so, he was demanding health transfers as a precondition, but that's a complicated legal thing, and the feds actually just announced $20 billion of transfers.

it's bluster.

but, the ramifications of triggering an election right now are pretty dire, considering that the elderly vote at such high proportions. i mean, i'm critical of authoritarian responses, but it's with the caveat that everything possible be done to isolate and protect people with immune systems that can't handle this until it's essentially run it's course. 

asking old people to come out and vote for a health transfer in a pandemic is irresponsible.

https://twitter.com/yfblanchet?lang=en

and, as for the bloc?

i know he lost badly - twice - but i miss gilles duceppe.

this new guy seems like a dumbass. how he's deduced that triggering an election before an aid extension is passed in the middle of a pandemic (of which he's in isolation for) is in the interest of quebeckers is beyond me.

nor is this a particularly moral stance, given that he supported the government through the snc-lavalin fiasco. overt corruption was fine with mr. blanchet, so long as the recipient of the corruption was quebecois capital.

the right calculation was to wait it out. he flubbed this. badly.

alright, so it looks like they're doing the right thing and acknowledging they miscalculated - that this isn't over, and that if they're going to continue to enforce reduced economic activity (whatever it's public health benefit, or lack thereof) then they can't be cutting off aid, too. they can't have it both ways.

that provides a justification to pass the throne speech, at least.

https://globalnews.ca/news/7356014/cerb-replacement-ei-amount/

no, i'm not going to....

i don't like christian holidays in general, but thanksgiving is beyond the pale racist and should be totally abolished for something less colonial.

...like samhain.

refusing to acknowledge it at all is pretty longstanding for me.

like, one year i actually went to the post office to mail something, and didn't even realize what day it was until i got there and it was closed. no joke.

send a turkey to a reserve, this year. just check it for viruses, first.

hi.

my name is jessica parent. i have an appointment with dr. ====== confirmed on monday dec 14, 2020 @ 14:30. this fax is in reference to the topic of that appointment - and sent by fax because sometimes things are better sent in writing.

the short story is that i'm asking for an rx of cyproterone acetate of 200 mg/day, effective right away, either via direct rx or via sending a note to dr. ======= to ok him prescribing it. dr ======= claims he can't do it without an ok from a specialist. my understanding is that, while this is a safe request, it is an unusual one. but, my situation is unusual, and i will explain it. 

so, that is the reason i was referred to dr. ======= - i need an endocrinologist to overprescribe cyproterone acetate. to my knowledge, i don't have prostate cancer, although it's a frustrating reality that i'd have a quicker path to what i want if i actually did :\. rather, i'm a male-to-female transgendered person that's gotten myself into a bit of a mess, and i need to tell you the story to let you know what i'm looking for.

this is a somewhat desperate request, and i can only hope you enjoy the writing style, in compensation.

while i was on them earlier and put the transition on hold for longer than initially intended, i initially started taking hormones in 2009. they were prescribed to me by an endocrinologist in ottawa named dr. ======, who, amongst other things, put me on 100 mg of cyproterone acetate per day in order to aggressively suppress testosterone. dr. ======= was both an endocrinologist and a gynecologist who ran a fertility clinic that carried out some unethical practices and is now barred from practicing medicine. but, to the trans community in ottawa, he was the only doctor there was. being able to see an endocrinologist for treatment meant that he was not bound by clinical recommendations around dosages the way that my gp is. while i simply followed the recommendation of my doctor, i realize in hindsight that this was a powerful dosage with the intent to completely ameliorate any testosterone production at all.

and, in fact, it worked exactly like that. it took a few months to kick in, but i then experienced more than five years of essentially 0 testosterone production. this meant i had absolutely no male sexual urges, never masturbated, and would have been unable to produce an erection at the most urgent plea for one. i was fully chemically castrated. and, i not only got used to this but absolutely loved it. i was happier in those years than i've ever been in my life.

but, cyproterone is a drug, and i am a user of it, so, as is this case with all drugs, i eventually developed a tolerance to it. it was around 2017 that i first noticed the return of symptoms of rising testosterone. so, i went to my doctor and initially asked for a voluntary orchiectomy, which i'm still trying to work out due to delays (some on my behalf due to finances, some on behalf of the doctor's office, which apparently lost my application for over 13 months). when the doctor tested me for testosterone, he claimed it was very low, but that didn't address the symptoms i was experiencing. we agreed to look into surgery as an option, rather than prescribe further medication.

when i came back the next year, my testosterone, while still very low, had doubled. the symptoms had increased further, but it was still at such trace levels that the doctor insisted it didn't make sense to prescribe further.

and, when i came back in 2019 and again in 2020 it had doubled again and again, in the midst of continued delays around the surgery, until i decided i had to take action this year.

so, in 2016 my testosterone was 0. today, it's around 0.8, which my doctor doesn't seem to understand is a problem for my quality of life. i want it back at 0, like it was.

my doctor initially suggested i move from cyproterone acetate to spironolactone, but that seems to have been in the context of misunderstanding what i've experienced and what i want. i took his advice, and filled an rx, but i never took any spiro. in fact, the maximum safe dosages of spironolactone appear to be unable to suppress testosterone beyond the levels i was experiencing at that time (the spiro would increase the levels from .8 to 3!), so moving to spiro would mean i would have to expect an increase in testosterone production. and, this may even be desirable for certain people that are approaching their transsexuality from the filter of a previous life as a homosexual male. that is, if somebody wants to go into transition and maintain a healthy sex life, then some level of testosterone production is going to be desired so they can continue to have sex.

but, i am not entering into this with a history of living as a homosexual male and i am not interested in maintaining a sex life. this is the point i don't seem to be able to get across effectively. i want total annihilation - i want zero testosterone, like i had from 2010-2017. i want to be unable to have an erection, again.

so, i ripped up the spiro rx, and doubled the cyproterone to 200 mg on my own, expecting my gp to fill it. but, he didn't, and i couldn't reach him for months for an explanation. this was at the beginning of june, and i then spent all of june, july and august taking 200 mg/day, and waiting for my gp to update the rx accordingly.

it wasn't until the end of august that i got a clear answer that he could not update the rx, and i found myself forced to move from 200 ack to 100 until i could speak to an endocrinologist.

unfortunately, at this point, the suppression is barely working at all. i'm experiencing unwanted erections on a nearly daily basis, as well as angry feelings and suicidal thoughts as a result of it. i'm extraordinarily unhappy and can't do anything about it.

the best answer would be an emergency surgery. but, as of now, due to the pandemic, voluntary surgeries are not likely to occur any time soon. worse, i would need to go to toronto to do this because there isn't a urologist in windsor willing to perform this kind of operation - every single one of them appears to have a religious opposition to it - and the greyhound & trains are all canceled...

as the drug is currently barely working at all at the prescribed dosage of 100 mg/day, i don't feel i can wait until december to speak with dr. =======.

as dr. ======= is aware, this drug is not dangerous, and is routinely prescribed at much higher doses than 200 mg/day. the problem is just that the clinical recs for trans people (as set in the literature) are well below that. but, it's with the assumption that surgery will occur well before ten years. if i had had the surgery before 2016, the drug would have worked the way it as supposed to at the recommended levels. but, coming up on 12 years of daily cyproterone use is highly unusual, and requires unusual dosages to maintain efficacy.

i understand that we haven't met, but i'm really in a crises point. and, i would certainly like to see dr. ======== in december, regardless. we may even decide to go higher than 200, if testing suggests it's necessary to get back to absolute 0 testosterone.

but, if there's any way to give dr. =========== the ok to overprescribe to 200 mg as of, like, now, that would be about the only thing that's really going to help me get back anywhere close to 0 before i implode in a fit of rage and self-hate.

i would appreciate some kind of response, whatever the answer is.

i would also advise fighting these kinds of tickets as far as you possibly can in court in order to make sure that it costs the government more than they raise, in the end, and even if you lose.

that's the way you send them a message they understand.

these $1000 tickets won't seem worth it anymore after they've spent $10,000/case to prosecute them.

what's incomprehensible is that anybody in a free society may find themselves with a $1000 fine for throwing a party.

but, the government is broke, and they are going to be looking to raise money any way that they can.

so, if you see the cops, run - they want to rob you.

and, if you want to have fun for the foreseeable future, you're going to need to keep it exceedingly low key. 

i'd advise finding clearings in forested areas that may require a bike ride to get to.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/09/23/incomprehensible-behaviour-john-tory-reacts-after-scarborough-party-leads-to-14-people-fined-880-each.html

the supreme court, in the united states, must actually be quite a depressing place to work.

i mean, it's like death row, basically.

all of your colleagues will slowly die - until you die, yourself.

i really can't think of another job like that, where nobody retires and nobody quits - you literally lose every single coworker you will ever have to death.

so, if you're on there for a while, you could watch ten, fifteen of your friends die.

then, we wonder why they're all such assholes.

abc has a history of being a mouthpiece for the cia, and when they post polls like this that buck the trends in the media, they are worth taking note of, if you want to understand what's going to actually happen in november.

so, according to abc, trump is currently leading in both florida and arizona.

"but, this is an outlier."

exactly.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/sept-15-20-2020-florida-and-arizona-washington-post-abc-news-polls/48276797-3b93-4ab2-835b-ed2fcdc8581e/

blanchet could argue that, while he wants trudeau to resign, an election right now would endanger the lives of quebeckers.

and, he should hold to that until at least after the first week of october.

and, are the liberals bluffing?

it doesn't look like it. that is, it doesn't look like they're bluffing about cutting the cerb. they are bluffing about the support - this budget is going to be vicious.

however, they seem to have legitimately miscalculated the strength of the virus. but, i mean - if i saw this coming, almost perfectly, why didn't anybody else? you'd think they saw it coming, they just ignored it.

there is some possibility that they may acknowledge a miscalculation and give in.

i need to call on the bloc to support the speech, because the other possibility is not good for anybody.

if the ndp are truly concerned about the fate of workers this upcoming month, they should realize that dissolving parliament is the worst possible thing that can happen to them - no legislation can pass during an election.

they should wait - and wait for it to hurt.

wait for people to get mad.

i also have to say that allowing the ndp to frame an election around an extension of the cerb is quite a gift.

what singh doesn't seem to realize is that trudeau will probably hit the campaign trail and just lie his face off about it. pulling the plug before the budget - before the cut-off date - allows them a path to weasel their way out of it. and, while i can see through this from a block away, i'm not sure if most voters can.

it would certainly be a turn towards outwards, transparent cynicism for mr. trudeau. but, is this lie obvious enough for people to clue into it? or will they carry through with the delusion?

singh at least strikes me as honest, if a little bit naive. and, i remain exceedingly uncomfortable about the depth of his theological convictions. i also don't like my local ndp mp. i am a very likely green supporter this cycle, but i'll need to hear what she has to say a little more carefully. the greens don't have a party line in the same way as the others, and you have to be very careful about who you're voting for.

forcing them to actually table a budget will take a lot of that bullshit away from them. which is probably why they want to force an election, first.

i worry that mr. singh may be too sheltered to realize a cynical tactic when presented to him, and may take the bait.

i would like to see the government fall over the budget, not over the speech.

if you take them out before the budget, they can pretend they had things in the budget that they don't intend to put into it.

make them prepare a budget, first.

and, if they eek together something that is more than a bunch of corporate welfare under a veneer of social responsibility, fine.

so, would i support the throne speech?

i would vote "present", or otherwise avoid voting.

stupid bitch, indeed.

you should see a level of consistency in the policies that the government is pushing through: it's an elaborate series of handouts to businesses, sold under the guise of being "progressive".

in truth, it's just lavish amounts of excessive corporate welfare, everywhere you turn.

because this is what a government is in a neo-liberal, randian, colonial state - a way to collect taxes from workers and hand it out to businesses, in a stark and total reversal from what it is supposed to be, which is a means to collect taxes from the wealthy and redistribute them to the poor.

so, i mean, can we go after management for fraud on this?

or are they going to keep attacking single mothers that had to find some way to feed their kids?

i remember reading a report around this that indicated that most of the money is just being pocketed by unscrupulous small business owners.

if you want to help workers, you give the money to workers; if you want to help management, you set up the kind of supply-side bullshit they're pushing through with.

so, i mean, maybe that's their priority; this is a bourgeois party, so it's not surprising.

but, when they spin it as a way to help workers, they're just lying to you. and laughing at you.

you remember this.

trudeau and freeland are in there, somewhere, at the back.

fwiw, i think that trickle-down economics - corporate welfare subsidies, essentially - is the wrong way to do this.

if they're going to carry this forward, they should be putting money directly into the hands of workers, not forcing it to go through the hands of employers. that's very american, in concept, and not how we normally do things, in this country.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/liberals-vow-wage-subsidy-extension-to-2021-revamp-of-ei-system-in-throne-speech-1.5117125

my dad was a mix breed, he spoke french and mostly looked jewish, but he was culturally italian and he liked to cook.

so, he'd make things like pasta quite regularly, those little mini-pizzas you put on english muffins, etc. he made a lot of tacos, too. & chicken burgers - he liked to bbq

i spent a lot of time reheating food when nobody was home, granted, but it was mostly food that he cooked.

my mom, on the other hand, couldn't be bothered to pack me a lunch, which is something i had to do for myself from the first day i went to school. you could maybe talk her into making eggs once in a while, if you were willing to listen to her yell at you. i actually watched her spit on my plate before she gave it to me, once.

there was a stepfather in there for a few years, and he cooked, so i found myself fed more often than not. i don't want to pretend i was malnourished; it was no thanks to my mother, but i did find ways to eat. i wasn't a starving child.

....but, i have almost no recollection of her ever doing anything in a provider role. like, at all. i did the cleaning - starting at, like, seven.

when my grandmother came over, she liked to pick raspberries out in the back, which was always a pleasant experience. so, i'd go for walks in the woods and stuff. 

but, i'm getting a point across - families don't look like they did in the 50s, and a policy designed around the assumption that they do is backwards and tone deaf. child care policies need to reflect reality as it exists, not be reflective of out of date gender stereotypes as they exist in some backwards conservative alter-reality.

it is true that i lived with my mother from the time my parents divorced (i was 4) until i moved out (i was 13). 

however, i spent mondays, wednesdays, fridays, saturdays and sundays at my father's for virtually that entire period. and, my mom would tend to disappear on tuesdays and thursdays. when i was very young, my grandmother often came over to cover for her.

he paid her child support, too - which just got spent on drugs. he had to send me home with food to make sure i was eating.

like i say - that was the 80s.

this discussion is 40 years out of date.

their daycare system is really just going to be corporate welfare.

what do i think they're actually going to do?

they're going to increase the welfare checks that harper brought in, and pretend that'll increase the number of spaces, rather than just increase the price.

in the end, it's just a handout to daycare providers.

but, i'm not being facetious about the idea of making the school system at the centre of any expanded child care program. 

there's a lot of things that a cursory analysis of the way we do schooling here presents as irrational, on their face. why do we have summer holidays, for example, in a society that is overwhelmingly urbanized? why does school end so early? why does it start so late?

and, while you may get immediate answers like "the teacher's union won't allow it" (which is probably not true) or "it costs too much money", they essentially all collapse on the premise of expanding state involvement in the child care sector.

is it not obvious that we have a crisis in education, rather than a crisis in child care?

and, i need to push back against the idea that the system should be designed to maximize employment opportunities for women. to begin with, this is based on a lot of outdated assumptions, such as that only women face the burden of child care. it's an essentially sexist argument, at it's core, that is built on conservative assumptions about the role of women in the family and no doubt fails to reflect actual, real-world statistics. i'm not young - i'm 40 - and i was raised by a working father that just left me at home by myself, because my mother was a mia heroin addict. that was reality in the 80s, it's not something novel or obscure, anymore. any approach to childcare needs to start with the premise that it's not 1955, and families don't look like they did in 1955, anymore.

but, regardless, even if it was 1955, designing a child care system around the needs of their mothers, or their mother's employers, is selfish and missing the point.

the system needs to be designed around the needs of the kids themselves, and that should mean putting education at the centre of it.

so, whatever this ends up looking like, i want it built around the school. bring kids to school earlier and younger. make them stay later. and, stop giving them the summers off.

problem solved.

also of note is that i was able to go for a walk today without bumming a smoke, or even wanting to.

i've had something like 10 smokes, total, max, since mid-august, when i caught myself re-engaging with it, in the midst of smoking too much pot. but, that was really the first time in a while that i've been able to go out of the house without looking for one.

we'll see how i'm feeling through october regarding finally trying those edibles. i wanted to wait until i felt the pot was out of my system, and then explicitly experiment with doses. but, now that we're coming up on it, and we're passed the equinox rather meekly, i may want to wait until samhain, which is the next holiday in the list that i have any interest in acknowledging.

so, he said absolutely nothing worth analyzing and just wasted everybody's time doing it.

i never thought i'd say it, but i hope that doug ford has the intelligence to realize the futility of future lockdowns and pushes back against the feds if they try to implement one.

this is not a second wave. it is the conclusion of the first.

so, we can get this over with now, or we can do it all over again in a few months.

i know we're collectively a stupid people. but, just how stupid are we? how able to learn are we?

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/second-covid-19-wave-has-already-started-pm-in-address-to-nation-1.5117465

and, what did we do in response?

we put that racist piece of shit robert borden's ugly worthless face on the currency.

and, the idiots in power today want to take laurier, who valiantly led the opposition against this moronic war in our country's greatest act of civility, off of the $5, instead.

ugh.

i'm on the side of the rioters.

and, only the most morally inept idiots amongst us would refuse to acknowledge that the rioters were on the right side of history, today

this was a war without a purpose that pointlessly destroyed millions of young people for the benefit of the rich and the old - much like the one we're being asked to fight, today.

so, no - i will not be conscripted to fight your war.

fight your own damned war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_Crisis_of_1917

the version that i'm familiar with was an anti-war anthem sung during world war one, in solidarity with the russian revolution, and had lines such as "we'll kill the generals on both sides" and "we'll end the age of kant".

the version on the internet is just pro-union worker-capital synergist propaganda.

i would have been arguing loudly against conscription at the time, and i'll argue loudly against mask use, today.

it's funny; the version of "solidarity forever" that i'm familiar with appears to have been erased from the internet.

you can enjoy the bullshit pete seeger if you want.

don't forget to sing it on labour day, instead of may day.

listen - i would have opposed whatever war you want to compare this to, and gone to jail as a conscientious objector, if you tried to conscript me.

this shit is not going to work on people like me.

sorry.

we'll kill the generals on both sides.

https://globalnews.ca/news/7350128/canadians-support-wearing-mask-coronavirus/

if sarah were telling these stories, she might tell you about the time we were sitting on the forest floor up in the rockies, talking quietly about existence, as we packed up our tents and sought to move on, and she caught a little mouse running around, and said hey, j - look, a mouse. 

disney upbringings lead to certain levels of naivete that i watched be absolutely crushed before my eyes, as an owl swooped down and ripped it's head off, in front of us, as we observed it.

and, she screamed. and started crying...

but, that was life, and that owl no doubt got it's vitamins on that day, as it consumed that mouse's organs, one by one. we, ourselves, store our fatty vitamins in our liver. it would no doubt be nutritious to a tiger, or a cougar, if one were to cross us on our own paths through existence.

i had to calm her down first, and it's not like she didn't get it. she'd just never seen it. we talked it through and she seemed to be less angry at the owl after a stark discussion.

....although i still heard snide remarks from her about owls, years later.

she was never the same, after that.

phil collins warning:

if you're going to eat meat, and i'm still trying to find a way not to, and you're concerned about minimal environmental and ethical impacts, then you should be eating things like chicken liver and pig hearts, avoiding cows altogether, and throwing away the useless muscle meat.

so, after taking a closer look at my options for the vitamin a fortified breakfast cereal, i appear to have misled myself.

this is really my only serious choice, if i want to keep the salt down:

https://www.creamofwheat.com/product/original

in one of those packets, i'll get:

- 25% a

- 40% thiamin

- 35% riboflavin

- 40% niacin

- 35% b6

- 7% sodium [170 mg]

it would be nice to find something with less salt. further, i want something with some b5, too. and, i'm taken aback by the racist packaging.

i can't find it now, but they had these no name (not really) "instant meal packets" at the store that basically overpowered the cream of wheat entirely and, while a bit higher on sugar, had almost no salt. salt is more dangerous than sugar (which is what we turn everything into, anyways). i initially didn't like that idea, but i think i'm coming around to it. those packages were more like 30% a, 50% bs and cost about $0.20 each; it was $7.50 for 40 of them.

i need to be clear - i don't want to take these as a meal replacement, even if they're branded that way. rather, i'm essentially aiming to super-fortify my soy milk, because i want a vitamin surge. what i really want is a soy-like mixture that will give me 150% of all of the bs per cup. i'm then adding bananas, kiwis & ice cream to fill it out. i'm not looking to eat less food, but pre-formed vitamin a is pretty scarce in a diet that seeks to minimize it's harm on living, thinking animals while minimizing mercury. my options are really margarine (maxed out), cheese (maxed out), ice cream or fortified breakfast concoctions (which i'm working on).

for vitamin a, they even fortify the cow's milk you buy in the store.

do you know how our ancestors got pre-formed a? they got it by eating organs - liver, heart, brains. eyes. that's reality - it's the only way you really get this vitamin. and, who wants to do that?

it would be easiest if they put it in pasta, bread and/or soy in higher amounts, although the soy is a step there. you'd think they'd realize, though, that most soy consumers eat almost no meat, and fortify it at the same levels they fortify b12. if they put 30% a in the soy, that would resolve the problem. that's basically what i'm fixing by putting it in there myself...

i'd rather get some highly fortified cereal, but it doesn't seem to be a choice. for less than a quarter per packet, this is likely the best way to boost the a just over the 100% mark. and, it helps with the rest, too. 

so, i've pretty much decided on that.

now, that doesn't mean actual cereal is off the table. i'm still coming in low on b5 and am trying very specifically to cut out the salami. crickets are great for b12, but aren't going to help me with niacin. 

but, if i really want to do this right, i need to give my soy milk a boost. and, i'm going to get more vitamins per dollar by just buying the fortified vitamins and topping them up than i am by doubling the soy or tripling the soy.

i can't add the precise data because i don't have it, and i likely won't get out again until the end of the month. i'll put something in...

the switch to flax bread, however, is decided upon, and i can add that to the pile. that's also going to hurt me a little on niacin, but it should also help to suppress the testosterone.

so, there's an update post coming....

my doctor gave me a referral to a urologist in toronto, which is of minimal use to me until the greyhound starts running again. i have no way to get there, besides hitching; i can't hitch back. there are still some options in leamington that i can try that may get me there and back on public transit.

what i really need is to contact an endocrinologist. the guidelines the doctor is following are arbitrary, and it's disappointing that he won't budge, but he claims he's legally restricted from boosting the dose. the initial doctor that i saw and gave me what i'm on was an endocrinologist. so, these little legal trivialities are kind of clarifying themselves; there's not any good reason i can't have what i want, but the guidelines are...

the guidelines don't say "this is the maximum dosage". rather, what they say is "this is the clinical recommendation". but, you're not supposed to be on t-blockers for the rest of your life, you're supposed to be on them for a few years, until you get the surgical removal. i initially made steps to do this in 2016, but it's consistently fallen through. now, i need to exceed the clinical recommendation because i've been on them past the expected time frame, and i'm looking at dosages that are still only 60% of the maximum amount on the safety data sheet. really, i'm absolutely right and the clinical recommendation needs to be updated. but, i'm clearly not going to win that argument. the doctors are all concerned about liability, even though there's more of a threat that i'm going to harm myself if i have to detransition.

so, i'm going to reach out to the endocrinologist directly, explain the situation and see if he's even willing to talk to me at all. if he is, maybe he'll just boost the dosage without having to go in to talk.

so, that's my update for today - disappointment all around, but also developing clarity, all around. and, i'm going to post an update with some estimates that may clarify themselves at the start of the month....