing Russia something on the order of 8 billion dollars a day, and they just had about half their access to the global banking system cut off. More sanctions are coming. People are protesting daily in every major Russian city (there were at least 5K in St. Pete’s alone !!) and through the entirety of the former Soviet Union, where the resistance of the Ukrainians has put steel in spines. Putin has announced that he wants the territories of the former Soviet Union back and guess what, most of the former slave states are not impressed. And from what I’ve seen there have been protests in every large city in soidisant Canada. If the rest of the sanctions come, Russia has funds for about a month more of this before they have to go to the international equivalent of Vinnie the Fish for the rest of the warchest. Germany spat in Putin’s face and sent anti tank/helicopter weapons to Ukraine. So much for Germany staying neutral! They spat twice hard when they blocked the pipeline from Russia, too, and announced plans as to how they’re going to get along fine without their gas and oil. The German public is not united in this but the poll numbers are high enough that the Ukrainians can continue to lean on them.

And Russian boys are dying in hundreds in Kharkiv right now. They ‘took’ the city and the Ukrainians took it right back.

Putin is now so desperate that he’s calling up the nuclear troops and setting them to do ‘exercises’ which is basically him grabbing his dick and saying LOOKEE HERE. Do I believe that he will use nuclear weapons? Maybe. But he’s already the kind of person who can’t wander out incognito because about a quarter of the population of Russia would be blithe on vodka for a week if they could have a chance to shiv him. To be the aggressor in a nuclear war would not cement his popularity. NATO is on alert which means that US branded troops are now free to move in Europa.

Jeff tells me that the space authority in Russia is threatening to drop shit on people they don’t like from orbit and once again, if it’s the Russians wanting to start a war from space they aren’t going to like the results any more than the poor bastards underneath whatever they drop. Biden’s as much of a Killocrat as the next one, but if ever there was a casus belli that would be it.

Of particular interest to me is the Ukrainians and Americans releasing intel that the Russians are planning an explosion somewhere in Russian controlled territory that they can blame on the Ukrainians so they can send more troops and really crush the resistance. Russians commanded by Putin did the same fucking thing for the Chechen war, blowing up apartment buildings across Russia in the runup to the Chechen War in 1999. The wikipedia article says that nobody really knows who did it but I’ve seen enough evidence to convince me, and if you need convincing please check how the timing of it is what catapulted Putin from the prime ministership into the Presidency just a few months later. NOT AN ACCIDENT.

Apart from Switzerland, which is landlocked, there isn’t a single European country currently allowing Russian flyovers.

On to a more pleasant subject. Jeff is a very good brother and roommate. After I lost my cell phone (coming up on 18 months) he loaned me his spare (non activated) cell phone, so I have an alarm and a clock and gaming platform and something to take into the bath when I want to play solitaire and soak. I dropped it numerous times and it quit. Apologetic and abashed I immediately took it to him and within minutes he had restored it to life. I do not deserve. But I am very happy.

50 cm of rain over the next day. BLOOP

 

 

on feb 16 60 people came to my site

why? What was so different about that day?

Russian government sites are down; twitter has been throttled back in Russia; casualties are mounting and the Russians are having troubles taking Kyiv, since the Ukrainians won’t give a metre without a fight; the Russians are fighting people who didn’t chop down the trees in the public forests in Kyiv while they were dying of exposure during the Great Patriotic War because they knew the war would be over soon enough and their children would want the trees to play under.

The Russians are on the wrong side of a stupid conflict, but the Ukrainians, the good ones and the bad ones, are pretty much united.

The Russians are doing so poorly that they’re threatening nukes. I don’t know how to respond to such atrocities.

 

Zelenskyy says The Fight is here, I need ammo not a ride.
Russia OUT OF UKRAINE.

As an anarchist I’m not supposed to stand with or under any flag but the red and black, but I’m just going to give you the hairy eyeball if you want to decry the flag that is the blue of the sky and the gold of the grain.

Here’s some real anarchism: they’ve changed the street signs for the oncoming invaders so they all say a variant of GO FUCK YOURSELF\

They changed the street signs for the invaders so they all say GO FUCK YOURSELVES

More items off the list

I am continuing to feel much more chipper.  It wasn’t a super productive day, but I walked (really walked, not ambled) and got some social contact and the sun was a benison.

There’s a new game, Semantle. IT’S INSANE MAKING. Wordle is fun and brief and lively, but Semantle makes you understand you don’t understand English at all, and given that it is, “My bag, my thing, my evil specialty” it’s … Okay, here’s the link. Just don’t ever play the game, you will die of frustration. (suitably vexed voice, with shaken fists: CURSE YOU VIXY) —LATER LATER MUCH LATER I’m up to 3hundred and freakn 80 guesses on Semantle, I feel like me brains are leaking out my ears.

It’s supposed to be ass freezing cold tonight until Wednesday. I am not worried; I’ll have the warmth of VISITORS tonight yes that’s right Mike was supposed to come over for ‘za last night but he drank too much with sifu (sifu is master in Chinese martial arts)  and couldn’t manage it, so he’s coming over tonight.

Buster heals and complains about the door being locked.

Yesterday I ordered the bamboo charcoal smell-killers that have worked so well for us. (really helps with the damp smell in the downstairs john).  Why? As mentioned Mike got a right hand drive Delica (which I rode in for the first time when we went saunaing and dining with Jarmo and Susanna) and it’s unfortunately a Japanese vehicle which means it’s been smoked in. So I’ll give him three of those bamboo charcoal smell killers and that will keep the noxious effluvium down to a dull roar, hopefully. I ordered it from Rona and with the exchange and free shipping it’s about the same as if I ordered it from the US, so that worked.

Absolutely delightful walk in the park at Fraser Foreshore yesterday with Paul. I fed the chickadees from my hands for about ten minutes with Paul watching, most entertained; with what delicacy and firmness did they grasp my index finger as they rested a flashing moment to grab a sunflower seed. The sun was just blasting down and there was no wind, so we sat in the sun and basked for many long minutes in companionable silence. Everyone on the trail (except for those two fuckwits on mountain bikes who came through with a gopro and attitude and 90 dB of shitty club music at about 25 kph without a bell or shout) was practically giddy with joy at the warmth and sun, and even though it was the Sunday of a long holiday weekend (it’s ‘Family Day’ in BC) the trails weren’t too crowded. I masked, Paul didn’t.

Then we went back to KC Junction and I ate Keith’s leftovers, a superlative yellow lentil stew with heaps of veg and subtle, lightly heated spicing, and then we ate my choc rice pudding for dessert. (Keith enjoyed it with thanks.) Paul was much more interested in the borscht I brought (he really likes my borscht) and I realized why when I saw the sour cream container. But I can’t eat borscht two days running because anything with oxalic acid makes my kidney output scratchy so I ate lentils instead.

Keith’s loving his job… just loving it. He says it’s only a week and you can’t know for sure, and the pay is not great, but it’s work he can stand and he’s visibly in much better shape than even two weeks ago.

Katie was out with Ryker & Alex and some friends so I didn’t get to see her.

The Russians are claiming that the Ukrainians are ‘reacquiring nuclear weapons’ and I’m like wow, we can’t trust a fucking word you say now, can we.

Worst showing ever in terms of ratings for the Olympics. Why NBC keeps this boat anchor tied to its ass I have no idea. What if they held an Olympics and nobody wanted to broadcast it? That would be choice.

Twitter antifa (canuck division) is rooting around in rural Ontario to find the names of the people who are hiding the convoyancers. So far some son of a sea cook in Embrun who’s the best friend of the mayor there is one of them. LOL they can hide but six months from now the knock will come. Remember they’re still knocking on doors from the Jan 6 rebellion in the US, it’s not like the cops work faster in Canuckistan.

I’m an abolitionist; if they could all be referred to restorative justice and be filling planters and picking up garbage in Centretown for the next two years instead of paying fines and going to jail I WOULD BE HAPPY. Especially if they had to wear a PLEASE DON’T FEED THE HONKIES sign around their necks while they were doing it, but that’s not nice, I know it.

I don’t know if I mentioned it, but if they reboot Futurama without the voice acting talents of John DiMaggio I won’t watch it, even out of whatever is left of my curiosity.

Side note to mOm. The Metformin did it again this morning, fortunately I know how this goes and I had plans in place and managed to deal with it all promptly. What a life.

 

 

 

 

Thank you Gaia for the inspiration

So before I turn you over to my latest creation, and the tune hasn’t stabilized so I likely won’t post it today and even more likely will never post it.

Spoken is italics, everything else is sung

what a spanner ( OMG
what a spanner Jesus threw
what a spanner – oh my God
what a spanner Jesus threw

well of course you can say
that science got there first
‘cause of course, you know science,
always making shit up, not wrong am I
the fact is that I know
for sure
religion came first

cause whenever I hear stories
of bears watching the sunset
and animals of different species helping each other
because it’s built-in
after that I think
‘you know, religion obviously jammed through that cognitive door first, yippee’
and where does that leave us

what a spanner ( OMG
what a spanner Jesus threw
what a spanner – oh my God
what a spanner Jesus threw

and of course I think some more
and if Jesus wasn’t born
there wouldn’t be a Bible
which its adherents raise
as proof of their devotion
consider the religion
from which the Bible sprang

Hey, they didn’t fucking proselytize
and that’s when my bell got rang

Across the earth Indigenous
had practices specific
to all the places that they cared for
in balance and pacific
but when the Bible said to go
and preach to all the nations
Jesus underwrote some wars
and war on all relations

Christians know
this mortal sin
However much
they hide it
We were crushed
in a conqueror’s fist
Til Gaia’s truth*
defied it

I’m leaving Islam out of this shitkicking because I wasn’t raised in a Muslim country. Even though I’m an atheist I’m ethnically Christian.

*That would be science, folks, in case my creaky metaphor didn’t make sense. The working together of science and Indigenous cultural and religious practices is one of the ongoing great stories of the 21st century.