Honeybee's Place

This new bill has been introduced in both the house and the Senate.

Among other things, it will:

Raise the monthly disability income by just over 30 percent - bringing it to poverty level.

Remove penalties for recieving financial help from friends and family.

Increase the amount of assets a disabled person may have from $2,000 to $10,000 (this hasn't been updated since 1989)

Update outside income restrictions to allow disabled people to receive up to $399 a month without reducing their benefits.

REWARD, not penalize, people who want to receive additional income while on social security income.

REMOVE THE MARRIAGE BAN YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT THIS WILL REMOVE THE MARRIAGE BAN

For those unaware current regulations do a lot to oppress disabled people. In fact marriage equality doesn't even extend to disbled people who risk having their benefits reduced or outright taken away if they marry someone. This means that in common law states disabled people can't even live with their significant other or they risk losing their financial independence.

Current regulations mean that if you're disbled you can't have so much as one penny over $2,000 to your name. So buying a car and gaining more independence or freedom is largely out of the question for disabled people.

Current regulations penalize social security recipients who receive income from outside sources, even if those sources are reimbursement. Did you get paid to babysit for a few hours? That's income, and you get your benefits reduced. Did you loan a friend $10 and they pay you back? The government considers that $10 income, and you get your benefits reduced.

These aren't mere anecdotes - these are all examples of actual things that have happened to disbled people I know, and if you have any disabled friends in your life I'm sure they can tell you the same stories.

“Eat the rich” means 1%ers and billionaires

middle class is closer to poverty than being a multimillionaire

“The rich” does NOT include children of billionaires (come on we’re at least slightly better than the plagues of Egypt)

Upper middle class children SHOULD NOT feel guilt over having money

Being aware of privilege and using your privilege to help others IS NOT a guilt trip

Constantly feeling guilty helps no one

Billionaires, however, should feel guilty over hoarding wealth.

Upper middle class is NOT rich

Black Lives Matter

223,000 dollars is what Jeff Bezo makes in a minute

1) As a former sailor here’s my hot take on the stuck boat in the Suez. I’m actually in admiration of the skill of whoever did this. They managed a crash in one of the busiest water ways and all they damaged was a wall. No lives lost. No other boat involved, no damaged cargo. A+ 

2) Lemme tell you about pilots. Pilots are tug boats or crew who lead you through challenging passages. Usually harbours or narrow water ways. The Suez requires you to hand over control of your boat to a government endorsed pilot crew. Some pilots are great. Suez Pilots are not 

3) they don’t protecc. They don’t atacc. Mainly they sleep and snacc. Yep. The Suez takes roughly 13 hours for a big ship to navigate. I have yet to hear of a diligent Seuz pilot who actually stayed at the helm even half that time. And pilots are not free. We pay extra for them 

a small private boat pays $500-1000 US. The #EVERGIVEN this would be over $10,000 US for the pilot crew alone on top of the $100,000 to use the canal. And the pilot crew are mandatory. Considering how much shipping goes through the suez, how are their bad pilots still not known? 

So #EVERGIVEN got stuck in a sand storm with 40kt gusts&no visiblity. This is totally enough to blow them off course&disorient them, they’d be working off radar and sonar. Factor in possible confusion of who was responsible for driving, the pilot of the officer of the watch?

The #EVERGIVEN officer’s concerns went like this -my crew -my ship -other ships -my cargo definitely not holding up global shipping traffic. And probably not that wall they hit with the part of the hill that’s reinforced. The fact that they ran aground without damaging cargo?

A+ #EVERGIVEN Officer & #Evergreen crew. I am truly amazed at your soft landing. I’m sorry no one is talking about the low quality Suez pilot crew who was supposed to be driving (I’m sorry to the good Suez pilots, I know you’re out there somewhere not napping & working hard)

“russian warship 545 is unhappy”

So I went back to check on my pal Russian Warship 545 (registration name KOLA), and being unable to find the red dot in the area, thought it had moved on. Curious as to when and where to, I ran a search on Vesselfinder for the name “Russian Warship 545”.

No results found.

“Okay, that’s fair. Maybe you can’t search for naval vessels by name. National security and all.” I said to myself. Then I remembered that I’d screenshotted the ID number (see above), so I ran a search for that instead.

This is when shit got weird.

So I mentioned just now that while the vessel showed up earlier today under the AIS tracking title “Russian Vessel 545”, the legal registration name listed at the bottom of its details page was “KOLA”. This isn’t that weird in and of itself — I was poking around home on the map earlier today, and found Canadian naval vessels with tracking titles like “Canadian Warship 707” and then the actual vessel name (HMCS FancyName or what have ye) listed as the registration name along with the flag country.

I mentioned also that I couldn’t find Russian Warship 545’s distinctive red dot (red is the colour for search and rescue, coast guard, and naval vessels in Vessel Finder) in the Red Sea anchorage field outside the canal when I went to check up on it.

So imagine my surprise when I type the ID number for “Russian Warship 545” into the search, and am told IT IS STILL LOCATED IN THE RED SEA ANCHORAGE.

Huh???

But not ONLY that.

It has now been switched to an ORANGE tanker vessel dot, and is showing up with “KOLA” as its AIS tracking name, looking for all intents and purposes like a regular oil tanker:

Except for the fact that when you open the details page on Vessel Finder, the image attached is VERY MUCH STILL A RUSSIAN WARSHIP:

And the specs and details are all the same as earlier, including being owned by what is still listed (due to the 1967 manufacturing date) as, I shit you not, “Soviet Navy”:

However!!!

On further investigation via Marine Tracker, I’ve found what seems to be a much less “stripped from Wikipedia”, and much less impressive, image of our friend Russian Warship 545 (which is still listed as the AIS name on Marine Tracker):

This page on Baltic Shipping also associates similar pictures with the same ID numbers, further corroborating this and giving a bit more extra backstory about the builder etc. “Kola” is listed as an Altay-class Russian military tanker with a matching 1967 build date on this List of Active Russian Military Vessels, and was actively doing stuff for the Russian Navy in the Mediterranean within the last two years (x) (x).

So.

My best guess at an explanation for all this weirdness?

Creaky old Soviet-built oil tanker KOLA, owned by Russian military, was doing regular oil-getting business in the area.

Said oil tanker is listed on some AIS records in the same manner as most military-owned vessels, “[nationality] warship [hull #]”, and with a red military ID dot.

Somebody working for Vessel Finder is really lazy about attaching a database image to the profile for KOLA. (Interestingly enough, reverse image search turned up no other instances of the warship image used on the listing).

Then, this week, Ever Given does the world’s worst parallel parking job and blocks up the Suez canal.

KOLA, gone to go get oil and bring it back to the fleet, is now stranded with many other oil tankers in the middle of the Red Sea, unable to pass back up through to the Black Sea or wherever the hell she was going.

At some point, perhaps somebody involved in the control/management of KOLA had the thought, possibly while sitting around at anchor for two days twiddling thumbs and playing cards, “hey, you don’t think our AIS designation would make us look like we’re up to some really sketchy shit out here, do you? given that hundreds if not thousands of random people are looking at vessel tracking sites right now?”

“Hm. Shit.”

(Alternatively, somebody onboard is killing time on their phone looking at the shipping carnage and notices their bright red tracking dot and alarming name).

Phone calls are made/things are updated and Creaky old Soviet-built military-owned oil tanker KOLA hastily has its AIS display name updated to read as its registration name instead of “Russian Warship 545”, now with an orange oil tanker classification marker.

This change has the unintended result of making them look EXPONENTIALLY sketchier than they did before.

ALTERNATIVELY: Less funny version, it may just be a glitch in Vessel Finder’s software that gets triggered by the two different names and the conflicting classifications. When I went to look at it again just a minute ago, we were back to a red indicator and “Russian Warship 545”:

Bottom line: do I think that anything freaky or untoward is ACTUALLY happening with this vessel? Not really.

Do I find this all EXTREMELY entertaining? You bet your ass I do.

1. The Kola. Brought along for supply and support I would assume. 

2. A sea tug, the Yakov Grebelsky. 3. A Corvette. The main ship of this detachment, this is the ship that would be doing all the training. All parts of the crew aboard are going to be training in different simulations and just representing the Russian Navy. Identified as the Stoyky. .....The Stoyky. A Russian Warship, with the Hull Designation of 545. 

Here is the Russian defense ministry’s article about the Detachment’s deployment.   https://eng.mil.ru/en/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12330458@egNews Which leaves us with a few questions.  So there is the possibility that we are looking at an entire Fleet Detachment. That is sitting there in the red sea.  Or the possibility that they got separated somehow.  Or...that there is no sign of the Yakov Grebelsky or Stoyky, and they somehow just ditched the Kola.  Which gets even funnier, because apparently right around the time the suez canal first got blocked off. The Kola and another vessel got into a light collision. 

Somebody whose ask I think I lost sent me this article from early February about Kola and Stoiky (and I think it mentions the tug as well near the end) transiting down through the canal in the first place, I assume this week was supposed to be the return journey. Maybe the tug moved on to work somewhere else?

If I had to hazard a guess, either Kola and Stoiky are sharing one AIS signal (I don’t think that’s a thing??), OR there’s been some sort of confusion (possibly human error) in a logging system somewhere that, when processing both of the vessels together as they passed through somewhere, ended up accidentally labelling Kola with Stoiky’s photo and hull number.

WAIT. @echo1608 I’ve had a breakthrough!!

So I’m actually inclined to think that Vessel Finder (which I’m told by people in the notes is visually super-glitchy at the best of times because of how much data it has to handle) has somehow ended up turning the AIS signal for both ships (Kola and Stoiky) into only ONE display point/readout — but it does know geographically that both of them are there. Here’s why I say that:

Here is where Kola is currently anchored, in a berth next to what looks like an empty anchor berth:

Earlier today, I noticed something that struck me as weird when I was looking at Kola’s tracking line of recent movement, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time other than “huh, glitchy”.

On vessels that are mostly sitting still or anchored (like the Ever Given lol), the tracking line that shows the last couple of hours of movement mostly moves in small overlapping circles right underneath where the vessel is.

That is uh, not what Kola’s track does:

(The red dot on the right there is me selecting a point on the track) Soooo Kola’s track basically looks like she’s teleporting lol. Jumping back and forth across that distance so quickly that there are no progress dots in between, but still keeping that registered movement speed (seen in the blue box) at 0kts.

This morning, I thought that weirdness must just be a variance/glitch in how the tracker is picked up by satellite — like how you can sometimes watch your personal dot on Google Maps move around while you’re standing still. I assumed that Kola wasn’t really moving much (listed as anchored, 0kts), the calibration of the geo-tracker was just poor and resulted in the vessel signal “jumping” back and forth between two points and creating these lines.

But then I thought about your “two vessels, one weird hybrid AIS display on our screens” thing. And I thought about it a little more. And then I turned the nautical chart overlay back on:

And OH. The other end of that super-fast back and forth and back and forth tracking pattern between two completely still states lines up DIRECTLY with the centre of the neighbouring anchorage point.

So. If I had to theorize (in a semi-informed manner, based on the evidence at hand):

I would bet that BOTH Kola and the Corvette Stoiky (aka the elusive Russian Warship 545) are present here, but for reasons inexplicable to me (and possibly it just comes down to Program Is Hella Glitchy, or a weird method of entering their data, who knows), Vessel Finder (and by the looks of it, Marine Traffic too) is using the SAME ID number (6720004) for BOTH ships, resulting in them being combined into a weird hybrid profile that VesselFinder reads from which has:

1 photo (of a boat I’d bet my pants is the Corvette Stoiky or a similar model)

1 registered name (KOLA)

1 set of specifications (the ones for KOLA)

1 little cartoon ship marker (tied to the left-side geographic signal)

1 vessel class name (“oil products tanker”)

2 possible display names (“KOLA” and “Russian Warship 545”)

2 colour classifications (service vessel red and tanker orange)

2 geolocation signals (one signal coming from that left anchor point where the ship marker sits, and signal two coming from the right anchor point where the track marks point to).

When the program is reading from the data profile, it seems to be displaying all of the things on that list that only have 1 as constants, and then for everything where there are 2 (data from BOTH vessels), it simply jumps back and forth between reading from one, then the other, and back and forth. Probably every time the map refreshes itself or something. I think Marine Traffic might be doing the exact same thing, but with a photo of Kola instead of Stoiky.

Again, this is just a theory, but its the only thing I can currently think of that explains everything we’ve seen here so far!

Either through a glitch in the system, or an error in human entry, or a deliberate choice to register them under a combined profile with the idea they are not to be separated (perhaps in some misguided attempt to simplify registration), I think what we are seeing is a pair of ships, showing up as one single ship profile which has two names, two geolocations, and two class designations, and is flipping back and forth between those data sources based on whichever it picks up.

tl;dr: My new running theory is we’re seeing two ships which travel together, with two names, two geolocation signals, two classifications, grouped under one (1) profile and ID number, resulting in the program inconsistently displaying the duplicate values as it tries to represent two different vessels with a single visual datapoint and a single profile page.

And, lol, when I went back to look again and check something between getting those first couple screenshots, guess who’s back to the old tricks again... :)

God I’ve gotten so much serotonin out of this problem-solving challenge, along with the stress of a trillion notifications. But this has been..... fun??

In Conclusion:

high unemployment and a lot of underpaying, pointless jobs = people are looking for things to do with their life, a purpose

skyrocketing cost of living = most young people will not be able to live on their own, meaning some will end up in a group living situation with people interested in recruiting them

it’s a time of great cultural and political upheaval, nothing feels real, people are desperate for meaning and human connection. cults promise that

there is a new wave of acceptance and understanding for ways of life outside the norm, which is great! …except for when cult leaders tell you abusive and controlling practices are just their culture, their religion, their lifestyle, their beliefs, their tradition, and if you disrespect it you are the problem

social media influencers have already shown us how easy it is to build a cult of personality and attract people from anywhere in the world who are interested in the exact brand you are selling

spirtuality is having a boom, as are things like astrology, crystals, tarot, meditation, energy… those things aren’t bad on their own but they are often used as tools of cult spaces

wellness. i think a lot of people are already in wellness cults. you can make people do a lot of things in the name of “wellness” and a big factor of maintaining a cult is keeping members in a state of decreased cognition….. like say, with regular fasting

education about this subject is SO important—high control environments and their methods for influencing and controlling people often go totally unnoticed unless you’ve learned about them, and there’s a long history of mainstream misinformation on what thought reform and cults are, what they look like, and how they work. there’s also a huge misconception that “no way that could be me!” when unfortunately, because of how high control influence works, it’s possible for anyone to get drawn into a high control group or relationship without realizing that’s what it actually is.

Cults/High Control Groups and Influence 101:

BITE Model by Steven Hassan: criteria for identifying undue influence and high control groups/cults

“On Destructive Groups” section of BITE Model Analysis’ Resources page. The collection of links here are all to quality, highly respected references and resources (including videos) on Cult and High Control Group 101 information.

A Little Bit Culty podcast. This podcast is hosted by former NXIVM members Sarah and Nippy, who are now cult education and survivor healing advocates. Episode 2 (titled “Cults 101″ with guest Steven Hassan, creator of the BITE model) introduces what cults are, and why humans are universally vulnerable to cult abuse.

“Is Trump a Cult Leader? A Scientific Perspective” by Telltale. This video has a catchy title, but the creator does a great job on 1) knowing his stuff, and 2) explaining what’s required to be a cult, and what does/doesn’t qualify as a cult. The video also has really interesting insight/analysis on the current conspiracy theory cult movements we have today (QAnon, flat earthers, anti-vaxxers). The channel is a good source on both those subjects, as well as groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

TV Series/Films (Bit More In-Depth):

Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath (Emmy award-winning TV series, it’s on US Netflix now). Really digs into the specifics of Scientology, but they do a great job portraying to the general public how cults operate, and how even a destructive cult can recruit people, cover up abuses, evade the law, and keep members within the group.

Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult (TV Series, available on Amazon Prime)

The Last Stop: The True Story of the Elan School (Warning: All of the TWs. Seriously.) Film on the Troubled Teen Industry, aka what happened when the War on Drugs combined with the 1960s anti-drug cult Synanon and LGAT seminars to create a still-active billion dollar industry of cult-based institutional child abuse in the name of teen rehabilitation. There is actual footage, it is deeply upsetting. Use the trailer to gauge your limits. Spoiler: fuck Nancy Reagan.

If you can’t watch the Last Stop, or even before you do, watch the video “The Elan School: Death by Misinformation” (it has its own bullet point later, too). It’s shorter, and the creator does well in giving you information from The Last Stop in a less harrowing/triggering delivery format. The video highlights the cult history of the US rehab and residential treatment industries. Also, once again, fuck Nancy Reagan.

Wellness/Self-Help Cults, including Corporate Cult Seminars/Workshops:

“What is the Landmark Forum?” by iiluminaughtii. A 101 on the cult corporate seminar industry. Landmark is one of the most well-known examples of a corporate seminar/workshop cult.

The channel above goes over a *lot* of the self-help/wellness industry cult groups/businesses, including MLMs. I’d genre her videos as true crime, but the research is really solid, the presentation is respectful, and there’s a good balance of education and entertainment.

Also check out Lifespring and Large-Group Awareness Training (LGAT) seminars. These are 1000% endemic, and yes, they’re high control groups. Their seminar methods are all various implementations of abusive high control tactics. Not good :(

Cult Origins of and Ongoing Destructive Cult Presence in the Modern US Drug Rehabilitation, Residential Treatment, and Troubled Teen Industries (including the origins of anti-LGBTQ conversion therapy camps):

“Help at Any Cost” by Maia Szalavitz (can’t recommend enough)

“The Elan School: Death by Misinformation” by iiluminaughtii. Includes a good 101 background on the Synanon cult and est seminars as the origins of the methods and ideology behind the modern US rehab industry, including residential treatment for adults and minors with substance abuse or mental health issues.

“Running My Anger: The Legacy of the CEDU Cult” by Medium Anonymous

Article by the National Youth Rights Association

Current Survivor Activism: Breaking Code Silence; WWASP Survivors.

Some More Podcasts!:

Scientology: Fair Game Podcast with Leah Remini and Mike Rinder (they’re really fantastic)

Jon Atack, Family, and Friends Podcast

This is bullshit, and the reason budding authors are told this is so any book that gains any reach can be interpreted as the reader (or, better yet, as the monied classes) WANTS to interpret it. If the book never comes out and says what it means, then it can retroactively mean anything-- particularly after the author is dead.