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So Kickstarter allowed a gross “seduction manual” to get funded, and as part of their apology they are donating $25,000 to RAINN.

Here’s what I know about RAINN:

• Back in late 2010 and early 2011, During #MooreAndMe, Sady Doyle was championing RAINN as an organization to donate to as part of the protest. Then people began reporting that RAINN partnered with providers that deny services to trans women. (I am having a hard time tracking down individual tweets from several years ago related to this…I personally remember seeing it discussed by multiple people on the hashtag at the time, but I know there are plenty of people out there who will refuse to believe this without some sort of objective “proof” outside of women reporting about their experiences. So dismiss away, if dismissing’s what you’re here to do.)
• At least one person contacted RAINN asking about their policy, which RAINN responded to. When pressed about why “gender identity” wasn’t a protected part of their affiliate non-discrimination agreement, RAINN said that was something they were “looking into”.
• In the meantime, Questioning Transphobia put together a list of trans friendly rape survivor organizations.

And thus, I started asking Kickstarter on Twitter to look into whether or not RAINN is still partnering with organizations that refuse services to trans women. I feel like if your apologetic gesture towards women ends up supporting the denial of crisis services to women, that’s not a very good apology.

That same day, a friend of mine pointed me toward an updated piece of information I hadn’t unearthed:

• In 2012, RAINN updated their affiliate non-discrimination policy to include gender identity, and they’ve been disseminating it to their partners.

So. If you read that and thought, “oh, good, it’s all better now!”

1. Me too.
2. We both suck.

More specifically and meaningfully, we’re both believing an organization with a history of supporting transphobia is suddenly not doing that anymore, just because that organization says so.

That’s cissexist, and it’s bullshit, and I’m sorry that I started kicking up a fire only to try and put it out by tweeting that last link out like it meant something more than, “RAINN is now trying to cover their ass slightly more thoroughly.” I should have known better and done better.

Are trans women still getting turned away by RAINN affiliates? I genuinely don’t know. I don’t know how to find out beyond asking publicly and listening to women. So far I’m hearing from people who’ve heard from people that services are still being denied, but nothing more direct or concrete than that.

But it’s unforgivably naive to assume that RAINN and its partners have fully corrected the problem just because they say it’s corrected. So until I hear from trans women that they actually got help from one of RAINN’s affiliates, I’m still donating elsewhere, and I have to side-eye organizations like Kickstarter that choose to fund RAINN as an attempted gesture of good will toward women.

Here’s that list of trans friendly rape survivor organizations again, in case that’s a thing you maybe want right now.

You've undoubtedly heard about TV chef Paula Deen's terrible, terrible week in which she admitted to using racial slurs and had her ass drop-kicked off the Food Network. Well the hits just keep on comin', because Paula has reportedly been fired from her spokeswoman job at Smithfield—a major pork company, where she apparently had a line of designer hams. I WANT A LINE OF DESIGNER HAMS!! From TMZ:

The company tells TMZ, "Smithfield condemns the use of offensive and discriminatory language and behavior of any kind." The statement goes on ... "We are terminating our partnership with Paula Deen."

Smithfield then somewhat sanctimoniously says, "Smithfield is determined to be an ethical food industry leader and it is important that our values and those of our spokespeople are properly aligned."

Here's a former Deen/Smithfield designer ham commercial for your enjoyment. (What's she pouring on that ham? Motor oil?)

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Another day, another awesome take on the Periodic Table of Elements. In this one, science communicator and PhD student Jamie Gallagher mapped out where the scientists were living when they made their discoveries.

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Newly published findings reveal that, since its introduction in 2006, the HPV vaccine has reduced HPV infection rates by a massive 56% among female teenagers 14-19 years of age. Is this impressive? Enormously. Is it enough? Not even close.

Read more...

‘Nam was a motherfucker

sequentialsmart:

Pages from Scarlet, written by Brian Michael Bendis, art by Alex Maleev.

It’s a truly stand-out comic that can turn something as basic as introducing a character’s back story, into a visually memorable sequence.  

At first glace, it just looks like fifteen panels in standard layout. But it’s really fifteen snapshots of the defining moments and characteristics in Scarlet’s life to date. Note that the last panel of a Portland landmark, which breaks the rhythm established so far, is enlarged to emphasize the most telling quality about her.

It’s exposition done as only a comic can do.

thank you!

Brothers Jesse and Adam Blockton of Failures created a humorous video that shows late musician John Lennon auditioning and failing on The Voice, a reality television singing competition on NBC.

Thanks Jeff Newelt!

The Girls from Hawkeye by David Aja

Jon Stewart with Bassem Youssef at Albernameg (English sub) البرنامج لقاء باسم يوسف مع جون ستيوارت (by AfterFunEffect)

CHRISSY, SHUT UP. I’VE GOT IT. WHAT WE NEED IN HERE IS CROWN MOLDING. EVEN YOUR INSULTINGLY AMATEURISH COLOR CHOICES COULD BE REDEEMED WITH SOME SUBTLE BUT DECORATIVE CORNICE WORK.

_{[preorder the book]}

Want a government bailout? It’s all about getting taxpayer skin in the game, according to phone conversations between two senior managers at the now defunct Anglo Irish Bank, which were released over the weekend by the Independent.

In September 2008, the Irish government stepped in to serve as the lender of last resort for the nation’s banks, offering a €400 billion guarantee meant to bolster faith in Ireland’s troubled financial system. Later that year, it pledged another €10 billion to the worst-hit lender, Anglo Irish Bank. The bailouts were part of a scheme that ultimately put the entire country at risk of bankruptcy and forced Ireland to take its own bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

But the phone conversations between John Bowe, then head of capital markets for Anglo Irish, and Peter Fitzgerald, formerly head of retail banking, indicate that bankers deliberately deceived the government about the extent of Anglo Irish’s financial problems.

The bank had asked the state for €7 billion to help it make payments as funding in global markets dried up. But Bowe said of the figure: “[I] picked it out of my arse.”

The bank, it seems, knew that the true cost of a bailout would likely be much higher. But the €7 billion figure would get taxpayer skin in the game, and buy Anglo Irish time. Bowe told Fitzgerald:

The reality is that we actually need more than that. But you know, the strategy here is, you pull them in, you get them to write a big cheque, and they have to keep, they have to support their money, you know…

They have invested a lot. If they saw, if they saw the enormity of it up front, they might decide, they might decide they have a choice. They might say the cost to the taxpayer is too high. If it doesn’t look too big at the outset. If it looks big, big enough to be important, but not too big that it kind of spoils everything, then, then I think you have a chance. So I think it can creep up.

Moreover, Bowe and Fitzgerald appeared to know that the bank would never be able to return that €7 billion. Says Bowe on the call, “So, so it’s bridged until we can pay you back. Which is never.”

Guaranteeing the bad debts of Anglo Irish, the Bank of Ireland, and Allied Irish Bank ultimately pushed the Irish government toward a sovereign bailout. Critics have argued that the government should have let the banks default on their uninsured debts, because Ireland’s sovereign financial standing would have remained intact. These conversations suggest that the Irish government never knew the full extent of the financial system’s problems in the first place.

Hindsight is 20-20, but the Irish government certainly got the wool pulled over its eyes.

Listen to all the recordings here.

OnlyMrGodKnowsWhy

Reblobbed for my homies

Original Source

The man who fell to Earth

Virginia is long-haired, three-legged tabby cat that acts as a temporary mother to kittens at the Cattery Cat Shelter in Corpus Christi, Texas. “She’ll take them and force them to lie down with her while she bathes them, just like a mom would,” Cattery president and cofounder Scott Person told Catster. “If they’re misbehaving, she’ll go around and correct them, and she’ll get them out of trouble if they got on top of one of the cat trees.”

Virginia is also up for adoption, but Person says she needs “a really special household” because one of her rear legs has been amputated, the other is paralyzed, and she requires diapers and a therapy walker. Volunteers at the shelter have even built her a special pink therapy walker to help her develop strength in her back leg, and she’s already shown progress after using it. “She does take a fair amount of time, but we wouldn’t have it any other way,” Person said. “She’s available for adoption to the right family. Until that time, she’s got a great home here, and she’s got a job — to take care of all the little kittens.”

images via Catster

via Catster, Fark, Neatorama