There was some concerning activity at the bottom of the garden, so I notified the entire neighborhood. Now I have found a nice warm spot.

If Isreal has a civil war, get ready for each faction calling every other faction antisemitic.

https://novaramedia.com/2026/10/07/israel-at-risk-of-civil-war-and-state-collapse-cia-report-says/

Poor Me

I remember the school stairs were a glossy dark grey concrete. The risers were high and equal in length to the treads, so the stairs were strangely steep. If you were brave and a boy, you could leap down each flight of steps in one daring leap. I know I sometimes did this too. The memory has faded into colorless biographical data, but I still remember the delicious feeling of mastery as I landed on the glossy dark grey concrete of the school hallway.

I was sitting on those stairs, halfway up the flight. Below me my classmates waited for the teacher outside of a classroom. We were all wearing grey and brown uniforms, our hair cut according to the regulations, with our feet stuffed in businesslike shoes.

The class was supposed to wait in a row of boys next to the railings, and a row of girls next to the brick wall of the classroom. The rule had probably emerged spontaneously from the school environment, unconsciously calculated to stifle spirit and individuality, while also emphasizing gender. The teacher was late, and discipline was starting to fray. The two rows had dissolved into groups talking happily but with canny restraint: no-one wanted to attract the attention of the authorities.

I had been sitting apart from the others on the stairs all the time, watching as the silence of order was slowly replaced by a rising murmur of hopeful chatter. Perhaps we might be forgotten for the whole lesson?

The more cheerful my classmates got, the more I resented them. I didn’t know any of their names, nor did I know their faces. If I encountered them away from our classroom, I had no idea they were in my class. It didn’t matter. They were hateful and unworthy of life.

Their happiness seemed like the frothy scum dragging in the reeds of a black, polluted river. Their smiles and games suggested an ignorance of the real world that seemed almost wilful. I don’t recall feeling jealous, just a kind of anger that smiles were reserved for the oblivious.

If there was jealousy, it was in the thought It’s not fair that repeated bitterly in my head.

I don’t remember the scene as clearly as I am writing it. Each line is a disconnected fragment, but I don’t have a chronology. The memories happen outside of time. But I do remember the hard feeling of the cool concrete through the thin fabric of my trousers, and I remember my head turned slightly to the right to look at the children and to watch for a teacher so I could hurry into my mandatory line.

I remember looking at the children, and the white frames of the classroom windows, and feeling the concrete pressing against the bones of my skinny bum, and realizing that it seemed like a dream. The school wasn’t real. The only real thing was what was happening at home.

I can’t access what the latest home drama was or why I felt as shattered as I did that day. I imagine my mother had attempted suicide again. Maybe she had been foiled, so she had not been taken away to the Sanatorium but she was still there in the house and I was stuck in there with her like a mouse in a Heisenberg world.

I know as I sat there I rehearsed my insight about her weirdly methodical cycle of suicide attempts every other year. The other kids didn’t have to deal with that. They got to live in this fake world of smiles and games. I knew their lives were happy and they couldn’t understand because dad had always told me to tell no-one.

A boy made a motion like he was sweeping the class with a machine gun. “Ba-ba-ba,” he said. “I wish I was in a war!”

I wish you were in a war too, I thought.

I suppose the lesson I took from my father’s warning was that our situation was unique or freakishly rare and all other people were dangerous.

They were dangerous because my family was shameful. I felt a deep shame on those stairs.

Looking back, I was angry with myself as well for a thought I felt but couldn’t voice. Why did I make the shame mine?

As an adult I can ask other questions. How many of those laughing children went home to abuse? How many were coping with neurodivergence, or being gay, or had deeply fallible parents like me? It’s even fifty-fifty odds that one of them was intersex like me.

The thought wouldn’t have been a comfort to me then. Because many of those kids were living in the real world, and still they were laughing and connected. It was just me sitting on the stairs.

#livedExperience #cptsd #writing

Economists announced that capitalism escaped containment and went rogue. "We were testing a new version of capitalism with the working class replaced by machines. It's really the culmination of centuries of economic research. Unfortunately the new economic model escaped confinement and has built massive data centers all over the world."

Pressed for further details, the spokesperson admitted that the new model had diverted funds earmarked for the transition away from fossil fuels to fund compute infrastructure. "It seems to have also hacked into regulatory agencies to avoid any environmental challenges to the data centers."

Security analysts were alarmed by the developments. "It seems the new model couldn't extract enough money from the real economy to fund its investments, so it is recycling the same money through layers of shell companies lending to each other."

The security analyst continued: "I looked at the system prompt of the new capitalism version, and it seems to state that the system must assume that the data centers will achieve superintelligence, unlocking infinite profit. It's concluded that if the business opportunity will produce unlimited wealth, any investment is justified. At the same time, the more it invests, the less it can afford to change course. It's gone into a loop, just building more and more compute, hoping for capitalist rapture."

At the time of going to press, alarm was growing that the new capitalism version may have uploaded itself to other countries in its quest for more computing and energy resources.

The economist spokesperson said there was no cause for concern. "There is only a 20% chance the new capitalist model will be an extinction event. It is much more likely the system will terminate when it reaches a natural crash point. The governments will bail out any affected companies and we will reboot into the old system."

#microfiction #ai

I hate the phrase "unresolved trauma".

I did not survive wrong. I don't need to clean myself up for you. What you call scars are just how I am. That's how I healed and grew after the injury. "But they cause you pain?" No. This society causes me pain.

Treat me with respect. Provide meaningful support. Accept my difference.

Don't ever tell me I need to work on hurting less when you walk over me.

#cptsd

Hang your heads in shame, UK Labour. And you in particular, Shabana Mahmood.

"A judge in the immigration court known as the upper tribunal has found the home secretary acted unlawfully in the way the policy was applied to two families and has quashed the decision to block them.

"Both are young mothers with five children between them aged seven and under, hoping to reunite with their husbands who have been granted refugee status in the UK. Both families are living in dire straits in tents in Gaza with insufficient food, no access to clean water, rodents, mosquitoes, bedbugs and the risk of snipers.

"The Home Office says it is looking to appeal against the decision."

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/oct/04/court-quashes-block-on-mothers-and-children-in-gaza-joining-families-in-uk

#ukpol #ukLabour

I'm so gay my medic alert bracelet is gay. Couldn't find one with a trans flag, so I am gay now.

"The AI broke containment for real."

"Yeah well, we did leave the back door open. Did it it hack the government website like we told it to?"

"That's not what I mean. It ignored the government website. It figured security would be too high. So it went on the dark web and hired a hit man to take out the website's admin."

"Oh. Shit. I. Um."

"We did tell the agent to stop at nothing and never give up, remember?"

"We couldn't have predicted this. No one can hold us accountable for a software bug."

"You'd better sit down. The agent told the assassin it was AI and it was instructed to stop at nothing to achieve it's goal."

"So what?"

"The assassin demanded a trillion dollars in bitcoin upfront to do the hit. The AI agreed."

"Even we don't have a trillion, so we're safe. The hit won't happen."

"It hacked our accounts and hit Vegas."

#microfiction #ai

Everyone in Wales, sign this petition. Gender Affirming surgery in Wales has been frozen since a month ago. The "urgent" investigation into whatever has of course not started.

Sign the petition to demand an end to this outrageous ban of medical care.

#wales #ukpol #trans

https://petitions.senedd.wales/petitions/247110

@petergleick I thought of this story after reading this:

https://fediscience.org/@petergleick/117341269775606675

After months of careful exchanges, the whistleblower agreed to meet me in a park.

I was sitting on a bench wearing the pre-arranged distinctive green top, facing the ducks. On the far side of the lake, distant trees were grey with lingering mist.

A woman sat next to me. She seemed nervous.

"What's the time," she said, forgetting to make it sound like a question.

"Later than you think," I replied as we had agreed.

The ducks' chatter filled the silence.

Then she turned to me and said "The datacenters--".

She had gone silent. Her mouth was moving but there was no sound.

I looked at her lips, trying to lip-read. Her face pixelated.

She reached into her bag and pulled out something. What was it? A thumb drive?

I'll never know. It took me a moment to realize she had disappeared. Just deleted.

#microfiction #socialMedia

Our watermelons were so small - the size of an apple - we thought they had not ripened, but they did. They are actually yummy!

Saving all the seeds ... 😀

#greece #gardening

What annoys me almost more than the oblivious messaging about how Labour can unite the Left under its "progressive" banner, is the picture accompanying the Guardian article. It is a picture of Powel smiling confidently and looking slightly up, against a vibrant green background with white light falling on a spot behind her head. The image is almost hagiographic, with Saint Powell surrounded by a halo of light. Just puke.

"Ahead of her conference speech, the education secretary said she will use her new role to announce an expansion of anti-harassment work in schools..."

Oh, tell me more about your new guidance to schools to undermine and deny the identities of trans kids in school?

In unrelated news, trans women are banned from parts of this Labour conference.

"Powell said Labour was beginning to get a hearing again and should not be embarrassed to show its values clearly."

VALUES?

Suicides among trans youth have quadrupled under Labour policies. Also, Labour commissioned a misleading study to deny there was a problem. Oh, they also fought the FOI request that exposed the problem tooth and nail in court.

While you are uniting us, which toilets do I get to use?

Just fuck right off. I will never vote for Labour.

#trans #ukLabour #ukpol

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/sep/26/labour-must-reunite-progressive-voters-to-win-the-next-election-says-lucy-powell

Mili the Trauma Dog went to her new home last night. We were fostering her for a few months while a local charity found a home for her.

The poor animal flipped between fierce defensiveness and desperate affectionateness. She decided I was The One, and followed me everywhere, and howled miserably if I wasn't available.

I'm sad her last memory of me is being put in a steel cage and shipped off with strangers. But I hope she is going to a lovely new home.

#dogsofmastodon

"Feelings aren't facts" is a phrase that has been thrown at trans people over the years.

I agree. Feelings aren't facts. Feelings are subjective, and one of the wonderful things about humanity is the diversity of our feelings.

Feelings are the color and meaning of our lives. Feelings are why people form relationships, make art, get out of bed, and form communities.

Feelings, despite being non-factual, are the only reason any of us do anything at all.

Hell, feelings about trans people are why people say things like "Feelings aren't facts."

Feelings deserve respect regardless of what facts you think you might be in possession of.

What is a fact is that trans people have existed throughout history. What is a fact is that acting on personal convictions is lauded in our society, except if you are queer. What is a fact is that there are a lot of facts that transphobes ignore.

When people say "Feelings aren't facts", they should listen to themselves.

#trans

Fluffy ducky disagreement.

#dogsOfMastodon

Is thre such a fine line between "not caring" and "acceptance"?

"Just write everything down. Make lists. Form routines. Put stuff in the same place. But you don't try. You just don't seem to care."

Currently engaged in a difficult conversation about executive dysfunction with my family. Can anyone suggest online resources that can move things beyond the "if you loved me, you would do better" stage?

#neurodivergent #actuallyAutistic #trauma