#Good day not to be American

[colorfulandblack]

Seems like the horse is back in hospital

[olenoidedserratuspilled]

Cranky 'cause you're reaping what you sowed, eh gringo?

One of the things that's weird about being a white guy in the US right now is that expressions of disgust about you are common and said directly to your face.

I've had coworkers say, "Ugh, white men are disgusting" while I was within earshot. Coworkers who are married to white men!

You're supposed to have a very strange double consciousness about this stuff, as best I can tell; all that stuff about white men doesn't mean any man who is white, it means *white men* which is a totally different thing, but watch out, only a man who is white can become a *white man*, but obviously not you, except you might, but don't worry about it, but also do.

You really are culturally expected to accept that people will talk about how disgusting your physical traits are right to your face, and that this is tolerable because you obviously have money and power, and also you know that you aren't actually that thing, except when you are.

I suspect that this kind of thing will drive you slightly insane even when you do have money and power.

[scramratz]

I'm gonna be so racist towards robots in the future

[parlapina]

I love middle age gays

[egophiliac]

ENG PLAYERS I BESEECH YOU

I have been informed that you guys are getting part 4 of episode 7 tomorrow, which means we are FINALLY going to get the official romanization of Revaan's name, somebody please tell me because I need to know what it is.

like, yes, it's probably just Revan/Levan, but look, I'm sitting here with my finger over the button of all these Laverne and Shirley jokes and just waiting for the opportunity to deploy them --

[livfordoodles]

Stay strong ♥️

[grimae]

Books are now available in my store. Thank you all so much for the support, this was probably the biggest thing I've done in my life so far. It's 535 books of which half were already sold via crowdfunding. Each comes signed and numbered. I also have a few leftover prints from crowdfunding, as I ordered more for safety's sake. Those are also available as bundle, for a very small quantity.

[frumpkingoesfurrst]

[skyenish]

CW: Blood, Knife | For Halloween this year, my Yuu decided to go as American McGee’s Alice! | Twisted Wonderland OC art ✏️ |

———

[14dayswithyou]

Is rens favorite number 18? (I don't think I did this right, I sorry ╥﹏╥)

Does Ren have any thanksgiving traditions if he even celebrates it?? Like is he a Macy day parade type of guy or a turkey trot?

If you don't feel comfortable answering I understand! Thank you so much for creating this game, it's helped me through a lot =3!!!

⌞♥⌝ The only thing Ren celebrates is Angel's birthday, unfortunately jgsdjgdj ^^;

[breeze-blocks]

[reasonsforhope]

For all the concern in recent years that U.S. democracy is on the brink, in danger or under threat, a report out Tuesday offers a glimmer of good news for American voters worried that casting a ballot will be difficult in 2024.

Put simply, the new data shows that voting in America has gotten easier over the past two decades. More voters have the ability to cast a ballot before Election Day, with the majority of U.S. states now offering some form of early in-person voting and mail voting to all voters.

"Although we often talk in a partisan context about voter fraud and voter suppression and whether voters have access to the ballot, the reality is, over the past 25 years, we've greatly increased the convenience of voting for almost all Americans," said David Becker, the founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR), which authored the new report...

The data shows that, despite real efforts by some Republican-led legislatures to restrict access at the margins, the trend in the U.S. since 2000 has been toward making it easier to vote: Nearly 97% of voting-age American citizens now live in states that offer the option to vote before Election Day.

"The lies about early voting, the lies about voting machines and efforts in some state legislatures to roll back some of the election integrity and convenience measures that have evolved over the last several decades, those efforts almost all failed," Becker said. "In almost every single state, voters can choose to vote when they want to."

Forty-six states and Washington, D.C., offer some form of early in-person voting, the report tallied, and 37 of those jurisdictions also offer mail voting to all voters without requiring an excuse...

In 2000

In 2024

Infographic via NPR. If you go to the article, you can watch an animation of this map that shows voting availability in every election since 2000.

There are some political trends that show up in the data. Of the 14 states that don't offer mail voting to all voters, for instance, 12 have Republican-led legislatures.

-via NPR, March 19, 2024. Article continues below.

But maybe the more striking trends are geographic. Every single state in the western U.S. has offered some form of early and mail voting to all voters since 2004, according to the data. And those states span the political spectrum, from conservative Idaho to liberal California.

"It's really hard to talk about partisanship around this issue because historically there just hasn't been much," Mann said. "We've seen voting by mail and early in-person voting supported by Republican legislatures, Democratic legislatures, Republican governors, Democratic governors. We see voters in both parties use both methods." ...

In 2020, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts all made changes to make voting more easily accessible, which have since partially or fully become permanent. Delaware is currently embroiled in a legal fight over whether it can implement early and mail voting changes this election cycle as well.

The South, with its history of slavery and Jim Crow laws, has long lagged behind when it comes to voting access. The CEIR data shows that, although some states have slowly started expanding options for voters, generally it is still the most difficult region for voters to cast a ballot.

As options nationwide have become more widely available, voters have also responded by taking advantage.

In the 2000 election, 86% of voters voted at a polling place on Election Day, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

In 2020, during the pandemic, that number dropped to less than 31% of voters. It went back up in 2022, to roughly half of the electorate, but was still in line with the two-decade trend toward more ballots being cast early.

...in reality, Becker says, more voting options actually make elections more secure and less susceptible to malicious activity or even human error.

"If there were a problem, if there were a cyber event, if there were a malfunction, if there were bad weather, if there were traffic, if there were was a power outage, you could think of all kinds of circumstances. ... The more you spread voting out over a series of days and over multiple modes, the less likely it's going to impact voters," he said...

-via NPR, March 19, 2024

[ratatatastic]

THE HELSINKI DATE HAS EXPANDED UPON DEAR LORD HAVE MERCY.

[elinordash]

25 November reminder: Neil Gaiman has been accused of sexual assault by 5 different women

[yikes-ajax]

I dont have a clever and witty sarcastic comment tonight, I just think she's cute

[thefellomen]

Al-Haitham || 11/02