An honest government ad from Down Under

This ad is aimed at Australia, but I would say that it has relevance in many other places around the world.

There is, indeed, a great deal of shitfuckery being cooked up in the halls of power.

Unfortunately, life costs money, and my income from this blog has yet to meet minimum wage for the time I put into it. If you can afford to, please consider pledging a couple dollars per month or so through my Patreon. This will help me continue creating and improving this blog by keeping a roof over my head, and food in my carnivorous pets so they don’t eat me. Crowdfunding requires a crowd, so if you can pitch in a little, it would help a great deal!

Fiction: The Pumphouse

Steve tapped the panel next to him and the wheel’s speaker started playing music with a steady beat, a little faster than he was running. He sped up to match it, and Horace started the timer.
“Starting.”
There was a soft click as the drive mechanism shifted gears, pulling a little more power for the pump’s drive shaft. Horace walked around the wheel, stared through the clear casing of the gearbox for a moment, and crossed it off his list. He’d never seen anything wrong in a gearbox before, but following procedures to the letter was comforting. That aspect of the job was part of why he liked working there.
The Pumphouses stood fifteen stories above sea level, and brought water from the canals of New York City to a filtration system on the roof.
…
This is an excerpt from a short story for my patrons. If you want to read the whole thing, along with other exclusive content, you can sign up to fund my work at patreon.com/oceanoxia!

Twitter thread: police violence

CW: Police violence

There’s a tendency, among people who claim there’s no problem with police use of violence, and with race-based injustice in the United States, to pretend that any given example of mistreatment is an isolated incident, and no matter how many such incidents occur, they’re never part of a pattern. People who are protesting now, and people who support these protests are those who are willing and able to connect the rather obvious dots, and see the pattern.

I’ve been involved in political activism, in one form or another, since I was a teenager. I was never one of the people “in the thick of it” when things got violent, I have never been arrested, gassed, pepper-sprayed, or otherwise assaulted by police. I have, however, paid attention to those incidents. I’ve watched the footage, talked to people who were targeted by police, and listened to what they have to say. Deaths, injuries, and maimings are not new in America, but as far as I know this is beyond anything that has happened in the United States in my lifetime. I’ve never seen this many people being permanently blinded in one eye, because police are aiming to destroy eyeballs. I’ve never seen this many people with head wounds from “rubber” bullets. I’ve never seen the police being this open about assaulting peaceful crowds, assaulting journalists, and arresting people, on video, who were engaged in nothing more than talking.

This is an effort to criminalize dissent, and it’s coming in coordination with the GOP government using the “antifa” bogeyman to try to criminalize organized action. To me, this looks like a big step in a very bad direction.

Below is a sample from the linked thread. Click through to Twitter if you want to see more.

If this ends without real, systemic change, far beyond just arresting a handful of “bad cops”, then it’s going to happen again, and it’s going to get worse.

Unfortunately, life costs money, and my income from this blog has yet to meet minimum wage for the time I put into it. If you can afford to, please consider pledging a couple dollars per month or so through my Patreon. This will help me continue creating and improving this blog by keeping a roof over my head, and food in my carnivorous pets so they don’t eat me. Crowdfunding requires a crowd, so if you can pitch in a little, it would help a great deal!

A useful video on riots

As the video says, riots are a predictable sociological phenomenon. We know the conditions that almost always create riots, and we have for a long time. Riots are not “strategy”, and they are also not inevitable. They’re the result of policy and actions by humans, and that means that the conditions that create most of them can be avoided, primarily by improving people’s control over their own lives, improving their economic conditions, and by just governance. The problem, as always, is that those changes would mean less obscene wealth and power for the people who benefit from the current system.

Unfortunately, life costs money, and my income from this blog has yet to meet minimum wage for the time I put into it. If you can afford to, please consider pledging a couple dollars per month or so through my Patreon. This will help me continue creating and improving this blog by keeping a roof over my head, and food in my carnivorous pets so they don’t eat me. Crowdfunding requires a crowd, so if you can pitch in a little, it would help a great deal!

 

And Lo, I beheld a mighty hunter…

Now that Scotland has entered phase 1 of its re-opening, Tegan and I ventured out into the Glaswegian Wilds to meet up with comrades, not seen since before The Great Isolation. At the Grove of Kelvin did we meet, and sup among the daisy-strewn grass, on blankets spaced just over two meters apart. The pigeons cooed, the crows cawed, and I’m fairly certain I heard a raven or two croak.

On our return journey, we spotted a thrilling – yet terrifying – sight! A vicious feliform predator was prowling the wasteland outside his lair, accompanied by the poor souls who shared his home, left alive in exchange for their servitude.

 

The image shows Banjo the kitten being held up by one of his humans. He's 8 weeks old, with fluffy white fur, and curious blue eyes. The human's shirt has horizontal black and white stripes. There are stone buildings in the background, with mulched yards in front, hemmed in by iron fencing.

Like many of his kind, Banjo has trained his simian servants to raise him up, that he might survey the land. Scholars are uncertain whether they achieve this through learned body language, or some more sinister, psychic communication

The image shows Banjo standing on the mulch of his yard, kept inside by chicken wire that has been added to the iron fencing. He's a small, white cat with fluffy fur and blue eyes. His tail is sticking straight up and out behind him, swishing a little as he stares intently at the tip of a black umbrella, moving up the other side of the chicken wire. The picture also shows brown leather shoes on the pavement outside the yard (mine), and the sandaled feet of another person within the yard, behind the cat.

On the ground once more, Banjo comes to the border of his domain, intent on an inspection of the tip of my umbrella. Fearful of his ire, I allowed him to examine it at his leisure.

The image shows Banjo standing on the mulch of his yard, kept inside by chicken wire that has been added to the iron fencing. He's a small, white cat with fluffy fur and blue eyes. His tail is sticking straight up and out behind him, swishing a little as he stares intently at the tip of a black umbrella, moving up the other side of the chicken wire. His paws are up on the chicken wire as he tries to bat at the umbrella. The picture also shows brown leather shoes (mine), and one red sandal and blue skirt with white polka dots (Tegan's) on the pavement outside the yard

The mighty hunter pounced! His paws, both velvety-soft and frighteningly armed both hurtled toward the umbrella as it moved up the chicken wire. Truly, I survived only because of the merciful presence of that sturdy fence!

The image shows Banjo standing on the mulch of his yard, kept inside by chicken wire that has been added to the iron fencing. He's a small, white cat with fluffy fur and blue eyes. His tail is sticking straight up and out behind him, swishing a little as he stares intently at the tip of a black umbrella, moving up the other side of the chicken wire. His paws are up on the chicken wire as he tries to bat at the umbrella. The picture also shows brown leather shoes (mine), and one red sandal and blue skirt with white polka dots (Tegan's) on the pavement outside the yard

As the umbrella continued up the fence, unaffected by his first pounce, his piercing blue eyes followed it, waiting for the next opportunity to strike.

The image shows Banjo standing on the mulch of his yard, kept inside by chicken wire that has been added to the iron fencing. He's a small, white cat with fluffy fur and blue eyes. His tail is sticking straight up and out behind him, swishing a little as he stares intently at the tip of a black umbrella, moving up the other side of the chicken wire. His paws are up on the chicken wire as he tries to bat at the umbrella. The picture also shows brown leather shoes (mine), and one red sandal and blue skirt with white polka dots (Tegan's) on the pavement outside the yard

Foolishly, I shifted, and drew the gaze of the beast. he thought about eating my legs, but decided, instead, to continue patrolling his territory. I am certain that, had the poor souls sheltering in his lair not brought him offerings of food, I would not have survived to tell this tale.

After he tired of investigating my umbrella, he returned to practicing his hunting skills, the better to consume some future prey less fortunate than us. If you listen carefully, you can hear the terrified Glaswegians telling us of the tribulations of attempting to sleep with so mighty a predator moving about after the sun sets. They were using the bright pink thing in an attempt to tire him out, in a vague hope that he would sleep through the night, and allow them to do the same.

All in all, it was a lovely day, with lovely people, and it was nice to meet Banjo, and the folks who kindly gave me permission to share my encounter with you all.

Unfortunately, life costs money, and my income from this blog has yet to meet minimum wage for the time I put into it. If you can afford to, please consider pledging a couple dollars per month or so through my Patreon. This will help me continue creating and improving this blog by keeping a roof over my head, and food in my carnivorous pets so they don’t eat me. Crowdfunding requires a crowd, so if you can pitch in a little, it would help a great deal!