Hello you need to see this drag performer talking about quantum physics, queer existence, and non-binary identities.
Amrou Al-Kadhi is absolutely amazing!!! Watch this please!
Then listen to the BBC podcast they feature on with Caitlin Benny it’s AMAZING.
[Caption: a comic with four panels. They present a person who first wipes away their tears, then breathes, then stands still and finally walks away. The text reads: ‘Deep breaths…/ it’s okay/ you’re okay/ keep going.’]
Alright so. I have fucked my taxes up before. It was the year of no jobs and I cashed out a 401k to make my car payment and then forgot to report that as income.
Here’s what happened:
I got a bill from the IRS and had to pay what I owed plus a little extra for interest cause I was paying late.
That’s it.
The lessons here:
1) The IRS will not call you. Anyone calling saying they are from the IRS is a scammer.
2) The IRS isn’t gonna take you to court if they can solve the problem with one letter.
3) Accidentaly fucking up on your taxes if you made a good faith effort to file correctly isn’t illegal. To get you for tax fraud they have to be able to prove you did it on purpose. Hence why all I got was a bill. They knew that I could reasonably claim to have fucked up accedntally and as long as I paid up they did not care.
My mom messed up her taxes once and they sent an IRS person to the house to help her when she asked for it.
Seriously, the IRS isn’t your enemy. They don’t care how you make your money, nor how you spend it (for the most part). They just want to make sure Uncle Sam gets his cut.
If there’s one piece of advice I can give you for if the IRS ever contacts you by mail (AND THE ONLY WAY THEY WILL EVER CONTACT YOU IS BY MAIL), it is this:
Don’t ignore it.
That’s it. That’s all. Just follow up. Don’t ignore it and hope it goes away, because while every IRS person I’ve ever talked to (and I’ve talked to…six, I think? maybe eight) has been incredibly friendly, they absolutely will not go away until they hear from you. And they do get less friendly the longer you make them wait, but to be fair, so do most people.
And I get it, I do, I have awful executive dysfunction that’s a million times worse when something is new or I’m scared, but I promise, the IRS does want to help you, even if the first notice you actually see from them is the third one where they get all serious and threatening at you. They aren’t cops. They are underfunded and understaffed and you will probably be on hold for upwards of an hour and a half when you call, but I’ve worked with a bunch of taxing authorities over the years and the IRS has been by far the most helpful of them all. If you call them up and go “I don’t have the money,” they’ll set up a payment plan for you according to what you can pay. If you reply with a letter saying “I think you’re wrong and here is why,” half the time they’ll write back going “Yeah that’s fair, our bad” and that will be the end of it.
They just want you to get in touch with them, even if it isn’t with a payment right away, even if you have to call and say “Hi, sorry, I moved a few months ago and I didn’t know about your notices until now, what do I do?” Hassling you costs money; they don’t want to hassle you.
Also. As long as I’m here. Please remember that one of the requirements for fraud is intent. Intent is REQUIRED in order for you to have committed fraud; you cannot “accidentally” commit fraud because if it is an accident then it is, by definition, not fraud. It’s just a mistake. Mistakes aren’t illegal and no one is coming to get you for missing a decimal or genuinely forgetting to report something. I promise.
Scientists invented fabric that makes electricity from motion and sunlight. To create the fabric, researchers at Georgia Tech wove together solar cell fibers with materials that generate power from movement. It could be used in “tents, curtains, or wearable garments,” meaning we’d virtually never be without power. Source
Y'all are fucking idiots. Clean energy will NEVER be enough to replace the energy we have now. We’d have to tear down DOZENS of forests just to fit enough windmills and solar panels to get even a QUARTER (probably less, tbh) of the energy we can produce now.
Yeah, sure, when they’ve already calculated that a few square miles of panels in the empty ass Arizona desert could power the whole nation. But ok, fracking and the diminishing petroleum supply is worlds better.
Nevermind that windmills are often most efficient off the coast. There they take up no land, impact no trees, don’t pollute the water, and are conveniently located where winds are often strongest anyway.
And solar panels can literally be built into roofs of buildings and in empty areas like deserts. The sun strikes the Earth with the same amount of energy in an hour that our civilization uses in a year.
But yeah, it would be impossible for us to ever have enough energy from clean sources.
Durr hurr technology is bad and I would rather light shit on fire than have clean energy
I can also testify to the Arizona desert being empty ass. And the California desert. And the Nevada desert.
also…no forests were cleared to make space for Denmark’s windmills and yet they regularly produce so much power that it covers almost all of the country’s power needs. Oh, and then there’s the times when the windmills generate 140% of Denmark’s power needs. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/10/denmark-wind-windfarm-power-exceed-electricity-demand
Friendly reminder that oil pipelines are a scam.
The fact that anyone can believe a limited amount of dinosaur oil is more plentiful and efficient than moving air or fucking sunlight is proof that entire populations can be completely brainwashed.
And don’t forget wave and geothermal power.
The best place to install solar? Parking lots! Here’s the Community Mercantile in LFK:
Not only can it supply almost all the power needed for stores that build these, it also reduces ambient heating from the roasting pavement and keeps cars covered from the elements.
Everyone wins!
The ways we can produce sustainable, renewable energy grow by the year. There is zero reason to keep maintaining oil and natural gas industries!
The only reason we still use fossil fuels is that rich people are selfish.
Learning to manage chronic illness is trial and error based, and mistakes are inevitable even if you try really hard to avoid them. Don’t beat yourself up over it. You are still learning and will get better with time
transcript / Video Desc:
A white girl with blonde hair and a blue shirt.
The sign language reads as follows:
[Hey, I want to cover something important.
As some of ya’ll know, I am deeply engrained with the Deaf culture because I want to be an interpreter and have Deaf family.
The world is slowly becoming more accessible, and I am proud of our progress. However…
I want to discuss this school.
This is the Memphis Oral School for the Deaf.
The school will be opening soon, but they do not let their students sign, they discourage it.
And now they are requiring masks, which means lipreading is out of the window.
This article points out that even without masks, the teachers would often cover their mouths when they spoke so that they couldn’t lipread.
Their reasoning? To ensure that the students were “listening with their EARS”.
Read that again…
You are taking away their (Deaf children’s) language, they are not being given Dynamic Equivalence. They have nothing.
When are y’all gonna learn that Deaf kids don’t need to be fixed?
Please spread for awareness.]
The video is by @elysian_cosplay on tiktok.
Hey not to sound stupid, but what's the best way to be a Jewish ally? Like, yeah I'm anti-Nazi, but I don't think that's the same thing as being pro-Jewish
im glad u asked! some quick tips:
-its ‘jewish people’ not ‘jews’ (if a jewish person calls themself a jew its their business but goyim Shouldnt)
-we aren’t all zionists! most of us are anti-israel so please don’t ask someone their stance on it when you find out someone is jewish
-goy and gentile mean the same thing and neither are slurs
-on that note, goy is singular, goyim is plural, and goyische is an adjective
-jews of color exist and are erased and underrepresented both by gentiles and other jewish people
-we dont all speak hebrew!!! i can only do a couple of prayers phonetically and some jewish people can’t even do that
-judaism is a culture as well as a religion-hanukkah isnt jewish christmas (its better)
anyone can add on to this, and if you need any other tips feel free to ask!
If you’re seeing this, take care of yourself. You deserve it. You matter and you deserve to be loved. You deserve to have friends. You deserve to be cared about. You are enough.
i wish abled people would get it through their heads that MOBILITY DEVICES DO NOT MAKE LIFE EASIER FOR PEOPLE WHO AREN’T DISABLED.
i’m just. i don’t fucking understand abled people’s obsession with “fakers.” it’s really just another wonderful scapegoat to accuse disabled people of being a drain on resources.
this shook me. i’ve lived with chronic pain since i was a kid, literally a pre-teen- but it’s not constant. I also remember being generally able-bodied but occasionally having sprained my ankle or things like that and having to walk with crutches and how much of a PAIN in the ass it was to have to shuffle around on them (versus having my two good legs). it sucked. it really, really sucked.
Now, decades later, my body is significantly more worn down- sometimes my legs don’t want to hold me up. sometimes my pain is so bad they literally buckle under me. and still, i have difficulty seeing myself as “disabled” because of the internalized ableism- that’s for “those other” disabled people, the ones who ‘have it bad’ not for people like me. I still sometimes feel guilty for ‘using’ a cane (not ‘needing’ a cane sometimes).
but this specific phrasing. it hit me at my core.
If you’re able? walking with a cane would hinder you. it would get in the way. it would be something to remember, to slow you down. like the way my crutches did when i was injured. (yes, it was my injury that was slowing me down, but the temporary injury lets me view the crutches from an able-minded viewpoint)
if you’re disabled? it lets me stand longer, go further, suffer less. It literally lets me do more. it literally lets me exist in places i would not be able to. i would be going home halfway through a long day.
remembering when my body didn’t betray me, and being able to look at it from that way it lets me see things differently. if it’s making things easier, it’s not faking.
We cannot keep telling disabled and mentally ill people that "maybe someday, if you work really hard, you can become a valuable person." We're valuable NOW. Even if we can't work. Even if we can't study. Even if we need help. Even if we can't provide for ourselves. Even if we struggle. Even if we fail. Our worth is inherent because we're here and we're human and we cannot live a happy life on the hope that maybe someday we can become good enough for society. We're already worthy and valuable as we are and we need y'all to acknowledge that.
Don’t listen to that voice in your head that says you aren’t good enough. Because you are good enough, and will always be.
Honestly as a blind person I’m so tired of seeing fictional blind characters who don’t use white canes or other guides. “They have special powers so they know what’s around them” or “they’re confident enough to not need a guide” are common tropes, and I’m tired.
Are people scared that using a white cane will make their blind character seem weak? They can’t use a cane because they’re so special that they already know what’s around them, and other blind people who use guides are inferior because they’re not special?
I’m tired. Give your blind characters white canes and other guides. Let them hold onto their friends, let them have guide dogs. Don’t make white cane users feel ostracized for not being “strong enough” to go without.
Another thing that pisses me off is when a sighted character comes up with the fantasy equivalent of braille and teaches it to the blind character. Braille was invented by Louis Braille, a blind man, in 1824. The blind character should be the one coming up with it.
Tldr I’m blind and tired of sighted people lol
Care to debate abortion?
Mood. -V
This reminds me of a party I went to last year. I was standing with some friends, chatting, and someone said something that indirectly implied that sexism exists. Some trivial recounting of the basic facts of daily life for most women. Something so mild, so uncontroversial, so mundane that I don’t even remember what it was.
Suddenly, this man standing on the outskirts of our conversational circle piped up with “actually, I think men are more discriminated against than women these days.”
All conversation died.
I turned to look at him and he had this smug, insufferable grin on his face, relishing this moment, expecting us to waste our time and energy refuting this ridiculous thing he had just said.
The Devil’s Advocate was among us.
And, in my mind, I saw the next 15+ minutes playing out. The parade of facts and statistics in a vain attempt to defend ourselves, our gender, and to prove that misogyny is real. The glib, snide denials from some shithead who is getting off on our pain and frustration. The Gish Gallop of bullshit that would take a whole evening to properly dismantle. It was depressing and overwhelming. I hated it. I had to kill it before it began.
So I looked him dead in the eye and I said “OK,“ shrugged, and just walked away.
Nothing I have ever said to another human being has ever been so crushing. As I walked away, I watched the smug grin vanish and confusion and anxiety set in. The rest of the group turned their backs to him and carried on as if he had never spoken - as if he was invisible. He was still staring at me when I walked over to another friend and told her what he had said. I pointed him out for her and made direct eye contact with him while we both laughed.
tl;dr: Don’t feed the troll. Let it perish, cold and hungry, in the wasteland of your indifference. It is weak and you are strong. Live your best life.
This is the most hilarious thing and the best advice I’ve ever read on this damned hellsite.
As someone I respect very much has written on more than one occasion, you don’t have to engage in every argument you are invited to.
My friend, talking to That Guy, appearing perfectly sincere:
“that’s okay, you’re allowed to be wrong”
“no really, dude, nobody has to be right all the time. you don’t have to be embarrassed about it”
“even smart people are wrong sometimes, don’t stress out about it. you don’t need to try to impress anyone here”
“shit, dude, I’m not gonna judge you for being wrong. I say dumb shit sometimes, too”
Ha ha seriously tho.
I needed to hear this right now. <3
My new favorite post.
As someone who finished her undergrad at 40, I feel this later update. Take your time. Progress made at any speed is progress.
Has anyone else been in the strangest, most indecipherable headspace of their life lately
There was a time before I really started showing symptoms- my physical illnesses didn't affect my life or impact my mental health nearly as much as they do now. However, I've always had an intense struggle with mental health. And I remember thinking "people wouldn't tell me to 'just get over it' or 'try harder' or call me attention-seeking if this was a physical illness". But then I got sick and boy was I wrong. The problem is not that pain is invisible or misunderstood or "just in your head"- the problem is that people lack compassion.
