Disaster Child

I won't deny I've got in my mind now

all the things I would do

So I'll try to talk refined for fear that you find out

Because publishing houses will not continue printing paper books if libraries are their only customers.

A plot: aang learns to stand his ground in order to begin earth bending

B plot: zuko screams at god to strike him down with lightning

Key quotes from the article:

Researchers have known for decades that there are two primary types of people who perpetrate violence. The first is the small fraction who are independently motivated to commit violent acts. The second, and much larger group, are those who commit violence to seek approval and status from others. This is especially true among men who use violence to affirm their masculinity. Research on gender is particularly relevant for understanding ICE, which has an overwhelmingly male workforce and uses messages of masculinity and domination in its recruitment materials. A lot of men may be joining ICE because they think it will allow them to bond with other men and gain power in our society. ... To put it another way, the vast majority of men are only willing to engage in public violence if they feel like the people around them will approve of — and reward them for — that violence. ICE Watch works because it surrounds men seeking approval with people loudly expressing their disapproval. And the noise has the added benefit of drawing large crowds of bystanders who can quickly outnumber the ICE agents, who then have to decide if they want to escalate a situation or perhaps abandon their activity altogether.

And, the kicker? Where it takes 2 or 3 agents to make an arrest elsewhere, they are traveling by the half dozens in Minneapolis:

ICE Watch organizers have also observed that it takes many more agents to make a single arrest when they are around. In other cities, ICE traveled in groups of two or three, but in Minneapolis, we primarily see groups of 6 to 12 agents. The Department of Homeland Security has pulled agents from other cities to ramp up efforts in Minnesota, which guarantees there will be fewer deportations from the places they left. Plus, ICE's fixation on breaking up ICE Watch groups and detaining observers — often white citizens — has interrupted its original mission.

ICE Watch is shaming ICE (among other things, including documenting their crimes and providing a lifeline to those who are kidnapped).

And it's working.

And even if it wasn't working to the efficacy as shown, it's (1) cathartic to jeer at these fascists, (2) shows support to the community that you are not alone in thinking these agents are scum, and (3) still helping because everyone who joins ICE is a social pariah and knows it *because of this outward and ongoing shame*.

This shit is dystopian as fuck

Reagan put the US on a path to destruction and every time anyone that isn't a far-right lunatic tries to course-correct, the conservative dark money made sure they never succeeded.

I think we've turned incrementalism into some great evil that must be destroyed because passing imperfect solutions isn't as sexy and fun as total reform. And I'm sick to my teeth about it.

Obamacare, the ACA, is an imperfect solution. It was not a universal option, and allowing the individual states to choose whether to take federal subsidies that were set aside for them regardless to expand Medicare created an enormous ironic hell. In red states, which refused the subsidies obvsly, you could be too poor for ACA coverage. I know because I lived in three such states. After Obamacare passed, I still was without insurance for years because I was too poor to be covered.

That, all of that? Is about as imperfect and fucked as a "solution" can be.

But then Obamacare literally saved my life. I would be dead without it. A few years ago, in Florida, I made barely enough money to qualify for ACA coverage. And then something went extremely wrong with my esophagus, and I had to get a magnetic ring surgically inserted around my throat or, y'all, I would have been dead in another month.

I'm sitting here alive because imperfect solutions. And when virtue-signaling cowards talk about how the Dems and GOP are the same, I want to scream, "The GOP would have let me fucking die! They have let so many others die! What the fuck is WRONG with you?"

You, all of you, are surrounded by people who are only here because imperfect Democratic solutions. And I think it's hideously disrespectful to the people who aren't here, who didn't survive, who didn't get the SNAP benefits they needed or didn't get the insurance they needed or didn't get the housing subsidy they needed, to pretend otherwise.

HEADS UP: The U.S. Postal Service quietly changed how postmarks work.

Mail is no longer automatically postmarked with the date you drop it off. Instead, the postmark now reflects the date it’s first processed by an automated sorting facility — which can be days later.

If you mail something right at a deadline, the official postmark could be later than your drop-off date and may be considered late.

If mailing date matters to you, go inside the post office and request a hand-stamped postmark.