I am so grateful and proud of every single person who has participated and is continuing to participate in the fight to get Valko back! Doesn't matter how "small" you think your contribution to the cause is, every single thing helps! I encourage everyone to keep going, keep fighting, and keep up hope that Valko will return! This is a marathon not a sprint so please remember to take care of yourself! Sending all the love ❤️
There’s something deeply wrong with the mail being run as a business and not a public service, and that’s obvious because the consequence is that we don’t have mail any more.
Hi! I need some serious help with ideas for a campaign. It is for Masks: A New Generation and it is set in the world of My Hero Academia! All I know about it so far is would take place in the epilogue of MHA. So it'll be eight years after the Final War arc and my players would be first year students as UA. I want to give them as much of an MHA experience as I can with a touch more every day teen superhero nonsense. I just can't think of an overarching BBEG like All for One, Shigaraki, or any organizations or even just a general problem.
Any help here would be super appreciated!
Hi! I need some serious help with ideas for a campaign. It is for Masks: A New Generation and it is set in the world of My Hero Academia! All I know about it so far is would take place in the epilogue of MHA. So it'll be eight years after the Final War arc and my players would be first year students as UA. I want to give them as much of an MHA experience as I can with a touch more every day teen superhero nonsense. I just can't think of an overarching BBEG like All for One, Shigaraki, or any organizations or even just a general problem.
Any help here would be super appreciated!
It's Juneteenth yall. And I'm not letting this day go unmarked.
Black people fight for everybody. We stand in solidarity with women, lgbt people, poor people all over the world of every skin color and background. Every religion and nationality.
Today, stand with us. Be with us. Tell a black person you love them. Hug a black person (with consent). Ask that hot black girl out today. Make a black person smile. Black lives matter to everybody and you matter to us.
Stand with us on Juneteenth like we stand with you all year round, and I hope a happy Pride month continues for all of us
CMA has released its sponsored bill package for the 2025 legislative session.
Hey Californians! This bill is due to be voted on this year, and health insurance corporations and other such interests are going to fight it BIG TIME. I expect many, many, many misleading ads about it. Probably the kind of ads where they say it will make costs go up. That's corporations favorite lie. Their go-to, if you will.
HOWEVER, this is a bill to protect the health care and rights of patients to be treated promptly according to what they and their doctor require, not what an insurance company says.
Things included in this bill:
SB 351 by Senator Christopher Cabaldon (SD 3): Private equity firms are gaining influence in our health care system, leading to rising costs and undermining the quality of care. SB 351 empowers the Attorney General to hold private equity groups accountable for interfering with the practice of medicine, allowing the Attorney General to investigate and take action against private equity firms that unlawfully interfere in the patient-physician relationship. The goal is to restore trust in the health care system, ensuring that medical decisions are made in the best interest of patients, not financial shareholders.
AB 489 by Assemblymember Mia Bonta (AD 18): While AI can be a useful tool in health care, it should not replace physician decision making. This bill would ban companies from marketing artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots as licensed medical professionals.
SB 32 by Senator Akilah Weber Pierson (SD 39): California is facing a maternity care crisis, with at least 56 hospitals shutting down or suspending labor and delivery services since 2012. This bill would enhance access to maternity care services by requiring the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), the Department of Manage Health Care (DMHC), and the California Department of Insurance (CDI) to establish time and distance standards for perinatal units in collaboration with stakeholders.
AB 967 by Assemblymember Avelino Valencia (AD 68): California is facing a physician shortage, leaving millions of residents waiting weeks and months to get critical care. This bill will streamline the process for licensing out-of-state physicians looking to practice in California.
Additionally, CMA is sponsoring a bill package entitled “Prioritizing Patients, Empowering Physicians” to cut bureaucracy in the health system that harms patients and delays the ability to provide care. The red tape, called prior authorization, has been shown to unnecessarily delay care and lead to serious adverse events such as hospitalizations, permanent bodily damage and even death. The Prioritizing Patients, Empowering Physicians package includes:
AB 510 by Assemblymember Dawn Addis (AD 30): Requires that appeals of prior authorization denials be performed by a provider of the same or similar specialty. This will help ensure that providers can discuss prior authorization denials with a professional peer who understands the recommended treatment and underlying condition.
AB 539 by Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo (AD 40): Extends the validity of an approved prior authorization to one year (current industry standard is 60 to 90 days). This will provide patients with a longer window of time to receive medically necessary care and avoid the cumbersome prior authorization review and appeal processes.
AB 512 by Assemblymember John Harabedian (AD 41): Requires health plans to respond to urgent prior authorization requests within 24 hours and respond to nonurgent requests within 48 hours. Currently, health plans have 72 hours for urgent requests and five days for nonurgent requests. This change will ensure more patients can receive care or appeal denials in a timely fashion.
SB 306 Senator Josh Becker (SD 13): Requires health plans to remove the requirement for prior authorization from any service that they approve more than 90% of the time. This will reduce the overall volume of prior authorization requests and ensure that patients can receive the care they need with minimal delay and physicians can spend more time focusing on patient care.
So, I need to share this and keep sharing it, and I would love it if everyone started bringing this up to their possibly confused relatives and coworkers *now*. Waaaay ahead of the ads that are going to start airing. We are going to educate and inoculate people before they ever get to see those ads.
And yes, also mention that the health insurance companies are going to create orgs without their names on them to pay for those ads. When you see a political ad and it says "paid for by" at the bottom... those organizations are usually just fronts for corporations or special interest groups. And they LIE to save themselves money.
We are beating them to the punch by spreading the truth first.
On April 16th 2025 the US federal government has proposed to change the interpretation of the endangered species act so that it no longer protects habitat.
This is open for public comment until the end of May 19th. Please comment and make your voice heard.
Wildlife need their habitat. If the ESA redefines harm so that habitat is no longer protected, the implications for wildlife would be catastrophic.
In honor of NATIONAL LIBRARY WEEK we've got a new post!
Our libraries have been under attack for years now. Book bans and outright censorship are one thing, but extremists are also attempting to restrict library access for marginalized people; fire highly trained and educated librarians and replace them with untrained ideologues; privatize libraries to turn them into for-profit businesses; and close some libraries altogether, effectively killing community access to all the great services I talked about above.
And with the killdozer that is Project 2025 rampaging through our federal government, things are likely only going to get worse. We know from history that the people trying to ban books and censor diverse viewpoints are never the good guys. So I will just call these most recent attacks on our library system exactly what they are: an attack on our democracy itself.
Megan Phelps Roper, a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church, actually credits trips to her local library with getting her out of the viciously bigoted cult. The resources and librarians she encountered there helped release her from the hateful indoctrination she’d been fed since birth. And if that ain’t proof of concept, I don’t know what is!
The Library Is a Magical Place and You Should Fucking Go There
"Mortality is a spark—bright, brief, and so easy to extinguish."
Akuma Ryuuzaki has spent centuries curating his image: lethal sophistication. Turned in the Meiji era in Kyoto, Akuma left the world he knew behind to take on New York City. By day, he runs a successful real estate. By night, he controls the vampiric underworld from his penthouse. When he isn't collecting rare antiquities or making someone regret ever being born, he likes to go out dancing.
Combined old-world charm with modern sophistication, it is hard to find Akuma in anything other than beautifully tailored suits and bergamot and frost scented perfume. He jet-black hair is slicked back to show off his dark eyes and amused smirk. The cunning vampire loves nothing more than a challenge and a good deal. Not that anyone making a deal with the Demon Dragon is coming out of it with the upper hand. His loyalty, though, runs deep for the rare few who have earned it.
Life has been quite dull until recently. He recently met a young man at an auction house: one Ronan Priestly. There is nothing Akuma loves more than unraveling someone. And he plans to break Ronan down in every delicious way possible.
"I’m not charming. I’m just right, and that pisses people off."
An anthropology student at Columbia who exudes wealth, aloofness, and ruthlessness, Ronan has a secret: he is a underground magical artifact dealer. When he isn't attending classes, he is at auctions selling his finds, researching new leads, or hunting down new leads or contacts. Ronan enjoys cooking and boxing in his downtime. He also is very much a mama's boy as he calls or texts his mother, Orla, daily.
In terms of looks and personality, everything about Ronan is perfectly curated and tailored. Perfectly tousled dark-blond hair, storm-gray eyes, and and cutting cheekbones draw people to him despite surly expression. He tends to wear tailored suits or expensive casual wear. He is almost never without a few gold rings, an allspice and bourbon cologne, and his signature black Chesterfield coat. Ronan is well-known for dry wit, fierce loyalty, sharp intellect, and always being five steps ahead of everyone. He enjoys commanding respect, flexing his scholarly prowess, and winning fights he didn't start.
But his world is turned upside down when he finds out his father is none other than the Laughing Magician himself, John Constantine. Much to his dismay, he is just like his father: beautiful, brutal bastard.
do people not understand that the point of legalizing sex work is regulating sex work. so that sex workers can like, be legally protected if they experience violence and such violence can be prevented by putting legal guard rails in place. instead of our current system that leaves sex workers with no recourse or protection
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