Mined craft babey!!!

OH MY GOD.

“I was 14, I didn’t know what I was doing.”

whaT THE FUCK

This story has no goddamn brakes

(transcript because I couldn’t find one in the notes)

Stephen Colbert: A lot of writers say they were nerdy kids, unpopular, like outcasts, or that sort of thing; was that your experience growing up?

BJ Novak: I think that’s exaggerated, I think a lot of people love to say, ‘oh I was such a nerd’ or ‘I was such a rebel, I sat in the back of the bus’. Most people sat in the middle of the bus. That’s how buses work. So, you know, people say-

Colbert: So you were sitting in the middle?

Novak: Yeah, that’s where I sat! I mean, I did my homework and y'know, dreamed of being a bit of a rebel. I did a very nerdy version of rebellion, which I guess is sort of my way of balancing where I sat on the bus. When I was 14, I got it in my head that I wanted a fake ID. and I committed what- the only term for it is ‘identity theft’, to get this fake ID. So this is the kind of nerd- I’ve never told this story before, this is pretty much the nerdiest way you can be like, ‘a bad kid’. I went to the Newton library where I grew up, and I went through their polling records… buckle in.

Colbert: I think you’ve already - just that sentence has violated a federal law, but go ahead.

Novak: Yeah, there’s a handful of these, and I actually tried to google the statute of limitations on this before the show and couldn’t get the WiFi.

Colbert: Okay.

Novak: So I looked up -this is true- I looked up someone that was 21 years old, through their polling records.

Colbert: And you’re 14.

Novak: I was 14 years old, I looked up someone who was 21 who had my same first name and initial, because I thought, “if I get drunk” -I had never been drunk. I was like, “if I forget my name, I can’t get busted”. So I found someone who was “Benjamin J. [something]”. So I found this guy’s name and I thought, “if I can just forge all his documents, I can go to the DMV and say I lost my license and they’ll give me a new license with his picture”, this is my plan.   So first I need to know where he’s born so I can get his birth certificate, so I call his house. I ask for him, I don’t know what i would have done, I get his brother and I say “I work with Ben, we’re doing a crossword puzzle based on his life for his birthday. Can you tell me what town he was born in?’. So he told me and I took the subway there and I got his birth certificate.

Colbert: How- You went to the- You went to like the county clerk and said-

Novak: They didn’t ask for ID, they just gave me his birth certificate. Then I opened up a mailbox in his name and wrote- I was 14, I didn’t know what i was doing- I wrote to the IRS.

Colbert: Uh-huh…

Novak: And I filled out tax forms in his name. And then I went to the DMV and said “I lost my wallet and I need to-this is all i have”. And i looked 14 years old, but I had these documents, so they sent me to the backroom with this woman who sized me up and said “I can’t give you this, you don’t even have a picture”, and then said with a wry smile on her face, “Open your wallet right now.” and like a true method actor, the only thing I had in my wallet was a library card I had signed in his name. And she approved it, and for the rest of high school I had this actual driver’s license, with my picture on it. [audience cheering] Novak: I’m glad we have some support. You have a look on your face- I don’t know if that was funny or if you just broke the law…

Colbert: It was fantastic, I just hope you have a good lawyer.

watch as leninists conveniently ignore that he said this

it would be cool if fat dudes without big beards were considered hot sometimes too.

I realized today that the main reason for the “hot fat dude must also include beard” thing is part of the whole “fat people are required to perform a higher and more perfect expression of gender”.

like usually this sort of thing is more easily identifiable in fat women, who have to be hyper feminine to be considered “attractive” by the mainstream.  but I sort of blinked today and realized, oh.  fat men must have beards to be attractive for the same reason fat men must wear suits and look dapper to be attractive, just like fat women have to have perfect eyeliner and wear cute pinup clothing.  higher, more intense expression of gender, executed perfectly and without flaw is required for fat people to be seen as attractive.

i think it’s important to mention a major thing a beard does, other than potentially act as part of a performance of masculinity, is cover double chins. i legitimately feel leaving that out is a major oversight. double chins are societally reviled and rarely ever depicted in supposedly fat positive art.

i’ve known fat women to literally tape the skin of their neck up under their hair to try to get rid of them– not to mention trying to contour them away with makeup. (i’ve personally done both. let’s talk about the utter misery of trying to exist in public with your skin taped and painted in place, terrified if any of it fails you will be treated as disgusting.) and fat men must grow a beard, and just the right kind of hyper-groomed beard, lest they be labeled disgusting neckbeards. fat people of all genders are compelled to “learn their angles” for photos, so they can create the illusion of not having double chins if only in still images. do you know how many photos with loved ones your fat friends duck out of because they can’t know how it will turn out, and don’t want to be mocked?

accept double chins as normal. accept that you can be attracted to people with double chins. stop requiring heightened gender performance and discomfort from fat people. stop forcing tape and makeup and beards and tactical angles on fat people.

i love fetish artists. i love people who sexualize the grotesque & the nonsexual & the mundane. the strongest & most valuable artists of our time

1 inflation fetish artist is worth 10,000 anti kink jerks spouting fascist rhetoric

hey yall it is really not necessary to do the whole im totally not into inflation or any other weird fetish i promise guys im not a weirdo song and dance on this post. stop that. stop letting ur shame & fear of being judged overshadow ur support 4 those of us that DO have weird fetishes.

who cares if somebody thinks ur into inflation bcs u reblogged a supportive post? thats none of their business. ppl shouldnt be making assumptions abt ur sexual preferences regardless. thats on them!!!

"we need more traumatized characters/characters with ptsd and/or who are abuse victims portrayed realistically with symptoms that Arent cute and soft and pretty!" you guys couldnt even handle lapis lazuli

Anyone who's been either A. drunk or B. hungover will tell you that yes, Waffle House employees should absolutely make more money.

Can I watch a great film knowing the actresses in it were terrorized and mistreated the entire time? Can I watch a football game knowing that the players are getting brain injuries right before my eyes? Can I listen to my favorite albums anymore knowing that the singers were all beating their wives in between studio sessions? Can I eat at the new fancy taco place knowing when the building that used to be there got bulldozed eight families got kicked out of their homes so they could be replaced with condos and a chain restaurant? Can I wear the affordable clothes I bought downtown that were probably assembled in a sweatshop with child labor? Can I eat quinoa? Can I eat this burger? Can I drink this bottled water? Can I buy a car and drive to work because I’m sick of taking an hour each way on the subway? Whose bones do I stand on? Whose bones am I standing on right now? 

On one hand, it’s a privilege to be able to choose to acknowledge these horrors or not–we’re going to acknowledge that privilege. On the other hand, I once attended a lecture by the explorerer-conservationist Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s daughter and son and they had a lot of opinions about what we could do to help the environment and the ocean and I talked about how in my country, we have to drink bottled water, because it’s a desert and there’s only salt water all around, but we’re contributing to pollution and all of these things…

And she looked at me and told me not to fall into the trap of “activist guilt.” I couldn’t remember the exact words, but, it was the first time I’d heard the term and it took a weight off my shoulders.

We do what we can. It’s so much better than giving up entirely or not doing anything at all because we can’t do it perfectly. It doesn’t benefit anyone in the end if we just sit around feeling guilty about every little thing in life. I’d just joined tumblr back then (haha, so like, eight or nine years ago at this point?), I was being exposed to way more than I’d ever been before (I was previously just into feminism and animal rights/wildlife conservation/environmentalism since I was a kid), and it was weighing on me.

As long as humans are humans and living flawed lives, many consumed by greed, there will not be anything in this world untouched by evil.

I usually avoid stuff that says it was made in China or other cheap looking knockoffs, out of fear of them being made in sweatshops (now, I know even a lot of big brands use those…), it’s exhausting. Then, I read something about how people who actually lived and worked in those would still buy this cheap stuff and how this shocked the foreigner reporting on it, but they just looked confused like, it’s what they can afford and them avoiding consuming it isn’t going to change the whole system from the ground-up.

… it went on about how “money talks” and choosing where to put your money still feeds the whole capitalist system and is nearly a way of comforting yourself, but you not buying doesn’t mean everyone else isn’t. What needs to be tackled is at a much higher level than any of us can reach.

Of course, I’d still, given the choice, give my money to companies I agree with and I’ll boycott what I know to support awful stuff, but I also feel no superiority over this and know now it’s not as black and white or easy as I thought it was.

This is the same reason that moral purity “you can’t enjoy [x] because it’s Problematic ™” is such nonsense, because nothing is pure. There’s something bad about everything if you dig deep enough. As long as we lived in flawed human societies we’ve got to make the best of what they offer us. If you have the choice and means, please, do support those who do good, but also, don’t beat yourself up over not living up to an unattainable ideal.

No one can. You’ll just make yourself so miserable, you either burn up and stop fighting entirely or you’ll make yourself a non-productive, depressed heap just out of a bleeding heart left unchecked. You can’t make a change to this world if you refuse to engage in it.

Have a related article with self-care tips for activists.

Purity is one of the worst, most harmful myths humans ever invented.

Rebloging for this amazing reply telling us how to actually handle this, because yeah, sometimes I’ll simply shut down trying to find something that doesn’t cause harm to anyone

Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.

I find this musical video essay extremely helpful in remembering to take perspective

This refers to something so convenient as to be unlikely, like a duck bringing its own onions to cook it with, and you may also recognize this as the basis of the Pokemon "Farfetch'd", which is why it's called that :v

Information Wall (with Hat)

a wasp made this post

When I was in the hospital, they gave me a big bracelet that said ALLERGY, but like. I'm allergic to bees. Were they going to prescribe me bees in there.

So there's a medication called hyaluronidase. It's used to make other medications absorb better, because it makes the cell wall more permeable.

One common usage is to make local anesthetic more effective during surgery, for instance. It's used in a number of injected medications.

Bee stings contain an enzyme very similar to this medication, so sometimes, people with bee allergies have an allergic reaction to hyaluronidase.

This is called cross-reactivity, where your body mistakes something for the thing it's actually allergic to, and has an allergic reaction anyway. For instance, sometimes people with latex allergies also are allergic to bananas and other fruits. They don't actually contain latex, but there are some similar proteins.

Apparently, hyraluronidase used in humans is derived from one of four sources: sheep testicles, cow testicles, cow testicles again, and GMO hamster ovaries.

tl;dr: They won't inject you with bees, but they might inject you with purified cow testicle juice, and your body might say 'eh, cow balls are BASICALLY bees' and try to kill you anyway.

Anyone have that image of like 8 ways of settler colonial justifications ? One of them is terra nullius, can't find it.

This one?

Image provided is a list titled 'Eight Stages of White Settler-Colonial Denial,' which lists the following stages:

1. "They didn't exist" (terra nullius) Complete denial of Indigenous presence in a given area (country, province, etc). Includes denial of Indigeneity, e.g. "Indigenous Peoples are Settlers too".

2. "If they did, the weren't here" (terra nullius) Denial that Indigenous People inhabit/travel/harvest/exist in a specific area. Often based on euro-centric definitions of evidence of occupation.

3. "If they were, they didn't use the land" (doctrine of discovery) Denial that Indigenous People have a connection with the Land. Often based on euro-centric worldviews of the land as something to be owned and extracted.

4. "If they did, they didn't deserve it" (great chain of being) Denial that Indigenous People have rights to their Lands. Often based on euro-centric value judgements of "primitive vs. civilized", "nomadic vs. sedentary".

5. "If they did, they lost it" (right of conquest) Denial that Indigenous People retain their rights to their Lands. Often based on colonially imposed European systems of law / "might makes right" worldviews.

6. "If they didn't, it doesn't matter any more" (Westphalian sovereignty) Denial that Indigenous Rights are still binding and take precedence. Often based on false claims of supremacy of colonial legal institutions and systems.

7. "If it does, we need to move on" (liberalism) Denial that violations of Indigenous Rights require redress. Often based on on claims redress is "disruptive/unfair/reverse racism" & false calls for "equality".

8. "If we can't, we are you" (self-indigenization) Denial of separateness of Indigenous Peoples and Rights. Often based on attempts to reduce Indigenous Rights to Human Rights, claim Indigeneity, etc.

How

cookin them up

still believe that one of the greatest bits of all time was on January 6th, 2021 when. well. you know. and twitter was understandably an echo chamber of panic and fear and Justin McElroy just tweeted a selfie with a filter that was like “have a delicious national spaghetti day” followed by 3 tweets that were like “fuck. i’m sorry. i don’t know how to delete scheduled posts” and as i type this two years later i’m laughing

a belated delicious national spaghetti day to you all

There is a parallel universe where Tumblr is actually a great functioning site

its exactly as shitty but every other social media site is worse by comparison

me trying to be supportive: can i offer you a nice "we should kill them" in this trying time?

call of duty modern women 3

Irregular women, siege women, naval women, women on drugs (controversially), asymmetrical women, all sorts of women!

Cyberwomen

Next-generation women

Proxy women

Woman of Attrition. Revolutionary Woman. Civil Woman. The Great Woman (aka World Woman One)

im stacking extension cords on each other like theyre tinker toys. constructing a tower of babel in the name of the god of electricity. there'll be at least 100 outlets when ive hooked these boys up nice and good. ill never run out again

nothing more satisfiying than this. really sates that primal urge to Plug Things In. but you know i think we can take this even further

ooooooouhg oooooofg.....whops........oupsies

It’s genuinely amazing that mobile people don’t have access to their archive. That’s how I find like all of my posts. I would be nothing without my archive. And you guys are telling me you just search in a desperate attempt to find something??? You can’t go in and find a gallery of every post you’ve ever made or reblogged all the way back to the start of your account? You can’t filter it by time or tag or type of post????? Jesus Christ man.

youre telling me you guys have just been living without this???

YOU DONT HAVE THIS???

how to access your archive on desktop:

all the people who’ve decided to spend the last week harassing diasporic Jews and unveiling mass antisemitism in a now socially appropriate way have done such hard work for the Zionism fandom.

Wow firebombing a schule in Berlin is doing soooo much making global Jewry feel like they can live safe full lives outside of Israel huh

You’re doing so much to make Jews feel safe in diaspora and like your attacks are on Zionism and not (looks at hand) anything jewy from literally hundreds of years before herzl was born