Well, hello. I'm Jo and my life just happens to be one extended hyperbole.
English.Nineteen.Queer.
Gaming.TV. Whinging. Cats.Feminism.General moral outrage.Mental illness.General geekery.
Guess where I was today? :D
Finally, a political movement we can all agree upon.
What are you talking about? Supreme executive power should derive from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
The best post on tumblr.
look you can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
I MEAN if I went around saying I was an Emperor just because some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me they’d put me away!
Well I didn’t vote for him…
Help Help I’m being repressed!
Come and see the violence that’s inherent in the system!
I love you all.
(via historykraken)
tag your fuckin politics spoilers i haven’t even gotten to the roosevelt presidency yet
(via historykraken)
Worst cabinet reshuffle ever?
- Fewer women in the cabinet than this time yesterday
- First cabinet in 15 years that lacks a non-white cabinet minister
- Jeremy Hunt, new health secretary, is pro-homeopathy, anti-abortion, called for the NHS to be dismantles in 2009 and is an all-round shit politician (I’m assuming you all know about Leveson and Murdoch etc etc)
- Maria Miller, new culture secretary and minister for women and equality, is a pretty terrible choice for ‘equality’, voting against gay adoption and in favour of homophobia, racial hatred and prejudice being “freedom of speech”
- New environmental secretary Owen Paterson opposes renewable energy in favour of shale oil and has been backed by former Chancellor Lord Lawson, who the BBC describes as “a well known climate change sceptic”
I’m a very angry Brit right now and David Cameron is a complete and utter arse.
It’s like they’ve actually gone, “Right, think of all the things that will make this country better. Got that? Now do exactly the opposite of those things.”
It’s actually an episode of Yes, Minister now.
I hate my country and my government.
(via historykraken)
did we all just choose to forget
that piers morgan was “eastwooding” before clint eastwood was
Wow, yelling at empty chairs really is a Thing in US politics.
piers morgan dOESN’T COUNT AS US POLITICS OK
NOT EVEN CLOSE
Well, he’s sure as hell not coming back to the UK. We called no-take-backsies.
You are more than welcome to keep him. Seriously. No charge. xoxox
(via historykraken)
World’s youngest mayor: 15-year-old teenage girl in Palestine
A 15-year-old Palestinian girl took office as the mayor of a West Bank town and became the youngest person in the world to occupy this position.
As part of an initiative to empower youth and involve them in the decision-making process, Bashaer Othman will be the mayor of the town of Allar in the city of Tulkarm in the northwestern West Bank for two months.
Othman is in charge of all matters related to the municipality of Allar and which include supervising employees and signing all official documents with the exception of financial ones.Othman is working under the supervision of elected mayor Sufian Shadid who expressed his enthusiasm for the teengar’s appointment as a step towards supporting youth.
“There are many ways of supporting youth other than financial means. First, we should make sure we remove obstacles that might stand in their way and with determination and perseverance we can do so,” he said.
For Othman, the new position constitutes a major challenge that she is hoping she can be up to.
“I want to go through this experience in order to be able to share it with other youth so that they can be prepared for running state institutions in the future,” she said.AWESOME. is all i can come up with.
(via stfuconservatives)
Americans are working approximately 11 more hours per week now than they did in the 1970’s, yet the average income for middle-income families has declined by 13% since the 1970s
Americans are literally working themselves to death. America is the most overworked nation in the developed world and Americans have become hostage to their jobs that has made their work-life balance unattainable.
President Franklin Roosevelt in 1937 signed into law the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) as part of his New Deal agenda, establishing the five-day, 40-hour maximum workweek. The unions pushed it, and business leaders went along with it, since the research conducted in the five decades before that consistently found that 8-hour work days and 40-hour work weeks kept workers productive, safe, healthy, and efficient over a long period of time.
The 40-hour workweek, however, has slowly become a thing of past. More people in the middle-income bracket, as well as those in managerial positions are working longer hours.
In the 1970’s, 34% of men in professional-managerial positions worked 50-hours or more per week. Today that number has increased to 38%. As far as middle-income male workers are concerned, 21% worked more than 50-hours per week in the 1970’s, whereas today they account for 23% . With professional women, only 6% worked 50-hours or more per week in the 1970’s, whereas this figure has since more than doubled.
Tragically, Americans are working approximately 11 more hours per week now than they did in the 1970’s, yet the average income for middle-income families has declined by 13% since the 1970s.
Something to remember next time someone says that people complaining about having difficulty making ends meet aren’t “working hard enough” or that people complaining that their wages are too low are being “whiny” or “entitled”.
It’s also worth noting that all this is going on while corporate profits are at record highs and CEOs are making 185 times more than the average worker.
(via stfuconservatives)
sometimes, there is nothing
I woke up today to read about another horrific shooting in Colorado. The television media scambled to assign blame as the Twitterati raced to make observations supporting personal agendas, premature categorizations, and of course, tasteless jokes. Mass murder is frightening. It was frightening when it happened in Norway almost exactly a year ago, it was frightening when it happened in Columbine in 1999, and it was terrifying when it happened in NYC on 9/11. We are built to process information. We are wired to discover the reasons and somehow justify the horror. It helps us sleep, I guess.
“Well, he was a loner…
A religious nut…
Mentally ill…
A muslim…
A Christian…
A Tea Party member…
A Lib…
An American.”
Whatever the label, there will be no solace. There are unstable people in this world of every nationality, religion, and political leaning. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all band together and mourn tragedies as a nation (and world) of people who are not unstable; who are overwhelminly good and decent; who would not wish a tragedy like this on even their worst enemies?
We needn’t mimic the divisive media. We are better than they make us. We are compassionate enough to not pick a side, but to instead mourn the loss of life without pointing fingers at anyone but the insane person who walked into that theater and killed 12 people. Any labels they slap on him will not justify the killings. Answers will never give us peace, and that is a burden we must bear.
(via wilwheaton)
(via ihopericksantorum)
![liberalsarecool:
The “Overpaid Union Workers” boondoggle is based on another boondoggle - “Americans are middle class.” Seriously, talk to anyone. Almost everyone in America believes they are “middle class.” From trailer parks all the way to summer homes in Gulf Shores, they’re all “middle class,” if you ask them. This is because they don’t want the “shame” of being poor, but they also don’t want the “elitism” of being rich.The truth is, the majority of Americans are not middle-class. Most Americans are poor. Maybe not impoverished, but poor. But so long as they think of themselves as being middle-class, suddenly those union people, oh boy, they’re living life on a luxury cruise, aren’t they? It’s one lie, built on top of another. We have to knock down the underlying lie; as this graphic is trying to do. The trick is to expose that most Americans are NOT well-off or living comfortably.
And if they are “well off”, see how leveraged they are. Subtract their debt [borrowed money, student loans, mortgage, credit cards] from their assets and there is a lot of NEGATIVE NET WORTH out there.
The middle class needs to remember the pizza analogy:
Three guys order a ten slice pizza. The first guy opens the box, takes nine slices, and then says to one of the two remaining guys “watch out for that union asshole, he’s trying to steal YOUR slice.”](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m59j2j9pBx1qzsnxyo1_500.jpg)
The “Overpaid Union Workers” boondoggle is based on another boondoggle - “Americans are middle class.” Seriously, talk to anyone. Almost everyone in America believes they are “middle class.” From trailer parks all the way to summer homes in Gulf Shores, they’re all “middle class,” if you ask them. This is because they don’t want the “shame” of being poor, but they also don’t want the “elitism” of being rich.
The truth is, the majority of Americans are not middle-class. Most Americans are poor. Maybe not impoverished, but poor. But so long as they think of themselves as being middle-class, suddenly those union people, oh boy, they’re living life on a luxury cruise, aren’t they?
It’s one lie, built on top of another. We have to knock down the underlying lie; as this graphic is trying to do. The trick is to expose that most Americans are NOT well-off or living comfortably.And if they are “well off”, see how leveraged they are. Subtract their debt [borrowed money, student loans, mortgage, credit cards] from their assets and there is a lot of NEGATIVE NET WORTH out there.
The middle class needs to remember the pizza analogy:
Three guys order a ten slice pizza. The first guy opens the box, takes nine slices, and then says to one of the two remaining guys “watch out for that union asshole, he’s trying to steal YOUR slice.”
(via lord-kitschener)
I feel I’m too young to feel this way but it’s really really hard, when involved in politics, not to feel that this song is just perfect.
I do love this song though.
Because I’m young enough to be all pissed off,
But I’m old enough to be jaded.
I’m at the age where I want things to change,
But with age my hopes have faded.
I’m young and bored of being young and bored;
If I was old I could say I’ve seen it all before,
In short; I’m tired of giving a shit
I am so angry right now. For those that aren’t familiar with the history of LGBTQ rights in the UK, Section 28 was a law passed over here during Thatcher’s premiership which banned any mentioning of homosexuality in British schools between 1988 and, wait for it, 2003. I can remember this law being in place when I was at school and I was 12 when it was repealed. How fucked up is that?
So yeah, the UK’s education secretary, Michael Gove, is bringing in new regulations for schools and one of the clauses states that children must be ‘protected from inappropriate teaching materials and learn the nature of marriage and its importance for family life and for bringing up children’. It’s 2011, almost 2012 in fact, and this is genuinely what he’s said. Okay, firstly, the numbering of the clause is horrifically and thoughtlessly inappropriate. Gove is not an idiot and he and the rest of his damn party knows the significance. I mean the vast majority of them voted the original Section 28 in and/or voted against its repeal. This was monumentally stupid even for the Conservatives.
Let’s move on to the content of the new guidelines, shall we? The current ones state that ‘children should learn the nature and importance of marriage and of stable relationships for family life and bringing up children’. Which is… problematic but vaguely acceptable. At least it acknowledges that you don’t have to be married to bring up children. What about the amendment?
The reference to “stable relationships”, which alludes to couples living together outside marriage and homosexual partners, has not been included in the model funding agreement documents.
So not only are the Conservative party attempting to brainwash British children into thinking that marriages are inherently more stable than other type of relationships and that any child brought up outside of the ‘one husband, one wife’ model will invariably be screwed up, they’re also enforcing the belief that same-sex parents are damaging to the child.
Okay, this has to be said: stability is a pretty important priority when bringing up a child but it’s a myth that marriage is this magic state of being where you never argue, you never split up and there is never domestic abuse or neglect. A single parent household or two parents who aren’t married/are in a civil partnership are not inherently unstable. The stability of a home for a child entirely depends on the people involved so it’s impossible to make sweeping judgements. What’s more, stability is great but you know what’s just as important? Love. I don’t think it’s anyone’s right to judge how someone else’s kid is brought up as long as that child is loved and well-cared for. If you actually give a fuck about the wellbeing of children then why not make sure that the social services are better funded? Why not take back the cuts to child benefits, EMA, the NHS and higher education? Why not make religious adoption services to let same-sex couple adopt children? Single parents are not awful people - a hell of a lot of them aren’t single parents by choice - and they don’t deserve to be demonised. Same goes for same-sex parents. Why do people feel the need to prevent them from having children? By stopping same-sex couples adopting then you’re not only treating them like second class citizens, you’re also hurting the children you’re claiming to protect. You’re denying them a chance at happiness just because it goes against your personal religious beliefs. Think about that.
Marriages, if you want them, are your right which I will fight for if needs be and I hope you and your partner will be very happy together. But if you don’t want to get married to the person you love, or you decide to bring up a child on your own then I think that’s your right also and I wish you good luck. We shouldn’t be telling our kids in the 21st century that they have to live their lives according to tradition, whether they like it or not. We should be telling our kids that you can do whatever the fuck you want to do (y’know, within reason) and no-one has the right to judge you for it.
