- Went on an Adventure to post a lost item back to someone (hopefully in time for the next thing they want it for...), and was rewarded with DUCKLINGS.
- Not too warm to achieve fallback dinner of I Don't Know, Bake A Potato, with the result that we finished the lurking salad leaves and also stuck some of the cook-from-frozen pasteis de nata into the oven once potatoes were done.
- Ridiculous organic greengrocer had an option on sending us rainbow chard this week, which means I might actually manage to cook one whole new recipe this month (!), which was otherwise... not looking likely. (I have been comprehensively failing to sow any, but there we go.)
- Went fossicking in sofa to try to at least rationalise my horrid piles. Found one (1) of the two (2) fancy watch chargers I own, and not the one I was expecting to turn up (because I thought I'd probably mislaid it in a field), which hopefully means that given a leeeetle bit more fossicking I might even find the second.
- Really enjoying playing with pens for the purposes of making notes on the pain reading. (Today has been Mindfulness for Health, with detours to read up more on the gate control and [neuromatrix] theories of pain; I was surprised that Model First Proposed In The 1960s is still apparently more-or-less the best we've got for "how the fuck does psychology and emotional affect and other sensory input actually affect how pain is experienced?")
If you have had long-term pain, of any kind, for any reason, a component of your pain is neuroplastic. Neurons that fire together wire together: you've had lots of practice at being in pain. This comes down, fundamentally, to how we learn.
Which means that while neuroplastic pain management approaches may very well not solve all of your problems, they'll treat a component of them, and that's worth having -- in exactly the same way that we don't want to e.g. give up painkillers that "take the edge off" but don't solve the whole problem.
(None of this is actually novel except insofar as most education about chronic pain blithely asserts that "most" healing has completed within 3-6 months, so pain persisting beyond that timescale Is Neuroplastic unless you've got cancer we suppose. So in the context of My Project, the framing of "this is an approximately unavoidable complication of your underlying condition that requires active management in its own right" strikes me as important.)
This appeared first on my Mastodon account last night; it’s proven popular, so here it is – trivially expanded because I had to trim it more than I liked to fit in 750 characters – for here, too.
Some weeks ago, protesters at UW occupied an engineering building on campus, demanding that UW cut ties with Boeing over Israel’s war in Gaza.
“That’s fine,” I thought, and I started relaying news… until I saw their ebullient praise for Hamas and the October 7th attacks. Then I stopped.
Some people will roll their eyes at that reaction, noting – correctly! – that the Israeli government has done so much worse since. But that doesn’t make Hamas into good guys here. They are not.
It is an inconvenient truth that Hamas is a nightmare organisation – but it’s still a truth.
Don’t let Netanyahu’s crimes erase that.
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.
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solarbird Jun. 26th, 2025 08:37 am)A couple of lefty people I know are pre-emptively being bitter and anticipating defeat in the New York City Mayoral election, expecting “vote blue no matter who” suddenly not to apply.
I’ll be fair and admit they have reason, but pre-surrendering is not how to win fucking anything ever.
Now, some may note – fairly enough – that “vote blue no matter who” is fundamentally about how legislative bodies are organised and deciding who has the power to set the agenda for bills and legislative voting. They’ll note that it’s not actually about every individual race, but instead is about deciding what gets moved forward in a legislature.
But while true, “vote blue no matter who” still matters this time, even though it’s a mayoral race, and even though this time it’s someone to the left of people who usually say that, rather than about someone to the right of people who usually hear it. And that is because it’s about the Overton window.
Here’s one way you might pitch it to your “centrist,” or “establishment,” or “conservative-leaning” Democratic friends who might otherwise vote Cuomo as an independent, or just sit this this one out:
“Okay, yeah, I know, you don’t like the word ‘socialist,’ and so you’ve already decided you don’t like Mamdani. You’re afraid of him winning, you’re afraid of how the mythical “centrist Republican” won’t come over if Democrats somewhere back a leftist.
“Thing is, that’s bullshit. I’m sorry, but it’s a lie. It just is. They do not care. We had a literal fascist insurrectionist running last election, and a Democratic campaign that spent half its time with dissident Republicans trying to get those so-called centrist Republicans to acknowledge reality and switch over. Did it work? Not one whit. These voters don’t exist, so stop trying.
“But even that’s not the real point.
“This isn’t about Mamdani. Not him in particular. I mean, even as mayor of NYC, he can’t do that much by himself. I think he’ll do some real good. It won’t be enough for me, but it’s a start. But for you, now… for you…
“For you, this election is about moving the Overton window back towards yourself.
“You may not have noticed, but right now, the Overton window is so far to the right that Elon Musk could do and did throw a literal Hitler-identical Nazi salute during the Presidential inauguration and still be welcomed into government. That’s insane. And fatal for a representative democracy.
“But we can push that window back to where you want it to be, and we do that by pushing to the left as hard as we can. Even if you don’t want to go there, even if you don’t want to go where I do, even if you’re ‘not comfortable’ with someone who calls himself a ‘socialist.’
“By electing him, we can make that position viable. Not dominant, not in charge, but viable. And doing _that_ pushes the middle of the window back to where you actually are. It makes you the middle position again.
“Right now, everyone not a fascist – which includes you – is ‘radical left.’ Rule of law? Radical left. Science? Radical left. Due process? Radical left. Social security and medicare? Radical left. Woman not the property of a man? Queer? Radical left. Which is, again, insane, but that is where we are right now.
“But if we start electing some real leftists, then suddenly, that window swings away from the right. You’ll be part of the Sane and Normal Centre again.
“In short: like always, this is strategy. Vote for him as ‘vote blue no matter who’ so that you won’t be the ‘radical left’ anymore, and so you can have an actual choice who you vote for again in the future.
“And that’s why, this time, it’s you who need to ‘vote blue, no matter who.'”
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.
It is warm. We have the bedroom window open at night. Dusk is currently around when we are heading to bed.
... I realised I could prop the bat detector up in the open window while we went about our Bed Things and it worked. (Alas A missed most of the activity on account of being in the bathroom, but Proof Of Concept still valuable.)
Other achievements of the day include "1.7 kg of redcurrants picked, processed, and in the freezer" and "finished All Systems Red: the reread" and also "almost finished The Way Out reread".
(I am so so pleased about the redcurrants; turns out that mulching and pruning heavily and watering... works?! Who knew.)
kaberett Jun. 24th, 2025 10:45 pm)I was trivially able to dig out an example of a documented 5:1 female:male ratio.
Why yes I am rereading The Way Out (previous commentary) for the purposes of making notes on content and structure.
Today is another Tuesday Tesla Takedown at the Lynnwood (Washington State) Tesla dealership.
4:15 PM • Tesla store – Lynnwood • 17731 Pacific Hwy, Lynnwood, WA 98037
There are several other protests, sign events, and so on today in other locations as well. You can pick your preference.
Tesla Takedown is an endurance run. Please show up to help demonstrate that going in with Trump has long-term consequences.
If you can’t show up today, you can find more actions on different days here.
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.
... is a placeholder because I am doing so badly at routines in general and bedtime routines in particular, still, augh.
Reading. Adventures in Stationery, James Ward. Not entirely sold on the way anecdotes were strung together, and definitely dubious about the broader social history, but a pleasantly undemanding diversion in a week where I really needed that and for bonus points it finally explained The Thing About Blackwing Pencils to me.
Watching. One more episode of Farscape (S02E02 Vitas Mortis), while bleaching A.
Cooking. Mostly Pasta With Things. (Things have included "kohlrabi and misc other greens from the allotment" and "psuedo puttanesca".)
Eating. STRAWBERRIES. Have also nibbled, from the allotment: peas! broad beans! aforementioned kohlrabi! cherries! the first raspberries! redcurrants! jostaberries!
Exploring. ... bits of a field? OH and I bimbled down to the post office and, en route, checked how the local quince tree is doing. (FRUITING.)
Creating. Painted A colours!
Growing. Iiii just about made it to the allotment to water things on, like, Tuesday, but I have otherwise been... struggling.
... the ginger at home continues to go zoom, though! And I really really need to pot it on, eesh.
Observing. BAT.
December 7th, 1941: the Empire of Japan bombed Pearl Harbour. American President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it “a day that will live in infamy” in his famous speech to Congress asking for a declaration of war against Japan.
That particular epithet – that’s a strong one. And unlike most such epithets, it’s held up. People know it, still.
I mean, sure, slogans like “Remember the Maine!” rallied people at the time, but it’s an historical footnote; “Remember the Alamo!” has more weight, but not because of the attack – it’s because of the hopeless and romanticised defence.
(That it was, push comes to shove, in defence of slavery is important but not relevant to my line of thought here.)
Why was the Pearl Harbour attack somehow that much worse?
It wasn’t that Japan attacked a purely military target in a United States territory. Nothing wrong with that by the rules of war. Certainly nothing infamous about it, either. Within the rules of war, it’s fair play.
It’s not that it was a surprise, even – though it was, and that tends to be what people think of when they hear the phrase. Most people at the time assumed a Japanese Imperial attack would come in the Philippines, not in Hawai’i. But surprise attacks are the meat and gravy of war, and simply good strategy – again, not a source of infamy.
It wasn’t even, really, that they started the war with the attack. That’s kind of how wars tend to go. As a rule, one doesn’t go declare war and then stand around a while giving your enemy a week or two to get their defences in place.
So why were people who were absolutely expecting war – absolutely getting ready for a war – with Japan still so very angry about the way it started? What made a crowd certain that war was inevitable – a crowd that was getting ready for it, whether they liked it or not – go, “oh, that is too goddamn far”?
It was that Japan was literally still negotiating as the bombs fell.
Roosevelt mentions this in his speech to Congress asking for a declaration of war. It’s shallow in the specifics, but it’s explicitly there, in the first minute. He didn’t have to get into the weeds of details; everybody in Congress knew.
The Japanese attack started at 12:48pm Eastern time. The military finally got word sometime after 1:30pm Eastern time. The Japanese ambassador had scheduled a meeting with Secretary of State Hull for 1:45pm, and didn’t show up until 2:05pm, by which time the bombs had been falling for over an hour – and even then, they delivered a statement responding to a previous US position paper delivered on November 26th.
It was harsh, but it was no declaration of war.
The Japanese delegation were literally negotiating as their air force’s bombs fell.
That betrayal – that subterfuge, that backstab – coloured the entire rest of the war in the Pacific, up to and including the decision to use those atomic bombs.
Does that still-negotiating-as-the-bombers-let-fly trick sound like something that just happened this afternoon?
Maybe it should.
Japan’s plan was a quick but heavy knockout blow on a military target, to weaken American forces in the Pacific and force the Americans to accede to their demands in China.
Trump’s plan was apparently also a quick but heavy knockout blow on military targets, to force the Iranians to accede to Trump’s – and Netanyahu’s – demands in the Middle East.
Iran is in no way the 1940s US; Trump’s clown car criminal crowd is in no way the leadership of Imperial Japan. This is not World War II, and since Trump didn’t go nuclear, I don’t think it’s World War III; this is not that kind of projection, so don’t make it into one.
I’m just talking infamy. As far as infamy goes?
Yeah.
I could really see saying this is an act of infamy.
Obviously, that’s the kind of thing Iran would say, no matter what. Aside from that, times have changed. Asymmetrical war, disinformation, irregular warfare as a primary strategy – all those old ideas about war have rather gone by the way side. It’s hard to talk about something as infamous in war these days.
But still. I could see it.
And more importantly… I could see people believing it.
Couldn’t you?
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.
…but here are some options from a foreign-policy standpoint as laid out by The Atlantic. Seems a reasonable summary to me.
What it completely leaves out is that this is a direct violation of the War Powers Act, the UN Charter (to which the US is signatory), and even the National Security Act. I guess that’s not important anymore.
Correctly, there are calls for impeachment tonight from outside and within Congress. I suggest you write whoever you’ve got up there to do the same. But I do not expect it to go anywhere; I am absolutely confident the MAGAts will find a way to justify their 100% spin on the “peace president” and why bombing Iran – an absolute act of war – is just fine and all the more reason to worship their shit-stain incarnate God Emperor.
I’ve got a short essay going up tomorrow morning at 7:48am. If you know why 7:48am on Sunday is an important time, you’ll probably have some idea what it’s about. You’re probably not completely right – but you’re quite certainly not really wrong, either.
For the rest of you?
It’s about infamy.
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.
I went "HOLD ON I HAVEN'T POSTED--" at 00:01 last night, when I had already been in bed but failing to sleep for about twenty minutes, and so I will tell you that part of the reason that I did not manage to actually post, actually yesterday, is that my reward for having finally e-mailed the headache clinic and said "so yeah I took my loading doses in mid-April, sorry I didn't manage to e-mail at the time, executive dysfunction has been eating my entire brain"...
... was of course a response like "well ideally your follow-up appointment would have been last week but, okay, fine, how about Monday? :|"
"... oh and by the way you know those questionnaires we want you to submit a minimum of a week in advance? yeah if you could get those done too--"
-- which: ENTIRE brain.
(I managed to confirm the Monday appointment. I did not manage to get the headache diary and questionnaires done.)
kaberett Jun. 19th, 2025 11:01 pm)I have managed all of my physio once and only once this week. I have not yet got on the mat at all. I have been spending a lot of time asleep, which probably shouldn't surprise me, and a fair amount migrainey, which does (unpleasantly). Have this evening at least managed to send the email to the headache clinic that's been due since April, and consequently may or may not actually get an appointment in time to get a prescription in time to not need to reload the f2f galcanezumab again.
(Have also been really struggling with actually opening notebook since the last trip up north, which is helping precisely nothing. Maybe acknowledging that here will make it a little less scary to go back to, at least.)
The watch tells me I achieved +102 "body battery" points, which I am amused to see.
But I have also visited the allotment (on my way back from physio) and have eaten: raspberries, a strawberry, a cherry, redcurrants, jostaberries, peas, broad beans, kohlrabi. V pleased.
Today’s Tuesday. There’s a Tuesday #TeslaTakedown protest, Lynnwood, Tesla dealership on 99. 4:15pm TODAY, like usual. As I’m writing, that’s literally an hour and like 20 minutes away.
Yeah I kinda forgot too lol, but no reprieves for the fascist.
Let’s get out there~~~
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.
Farty McShitgibbon squirted out another racist authoritarian shart on Pravda Sotsialnaya late Sunday night, blowing off steam caused by his frustration at protests and over his shitty birthday parade. It’s a screed of lies about Democrats being sick in the head and not actually Americans, sending more waves of cops and military at us, and about cheering on mass deportations. Like y’do, if you’re a fascist fuckhead.
But let’s pay particular attention to this bit:
…I have directed my entire Administration to put every resource possible behind this effort, and reverse the tide of Mass Destruction Migration that has turned once Idyllic Towns into scenes of Third World Dystopia. Our Federal Government will continue to be focused on the REMIGRATION of Aliens to the places from where they came…
CAPS as in the original. Bold added.
Remigration pretends to be but is not actually a subtle word.
Remigration means ethnic purge. Ethnic cleansing, if you insist – but I hate that term, because there’s nothing cleansing about it. It’s an ethnic purge. It’s violent, it’s bloody, it’s repression, it’s expulsion at the point of a gun, based on your ethnicity.
Remigration means ancestry-based expulsions of people who aren’t white, for being not white, and not for any other reason. Just for being not white. Legal status means nothing; being a citizen means nothing. Not white? Get the fuck out, at gunpoint. That’s how it went during Operation W*tback; that’s how he wants it to go again, and now he’s just saying it.
This is not a question; this is not up for debate. If you feel like debating it with me, screw you you fascist-apologist fuck, and sit the fuck down. In this context – in any context outside academia – that’s what it means. Go read Wikipedia if you want the definition and history.
“Remigration” in this context absolutely and only means ethnic purge. All the leading haters in his administration – Miller, I’m looking in your direction – know damn well what it means. They used the word on purpose.
So I’m asking you not to discuss this shart of a statement without going directly to what REMIGRATION means. Do not let anyone lie and pretend it means something else, because that’s bullshit. Remigration is why they’re revoking every legal status they can; remigration is why they’re trying to end birthright citizenship; remigration means a violent ethnic purge.
And that’s what he’s told ICE – or more generally, “ICE, FBI, DEA, ATF, the Patriots at Pentagon and the State Department” – to make happen.
So. What do we do, in particular, right now?
First off, make sure people know what this word means.
Second – know any “good cops”? Like, relatives or something you might actually be able to reach? Show them the Wikipedia article about what “remigration” means, and only then show them Trump’s statement. Make sure they understand what Trump said, and make sure they know what they’re being asked to do. Make them understand, like… now.
Make sure they understand the criminal act they’re being asked to perform.
Because that is, absolutely, the ask, and “just following orders” … just won’t do.
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.
I’ve got a post going up tomorrow (Monday) morning, but the word you need to understand right now is:
Remigration
If you don’t already know this word – or if you’re in certain areas of academia and think you do, but do not in any context outside academia – you need to know what this word means right now. And you need to make sure your friends know what it means.
Wikipedia will explain it to you.
More tomorrow.
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.