Scribbles in the Dark

It's exhausting trying to keep up with the craziness coming out of the White House right now.

Tariffs are go- oh wait, just kidding- gotcha, they're happening for real! I'm sure my 401k has tanked, but the cheeto who shall not be named told all his cronies to buy cheap stocks right before he cancelled the tariffs and they increased their wealth by billions in a day... I brought it up at work and my (conservative) coworkers were all, 'oh it's a good time to buy, we have time, we aren't retiring for decades, this will be good for us in the long term'. Well what about all the people on the cusp of retirement who just lost all their savings?

And I'm partially thinking that this just goes to show why we should be doing pensions and not betting our retirement livelihood on the damn stock market.... but it's not like I have a choice, do I?

And meanwhile the SAVE Act is once again on the table, which its supporters say will stop voter fraud by making everyone provide extra documentation for proof of citizenship before registering to vote. But voter fraud has been consistently proven to be nearly non-existent - certainly in too small of an amount to sway the outcome of any vote - and the only impact of the SAVE Act would be a chilling effect on voter registration, making it harder for large swathes of people (myself included!) to be registered.

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/13/g-s1-59684/save-act-married-women-vote-rights-explained

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-passes-bill-require-proof-citizenship-register-vote/story?id=120691270

Thankfully it hasn't passed the Senate - yet - but it's taking up a lot of space in my brain.

And that's really what I wanted to write about at the moment - how much of this noise is bouncing around in front of me, grabbing for my attention, and how exhausting it is to be constantly pulled to the next thing, the next outrage, the next human rights violation, the next power grab from the cheeto who must not be named. I feel like I'm drowning under wave after wave of malicious political action that I'm powerless to do anything about.

It's terrifying how much of this rhymes with the Diary of Anne Frank. If we're making history, I'd rather rhyme with the French Revolution and break out the guillotines.

Rep. Straus,

As you prepare for the upcoming special session, I just want to thank you for your decisions earlier in the year on the proposed "bathroom bill", and I hope you will continue in the same manner in the future. I hope the legislature can reach a compromise that is not damaging to the well-being of transgender students. Even more so, I hope the legislature will focus on the much more important school funding situation that desperately needs to be resolved. I'm so grateful for all you have done already on these issues, and I want to encourage you to keep at it! It's nice to see that Texas has at least one Representative who is doing the right thing. Thank you so much for your hard work!

Very Sincerely,
[redacted]

~

https://www.texastribune.org/2017/05/26/texas-house-declines-negotiate-senate-its-proposed-bathroom-compromise/
https://www.texastribune.org/2017/06/08/what-greg-abbott-said-special-session-agenda/
https://www.texastribune.org/2017/06/14/straus-special-session/

note to self: learn how nuclear power works, and what kind of waste it produces. meanwhile, this article brings into stark relief the way governments are not thinking sustainably. why resolve today a problem that can be postponed until 70 years from now? ( an article about radioactive waste leaking into soil and groundwater. )

Raise your hand if you've ever played a game (computer game, board game, RPG, whatever) where you get to set the qualities of your character/tool/system on a sliding scale. zB: I think it's the Sims game where, at start-up, you get to pick the look of your character and then you get to pick their personality, by starting with a set number of points and assigning those points to different categories (smart, funny, athletic, etc) until all your points are gone. You only get so many points, so you have to pick how to distribute them and hope that the result works out in game-play the way you want it to.

Wouldn't it be awesome if the national budget worked the same way?

( That's kinda how my budget works. )

I just had a surreal experience.

I was reading a preview of a book called "Always On" by Brian Chen, a reporter for Wired (here's the link on Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Always-iPhone-Unlocked-Anything-Anytime-Anywhere-Future/dp/0306819600/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_2 ). It's about how the iPhone has totally changed not only the world of technology but how we interact with the physical world - how the internet and smartphones and mobile devices have changed every aspect of our lives, from education to business, and how they're affecting economy from multiple directions.

And then I finished that and read an article from Businessweek about the failure of the US Postal Service. (that one's here - http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_23/b4231060885070.htm ) The article explains how, thanks to the internet, the USPS ships more junk mail ("job security") than regular mail, how the volume of snail mail is falling like a rock, how the USPS is belly-up to its unions and not allowed to lay off employees or close branches that are taking a loss. In fact, the entire postal system is taking a loss. They've been borrowing money from the government to stay afloat, but the prediction is that the USPS will be totally defunct by this time next year, unless they adapt as postal systems in Europe have already done.

The overlap was a bit surprising. Cool stuff, y'all.

POLITICOWS!!!

my high school gov't professor had this poster in her classroom, and i just remembered it.

( political definitions via cows. )

so... i don't think i'll be able to vote this year. like, at all.

i clearly remember registering to vote in williamson county in austin during high school, but... according to the search engine on the website of the texas secretary of state, i'm not registered. anywhere. this sucks so hard.

the postmark deadline for voter registration is oct6- three days ago. i feel like such a retard- i wasn't even worried about it because i remember registering. i just don't know what happened. but i was trying to get an application for absentee voting this morning, and.... i apparently never registered. wtf?!

so i can't vote for the next president. crap.


...i think i'll register online anyway, and see if it somehow goes through in time for me to vote. miracles happen, right?

i fail at life. *headdesk*