thefeistydragon

[thefeistydragon]

It'd also help if halfway through they didn't end up stone walled because Republicans literally run on the tactic of "Make the government stop working so we can blame our opponents for it."

Democrats finally hold an FCC majority in the final year of President Biden’s first term.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plans to vote to restore net neutrality later this month. With Democrats finally holding an FCC majority in the final year of President Biden’s first term, the agency can fulfill a 2021 executive order from the President and bring back the Obama-era rules that the Trump administration’s FCC gutted in 2017.

The FCC plans to hold the vote during a meeting on April 25. Net neutrality treats broadband services as an essential resource under Title II of the Communications Act, giving the FCC greater authority to regulate the industry. It lets the agency prevent ISPs from anti-consumer behavior like unfair pricing, blocking or throttling content and providing pay-to-play “fast lanes” to internet access.

Democrats had to wait three years to enact Biden’s 2021 executive order to reinstate the net neutrality rules passed in 2015 by President Obama’s FCC. The confirmation process of Biden FCC nominee Gigi Sohn for telecommunications regulator played no small part. She withdrew her nomination in March 2023 following what she called “unrelenting, dishonest and cruel attacks.”

[thefeistydragon]

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A proposed ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors in Kansas died Monday when two Republicans switched their votes and prevented the Republican-controlled Legislature from overriding the Democratic governor’s veto of the measure.

The Kansas House voted 82-43 to overturn Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of a bill that also would have barred state employees who work with children from promoting social transitioning for kids who question or struggle with their gender identities. But supporters were two votes short of the necessary two-thirds majority.

Republicans who backed the bill argued that a ban would protect vulnerable children from what they described as experimental health care that could create long-term health issues. It would not only have banned surgeries for minors but also puberty blockers and hormone treatments. The Senate voted Monday morning 27-13 to override Kelly’s veto, the exact margin supporters needed there.

[thefeistydragon]

The former president has pushed a slew of terrifying proposals, both publicly and privately, that he plans to unleash on America should he take down Biden

Donald Trump reportedly did not expect to win the presidency in 2016, which isn’t surprising considering how ill-prepared he and his team were to take control of the country. He appointed established conservatives to key positions before learning some had personal principles that extended beyond indulging the president’s ego. Trump wreaked havoc on the United States for four years, but the damage might have been even greater if he wasn’t battling career public servants who tried to check his impulses, or if he wasn’t such a political neophyte.

Trump will not be the dog that caught the car heading into his second term. He’ll be ready and waiting to take the wheel and hit the gas. The former president has now had nearly a decade to burnish his understanding of how Washington, D.C., works, and to assemble a political machine laser-focused on exploiting a federal government full of loopholes to give him the power to enact an authoritarian agenda that could spell disaster for the economy, the environment, human rights, and democracy.

[thefeistydragon]

you know disabled rights include the rights of disabled people to have children. regardless if those children are also disabled. any mesure to restrict disabled people from having children is simple eugenics

[thefeistydragon]

you know disabled rights include the rights of disabled people to have children. regardless if those children are also disabled. any mesure to restrict disabled people from having children is simple eugenics

[thefeistydragon]

[thefeistydragon]

Ever since I've seen your Legion of Doom annual cookout post, my brain is just imagining Two-Face at the grill. But my brain can't think of which would be funnier. Them deliberately burning half of the food they grill, them flipping a coin at the start of them cooking to decide whether they should just burn everything or not, or the rest of the group group getting both Harvey and Two-Face to agree to not burn anything. Harvey doesn't want to burn anything because it'd be a dick thing to do and he isn't about that, and Two-Face can be convinced because... Ehehe. Borger. Bourgür. Beergŏr. ●u¤ 😈

I like your thinking on this, because all options are deeply funny. Also, Two-Face is probably the most stable to be running the grill outside of maybe Lex Luthor and Lex would never stoop to "flipping burgers" even at the cookout.

OH, I had a thought. If I may offer the following suggestion:

For maximum chaos, flipping to burn each burger per order.

Cons: Everyone would have to wait for a burger individually; fighting over who gets to have seconds before other people have eaten once.

Pros: A Certain Someone constantly getting burned burgers no matter how many times they go back, which Two-Face insists is just the will of the coin and that's luck, buddy, but secretly Harvey is still pissed off at what that person did last cookout/heist gone wrong/break out attempt/betrayal and he will make sure they suffer.

[thefeistydragon]

So, there's a dirty little secret in indie publishing a lot of people won't tell you, and if you aren't aware of it, self-publishing feels even scarier than it actually is.

There's a subset of self-published indie authors who write a ludicrous number of books a year, we're talking double digit releases of full novels, and these folks make a lot of money telling you how you can do the same thing. A lot of them feature in breathless puff pieces about how "competitive" self-publishing is as an industry now.

A lot of these authors aren't being completely honest with you, though. They'll give you secrets for time management and plotting and outlining and marketing and what have you. But the way they're able to write, edit, and publish 10+ books a year, by and large, is that they're hiring ghostwriters.

They're using upwork or fiverr to find people to outline, draft, edit, and market their books. Most of them, presumably, do write some of their own stuff! But many "prolific" indie writers are absolutely using ghostwriters to speed up their process, get higher Amazon best-seller ratings, and, bluntly, make more money faster.

When you see some godawful puff piece floating around about how some indie writer is thinking about having to start using AI to "stay competitive in self-publishing", the part the journalist isn't telling you is that the 'indie writer' in question is planning to use AI instead of paying some guy on Upwork to do the drafting.

If you are writing your books the old fashioned way and are trying to build a readerbase who cares about your work, you don't need to use AI to 'stay competitive', because you're not competing with these people. You're playing an entirely different game.

[thefeistydragon]

having collaborative ocs with friends will have you saying shit like "what if scimble was bumpus wouldnt that be funny" and then like two weeks later its one of the most important pieces of lore you have

[thefeistydragon]

I am making this wizard pile my agenda, and no one is taking it from me.

[thefeistydragon]

[thefeistydragon]

Always been a big fan of apple products. My favorite is the juice.

[thefeistydragon]

[thefeistydragon]

So a while back, I asked the boss to register and put up ‘Welcome here’ stickers at the clinic.

They’re roughly palm-sized stickers with a rainbow heart in a map icon. They’re obvious but don’t take up that much space and don’t interfere with anybody’s day.

One sits on the reception desk, and one is stuck on the front door. They’re a small gesture that just explicitly states the LGBTQ+ community is, literally, welcome here.

It’s very unobtrusive, and (most) people haven’t mentioned it at all, but the observable results have been:

More Clients specifically adding their same sex partner as another owner on the account.

Some clients that I’ve known for a decade or more actually being comfortable enough to reveal they have a partner in conversation.

More same sex couples calling each other ‘darling’ in front of other people.

A few ‘Mx’ titles on client files.

I want to emphasise that it is a tiny gesture, but it increases the comfort level slightly for quite a lot of people, so I’d recommend it if your workplace can, even if you don’t think it’s relevant.

The only person who has had anything vaguely negative to say has been a notorious problem client, who ‘didn’t see the point’. But obviously the stickers are not for him.

[thefeistydragon]

[thefeistydragon]

the thing that sucks is that people love saying sleep early is good etc etc and yeah it is. I've seen some benefits before. but I think it sucks to ignore that late night is the only time with any freedom. I think it sucks to not acknowledge the dread in waking up and it's a work day again

[thefeistydragon]

The Lovers. Art by Jen Bartel.