@stjepanlukac On the scale of disgusting pardons from lame duck Presidents, this one doesn't even rank. There's been pardons for war criminals, murderers, rapists, mass financial criminals, etc. Owning a gun and misreporting taxes would have been a fine and parole on literally anyone else. And by the next election, no voters that would be on the fence are going to remember or care. This is all pointless beltway and Internet drama.

@stjepanlukac Trump already did it. Even if not for a direct family member, but for his son in laws' father. So did Bill Clinton for his brother. There's no point in hand wringing about political norms when it's not like Trump gives a shit about political norms. We can give up on trying to take some high road, nobody cares.

www.desmoinesregist...

Of weird womens' fashion stuff... For fucks sake, why would anyone want a sweater or jacket that stops at your navel?!? My stomach gets cold too!

Overall, surprisingly not a terrible article from AP about trans youth healthcare. My only quibble is mainly around the line:

"Research on long-term hormone use in transgender adults has found potential health risks including a modest risk for blood clots with estrogen and negative cholesterol changes with testosterone."

You know who else has modest risk for blood clots over cis men? Cis women.

You know who else has worse cholesterol than cis women? Cis men.

apnews.com/article/...

When you have the "weird gay neighbors", but them being gay isn't the weird part. They're just weird, and it's to distinguish them from the "normal gay neighbors".

@NeonPurpleStar
vis.social/@artcoll...

@NeonPurpleStar
enron.com/

Since Enron is back apparently...

Former colleagues who worked at Enron are a big part of the reason I refuse to keep much or any company stock as soon as I can cash it out to diversify it. I knew a bunch who not only got suddenly laid off when the company shuttered, but then also had a huge chunk of their savings and retirement vanished. I'm not going to let both my employment and my retirement rest in the same company's future.

Every president has pardoned friends and cronies and donors. This is really nothing all that different besides the fact that Hunter Biden is Joe's family.

"Well, banning trans people from sports isn't THAT bad, it's just sports, and there might be some "legitimate concerns"

"Well, maybe trans kids SHOULD wait until they're 18. Or 21. Or 25."

"Maybe we should just leave this all to the states"

"We shouldn't have to make tax dollars or insurance premiums pay for gender transition. HRT or surgery is a luxury they should pay for themselves "

"Existing laws about harassment or discrimination should suffice. There's no need to make new ones or force individual companies or police departments to specifically deal with gender stuff "

"Pronouns are hard and make me uncomfortable, especially all those people who don't look like their pronouns or use 'weird' pronouns. Maybe it's just not worth it, they should just use he or she that they look like same as the rest of us."

"Homeless people are unsightly and weird and might be dangerous. Maybe we should force them to go live in 'govermant housing' ... Which when the housing is full, we'll make 'temporary housing'"

Etc.

@blaidd_drwg

It won't start with putting trans people in camps or outlawing our existence. It will start with smaller things

enforcing "legal gender" to align with your "biological sex"
Banning gender marker changes
Removing any protections from discrimination or harassment from employment or housing or bathrooms
Banning hospitals and doctors and insurance who accept federal funding from providing healthcare to trans people
Ignoring and tacitly endorsing extrajudicial abuse of trans people
Encouraging boycotts and banning from federal funding to any corporations that don't create and enforce anti-trans policies.
Banning schools and colleges from accepting us
What little representation we have in media and movies will disappear

Drip by drip, making it harder and harder for us to exist in society. To remove even what meager protections we've managed to scrape together.

Even many Democrats are turning against us, having decided that trans people are to blame for all their electoral failings in 2024. Anti-trans riders will get crammed into "must pass" bills, and the Senators won't even bother to shut down the government over us. Fewer and fewer states will even bother with challenging it in courts. The packed courts will uphold the new laws and policies. Cis gays and lesbians will toss us under the bus to try and appease the fascists to save themselves for a little while longer.

It won't happen overnight, but it will be a slowly rising tide, consuming the most marginalized among us first. Slowly rising and catching more and more of us in its nets. Oh sure, the most privileged among us will manage. We can get our HRT off the grey/black market or fly overseas for our surgeries. When it gets too uncomfortable, the most privileged of us weilk migrate to safer states or countries, but for more and more, they'll be quieted and disappear. Accounts will go dark as folks go stealth or closet. Most cis people who never especially had any strong opinions about us, positive or negative won't even notice that we're disappearing drip by drip.

I would pay quite a lot of money for laser hair removal that worked on light colored hair...

I'm at least 50% confident that very few people actually LIKE salads. They're just something you eat to be polite and act like you're eating healthy around other people.

A thing I never see reported as often as it should be is that the Forbes' title of wealthiest people in the world is basically limited to people whose wealth is discernable via publicly traded companies, etc. When you're talking people like Putin, the Saud family, or any wealthy people who hide their wealth in shell companies and offshore accounts, it's functionally impossible to tell just how much money they have/have control of.

Years ago, I read a post about "The Tyranny of the Extroverts", and it's lived rent free in my brain ever since. Extroverts are WAY overrepresented in politicians, legislatures, senior executives, and upper management. Promotions, and raises are typically HEAVILY weighted by who can be the most interactive and engaged with the most people in the most meetings. Society calls people who would rather a quiet night at home rather than going out with friends or partying "lame" or "losers" or "shut-ins".

All us introverts see these messages all the time while growing up, and it can get DEEPLY internalized into a guilt/shame spiral. "I'm bad at being a person", "I won't ever have friends/be worthy of friends", "I'm just not 'management material'", etc. and then spur ourselves into squeezing out "on" energy to mask and pretend to be an extrovert. Which isn't sustainable in the long run.

This is what it means to be an introvert in an extroverts world. Just because you don't get energy from crowds, your potential in many ways is capped and limited by those in power who can't or won't understand why you don't process the world like them. They asked all their extrovert friends, and they don't see any problems with a day full of meetings followed by going to a happy hour followed by going to various social schmoozing networking events. Meanwhile, the rest of us hit our limits after a few hours and then blame ourselves for being "broken".

(Yes I'm aware that everyone has different proportions and situations where they can be one or the other or a mix. And just because someone is mostly an introvert doesn't mean they can't "turn it on" for periods of time)

"We would like everyone to have equal rights and their basic needs met, even the people we don't like, by everyone paying their fair share."

"We think some people are subhuman, deserve zero rights, and we would prefer them to die. The poor owe everything they have to the rich if they want to survive, and the wealthy owe nothing to anyone"

"Idk, I mean, which of you is more fun to have a beer with?"

I'm debating with myself whether companies cramming AI buttons and apps and icons into everything are better or worse than when everyone was trying to shoehorn voice assistants into literally everything.

(No, you don't have to tell me about how AI is bad for the environment or labor or copyright or whatever. I'm solely talking about the user experience here)