Re: Return of the Rants

[Enail]

Fuck Ontario.

[Datelessman]

Fuck Ontario.

I assume this is about the recent elections, or something else?

I apologize in advance if I sound ignorant. As a typical misinformed American, most of what I know about Canada I learned from comic books focusing around Wolverine, as well as knowing the fact that about a third of all anime and cartoons are voiced there.

[Enail]

Yep, elections, you are clearly impeccably informed!

[Datelessman]

Mark today as the day that women's rights died in the U.S. As has been predicted for months due to the leak, the SCOTUS has overturned Roe v. Wade by a 6-3 conservative decision; 3 of those Trump appointees (one of whom was kept warm for him by Moscow Mitch during the final year of Obama's administration). It is the first time the SCOTUS has cast a decision which took away an already established American right since the end of the 19th century -- when the SCOTUS voted for segregation, basically. We all knew it was coming, but it is still disgusting that we are here. All of those Trump appointees, of course, claimed under oath in Congress that Roe was "settled law."

To this day, the circumstances behind former Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement (he was replaced by Matt "Beer Bong/Date Rapist" Kavanaugh) remain murky. Thomas' son worked for Deutsche Bank for a decade and loaned then-citizen Trump billions when other banks knew he was a grifter and wouldn't give him a penny. In 2018, Kennedy was 80-81; which is old for us civilians but for Supreme Court justices is usually still workable provided they are in good health. The bottom line is there was no real reason for Kennedy to retire; he easily could have held on longer. But that might have risked a Democratic appointment if Trump lost in 2020, and Kennedy probably wasn't extreme enough for the GOP at the time. There has always been suspicion that it involved his son and those loans, but to this day it is a mystery.

Even worse, the conservative judges (Justice Thomas in particular) made it quite obvious their aim is now on other former SCOTUS cases, such as undoing the right to contraception (even for MARRIED COUPLES), sex within the same gender, and same sex marriages. Just yesterday, the Far Right Leaning SCOTUS struck down New York's strict gun-carrying permit laws, ensuring more Uvaldes happen in blue states. And not long before that, this SCOTUS ruled that, essentially, innocence was not a valid reason to appeal or overturn a death sentence conviction. And about 2 weeks ago, the right-wing SCOTUS ruled that anyone living 100 miles from a border -- by coincidence, almost everyone in blue states -- no longer have Fourth Amendment protections. It is the worst fear of progressives. And the steps to correct this are few and complicated. Democrats would have to, essentially, win the next 3 election cycles in a row by wide margins to even hope at having a filibuster-proof majority in Congress as they briefly had in 2009-2010 for Obama's first year. And retain the White House, of course. And be more progressive than during the Obama days with expanding the court and codifying a variety of rights into law, and even managing the SCOTUS (i.e. such as demanding that justices on the Supreme Court comply with the same ethical standards as federal judges to avoid conflicts of interest; to this day they don't have to and much of what SCOTUS does or how they rule remain cloaked in mysteries perpetuated by cowardice and tradition).

22 states already have laws ready to ban abortions ready to go. It is a grim, dark day for America. Canada is genuinely worried that America will slip into full on fascism and their borders will be swamped with refugees. They are wise for being worried.

[Enail]

We're not worried about refugees so much as becoming a target ourselves, either just for general expansionism or for our water as climate change makes that more needed. And about the way the winds in the US tend to influence the winds here.

[Datelessman]

We're not worried about refugees so much as becoming a target ourselves, either just for general expansionism or for our water as climate change makes that more needed. And about the way the winds in the US tend to influence the winds here.

That's true, especially with the trucker convoy "protest" that cropped up months ago.

Apparently, major companies/studios like Amazon, Netflix, Comcast, Sony, Warner Brothers and Disney are willing to pay for employees to travel to blue states to get abortions. While that's a nice gesture, it further divides people and a better strategy would be committing to helping Democrats win federal elections and funding a progressive news station to compete with Fox News (and especially competing with right-wing hate radio). I'd love to be in a country with a real democracy and not a plutocracy where the only hope against one giant monster is another giant monster, but here we are.

The end of Roe is really the end of even the pretense for democratic rule here. Out of the 6 justices voting to repeal it, only one (Clarence Thomas) was appointed by a President who won the popular vote (and that was George H.W. Bush, who had been Reagan's VP for 8 years and was therefore initially put into the White House in 1980 via committing treason with Iran much like Ronnie was). A majority of voters, including Republicans, do not want federal abortion rights to end. Heck, this directly effects women, and women outnumber men in the U.S. by at least 8 million (a larger population than at least 3-4 states combined). It is the first salvo of minority rule by a deranged elite. And it won't be the last.

[Hielario]

If nothing else, it's great to see you're still capable of caring about it.

(I'm fighting some really dark thoughts, myself. I'll be 30 in two months and my life is nowhere near where it should be).

[Enail]

Hope you feel better soon, Hielario. Lives rarely follow the paths they 'should,' but things can keep changing for the better.

[Glides]

white christofascism has been the enemy of humanity and life for centuries now, and the battle to break and shatter it for the sake of humanity's future will go on. i'm not sure how to help. my ex called this morning sobbing at the top of their lungs and could i really blame them? my parents called and they're scared too and they're just a skip and a hop from being republicans themselves. this feels like a calamity far beyond 9/11 or covid or the 2000 and 2016 elections or whatever else. this is an atrocity for the ages. it will have to be fought and the uteruses of our nation have to be protected for the sake of this species' future.

protect the uterus. that's all i got. protect the uterus. fuck the supreme court. fuck america. may goodness win, may plurality win, and may the american evangelical never hold power again in our lifetimes. may we nuremberg trial every last one of these forced birther ghouls when this is all said and done. may we have restitution for their sadistic death cult.

[Datelessman]

If nothing else, it's great to see you're still capable of caring about it.

(I'm fighting some really dark thoughts, myself. I'll be 30 in two months and my life is nowhere near where it should be).

As someone who just turned 40, I can relate. Dealing with dark thoughts can be rough. I hope things improve in your life sooner rather than later.

And of course I am capable of caring about it. I was raised by a single mother; have many friends who are women; care quite a bit about the health and wellbeing of women; and am not a domineering bully nor a religious extremist (or religious in any way). Pretty much from when I was a child and first understood "the birds and the bees" to now, my opinion is the same; her body, her choice. Period.

white christofascism has been the enemy of humanity and life for centuries now, and the battle to break and shatter it for the sake of humanity's future will go on. i'm not sure how to help. my ex called this morning sobbing at the top of their lungs and could i really blame them? my parents called and they're scared too and they're just a skip and a hop from being republicans themselves. this feels like a calamity far beyond 9/11 or covid or the 2000 and 2016 elections or whatever else. this is an atrocity for the ages. it will have to be fought and the uteruses of our nation have to be protected for the sake of this species' future.

protect the uterus. that's all i got. protect the uterus. fuck the supreme court. fuck america. may goodness win, may plurality win, and may the american evangelical never hold power again in our lifetimes. may we nuremberg trial every last one of these forced birther ghouls when this is all said and done. may we have restitution for their sadistic death cult.

I have to say I agree with the sentiment.

[Hielario]

Last month I refused my mom's offer of making me an amazing-looking modern style kilt with a pattern she found online. Do you know why? Because I'm worried I'l kick open the skull of the third or fourth bitch who thinks lifting it would be funny.

[Glides]

not me getting into an argument with someone at an organization i volunteer at because they're so visibly uncomfortable about partnering with queer orgs in my city. and then we wonder why fascism's rise hasn't slowed down.

[Datelessman]

So the Canadian Wildfires have reached a point where the smoke from them have reached New York. Last night it was so thick that visibility was down to a half or quarter mile, and it smelled of burnt wood. As I type this, the orange afternoon haze is akin to some post-apocalypse movie.

When I did my rewatch of CAPTAIN PLANET (see: Entertainment Joys), I did so partly because I was curious how it would view now that a lot of the outcomes due to pollution that it warned about (albeit often in awkward, simplistic, hypocritical, or bombastic ways) have actually come to pass. And the irony is that it is the fault of "eco-villains," just not ones with obviously evil names like Looten Plunder or Hoggish Greedly, but Darren Woods (current CEO of ExxonMobil), Rupert Murdoch (owner of Fox News), Charles Koch (owner of the Republican Party) or Harlan Crow (owner of the Supreme Court).

What is especially galling is watching everyone in the "mainstream media" correctly attributing the Canadian wildfires (or Californian wildfires) as a direct result of climate change, yet failing to mention that there is only one political party in the developed world that denies that climate change is real, and that is the Republican Party. Wholly owned by fossil fuel corporations, they've done everything in their power to service them, even (arguably) committing treason to ensure that Jimmy Carter lost his re-election bid of 1980 (via the Reagan campaign making a deal with the Iranian hostage takers, which came out during the Iran-Contra Scandal which was buried via pardons and the collective amnesia of Americans) so that his "clean energy agenda" would never come to pass (and at best is nearly a half century behind schedule).

There's a reason why idle billionaires are either buying up city sized "apocalypse bunkers" or experimenting in space travel, and it's not because they love the Walking Dead or Star Trek. And it is hard to deny when the skies outside the window are as orange as during a Godzilla movie.

The sad thing of it is, the media are owned by billionaires who don't want to call out their friends, yet in the end, most of them will die in a dead planet, too. When humanity finally does itself in and alien explorers start picking at our fossils, they will find human skeletons clutching dollar bills.

Aside for that, my day's going alright, actually.

[Werel]

“The earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses.”

Stay safe, Datelessman. I hope you and everyone else on the east coast have a good stock of N95s. It really does help to have fans blowing towards wet towels in an enclosed space if you don’t have an air purifier, and drinking a lot of water (more than you think you need) will relieve the headaches and nausea a little.

[Datelessman]

“The earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses.”

Stay safe, Datelessman. I hope you and everyone else on the east coast have a good stock of N95s. It really does help to have fans blowing towards wet towels in an enclosed space if you don’t have an air purifier, and drinking a lot of water (more than you think you need) will relieve the headaches and nausea a little.

Thank you. Luckily, I still have plenty of masks and I actually have never stopped wearing them after I leave the house since mid-2020. My mother has cancer so we both have to be extra cautious. Technically, my mother contracted Covid-19 while recovering from surgery in early 2022 at a nursing home, but we both know it isn't like chicken pox and you can get it many times, even if you're vaccinated. But, yes, I have masks and I was thankfully working indoors during the worst of the "orange skies."

The air quality has improved in NY since (or at least gone back to usual polluted levels), but it really should be a wake up call for folks. It won't be, though.

[Werel]

Even when breakups are for the best, handled with love and grace, you still love the person very much, and you’re gonna be friends in a while, they really, really hurt. Maybe especially then.

[Enail]

Aw, I'm really sorry about your breakup Werel. Many Jedi hugs.

[Glides]

so this maybe isn't a surprising story but i'm still absolutely furious at the unfairness of it all.

context: i have been unemployed for a week now and my contract just ran out. that being said, about two weeks before my contract ended, my work paid for my plane ticket and hotel room to a work retreat in Virginia where all staff members throughout the country would meet.

whole thing got overrun with smog from the Canadian wildfires and that was an entire mess. what was not known then and is known now is a brief mention of a vote by the board for the next year's budget. this got a respectful round of applause from the entire audience.

many of whom no longer have jobs.

that's right. as of yesterday, with no warning or notice, the nonprofit has abruptly cut a whole bunch of jobs, giving people only till the end of the day to settle their affairs before every one of their work accounts are shut down at 5 PM. Some are people who have been there since the company began. Many are actually really high up. The most popular person to go was the director of my entire department, who was absolutely beloved and would work herself ragged to help any of us on a moment's notice. I was able to get an extra several thousand dollars over the course of two years because of her working her ass off to make sure i could pay my bills. That's the kind of person she is. She just had a child and they basically kicked her out for no reason.

And then it was leaked that the very vote we were told about at the retreat, the one the laid off people clapped for, was the result of the nonprofit being almost a million dollars overbudget without explaining why. Perhaps the massively expensive and pointless work retreats contributed to this? It also had a bunch of funding pulled by donors for reasons nobody knows, and the day before the retreat started, an email went out announcing that the entire nonprofit was planning to unionize. I'm not eligible for it, but the prospective union let me sit in on their first meeting as a sort of final goodbye present, which was v nice of them.

Everyone is understandably furious. That the entire board of directors and higher ups could look these people in the eyes with no guilt, pay for hotel rooms and plane tickets, and then destroy their livelihoods with no advance notice is really just the peak of what a disgusting, evil vile thing capitalism is. I'm ashamed I ever got involved, though at least my conscience is clear-ish considering none of this was up to me and I was already walking out the door (for a host of mostly unrelated but shitty reasons).

I plan to be publicly talking as much shit as I possibly can in person if it ever comes up. I have directly told the former coworkers I still know that I plan to do this. I'm not delusional enough to ever think I could make this nonprofit shut down on its own, but I sure as hell will do my part. I've encouraged everyone who has stayed to join the union out of spite. This is about as combative as I have ever been about something, as a person long famous for never picking fights in reality and always picking them online. I have basically told every person I know who has any connection what has happened so they know to end their partnerships with them if they can. It's the very least I can do. I don't think I have ever been this righteously mad in my entire life.

[Enail]

Wow, that's horrible! I'm strongly in favour of this plan of spite-unionizing, that's an excellent response!

[Glides]

because everything else had to happen today, one of my exes abruptly asked me if we could carpool to an event we were both going to. i said yes. we went, it was kinda overstimulating and we didn't talk much during the event. we went back and they needed to take their binder off. i think they made a couple comments hinting that they wanted to hook up but i didn't go for it, my apartment is a mess and i just felt like shit would get weird if anything happened.

they left. that's it. i wish i was over them. they were probably one of the nicest overall. i really fell hard for them and i'm still not over them. and i think they know and they don't really know what to do about it. i tried dating other people, they keep trying to set up dates and then cancel. but also there's enough hurt between us that i don't think we'll ever get to the point past just being really awkward around each other.

romantic love is hell on earth. i wish it never existed.

[Werel]

Is that whole "it takes as long to get over someone as you were together" thing true? Do I really have to be sad for another three and a half years? I don't want to. I have enough work shit due today, and "sit there snotty-crying because something reminded you" is not on my task list.

[Enail]

Lots of Jedi hugs, Werel. I hope it eases much sooner.

[Datelessman]

I am so sorry about all that, Glides.

[Hielario]

So this year's first week has taken a turn for the worse and I'm just running in circles at this point.
New Year's Eve was pretty great since I managed to go see the fireworks with some girls from the job and even got the number of one who I fancied, on top of the group "leader"'s. But I spent a few days recovering from all the physical effort and stress since the aglomerations that night were insane, I had to go/return on foot (transportation was cut, police had gone overboard) and in spite of my best efforts to return early because I had to work, I still got very little sleep.

So, between that and my allergy exploding thanks to freak weather, i spent a couple days KO. And in Thursday, just when I was finally getting better and thinking of trying to meet them again, BAM! I discover I have crabs, probably from one of the two guys I banged last month. And everybody I've consulted (including my old doc) is saying that I should shave  everything down there, so it's going to be extremely obvious for a while even after they die. So instead of being a little lost about what should I do about this girl, I am a lot: Do I avoid physical advances? Should I try to not get too close? If I don't call her until I heal, will that kill any chances? Intellectually I know that anything beyond a hug is very unlikely, but I still have to tell that to my nerves. (And I dread how it's going to look and feel after I shave my body, I used to hate how I looked like a sexless blob in my teens). 

Second, I was just in the middle of negotiating switching free days with a coworker so I could go to the local monthly RPG meetup (I'm fucking sick of missing them every month because they keep scheduling me on those exact saturdays) when I got the message that my political party is making a huge event that same day and needs as many people as they can come. Now I'm torn between my intense craving for trpgs that I can't satisfy in other ways(and having some semblance of social life outside of work or the party) and wanting to help as much as I can at the party now that they're ramping up for the coming elections (plus getting to do some non-lonely tourism since it's at another city). And it's very doubtful that I'd get to do both since the party one requires several hours of bus to go and return, so I can't do that either!

Oh! And third! It turns out the reason why I haven't heard anything in weeks from the guy who was handling my department change request at work was that when he wrote "please answer my email from yesterday or i'll have to close the procedure", instead of "please answer as soon as you can because we need to finish soon" he apparently meant "answer right this fucking instant today or I'll assume you somehow have stopped caring about your own request without even asking and throw the whole file to the rubbish". How the fuck was I supposed to know I was on a fixed time limit if he wasn't telling me?? And to add insult to the injury, I  haven't gotten to know anything about it until my supervisors started poking and prodding him because he didn't bother to answer the email I had sent the immediately following day (when I'm supposed to not even look at my phone during work hours, much less check my emails), or any of the further messages I sent him!! Even my supervisors, who basically pushed me into the whole mess, are on my side on this! Can you imagine how much does someone have to fuck up for that to happen!? I'm supposed to be out of this dept. in a week and now I don't even know where the fuck I'm going. Or when!!

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