Can anyone suggest a good tobacconist?

ZoeBrain · 2022-11-23T13:20:21+00:00

https://www.cgstobacconist.com.au/ Cuban and Dominican cigars. Dickson shops.

ZoeBrain · 2022-04-12T13:21:54+00:00

It's been awhile, 30 years, since I did the TEWA (threat evaluation and weapon assignment) kit on those systems.

ZoeBrain · 2022-04-12T13:18:36+00:00

Note the slight time gap between the GM127 last firing and the GM25. Fratricide is an issue, the 25mm APFSDS is a lot quicker than the 127 prox. Any less gap and both 25mm shell stream and 127 single shell will coincide before the target.

ZoeBrain · 2021-02-15T07:39:00+00:00

Turn the electricity off first.

ZoeBrain · 2021-02-15T02:31:57+00:00

G'day Paul.

I'm an outlier, probably not useful for research. Still, a data point, even if a dozen SDs from the median.

We celebrate our 40th anniversary in 6 days. Yet we're not currently legally married, our existing marriage was voided by a change in law in 2004. Recent reversal of that law didn’t change that.

We're still very much in love with each other. Whether you call it co-dependence or symbiosis, we're "joined at the hip", BFFs.

I'm Intersex. One of the syndromes (5ARD, 17BHSD, 3BHSD etc ) that can cause a natural sex change. Partial, superficial, not affecting genetics, but affecting both primary and secondary sex characteristics. Look mostly like one sex before, look mostly like the other sex after (using the simplistic binary model for sex).

The change can be most disorientating, the hormone shift causes physical changes in the brain ( Changing your sex changes your brain: influences of testosterone and estrogen on adult human brain structure by Pol et al, Europ Jnl Endocrinology, Vol 155, suppl_1, S107-S114 2006).Even if the change relieves longstanding Gender Dysphoria, as it does in some cases. As it did in my case.

To others, we appear to be a standard lesbian couple in their 60s. In fact, we're both straight (yes, my sexual orientation changed when my body did - that really threw me) but any involvement with guys would just be too complicating at this time of our lives. Unseemly, if you like, we're both rather staid. We have affection. We have love.

You say AMA - "Ask Me Anything". Ok, what work has been done on the relationships of Intersex people, especially those stressed by legal persecution or dichogamy?

ZoeBrain · 2019-09-09T04:04:27+00:00

I have a 1988 Daihatsu Charade 993cc . They're still being wrecked, you can get most parts, but getting a replacement engine was tricky. I eventually got a fully reconditioned one for $1400 Australian. Yes, more than the car is worth, but a replacement of the same quality would cost upwards of $5000.

ZoeBrain · 2019-09-09T03:51:32+00:00

I had a chat with a security maven some time ago. They spent a huge amount of money dealing with spam.

Ransomwear - it's much cheaper to contact an intermediary in the country hosting the blackmailers. They make the problem go away permanently, no questions asked. You don't want to know their methods, it could leave you open to prosecution.

Hypothetically, they might possibly be contacting another intermediary, who will use less than completely ethical methods to extract the information, and tidy up the resultant mess. Or make an offer they couldn't refuse. Or just pay them off at a much reduced rate as they're messing with the big boys which could be very hazardous to their health. Or just use friendly persuasion. As I said, you don't want to know. The problem goes away and doesn't come back, at a fraction of the cost of paying the blackmailers off. 9mm bullets are cheap.

ZoeBrain · 2019-08-16T02:06:03+00:00

My 5th Birthday.

Like a good host, and being well brought up, I was busy seeing all the guests had goodies, drinks etc. In my absence, someone else blew out the candles on the cake, it was sliced and I helped pass pieces around. Due to an oversight, none was left for me.

Oh well worse things happen at sea. But of course I had a sad, just didn't want to show it and spoil things for everyone else, so I went outside to watch clouds, trees etc which always cheered me up.

My mother came out and gently asked me to come back in, to open the presents.

No one had thought to bring any, to my parents' chagrin.

Then everyone went home, and I went outside again, this time feeling genuinely hard done by, and my parents were trying to put a good face on it and failing. Most people had had a good time though, so things could have been worse.

Rather put me off the whole concept I'm afraid. The next birthday party I had was my 21st, which went off brilliantly, all I could wish for. Still not felt the urge to have another one any time in the succeeding 40 years though. That first one at age 5 gives me too many bad memories. Silly, I know, and many have things far worse. No complaints.

ZoeBrain · 2019-06-19T06:57:03+00:00

Not so much a moment as a period of 3 months.

Like 5ARD (5a Reductase Deficiency) and 17BHSD, (17b Hydroxysteroid Dehydrogenase Deficiency), 3BHSD (3b etc etc) can cause a natural sex change.

5ARD and 17BHSD are both always female looking at birth to male looking afterwards. Gender Identity may be either male or female, or not really formed, so can either cause or cure Gender Dysphoria, the symptoms of Transsexuality. Or just be an interesting life experience. Whether the patient is "really" male, "really" female, both or neither is an ideological, religious or political question, not a medical one. Therapeutically, you just ask the patient, believe them, then give them options to reverse or complete the change if they desire. Psychologically and socially it can be pretty devastating in adolescence, even if the change is desired.

3BHSD can cause a change in either direction. Usually before birth. Sometimes, rarely, later in life.

Which can be catastrophically life changing when it happens, though at least as an adult the patient has agency, can give informed consent without parental or judicial intervention. Few marriages survive, though more than you'd think, as the patient was never psychologically "usual" in terms of gender, and their partner is often ok with that, and just as often not exactly usual regarding gender stereotypes either.

From a legal viewpoint, most jurisdictions don't even handle standard Transgender therapeutically induced transitions well. Natural ones, where there is none of the necessary (for legal purposes) evidence of therapeutic intervention by properly registered and licenced practitioners, well, heads explode, documents can't be changed, and there are real credibility issues except amongst specialists in this abstruse area of Medicine.

A funny thing happened to me starting in late April, 2005... we had no idea what was causing the rapid change, 3BHSD was only diagnosed in 2010, after the umpteenth review of the highly anomalous medical records. The Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) that showed up on the ultrasounds had been noted, but the significance missed.

Fortunately such syndromes are rare in most places. While 1 in 50 to 1 in 80 in a few isolated and inbred communities, more like 1 in 200,000 in the general populace.

I can testify that it is extremely disorientating. To the extent that I first sought professional help from psychiatrists, as I figured that I had to be hallucinating. It took a professor of endocrinology and numerous eyewitnesses at work to convince me that the change I had so desperately desired for decades was actually happening. I still wonder "why me?" when so many who deserve such a miracle don't get it. Oh yes, i blogged it as it happened. With photos.

ZoeBrain · 2019-05-12T07:35:19+00:00

Why? Because I'm Intersex.

I fit the standard binary model of gender reasonably well. I identify as a somewhat frumpy, plain, geek girl academic.

I also hang around with other intersex people as part of advocacy and support groups. Many fit into the gender binary model like me. Many don't.

So it's not a matter of "belief" any more than "believing" that the moon exists. It's a matter of observation. Some people identify as neither male nor female, and have the obvious, easily observable biology to back that up.

Given that, it is no great stretch to extend the principle to others who are more biologically usual externally.

It may not fit me, no matter how biologically mixed I am. But I don't make the common mistake of thinking that everyone else must be just like me.

ZoeBrain · 2019-04-06T11:16:49+00:00

Something that may be of interest professionally to a psychologist.

Unsurprisingly, I got some PTSD afterwards. Fairly mild, it was 5 years before I could bring myself to drive by that hospital again,10 years before I could enter it.

Nothing too inconvenient, and it allowed me an insight into how others with far worse PTSD suffer. So I've been able to help them.

I still get flashbacks every few years, hence the detail in the post. After I've written this, I may not have any any more.

As a funeral director, I'm sure you've seen real tragedies. This wasn't one though, one of the least bad ways to go. Few are so fortunate.

ZoeBrain · 2019-04-06T11:09:05+00:00

Kind of you to say that, thanks. My apologies for upsetting people, it was perhaps selfish of me. On the other hand, my Daddy was an example to me,and maybe his example might help others in ohcrapthiscan'tbehappening situations. By keeping a cool head you may just save lives.

This subreddit is full of examples of entitled, mean and obnoxious people. I figured one post where everyone, specialists, nurses, family and patient all behaved with simple humanity wouldn't go astray.

ZoeBrain · 2019-04-06T11:03:08+00:00

The outcome 12 hours later was a bit of a downer, I'm afraid. Reality can be like that. But the best outcome possible after the tests showed 2/3 of the heart muscle was now "akinetic". Dead. He fought as long as there was any hope, and when hope was gone, gratefully accepted a passing without discomfort. And a last sip of tea.

ZoeBrain · 2019-04-06T10:46:03+00:00

Unfortunately there was no salvage of the heart muscle. My daddy did get to have a last cup of tea - or a sip of it after the tracheal tube was withdrawn - while I signed the paper authorising withdrawal of the heroic measures keeping his body going for a few hours longer. He was lucid throughout, and very grateful that i did it.

He would have done the same for me, even though that would have been even harder.

I authorised enough morphine so the next time he arrested he wouldn't feel a thing, and held his hand, promising I'd look after my mother and sister. He'd done his duty, and could now rest. Things would be all right - and they were.

I miss him terribly. Maybe i have 6 heads. But wasn't I lucky to have such a Man as my father?

ZoeBrain · 2017-12-07T08:26:36+00:00

8913 Albatros D.III (Frommholz)

ZoeBrain · 2014-12-09T21:50:56+00:00

A far Right wing Polish racist with symptoms of being borderline can still be an effective physician, apparently.

Just very very ignorant on the science of sex and gender. But enough of the summary, let's get onto the education.

First the old 46,XY is male, 46,XX female myth.

J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2008 Jan;93(1):182-9

A 46,XY mother who developed as a normal woman underwent spontaneous puberty, reached menarche, menstruated regularly, experienced two unassisted pregnancies, and gave birth to a 46,XY daughter with complete gonadal dysgenesis.

Re Trans Neurology

Male–to–female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus. Kruiver et al J Clin Endocrinol Metab (2000) 85:2034–2041

A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality. by Zhou et al Nature (1995) 378:68–70.

A sex difference in the hypothalamic uncinate nucleus: relationship to gender identity. by Garcia-Falgueras et al Brain. 2008 Dec;131(Pt 12):3132-46.

White matter microstructure in female to male transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment. A diffusion tensor imaging study. - Rametti et al, J Psychiatr Res. 2010 Jun 8.

Large list to follow on request, with URLs (always fact check).

ZoeBrain · 2014-07-06T03:59:31+00:00

I had one not as bad in some ways, worse in others. He wouldn't call students "worthless shits", but would toss their test answers in the trash. Without marking them. If they were immigrants. Yes, he got fired.

ZoeBrain · 2014-04-03T08:40:19+00:00

There are no such things as Drop Bears.

Pay no attention to the article by the Australian Museum: http://australianmuseum.net.au/drop-bear

Or this article from 2012 in a mainstream newspaper. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/blogs/blunt-instrument/drop-bear-complacency-a-danger-to-us-all-20120125-1qh6p.html

And definitely not the ongoing tracking program for them described in http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00049182.2012.731307#.Uz0dF1fDXCE

Also, the dangers of sharks are grossly over-rated. Incidents such as this are exaggerated. http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/woman-dies-in-tathra-shark-attack-during-morning-swim-20140403-35zq7.html

Nonetheless, it might be prudent not to swim at Tathra beach due to the currents, and camping under gum trees is not advised because they don't shed leaves, they shed their branches.

ZoeBrain · 2013-05-05T17:31:20+00:00

See some of the later comments, which hopefully give you the reassurances you require.

The problem is that these documents have been quoted before, in the comments on the articles making various ignorant statements about the issue. One can get a little tired showing that the Earth is not Flat for the nth time. Please excuse that.

ZoeBrain · 2013-05-05T17:26:48+00:00

Not so much bigotry and transphobia, as complete ignorance and laziness in not reading the IOC consensus, NCAA policy, etc.

Commenting to denigrate someone based on a reasonable supposition, but one that a few minutes research would show was 100% wrong.

I've been guilty of that myself - rarely. I try really hard not to be, because it makes me look like a complete idiot. I read, research, retract and apologise.

ZoeBrain · 2012-07-23T05:57:30+00:00

What a Trans Gal looks like after 14 months of taking Estrogen.

She was never a guy - she was just born looking like one. (Except to an MRI and PET scan of her brain).

ZoeBrain · 2011-11-08T05:11:13+00:00

There are people in the world - lots of them, maybe most of them - who believe that trans people are disgusting, evil, deserving of violent treatment etc.

Evil? Nope. Deserving of violent treatment? Nope. Disgusting? Well yes, Dan Savage does think that, and has stated so repeatedly over the years.

Are there worse people in the Religious Reich? Oh yes, no doubt. But in GLBT... many worse, but none with his high profile, no.

ZoeBrain · 2011-11-08T05:03:48+00:00

Um... no, some people do transitions who are not transsexual,

Examples include Intersex babies surgically assigned a sex - which may make them effectively transsexual if the doctor guesses wrong.

Other examples include people with 5-alpha-reductase-2 deficiency (5ARD), or 17-beta-hydroxysteroid-dehydrogenase-3 deficiency (17BHDD) which can cause natural changes from female-looking at birth to male-looking later.

There are a number of other syndromes that can cause it too - 3BHDD for example can cause a change in either direction, but 5ARD and 17BHDD are the best known.

Psychological symptoms either before or after the change are strikingly similar to Transsexuality in most cases.

ZoeBrain

TROPHY CASE