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I promise, nothing of interest.

@veritatemquarens

Hi I'm Verity! A scientist who shouts about actual play podcasts and thinks about writing fanfiction but then doesn't! (they/them)
Note: the bulk of this thread was posed on 11/5/2020 and was added to sporadically thru 8/13/2021. This is Part 1 because apparently it's too long for tumblr? Part 2 Part 3

So you want to know more about antisemitism outside the context of Nazis ...

99.99999% of conspiracy theories are either rooted in antisemitism or antisemitism is a key component

Yad Vashem has a bunch of things, here’s a free online course about antisemitism:

Poke around the National Museum of American Jewish History’s site (it’s The Best Jewish museum in the US, IMO).

Handy guide with examples from social media:

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg is great and has a number of informational threads.

On Antisemitism:

On Judeo-Christian and why you should delete it from your vocabulary:

On why you should stop using “Pharisees” as a pejorative:

Here’s an essay on why “fake Christian” and “not a real Christian” are harmful rhetoric:

(Look, I get the impulse. Ben Shapiro is shitbag. So are Laura Loomer, Stephen Miller, Mort Klein, etc. but No True Scotsman-ing isn’t actually helpful.)

“But Israel!” Nope. Stop right there. Explainers:

(My main critique of both of these is that they’re pretty Ashkenormative and gloss over the effect Israel’s creation had on Mizrahi Jews living in other MENA countries.)

Short thread/statement from a Palestinian activist that succinctly summarizes his distaste with folks using Palestinians to legitimize their antisemitism:

https://twitter.com/iyad_elbaghdadi/status/980015842460016640?s=21

Thread from a Black Jew about how Jews are often perceived by Gentiles of Color, which is a helpful perspective on how positive stereotypes and proximity to whiteness can put marginalized communities in conflict. These conflicts doubly hurt those who belong to both:

https://twitter.com/thespinsterymc/status/1189266271923257349?s=21

URGENT: Congress about to pass a mass censorship and surveillance bill under the guise of "protecting children"

May 13 2023

The Senate has been in a "do something!" mode regarding children's online safety. They're using this as an excuse to push for widespread internet censorship and surveillance. I already spoke about the EARN IT Act, which has a slimmer chance of passing with widespread opposition and a few senators saying they won't vote for it. The real threat is actually KOSA (s.1409), the Kid's Online Safety Act. It does two primary things:

First, KOSA pressures platforms to install filters that would wipe the net of anything deemed “inappropriate” for minors. This means instructing platforms to censor. We saw how these filters impacted websites firsthand with tumblr in 2018, with not only blocking all adult content but also sfw queer content such as suicide hotlines, art archives, wiping out entire blogs because they had queer fandom related posts, etc. Places that already use content filters have restricted important information about suicide prevention and LGBTQ+ support groups. KOSA would spread this kind of censorship to every corner of the internet. And who gets to decide what is and isn't harmful for minors? Oh don't worry, just every single state attorney general and the FTC, which is appointed by the president. You know, the same attorney generals that just banned gender-affirming healthcare under the guise that it "ruins mental health" of minors. This is why the Heritage Foundation was one of the first to sponsor the bill because they can use it to censor trans content, and Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee is it's co-author.

Second, KOSA would ramp up the online surveillance of all internet users by forcing websites to use age verification and parental monitoring tools. Yup, that's right. Now every single person who wants to access the internet has to upload their govt ID online to third party apps that get hacked all the time. You queer in a red state? You undocumented? You an activist? Have fun getting all your online activity and metadata attached to your govt ID.  

Over 90+ human and LGBT rights groups agree that KOSA is dangerous and updates to the 2023 version won’t and can’t address the big problems with the bill. This bill has MASSIVE bipartisan support, and the authors Blumenthal and Blackburn (yes, that Blumenthal that's pushing the EARN IT Act, and who also sponsored the RESTRICT Act and SOPA/PIPA if you remember) are using the tragedy of mothers who lost their kids to online harassment and young adults who've been traumatized online to lobby for it, and got Dove the company to use a bunch of influencers to push for this under the guise it prevents eating disorders...I wish I was lying. There are already 30 co-sponsors.

HOW TO FIGHT KOSA
  1. CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES & THE COMMERCE COMMITTEE

Opposition is getting drowned, and these upcoming weeks will be heavy for lobbying and they're using young people to do it. We NEED to show these senators that young people are actually opposed to this and don't want it.

2. Sign these petitions

  1. Open Letter Against KOSA
  2. Petition 1
  3. Petition 2
  4. Petition 3
  5. Petition 4
  6. Resistbot: Text PHJDYH to 50409

3. Spread the word.

The opposition is getting absolutely drowned online. Dove has nearly 100k signatures to push for KOSA. Influencers on tiktok are pushing for this without ever having read the bill. Fucking Lizzo is sponsoring it. If you have twitter, reddit, tiktok, are in any community, SPREAD THE WORD, PLEASE.

Here is a linktree with all the above petitions for easy shargin: Link to linktree

I initially thought this could be a positive thing without seeing the stipulations attached…yikes. Protecting minors shouldn’t involve surveillance of literally everyone.

I've called. Have you?

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My first biology professor had an ‘inadequacy drawer’ full of things to remind him he wasn’t, in fact, the dumbest and laziest person to ever exist. It was mostly Darwin, notably these two bits:

‘But I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything.’

‘I am going to write a little Book for Murray on orchids and today I hate them worse than everything.’

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funkylittlegoblin

“I am at work on the second vol. of the Cirripedia, of which creatures I am wonderfully tired: I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before, not even a Sailor in a slow-sailing ship.”

-Charles Darwin on a letter to his cousin

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Charles Darwin: unexpected depression hero.

I knew about “I am very poorly and very stupid and hate everybody and everything,” but not the others. 

“I hate myself, I hate clover, and I hate bees” is A Mood.

My favorite Darwinism: “I am dying by inches, from not having any body to talk to about insects”.  Hits me right at the center of my hyperfixated soul.

I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before

“The work has been turning out badly for me this morning and I am sick at heart and oh my God how I do hate species & varieties”

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Oops it turns out Disney’s lawsuit against the Florida governor is based on a constitutional clause which says that states can’t pass laws to interfere with private contracts. Historically this is something courts have used to strike down basic labour protections like minimum wages. So if the Supreme Court decides to give Disney a win here by saying “um actually any contact betwen private individuals is completely fine and beyond any kind of state regulation” (which would be wildly broad but also that’s how this Supreme Court sometimes behaves) then stay tuned for a lot of terrible lawsuits eroding a lot of basic protections for workers and renters and anyone else who’s signed a contract with a vastly more powerful entity.

This is wrong. Disney is not trying to make it so that it can just go back on any and all contracts and if they won this case that wouldn’t be the outcome. Disney itself has already been in a case about the contract clause.

What will actually be happening is the court will be looking to see if Florida’s new law qualifies as a targeted attack on Disney. The contract clause makes it so the federal government can’t create laws that are designed to ruin the contracts of specific businesses.

I.e. if I’m the governor of a state, and a company does something to make me mad, I can’t just , out of spite, craft a law that goes out of its way to invalidate my contract specifically.

And wouldn’t you know it, that’s what DeSantis did. The Florida legislature created a law to ruin and void “all contracts made by the state within [a certain time period]”. The only contract that had been made during that time period with the state being Disney’s. It was a direct attack on their contract specifically.

That’s why they’re bringing up free speech so much. Their argument in court is that the government did this specifically to curtail Disney’s free speech rights.

Please reblog this version for emphasis and clarity.

you notice in the first part quoted the reason the guy can’t fuck is not because she says so, but because ~the Sages~ say so. This is a professional demarcation dispute, not a women’s rights dispute.

so it’s not surprising that the rabbis disapprove because if she were married it would be adultery and if she weren’t besides, think of the shame you’d bring to the family, you nafka.

the funny part is in the final section. it’s pure witchcraft: *rabbi yitzhak voice* u KNOW i can’t cum ever since what happened in the siege of jerusalem. all my cum got taken from me and given to the evil people who have no morals, who are cumming huge ropes that should be mine! what do the doctors know, ever since the temple got knocked down it’s impossible for a decent guy to get anything he deserves…

like, with all the people posting this and going “yes queen, incels! give them nothing!”… all the other rabbis are just being normal patriarchal cuntguards but it’s r. yitzhak who is giving the most unhinged incel energy here and, appropriately, the gemara anon is building off that and saying “okay if she’s unmarried he can fuck her, but he has to marry her, but even fucking her won’t help him because of the double-bind rabbi incelzhak expertly identified. that’s my main point here.”

Honestly that was somenthing that sounded wrong in the story , the woman is seen as an object :

Like it wasn’t the fault of the woman if the man fell ill and is about to die ( this is not up for discussion ) she could very easily say no let the man die and she wouldn’t be at fault …

However we could change this situation :

Lets say the man was distracted by the woman and fell into a river ,

If the woman just looked at him drown and get carried away we’d think she was a sociopath …

And if she threw herself in the river and tried to save him we’d call her an hero …

So it seems sex rather than risking ones hown life changes the equation …

Wich i guess it’s an intresting observation on our society …

Still i am perfectly capable of being off the mark here

Let's say you're trying to sue for wrongful death because this man fell into a river and drowned after being "distracted" by seeing woman he saw.

This woman was waking by, minding her own business. She didn't push him into the river- if she had, she would have a duty to rescue. The man fell into the river because he failed to exert the level of care that would be expected of a reasonably prudent person.

The woman has no duty to rescue, because there is never a duty to rescue UNLESS your own conduct caused the peril. This is true regardless of whether the rescue attempt would imperil the rescuer, by the way.

If the woman either intentionally or negligently caused the man to fall into the river, she would have a duty to rescue him.

Let's discard "intentionally" here because clearly the woman didn't act with the intent or substantial certainty that going about her business would cause a man to fall into a river.

If you believe that a woman's existence in a public space is an act of negligence upon those who view her, and caused the man to fall into the river, you are EXTREMELY part of the problem.

Holding that the woman created the man's peril and would be "a sociopath" for not rescuing him is sexually objectifying the mere act of existing as a female appearing person. It is burdening all female appearing people with responsibility for the actions of people who are attracted to them, which they can only avoid by staying out of public spaces where they might be seen, or altering their appearance so that they cannot be construed as "attractive."

This is a watered down, more palatable version of victim blaming in rape culture, "you shouldn't have worn such a short skirt/left your drink unattended/walked to your car some at night."

Source: i.redd.it

The fact that anti-abortion laws and anti-transgender laws are both being implemented en masse, at the *same* time, by the *same* people (who, it hardly needs to be remarked, are overwhelmingly neither women nor transgender) should be enough to convince any reasonable person that the narrative of conflict between and women's and transgender is, first and foremost, a divide-and-conquer strategy by the far right.

Your survival is our survival. Our survival is your survival. Anyone who says different is a fed.

I think there’s quite a big difference between a woman getting an abortion and a teenage girl being sterilised and having a double mastectomy.

Women’s rights and trans issues are not comparable and are often in opposition.

Fuck off, Collaborator.

It's interesting that there are people that understand that the right lies constantly about abortion but think they tell the truth about trans people.

Also, hey, let's walk with this totally bad faith argument for a second. What IS different about a teen girl choosing to get an abortion, and a teen girl choosing to get a tubal ligation and a mastectomy? Are you saying that teenage girls who know that they will never want children should be forced to preserve their fertility anyway? Are you saying that teenage girls with severe back pain or the BRCA gene need to preserve their feminine breasts and be aesthetically pleasing to others, even at the expense of their own health? I mean, they're just too young to be making medical decisions which might make them less fertile or sexual desirable, right? What if they regret it???

And hey, you know, the same worry that teen girls might regret these things is true for adult women, too. Maybe we should make them wait until they're married, in case their future husband disapproves. Maybe we should make them wait until they've had kids - what if she regrets it and wants children? what if she regrets it and wants to breast feed? what if her stupid little woman brain hasn't thought this through and correctly pinned her entire self-worth and value as a person on her ability to act as a sex object and baby incubator? what then???

Trans men aren't women, and infantilizing them as poor helpless girls is obviously transphobic. But in addition to that, even if we were to buy into the central transphobic premise here, the conclusions would still be sexist as hell. Let's say that there are no trans men. Let's pretend for the sake of argument that trans men simply don't exist. Infantilizing teen girls out of being able to make their own medical decisions isn't feminist either.

If you're categorically against teen girls being able to choose to get a tubal ligation and a mastectomy, I have an awful lot of trouble believing that you're actually pro-choice. Pro-choice doesn't mean "women should have bodily autonomy just as long as they do the things I want". Pro-choice means pro-fucking-choice. You can't sing female empowerment and bodily autonomy out of one side of your mouth, while sticking your tongue out to lick the boot of the patriarchy on the other.

One thing that Firefox can’t do is allow me to access my telehealth therapy appointments. Three different platforms now have rejected my use of Firefox. I use Safari instead bc that’s what works and at least it isn’t chrome, but for folks who rightfully use Firefox, be aware that many, if not all, telehealth platforms will not work on Firefox (something about the encryption/security not being up to their standard, I believe; if there are hacks that Firefox gurus know to bypass this, please share with the class?).

Any reason the developers of those sites give that is not 'we're too lazy to check compatibility so we're blocking Firefox' is false.

"Livin' large tonight boys!"

"I'm not making fun of the Great Depression!

...I am making fun of the Great Depression."

Small things that make me sad about America #1: they have no Bramley Apples here. Big knobbly ugly sour cooking apples. They do not exist in this place.

We're lucky, we have an apple tree in the paddock which grows Bramley cooking apples.

Thanks to someone's clever grafting about 30 years ago, it also grows Beauty of Bath, a red-skinned, pink-fleshed heritage eating apple (though you have to move fast before the wasps get in - see top right).

It only crops every other year - if my calculations are correct, this is one of the Other Years - but when it crops, it does so With Enthusiasm.

Like, three or four bagfuls like this...

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Just look at those. OM NOM NOM.

For those of you who don't know: the Bramley apple appeared more or less out of nowhere—a "sport", as they say—and is possibly now the most famous of all British apples because it's so good for baking with.

But meanwhile: very much feeling @neil-gaiman's pain. It's true what he says: if you're in the US, most of the time you might as well wish for one of the Apples of the Hesperides as a Bramley. You won't find them at the supermarket. They're not commercially popular... possibly due to being stubbornly asymmetrical and really sour. (Which is absolutely their strength when you're baking with them, as they calm down a lot but still stay tart.)

Now, though, you can at least buy the trees over there, and plant one of your own! Here's one nursery supplying them, and there are others. You can order them online and they'll ship sapling trees to you. (Also, for all those interested, see this page for general Bramley apple growth & care info.)

I will buy a Bramley Apple tree. I will do this thing.

cocaineteas

This is why it’s so important for parents to support their trans kids.

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the-international-disaster

If I don’t reblog this, then I’m dead.

Remember kids, Nazis don't deserve their kneecaps.

Also if any of these are incorrect pls lemme know

i didnt see anyone saying any of this is wrong in the notes so im gonna reblog-

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additional helpful resource:

this is the anti-defamation league’s hate symbol database. it’s massive and includes details about what symbols mean and where you might see them.

i’m a tattoo artist and use this all the time when i see a symbol i don’t recognize—better safe than sorry. it’s saved me from working with white supremacists a few times.

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I'm glad to see the arrow cross (last one( there! It originates from Hungary and was used by the nazi party here, but it was banned after WWII. It barely shows up in guides/warnings like this and idk if they still use it but better safe than sorry.

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Ok, but if you’re an independent contractor in the US and this happens? Find a lawyer, because you might have just gotten a huge payday.

Your position was just referred to as employment. Independent contractors do not have employers; they do not have employment. Congrats, your contact at this company just provided evidence that you were illegally missclassified.

This contact is claiming that you have set hours you’re obligated to fulfill. Unless a work task can only be done at a set time for practical reasons (i.e. you’re an audio freelancer paid to support a live event that occurs at a particular time and requires a certain amount of pre-show setup), a company cannot set an independent contractor’s work hours. This is further evidence that you were missclassified.

The whole exchange establishes that the company is interpreting an employer-employee relationship rather than expecting a service. Discipline and potential for firing (you cannot fire an independent contractor; no longer purchasing their service is not equivalent) establish that this person views themselves as a manager. Independent contractors cannot have managers.

This one text exchange could:

  • Get you back pay for the full duration you’ve worked there, to bring you up to the compensation that an employee would have gotten
  • Get you back compensation for lost benefits that an employee would have gotten
  • Get you back pay for the additional self-employment taxes the company should have covered
  • Get the company to pay back taxes to the government
  • Get the company to hire everyone who performed a similar role, or face further penalties and fines
  • A win would encourage the rest of their missclassified workers to sue for the same, or give them leverage to demand a better deal

If the company is going to screw you over like that, may as well make them pay for it.

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Since this is getting a lot of reblogs, here’s a federal source that can help you determine if you’re illegally classified as a contractor:

You can also file a form with the IRS to force the company to correct your classification (assuming you meet the criteria), without necessarily having to sue:

Keep in mind that this is just federal. Most states also prohibit missclassification as an independent contractor; and even if states have more lenient rules, companies still have to comply with this federal law. The rules have largely been bipartisan and existed for decades, so they’re common.

States also have an interest in having regulations about missclassification: it’s a significant loss of tax revenue. Your self employment tax does not fully equal what a company would have paid for you in payroll taxes.

A lawyer can help point you in the right direction if a company is currently missclassifying you.

Fantastic addition

I want to say that with trans folk now being at risk of the fucking death sentence in Florida....

The time for community is Now. The time to start planning and organizing how to get our rights back is NOW. bring it up at your local LGBT craft events or book club or support group or whatever. Tell your friends. Spread the word. And maybe see which ones will have the safety and resources you'll need should a Lavender Hunt happen in your area.

And on the scarier end of reality....

This is fucking terrifying. Lots of people are at risk. Personally, I'm terrified this rhetoric will spread much like Trumpism did. I'm scared for my gf and I'm fucking scared for myself because we know historically that it isn't just trans folk on HRT or drag performers that they go after.

And you have every right to do whatever you need to protect yourself.

I'm not going to shame folks who quit HRT, who take the rainbows out of their bio, the people who start saying partner instead of revealing a gender, or anyone else taking a few steps towards the safety that the closet provides. WE shouldn't.

I fucking love you. And we'll be okay as long as we're together, okay?

We keep us safe

I looked up the lavender scare last night and was sadly unsurprised to see that the last time the community came together...was a lavender scare.

Pride was a riot because the government started doing to us then what Florida is doing to us now. It was triggered when a man was fired from his job on grounds of being gay and tried to take it to court.

This is why we have pride. This is why "think of the children" is/was an awful rhetoric to push at leather daddies and drag queens. It's not just a bad opinion or stupid discourse, it's a talking point for the right wing to justify fucking kill us.

It was never "just discourse" it was a right wing psyop to cripple us from coming together to fight against attacks just like this.

Your enemies aren't other queer people with labels you don't like. Those are your allies. Because you know who else doesn't like them?

Nazis.

And they don't like you either even if you have a "normal" queer identity and you don't make it "your whole personality" or whatever.

You're both still queer. And that's all they care about. Trying to placate bigots wont save you. Quit playing the part of "acceptable gay" and throwing everyone else under the bus.

Besides, that they WERE thinking of the children when they started those riots dressed in stuff that makes you squirm. They were thinking of You. Of your life. Your children. Queer children.

  • Broke: think of the children
  • Woke: think of where you'd be right now if Drag queens and leather daddies weren't there to throw that first brick. Think about about all the other people currently at risk of being killed through the Same Exact method that you had the privilege of escaping, precisely because of the people you can't stand.

Hey y'all please reblog this version so people can see the article and explanation, there are a few confused people only seeing earlier versions that dont explain the connection/threat because it doesn't have the article.

An interstate rainbow railroad.

For those unaware that's this. It's been done before.

A lot of people are scared. And I really, really want you to know that the riots started because someone scared asked for help and people answered

It wasn't organized. It just happened. People decided to risk it at a moments notice.

This is ours. And we've done it before.

Stormé Delariverie, the Stonewall Lesbian that triggered it all.

And everyone who was there for her.

Were just like us

So how do we do this?

I played that level in Mario Kart but that was it. I wanna be there for you, we all do, how do we do that?

I bet one of us could call and just ask. Who doesn't have anxiety. Oh wait it's posted on their site :)

Kinda reads like a How To 👀

Find your niche and offer it.

People need help, you figure out how/who can, and then you follow through.

  • Can you drive
  • have gas money
  • have extra food
  • Got some clothes or meds
  • An extra bed or couch
  • maybe even an extra property or hotel room to spare?
  • Do you have money for those things?
  • maybe you're able to connect people with needs to people who can help?
  • can you share/spread posts asking for help?
  • Or may you can just make them some tea while the host of the house is out cuz they don't want to be alone in a new place
  • Maybe you keep up morale by just being hopeful
  • can you somehow show that there are people who are taking steps to materially care for and support trans and other lgbta people in Florida?

What can You do?

Because you are not nearly as powerless as they want you to believe, especially with some help.

>First, we’ve discovered that about a quarter of all the internet connection in or out of the house were ad related. In a few hours, that’s about 10,000 out of 40,000 processed.

>We also discovered that every link on Twitter was blocked. This was solved by whitelisting the https://t.co domain.

>Once out browsing the Web, everything is loading pretty much instantly. It turns out most of that Page Loading malarkey we’ve been accustomed to is related to sites running auctions to sell Ad space to show you before the page loads. All gone now.

>We then found that the Samsung TV (which I really like) is very fond of yapping all about itself to Samsung HQ. All stopped now. No sign of any breakages in its function, so I’m happy enough with that.

>The primary source of distress came from the habitual Lemmings player in the house, who found they could no longer watch ads to build up their in-app gold. A workaround is being considered for this.

>The next ambition is to advance the Ad blocking so that it seamlessly removed YouTube Ads. This is the subject of ongoing research, and tinkering continues. All in all, a very successful experiment.

>Certainly this exceeds my equivalent childhood project of disassembling and assembling our rotary dial telephone. A project whose only utility was finding out how to make the phone ring when nobody was calling.

>Update: All4 on the telly appears not to have any ads any more. Goodbye Arnold Clarke!

>Lemmings problem now solved.

>Can confirm, after small tests, that RTÉ Player ads are now gone and the player on the phone is now just delivering swift, ad free streams at first click.

>Some queries along the lines of “Are you not stealing the internet?” Firstly, this is my network, so I may set it up as I please (or, you know, my son can do it and I can give him a stupid thumbs up in response). But there is a wider question, based on the ads=internet model.

>I’m afraid I passed the You Wouldn’t Download A Car point back when I first installed ad-blocking plug-ins on a browser. But consider my chatty TV. Individual consumer choice is not the method of addressing pervasive commercial surveillance.

>Should I feel morally obliged not to mute the TV when the ads come on? No, this is a standing tension- a clash of interests. But I think my interest in my family not being under intrusive or covert surveillance at home is superior to the ad company’s wish to profile them.

>Aside: 24 hours of Pi Hole stats suggests that Samsung TVs are very chatty. 14,170 chats a day.

>YouTube blocking seems difficult, as the ads usually come from the same domain as the videos. Haven’t tried it, but all of the content can also be delivered from a no-cookies version of the YouTube domain, which doesn’t have the ads. I have asked my son to poke at that idea.

fastest reblog in the west