#without legal representation

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Alleged Safe Crackers Held," Border Cities Star. May 30, 1933. Page 19. ---- BAIL IS $10,000 ---- Suspects in London Get Remand to June 6 ---- LONDON, Ont., May 30. - The four alleged safe-crackers who provincial police claim, have been operating in Western Ontario in recent weeks were ordered held on $10,000 cash bail each when they appeared before Magistrate C. W. Hawkshaw in county police court yesterday.

They were remanded until June 6, as police have not completed their investigation into the robberies charged to the gang. The accused are Roy and Charles Woods, Albert Fink and Casey Blake.

On their appearance yesterday, Crown Attorney Judd advised that heavy bail be set by the court. According to Inspector H. Gardner,

of the London division of the O. P. P.. there is evidence linking the "mob" with safe and store "jobs" at Lucan, Denfield, Mount Brydges, Forest, Clandeboye and Exeter.

Police are still checking on Fink and Roy Woods in connection with the Ilderton bank robbery late in March, in which two young gunmen were put to flight by a gun in the hands of Lloyd Denning, bank teller.

Efforts to identify them have failed so far, but police haven't closed their case against the pair, who were released from Kingston penitentiary a short while before the Ilderton raid.

[themyscirah]

Okay so basically the United States MINT of all people is going to be working with DC to make a line of coins! These coins sadly won't be in circulation (the things I would do to live in a world where I could get Batman coins from the supermarket) as they're collectors coins, but will be releasing over the course of the next 3 years, 2025-2027.

Designs haven't been released yet (the same is true for all 2025 designs) but we know there will be 9 coins in total (3 each year) with the first year featuring (of course!!!) Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.

Although we know the first three heroes to be featured, the remaining six have yet to be decided, and it turns out the Mint is putting out a survey on their site to gauge which of a group of culturally significant heroes people want to see most! (link to the form is mentioned in the article above)

The considered group includes: Supergirl, the Flash, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Captain Marvel, John Stewart GL, Aquaman, Hawkman, Jamie Reyes BB, Robin (Damian?), Cyborg, and Batgirl, of which 6 will be selected.

As someone who does a bit of coin collecting myself (mainly circulation coins like the quarters sets, but I also have a couple proof and collectors coins) I think this is a really cool and interesting idea that showcases the history of the comics medium and these characters and their influence on American culture. Really excited to wait and see what the designs look like for the coins already announced!

[thursdayglrl]

man i love being held hostage in the us of a

[xylophone888]

OH MY GOOD LORD YES

This might be a very controversial take but Sybil being fat with no hair and Adora being weird about golems and Granny being old and a virgin and Magrat being ugly and Agnes being fat and Nanny being Nanny and Cheery existing does more for feminism than 90% of intentionally "feminist" media produced in the past 5-10 years actually

[legalfirmindia]

Unraveling Corporate Legal Complexities: Navigating NCLT for Your Business Success

Navigating NCLT for Your Business Success: The ever-changing landscape of Indian business throws a multitude of legal hurdles your way. In the midst of strategizing for market dominance and maximizing profits, navigating the labyrinth of corporate law can feel overwhelming. However, fret not! This is where Empower Legal steps in – your trusted companion on the path to business…

[disneyvillainsdaily]

Creatives have always fought to have representation in their projects. Even under a company like Disney, if the team has something they want to show, they'll find their way around whatever the suits and sales execs forbid (especially for non-theatrical releases/media, where they might be able to get away with a bit more).

It got me thinking about an episode of Lilo & Stitch: The Series! that I've mentioned before, the one about Pleakley's family wanting him to settle down with a wife. I thought about this episode specifically because Jumba and Pleakley may have been shipped by the writers through bits and jokes and one-offs throughout the show, but in this episode they really tried to do the most official, "We ship these characters," as they possibly could without actually getting in trouble with the higher-ups.

Here's the setup for the episode if you're unfamiliar:

Pleakley's mother wanted him to finally marry a girl, or else she would find a girl for him back on his home planet. Pleakley ends up lying to get out of the arrangement, saying that he already has a woman he's engaged to on Earth. Just a minute later, when he answers the door, he realizes he's only made the situation worse: his family's there on the doorstep, saying they immediately "hopped a wormhole" to be there before his supposed wedding day.

He begins to stack lies on top of lies and claims that Nani is his bride-to-be. Nani is only convinced to go along with it after being reminded that, if Pleakley left, the only remaining adult to supervise Lilo would be Jumba.

Both Pleakley and Nani don't enjoy the charade they have to put up with for the next few days. Nani begrudgingly plays her part up until the actual wedding day, where she finds out that a real ordained minister was hired, meaning she would be legally married to Pleakley, which is where she draws the line. Nani refuses to be a part of the lie any longer and leaves just before the ceremony begins.

Here's where the Pleakley/Jumba stuff begins (and where the creative team had to start tiptoeing around what would force a rewrite from the execs):

Lilo convinces Jumba off-screen to take Nani's place. This way there's no need to write any kind of "ew no I don't want to" joke or have Lilo bribe him or something of the sort to get Jumba to do it. We don't see or hear Jumba's thoughts when he would supposedly be told that he is legally marrying Pleakley. This way the writers are neither confirming nor denying anything about Jumba being interested in Pleakley or not.

During the ceremony, Jumba doesn't seem put off by it all. There's no gag that he thinks it's gross to be married to Pleakley, or is "only doing it" because Lilo said he has to, or that he wants to be the groom instead of the bride, or anything like that. When asked for his name, he does claim to be "Jumbina," but that's most likely because Pleakley's family specifically wanted him to marry a girl (and are a very heteronormative bunch; if Jumba walked down the isle as a second groom, they would've been just as upset as if they found out Pleakley wasn't actually engaged). Regardless, I'd say Pleakley looks content-enough that Jumba's the one walking down the isle instead of Nani.

When the minister then asks for the vows, the audience is only given a single line from Pleakley: "Dearest, the day we met, I couldn't take my eye off you." As he says this, the genetic experiment of the episode -who happens to be a lie detector experiment- starts beeping loudly, meaning that was a lie. Which actually makes total sense. That was a lie. If you go back to the day they met, Pleakley was being brought to Jumba's prison cell, where Pleakley was told he'd be shipped off to catch a deadly experiment with this criminally-convicted mad-scientist he just met. These two were absolutely not a case of "love at first sight." I mean, when Pleakley first saw him, Jumba was crazily ripping up and stuffing newspaper into his mouth.

And that's the ONLY vow that we get to hear either of them say at the wedding. The writers explicitly made the ONLY vow a false one so the lie detector could buzz at it. Jumba and Pleakley don't say anything about how much they might actually love each other, because then the writers would be forced to make it a lie so they wouldn't get in trouble for suggesting that the two male characters have feelings for each other. If it was all just part of the joke, it would be super easy for the characters to say how much they "really love one another" and then have the lie detector go off in the background. The writers can't have vows that would imply that these characters are gay, so they instead made the characters not say vows that would imply that they aren't gay.

Now, if you know anything about how the legality of marriage actually works, you know that most fiction gets it wrong: you don't stop someone from being married by interrupting their "I do"s, cutting the minister off before they say "I now pronounce you," stopping the kiss, taking the rings, or anything like that. You are finally "legally married" when you sign the marriage certificate and legal paperwork, which can be during, after, or even before the actual wedding.

So, while the ceremony gets crashed just before the end of it by Gantu trying to grab the genetic experiment, that doesn't actually stop the marriage proceedings unless the signings are postponed. Also, let's appreciate how Pleakley immediately hops into Jumba's arms at the sight of danger, and how Jumba accepts it.

After the ceremony is wrecked and Pleakley explains all of his lies to his family -and they apologize for being hard on him and not understanding- the minister stands up from under the rubble to ask who's paying for the officiation as he holds up some papers, supposedly the legal documents for the marriage. But no one actually responds. The scene ends with a look of newfound-understanding between Pleakley and his mother about their conversation from just a moment ago.

There's no further comment towards the minister about how they don't actually need marriage papers or that the marriage itself is being called off. No one says anything about it in the wrap-up scene just afterwards where Pleakley's family leaves. There's no, "Man, I'm glad I didn't actually have to marry Pleakley," from Jumba or some kind of, "I'm glad that's over," from Pleakley.

From all we know, Pleakley and Jumba did sign those papers for the minister to file with the state of Hawaii.

And this is the best the writers could do. They weren't allowed to canonize/confirm anything, even if they wanted to. They have to try making it as canon as possible by explicitly not stating certain things that would delegitimize it. It becomes a whole assignment to carefully slip past the people holding their paychecks.

As the industry and world have shifted a bit, different kinds of representation have become at least somewhat easier to include than these ever-so-meticulously-crafted inclusions from the past. But, when the people in power have doubts on what might make/lose money, they immediately look to topics like these that polarize extremist audiences. Taking any kind of positive/accepting stance on representation is the first thing they neutralize. So, even when the inclusion has to be as convoluted as this, I still personally see and appreciate everything that the creative teams do.

[raincitygirl76]

I wish there had been out queer teachers at my high school when I was closeted and terrified. Of course, I was born in 1976, and graduated high school in 1994, so they wouldn’t have dared speak to their students about it. They could’ve lost their jobs.

There were rumours about some of the teachers at my high school, of course. Mr D the biology teacher was known to own a house with his male “roommate” and their 2 dogs. And there was a lot of gossip about Mrs S, a French teacher who had a baby with no husband. And was very butch, so my fellow students gossiped that she was a lesbian who’d gotten pregnant via artificially insemination. I have no idea if she really was queer or not.

And there was poor Mr W, my Grade 4 teacher from elementary school (1985-1986 school year). He died of AIDS in early 1990, when I was in Grade 8. My younger sister was still at the elementary school I’d gone to when he was my Grade 4 teacher. There was a HUGE amount of gossip about Mr W after his death, because his obituary actually listed his cause of death as AIDS complications, instead of hiding it.

And as well as his parents, siblings, and various other relatives, a “longtime companion” with a male name was listed in the obit. That caused a big furore among the parents at my old elementary school. He was still teaching Grade 4 when I was in my final year of elementary school (Grade 7, 1988-98). But he was obviously sick with something by the start of that school year. I didn’t know at the time what, of course.

Mr W didn’t return after Christmas break and a long term sub took over his Grade 4 class. So he disappeared from the school in January 1989, and then nobody heard anything until spring 1990 when his obituary was published in the paper. I guess it was still a pretty big deal for AIDS deaths to be clearly labelled as such in obituaries written by their families. Or for same sex partners to be listed in the obit as if they were family members.

Sounds like Mr W’s birth family was supportive. Which was not always the case back then, and is still not always the case. But at least the general public in 2023 is better informed than the general public was in 1990 about how you can and can’t catch HIV. Nobody at my old elementary school knew what he was sick with until he died. Well, maybe some of the teachers did know, but they didn’t talk to the parents or kids about it.

So Mr D and Mrs S, the high school teachers who seemed happy enough but had lots of rumours flying around them. And Mr W, dead in his early thirties. There may have been more queer teachers, but they were probably deeper in the closet than those 3.

And here in 2023 we have Heartstopper, with multiple queer teen characters, and multiple queer teachers supporting them openly. I think my high school years might have been slightly less miserable if I hadn’t been closeted and terrified of anyone finding out.

I’m glad things are not quite as crummy for this generation as for mine. There’s still a lot of work left to do, but we’ve come a long way since the early 1990s when I was the same age as the Heartstopper characters.

Although I admit I’m a little jealous of Gen Z queer kids. Not very noble of a middle aged woman to be jealous, but there it is. At 16, it would’ve never occurred to me in a million years that same-sex marriage would ever become legal. I wouldn’t have imagined it in my lifetime.

And the idea that there would be multiple TV shows and movies with queer characters in them also boggles me. Queer characters whose queer romances are the main story, rather than textually straight characters being coded as queer, or Very Special Episodes where a minor character (usually never heard from again) is revealed to be queer.

I realize media representation isn’t everything. Laws need to catch up too. Yeah, there are Heartstopper and Young Royals on Netflix, and Red White and Royal Blue on Amazon Prime soon. But queer Texans and Floridians are still getting fucked over (especially the trans and non-binary members of our community).

Nonetheless, given how far we’ve come since the early 1990s when I was in high school, I am hopeful that the likes of Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott will have trouble taking us back to the bad old days on a permanent basis.

HEARTSTOPPER (2022 - )

2.03 - Promise

[technofeudalism]

on today's episode of "i only pay attention and pretend that i give two shits about the sanctity of human rights when there's a freaking Cheeto in the white house"

“While the administration should be lauded for its efforts to provide children and families access to the court system, its failure to ensure legal representation has produced a massive due process crisis,” said Talia Inlender, Deputy Director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law. “It should be obvious that immigration court proceedings are far too complex for children to navigate without legal representation, especially when the consequences are so dire. The Biden administration must take swift action to ensure legal representation for all children in immigration court.”

The report’s key findings include:

In a five-month period in FY 2022 alone, almost one third of immigration court cases initiated by the Biden administration–more than 80,000 in all–were against children, over 30,000 of whom were under the age of 5, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).

Studies show that unrepresented unaccompanied children are at least five times more likely to be ordered removed than children with access to counsel. 

By the government’s own account, 44% of unaccompanied children and 51% of families on the Dedicated Docket lack legal representation.

The vast majority of removal orders entered against children are for failure to appear: Approximately 72% of removal orders against families on the Los Angeles and Boston Dedicated Dockets were issued in absentia, with over 48% against children, many under the age of six. Worse yet, 86% of removal orders issued against unaccompanied children were for failure to appear.

Immigration courts under the Biden administration ordered more than 13,000 unaccompanied children removed in absentia between Fiscal Years 2022 and 2023.

The report details how the Biden administration’s treatment of children in immigration court is unlawful, and calls on the Biden administration to: prohibit in absentia removal orders against unrepresented children; terminate the Dedicated Docket; and ensure legal representation for all unrepresented children in removal proceedings.

In handwritten cursive, a Russian immigrant named Marina wrote out the story of the day U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents took away her 1-year-old baby while she was being held in a detention facility in southern California. “I cried and begged, kneeling, not to do this, that this was a mistake, not justice and not right,” she wrote. “She was so little that no one knew anything about her. I was very afraid for her and still am!” This didn’t happen during the Trump administration, which separated more than 4,000 migrant children from their families under its controversial “zero tolerance” policy. Marina was separated from her baby in April of this year. The 40-year-old former restaurant manager came to the U.S.-Mexico border with her husband, mother-in-law and child to seek asylum. More than eight months later, she and her mother-in-law remain in federal immigration custody in Louisiana. Her husband is detained at a different Louisiana immigration facility. And Aleksandra is over a thousand miles away, being cared for by strangers in foster care in California. Aleksandra is one of around 300 children the Biden administration has separated from their parents or legal guardians this year, according to two government sources who asked not to be identified because they hadn’t been authorized to speak about the separations. Most of the cases involved families crossing the southwestern border, the sources said. These numbers haven’t previously been reported. Similarly, 298 children were separated from their parents in 2023, according to a government report to Congress published on Tuesday, even as overall migrant crossings have declined. According to the report, the average amount of time children separated between April 2018 and October 2024 have spent in federal custody before being released to a sponsor is 75 days.

Biden responds to Bernie Sanders' immigration plan: "We shouldn't abolish ICE. We should reform the system. ICE is not the problem. The policies behind ICE are the problem, and that's easy enough to fix if the President knows what he or she is doing."

unfortunately Joe never got around to fixing the Gestapo agency but he tried his gosh darndest and he isn't Drumpf so i guess the pride in being an American was still secure at that point for most liberals. i'm sure that when the next charlatan says the same thing that they'll retain this energy, right? right??

[wainawtmai]

tags: 18+, toji x fem!reader, oral, semi-public, likely inaccurate representation of the divorce process (my bad), creampies, overstimulation, squirting, toxic themes

It shouldn’t be this difficult to get a divorce. Your relationship had become too strained, too toxic, it had to end.

But what didn’t soon-to-be ex-husband!toji make annoying and tedious??

Your first meeting after filing ends with you sprawled over the table, your legs on his shoulders, stilettos dangling from your toes in time with each thrust Toji made into you, the entire table rattling, paperwork scattered across the floor.

“FFuck, I hate you,” you mewled, but your words sound barely believable, all shaky and jumbled as you stifle your moans.

Toji gave you that annoying little smirk in response, the one you’d found endearing the first few months of your relationship before he became the most insufferable piece of shit you’d ever met.

“You sure?” He hums, punctuating his words with a particularly hard thrust that you can’t help moaning from, “‘don’t believe it when you’re dripping so much down here.” He brings a beefy hand to your pussy, lightly slapping at your clit and chuckling at your little whimper. “‘Feel how easily you take me?”

…After that you sped up your move out, no interactions meant no tension and an easier, less stressful divorce. Right?

Wrong. Your second meeting was with the attorney, a pretty brunette clad in a ridiculously unprofessional outfit. For fuck’s sake, her tits were practically out in the pathetic excuse for a blazer she had on.

And Toji spent the whole session flirting with her, accepting her light touches to his arm and biceps as she giggled and squirmed. Tossing her winks and smirks like you weren’t sitting right in front of him. Were you wrapping up a marriage or setting up a fucking date??

You didn’t overreact. Why would you? He could flirt with anyone he wanted, you were in the middle of getting divorced it didn’t matter, you didn’t care…

“Should I call her back?” You taunt, bouncing on Toji’s cock with a hand around his throat, “Make her see you all stupid from being inside me?”

“F-fuck you.” Toji groans, glaring up at you despite the way he trembled from overstimulation. His cock was practically numb as it slid in and out of your already cum-filled heat. He could barely move, barely breath, but he still mustered that smirk, “you’re so fucking pathetic—”

“Oh, shut the hell up, Toji.” You demand, grip around his throat tightening in tandem with your pussy, thighs slapping roughly against his. He let out a little growling whimper and you smiled, “You know you can’t fucking get off without me.”

Your third meeting starts fine, the two of you are listening to your consultant chat about shared expenses and whatever other legal crap you needed to worry about—

Then you feel Toji’s big hand on your thigh, and you already know what’s coming as he subtly shoots you that infuriatingly attractive grin.

You glare at him, but shift up your skirt nonetheless, letting your legs fall slightly open. More than enough room for him to slip his hand past the fabric of your skirt and underwear and rub his fingers against your already moistening pussy.

You suck in a shaky breath as his thick fingers fill you up, thumb toying at your clit. The consultant asks you a question and you manage a response, a tight lipped smile on your face as you white knuckle the arm of your chair through the pleasure.

He turns his attention to Toji and of course he gives a vague response, you take advantage of it nonetheless, sucking in deep breaths and grinding slightly on his fingers.

“I‘m fine with that” Toji hums, he turns and looks at you with a sadistic sort of glint in his eye, “but what do you think, hon?”

You can barely even glare at him. You were already close, the fucker knew your body, what places to press to drive you insane. Your thighs felt damp, Toji’s fingers thrusting in and out of you without a shred of remorse. His eyes were daring you to speak, demanding you.

“I think t-that makes sense.” You manage, your vision growing foggy. Your legs are trembling, and you’re convinced Toji was sent to earth to torture you. You allow your eyes to slide shut, hoping you can get away with your vagueness as you slowly rock onto his fingers.

But Toji slides a piece of paperwork in front of you, “Which part?”

Fuck you fuck you fuck you, “U-Um, I…” Fuck, you barely stifle a moan, you spare a glance at the consultant who seems none the wiser, well that’s a relief. You glance down at the paper in front of you, none of the legal bullshit making any sense, at least not now when you were gushing on Toji’s fingers and trying to stop your eyes from rolling into your skull. “I t-think—” Toji’s fingers slide along your sweet spot and you can’t hold back your whimper at the feeling. The consultant’s eyes widen in surprise.

“I-I’m sorry, I’m not feeling very well,” You try, your voice practically slurred. It’s useless though, the guy’s already uncomfortable, face flushed and hands folded tightly in front of him.

“W-Would you excuse me for a second?” He musters before bustling out of the room.

The door barely closes before you moan again, shooting a death glare to Toji. “You’re fucking ridiculous—” You barely finish your words before you’re cumming.

“Don’t be shy, finish your sentence.” He responds, pulling your chair closer to his with a leg. His lips ghost along your ear as you tremble and moan, spilling all over his fingers. He looks down at the mess you’ve made with a satisfied grin. “Or not.”

You’re too delirious from your orgasm to feel his fingers leaving yours, or him sitting you down on the table, your thighs all shaky and sticky. But you come too when you feel his tongue along the plush of your inner thigh, lapping up your juices, “C’mon, give me another, let’s give the guy a surprise.” You have no room to protest as his lips fasten around your clit.

By the time the fourth meeting comes around you guys are fucking with no shame. The two of you don’t even show up to the fifth meeting, you made the mistake of thinking you could drive there together…Toji bullshits some excuse while you ride him in the backseat.

The sixth meeting doesn’t even happen before the two of you give up, accepting that you’re really just a pair of horny fucks that like the thrill of fucking apart. And well, who else could satisfy you as well as your husband did?

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"CASE ADJOURNED," Vancouver News Herald. May 2, 1934. Page 2. ---- Alleged Holdup Man Asks Time to Get Counsel ---- Plea of Frank Pavia for time in which to obtain counsel resulted in Judge Ellis granting him an adjournment until May 8, when he appeared in County Court on Tuesday.

Pavia is alleged to have been one of two men who, at 6 p.m. on March 3, held up D. A. Strachan in his store at 1695 Renfrew St., and stole $30 from the cash register. One of the men carried a gun. Walter S. Owen, Crown Prosecutor, told the court that Pavia was aware on Tuesday morning that he would not be represented by counsel, but at that time said he was prepared to go ahead with the case.

In granting the adjournment, Judge Ellis referred to the expense to which the Crown had been put in arranging for the trial. Pavia said he would be ready to proceed within a week.

[apas-95]

oh no! imagine a world where innocent people are detained in guantanamo bay, in inhumane conditions, without legal representation! it's truly unthinkable!

[ms-demeanor]

On insurance: I still live with my parents and don't know a lot yet about the sorts of things adults usually have to spend money on. I've always been skeptical of things like insurance and credit cards because it seems to me they wouldn't be selling that if they didn't expect to make money from it. I talked to my cousin a while ago about credit cards and basically came to the conclusion that they do that because they're betting on the customer getting sloppy and letting their debts stack up, and the way you beat that and get money from credit card companies is just by being careful.

I'm a little more confused about insurance though because it seems much more straightforwardly like a gamble they will simply not take if it won't pay off for them. Like, you don't go to a casino because every game they play at a casino is one they've done the math on and have determined that statistically most people will lose money on most of the time. Is insurance not kinda the same? Where they estimate the risk and then charge you an amount calculated to make sure it probably won't be worth it for you?

I know if you have a car you legally need car insurance so everyone knows you can pay for another car if you crash into someone, and I gather that here in the US at least health insurance companies have some kinda deal with hospitals so that the prices go down or something, and there's a reason I don't fully understand why not having health insurance is Really Bad. But we get to pet insurance, or like when I buy a concert ticket and it offers ticket insurance in case I can't make it to the show, and surely if they thought they were gonna lose money on that they just wouldn't sell it, right? Or they'd raise the price of it until it became worth the risk that something bad actually will happen? Wouldn't it only be worth it to buy insurance if you know something the insurance company doesn't?

So the deal is that most people don't use their insurance much, and often insurance companies will incentivize doing things that will make you use your insurance less.

So, for example, you can get a discount on car insurance if you have multiple cars because people who insure multiple cars are more likely to be responsible drivers (the ability to pay for multiple cars stands in as a representation of responsibility here). The longer you go without an accident, the lower your premiums get because that means that you are not costing your insurance company anything but you are paying into the system. The car insurance company's goal is to have the most responsible, safest drivers who never get into car accidents because they can predict (roughly) how much they're going to have to pay out to their customers and they want the number they pay out to be lower than what's paid in. So they try to discourage irresponsible drivers by raising their rates and encourage responsible drivers by giving them discounts.

Health insurance companies often do the same thing: I recently got a gift card from my health insurance company because I had a visit from a nurse who interviewed me about my overall health and made sure I had stable blood pressure and access to medications. It is literally cheaper for my insurance company to give me a $100 giftcard and hire a nurse to visit me than it is for me to go to my doctor's office a couple of times, so they try to make sure that their customers are getting preventative care and are seeing inexpensive medical professionals regularly so that they don't have to suddenly see very expensive professionals after a long time without care.

Insurance in the US has many, many, many problems and should be replaced with socialized healthcare for a huge number of reasons but right now, because it is an insurance-based system, you need to have insurance.

We're going to use Large Bastard as an example.

Large Bastard had insurance when he had his heart attack and when he needed multiple organs transplanted. He didn't *want* to be paying for insurance, because he thought he was healthy enough to get by, but I insisted. His premium is four hundred dollars a month, and his out of pocket maximum is eight thousand dollars a year. That means that every year, he pays about $5000 whether he uses his insurance or not, and if he DOES need to use the insurance, he pays the first $8k worth of care, so every year his insurance has the possibility of costing him thirteen thousand dollars.

The bill for his bypass surgery was a quarter million dollars.

The bill for his transplant was over one and a half million dollars.

His medication each month is around six hundred dollars. He needs to have multiple biopsies - which are surgeries - each year, and each one costs about twenty thousand dollars.

Without health insurance, he would very likely be dead, or we would be *even more* incapable of paying for his healthcare than we are right now. He almost ditched his insurance because he was a healthy-seeming 40-year-old and he didn't think he'd get sick. And then he proceeded to be the sickest human being I've ever known personally who did not actually die.

Health insurance costs a lot of money. It costs less money for people who are young and who are expected to be healthy. But the thing is, everybody pays into health insurance, and very, very few people end up using as much money for their medical expenses as Large Bastard did. There are a few thousand transplants in the US ever year, but there are hundreds of millions of people paying for insurance.

This ends up balancing out (sort of) so that people who pay for insurance get a much lower cost on care if they need it, hospitals get paid for the care they provide, and the insurance company makes enough money to continue to exist. Part of the reason that people don't like this scheme is because "insurance company" could feasibly be replaced by "government" and it would cost less and provide a better standard of care, but again, with things as they are now, you need to have insurance. Insurance companies are large entities that are able to negotiate down costs with the providers they work with, you are not. If you get hit by a car you may be able to get your medical bills significantly reduced through a number of means, but you're very unlikely to get your bills lower than the cost of insurance and a copay.

Because of the Affordable Care Act, which is flawed but which did a LOT of good, medical insurance companies cannot refuse to treat you because of preexisting conditions and also cannot jack up your premiums to intolerable rates - since Large Bastard got sick, he has had the standard price increases you'd expect from aging, but nothing like the gouging you might expect from an insurance company deciding you're not worth it.

Pet insurance works on the same model. Millions of people pay for the insurance, thousands of people end up needing it, a few hundred end up needing a LOT of it, and the insurance companies are able to make more money than they hand out, so they continue to exist. This is part of why it's less expensive to get pet insurance for younger animals - people who sign up puppies and kittens are likely to be paying for a very long time and are likely to provide a lot of preventative care for their animals, so they're a good bet for the insurer. Animals signed up when they are older are more likely to have health problems (and pet insurance CAN turn animals away for preexisting conditions) and are going to cost the insurance companies more, so they cost more to enroll (and animals over a certain age or with certain conditions may be denied entirely).

This weighing risk/reward is called actuarial science, and the insurance industry is built on it.

But yeah it's kind of betting. The insurance company says "I'll insure ten thousand dogs and I'm going to bet that only a hundred of them will need surgery at some point in the next year" and if they're correct, they make money and the dogs who need surgery get their surgery paid for out of the premiums from the nine thousand nine hundred dogs who didn't need surgery.

Your assessment of credit is correct: credit card companies expect that you will end up carrying a balance, and that balance will accrue interest, and the interest is how they make the money.

And it is EASY to fuck up financially as an adult. REALLY EASY. But you are still likely to need a good credit score so you will need a credit history. That means that the correct way to use a credit card is to have a card, but not carry a balance.

To do this, never buy anything on the card that you can't afford. In order to avoid needing the card for emergencies, start an emergency fund that is at least 3 months of your total pay *before* you get a credit card. That seems like a *lot* of savings to have, but from the perspective of someone who has had plenty of mess-ups, it's a lot easier to build up a $10k emergency fund than it is to pay off a $10k credit card debt.

If you don't understand how interest works on credit cards, or why a 10k savings is different than a 10k debt, here are some examples working with $10k of debt, 23% interest (an average-ish rate for people with average credit), and various payments.

With that debt and that interest, here's how much it costs and how long it would take to pay off with $200 as the monthly payment:

Fourteen years, and it would cost you about twenty four thousand dollars in interest, for a total amount paid of about thirty four thousand dollars.

To save $10k at $200 a month would take four years and two months.

Here's the same debt at $300 a month:

4.5 Years and it costs about six grand (again, just in interest - sixteen thousand dollars total). Saving ten thousand dollars at three hundred dollars a month would take just under three years.

Here's the same debt at $400 a month:

3 years, about $4000 dollars (fourteen thousand dollars total). Saving ten thousand dollars at $400 a month takes just over two years.

The thing is, with all of these models you're going to end up paying one way or another. Insurance vs out of pocket is you weighing the risk of losing a fair amount of money by signing up but not using the system, or potentially losing a catastrophic amount of money by not signing up.

For credit cards they really only work if you know you're never going to need them for an emergency, because an emergency is what you're not going to be able to pay off right away. I didn't have an emergency fund when Large Bastard had his heart attack and needed surgery, or when we moved between states suddenly, or when we moved between states suddenly AGAIN and needed to pay storage costs, or when Large Bastard needed a transplant, or when Tiny Bastard got in a fight with my MiL's dog, and the fact that I didn't have an emergency fund is still costing me a lot of money.

So, young folks out there: what's the takeaway?

Get insurance. Get the best deal possible, which usually ends up being the one you sign up for early. You may think you can let it ride without insurance, but man in the six months between when I graduate college (and lost my school insurance) and when care kicked in after 90 days at my job I got electrocuted and needed to go to the ER. If that hadn't been a worker's comp payout I would have had thousands of dollars in bills. Something could happen. You could break your leg, you could get hit by a car, you could suddenly find out that you actually have heart disease at twenty, you could develop cancer. Have insurance, you need insurance. You legally need car insurance in the US, and you financially need health insurance. If you have a pet, I think it's a good idea for them to have pet insurance.

Credit cards are not for emergencies, they are not for fun, they are not for buying things that are just ever so slightly out of your budget, they are for taking advantage of the credit card company and managing to get by in a system that demands you have a credit score. ONLY put purchases on your credit card that you already have cash for. Before you get a credit card, build up an emergency savings so that you aren't tempted to put emergency charges on your card.

If you DO end up with an interest-bearing debt, pay it off as fast as possible because letting it linger costs you a LOT of money in the long run.

Stay the fuck away from tobacco and nicotine products they are fucking terrible for you, they are fucking expensive, and they are not worth it put the vapes down put the zyns down put the cigarettes down I will begin manifesting in your house physically i swear to fuck. Knock that shit off and put the cash that you'd be spending on nicotine into a savings account.

Take care, sorry everything sucks, I promise that in some ways it actually sucks less than it did before and we're working on trying to make it suck even less but it's taking a while.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Pro-Palestine organizations have filed at least 50 criminal complaints in courts around the world targeting Israeli soldiers for their role in Tel Aviv's ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza, according to reports in Hebrew media.  “About 50 complaints have been filed against reserve soldiers, 10 of which have been investigated without any arrests recorded so far,” Israeli Broadcasting Corporation (KAN) reported on 6 January. Hours after the news was broadcast, Israeli news outlet Yedioth Ahronoth revealed that the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) filed a new complaint against an Israeli soldier vacationing in Thailand. “The Palestinian foundation was looking for legal representation to represent it in complaints of war crimes in Thailand's courts,” the Israeli daily reports. According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, authorities are aware “of at least 12 cases” in which complaints have been filed against Israeli soldiers on leave after serving in Gaza. “Such complaints have been filed in Brazil, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Belgium, the Netherlands, Serbia, Ireland, and Cyprus,” Israeli media reported, with other statements adding South Africa, Morocco, and France to the list. “A joint task force of the Military Advocate General's Corps, the Foreign Ministry, the National Security Council, and the Shin Bet is now analyzing risks to soldiers in various countries and monitoring potential investigations,” Haaretz reported on Sunday, adding that Tel Aviv is “coordinating with local law firms to provide immediate legal aid if necessary.” Over the weekend, a federal court in Brazil ordered the police to open an immediate investigation into an Israeli soldier vacationing in the country. Soon after, Israeli officials helped the soldier flee to neighboring Argentina, where the far-right government has expressed complete support for the Israeli genocide.

6 Jan 2025

[mariacallous]

In 2024, wealth concentration rose to an all-time high. According to Forbes’ Billionaires List, not only are there more billionaires than ever—2,781—but those billionaires are also richer than ever, with an aggregate worth of $14.2 trillion. This is a trend that looks set to continue unabated. A recent report from the financial data company Altrata estimated that about 1.2 million individuals who are worth more than $5 million will pass on a collective wealth of almost $31 trillion over the next decade.

Discontentment and concern over the consequences of extreme wealth in our society is growing. Senator Bernie Sanders, for instance, stated that the “obscene level of income and wealth inequality in America is a profoundly moral issue.” In a joint op-ed for CNN in 2023, Democratic congresswoman Barbara Lee and Disney heiress Abigail Disney wrote that “extreme wealth inequality is a threat to our economy and democracy.” In 2024, when the board of Tesla put to vote a $56 billion pay package for Elon Musk, some major shareholders voted against it, declaring that such a compensation level was “absurd” and “ridiculous.”

In 2025, the fight against rising wealth inequality will be high on the political agenda. In July 2024, the G20—the world’s 20 biggest economies—agreed to work on a proposal by Brazil to introduce a new global “billionaire tax” that would levy a 2 percent tax on assets worth more than $1 billion. This would raise an estimated $250 billion a year. While this specific proposal was not endorsed in the Rio declaration, the G20 countries agreed that the super rich should be taxed more.

Progressive politicians won’t be the only ones trying to address this problem. In 2025, millionaires themselves will increasingly mobilize and put pressure on political leaders. One such movement is Patriotic Millionaires, a nonpartisan group of multimillionaires who are already publicly campaigning and privately lobbying the American Congress for a guaranteed living wage for all, a fair tax system, and the protection of equal representation. “Millionaires and large corporations—who have benefited most from our country’s assets—should pay a larger percentage of the tab for running the country,” reads their value statement. Members include Abigail Disney, former BlackRock executive Morris Pearl, legal scholar Lawrence Lessig, screenwriter Norman Lear, and investor Lawrence Benenson.

Another example is TaxMeNow, a lobby group founded in 2021 by young multimillionaires in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland which also advocates for higher wealth taxation. Its most famous member is the 32-year old Marlene Engelhorn, descendant of Friedrich Engelhorn, founder of German pharma giant BASF. She recently set up a council made up of 50 randomly selected Austrian citizens to decide what should happen to her €25 million inheritance. “I have inherited a fortune, and therefore power, without having done anything for it,” she said in a statement. “If politicians don’t do their job and redistribute, then I have to redistribute my wealth myself.”

Earlier this year, Patriotic Millionaires, TaxMeNow, Oxfam, and another activist group called Millionaires For Humanity formed a coalition called Proud to Pay More, and addressed a letter to global leaders during the annual gathering of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Signed by hundreds of high-net-worth individuals—including heiress Valerie Rockefeller, actor Simon Pegg, and filmmaker Richard Curtis—the letter stated: “We all know that ‘trickle down economics’ has not translated into reality. Instead it has given us stagnating wages, crumbling infrastructure, failing public services, and destabilized the very institution of democracy.” It concluded: “We ask you to take this necessary and inevitable step before it’s too late. Make your countries proud. Tax extreme wealth.” In 2025, thanks to the nascent movement of activist millionaires, these calls will grow even louder.

[alllgator-blood]

I don't usually do anything for pride month cause I'm fruity every day of the year, but ahhh let's just say this year it felt especially important. Hope everyone is doing safe and that your ally friends/family members are giving you all their worldly possessions + sacrificing heretics in your name! I actually drew a very similar picture last year but didn't end up finishing it, some of the flags were definitely different though. NARINDER HAD THE EVIL AUTISM FLAG FOR SOME REASON. Shamura was the only one I finished so I'll just drop them off here:

Wow look at them go, rejecting humanity and encompassing cosmic knowledge and ceaseless war rather than masculinity or femininity....what an icon

Over the year that I've been in this fandom, I've had a lot of thoughts about Shamura's gender that I'll dump here, I WILL SAY it gets more ranty than I've ever gotten on this blog + talks about the fandom itself, so I hid it under the cut. But I feel like I've been pretty tame on this blog so far and because it's pride month, I have the legal right to make ONE rant about a queer fictional character's perception by the fandom

My weak enby heart still has a fucking death grip on shamura that hasn't been loosened in over a year at this point. They're not the best nonbinary representation in media but they're MY FAVORITE and that's all that matters. I can't stress how awesome it felt playing an actually cool, fun game a couple years ago and seeing that the Wisest, Most Powerful Eldritch Beast in all the land was a disabled nonbinary person. And it goes completely without question, it's like yeah that's shamura and *they're* going to traumadump on you and mind control your followers to rebel against you. Don't even worry about it bro

Being like....nonbinary and disabled and native and butch and yadda yadda, I swear to god I just got used to having no media/characters I could relate to. I didn't even think about how bad it felt until I'd stumble into the odd comic or indie game that had a Diverse Cast that MAY feature someone like me, but generally those types of things don't really *do* much with those characters. Not to be like THEY JUST WANT BROWNIE POINTS but...uhhh.........is it so bad to say that sometimes it does feel that way lmao, I won't play your game or read your comic if I feel like you see me as a checkbox to tick rather than a person with a fundamentally different experience.

I'll take this time to say it is kind of disheartening to see the fandom's treatment of shamura's gender sometimes, as someone who uses exclusively they/them. I've got a thick fucking skin, I've publicly acknolwedged I was genderless since before the nonbinary flag was even made, I've had a lot of time to roll with the punches that inevitably come from being trans. But literally one of the first comments I ever got about my shamura headcanons (when I still posted on reddit like a year ago) was that they didn't like that I made them AFAB and said "why can't they just be completely genderless". Like...making the TRANS character TRANSITION at some point was a bad thing? I wasn't saying "they're a girl in my drawings lol" and I even explained that I made them AFAB so I could connect with them better but. Ough

I s2g just mentioning this character brings up arguments, same with the lamb to a lesser extent, but DO NOT look at the reply chains on the youtube uploads of ANY of shamura's songs. It's always that someone calls them a him or her, someone corrects them, someone crucifies that person for being the Woke Police, blah blah blah IT'S AWFUL. It's funny in a way that the mere presence of a nonbinary person is enough to start a small war, but it also feels dehumanizing to know that my gender just cannot respectfully be talked about the same way binary genders can.

While I'm still talking about this, I don't hold it against people who played the game in other languages and call shamura "he" or w/e because from their perspective, the character is male. I've not changed my perspective of the character because I found out they're male in other releases, so I can readily accept that those folks won't either. But it feels....gross to see people who played it in english who just picked whatever binary gender they wanted shamura to be and went with that. Literally every single character with a confirmed gender is male except like, Heket + Forneus + Monch, so to take the ONE undebatably nonbinary character and decide they're not good enough the way they are is....ough. "It's my headcanon" bro that's erASURE IDK HOW ELSE TO TELL YOU. The people doing it probably literally do not comprehend what it's like to never see themself in the media they consume so I don't hate them or anything, but it took me like two decades to find a character whose gender feels like mine. It's lonely out here man

There's something to be said about me talking about that while making my kallamar nonbinary, but I'll just say this: there are so, so many male characters out there. If there was a crowd of millions of characters and ONE GUY vanished, you wouldn't be able to tell. But if there was like...a broom closet with like 9 they/thems, you'd fuckin notice if one was gone. AND I DO. Nonbinary representation isn't good enough rn to be taking the very few they/them characters out there and being like "nope my headcanon is that you're just some guy/chick", especially when sooo many people do it. Me taking one sopping wet man out of that crowd and being like "you can still be a sopping wet man, but sometimes you're a girlfail and sometimes your gender is squid" isn't the same I don't feel, otherwise I wouldn't have done it. I can't stop anyone from making shamura binary, we're all just random internet artists and do as we please, but I'm still allowed to judge from afar. I've definitely had people judge my headcanons from afar lmao

edit: I walked away and had to run back because I need reiterate, if you give Shamura features that are seen as "binary" but keep them nonbinary I think it's cool and based, especially if you are also nonbinary and just want to connect with the character more. "Gendered features" or w/e that are on a nonbinary person don't detract from their nonbinary-ness and we don't owe anyone perfect androgyny. I have boobs and an hourglass shape but also a lot of body hair + mustache and a good amount of muscle mass, doesn't mean I'm more girly or manly.

Okay end of rant, I had to get that off my chest for like EVER tbh. I really really hate discourse or drama or w/e but this is a topic that does mean a lot to me, so I made an exception this one time to make my opinion known.

[soon-palestine]

as an american citizen, you have the right to assemble. the police and other governmental agencies violate this right through mass arrests, illegal use of force, criminalization of protest and other means that threaten our right to free expression.

DO NOT TALK TO THE POLICE:

they are not your friends. they are not there to protect you, regardless of your race. their presence there is to protect the interests of the state.

what to do if you are detained or stopped by the police:

do not resist, even if you think they are violating your rights.

calmly ask someone to record.

ask if you’re free to leave. if you are, walk away.

how to stay safe during a protest:

write phone/legal aid numbers on your body. bring a sharpie for others to do this.

ALWAYS use the buddy system. don’t be selfish & stick to your own friend group. if you see someone alone, invite them into your circle.

don’t know where to seek legal aid?

before attending/during a protest, visit http://nlg.org/chapters/#massdefense.

NLG chapters are organized into regions. find. your region and write their number on your body.

encourage others around you to write that same number on their body.

4. if you are threatened with or under arrest:

you have the right to know why you’re being arrested. calmly ask. if they refuse to provide a reason, stay quiet and ask for legal representation immediately.

do not give any information or sign anything without a lawyer present.

what to do with your phone during a protest:

put your phone on airplane mode

disable face ID/touch, replace with 6-digit passcode instead

spreading awareness is great but avoid posting photos of people that include identifying features.

police want everyone to leave the area, what should that look like:

shutting down a protect through a dispersal order must be the last resort for police.

a clear danger must be present.

police must give adequate time for protesters to disperse and an exit route.

what are your rights if you’re being stopped or detained by police:

you do not have to consent to you or your belongings being searched. if you consent, anything can be used against you in court.

police can conduct a “pat down” if they suspect you have a weapon.

if you see someone being detained, what should you do:

record the interaction. police can not demand to view or delete any footage without a warrant.

use calming affirmations towards the person being detained. they are likely scared. be there for them.

use whatever privilege you have to protect others.

if you see a disabled person struggling, offer to help. find medics to assist people experiencing anxiety or having a panic attack. if you see a BIPOC being harassed, surround them.

personal note on using your privilege: i have seen white people, countless times, place themselves in front of BIPOC when police draw weapons/approach protests. it often works.

do not be a person that just acknowledges their privilege, use it for good.

10. remember that we protect us. ignite this chant as a reminder to everyone present if you have to. communities are supposed to help one another. don’t be a sell out, offer support, share resources, food and water. be a kind soul.

if you can not participate in a protest for whatever reason, you can still help! drop-off supplies! (water bottles, allergy-friendly foods/snacks with ingredients labels on them, sharpies, cards with legal aid numbers on them, masks, makeup remover wipes, hand sanitizer, etc)

sources/disclaimer: main source:

@ACLU and my own opinions. this is not legal advice. consult legal representation if you are in need of assistance.

stay safe, be on the right side of history. black lives matter, no one is illegal, we protect us, land back, all oppression is connected and free palestine. 🇵🇸