Pledge Drive! Operators are standing by

I can only share, but always do.

Meanwhile, I give you this:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/01/andrew-tate-loses-appeal-in-romania-over-extended-detention

The Romanians are not messing around. Also apparently Tater hasn’t been able to shave his head in jail, so we can now see why he did.

That’s what he gets for voting for the Leopards Eating Faces Party.

I donated.

I can’t get anything done today, because I can’t trust that my equipment will stay on instead of being remotely shut off at some random time by some asshole with a Napoleon complex over at Hydro One. Fucker has done it twice today already, the first time when it was nearly forty below outside I might add. If I had the name of the person responsible I’d be seriously considering how to get them charged with attempted murder for that.

But it’s not just one dickhead at one business. I am sick and tired of every dickhead at every business treating me like I’m just some toy they can bat around anytime they feel like using me as their personal fucking stress reliever. How do I get some goddamn power in this world? I’m not asking for fancy titles and an expensive villa somewhere plus my own private little army, or anything like that. Just the basic ability to go to my own place, lock the door, and be left alone! But as long as there are no standards of conduct at the businesses that supply essential services, there will be no safe retreat for me or anyone else who has been likewise Marked by the collective unconscious of the world’s contingent of bullies. There’s nowhere I can go where they can’t interfere with my activities, play keep-away with my stuff, or pose an outright threat to my life. And I have had it with that nonsense.

To whomever told me decades ago (and there are more than one of you) that “it’s just 8th grade” or “it’s just high school” and “it gets better after that”, fuck you, you lying sacks of shit.

Now someone please tell me how to bully-proof my own fucking home, at the very least (and whatever else must be bully-proofed to secure a reliable food supply).

At least you still have a medical system. Here, you now need to be paying $2000/mo or more in rent or mortgage payments, or else own your own house, or no primary care doctor for you. There are still hospitals and ERs in less expensive towns and small cities, but due to COVID you’d have to be high on paint fumes to go there for anything short of “it’s that or die right here on the spot”.

Of course, these changes (both the “no more doctor if you aren’t in an expensive enough area” and the unleashing of COVID upon an unsuspecting populace) happened right about the same time my own health began to fall apart. I guess my parents only got the basic 40-year warranty. :/ I’ve gone from not needing any sort of meds to needing potent allergy meds and anti-heartburn ones, and where I used to look forward to those long walks into town for supplies as pleasant exercise and think-time now I just about dread them. If going from 30-something to 40-something results in that bad a drop in ability and stamina I am baffled that anyone makes it to 60 without either dying of old age first or committing suicide when it gets just too damn tiring to go on.

I also wonder how much longer it will be until “they” take something else away, or restrict it to the 10%ers living in the larger cities. Perhaps dental care. I am not looking forward to that. A couple years after they yank that away will be the start of a hellish few years of torturous toothaches, and after that, no more solid food. But I’ll probably be dead before that latter point gets reached, for any of a number of reasons ranging from “lack of primary care” or “no more money” to “COVID” and “Some idiot starts World War III”.

They’ve already taken not only primary care but intercity buses and several other services. Did I previously mention that OESP “mysteriously fails” on any attempt to renew it electronically now? No? Well, it does. And I wonder if that, too, is now quietly geographically discriminating.

The building’s laundromat closed without any advance notice or word of explanation, nor permission from the tenants. So no more clean clothes for me either, unless I buy new ones every couple of months and thereby hemorrhage even more money. The nearest commercial laundromat I know of is a thirty-minute walk away, and it wouldn’t matter if it was three minutes, there’s no fucking way I can haul a full laundry hamper all that way and back. I’d have to take a taxi, both ways, so laundry would go up by about $20 just from that alone. From the previous cost of $5. That’s a quintupling of the price. And that’s ignoring that commercial laundromats’ machines all now have these ridiculously tiny drums compared to the size of the machine. One load in a “normal” machine would become about four, and that makes it more of an octupling: to do what was one five-dollar load ($2.50 to wash, $2.50 to dry) would become four, plus the taxi fares, amounting to $40 all told. It might actually be cheaper to just replace everything every few months!

Everything just gets worse and worse and I don’t see any way out of it except to keep living extremely frugally, drawing down my savings as my expenses keep ballooning while my income remains roughly constant, and when it runs out and the eviction notice eventually gets served, throw myself off a bridge or something. The world decided long ago that it has no use for me, and now it seems to be deciding, bit by bit, not to let me stick around much longer.

Of course, this is assuming I’m not turned into charcoal first (there’s a military base only 20 km or so from here, and Russian nukes have overly large yields to make up for their missiles’ poor accuracy) or drafted, a gun slapped in my hand, and sent off to the front lines to be cannon fodder in World War III. Or killed by some treatable-if-found-early medical problem that won’t be found early because no primary care. Or something like that.

All hail the new King of the Britons! AND then drink to his health with dandelion and burdock, assuming he can repeat his ability to open more bottles

Have just donated and wanted to say: David’s work on this site is so valuable, thank you David. And the variety of conversations and commenters has led me down some very interesting rabbit holes over the years!

My income is currently disappearing down the rapacious maw of the nursing home … but … the money from selling our house will clonk into our accounts next week. Once the govt+aged care system swallows up their due, I should have access to real money.

Yaaay’!!!!!! Including enough to pay into the David’s- cats- support-find.

Can’t wait (and the online services are pretty feeble just now, be good to sort that out)

@Alan: I say, give the mighty bottle-opener a go at being King. He’s probably better than the current lot. He is definitely King of the store, or even the town.

Also, one of my great-aunt’s favorite sayings was “Learned somethin’ new today, guess I’m not ready to go yet!” (Said in the perkiest Southern old lady voice possible)

When I opened my computer to come here just now, the screen displayed capybaras!

@ Vicky P

Law Twitter has been following donotpay with some hilarity. They claimed all lawyers were now in panic that we were obsolete.

To demonstrate why, they bragged how their AI had just subpoenaed the police officer in their first traffic case, all on its own.

I had to ask why it had done that.

If you call a witness yourself, you can only put forward ‘a witness of truth’. That is to say, you accept everything they say is true, and invite the court to do likewise.

So I was curious as to why the AI had conceded the prosecution were correct; and that their client had committed the offences charged.

I didn’t get a response and they deleted the original tweet.

Other people have pointed out similar issues, and tested the system by uploading cases; and getting totally erroneous advice.

So now donotpay have stopped offering a bunch of legal services and pulled the info from their website.

Yeah. Even though Night Court was American, it is readily relatable to anyone who’s ever worked in an English Magistrates Court. Real world legal practice is full of genuine stories that would appear outlandish on NC.

The fictional depiction that is considered most accurate though -amongst lawyers I know- is My Cousin Vinny.

The actual law and procedure is spot on. Totally technically accurate. I mentioned in the other thread that the film predicted Alabama would adopt a particular test for expert witnesses.

The interaction between the parties is very genuine too. The judge is a bit grumpy, but scrupulously fair. He gets all the judgements right. The prosecuting attorney doesn’t hate his opponent, he’s just doing his job. And when the evidence comes to light that leads to the judge dismissing the case; he’s quite friendly with the defence and congratulates them.

The idea that lawyers are all passionate about their cases and have personal hatred towards their professional opponents is perhaps the most egregious error in fiction. Truth is, we’re all so jaded and detached, we just can’t be arsed to conjure up the energy for all that. You’re more likely to find us after, and often during, the trial together in a bar somewhere.

Although, having said that, there’s always a minority who spoil it for everyone.

The problem is that this case is an example of what I would (unhappily) call bad-tempered litigation, which is regrettably becoming more and more prevalent in the English courts. It somehow seems to have become acceptable for solicitors to become mere mouthpieces for their clients to vent their anger at their opponents. It is not enough for the clients to dislike or even hate each other: the solicitors must do so too. I simply do not understand why in 2022 professional, trained lawyers, who should know how to stand up to their clients, and concentrate instead on what is important in the litigation, think it is appropriate to behave like schoolchildren in the playground.

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2022/242.html

(This is the case about that guy who may or may not have invented Bitcoin)

@Jenora Feuer
If it’s a choice between ads and losing the blog…