Fuck off, Washington Post. This is not your party, not your election, not your country, you are not in charge. Stop your open-convention wet-dreams. Zip it up. You helped The Times hound Biden from office. Now @KamalHarris needs every minute to defeat the fascist you still do not fully cover. So fuck off.
With Biden stepping aside, Democrats must now embrace an open process https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/07/21/biden-drop-out-dnc-convention-harris/
Holy cow, this is really happening! I wrote a book about the science of real-world zombiesβants, roaches, caterpillars & moreβand it's heading your way in Spring 2025 from @HopkinsPress.
There are so many weird, cool mechanisms for behavior manipulation, and they lend insights into neurochemistry, evolution and human behavior. If you're curious about the origins of the zombifying fungus in The Last of Us, this may align with your interests!
Wanna come at me saying you saw a UFO? Or that we're being visited by aliens?
You better have the evidence, baby. Because it's never aliens.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nope-its-never-aliens/
I've written a longish take on the last couple of days, including about how what looked like (and initially was) Democratic panic over Biden morphed somewhere along the way into a rope-a-dope strategy against the GOP, and whether Harris can win (spoiler: yup):
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2024/07/22/biden-harris-trump-and-2024/
Get ready. With VP Kamala Harris as the presidential nominee, she is going to be criticized for anything and everything unrelated to the job. Best to be prepared to call out the sexist nonsense when you see it. Read more in my Fast Company article here. https://www.fastcompany.com/90889985/new-research-reveals-critiques-holding-women-back-from-leadership-that-most-men-will-never-hear
#harris2024
I woke up to an email from my college boyfriend (from 40 years ago) apologizing to me for allowing me to get an abortion. I don't know what's in the water on the other side, but if this is what passes for appropriate, I will fight until I drop.
I admin a local "pantry" group on Facebook, for food sharing. Basically, if you have food (or other stuff, but mostly food) that you don't want for whatever reason you can post it in the group and give it away. It stops good being thrown out and wasted, and helps people who might be going hungry otherwise.
Tonight a woman put up a post talking about how she's a young mum with two small boys, and that they were out of food until Thursday. She talked about how she was embarrassed to ask but really needed help.
Two women answered the post, offering food. The OP explained that she didn't drive and would it be ok of people dropped things at her place, so I offered to drive around and collect the things people were giving and drop them at her place. I don't have spare food I can help with, but I have a car and I have time.
The second woman I collected from was someone I actually met at the beginning of the year, when she posted in the group and asked for help with cleaning supplies.. I gave her a bunch of things I had tucked away under the sink and didn't use.
She had told me then about how her partner had just been diagnosed with cancer. She told me tonight how she'd stayed in the group because she was waiting for the opportunity to help someone else because we'd helped her so much. She's doing better now, and it made her feel happy she could help someone else.
When I dropped the food these two women had given to the OP, she talked to me about how her partner had died suddenly the year before, leaving her with two young boys.. both with autism and ADHD. She said she's 31 and doesn't have her life together yet. I told her I'm 50 and mines a mess too. I told her that one of the women who had offered food was someone the group had helped previously, and how happy she'd been to be able to help as well. We talked about how community means not only helping people, but also being helped. We talked about how this means that our communities are stronger and prosper together. She's looking forward to being able to help someone else too.
This is how mutual aid works. No matter how dark things get, we can find hope in community.
#MutualAid #Indigenous #Aboriginal #CommunityCare #CommunityNotCops #RegionalAustralia
@ScottSoCal @MugsysRapSheet Especially in light of the fact he dismantled Obamaβs pandemic preparation before it happened.
@ScottSoCal
I didn't want to focus too much on #Covid b/c his Cult thinks "that was just bad luck", and things weren't great BEFORE Covid either.
#OnThisDay, 22 July 1939, Jane Bolin becomes the first African-American woman to be appointed as a judge in the USA.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory #BlackHistory #Histodons
It could be that a 78-year-old criminal sociopathic malignant narcissistic racist rapist with advancing dementia won't strike many people as presidential material this time around. #JustSayin'
Weβve got just over 100 days to elect Kamala Harris and win a Democratic trifecta that will restore reproductive freedom and repair our democracy. Take our pledge and sign up to go all-in to win in November: https://www.majorityovermaga.org/pledge?source=mastodon&medium=directpost
So... me. Work in aerospace, more space, not as much aero. Can fix my own car, choose not to. Can fix the random appliance of your choice. Hardcore introvert in person, which is why I love online. Lifelong science fiction fan. Read constantly. Scalzi is my favorite author, because he mixes exactly the right amount of snark into his writing. Together with a guy 30+ years, married since it was legal. Own a home in CA and don't plan to leave unless I immigrate to another country.