The ouster of Maduro marks a step towards greater and more naked imperialist aggression. After Israel’s genocide in Gaza, there now appears little need for even the pretence of international law. Might makes right is the guiding ethos of US imperialism. There will be no peace until the empire falls.
I found myself with enough time to write a blog post about what I got up to in 2025: www.jayeless.net/blog/2025-in...
I also read Becky Chambers' "The Galaxy, and the Ground Within" (last of the Wayfarers series). My review ended up sounding pretty negative, but I liked it well enough to rate it three stars… I'm just increasingly sure that this "hopepunk" genre is not for me
www.jayeless.net/book-reviews...
I read Shannon Chakraborty's "The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi", a swashbuckling adventure novel with a forty-something retired pirate turned mother for a protagonist. Set in the mediaeval Indian Ocean and drawing on Arabic mythology for its fantastical elements.
www.jayeless.net/book-reviews...
I was able to complete and 100% the cozy game "Tiny Bookshop", which was a great little game and I wrote a review of it on Backloggd: backloggd.com/u/jayeless/r...
I've never really established a habit of using Bluesky, hey. Since I'm here right now, here's some of the stuff I've been posting lately:
This is a great article on the protests now breaking out across Iran!
redflag.org.au/article/iran...
Shameful racism on display here from my local council to a teenage volunteer who did nothing more than wear a Palestinian pendant
www.deepcutnews.com/p/melbourne-...
I love how, with babies, it's like a switch flicks and OVERNIGHT she picks up a whole new skill. This morning she's suddenly babbling like a pro! Lots of "rarararara", "amamamama", "nonononono"… just incredible!
Great interview with VS's Jordan van den Lamb!
"The political system isn’t going to be transformed from within, it has to be confronted from the outside. That’s why we’re focused on building a political project that’s rooted in struggle, not just in speeches."
www.deepcutnews.com/p/purple-pin...
Heading home from the Vic Socialists' election night party 😅 Pretty pumped tbh, our lower house candidates got a great share of the vote and Dutton lost his seat… *Nelson from The Simpsons voice* Ha-ha!
On my way to volunteer with the Vic Socialists for a couple of hours in Northcote (yeah, my shift got moved since I originally signed up). I suspect the polling booth'll be quiet this late in the piece, but who knows, let's find out
"If the actual Left cannot get its shit together soon, ineffective spineless centrists committed to managing the decline will eventually collapse under the coordinated weight of a global campaign of the far-right’s to seize the West forever."
theshot.net.au/uncategorize...
This is why the Victorian government will never come into the 21st century by introducing payments directly by bank card
Without me having to replace three mykis in a month, the entire public transport budget will fall apart
YOU'LL NEVER BELIEVE IT
Congratulations PTV for extracting yet another $6 out of me I guess!!
Amid the sea of complaints about women's clothes without pockets, I feel like the scourge that is women's clothes WITH pockets that are just too small or poorly-angled to trust remains under-critiqued. I don't know how many mykis I've lost to falling out of such pockets, but it's definitely multiple
So I guess I'm volunteering to hand out how-to-vote cards on Election Day. In Footscray, obviously, because freaking no one votes Vic Socialists out here (ok, to be more accurate, 0.2% of the population votes Vic Socialist out here). Hope it goes well 🙃
Woke up in the middle of the night last night and was kept awake by the sudden thought, "How could I create more urban-type lots in #TheSims2? Like, apartment buildings, shops with residences above them, maybe shops with APARTMENTS above them?" so I did a lot of research into that this morning 😎
Came home from a walk with Indie, but we seem to have lost her favourite crinkly toy on the way. Gone but not forgotten, always in our hearts, etc..
Proud of Indie, who today (at six months old) was stamping her foot to the beat of Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out" 😂
Remembering the day, about a decade ago, when I actually had to go to Flinders St Station to exchange my myki for a new one because I'd only had one and it expired. Not sure how I managed that, because life since then has been a neverending sequence of forgetting or losing them and buying new ones
A hand holding a pink square-shaped card which says: "shelter. Be a good human. Make a positive difference. Find enjoyment."
Seems the real estate agents in my suburb have moved on to shoving ABSOLUTE NONSENSE in people's mailboxes now. Everything on here (except maybe the last line) is the exact opposite of what a property speculator's parasite does. Stop killing trees for your marketing materials and get a real job
Hello again, Bluesky! Haven't posted here in a while (keeping my thoughts to under 300 characters is really challenging for me, ok) but I've been thinking about returning. Consider this a statement of intent in that direction
Sometimes I wonder how my eight-week-old would feel about being put in these pro-parent propaganda onesies that say "MUMMY is my WORLD" and "DADDY is my HERO", if she could read. Probably less mad than my cat would've been if she could read the bandage on her leg that said "I ❤️ MY VET"
We're talking about young Stalin, of course. Anyway, I've never encountered anyone who disagreed before, but you do you! 👍
1902 photo of Stalin, showing an attractive young man with thick wavy hair, piercing dark eyes and about 5mm of regrowth.
For reference: young Stalin.
A few days ago I thought of (but didn't get around to) posting, "Oh, so the United Healthcare CEO's shooter is hot? You know who else was hot? STALIN." Now I'm reading that the shooter's politics may not have been that great, and I'm like, yep, there we go. This is Stalin all over again 😠
The sad and inevitable truth is in another 10 years, when it is all said and done and it is irrefutable Israel committed a genocide in Palestine, there will be many a handwringing think piece from those who defend Israel's actions now, claiming 'we didn't know'. They know. Remember that they knew.
A tabby cat makes eye contact smugly with the camera as she is nestled between an orange-and-red embroidered cushion and a leg clad in grey pants.
Sneaking in just under the wire (AEDST) to get a photo up for #Caturday! Here's Gidget. She's not getting as many cuddles as she'd like (hours every day) now that a human baby is here, so when she DOES get cuddles, she's obliged to activate "smug mode".
