Asshat

Alberta is getting set to build a data center which will consume the equivalent power needed to service the entire city of Edmonton. 

The problem is that Alberta already pays the highest electricity utility rates in the country and in a largely unregulated province, premier Danielle Smith is telling her citizenry not to worry about increasing electricity bills. 

If you believe rates won't go up after the center's completion then I have swamp land to sell you. 

The Alberta government is our MAGA light province meaning that they have the same penchant for conservative hard-headedness and acting before properly thinking things through as Texas. Smith made the announcement wearing a cowboy hat perhaps thinking it would carry more gravitas. 

My province of Quebec has its power generation governed and operated by the province (hydro Quebec) and any data center built here will be paying the highest price per kwh of any facility to make sure that citizens are not burdened. 

As a general rule we aren't overly keen on having any built here.

When asked by the media if Alberta would ever push for any forms of renewable energy, Danielle Smith emphatically said no making sure that at some point in the future it will come back to haunt the province. 

Needless to say, climate change was duly unimpressed by Smith's certainty.

 

Not controversial

I watched part of a talk by Julia Serano which dealt with the accusation that transsexuals were deliberately reinforcing the gender binary. This is actually true but then it's inadvertent since transsexuals are all about identity. 

Once they transition their expression is as varied as anyone else's. In other words, some are ultra-feminine while others live perennially in a T-shirt and jeans and don't wear a stitch of makeup unless they absolutely have to. 

The fact that this should spark any controversy especially within the world of gender variance is surprising because if we understand the differences between identity and expression, the question should be immediately settled. 

Plenty of people who don't have core identity questioning can have a wide range of expression. However, settling a disconnect of core identity is something else entirely. 

I understand the general public being confused, but gender variant people should know better.

There are politics everywhere.

Outcome

When we look back on our lives we remember incidents where we might rethink the way we acted or failed to act. 

They can stay burned in the memory without knowledge of how a different action from us might have altered the outcome. 

This is the could've should've we humans love to indulge in our attempt to second guess. 

Two things come to mind here. One is that we are imperfect beings and the other is that the better outcome we imagine (had our input been different) might not have come to pass. 

We like to think we are to blame for much but sometimes forget to factor in that we had no ill will or malice when we reacted. 

We let our judgement of a hair trigger human response stew in the brain sometimes for years without a satisfactory conclusion. 

The English poet Alexander Pope coined the phrase "to err is human, to forgive divine" and I try to remember that when I fall into the trap of trying to go down conceptual rabbit holes.

Forgiving also includes ourselves.

Hoopla

Christopher Nolan's new film "The Odyssey" has got the MAGAverse's panties in a bunch. 

Not only did Nolan have the audacity to cast a black woman (Lupita Nyong'o) as Helen of Troy but he also put Eliott Page (a trans man) in his movie. This was of course a bridge too far for right wing pundits but also for the incels typing nasty comments from the safety of their basements. 

Blaire White, one of the right wing's token trans persons, was of course also amongst the horrified as she fumed through her video using her artificially injected lips.

Both the critics and audiences are giving the Nolan film rave reviews which is even more infuriating for people who love to stew in grievance as their primary pastime. 

The "woke agenda" backlash is what helped get Kankles McTaco tits elected (thank you Jennifer Welch!) except now the shine is big time off the apple. Things are going very badly for a regime that promised to get the country on track while simultaneously pissing in the corn flakes of the most disenfranchised minorities. 

That hasn't turned out too well.

People are getting tired of the whining and the moaning from people who for years now have made a living from spewing negativity. 

All this hoopla over a movie about an 8th century BC fictional epic by Homer prompts me to kindly invite the naysayers to go get a life.

Tonic

I do feel empathy for people standing at Jehovah's witnesses kiosks. They believe earnestly that they are doing the right thing. 

Religion for many works as a pacifier. It provides them community and a dogma regardless of its veracity. 

This is the way it has always been. 

The problem is that it also breeds a type of vulnerability which is ripe for abuse by the powerful. Prosperity gospels arise which contort an essential message of peace and love into something more earthly and even sinister. 

Cults are built where people will do anything to avoid thinking critically (assuming they are able). 

For centuries the powerful used faith as a way to keep the masses from seeing how much of their misery and enslavement were man-made. They were told to hope for salvation as tonic for what ailed them and to keep praying while they were being bamboozled. 

We haven't changed one bit.

There is only one truth, except that no one here is fully privy to it.

On the head of a pin

In more intellectual circles, the argumentation around transgender issues is equivalent to "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin"; an ecclesiastical pondering which the common folk has no interest in or any need for.

In other words, the discussions become necessarily laden with talk of gametes, reproductive issues and chromosomes because it suits the detractors as key differentiators. 

The problem with this is that real life doesn't operate this way. A completely stealth transgender woman lives her life on a pragmatic level based on interactions that don't involve these things. Most people don't even understand them. 

To the public she is a woman and possibly to most of the people she calls acquaintances. Perhaps only her close friends know she wasn't born genetically female. 

Sex and gender are lived out in the world and not in a laboratory. Men and women are also born and raised with traits that bleed into each other. Meaning that the behaviour and habits that we term masculine and feminine are not the exclusive property of each birth sex. 

The general public is not versed in the kinds of issues I sometimes read about or watch on podcasts. They determine who they are dealing with based on a subjective assessment which in the end has more to do with whether they are facing a nice person or an unpleasant one. 

Regretably human intolerance and stupidity often offer up their strongest presence in circles where we ignore lived experience in favour of more esoteric leanings meant to discredit the legitimacy of people; people whose sex or gender are secondary to the more important question of their character.

It's one of the specialties and qualities I find most distasteful in the odious gender critical movement which sees danger everywhere and operates in spreading fear instead of bathing in intelligence.

Regretably, human stupidity can be and often is contagious.

Comeuppance

The man who asked Brad Raffensperger in Georgia to find him 11,870 votes slurred his way through a speech last night which reeked of sheer panic. 

Trump knows that if the GOP loses the house and senate in November, he is most definitely cooked. Impeachment and consequences will most assuredly follow. The most corrupt president in US history will hopefully finally face justice. 

This means that he will do anything to try and cheat but will ultimately fail once again. 

A lady MAGA voter recently posted: 

"I voted for Donald Trump to piss off liberals. It was really funny. I am worried that I will lose my Medicaid now. 

I have type II diabetes with diabetic retinopathy. If I lose my healthcare, I won't be able to afford my meds and will lose my vision. 

I'm in tears. Please help me" 

These two situations are related of course. Both the lying saviour who takes advantage of people who fall for propaganda and his willing disciples will face a comeuppance. 

One of them deserves it much more than the other.

Anything goes

Those of you who are a little older like me, grew up in a world where you were observed under a magnifying glass. 

You were taught manners and that people were watching which affected the way you lived your life. 

That has completely changed. 

Many people are rude, self-centered and comport themselves as they like in public. This has turned a negative into a positive for gender variant people since no one cares how one presents. These characters have desensitized the general public.

You are liable to see someone grocery shopping in pajama pants. Some people who look positively atrocious are superbly confident in their atrociousness. 

Do I care what these idiots think of me? Take a wild guess.

It takes some rewiring of your brain but if you are still scared today to present in public, perhaps it's because you haven't been paying attention at all. 

I've just about seen it all.

Go live your life.

Advice

Taking advice from another transgender person can often be problematic. 

We are such unique beings that what worked well for someone else could be completely wrong for us. We have different psychologies, family histories, religious beliefs, etc which will greatly colour our decision making process. 

The best advice to take is probably regarding the pragmatic things like skin care, clothing, etc. This is relatively harmless. 

However, issues dealing with personal psychology are another matter entirely. 

Everyone has a highly personal journey of discovery and I made sure to very carefully weigh what I was taking in as information from others with a healthy degree of skepticism; never negativity. 

What worked for them was great. 

Some transgender people make the mistake of jumping the gun when their egg cracks. I can completely understand this and yet everything built to date is then put into jeopardy. 

The older we are when we discover ourselves the more we are invested somewhere.

I have sat on that precarious edge since my early 40's always trying to weigh what to do. Copying someone else's path wouldn't have helped me in the least and wouldn't have been wise.

There is no perfect age to transition nor is there an obligation to do so. 

It is your life and no one else's.

Model stranger

 

Blunt

Over the years, my bluntness has got me in trouble more times than I can count with just about every shade of the spectrum. My examining, prodding and questioning seemed to get some people's backs up. 

My dry analytical approach doesn't suit everyone but then I hold no malice against anyone. My aim is to uphold the rights of all while trying to understand where the priorities should lie. 

In this world, the weakest and most vulnerable are always the easiest target. 

Right now in the US and the UK's gender critical movement in particular, there is a concerted push to eradicate transgender people. They are to be so persecuted to the point where they desist and detransition. 

They are to disappear from view. 

I live in a city and country where transgender people generally feel safe and are supported. Is it perfect here? far from it but I lived far too long in the shadows and I have the nasty temper to show for it (working on it ;)). 

Youth don't yet have that confidence or life resources and inside countries where they are actively persecuted, it can be scary beyond words. 

I have nothing against people who bend gender for pleasure, for fun, for relaxation or for the joy of expression. But then, they have more choices. 

Conversely, transgender people trying to live their truth openly every day in the world aren't quite so lucky.