May. 15th, 2015

silveradept: The emblem of Organization XIII from the Kingdom Hearts series of video games. (Organization XIII)
Good morning. I'm going to start with a post about stories with non-villainous dragons, which warms my heart completely. As do proper cards to be sending for serious illnesses, insects made from discarded circuit boards and components, and the incredible power of shared storytelling. (Or of universes that allow for infinite possibilities.)

Then there's sick systems that people set up to make sure their partners or employees stay with them forever. Which could sound suspiciously like many relationships that I see...or experience.

More on the Hugos and how the rabid faction took over and promoted fascism with their slate. On the other hand, on the matter of dogs, the groups claiming canid origins aren't really acting like dogs. For a palate cleanser, a review of the 1963 Hugo winner, that is basically unavailable, but sounds like an excellent book.

The strength of the cloister is that all tasks have time assigned and that all tasks will have to be done again, preventing stressing out at any one instance of the task. Which is great for those tasks that have to be done repeatedly. Not so good for the ones that are important but that only appear so often or only once.

In San Francisco, the Lexington Club, a bar that was for an explicitly lesbian and queer women crowd, closed after 20 years. And I feel, even just from an article, that a piece of the history of the city and the Mission neighborhood goes with it.

On the other end, the explicitly trans-exclusionary Michigan Womyn's Festival is closing after forty years.

The power of the Internet is that it permits people to get 101 educated on issues on their own time, instead of asking people who are having a more advanced discussion to teach them.

Teaching prosocial behavior to young children is tricky - assuming that the people teaching and parenting believe that children can learn to modify their behavior in the first place.

Fashion fails to fit, including things that are supposed to be designed for larger women.

if you ask them, sixty percent of people in the United States favor marriage equality. Which is something to take into account when the Supreme Court is required to make a decision about whether to allow equal marriage to continue. As one might guess, there are many stories to tell about the road to marriage equality. Some involve scarves.

Queensland, Australia no longer considers "gay panic" an acceptable partial defense against a murder charge after a Catholic priest led a campaign to have it removed - the priest saw firsthand the results of that defense and found it unconscionable.

The testimony of a guard at the infamous Auschwitz prison continued in conjunction with his trial for being an accessory to hundreds of thousands of deaths of the camp's prisoners.

Leak classified secrets as the CIA chief to your lover? Two years of probation. If you're a lower-level analyst and you expose atrocities and other illegal operations, though, you can expect a lot more jail time as well as being called a traitor.

The upshot of being called a traitor is that an appeals court rules that the bulk metadata collection program is not legal and the NSA's reading of the applicable law is wrong.

An appeals court overturned the obstruction of justice conviction for Barry Bonds, concluding that being rambling does not constitute obstruction.

Now that Hillary is running for President, the Clinton money trail is going to be very complicated to untangle. Including the millions of dollars given to the Clinton charities by foreign governments while she was the Secretary of State. That said, the book helpfully titled "Clinton Cash" is not likely to be authoritative, as its author has a history of bad research.

And there is a progressive challenger to the Clinton campaign now - Bernie Sanders will at least try to pull the centrist-conservative Clinton more toward the left if not mount a serious challenge to her.

Senator Warren expresses contempt for secret trade deals from her administration, while Senator Cruz expresses contempt for the democratic process in the District of Columbia. Which of these two Senators would you like as yours?

A proposed bill in Wisconsin would restrict two-thirds of food stamp money to items found on the official Women, Infants, and Children list, because it irritates a Republican that food stamps might actually be used for things life shellfish, and because Republicans delight in hurting and creating more obstacles for the poor, who they wish would either die or get properly hired as a servant for less than minimum wage. Minnesota looks well on their way to getting rid of any funding for helping the sick get healthy or insured. This is not only a bad idea, it's the underpinnings of how the privatized world sees health care for the poor, in their own country or in others - if you pay, you live, otherwise, die, even if your death will contribute to the sickness and death of others.

The election in the United Kingdom that put the Conservatives in power means the erosion of the social safety net already underway that has claimed several dozens of lives is likely to accelerate. Environmental issues like alternative power sources are likely to be put on the block as well. And the social ministers are on record as being hostile to the types of things they are supposed to be administering.

We do better in taking care of the emotional needs of people whose pets are dying or dead than we do those whose important people are.

Drone strikes have consequences - so why aren't we talking about them, or whether we use drones at all? Because we're too busy chasing conspiracies about the Army using war games as a cover for overthrowing the elected government of states. Which seems to share some mental states with estranged parents that never actually tell why they're estranged, despite having been told repeatedly what the problem is, instead insisting they are not at fault and nothing they did caused the rift.

Donald Trump has someone in his corner ready to be his superPAC of he should decide to seek a presidential nomination again.

Because of the lack of consequences for agents involved in sex and drug parties at the DEA, it should be no surprise that Congress lacks faith in the head of the DEA, who has subsequently resigned their post.

The management of Duke Energy repeatedly denied requests for inspection that would have prevented the fouling of a river with their chemical waste, we find, as they settle with the government over violations of the Clean Water Act.

Investigators are trying to piece together the cause of an Amtrak train that derailed after accelerating to twice the speed limit of a curve in Philadelphia, killing eight.

The person who consulted on what would become a lethal injection protocol adopted in all the states that have a death penalty said they did not anticipate unqualified people administering the injections and doesn't believe there is a more humane method of ending prisoner life.

The Baltimore Police think they have found a way, by beating a 25 year-old black man to death, visiting sufficient violence on him as to sever 80% of his spine. Baltimore has, predictably, reacted with demands for prosecution and accountability for the police, for a new reality to come into being. Charges have been brought against the officers involved. If you want to see what the reality of Baltimore is [personal profile] synecdochic knows. The real Baltimore is not the thing on the television machine, just like the real Ferguson wasn't. The real Baltimore hangs signs across from posh white clubs telling them that black lives matter.

Woe, says columnist, for men have no reason to get married anymore, and feminism is to blame by allowing men to get sex without marriage as well as the reduction of the man from respected provider to mere buffoon. In addition to the fundamental holes in the premise, marriage as described in the column sounds awful and nobody should want one like that. Besides, everyone knows that the cake bakers are the people whose endorsement you have to have.

Bullying by peers produces worse long-term mental health effects that being maltreated by an adult.

In science, Even if we could, it would probably be impractical and possibly unethical to bring back the mammoth. There are other species that would be better to being back from extinction that could have just as large an effect...but of course we like to believe big things are the right achievement.

Graphics cards are now a potential vector of attack for malware, now that we have enough experience programming them to do other things.

The reaction has mostly been snark.

If S.H.I.E.L.D. were really about the Logistics Division part, they'd have a network like these ones for shipping people and material around the world.

baby foxes in the backyard, bigger foxes in the Arctic, and learning what your cat commands with their communication.

A synaesthete paints songs in oils and acrylics. And someone else pants iconic characters with coffee.

Last for tonight, It doesn't surprise anyone that major fatigue accompanies autoimmune conditions. Additionally, self-care for depression is difficult because feelings of all sorts are tangled up in being depressed and safely surviving a depressive episode.

And
idiomatic language in other tongues.

We leave you with the musical abilities of Vienna Teng.

Profile

silveradept: A kodama with a trombone. The trombone is playing music, even though it is held in a rest position (Default)
Silver Adept

August 2025

S M T W T F S
     12
345678 9
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31      

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Sep. 3rd, 2025 04:10 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios