The world doesn't see the Electoral College. The world doesn't see the nearly 3 million more popular votes. What the world sees is a nation of hate, bigotry, xenophobia, stupidity, and christian superstition." ~ Chucktech
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Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." ~ George Orwell
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I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain." ~ Roy Batty, Blade Runner
That quote pretty much sums up my feelings about the state of the world right now. We've reached such incredible levels of technology, and through science our understanding of the Universe is expanding expotentially. We're seeing things that have never been seen by human eyes before, and as we stand on the brink of actually leaving our cradle, we're also on the brink of torching it and sending civilization back to the stone age. Deep down, it seems so very many members of our species are still nothing more than unthinking savages, fueled by hate, terrified of change, frightened of "the other" in whatever form that takes—and determined to destroy it no matter what the cost.
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Exactly.
It's hard not to feel a bit hopeless right now. Many of the things I've focused on in the last few years now feel trivial, or badly broken, in the wake of last week's election." ~ Andy Baio
On Blogging
There a few reasons why I'm sad about the decline of independent blogs, and why I think they're still worth fighting for.
Ultimately, it comes down to two things: ownership and control.
Here, I control my words. Nobody can shut this site down, run annoying ads on it, or sell it to a phone company. Nobody can tell me what I can or can't say, and I have complete control over the way it's displayed. Nobody except me can change the URL structure, breaking 14 years of links to content on the web." ~ Andy Baio
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Sometimes I wish I wasn't as conscious as I am. It would be so much easier." ~ River Phoenix
Timely
Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
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I am no longer accepting things I cannot change. I am changing things I cannot accept. ~ Angela Davis.
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Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn't be here if stars hadn't exploded, because the elements—the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life—weren't created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today." ~ Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing
Preach, Sister!
I think what's beautiful and hard and interesting about cancer is that it tears you down and builds you, and tears you down and builds you. It remakes you so many different times. The person I thought I was supposed to be or was going to be or who I thought I was six months ago is now somebody completely different." ~ Shannen Doherty
This is so true.
And for an Obligatory DUNE Reference…
Trump is an evil Kwisatz Haderach come early, à la Paul Atreides, and out of control of his would be creators." ~ Paul Weimer
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The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you." ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson
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The loss of a friend is like that of a limb; time may heal the anguish of the wound, but the loss cannot be repaired." ~ Robert Southey
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He has no clue about the difference between negotiating a business deal and negotiating with sovereign nations. A thin-skinned, temperamental, shoot-from-the-hip and lip, uninformed commander-in-chief is too great a risk for America…He is unqualified and unfit to be commander-in-chief." ~ Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking about Donald the Cheeto-faced Shitgibbon in a Wall Street op-ed, Friday 16 September 2016.
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One other thing I'd like to remind people is that the next president could nominate up to four Supreme Court Justices. I know that's not a sexy issue and it doesn't tend to dominate the headlines, but it really, really should. Whatever issues you're passionate about (voting rights, access to abortion, campaign finance, health care, etc.) the Supreme Court wreaks massive influence on them all. The Court is composed of a mere (usually) nine people who together decide things like whether you should be able to vote in Alabama if you're black or if you should have to drive 300 miles to get an abortion if you've been raped. So in the coming weeks and months you have to decide if you'd like Hillary Clinton to nominate the people who make those decisions for you or if you'd prefer Donald Trump to do that. To illustrate, Donald Trump could substantively influence critical decisions your granddaughter has to make about her reproductive health care, long after you're dead. And that's not a silly thought exercise, that's an elementary understanding of how the Supreme Court, whose Justices are appointed for life, shapes American lives through law." ~ Rob Delaney
You Call Me A Liberal?
Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Voting Rights Act, liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed every one of these programs. Every one. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'liberal' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work. Because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor." ~ Congressman Santos, The West Wing, 2005
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In life, Captain Humayun Saqib Muazzam Khan made the ultimate sacrifice to save his fellow soldiers. In death, he may have saved a country." ~Brillion Lynch
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"It turns out that no one can imagine what's really coming in our lives. We can plan, and do what we enjoy, but we can't expect our plans to work out. Some of them might, while most probably won't. Inventions and ideas will appear, and events will occur, that we could never foresee. That's neither bad nor good, but it is real." ~ Derek K. Miller
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Democrats want the government to provide health care to every American and make a public college education much more affordable.
Republicans want to control the private sexual lives of every American and treat women like walking incubators.
So don't tell me 'There's no difference between the two parties.'" ~ Allen Clifton
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…the Supreme Court hangs in the balance; the relationship between the states and federal government hangs in the balance; and our relationship with our allies hangs in the balance. All of these things are at stake and the party that fancies itself as the grown up party has handed itself over to a huckster with a cult of ill behaved children." ~ #NeverTrump leader Erick Erickson, writing for The Resurgent.
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Donald Trump is a bigoted, racist, misogynistic bully and creep who makes fun of war heroes and the disabled. If we don't stop him, we deserve him." ~ Cher
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The Democrats are fighting over two amazingly qualified candidates. The Republicans are deciding which live bug they'd rather eat." ~ Patton Oswald
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THIS.
As some of you may know, I live in North Carolina. This bill is a travesty. It not only denies protection by the state, it legally strips away all local laws created to protect and assist LGBT (particularly trans) citizens. If you follow me on twitter, I made it very clear how unacceptable this is to me.
North Carolina voted Barack Obama into office and elected a female governor and senator from the democratic party eight years ago and since then the Republican party has gerrymandered districts, passed a law requiring state id's to vote, and passed every anti LGBT bill that's come across their desks.
It's time to fight back. If you are not a bigot, you have eight months to get your state id and voter registration sorted out, because no single person who voted for this bill should be allowed to keep their seat.
Let me make a few things very clear:
If you do not vote in this election in North Carolina, you are implicated in the ruining of the lives of LGBT people. You are a party to the discrimination against and assaults on trans people in NC. You are the one holding the gun.
And if you decide not to show up at the election because you are unhappy with the democratic presidential candidate that the DNC chooses, you are guilty of bigotry and hypocrisy. I know there are some of you out there that are very salty that it looks like Hillary is going to win and I'm no huge Hillary fan, but if you've been telling every person you meet about how Bernie Sanders supports the LGBT community and you don't show up to support the LGBT community, you are a hypocrite." ~ Princeless
This law was pushed through in an "emergency" session yesterday because the city of Charlotte, NC passed local ordinances supporting trans and LBGT+ rights.
This law was introduced, voted on, and passed in 12 hours in direct response to the largest city in North Carolina wanting to do right by its community.
"Bathroom defense" is bullshit. There have been no reported incidents of assault being perpetrated on women in restrooms by trans men ever. The more I read, the more infuriated I become, and at this point I'm convinced that—as usual—the republicans are projecting again. Projecting about sex in bathrooms? Yes. Because I would venture to say that a vast majority of those fucksticks know all about bathroom sex, and it doesn't involve women at all.
Vote. In. Your. Goddamn. Local. Elections.
Thankfully major corporations who are on the side of equality are speaking up. Can Atlanta really afford to lose Coca Cola or The Walking Dead?
What these sad "religious liberty" laws are pointing out more than anything else—much like what happened with marriage equality itself—is the need for Federal LGBT protections—and ironically that may be the unintended consequence that comes from all this, proving if nothing else that the Christianists' invisible friend in the sky has one wicked sense of humor.
And speaking of unintended consequences…
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Donald Trump is a carnival man, an entertainer, a buffoon. His fans are white, scared, and angry. He will never be elected—not so long as minorities, liberals and educated people vote, but he has certainly exposed the ugly underbelly of conservatives in America today." ~ Stephen King, author
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There have always been 'warrant-proof places' containing information inaccessible to law enforcement: our minds. I support the right to use unbreakable encryption for the same reason I support Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights, especially the right to remain silent." ~ John Gruber in response to James Comey's comments at yesterday's Congressional Hearing
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"One day, someone will walk into your life and make you see why it never worked out with anyone else…" ~ Fernando Müggenburg
Amen to that, Fernando. I'm here to witness.
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You can't communicate with people who think they've got all the answers." ~ Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials, on discussing issues with religious fundamentalists.
Remembering Phoenix
After we had gotten, in disco parlance, 'sufficiently cocktailed,' we'd head way downtown to the trashy gay nightclubs, places with names like Bullwinkle, Hotbods Desert Dance Palace, and our favorite, Sammy's Steak House—a sleazy toilet that served neither steak nor any other kind of meal. The gay clubs played the best music—a combination of hardcore disco (Lime, Sylvester, The Twins) and dance-punk (New Order, The B-52s, The Thompson Twins) that drove us mad with pleasure. Here, in the 'bad part of town' at 2 in the morning, freaking out to DJ Hubert's obscure Eurotrash mixes, we could forget the suburban strip-mall jobs and junior-college grind that awaited us on Monday. And Tuesday. And, we feared, forever." ~ Robrt Pela
(I knew Hubert, although not well—and didn't particularly like him. My most vivid memory of the guy—and one of the main reasons I didn't care to be around him—was how from his perch in the DJ booth at HisCo. Disco about six feet above the dance floor and very near the club's entrance, he'd lean over the glass divider and yell "Uterus!" at the female patrons walking in.)