Baffled and Confused

That's literally how it works in the US if you don't want to catch a felony charge and a ten-year prison sentence for an NFA violation.

The kid was picked up by an ambulance 30 minutes later.

Now as an adult working in security I get SO MANY folks- upper-middle aged mostly- coming to me to 'rat out' people they think are faking it.

I was once sent into a bathroom because a client demanded that the "fucker won't get out, so go drag them out"- I was NEVER going to do that, so I did a wellness check instead. You know who it was? A person recently released from the hospital after a car accident. They had a hole in their skull and major hearing loss. They couldn't answer the owner because they couldn't HEAR the owner.

Another time about a homeless man who got around town by kicking the ground from his wheelchair. "You know he doesn't actually need that thing, his legs work fine, it's just for pity points"- Oh, so he's not paralyzed, his wheelchair is performative? Funny story Dale, I actually know that guy, he was backed over by a truck and has chronic pain from his shattered pelvis. But sure, let's make him stand up and walk everywhere so nobody feels too bad for him and tries to help him or something.

"She doesn't need that scooter, I've seen her get out of it."

"Look how fat he is, because he just rides around and refuses to get up."

"She doesn't really need that cane- she comes here without it all the time"

texas tech's quartback, brendan sorsby, was investigated for sports gambling. i know sports betting is all the rage right now, but athletes themselves are not allowed to do it. it is Rule Number 1 and it is the highest priority rule for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), who governs all athletic programs at about 1,100 colleges in the US.

the invesitagetion of sorsby revealed that, not only did he place more than 9,000 sports bets when he himself was a collegiate athlete, but 40 of those bets were AGAINST HIS OWN TEAM when he was playing at indiana university. immediately, this threatens the integrity of the sport, and especially because indiana is the hottest team right now as the defending national champion.

the NCAA, which is largely a sham organization these days (they've truly lost their grasp and college athletics are the wild west now) actually enforced their Number 1 Rule and told sorsby his career is over, that he would never play college football again (and, subsequently, that he would never get drafted into the NFL because his college career was cut short).

well, because the NCAA is a husk of its former self, sorsby and texad tech immediately took this to court. MANY athletes have learned these past few seasons that if you can find a judge who's a fan of your team, you can get any NCAA ruling overturned. that's exactly what texas tech did. they filed a suit in Lubbock, where the university is located and where every judge is an alum of texas tech. so sorsby was granted an injunction and will now only be suspended for the first 2 games od the 2026 season (which are alwayd against no-name teams that will be destroyed regardless of who's suspended).

every other school in the country immediately went on the defensive because this is a very clear integretiy issue. so nebraska and georgia (sic em dawgs) released statements saying that all currently-scheduled competitions witb Texas Tech in ANY sport will be canceled and there will be no future schedulings. at least 3 of the major conferences (SEC, Big 10, Big 12) , who account for almost all division 1 sports teams in the country, are also in discussions about cancelling comtests. Texas Tech is part of the Big 12, and there is serious talk of all other teams in the conference shutting texas tech out.

now would probably be time where i say that texas tech is one of the wealthiest programs in college football becaise there is a single billionaire alumnus pouring money into the program with hopes of essentially buying a championship. so texas techs integrity has always been questionable. anyway, the university president put oit a statement that he doesnt care that sorseby violated regulation and that texas tech will sue any school that refuses to play them because it jeopardizes their championship prospects if they're umable to play any games.

it would be so awesome

If you're an infinite thing like God, and you want to become a finite thing like the world, how do you go from infinite to finite? Answer: emanation.

You know when youre at a wedding, and there's a big pyramid of wine glasses? And they fill the wine glasses by pouring champagne into the top, so it overflows and then fills all the glasses beneath it? Imagine the wine bottle is infinite. That's God.

Each of the glasses is called a hypostasis. God can emanate through many hypostases to reach it's final emanation.

As a bit of levity, upon seeing the work in progress drawing of Agent Alex, Fran - @crazygnomenclature had this to say,

“🎵 Secret Aaaaagent Ma'am🎵”

Thank you, sometimes we need a bit of fun when discussing things that are extraordinarily not fun.

Sure, I’m technically allowed to work for the federal government… unless I was one of the trans people purged from the military… which was later ruled unconstitutional, so I suppose I could get that job… for now… but the damage to our transgender military personnel was already done; that ruling was far too late.

Beware the person who downplays what’s happening, and let’s go further, challenge them.  Yes, trans people are legally allowed to work government jobs, but when doing so requires them to be stripped of their life saving healthcare, are they really?

The messaging is clear: if you want to be part of the future that republicans are building, you must either strip yourself of your identity, or die.

Broken record as I am on this topic, it bears repeating:

Neutrality assists the oppressor.  If you’re part of a discussion where someone spouts this garbage and you don’t push back, you’ve given tacit approval to what they said.  If you remain friends with that person, you’re making the statement that bigotry is not a dealbreaker for you.

What kind of person do you want to be?  If transphobia, homophobia, racism, bigotry, etc. aren’t dealbreakers for you, are you that person?

One of the most obnoxious examples of this is about once a month I see post/post cast clip/hear from someone irl that they think JK Rowling is an in denial trans man. They’ll take the quotes from her about how were she born in this generation, she would’ve been trans and that “the allure of escaping womanhood would have been too much to resist” and say she obviously a trans man.

But by believing this you haven’t discovered some secret of hers. Rowling quite literally wants you to believe she would’ve been trans to lend herself credence into the trans conversation. And you are agreeing with her and the TERFs that reason transmasculine people transition is because of internalized misogyny and peer pressure.

FLOWERSTEEL - Mission 3