Because We're Here

History student, animal lover, and all around laundry basket of disabilities and anxiety. They/Them, 32. I'm here because I'm here, circular logic be damned.

[liberalsarecool]

If it ain't broke, Trump'll break it. #immigration

[odekiisu]

Call me whatever names you wish, but I think this is a much better (and healthier) attitude than “anyone under 18 should never be allowed to see any sexual imagery ever”

(For reference: this was at the Tom of Finland exhibition, containing actual, queer, kinky af pornography. There were definitely some young people there, perhaps in their late teens. There was even a parent with their baby who was probably too young to understand anything at all. And guess what, all those people are probably going to be fine.)

[ID: a sign saying “Please note: there is no age limit, but the exhibition is not recommended for children due to the explicit sexual imagery it contains. Parental or guardian discretion is advised.”]

[liberalsarecool]

Another Kremlin policy to kill Americans put in place by MAGA traitors.

[liberalsarecool]

Republicans are against ALL immigration.

You can follow all the rules, never break a law, and Republicans want the trauma and racism of ICE to wear on all migrants/immigrants so they live in constant fear of white men.

It's a non-stop existential threat to our greatest attribute and biggest strength: immigration.

[homunculus-argument]

A good rule of thumb for AI is "would you trust a trained pigeon to do this?"

"We trained a pigeon to recognise cancerous cell clusters and somehow they're really good at it" okay great, that's something that could plausibly be a thing.

"We trained a pigeon to recognise good CV:s and left it in charge of sorting through all our job applications" uh perhaps consider not doing that.

[homunculus-argument]

@gem-is-still-bored I was so inspired by this comment that I had to make a grunge poster about it:

photo source

[depsidase]

[liberalsarecool]

Big Tent progressive politics.

[liberalsarecool]

A: occupied Poland.

First Felon has over 3500 court cases.

Now that he is a convicted felon, fraud, and adjudicated rapist, he wants to skip judicial process and one-way ticket innocent people to concentration camps in El Salvador.

[pomeraniandancer]

In case anyone is wondering, the legal term for what is being inflicted on these men is "rendition." It is an extra-judicial process, and patently illegal.

It's worth noting, some people did serve prison terms in concentration camps, primarily -- iirc -- Germans who were deemed to have committed minor acts of political dissidence. The case that I remember off the top of my head was of a German factory worker who served six months in I think Ravensbruck because she was chosen as one of the "fall people" for reports of what was eventually titled the T-4 program becoming public knowledge (it never had an official name or title during the time of its operation; T-4 was what it was named during the Nuremberg Trials. Any film or show that references it by that title when the show takes placing *during WWII* is doing so for simplicity's sake.).

Auschwitz, and the death camps in general, were located in Poland, but Ravensbruck (which did have an active gas chamber) and a few other concentration camps were located in Germany.

So don't be surprised if some camps are established in the US with similarly horrific treatment and practices. Shocked, certainly -- this is all shocking and horrific actions and behavior, and deliberately inhumane to boot. But not surprising.

[liberalsarecool]

Most of these parents have the vaccines. The adults were manipulated by junk science peddled by fellow vaccinated morons.

The children deserve a better life.

[pomeraniandancer]

The only reason -- the ONLY reason -- not to get vaccinated, or to not vaccinate your children, when you have access and the resources to do so, is if getting the vaccine would have more potentially immediately deadly ramifications than not doing so.

And it is because of people who cannot be vaccinated for that above reason that the rest of us must do so.

[animentality]

[pomeraniandancer]

Nothing more to be added. Just spread the word.

[weaselle]

there are two kinds of cat dislike. The first is by people who don't understand consent and don't understand personal space and don't like having to change their own behavior even a little bit to make anyone else more comfortable, and honestly huge red flag there's nothing you can really do for those people except don't date them and probably don't be friends with them either.

BUT

the other kind of cat dislike is the "my dad hated cats until i got him a kitten" kind of cat dislike, and the funniest thing about this kind of person is that cats actually get along really well with them... because that kind of person usually acts like a cat.

and that's what usually wins the person over too. Because that person can be like "hey fine we can snuggle or whatever, okay this is actually kind of nice, OW FUCK YOU THEN GET OFF ME I HATE YOU" and to the cat this is a perfectly natural feline interaction.

a dog will usually be like "oh no, figuring out what has gone wrong or continuing this argument is now the most important thing in my day" You ever try to get a dog to leave you alone after they've done something like accidentally kick you in the face, or on purpose punch you in the stomach with both front legs? They turn in to one of those people who you ask to give you some alone time and they spend the next hour on the "are you mad at me" treadmill. Unless it's a husky or something, and then they're more like "ha ha, i'm not touching you i'm not touching you" about it.

Either way "get off me and leave me alone" is all about them.

But a cat? You're suddenly over cuddle time and need to be alone? you seem upset for no reason? normal shit, i'll check back later.

With a cat you can be snuggling and then jump up irritably and walk away and the cat will be like "hey! whatever. I'm gonna go do my own thing then". Try that with a dog? lol no. They need to know what's bothering you now, it is more important than ever that they be in your face

of course these are generalizations and there will be cats and dogs who react somewhere on the range of different to opposite to this, but. I've seen a few people who "don't like cats" wind up with a cat in their home, and it's hilarious how their similarities are what wins them over.

Because, like, you know who else doesn't like you at first and takes a long time to work out a personal relationship before being willing to be friends? you know who else is often totally over dealing with cat bullshit? cats.

So they just take it in stride, and in fact often wind up better friends with "i don't like cats" people than they do with people who want to be friends with them right away. And the person often winds up appreciating the cats willingness to understand "i don't like you right now, check back later"... with the end result being: besties for life

[pomeraniandancer]

My parents' cat absolutely adores my Dad. She loves Mum, and me, but anytime she sees an opening she will do her level best to cuddle up with Dad.

Dad is okay with cats. He could take them or leave them. He will offer his hand out for the cats to sniff, and if one of them decides to snuggle up with him and he's not going anywhere (especially when he sits down for his afternoon nap), he has no objections to them doing so. But he's also totally fine with picking up the cat and putting them down on the floor if he has to go do something, or if he's trying to work and the cat is insisting on walking across the keyboard. His main thing is trying to keep the Dad-loving cat off of his shoulder because she's always trying to climb up there. Mum and I think it's cute and funny, but he doesn't really. But he also doesn't get mad or abusive towards the cat -- he gets that she's doing Cat Things, and Cat Things are What Cats Do.

And that's the thing that gets me about people who say that they don't like cats, or they don't like animals. Both are totally okay things to do and be. Disliking animals, as a whole or a specific species, is not the same as actively hating or disrespecting them. You can disike, or be indifferent to, animals, and still respect them and courteously observe their boundaries.

People who don't like animals and go out of their way to hate on them for not acting like humans are shit bags as far as people go. People who dislike or are indifferent to animals, but respect and support the animals' boundaries and their friends and families' love for those animals are Good People, and need to be recognized and respected as such.

[polyhexian]

Losing my mind at this poor girl in Argentina who found a kitten on the side of the road and adopted it only to find out it was a freaking jaguarundi. Look at that fucking thing. That's a whole ass kiddy cat

[polyhexian]

#WHAT DID SHE DO WITH IT.... please tell me she raised that thang

Better yet, she got in contact with a local wildlife reserve! She found him and his sister beside a dead animal on the side of the road, apparently quite thin, and assumed they were just abandoned kittens. The female passed shortly afterward but the male was fine- two months later she brought him to the vet and discovered "hey, thats a whole ass jungle cat." There's a good chance Tito will be back in the wild someday, even! IMHO, two kittens on the side of the road, and one didn't make it more than a couple days? they probably WERE abandoned. just dumb luck they got picked up!

LISTEN to those sweet cheeps. to me I hear that sound and immediately think wild cat, but I think its totally reasonable for a teenager to find a kitten this young and think it was a normal cat. Jaguarundi are also really small!

These are TINY little wildcats!

They have really distinct looking faces and especially ears, but

if a layman ran into one of these things where they werent expecting to see one, I think its pretty reasonable they might assume it was just a weird looking cat

[6qubed]

this girl, probably:

[dxmedstudent]

Every once in a while I learn there are new types of beautiful cat I habe never heard of before. And it makes me happy.

Actual footage of me dying from the cuteness.

[pomeraniandancer]

There's actually a relatively new cat breed called the Highlander, which has ears somewhat similar to this cat species. Now, if I found a cat on the side of the road, I would not automatically assume that it was a purebred of any sort, but the kitten ears of this species are close enough to the domestic kitten's little triangles and I could possibly imagine myself mistaking a baby of this species for a kitten.

[ayeforscotland]

Elon Musk to step down from US cabinet 'in coming weeks' - Trump tells inner circle

Elon Musk is set to exit Donald Trump's cabinet in the "coming weeks" - Donald Trump has told members of his inner circle.

Fucking lol.

Elon Musk is possibly ‘exiting’ the cabinet and will be reduced to an informal advisor.

[ayeforscotland]

Hmmmm

[pomeraniandancer]

Doing The Lord's work.

[liberalsarecool]

This is conservatism writ large: racist white men can do no wrong, honest black men can do no right.

Look at First Felon: he built his political career on birtherism. Always promising a smoking gun and delivering nothing.

[only-cat-memes]

[pomeraniandancer]

I love these kinds of posts because as someone who has lived with cats for about 80% of their life, I have never had this experience.

To be fair, I am deaf. The only time I yeet myself at my cats to stop them from eating plastic or hurling on my bed, it's because I see them actively doing so.

I low-key plan on asking the shelter the next time I adopt a cat to show me the cats that insist the most at singing the song of their people in the middle of the night. They won't wake me up, and it'll save a hearing person their night's sleep.

[homunculus-argument]

Hey you all know about that fungus that possesses ants to make them climb on the tip of grass blades in hopes of getting eaten by a cow, so that the fungus can continue its life cycle in the cow's guts? Because I think that's the kind of thing that's wrong with cave divers.

We don't know what's down there. We don't know what's gotten into their heads that makes them so determined to physically, personally go down there to find out. But I wouldn't entirely dismiss the possibility that whatever has gotten into them is very invested in getting eaten by whatever is down there.

[pomeraniandancer]

At the very least, this is a good prompt for a horror short story.

[liberalsarecool]

We are lucky to have AOC.

Elect more women.

[cynicalclassicist]

A lot of people are driven away by that. But at least AOC wasn't!

[pomeraniandancer]

THIS.

We know, that women and minorities are driven away from or are prevented from going into areas that they are deeply engaged in due to systemic discrimination. We know that those who remain in their fields despite this often have their roles or contributions minimized or wholly ignored. We know that their contributions or artistic endeavors are often disregarded, belittled, or outright stolen or appropriated by white, abled men.

We know these people regularly give up on or are explicitly driven away from their fields of practice or expertise by systemic discriminatory behavior. That there are so many accomplished, intelligent, extraordinary people who were unable to rise above the pressures and loathing heaped upon them. The amount of pain and hatred that those who achieve international recognition in the face of these challenges achieve that recognition *in spite* of them, not *because* of them.

It breaks my heart so much to consider all the contributions and successes that have been overlooked, ignored, or improperly attributed because of systemic discrimination and white, often male, rage against those who seek to change or counter the white, male, patriarachal narrative of our society.

[liberalsarecool]

Here's your good news post for the day.

[liberalsarecool]

Imagine $TSLA at $120 and Elon is insolvent.

Elon's wealth is a symbol of a rigged system. His wealth is a mirage built on leverage and margin.

He wields the mirage of wealth to cripple social safety nets and stop investigations into his criminal and fraudulent companies.

Again, his stock could be worth $120 per share and he would be broke. C'mon $100!!

[pomeraniandancer]

With this context, it really helps put the relationship between Trump & Musk into perspective. They really are two peeds in a pod, even from a financial perspective.