News of the Day 4/2/25: Tariffs
Pardon my French, but: da fuq?
Is this funny? I can't even tell these days.
Last I heard this was still happening. No, we Americans honestly don't get why either. More news along those lines below the cut.
I've been watching this off and on today.
It feels odd to be proud of a speech so long I could barely tell you anything particular he said, and where as far as I can tell it didn't accomplish anything or even aim to accomplish a particular thing. This wasn't a filibuster where they were trying to defeat a specific bill or something.
But he spoke for as long as he could. He spoke longer than Strom Thurmond back in the 1950s over the Civil Rights Act. He just kept speaking, and the point seems to be these times are uniquely bad, bad enough you've just got to do anything you possibly can to call it bad even if you can't do anything more.
I don't know. That gives me a little hope. I'm not sure why, but that doesn't change the fact it does.
Reblogged edoraslass
Montana opening up some incredible possibilities here. imagine the chaos you could cause by filing a fraudulent marriage certificate for two random people who've never met
New fanfic trope: Montana Absentee Wedding
Sherlock Holmes fans, I'm sensing great potential for that never-adapted American section of A Study in Scarlet. I mean, Utah is right. there.
Reblogged wilwheaton
And many Temptations treats.
Tevildo, is that you?
News of the Day 4/1/25: Social Security Shenanigans
It's weird how the human brain works sometimes. A friend of Elon's revealed at his recent Wisconsin rally that 2.1 million non-citizens were given social security numbers in 2024, up from 270,000 in 2021. I'm much more liberal on immigration than a lot of people around here. I want more immigration, more ways to qualify so you can be vetted and given a legal identity that lets you participate fully in society without fear. And even my mind, the first place it went was this is outrageous if true and please let it be a lie. The story's mainly covered on far-right sites so "please let it be a lie" isn't a great jump.
The truth, which my brain skipped past: noncitizen doesn't mean undocmented, it doesn't mean illegal. These are mainly asylum seekers or from those humanitarian parole programs Trump just ended. Back in Trump's first term he started giving successful asylum seekers a social security number, so they could get jobs and pay taxes more easily. Before, they could apply for a SSN but had to do it separately.
The numbers definitely ballooned under Biden, and I understand why a lot of people don't like that. & we can debate if we're too generous with benefits for legal non-citizen residents. I don't agree, but it's at least a valid discussion. What's not a valid discussion is saying these immigrants are somehow cheating the system and stealing our Social Security benefits just because they're given a number. I guarantee you the government can sort the non-citizens with SSN's from the citizens when it comes time to hand out benefits.
Still, even I had that first flush reaction. I pay into Social Security. The thought of someone stealing from it pisses me off and kicks my primitive lizard-brain jumps into overdrive so easily.
The reality is Social Security is under attack, but not from immigrants. And it makes sense that Elon's friend would just happen to find this so-called "abuse," just as the man himself is fighting to access our data, "upgrade" the systems, limit customer service and just generally make the current system function so poorly that we're more open to privatizing it. That's not hyperbole; former SSA administrators have been speaking out with some big warnings that seem plausible to me.
More on the various ways Trump, Musk & Co. really are threatening Social Security, below the cut.
Sorry to bug so early in the morning, but I read your reblog of the Henry Cavill sex scenes comment, and that you had written some johnlock fanfic which you used as an example of necessary sex scenes in a narrative. I was wondering if you had that fic posted anywhere? RDJ/JL isn’t really my preferred Sherlock version, nor is religious kink, but the combo sounds fascinating and I’m curious how it worked out? Sorry if this request has freaked you out. Please ignore if you’re embarassed.
No worries. I wouldn't have mentioned it if I didn't want to share the link. Though to be clear it's Johnlockary (John/Mary/Sherlock), not just Johnlock. It was definitely a fun concept to play with.
Reblogged naryrising
Shout out if you also include erotica or smut in your works to turn meaningful narrative into an indulgent detour designed only to stimulate arousal
In the world of infinite human experience shaping our lives and beings, sex stands alone in the realm of having no impact worth noting whatsoever.
- this guy apparently.
See, I was going to type a long reply, but "sounds like a skills issue" about sums it up.
I once wrote a rather explicit PWP, John/Sherlock/Mary in the RDJ/Jude Law movies 'verse. If you'll pardon the NC17 details, John was penetrating Sherlock while Mary's lying under him (Sherlock) and basically holding him down on top of her. There was a religious kink, a heresy kink especially - I think I'd had Mary in disguise as a French nun and she'd used her rosary to restrain his wrists, and she had him say the Lord's Prayer in Latin (or French?) as John had sex with him. Sherlock was about to go off on his Great Hiatus adventures, John and Mary had worked it out and found Sherlock before he could disappear, and it was all about transcending the world of the normal and anchoring him to them so he'd come back to them. Blasphemy as kink, yes, but blasphemy as life. Something like that.
It was also damned hot if I do say so myself. At the risk of telling too much, I'm an asexual so as a writing challenge it was just a lot of fun to make that work. And because I have a rather intense interest in religion even as I've been hurt by its worse incarnations, it felt good to turn all that imagery and mythos on its head.
Sex can be the point. It can be the lens through which we tell the story. But sometimes it's also just sex, and why can't that be point enough?
Which isn't to say sex scenes aren't often done badly. So many of them are, precisely because so many people think they're obligatory or are somehow just repressed enough they can't screw up their courage enough to do something interesting with them, whether it's in terms of erotica itself or in the role they play in some bigger story. But like I said: skill issue.
Reblogged jouissants
classic
Look, I can't know, but somehow it feels like she should be Danish.
Reblogged jouissants
ill spend my twenties investigating the healing properties of salt i dont know about you guys
excuse me
Sorry op. That's my friend the Salt Vampire from the Star Trek episode "The Man Trap" which first aired in 1966. Blessings be upon you.
its just i dont feel blessed by its presence is all. sending love your way
Perhaps this face is more to your liking?
Reblogged jouissants
Yahoo grups and other email listservs. I miss those communally-defined headers and monthly policy reminder emails....
A GOP local office in New Mexico was set on fire with graffiti, "ICE = KKK". (NY Times /// Archive.is). I'm all for intense protest and I truly get how pissed off we all feel and how the official Democrats aren't doing nearly enough (I'm feeling it too!). But public outrage combined with law suits and legal litigation are some of the best tools we have. Now more than ever, we need people focused on the absolute outrage of all these barbaric roundups and we can't afford for them to get distracted because they think violent protests went too far. We still have better options, even now.
Besides, ICE and the people pushing them for more action aren't just the KKK. If anything, they're the White Citizens' Council. That's not an excuse or a mitigation; if anything, it's a chilling reminder of how deep the moral rot has gotten around here lately.
Damn it. This really is the bad place, isn't it? :-$
News of the Day 3/31/25: Fighting Back
--- We'd be lost in another universe, frozen in a single moment. We'd have nothing. --- You would have hope! And right now, that is exactly what you don't have.
(This got a bit long-winded. Bear with me.)
For all the frankly objectively horrible things coming out of the Signal scandal, it couldn't have come at a better time for Chuck Schumer. And for the Democrats generally. Not only are people talking about something else after the Great Continuing Resolution Embarrassment, it's something that's almost a holy cause. Certainly a straightforward one, and one that's near and dear to any conservatives of substance left to be found.
To be clear, I'm obviously not glad about the security screw-up. Of course not.
I do agree with the Guardian here. The frustration over Chuck Schumer's actions on the budget fight aren't just down to bad policy (debatable) or bad messaging (.... yeah, definitely on that point) but also a fundamental misreading of the current political moment (again: emphatic yes). Which doesn't actually mean he doesn't have a role to play. He's actually pretty good at legislative strategy in normal times, and I'm hopeful finagling cloture votes and knowing the Senate by-laws might actually be useful.
But it does mean we need leaders and brawlers and just overall voices from all corners. And maybe his mastery of arcane Senate rules isn't the most important arrow in our quiver just now. Even if he's a good Senate minority leader, that doesn't mean he needs to be at the forefront of the Trump opposition. It really does take all comers just now.
I am seeing more of a response. Granted, I read the news and watch MSNBC *coughs* more than most, and maybe it's not getting foregrounded enough for the less obsessive to see it. But it's happening. You're seeing it in the massive protest demonstrations around Tesla stores, the town halls, the fired people going on the news about what they did and what it matters that their work's not getting done, the veterans and teachers' union leaders. The lawyers and law firms and judges who aren't letting themselves get cowed.
Which isn't to say the institutional Democrats don't have huge problems right now. Hoo boy, do they, both in their responses and how people view the brand. I'm not trying to be Pollyannaish and I've got lots of links below the cut digging into that as well.
So. I can't promise even the best responses will make a difference. My point is people are finding their voice and doing what they can, and i really will take all hands if we're to have any hope at all. Or as the wise old Gallifreyans said:
--- I didn't know when I was well off. All twelve of them! --- No, sir: all thirteen.
More links on the situation with Schumer and the push back against Trump more generally, below the cut.