homosexual psychological manipulation

Last week, the Trump administration quietly released a sweeping new federal rule that would use funding threats to force institutions across the country to reject transgender people. The 400-page proposed regulation would codify the administration's anti-trans executive orders into binding federal policy, imposing a blanket prohibition on federal funds going toward "gender ideology"

The proposed rule, formally titled "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance," rewrites the government-wide framework governing all federal grants across every agency. Among its most consequential provisions, it requires that before a federal grant recipient can receive money, the award must pass a "pre-issuance review" conducted by a political appointee—not a career expert or peer reviewer—to ensure it is "consistent with applicable law, Federal agency priorities, and the national interest." The regulation explicitly instructs these appointees to screen for "denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic." [...] An institution that acknowledges transgender people exist—through its policies, its training, its healthcare, its bathroom access, its HR procedures, its name-change processes—could be deemed to "deny the sex binary" or to “support the notion that sex is mutable” and have its federal funding blocked.

This torches everything. And I do mean everything.

A very abbreviated list of its ramifications include (but are not limited to):

ending funding for ALL DEI related initiatives

allowing the government to terminate grants at any point for any reason

preventing researchers from publishing, going to conferences, and being part of academic societies

requiring that topics must support the president’s agenda.

What this means, and if anything I’m under selling it, is the death of science and research in America. It allows the government to restrict any topic they please at a whims notice, putting officials who have no background in the topic in charge of deciding funding continuity. It controls what gets researched and if/how researchers are allowed to share their discoveries. There are no books to burn if the government never allows them to be written. This is fascism plain and simple.

Public comments are not a vote, it is a chance for you to say "here is an issue with this law I think you need to address" and provide justification for legal challenges if it goes forward:

"Comments raise the bar that agencies have to meet when making a rule; “if an agency fails to adequately respond to significant, relevant comments in a final rule, members of the public may seek to challenge the rule in court on that basis and claim it could be struck down.ˮ"

GAMBLING IS NEVER PROFITABLE

Rocky says that he is 291 years old. He also says that the average Eridian lifespan is 689. He's roughly 42.24% through his life. If we say that this is equal to the average human lifespan (I'm saying 80y bc I'm lazy) and that he's 42.24% of the way through 80 years; Rocky developmentally is basically some 33 year old who has just spent about 6.97% (5.5 human years) of his life alone in space. 

Meanwhile, Grace is somewhere in his early 40's when he wakes and meets Rocky. Assuming he's like 42, that's 6.1%ish of the Eridian lifespan making him appear in Rocky's eyes as some 5 year old that just pulled up driving his own spaceship.

This is an insane comparison but I cannot stress enough that Rocky is a 33 year old highly trained astronaut tasked with teaming up with some hyper intelligent alien that's only been alive for 5 years because the alien's kind decided to throw that 5 year old on a one way space trip just to see what happens.

Obviously this is a gross simplification of their ages and how aging works for Eridians, for all we know Eridian maturity can happen at a rate similar to cats, where there's a rapid maturation with a certain period of time rather than a consistent maturation over a lifetime.

But even with that in mind, Rocky and Grace both seem to be at a similar level of maturity where they're old enough to understand the seriousness of their situation, but young enough to still show the side of themselves that's naturally inclined to be some goofy nerd that's just overly excited to discover (friendly and intelligent) alien life. 

Rocky hums. “Close. Skip first note.”

“Why? You always include that.”

“This means… of Rocky, possessive. Of the speaker.”

“My.”

“Correct. But only for names.”

“So you’re calling me…?”

Rocky repeats the word: “My Grace. Yes.”