Poetry's gay

Alex Jones is livestreaming rn and for the first and only time in my life it's appointment viewing. He got evicted from his studio mid-stream and they had to cover for him when he popped up in his "satellite studio" (a room in his house I assume) devoid of the Infowars branding. He's talking about how "tens of millions" of people have watched his final broadcast & you can literally see he has far less than a million viewers in the bottom corner (and this is on Twitter, which inflates views of videos ever since Elon had to convince people anyway gives a shit about Tucker Carlson's livestreams). He's currently whining that they chose not to sell his site back to him at auction, so he could keep doing the crimes that are why he was selling his website.

I didn't see this personally but he's apparently read out the Onion's announcement, which is a fake article by a fake corporation, out loud several times as if it was real. Anyway it should be noted how screwed he is, bc...

...while he can livestream under his own name, they own his warehouses of dubious supplements. He has nothing to sell but t-shirts protesting that his show is going down. Since Infowars was, first and foremost, a lifestyle brand, this leaves him, scientifically speaking, "totally fucked". He doesn't have ads, that's the only way he makes money

He just promised that he will "win the information war" which. You were sued into oblivion for lying about the parents of murdered children & lost your platform so hard you don't even have a studio anymore & your brand was seized by a rival to make fun of you. I didn't think the Infowar was a real thing you could lose, but I'm not sure there's a more definitive way to lose the information war. Anyway he's now ranting about fluoride

Families in Gaza are starving because of Israel blocking resources from entering. The consequences of childhood starvation are severe and deadly, both immediately and long term. Malnutrition weakens your immune system and leaves you more vulnerable to infectious diseases, and makes it harder for your body to fight the illness, so the chance of severe illness from common illnesses is higher. Even completely treatable illnesses can kill you when you’re starving and don’t have access to medical care. This combined with lack of clean and safe drinking water is extremely dangerous, especially for the children. Malnutrition stunts your growth, affects your development and heightens risk of serious health problems for the rest of your life. Being underweight and suffering from malnutrition makes you cold more easily, and more vulnerable to hypothermia.

Can you imagine as a parent having to witness your child suffering like this? Fearing for your children’s lives from what would usually be a relatively minor illness? Hearing them cry from hunger because the occupation is starving them? This is every parents worst nightmare, but for Ahed this is reality.

Ahed has three beautiful young daughters under 10 years old. 9 year old Fatima “the closest to (Ahed’s) heart and my little one”, 6 year old Iman “the friendly, kind, and loving child who is loved by everyone” and little Nour, who is only one year old and has barely got to experience peace in her short life.

He campaigns every day to get attention for his campaign to feed them and keep them warm and hopefully evacuate when the border opens. We have the power to help Ahed and his little children survive this. Food prices in Gaza are extremely high and it’s difficult to even get water. Ahed and his family do not have adequate shelter from the cold. Donations can help him buy food and clothing and blankets for his children to keep them warm in the winter They’re already suffering so much from the sounds of bombs and repeated displacements, starvation and infectious diseases is another cruel consequence of the occupations genocide in Gaza.

I know he is scared and exhausted from asking for help for this, but he keeps going because his children are his whole world, and like any parent he would do anything to save them. This is his hope. I believe it’s our job, as the people who support and care about palestinians lives, to make sure the people who reach out for help know that the world hasn’t forgotten them. Please show Ahed that the compassionate people of the world will help him

they only have €7,153 raised out of the 40,000 goal. Anything you send will help a lot ❤️

DONATE HERE + VETTING (#229 on the spreadsheet)

So the destruction of the Institute of Sexology is in a lot of people's minds right now, which is fantastic. In a world where more and more books are being banned, thinking and talking about the extremes of this behavior is absolutely necessary. But I would really like to talk about some actionable steps you can take right now to preserve and uplift queer voices.

Queer history is being made right now. People are going to look at how we as a community responded to our voices being silenced, and I hope this helps you decide how you want to be a part of that story.

There are so many different shades of white light bulbs, I am so overwhelmed walking down the light bulb aisle, and then I'm never happy with the one I choose, no matter which one I choose, I get it home and I put it in and I'm like, ugh, I don't like THAT white

Color temperature range charts may be useful when going to try the next option (i kept a list of "nopes" in my wallet until i discovered I want shaded reading lamps, bathroom and kitchen lights all between 3800-4200 and everywhere else not above 3200 nor below 2800. YMMV, I enjoy warmer tone colors but not too warm or I'll get sleepy/depressed).

Different temp-colors for different areas/tasks.

Omg but this is so helpful, I am so glad I am not the only person just completely bewildered by how many different tones are being labeled with a single word! This will help me so much!!!! Thank you!!!!

Fully cried in real life over this OuiOui my dear friend beaded for me. My new prized friend, I took it to gaze at the sea. I cannot describe the feeling that overcame me when I opened the parcel and saw this tiny purple man. Pure love.

Also if you’re interested in beadwork, send an inquiry to Isaac, a 2S Inuk artist who’s currently raising funds to get to the Arctic Youth Conference with his twin!! Iyitsiaq on Instagram!!

reading progressive sex ed caricatures with accurate and detailed and realistic diagrams of sexual organs + shows their variation, but all i can think about is how there is no discussion of what srs is besides the fact that it exists

how may people know the before and afters of vaginoplasty? phalloplasty? meta? how it works at all?

this one has been passed around recently from the mayo clinic and that actually makes me so happy because how many of transfeminine people are aware of what their options even look like?

there’s a diagram for phallo and meta from springer link(i believe) and. honestly i’d never seen these before and i dont think i’ve ever seen any diagrams. i know vaguely because of reading papers or listening to people talk about their experience but i’ve never seen it, yk? it makes me more confident in my choice to get meta when i’m older

There’s a website called Transbucket that has a whole archive of before and after photos, surgery costs, surgeon names and locations, and general feedback on complications, sensation, everything. It’s been around for at least a decade, and there are photos of some folks five or eight years down the line. It’s organized by procedure, and it’s very comprehensive. It’s NSFW of course but it’s an amazing resource!!!

Demystify transition! Break irrational medical fear!

I've actually really wondered the specifics of phallo and meta so seeing diagrams is fucking awesome

It says a lot about our society that vaccines are controversial but an injectable diabetes drug being used off label for weight loss was immediately accepted by everyone without a second thought

There was a poor soaking wet crow sitting in the rain, I had to draw him. Looked like the world's most dejected rectangle 😅💚

lindt is being sued in a class action in the united states because they are one of MANY brands of chocolate that tested high for heavy metals. and this is despite lindt claiming their chocolate is "expertly crafted with the finest ingredients". no recall was issued after the tests came out. lead and cadmium can fuck the body over BAD.

lindt's genius defense is that they are going to stop saying the whole thing about being expertly crafted with the finest ingredients, so nobody can complain about the heavy metals in their chocolate anymore! and that makes it okay. source: trust me bro

(now please drop the lawsuit thanks)

consumer reports test results of a bunch of different chocolate brands <- original report being referenced

even more chocolate brands that were tested for heavy metals

imagine this. you advertise yourself as "the coolest dude around". your whole persona is being "cool" and "chill". and then one day, you burn someone's house down on purpose. they inevitably sue the shit out of you. and your defense is that you will stop calling yourself "cool" or "chill" so nobody can reasonably expect that you will not set things on fire, because fire is hot, which is the opposite of cool and chill. and therefore everything is fine now and nobody can be mad at you anymore.

that is lindt's defense here.

this can’t be real

He put them together at the kids table that doesn’t exist I’m fucking crying

its easy to make fun of this (and i think we should) but its also important to note the description of this new department that trump has given

[transcript: "together, these two wonderful americans will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies - essential to the 'save america' movement," trump wrote. "i look forward to elon and vivek making changes to the federal bureaucracy with an eye on efficiency and, at the same time, making life better for all americans."]

to be clear: trump is planning to create a new department whose purpose is literally to deregulate and defund government oversight. this will lead to corporations having greater freedom to fuck over consumers while making more money, and he is putting two billionaires in charge of it.

sure, maybe this is just a ploy to keep them quiet. giving them the illusion of power in exchange for backing him. but lets not forget all the regulations trump cut during his last term

which has directly led to the constant recalls of consumer goods and foodstuffs over the past several years. the recent e coli outbreak at mcdonalds? the boars head listeria recall? these are the products of deregulation. getting rid of laws and standards that protect consumers by making sure money hungry corporations dont cut corners.

the funny name is a smokescreen. keep your eye on these fuckers.

While the Onion buying InfoWars is indeed extremely funny, very few of the posts I've seen commenting on the sale have mentioned that the families of the Sandy Hook victims apparently agreed to voluntarily reduce their lawsuit payout as part of a deal to ensure that the Onion would acquire InfoWars wholesale, rather than having the company broken up and auctioned off piecemeal, as the latter course could potentially have allowed some of those pieces to end up back in the hands of Alex Jones' cronies.

Like, yes, it is in fact very funny that InfoWars is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Clickhole, but the real props go out to the Sandy Hook families who saw the opportunity and willingly gave up the additional millions of dollars that could have been realised by stripping InfoWars for parts in order to make that happen.

A very useful thread on Bluesky:

(There is a lot more. Rather than give you all the images, I've copied the full text below.)

Vogue US, 1961.

Ph. Irving Penn

there's a lot to be said about how the average person indulges in delusions far more than anyone is really comfortable grappling with. every now and again, a poll comes out that reveals some sort of number of people who believe they have magical powers, usually pretty high, and everyone takes turns making fun of it and affirming their own Sanity

this is more observational than scientific, but it really does seem like writing off delusional thinking as the realm of the "insane" creates this valley where the "normal" person's thinking (especially a person who considers themself normal, but that's a whole other kettle of fish) must be more empirical, because, categorically, they are not insane

I betray a bit of a tendency towards criticising pop-psychiatry here, but I really don't think it's entirely fair to treat "hallucinations" and "delusions" as these incomprehensible eldritch states of the Other when the most stable person you know is a few nights of bad sleep and one day of unreturned phonecalls away from saying something that would qualify them for a pretty severe diagnosis

most people won't admit to having any kind of hallucination at all for fear of being locked up and yet the occasional weird fucking nighttime ones that you know aren't real are, to my knowledge, one of the most common and universal human experiences

there's an interesting thing I've noticed pretty often when someone first makes friends with schizophrenic people, which is that they undergo this period where they get anxious about whether or not they're a little schizophrenic (I'm guilty of doing this too) before either shutting down entirely or becoming more open to engaging with their own internal concept of sanity

it's so universal that it really brings into sharp focus just how much effort social norms encourage in rejecting everything that could make you seem even a little bit similar to groups that have been written off as morally defective, which makes them seem even more alien and incomprehensible in turn

you're only really allowed to acknowledge these experiences if you're making jokes about them, which I think is a big reason why shadow people and sleep paralysis demons are such an enduring topic of memes. you're only allowed to acknowledge you experience distressing sensory phenomena when it's part of a socially affirming in-joke

The vast majority of mental illness symptoms are completely typical functions and behaviours, but occurring frequently or severely enough to become a problem. They're not some Unique Thing Only Those Insane People Have.

yes I am always saying that.

mental illnesses are almost always "you do something that everyone does, but REALLY BAD or REALLY OFTEN"

like, ADHD: Basically every ADHD symptom is something that everyone does. fidgeting? having trouble focusing? getting distracted? hyperfocusing? time blindness?

Everyone does those from time to time and for one reason or another. We call it ADHD when you do it so much that it causes you problems, and it can't easily be fixed by things like "drink less coffee" or "get rid of distractions".

And the same goes for delusions and hallucinations. Everybody can get them, it's not a fundamentally different thing that only People With Delusion/Hallucination Disease get.

biologists will be like this is a very simplified diagram of a mammalian cell

chemists will be like this is a molecule

okay but this is what the best render of a human cell looks like

They are not kidding

We are full of so many fuckign guys

This is actually a full on interactive map! You can put your cursor over any structure to focus on it and see its name, you can focus on all the structures that are part of a specific pathway and, when you click on proteins, you open it up on PhosphoSitePlus, which is a curated database of proteins and their post-translational modifications. It has a helpful description and summary for each protein!

This is a HUGE complementary resource for learning molecular biology! It really helps to make sense of each individual pathway and it puts everything into perspective. It only focuses on human, rat and certain other animal cells, so it won’t have all the pathways one would wish to see… But for the pathways it does include, consider opening the image and accompanying it as you learn or revise them!

oh wow, thank you for the additional information, i had no idea, that’s so much cooler than just the flat picture.