ThePrettiestOne

“

Physics says: go to sleep. Of course
you’re tired. Every atom in you
has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes
nonstop from mitosis to now.
Quit tapping your feet. They’ll dance
inside themselves without you. Go to sleep.

Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch
by inch America is giving itself
to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness
lap at your sides. Give darkness an inch.
You aren’t alone. All of the continents used to be
one body. You aren’t alone. Go to sleep.

Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow,
Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle,
Psychology says: but first it has to be night, so
Biology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town
and
History says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.

”

- Albert Goldbarth, “The Sciences Sing a Lullaby” (via necromantically)

Hillary Clinton took time in New Hampshire Monday to remind voters that while Donald Trump's comments about Megyn Kelly have been next-level offensive, the rest of the Republicans are no different on women's issues when it comes to policy, reports Anne Gearan.

"What Donald Trump said about Megyn Kelly is outrageous, but what the rest of the Republicans are saying about all women is also outrageous," Clinton said. "They brag about slashing health-care funding, they say they would force women who have been raped to carry their rapist's child." [...]

"What Marco Rubio said has as much of an impact in terms of where the Republican Party is today as anybody else on that stage, and it is deeply troubling." [...]

"When one of their major candidates, a much younger man, the senator from Florida, says there should be no exceptions for rape and incest, that is as offensive and as troubling a comment as you can hear from a major candidate running for the presidency," Clinton said.

Clinton's comments Monday build on the jabs she aimed at Jeb! last week over women's health. It's interesting that she singled out Rubio over his GOP rival Scott Walker—both men bragged about about their "no exceptions" abortion stance at last week's debate. Perhaps, the Clinton campaign views Rubio as a more likely rival in the general election, whether as a VP or presidential nominee.

micdotcom:

Watch: John Oliver’s sex ed video needs to be shown in every American school 

aintgotnoladytronblues:

getdiiirt-y:

screamingdustspecks:

Just so we’re all clear, it is okay to miss people you no longer want in your life.

this is so important

some people genuinely have trouble with never being told this. i am reblogging this post in case that includes any of you in my audience.

By Soren Bowie  Published: August 07th, 2015 

Wonders never cease:

It’s finally happened – the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has admitted that marijuana is “clearly” safer than heroin. Though this isn’t news to science, it represents a small but significant shift in the DEA who had previously refused to acknowledge that marijuana is less dangerous than heroin.

The science has been clear on the matter for a while. Not only is marijuana safer than heroin, but drug experts broadly agree that it’s also safer than alcohol. Yet, both drugs continue to be Schedule I controlled substances. According to the DEA, marijuana and heroin “have no currently accepted medical use in the United States, a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision, and a high potential for abuse.”

The DEA’s acknowledgment follows a recent study released earlier this week that has challenged previous research linking teenage marijuana use with physical and mental health issues. Research on marijuana has been widely conflicted for the last few decades due to different methodologies and various factors that are difficult to control for.

The DEA's budget soared from $75 million in 1973 to $3 billion in 2014.

Throughout its lifespan, the DEA has killed innocent people, including teenagers. Corrupt agents have made millions, on occasion stealing bundles of cash during drug busts. The list of DEA violence and corruption goes on and on.

The agency also has spent years rejecting the scientific evidence that marijuana should be taken off the Schedule I list of proscribed substances. Which has meant millions of people—that's not hyperbole—have had their lives ruined by being jailed or imprisoned or otherwise sanctioned for possession or sale of the weed. Student loans and other government aid continues to be denied for people convicted of marijuana-related crimes.

So, hip, hip, hurray that after more than four decades of reckless, murderous, ruinous policies backed up by lies of commission and omission, a tiny bit of sanity has appeared at DEA HQ.

Perhaps we'll see some sanity appear elsewhere in the federal government soon and this corrupt and obsolete agency will be dismantled and Americans whose lives have been upended from sentencing for drug crimes that shouldn't be crimes will have their terms commuted and the stigma of criminality expunged from their records.

But I won't be making any wagers on such an outcome.

Bernie Sanders snagged the support of a major union Monday, National Nurses United. The only other major union endorsement so far for a Democratic candidate is that of the American Federation of Teachers, which is supporting Hillary Clinton. Here's Dave Jamieson:

National Nurses United, which represents 185,000 nurses, most of them women, hosted a brunch with Sanders on Monday in Oakland, California. The union's leadership announced there that they would formally back the senator and campaign on his behalf as he competes with front-runner Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

The union's executive director, RoseAnn DeMoro, told The Huffington Post that Sanders had earned the support of NNU's board and had won by a wide margin in a poll of the membership.

"We were stunned by the results," DeMoro said. "It was so overwhelming for Bernie Sanders."

DeMoro also noted of Sanders that "What he's not about is himself. He's about building a social movement for humanistic change."

Although the AFT and NNU's endorsements will probably spur other unions to make their preferences known, the umbrella AFL-CIO itself is likely to wait a while. But not too long. “The Koch brothers got boots on the ground right now,” says Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees and chair of the AFL-CIO executive council’s political committee. “We’ve got to put boots on the ground.”

Sanders is, as this is published, answering questions in a National Nurses United web-based Q&A session here.

•••

smiley7 has a discussion up on the subject here.

Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress reports on a study that found a hefty percentage of eligible voters in House district 23 of Texas didn't cast ballots in 2014 because they didn't have, or didn't think they had, the proper ID to vote. If they had voted, it might well have turned the tide in the race between Democrat Pete Gallego and Republican Will Hurd because the vote was so close:

Typically, analysts examining how voter ID laws affect turnout have honed in on voters who lack ID as the obvious victims of such a law. The Rice/Houston study, however, reveals that these laws reach far beyond the universe of people without IDs. “[T]he most significant impact of the Texas voter photo ID law on voter participation,” at least within the congressional district examined by the study, “was to discourage turnout among registered voters who did indeed possess an approved form of photo ID, but through some combination of misunderstanding, doubt or lack of knowledge, believed that they did not possess the necessary photo identification.” [...]

Altogether, 12.8 percent of the non-voters surveyed in the study said that lack of identification was a reason why they did not vote in the 2014 election, and 5.8 percent said that this was the principal reason why they did not vote. Yet, despite the relatively high numbers of voters who cited lack of ID when asked why they did not cast a ballot, the researchers determined that only “2.7% of the respondents did not possess any of the seven valid forms of photo identification” and “only 1.0% did not possess a photo ID and agreed that a lack of this photo ID was a reason why they did not vote.”

At best, this suggests that more than half of the voters who did not cast a ballot because they believed they lacked the identification required to do so actually did have a valid form of ID.

The study concluded that more people who stayed away were likely to have voted for Gallego, then a freshman incumbent, than for Hurd. It also found that Latino non-voters were much more likely than Anglo non-voters to say that lack of photo ID was the reason they didn't vote in 2014. The population of the district is more than half Latino.

The Texas voter ID law was blocked under Section 5 of the Voter Rights Act until the Supreme Court gutted the act. But last week a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out the voter ID law on the grounds that it "violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act through its discriminatory effect."

The study—"The Texas Voter Photo ID Law and the 2014 Election: A Study of Texas’s Congressional District 23” can be found here.

I honestly do not know if Sen. Rand Paul is trolling us or is being earnest. Either way, he appeared on Fox News this Sunday to explain that rich people simply work harder than poor people.

"The thing is, income inequality is due to some people working harder and selling more things," Paul told host Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday." "If people voluntarily buy more of your stuff, you'll have more money."

So according to Rand Paul, who is a senator almost entirely because his pappy was able to bequeath to him his very own mailing list, the reason we have income inequality is because rich people sell things and poor people, as a poor life choice, don't. A school teacher, firefighter, bricklayer or coal miner might think they work very, very hard, but it pales in comparison to the indescribable backbreaking labor put in by, say, the various heirs to the Walmart fortune. George W. Bush, Donald Trump and Charles and David Koch had to put in long hours in sun-baked tomato fields to achieve their wealth and prominence; nobody handed them an elite education or a bankroll fat enough to overcome any adversity or a rolodex of America's most wealthy and powerful people, just to goose things along a bit. Rich people simply work harder.

So, dear poor people, what is wrong with you?

Do you think he's trolling us? I have to think so. The other possibility is that he is a complete and total dumbf--k, a grown adult man with no comprehension of the world around him and little apparent curiosity who just happened to land in one of the top political positions in the nation and is pretty sure he could run the whole show if given the chance.

He's gotta just be trolling us, right?

rubyetc:

SOON

When we went to Boston Comic Con this year, we didn’t just want to ask the comic creators we interviewed about the vague concept of “strong female characters” — so we asked them about anti-heroines. That is to say, flawed fictional women who make mistakes, save the day for dubious reasons, or who may have questionable morals. In response, we heard about these creators’ favorite examples of the form, as well as their thoughts on encouraging more diversity when it comes to female personality traits.

In the video above, you’ll hear from Ming Doyle (illustrator of Constantine: The Hellblazer), Laura Martin (colorist of A-Force), Babs Tarr (illustrator of Batgirl) and Erica Henderson (illustrator for The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl).

Here’s the transcript for “What Do You Think About Anti-Heroines?”

***

Ming Doyle: Aren’t we all? … The end. [laughs]

Laura Martin: Ooh, that’s a tough question. Man, that’s a good one.

Babs Tarr: Sailor Moon is — one of the reasons I love her so much is because she got bad grades, she was super clumsy, she was not equipped to be the leader. She’s full of flaws.

Erica Henderson: Yeah, I think there should be flawed women, but I think just because of that, there has to be more women.

Ming Doyle: Well, otherwise all the women fall into the “Madonna” or the “Whore” kind of complex. You can’t just have the extremes. You have to cover the entire spectrum of humanity.

Erica Henderson: Because you can have 20 male characters, and they all have different problems, but you’re not making a comment on men as a whole, because they all have different issues.

Laura Martin: So, if there is a good flawed heroine out there, who is just an awful person, but has a heart of gold on the inside? [thumbs up] Tank Girl comes to mind, you know? I love ’em. I think they’re fantastic.

Ming Doyle: Even to imply that women can’t fulfill every role out there, or that it’s somehow groundbreaking that some of us might be kind of shitty people with some redeeming qualities? [rolls eyes] It’s ridiculous!

Babs Tarr: I think it’s really good to see people — imperfect people — who struggle to do perfect, good things.

Laura Martin: And you want them to save themselves. There’s a little part of you that wants to save them, too. But you want to see them redeem themselves, and that’s the core of the story. I love it.

***

—Please make note of The Mary Sue’s general comment policy.—

Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

relenafanel:

deducecanoe:

Just saying.

OH MY GOD

summer-smells:

it’s not science until something’s on fire

kellyoxenfree:

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine

Every day it seems like there’s a new breach, a password to reset, or vulnerability. The trouble with a lot of security news though is that lot of it is important, but then there are garbage stories like this, big on scare and lacking in information, that make you just want to tune out. Let’s break down what’s worth paying attention to, and what you can ignore when you see it.

Read more...

rorosii:

Let people know straight up what ur about

stfufauxminists:

alexandraerin:

Say I’m 32 years old and you’re 22 years old.

In how many years will we be the same age?

…

Silly question, right? If you define aging as a process that stops at death, the only way we’ll ever be the same age is if I die first. If you don’t, then we’ll never be the same age. Every time you age a year, I also age a year. Since our ages increase at the same rate, you will never catch up to my head start. We have achieved a total equality of aging, but that does not change the permanent inequality of our age.

Okay, say I have a million dollars and you’re completely broke. If we both get a dollar a day, how long will it take you to catch up with me?

Now, this one’s even sillier, because if you have no other resources, your dollar a day is going to be eaten up by basic living expenses that it doesn’t quite meet, and I have an excess of money that can be spent on money-making opportunities that pay off far better than an additional $365 a year. I could literally burn the dollar I’m getting as part of our Totally Equal Income and still make more money in a year than you do just by sticking my money in the bank. 

But still: both of us getting a dollar a day is totally equal, right? It means we’re being treated exactly the same.

And now, final problem:

If we have a world that contains structural inequalities, systemic imbalances, disproportionate danger faced by some, and unequal access to resources and opportunities, is “treating everyone the same” really going to result in equality?

Show your work.

I may have reblogged this already but I don’t care it’s important.

suricattus:

unforth-ninawaters:

kitteno:

roachpatrol:

iguanamouth:

kept getting requests for gryphons so heres a bunch of them At Once

YESSSSSssssss

I need that last one framed and on my wall please.

fireun

Not gonna lie, I kinda want the PatooLas Cat.

idiopathicsmile:

in george soper’s 1907 account of tracing a small but perplexing typhoid outbreak back to one person, a cook named mary mallon (later dubbed “typhoid mary” by the press), he pauses to note that she was blond, blue-eyed and “had a good figure, and might have been called athletic had she not been a little too heavy”

christ, dude

is there literally nothing a woman can do where she won’t be reduced to her appearance

you’d think we could at the very least be a vector for deadly diseases without some dude turning it into a public referendum of how bangable we are

“her story is a fascinating look at a key moment in the history of medical science, as well as the intersection of classism, sexism, and xenophobia in turn-of-the-century american society. also she was like, a 6.”

(photo by vulgaryetcreativeinsult)

dollsahoy:

princessparadoxical:

ladyattercop:

Not another Rats-In-Basement quest!

derinthemadscientist for you :)

Reblogging for Husband…and others…

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver provides a lesson in sex education it feels American schools may be lacking. The segment focuses on the disparity between sexual education programs in American schools, and the lack of standards for their content.

The episode ends with a sex ed video featuring stars like Laverne Cox, Kumail Nanjiani, Kristen Schaal, and husband-and-wife team Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman giving honest, practical, and useful lessons about sex, contraception, and even the best safeword (“Hootenanny”).

fanoffandom:

hanierose:

lackthelighttoshowtheway:

This sort of behavior used to irritate me until I learned about how invasive paparazzi are in America. There are no laws against it.
I’ve also realized, that by flipping off the camera, the pictures can’t be sold to magazines because of “profanity”. So really, she’s just protecting herself.

i did not know that.

Reblogging for the frightening amount of people that this is new information for.

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

---

iguanamouth:

bertb0t:

antique-symbolism:

bertb0t:

antique-symbolism:

Imagine a dragon at Antiques Roadshow, appraising its hoard

Imagine the dragon hoards monetarily worthless things like newspapers or old bones and the person appraising it getting more and more nervous about telling the dragon their stuff isnt worth anything

Imagine that the dragon knows this and just likes watching the person squirm.

The dragon actually hoards uncomfortable situations

The Magician


The High Priestess


The Tower


Death


The Devil


The Fool


The Wheel of Fortune


Temperance


The Sun

kittykrell:

buffythecomicslayer:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Tarot [2008 - canceled]

78-card deck, instruction pamphlet, 64-page softcover book, in reclosable box with magnetic closure

Lost hundreds of years ago, the Slayer’s tarot is an important artifact from Slayer history that came into existence after a group of women shared a vision of a rogue Slayer who would love a vampire, and who would be aided in her fight against evil by a group of mystical allies. The heretical prophecy led to the suppression of the deck by the Watcher’s Council.

Writer: Rachel Pollack; Artist: Paul Lee.

OMG I WANT THIS SO BAD.

Whoa.

Author: Pai Osias Source: Mobile Web (M2)

RT @Iifeonmars: This week in fragile masculinity http://t.co/sMkXvW8maW

when you feel guilty that your mother feels guilty about “doing something wrong” while she was pregnant