#the first ones from? late late 2021 jan 2022 actually i think

[floweypilled]

i have the fourth year redraw of something in a couple month s im getting impatient i wanna draw it already😭

[littlecafe]

happy spotify wrapped day!! i didn’t get the “my audio day” slide and i’m sad because i feel like this is the first time i’ve missed out on a slide that isn’t podcasts :-(

i can’t believe i got top 0.5% of listeners with my numbers...everyone listen to lexie liu her new singles are really good

[beardedmrbean]

California Democrats are taking on statewide retail theft, creating a dilemma for a party constantly facing “soft on crime” criticisms: how to tackle an issue of public concern without undoing criminal justice reforms.

The Assembly Select Committee on Retail Theft met for the first time on Tuesday in Sacramento, just weeks before the full Legislature returns Jan. 3.

The committee’s goal is to identify legislation to deal with shoplifting, commercial burglary and robberies. Organized retail theft and “smash-and-grab” incidents have garnered significant public attention amid a barrage of viral security videos showing brazen crimes play out at big-box retailers and small businesses alike.

It’s clear Democrats face pressure to deal with retail theft, which Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, underscored by attending part of the meeting.

But the 11-member panel — nine of whom are Democrats — face a trapeze routine between cracking down on crime and satisfying the party’s progressive flank, which is committed to preventing a return to the punitive sentencing laws of decades past.

Lawmakers want more theft data

The committee heard from policy analysts, retail industry group leaders, law enforcement and criminal justice reform advocates. They painted a nuanced picture of retail theft that only raised more questions.

Magnus Lofstrom of the Public Policy Institute of California shared the organization’s analysis of 2022 data of shoplifting, commercial burglaries and robberies. PPIC reported shoplifting rates were lower last year than they were in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. But commercial burglary and robbery rates increased.

Retail theft rates also varied by county, with the Bay Area seeing the largest uptick in shoplifting from 2019 to 2022. Commercial burglary increased in many of the state’s largest counties but was down in smaller ones.

Lofstrom told lawmakers that the data is likely more accurate for serious crimes than lesser offenses like shoplifting.

“The data are limited to incidents reported to law enforcement agencies,” he said. “Retail theft is likely underreported, and especially low value theft. And this may also change over time.”

Retailer leaders said they are forced to lock up products and hire extra security to protect customers and employees, in part because of statewide inconsistencies in law enforcement responses to thefts.

Rachel Michelin, president of the California Retailers Association, said stores are “not exaggerating the problem of retail theft.” Michelin made her statement just weeks after the National Retail Federation backed off a claim that nearly half of all 2021 inventory losses came from organized retail theft.

Michelin has come under the ire of Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper, who has sparred with the trade group’s leader in hearings and on social media, since fall amid highly publicized “smash and grab” robberies and a wave of so-called blitz operations by law enforcement in the capital region and across California.

Cooper, who served in the Assembly until late last year, blames Prop. 47 and Michelin’s group for a law “that over-promised and under-delivered.” Michelin, who squared off with him at a state independent oversight meeting last week, counters that law enforcement doesn’t respond to retail theft incidents.

Fact check: Are California sentencing laws to blame for recent robberies?

Lawmakers seemed interested in retailers’ concerns, but they were also frustrated by a lack of reliable data on the problems they discussed.

“I think that in order for us to actually craft the right policy, it’s so, so important for us to understand, where is this a California problem?” said Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris, D-Irvine. “And where is this a nationwide problem?”

When asked directly for data on California retail theft, Jeff Kreshek of property developer Federal Realty said retailers are reluctant to provide that information, forcing landlords like his real estate investment company to provide only anecdotal information.

“I wish could give you the data,” Kreshek said. “In preparing to come here today, I talked to 15 retailers and said, ‘I need data. I need numbers.’ And they said, ‘Oh, we can’t give you numbers.’ And notice I didn’t ... use any retailers’ names. They don’t want that in the public for whatever reason.”

Proposition 47 and retail theft

The politics of addressing retail theft flared during the nascent public discussions about potential solutions.

Proposition 47 dominated the discussion. The 2014 ballot initiative reclassified certain nonviolent crimes as misdemeanors, including commercial thefts of items under $950.

The measure was one of several that voters and lawmakers leaned on after a panel of federal judges in 2009 ordered California to reduce severe prison overcrowding. This prompted a series of new laws undoing tough-on-crime sentencing from the 1980s and 1990s, many resulting in ballooning incarceration of Black and brown Californians.

But Republicans and moderate Democrats have recently been pushing for changes to Prop. 47, saying it’s not doing enough to prevent crime, especially retail theft.

“I swear that people in my district, the one (law) they know the number of is Prop. 47,” said Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Santa Clarita. “But I find that there’s a lot of misinformation around this in the narrative in the community.”

As Schiavo and others pointed out, under-$950 thefts are still punishable by up to six months in jail.

But Michelin suggested changes similar to those in a ballot initiative her organization supports. It would make theft with two or more convictions a felony and make a fourth conviction eligible for prison time. The proposed initiative would also allow aggregation of multiple thefts by one person, making it easier to surpass the $950 threshold.

The shift would require changes to Proposition 47, necessitating approval by voters. Walmart recently contributed $500,000 to the organization backing an initiative.

Criminal justice advocates pressed for caution around amending Prop. 47, saying it is working effectively to fund community-based programs. Lenore Anderson, president of Californians for Safety and Justice, said those worried about retail theft should also examine a lack of law enforcement information-sharing, court backlogs, and poor investigation and prosecution of property crimes.

“The retail theft issues that people are presently most concerned about, from smash-and-grab mobs to organized retail crime, are felony conduct,” Anderson said. “These crimes are not the purview of Proposition 47.”

Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, D-Oakland, also urged her committee colleagues to remain focused on claims backed up by data. She said her East Bay community is concerned with smash-and-grabs and businesses closing. But, she said, constituents are also worried about mass incarceration.

Bonta reserved special frustration for Ivy Fitzpatrick of the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, who said county jails are “busting at the seams” because they are running out of room to hold low-level offenders.

“We have not been basing the assertions that we’ve been making on facts,” Bonta said. “To say that we are busting at the seams in our county jail system, without any data, unfounded, is doing a disservice to this community, to this to this Legislature and to this body.”

“We have to be clear on setting the baseline set of information that we can all operate from in order to be able to come up with solutions,” she added.

[garrettjadejohnson]

“It’s that actually her?”

Hello. I am writeing this late at night around 11:30pm.. I am scared and unsure what to do. It’s been a year since the things that I will explain have happened.

I’ve been stressing out and picking at my skin because of this. It all started on march 22ed 2021 when I met a young girl named Hannah.. she was kind and charming when we meet. She had a sweet smile and a funny laugh we met at a con that we had gone to and we instantly hit it off and became good friends like I said before she was sweet and charming however as time went along she became more and more odd, she was no longer the funny awesome Hannah I had met at the con she was cold dry and sometimes manipulative. I knew something was off about her and I wanted to leave but she was a good friend and I have gotten attached to her at this point on December 28th we had a sleepover together because I could feel us drifting apart and I really missed her so we hung out the whole day, through out the day I noticed she was reckless and had little to no care for the people around her offen breaking thing like a part of a swingest or a few things in a store. The Hannah I remembered was almost so much more different and annoying now and kinda scary.. later on in the day she became more normal and calm eventually when it came to the sleeping over part she was almost sad looking as she smiled softly and told me good night. She slept on the floor next to my bed, I don’t think she actually slept though because later on in the night I could hear her moving around.. I brushed it off as her just getting water however.. later in the morning I woke up to see she was gone.. after I realised she was gone I realised that there where small jabs in my arm, as if someone had taken my blood. I slowly sat up from my bed to see a note left from Hannah.. the note said: “dear Garrett. Enjoy the next 3 months of your life since they’re gonna be the last, thanks for trusting me so well even when you realised how bitchy I became after the nice first 3 months of being friends, I am sorry for what I will do to you will actually I’m not sorry. That’s such a Hannah thing to say. I would be sorry if I was really Hannah.” That last part of the note was what worried me the most. Who had Hannah became.. or what was pretending to be Hannah. I’ve spent the last 2 months panicking and crying because it turns out that the bitch that I spent a year being friends with was most likely a shell of a sweet girl who I truely only knew for 3 months.. I did some googling recently and found out that Hannah was probably killed with a drug or murdered with a weapon after having blood stolen by some witch like monster that is mostly called a “blood snatcher” or a “replacement of loved ones” that steals the blood and kill a family member’s (normally a easy to manipulate teenager) and drinks there blood to take there place as a human in that family so they can eat the rest of the family and then spread to another family, for the last 3 months of most targets the victims experience hallucinations, aggressive behaviour, tiredness and stress before they die and are then dragged of to a near by forest or something.. it’s now February 1st I feel sick today and I’ve been more stressed.. I keep hearing Hannah’s old sweat laugh and seeing things in the comer of my eye. I think it’s here to take my place now.

RIP Hannah 2006 oct 7th - 2021 jul 1st.

- Garrett Jade Johnson. 2005 jan 18th to 2022 February 1st.

[claudiajcregg]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by both @mihrsuri and @unseenacademic 💜💜💜 Thank you so much! I actually wrote up most of the answers the day I was tagged, and then forgot to post them. For over 10 days, probably. Me bad.

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 23! (One of them is a 'collection' of short ficlets, and has 6 chapters. So 28 stories in 23 works so far. Probably about to be more stories in still 23 works.)

2. What's your total Ao3 word count? 156,597 words. For now.

3. What fandoms do you write for? Currently? Just TWW. Who knows in the future!

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

They have about 35% of my total kudos, but the first two are ~21% alone. (The first one is the only fic that has over 100 kudos. Then again, any of them getting above 30 is a miracle.)

maybe everything's just turning out how it should be (Big Block of Cheese 2008; CJ & Josh. Posted Feb 2021) [121]

say it's here where our pieces fall in place (Vignettes, 1998-2008. Posted Jan 2022.) [66]

just your smile lit a sixty-watt bulb in my house that was darkened for days (Thanksgiving 2006. Posted Dec 2022.) [55]

nobody knows how to get back home (Missing scene from ITSOTG. Posted April 2023) (wait what. top 4?!) [50]

we could be the way forward and I know I'll pay for it (B4A Campaign Fic, spring 1998. Posted May 2021) [47]

5. Do you respond to comments?

YES. I don't take them for granted, and I like interacting with my readers. Sharing is nerve-wracking and makes me feel so exposed, so any comment makes it worth it. I like to thank peeps for their time! As of late, it's taking me weeks to get back to comments for Brain/spoons reasons (and because I try to do so in order, though not always). I sometimes feel bad I have fallen behind on leaving my own comments, so replying to what I get makes me feel bad. I love getting the rare, long, thoughtful comments, because I love seeing what people pick up on (had to restrain myself from commenting on everything), so if that one's up next… It'll delay everything. I have a harder time letting go of those.

I know replying or not is a hot topic, and I fall on the side of 'whatever the author does is fine' (I see them as being voluntary gifts to the author, kinda, but I understand why some authors can't or won't reply! Especially those who get dozens.). It does feel weird(ly demoralizing) when you see that yours is one of a couple of comments they haven't replied to, though. (Selfishly, as someone who tries to write medium-long comments, lack of anything can sting. It's irrational, it's not what I'm after, but it'd be nice to know whether that hour plus of my time was worth it. It's not transactional and I hate that c4c idea or whatever. Just. weird feelings.)

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

As we've established in previous similar memes (lol, I think I've answered these questions before), my fics don't really have angsty endings! For the most part. I think I said don't want you to go but I'll be okay then, and I can still buy that/definitely popped into my brain. I think some of my late S7 fics have an ominous feel to them, with some references/buildup to the angsty parts of IM, but I wouldn't call them angsty endings.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Um. The opposite is true! still you never took your hand from mine was my first thought, but I feel like oh, and I will be with you to feel the California sun is pretty darn happy. I could have picked almost any of them and I could make a case for them!

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I luckily do not. I have gotten a couple of comments that have messed with my brain, and made me second-guess things, but they were not hate.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes, but not regularly and not that well. It's usually short, mild scenes at most, but I did challenge myself to write a more explicit one last summer, especially after I got those 'one bed' tropes in the Wheel but didn't go there in the 500-word limit. Streets say it's hot. IDK. I also wrote a smutty continuation to the exchange fic. Best if we forget parts of that one happened. I also started writing one that would be in my S5 pregnancy universe but 🤐

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I don't. But this question confirms to me I have answered this before because I know I've joked about how TV has already done that for me, lmao. See: Bones/Sleepy Hollow.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? (I had to track down this question because it wasn't anywhere.) I don't think so!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope! I'm having déjà vu here. I know I have answered this before: I could do it myself! But I have a feeling it wouldn't be as easy as one might think, but I'd be honored.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I don't think so…? If I have, it was years ago, in my forum/LJ days. I've been trying to make it happen for a while now, but who knows if it'll ever happen. WE HAVE IDEAS. We want to make it happen. (Wink wink, nudge nudge. You know who.)

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Spaceships are so cool. Atlantis was the first space shuttle I saw in person (and also the one I've seen the most) and it and its exhibit are awesome. I'm only missing Discovery out of the four space shuttles, because I didn't go to the second National Air and Space Museum location in Virginia back in 2015. And once the new exhibit center is completed, I'd love to see Endeavour again.

(In all seriousness, I don't have one. Booth and Brennan will forever and always hold a special place in my heart, but I love CJ and Danny so much, writing for them, their journey. Pls don't make me pick.)

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I am a big 'never say never' person, because I end up picking stuff up (and maybe rewriting it to fit my current style/ability) if I remember an idea… But I'm guessing many of them won't get finished. Probably some of those that are deep in my notes app or on the drive.

16. What are your writing strengths? I (try to) dig into the emotion of a scene as best as I can.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Everything else? I know it sounds like an excuse (at least to my ears), but writing in your second language is hard. I know my writing sounds limited because of it – my descriptions will never be as evocative as I wish they were, my dialogue won't be there. I am not the most imaginative person, either.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

If it makes sense, and won't take the reader out of the story, go for it! (A few words, or a line or two, might work if there's appropriate context.)

But also, as a non-native speaker, I'll always recommend using pals who might be fluent in that language and checking with them! I know that, throughout my many years in fandom, I've read quick things in Spanish within English fics that weren't entirely correct in the context they were being used (i.e. character's fluency, smaller details), and they took me out for a second. (I know, I know – pot, meet kettle. If anyone has read an unedited story of mine, they've found me making up English phrases.)

19. First fandom you wrote for? Bones. In Spanish. (I also think I wrote some ficlets in English that are probably hidden in some random LJ comm I created for my writing. They're probably 14-15 years old.)

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

I honestly cannot pick! And maybe it's yet to come. But basically, if I've gone through the embarrassment of having someone edit/beta a fic and catch all the avoidable mistakes, it's because it genuinely has something I like about it and that I think others will like, too. (Perceived quality aside.)

Off the top of my head, and out of the posted fics (obvious recency bias, sorry). I have a story for all 23… Also, let's consider I've mostly not read them since they were posted so I might be off. (Would love to hear what everyone's favorite is, if you've read any and are reading this!) Obviously, that top 5 by kudos has great ones. There's a reason

don't want you to go but I'll be okay: I just remember finishing it and knowing it was something special. Felt like many things coming together. I wanted to write angstier, a break from the endgame of the IM AU I've yet to post, and I think it works. I had had that quote as inspo for a while, and I think the trip to Berlin put it back on my mind. (The first haunted by the notion draft is from around this time, too!)

your love is a secret I'm hoping, dreaming, dying to keep: the structure is likely a tad repetitive, maybe (but also, the point of 3+1s, sort of?) but I love writing in that s7 period, and there should be more fic with the press corps. I think the stuff I wrote while editing (which included an overhaul of the +1) is even better than what was there.

oh, and I will be with you to feel the California sun: recency bias, yes. I love a good early Cali story, and even if this was nowhere the story I sat down to write originally, I love how it turned out. It's silly but fun, and so sunny.

still you never took your hand from mine: I will always have all the soft spots for my memoir stories, even if two of them have yet to be posted. This one doubled its size a year and a half after “finishing” it because I realized what it was missing. It's sappy, probably unrealistic re: the publishing industry, but damn it if it's not one of those that have made me cry while editing them.

we could be the way forward and I know I'll pay for it: I had to include an oldie but goodie from my first year, and this one is so special to me. (Along with BBC 2008, which I also absolutely adore. That was the fic I always wanted to post. Hilarious it was third. But it's also my most popular fic by a huge margin.) Seeing it recommended on Tumblr? God. I love campaign stories and all their potential. I love that I took a random line from some unposted story and it evolved into this fic.

nobody knows how to get back home: I almost added the most recent one because of how fun it was to write (or, as I mentioned above, Big Block of Cheese) but I like how bittersweet this missing scene one is. I find CJ's internal struggle so interesting to explore, and this is one of her most vulnerable moments. I also wanted to see a hug so badly.

[laf-outloud]

There was a picture Jensen took with a fan that got uploaded yesterday and while the fan looks great, Jensen does not. He looks extremely exhausted and possibly unhappy. Like I don't know how to accurately describe it. He looks very dead-eyed lately. There's no light in there anymore unless he's genuinely laughing in the picture or something like that. Otherwise, he just looks miserable. Like something is clearly wrong. But what bothers me most is the idiot AA's sounding off with OMG he looks gorgeous or He is so damn hot or Flawless as always all throughout the Jensen tag about this picture and clearly that's not the case? I'm not insulting him, he's an attractive guy, but in that photo he looks downright tired. I zoomed into his face just to see if I was maybe imagining it but I'm not. He doesn't look good and something is definitely off. I actually feel bad for him, especially when his idiotic stanbase willingly ignores it and continues to objectify him, saying how gorgeous he is here. And it's like, no he's not, not in this moment, and if that was someone you actually cared about in your own lives, you'd be concerned not salivating. That group of fans are the absolute worst I've ever come across. They don't even really care about him, they just use him for their daily fantasies. I can't blame him if he is disenchanted with them at all, like he looks in some fan photos lately. They're the biggest users ever so I don't feel bad if he uses them for their bank accounts.

I just hope he's doing okay. Like this is beyond concerning now from a human perspective.

AAs don't love Jensen for who he is, just for who they want him to be. As I saw someone comment, it's very much a Conditional love.

As for how he's looking, there have been quite a few people (obviously not AAs) who've noticed the downslide. And look, I'll be the first one to admit that after a certain age, when you're tired, it really shows. I also don't think the alcohol and botox help. But there does seem to be a certain light missing in the eyes, and his smile even seems tighter.

The best way I can describe it is that he seems lonely, which is really unfortunate if that's the reason.

Anyway, here's just a small progression of photos (at non-styled events without filters) for comparison:

May 2023, July 2022, Nov. 2021, Jan. 2020, Sept. 2018, 2017

[lageografiademicamino]

UMK 2023 - review

Gone are the years when Finns were ashamed of their Eurovision selection! 

We saw signs of improvement in the attitude of Finnish artists and music industry towards UMK / Eurovision already in 2020 before the COVID-19 hit us. I would wanna say a game changing factor happened when YleX (radio channel, part of YLE broadcasting company) joined in the production team after ESC 2019. 

Robin’s song Girls like you was elevated by the fun, uplifting and may I say a bit risky staging! (UMK23)

Three years ago Erika Vikman was the moral winner with her Cicciolina even though not winning the actual trophy and ticket to Rotterdam. Her song became a major hit launching her musical career to new hights in Finland. I even dare to say that she did change the competition with her song and performance. 

In 2021 the world saw music shows differently on TV and it was much needed face lift also for UMK. The other songs had no chance against Blind Channel. These were the years when the staging improved overall tremendously even though we had a few misclick (Teflon Brothers 2021, Erika Vikman 2020). 

Lxandra’s Something to lose was one of the most beautiful moments in UMK23! I would have wanted this to reach a much higher climax at one point though..

In 2022-2023 we really saw big Finnish names participating UMK (The Rasmus, Benjamin, Robin Packalen, Kuumaa) and also having some new artists emerging (Bess, Younghearted, Käärijä) and making a name for themselves some even without the UMK trophy. 

In 2023 UMK final gathered 2,1 millions viewers (in 2022 1,9millions), the lyric videos on Youtube were viewed almost 5,5 million times and the songs were listened on Spotify over 14 million times! 

In 2023 we finally have the quality that we need and the people’s interest (abroad and home) that we want! 

Kuumaa’s Ylivoimainen live performance was simple but effective! However, when watching it for the first time it seemed a bit dull and not having enough to keep you interested. (UMK23)

Finns tend to complain about the number of UMK songs and how 6-7 is not enough but if this is the quality they deliver, personally I need no more! I’ve voted 5 UMK songs now in two years in a row and I’m content! This is also a money factor, if we had more songs would the level of quality hold? In music, music videos and in the live statings? I would be doubtful.

I also like the way things are being revealed and when. Mid Jan for artists anouncements is a perfect time just before the ESC national selection kicks off and I love that the songs are being dropped from there without any delay or waiting times. For seven days, there was always something new to look for each day! Late Feb has become a bit a pattern for UMK final but technically this could be later but would it ruin the hype then? 

Keira’s No business on the dancefloor was excellent with catchy coreography and simple stating. However, the fact that she’s a new artist came across a bit. (UM23) 

UMK has received criticism about stagings over the years which we’ve seen improving each year (this year being perfect). Also camera work, angles haven’t been on point (las year Isaac was a bit of a disaster) but last night was a big jump to the right direction! 

What still is left to improve however is the acoustics - every year we complain about the artists vocals sounding shitty when in reality they sound good at the actual venue. The venues have been changing over the years (Tampere’s Mediapolis, Turku’s Logomo etc). Even last night the sounds of the audience singing, clapping were overwhelming the artists vocals which I think damaged the reactions of the people watching the live at home. 

Benjamin’s Hoida Mut was well executed and performed except vocally... However credits for performing ALONE! 

So overall UMK was smash hit with high quality performance and not just the competing ones and with a winner (Käärijä - Cha cha cha) that is definitely taking a risk. The hype has already spread outside of Finland and Cha cha cha is predicted to become a televote winner (juries, you never know). Time will tell us in a few months.. 

[dteamain]

dream said at one point i think in a space just before the meetup that they originally started floorplanning back in 2020 for the house they had built so they’ve had the plan to build a house and all live together since before sapnap even moved in with dream

so the floor planning thing is a common misconception so many people think they were planning to build the dransion for years and they built it from scratch but in summer of 2022 dream was on a foolish stream the one where foolish plays on an old server dream made and coded. dream said that roughly a year and half ago from that point is when mr beast offered dteam 1 mil to move to NC. when talking about this dream mentions that they hadn't talked or planned anything about moving yet but decided that they would stay in florida and said no to mr beast. so around jan 2021 is when they first actually spoke about what their plans would be and at this point they were likely thinking of moving george into the house they already had. sapnap had talked plenty about having an extra room in their current house so it was probably not until late 2021 when they decided on the dransion. also they did not build the dransion from the floor up they just renovated it. i think so much people assumed because of them having to get an internet line put in that it was a new build but they probably just didn't have the right internet line for the internet they needed and that's why they had to wait for the internet line to be installed for them but yeah it's just a renovated existing house.

so yeah they spoke about moving in together since late 2020 but the dransion was not a thing until late 2021 the earliest

[icherishyou]

sun, 1 jan 2023 

I really want to make this post as aesthetic as I can. But playing with my creativity of designing pictures, it will take some moments or hours, so I’d rather focus on what I want to write because I don’t want to make my writing schedule look harder than it should be.

Okay... I remember a tweet which said “do you know what’s crazy about 2022? it can be spelled as twenty twenty too (2020 as well)” at the end of 2021. And God, we are standing up in 2023 now!!!

So, before I move further to this great 2023, I’d like to flashback 4 moments which I consider as my best moments in 2022. I don’t want to be too confident here, I just want to appreciate myself for going through hard situations which change some aspects of my personality.

1. I finally earned my own money It started in the middle of September 2021, when I got a small part-time job with a small amount of salary, but enough to buy some needs of mine. I didn’t expect before that it could give me some amount which can afford my monthly spending, and thank God the amount of salary is raising so I am able to buy special food for my whole family every payday. And I’m so grateful for this. I hope to get a permanent job this 2023, but I will still hold this part-time job if I can.

2. I finally bought myself an iPhone This was actually a really hard decision, because I had to think many times whether I would financially recover from this or not. Buying an iPhone as a part-timer, with a lot of needs every month, no financial support from anyone, is an important decision making. After my friend convinced me to buy it, I finally bought the preloved one, but still in good condition and function, as well as price. And now I’m still trying to save again and recover my bank account ahahaha. Still, this was my best moment and decision because I need this on behalf of my job.

3. I finally found my passion back Back when I was a little younger, writing and reading were my passions, but I don’t know at the certain times they just disappeared. Thank God, they are still my passions, and will always be my passions (I really hope so). Thanks to my friends,  I feel so sure that my life will always be about writing and reading. So I encouraged myself to take a step on my writing-reading career, and join writing classes, writing practices, as well as set a target for how many books I should read, etc. I’m about to build my career with my passion as the bricks.

4. I finally became the girl that my grandma always wanted to be I used to be a prefect when I was 10. They who became a prefect were they who were smart and got the first parallel. I was smartest, I was in the first parallel for some few times, but I wasn’t the bravest. I wasn't a good prefect, I couldn’t lead my friends, I wouldn’t help my teacher to control the class because I didn’t know how, it was just not me. But lately, I volunteer to be a prefect, I am willing to help my professor to solve some problems, I control the class and situation, I am feeling good about managing, leading, and moderating the class. I feel like I am such a good leader and assistant. I just wish my grandma was still here, so I can tell her how happy I am to be this way. I even could imagine how she would have smiled because I could be that brave. 

I guess, so many lessons I learned during 2022. I lost so many things, but I found so many as well. Some parts of myself died, but some others grew. This proves how life is so much mystery, long come and go is just a matter of time. I still have many desires to learn which I couldn’t do last year. I want to learn how to cook, how to drive, how to help, how to be a housewife, etc. I wish I could catch up with them in 2023. But I just wish for the best for 2023, and I wish all of my vision boards come true.

[elyaqim]

Deaths, 2021–2022

My original intent was to promptly write about the large number of deaths that had occurred among people I knew, some of them in my family, from March 2021 to February 2022, a year as roughly determined from springtime to wintertime, as many cultures do. Due to subsequent tragedies combined with my avoidance of writing such an emotionally unpleasant article, I procrastinated for about a year, but am now finding the will to finally do it. It should be noted that I am not aware that any of these deaths were caused by a coronavirus.

Marc Matthew Atkins (d. 18 Aug. 2016): In 2021, I learned that one of my closest friends in my late teens and early twenties had died five years earlier without my even knowing it. Marc and I met in the group Gay & Lesbian Youth of New York and became close friends and confidants, getting together socially, laughing on the telephone together and opening up to one another about our family lives. We reconnected in our thirties and spent some time together but eventually drifted apart again, only remaining in contact online without actually communicating anymore. I was devastated to learn of his passing, especially as I wished I could have been with him during his last days, and I find myself thinking of him quite frequently. (Notably, he was the son of popular singer Gwen Edwards of the Co‐Eds.)

Darlene Lorraine De Betta (d. 3 Mar. 2021): Darlene was a friendly coworker of mine in the 2000s, always good for some chat at the cloakroom where she worked. She and I occasionally socialized outside of work too, including at dinner parties at the home of a fellow coworker who treated the staff like family.

Edward S. Berens (d. 13 Mar. 2021): I met Ed in the community group Gay Men of the Bronx in the 1990s, and it turned out that we not only both lived in the Bronx, but that he also had a home in Monticello, the village where my parents lived at the time. Ed was very funny and entertaining and invited me to both of his homes at various times. He also once bought a great outfit he knew I would want to wear in a local talent show and then would not accept reimbursement therefor.

Alix Dobkin (d. 19 May 2021): I only met Alix Dobkin once, during the intermission of one of her concerts at Queens College, and so was able to inquire about a phrase in one of her songs. I have since outgrown the identitarian, separatist ideology that she advanced in some of her songs, but her music was very important to me and to my friends in our politically charged adolescence.

Carl Edmund Woollen (d. 12 July 2021): Carl, the quirky twin brother of an earlier friend of mine in the neighborhood, moved into my building and began attending N. Y. Bear Den, a group wherein his participation would grow considerably, brainstorming with us and having some of us over to his apartment for Scrabble and cribbage.

Aunt Shirley (d. 6 Aug. 2021): Shirley was a beloved grand‐aunt by marriage, the wife of the only sibling of my maternal grandmother’s to be born in the United States. They lived in Maryland so I did not see them often.

Christopher John Williams (d. 13 Aug. 2021): I met Christopher in 2014 at a Thanksgiving gathering in my neighborhood for those of us who could not attend a family gathering. I liked his sassy sense of humor and his flirtatious personality. We took a shine to one another but I do not recall ever seeing him again, our interactions thereafter happening solely on Facebook.

Justin Evan K. (d. 5 Jan. 2022): Although he was my first cousin, once removed, Justin is the only person on this list I had not met. Due to a longstanding rift in the family, I fell out of contact with my father’s sister’s daughters until I learned of Justin’s death in his thirties from a congenital problem I was not aware he had.

Carl Rosenblum (d. 13 Feb. 2022): Carl was a personable and perceptive older man I met in the gay men’s discussion group at Queens Pride House who would also usually go out to eat with other participants thereafter. It was always pleasant to speak with him, both inside and outside the meetings.

George Hains (d. 18 Feb. 2022): George was the affable and corpulent organizer of numerous events at Rockbar, a West Village venue I frequented a number of years back.

One of the principal lessons I had to relearn in this period was not to rely on social‐media platforms so heavily anymore, but to see friends in person (or at least spend time with them on the telephone) before it is too late to do so. Unfortunately, spring 2022 brought more deaths with it.

[gauravp01]

#98

Sun, 1 Jan 2022; 6:17 am

Take this as the 31st blog bcz I just woke up with the phone, tablet and an open diary lying besides me, and the lights on.

First of all wish you a very happy new year.

This year was too quick and most of the time was passed in the B.Ed. and Sociology.

2022 was completely different from the last year. I don't exactly remember the year month by month, but the experience is shared below...

It is just a small, crisp review of the year. If you want to know the experience of the year, you can even know how I spent every day.... Just go through all these blogs, starting from 19th Feb this year and still going on... (Ofc some days are missing, but that's now a problem)

Now let's talk about the changes I went through this year...

The first change was in my hairstyle. I still miss the long hair during my masters. From a below shoulder length to the zero length, the outer personality almost changed.

What about the inner one?

Yes... It changed too. If you go through the initial blogs I have shared multiple emotions there about how life is going on. It was like a rollercoaster ride with ups and downs but at least more stable than 2021. This year taught me to manage my expenses and by the end of the year, I have cooled down the holes burnt by money in my pocket.... (A phrase, if money is burning a hole in your pocket, that means you want to spend it immediately). The difference between needs and desires is now clear.

The mind also changed from a mechanical to the organic one, with more empathy, emotions and higher social awareness, maybe because of the shift in the subjects. From being a Post Graduate in Physics, to studying Sociology for a whole year, multiple pores of the mind were opened and new dimensions of thinking added with time.

These are the things I can feel for myself,I don't know if it is visible or not from outside. I don't usually talk much about myself, but this is the 31St blog, so the things I've experienced throughout the year must be added.

Also this year, Met some new, as well some old, friends this year. In Q4, joined a government school for an internship and it's a completely different experience. From reading about the condition of government schools to actually feeling it. Spending a day in school gives a whole new experience and something is always there to learn. Shared a lot through blogs too. Learnt to handle different situations. I have an amount of patience that probably went down initially but later on boosted up multiple times. Also a lot to learn from the school staff, everything about what to do, and what not to. What should be avoided when you are at a higher authority and what are the working principles of any institutions and how to cope up with them. How to balance life in different aspects and afterall, how to attain the ultimate goal of bliss, i.e. after all the hustle going on, how to keep the person inside you young, and alive.

Also learnt to manage my time, but not so perfectly. I usually don't believe in new year resolutions but still if I would have to change, or adapt, one thing this year, that would be punctuality. No matter what, being late is always embarrassing now since I am used to it so I usually don't care. But I know how important this quality is, irrespective of the field you belong to.

The year made me emotionally, physically and most important, intellectually strong. The journey is also shared in one of my initial blogs about how many things I've been through these days, or months, or maybe the last couple of years.

I think this must be enough for today. I don't usually do the "rewind", rather I've summed up the year in different paragraphs.

I seriously have no idea what I have written right now and how many things I've left behind. This might be so boring to read as well😅😅 But whatever it is, it is all true and unplanned. I just woke up, turned the lights off and picked up the phone to type. All of this is based on immediate thoughts...

Going to sleep again to complete the 8 hour goal.

Finally, thanks to everyone who has been a part of my life this year. In the later half of the year, I also learnt to live with myself. So thanks to me too... And finally, thanks to God for such a wonderful year and please bless us a new, even better year this time... Blessings🙏🙏

Now it's time to say goodbye to the year 2022 with lots of learning, experience and a higher level of maturity and growth from the last year, and tons of memories...

I hope the new year comes with better learnings and new experiences... and please no C*vid wave again...

These 3 years are literally fast-forwarded in everyone's life. Feels like sleeping in 2019 and waking up directly in 2023.

Now let's welcome the new year 2023, but before that, going to sleep now😅

Good Night 🤣🤞

And a Very Happy New Year 2023

🎁🎀🥳🥳🍷🍸🍹🍺🍺🎇🎆🎁🍾🎆🎇🎇🎵🎗️🎉🎉🎊🎊🎋🎶🎵👑👑🎍🎎💥🪅🪅🎊🎶🎗️🎵🎉🎊🎋🎂🎂🍹🍸🥳🍷🍾🎂🎀🍺🍻🎈🎈

(Started typing at 6:17 and now while I'm going to post, it's 7:16... Almost an hour🤣... Mornings really pass too quick XD😬😬)

[flightlessangelwings]

Jey’s top 5 fics of 2021!

I was going to post this on New Years but with tumblr being a butt about the tags I held off. Instead of posting that whole tumblr year in review post since it’ll end up being super long, I decided to just compile my top 5 fics from the year and give a short commentary on them instead. All these fics I’m super proud of too so I’m so happy these all did so well! Let me know what you thought of any of these or if you’ve missed them and this is your first time seeing it! I love to have feedback on my works!

Thank you all so much for reblogging and supporting my fics!! It means so much to me!! And I’ve got plenty more in the works for 2022 so I’m not going anywhere! Much love to you all!!

5- Grant a Name to a Buried and a Burning Flame ~ Chapter 1, Hades!Din Djarin x Persephone!gn!reader (Posted Jan 21, 527 notes)

I am SUPER proud of this au! I love Greek mythology so I had a lot of fun adapting the myth to the Mando lore and making something very different and creative. It’s a little bit different and I took creative liberties, but I think they worked well. Plus, the moodboard I made for this is one of my all time favorites! And I also have to say that people have been rediscovering this mini series lately and it makes me so happy!! The other 2 parts are on my Masterlist if you’re reading through this for the first time 💖

4- Keep You Safe, Frankie Morales x gn!reader (Posted Feb 22, 551 notes)

Protective Frankie just slaps, what can I say?! This one actually took me some time to get right and I ended up rewriting half of it too before I was happy with it. But I’m happy with the end result! And I also loved writing the platonic relationship between reader and Sati too, it was a fun little bonus in this fic!

3- Take Care of You, Joel Miller x fem!reader (Posted Sept 20, 588 notes)

Joel my beloved!!! I think my love of Joel really shows in this one too lol! This idea came to me so easily too and it wouldn’t leave my head til I wrote it, and I wrote it pretty quickly too lol. I’m soooo happy this one did so well too and people liked it just as much as I did!!

2- I Got You, Marcus Moreno x afab!reader (Posted Jan 8, 680 notes)

Marcus!!! He does not get enough love anymore after the initial buzz from the movie died down but I still love him! And I had fun with this one, and was so happy to get this request! It's one of my favorite tropes too: training leading to smut lol! And the switching dynamics was so fun to write too and it works so well with him!

1- No Stranger to the Dark, The Darkling x gn!reader (Posted May 7, 1109 notes)

My first and only fic as of now to break 1k notes and I am so honored! I spent a lot of time on this fic to make it perfect and I’m so happy people enjoyed it too! Of course, my personal favorite part was all the pining and the protective Darkling lol. I still think about adding more onto the story but I don't know where to go from there lol. Maybe one day inspiration will hit me

[pandorkful-dolls]

Repaint Woes: wtf did I do wrong ahahahaha

(Originally posted Jan 23, 2022 on Patreon! Become a patron for as little as $3 a month at patreon.com/pandorkful to catch updates early!)  

Tried making this post a few weeks ago, but the Patreon app crashed exactly as I was finishing up >_< So this is attempt #2. But the upside of having to rewrite everything is: I'm pretty sure I know exactly what I did wrong now.

So, I've had this Obitsu Slim Male 01 head since mid-November, 2007. He's had a bunch of face-ups over the past 14-ish years, at least 4 that I can recall, and he's now on his 3rd body. He's my 1/6 scale Ghaleon, the first custom doll I ever put together, and super special to me.

I was really happy with his most recent previous faceup, which I did sometime between 2013-2015. Unfortunately, the gloss on his lips and eyes eventually went tacky and picked up a gross layer of dust and lint, a problem I've had with every gloss varnish I've ever tried for faceups on vinyl heads. (Idk if it's something about the environment in the area I live in messing it up or what, but I've about given up on glossing eyes and lips now ahahaha)

Additionally, the white saran hair I had rooted back in 2007 had yellowed into a sickly blond and had gotten brittle with age and handling.

So sometime in late summer, 2021, I decided it was time to give him a complete reroot and repaint! I had a bit of white alpaca suri left over from making a wig (for my 1/3 scale bjd Ghaleon hehe) a few years ago, and decided to use it up for the reroot. I did a combination of tension method rooting and needlefelting to secure the natural hair fiber inside the head. I really should make a video on how to do it sometime, cuz it's way easier to show it than it is to explain. XD Anyway, it turned out really great and very secure--almost no fiber loss when I comb his hair!

(See the aforementioned wig on your left. :3 And look at how yellow that saran had gotten even back then--this pic is from 2015.)

Ghaleon's currently on a Barbie Looks tall mtm body (that I still need to do top surgery on with my dremel) which is a shade darker than the Obitsu "white" vinyl color--almost a perfect match to Obitsu "normal" actually. So I was gonna need to blushing to match the head to the body... if I had been motivated to set up a place outside my new apartment to do some MSC spraying, that is.

At my old place, when I was still living with my folks, we had a nice enclosed "courtyard" I could set up for spraying without feeling self conscious--my current apartment has a yard, but it's wide open to gawkers :P And it's currently a mess from my landlord-adjacent guy doing work on the downstairs apartment, AND I don't have any lawn furniture to prop dolls up on. Sooooo....

I said fuck it, I'm just gonna colormatch with paint. No problem.

It should have been no problem, I've done this several times before! To great effect! I have a good eye for mixing colors! Here, look at this acetone shrunk MH Finnegan Wake head I painted to match a Xinyi body (which was Ghaleon's 2nd body for a short time, btw):

He's a little textured from the layers of paint, yeah, but it looks pretty natural in pics and almost unnoticeable in person. I started painting this head not long before I moved, btw, in 2019. Really need to finish him soon. That'll be a future post, haha!

Anyway. Ghaleon's repaint... didn't go so smoothly as that one did, as you can guess from the cover image.

(Plz excuse the static--suri is gorgeous... when it isn't winter. >_< Still need to clean up/feather the bangs at some point...)

From a cursory glance, you can't tell that there's really any issues. I think the faceup turned out pretty alright, I'm not crazy with the darker lipstick and eyeshadow I went with, and it's been a couple years since I'd last painted a doll's face so I felt really rusty--but over all, not terrible.

But, if you get closer...

Cracks, flaking. Oh no.

We'll come back to this in a second. At the same time I was working on this head, I was also finishing up a second Obitsu SM01 head to be Eternal Blue Ghaleon...

I'm less happy with how this faceup turned out, I didn't do as good a job color matching--and you can see the cracks very clearly. The "crazing" almost works with his purple scars, but it also just looks like caked-on makeup to me. :-/ 

Soooo.... what went wrong with these two heads? Why did these color matching attempts crack and flake while my previous ones have held steady??

I think it could be a combination of factors--the MH head was acetone shrunk, so it was very hard and had no give to it to allow cracking to occur. Obitsu vinyl is also very, very soft in general, and preforms best when it's been sealed with Mr Super Clear Matte.

But I think the true culprit is this: I remember mixing mod podge into my paint when I painted Finnegan's head, but I didn't mix any medium into my paints when I painted the Obitsu heads. Additionally, I used artist grade acrylics when I painted Finnegan, but used hobby paints for miniatures when I painted the Obitsu heads.

I think the issue is buried somewhere between those two points, experimentation is probably required to figure out if I'm right or not... but in the end, since I know that MSC is just the better method to prep an Obitsu head for paint, and it's too cold to paint comfortably right now... maybe I'll just wait for spring to redo these faceups with MSC, anyway. :P

Oh, on a semi-related note, I decided to try the new Barbie Looks guy as a base for Dyne:

I think the Ghaleons have accepted him. 

(bonus dubious look from Gar)

[agallimaufryofoddments]

Narita alludes to Baccano! Vol. 23 in Jan 21, 2021 tweet

Hey, pst to the anon whose ask about Baccano! Vol. 23 I answered c. Jan 15...

I'm six days late in noticing this, but I think Narita alluded to Baccano! in a tweet about DMDP Chapter 77 on January 21, 2022? See for yourself:

本日発売のヤングガンガンさんにてデッドマウント・デスプレイ最新話掲載中です！ 一見『えっ、終わるの？』と思われそうな展開ですが、そんな事はないです。寧ろ話を拡げています。話を畳む作業で四苦八苦してるのは過去作との矛盾に気付き書き直してる某お酒の小説です……。（土下座） #ＤＭＤＰ

Machine translation and I concomitantly struggled a bit with Narita's meaning. It took a bit of fiddling for me to arrive at an interpretation that finally made (the most) sense. Of course, that I had to fiddle should serve as a reminder to take this interpretation with a grain of salt. I advise waiting for someone who knows Japanese to take a look at it (if they haven't already).

So...here's my guess (see footnotes):

The latest episode of Dead Mount Death Play is now on sale in Young Gangan today! At first glance, you might think, "Oh, it's ending?"¹ But it's not. In fact, I'm expanding the story. The story that I'm struggling to close² is a novel about a certain alcoholic beverage that I'm rewriting after realizing that it contradicts my past works.³ ...... (Kneeling) #DMDP

[...realizing that it contradicts... / ...noticing inconsistencies with... / discovering discrepancies]

The original machine TL (under cut) didn't make sense until I realized Narita was probably contrasting Baccano! with DMDP somehow—the original TL read as more of a non-sequitur.

So, anon, if you're still out there... Looks like the publishing order situation boils down to "1935 dense, Baccano dense, Narita d—iscombobulated" after all, that ole longstanding opinion of mine. We all know that Narita needed to reacquaint himself with the material after the hospital stay/recovery, we all know that "the material" is "a lot" (dare I break out my 1935 plot points compilation link for the billionth time?), we know, we know, we know...

What does the Fate/strange Fake Vol. 7 upcoming publication mean for Baccano!, again?

aka Rev refines her take on the situation, c.f. the original anon question from Jan 15

Looks to me like Baccano! Vol. 23 has had a writing setback significant enough for Dengeki Bunko to renege on its order of publication and go ahead with F/sF Vol. 7 in the meantime rather than publish nothing by Narita at all at the end of Fiscal Year 2021. It's been a year or so of DB sitting on what's an 'essentially completed novel' in favor of Vol. 23; this is, in a way, them falling back on a guaranteed safety as much as it can be them liking Fate money.

Not that we should speculate as to whether they actually did want Vol. 23 out this spring specifically ergo Fake is literally taking its place. That's meaningless conjecture. Opining on the significance of this setback—what else can we call it but that?—isn't, though.

Narita says in the tweet that he is rewriting (書き直し, which can imply "making a clean copy") the novel, after all. This suggests an undertaking more substantial than 'repairing' or 'revising'—it suggests contradictions substantial enough that one cannot fumigate them from the story without tearing down part of the structure in the process.

Is this setback unfortunate for both Narita and Baccano!, though?

For Narita, perhaps. For Baccano!, I honestly feel the opposite: The series is fortunate that Narita and/or his editors noticed inconsistencies of such import and still care about quality control. Some might also say it is fortunate they are being given more time to address said inconsistencies; there are, I am sure, less forgiving publishers out there.

My most consistent opinion on 1935-E, ever since Narita went public about his health crisis, has been that it should only be published when it is in a state that does justice to the 1935 arc (let alone the whole series) and not a moment before. I will wait as long as is required.

I am glad 1935-E has been set back. A little uneasy that contradictions of such note weren't noticed or handled earlier, am I, nevertheless mostly relieved over what we have avoided: a March 2022 edition of 1935-E with glaring contradictions.

Aren't you glad that's not what in store (in so many ways)? I am. I'd like to have peace of mind over this rather than give into pessimistic thoughts such as "if there are still contradictions being discovered and addressed this late in the game, how many more will go undiscovered." It's more reassuring to think, "This means someone is still paying attention, to 1935-E and 1935-A through D, to the arc and series holistic."

Thank goodness.

Footnotes

¹ "End" alt. "finish, close," so along the lines of " Alt. "Eh, is it coming to a close?" DMDP Ch. 77 didn't necessarily give me this impression, so I initially didn't "get" why Narita was saying such a thing—especially when the overall story is clearly far from over. Ch. 77 does crescendo into a classic "Act 2" high point (character growth moment during confrontation with antagonist, primed for turnabout), though, so I guess that's where this is coming from. ² "Close," lit. [畳む], which Wiktionary gives two definitions for: "1. fold, especially fold clothes" and "2. close down a shop or business (permanently)." The original machine translation went with "fold" (really, the entire original TL was confused), but Narita surely is using 畳む to mean "wrap up (for good)" / "finish" / "bring to a close".

³ After... alt. "noticing inconsistencies with." The original machine TL had no understandable segue between the sentences "..expanding the story" and (original) "It's a novel about alcohol..." —Hence the fiddling.

Original machine translation:

The latest episode of Dead Mount Deathplay is now on sale in Young Gangan today! At first glance, you might think, "Oh, it's ending? At first glance, you might think, "What? But it's not. In fact, I'm expanding the story. It's a novel about alcohol that I'm re-writing after noticing inconsistencies with my previous works. ...... (Kneeling) #DMDP

That's what I had to work with....

[patriotsnet]

Why Are Republicans So Afraid Of Trump

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-are-republicans-so-afraid-of-trump/

Why Are Republicans So Afraid Of Trump

Officer Goes From ‘sadness’ To ‘rage’

Why Are Republicans Still So Afraid Of Trump? | The 11th Hour | MSNBC

Sicknicks partner on the Capitol police, Sandra Garza, wrote an essay about the attack and the aftermath in which she said in part, I saw officers being brutalized and beaten, and protesters defying orders to stay back from entering the Capitol. All the while, I kept thinking, Where is the President? Why is it taking so long for the National Guard to arrive? Where is the cavalry!?

She added, As the months passed, my deep sadness turned to outright rage as I watched Republican members of Congress lie on TV and in remarks to reporters and constituents about what happened that day. Over and over they denied the monstrous acts committed by violent protesters.;

For example, when Gosar called the Jan. 6 attackers peaceful patriots.

During the Benghazi hearings, Republicans were laser-focused on trying to place blame on then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But after four years of investigations, most of them purely partisan affairs, they found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing on her part.

Republicans dont want anything close to that type of scrutiny on the Capitol attacks of Jan. 6. In fact, they dont seem to want any scrutiny at all.

Almost as if they know what will be found.

Almost as if I didnt have to use the word almost.

Reach Montini at .

Trump Is Here To Stay And Republicans Should Be Worried

There are Republican office holders who genuinely embrace Trump. For other leading GOP politicians and strategists, it’s a calculation: placate Trump and his crazy stuff now, win the Congress next year and start to move on.

That’s a fantasy.

The narcissistic former president is incapable of just going away. The Trump brand hardly suffers though it seems every week a new book comes out on his tragic governance and those from people without subpoena power.

Start with the 2020 election, which should be history; Biden won the popular vote handily and the electoral college with several states to spare. That has been validated by Republican state officials, dozens of court cases, Congress and Trump’s own attorney general and vice president. It was more clear-cut than Trump’s victory four years earlier and two other presidential elections in this century.

Time to move on, right? Trump won’t allow it.

Trump is an effective demagogue. Six years ago, he had many Republicans questioning whether Barack ObamaBarack Hussein ObamaWhere is Joe Biden’s ‘red line’?Newsom recall spurs unprecedented turnout campaignBiden is steering America to lose asymmetric warsMORE really was born in the United States, even though Obamas 1961 birth in Hawaii was in the newspaper.;

Actually, the former president could take credit for the rapid development of the extraordinarily effective vaccines but this might help Biden, avoiding which apparently motivates Trump more than the lives he might save.

Todays Republicans Really Hate Democrats And Democracy

1) Trumps supporters have embraced anti-democratic ideas

This chart shows results from a two-part survey, conducted in late 2020 and early 2021, of hardcore Trump supporters. The political scientists behind the survey, Rachel Blum and Christian Parker, identified so-called MAGA voters by their activity on pro-Trump Facebook pages. Their subjects are engaged and committed Republican partisans, disproportionately likely to influence conflicts within the party like primary elections.

These voters, according to Blum and Parker, are hostile to bedrock democratic principles.

You May Like: Did Trump Call Republicans Stupid In 1998

John Kasich Says Republicans Are ‘afraid’ Of Trump

EmbedEmbed

Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich speaks with NPR’s Leila Fadel about the GOP’s unwillingness to stand up to President Trump, who still refuses to accept the results of the presidential election.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Last night, President Trump received another loss in court. A federal judge in Pennsylvania dismissed the campaign’s attempts to stop the certification of Pennsylvania’s votes. This is just the latest of more than two dozen failed challenges brought by the Trump campaign to overturn the election results. President Trump refuses to concede, and for the most part, his party has supported his efforts to pursue legal challenges based on false allegations of widespread voter fraud.

Very few high-profile Republicans have publicly acknowledged Joe Biden as the winner, but one of them is John Kasich. He’s the former governor of Ohio and a 2016 Republican presidential candidate, and he joins us now.

Governor Kasich, welcome.

JOHN KASICH: Thanks, Leila. Glad to be with you.

FADEL: So you endorsed President-elect Joe Biden. He won this election. What do you make of President Trump’s attempts to overturn the results?

KASICH: It’s just absurd. The whole thing is – it’s just – it’s ridiculous. I mean, he has clearly won this election. And it is just sort of amazing to me that Republicans just keep sitting on their hands. It makes no sense.

FADEL: That was the former Republican governor of Ohio, John Kasich.

Governor Kasich, thanks for speaking with us.

Republicans Still Scared To Death Of Trump

Trump went on yet another unhinged rant this weekend during a speech to donors in Florida, attacking Mitch McConnell as a “stone cold loser” for refusing to go along with his attempt to steal the election, but you won’t find any profiles in courage in the GOP willing to stand up to him.

Case in point, on this weekend’s Fox News Sunday, South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune was asked about Trump calling him “weak and inneffective RINO” earlier in the year and saying he might back a primary challenger to Thune. Thune responded telling host Chris Wallace that “I’ve been through wars in South Dakota, political wars, with my own party when I ran the first time, with the Democrats in a couple of hotly contested Senate races, so being afraid of a fight or somebody coming after me is not something that’s going to influence that decision,” but Thune refused to admonish Trump for his rhetoric, and refused to stand up for McConnell when asked about him as well.

Which is pretty much the equivalent of “I support Trump, but I really don’t like the tweeting” that we heard from so many of them over the last five or six years.

As the Fox article discussed, Trump called Thune “Mitch’s boy” when urging Gov. Kristi Noem to challenge Thune in 2022, but no amount of insults are apparently ever breaking point for these jellyfish.

Recommended Reading: Who Is Right Republicans Or Democrats

Why Republicans Are Scared Of Texas New Abortion Ban

For years, conservative legislators have passed increasingly restrictive abortion laws, knowing theyd be struck down by the courts. Now, Republicans are going to have to defend their views at the ballot box. And that might not go well for them.

At a pro-choice rally in Texas in 2013, one sign reads “Republicans, your seats aren’t safe.” | AP Photo/Eric Gay

09/18/2021 08:41 AM EDT

Link Copied

Sarah Isgur is a graduate of Harvard Law School who clerked on the Fifth Circuit. She was Justice Department spokeswoman during the Trump administration and is the host of the legal podcast Advisory Opinions for the Dispatch.

When the Supreme Court allowed Texas 6-week abortion law to stand earlier this month, it was presented asa major victory for anti-abortion conservatives. After all, Republican state legislators in deep red states have long been passing increasingly restrictive abortion laws, only to see many later get struck down in the courts. Finally, one law got through .

Whats going on? When considering the political ramifications of the Texas abortion law, Ian Malcoms famous line from Jurassic Park comes to mind, with a little social-wars twist: Your were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didnt stop to think if they should.

So the more relevant question is whether the abortion issue motivates voters in both political camps and which side it motivates more.

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As Gop Makes It Harder To Vote Few Republicans Dissent

ATLANTA In Arizona, a Republican state senator worried aloud that his partys proposed voter identification requirements might be too cumbersome. But he voted for the bill anyway.

In Iowa, the states Republican elections chief put out a carefully worded statement that didnt say whether he backs his own partys legislation making it more difficult to vote early.

And in Georgia, Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan left the room as Senate Republicans approved a bill to block early voting for all but the GOPs most reliable voting bloc. Duncan instead watched Mondays proceedings from a television in his office to protest.

This is what amounts to dissent as Republican lawmakers push a wave of legislation through statehouses across the nation to make voting more difficult. The bills are fueled by former President Donald Trumps false claims of widespread voter fraud and many are sponsored by his most loyal allies. But support for the effort is much broader than just Trumps hard-right base, and objections from GOP policymakers are so quiet they can be easy to miss.

Its a startling shift for a party whose voters in some states, such as Florida and Arizona, had embraced absentee and mail voting. Several Republican strategists note the party may be passing laws that only box out their own voters.

Read Also: When Did Republicans And Democrats Switch Platforms

An Effort To Investigate Was Blocked In The Senate

Its different with the Jan. 6 insurrection. After Republicans in the Senate blocked a bill to investigate, the House decided to investigate on its own.

This time around, however, all but two Republicans in the House Reps. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Liz Cheney of Wyoming voted against setting up a committee to find out what happened on;Jan. 6.

All of Arizonas Republican representatives voted no.;This would include Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar. You may recall that right-wing political activist Ali Alexander claimed that these two Arizona representatives worked with him to plan pro-Trump rallies, including the one that ended with an attack on the Capitol.

That kind of connection to the Capitol riot seems to be what Republicans are worried about. They;fear the exposure of possible;links between the rioters and Republicans, and the implications that may have for former President Donald Trump.

Gladys Sicknick, the mother of Brian Sicknick, said of the Republicans who voted not to investigate the event, I just dont believe anybody could vote no, it doesnt make sense.

Republicans Can Govern Without Winning A Majority That Threatens Our Democracy

âRepublicans Are Afraid Of Donald Trumpâ Despite Election Loss, Kasie Hunt Says | TODAY

So, lets talk about why Cheney is once again on the chopping block and what that means for the Republican Party moving forward that is, can we finally stop debating whether the GOP is Trumps party now?;

But first: the role of the Big Lie. For a while now, refusing to accept the results of the 2020 election has proven a fealty test of sorts to Trump, and its one Cheney has refused to take. How much of that is responsible for Cheneys current situation versus her politics being increasingly out of step with the rest of the party?

related:Bidens Push For Big Government Solutions Is Popular Now But It Could Backfire Read more. »

nrakich :Its the entire reason for her current situation, Sarah.

Ideologically, Cheney is a faithful conservative at least as conservatism used to be defined. According to DW-Nominate, which uses voting records to quantify the ideology of every member of Congress on a scale from 1 to -1 , she has a score of 0.515.

And according to FiveThirtyEights Trump Score, she voted in line with Trumps position 93 percent of the time. Instead, her main transgression appears to be not going along with the Big Lie .

micah : Yeah, agreed. The idea that Cheneys troubles are about policy the argument that her hawkish foreign policy views or her free-trade-y views are behind her split with the bulk of the GOP is a bit silly?

Americans are living in two different realities right now.

micah: Yeah, agreed.

Thats scary!

Don’t Miss: When Did Republicans And Democrats Switch Platforms

Is The Census Wrong

nrakich: I agree that its circular, Micah. The reason more Republican elites dont criticize Trump is that theyre afraid of his voters punishing them. But what they dont seem to realize is that they themselves also have power to shape those voters opinions! Theres a lot of evidence in political science that elites can shape public opinion.

sarah: Do GOP elites, though? So much of Trumps story in 2016 and 2020 was about the high voter turnout that he was responsible for driving. And although I think we should question how much turnout helped the GOP in 2020, there does seem to be an unspoken fear among GOP elites that these voters arent really Republicans now that is, they wont turn out for anyone other than Trump which is why so many GOP elites are scared to break with Trumps messaging.

micah: What do you all think would happen public opinion-wise if Republicans in Washington came out hard against the Big Lie but Trump and state-level Republicans kept it going?

nrakich: To be clear, it would be a political risk for Republican politicians to come out forcefully against the Big Lie. A solid chunk of the party would likely stand by Trump and continue to think the election was stolen. But it could lead to serious infighting within the GOP. At least, though, our democracy would be on a healthier path.;

But, hey, Im not staring down midterms.

micah: I think they are not long for this world.

I mean, how many are even left?

sarah: Or John Kasich.

Republican Party Faces Rage From Both Pro

By Peter Eisler, Chris Kahn, Tim Reid, Simon Lewis, Jarrett Renshaw

13 Min Read

WASHINGTON – After riots at the U.S. Capitol by President Donald Trumps supporters, the Republican Party is facing defections from two camps of voters it cant afford to lose: those saying Trump and his allies went too far in contesting the election of Democrat Joe Biden – and those saying they didnt go far enough, according to new polling and interviews with two dozen voters.

Paul Foster – a 65-year-old house painter in Ellsworth, Maine – is furious at party leaders for refusing to back the presidents claims that the election was stolen with millions of fraudulent votes. The party is going to be totally broken if it abandons Trump, Foster says, predicting Trump loyalists will spin off into a new third party.

I just wish he would run away with his tail between his legs, Cupelo says.

Though Republicans have now lost control of the White House and both houses of Congress in just four years, Trumps base remains a potent electoral force in the party. That base helped him capture more voters some 74 million than any Republican in history. The vast majority of his supporters, including 70% of Republicans, remain loyal, according to new Reuters/Ipsos polling conducted days after last weeks riot at the Capitol, and many activists say theyre willing to abandon the GOP for any perceived slight against their leader.

Recommended Reading: Dinesh D’souza The Big Switch

Republicans Are Suddenly Afraid Of Democracy

Were not a democracy, Republican Senator Mike Lee tweeted in the middle of Wednesday nights vice-presidential debate. He was reacting to something hed heard onstage there, in his home state of Utah. Another tweet: The word democracy appears nowhere in the Constitution, perhaps because our form of government is not a democracy. Its a constitutional republic. To me it matters. It should matter to anyone who worries about the excessive accumulation of power in the hands of the few. Hours after the debate Lee was still worrying the thought: Democracy isnt the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.

Why did Lee choose this momentless than four weeks before an election in which his party seems likely to suffer defeatto make the familiar, even pedantic, point that we live in a republic rather than a pure democracy? Why did he insist on the point so vehemently that he neglected to mention that power in the American system ultimately lies with the people, which means that our system could also be called a representative democracy? Did he mean rank as in foul, rancid, or outright? If the last, does that mean the tyranny of the majority leading to perverse rule by the few? What did this short, misleading course in Civics 101 have to do with anything?

Time To Reckon With Gop Radicalization

The lies about 2020 and the increasing dedication to destroying democratic institutions in the quest for power are inextricable from one another. As Jay Rosen says, the press is comfortable calling out the former it can be packaged as a fact check.” But being forthright about the latter requires depicting one party as far and away the only primary threat to our democratic stability. Thats accurate, but its uncomfortably adversarial.

Relatedly, describing Republicans as cowards who fear Trump casts their machinations as mere reluctant efforts to cope with externally imposed circumstances theyd prefer not to be dealing with. This lets Republicans off the hook in a very fundamental way. It risks misleading the country about the true depths of GOP radicalization and the real dangers it poses.

Read more:

Also Check: How Many Democrats And Republicans Are In The House

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Tesla Cybertruck Took in $20M Over the Weekend. How’d the Windows Scammers Do?

PT Barnum never had a better day. Nor the callers who can hardly pronounce Windows and say you have malware on your PC. Elon Musk Sunday night tweeted he’s lured in deposits on 200,000 Tesla Cybertrucks … that may or may not ship a year from now. That’s 200K deposits, $20 million in just three days. If it does ship on time, that, too, would be some kind of Tesla record.

But then it’s not every day you can put down $100 — “fully refundable” — on a car with unbreakable windows that the designer tosses a ball at, and it shatters. Twice. And you don’t know — pardon us for being skeptics — what colors it comes in, in case you or your partner care about that. Two hundred thousand is almost as many points as San Francisco put up on visiting Green Bay on Sunday Night Football around when the Elon tweet came rolling in:

200k

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 25, 2019

Saturday afternoon, a day and a half after the launch, Tesla had almost hit 150,000 reservations.

146k Cybertruck orders so far, with 42% choosing dual, 41% tri & 17% single motor

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 23, 2019

The Rules of Making a Deposit0

If you want to order a Cybertruck, you have to choose the performance/price level, and whether to get the IOU for self-driving, which may or may not work when your car ships. Translation: The sensors and cameras will all be there but maybe not the software. That comes as an over-the-air update. The prices are:

Single motor, rear drive, $39,900 (chosen by 17 percent of early customers)

Dual motor, all-wheel-drive, $49,900 (42 percent)

Tri motor, all-wheel-drive, $69,900 (41 percent, and it won’t ship until 2022)

Tesla adds this footnote about the pre-order:

Due today, $100. Fully refundable. You will be able to complete your configuration as production nears in late 2021. Tri Motor AWD production is expected to begin in late 2022.

By placing this order you agree to allow Tesla to save your credit card to pay for future services as described in the payment terms.

By clicking “Place Order” I agree to the Cybertruck Pre-Order Agreement, Supercharger Fair Use Policy, the Customer Privacy Agreement, and consent to be contacted at the number provided with more information or offers about Tesla products. I understand these calls or texts may use automated dialing or pre-recorded messages. I understand my consent to be contacted is not a condition of purchase.

The fine print does confirm you can cancel at almost any time before taking delivery.

At this point, Tesla does not give buyers much idea what kind of options are available, or things like, “Will it come in colors – can stainless steel be painted?” Answer (ours, not Tesla’s): Yes, stainless steel can be if the surface is scuffed/sanded/sandblasted and/or chemically cleaned with a degreaser, and if you use a high-quality primer. We wonder: Will any paint color be an upcharge?

Nor is there much information on when self-driving will be available, or what level it will be at, 2, 3, 4 or 5, and if Tesla’s description matches one of the SAE recognized levels. L2 is what some cars have now: basically lane-centering plus adaptive cruise control plus keep your hands on the wheel. L3 is essentially hands-off driving on limited-access roads, but you need to keep your hands on the wheel in case you need to take over like, right now. Stuff like this really confuses people who think self-driving means self-driving. L4 is hands-off, pay no attention driving … on limited-access roads, and L5 is hands-off self-driving anywhere.

When Tesla unveiled the affordable $35,000 (at one time) Tesla Model 3, the deposit was $1,000, refundable, and Tesla eventually had about 400,000 deposits. More buyers wanted the $35,000 base version than Tesla wanted to sell. (The base version is now $39,490, or what Tesla likes to call “$33,315 … after potential savings.”) Later reports said as many as a quarter of intenders dropped out of the waiting line. Tesla also at one point made the deposit non-refundable. Now deposits on all cars are down to $100, but non-refundable on cars that are actually shipping.

Tesla doesn’t cite tax savings with the Cybertruck because it will ship nearly a year after Tesla’s federal tax credit expires. Once $7,500, it’s now down to $1,875 and falls to zero on Jan. 1, 2020. Tesla was the first automaker to sell 200,000 EVs and now it’s the first with (in five weeks) no tax credits.

A Tesla rendering of a Cybertruck with a camping rig. Critics of the Pontiac Aztek said its camper module was the one thing that made the back end attractive.

No, Really, What Else Does Cybertruck Look Like?

Meanwhile, Cybertruck has been a godsend for comics, meme-posters, and others who say “the Cybertruck looks exactly like ____.” The Pontiac Aztek came up a few times.

For starters, it bears a strong resemblance to the F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighter. (Stealth doesn’t apply when you’re flying a couple of hundred yards in front of it during the daytime.)

US Air Force F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter.

Cybertruck’s strong body lines with severe changes of direction might also conjure up the Lamborghini Countach, the epitome of Italian wedge design from the era when boomers were reconsidering their platform shoes and Qiana fiber bell bottoms. A 1985 model cost about $100,000, or about $240,000 now. Where Tesla rang up 200K orders in three days, Lamborghini sold 2,000 from 1974 to 1990.

Lamborghini Countach.

Auto and business writers turned movie critics for a day, such as Faiz Siddiqui of the Washington Post:

The design elicited a mixture of awe and scorn, and very little in between. To one faction, it looked as if it had been designed on Microsoft Paint or an old-school video game. To another, it was a revelation, a raw demonstration of the utilitarian needs of a sustainable future.

Paul Eisenstein of The Detroit Bureau wrote in Tesla’s New Cybertruck Makes the Long-Derided Pontiac Aztek Look Good in Comparison:

But what can one say about the Tesla Cybertruck…That it may be the single worst automotive design since the Pontiac Aztek? [See, nobody likes Aztek. – Ed] That it looks like something out of a bad 1980s sci-fi movie?…That it could have been the ‘Homer-mobile,’ the horribly wrong design sketched out by patriarch Homer in the long-running TV series, the Simpsons?

Lauren Fix, the Car Coach, posted a YouTube video and said:

Elon Musk is a disrupter, this is not disruption. This is a joke on purpose. Is it Cybertruck or Cyber Truck? Does it matter? Musk needed to do something to get the press talking about him and everyone fell for it. He’s a snake oil salesman and this is a gigaflop! The results of blending a Pontiac Atzek, El Camino and a Delorean. This is hideous. The final version will never look like this, listen to why there are some serious issues.

The Lauren Fix Cybertruck video:

Apropos of Franz the Destroyer (Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla head of design), there’s the TV reporter who walks up to a car with a hammer and warns, “All it takes is a matter of seconds for someone [thief] to get into your car. All he needs is a hammer, an empty parking lot and [hammer glances off window, nothing breaks].”

Tesla fanboys have shown their loyalty and critics their lack of same:

They tried that line of thought with the Aztek. pic.twitter.com/p2Ow6jJgMA

— Ott (@Ottstorage) November 22, 2019

Now read:

Tesla Unveils the Stoner Truck. Sorry, Cybertruck. It’s as Big as an F-150.

Best Cars of the 2019 LA Auto Show

Ford Took Over Tesla’s Electric Avenue for Mustang Mach-E Introduction

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/302595-tesla-cybertruck-took-in-20m-over-the-weekend from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2019/11/tesla-cybertruck-took-in-20m-over.html