#104 dollars...

[sdvshanewife]

sobbing because i'll probably never have the shane plush. if anyone's looking to sell it IM HERE i'll pay triple the price for him

[viscericorde]

AUGH someone bought the 80s prom dress i had my eye on this is so sad

[dootchick]

professors who use free textbooks I love you so much <3

[spookyfoxdreamer]

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau put forward a new regulation to limit bank overdraft fees. The CFPB pointed out that the average overdraft fee is $35 even though majority of overdrafts are under $26 and paid back with-in 3 days. The new regulation will push overdraft fees down to as little as $3 and not more than $14, saving the American public collectively 3.5 billion dollars a year.

The Environmental Protection Agency put forward a regulation to fine oil and gas companies for emitting methane. Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas, after CO2 and is responsible for 30% of the rise of global temperatures. This represents the first time the federal government has taxed a greenhouse gas. The EPA believes this rule will help reduce methane emissions by 80%

The Energy Department has awarded $104 million in grants to support clean energy projects at federal buildings, including solar panels at the Pentagon. The federal government is the biggest consumer of energy in the nation. The project is part Biden's goal of reducing the federal government's greenhouse gas emissions by 65% by 2030. The Energy Department estimates it'll save taxpayers $29 million in the first year alone and will have the same impact on emissions as taking over 23,000 gas powered cars off the road.

The Education Department has cancelled 5 billion more dollars of student loan debt. This will effect 74,000 more borrowers, this brings the total number of people who've had their student loan debt forgiven under Biden through different programs to 3.7 Million

U.S. Agency for International Development has launched a program to combat lead exposure in developing countries like South Africa and India. Lead kills 1.6 million people every year, more than malaria and AIDS put together.

Congressional Democrats have reached a deal with their Republican counter parts to revive the expanded the Child Tax Credit. The bill will benefit 16 million children in its first year and is expected to lift 400,000 children out of poverty in its first year. The proposed deal also has a housing provision that could see 200,000 new affordable rental units

[freshluxbreeze]

tekken 8 looks so good and super fun but there is no way i'm buying the game at 93$ CAD ON RELEASE. ON STANDARD VERSION MIND YOU!

[tired-momfriend]

Fuck the healthcare industry

Fuck insurance companies

And, last but not least,

ACAB

[frigidwife]

palestinian survivors in urgent need of support!

compiling these from my inbox and messages - please please share and donate if you can

alaa mahmoud @alaa-gaza / vetted through association / GFM 5072 / 7000 USD this is such an achievable goal!!! alaa's husband died before her daughter, fatoum, was even born. right now the two of them are living in a tent

doaa jad al-haq @dodoomar12345/ vetted by @/90-ghost / GFM 192,342 / 300,000 SEK [104 SEK = 10 USD] doaa and her 5yo son, omar, managed to escape to egypt. omar is nonverbal and has been severely traumatized by the war. doaa's husband, parents, and siblings are all trapped in gaza. she still needs help to evacuate her husband and support omar in egypt and her family in gaza

falestine jad al-haq @falestine-yousef / vetted campaign #246 / GFM 20,435 / 40,000 USD doaa's sister, falestine, and her husband were displaced by israeli bulldozers and are currently living in a tent in dangerous and unsanitary with their three-month-old son yousef. falestine is struggling to provide essentials like milk, diapers, and medicine

mohammed al-deeb @mohammedaldeeb / vetted camapign #212 / GFM 40,397 / 55,000 euros dr. al-deeb is an ER physician at al-shifa hospital. he and his family were displace and were able to make it to egypt!! however, they still need help covering living expenses in egypt after leaving everything behind

amany ubeid @amnyaburas / unvetted / GFM 1,180 / 68000 CAD amany and her family, including her three children, have been displaced from their home in the north to rafah. her son has an eye injury that could lead to permanent disability if untreated. they have lost everything and need to escape to egypt

lina @lina-gaza / vetted / GFM 39,824 / 45,000 euros lina is seeking to evacuate her family to egypt. she has two young children, saif who is 2, and sidra who is only 2 months. they are approaching their goal!!!

osama al-anqar @osama-family / unvetted / GFM 2,741 / 50,000 pounds omar is seeking to support his wife, their young daughter, his martyred brother's family, and his brother who has lost a leg

mounes al-kafarna @mones1998gaza / unvetted / GFM 623 / 20,000 USD two children in need of food and medical care, living a tent currently

anas al-sharfa @anasalshrofa / vetted #913 butterfly project / GFM 1,627 / 50,000 euros anas's tiktok. anas is trying to evacuate his family. they have been displaced multiple times and struggle to get essentials like water or cooking oil

sohad @kareem-family2 / vetted by @/90-ghost / GFM + paypal 9,626 / 20,000 euros on GFM; 5,783 / 15,000 on paypal very big family that urgently needs to evacuate - sohad's nephew kareem has cerebral palsy and is starving to death

hussein shamiya @husseinshamia / reblogged by @/bilal-salah0 / GFM 35,377 / 40,000 USD hussein has a 4 year old son and his wife, rehab, is pregnant. they are living in a tent with no water or electricity and need to evacuate ASAP

all of these situations are horrific beyond belief. these people are living every day under constant threat of bombing, starvation, lack of shelter, and rapidly spreading disease. the fabric of their daily lives has been completely destroyed. they have lost their homes, seen their loved ones and neighbors slaughtered, had their studies and careers indefinitely suspended. the courage to reach out to absolute strangers for help, in the face of such immense uncertainty, is incredible. in the west we should feel the disproportionate weight of our currency and our attention which has been purchased in blood, and we need to make use of both as best we can. please take a moment and give even 5 dollars or euros to one of these campaigns.

[zvaigzdelasas]

[BBC is UK State Media]

Truong My Lan is charged with taking out $44bn (£35bn) in loans from the Saigon Commercial Bank. Prosecutors say $27bn may never be recovered.[...]

The evidence is in 104 boxes weighing a total of six tonnes [!!!]. Eighty-five defendants are on trial with Truong My Lan, who denies the charges. She and 13 others face a possible death sentence.

"There has never been a show trial [sic] like this, I think, in the communist era," says David Brown, a retired US state department official with long experience in Vietnam. "There has certainly been nothing on this scale."

The trial is the most dramatic chapter so far in the "Blazing Furnaces" anti-corruption campaign led by the Communist Party Secretary-General, Nguyen Phu Trong.

A conservative [sic] ideologue [sic] steeped in Marxist theory, Nguyen Phu Trong believes that popular anger over untamed corruption poses an existential threat to the Communist Party's monopoly on power. He began the campaign in earnest in 2016 after out-manoeuvring the then pro-business prime minister to retain the top job in the party.

The campaign has seen two presidents and two deputy prime ministers forced to resign, and hundreds of officials disciplined or jailed. Now one of the country's richest women could join their ranks.[...]

Although Vietnam is best known outside the country for its fast-growing manufacturing sector, as an alternative supply chain to China, most wealthy Vietnamese made their money developing and speculating in property.

All land is officially state-owned. Getting access to it often relies on personal relationships with state officials. Corruption escalated as the economy grew, and became endemic.

By 2011, Truong My Lan was a well-known business figure in Ho Chi Minh City, and she was allowed to arrange the merger of three smaller, cash-strapped banks into a larger entity: Saigon Commercial Bank.

Vietnamese law prohibits any individual from holding more than 5% of the shares in any bank. But prosecutors say that through hundreds of shell companies and people acting as her proxies, Truong My Lan actually owned more than 90% [!!!] of Saigon Commercial.

They accuse her of using that power to appoint her own people as managers, and then ordering them to approve hundreds of loans to the network of shell companies she controlled.

The amounts taken out are staggering. Her loans made up 93% [!!!] of all the bank's lending.

According to prosecutors, over a period of three years from February 2019, she ordered her driver to withdraw 108 trillion Vietnamese dong, more than $4bn (£2.3bn) in cash from the bank, and store it in her basement.

That much cash, even if all of it was in Vietnam's largest denomination banknotes, would weigh two tonnes.[!!!!!][...]

David Brown believes she was protected by powerful figures who have dominated business and politics in Ho Chi Minh City for decades. And he sees a bigger factor in play in the way this trial is being run: a bid to reassert the authority of the Communist Party over the free-wheeling business culture of the south.

"What Nguyen Phu Trong and his allies in the party are trying to do is to regain control of Saigon, or at least stop it from slipping away.[...]

faster growth in Vietnam almost inevitably means more corruption [sic]. Fight corruption too much [sic], and you risk extinguishing a lot of economic activity.

10 Apr 24

[cheesycatz]

The Making of: Life-Size Malworm Plush

(Wormton AU)

STATS

16 ft 3 in (495 cm) long

Total time: 150 hours

Material Cost: $124

Theoretical minimum cost (based on seamstress wage): $2,524

(Progress photos and commentary below)

I'll be referring to my life-size wormton plush as "malworm" for convenience sake.

Unlike my Spamton NEO, Caine, and Fake Peppino plushies, I didn't spend a lot of time on concept art. Since I planned to make the malworm plush as close as possible to its 2D design, I didn't have to add much stylization, other than simplifying some details (no way in hell was I going to make 104 separate embroidered stitches for the segments of his toes, sorry). I mainly used the planning stage to calculate how wide the body pieces needed to be, plotting it out in 1/4 in : 3 in scale and using circumference formula to find the values I needed. I planned to make it around 10 feet long, the length of a young adult malworm. A lot of this project was improv, but, I mean, it wasn't my first or second or third time making a spamton centipede.

The head was quite a complicated shape, so I carved a tiny model out of craft foam, covered one half of it in masking tape, then cut the masking tape mask (hah) into flat pieces. I then traced the pieces onto graph paper and manually scaled them up by using the fact that I wanted the nose to be 1 ft long as reference. The rest of the pattern pieces were very simple, as wormton's teeth, body, legs, etc were very easy to translate into 2D shapes. I used old school notes as paper for the body, as I needed a lot of it. It was entertaining cutting exerpts of Moby Dick and English Renaissance biographies into body parts. I ended up making the body significantly longer; I had to spend $100 dollars on fur anyways, so why not make a maximum size one?

Making the pattern pieces took around 8 hours. While waiting for the fur to ship, I started cutting out the teeth, legs, and eyes. By the time the fur arrived, I had already sewn 36 worm teeth. I did an 11hr all-nighter to cut all the fur in one sitting the day it arrived. After a long vacuuming session and an uptake in the amount of polyester fiber in my lungs, I finished cutting the pieces, taking about 18 hours and 40 minutes.

As usual, the head was the first thing I worked on. It was...kind of wonky once I flipped it inside out. I trimmed some of the fur so that I could actually see what was happening. The main issues were the lack of any forehead, the nose being way too wide, and the cheeks being too flat. I did some ladder stitching as well as modifying the thing from the inside, and eventually made the head look much better. The cheeks still don't stick out that much still, but I'm happy with how the head looks now. I think it conquered the sopping wet owl resemblance. I inserted wire into the nose and jaws to help them keep their shape.

When I started this project, I wasn't sure whether to make it based off of Wormton or just a copyright-free malworm; I decided to do both. I went with red for the non-Spamton version, as I think it really fits the cartoony fly/mothman-style cryptid look malworms are supposed to have.

I sewed a square pouch into the throat and put in all those teeth. I used hot glue to wrap blue squares around a wire for the proboscis, because I think I would've gone bonkers cuckoo bananas if I had to hand sew that entire thing. The throat pouch holds the proboscis when it's not extended, as well as anything else I wanted to shove in there. I never measured it, but it's around 4-5 ft long. I finally made the Spamton... eye patches(?) and a pair of eyelids, though I didn't end up using them in the photo shoot. I also made a new pair of nostrils, as the old ones kind of got swallowed up from all the plastic surgery I was giving him

Now that the head was finished, I got to work on the body. I sewed the white belly and segments of the body together. I left most of the tail open, as the fur was too thick for me to flip it out at a certain point. I worked on the legs, next. After living out my cosplay dreams by putting the claws on my fingers like bugles chips, I grouped the claws together and sewed most of each leg and foot together, leaving me with many pairs of charred drumsticks (did not taste good)

I attached an extra long wire structure into each set of claws, then threaded the wire through each respective leg and stuffed them. I ladder stitched the claws to each foot, then stuffed each with some plastic beans in order to give the feet weight. I then finished sewing each foot shut. I now had a pile of disembodied limbs and one very long scarf.

I wound many long pieces of wire together to create an armature for the body. While the plush's body is way too heavy to be properly posable, the wire does still give some structure. I wrapped the extra long ends of the legs' wires to the metal spine, using the body's leg holes for reference. I then pulled the body up the metal armature like a sock.

I pulled the legs through their respective holes and stuffed the body. It was the first time the malworm was huggable! It's sort of like an oversized body pillow, in a way. I had to ladder-stich all the limbs, the head, and the rest of the tail, as it would've been completely impossible to flip inside out. It was quite difficult to do on furry fabric, and my thread frequently broke from the force I had to pull with to keep the stitches tight. Eventually, I got everything attached to some degree.

The last details I worked on were the mane, tail tufts, and scopula pads. The mane and tail tufts were ladder stitched onto the body, but I decided to use glue to attach the pads to the feet. I think the extra blue details make his proboscis fit much better, and who doesn't love spider paw pads? I also glued some velcro to the eye patches so that they stay attached better. They slide under the black eye rings.

My malworm was finally finished! I tried to put a lot of effort into the photo shoot so that people who don't know about the AU can enjoy it. I wanted to make it seem like some weird entity whose only goal is obtaining more Spamton brainrot. Hence it making Spamton on Mario Kart DS under the bed, obsessing over the Spamton Plush, inspecting the Spamton Shrine, and just generally harassing the photographer (me, I guess?). I wanted to capture the silliness, creepiness, and lack of respect for personal space that Spamton is known for. I thought about giving him a bag of doritos under the bed like that one image of the isopods eating them, but went with the DS instead. I thought it would be funny to see this thing playing Super Mario 64 DS (or Super Spamton 64) and here the "buh bye!" sound effect when it closes the DSi XL.

That's all from me, for now. I have other Wormton related matter to attend to.

Don't let the parasitic Spamton larvae bite

[lowkeyrobin]

Mid90s gang reacting to reader writing a book about them and their friendship and reader wins a writing contest!!

- ♣️ (I'm giving you fluff okay I've decided I've tortured you enough with angst 🙄)

LMFAO YES YOU HAVE and I've been procrastinating those oneshots you sent me 💀💀

MID90S ; writer

includes ; fuckshit, ray, fourthgrade, ruben (platonic), & stevie (platonic)

warnings ; language, mentions of alcohol and drugs

masterlist

FUCKSHIT

you were no writer what-so-fucking-ever

while high, he dared you to enter some writing contest for school

"how funny would it be if some random junior won?"

honestly it would be funny, considering you're not a writer, you're a skater

you entered just for the fun of it, plus you had a great chance at beating some of the other contestants because you knew their writing was shit

you didn't even know what to write for the first two weeks

then it popped up in your head, like holy shit it was so obvious

you decided to write about yours and fuckshits long friendship history

from how you met, to your nicknames and to your other friends

let's just say, other than the profanity, the judges/senior english teachers loved it

you wrote like a whole motherfucking novel too

you got second place, considering they'd be in trouble for awarding a book with so much inappropriate content with first

plus the person who won first definitely deserved it

teachers were literally suggesting you publish the fuckin thing too like calm down ⁉️⁉️

fuckshit was too lazy to read it at first, but once you told him it was about you two and that you won second place? nah reading that was all he did

I honestly hc that he's a little dyslexic so he was struggling a little bit

but he loved it, it was genuinely moving to him and its literally about him

brought him to tears that he tried to hide

which he did to help his fragile ego by hugging you and hiding his face in your shoulder

genuinley so grateful for you

RAY

you were kinda iffy with writing

but once you saw the amount of money you could get from winning...?

shit sign me up

a thousand dollars to win first off of something you wrote? okay let's go LMAO

you didn't know what to write about because it's not like there was a given prompt so you just kinda spilled out stories and shit about you and ray

you made sure to leave out all the drugs and shit because you weren't gonna try and get in trouble LMAO honestly real

the judges loved it though

it was about 104 pages, so you made the actual like minimum, which was 80 pages

but thankfully for you, quantity doesn't equal quality

you actually got third surprisingly

that's still 400 dollars though

you didn't actually tell Ray or the others about you joining that contest so when you walked in with 400 dollars, a smile on your face and your skateboard and 52 sheets of notebook paper connected by a keyring under your arm, damn

you quickly explained and set your stuff down and Ray just scooped you up and spun you around while he hugged you

he's a simpleton but you got him giggling and shit okay??

genuinley so flustered that you wrote about you and him of all people like huh

he reads it front to back at least 3 times

FOURTHGRADE

you were pretty passionate about writing

so when your school was promoting a novel contest you knew you had to join

a thousand dollars would've done you a lot

you spent the next six months writing about you and fourthgrade, stories, how you met, favorite memories, random blurbs, etcetera

you told him about it but never that you were writing about him

you wanted it to be a surprise lmao

i also hc that he's a little dyslexic so 💀

you actually won too

apparently it was so "inspiring and moving amongst the youths" that you won ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS for it, IN CASH

you sprinted over to Motorz and immediately wrapped fourthgrade in a hug

"thanks for being such great inspiration"

"huh?"

you genuinley just retold some of his camcorder tapes for a bit of the book too so you had to give him some credit

you gave him 200 dollars because he refused to take any more

the duo

RUBEN

bro couldn't care less that you joined a writing competition

"whatever you want"

you have the annoying sibling dynamic what can I say

"dude I'll give you 100 bucks if you just be supportive"

"fine"

you wrote about him and your awesome sibling relationship

you made sure to cut out all the abuse and just say "growing up in a rough household" and "growing up not as privileged as everyone else" and shit bc you weren't getting cps called on anyone

you wrote like 70 pages

you got third

but you got 200 dollars so you basically split it with him

he ended up reading it because he was bored at motorz one night and you left it laying around

he's never smiled while crying before

you come in the next morning and he just silently hugs you

you see the book thing on the couch where he slept and you just kinda knew

"why are you crying?"

"i'm not!"

STEVIE

you also have a very sibling like dynamic

although instead of annoying each other you're kind of the comfort siblings you've both never had

so when you brought up the fact you joined a writing competition because you had a good chance at winning, he was like "oh cool"

"i'm writing about you"

"what the fuck why?"

he's supportive tho

he'll ask how it's going and stuff and you'll just give a vague answer

by the time they're due and judged, he asks what you placed

you shrug and pull out a thousand dollars cash from your backpack with a smile

"holy shit!"

you smile and hand him half of it

he's confused as to why but accepts it graciously

I mean half of its about him so he deserves some credit

gives you a little hug and shit

[silly-shark-surfer]

The whole Oceangate submarine situation just makes me think about how invincible billionaires believe they are. How strongly they think their wealth and power shields them. And on land, generally, it does.

But they left land.

In an experimental contraption that was not approved by any safety or regulatory measures, made from poorly constructed parts, controlled by a literal gaming console and sealed from the outside. You need to have a special type of self confidence in your own personal value to not only willingly take that risk, but to pay a quarter of a million dollars for it.

And so they left. But the ocean is not the land. It does not care for your riches, or your power within society. It simply takes what has been given to it.

Obviously, there are people who are dead/dying in this whole situation. Families and loved ones will mourn. And that is a tragedy.

But the fact remains that it was an extremely avoidable one.

The fact that this whole thing is getting more coverage than the hundreds of refugees who died/are presumed dead after a mass drowning just further demonstrates the power those in that submarine have.

More information for the refugee story:

[jeffhirsch]

New 2025 Almanac Is Here! Founder’s 101st!

We lost Yale Hirsch three years ago at 98, but his legacy lives on. Santa Claus Rally, January Barometer, Best Six Months Strategy: all invented by Yale! It is fitting that the 58th Annual Edition of the Stock Trader’s Almanac, is released today, one day before what would be his 101st Birthday.

This year’s edition highlights how, “Post-election years have improved since WWII and since 1985 DJIA averages a gain of 17.2% with eight up years and two down. This is the best average gain of the four-year cycle over this period.” My outlook for 2025 expects, “the market to be up 8-12% for the year with pullbacks in Q1 and Q3.”

Past four years forecasts have been on point: “unabashedly bullish for 2021, anticipated the 2022 midterm year bear market and called the textbook October 2022 midterm bottom, expected a new bull market to emerge in 2023 with above average pre-election year gains and 2024’s bullish outlook is right on track.”

This 2025 Almanac is a testament to the original iconic work founder Yale Hirsch created in the first 1968 edition and the over five decades of behavioral finance thought leadership it has provided since. The Almanac remains the most valuable trader’s desk reference on Wall Street and this year’s Almanac is packed with seasonal and historic investing insights for the year ahead including:

My 2025 Outlook – page 10

Bulls Win When Market Hits The January Trifecta – page 20

Market Charts of Post-Presidential Election Years – page 26

Post-Election Year Performance by Party – page 28

Post-Election Years: Paying the Piper – page 32

Market Fares Better Under Democrats; Dollar Holds Up Better Under Republicans – page 34

Republican Congress & Democratic President Is Best for the Market – page 80

Traders Feast on Small Stocks Thanksgiving Through Santa Claus Rally – page 104

The Incredible January Barometer: Only 12 Significant Errors in 74 Years – page 18

“Best Six Months”: Still An Eye-Popping Strategy – page 54

MACD-Timing Triples “Best Six Months” Results – page 56

[spookyfoxdreamer]

[againstme]

hi y’all, i have a medical scan on thursday that isn’t covered by my insurance but is necessary, it’s 104 dollars.

we’re trying to assess the damage from my tumor and being on prednisone because my pain has been horrible lately.

paypal.me/chxseallen

venmo is chaseallxn

[sleepixgstars]

COMMISSIONS OPEN!!

hi I'm bunny, I'm a queer trans artist from the south of the US and I'm really struggling financially right now. I'm trying to escape my extremely homophobic family but I'm not even close to my goal.

Reblogs are super appricated!! even if you can't or don't want to commission anything, reblogs are so helpful. please help me reach a wider audience!!

here are some of my favorite recent pieces!!

I take regular, digital art commissions as well as

fanart commissions

tattoo design commissions

logo commissions

profile picture/banner design commissions

OC commissions

and most anything else you can think of!

DM me if you're interested!

more info beneath the cut!

I do single and paired characters at a base rate, as well as multi-character pieces, with a $4 upcharge per extra character.

my rates are very flexible, but the going rate is $8 an hour *or* a set price of $40 per piece (for a fully colored, shaded, rendered piece), depending on your preference. if you just want a sketch or uncovered lineart, it's $5/$6 dollars an hour, depending on what you ask for.

I'm willing to work around your budget!

most of my pieces take 1-5 hours ($8 x 5hs = $40 to finish but can take longer. my current longest piece was around 13 hours ($8 x 13hrs = $104) but it really depends on the size/complexity of the piece.

the timeline for the finished piece could be anywhere from one day to a month (depending on the size/complexity of the design and my availability).

if it takes longer than a month, you get a discount.

if you have a deadline for the art, let me know ahead of time.

I like having a reference image so i can make sure I'm making exactly what you want, but if you don't have one, that's ok! a detailed description or general idea also work.

I reserve the right to refuse any commission (provided that payment has not been received or that the payment has been refunded) for any reason and I reserve the right to not inform you of the factors for which I refused your commission.