Think Of The Most Bicyclist Unfriendly Urban Section Of Road You Can. Somewhere That Even Your Most Enthusiastic

Genius.

:-)

i found a baby picture of my cat please please look at him i'm begging you

The late 2000s to mid 2010s had at least these achievements:

- the internet became less hostile to queer people existing

- the internet and society became more aware of (and less hostile to) trans people existing

- countries were at least discussing legalising same sex marriage

- tech and many hobbiest conferences and online communities started to embrace codes of conduct

- income and wealth inequality was a mainstream conversation

- racism and its harms was a mainstream conversation

- it still felt possible that we could avoid the worst of climate change

- there was movement against sexual harassment and assault in workplaces, there were cases against the churches and other institutions for the sexual abuse of children and other vulnerable people

- it felt like there was reason to be hopeful

None of these things were perfect. Homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and racism were still big problems, but the bigots were beginning to be careful about who heard them spout off.

Codes of conduct weren't (and aren't) always enforced and when they're enforced it isn't always to protect the vulnerable.

Then the wealthy fought back with Brexit, Trump's first term and the rise of authoritarianism across the globe. They forced inaction on climate change and suppressed worker wages. This took away a lot of the gains we had made. Now wealth inequality is even worse, and the richest man in the planet has bought the USA government.

am taking perverse pleasure in reminding people it's 2025. that's a star trek year. silly little science fiction number. except it's happening, and DANG ain't it underwhelming!

'Boeing’s aircraft is considered the most prominent private aircraft in the world, used by governments and dignitaries.'

Going after Boeing (which they should) would probably be considered political suicide, because of how hard untangling the US government from Boeing would be.

First sentence borrowed from https://monarchairgroup.com/private-jet-manufacturers/

Watch: Carl Sagan schooled B.o.B. on his flat Earth theory more than 30 years ago

Follow @the-future-now

I loved when Seth Myers went on his little "I've been calling them weird for years" rant (and he has). I was sad when after the first assassination attempt and the conventions the "weirdness" died out of the conversation. They ARE weird.

I am an autist who has been "weird" all my life (according to others and so myself), and who has proudly claimed "weird" as an okay state to be. I think how "weird" they are should be in the conversation.

Trump's folk are more than two standard deviations from the mean. For example, most of Trump's picks are billionaires. No matter where you sit on the political spectrum, no one thinks "the average person" is a billionaire.

I know we expect politicians and public servants in highly placed elected positions to be more wealthy than the people we know. Many of us know someone who is a public servant, some of us might know some local and localish politicians socially, and others might know people whose personal assets exceed $30M, but that's not the same with billionaires. 95+% of us can never expect to meet a billionaire outside of a concert or special event.

According to Wikipedia, the 2024 Forbes list, there are 2,781 billionaires in the world. A small town is generally defined as a population center with less than 10,000 people. You would need almost 4 times the total world population of billionaires to fill one small town, they aren't real common. The current world population is 8,194,270,656 as of Wednesday, December 18, 2024 according to the most recent United Nations estimates via Worldometer.

A cabinet with 8 billionaires is not normal, it's "weird". A political party who has openly discussed how they're going to exploit being in government to make themselves more money, is "weird" (in a really bad way).

So excellent choice of political word of the year.

1 word

I gotta know, "WHAT’S YOUR POLITICAL WORD OF THE YEAR?" WEIRD This word entered the headlines in July and became a “brat”-like summer phenomenon. #politics #news #culture #social

The New Republic

Trump Wants Snitches to Report on DEI. There’s Just One Problem.

Donald Trump wants people to expose diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the federal government. The idea is already flopping.

The threat was loud and clear: Report your so-called “DEI” employees or else. What exactly “DEIA or similar ideologies” means is up in the air, but the message was out there. And so was the email address of the DEIA snitching hotline. Fake emails quickly started to roll in. ‘I don’t care, fuck these McCarthyite bastards,” one BlueSky user said, with an screenshot attached of an email to the hotline where he ironically reported Donald Trump and JD Vance for being “put in their positions solely because of their race and/or gender despite the fact that they are wholly unqualified for their jobs and, in some cases, have criminal records.” “Anyone have a script to fire off a billion e-mails an hour??” another user asked in the replies. “Anyone can email anything of any size even if it crashes the site,” one X user noted. The scope and effectiveness of this latest phase of Trump’s anti-DEI crusade remains to be seen.

oiiiiiiiiiiiiii, calling for readers again

i have a novel i'd like to share with you guys, if you're interested.

i'm not calling this a beta readers request this time, because more than anything, i just need people who can read my gay little forced proximity romance, and just tell me if they think it's good.

don't need line edits, don't need grammar checks, just people reading the story like it's a book they picked up at barnes and noble.

and then telling me what you liked or didn't like. that's all.

so. here's the summary, and uh...if you're interested in checking it out, pls contact me!

here are the warnings first: graphic violence, child death (death of an infant), self-harm (because their powers are blood-based, and they need to self harm in order to use them), implied sexual assault/incest (not graphic), animal death (a lot of it), and oh yeah, sex scenes. this is an adult romantasy. adult.

and now here's the summary:

In a world ravaged by war between the old gods and the new, demigods sow chaos and discord wherever they go, destined to be either legendary heroes or fearsome villains. But Marrow is not like other demigods. They are the child of the god of blood and slaughter, born with only one purpose: to kill in their savage father’s name, and bleed the entire world dry. The one problem? 

The only living creature they want to kill is their father.

But Marrow has been imprisoned within their temple for their entire life, unable to realize that dream…until now. A deal with a devil allows them to escape, making their way into a hostile world they know little about- and matters are not helped by the fact that their father can use their eyes to see what they're seeing at any time. To keep him from seeing their location, Marrow must remained blindfolded. But Marrow, an eternal optimist, won’t let their lack of vision stop them from fulfilling their lifelong dream. 

The demigod hunter might, however. Arlo Ren is a member of the Razor Watch, a religious order dedicated to the goddess of the hunt. He is clever, but impulsive, eager to prove himself to his goddess by capturing powerful prey. Soon after meeting Marrow by chance, and discovering what they are, he sees his opportunity and refuses to let it go. Literally. The demigod hunter handcuffs the demigod to his side, and swears to sacrifice them in his god’s name. Luckily for him, Marrow is an inexperienced, blind pacifist, who needs him to guide them through a dangerous, unknown world. They fully intend to escape him eventually. But perhaps a demigod and a demigod hunter have more in common than they might think. Perhaps they might even need each other...but they will, at the very least, need to learn how to live, work, and fight together as they are relentlessly chased by Marrow’s powerful demigod siblings, all hoping to kill their youngest sibling and please the god they abandoned. 

And that's all folks!

Pls let me know if you'd be interested, and I'll reach out!

It really did.