People seemed to like the video of Kwee getting head scratches! So here is another one with bonus underwing scratch â¤ď¸đ Kwee is a pineapple morph green cheek conure who I adopted from a Polish lady in Chicago about 6 years ago. She likes dried bananas, baths and men with beards. đ
Well, that donât work in the scene Iâm doing itâs too cute not to draw.
DAWWW SO CUTE :>
they use human chairs but really badly
same
Wait elongated chairs yâall. Eight chair legs instead of one, they can lie down majestically and put their chins on the table like they were always meant to.
âNobody ever used their tax dollars to help me!â says local man who drives on roads, gets his trash collected, has clean water, sends his kids to school, utilizes the police and fire departments, walks his dog in the park, receives mail, and also possess no sense of self reflection.Â
âHer appearance is a major factor in why Iâm with her, to be honest.â
âThe real reason women get a reduction is for the sake of their own vanity.â
âIâm only 27 and the thought of having a woman with small breasts for the rest of my life is impossibleâ
So youâve been with a guy two years, mention youâre thinking of getting a breast reduction, get all that fanfare and suddenly realise that guy was only with you for your boobs. I have no words.
These poor women. :(
Men are trash.
DUMP HIM
DUMP HIM
DUMP HIM
this is so disgusting. yall males having trust issues bc âmakeupâ we be having bonding and trust issues bc ur gonna leave us when we put our health first.
they dont love their girlfriends. when you love someone their health really matters to you more than their appearance
As someone who has gotten a reduction, it is a major boost to quality-of-life.
if exploring your gender is âbecoming a trendâ then iâm glad itâs replacing the âbeing confused and miserable with no context or vocabulary for what youâre going throughâ trend
there is honestly zero things wrong with people exploring their gender
The threatened strike of low-paid workers at Chicagoâs OâHare airport didnât happen at Thanksgiving time as originally proposed, but did occur today as part of a nationwide series of strikes. In some cities, protesters blocking public streets were arrested, but the predicted disruption of air travel at the countryâs busiest airports didnât happen.
According to the Chicago Tribune, OâHare officials say that the protest isnât having a noticeable effect on travelers. Employees who walked off the job today included janitors, baggage handlers, wheelchair attendants, and cabin cleaners, part of a protest backed by the Service Employees International Union that topped 1,000 people just at OâHare, about 500 of them airport workers.
Organizers of the airport protest told media outlets that they expected to disrupt operations, but airport officials said that they did not expect disruptions for travelers. (If you flew through OâHare today and observed anything, let us know.)
One passenger flying American told a Chicago Sun-Times reporter that the wait was a little longer than usual for a wheelchair attendant, but not enough to cause problems.
âI think attendants need more money,â the woman, who uses a wheelchair and flies about twice a year, told the newspaper. âIâm happy to have them strike for it.â
The minimum wage varies across the country and from city to city: itâs $10.50 per hour in Chicago, for example. Protesters who are part of the movement seek a $15 minimum wage and the opportunity to join a union.
Other workers who joined protests included fast food workers, home care workers, and drivers for ride-hailing apps, especially Uber. Fight for $15 says that protests took place in 340 municipalities across the country, with major gatherings at OâHare, Bostonâs Logan Airport, and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
One of the attendants at OâHare, Oliwia Pac, wrote about the harder parts of her job for the Guardian. She is a college student who works mostly as a wheelchair attendant, and is also the person who accompanies unaccompanied minors between flights.
âI have stood out on jetways in -30F weather with only a thin flannel to keep me warm,â she wrote. âI have been told to push two wheelchairs at once. I have worked 17-hour shifts. I get cuts and bruises all the time. But every day I go home and do not know if I have earned enough to get by.â
We have a picture of SuperButtButt from the day we rescued her. She's glaring at us from under her eyebrows. She still gives us that look, over a decade later. It's kind of her default.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has announced Jane Yolen as the 33rd Damon Knight Grand Master for her contributions to the literature of science fiction and fantasy, joining such luminaries as Ray Bradbury, Anne McCaffrey, Ursula K. LeGuin, Isaac Asimov, and Joe Haldeman.
Jane Yolen was 22 when she published her first novel, Pirates in Petticoats. Over her long career, she has written everything from young adult novels to picture books to adult fiction to poetry, as well as editing several anthologies. Much of her work plays with fairy tale tropes, and she has actually been called âAmericaâs Hans Christian Andersenâ by Newsweek. Her short story âSister Emilyâs Lightshipâ received a In 1986 Nebula Award, while her novelette âLost Girlsâ won in 1997. Yolen has also won three Mythopoeic Awards for Cards of Grief, Briar Rose, and The Young Merlin Trilogy. She has won the World Fantasy Award for editing Favorite Folktales from Around the World and later received WFAâs Lifetime Achievement Award.
SFWA president Cat Rambo praised Yolen, saying, âJane Yolen, who has written fantasy and science fiction for ages up and down the range of possibilities, epitomizes what a Grand Master should be. Her close to 300 hundred books, multiple awards, and overall high standard of prose and storytelling make her one of the treasures of fantasy and science fiction.â
And Yolen responded to the news saying, âTo know I am now on the same list as Isaac Asimov, Andre Norton, and Ursula Le Guin is the kind of shock to the system that makes me want to write better each day. Revise, revision, and reinvent.â
Remember when Patrick Rothfuss stopped by Hamilton earlier this year and Lin-Manuel Miranda revealed that The Name of the Wind inspired âThe Story of Tonightâ? Turns out that the two will not just be influenced by one another but actual collaborators: The Wrap reports that Miranda will serve as creative producer behind Lionsgateâs planned film and television (and other media) adaptations of Rothfussâ The Kingkiller Chronicle.
The best way to service Pat Rothfussâ unique and ambitious view was to invent a new way of adapting it with Lionsgateâs film and television teams working side-by-side, which meant that only a multi-hyphenate talent like Lin-Manuel Miranda could do the job. Lin is an incomparable talent and a huge fan of the trilogy and, working closely with Pat, his creative oversight of the franchise will bring an incredible level of detail and continuity to all of the projects.
The Hamilton creator and former star tweeted his excitement:
THE NEWS.
I just love the world of @PatrickRothfuss and I want to spend time figuring out how to share it with you. So this is happening. https://t.co/vwNFzxVj2W
Pat RothfussâKingkiller books are among the most read and re-read in our home. Itâs a world you want to spend lifetimes in, as his many fans will attest. Pat also writes about the act of making music more beautifully than any novelist Iâve ever read. I canât wait to play a part in bringing this world to life onscreen.
Lionsgateâs deal will allow it to develop various stories from The Name of the Wind, The Wise Manâs Fear, and various novellas (including The Slow Regard of Silent Things) simultaneously and across multiple platforms, including video games. According to Variety, Miranda is expected to compose original music and song for the movie(s) and TV series; he also has the option to be involved in future stage productions.
Original photo by Marc Nozell, used via Creative Commons license. Click on photo for original.
Once again presented in Q&A format, as it will contain actual questions that people have asked me. Letâs get to it:
Ugh. I canât even anymore.
And yet again we start with a comment, not a question. Also, sorry, you have to even, just like the rest of us, and get this: Heâs not even president yet. We still have two months of transition to go.
Did you see heâs tweeting again?
I did, in fact.
Why the hell donât they pry his phone from his hands?Â
Who is âtheyâ? And why would they? He won the presidency. They donât need to worry about him losing votes anymore. Thereâs no downside to letting him rant his ass off, and certainly Trump doesnât want to stop doing whatâs worked for him so far. I mean, look at the shit he tweeted while he was running. And yet heâs president. There is essentially no risk for him tweeting at this point.
But he lies in every goddamn tweet!
Yes, and? At this point everyone should simply assume, to paraphrase a famous snark, that every word Trump tweets is a lie, including âandâ and âthe.â This is part and parcel with assuming basically everything Trump says is a lie, since Politifact and every other fact-checking group out there notes that he lied more than any other candidate in the 2016 campaign.
Again, why should he change? Itâs worked out so far for him. You should have it as a baseline assumption that Trump will lie as much as he possibly can, when it suits him, which is always. Trump lies. Itâs who he is. Itâs who he will be. Itâs what his administration will be, too.
Did I mention that I canât even anymore?
Yes you did. I sympathize. Even so.
What do you think about the idea that Trump tweets stupid and/or outrageous things to distract from the other horrible things heâs doing?Â
Aside from the point that anytime I see someone yelling at me on Twitter about how Trump is trying to distract us from this other thing over here, I immediate think fuck you, pal, my brain has the ability to follow more than one thing at a fucking time, I think it gives him too much credit, since there is nothing that weâve seen of him to suggest that heâs anything other than a wailing id with poor impulse control. I think he tweets what he wants to tweet when he wants to tweet it, and simultaneously, his incoming administration is so horrifyingly bad and has such awful plans that it gives the appearance that Trump must be blathering nonsense to hide the horribleness that those things represent. The thing is, that horribleness isnât actually hidden; itâs being industriously reported on. All that horribleness is out there, standing straight and tall. These arenât actually sneaky people. They are openly and unapologetically horrible. And why wouldnât they be? Trump won the election.
But he lost the popular vote! He has no mandate!
Oh, my sweet summer child. I think itâs adorable that you think this fact will in any way impede Trump, his horrible lackeys, or the GOP majority in congress in any way. âNo mandateâ means shit when you have clear paths to legislative and executive power. And no, to repeat from last week, the recounts and audits probably wonât change that; indeed, when theyâre done and Trump is still president-elect, he and his party pals will take it as even more confirmation that they should do whatever the hell they want.
What do you think of the idea that when Trump tweeted about having won the popular vote if you discount illegal voting, he was signalling that he intends to ratchet up voting restrictions?
I think thatâs a stretch, and also I fully expect voting restrictions to ratchet up.
Follow: Trump is a thin-skinned narcissist and sexist who canât possibly conceive of having lost the popular vote to a girl, and he lives in the GOP bubble where vote fraud is happening every day and is largely defined as âbrown people voting,â and considers Alex Jones a credible purveyor of facts, because heâs a fucking ignoramus. So that tweet just came barreling out of him. With that said, given that the GOPâs modus operandi is to suppress voting by making it difficult for minorities to vote, and the fact that Trump is a racist whose racist chief adviser thinks not letting black people vote isnât a bad idea (except for the ones he knows personally, thatâs different, theyâre family, so good news, minorities! You just have to have a white man vouch for you to vote!), if you donât think more voting restrictions arenât about to come down the pike, youâre a fool. Not for me, mind you; Iâm a white male landowner. But for everyone not like me.
The tweets werenât a signal, or more accurately, are only a signal if you werenât already paying attention. Trump is racist, sexist, selfish, tauntable and deluded, all of which was already known. His tweets certainly reflect that, but theyâre not really revealing anything we didnât already know. Trump has been in the media eye for decades now. We know who he is. None of this is surprising. And heâs a 70 year old man who hasnât ever been penalized for being exactly who he is. Anyone still expecting him to change â to âpivotâ â is delusional.
Basically: If youâre tea-reading his tweets for policy hints, you know, maybe read the decades of available journalism on him instead.
Any thoughts on his cabinet picks? Besides âhorribleâ?
No, not really. Trump appears to be picking people for positions primarily with three criteria in mind: That theyâre rich, loyal and that they fundamentally disagree with the mission of the governmental department they will soon be in charge of. Theyâre basically your standard modern-day GOP cabinet picks with the knob twisted all the way over to 11. To be clear, I donât think many of Trumpâs cabinet picks should be confirmed â Iâm particularly thinking of the proposed Secretary of Education, who appears to despise the concept of public education, and also appears to be entirely on board with the concept of âpay to playâ when it comes to public officials â but I also expect them to be confirmed, as again, these choices are in line with current GOP thinking about government, which is that it exists to give tax cuts to rich people and not much else.
I should also be clear that I expect this to be the most overtly and unapologetically incompetent and corrupt administration in modern history because a) Trump doesnât seem to know anyone who doesnât appear to be corrupt and incompetent, b) the GOP at this point doesnât appear to have much interest in stopping the Trump administration from being corrupt and incompetent, I suspect because fundamentally it being so will aid in the modern GOP vision of government as noted above. I also expect it to pursue unabashedly racist, sexist and homophobic policies, which the GOP will also support because it works for that vision of government, and also caters to the GOP base of both latently and actively racist and homophobic voters. So, you know. Buckle in, kids, itâs gonna be a long four years.
You donât like the GOP much, do you, Scalzi?
Nope. I should note that I am grateful that at least some Republicans and/or conservatives appear to have drawn a line in the ethical and philosophical sand with regard to the Trump administration, regardless of how I might disagree with them politically; John Kasich, Evan McMullin and Ana Navarro are three notable examples, although there are more out there. The question is whether there are any of these philosophical line-drawers in congress, or, if there are, if there are enough of them to counter a Trump administrationâs worst excesses. At this point, I doubt it.
And again, make no mistake that the GOP wants the ACA thrown out, would be happy to dismantle or âprivatizeâ (i.e., render into a cash cow for pals) Medicare and Social Security, and generally turn women, minorities and queer and poor folks back second-class citizens who have fewer rights than well-off straight white men. Why? Well, because fuck you is why; any rigorous (although still in my opinion incorrect) philosophical rationale for any of this was tossed overboard years ago. I canât even say I disagree with the tenets of the modern Republican party anymore because it doesnât have any. What it has now is Trump, his passel of grifters and bigots, and its own lack of moral center. Thatâs it. Whatâs to like?
Give us hope, man!
Ugh, fine: One, the filibuster may survive, giving Democrats in the senate the ability to check some of the worst of the Trump administration/GOPâs excesses; Two, 2018 is coming and itâs possible the Trump administration will be so awful so fast that the mid-terms will give the Democrats control of at least one of the chambers (note however, that the 2018 senate map is challenging for the Dems); Three, the courts may overturn some of the worst of any new laws.
Hey, think Obama will appoint Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court because the senate refused to advise and consent?
No.
But he totally could!
And monkeys might fly out of my butt, but thatâs also extremely unlikely to happen. You know, folks, Obamaâs a reasonably smart dude. I do think he understands that the power of the Supreme Court vests entirely in the fact that everyone agrees that it has any power at all, going back to when John Marshall pulled Marbury v. Madison out of his ass and everyone went yeah, okay, fine.
So, question for you: Do you think Donald Trump, a fatuous ignoramus of a man who clearly has no interest in the actual democratic structures of the United States government, will feel obliged to give any credence to a Supreme Court that he, not to mention the entire GOP, which I will remind you currently holds the senate, believes has a philosophical majority that was achieved through underhanded means? Go ahead, take your time here, thereâs no rush.
Obama may yet surprise me and place Garland on the Supreme Court. But I think itâs more likely that Trump will appoint the next justice, the GOP-led senate will confirm whoever that is, and having done so, both will at least theoretically be more resistant to ignoring the court entirely if they do not get their way, thus avoiding an actual collapse of a functioning âchecks and balancesâ government, plunging us headlong into possible, actual autocracy.
Uh, I didnât think of that.
I think a lot of anti-Trump folks are still in the âbargainingâ stage, and are still casting about for the magic bullet that will stop Trump from being Trump. And again, while I sympathize, I cannot recommend doing anything other than working from the assumption that Trump will be president come January 20th, and that a lot of what has to be done at this point is fucking child-proofing the government so that the damage is minimized. I suspect Obama is doing a lot of that at the moment, within the scope of his abilities.
Do you think weâre actually heading into an autocracy?
Honestly, no. Our system of government has survived 240 years and some crises rather more substantial than Trump (see: Civil War). And remember that Trump is still riding his victory wave, as much as someone who is as unpopular as he is has one; he hasnât had to do anything, and heâs had no repercussions for his policies or actions. Heâs won the presidency, but being president is another thing entirely. No matter how much of the actual governance he farms out to Mike Pence, itâs still his administration. I think if and when he begins to fail, heâs going to find himself constrained, especially if the GOP, as feckless as it is in its current iteration, no longer sees an advantage in hanging with him.
This is not to suggest complacency, mind you. Trump can do (and one may suggest already has done) a lot of damage to the system simply by being Trump, and remember that he has no particular love or respect for the democratic processes. Nor can his top advisers be relied upon to remind him of constraints, nor in the very short run, at least, will the GOP rein in his most autocratic tendencies. I donât think weâre heading into an autocracy, but then I didnât think Trump would be president, so, you know. Maybe donât be reassured by me on this matter.
Also, be aware that our enemies have been given a huge gift to enable Trumpâs autocratic drive, and that Trumpâs party pals will be happy to exploit the shit out of it when the time comes.
Wait, what?
Let me put it this way: If I were a person or business who owned or leased space in a Trump owned/operated/branded building? Yeah, I would get out of that lease, like, yesterday, because those things are huge fucking targets now. Shit, I wouldnât even book a room at Trump hotel (not that I would anyway at this point, and no, rebranding them as âScionâ wonât matter a bit). There isnât a terrorist organization out there that doesnât realize that Trump, being Trump, would consider an attack on a building bearing his name the same as someone coming up and punching him directly in the dick. If you wanted to goad our future president into doing something stupid, and/or manufacture an excuse to curtail civil rights here in this country down to a nub, well, there you are.
Jesus, donât tell them that!
Guys, I donât know how to break this to you, but both the terrorists and the âI am so ready to introduce actual fascism!â cadre of Trump lieutenants are already waaaaaay ahead of all of the rest of us on this one.
But even if we donât get there â even if by some miracle a Trump property isnât reduced to a pile of girders or shot up like Swiss cheese, and to be very clear, I hope neither ever happens â the Trump administration and its enablers are going to make a mad gallop out of the gate to do a whole bunch of awful things, to overwhelm you with sheer volume right at the outset. You need to prepare, and plan, and (among many other things) tell your elected representatives to grow a spine. Remember that Trump was not the choice of most people who voted. It doesnât mean heâs not president, and it doesnât mean he cares about âmandates.â But itâs not chopped liver, either, and you should remind your elected officials of that.
Well, this wasnât a very cheerful entry, was it?
Sorry. But I hope Iâve made the point that we donât have to go all the way to actual autocracy for things to get very bad. And that âat least some kind of awfulâ is the best we can expect out of Trump and his party pals at this point.
He could get impeached, maybe?
Dude, time to get out of the âbargainingâ phase.
But I already told you that I canât even.
You have to even. We need you to even, out there with all the rest of us.
