The Lion and the Adder is in pre-launch on Kickstarter!
A 1920s supernatural mystery, it's a full-cast series that dares to ask: What if Lord Peter Wimsey was gay and also trans and teamed up with a psychic lesbian to solve crimes about demons?
Go to monstrousproductions.org/fundraising to support the show!
(Also please everyone take a moment to go insane with me over this theme tune, I am OBSESSED 🤩😍 It was made by Noisy Bug, a newly-established music company here in Belfast who have no socials or website yet but you KNOW I'm going to be shouting about them as soon as they do because HARK THAT!!)
The (unionized) German amazon workers have said they are joining the picket line in solidarity with their US counterparts.
The union has been fighting for good faith negotiations and a fair contract for over a year. Amazon skipped the December 15th deadline to come to the table.
Remember, the striking workers are not the reason your orders are delayed.
Yesterday, over a thousand signatures were added. Today, a few hundred. Keep boosting this, maybe send this to someone with a lotta followers, share the link on other platforms, encourage others to do the same.
We're 96% of the way there. C'mon, just a little further.
Senator Bob Casey’s race is now at a margin of 0.53%.
An automatic recount in PA is triggered with a margin of 0.5%. That’s a difference of 0.03% or a little over 2,000 votes. We need to make sure every ballot is counted here, and there’s thousands of uncounted ballots right now due to voter error.
Did you mail in a ballot? Check to see it was accepted here:
Online/Absentee Ballot Tracking
If it says anything other than accepted/counted/etc, your ballot needs your attention. A mistake in filling it out means that your ballot will not count unless you “cure” it. Check your county’s curing policies:
Through Right-To-Know requests and analysis of SURE system data, the ACLU of Pennsylvania compiled the "notice and cure" policies of the com
See full instructions for curing by county here.
You have until November 12 to cure your ballot in PA.
Do you know someone who mailed in a PA ballot? Please pass these links on to them. You may be the difference between their vote counting or not in a super close race.
Everyone else, you can help PA voters cure their ballots. If you live in Pennsylvania, you can help canvass in your county (see links in this thread). If you are in another state, you can sign up to call voters and help them cure by phone.
Want to help another state? Sign up for a shift through November 19.
yo hey US people who sent in absentee ballots, they are tossing mail-in ballots for no reason. i just had to call my county board of elections and demand a cure for my ballot because north carolina didn't send out any notices of issues with ballots, and the issues are fake. if you voted by mail-in make sure your ballot was actually counted
If your ballot was NOT counted or isn't listed on the tracking site yet, call your county clerk! Today! Right now! Their number will be available on your county's website or even on the tracking website for your state (mine was, not sure about other states)!
Phone calls suck but this is NOT something that you can use email for. Ballot curing when available has a time limit, usually 3-5 days after the election, so even if the tracking site says that it can take time to list your voter activity, calling and making sure is absolutely still worth it. Just remember to be polite and calm on the call.
My vote was NOT registered online yet so I called to find out, and I couldn't get through on the phone, so I had to email. You may have to use email. My office got back to me immediately via email. If you can't immediately get through on the phone, send an email and then go back to calling while you wait. They may be answering one avenue of contact faster than the other.
I remember posting this back in 2020, not even intending the message to be “go vote”. The last photo was chosen among many others simply because it was a nice visual conclusion to the preceding chaos. The post was made many months before the election, and I had intended more to speak to the overall terrifying political climate of 2020 and all the small things we were doing to fight back and make changes that year.
But upon posting this, I received over 400 asks (I stopped counting) from different people demanding that I take the post down, telling me how dare I suggest that people vote in this political climate, and even several dozen anonymous asks threatening to attack/kill me for “spreading nationalistic propaganda”
It’s hard to remember, but that was the general sentiment around the election online in 2020: Rampant disinformation. Large-scale campaigns dissuading people from voting. Hundreds of negative comments on any post that even MENTIONED voting. You couldn’t get away.
But this election? It’s night and day. While I’m sure there’s still some people whining in a sad dark corner somewhere that moral purity is dead and they’re the last chosen saints of leftism, etc etc, the vast, VAST majority of people have zero tolerance for that bullshit this time around.
We are voting. We are talking to our friends and family about voting. We are reading the actual news and trying to cut through BS online quick-takes. We are getting people to the polls and donating to Harris and standing in line with others waiting to vote.
I’ve voted in every primary and election since I turned 18, but I have never seen young people voting on this level before. It’s truly mind-boggling just how much the younger voting block has mobilized in this election. This is the kind of thing that can change a nation if we let it.
Honestly, regardless of how the election turns out tomorrow, everybody should be so proud of what we tried to accomplish here. Keep up the good fight.
I don't know who needs to hear this, but it has been a central Republican strategy in the final week before an election to claim that the polls are breaking their way, that a red wave is coming, that Republicans are engaging in victory tours at least since the presidential election of 2000. (That's when I stopped watching CNN regularly, as the network promoted this line despite the fact that Gore would go on to win the popular vote.)
Given that Republicans have, in fact, only won the popular vote once in this period (2004), this is a strategy, not a statement of fact.
Don't sweat the narrative. Vote. Turnout wins, not news stories.
Depending on how work goes this year it might be a while before the actual final piece sees the light of day - so I'm releasing the animatic for the Guards! Guards! animated trailer on the unsuspecting public.
I was hoping it could work as both a trailer/intro animation to a non-existant Guards! Guards! animated show, and I think it turned out pretty neat! I hope you enjoy.
With “green corridors” that mimic the natural forest, the Colombian city is driving down temperatures -- and could become five degrees coole
"With “green corridors” that mimic the natural forest, the Colombian city is driving down temperatures — and could become five degrees cooler over the next few decades.
In the face of a rapidly heating planet, the City of Eternal Spring — nicknamed so thanks to its year-round temperate climate — has found a way to keep its cool.
Previously, Medellín had undergone years of rapid urban expansion, which led to a severe urban heat island effect — raising temperatures in the city to significantly higher than in the surrounding suburban and rural areas. Roads and other concrete infrastructure absorb and maintain the sun’s heat for much longer than green infrastructure.
“Medellín grew at the expense of green spaces and vegetation,” says Pilar Vargas, a forest engineer working for City Hall. “We built and built and built. There wasn’t a lot of thought about the impact on the climate. It became obvious that had to change.”
Efforts began in 2016 under Medellín’s then mayor, Federico Gutiérrez (who, after completing one term in 2019, was re-elected at the end of 2023). The city launched a new approach to its urban development — one that focused on people and plants.
The $16.3 million initiative led to the creation of 30 Green Corridors along the city’s roads and waterways, improving or producing more than 70 hectares of green space, which includes 20 kilometers of shaded routes with cycle lanes and pedestrian paths.
These plant and tree-filled spaces — which connect all sorts of green areas such as the curb strips, squares, parks, vertical gardens, sidewalks, and even some of the seven hills that surround the city — produce fresh, cooling air in the face of urban heat. The corridors are also designed to mimic a natural forest with levels of low, medium and high plants, including native and tropical plants, bamboo grasses and palm trees.
Heat-trapping infrastructure like metro stations and bridges has also been greened as part of the project and government buildings have been adorned with green roofs and vertical gardens to beat the heat. The first of those was installed at Medellín’s City Hall, where nearly 100,000 plants and 12 species span the 1,810 square meter surface.
“It’s like urban acupuncture,” says Paula Zapata, advisor for Medellín at C40 Cities, a global network of about 100 of the world’s leading mayors. “The city is making these small interventions that together act to make a big impact.”
At the launch of the project, 120,000 individual plants and 12,500 trees were added to roads and parks across the city. By 2021, the figure had reached 2.5 million plants and 880,000 trees. Each has been carefully chosen to maximize their impact.
“The technical team thought a lot about the species used. They selected endemic ones that have a functional use,” explains Zapata.
The 72 species of plants and trees selected provide food for wildlife, help biodiversity to spread and fight air pollution. A study, for example, identified Mangifera indica as the best among six plant species found in Medellín at absorbing PM2.5 pollution — particulate matter that can cause asthma, bronchitis and heart disease — and surviving in polluted areas due to its “biochemical and biological mechanisms.”
And the urban planting continues to this day.
The groundwork is carried out by 150 citizen-gardeners like Pineda, who come from disadvantaged and minority backgrounds, with the support of 15 specialized forest engineers. Pineda is now the leader of a team of seven other gardeners who attend to corridors all across the city, shifting depending on the current priorities...
“I’m completely in favor of the corridors,” says [Victoria Perez, another citizen-gardener], who grew up in a poor suburb in the city of 2.5 million people. “It really improves the quality of life here.”
Wilmar Jesus, a 48-year-old Afro-Colombian farmer on his first day of the job, is pleased about the project’s possibilities for his own future. “I want to learn more and become better,” he says. “This gives me the opportunity to advance myself.”
The project’s wider impacts are like a breath of fresh air. Medellín’s temperatures fell by 2°C in the first three years of the program, and officials expect a further decrease of 4 to 5C over the next few decades, even taking into account climate change. In turn, City Hall says this will minimize the need for energy-intensive air conditioning...
In addition, the project has had a significant impact on air pollution. Between 2016 and 2019, the level of PM2.5 fell significantly, and in turn the city’s morbidity rate from acute respiratory infections decreased from 159.8 to 95.3 per 1,000 people [Note: That means the city's rate of people getting sick with lung/throat/respiratory infections.]
There’s also been a 34.6 percent rise in cycling in the city, likely due to the new bike paths built for the project, and biodiversity studies show that wildlife is coming back — one sample of five Green Corridors identified 30 different species of butterfly.
Other cities are already taking note. Bogotá and Barranquilla have adopted similar plans, among other Colombian cities, and last year São Paulo, Brazil, the largest city in South America, began expanding its corridors after launching them in 2022.
“For sure, Green Corridors could work in many other places,” says Zapata."
recently i read Guards!Guards! by Pratchett and it brings me great joy to draw out the characters, i will now proceed to throw these at you
Colon!
Sybil,,, i love her, how can i not love a crazy dragon lady ((thats also a big lady))... I like the idea that her brows are tiny because they get burnt by dragons so often
