I love getting up in the morning and checking the news and it’s like being hit with hammers for twenty minutes. A nice invigorating massage to start the day.
taylor price
h

@theartofmadeline
tumblr dot com
Game of Thrones Daily
AnasAbdin
ojovivo
Misplaced Lens Cap

Origami Around
Keni
Sweet Seals For You, Always
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda

Kiana Khansmith
Not today Justin
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
noise dept.
Sade Olutola

❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
Jules of Nature
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from Türkiye
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from Romania
seen from Italy
seen from Paraguay
seen from Mexico
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Poland
seen from Italy

seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from Japan
seen from United States

seen from Malaysia
@beastlyarchive
I love getting up in the morning and checking the news and it’s like being hit with hammers for twenty minutes. A nice invigorating massage to start the day.
hi trans kiwis and friends. if you haven't seen the news, they're trying to pass a frankly insidious bill in aotearoa to define the terms 'man' and 'woman' based on biological sex. this unsurprisingly reflects a lot of similar cruel efforts happening overseas at the moment. IT HASN'T PASSED YET, but I figured I should speak up about it because this is happening as we speak.
(screenshot from the linked RNZ article)
it seems very fucking bleak!!!! please don't lose hope! it hasn't passed yet and a lot of the shoddy bills suggested by the coalition have been shot down already. it's still worth knowing about. you don't have to share this post if you don't want to. I just know that a lot of my followers are kiwi. if there are any updates as to what we can do to push back against this, I'll make a relevant addition. kia kaha, okay? love you all.
UPDATE: you can now very quickly and very easily submit a comment on the bill! these will be counted and considered in parliament.
it took me less than three minutes, and that's only because I wrote a whole paragraphs on why this is a stupid idea. all you really need to put is "don't pass this bill" if you want. it'll only take 30 seconds.
if you're able to and you want to, please consider reblogging! the more reach this gets, the better. thank you all so much [:
Lmao we have to fucking destroy this company are you fucking kidding me with this shit
Google is transforming Search from a list of links into an AI-powered experience filled with conversational answers, autonomous agents, and
Remember that xkcd about how Google searches are shit now? What if we made them even worse for no reason?
I will vote for any candidate who promises to go scorched fucking earth on every tech company. Break every single one of them up into companies based around a single product and then split those in thirds. Weaponize existing antitrust laws to the hilt and pass the most draconian versions of them ever seen on this planet. Nationalize google search specifically. Pass consumer privacy protections strict enough to kill the data harvesting industry for good. Make all of these fuckers go bankrupt for this rent-seeking shit
The award-winning model says his banishment was the worst day of his life.
A gay Canadian adult film star claims that he was detained for over eight hours by U.S. Customs before receiving a 10-year ban from the country. Milo Miles said he was traveling to Las Vegas from Toronto's Pearson Airport in January when a routine U.S. customs screening turned into a nightmare. "It was the worst and most painful day of my life," Miles told LGBTQ Nation. "I was subjected to derogatory comments, with an unsettling focus on my sexual orientation and my sex life." Miles said his phone and luggage were searched, and he was asked intrusive questions about his sexuality and line of work. “All of this happened on two hours of sleep. I was starving, dehydrated, and in a state of complete exhaustion. I was treated like a criminal despite having done nothing wrong. I felt coerced, manipulated, and powerless. I am devastated.” U.S. Customs has the right to deny entry to people they believe are sex workers, even if they’ve never been convicted, and will use coercive tactics to try and elicit a confession, according to Maggies, a Canadian sex worker justice organization. [...] According to Miles, who was planning on visiting his boyfriend in Florida after the award show, U.S. Customs accused him of "escorting with no evidence" and were fixated on the "gay clothes," fiber pills, and PrEP he had packed, despite finding nothing illegal in his possessions. Miles ended up missing his flight due to the lengthy interrogation. When he came back the next day to catch another flight, he was interrogated again, and this time they found evidence of his career in the porn industry. "This officer decided to be a lot more thorough with his search and interrogation," he said. "After about two hours of intense interrogation, he found evidence that I do porn on my personal phone. Then, over the next two hours found evidence of escorting on my other phone." Miles said that they never found any evidence of prostitution, but noticed text conversations he had with past escorting clients — who he mostly provides with a boyfriend experience — and current text messages where he was trying to make plans with a client in Las Vegas. "Escorting is an exchange of money for time spent with an individual," he clarified. "For example, most of my clients are looking for 'the boyfriend' experience. Or someone to go to dinner with. Prostitution is an exchange of money for sexual services. There was never any evidence of prostitution on my phone, only escorting." Getting banned from the U.S. isn’t just bad for his career — he shoots a significant portion of his adult film project in the country — but has also damaged his personal life. "I was planning on building a life in the United States with my [future] husband, with my partner, who's American," Miles said. When asked by LGBTQ Nation what advice he would give other queer travelers, he said, "Avoid the United States at all costs. It’s not worth it. It’s not worth it to put your life at risk."
Even if he were a prostitute, the government should have no right to do this to any sex worker.
There is no queer liberation without liberation for sex workers.
For most of history it was obvious that one should schedule conflict so as to avoid clashing with the agricultural cycle. Autumn, when the harvest was in, was the ideal moment for big battles. That was why major military maneuvers were generally held at that time of year. Even as late as 1914 the harvest timetable may have played some role in the war planning of combatants.
The current war is disastrous from the point of view of the modern agricultural cycle.
The gulf region handles about one third of the global trade in inorganic nutrients and in terms of the agricultural cycle this is the key moment for shipments to be steaming out from the Gulf towards the major agricultural zones of the world.
[...] “The politicians are saying this is a war that’s going to last for weeks, not days, and when you look around at the world within four weeks, we’re in the middle of [the Northern Hemisphere’s] spring season applications and if these ships don’t go through the Strait of Hormuz today, they’re not going to arrive in time. … You’re talking about either having to switch your planting to a crop that is much less intensive for nitrogen use,” he said, or see yields fall. In Australia, while much of the fertilizer needed for sowing has already been bought, farmers around this time start looking to buy urea for dressing cereal crops beginning in September, said Stephen Annells, chief executive of Fertilizer Australia, a group representing the industry.”
[...] To see who will really pay the price however, look not to the developed world or big emerging markets like India, but to the weakest links in the chain - the poor, agrarian, smallholder economies of Africa.(x)
/// The global fertilizer market focuses on three main macronutrients: phosphates, nitrogen, and potash. [...] Potash and phosphates are both mined from different kinds of natural deposits; nitrogen fertilizers, by contrast, are produced with natural gas. QatarLNG, a subsidiary of Qatar Energy, a state-run oil and gas company, said on Monday that it would halt production following drone strikes on some of its facilities.
That shutdown puts supplies of urea, a popular type of nitrogen fertilizer, particularly at risk. On Tuesday, Qatar Energy said that it would also stop production of downstream products, including urea. Qatar was the second-largest exporter of urea in 2024. (Iran was the third-largest; it’s also a key exporter of ammonia, another type of nitrogen fertilizer.) Prices on urea sold in the US out of New Orleans, a key commodity port, were up nearly 15 percent on Monday compared to prices last week, according to data provided by Josh Linville, the vice president of fertilizer at financial services company StoneX. The blockage of the Strait of Hormuz is also preventing other countries in the region from exporting nitrogen products.
“When we look at ammonia, we're looking at almost 30 percent of global production being either involved or at risk in this conflict,” says Veronica Nigh, a senior economist at the Fertilizer Institute, a US-based industry advocacy organization. “It gets worse when we think about urea. Urea is almost 50 percent.”
Other types of fertilizer are also at risk. Saudi Arabia, Nigh says, supplies about 40 percent of all US phosphate imports; taking them out of the equation for more than a few days could create “a really challenging situation” for the US. Other countries in the region, including Jordan, Egypt, and Israel, also play a big role in these markets.
March is traditionally the start of planning the spring planting season in the US, which starts in earnest in April. US fertilizer buyers would normally be placing orders now, Linville says, in order to have the barges arrive in the US by early April. “If we lose several weeks here, we are talking about limiting the number of tons that arrive in our most important month,” he says.
Nigh says that most fertilizer demand in the US—around three-quarters—goes to large row crops grown in the Midwest, like corn, soy, wheat, and cotton. These farms are large operations; most farmers, she says, have made decisions about what types of fertilizers their crops will need and would be unable to pivot despite changes in global supply. “It’s a very critical window right now,” she says.
When energy markets are tight, the US has some reserve supplies—the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the largest emergency supply of oil in the world—that it can release to help meet demand. But there’s no similar buffer for fertilizer, Nigh says.
[...] If the war keeps going, both Nigh and Linville say that US farmers—especially those growing cash crops like corn and soybeans—will most likely see increased prices for fertilizers of all kinds. US farmers are already facing big losses after the trade war with China. (x)
/// “We shouldn’t underestimate what this potentially could mean for global food production,” said Svein Tore Holsether, chief executive of Europe’s largest fertiliser group Yara.
He added that the focus on oil and gas was “overshadowing” the impact on the fertiliser industry. “If you’re not getting [fertiliser] into the field of the farmers, yields could go down by up to 50 per cent in the first harvest,” he said.
If the disruption continues, consumers could see higher prices for bread within six to 10 weeks, eggs within a few months and pork and broiler chicken within six months, estimates Raj Patel, food system expert at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.
[...] Analysts say the disruption could prove even more damaging than the food shock triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when energy and fertiliser costs surged and global food prices hit record highs.
“When prices spiked in 2022 it was extraordinary, but the market was able to adjust because Russian exports continued,” said Chris Lawson, head of fertilisers at CRU, adding that the “big difference” this time was that a blocked Strait of Hormuz was a physical barrier.
The impact on food in 2022 was more immediate because Ukraine was a major wheat exporter, said Patel, but “this time around the impact will be far more widespread”. (x)
/// Fertilizer manufacturers in India are beginning to cut output after Qatari supplies of liquefied natural gas, a key feedstock, were suspended due to hostilities in the Middle East.
[...] Rising prices of other raw materials used to make fertilizer, such as ammonia and sulfur, are adding to fears of higher production costs.
Pakistan’s Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd. has also informed customers it will be unable to supply regasified LNG to their fertilizer plants due to the Middle East conflict, according to a company notice seen by Bloomberg. The country receives most of its LNG from Qatar and the suspension takes effect from midnight Wednesday.
“We are very much optimistic that the war may end soon,” Suresh Kumar Chaudhari, director general of Fertiliser Association of India said in an interview on Tuesday. “If the war continues, it will be matter of concern for us,” he added, without elaborating.
If the cuts last, India could be forced to step up costly imports ahead of peak agricultural demand during the monsoon season that begins in June. The country is the world’s biggest grower and exporter of rice and No. 2 producer of sugar, wheat and cotton.
/// Asia-based traders of dry sulfur are rushing to substitute supplies stranded in the Middle East as an intensifying regional conflict threatens access to the chemical used in fertilizer and nickel processing.
[...] About half the global seaborne trade of sulfur — roughly 20 million tons a year — originates in the Gulf and must transit the Strait of Hormuz to reach world markets. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Iran are among the main exporters.
Middle Eastern suppliers account for more than half of China’s sulfur imports, according to a note released Tuesday by consultancy SMM Information & Technology Co. With spring planting season approaching, sulfur demand remains firm as phosphate fertilizer plants run at high rates and step up restocking, the note said. (x)
/// Markets might not yet have fully priced in the possibility of a long war, according to Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein, who estimates that nitrogen prices could roughly double and phosphate prices rise 50% from current levels.
"If the supply shock lasts more than a few weeks, I wouldn't be surprised to see prices go back to the highs of 2022, when the Russia-Ukraine conflict began," Goldstein said. (x)
Before you book your one-way ticket, you should probably know how your favorite Pacific Northwest town ended up so white in the first place.
8. Pacific Northwest mountain towns are white-by-design Your favorite Pacific Northwest cities are all over social media. Hashtags like #PNWAdventurers #PNWLife and #PNWHiking have millions of views, collectively. They are selling a very specific aesthetic: huskies playing in snow drifts, crackling firepits, mossy riverbanks and lots and lots of white people drinking IPAs while wearing expensive puffy jackets. Despite this one-note advertising, you are sold. What’s the harm in buying into a dream that could change your life for the better. Before you book your ticket, you should probably know how your favorite PNW town ended up so white in the first place. Hint: there’s nothing natural about it. Let’s look at Oregon (73.8% White), home to #PNWLife cities like Portland (67.9% White), Eugene (81.1% White) and Salem (75.3% White). You’ve heard of sundown towns in the Deep South, right? Well have you ever heard of a sundown state? The PNW was home to five of them. In 1844, the Oregon Territory—present day Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming—passed its first racial exclusionary law to ban free Blacks from entering. A similar law was passed in 1849 due to concerns that free Black and Native people would intermarry and overthrow the whites in power. In 1857, Oregon residents finally voted for U.S. statehood and wrote a new constitution banning Black people and anyone of Chinese descent from voting or owning land in Oregon. Eventually, Oregon became the only state with a Black exclusionary law to join the Union. White Oregonians hated Black people in a way that Southern slaveholders wouldn’t ever dream of. (After all, why hate property?)
Because he did such a good job at Tumblr.
🫡
what a wild ride
Always worth re-sharing this.
We are all flawed, traumatized humans at the end of their rope.
Principles
1. We are all flawed, traumatized humans at the end of their rope. Many of our actions say more about the conditions we live under than who we are as people.
2. No one is disposable. No one is unsalvageable.
3. Life holds greater value than being right or comfortable. Hurt is preferable to death.
4. No one should be deprived of community.
5. Harm does not require further harm. Punishment does not equate protection or healing.
Internet surveillance has killed eroticism. We need privacy to reclaim it.
this is great
also this
“Fear of strangers on the internet has successfully replaced the disciplinary apparatus more commonly held by religious or conservative doctrine.”
oh cool the UK government covered up a spike in trans youth suicides after they restricted trans care.
prosecute everyone in that fucking government for murder.
A Freedom of Information request to the National Child Mortality Database reveals that 22 trans children under 18 died by suicide in England
fun discovery from today's internet rabbit hole:
the first lesbian magazine published in the US, Vice Versa (1947-48), was entirely hand-typed by one Edythe Eyde (better known by her pen name Lisa Ben - yes, that IS an anagram for lesbian). she worked as a secretary with a ton of spare time on her hands, and her boss would tell her he didn't care what she was doing so long as she "looked busy"... so she decided to use her free time to type out copies of a home-made periodical for lesbians, writing most of the content - editorials, book/film reviews, poetry, short stories, and more - herself!
overall, the magazine ran for 9 issues, 16 hand-typed copies of which lisa would mail to friends (well, until one of them advised her she could be arrested for sending "obscene" materials) and distribute at lesbian bars :)
all issues of Vice Versa are digitized here! (the website also has a scan of a great article on Lisa Ben ❤️)
a lot of the issues of the first widely distributed gay publication in the US, ONE magazine (1952-1967), are also available online on JSTOR. there's also this article detailing the magazine's ups and downs and general history, it's v fascinating!
furthermore, a solid amount of The Ladder (1956-1972) - one of the other earliest lesbian periodicals in the US, published by Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian rights organization in the US - is also available for online viewing thanks to the Internet Archive
Age verification for all.
Users who aren’t verified as adults will not be able to access age-restricted servers and channels, won’t be able to speak in Discord’s livestream-like “stage” channels, and will see content filters for any content Discord detects as graphic or sensitive. They will also get warning prompts for friend requests from potentially unfamiliar users, and DMs from unfamiliar users will be automatically filtered into a separate inbox.
Direct messages and servers that are not age-restricted will continue to function normally, but users won’t be able to send messages or view content in an age-restricted server until they complete the age check process, even if it’s a server they were part of before age verification rolled out. Savannah Badalich, Discord’s global head of product policy, said in an interview with The Verge that those servers will be “obfuscated” with a black screen until the user verifies they’re an adult. Users also won’t be able to join any new age-restricted servers without verifying their age.
This is just going to make people stop using the built in 18+ warnings and make Discord less safe for everyone.
Because he did such a good job at Tumblr.
🫡
what a wild ride
His meeting with the founder of 4chan and his quest to profit off the end of democracy
A breakdown of all of the revelations about Epstein's involvement in online politics from the most recent release of documents:
I had a front row seat to the collapse of the global order. And I believed at the time that I understood what was going on. In the aftermath of the Great Recession, far-right extremists, aided and amplified by Russia’s Internet Research Agency and funded by Republican dark money, infiltrated fringe online spaces. They weaponized disaffected young men, and used sites like Reddit and 4chan to organize a flood of content that influenced the unthinking algorithms on larger platforms like Facebook and YouTube. But there were always holes in that explanation that I could never quite account for. A feeling — one that can be quite dangerous for a journalist trying not fall into the void of conspiracy theories — that there was something bigger going on. And while I can’t say that we have the complete story yet, it does increasingly feel like I was actually, without knowing it, following Jeffrey Epstein around the world the whole time.
A personal account of ICE detention in Minneapolis
McSWEENEY’S 64 - The Audio Issue
Donald Trump, let's be clear, is circling the drain. His mind is well and truly going. When they put him in front of a camera, he mumbles and confabulates wildly and forgets the names of his own cabinet and mispronounces words egregiously. Or just falls asleep. Donald Trump is still a clear and present danger, because he's a sadistic, spiteful old man with all the self restraint and sophistication of a spoiled toddler. But we need to be mindful of the fact that not only do we know that he's on his way out, but his donors and puppeteers and handlers know it as well, and they have to be feeling extremely urgent about securing their efforts, but even more so their position and safety. As Steve Bannon said, if they lose the midterms, a lot of them aren't just out of power, they're going to prison.
So yeah. He's sundowning, hard. But that makes this a really dangerous time, and we can't just sit and wait for a good housecleaning at the midterms. We have to get out there and protest and organize and fight and call our reps and support each other in every way we know how. We have to put massive pressure on Congress to stop these insane threats of war. They've made it clear they don't want war; but they need to actually act to make that happen. We have to slow the administration down in every way we can. Because they're running out of time.
As always:
Not sure what you want to do but you want to help? ACLU has actions you can take broken down into time intensity:
Actions Archive | American Civil Liberties Union
Got 15 minutes to call your representative, senators and governor? 5Calls has hundreds of scripts you can read off and will auto connect you! (It genuinely takes less than 15 mins for all of them and frequently you get a voicemail so you don’t even have to talk to them!)
Spend 5 minutes. Make 5 calls. Make your voice heard.
Wanna get out and protest? Mobilize has thousands of events across the country listed at all times!
Create change in your community. Find events, petitions, volunteer opportunities, and fundraisers in your local area, organized by charities
The day is won through thousands of individual acts of resistance hitting them on all sides! These resources are just a drop in the bucket, I guarantee there is something you can do to help!
Stay strong!