Science, Art and Shitposts

Always, Always Wish for More Hours - Submitted by SeesawSiya

More TGAAC live sketches while playing with @duraraross

Of course, it is still incorrect, so how about I fix the error!

"There's a gimmick blog right behind me…"

Should be:

A set of three mug rugs made using the same materials as the Tea With Friends wallhangings. These measure at 8.5 x 8.5 inches, large enough for a mug or teacup and a snack. I used insulated batting to help protect the surface from the heat of your drink. These are an excellent addition to having a little tea party with some friends. A platter of snacks, mug rug for both your guests, and tea (or coffee) to go around. These are a combination of traditional and foundation paper piecing. I misread the instructions and made the teacups incorrectly, which is why they were made into mug rugs and are priced lower than what I would typically charge. You will receive all three mug rugs with this purchase. For a full collection, purchase one of the two Tea With Friends wallhangings...if I still have them in my shop.

Happy Father’s Day from the gold-specs jawfish (Opistognathus randalli)! Dads-to-be of many jawfish species carry eggs in their mouths. This behavior helps protect offspring from predators. To attract females, male jawfish do a “dance” that involves a series of sweeping movements and fin-flashing. And the crescendo of this courtship ritual? Males open their mouths as wide as possible to boast their mouthbrooding potential! 

"Democrats and Republicans in Congress have struck a deal on a bill they say will help keep children and teens safe online. The KIDS Act could pass on the House floor as soon as next week; if enacted, it would fundamentally change the way everyone — not just kids — accesses the internet.

At stake is your ability to use many social media platforms without revealing your identity. 

That’s because the KIDS Act at least strongly incentivizes — and, for some services, outright requires — age verification. Many platforms will turn to age verification to avoid potential liability under the law. Companies like X, video-sharing services like Vimeo, and others with a history of users’ populating social feeds with edgy content may be required to verify users’ ages because they host a certain amount of content deemed “sexual material harmful to minors,” a term that the KIDS Act defines broadly. 

That’s a big problem for people who need to be able to use the internet anonymously, since, as Taylor Lorenz has previously written about in The Intercept, “there’s no way to reliably verify someone’s age without verifying who they are.” 

Threats to online anonymity harm everyone, but one group is often overlooked: journalists and the sources who talk to them. Age verification requirements will help the Trump administration carry out its vendetta against the press by creating new avenues to identify journalists’ confidential sources. [...]

And was like, uh, are you missing something there, buddy? Like all that red in northern Africa? Because that's a lot of red.

And I was going to give them the benefit of doubt, since I don't know much about the climate in Northern Africa, aside from Morroco and Egypt, which seem like really hot places, so you know, maybe it's normal there?

But nope, that's not the case:

Some selections from the article:

"The region has been experiencing some of the most intense heat waves in recent years, but in many cases they’ve been under-reported due to misconceptions about Africans’ ability to withstand them.

“Africa is seen as a sunny and hot continent,” said Amadou Thierno Gaye, a research scientist and professor at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. “People think we are used to heat, but we are having high temperatures for a longer duration. Nobody is used to this.”

Firstly, the OP of the tweet just happened to cut off the name of the subreddit this was posted to. Turns out it was posted to r/Asexual. You know. The subreddit dedicated to talking about asexuality and related things. It makes sense that the original poster and a mod of that very subreddit would emphasize the inclusion of asexuality in Niger’s article 25.

Here’s a link to the actual Reddit post btw

Secondly, while all persecution of queer identities is evil and unjust, it is significant to point out asexuality being included. Most of the time laws don’t go into specifying more than gay or trans identities when it comes to trying to bar rights to individuals. This article has go so far to break down and specify the meaning of every single letter in LGBTQIA and call them all an “act against nature” to justify punishing anyone under the banner. It makes sense to, again, emphasize that asexuality was also included when this was posted in the r/Asexual subreddit.

And thirdly, and this is kinda the most important part imo, this means ANYONE CAN BE ACCUSED AND PERSECUTED UNDER THIS CHARTER. People in the subreddit and even the OP of the tweet are asking “how can you even prove that?” And that’s the thing. You can’t. So it makes it that much easier to just accuse someone of asexuality in order to force them into a heterosexual relationship or punish them.

Think about it. What’s stopping a bitter ex or an abusive spouse from accusing their partner of “denying sex due to their asexual tendencies” in order to punish them? Maybe someone is career driven or just not interested in a relationship at the time. What’s stopping a business rival, a jilted flirt, or an obsessed stalker from leaving an anonymous tip that the object of their ire is an asexual deviant? Absolutely nothing.

Taking this post and dismissing it as “no one cares you don’t want to fuck” is completely missing the point on why this is exceptionally dangerous. And acting like a mod of the r/Asexual subreddit is being silly for putting emphasis on the dangers to their community is rude at best.

The fact that everyone with a queer identity now can face prison time and ridiculous fines is terrifying and it breaks my heart to know more and more countries are baking these laws into their charters and constitutions. But we should be bringing these things into the light and condemning the people pushing for this kind of cruelty, not throwing stones at each other for pointing out a specific part of the article that affects us personally.