Please note. The orange one is not included because A. He isn’t a billionaire. And B. Calling him obnoxious is too kind for him.
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
libby app guide
aka how to support libraries and get books and audiobooks for free without pirating them.
disclaimer: this is so easy. it is also really fun.
one: download the libby app. you'll open it and it'll ask you to add a library.
two: get a library card. don't have one? good news, it's really easy and i am saying this as the laziest person on earth. it varies what you need to have to get a card library to library but almost all libraries will let you get one online. i have a card for my home town and for the town i moved to. sometimes you only need an email address, sometimes you need an area code. to get mine it took me about 5 minutes of lying on the couch aimlessly tapping on my phone. follow your heart. you can get cards for places you don't currently live. i will leave the ethics of that up to you but it's probably better than pirating and either way you're creating traffic for libraries which is what they need to exist.
three: add your card. you can add multiple cards for multiple libraries. you need the number. i have never had libby fail to recognize a valid account.
four: search for your book! some will be ready to borrow right away. others have an estimated delivery time. libby will always pick the one that's the fastest from the options available at all the libraries you have cards at. you can borrow audiobooks and ebooks. libby will send you a notification when you're book is ready to borrow. in my experience it's a lot faster than the estimate. if you aren't ready to read it, you can ask to be skipped over in line so you keep your place at the front but let someone else read it first.
five: read it!!! kindle is the most common way to do this. you can go to your loan and click read with kindle. it'll download it to all your devices where you have kindle. as long as you have the loan, it'll act like your book. when the loan ends, if the device is connected to the internet, it'll automatically be returned. it will save all your notes and highlights. (if you disconnect your device from the internet, it won't return the book. weewoo.)
anyway in case anyone else has been wondering about it, i really love it. is a nice surprise to see what i'm going to get and it's cut my reading costs down big time! it's also neat because i get to synch my books between devices unlike downloading books through cough cough other means. good luck!
Reblogging again to say that you do not need Kindle, the app or the device, to read ebooks on Libby!! You can read any book you borrow WITHIN the Libby app, and you can change the font and dark/light mode for accessibility too.
please be aware the libby app does NOT let you read or listen offline so the app itself is unusable for me for actual reading unfortunately! you guys who have access to the internet steadily can use it but be aware. you can't use it on a plane, for example, but if you download to kindle you can.
You should actually be able to use libby app offline (for those allergic to kindle like I am lmao). You just have to change your download permissions in settings. The web browser version of libby is online only though.
Go to Settings > Change Download Rules > toggle to “Everything” (and recommended to “Download only on Wi-fi” if you are worried about your data)
Then Settings > Read Books With… > Libby, so that it downloads to the correct app. You should be able to change your preferences on the main page by clicking the cloud icon to see where you’ve downloaded it too.
Libby also has a feature called Notify Me--if you search for a book and Libby can find it in their database but it's not available to borrow from your library, hit Notify Me. Not only will you be notified if the book becomes available, but your library will be notified that there is A Reader who is looking for this book, so that they can buy it if that's possible for them--without you having to make a direct request!
You can also change your preferences so you only see results in the medium you want so you only see audiobooks if that is what you use Libby for (like me) or to exclude audio if you only want eBooks
audiobooks are SO expensive, and i listen to them almost every night. libby has saved me thousands of dollars by now, no joke. support your local library. if you’re not american, you can still try to apply for a library card at the brooklyn library!
you gotta be able to say "die"
you gotta be able to say "suicide"
you gotta be able to talk about "sex"
they're uncomfortable topics, YEAH for SURE
because LIFE is uncomfortable. Death and suicide and sex and pain are straight up going to happen. not having words for the way it discomforts you doesn't make it more comfortable, it just makes you less able to reach out about it.
even more vital, you gotta be able to say words like "rape", "abuse", "queer" or "racist". cause we fought fucking hard to name those experiences. to identify "rape" as distinct from "sex" and "racism" as distinct from "acceptable behaviour" and "queer" as distinct from "invert"
like the function of communication is not to minimise immediate discomfort. we gotta be able to talk about stuff that's hard or sucks or causes difficult conversations.
This is what's so goddamn terrifying about the Internet slowly collapsing into the same 3-5 websites--if Facebook deprioritizes you for saying "sex" and TikTok shadowbans you for saying "suicide" and Twitter X locks your account for saying "racism" we've lost a lot more than just the culture of the old weird internet
No more apologizing for being horny on main. No more horny jail. We’re horny prison abolitionists. No gods, no masters! Wait. Okay maybe a few masters. Alright but no bars will hold us! No whips and chains will — fuck, hang on, let me start again.
gen z has to reckon with its radicalization problem. you are not a morally pure and superior generation of youth come to save the world, your men and boys are radicalized at an unprecedented level and you ignore it because it’s too hard to address but you have to. these boys are in your classes, they date your friends, you know them and you cannot continue to pretend this is an “old white guy” problem
girls are contributing, too. the coquette aesthetic, the “i don’t want to girlboss i want a man to pay my bills”, girlmath girljob girlmoney. it’s a joke, it’s clothes, it’s whatever, i get it but it is driving a mentality of traditional gender roles and you know you’re joking but your boyfriend doesn’t. your kid brother doesn’t. you have to stop this shit it is a contributing factor
Happy birthday to AO3 🎂🎉
Click through to see story links
I saw this and felt like it should be shared here too
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimes
can someone please be proud of me like fuck I’m trying
reblog to let prev know you’re proud of them
Just watched the banned Moon Girl episode.
>the episode addresses the topic of trans kids in sports >the entire episode is about how bigots will always move the goalpost, and playing by their rules is pointless >the solution is not to play their game and break the rules >it also states that trans people should never feel like a burden >the character Brooklyn is explicitly stated to be trans >there is also an explicitly nonbinary character >multiple mentions of pride and depictions of pride flags, trans flags and progress flags
I'm not at all surprised this didn't get past the censors but I'm so mad that it didn't, because this could've been something really special, and the fact it was canned after being fully finished is downright painful. This episode was wonderful and I'm grateful to all the people who worked on it, and angry that their hard work was wasted. Disney did not deserve you.
"kill them with kindness" WRONG. chair attack 🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑
This post is now about a far-right politician and one of the best moments of Brazilian live TV:
appreciating the added context
Outlines of two alligators that slept through the rain.
"In a historic move Friday [November 8, 2024], Sacramento State announced its new Native American College, a first of its kind in the California State university system.
The college, a co-curricular institution housed at Sacramento State, will support Native-based education with a focus on leadership and career building. It will offer a diverse range of programs that integrate "tribal values, traditions and community engagement," according to a press release.
This marks Sacramento State's second ethnic-based institution. The university launched the the nation's first Black Honors college earlier this year.
The announcement was made at the California State Capitol by President Luke Wood and Dr. Annette Reed, an enrolled member and citizen of the Tolowa Dee-ni' Nation, who will be the first dean of the Native American College.
Reed said students will have access to faculty mentors, advisors, outreach coordinators and more who have the expertise to work closely with Native American students and can support them holistically.
She hopes this historic initiative will address low enrollment of Native students pursuing higher education across the state and in the country. Native American students face significant barriers to enrolling in higher education, such as financial constraints, feelings of isolation, historical trauma and lack of culturally relevant curriculum.
"And so I'm hoping this impacts the students where they go through as a cohort. They can create networks, they can be able to have more of a support system going through and beginning together and hopefully graduating at the end together," Reed said.
Reed recalled taking her first class on Native American studies in 1980. She would later on serve as the director of Native American studies at Sacramento State and chair of the Department of Ethnic Studies. For her, advocating for Native American education was a natural top priority.
"People always ask me, 'What is Native American studies?' It is history. It is looking at culture. It's looking at teaching sovereignty, federal Indian law. It's teaching social work, art. It's teaching about Native cultural expression, it can be literature," Reed said.
The Native American College will introduce two new courses, according to Reed, which will be focused on Native American leadership.
"It means that maybe some of the ones that start in Fall 2025 will end up here at the Capitol. Maybe they'll end up being the future senators or assembly people or the future of people in business. They might be leading our nation as tribal chairs, they might be going into the medical field," Reed said. "But whatever field they go into, leadership is really key."
Students who want to be in the Native American College can apply after being accepted into the university's general application process. All students will be required to minor in Native American Studies, with an emphasis on Native American leadership."
-via ABC 10, November 8, 2024
Golf Courses ARE Being Converted
The Solarpunk "fantasy" that so many of us tout as a dream vision, converting golf courses into ecological wonderlands, is being implemented across the USA according to this NYT article!
The article covers courses in Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, Colorado, and New York that are being bought and turned into habitat and hiking trails.
The article goes more into detail about how sand traps are being turned into sand boxes for kids, endangered local species are being planted, rocks for owl habitat are being installed, and that as these courses become wilder, they are creating more areas for biodiversity to thrive.
Most of the courses in transition are being bought by Local Land Trusts. Apparently the supply of golf courses in the USA is way over the demand, and many have been shut down since the early 2000s. While many are bought up and paved over, land Trusts have been able to buy several and turn them into what the communities want: public areas for people and wildlife. It does make a point to say that not every hold course location lends itself well to habitat for animals (but that doesn't mean it wouldn't make great housing!)
So lets be excited by the fact that people we don't even know about are working on the solutions we love to see! Turning a private space that needs thousands of gallons of water and fertilizer into an ecologically oriented public space is the future I want to see! I can say when I used to work in water conservation, we were getting a lot of clients that were golf courses that were interested in cutting their resource input, and they ended up planting a lot of natives! So even the golf courses that still operate could be making an effort.
So what I'd encourage you to do is see if there's any land or community trusts in your area, and see if you can get involved! Maybe even look into how to start one in your community! Through land trusts it's not always golf course conversions, but community gardens, solar fields, disaster adaptation, or low cost housing! (Here's a link to the first locator I found, but that doesn't mean if something isn't on here it doesn't exist in your area, do some digging!)