#and the federal government

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

[zinjanthropusboisei]

Noticed something a little funky in the world around you and want to figure out what's up? Especially if there might be something you ought to be doing about it? Not sure what information sources to trust these days? If you're in the US, federal agencies like NOAA, USGS, EPA and more collect massive amounts of scientific data every day, much of which is publicly available online - if you know where to look.

A PDF version with clickable links is available for free on my itchio page (quakeandquiver); I'll add a direct link in a reblog.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

putting my prediction on record now that the coming decade is going to see the rise of viral-marketed fancy at-home water filtration systems, driving and driven by a drastic reduction in the quality of U.S. tap water (given that we are in a 'replacement era' where our current infrastructure is reaching the end of its lifespan--but isn't being replaced). also guessing that by the 2030s access to drinkable tap water will be a mainstream class issue, with low-income & unstably housed people increasingly forced to rely on expensive bottled water when they can't afford the up-front cost of at-home filtration--and with this being portrayed in media as a "moral failing" and short-sighted "choice," rather than a basic failure of our political & economic systems. really hope i'm just being alarmist, but plenty of this already happens in other countries, and the U.S. is in a state of decline, so. here's praying this post ages into irrelevance. timestamped April 2023

[reality-detective]

An alternate angle on the Francis Scott Key Bridge shows what appears to be a large explosion, which you can see 👀 from the other angles I posted. Something reeks like a possible Black Swan Event?

Does it seem like a barge bumping into a pillar would cause the whole bridge to collapse? 🤔

[fernsnailz]

been reading through various usps reviews this morning and i've started to notice some trends

[tothechaos]

we were SO CLOSE to updating the presidential assassinations wikipedia page. youre failing your country.

[stuckinapril]

“The US isn’t doing as much as it should but at least they’re warning Israel not to invade Rafah now!” “They use tougher language than they did before in their resolution” “they’re actually acknowledging that there needs to be a ceasefire now, even if they’re calling for a temporary one” are you guys nuts. They know. “The US” is comprised of politicians and advisors and people who know the value of time and stalling. They know what they’re doing. They know they’re stalling. There isn’t “too much red tape to get around,” especially where the US is concerned. The US calls the shots on a global scale, and this has been demonstrated several times before (especially where Arab countries are concerned). But you really think they’re trying their best & they’re being “strategic” because of the “red tape around these things”? The US IS the red tape. They are stalling on purpose, and they know every second they do countless Palestinians die. Please stop making it seem like the US doesn’t know the magnitude of stalling.

[the-final-sif]

There's a post from someone outside of the US about how people in the US don't put their country down and just put down their state and something about US people being US centric, and part of it has always kind of bothered me because I think that people outside of the US don't really understand how states work for us or why people think their state should be enough. Some of it is being US centric for sure, but I honestly don't think that's the main reason.

It's because the US is a bunch of countries in a trench coat. I've compared it before to the EU, and I really do think that's accurate. It's literally a union of states. Each state has it's own government and laws and we have the federal government too but day to day a lot more of your life comes down to the state laws. Your driver's license, license plate, wage and a lot of employment protect (and enforcement), vast majority of court experiences, etc all go through the state. Moving to different states can mean being subject to wildly different laws, tax rates/methods, and forms of discrimination (ie florida trying to ban queer people while other states are explicitly adding protections for them).

Like, you'll notice that streamers often tend to be clustered in certain states in the US, and a lot of that has to do with certain states not having an income tax. Depending on what state they're registered in, companies can be subject to wildly different laws. Hence why Delaware is so popular for businesses. Bankruptcy law works differently in every state.

Lawyers are licensed to practice by state, and while they can move to different states, it's difficult and depending on their area of law they may be totally out of their field. Even small states like Delaware have totally different laws from a place 15 minutes to the left like New Jersey.

The largest single state by population is California which has nearly 40 million people. That is more than the entire population of Canada. It's roughly on par with Poland. Give or take a million people.

Ohio has about 11 million people, about 1 million more than Sweden. Florida has 22 million, over double Greece's population. New York and Romania both come out to about 19 million each.

Our smallest state by population, Wyoming, which has about 500k people, still has about 200k more people than Iceland.

Fucking Russia literally does not have half the population of the US. It sits at 144 million while we're at 333 million.

To give a sense of landmass/scale, France is the largest EU state by landmass with 630k square km. Texas alone is 695k. Alaska is 1.7 million square km. The US in total is 11.3 million square km. The entire EU has 4.2 million square km.

The US is 1) fucking huge and 2) so much less cohesive than a lot of non-Americans assume.

So why would someone from the US just put down their state? For the same reason that most people from the EU don't write down "Germany in the EU". Your state is where you're actually from, the USA is the weird umbrella you live under.

[heliotrope155]

Another TFW missed opportunity would be getting together with the Ghostfacers to release a video apologizing for the Apocalypse and breaking down what to expect (featuring: Sam and Dean being very passive aggressive with each other while Castiel looks like he's in the Ninth circle of hell answering questions).

[prolifeproliberty]

Ted Cruz has really disappointed me here.

IVF is not pro-life.

Please call your senators and ask them to reject this bill. If your senator ran as a pro-life candidate or claims to be pro-life, PLEASE emphasize in your call that IVF is not compatible with pro-life values.

Even if you don’t care about IVF specifically, this bill represents huge federal overreach. It’s like the Roe v Wade of IVF. And worse, because it’s legislation and not a court case.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Andrew Wallace

Today, radical left-wing protestors breached parliamentary security and led an abhorrent protest from the top of Australian Parliament House.

Shouts like “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free” and “Sovereignty Was Never Ceded” echoed across the Parliamentary Lawn as radicals clad with balaclavas and keffiyehs made a delusional equivocation between Israel, Australian Indigenous issues and Australia’s peacekeeping and military operations abroad.

This is a shameful display. It’s vile. And it’s illegal.

This was an attack on the Jewish people and the people of Israel, at a time when antisemitism has reached levels we have not seen since we stood on the threshold of Hitler’s Holocaust.

It was an attack on our parliamentary democracy, disrupting the important work of parliament while families contend with crises in Australia’s economy, society, and national security.

It was an assault on the memory of those who have paid the ultimate price to protect Australia’s security and sovereignty, and to preserve peace in the global rules-based order.

In the conflicts of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and East Timor, Australian servicemen and women stood up to the tyranny of communism, Islamic extremism, and dictatorship. They purchased our freedom with their sacrifice, and that is a debt we cannot repay.

This extremist behaviour is made possible by a government which has been slow to act on antisemitism and virulent hate of extremists on the far-left and far-right.

It’s not just virulent; it’s viral, and it’s infected our campuses, communities, social media and now our Parliament.

I call on the Federal Labor Government to legislate for a Judicial Inquiry into Antisemitism on Australia’s University Campuses.

I call on the Federal Labor Government to step back from its unqualified support for a Two State Solution, without acknowledging how the war in Gaza actually started, after the atrocities of October 7, 2023.

I call on the Prime Minister to sack Senator Fatima Payman and anyone else who defends the use of terror slogans such as those we have seen today.

And I call on every Australian, from every walk of life, to call out antisemitism wherever you see it or hear it.

Last time the world failed to act, six million Jews were murdered.

We must show “never again” is more than mere words; it is a promise made to a people whose share of oppression has been unrivalled through many centuries.

We must show that Australians keep their promises.

[zinjanthropusboisei]

FREE MAPS

Today's PSA about resources from the federal government that you might not know about: virtually all of the USGS's maps are in the public domain and free to download. More than a century's worth of them. They even have a nice map-based browser so you can search by location and filter by date, scale, etc. You can also generate your own topo map using the best available data for whatever area you define (within the US) using the topoBuilder application.

You can ALSO get printed versions for quite a low price - I just got one for my office for $9 plus shipping, which came to ~$15 total, I think.

SO if for INSTANCE you wanted a cool old map for your wall and you went to Etsy and found some schmuck selling reprints of old USGS maps for +$50 bucks - THEY'RE SCAMMING YOUUUUUUU they are depriving you of your American right to life, liberty and the pursuit of topographic data

[humanoidhistory]

Cover art for Future Government by Harriette Sheffer Abels, 1980, illustrated by Vista III Design.

[reality-detective]

Piglosi explains the "Wrap Up Smear" tactic... Now think about how many times they have done this to Donald J. Trump? And, many other people and countries to invade their countries, hell they do it to Putin. 🤔

[visenyaism]

the caselaw thing i’m doing tomorrow describes south carolina as “a state with a long history of apprehension towards the federal government encroaching on their reserved powers” which is so. well you could say that i guess