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notalwaysright_feed) wrote2025-10-09 11:00 am
Read Sweet, Sweet Revenge
The trouble was, the kids started buying the most sugary snacks, candy, and drinks they could, and ended up hyper for the next hour, then had a sugar crash and were irritable little horrors for the final half hour. Magically, they'd all be fine about pick-up time.
Read Sweet, Sweet Revenge
notalwaysright_feed) wrote2025-10-09 11:00 amnotalwaysright_feed) wrote2025-10-09 10:00 am(My 14-year-old brother has several medical conditions that result in him needing a G-tube, which is a more permanent version of feeding tube that goes directly into your stomach rather than through the nose. He eats sometimes, but it’s limited and he gets most of his calories through the tube.) Brother: “I realized something just […]
slashdot_feed) wrote2025-10-09 10:00 am
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
crooked_timber_feed) wrote2025-10-09 09:27 amA European justice minister who does have principles!
The EU “chat control” proposal I wrote about the other day has been scuppered by Germany’s justice ministry saying forcefully that it will never support this particular form of mass surveillance. Here’s what their minister, Dr. Stefanie Hubig, had to say:
“Chat control without cause must be taboo in a state governed by the rule of law. Private communication must never be under general suspicion. The state must also not force messengers to scan messages en masse for suspicious content before sending them. Germany will not agree to such proposals at EU level. We must also make progress at EU level in the fight against child pornography. That’s what I’m committed to. But even the worst crimes do not justify the surrender of basic civil rights. This has been insisted on for months in the votes of the federal government. And that’s how it will stay.”
Brief context; at the beginning of this week it was rumoured that Germany was wavering on its opposition to pre-emptive and permanent scanning of everyone’s phones. Purportedly, the European Commission DG HOME proposal was ‘just’ to identify child sexual abuse materials, but as anyone (ok yours truly) who’s been fighting surveillance for close to three decades can tell you, blanket surveillance starts with a justification of ‘serious crime’, and quickly becomes used for trivial issues and against all perceived enemies of those in power. So, when organisations including Signal raised the alarm, lots of people swung into action, again, to let the German justice ministry know that this would not go quietly for them. The statement above is Dr Hubig saying they never wobbled at all. I’m pretty certain they did, but who knows, maybe someone in her office sent up the bat signal so people in the movement I’m part of to go to the barricades on this issue one last time. It’s certainly a play I’ve seen before.
I’ve been doing this for close to 30 years (thought tbf had v. little involvement in this particular campaign). The stakes have never been higher. Even many ‘normies’ now get how these powers will be abused and that this time it might not just be against others. It could happen to them. It hits different, as they say, when you’re staring down the barrel of a government run by AfD or the Front National.
But creating coalitions again and again to fight off stupid, dangerous nonsense is hard. Civil society and real movement politics, as so many of CT’s enduring readers know, is hard fucking work. I’m glad that we do it and that we have deep knowledge and experience of it, but I’m also exhausted. Again and again I find myself wondering, if we didn’t have to expend most our energies saying ‘No’ to this stupid, ghastly shit, and saying ‘No’ to the stupid, ghastly shit of the tech oligarchs, what might we have built instead? How productively and joyfully could we be spending our lives? Actually growing good things? Showing what can and must be done for us to live decent lives for our own purposes and in service of others, and not repeatedly campaigning so that a few less lives will be wrecked?
Don’t get me wrong. Plenty of us – indeed, growing numbers – are working on the alternatives. But if feels like we lost twenty years just trying to get tech policy and tech firms to kill fewer people, to be just a bit less egregious, and that is time we’ll never get back. Time we needed to be building and growing the technology infrastructure and human networks, capabilities and structures of feeling we so desperately need for what comes next.
notalwaysright_feed) wrote2025-10-09 09:00 amMy mother only dated my biological father for a short time, but due to a broken condom she ended up pregnant with me anyways. When she told my biological father he freaked out, accused her of lying and of cheating on him, and otherwise acted like an A** while dumping her. My mother met another […]
notalwaysright_feed) wrote2025-10-09 09:00 am
I design custom furniture. I'm talking to a client about a dresser she's had me make, and now we're ready for her to come and collect it.
Me: "As a reminder, here are the exact dimensions of the dresser; make sure you have a vehicle big enough to fit it. I’ll help you lift and load it."
Customer: "Yeah, no problem."
Later, she arrives with a small car and a male friend.
icanhascheezburger_feed) wrote2025-10-09 02:00 pmFew things in life are as powerful, or as terrifying, as a cat's side-eye. One squint, one slow turn of the head, and suddenly you're questioning every life choice you've ever made. Cats have perfected the art of silent judgment, and they wield it like royalty with a crown made of sass.
Whether you dared to serve dinner five minutes late or had the audacity to move them from their chair, the look says it all: utter disappointment wrapped in whiskers. It's not anger. It's pure feline superiority. That subtle glare communicates, "You're lucky I tolerate you, hooman," and yet we still find it adorable.
These side-eye masters could teach a masterclass in drama. One eyebrow flick (if they had eyebrows), and boom! You're on trial for crimes against catkind. Still, behind all that shade is a little fluffball who secretly loves you… probably. Until then, take comfort in knowing your cat's judgment means you're part of their world. No one throws shade quite like a sassy feline.
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icanhascheezburger_feed) wrote2025-10-09 10:00 amEven though fall officially starts in September, in most places it still takes a few weeks for the weather to finally shift into the coziness we all know and love. Where we live, that shift has finally happened over the last few days, which means that it is officially sweater weather, cat cuddles in bed, and sweet hot tea out in the nice evening breeze.
We all have activities that are fall-specific and can only happen while the leaves are slowly falling outside. Some have movies they only watch during this time of year, others find the most cozy video games to chill to at the end of a long day.
What we love to do is to find the best romantasy book out there, crawl into bed, and read for hours while cuddling with our cats. There is nothing like it, and right now is the best possible time for this kind of activity.
Currently, we are head-over-heels invested in Forth Wing (iykyk), so the only time we are willing to put that book down is to scroll through a hissterical collection of cat memes, like the one below. Keep scrolling to do the same.
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icanhascheezburger_feed) wrote2025-10-09 09:00 amMost wedding gifts are so boring. Kitchenware sets, Supima cotton sheets, and unusable camping gear from that one prepper cousin are the kinds of gifts that most couples can expect from their registry after their big wedding day, but this couple went viral for a gift from the CDS far more fetching.
After returning from a 2-week vacation abroad, the honeymooners were flabbergasted to discover a late addition to their gift table, a single-brain-celled black cat with the apparent ability to teleport through the walls. Although all of the doors were locked and windows barricaded, somehow, this phantasmic feline melted through the walls and became a new resident in their empty home. Filling the house with cat-approved welcome-home energy, this cat awarded himself to his new hoomans, hoping to become the 3rd addition to a new family as their firstborn furbaby.
It's funny how a loving duo turns quickly into a trio when you're both cat lovers, because this adorable and mysteriously acrobatic black cat burrowed immediately into the hearts of a couple already bursting with love.
GET YOUR WEEKLY HIT OF WHISKERED PURRFECTION - SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER!
notalwaysright_feed) wrote2025-10-09 08:00 amWhen I was about six years old, a family friend had given me and my brothers his old Nintendo 64 and a bunch of games. One of those games was GoldenEye, a first-person shooter with realistic (for the time) weapons and violence. This happened when we went to a family gathering at our grandparent’s house. […]
slashdot_feed) wrote2025-10-09 07:00 am
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
notalwaysright_feed) wrote2025-10-09 07:00 amRead H2-Slow, Part 33
Customer: "Can I get the decarbonated water?"
Me: "So… still water? Not sparkling?"
Customer: "Whatever the fancy terms are, I just want to make sure my water has no carbs."
Read H2-Slow, Part 33
smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-10-09 06:00 am
Hey, you guys, remember that time that Hobby Lobby stole ancient artifacts from Egypt and Iraq? Technically they bought stolen artifacts. They didn’t do the digging themselves. I like to imagine that someone walked up to one of the high-ups in a trenchcoat and said, “Saaaayy…ya wanna buy a Dead Sea Scroll?” and they said, “Sure, what could go wrong?”
This book is totally not about that.
This book is about Ruth, who lives in the small town of Kill Devil, Kentucky, with her girlfriend, Abigail. Abigail wants them to move to someplace where they don’t have to pretend to be platonic roommates, but they are having trouble saving money, especially since Ruth was fired from her job at the local craft store, New Creations, for, as the manager puts it, having “values that do not align with ours.” Ruth makes some money making and selling crafts to buyers online, and when she has to fill a rush order she has to visit New Creations in order to get (shoplift) more yarn.
New Creations is a craft store owned by the New Creationist church, a megachurch church that moved into Kill Devil several years ago and that attracts parishioners from all the nearby towns. When Ruth gets to the store, it seems as though no one is there – until she finds herself locked in and hunted through the aisles by New Creationists who say ominous things about sacrifice and a demon and needing her alive. With only the items on the shelves to use as weapons, Ruth must battle homophobic cultists (and her own blood sugar – she’s diabetic) through the night.
I’ve been more and more interested in horror over the last decade, but I was not equipped to handle some of the gore and nastier moments in this book. I may have skimmed a little bit. I can’t tell you about it without spoiling scary moments which would send me to horror hell (which, I assume, is an especially bad version of hell). I put general warnings at the top of the review.
However, in the interest of kindness, I will put some very specific alerts here in this spoiler tag – don’t click unless you really want to know what lies ahead which, I have to warn you, will spoil some of the horror and some of the fun of the book – there’s just a lot to be gained here from not knowing what will come next.
Ruth stabs a guy in the eye with a knitting needle. This is described in LAVISH detail. Globs of eyeball keep appearing for simply ages.
Ruth superglues a guy in the face and he suffocates. It’s awesome, because Yay Ruth, but also awful. This is described in far more extravagant and lengthy detail than I would have expected. I had no idea a suffocation scene could be so drawn out and violent.
There are rats. I don’t do rats. I draw lines at creepy dolls, spiders, and rats. There are many, many, many rats. Biting, scratching, climbing rats. I had to skim.
And the cult’s evil plan involves cannibalism.
This book is scary and exciting and satisfying if you are carrying around a lot of rage. At times, it’s darkly humorous. It’s not subtle in its messaging, but lately I feel that subtly is overrated. Sometimes one wants a complex and deeply woven epic of Americana but at other times one just wants to see a cultist get threatened with the spiky bits of a “USA PROUD” lawn sign and this is one of those times.
Ruth is a wonderful character who goes from timidity to dogged fury in a plausible amount of time, fueled largely by her love for Abigail. Ruth’s emotional swings between empathy and ruthlessness are relatable and her ingenuity is admirable, but her biggest asset is probably sheer durability. This poor woman takes a tremendous amount of damage in the course of the book (there is no sexual assault). One reason I’m giving this book a B+ instead of an A is that it ends abruptly and frankly I needed at least a chapter of Ruth getting some freaking medical attention. I cannot overstress how violent the book is and how much injury Ruth suffers, although she gives considerably more than she gets. She doesn’t have superpowers or self defense training or any other advantages. She just does not stop, and I admire her so much for that.
I found this book to be exciting and cathartic and as heartwarming as a story about an evil cult can possibly be. Ruth’s use of the geography and objects in the store is inventive and fun. It’s a feminist and LGBTQIA positive story with a diabetic heroine who survives on her wits and her determination and her love for another woman. This rage-read had me glued (ahem) to the pages!
slashdot_feed) wrote2025-10-09 03:30 am
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
boingboing_feed) wrote2025-10-09 03:16 am
Watch as ICE's masked cowards back away from the dancing Portland Frog.
Portland's gang of inflatable protestors is terrific, and none more so than the Frog. The masked ICE brownshirts realize their pepper balls are having no effect, and back away as if the Frog was Godzilla. — Read the rest
The post Watch: Portland Frog dances as ICE blasts them with pepper balls appeared first on Boing Boing.
boingboing_feed) wrote2025-10-08 09:46 pm
Colorado's rotten slider slinger and district-hopping Congressperson Lauren Boebert is running on a platform of exposing space aliens.
Claiming Washington bureaucrats, of which she certainly is one, feel the ordinary citizen is too "NAIVE" to handle the truth, Boebert is promising to disclose the truth to her voters. — Read the rest
The post Lauren Boebert's reelection pitch boldly goes where few campaigns have gone before: UFOs appeared first on Boing Boing.
notalwaysright_feed) wrote2025-10-09 03:00 amRead People Who Make You Think “How Are You Allowed To Drive?”, Part 6
I work in construction. We're currently working at a gas station where the store has literally been leveled to the ground. We are sitting in front of the pile, and this car squeezes between several large orange barrels. He pulls up to the one pump still (mostly) upright in the middle of the lot. He gets out and tries to swipe his card twice before looking at us in confusion.
Read People Who Make You Think “How Are You Allowed To Drive?”, Part 6
crooks_and_liars_feed) wrote2025-10-09 03:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
twistedchick) wrote2025-10-08 09:50 pm