Drífa Jónsdóttir @[email protected]

I'm having a GRS and FFS on Tuesday, 23 July 2019.

I won't be posting explicit photos, but I will talk about my experiences. That will, perforce, include graphic descriptions of anatomy. I will CW all of this appropriately.

If this isn't something you want to read, or if you are underage and it would be illegal for me to send these descriptions to you either in US/VA or your jurisdiction, please either unfollow me or refrain from opening these CW'd messages.

One thing I really hate about my culture is its fetishization of competition. We create needless competition in business, sports, politics, etc. Why? It is destructive, it creates more losers than winners, and it wastes resources that could be better used to solve our collective problems. Proponents claim it spurs innovation and achievement. Bullshit: it spurs cheating and gaming the system. Competition of *ideas* is better served by *cooperation* to study them.

I should probably pin Britt's ref sheet.

If you're trans, remember: the point of changing your appearance and presentation is to feel better living in your own skin. Anyone who gives you grief for not meeting some arbitrary standard is welcome to go shag a cactus.

So, I guess what I’m saying in all this depressing prognosticating is this: make friends, keep ‘em close, and help them every way you can. We are the support we need.

Some of us will turn to direct action in response. And bless ‘em.

For everyone else, remember this: taking care of the affected is good practice, too. People need help with food and transportation. People will need rides they can’t afford across state lines to get abortion care or trans health care. People need a moment to cry sometimes. People need other people around, just reminding them that we’ve got each other’s backs no matter what.

And the backlash to the protest will feature armed groups of right-wingers roaming through city centers attacking the kinds of people Trumpism demonizes.

In other words, my prediction is 2020 is gonna be a non-stop source of anxiety and despair for a lot of people as we watch what little hope or safety we have slowly stripped away from us.

The Democrats, more beholden to their large donors and elderly membership, will nominate a problematic centrist. Young people, already rightly unimpressed with electoral politics, will renew their conviction that electoralism is useless. Fresh Trump scandals will come out and make no difference to his base. And then, in November, he’ll be reelected despite once again losing the popular vote. There’ll be protests, which will shut down forcefully.

2020 is going to be rough for Americans, particularly precarious and vulnerable ones. We’re going to see the Senate pretend not to see the overwhelming evidence of Trump’s corruption, and, proven untouchable, he’s going to kick up his efforts to cheat in November. The Supreme Court will wait until mid-year to block House investigations into Trump’s finances. They’ll let NYC investigate, knowing that public disclosures won’t come until after the election.

You know cats and holiday trees. :)

Thanks, @NightlineZ.

New claws

I think it was apology for a very minor wait, but it turned out to be a sales strategy: I turned around and bought a dozen and gave them to the garage staff. What the heck, share the love.

Wow, I didn’t know there was a YouTube walkout on today.

Got gendered correctly and free coffee and a donut at dunkies. Score!

Reality sucks. I’m gonna play Ookami for the rest of the evening and try to forget just how much it sucks.

So it doesn’t surprise me when parties whose policies benefit only a few and whose rhetoric is transparent scapegoating and demonization win at the polls.

The powerful have paid researchers to map our weak points with nanometer precision. Where else would they strike?

Fear and hatred have been effective tools of the powerful for centuries. White plantation owners were delighted with racist ideology because it divided and occupied two much larger groups who might otherwise be a threat to them: poor white farmers and Black slaves.

And what do the powerful sell us with the share of our attention that they buy from our corporate media? Fear and hatred, of course, because they work so well on us.

It turns obtaining power into a game of convincing the masses to turn it over. And the powerful pay for research into what motivates us and how to exploit it to manipulate us, all the better to sell us policies and politicians and designer leggings and [email protected]#$ing toothpaste.

Electoral democracy turns us into the worst versions of ourselves precisely because it gives those who would seize power a reason to stoke our fears and our hatreds.

I just had a big glob of post-nasal drip end up in my lungs, which set off a couple of mInutes of hacking and horking it up. [email protected]#$ allergy season.

Can we just call it ‘artificial stupidity,’ please?

Surprise, surprise, a smart lock can be hacked: https://www.cnet.com/news/smart-lock-has-a-security-vulnerability-that-leaves-homes-open-for-attacks/