You might think that I’m joking when I say that we need cyborg rights to be codified into law, but I honestly think that, given the pace of development of medical implants and the rights issues raised by having proprietary technologies becoming part of a human body, I think that this is absolutely essential for bodily autonomy, disability rights, and human rights more generally. This has already become an issue, and it will only become a larger issue moving forwards.
Come Back... Be Here
Pairing: single dad hotch x single mom reader
Category: 18+
Summary: Readers husband died in a plane crash, leaving her with one baby while pregnant with another, and a crazy amount of debt. Scared she'll have to sell the only home she's ever known, her friend Emily, informs her that her boss is looking for a babysitter for his son.
Warnings: minor character deaths mentioned (their spouses), mutual pining, smut, car sex, drinking,
Word count: 7k
a/n: this is for @reidslibrarybook's 1k celebration using the cards Ballroom (season 6), Golden pen (drunken confession) and Hotch Prompt 2 "one is never enough" as well as @samuel-de-champagne-problems's Taylor Swift themed fic fest with my interpretation of the song "come back... be here"
She couldn’t help her knee from bouncing as she sat in the waiting room with her two children, watching men in suits pass by with files in their hands and stern looks on their faces. Some waved to her oldest daughter, some of the office ladies stopped to look in her stroller at the sleeping 9 month-old, all peaceful little distractions from the anxiety building in her stomach.
She hasn’t been inside a government facility since she was briefed after her husband's death.
the problem in russia's case, is that the people of russia were looking forward to wars. putin gave russian people a leadership to rally around.
the moral of the story is, democracy does not fall on your lap with you sitting by the sideline.
he like many others are still kind and politically correct about russians. i'll be blunt, russians historically had an expansionist ideology going back all the way to peter the great. and then regrettably, russia married germany somewhere along the line figuratively speaking. so, it's a bit misleading to only mention the pact as evidence of secret arrangement between germany and russia but ignoring the fact that russia had always been fighting expansion wars in the past 300 years.
i supposed historians could trace back older than 300 years, but the point is that the pattern of russian expansionism is consistent in the last 300 years.
The enternal inner conflict between loving babyfics and kidfics, and knowing your ship would be terrible parents. 😔
Logical brain: "these characters would realistically be bad parents"
Simple shipper brain: "but what if,,,, this mean nasty bastard man who's never shown genuine unrepressed care and affection in his life was really soft and gentle with small children? what if this irresponsible reckless free spirit was actually really good at keeping an infant alive? what if this literal murderer doted on their babies and would do anything to keep them safe?? what then???"
If canon sequels can make characters be irrationally bad parents against all previous characterization, then you can damn well fanfic your blorbos into top-tier parents
This is so true, and so motivational, thank you. 💕
Vice President Harris matched the record for most tie breaking votes in the U.S. Senate with her 31st vote—the only vice president to cast that many was John C. Calhoun, who served as vice president from 1825 to 1832.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
How to see through the greenwashing propaganda of the fashion industry - Part 1
In the light of the Shein brand trip nonsense, I was thinking about how literally every clothing company now engages in greenwashing, even when it's such obvious lie like with Shein. And while most people are not fooled in such blatant cases like that, most cases are not as blatant. To see through the less obvious propaganda often needs a lot of knowledge of the clothing industry, which the average person doesn't have, yet the average person still needs clothing. So instead of trying to expose every company for their bad practices, I thought it might be more helpful to make a post on how to detect greenwashing. I'm going to use four examples, all in the different levels of honesty and responsibility, Shein, H&M, Burberry and Tentree. First I will go into frankly unnecessary amount of detail on Shein, because I fell into a horrifyingly fascinating research rabbit hole and I think it's excellent example on how companies can get away with blatant crimes (allegedly of course). In this first part we will just look into Shien, it's propaganda and reality behind it.
But before I go deeper into this, I want to stress one thing: this is not to say that you can never buy from any brand engaging in dishonest greenwashing, because then you couldn't buy almost any clothing, and you do need clothing. Though I will say, please don't buy from Shein if you in any way can afford not to. There is levels of how bad business practices can be, and they can't be much worse than Shein's, and even beside that, even when super cheep, it's not worth your money. There are other cheep options too. Though I won't hold it against anyone if they buy individual pieces from Shein from time to time, but I would implore at least to considerate, if they really need it and if it might be possible to get something similar from somewhere else. But my point in this is not necessarily to help you make better consumer decisions, because consumption will not save us, but to see through the corporate propaganda and not become complaisant after hearing comforting lies. The corporations are doing everything they can to make you believe they are already fixing the problems within the industry and there's no need for government intervention pinky promise, just keep consuming. But that's all bullshit and government intervention is exactly what is needed.
Before taking a look at our cases, I'll outline the key things I think are good to look for, when presented with sustainability PR.
TRANSPARENCY - Companies are not required to publish much of the information about their practices, but as it has become clear to everyone that the whole fashion industry is a massive problem, opacity has become rightly seen as suspicious. It has become also a sort of marketing method to disclose any evidence of good practices, so when a company is not doing that, and missing out on well working marketing, it raises the question, what are they hiding. Companies may try to give the appearance of transparency, without actually disclosing information. They might write in an easily accessible page about all their lofty goals, promises and achievements in a very vague language, they might talk about being transparent and publishing their data, but that data might be buried somewhere, where it's not easily accessible. Good sign on the other hand would be for example providing supply chain information for a product in the product description.
RELIABLE INFORMATION - Usually it's safer for a company to be vague or silent than to lie, because that might lead to legal consequences, but by cherry-picking and subtly twisting data, it can be turned to be flattering for them. Small companies might provide raw evidence of their facilities and supply chain, like photos, locations, contractor names etc. to give proof for their word. For bigger companies this is not of course possible as their supply chains might be massive and they might have thousands of facilities. However, there are many different independent and governmental organizations that give different kinds of certifications. The certifications are meant to give some reassurance of quality and/or accurate information. However not all certifications are made equal. Most reliable certifications don't have ties to the industry (aka are actually independent, not just in name), have governmental oversight and are given access to the data, from which they do the research themselves.
SUPPLY CHAIN - Giving the origin country of the final product is nowadays standard information to give, as it's required by law for example in EU. It's a red flag, if it's produced in a country, that has lacking environmental or labour laws, poor oversight and/or little protections for people. However, this does not mean that all production in those countries is unethical or questionable, but the risk for that is higher and the need for evidence of the working conditions is also higher. This is however just one part of the production. Before clothing can be sewn, the raw material for fiber must be made/acquired, that material must be turned into fiber, which must be turned into yarn and then the yarn must be woven into fabric. All of these steps in the process need workers, who deserve good working conditions. And depending on what fabric is in question, there's potential for major environmental issues in the different processes. This is why it's important to know more than just the country where the clothing was sewn. There could be certification for ethical sourcing of the fabric for example. With supply chain it's also better if the materials are sourced as locally as possible, to avoid a lot of extra carbon emissions from transportation. Best case scenario would be if the company manages the supply chain themselves locally, so they can know for sure where their materials come from and also avoid middlemen.
BUSINESS MODEL - The reason why it's often so hard to get information on the supply chain is that many companies, especially the large ones, outsource as much as possible. This might seem unintuitive, as the middlemen make production less efficient and costly as everyone takes a cut. However, they do it to outsource risks and responsibility. They don't have to invest into factories or raw material production and they have plausible deniability, if and when there's issues in their supply chain. The complexity of the supply chain provides opacity that is impossible and unreasonable to monitor, which allows the company to buy materials that are unreasonably cheep, while feigning ignorance of worker exploitation. How much the clothing cost can also give some idea on their business model. If it's super cheep, the only way for it to be that cheep is if workers are not payed enough and everything is poorly made. Cheep is always a red flag, though, if it's fairly cheep and I mean basic clothing is not much more than 100 eur (little more in USDs) but not much less than 50 eur, it can be okay or even good quality and with proper pay for workers, if the company doesn't take massive margins and don't have a ton of middlemen in their supply chain. However, expensive is not insurance of quality or good pay for workers. Many expensive brands take massive margins while their production has little difference to fast fashion and their products are poor quality.
CASE STUDY 1: Shein
missing my #1 oldtown hater queen
Reblog if you understand and have felt the pain of your glasses never being clean no matter how many times you wipe them
With NASA announcing their streaming service NASA+ and also announcing it’s going to be free and also ad free, I’d just like to appreciate the lengths they go to make scientific knowledge and exploration as available as they possibly can.
There's more info at this link. Gosh I'm excited about this.
put your number (0-20) in the tags!!!!!! i think i got 14!!
anyone who comments that finding ways to enjoy the brief time we have on this bitch of an earth is cringey will be blocked ^_^ <3
Science fiction is full of first contact stories, but is there a such thing as LAST contact? Decide exactly what that means, and write about it.
It was too late, when the humans came. They were a young species, still exploring outwards, vital and thriving.
We… were not.
War had ravaged us, and sickness, and war once again, until our population dwindled beyond the point of recovery. We struggled against that, of course… we used genetic manipulation, and cloning, and even more desperate measures. None succeeded. When the humans came, we were sinking into apathy, only a few tens of us left. We had begun to discuss whether we should commit a mass suicide, or simply wait to fade away.
And then the young species came, in their clumsy ships, and they asked us why we were so few.
“We are becoming extinct,” we told them. “We have passed the point of recovery.”
It is custom to avoid the races that are dying – once a species reaches the point of inevitable extinction, even war is suspended, and the fiercest enemy pulls back. The custom was born of plagues and poisons that could be carried forth from a dying world to afflict a healthy one, but it has the implacable weight of tradition now. After we are gone, after they have waited for the prescribed period of quarantine, there will be a fight for our world. Habitable worlds are few, and this is a good one, with plenty of free groundwater and thriving vegetation. It is a bitter thing to be grateful for the custom that allows us to die in peace, but we are grateful.
But the humans don’t know that custom, and they do not leave. They seem distraught, when we tell them we are dying, and try to offer their aid - but their technology is behind ours, and it is too late. When they realize that they can’t save us, though, they do something that bewilders us.
i cannot emphasize enough how much elon musk is very much not killing twitter on purpose. he is not that smart. you are giving him too much credit. he makes cars that melt. a few weeks ago a billionaire imploded several other billionaires and himself in the ocean because of this same brand of born-rich brainworms. destroying a social media site because of a petty, long held grudge over his paypal co-founders not letting him rename that to "X" is not a stretch.
