ScottinSoCal 🇺🇦 🕊 🏳‍🌈 @ScottSoCal@computerfairi.es

Please don't be worried about the inadequacy of the descriptor "weird."
It's a taunt, not a clinical assessment. The ridicule IS the weapon, not the terminology. And it WORKS!
The point is diminishing the illusion of invulnerability, not writing an essay. We already have experts doing that.

"What Wyoming resident Cody Roberts did to a wolf a few months back was not hunting, full stop. It was cruel and inhumane, the opposite of what the ethical code of conduct all hunters strive to uphold."

https://www.msn.com/en-sg/news/other/a-new-bill-aims-to-ban-wildlife-whacking-with-snowmobiles-and-other-motor-vehicles/ar-BB1o9Pbt

Over 1.5 MILLION signups to participate in the ginormous Zoom call with #KamalaHarris. 😳

I don't think Zoom can handle this. 😂 #USpol

https://events.democrats.org/event/655276/?force_banner=true&share_context=event_details&share_medium=copy_link

You know what else they call "cleaning vinegar"?

Vinegar
🙄
#FuckCapitalism

@peachfront @GottaLaff I turn 60 this year; so I literally was among the first kids to benefit from all the vaccines in the 1960s — my mom, now 88, knew kids who died from /were maimed by Polio — and you can bet your bippie my teen has them all too. All of this is madness.

Reupping this if you missed it, a preprint but holy shit:

https://journals.asm.org/doi/epub/10.1128/mbio.01088-24

"[...] HRH1 facilitates the entry of SARS-CoV-2 by directly binding to the N-terminal domain of the spike protein. Conversely, antihistamine drugs, primarily HRH1 antagonists, can competitively bind to HRH1 and thereby prevent viral entry. These findings revealed that the administration of repurposable antihistamine drugs could be a therapeutic intervention to combat coronavirus disease 19."

I made all of those Magen David necklaces with climate friendly zircon, glass and gemstones. They are lively and shining, like the Jewish spirit ❤️

#handmade #jewish #israel #proisrael #bringthemhomenow #bringthemhome #art #artist #artists

“In #Arizona, we have faced the brunt of #misinformation, #ElectionDenialism & an erosion of trust in our #justice system.

“The Grand Canyon State is ground zero in the fight against repeated false claims to disrupt our electoral process — from #FakeElectors attempting to undermine AZ’s #election, to a sham 'audit' [#fraudit] by AZ Senate #Republicans that was spurred by #ConspiracyTheories.

#Trump #populism #BigLie #VoteBlue #HarrisForPresident #Harris2024

@ScottSoCal I meant like a counterpart of “Libs of TikTok”

Is Weirdos of Truth Social a thing yet?

✔️
Via Elie Mystal:

America electing a President who hates dogs, and a Vice President who hates cats, who both hate women more than they hate dogs and cats, would indeed be very weird.

Every single time someone talks about improving Mastodon software for the sake of inclusivity towards Black people, *every single time*, the comments grow a bunch of concern trolls that are like "Everything's fine (for me)! Let them go make their own thing!"

And that's why Black people don't fuck with this place.

Signs you have carpenter ants

1. keep finding tiny tools
2. city sends a very tiny permit to affix to baseboard
3. try to move a book and are told “keep this entrance clear, ma’am” because of the “cement delivery coming later”
4. Your dish rack is dismantled “because it’ll be cheaper to rebuild from scratch”
5. no room on the dresser due to like 85 tiny pickups illegally parked there
6. husband keeps hearing high pitched wolf whistles when exiting shower

(my new drawing for this PSA)

I keep thinking about this conversation from a few years ago... #KamalaHarris #politics

It's amazing how quickly the "fuck your feelings" crowd has pivoted to "😭 Don't call me weird. You're hurting my feelings. 😭"

🦷✨ Exciting news! A recent study reveals that a type of mouth bacteria, fusobacterium, may help "melt" certain cancers! 🎉 Patients with head and neck cancers could see better outcomes when this bacteria is present. 🌟 Let's spread the word about the potential of our microbiome in cancer treatment! #CancerResearch #Fusobacterium #HealthInnovation #MicrobiomeMagic 💪🔬

🔗 https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jul/27/type-of-mouth-bacteria-melts-some-cancers-study-finds

And now #petebuttigieg is on the #whitedudesforharris call. It's really interesting how the party has pivoted to "the vibe" as opposed to wonkish policy positions to motivate voters. I think that's gonna be a winning move. But that's like, my opinion, man. #TheDude

#uspol

Trump can't figure out what to do about Harris https://www.dailykos.com/story/2024/7/29/2259039/-Trump-can-t-figure-out-what-to-do-about-Harris?pm_campaign=blog&pm_medium=rss&pm_source=&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

Great news: the GOP mayor of Mesa AZ endorses Harris. "Now more than ever, we need leaders who will put country over party." [de-paywalled link from @azcentral] http://archive.is/KC91o

I see a lot of people talking about technical solutions to racist attacks on Mastodon. I used to do that too.

I was wrong.

Yes. There are things that could be done to improve technical protections. Signup validation, proactive moderation, visible replies, limiting who can reply.... But those don't actually solve the problem.

The problem is us.
The problem is what we allowed our community to be.

The tech community has a lot of racists in it. Some are billionaires. Many of those billionaires fund and support explicit racists and eugenicists. When these people, and those who want to emulate them, suffer zero consequences for their racism (and they almost always do), they get more brazen and more explicit. For some it's a thrilling game to see what they can get away with. For others it's a deadly serious ideology.

We need to make it clear that VCs, developers, managers, and influencers who don't take racism seriously won't get hired. That their companies will be boycotted. That nobody will work on their projects. It's not enough to not be racist. We need to be proactively anti-racist, and we need to hold everyone we work with to the same standard.

And when I talk about fighting racism, I'm not just talking about someone saying the n-word. The guy who says, "We don't allow politics in our company/project" has just stated that they are perfectly fine hiring and funding a racist, even if it drives others away. The company that says they don't need a DEI initiative because it "doesn't help the bottom line" has just told their employees that being biased is perfectly fine. You know what they call someone who sits down to dinner with Nazis; if you enable one, you are one. Every step backwards is one more racist who feels empowered to step out of their dank closet.

And fighting them has a cost. We may need to turn down opportunities, and be attacked in response. It's no accident that a lot of the Black (and LGBTQ+) folks who receive the most attacks are the same ones who stood up to their organizations, who called out and continue to call out the racism and bias, and who daily pay a price for it. The message is clear. "Do what they do and we'll make an example of you too."

All of this is going to be harder than we want, because the racists hold a lot of the purse strings. But the tech community is our community, we live here, and we're responsible for making it safe for others.

And I don't want to see one more post saying, "I haven't seen it myself, but...". If you're not seeing it, go out and search for it. Or turn around and look at your own organization and see how you can make it better. We can't cleanup Mastodon without cleaning up the entire community; it doesn't exist in a vacuum.

And yes, you can replace "racist" in what I wrote with any other fascist ideology. They are all cut from the same cloth, and a follower of one invariably joins the others as well.