liberalsarecool:

Context.

thatlittleegyptologist:

I’m ‘violently myself’ in the sense that I stopped restraining my regular personality in order to fit in, so it takes people a few weeks to get used to me, and also I stopped caring about being cringe around the age of 16. I don’t care if you don’t like it, I like it, so I’m going to ignore you

animatedamerican:

supervillainny:

animatedamerican:

irresponsibleeyouth:

The trick is to not let people know how really weird you are until it’s too late for them to back out.

Absolutely the frak not, the trick is to immediately let people know how weird you are so you scare off the weak ones. The ones who stay because they like how weird you are? Those are the ones you want.

Post 1: workplace

Post 2: everywhere else

… you know what, codicil accepted

(via seananmcguire)

ralfmaximus:

writing-prompt-s:

ONE of the most important rules of the Galactic Federation concerns humanity. If a human ever says “Hold my beer”, either stop them, or run.

Two of the most recognized human warships have never fired a shot in anger. Their mere appearance once stopped a genocidal war, and they have been invited on peacekeeping missions simply based on reputation.

The ships’ names: 

UNS Fuck Around And Find Out
UNS Hold My Beer

(via seananmcguire)

whydoidothistomyselfandothers:

I am heartbreakingly in awe of the strength of the Ukrainian people.

Some things that really stuck out to me from the coverage I’ve watched so far:

• Ukrainian officials requested that a no fly zone be placed over Ukrainian territory and Russia has not just been bombing military targets, they have been bombing areas in cities filled with civilians - they have shelled multiple Ukrainian nurseries, kindergartens and an orphanage, killing numerous children
• Ukraine’s UN ambassador told his Russian counterpart that “there’s no purgatory for war criminals, they go straight to hell”
• A Ukrainian soldier went onto a bridge during battle to detonate a bomb on it knowing he would die in the process
• Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president has refused offers to evacuate him and is insisting on staying above ground in the capitol (Kyiv) which is currently being bombed and invaded by Russian troops. Russia claims that they are willing to have peace-talks if Ukraine surrenders - Zelenskyy (rightfully, in my opinion) has refused
• It is estimated that 100,000 Ukrainians have fled across the border to neighbouring countries so far. Polish citizens have been offering to drive them where they need to go and also offering them places to stay. Women and children have had to leave male loved ones behind at the border as Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 60 have been barred from leaving the country in order that they may be conscripted into the Ukrainian army
• Russian soldiers on a warship told Ukrainian soldiers stationed on a Ukrainian island (Snake Island) that they were about to invade the island and told the soldiers there to surrender and you could hear the Ukrainian soldiers over the radio saying “so this is it” because they knew they were going to die and then they told the Russian warship to go fuck themselves
• There is a video of a Ukrainian woman going up to Russian soldiers and telling them they are cursed and offering them sunflower seeds (the national flower of Ukraine) to put in their pockets so that when they die on Ukrainian soil at least sunflowers will grow

I am so sorry to every Ukrainian for what you are going through. Putin is a despicable man. I am deeply impressed and humbled by the strength your people are showing - I don’t know that I could ever be that brave.

just-shower-thoughts:

The ugly duckling was the first book given to kids that taught them about discrimination and prejudice

molfarka:

• people in Kyiv steal and vandalize plates with street names so russians won’t know where are they currently located

• a professor in KPI faculty of chemistry messaged her students that their only homework is to make molotov cocktails

• in Kharkiv people fucking stole a tank piece by piece while russian troops looked for diesel fuel

• in Dnipro a civilian shitted on a russian mark that helps to navigate their shellings

• obolonian gopniks assaulted russian armored carrier with a piece of asphalt & when a soldier came out they beated him up too

• a video where a man noticed russian troops in disguise & exposed them by demanding to say “паляниця” (a word which russians are struggling to pronounce). also a video where a man shouts after the sounds of explosions ‘FUCK YOU I DIDN’T FINISH MY SOUP YET’

• and don’t forget the sunflower seeds babushka

I fucking love our people

becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys:

Ukraine, 26th Feb, 2022

A friend of mine told me yesterday that he didn’t realise how much Ukraine meant to him until now. I posted yesterday about the time we spent there, and we’re all getting super pre-occupied about the invasion. As I said in that post, I can’t get our waitress out of my head. I can sort of remember what she looked like now. She had an undercut. I think maybe her hair might have been blue? But - I will never know if she lives through this, and it’s driving me very slightly mad.

So naturally, my husband spent all day yesterday obsessively researching everything he could about it with the help of his journalist friends, as a way to help me process it.

This post is me putting it all in order, as a way to try and process my own emotional response as much as anything else (I freely admit there is an element of self-indulgence here). Please don’t take me as the spokesperson for Ukraine right now, nor as a solid reliable news source. But, I haven’t seen this stuff except in bits and pieces on Tumblr, so here we go.

(This is also not about why the invasion has happened. This post is solely about what has happened, and how the invasion is going.)

So, Putin and the rest of the world believed that this invasion would take 1-4 days. The plan was to push through fast, take Kyiv, and force Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian President, to surrender. Given Russia’s military might, it really looked likely.

Here is the conclusion of all that’s happened so far:

Ukraine is absolutely nailing this??? Actually???

They managed to defend every single city overnight, including Kyiv. They started rolling out and using these WW2-style anti-tank thingies that look a bit like angry gabbions, look, here’s a picture of one being delivered:

A bunch of spare iron girders turned into a hefty octopus of Russian misery, basically.

But it’s not just tanks they’re taking down, oh no. Ukraine successfully shot down a transport plane 20km from Kyiv. That is, I shit you not, the single biggest hit to the Russian military since the Second Chechen War. Volunteers from Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Azerbaijan and Israel are all entering Ukraine to help fight and bolster the anti-Russian forces, which is probably illustrative of how Eurovision voting is going to run for the next decade. Most countries have banned Russian planes from their air space. To help stop the Russian advance, Ukraine has made and installed new road signs, like this one:

I can only say a handful of sentences in Ukrainian, Tumblrs, but as I understand it, from top to bottom, it says:

“Fuck off”

“Fuck off again”

“Fuck off Russia”

Meanwhile, it turns out the Russian military might we feared is… possibly not quite as advertised?

They’re underfunded and badly trained. Ukraine captured 200 soldiers in one go, and most of them were confused 19 year olds with no training. The equipment is shite. The tanks keep running out of fuel. Russian soldiers keep abandoning their tanks and handing them over to the Ukrainian army. Putin’s plan was to take Kyiv fast and move on, and he didn’t have a plan B - hence these kids, playing soldier. Here is an image of a Russian tank receiving roadside assistance from Russia’s finest, an old Lada.  

No one expected Zelenskyy to survive the night; but he did. America offered him asylum in the White House.

But he said no. 

Zelenskyy remains in Kyiv, with his people.

And Putin, in his desperation to be adored, has turned Zelenskyy into a global icon and hero.

Here is something you may not know about Volodymyr Zelenskyy - he used to be a standup comedian. Was he any good? No idea - but what he IS good at is producing funny short videos he can put on Twitter and that, which are absolutely fantastic for Ukrainian morale. And morale is vital in an invasion like this, and Ukraine are smashing it out of the park there.

They are utilising the internet to its fullest extent. In addition to Zelenskyy’s videos, they’ve made sure that the final words of the Ukrainian defenders of Snake Island are known and now echoed around the world: “Russian warship, go fuck yourselves.” A video has gone viral of Ukrainians mocking a group of Russian soldiers whose tank had broken down and who didn’t know the way to Kyiv anyway, presumably because of all the new road signs. They have created a website that lists every single Russian death they can identify, partly so Russian mothers can have closure (thus also painting themselves as the defenders of decency and humanity), and partly for the enormous morale boost of the world knowing, categorically, that they’ve already killed 3700 Russian soldiers (over 100 of which were from that transport plane.)  Not one word has leaked of Ukrainian casualties. I’m sure they’re devastating, but for morale purposes, they’re being kept quiet until the dust settles. Ukrainians have started setting up fake Tindr profiles to catfish Russian soldiers for intel, and they’re all 19 and lost, so it’s working. Plus, they’re using Grindr to actually track where the soldiers are, because it turns out Putin was not entirely correct about there being no gays in Russia.

So, Russia wants to cut their internet access. Can the Ukrainian Minister for Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, shame a billionaire into providing aid?

This is crucial, remember. Atrocities happen best in the dark, and the world is watching - because of the internet. Morale is vital to maintain. Can they convince Elon Musk to help?

Yep.

Ukraine now has the fastest internet service in the world. The fastest, most stable internet service in human history, in fact. Russia cannot now disable it. The world watches.

Which is just as well, because then Anonymous decided to get involved, and have leaked the website database of the Russian Ministry of Defence. Lol. Also this happens:

And then the Russian propaganda channels started broadcasting the truth of what is happening in Ukraine. Double lol.

So what is the political response?

Well, in addition to closing airspace to Russian planes, loads of countries are sending weapons to Ukraine. Those that can’t are offering asylum. They’re also offering asylum to any Russian soldiers who surrender or defect, which is startlingly good tactics, and there are rumours of around 5000 Russian soldiers who have done just that. Germany, of course, has long had a block on lethal weapons transfer; but Germany recognise this shit for what it is. They’ve lifted the block, thus allowing the Netherlands to send weapons. Efforts are now underway to fast-track Ukraine into the EU. I presume they will consider the lack of pint glasses with crowns on to be a worthwhile price to pay.

So what about Russia’s supporters?

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenka helped Russia with this invasion. Now, this has happened:

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was actually elected president, but some wild nonsense kept her out of power. She’s now running a government in exile. I have literally no idea what this means or will mean! But my god. She has a spine of steel, and this is not a good time to be happening for Putin. 

And it’s really, really not, because then intel on a meeting of Putin and assembled Oligarchs LEAKS (hello Anonymous, probably). The highlights:

• This war is costing Russia $15bn a day
• He expected it to take ONE TO FOUR DAYS TO WIN
• It’s been two days and he is losing very badly, currently
• They will run out of rockets by day 4, maybe sooner
• After that they will be down to rifles and ammo
• It will take 3-4 months to make more significant weapons, except they need raw materials, and the countries that can provide them… have cut supply lines
• If the war lasts 10 days, Russia will have completely run out of money and weapons
• It’s only day 2, and Russian soldiers are knocking the doors of random Ukrainian homes begging for food and water because they’ve already run out

So, out of desperation, Putin turns to his greatest, closest and most trusted ally for help: Kazakhstan. 

And Kazakhstan

SAYS NO

And then Ukraine shoots down a second Russian plane.

Anyway, I’m going to finish off with a final point. Morale is vital in this situation, so here is the message from the Ukrainian government at the minute, to everyone watching around the world:

Be VERY SUSPICIOUS of any negative news about Ukraine. Russia uses misinformation and propaganda. They will want to damage Ukrainian morale.

Use your social media to spread news of Ukrainian victories. 

Don’t give oxygen to negative stories. Especially since they might not be true.

That’s genuinely something we can do to help. Every victory of Ukraine, blast it far and wide. So on that note, I’ll leave you with this:

Congrats to Natalia Antonova’s cousin’s son.

(via thatlittleegyptologist)

septembriseur:

derinthescarletpescatarian:

The thing that gets me about a lot of pseudoscientific medicine is the baffling way in which they view the human body.

It isn’t the inaccuracy that gets to me; we have a long history of just fucking guessing how the body works. It’s not even the extreme simplicity of their models. It’s how vulnerable they seem to think it is.

I mean, the skin is a barrier. It keeps stuff in and it keeps stuff out. Yes, there is some limited permeability; if you smear the right kinds of things on your skin then a little bit will get into your body (this is how topical anaesthetics work, and why we wear gloves in chemical labs). But some people are like “smooth this acai berry cream on your skin to boost your immune system!” [note: you DO NOT WANT to boost your immune system], or “put a raw potato under your armpit to draw to toxins out of your body!” or some shit. I look at those foot bath things that fill up with yellow rust as you use them and people go, “all that yellow stuff is the toxins being drawn out through your feet!” and I am horrified at their mental model for how the body works. They know your insides are protected by skin, right? Right?? If I thought my body was that permeable I’d wear a hazmat suit at all times. What if I touch some mud that’s got Toxins in it and they all get absorbed into my body? What if I use the wrong root vegetable under my armpit and it sucks all the vitamins out of my blood instead? That’s terrifying!

“Drink alkaline water every morning to keep your blood pH high!” Friend, how vulnerable is your blood to pH changes? You know that a fairly small variation can kill you?? If I thought this worked I’d never eat fermented foods again. I’d never clean with vinegar in case my Super Permeable Frog Skin absorbed all the acid into my blood and I died of acidemia.

“This essential oil gives you energy! This one boosts your immune system!” They’re for smells! They make smells! In your view, how much of my metabolism and immune regulation are dependent on what my environment smells like?? Am I going to die because I bought the Strawberry Surprise scented candle instead of sandalwood and my body forgot how to make ATP?? What???

The extreme fragility that they perceive in the human body, with apparently no barriers or regulatory mechanisms, vulnerable to such tiny changes in diet and environment, would terrify me. If I thought of the body like this I would never leave the house.

Heyyyyy, it’s that thing that I wrote a 350-page dissertation about from a slightly different perspective (fears of radioactive contamination)! I argued that this obsessive anxiety about the permeability of the body has to do with an increased awareness of the fact that in a conceptual sense the body actually DOESN’T have a firm barrier between what is “it” and “not-it”— a normal, healthy body is always permeable and infiltrated, and our new ability to visualize this leads to a lot of uncertainty about how to sustain our basic model of the discrete, independent, rational person. (If we’re always “contaminated” by other substances and creatures, then how do we know what the authentic “us” is?) So that gets expressed through increasingly drastic efforts to “purify” the body, and intense fears about what will happen if this can’t be done.

So in other words: OP, I agree.

(via seananmcguire)