#Health Scheme 2018

[mostlysignssomeportents]

SoCal Gas spent millions on astroturf ops to fight climate rules

Today (19 Aug), I'm appearing at the San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books. I'm on a 2:30PM panel called "Return From Retirement," followed by a signing:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/festivalofbooks

It's a breathtaking fraud: SoCal Gas, the largest gas company in America, spent millions secretly paying people to oppose California environmental regulations, then illegally stuck its customers with the bill. We Californians were forced to pay to lobby against our own survival:

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article277266828.html

The criminal scheme is spelled out in eye-watering detail in a superb investigative report by Joe Rubin and Ari Plachta for the Sacramento Bee, which names the law firms and individual lawyers involved in the scam.

Here's the situation: SoCal Gas is California's private, regulated gas monopoly. They are allowed to lobby, but are legally required to charge their lobbying activities to their shareholders, and are prohibited from raising customer rates to pay for lobbying.

The company spent years secretly violating this rule, in the sleaziest way possible: working with corporate cartels like the California Restaurant Association and BizFed, the monopoly paid BigLaw white-shoe firms to procure people who posed as concerned citizens in order to oppose climate regulations that are essential to the state's very survival.

The bill topped $36 million – and it was illegally charged to its customers, the Californians whose immediate health and long-term survival these efforts opposed. SoCal Gas refuses to disclose the full extent of the spending, as do its lawyer-procurers, who cite legal confidentiality and a First Amendment right to secretly seek to influence policy in their refusal to disclose their profits from this illegal conduct.

The law firms involved are a who's-who of California's most prominent corporate fixers, including Reichman Jorgensen and Holland & Knight. The partners involved have a long rap sheet for anti-climate dirty tricking, most notably Jennifer Hernandez, notorious in climate justice history for an incident where activists claim she posed as one of them, infiltrating a campaign to force corporate despoilers to clean up their pollution in order to sabotage it, while secretly on a wealthy, prominent landowner's payroll.

Hernandez claims to care about the environment and says that her longstanding, corporate-funded, extensive campaigns and lawsuits against state environmental regulations are motivated by concern over their impact on working people. Her firm, Holland & Knight, denies serving SoCal Gas in opposing gas regulations, but it received $594k in ratepayer dollars, and submitted comments opposing the rules on its own behalf. Those comments were nearly identical to the comments submitted by SoCal Gas.

Hernandez also represents an obscure organization called The Two Hundred for Home Ownership in "a flurry of lawsuits" over California Air Resources Board rules on pollution, seeking to overturn the state's landmark climate change regulations.

Two Hundred for Home Ownership was founded by Robert Apodaca, who told the Bee that Hernandez's work for him is pro bono and not funded by SoCal Gas, but his entry into the fray occurred just as SoCalGas was founding an astroturf group called Californians for Fair and Balanced Energy (C4BES), which pretended to be an independent organization, disguising its relationship with SoCal Gas.

Apodaca is also founder of United Latinos Vote, an organization that had been largely dormant for seven years, not receiving any donations, until 2018, when the California Building Industry Association gave it $99k. The CBIA is a large-dollar recipient of donations from SoCal Gas, and its CEO insists that it was not acting on SoCal Gas's behalf when it made its unpredented donation to Apodaca.

The CBIA donation to United Latinos Vote was forerunner to a flood of corporate donations from the likes of Chevron, Marathon and Phillips 66. Shortly after receiving this cash, United Latinos Vote ran a full page ad in the LA Times, accusing the Sierra Club of pushing for anti-gas appliance rules that would harm working class Latino families.

This ad, in turn, featured prominently in advocacy by the SoCal Gas front group C4BES, funded with $29.1m in ratepayer money, which it then spent seeking to link clean appliance rules with anti-Latino racism. A quarter of California's carbon emissions come from home gas use.

SoCal Gas is regulated by the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC), which tolerated this mounting illegal conduct for many years, even as the company circulated internal memos as early as 2015 discussing its plans to oppose electrification in the state on the basis that it constituted "a significant risk to our business."

But last year, CPUC fined SoCal Gas $10m. Now, CPUC's Public Advocate office has filed a damning, extensive report on SoCal Gas's unlawful conduct, seeking $80m in rate cuts to compensate Californians for the funds misappropriated to protect the company's shareholder interests:

https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M517/K407/517407314.PDF

Additionally, the Public Advocate is demanding $233m in fines for the company's refusal to allow investigators to audit its books and discover the full extent of the fraud.

SoCal Gas is the nation's largest utility, but (incredibly), it's not the dirtiest. That prize goes to Ohio's FirstEnergy, which handed $60m in ratepayer dollars to state politicians in illegal bribes in exchange for coal and nuclear subsidies and cancellation of state climate rules. That scandal led to GOP speaker of the Ohio House Larry Householder being sentenced to 20 years in prison:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_nuclear_bribery_scandal

There is something extraordinarily sleazy about using ratepayers' own money to lobby against their interests. SoCal Gas and its Big Law enablers have funneled millions in Californian's money into campaigns to poison us and boil us alive, and they did it while using workers and racialized people as human shields.

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and make a new, good internet to succeed the old, good internet. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/19/cooking-the-books-with-gas/#reichman-jorgensen

Image: Maryland GovPics (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/mdgovpics/6635539089/

Jackie (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/79874304@N00/197532792

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[kylesplayhouse]

So since my South Park fixation is back in full swing, I figured it was time to properly introduce my New Kid oc, Flava!

This little guy means everything to me, I know that sounds really cheesy to say, but this goofball has genuinely changed my life for the better.

Unfortunately I had never really delved into what all my OC is about until now, so strap in y’all because I have a LOT so say & share about this guy!

Preamble

Flava was created waaaay back in 2018 by my old friend @shin-holly after they whipped up a design in TFBW’s character creation, he looked MUCH different than he does now, as was his lore (which is a whole different thing entirely)

Throughout the years Flava underwent many different design changes as I got better with my art when I transitioned to using MediBang Paint around late 2020. His main idea however stayed relatively the same; A kid who had an interest for Outer Space and the unknown.

Since then i’ve been workshopping what his relationships are with the canon cast as well as his personality, which to be honest I hadn’t even BEGUN to think about thoroughly until 2022.

I’m happy to announce that now, I am fully confident in what this guy’s character is like and what kind of friendships he has with everybody!

Some Info about The Boy™️

10-11 years old

He’s transgender, primarily using He/Him (he also uses they/them occasionally). As a younger kid Flava had always known he was a bit…different from the other kids, and strangely felt unhappy about himself for reasons he couldn’t figure out. Then one day, during a library trip, Flava stumbled into the health section and discovered a book about Transgender youth, then everything made sense to him. Flava wouldn’t tell his mom about how he felt until he had just turned 10 years old

Has an older brother named Niiko. He’s 18 and still in his sophomore year of high school, having been held back due to doing really stupid shit, he loves Flava to death & tries to get him involved in his schemes. He loves grunge culture and frequently binges nu-metal and rock music, his favorite bands are Primus and Nine Inch Nails.

Flava’s friend circle is nerdy at best, with his best friend being Clyde. The duo end up goofing around often, Clyde being the prime instigator 99% of the time. Some other notable pals of his are Kevin, Scott, Kyle(?), Red, Pip, and Gregory. (Last two are important)

Personality is varied, at best Flava can be described as soft due to having such a calm nature to him. Growing up, Flava never had any friends so he is largely an outsider, most people who do talk to him leave after 5 minutes of him infodumping. Other than that, Flava is a very chill person to be around and is more than willing to talk to anyone he deems friendly enough.

He has two pets: Shadow🚺 and Sparky🚹 (Not to be confused with THE Sparky). Shadow is a two year old leucistic Reticulated Python who originally belonged to Niiko, but was moved to Flava’s room due to its bigger size, while Sparky is a 4 month old mixed breed (border collie/husky/german shepherd?). He was given to Flava as a Christmas present by Niiko, he’s extremely playful & loves belly rubs.

Interests

Space

As implied by his alternate costume, Flava loves outer space and all of its planets, his favorites are Neptune and Saturn. It’s probably the one thing everyone knows him for, as Flava talks about it almost every day, he can and will infodump about all the facts he knows about it and the latest news from NASA as he follows their website closely. You might even catch this guy stargazing late at night with his telescope, looking at the sky for hours.

Herpetology (Study of Reptiles and Amphibians)

Flava’s also engaged in learning about reptiles, this stemmed from falling down a rabbit hole while trying to read about snake care when Shadow was moved to his room, lately he’s into dragons, having now read all of Wings of Fire MULTIPLE times.

Art

Flava is a pretty doodle-y guy, he’s especially crafty with scrapbooks and notes. He’ll draw whatever comes to mind really, sometimes its his friends doing epic stunts (Clyde sometimes pays Flava 3 dollars to draw him.), other time its abstract shapes, Flava’s favorite thing to draw though is what the surface of planets look like up close. He considers himself a professional artist, and hopes to one day get his art featured in a museum.

As for hobbies outside of stargazing, Flava takes an interest in hockey, he often trains with Niiko at home, although Niiko is a bit aggressive with his techniques as he’s more experienced with it, Flava actually does use this aggressive himself in full games, this leads to his team getting shockingly good scoring and sometimes even winning.

If it sounds like Flava is absolutely perfect and is a “Mary Sue”, don’t worry because this fella has a few issues, most notably is his anger problem. If you push him enough, Flava will snap and punch you with as much force as a 10 year old boy possibly can. He tends to lash out at people who piss him off or think know better, Kyle being a prime example of this, as the two squabble a lot and appear to have a rivalry of sorts.

Flava also has a tendency to be pretty bad at reading the room, not understanding the context of the situation at hand.

Alter Egos

Kid Dragon

Our kickass “Warrior of the Skies”, Kid Dragon! (Also called KD by his friends)

He’s a brutalist class fighter who uses close proximity attacks with his fists and teeth, in his Ultimate Attack “Dragon Lord Flame Fist” KD is possessed with the full power of The Lord of Dragons and is able to completely K.O one enemy at the cost of losing a lot of health, surrounding enemies are slowed down for 2 turns.

KD is a loner, meaning he doesn’t belong to the Freedom Pals or Coon & Friends, in his words he “doesn’t want to deal with squabbling.” He does team up missions with Mosquito though.

Finnizaar of the 7 Forests

Finnizaar is a hulder/snow elf hybrid, a species of his own creation. Considered the last of his kind, Finzaar wanders the woods as he awaits to find his true calling.

He’s a fighter that primarily uses animals to attack as he claims to communicate with them, one such being his trusty “heavenly snake familiar.” In his special attack Finnizaar reveals his back, a hole filled with gems (which is definitely not a shitty tattoo Niiko gave him that may or may not have been put there permanently…oops), the sight of such hypnotizes enemies and causes them to hurt themselves.

He seems rather fond of Princess Kenny for some reason..

Relationships

Now we’re getting to my favorite part of this post, the relationships!!!

As mentioned previously, Flava had no friends before his family moved to South Park as he’d been homeschooled for 3 grades before starting public at South Park Elementary in 3rd grade. He’s a very isolated kid in his first few months there as he doesn’t know anybody & also is trying to come off as more masculine as a boy so if he slips something up there’s a chance he might be made fun of.

He slowly but surely finds his friends, though he also ends up finding enemies there too.

Clyde

Flava’s first and probably closest friend, they met on the playground at school one day and kind of clicked from there. They build off each other due to their general awkwardness to others and inability to look cooler than they actually are. Clyde tends to gossip to Flava a lot and since he can’t keep quiet on things he kinda spills it to the people Clyde’s talking about, never really ends well for either of them.

Scott

Same reason as Clyde for why they became friends, they just kinda met each other and eventually hit things off. Scott often invites him for sleepovers, which Flava immediately accepts every time because he knows Scott has the best snacks at his house.

Red

These two weren’t actually friends originally, they met in Drama Club and were always partnered up as stagehands, Red was always mildly annoyed with Flava but she never said anything, much like Clyde she eventually came around to gossiping to Flava about girl drama & such. Flava would get closer since he liked her apparent edginesses and not a complete “girly girl.”

Kevin

It’s kind of obvious as to why these guys are friends. Kevin has infodumped all of Star Wars lore to Flava a lot, he doesn’t want him to watch the newer movies though. They also tend to argue about whether Pluto is a planet or not.

Kyle

This one’s a little complicated so here we go.

Flava shares the same classroom as Kyle as well as his other friends, and it seems like he and Kyle would be friends too, and they are…kind of.

Flava is actually extremely jealous of Kyle, as he represents all of the things Flava wants to be but feels he can’t: Smart, reliable, and cohesive, all things that Flava can’t 100% do because of things out of his control. It’s frustrating for him to see Kyle or even hear him out because it feels as though Kyle is just saying words and wonders if he means what he actually says. They argue a lot due to conflicting differences of opinions and Kyle’s tendency to think better of himself.

Despite this, Flava does respect Kyle in a lot of ways and will stand up for him, if just because he knows at the end of the day Kyle is right about a lot of things, even if those things do hurt.

Pip & Gregory (AKA the part I know some of you might be here for.)

Long ramble so here we go.

Pip (or Philly as Flava calls him) met Flava shortly after a pretty bad bullying incident, having been actually shoved in Flava’s locker of all places. Flava was very sympathetic to Pip and spent the rest of the school day talking to him, including eating lunch with him, he was one of the few kids to not actually mind Pip’s voice or his proper grammar. They’re besties now, about the same as Clyde, who begrudgingly accepts Pip as not to destroy the friendship he has with Flava, its a point of contention for the two.

Gregory is complicated, but in a much different way than Kyle is.

Flava cannot help but feel..weirdly enamored by Gregory? He’s got this charm to him that Flava hasn’t ever felt with anyone else before, not even his Mom. He feels really close to Gregory in a way he can’t describe except for just…love. The two are also best friends, though Gregory is completely unaware of Flava’s true feelings for him. Flava wants to do something to make Gregory notice him, but he hasn’t exactly figured out what to do yet.

Fun facts!!

Flava’s mother, Freya, is part Scandanavian since her grandparents grew up in Europe. She’s a pharmacist and works at a drug store part time, her main job is selling herbal remedies online, she makes bank doing so. She’s declined Randy’s offer to collaborate on selling weed infusion medicine multiple times.

It’s actually kind of rare to see Flava without his big fluffy hat on his head, he uses it primarily to hide his hair which he feels extremely self conscious about, he doesn’t want to cut it but he worries people will make fun of him for how long it is, the hat does a good job at hiding it.

Flava��s nickname doesn’t mean anything, its just a goofy word he thought fit his real name Finnegan pretty well. (It’s pronounced Flah-Vuh, not Flay-Vah if anyone was curious)

He’s a very tactile dude, he often stims with his hands and likes feeling soft & silky textures. Things like Gregory’s button up when he holds his arm help Flava focus.

They actually designed their costumes themselves!

He can memorize the entire script of his favorite movie ever: 2001 A Space Odyssey

His original full name was “Flava Lavalamp Fluff”

Flava was also originally shipped with Connor, a very minor character from the episode “South Park is Gay.” I have no idea why i got so attached to him 😭

Although some elements of Flava are based on me, he is NOT a self insert!

Hey!! If you made it this far, thanks so so so so soooooo much for reading this! I had a blast explaining this guy out & drawing him some new references, this is probably the most definitive description you’ll see of Flava so I doubt much will change for him in the future.

And i already said it but I’ll say it again: This guy literally changed my life for the better.

Doing everything that i’ve done with Flava thus far has taught me one thing: Cringe Culture, or being “Mary Sue” or having “overpowered” characters don’t really matter because at the end of the day, they are YOURS and yours alone. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, its your world and you get to make your little guys and do whatever the hell you want with them

Basically, do what you want and don’t let anyone try to tell you what’s right or wrong with making an OC, you’ll feel much better when you just do what you want, regardless of what fandom you’re in.

[dreamcatcheresss]

About Loki - I just need to post it again (after Chapter 85)

I can't stop loving him, no matter what will happen. You also can't stop loving real people, just because you learn about their troubles and demons. He is clearly suffering and judging from mythology - not only because of that. Isn't it a proof that he is broken and VERY HUMAN? If you get rejected by the world all the time you finally choose another way to get love.

Let me tell this openly: I experienced this myself (but without a doll). I became obsessive because I couldn't bear being rejected AGAIN! It was like: "NO! Not this time! I will make it work!" My mental health was a shattered and knew that this "drug" is bad for me but I couldn't stop. I felt like dying inside. It took some time to get a bit better and one day - BOOM! - the obsession was gone and I found someone who returned my feelings. It was in 2018. Since that time it never hurt again.

Objects don't push you back and sometimes it's better than nothing. You take every chance to make yourself feel some love so I understand Loki's behavior.

I can imagine that he will be wanting "justice" for himself but in the end he won't be the villain. Let's hope he won't die protecting her but will finds another way, if this may be his goal. I want this poor baby to have a chance to heal and finally feel loved. This message would be much better than just desperately love-sick dying for someone. He is capable of plotting schemes so it's time to do it! It would show, that there is a way out of darkness.

Usually the authors give us wonderful messages. Please, I hope it won't be the well known "I'd die for you" thing. Sure, it would show his true heart and so on, but what's the message? That the "crazy villain" is able to be a good guy? There are way better ways, especially for the authors who already created such unpredictable twists.

Why should his tragedy end in a tragedy? It already happens all the time in this story. So for someone as important as Loki there should be something less predictable.

Anyway, in my imagination there is a way to save everybody. It's the heaven after all so if miracle happen, then THERE even if it is just the equivalent for our real world! All the fallen characters return with a second chance. Please, let's use our fantasy to create the fate they all deserve. It's much better than feeling bad and nothing more.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Alanna Vagianos at HuffPost:

Some people may believe that the end of Roe v. Wade was simply a matter of luck: Following the then-black swan event of Donald Trump winning the 2016 election, Trump got to appoint two Supreme Court Justices in his first two years and a third after an octogenarian passed away weeks before the 2020 election.

The court then had a 6-3 conservative supermajority, and that was that. But the project to overturn the federal right to abortion was much more calculated, involving an alliance of Republican groups aiming to reshape Congress, the courts and American life. And while conservatives may have won a huge battle, it’s not the end of their unholy war. That’s the story New York Times reporters Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer tell in their new book, “The Fall of Roe,” a deeply reported accounting of the machinations of anti-abortion activists and lawmakers to reverse the 1973 ruling that reshaped both society and women’s lives. The book recounts the conservative network’s past victories, yes, but is also a window into the future, highlighting just how crucial November’s elections are for our rights and freedoms. That’s because if Trump wins a second term, this conservative coalition will bring even more litigation to strip away people’s rights — and would likely face a Supreme Court that’s even more untouchable than it is now.

The group most connected to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overturned Roe, is Alliance Defending Freedom, a far-right Christian advocacy group. But ADF certainly didn’t do it alone, per Dias and Lerer — correspondents on religion and politics, respectively. In many ways, two other organizations laid the groundwork for this victory: The Federalist Society, a judicial group that drafted a list of Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, judges Trump said were all opposed to Roe; and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an anti-abortion political group with an affiliated PAC.

And they’re all funded with massive amounts of dark money, including from billionaires like the Koch brothers. The 30,000-foot view is that these groups worked together to draft and pass unpopular state laws and have conservative lawyers defend them in front of friendly judges who had been confirmed to lifetime appointments by Republican senators. The network could use this playbook on any number of issues in the future. ADF wrote Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban at issue in the Dobbs litigation. Dias and Lerer report that a conservative Wisconsin lawyer suggested crafting a ban at exactly 15 weeks basically as a dare for abortion rights proponents to challenge it, believing the Supreme Court would find the ban reasonable and gut Roe without fully overturning it.

The lawyer, Misha Tseytlin, allegedly floated the idea at a Trump victory party hosted by Federalist Society Chair Leonard Leo, and then someone connected to ADF heard it, and the organization had Tseytlin present his theory at a July 2017 ADF summit. (This story shows that conservatives picked 15 weeks not because of emerging medical research, but because abortion rights advocates had chosen not to sue over previous 20-week bans designed to challenge Roe.) ADF drafted a model bill, identified states that might pass it and that had anti-abortion attorneys general who would defend it, and started talking to lobbyists. Then-Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) signed the 15-week ban into law in 2018, and litigation began. By the time the Supreme Court was considering taking the case, it was early September 2020. Then Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, and Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett, giving a 5-4 court a 6-3 conservative supermajority, with three Justices appointed by Trump — a president who lost the popular vote. The court agreed to hear the case in May 2021, and the rest is history.

That playbook worked for striking down Roe, but the coalition is not done. Dias and Lerer write that ADF, in particular, will “work to restore an understanding of marriage, the family and sexuality that reflects God’s creative order.” First, abortion opponents think Dobbs is not enough; they want a nationwide ban starting at egg fertilization.

[...] ADF also has its sights set on reversing the 2015 ruling establishing marriage equality, but Waggoner also seems to resent when journalists ask her about Obergefell v. Hodges. (That ruling was 5-4, and two of the Justices in the majority are no longer on the court — you only need four votes out of nine to take a case.) “I’m worried you’re gonna just use a choice little quote, and anybody that reads the article is going to think I’m abandoning Obergefell, and I am not,” she told The New Yorker. “I think it is wrong and it should be reversed, but I don’t wake up in the morning thinking about how to do that.” The group wants to roll back transgender rights in employment (Bostock v. Clayton County, 2020) and expand parental rights (Troxel v. Granville, 2000) so that parents can override the medical needs of their children with gender dysphoria, The New Yorker reports. ADF is also behind the rash of state laws banning gender-affirming care for minors and trans kids’ participation in sports — the group wrote model legislation. We’re watching a redux of the anti-abortion battle plan in real time. “It’s not that the Court is going to say, ‘Gender ideology is bad,’” Waggoner told The New Yorker. “But I do think the Court could say, ‘Parental rights are fundamental rights.’”

The Fall of Roe book by Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer, a pair of New York Times reporters, takes a vital look at how anti-abortion activists delivered a win for their cause by overturning Roe in Dobbs and that they want more.

[beardedmrbean]

California Governor Gavin Newsom was called out by a reporter after he continued to dodge questions about blowing the state's $24 billion spending on the homeless.

The Golden State's budget deficit is at least $45 billion, a shortfall so large it prompted Newsom to propose painful spending cuts impacting immigrants, kindergarteners and low-income parents seeking child care in a state often lauded for having the world's fifth-largest economy. 

California spent $24 billion tackling homelessness over five years but didn't track if the money was helping the state's growing number of unhoused people, a damning report says.

At a press conference announcing his plans, he was asked by Angela Hart of KFF Health News if he felt his administration did enough to ensure the money was well spent and if he was worried the appetite for spending was lessening based on the homelessness program.

The usually confident Democrat hemmed and hawed for two minutes, to which Hart responded: 'I'm sorry governor, I didn't hear responses to either of those questions.' 

The governor said throughout his initial answer that the problem was dealing with local governments but Newsom was clearly chastened by Hart's retort.

Newsom finally leveled, saying the audit 'did not surprise me' and he agreed with most of its findings and said that the state has made unprecedented investments and tried to increase accountability from local governments for that spending.

'As it relates to the public mood... more is not always better, the public want to see results,' he added.

Hart finally thanked him for his answer, calling it 'thorough' before asking Newsom about cuts to healthcare spending and climate change.

The audit slams the state's homelessness tsars for spending billions across 30 programs from 2018-2023, but gathering no data on why the cash wasn't tackling the crisis.

It confirms what's clear to many residents — the homelessness crisis is out of control, and that tent encampments and troublesome vagrancy across major cities is bad and getting worse.

Homelessness jumped 6 percent to more than 180,000 people in California last year, federal data show. Since 2013, the numbers have exploded by 53 percent.

California is home to nearly a third of America's entire homeless population.

State Auditor Grant Parks wrote in a letter to Gov Gavin Newsom and lawmakers that the 'state must do more to assess the cost-effectiveness of its homelessness programs.'

Auditors probed five schemes that received a combined $13.7 billion in funding.

Only two of them were 'likely cost-effective,' including one that converts hotel and motel rooms into housing and another that helps to prevent families from becoming homeless, they found.

The remaining three programs, which have received a total of $9.4 billion since 2020, couldn't be evaluated due to a lack of data.

Thomas Wolf, a San Francisco-based consultant and former homeless drug addict, called the findings a 'scandal.'

'The state has spent billions on homelessness, and it's worse,' Wolf posted on X/Twitter.

'Outcomes literally mean everything when it comes to homeless services, and unsurprisingly, they have no data.'

For some, the audit confirms fears of a 'homeless industrial complex' – a gravy train of funders, officials, shelter owners and charities more keen on swallowing public funds than solving the problem.

Democratic state Sen. Dave Cortese, who requested the audit last year after touring a large homeless encampment in San Jose, complained of a 'data desert' and lack of transparency.

Republican state Sen. Roger Niello called the lack of accountability troubling.

'Despite an exorbitant amount of dollars spent, the state's homeless population is not slowing down,' Niello said in a statement.

'These audit results are a wake-up call for a shift toward solutions that prioritize self-sufficiency and cost-effectiveness.'

Newsom has made tackling homelessness a priority, and the growing crisis is sure to dog him should he ever set his sights on a national elected office.

The Democrat has pushed for laws that make it easier to force people with behavioral health issues into treatment. 

He also campaigned hard for a proposition that voters passed in March to make counties spend on housing and drug treatment programs to help fight homelessness.

The state auditor also reviewed homelessness spending in two major cities, San Jose and San Diego, and found that both failed to track revenue and spending due to a lack of planning.

The report spotlights how officials are battling a surge in homelessness in California and beyond.

A recent DailyMail.com/TIPP Poll showed that more than two thirds of US adults said homelessness was out of control and that officials needed to move those sleeping rough into tented encampments outside towns and cities.

The survey revealed that 67 percent of Americans are fed up with the country's fast-rising number of homeless people and want mayors to take drastic steps to tackle the scourge.

Former President Donald Trump making it part of his re-election campaign.

In a video on homelessness released by his campaign, Trump said that 'hardworking, law-abiding citizens' were being sidelines and made to 'suffer for the whims of a deeply unwell few.'

He vowed to 'ban urban camping' and create 'tent cities' on 'inexpensive land' for homeless people that will be staffed with doctors and social workers to help people address systemic problems.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Sussex Divorce Rumors

Well, we seem to be on #divorcewatch with Radar Online’s scoop that Harry and Meghan are “taking a break.” (Y’all remember who else said they were “on a break” before they broke up? Harry’s favorite TV show, and I’m pretty sure Meghan enjoys it too because I feel like we’ve read about it in her PR. I bet we can look forward to similar shenanigans in the PR war.)

(If you’re not familiar, on FRIENDS, Ross and Rachel decided to “take a break.” Rachel thought that to mean they were together but not going out. Ross thought it meant they had broken up so Ross dated someone else. Rachel found out Ross was dating and she flipped out, there was a big fight and it was a recurring theme throughout the rest of the series. I bet we’ll see similar accusations in War of the Sussexes.)

Anyway, I thought I would repost a wrap-up I did a few months ago of all the divorce rumors I’ve been tracking. See the original post here. (The original post also included divorce rumors about all the royals.) These rumors are through February 2023. I’ll update with rumors from March to the present soon.

The list is below the jump.

Sussexes to divorce before first anniversary. (Betting odds, May 2018)

Sussexes to divorce before third anniversary. (Betting odds, May 2018)

Sussexes to divorce before fifth anniversary. (Betting odds, May 2018)

The Sussex divorce will take place in wintertime, when it is snowing outside. Meghan will shock everyone with the announcement. Harry will be caught totally off-guard. (2019)

Megxit because Meghan threatened to leave and divorce Harry if he didn’t support her. (January 2020)

Harry’s diplomatic immunity as a Counselor of State will force California to send their divorce proceedings to London. Any of California’s laws dictating divorce proceedings or custody will not be applicable. (April 2021)

Harry to file for divorce or leave Meghan if his Counselor of State status is revoked because it conveys a certain diplomatic immunity that would invoke the State Department to move divorce proceedings to London. (April 2021)

Lili is a save-the-marriage baby. (June 2021)

Sussexes are secretly divorced. (November 2021)

Harry will return to the UK/BRF on the original half-in/half-out scheme after the divorce. (March 2022)

Harry left Meghan and bought an apartment in Turtle Bay, NYC, near the UN. He lives there full-time. (March 2022)

Secret Sussex visit to Windsor to initiate divorce proceedings. (April 2022)

Harry and/or the BRF to get full custody of the children after the divorce. (May 2022)

Harry will remarry and adopt more children after leaving Meghan. (May 2022)

Meghan to have a third marriage to a Saudi/Middle Eastern businessman and live quietly in the UK with shared custody of Archie and Lili after the divorce. No more children for her. (May 2022)

Harry and Meghan to divorce in 2025. (May 2022)

If Meghan leaves Harry and initiates the divorce, she will use Diana’s divorce timeline. (June 2022)

Harry will give up titles received for the wedding before the divorce so Meghan cannot use the titles post-divorce. (June 2022)

Harry will leave Meghan and blame it on a mental health crisis. (June 2022)

Meghan will leave Harry and blame it on his insulting/attacking the US Constitution. She will use the divorce announcement/timing to announce political candidacy or other political aspirations. (July 2022)

Meghan to appear on the cover of US Vogue as a condition of the divorce settlement. (August 2022)

Meghan will sell her private journals from royal days for profit after the divorce. (August 2022)

Meghan has moved out of Montecito and into the Beverly Hills Hotel to be with her new boyfriend. (August 2022)

Meghan’s new boyfriend is wealthy, connected, and white. (August 2022)

Meghan does not want custody of the children but will fight for it in the divorce. (August 2022)

Meghan moved back into the Montecito Mansion to create the illusion of a single mom with a playboy husband, who only has her mother for support, for her divorce narrative. (August 2022)

Meghan will work with Sunshine Sachs to tear Harry down the moment the Sussex divorce is public. (August 2022)

Meghan and Harry separated, on the way to a 2023 divorce. Harry travels frequently to the UK when it’s not his time with the children to re-establish domicile for custody fight. (August 2022)

Charles to accept Harry back into the firm as a full-time working royal after the divorce. (September 2022)

Meghan threatened to leave Harry if she was uninvited or sidelined during the Queen’s funeral. That’s why he was demanding she travel to Balmoral with him. (September 2022)

Sussex divorce to be handled in England. Meghan will be represented by a bulldog American lawyer. It will be similar to the Paul McCartney/Heather Mills divorce - as acrimoniously and with Meghan doing some kind of stunt that backfires. (September 2022)

Harry to leave Meghan by the end of 2022 in response to his stripped status at The Queen’s funeral. (September 2022)

Harry to get full physical and legal custody of the children in the divorce and live in Frogmore Cottage with them. (September 2022)

Harry to leave Meghan between October 15, 2022, - November 14, 2022. (September 2022)

Meghan’s threat in The Cut about not signing NDAs and having journals was a threat to Harry to stop him from leaving her, not the BRF. (September 2022)

Meghan to publish her own memoir about Harry post-divorce. (September 2022)

Sussexes had a private meeting with Charles while in London for Queen’s funeral to negotiate terms of the divorce, including timing and announcement. (September 2022)

Harry to physically, mentally, and publicly leave Meghan to return to the BRF by October 31, 2022. (September 2022)

Meghan will give an exclusive Oprah-like interview but not to Oprah, in which she pops off about “her truth” and how the BRF mistreated her during the jubilee, The Queen’s funeral, and Charles’s coronation. This will cause Harry to leave her. (September 2022)

Charles will not accept Harry back into the firm at all after a divorce. (September 2022)

Sussexes to divorce after Netflix and PRH book obligations end. (September 2022)

Meghan is cheating with a married man and wants to leave Harry for him but the new partner has said he doesn’t want a future with Meghan and it’s just a fun affair for him. (October 2022)

Sussexes to divorce by March 2023. (October 2022)

Sussexes have begun divorce proceedings and have formally separated. (October 2022)

If Harry returns to the UK without Meghan and divorces her, then Charles will pay back the remainder of the PRH book advances and sort out financial/legal troubles with Netflix. (October 2022)

A Sussex scandal will precede Harry’s divorce announcement. Both the scandal and the announcement will catch Meghan off-guard. (October 2022)

Harry and Meghan are separated. Harry will spend Christmas at Sandringham with the BRF. (October 2022)

Meghan to launch a PR war against Harry for leaving her at Christmastime. (October 2022)

Meghan and Harry have been separated since August 2021; Harry lives in San Francisco. (October 2022)

Harry left Meghan and lives with Eugenie in Portugal. (November 2022)

Harry went into involuntary rehab after a drug- and alcohol-fueled fight with Meghan following The Queen’s funeral and his public “demotion.” Courts forced them to separate and they are not allowed to live together. Charles will pay Meghan a huge settlement when they finally divorce to keep the court details sealed/private. (November 2022)

Sussex divorce announcement on or by December 17, 2022.

Sussex divorce announcement on or by January 23, 2023.

Charles/the BRF will influence Harry’s terms of the divorce settlement: they will allow Harry to return and have his IPP/security detail back, but he will not be a working royal and kept out of the public eye under very strict parameters. Meghan’s access to the BRF will be cut off and any attempt at a compromise that sees her coming back to London or attending royal events will kick Harry out of both the firm and Britain, and the BRF will take custody of the children. (November 2022)

Sussex divorce by March 2023. (November 2022)

Divorce/separation negotiations are going poorly and Meghan is lashing out via Kerry Kennedy’s criticism and the Kennedy Do-Good award. (November 2022)

Pictures of Archie on a Zoom call were leaked with Meghan’s authorization and indicate that she and Harry are separated, because Harry is the only one who demands and expects the children’s privacy. (November 2022)

Meghan has tapes, audio and video, of Harry being wildly drunk and/or abusive, which will come out in the divorce. Divorce will be acrimonious and messy like the Heard/Depp divorce. (December 2022)

Harry suspending his press lawsuits signals that the divorce is imminent and he is moving back to London. (December 2022)

Harry and Meghan to divorce when the money runs out and they cannot make profitable multi-million dollar deals anymore. (December 2022)

Meghan to leave and divorce Harry when America turns on her. (December 2022)

Sussex divorce announcement to come on the eve of Charles’s coronation, overshadowing the weekend. (December 2022)

The BRF intends to prove/accuse Harry and Meghan as unfit parents to take custody of the children during divorce proceedings. (December 2022)

Doria will testify on Meghan’s behalf about the children’s custody during divorce proceedings to help Meghan win custody; however, the court will question Doria’s absence from Meghan’s childhood and uncover something that will undermine her credibility, which tanks Meghan’s case for custody. (December 2022)

Meghan to leave Harry and use Spare as evidence/justification. (January 2023)

Meghan to file for divorce citing irreconcilable differences. (January 2023)

Sussex divorce to be epic, on par with War of the Wales. (January 2023)

Sussex divorce to begin after Harry’s book tour obligations end. (January 2023)

Harry has a pre-separation agreement in place with Meghan that protects him from all business arrangements and debts made during the marriage in return for silence on certain topics. (January 2023)

Meghan to announce the divorce after William and Kate announce a fourth pregnancy or birth of a fourth child. (January 2023)

Sussex divorce announcement between February 19, 2023, - March 21, 2023. (January 2023)

Sussex divorce to take place in California so Meghan can keep primary custody of the children and earn monthly alimony/child support from the BRF. (January 2023)

Meghan has created an extravagant life in Montecito so when she divorces Harry, she can argue to the court that the children have an exceptional standard of living, which the court will require Harry/the BRF to maintain with alimony/child support payments equivalent to current standard. (January 2023)

Meghan and/or the BRF to use Harry’s admissions of drug and alcohol abuse in Spare and the promo tour against him during the divorce and custody proceedings. (January 2023)

Harry to be placed under a 5150/conservatorship due to his addiction and other issues by the BRF or Meghan in divorce proceedings to show he is unfit for custody. (January 2023)

Sussex terms of divorce to include an agreement that anything of Diana’s (including trust money and jewelry) will automatically go towards the children and cannot be used or accessed by Meghan. (January 2023)

Harry’s dirt from California will start leaking in March as a precursor to the divorce. Meghan will be the one leaking and use it as threats to get what she wants. (January 2023)

Harry to have a catfish scandal on Instagram after divorcing Meghan. (January 2023)

Charles will give Meghan $50 million and generous child support to divorce Harry and return him to London. (January 2023)

Dirt on Meghan’s use of surrogates will be revealed during divorce proceedings. (January 2023)

Charles to be implicated in the cover-up of the Sussexes’ use of a surrogate and he will abdicate or be forced to step back in the fallout. (January 2023)

Sussex divorce in November 2023 (January 2023)

Meghan’s “revenge dress” moment will be related to the Hollywood awards season. (January 2023)

Meghan has a sex tape on the dark web, which will be published/leaked to the “regular” web during the divorce. (January 2023)

Harry will remarry in 2030 - 2031. Meghan will be a non-issue and won’t bother with his new wife. (January 2023)

Security camera footage of Meghan mistreating Charlotte exists and will be leaked during divorce proceedings, causing her to lose custody. (January 2023)

Meghan and Harry have been separated since late 2022. (January 2023)

Sussex divorce between June 2023 and September 2023. (February 2023)

Meghan and Harry are currently legally separated and “will they/won’t they” about the coronation is to keep news of the separation from going public. (February 2023)

[schizodiaries]

I saw your recent post about how you cope with your hospitalisation and I keep thinking about it

I've already told you about my medication carrying case that looks like a PS1/Net Yaroze and my menhera tights and skirt

I also have a private "Self" aesthetic board on the go and it has a section for disability and health, with images like pills and hospital beds and phrases like "I feel tired" and "I told you I was sick"

Recently, I got some stickers from RedBubble and put them on water bottles to match my colour scheme for all my school stuff. One of them is a blue syringe and one of them is a purple bandaid. Aestheticising my medical conditions yet again.

I sometimes have a temptation to buy some cheap scrubs and just... wear them around the house, I guess to feel like I'm in the position of power for once. I mean, people roleplay positions of power all the time in the forms of cosplay, drag, etc. where they pretend to be a superhero or a CEO or something, but this would be in the privacy of my own home.

I bring stuffed animals with me to medical things if I suspect there's a chance it could be emotionally hard, so I brought a turkey to my surgery back in October. I felt very safe and respected by the staff that day. Sometimes when I'm really upset, I turn to that turkey because she now has the memories associated with her of going for surgery. (Don't worry, I cycle through plushies so that they don't typically have memories strongly associated with them and then the upsetting moments don't get tied to them.)

One of my stuffed animals is a bear from Build-A-Bear. I still haven't worked out the specifics despite having her since 2018, but in my little canon for my BABs, she is disabled. I want to get her a tiny pill case from the drug store to use as an accessory for her, and maybe I'll construct her a cane. I've been planning my future BABs, so I want to get a Barkleigh (dog) and make her a nurse as well as get a Jennifur (cat) and make her a pharmacist, because those are both professions I tend to feel safe with.

Just... I guess I do stuff similar to what you do!! In case you felt alone about it. Except mine has a flavour of physical chronic illness to it too.

This is very touching, thank you for sharing! I think in the past I was a bit ashamed of my romanticization of my mental hospital experience, like I felt as though I was trivializing the experience or infantilizing myself. It honestly does help a lot to know there are others who view their medical issues in a more positive and fun light. It’s a harmless coping mechanism, after all, so I’ve learned not to be ashamed of it. If people don’t like it or it makes them uncomfortable they can simply ignore it or avoid me.

I really like the idea of customizing a build a bear to be disabled, and giving them a small pill case and cane too. I think that’s a cute idea. I’m not much of a plushie person myself, but I love creating OCs (original characters). Actually the “mascot” of my blog is supposed to be an OC of mine named Emilia. They have schizoaffective disorder too, and I’ve been meaning to draw them more but I haven’t had the motivation recently. When I do get around to it, I think I’ll draw them in a menhera-style outfit or setting, or holding a medicine bottle or something fun like that. The possibilities are endless!

[purplekoop]

Okay so I was looking through the hero gallery reaffirming my favorite skin for each hero (and double checking I don't really like any Winston skins, which holds up), but I found something. Peculiar.

I was checking Symmetra's skins and noticed a peculiar name for one of her Rare skins (the blue-tier ones that are very minor recolors, where only four are made for each hero on their release and never any more). Normally, these names are very formulaic, very often just the color of the skin in the hero's native language, or some vague pleasant-sounding way to describe the color choice.

But then there's this Symmetra skin: Technomancer.

Her other three Rare skins are named Cardamom, Hyacinth, and Saffron, all different plants, so "Technomancer" sticks out.

But I think I know why...

Putting it simply, this was her beta design color scheme

Seems like yellow was meant to be Symmetra's main color before it was settled that her outfit should be primarily blue.

It even shows up in this concept art that I've shown before and will show again, along with several other heroes in their finalized and not-so finalized designs, along with some characters that never made the cut in general.

It's also worth noting that Symmetra is one of the oldest Overwatch character concepts, back in the MMO phase of the idea where each character was instead a class, with the class that became Symmetra being... okay it'd be cool if I could say it was also called "Technomancer", but no, apparently just "Architect".

(fun fact while we're here, "Architect" is listed as being able to deploy 3 sentries to distinguish them from "Mechanic"'s one large sentry, but Symmetra could deploy a whole 6 sentries until her second major rework, where it was reduced to the three that's both how we know it today and the original concept to distinguish her from what became Torbjorn. She also couldn't deploy a shield generator until her first major rework where it became her alternate ultimate, Symmetra 1.0 only gave allies a small portion of shield health directly, while now she has no equivalent shield-generating abilities. No, her ult doesn't count, that's a barrier, "shield" in overwatch terms refers to blue health. Unless it's Rein and Brig, those are also shields.)

...*ahem* anyways.

Was not expecting to uncover a beta design reference in the final game tonight. Haven't heard anyone acknowledge this before, though admittedly people don't tend to pay attention to Rare skins much at all.

Skins that are references to earlier design iterations are super neat but not something common at all as of now, with the only other exception (at least coming to mind now) is, ironically, Lucio, with his Equalizer skin, a reference to his earlier design as well.

This one's from Archives 2018 and is super neat. The contrast in personality despite the outfit being the same is particularly delightful, it's not too far off but it's juuust different enough to be noticeable when the Lucio we know and love is wearing his beta outfit, and it doesn't quite have the same vibe as the concept art.

If I haven't made it clear yet, I adore seeing development art stuff and seeing the ideation process, so seeing characters or other concepts that were scrapped come back later in official capacity is always one of my favorite things. Morpho Knight from Kirby is a prime example, and there's great examples from Sonic like Honey the Cat and the very recent inclusion of the rabbit design that was a scrapped concept for Sonic himself. These are just a couple skins and not whole characters, but it's still super neat. Wish they did more of these to be honest, especially with Archives. Considering the whole theme of the event is (was?) seeing heroes how they were in the past in-universe, it was cool to see Lucio in how he looked in the past in a more meta sense. As I comb through the old concept arts, I'll try to keep an eye for which ones I could think work as skins for the finalized hero.

...This post ended up being longer than I expected. oops.

[sociopath-analysis]

Sociopath Profile: Vanessa Hysel

From Alfyn's Route From the 2018 video game Octopath Traveler

Vanessa isn't exactly the worst person in the game, but she still displays several traits of sociopathy. Being an unscrupulous merchant and con-woman, she manages to give Alfyn a bit of trouble along his path.

She is a fellow apothecary who makes her money from poisoning the town of Goldshore and using it as a way to sell the cures for exorbitant prices. This shows how she sees others as nothing more than sources of profit. The health of people doesn't matter to her like Alfyn. No matter what, she doesn't care about the fact that people could die because of these schemes.

Alfyn: Doesn't it make you feel anything to see people suffer? Vanessa: Should it? The ailing, the injured... They're tools to an end. Just like the little kittens I test my tonics on.

And Vanessa can't be a con merchant without being able to manipulate people. It's the reason she refuses to teach people about these cures. It makes it easy for her to both believe her when she lies about how she can help them and to make sure they are dependent on only her as the expert doctor.

"What do layfolk know of illnesses and their cures? Nothing—that's what makes this job so easy."

It's all for the sake of profit. She wants to get everything she desires with all the leaves she can collect. No one else matters other than her. She doesn't care about the suffering of others as long as it gains her the money she desires. She laughs in the face of Alfyn's altruism and bemoans him for caring about helping people.

Overall, she doesn't regret anything she has done. She eventually turns over a new leaf and can even be recruited into Alfyn's party, but she still sells her medicines at exorbitant prices. She shows that even when she's above board, her self-profit is her main concern.

Female Sociopath List

Octopath Sociopath List

[the-tzarina-alexandra-paracosm]

Vote based on the design AND the backstory

George

(The Choice to Love - 2017-2018)

Role: supporting character

He is the oldest brother of Ernest. He will inherit his father's (very lucrative) factory and he has been dabbling in his own business ideas as well. Seeing his father dying, however, and noticing his own less than ideal health, he begins to reflect whether his chase after money is worth it in the end. He also reflects on how his attitude has affected his family life, and he is genuinely scared not to repeat his father's hubris.

Vs

Evgeniy

(The Land of Eternal Winter - 2019-2020)

Role: villain

He is the leader of the third revolutionary movement, seeking not only to help the working class, but to replace the current ruling class with him and his allies. He is very charismatic and convicing, becoming very popular with the masses. He is also very convinced by his own utopic vision of his future society, believing that only he could bring it to completion. He's very intelligent and scheming, and he's aware of that, too.

Additional info

The Choice to Love - 2017-2018

Status: incomplete (Romanian, English, a few chapters typed, many scenes handwritten, many comic scenes drawn etc, full outline done)

Form: novel

Genre: Victorian romance

Ernest and Jeannine are made to enter an arranged marriage. She is glad because she already had a crush on him, but he feels guilty that he can't force himself to fall in love. Many many many side characters all play a role in, directly or indirectly, imparting life lessons on the protagonists. The side characters also have their own complex dramas and lives. Ernest has a found family dynamic with his household servants, but has some sort of conflict with his family of origin, which gets somewhat solved by the end of the book, but under very dramatic circumstances. Jeannine is always by his side, so he realises hey she means a lot to me.

Vs

The Land of Eternal Winter - 2019-2020

Status: complete (draft 1: English, typed, draft 2 in the works)

Form: novel

Genre: mild steampunk, kinda post apoc but mostly drama (and court drama)

Anatoliy is a prince whose beloved father just died, so he assumes it was an assassination. He suspects the neighbouring king and has him killed, only to later realise he was innocent. He is almost completely overcome by guilt and despair, but ultimately fights to do whatever in his power to not only fix the consequences of his crime, but to also mitigate the effects of the much larger conspiracy at work that he found himself an unwitting pawn in. There are very many side characters, each with their own complex stories, which all tie into the idea that ones desire to change the world may be futile, or even become evil, but we must still strive to do good here on earth despite no rewards in sight. I'd say this is my 2nd "masterpiece" work in terms of writing

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

I mean you're probably right about the published numbers but I think the nhs is outsourcing to private hospitals or something, my friend got an nhs top surgery in under a year. He might have said he was a bit more suicidal than he actually was, idk if that affected it. So like it's shit, but don't give up?

tbh i already went private for surgery and am probably going private for hormones (with shared care arrangements to minimise costs, but i am being fucked around somewhat in terms of how many hoops i'm having to jump through to see an endo) so the post was more of a general statement about the absolute state of things right now rather than about my personal situation

because i think a lot of cis people, or trans people from outside the uk, don't realise exactly how bad the nhs waiting lists are, and there's a general vibe of "yeah but if it's free isn't it worth waiting?" that i see sometimes online. which may well be true for the majority of people when it's 2-3 years. but when we're counting in DECADES? yeah that stops being viable real fast.

the 25 year figure would be for people newly referred today, they're currently seeing people referred in 2018. the waiting lists get longer all the time, so it used to be that you'd be seen within a year or two, and then within two, and then five... i was referred early in 2019, so i'm guessing i might get a call from them in two years' time, if the system hasn't completely broken by then

but also these are only the figures for initial appointments, and not for care after an initial appointment (whether that's hormones or surgery referrals). there are lots of delays there too where they can make you wait a year for a second appointment before they'll give you a referral and stuff but i can see things being a lot more variable at that end once you've got past the first hurdle

there are also some parts of the UK where there trans healthcare pilot schemes for people in particular areas, or who meet other criteria (such as being registered with specific sexual health clinics before a certain date), which can help people access care quicker if you happen to be eligible for one of those. unfortunately there are none of those open to me, but it sounds like it could be that your friend was able to get onto one of these schemes?

(a lot of the surgeons do both private and NHS treatment but it's just... how you get there that would be different.)

however if your friend went through the standard GP -> GIC -> surgery route any time in the last few years i feel like there are definitely missing pieces in this story because as far as i can tell it is simply not possible to do that specific process that quickly. (but i know there are policies for breast reductions on the NHS that can include mental health grounds so maybe the were able to take that tack? truly it is only once they put the word Trans in front of things that everything requires ten zillion hoops to jump through)

[lenbryant]

No One Is Talking About What Ron DeSantis Has Actually Done to Florida

Media coverage of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s all-but-announced candidacy for president is already in full frenzy, and so far the script is exactly as his handlers would like it to be. The governor regularly opens up new fronts in the culture wars, sowing alarm over critical race theory, transgender rights, or border policies. In response, liberal pundits fall into the trap of accentuating the very issues DeSantis has chosen to fire up his base.

Omitted from the public debate about DeSantis’s policies is almost any discussion of his actual record of governance—what exactly he has delivered to the citizens of his state, especially those without seven-figure incomes and lush investment portfolios.

Even a cursory dip into the statistics of social and economic well-being reveals that Florida falls short in almost any measure that matters to the lives of its citizens. More than four years into the DeSantis governorship, Florida continues to languish toward the bottom of state rankings assessing the quality of health care, school funding, long-term elder care, and other areas key to a successful society.

Florida may be the place where “woke goes to die”—as DeSantis is fond of saying—but it is also where teachers’ salaries are among the lowest in the nation, unemployment benefits are stingier than in any other state, and wage theft flourishes with little interference from the DeSantis administration. In 2021, DeSantis campaigned against a successful ballot initiative to raise the state’s minimum wage, which had been stuck at $8.65 an hour. Under DeSantis’s watch, the Sunshine State has not exactly been a workers’ paradise.

Read More: Why “Woke” Is A Convenient Republican Dog Whistle

DeSantis weaponizes the cultural wars to distract attention from the core missions of his governorship, which is to starve programs geared toward bettering the lives of ordinary citizens so he can maintain low taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Florida is the ideal haven for privileged Americans who don’t want to pay their fair share of taxes. It has no income tax for individuals, and its corporate tax rate of 5.5% is among the lowest in the nation. An investigation by the Orlando Sentinel in late 2019 revealed the startling fact that 99% of Florida’s companies paid no corporate income tax, abetted by tax-avoidance schemes and state officials who gave a low priority to enforcing tax laws.

This is a pattern that shows up in the statistics of many Republican-led states, which on average commit fewer dollars per-capita to health care, public education, and other crucial services compared to their blue counterparts, while making sure corporations and wealthy individuals are prioritized for tax relief. Arizona cut taxes every year between 1990 and 2019, following up with a shift to a flat tax this year that will cost its budget $1.9 billion. Meanwhile, its public-school spending ranks 48 among the 50 states.

In Florida, the state’s tax revenues come largely through sales and excise taxes, which fall hardest on the poor and middle class. A 2018 study by the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that Florida had the third least-equitable tax system of the 50 states. In the state’s “upside-down” tax structure, the poorest 20% of Florida families paid 12.7% of their income in taxes, while the families whose income was in the top 4% paid 4.5%, and the top 1% paid 2.3%, according to the study.

Florida taxpayers get less for their money than residents of many other states. The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that studies health-care systems globally, found in its 2022 “scorecard” that Florida had the 16th worst health care among the 50 states. It’s no wonder that Florida ranks below the northern blue states in life expectancy and rates of cancer death, diabetes, fatal overdoses, teen birth rates, and infant mortality.

Largely because of DeSantis’s obstinacy, Florida is one of 10 states that have refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, an act of political spite that has cost those states billions in federal health care dollars and cost thousands of people their lives. More than 12% of Floridians are without medical insurance, a worse record than all but four other states. Despite having the country’s highest percentage of retirees, Florida has the worst long-term care among the 50 states, according to the American Association of Retired Persons.

Public schools fare no better than health care in DeSantis’s Florida. Not only did Florida rank 49th in the country for average teacher pay in 2020, but the Education Law Center, a non-profit advocacy group based in New Jersey, found in a 2021 report that the state had the seventh-lowest per-pupil funding in the country. Education Week, which ranks states public school annually, looking beyond mere test scores, placed Florida 23rd in its 2021 report, a lackluster showing for a large and wealthy state.

It says something about the state of our political discourse that Florida’s denuded public sector was not more of an issue in last year’s gubernatorial campaign. In endorsing DeSantis’s Democratic opponent, Charlie Crist, the Tampa Bay Times spent so many column inches on the incumbent’s demagoguery, vindictiveness, and authoritarian tendencies that it never even got to the minutiae of his governance. “No matter what you think about the state of the Florida economy or its schools or its future…,” the paper wrote, “the choice really is this simple: Do you want the state governed by a decent man or a bully?”

To be fair to the media, DeSantis and his allies manned the trenches of the culture wars so ferociously that it was all reporters could do to keep up with all the bomb throwing. How do you delve into the state’s tax policy when your governor is flying planeloads of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard or declaring war on Disney for issuing a statement in opposition to the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay Law”?

But that is very much the point of wedge issues, as they have been wielded by scurrilous politicians for decades, to anger and distract voters so they won’t notice the actions of public officials that mainly benefit the wealthy and are against the public interest.

As the 2024 election draws closer, DeSantis must not be allowed to accomplish nationally what he did in his state—cloak his service to the wealthy by frightening working people with stories about transgender recruiting and “socialist” college professors. There are unmistakable signs that Americans are focused on what an activist government can do for the public good, as evidenced by Floridians’ vote to increase the minimum wage.

The failure of DeSantis to better serve the most vulnerable citizens of his state is his weak underbelly in a national campaign.

TIME Magazine

BY WILLIAM KLEINKNECHT MARCH 29, 2023 7:00 AM EDT

Kleinknecht is a longtime political journalist and author of States of Neglect: How Red-State Leaders Have Failed Their Citizens and Undermined America

[thestudyiashindi]

Trapped in the Haze

Every winter, a thick, smoky haze blankets northern India, with cities like Delhi experiencing hazardous pollution levels. This is largely due to the age-old practice of stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana. Burning crop residue, or stubble, remains the quickest and cheapest way for farmers to clear fields after the paddy harvest, even though this method of clearing fields harms health, air quality, and the environment. Despite government policies and programmes aimed at curbing stubble burning, the high cost of machinery, lack of direct incentives, and limited time to prepare fields for the next crop leave farmers feeling trapped. This complex problem continues to create a recurring cycle of pollution affecting millions.

Practice of Stubble Burning

Stubble burning, the practice of setting fire to leftover plant stalks after harvesting, has long been a common method for farmers in Punjab and Haryana. For them, burning the stubble is a fast and cheap way to clear the fields before planting wheat, the next crop in their cycle. This practice requires no special equipment, making it accessible for small-scale farmers who often face economic pressures. Yet, this approach has severe consequences for air quality, health, and the environment.

Reasons Behind Stubble Burning

Economic Constraints and Lack of Affordable Alternatives: Small farmers face financial pressures that make sustainable options for crop residue management difficult. Expensive machines like balers and super-seeders are essential to managing crop residue without burning, but their cost is prohibitive for most small-scale farmers​. Government subsidies aimed at promoting these machines have not been effective or accessible enough to address the scale of the problem. As a result, many farmers revert to the cheaper and faster method of burning.

Shrinking Cultivation Window: With the enactment of the Punjab Preservation of Subsoil Water Act in 2009, the government aimed to conserve water by delaying paddy planting until mid-June. However, this law also reduced the timeframe between paddy harvest and wheat sowing, making it even harder for farmers to adopt alternative residue management methods. This shrinking window pressures farmers to burn stubble quickly so they can move on to wheat planting​.

Lack of Direct Incentives and Financial Support: Despite the potential of direct financial incentives to discourage stubble burning, the Central government has not yet implemented a robust programme to support this. The Punjab government proposed a system where the Central and State governments would share the cost, providing ₹2,500 per acre as an incentive for farmers to manage stubble sustainably. However, this proposal has not been approved. Without significant direct support, farmers are less motivated to switch from burning to sustainable practices​.

Environmental and Health Impacts

The environmental and health impacts of stubble burning are far-reaching. The smoke produced by burning fields travels across states, causing air quality to deteriorate drastically in densely populated areas like Delhi. In 2023, Delhi’s air quality index (AQI) reached hazardous levels, with PM2.5 concentrations—fine particles harmful to human health—exceeding WHO safety guidelines by more than ten times. Such high levels of pollution can cause serious respiratory issues, aggravate chronic lung diseases, and even increase the risk of lung cancer​. These health concerns extend to rural areas, affecting not only city dwellers but also farmers and villagers exposed to the harmful pollutants on a daily basis.

Government Efforts and Policy Gaps

Subsidies for Crop Residue Management (CRM) Machines: The Central government introduced a subsidy scheme in 2018 to encourage farmers to use CRM machines. Although this initiative aimed to help farmers manage crop residue without burning, these subsidies have not effectively addressed the problem. Many farmers find it challenging to operate and maintain these machines, and reports indicate that many of the subsidised machines have become redundant due to high operational costs​.

Legal Actions and Penalties: In recent years, the government and courts have imposed penalties on farmers who burn stubble. Some farmers even face red entries in their records, which can affect their ability to get loans or sell land. However, these punitive measures often feel unjust to farmers, who are already facing economic hardship. Punishing them for a practice they feel they cannot avoid only adds to their burden, and coercive measures alone have proven insufficient in stopping the practice​.

Success of Incentive Programmes in Haryana: Haryana’s initiative to offer a ₹1,000 per acre incentive for farmers who sell stubble to contractors has seen some success. Farmers who participate in this programme help supply stubble for biofuel production, reducing the amount of residue burned. This programme illustrates that with proper incentives, farmers are willing to adopt alternatives to burning. However, the programme is currently limited in scale and would need substantial expansion to address the problem on a larger scale​.

Long-Term Solutions: Diversification and Sustainable Agriculture

Experts in agricultural policy suggest that one of the most promising solutions is to diversify the types of crops grown. In particular, farmers could shift away from water-intensive crops like paddy to alternatives that produce less residue, such as cotton and sugarcane. However, these alternative crops do not receive the same minimum support price (MSP) as paddy, making them less attractive to farmers​. For crop diversification to be successful, the government would need to offer strong support for these alternative crops, including reliable pricing and better market access.

The Historical Context of Stubble Burning

The roots of the stubble burning issue can be traced back to the Green Revolution, which transformed Punjab into a rice-growing region to ensure food security. Traditionally, Punjab did not grow paddy, as its climate and soil were not naturally suited for it. However, with government support and high-yielding crop varieties, paddy production soared. Mechanised farming methods, such as combine harvesters, left long stubble in the fields, which could not be easily ploughed back into the soil. Consequently, burning became the easiest option. The legacy of these policy changes continues to impact farmers, who are now reliant on a crop that poses serious challenges for residue management​.

Ethical Concerns and the Farmer’s Perspective

Many farmers feel the current approach to stubble burning is unfair. With limited resources and alternatives, they find themselves penalised for a practice that feels like a necessity rather than a choice. It is important to think about whether it is fair to punish poor farmers, especially since forcing them to change will not work on its own. Farmer unions and local organisations argue for a balanced approach that includes incentives and practical support rather than solely relying on penalties.

Technological Innovations and Potential Solutions

Exploring innovative and affordable technologies for stubble management could help. Newer technologies, like small-scale machines suited to smaller farms or community machinery sharing programmes, could make sustainable residue management accessible to more farmers. Moreover, integrating stubble into biofuel production or other industries, as Haryana’s incentive programme illustrates, offers promising possibilities. With such measures, India could take a step forward in addressing this recurring problem​.

Conclusion

Stubble burning is a complex, multifaceted issue tied to historical agricultural policies, economic pressures, and environmental impacts. Although the government has implemented several measures to curb the practice, the support provided often falls short of the real needs of farmers. Expanding incentive programmes, investing in sustainable agricultural practices, and making affordable technology accessible to small-scale farmers are critical steps to reducing stubble burning. With these efforts, the thick haze that envelops northern India each winter could eventually start to clear, benefiting both the farmers and the millions affected by air pollution across the region.

[news365timesindia]

[ad_1] GG News Bureau New Delhi, 30th Oct. In an escalating dispute over health policies in Delhi, Lieutenant Governor (LG) VK Saxena on Wednesday criticized Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for not implementing the Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme in the capital. Saxena’s remarks followed a petition filed by Delhi BJP MPs in the High Court demanding the scheme’s adoption. The LG accused Kejriwal of blocking Ayushman Bharat due to concerns it might undermine the Delhi government’s healthcare model. Saxena claimed that Kejriwal opposed Ayushman Bharat in 2018 to prioritize his administration’s “Aam Aadmi Health Insurance Scheme” label, stating Kejriwal’s resistance left vulnerable Delhi residents without key health benefits. This confrontation comes a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi also criticized the AAP-led Delhi government for disregarding Ayushman Bharat for “political reasons.” Responding to Modi’s comments, Kejriwal defended Delhi’s health services, arguing that Ayushman Bharat’s limitations make it unnecessary in Delhi, where free treatment is already available. Kejriwal labeled Ayushman Bharat a “scam” and recommended it be replaced nationwide with Delhi’s model, which he claims offers unrestricted free care without conditions. At a press conference, Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva highlighted that the AAP had previously promised Ayushman Bharat’s rollout in Delhi, only to withdraw the commitment later. The BJP has now resorted to legal action to extend the scheme’s reach to Delhi’s eligible residents, Sachdeva added. Delhi Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj, meanwhile, critiqued Ayushman Bharat, calling it restrictive and inferior to Delhi’s model, which serves all citizens regardless of economic status. AAP spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar echoed this sentiment, alleging that many hospitals in Ayushman Bharat’s network do not actively participate, suggesting the scheme’s inefficacy in BJP-led states. With the issue now in court, the debate over Delhi’s healthcare direction is likely to intensify, placing the AAP’s healthcare model under greater public scrutiny. The post BJP Files Writ Petition for Ayushman Bharat in Delhi; LG Slams Kejriwal of Political Obstruction appeared first on Global Governance News- Asia's First Bilingual News portal for Global News and Updates. [ad_2] Source link

[news365times]

[ad_1] GG News Bureau New Delhi, 30th Oct. In an escalating dispute over health policies in Delhi, Lieutenant Governor (LG) VK Saxena on Wednesday criticized Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for not implementing the Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme in the capital. Saxena’s remarks followed a petition filed by Delhi BJP MPs in the High Court demanding the scheme’s adoption. The LG accused Kejriwal of blocking Ayushman Bharat due to concerns it might undermine the Delhi government’s healthcare model. Saxena claimed that Kejriwal opposed Ayushman Bharat in 2018 to prioritize his administration’s “Aam Aadmi Health Insurance Scheme” label, stating Kejriwal’s resistance left vulnerable Delhi residents without key health benefits. This confrontation comes a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi also criticized the AAP-led Delhi government for disregarding Ayushman Bharat for “political reasons.” Responding to Modi’s comments, Kejriwal defended Delhi’s health services, arguing that Ayushman Bharat’s limitations make it unnecessary in Delhi, where free treatment is already available. Kejriwal labeled Ayushman Bharat a “scam” and recommended it be replaced nationwide with Delhi’s model, which he claims offers unrestricted free care without conditions. At a press conference, Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva highlighted that the AAP had previously promised Ayushman Bharat’s rollout in Delhi, only to withdraw the commitment later. The BJP has now resorted to legal action to extend the scheme’s reach to Delhi’s eligible residents, Sachdeva added. Delhi Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj, meanwhile, critiqued Ayushman Bharat, calling it restrictive and inferior to Delhi’s model, which serves all citizens regardless of economic status. AAP spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar echoed this sentiment, alleging that many hospitals in Ayushman Bharat’s network do not actively participate, suggesting the scheme’s inefficacy in BJP-led states. With the issue now in court, the debate over Delhi’s healthcare direction is likely to intensify, placing the AAP’s healthcare model under greater public scrutiny. The post BJP Files Writ Petition for Ayushman Bharat in Delhi; LG Slams Kejriwal of Political Obstruction appeared first on Global Governance News- Asia's First Bilingual News portal for Global News and Updates. [ad_2] Source link

[jaagrukbharat]

Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission Yojana: Hospital List, Eligibilty, Registration Online

The Ayushman Card is an integral part of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY), one of the world’s largest government-funded healthcare schemes. Launched in September 2018, this scheme aims to provide affordable healthcare services to the economically weaker sections of society, covering millions of Indian citizens under its health insurance plan. Beneficiaries of PMJAY can access cashless treatment services of up to ₹5 lakh per year at empanelled hospitals across India. The Ayushman Card, also referred to as the PM-JAY card, acts as proof of eligibility and allows beneficiaries to access the scheme's benefits.