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.

 

 

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background work

side by side a ukrainian soldier defends a pram, a russian soldier shoots at one
48 days into the war

Still adjusting to the meds change; I appear to be somewhat more diurnal, as I slept from 8 until 5:30 this morning. Jeff and I are going to go see the mini vampires at some point this week, and then I’m spending the day at Caspell Junction on Thurdsay, and also at some point we should shop as we are actually OUT OF some things and there’s always more toilet paper. (Constant readers will note that I buy more toilet paper than is required because I’m afeared to not have enough in a true emergency.)

IT FUCKING SNOWED yesterday it’s all gone but even though they warned us it was most unpleasant, and Buster was unimpressed as hell.

New word: Nexterday for tomorrow, invented by some kid whose parent reported it on twitter.

Now that we have CRAVE we’re getting the ads for show renewals and Jeff was so happy to see the ads for the Flight Attendant, which is a show he wouldn’t have watched if Dave hadn’t recommended it, so that was a nice little frisson of connection.

No kudos, no progress on the story. All my mental work on the story is managing the “I’m more into you than you’re into me and it’s breaking me” part of it, plus working the ‘gay guy’s straight friend’ into it because the idea of a fairly uptight gay man getting romantic advice from his sassy-pants straight friend is too much for me to dodge, it’s just so up-to-drip and tropey. Also I want two men who aren’t romantically involved to talk about sexual assault. I mean I’m not going for maximum damage but our hero is pretty messed up and he needs someone to tell him that a very common response to sexual assault is hypersexualization. The first time I heard that I went BULLSHIT but apparently it’s a mechanism whereby you reestablish control over, and agency over, your own body and while it just seems wrong from my lived experience, thousands of hours of research don’t lie.

Got wordle in three today, I’ll post it for tomorrow because I found the word combo weirdly funny.

Have some ice, from Iceland. It was just above freezing, the rain was coming sideways, and the biggest of those chunks of ice is about four metres across. And yet the curlews were on the beach trying to make a living. Four years ago now. I occasionally remember aspects of this trip as if I were still there. How I wish I could go again. It felt like part of my home on earth. But as mentioned I’m never getting on a jet again.

unequivocal

I want my support for Ukraine’s people to be unequivocal.

There comes word that Russian forces have used chemical weapons in Mariupol. If governments can decide to kill people with chemical weapons in the Soviet era (as Lenin did in 1921) they can do it a century later. The chemical weapons appear to have been phosphorus bombs.

All of these weapons could be turned against me. What happened to the Kurds could happen to me.

Can’t explain

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Gotta love that take, sorry lol.

7618 words. One kudo this morning. The Supernatural (2005) character Dean Winchester loves pie. There are over a hundred thousand #destiel fics on AO3; one thousand of them are about or include pie; one of them is mine, and it got a kudo. Food makes us all fools. REMEMBER THAT.

Russian forces are committing atrocities in Ukraine. Twitter IS FILLED TO THE BRIM WITH ATROCITY DENIERS THIS MORNING. Some of them are credentialed journalists. I’d weep, but I’m more inclined to send more money to Ukrainian anarchists serving at the front.

Susan Sontag had a few words for the people who claim that it’s the Ukrainians committing the atrocities. You know, in wartime civilians often take the opportunity to settle scores, but it’s by individuals, on individuals. That the Ukrainian army or any of its forces would do this – when they know they don’t HAVE TO? Russia brought 45000 body bags to the front – they weren’t for soldiers, they were to handle massacred civilians.

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German PHO’s are asking that all Ukrainian refugees be tested for AIDS and TB. That actually makes sense as long as it doesn’t turn into an excuse to refuse them entry.

Transnistria is denying that Russian troops are building up along its border with Ukraine. Satellites say what?

Poland, which has responded to white Ukrainians with open arms, has publicly stated that they’ll accept US Nukes on their soil. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, deputy prime minister of Poland, said so within the last 24.

Russian troops in Bucha massacred every Ukrainian man between 16 and 60 and then moved out of the town. Bucha, originally about the same size as Grande Prairie at 40000 people, had already seen most men of national service age leave to either train or rejoin units, so essentially they killed every man and boy who was either in a protected profession or too sick, disabled or unfit to serve. (Eugenics much). Total numbers will likely never be known, any more than Putin’s likely to stand trial at the Hague. Yes, some of those men were likely fighting in civvies, but it was either planned by the Russians or indisciplined troops and either way Putin’s gonna wear this.

 

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.

 

beautiful day for a pap smear

So I saw the doc, got a pap smear, had to wait an hour and a half. “Everything looks fine down there” what a relief eh.

Something odd came out of the overnight BP study. A couple of hours after I went to sleep that night my BP crashed and stayed there for about two hours. I mean crashed; literally so low that I’d be hospitalized. I guess I just have to be a weirdo. Otherwise the drugs seem to be doing their job and I’m not in Sky High About To Pop a Clog territory any more.

Jeff gave me a no-SMS-card phone so I have a calculator and alarm and game platform and I have now killed both of the chargers he loaned me so I have to replace them.

Got my meds re-upped – yet another change, this time because the drug is literally so old the drug company doesn’t want to make it in that formulation anymore, sounds like me. Anyway that’s set up and I should have enough prescriptions to cover me during an earthquake. I’ll be going off the inderal eventually. Very glad I’ve added vitamin c to the mix of pills I take every morning – as is often the case my teeth hurt less.

Today maybe I’ll get that bloodwork done, but it’s more likely because I have to go to the same building for my prescription,

Katie, Alex, Ryker and I are going to travel to Victoria at some point. This means that M&D have to re-jig their visiting from other relatives which I kinda feel bad about but it would have been hella worse if the unvaxxed baby breathed all over the immunocompromised elder, so at least everyone involved has consent. We’re also going to do RATs before we leave to ensure none of us are actively illin’.

I am not going to comment about the assault at the Oscars because as far as I can tell, with maybe one exception, every single white person whose comments I’ve seen has applied all the intersectionality of non-Euclidean geometry and all the nuance of a cast iron frying pan flung across the kitchen. Given that I am not the great white hope (sarcasm alert…. sarcasm & POOR CHOICE OF PHRASING alert) of contemporary anti-racism activities and thought, I won’t do better and therefore, if you want to know how I feel about it (I have three main points to make) you can ask me in person, and of your kindness, wear the rainsuit.

I am not going to comment as much about the Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. I’m against it; I continue to donate and send letters and whatnot in the background; Putin won’t give up until he’s dead or deposed; Canada is as involved as it reasonably can be and maybe even more so anyplace it can get away with it; Russia and India and China are now doing a pavane and in the end China will crush Russia. In terms of will, planning, execution and numbers, China can’t do anything else.

The suffering of the Ukrainian people, and the Russians dragged into this war by violent paranoid old bigots, is not imaginable by those not experiencing it; we uphold their courage and denounce the frauds who’ve started this terrible slaughter.

6646 words, still waiting on further oomph to finish it. Haven’t seen any kudos yet this morning. I got the wordle in 5 this morning, but it was a complete bear of a word.

 

 

Low energy day

Once again, another day of being tired. I felt dizzy after we got back from the store (didn’t last long, but my balance was shot all day) and after watching a Time Team with Jeff I went back upstairs and …. slept until supper time? I mean I woke up around midnight and couldn’t go back to sleep so more sleep was in order, and I just had a normal night of sleep and feel fine, but that was weird. Fortunately Jeff had both lots of work and lots of squeaky squeaky time (March Madness) to watch.

The little tweety birds have a series of songs and dances that they do to encourage me to put down more seeds. (Juncos and chipping sparrows.) Bought peanuts yesterday for the corbies. They made what I put out disappear in a real hurry.

I mentioned that I ordered a Fluent Pet starter board which will ‘allow’ Buster to talk and they emailed me a 36 page starter guide to read before the six buttons and the panels they sit on get here. I think Jeff is quite dubious, but I am really looking forward to it.

No work on the story because I slept all day but much pondering – the next convo is going to be hard to set up and write so that it flows correctly. One lead character is being an asshole to cover how traumatized they are and the other lead character’s about to drop the hammer and explain (kindly, firmly) that ‘your trauma doesn’t suddenly give you an all access asshole pass’….. Four kudos overnight. The gal who’s reading all my stuff on AO3 is, as promised, reading all my stuff. Squee.

Alex is coming for a sleepover tonight. I’m thinking of doing things a leedle differently than normal but mOm I’ll be trying to give you a call before bedtime tonight so you get to hear his voice. Tomorrow, bouncing around the lazy river at the community centre with my grandsons and co-grandma and Mamabear.

Fuck Ginni Thomas, I hope she goes to hell through a cenote-style sinkhole appearing in the goddamned floor. Stories all over the internet about what a great *** she is.

Despite everything that’s wrong with me yesterday I wrote A NEW INTRO for Gelis and Niccolo (I cannot let go of that song) – one that uses fingerpicking style rather than hammered guitar – and I’m thrilled with it because it just came to me in a lightning flash and there’s a really wonderful rhythmic change that makes me feel like I am, you know, a musician with a little flair, a little showpersonship.

Vyshyvanka are about to get reaaaaallly popular. I predict it. They are the Ukrainian national shirt. Go to Etsy and look it up for examples. The black shirt with buff and gold embroidery made me DIE OF WANT.

Here’s a photo that is really hard to interpret because none of us speak or read Russian. Here we go:

So there we have some bog standard Russian iconography from the days of the Soviet Union. This looks not particularly rude in anyone’s terms, it’s a hammer and sickle with the words “Mow” “and” “Hammer” BUT according to Alexey at Meduza, it’s an extremely sophisticated visual pun.

Why? because ‘Reap’ (aka ‘mow’) is Russian slang for DODGE THE DRAFT and ‘Hammer’ is Russian slang for IGNORE DRAFT NOTICES. So this means that the iconography of the former Soviet Union is now UNIVERSALLY ESTABLISHED as a symbol for draft dodging, inside Russia, and that is to my mind so fucking hilarious I want everyone who reads my blog to know about it!

There’s also a joke going around (not in Russia) that the reason the current war symbol is a ‘Z’ is that, thanks to Russian Engineering, the other two arms of the swastika fell off.

this is Mariupol:

today the enshinening

Okay, that didn’t really work as a blog post title, but the Suzanne the Cleaning Specialist and Carer will be here today and Jeff and I have sworn a mighty blood oath (okay maybe it was coffee and PowerAde) that we’ll clean out the fridge today as our part in the enshinening.

Two kudos overnight; word count stands at 4890; my fave sentence out of the last writing session is

He tried to get in the front seat and she stared at him, a bleak and judgemental reckoning which took in every aspect of his appearance until the impossible happened; he got redder.

They’re about to visit a brothel, but not for any regular reason. Aren’t you anxious to learn why? NB he’s red because he’s sunburned, and not because he’s a tourist.

Jeff and I emptied the fridge of its rottenness (Jeff was the motor). We now have three different kinds of cheese, and condiments. Shop tomorrow I reckon. I am taking a 20 minute break because my back is screaming and then I’ll wipe down the bums of all the containers and plug everything back into the fridge.  Next up: scheduling the next clean. (later it’s on the household calendar) I believe according to the Sidetracked Sisters you’re supposed to do the fridge once a month but if we do it twice a year that would be amazing. Suzanne will do it but she’s only marginally bendier than me and Jeff and she does charge extra for that, so …. (Later, still have to clean one piece of glass and wipe out the freezer but it’s done)

and in war news, the tank manufacturer in the former Soviet Union has shut down the line, no parts. Whoever told Putin YEAH SURE WE ARE TIGHT AND GOOD FOR SUPPLY CHAIN ON ARMAMENTS is probably licking out privies in NovySibirsk now under the lazy eye of a guard who’s probably busy wearing out his pocket icon of Our Lady Derzhavnaya in thanks for not being posted to the front.

aaaaaand them damn gritty Ukrainians be torching Russian ships, which are large and invitingly shootable-at and pretty much defenceless given the collapse of daytime air support for Russian assault troops and supply chains…  since it turns out that the Ukrainian air force, tiny as it is, is blisteringly effective, and the mobile rocket launchers are STILL BEING OPERATED from inside Mariupol which means that whatever the fucking Russians say, Mariupol has not been pacified.

Tyler Rogoway, whom I started following on twitter some years back (he’s an American military aircraft journalist with Ukrainian ancestors) says that Putin has to quit, because if he wins, he’ll be facing the worst insurgency in the history of warfare; porous borders with hundreds of millions of dollars of modern mobile armaments, and a civilian population armed to the teeth, properly trained and disciplined and bitter af, and people around the world who can’t tell the difference between a sh and a shch will be raising money to make it even worse for the grunts on the ground; while Russians starve and he’s forced to figure out whether to withdraw troops to pacify his own civilians, especially the ones closest to Ukraine who are getting more of the real story. If a billionaire who isn’t a citizen of the NATO countries starts ordering and shipping aircraft to Ukraine man that would be entertaining and horrific — and I want the Russian army to go home and stay there.

Katie’s coming with both the boys after Suzanne leaves.

 

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:

Medvedev is threatening Poland now how charming

2876 words. Very frustrating, had to delete about four hundred words because I was backing myself into a corner. However I’m in good shape now.

Rained nonstop for a day now, but not too heavily.

Three kudos overnight, two for the most recent and one for the one about crashing a glider in a cornfield.

It’s 5 am… think I’ll take a break (I’ve been writing, playing games and cruising Twitter) and consume some terrible media (Taboo.)

Called Mike last night, no answer.

Russia has demanded Ukraine turn over Mariupol this morning, which is a smoking shell of a modern city. Blowing something up and then demanding it, so adult. They’re preventing people from leaving, but at the same time word comes that they’re kidnapping UA citizens and transporting them to captivity in Russia. The spectre of nuclear war or a nuclear exchange flows over us.

from the Kyiv Independent (a more or less accurate news source) on twitter just now:

Greek diplomat after returning from Mariupol: ‘What I saw, I hope no one will ever see.’ Manolis Androulakis left the besieged city on March 15. He said it was joining the ranks of places known for having been destroyed in wars such as “Guernica, Coventry, Aleppo, Grozny.”

immobilized

Slept most of the day yesterday. I think my eyes are so itchy from the incredibly high pollen counts that I slept in self defense. Once again missed the chance for a walk. Sleeping during the day is not a good sign when you’re my age – dementia is calling! However I do run cognitive tests on myself every day and I seem to be about the same.

1368 words so far, rum has entered the chat. Two kudos this morning.

Russians have started deporting Ukrainians to Russia. Just in case this wasn’t clear, deporting civilians during wartime RILLY looks a lot like GENOCIDE.

Clean sheets really are a beautiful thing. I also washed the cover for the bolster. I am so happy I figured out how to keep both ends of the bolster closed without having to do any sewing. I tie a knot in both ends, it’s that simple. If I don’t, the pillows the bolster is stuffed with come barfing out, usually in the middle of the night. waaa what dat noise… oh.

I am adding words to Bih-Bah, my conlang made out of basketball hoop noises. I always add words during March Madness, when it’s nonstop games for days at a time.

I should go downstairs and let Buster out. He asked to have the door locked last night but he prob’ly wants to pee.

A Katie halloween costume from days of yore

My what big green eyes you have

Breakfast at the Foreshore diner

I had french toast an’ swossage and coffee and Jeff had the regular breakfast with bacom and coffee and it was very tasty and lorge. Leftovers in the fridge for pecking on throughout the day.

Horrifying Frontline about Putin’s war. It’s available on line but jesus I’m not recommending it because it put both me and Jeff in a foul and bleak place.

mOm got the story in the email finally. To make reading easier, I am thinking of having a password locked area of the site for people to read stories if they log in but I will leave off thinking of the mechanics for when Jeff is not buried in improvements for paying customers.

Happy St. Patricks for those who drink…

555 words into the new story.

Our old home at Valley Springs Ranch – the cottage Dad built. Roberta, David, Mary – we were visiting from Borden.

Will the laundry get put away? who cares

six kudos last night, on three different stories.

Like a fool, like a positive fool, I’ve started writing a romance with original characters.

Mariupol is under siege, 300K people are trapped, 1500 civilians have been killed there. Zelenskyy addressed Canadian Parliament yesterday and Candice Bergen sat on her hands. What a (slur/slur) that woman is.

Nazanin is free. 

She got her passport back today. It’s incredible, I wept for joy, reading that. She’s going home to her daughter and husband, who has starved himself and thrown himself at the UK diplomatic apparatus since 2016 when she landed in her predicament. Nobody with a brain or any pull believes that she’s guilty of the spying charges. I haven’t mentioned her on the blog before but I’ve been following her incarceration for at least five years.

We dined on takeout from Big Star sandwiches and it was FANTASTIC. They have a turkey, cranberry sauce and stuffing sandwich (small, which is still large) which I customized with crispy onions and Jeff had something large and equally tasty. Which reminds me, I owe Jeff for that.

 

 

Three loads full

I give thanks to the people, the land and water, the sky and creatures, the weather and the seasons, of this place. I will keep working to restore the stewardship of the Salish peoples and uphold their immemorial relationship to the beautiful lands and waters. It is not mine although they share it with me. #LandBack

Three loads of laundry yesterday. I haven’t dragged it back up the stairs to put it  away but, apart from my lilac hoodie which I neglected to include and must be laundered right away because it’s foul with spilled food (sigh), my clothes be clean.

Schrödingers dishwasher – did I run the damned thing or not.

Cleaned out Buster’s gammy ear this morning. Normally he bats at me and protests, but he was purring and gave me a little thank you chirp when I was done, so I think he was mebbe a little itchy.

Paul straightened things out with his housemates, and acknowledged to me by phone that his behaviour was boned. But Katie’s mellowed and I have not talked to Keith. Still thinking about the driving issue.

Curls fell out of my do but it’s still really cute and I love it. A bad haircut can ruin you but not for long and a good haircut just makes everything better. Interestingly I thought my hair was all the same colour but the ends were both darker and more washed out, if that’s possible, and now all the hair colour seems quite even to me, and the silver shine is (according to my stylist) something people pay thousands of dollars to obtain and maintain. God (for some reason) thinks I’m cool to extrude this stuff, and it’s great, because I can be harassing someone on reddit or going to the bathroom and I can still grow hair with undiminished vigour.

I told the stylist that one liner from James C., one of my all time favourite coworkers at the big X. About 15 years ago, at work, I read something like, “Hair is a sexual signalling device” so I wrote all the coworkers that I liked a little email, asking what their hair says about them, and he said, “My hair stands straight up,” and it was the best joke ever because he didn’t swear or even say anything particularly rude but it SURE got the point across and it makes me helpless with giggles every time I recollect it. And that email would get me fired these days and I’m okay with that.

I want that turkey sandwich from Big Star with cranberry sauce for lunch, calice. If it’s as good as the number 27 I’ll be happy. If you charge twelve fifty for a sammich it had better be good, and that was superlative.

Fourteen kudos this morning including one from my third fave fanfic writer. So that was pleasant. I’m thinking of sending mOm a variant of the drunk on the beach story (I ended up writing THREE VERSIONS OF A SINGLE STORY – I wrote one version in word (I never do that) and LOST IT LIKE WHOOSH INTO THE ETHER WHAT IN THE ENTIRE FUCK and then rewrote it, and then rewrote it again to be even more sappy. BABY GOATS BRINGING THE RINGS TO THE GROOMS AT A WEDDING NOOOOO. Actually not but the idea of a baby goat gambolling down the aisle at an outdoor wedding and then running off with the rings made me laugh so hard I put it in to troll one of the characters.

STOP WAR AND EAT POUTINE says the pic from a recent antiwar demo in Paris. Apparently Vladimir Poutine is what some convoyancers call Justin Trudeau.

Pierre Poilevre has a fortune of 9 million dollars – which he got pandering to oil companies – and it’s more than Trudeau has – and he’s speechifying about Trudeau being a rich elitist etc. Get bent Pierre and while so posed please do ram a caltrop through your scrotum, you’ll never be PM. Some people want Trump to run Canada But I Sure As Fuck Do Not.

scanged from WorkingClassHistory on Insta:

Women Anarchists have become the terror of world’s police – Their Daring Crimes are said to have outstripped the deeds of brothers of the red

Search for the woman is becoming a safe rule in crimes proceeding from anarchistic violence – the guardians of the world nearly always find a woman implicated when a ruler is stricken down – EMOTIONAL WOMEN LOSE SENSE OF FEAR.

yeah baby