heliophilia

This is what damage control looks like. The three ghosts that visited her would be her agents that got her that HBO deal because it looks bad to have multiple directors and actors refuse to work with you for your open political radicalism. Contrary to social media echo chambers beliefs, not everyone knew about JKR being a transphobic person let alone that she actively funds genocidal legislature and systems. So people taking a stand and saying "No, I won't work with her, because of this." is making people who never knew about her views examine her views. That's why there's a move to obfuscate this as just having a problem with what she says on twitter. Then she can just post the right things for a while and they hope the media pressure will die off and they can continue as normal with their show.

also pay attention to the focus on adults. she doesn't support trans kids, likely doesn't even believe kids can be trans, when they're one of the most vulnerable groups.

and "intractable", as in she only thinks trans people should be entitled to hormones and surgery if they've exhausted all other options (aka conversion therapy).

and no apology for all the awful things she's said, the mobs she's sent after trans women, the laws passed with her money. she's just insisting she's always felt this way when that is demonstrably false. as if we're stupid. as if we'll just forget.

Do you reckon I could cut off their power and water supply with a single letter?

Or perhaps their lovely little subscription services?

Maybe up their mortgage rate for their 3rd property they don't want to the Expenses Committee to know about?

How can a single, uninformed letter cause such targetted hurt and hate?

I thought Wales was at the forefront of giving transpeople actual dignity!?

I urge anyone reading this to do something because I am now really done taking all of this lying down.

I will writing to the First Minister of Wales directly.

If you are in Wales or the UK, you should too.

If you are outside the UK then amplify our voices until the very fucking foundations shake with anger and grief.

[email protected]

btw

or you could get traditional with it and send them a physical letter addressed to:

First Minister of Wales

Welsh Government 5th Floor Tŷ Hywel Cardiff Bay CF99 1SN

OR you could even contact the health minister Mabon ap Gwynfor at his email address:

[email protected]

or write him a physical letter and send it to:

Mabon ap Gwynfor Welsh Parliament Cardiff Bay Cardiff CF99 1SN

from the cardiff and vale health board website.

The cancellation of gender-affirming surgeries comes after Natasha Asghar, the Welsh Conservatives’ health spokesperson at the Senedd, wrote in June to Mabon ap Gwynfor, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, asking for an independent review into the WGS. Asghar told Gwynfor she had read an “extremely concerning news article” about the WGS. “These revelations are incredibly concerning and, in my view, warrant a closer inspection. To that end, will you commit to launching a full independent review into the service’s practices and leadership as a matter of urgency?” Asghar wrote - Nation Cymru The news article Asghar was referring to was apparently a blog post by gender-critical freelance journalist Nick Wallis, published on 23 May.

//

One blog, self-published by a gender-critical freelance journalist - cited by one Tory member of the Senedd in Wales - has led to the withdrawal of care for potentially hundreds of Trans+ adults.

[Image ID: A picture of a bee and a wasp, both labeled. Both are colored yellow and black. Facts are listed about each one in their respective columns.

Bee:

Cute and fuzzy, like a friend

Make honey

Come in pretty colors with different occupations (blue orchard bee, carpenter bee)

Pollinators!

Freeloaders who will come build hives in the walls of your house

Communicate with dancing

According to all known laws of aviatin, honey bees can fly up to 15 mph

Like sweet things

Over 20,000 species--not just honeybees!

Wasp:

Cool and sleek, like a motorcycle

Prey on pests

Come in pretty, iridescent colors (ruby tailed wasp)

Will try to mooch off your drinks (so check your cans!)

Pollinators!

Leave you paper nests that you can sell to collectors

Communicate with smells

Like sweet things

Over 30,000 species--not just [kind I hate]

At the very bottom, in smaller text, is the URL bug-maniac.tumblr.com. /End ID]

First thing the sales guy did after I laid down the rules was turn to Sean and go, "What's your number?" And Sean said. "Oh, no, you negotiate with Gayle."

So, strike one for the sales guy. Could not divide and conquer us by implying THE MAN would not surprised at what I laid down.

Sales guy then had to confer with his manager and left us at his desk for several minutes. I have a vague recollection (this was 16 years ago) of Sean and I amusing ourselves doing bits about the other people there to look at cars. I am sure we did not give off the stressed or nervous energy they were hoping for.

Guy comes back. His first offer is fifty dollars a month more than I told him we could pay. I looked at him and said "I gave you our upper limit."

"Well, but what's another 50 bucks a month?"

"Something I can't afford."

He didn't know what to do with my open and unashamed admittal that I had a budget because my money was finite.

He went back to talk to the manager again.

It took two more rounds of "I told you what I can afford" before he finally came back 20 bucks under what I'd stated as my max.

The thing is, they absolutely do not want you to leave. They know if they don't make the sale today you are much less likely to come back and might go to a competitor. I said that magic phrase and suddenly the sales guy went to his boss and came back with a better offer--one that was aligned with what we'd been trying to negotiate for before. We were able to afford that offer!

So if you're getting stuck in a sales negotiation, or need just a concrete tactic to remember, try "I need to sleep on it." But the crucial thing is, if this doesn't work, you do need to leave at that point. You gotta show them it wasn't a bluff. If you come back the next day, they will probably be far more accommodating. And if they aren't? Probably time to find another dealer/vendor.

Everyone's talking about Artemis II, the first humans to travel to the moon in 50 years

Historic, right? BUT nobody's talking about the Deaf people who made it possible.

In the late 1950's, NASA had a problem.

They needed to understand what weightlessness did to the human body but every test subject kept getting violently motion sick

NASA needed to figure out FAST during the space race!

So, they went to Gallaudet University. They recruited 11 Deaf people.

Because a number of Deaf people had lost their hearing to spinal meningitis as children which also damaged their vestibular system.

Their inner ears couldn't be overwhelmed. They were immune to motion sickness.

NASA put them in centrifuges. Put them on zero gravity flights. A room for 12 straight days.

(All caps) It rotated the entire time.

One experiment on a ferry in choppy Nova Scotia waters, the researchers got so seasick they had to cancel it. The Gallaudet Eleven? They were playing cards.

Their bodies gave NASA the data and research it needed to send humans into space.

No Gallaudet Eleven? No Mercury. No Apollo. No Artemis II.

They stood on the shoulders of 11 Deaf people most people have never heard of.

If you've committed a crime and a detective gathers everyone involved in the room, especially if he's not actually a detective and is instead a novelist, puzzle-setter, psychic, fake psychic, dog, chess grandmaster, etc. ...

YOU SHOULD NOT CONFESS.

Every year, hundreds of people are put away by non-traditional "detectives" who have either inserted themselves into the case or are working with the police in a dubiously legal capacity as advisor. In 99% of these cases, the murderer gives a full confession even though the evidence against them is circumstantial at best and often requires a long just-so story which can only guess at motive.

If this happens to you, stay quiet, do not attempt to defend yourself or talk your way out of it, only say "I want a lawyer".

Now if you find yourself being investigated by a boy genius, magician's assistant, anthropologist, classics scholar, or philosopher, it's likely that refusing to talk to the police (or investigator with no legal authority) is merely the end of the second act, and by the end of the third act they will have you dead to rights.

YOU SHOULD STILL NOT CONFESS.

Make them take it to court. Force the eccentric detective and his straight-laced police partner to take the stand and explain their methods to a jury of your peers. Have your lawyer look at the chain of custody on the evidence, especially if you believe it to have been handled by someone who has only bumbled into detective work through their natural charm and/or unique set of skills and outsider perspective that come in handy more often than they should.

I swear to god I tried to grab my phone but I couldn’t without ruining the moment

The Indigenous people who farmed and hunted here (and still farm and hunt in what land they have been able to keep and reclaim) were able to grow miles of upon miles of crops with multiple harvests a year, encouraging this biodiversity by creating forest gardens with incredible amounts of food from staples like corn and squash to local fruits like pawpaws to European imports like apples alongside controlled burns which allowed fields and buffalo ranges to expand.

Nowadays my state is known almost exclusively for its fields of nothing but corn and soy beans. Driving through in between the comparatively small cities you'll see nothing but fields where the plethora of different trees and plants were chopped down mile by mile, the remaining wetlands drained and flattened, and the rich black soils robbed of their nutrients through decades upon decades of monocrop agriculture now preserved through the life blood of petrochemical fertilizers which destroy the surrounding environment.

This process was done mile by mile as the tens of thousands of Indigenous people were killed and displaced by settlers and the US army, the land measured and sold acre by acre to white settlers who raped the land as described, filling the pockets of wealthy land speculators (like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson) who bought the land directly from the government in schemes so corrupt historians have dedicated entire careers to mapping out their dramas.

Do you reckon I could cut off their power and water supply with a single letter?

Or perhaps their lovely little subscription services?

Maybe up their mortgage rate for their 3rd property they don't want to the Expenses Committee to know about?

How can a single, uninformed letter cause such targetted hurt and hate?

I thought Wales was at the forefront of giving transpeople actual dignity!?

I urge anyone reading this to do something because I am now really done taking all of this lying down.

I will writing to the First Minister of Wales directly.

If you are in Wales or the UK, you should too.

If you are outside the UK then amplify our voices until the very fucking foundations shake with anger and grief.

from the cardiff and vale health board website.

The cancellation of gender-affirming surgeries comes after Natasha Asghar, the Welsh Conservatives’ health spokesperson at the Senedd, wrote in June to Mabon ap Gwynfor, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, asking for an independent review into the WGS. Asghar told Gwynfor she had read an “extremely concerning news article” about the WGS. “These revelations are incredibly concerning and, in my view, warrant a closer inspection. To that end, will you commit to launching a full independent review into the service’s practices and leadership as a matter of urgency?” Asghar wrote - Nation Cymru The news article Asghar was referring to was apparently a blog post by gender-critical freelance journalist Nick Wallis, published on 23 May.

//

One blog, self-published by a gender-critical freelance journalist - cited by one Tory member of the Senedd in Wales - has led to the withdrawal of care for potentially hundreds of Trans+ adults.

John Rogers is the creator of two of my favorite things:

Leverage and Leverage: Redemption, show(s) about criminals who team up to punish billionaires and corporations who take advantage of regular people in ways that the law won't punish. It's a great heist show, it's hilarious, it's satisfying in a vengeance sort of way, it's deeply nerdy in sometimes subtle ways (criminals using aliases from Doctor Who, anyone?), and seeing the characters and relationships develop is really nice, too.

Mr Rogers: Be kind

Steve Rogers: Do the right thing