#except property tax and like. other bills but YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

UK publishers suing Google for $17.4b over rigged ad markets

THIS WEEKEND (June 7–9), I'm in AMHERST, NEW YORK to keynote the 25th Annual Media Ecology Association Convention and accept the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.

Look, no one wants to kick Big Tech to the curb more than I do, but, also: it's good that Google indexes the news so people can find it, and it's good that Facebook provides forums where people can talk about the news.

It's not news if you can't find it. It's not news if you can't talk about it. We don't call information you can't find or discuss "news" – we call it "secrets."

And yet, the most popular – and widely deployed – anti-Big Tech tactic promulgated by the news industry and supported by many of my fellow trustbusters is premised on making Big Tech pay to index the news and/or provide a forum to discuss news articles. These "news bargaining codes" (or, less charitably, "link taxes") have been mooted or introduced in the EU, France, Spain, Australia, and Canada. There are proposals to introduce these in the US (through the JCPA) and in California (the CJPA).

These US bills are probably dead on arrival, for reasons that can be easily understood by the Canadian experience with them. After Canada introduced Bill C-18 – its own news bargaining code – Meta did exactly what it had done in many other places where this had been tried: blocked all news from Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and other Meta properties.

This has been a disaster for the news industry and a disaster for Canadians' ability to discuss the news. Oh, it makes Meta look like assholes, too, but Meta is the poster child for "too big to care" and is palpably indifferent to the PR costs of this boycott.

Frustrated lawmakers are now trying to figure out what to do next. The most common proposal is to order Meta to carry the news. Canadians should be worried about this, because the next government will almost certainly be helmed by the far-right conspiratorialist culture warrior Pierre Poilievre, who will doubtless use this power to order Facebook to platform "news sites" to give prominence to Canada's rotten bushel of crypto-fascist (and openly fascist) "news" sites.

Americans should worry about this too. A Donald Trump 2028 presidency combined with a must-carry rule for news would see Trump's cabinet appointees deciding what is (and is not) news, and ordering large social media platforms to cram the Daily Caller (or, you know, the Daily Stormer) into our eyeballs.

But there's another, more fundamental reason that must-carry is incompatible with the American system: the First Amendment. The government simply can't issue a blanket legal order to platforms requiring them to carry certain speech. They can strongly encourage it. A court can order limited compelled speech (say, a retraction following a finding of libel). Under emergency conditions, the government might be able to compel the transmission of urgent messages. But there's just no way the First Amendment can be squared with a blanket, ongoing order issued by the government to communications platforms requiring them to reproduce, and make available, everything published by some collection of their favorite news outlets.

This might also be illegal in Canada, but it's harder to be definitive. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enshrined in 1982, and Canada's Supreme Court is still figuring out what it means. Section Two of the Charter enshrines a free expression right, but it's worded in less absolute terms than the First Amendment, and that's deliberate. During the debate over the wording of the Charter, Canadian scholars and policymakers specifically invoked problems with First Amendment absolutism and tried to chart a middle course between strong protections for free expression and problems with the First Amendment's brook-no-exceptions language.

So maybe Canada's Supreme Court would find a must-carry order to Meta to be a violation of the Charter, but it's hard to say for sure. The Charter is both young and ambiguous, so it's harder to be definitive about what it would say about this hypothetical. But when it comes to the US and the First Amendment, that's categorically untrue. The US Constitution is centuries older than the Canadian Charter, and the First Amendment is extremely definitive, and there are reams of precedent interpreting it. The JPCA and CJPA are totally incompatible with the US Constitution. Passing them isn't as silly as passing a law declaring that Pi equals three or that water isn't wet, but it's in the neighborhood.

But all that isn't to say that the news industry shouldn't be attacking Big Tech. Far from it. Big Tech compulsively steals from the news!

But what Big Tech steals from the news isn't content.

It's money.

Big Tech steals money from the news. Take social media: when a news outlet invests in building a subscriber base on a social media platform, they're giving that platform a stick to beat them with. The more subscribers you have on social media, the more you'll be willing to pay to reach those subscribers, and the more incentive there is for the platform to suppress the reach of your articles unless you pay to "boost" your content.

This is plainly fraudulent. When I sign up to follow a news outlet on a social media site, I'm telling the platform to show me the things the news outlet publishes. When the platform uses that subscription as the basis for a blackmail plot, holding my desire to read the news to ransom, they are breaking their implied promise to me to show me the things I asked to see:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-need-end-end-web

This is stealing money from the news. It's the definition of an "unfair method of competition." Article 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act gives the FTC the power to step in and ban this practice, and they should:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

Big Tech also steals money from the news via the App Tax: the 30% rake that the mobile OS duopoly (Apple/Google) requires for every in-app purchase (Apple/Google also have policies that punish app vendors who take you to the web to make payments without paying the App Tax). 30% out of every subscriber dollar sent via an app is highway robbery! By contrast, the hyperconcentrated, price-gouging payment processing cartel charges 2-5% – about a tenth of the Big Tech tax. This is Big Tech stealing money from the news:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-must-open-app-stores

Finally, Big Tech steals money by monopolizing the ad market. The Google-Meta ad duopoly takes 51% out of every ad-dollar spent. The historic share going to advertising "intermediaries" is 10-15%. In other words, Google/Meta cornered the market on ads and then tripled the bite they were taking out of publishers' advertising revenue. They even have an illegal, collusive arrangement to rig this market, codenamed "Jedi Blue":

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

There's two ways to unrig the ad market, and we should do both of them.

First, we should trustbust both Google and Meta and force them to sell off parts of their advertising businesses. Currently, both Google and Meta operate a "full stack" of ad services. They have an arm that represents advertisers buying space for ads. Another arm represents publishers selling space to advertisers. A third arm operates the marketplace where these sales take place. All three arms collect fees. On top of that: Google/Meta are both publishers and advertisers, competing with their own customers!

This is as if you were in court for a divorce and you discovered that the same lawyer representing your soon-to-be ex was also representing you…while serving as the judge…and trying to match with you both on Tinder. It shouldn't surprise you if at the end of that divorce, the court ruled that the family home should go to the lawyer.

So yeah, we should break up ad-tech:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-shatter-ad-tech

Also: we should ban surveillance advertising. Surveillance advertising gives ad-tech companies a permanent advantage over publishers. Ad-tech will always know more about readers' behavior than publishers do, because Big Tech engages in continuous, highly invasive surveillance of every internet user in the world. Surveillance ads perform a little better than "content-based ads" (ads sold based on the content of a web-page, not the behavior of the person looking at the page), but publishers will always know more about their content than ad-tech does. That means that even if content-based ads command a slightly lower price than surveillance ads, a much larger share of that payment will go to publishers:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

Banning surveillance advertising isn't just good business, it's good politics. The potential coalition for banning surveillance ads is everyone who is harmed by commercial surveillance. That's a coalition that's orders of magnitude larger than the pool of people who merely care about fairness in the ad/news industries. It's everyone who's worried about their grandparents being brainwashed on Facebook, or their teens becoming anorexic because of Instagram. It includes people angry about deepfake porn, and people angry about Black Lives Matter protesters' identities being handed to the cops by Google (see also: Jan 6 insurrectionists).

It also includes everyone who discovers that they're paying higher prices because a vendor is using surveillance data to determine how much they'll pay – like when McDonald's raises the price of your "meal deal" on your payday, based on the assumption that you will spend more when your bank account is at its highest monthly level:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again

Attacking Big Tech for stealing money is much smarter than pretending that the problem is Big Tech stealing content. We want Big Tech to make the news easy to find and discuss. We just want them to stop pocketing 30 cents out of every subscriber dollar and 51 cents out of ever ad dollar, and ransoming subscribers' social media subscriptions to extort publishers.

And there's amazing news on this front: a consortium of UK web-publishers called Ad Tech Collective Action has just triumphed in a high-stakes proceeding, and can now go ahead with a suit against Google, seeking damages of GBP13.6b ($17.4b) for the rigged ad-tech market:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/17-bln-uk-adtech-lawsuit-against-google-can-go-ahead-tribunal-rules-2024-06-05/

The ruling, from the Competition Appeal Tribunal, paves the way for a frontal assault on the thing Big Tech actually steals from publishers: money, not content.

This is exactly what publishing should be doing. Targeting the method by which tech steals from the news is a benefit to all kinds of news organizations, including the independent, journalist-owned publishers that are doing the best news work today. These independents do not have the same interests as corporate news, which is dominated by hedge funds and private equity raiders, who have spent decades buying up and hollowing out news outlets, and blaming the resulting decline in readership and profits on Craiglist.

You can read more about Big Finance's raid on the news in Margot Susca's Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy:

https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p087561

You can also watch/listen to Adam Conover's excellent interview with Susca:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N21YfWy0-bA

Frankly, the looters and billionaires who bought and gutted our great papers are no more interested in the health of the news industry or democracy than Big Tech is. We should care about the news and the workers who produce the news, not the profits of the hedge-funds that own the news. An assault on Big Tech's monetary theft levels the playing field, making it easier for news workers and indies to compete directly with financialized news outlets and billionaire playthings, by letting indies keep more of every ad-dollar and more of every subscriber-dollar – and to reach their subscribers without paying ransom to social media.

Ending monetary theft – rather than licensing news search and discussion – is something that workers are far more interested in than their bosses. Any time you see workers and their bosses on the same side as a fight against Big Tech, you should look more closely. Bosses are not on their workers' side. If bosses get more money out of Big Tech, they will not share those gains with workers unless someone forces them to.

That's where antitrust comes in. Antitrust is designed to strike at power, and enforcers have broad authority to blunt the power of corporate juggernauts. Remember Article 5 of the FTC Act, the one that lets the FTC block "unfair methods of competition?" FTC Chair Lina Khan has proposed using it to regulate training AI, specifically to craft rules that address the labor and privacy issues with AI:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mh8Z5pcJpg

This is an approach that can put creative workers where they belong, in a coalition with other workers, rather than with their bosses. The copyright approach to curbing AI training is beloved of the same media companies that are eagerly screwing their workers. If we manage to make copyright – a transferrable right that a worker can be forced to turn over their employer – into the system that regulates AI training, it won't stop training. It'll just trigger every entertainment company changing their boilerplate contract so that creative workers have to sign over their AI rights or be shown the door:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/13/spooky-action-at-a-close-up/#invisible-hand

Then those same entertainment and news companies will train AI models and try to fire most of their workers and slash the pay of the remainder using those models' output. Using copyright to regulate AI training makes changes to who gets to benefit from workers' misery, shifting some of our stolen wages from AI companies to entertainment companies. But it won't stop them from ruining our lives.

By contrast, focusing on actual labor rights – say, through an FTCA 5 rulemaking – has the potential to protect those rights from all parties, and puts us on the same side as call-center workers, train drivers, radiologists and anyone else whose wages are being targeted by AI companies and their customers.

Policy fights are a recurring monkey's paw nightmare in which we try to do something to fight corruption and bullying, only to be outmaneuvered by corrupt bullies. Making good policy is no guarantee of a good outcome, but it sure helps – and good policy starts with targeting the thing you want to fix. If we're worried that news is being financially starved by Big Tech, then we should go after the money, not the links.

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/2024/06/06/stealing-money-not-content/#content-free

[indefatigablepaths]

Lil Debbie Bitches Clinton Sparks Remix 1 hour loop

Ok. I'm doing this. While I get all nippy, and I speak. I bark I bite. I do all those things because I have to. These things happen. Oh, and now we wan'na talk.

Ok. I'm not done with this, but they did find - a little - more money. The money doesn't matter inside the system, ok.

This talk is all a scene, more money. Every building in the country, and every job - while you're inside. That runs on a percentage.

I think they call the money fraud official wise a COLA percentage. They just say 30 percent all more money ever given out is still mine forever.

The system literally just plays pretend and hands itself more money. Except it uses little people.

So the system has never had an inflation adjustment for citizens one time. In all of history.

Before my history I can't even find a document.

0 dollars

I am leaving the system because of complete corruption.

That means maybe like 9 million new homeless people by next month.

You can't even pretend to live on this much money without special training.

My favorite song from A Perfect Circle is Blue.

I don't dictate the rules of a dream. I just don't die. Despite your dreams.

I told you they had a ghost army on ghost ships.

Ya. I think you can buy your tax returns back, from online too. I've worked here my entire life.

Ya. I had to get so high to do this. I had to get fired from my job probably forever.

The guy with the hair. Why is she standing with Summer in that house.

No.

I had to take the maximum amount of adjustments to my bills, next month. Or I would have bailed early.

Every time I contact the new land lord I get the same story.

500 apartments in this city. You go next door.

The property line is supposed to matter.

Although I never knew how that feels in strip malls or parking lots, complex buildings. I used to think about it a lot. I'm also barred by Summer there anyways. I can't do that.

Do you really think you can't grow algae in some storage shed that doesn't even afford one power outlet?

No one believes you can get picked up for property lines in a cab.

I think you're really in the wrong business if you think you can argue about what I do with my keys.

Yeah I got so mad about this. I started thinking Id go all guerilla and flush it down porta toilets.

Do you really think a bottle across a city is gonna hit me for algae?

I haven't used a garbage truck for five months.

Ya. I can't even pay my rent. She is a bundle of nerves that swerve. I would crash my plane.

You know the projects stay broken forever. As far as I know. You can't fix the bathroom. You can't fix your room. That space is illegal property.

Ya he thinks that's funny. He's not living.

An hour with you is almost up and the police had to knock on my door.

See I'm not asking anyone. Wasn't that Metallica.

I ask no one. That's a joke.

You all go insane all the time. Days, weeks whatever. You keep telling me the internet is illegal.

I'm being told again this is the way things will be. I've snapped out of this every other time.

Getting caught up in a psycho imagination.

Though I do see the mind needs time to rearrange itself. Not sure where the mind thinks it believes itself.

If you don't go completely green the rats will eat your internet connection. Like it was food.

As far as I see this is an order. So feel free to tell me it's not. What. You said. I can't tell you it's not an order.

They keep sweeping these buildings. I'm still waiting to see if they sweep regular apartments.

If I don't let these "people" stay crazy and eat all our time. I can't find the documents they forget.

Judas is who the police think they are.

Whiz Khalifa was trying to make this clear that there's no circumstance where a land lord can enter my room.

I already met Mark Horvath from invisible people. They were so blind at the other property they are starting to think I was watching someone who thought they were you.

[fw00shy]

hello!! i see that you're taking prompts 👀❣️ i would love to see your take on hitman draco - whose next target is harry

hello shal!! I loved your prompt and wanted to write something super dangerous and sexy for it, but instead I wrote this. 😅 

Horrible Luck

Harry/Draco | M | 2.8k | Hit-Wizards, Humor, Catsuit, brief mention of dudley working out in front of the telly | ao3 link

When does a relationship stop moving forward and start looping back like a broken time-turner, intent on rewinding the same disagreements in perpetude? When did all the little quirks Draco used to love about Harry turn into a list of things he wouldn't need to deal with if he were alone? Draco's mind is on his kitchen table this morning — specifically, the half-eaten plate of eggs that Harry left behind; Harry knows the kneazle will sick up from it — so Draco doesn't notice the name on his latest assignment until he's already signed off the disclosure forms.

Harry James Potter.

"We don't need him dead for a few days," Pansy's saying. "Just get it done before the Rodney Snyder Bill comes to a vote in Parliament on Monday."

"Get it done..." Draco trails off, swallowing sickly.

"Yes, Draco? Sorry — oh-thirteen. Blast this numbering system. It isn't as though you're on my payroll as 013. I'm tempted to order a hit on you just so I won't need to write all five bloody titles of yours every two weeks. Only joking, of course — Draco? You alright there?" She taps the heel of her stiletto against the desk, where she has it propped up next to her coffee.

Draco blinks. "Right, yes. Before the Rodney Snyder Bill. Which bill is that again?"

"It's the usual hem-haw about how life is so unfair blahblahblah." Pansy waves the peacock-feathered quill in her left hand. "Don't worry yourself over it. Are you all worked up because it's Harry Potter? I know you had a bit of a tiff with him back in school, but hadn't we all? Potter's an absolute waste of breath if you ask me."

"It's not that..."

"What is it? If it's because of his involvement in the last war, you needn't worry about that. All our sources report that he's nothing more than a tax acrobat for Muggles now, on the days that he's not wreaking havoc with his voting powers in Parliament. I don't know what half those words mean, but I want a drink just for saying them out loud."

Draco decides that it is probably not in his best interest to tell Pansy that Harry was actually a tax accountant, and yes — it is indeed as dull as Neville Longbottom's surprisingly round bottom if their dinnertime conversations concerning the subject matter are any indicator.

Draco's mind flits briefly back home. He hopes their kneazle didn't manage to eat any of the eggs before Draco cleaned up Harry's forgone plate. Who knows where she'll puke it up this time. If she ruins his pillow again... Potter is in for a slaying. Only verbally, of course.

"Don't worry about me," Draco says.

"I never do," Pansy says far too flippantly to be a lie. "As I said, you have a few days, so finesse it however you like. Toy with him a bit, for all I care. Get him in bed, then turn a wand on him — go wild. Now doesn't that sound exciting!"

Draco decidedly does not tell her about the last time he "turned a wand" on Harry in bed. Let's just say that it was both slippery and steamy and smelt faintly of strawberries.

"Alright, Pan — sorry, P. I'll get it done. You know I will."

"That's my boy," she smirks. "Now come give me a kiss before you go."

Pansy started demanding that sort of goodbye after she picked it up from a Muggle romcom. "Absolutely disgusting," she'd proclaimed, kissing Draco's cheeks. But the kisses stayed while the mocking subsided. Don't let it fool you, though — she still has plenty of unlearning to do. They get along fine as long as Pansy keeps her mouth shut.

Which is practically never. This is Pansy, after all. Her father liked to joke that she was born wailing for someone to wipe her arse. But Pansy is the only family Draco has left.

The next few days pass in the doldrums of a daily routine. Draco goes off to the local library and does his usual research (a combination of Muggle Internet and blood spells for tracking; Find My Friends is a godsend) despite knowing full well where Harry is at all times. He watches Harry's green dot make its way down the tube to the financial district by way of the Pret a Manger on 3rd Street. The blinking green dot doesn't move for several hours (it never does; Draco knows because he tracks Harry every few weeks out of paranoia). Draco is starving by noon, but he hangs on until three to see if Harry's dot will move the slightest; but alas, Harry is as much the meticulous Gryffindor hero at tax accounting as he was at Horcrux hunting; he doesn't do so much as grab a bite at the cafe in the lobby.

Harry heads home at precisely five-thirty. Draco waits a respectable fifteen minutes before doing the same, so Harry has time to put dinner on the table. The spread tonight smells delicious as it always is: roasted chicken and potatoes, broccolini, those purple carrots that Harry covets from the Muggle farmer's market; homemade treacle tart for dessert. Sometimes Draco wonders how Harry can manage all of this in the fifteen minutes he has before Draco gets home, but he never questions it for long. Who knows how cooking charms work. Not Draco. He's still a Malfoy, after all.

Harry kisses him good-evening before they sit for dinner. They share meaningless conversation about their day. Draco makes up some story about how Hannah in Marketing took the last premade salad he wanted from the deli down the block and is appalled over how, even in his made-up life, he's about as dull as Neville's — well, you know.

"If I hear another word about Neville Longbottom's surprisingly round bottom, I'm going to start thinking you want to fuck it," Harry declares while savagely tearing into his chicken thigh. Draco shudders at the sight; whoever taught Harry how to cook clearly forgot to teach him how to eat.

Still, it's a clear opening for a fight. Draco welcomes it as one does a summer storm, and soon they're throwing plates at each other. The kneazle (Morticia; Granger's idea) scampers out of the kitchen — that Hufflepuff coward — and Draco manages to graze Harry's left cheek before they stall to catch their breath.

The calm is a fallacy, of course; the eerie stillness of a storm's eye, broken up in the next minute with a low growl, and they're clawing at each other again. Except now, Draco is inexplicably hard.

But still, so incredibly bored.

What is the standard deviation of the time from start to Scourgify? Draco wouldn't be surprised if it's less than five minutes.

Monday comes and goes. Draco's thinking about Harry's dirty socks, the ones he tucks between the sofa cushions, while Pansy dresses him down for his latest failure.

"I swear, oh-thirteen. If we weren't like family..." Pansy trails off, her crimson-lacquered nail pointed threateningly at Draco.

"Sorry, Pans," Draco says, trying his level best to look his most innocent. It's not his fault he's an awful hit-wizard, alright? They should've known from his resume. Ronald Weasley, Katie Bell, Rosmerta, Dumbledore... mainly, he kills his marks by accident. He's got horrible luck.

Pansy declares that this is Draco's final chance. And then a week passes, and Harry stays alive. Draco's dead bored staring at his boyfriend's unmoving green dot all day on Apple Maps. He's made friends with Stephanie-the-librarian, though; they go out for a pick-me-up around three pm, and then Draco makes up stories about how she sends him racy pictures of their fake manager and this and that over dinner with Harry. All's okay if not precisely thrilling until the bill passes with Harry still alive, and then Draco reports to Pansy's office with Theo also in the room.

Theo is wearing a full suit, which is par for the course. But Draco knows he's in trouble because Pansy has her heels off her desk.

"Oh-thirteen," Theo booms. "You let the James Buckles Bill pass."

"Which one is that?" Draco asks between nervous swallows.

"Ten-percent increase in taxes on long-term capital gains," Theo explains the same time Pansy snaps, "None of your business."

"Right." Draco has no idea what these words mean. "Umm... sorry?"

"And the week before," Theo says, pacing now, "you let the Rodney Synder Bill pass."

"Ten-percent increase on income tax for those who make more than seven figures a year," Pansy says before Draco can ask.

Figures? Income? None of this means anything to Draco. If he wanted to be a solicitor... well, he's a Malfoy. Malfoys solicit, never solicitator. Or whatever the word for it is.

"It's only two bills, sir," Pansy pipes up in Draco's defence. "Meaningless in the grand scheme of things compared to the Pepper Oakley Bill tomorrow."

"What is —"

"Thirty-percent increase on property tax on all parcels of land within major metropolitan districts, and a twenty-percent increase on all property over two acres, compounding," Pansy hisses to Draco before turning her full attention back to Theo. "Which will not pass. Draco's been building up a relationship with the mark, hasn't he?" She kicks Draco with the pointed tip of her heel.

"Yes!" Draco yelps out in pain. "Yes, absolutely. I've been building... a relationship with Ha — the mark. He's umm. He thinks we're in love."

Theo regards Draco with narrowed eyes. "In love."

"Turns out he's desperately lonely," Draco says with a mocking sneer, though the truth is that they were both rather pathetic in the beginning.

Draco's story passes Theo's muster. He straightens up and gives them one last menacing glower before he leaves. Draco and Pansy stare at the door for a long, vacant second.

Pansy turns to Draco with a sigh when Theo's footsteps retreat down the hall. "Are you really seeing Potter?"

"Oh. Umm... sort of."

"I'm happy for you," she says. "You worry me, you know. Can't be too healthy for the aura with you sulking about all the time."

"Right," Draco says.

"Right," Pansy agrees. She schools her features. "Sorry about the, um — having to kill your boyfriend."

"It's alright," Draco says.

"Right." She coughs. "Well, then. I suppose you ought to go prep. Remember to get it done before tomorrow morning. If I were you, I'd get it done tonight, so you can stop worrying about it and have a decent night's sleep. Now come and give me a kiss before you go."

Draco short-circuits his usual trip to the library and heads straight home. The midday sun comes in too bright from the printed kitchen curtains. He's never noticed how disproportionately large the clumsily illustrated lemons are in comparison to the cherries and ice cubes — but that's what he gets for letting Harry pick the print. When Harry's dead, he'll replace them with a pattern worthy of the Malfoy name. He's always liked snakes and daggers (just the image of them; they're ghastly in reality).

He gets hungry enough around three to rifle through their cabinets for a snack. All he finds are two expired Twinkies and a can of tuna that he realises only after his first bite that it's meant for Morticia. He briefly considers popping by the library to see what Stephanie's up to before deciding against it. He needs to focus on murdering his boyfriend.

Draco is in the middle of purging his wardrobe when he finds his hit-wizard uniform hanging in the back. It's all black and one-piece, like a Muggle wetsuit but much sleeker, like a seal. But not as adorably chubby. More like Catwoman. Lithe, but deadly. Unfortunately, it's not a very practical uniform for murder, so Draco hasn't worn it in years. He slips it on out of morbid curiosity and is pleasantly surprised to find that it still fits him — especially around his arse. Morgana and Mordred both, his arse.

He loses track of time admiring himself in the mirror. And that's when Harry opens the bedroom door.

"Fuck," Draco says. His wand is out and trained on Harry's chest. (Hit-wizard reflexes; Draco's terrible at murder but surprisingly adept at keeping himself alive.) "I — um. I can explain."

"Merlin, you look hot in that," Harry says. He sounds like he's come back from running. "I've always wanted to see you wear it."

"What?"

"Your hit-wizard catsuit." Harry holds both hands up and steps toward Draco. "So fucking hot. I'm going to fuck you into a wall if you let me get any closer. Promise."

Did someone start up the fireplace? "I knew you stared a bit too hard at Halle Berry's arse the last time we watched Catwoman."

"Can you blame me for imagining what you'd look in it?"

"You don't look so bad yourself," Draco purrs. He can't help himself; Harry hasn't looked so fit in years. What is it about him today? Did he do something different with his hair? No...

Harry disarms Draco's wand hand and pushes him up against the wall. He's always been good at following through on his promises.

Draco's washing up in the shower when he realises what's different about Harry today. Harry's wearing an Auror uniform.

Draco bursts out of the shower still wet and dripping. He finds Harry in the living room with the telly on.

"You're going to ruin the carpet with all that water," Harry says, his nose scrunched. He's still got his crimson Auror robes blatantly bunched over the sofa.

"You're a fucking liar," Draco says. "Muggle tax accountant? I can't believe I bought that lie."

Harry remains painfully nonchalant. "We both had our secrets."

"But you knew mine." Merlin, for how long? Was their whole relationship a sham to —

Harry sighs and spells Draco dry. A bathrobe — plushy and cottony, Draco's favourite — flies in from the bedroom to wrap around Draco's shoulders.

Draco begrudgingly shrugs it on.

"Sit down," Harry says, patting the space next to him. Draco almost does as asked, but stops when he spots the smelly old sock peeking between the seat cushions.

"You're an Auror," Draco says. His lips sneer involuntarily at the betrayal.

"And you're the hit-wizard out to kill me. Yet we're both still here," Harry says. "Come on, Draco. Sit down."

Draco eyes the sock.

Harry's face purples. "Is this about the bloody sock? For the thousandth time, it's not me leaving them about. It's Morticia!"

Harry vanishes the sock. Suitably appeased, Draco walks over to their sofa and sits primly at the edge of it.

"I wasn't actually going to kill you," Draco says by way of an apology.

"I know that," Harry says. "You're an idiot. Hit-wizard, really? It's a wonder how I ever thought you were my nemesis."

"That is absolutely rude and uncalled for," Draco says. "I was plenty good at Quidditch."

Harry grins. "I'll give you that. Most distracting arse on the pitch... some things never change."

"You don't look so bad yourself in those robes," Draco says. He coughs. "I mean. We should... talk."

"Yes."

They've never been good at talking.

"So..." Harry says slowly. "What are you going to tell them when I'm still alive tomorrow?"

"Oh, I dunno. Can't you pretend you're dead? Please? For me."

"I'll be helping a lot of people if we pass this bill," Harry says apologetically.

Right. Saviour complex. Draco's painfully familiar with compromising around that character flaw. "Pansy's going to kill me," Draco sighs. "Well, unless we kill her first. But I'd rather not. She's my favourite person in the world — besides, you, of course."

"She's actually. Um." Harry coughs. "I think she's going to be fine."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean... err."

"No," Draco gasps. "No, don't tell me she's been a mole this whole time."

"Err. Well..." Harry scratches the back of his head. "Did you know she's getting married to my cousin Dudley?"

"The awful Muggle bully?"

"He's um. He turned alright in the end? He's been working out in front of the telly. Bought these free weights and all... says it's really changed his outlook on life."

"Sweating in front of the telly changed his life?"

"Something like that," Harry says.

"That sounds disgusting."

"Yeah... I try not to think about it much either. So, err… takeaway? Greek, maybe? You loved the rotisserie chicken we had a few weeks ago. Before um, you started throwing it at me."

Shouldn't they be discussing something serious? Draco already forgets what. "Takeaway? But don't you —"

"Right," Harry laughs. "Now that everything else is out in the open, I suppose there's no harm in you knowing that I order takeaway and vanish away the boxes before you come home."

"I..."

"Draco? You aren't mad, are you?"

Mad, no. Surprised — absolutely. But Draco should've known that dating Harry Potter would never be boring.

Read on AO3

[astralaffairs]

i know mc is specifically a political journalist, but what if she was covering a story like the blm on the side or a riot or smth, and happened to get arrested while on the job? any headcanons for how thom would react? i see him wanting to use his political influence to get her out but i feel like he might give away too much if he does that?? or would he not care at this point bc he just wants to make sure she's safe?

mc uses her prison phone call on either lafayette or dolley for the SOLE purpose of them getting her in touch w thom

because so many people were arrested, the cops arresting yet another journalist probably wouldn't make the news

so when she calls either dolley or laf she just has to hope that they know what she means when she says to "spread the word" that she's been arrested

when word reaches thomas about it, though, he damn near loses his mind because "they can't just hold her there indefinitely!!!!!"

however, because her invocation of habeas corpus is just met with a statement that she's suspected of "rioting" or some variation of theft or property destruction at the protests, they all realize that they can, in fact, hold her there indefinitely

because our criminal justice system is so wildly fucked up

being a certified Broke Bitch, our poor heroine cannot post bail, so she's there until either charges are dropped or she scrounges up enough money for bail

dolley and lafayette both come to visit her (regardless of who she calls w her one phone call, they each tell the other pretty quickly)

when they learn abt her situation, they're also freaking out

they both offer to pay her bail money, but considering that they're both public figures closely associated w the jefferson campaign, mc thinks it would look too sus

lafayette comes in the next day claiming to be her lawyer so he can talk to her alone (she j runs with it bc this might as well happen)

but really he just did it so he could have space to tell her that thomas was insisting on bankrolling her bail AND legal fees

his plan is to just fund it w/ offshore investments; if the $$ is coming from nevis, no one's gonna be able to track it back to him (haven't u heard thomas jefferson was implicated in the panama papers??)

she tells him fuck no u can't do that

because then she'd have evidence of him using offshore investments to evade taxes (and she'd publish that info w/o hesitation)

because of course he's guilty of tax evasion 🙄

she'd basically tell him to take his money out of the offshore accounts if he was gonna bankroll her anything; she refuses to let her bail fund b paid by dark money

meanwhile, alex and lafayette are about to throw down bc alex is pissed that lafayette is acting as mc's lawyer

"He doesn't even have a law degree! Why the hell would you trust him with this?"

and lafayette is ridiculously smug abt it, but he knows the only reason she's letting him act as her attorney is so he can act as an intermediary btwn her and thomas

(once she no longer needed to communicate w thom, lafayette would be losing his role there)

but anyway thomas quickly realizes she won't b letting him pay her bail fund (and that she's probably being more reasonable abt it than he is)

so, being the extra bitch he is, he literally funnels millions of dollars to washington dc bail funds (cool donation, mediocre motive)

however, despite him being lauded as a hero of the people and an Activist, mc's bail doesn't get paid

relative to the other people who are being held in the same jail as her, her bail is low-cost, and her charges aren't very serious, so bailing her out is low priority

so, being the extra bitch he is, thomas assembles a fucking legal team to take the arrest of reporters and journalists at the protests to the dc district courts as a first amendment violation

mc is fucking shocked when she finds out

she's even more shocked when she finds out alex forced his way onto thomas's legal team bc he decided he had a stake in the matter

he, of course, does not realize that thomas literally brought the case to the court for the sole purpose of freeing mc

and, yknow, protecting the bill of rights, of course

he wins his case, of course

it gets him ridiculously good press and his approval ratings jump significantly

he shows up at the holding cells at the county jail when the judge orders that all journalists and reporters are released partially to rub his win in the cops' faces

but also, by now, mc has been in a holding cell eating prison food for 8 days and thomas is absolutely worried sick

he hasn't seen her, spoken to her, or heard from her except by way of lafayette's interpretation of her words, and he has no clue how she's holding up

dolleys been doing her best to keep him updated

but, yknow, he has to personally see to it that the judge's orders are followed and the journalists are released

and mc is beyond overjoyed to see him

but she also thinks he was being extra as fuck, and he didn't need to do all this just to get her out

she thanks him for all his efforts in a very formal interaction when they're both at the county jail but she's clearly mildly amused that he went to all this trouble

and he just looks WORRIED AS SHIT. he wants to hug her and baby her and ask her if she's alright

instead, when she shakes his hand in a gesture of awkward gratitude, he subtly lets her know he'll be home all that evening

and then he's texting her all afternoon after she gets out

but she wants to stay home :( needs to be at her own place after all that time in a fucking holding cell

so she isn't shocked when thomas shows up for coffee at the diner around 10 pm

in fact, even tho she isn't working right then, she goes downstairs just on the hunch that he might show up

and when mc offers to let mira go, then, and leave closing up shop to mc, mira isn't shocked, either

by then, she's caught thomas sneaking out the back door of the building in the early morning one too many times for her to not suspect anything (even tho he always claims he was there for coffee, he swears)

mira just sighs and sends thomas upstairs w/ mc once the diner is all cleared out, and they're both like "shit shit fuck she knows oh my god"

but she doesn't push the conversation any further just then, so they figure it can wait until another day

and then, of course, thomas spends the night absolutely babying her

he insists on cooking for her since she didn't eat dinner (she claimed she didn't have an appetite, but he was fairly certain it was just the prison food making her feel sick)

she puts up a fight, but when the food is in front of her, it's a little too good to resist

and if they don't fuck when he spends the night, neither of them says anything about it. didn't this count as the "friends" part of "friends with benefits"?

and if it briefly occurs to them that friends aren't supposed to casually make out on their kitchen counters, they still don't say anything about it

and if mc spends the next couple nights sleeping better than she has in weeks because her bed smells like thomas, she doesn't say anything about it

[islamicrays]

Assalamu aleikum ♡ Could you please recommend me some hadith (or Qur'an verses) about times such as this, like the plague, and about dealing with emotions such as fear, anxiety and all the negativity that follows such challenging times? Thank you very much and may Allah bless you for all you're doing here!

Walaikum Assalaam

Don't be anxious. Whatever is meant to happen; it will happen. If we are written to be tested then we will be tested. We cannot change the circumstances but it's in our control how we respond to it.

“No amount of guilt can change the past and no amount of worrying can change the future. Go easy on yourself for the outcome of all affairs is determined by Allah’s Decree. If something is meant to go elsewhere, it will never come on your way, but if it is yours by destiny, from it, you cannot flee.”

-Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him)

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala won't burden us with something that we can't handle. Read these quotes it will help you in shaa Allah

"The Prophet ﷺ said, ‘There isn’t a man who stays in his house during a time when the plague occurs with patience, hoping for reward and knowing that nothing will afflict him other than that which has been written for him - except that he will have reward similar to the reward of a martyr.’ (Ahmad)

Ibn Hajar said whoever does the following three things will have the reward of a martyr whether he lives or he dies. Look at the beauty of this religion! The reward of a martyr for sitting at home. La ilaha ila Allah Muhammad Rasulallah ﷺ"

-Via Shaykh Mohammed Aslam

"If you’re feeling panicked, find a mushaf in your home. Even if you haven’t opened the Quran in such a long time- pick it up, hold it to your heart, and hug it. If you aren’t ready to start reading it, then just hold it and allow your heart to seek comfort from the Divine Words of the Most Merciful. And keep doing that until you start to open His Book.

Remember Who is in control. We are allowed to feel all of our emotions and it is valid to be so anxious you can’t sleep. In those moments, know you don’t have to be scared alone. Make istighfar- ask for His forgiveness. The Quran talks about this as a form of bringing so many different blessings into your life.

And when you’re overwhelmed at home trying to juggle your children’s needs and work, start saying Alhamdulilah- thanking Him. Because if you’re reading this on your smartphone, you might also be living in security with enough food in your fridge. There are people everywhere facing the virus without these basic necessities.

Many of you have empathized with oppressed populations, but not actively remembered their plight. This is our opportunity to remember the fear which they have lived with for decades in our daily prayers and call out to Him with a sincerity for them that we may have lacked when we simply didn’t know.

This is a time to process our emotions through our relationship with God. With the closing of masajid, the quarantining at home, the sudden unexpected rates of death and disease and the impact on that on our economies and daily lives an entire globe - isn’t it time to turn back to Him? The fact that you still have time to do so and are considering it- that’s a sign He has already turned to you. So turn back to Him."

-Ustadha Maryam Amir

"DO NOT squander this time. This is a windfall if you actually think about it.

The one thing that everyone regrets the most when they die is the time they wasted.

Life is a precious gift. No matter what your situation is right now, don’t forget that you were given EXISTENCE by the Creator of the Heavens and the Universe.

He WILLED for *you* to be here.

He CREATED *you* with intent.

He CREATED *you* to experience all the beauty and wonders of the world…to KNOW…to FEEL…to WITNESS…to HEAR….to TASTE…to LOVE…but perhaps you’ve forgotten what that really means and this is all to remind you!

Maybe you’re spared this illness so that you can actually take inventory of your life and get back in touch with who you are and what you’ve forgotten all these years distracted by work, responsibility, commutes, bills, taxes, school, family, friends, community service, etc…

Maybe you’re forced into spending time with your family because you’ve forgotten just how important they are to you or vice versa.

Maybe you’re supposed to have those long moments of panic and anxiety so that you move away from looking at the pantry shelves to looking at your children’s faces and realizing how much time has passed since you once held them in your arms and how the future is uncertain for you and them, but what matters is NOW and alhamdulillah you are with them and they are with you; healthy and together.

Maybe you’re supposed to scroll through pages of news and newsfeeds about this virus so that your neck begins to crane and you finally look up to see your spouse; the one whom, whether you’ve intended to or not, have taken for granted. You each have your roles to play and like ships passing each other in the night, you’ve found a rhythm, an efficient system to keep the family together…but what about you two? When is the last time you actually looked at one another with the loving gaze of someone who feels the value of the person in front of them upon their chest like a heavy weight? When is the last time you looked at your partner as if you weren’t guaranteed to see them tomorrow? Perhaps you’ll learn to do that now…and perhaps as a result, you’ll always see them that way and will never talk down to them, hurt them with insults, ignore them when they are in need, slight them in front of others, or treat them as though you are entitled to everything they do for you.

Maybe you’re supposed to wake up in the middle of the night sweating and unable to go back to sleep, so that you surrender to the solitude of the night and draw closer to the One who sends His angels looking for the ones who are looking for Him.

Maybe all of this started because of a dangerous virus with the potential to kill, but it will end by renewing life and light into hearts that died long ago; victims drowned by the turbulent waters of this dunya.

May Allah ﷻ guide us through these times to not squander the opportunities before us and to live and love fully, with presence, sincerity, transparency, and wholeheartedness. Amin."

-Ustadha Hosai Mojaddidi

"In the midst of all this uncertainty and panic, I know things look bleak today…

-I personally had to cancel travel plans for the next two months.

-Some of my dear friends had to cancel a major event they’ve been planning for almost a year.

-Some of my friends who are immunocompromised are worried.

-Some friends reached out to me because they don’t know what to do about their children attending school.

-Some friends are worried about their elderly parents.

-Some friends are worried about their livelihood and businesses not being able to survive.

Whatever the case may be, let us keep perspective that as Muslims our Shariah compels us to preserve five things:

1. Faith

2. Life

3. Sanity/Mind

4. Lineage

5. Property

Our utmost concern right now should be to protect our faith, our lives, and our mental wellbeing.

This virus is on this planet and doing what it’s doing SOLELY by the permission of its Creator.

Our response should be to SUBMIT to our Creator, prioritize our faith, and beseech Him for protection.

We must also act responsibly to preserve our own safety as well as the safety of everyone else (family, friend, or stranger) that we come in contact with.

Thus, we must “tie our camel” and put our trust in Allah ﷻ to protect us from any and all harm.

This balance of submitting to God FIRST and then preparing and being responsible for the worst will protect our sanity so that we do not become paranoid and unreasonably afraid.

We must also remember that whatever opportunities or sustenance we have lost was never ours to begin with, and the Most Generous will either replace it with something better in this life or the next, IF we remain patient and accept His decree.

So let us not fall into despair, sadness, fear, and anxiety. Let us be wise, patient, and use the time of imposed isolation to reconnect with our faith and our Lord, as well as with our families.

Sometimes it takes calamities like this to recalibrate our hearts and remind us what our priorities should really be.

May Allah ﷻ protect and guide us all. Amin."

-Ustadha Hosai Mojaddidi

Recite Astaghfirullah as much you can. As narrated in hadith

If anyone continually asks pardon, Allah will appoint for him a way out of every distress, and a relief from every anxiety, and will provide for him from where he did not reckon.(Abu Dawud)

Following are some dua that you can recite:

1.“Verily, distress has seized me, and You are the Most Merciful of all who show mercy.”

(Aayah No. 83, Surah Al-Ambiya, Chapter No. 21, Holy Qur’an).

2. Recite “Hasbunallahu wa Ni’mal Wakeel” when you feel restless

“Allah is Sufficient for us, and He is the Best Disposer of Affairs.”

Ibn ‘Abbas (May Allah be pleased with them) said: When (Prophet) Ibraheem(عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّم) was thrown into the fire, he said: “Allah (Alone) is sufficient for us, and, He is the Best Disposer of affairs.” So did Messenger of Allah, Muhammad (ﷺ), when he was told: “A great army of the pagans had gathered against him, so fear them”. But this (warning) only increased him and the Muslims in Faith and they said: “Allah (Alone) is sufficient for us, and He is the Best Disposer of affairs (for us)”. [Al-Bukhari].

3. O Ever Living, O Self-Subsisting and Supporter of all, by Your mercy I seek assistance, rectify for me all of my affairs and do not leave me to myself, even for the blink of an eye.’    [صحيح الترغيب والترهيب 1/273]

4.It was reported from Anas (may Allaah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (Peace and Blessings of Allaah be upon him) used to say, when something upset him:

“Yaa Hayyu yaa Qayyoom, bi Rahmatika astagheeth (O Ever-Living One, O Everlasting One, by Your mercy I seek help).”

5. Allahumma inni a’oodhoo bika minal-hammi walhuzni, wal-’ajzi wal-kasali wal-bukhli wal-jubni, wa dal’id-dayni wa ghalabatir- rajaal

"O Allah! I seek refuge in You from anxiety and sorrow, weakness and laziness, miserliness and cowardice, the burden of debts and from being oppressed by men."

I hope it will be helpful. May Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala forgive us and guide us to the straight path.

Ameen

[anyu-blue]

~

I'm just venting here cuz I don't have anyone to really vent to right now.

I know I'm being 'too much' and 'over the top' again... I know I'm throwing a hissy fit I don't need to, and I recognize I'm hurting at least one person with it.

But God damn I'm pissed and I guess I want to be pissed.

There's so much I want to do and so much I feel obligated to do and more... A lot of what I want to do... I just don't have the energy for. I wanted to make all these custom cards for my family since I should be able to ship stuff out this week... But I pulled Everything out and found... I just really didn't want to put that effort in..I mean I REALLY do... But just... Everything was turning out terrible. I'm honestly shocked I managed the 14 for my ex's family for Christmas... I want to do it... But at the same time I don't.

Cuz what's the point? All that effort.. all that care.. when I could just buy them a stupid card instead. So I'll go buy them a card... Because my eldest and younger sister decided to head to the grocery store without me and now I have to steal the car right when I'm off work to do my own necessary shopping anyway (or risk not being able to go at all this week). All because they were nearly out of toilet paper and Tevie wanted to get me cash for her car insurance bill...

Now I wouldn't be so mad except... They didn't even ask if I had extra toilet paper in my bathroom, which I do. AND I told Tevie that she didn't have to worry- I have enough to cover the insurance for her car.

But no. She just HAD to go today so I could have the money by tomorrow when it pulls!!! Um... Tomorrow (technically today, now) is SUNDAY. How the FUCK am I supposed to deposit the $ into my account like she wants when it's a freaking Sunday?! Or or at all when uh.. she has the car until like... 7pm every day anyway?!

Uuuugh... I already told her too, I'm not depositing Anything unless I absolutely need to either. Which I don't cuz I just got paid. AND I told her her insurance will be a part of what she pays me (if she does) for all her other bills!! If I got it I got it. What part of that is so hard to understand?

Apparently all of it...

Or none of it, but it doesn't matter because she doesn't pay attention to stuff like that anyway. Literally just does whatever she wants.. and you know what? I know that's absolutely fine. Sure it inconveniences me because, well, I needed to go to the store too (and told her as such), and had nothing for dinner while they fed themselves again (didn't even ask me AND used a service I have/can get free stuff with if they use my account like I've asked EVERY SINGLE TIME we've EVER used it!!!). (Why did I EVER cook and feed them so much? I was 100% right in that they have no interest in doing the same. They BARELY cook for themselves!! And you can probably already guess what I'm going to say about it... It's all JUNK!!! Cheeto mac and cheese, ramen, air fried chicken and fries, microwaved meals- you should see our pantry right now. Almost entirely instant meals and it makes me want to vomit. What's not instant is the stuff I picked out/ingredients that have just sat since I stopped cooking.. you should see our FRIDGE right now!! Not a vegetable or fruit in sight!! It's all warm fruit cups for Tevie and idek what W0lfie eats to get her vitamins and nutrients- cuz the vitamins I bought haven't been touched except for by me, Though I told them it would be a good idea of they took some each week too.. I'd wager she doesn't!! And that's partly why she's so gd MISERABLE all the time!! She doesn't take care of herself!!)

But in reality it's whatever. Technically Tevie did nothing wrong. She's just living her life how she wants to live it. Who cares about wasting more gas? Apparently not Tevie even though she told me she did... Apparently that's out the window. Who cares about my needs? Apparently not Tevie Though I've been fighting with our property managers and walking her through every gd adulting problem she has (I'm even supposed to help her with her taxes AGAIN cuz she can't do it) and taking care of the house and all the paperwork and all the phonecalls and everything... So it's not like I've been looking out for her and our little sister at all 🙄 or thinking of them and trying to make THEIR lives easier or nothing.

They don't owe me anything obviously... Not even the requests I made of them to do particular adulting tasks on their own (like put in a simple maintenance request, or cover up the open window downstairs, or even buy the materials so I could take care of that stupid problem better than I already have with the shit we had on hand).... It's up to them if they want to follow through. And they don't. Like ever. Because it'll just be done by me because I actually DO care about how much our power bill is.. Tevie sait she does and then pulls that shit. W0lfie says she does and then pulls the shit like letting her room get ULTRA cold- which guess what happens when she opens her door for the day? You guessed it. The temp of the house goes down and the heat/furnace churns and chugs to make up for it.

I'm so FUCKING DONE.. but guess what? I CAN'T be. I'm not even supposed to be pissed about this stuff!! I'm the bad guy!! Because I'm mad!! Because I can't just let it go or deal with it quietly. Or not be a bother.

GOD DAMN IT I AM SO SICK OF BEING/GOING QUIETLY

I HAVE BEEN QUIET AND CALM AND SWEET AND WORKED MY ASS OFF IN THE WAYS I CAN FOR SO FUCKING LONG

I AM THE REASON THEY HAVE THE SHIT THEY DO!! THE ROOF OVER THEIR HEADS, TEVIE'S CAR, LOWER BILLS (not just because I pay my part, but because I literally put in all the work to make sure stuff is taken care of and that I don't use excess/as much as I want or need sometimes), PAID BILLS (EVERYTHING comes out of my account. I've asked Tevie to do it. Several times. To set it up or to even just pay it once or twice... Has she ever? No. Not even when I showed her how and offered to write it all down for the future- and still she comes back at me like 'well you put them in your name' like, bitch... The water bill HAD to be in my name because at the time they only set it up in person!! Doesn't mean you can't pay it!! All the information is RIGHT THERE!!! You have my permission!!! In fact I've ASKED you to!! And the internet- we switched it to my name so it would lower AND give us a better speed!! And autopay gives us a discount anyway- Something YOU approved of!! And GUESS WHAT? The power ISN'T in my name!! It's in yours!!! Why on EARTH do you still expect me to pay it every single time?! It's not even on autopay!!! And the car insurance.. well SORRY if you have a wreck on your record that would make the premium double or triple what it is now!!! I did that for you!! I even called and asked and compared and did EVERYTHING FOR YOU YOU WOULDN'T/COULDN'T!!! And the cellphones are in my name because years ago when we GOT the plan you didn't have a credit score which was REQUIRED... Guess who did?! ME!! So guess who did all that and set up autopay so we wouldn't get charged $20 more a month?! It's not like we COULDN'T change these things, YOU just DON'T want to deal with it OR you want those discounts and agreed to it in the first place- so your 'well they're all you're responsibility Because they're in your name' is BULLSHIT), EXTRA MONEY EVERY MONTH, EVEN TEVIE'S BANK ACCOUNT, EVERY DOCTOR/DENTIST/SPECIALIST SHE HAS EVER SEEN AFTER OUR MOTHER WAS KICKED TO THE CURB... Even W0lfie is not exempt... Because what I don't do for her, she goes to her mom to take care of. And she's told me things and I've had to ask why she hasn't taken care of it. Well. She either doesn't know how (and in some instances refused to learn cuz it happens again), or was just going to suffer through it because she assumed that was what was right (without asking anyone or even GOOGLING the information)... Gods... Half my 'knowledge' comes from google and checking at least two or three sights and sources before I act... I feel like I'm the only one in my house who has that skill despite the top-notch cellphones and computers and shit laying around everywhere. Despite my little sister literally building her computer... Can't adult life at ALL...

And I just... I just...

I'm so mad and upset.

I want to have the carefree lives they have some days... But then I realize someone wild have to be doing all the shit I do for them for me... And then I get depressed Because literally no one would or will. Even Lon didn't... He took care of his bills sure... But everything else? Well.. unless I asked him to step up, he never would.. and he to never would more than the day I asked. Another red flag I shouldn't have let slide...

No matter how sick I get. No matter how crazy I go... It's still all up to me. I don't have people I can go to to ask to do these things and know they will... I have tos er Everything up and do all the work or it never happens. Especially not more than once.

I hate nagging... And I'm just the bad guy if I try anyway.

Idk what the point even is anymore. I hate my life.

I want so badly to love it and be happy to be around... But I just want to disappear and see what happens when that happens. Would they step up? I mean they'd HAVE to and then I'd be the bad guy again... But ugh...

None of this is easy. None of this is easy especially when all alone.

Few people reach out to me... The ones that do are just as overburdened as I am and can barely talk too because they're so busy... But we try...

I appreciate every one of them/you and I feel awful I'm so drained I can barely say thank you or reply.

I know what it's like... I do... Maybe I don't 100% know the specifics of the reasons behind what you're feeling, but I can feel it with you.

I'm trying. I'm angry. I'm tired... But I'm trying my best.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Patent troll's IP more powerful than Apple's

I was 12 years into my Locus Magazine column when I published the piece I'm most proud of, "IP," from September 2020. It came after an epiphany, one that has profoundly shaped the way I talk and think about the issues I campaign on.

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

That revelation was about the meaning of the term "IP," which had been the center of this tedious linguistic cold war for decades. People who advocate for free and open technology and culture hate the term "IP" because of its ideological loading and imprecision.

Ideology first: Before "IP" came into wide parlance - when lobbyists for multinational corporations convinced the UN to turn their World Intellectual Property Organization into a specialized agency, we used other terms like "author's monopolies" and "regulatory monopolies."

"Monopoly" is a pejorative. "Property" is sacred to our society. When a corporation seeks help defending its monopoly, it is a grubby corrupter. When it asks for help defending its property, it is enlisting the public to defend the state religion.

Free culture people know allowing "monopolies" to become "property" means losing the battle before it is even joined, but it is frankly unavoidable. How do you rephrase "IP lawyer" without conceding the property point? "Trademark-copyright-patent-and-related-rights lawyer?"

Thus the other half of the objection to "IP": its imprecision. Copyright is not anything like patent. Patent is not anything like trademark. Trade secrets are an entirely different thing again. Don't let's get started on sui generis and neighboring rights.

And this is where my revelation came: as it is used in business circles, "IP" has a specific, precise meaning. "IP" means, "Any law, policy or regulation that allows me to control the conduct of my competitors, critics and customers."

Copyright, patent and trademark all have limitations and exceptions designed to prevent this kind of control, but if you arrange them in overlapping layers around a product, each one covers the exceptions in the others.

Creators don't like having their copyrights called "author's monopolies." Monopolists get to set prices. All the copyright in the world doesn't let an author charge publishers more for their work. The creators have a point.

But when author's monopolies are acquired by corporate monopolists, something magical and terrible happens.

Remember: market-power monopolies are still (theoretically) illegal and when companies do things to maintain or expand their monopolies, they risk legal jeopardy.

But: The corporate monopolist who uses IP to expand their monopoly has no such risk. Monopolistic conduct in defense of IP enjoys wide antitrust forbearance. What's the point of issuing patents or allowing corporations to buy copyrights if you don't let them enforce them?

The IP/market-power monopoly represents a futuristic corporate alloy, a new metal never seen, impervious to democratic control.

Software is "IP" and so any device with software in it is like beskar, a rare metal that can be turned into the ultimate corporate armor.

No company exemplifies this better than Apple, a company that used limitations on IP to secure its market power, then annihilated those limits so that no one could take away its market power.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

In the early 2000s, Apple was in trouble. The convicted monopolist Microsoft ruled the business world, and if you were the sole Mac user in your office, you were screwed.

When a Windows user sent you a Word file, you could (usually) open it in the Mac version of Word, but then if you saved that file again, it often became forever cursed, unopenable by any version of Microsoft Office ever created or ever to be created.

This became a huge liability. Designers started keeping a Windows box next to their dual processor Power Macs, just to open Office docs. Or worse (for Apple), they switched to a PC and bought Windows versions of Adobe and Quark Xpress.

Steve Jobs didn't solve this problem by begging Bill Gates to task more engineers to Office for Mac. Instead, Jobs got Apple techs to reverse-engineer all of the MS Office file formats and release a rival office suite, Iwork, which could read and write MS Office files.

That was an Apple power move, one that turned MS's walled garden into an all-you-can-eat buffet of potential new Mac users. Apple rolled out the Switch ads, whose message was, "Every MS Office file used to be a reason *not* to use a Mac. Now it's a reason to switch *to* a Mac."

More-or-less simultaneously, though, Apple was inventing the hybrid market/IP monopoly tool that would make it the most valuable company in the world, in its design for the Ipod and the accompanying Itunes store.

It had a relatively new legal instrument to use for this purpose: 1998's Digital Millennium Copyright Act; specifically, Section 1201 of the DMCA, the "anti-circumvention" clause, which bans breaking DRM.

Under DMCA 1201, if a product has a copyrighted work (like an operating system) and it has an "access control" (like a password or a bootloader key), then bypassing the access control is against the law, even if no copyright infringement takes place.

That last part - "even if no copyright infringement takes place" - is the crux of DMCA 1201. The law was intended to support the practices of games console makers and DVD player manufacturers, who wanted to stop competitors from making otherwise legal devices.

With DVD players, that was about "region coding," the part of the DVD file format that specified which countries a DVD could be played back in. If you bought a DVD in London, you couldn't play it in Sydney or New York.

Now, it's not a copyright violation to buy a DVD and play it wherever you happen to be. As a matter of fact, buying a DVD and playing it is the *opposite* of a copyright infringement.

But it *was* a serious challenge to the entertainment cartel's business-model, which involved charging different prices and having different release dates for the same movie depending on where you were.

The same goes for games consoles: companies like Sega and Nintendo made a lot of money charging creators for the right to sell games that ran on the hardware they sold.

If I own a Sega Dreamcast, and you make a game for it, and I buy it and run it on my Sega, that's not a copyright infringement, even if Sega doesn't like it. But if you have to bypass an "access control" to get the game to play without Sega's blessing, it violates DMCA 1201.

What's more, DMCA 1201 has major penalties for "trafficking in circumvention devices" and information that could be used to build such a device, such as reports of exploitable flaws in the programming of a DRM system: $500k in fines and a 5 year sentence for a first offense.

Deregionalizing a DVD player or jailbreaking a Dreamcast didn't violate anyone's copyrights, but it still violated copyright law (!). It was pure IP, the right to control the conduct of critics (security researchers), customers and competitors.

In the words of Jay Freeman, it's "Felony contempt of business-model."

And that's where the Ipod came in. Steve Jobs's plan was to augment the one-time revenue from an Ipod with a recurrent revenue stream from the Itunes store.

He exploited the music industry's superstitious dread of piracy and naive belief in the efficacy of DRM to convince the record companies to only sell music with his DRM wrapper on it - a wrapper they themselves could not authorize listeners to remove.

Ever $0.99 Itunes purchase added $0.99 to the switching cost of giving up your Ipod for a rival device, or leaving Itunes and buying DRM music from a rival store. It was control over competitors and customers. It was IP.

If you had any doubt that the purpose of Ipod/Itunes DRM was to fight competitors, not piracy, then just cast your mind back to 2004, when Real Media "hacked" the Ipod so that it would play music locked with Real's DRM as well as Apple's.

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3387871/Apple+RealNetworks+Hacked+iPod.htm

Apple used DMCA 1201 to shut Real down, not to stop copyright infringement, but to prevent Apple customers from buying music from record labels and playing them on their Ipods without paying Apple a commission and locking themselves to Apple's ecosystem, $0.99 at a time.

Pure IP. Now, imagine if Microsoft had been able to avail itself of DMCA 1201 when Iwork was developed - if, for example, its "information rights management" encryption had caught on, creating "access controls" for all Office docs.

There's a very strong chance that would have killed Apple off before it could complete its recovery. Jobs knew the power of interoperating without consent, and he knew the power of invoking the law to block interoperability. He practically invented modern IP.

Apple has since turned IP into a trillion-dollar valuation, largely off its mobile platform, the descendant of the Ipod. This mobile platform uses DRM - and thus DMCA 1201 - to ensure that you can only use apps that come from its app store.

Apple gets a cut of penny you spend buying an app, and every penny you spend within that app: 30% (now 15% for a minority of creators after bad publicity).

IP lets one of the least taxed corporations on Earth extract a 30% tax from everyone else.

https://locusmag.com/2021/03/cory-doctorow-free-markets/

Remember, it's not copyright infringement for me to write an app and you to buy it from me and play it on your Iphone without paying the 30% Apple tax.

That's the exact opposite of copyright infringement: buying a copyrighted work and enjoying it on a device you own.

But it's still an IP violation. It bypasses Apple's ability to control competitors and customers. It's felony contempt of business-model.

It shows that under IP, copyright can't be said to exist as an incentive to creativity - rather, it's a tool for maintaining monopolies.

Which brings me to today's news that Apple was successfully sued by a patent troll over its DRM. A company called Personalized Media Communications whose sole product is patent lawsuits trounced Apple in the notorious East Texas patent-troll court.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-19/apple-told-to-pay-308-5-million-for-infringing-drm-patent

After software patents became widespread - thanks to the efforts of Apple and co - there was a bonanza of "inventors" filing garbage patents with the USPTO whose format was "Here's an incredibly obvious thing...*with a computer*." The Patent Office rubberstamped them by the million.

These patents became IP, a way to extract rent without having to make a product. "Investors" teamed up with "inventors" to buy these and impose a tax on businesses - patent licensing fees that drain money from people who make things and give it to people who buy things.

They found a court - the East Texas court in Marshall, TX - that was hospitable to patent trolls. They rented dusty PO boxes in Marshall and declared them to be their "headquarters" so that they could bring suits there.

Locals thrived - they got jobs as "administrators" (mail forwarders) for the thousands of "businesses" whose "head office" was in Marshall (when you don't make a product, your head office can be a PO box).

Productive companies facing hundreds of millions - billions! - in patent troll liability sought to curry favor with locals (who were also the jury pool) by "donating" things to Marshall, like the skating rink Samsung bought for the town.

https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/why-south-korea-s-samsung-built-the-only-outdoor-skating-rink-in-texas

Patent, like copyright, is supposed to serve a public purpose. There are only two clauses in the US Constitution that come with explanations (the rest being "truths held to be self-evident"): the Second Amendment and the "Progress Clause" that creates patents and copyrights.

Famously, the Second Amendment says you can bear arms as part of a "well-regulated militia."

And the Progress Clause? It extends to Congress the power to create patents and copyrights "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts."

I'm with Apple in its ire over this judgment. Sending $308.5m to a "closely held" patent troll has nothing to do with the "Progress of Science and useful Arts."

But it has *everything* to do with IP.

If copyright law can let Apple criminalize - literally criminalize - you selling me If copyright law can let Apple criminalize - literally criminalize - you selling me your copyrighted work, then there's no reason to hate on patent trolls.

They're just doing what trolls do: blocking the bridge between someone engaged in useful work and the customers for that work, and extracting a toll. It's not even 30%.

There is especial and delicious irony in the fact that the patent in question is a DRM patent: a patent for the very same process that Apple uses to lock down its devices and prevent creators from selling to customers without paying the 30% Apple Tax.

But even without that, it's as good an example of what an IP marketplace looks like: one in which making things becomes a liability. After all, the more you make, the more chances there are for an IP owner to demand tax from you to take it to market.

The only truly perfect IP is the naked IP of a patent troll, the bare right to sue, a weapon made from pure abstract legal energy, untethered from any object, product or service that might be vulnerable to another IP owner's weapons.

A coda: you may recall that Apple doesn't use DRM on its music anymore: you can play Itunes music on any device. That wasn't a decision Apple took voluntarily: it was forced into it by a competitor: Amazon, an unlikely champion of user rights.

In 2007, the record labels had figured out that Apple had lured them into a trap, selling millions of dollars worth of music that locked both listeners and labels into the Itunes ecosystem.

In a desperate bid for freedom, they agreed to help Amazon launch its MP3 store - all the same music, at the same prices...without DRM. Playable on an Ipod, but also on any other device.

Prior to the Amazon MP3 store, the market was all DRM: you could either buy Apple's DRM music and play it on your Ipod, or you could buy other DRM music and play it on a less successful device.

The Amazon MP3 store (whose motto was "DRM: Don't Restrict Me") changed that to "Buy Apple DRM music and play it on your Ipod, or buy Amazon music and play it anywhere." That was the end of Apple music DRM.

So why hasn't anyone done this for the apps that Apple extracts the 30% tax on? IP. If you made a phone that could play Ios apps, Apple would sue you:

https://gizmodo.com/judge-tosses-apple-lawsuit-against-iphone-emulator-in-b-1845967318

And if you made a device that let you load non-App Store apps on an Iphone, Apple would also sue you.

Apple understands IP. It learned the lesson of the Amazon MP3 store, and it is committed to building a world where every creator pays a tax to reach every Apple customer.

[cksmart-world]

The completely unnecessary news analysis

by Christopher Smart

February 18, 2020

BERNIE BROS BE PISSED & WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE ERA

Supporters of Bernie Sanders are more than a little chafed at other Democrats who are taking an “anyone-but-Bernie” stance and they're letting folks know in no uncertain terms: “you A-holes.” Supporters of Bloomberg, Buttigieg, Klobachar, Warren and Biden say Bernie can't beat Trump because the Name-Caller-In-Chief will label him as a Marxist dog and scare the bejesus out of voters. Many also say Mayor Pete can't beat Trump because he's gay. Rush Limbaugh already has started in on Buttigieg for kissing his husband in public. Oh, Lordy. Evangelicals are hugging their Bibles. Elizabeth Warren has dropped in the polls, largely because she has a plan for just about everything and that's confusing to American voters who hate details. They're more into stuff like, “Make America Great Again.” Poor Joe Biden has hit the skids, too. Old Joe's jokes have gotten stale and aviator sunglasses have gone out of style. Amy Klobuchar is a good, Midwestern woman with a nice smile who knows how to milk a cow. But she's a little too nice and doesn't have the money that Michael Bloomberg has. And now we find out that the New York billionaire had the horribly racist “Stop-N-Frisk” policing policy when he was mayor of the Big Apple, so he can't get the African-American vote. And it's just been revealed that Bloomberg hates babies and puppies. But hey, don't lose hope: The staff here at Smart Bomb has come up with a bumpersticker for Dems: “Miracles Do Happen.”

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE ERA

It's been 48 years since the Equal Rights Amendment was submitted to Congress in October 1971. It passed both houses and was ratified by 35 of the necessary 38 states. But it died after a decade of fierce debate. The arguments in the Beehive State were as contentious as anywhere. In the end, Utah did not ratify. Why not? What's wrong with an amendment that seeks equal rights for women and men? Our crack research team here at Smart Bomb dove into the archives to find the answers then and now:

1 – If the ERA becomes law, women will have to use urinals.

2 – If the ERA becomes law, men will have to wear bras and lipstick and fix dinner.

3 – God created special roles for men and women: men wear pants and drink beer; women wear skirts and drink tea (and don't belch).

4 – If the ERA passes, women will have to go into combat and share foxholes with horny men without condoms who are trained to kill.

5 – If the ERA is ratified, women can become president. Yikes!

6 – If the ERA becomes law, workplace sex could cease to exist.

7 – Or, it could mean that workplace sex would get out of control with women jumping men in the utility closet. OMG.

8 – If the ERA becomes a reality, young Mormon women will go on religious missions.

9 – If the ERA is ratified, women will become astronauts and orbit the Earth and feel superior to men.

10 – And the very worst part of the ERA, according to Utah Sen. Mike Lee, is that it is part of a “radical pro-abortion agenda.” Yeah, damnit, it's “an Orwellian mischaracterization of what it would do,” Lee said, because it will allow women to have abortions but not men.

HEY, ALEXA, GET OUT OF MY FACE

Your friend Alexa, who helps you play music, turn off the TV and put on the bedroom lights, may not be as warm-hearted you think. Amazon has big plans for its virtual assistant. Sooner than you think, Alexa — or one of her siblings — will be directing our lives — it’ll interpret our data and make decisions for us, according to Rohit Prasad, the scientist in charge of Alexa‘s development. George Orwell was distressed about Big Brother, but he couldn't imagine we would willingly invite him or Big Sister into our lives with such giddy anticipation. The aim is to turn Alexa into an omnipresent companion that shapes our lives. You might find yourself in an argument with Alexa on what music to play or what to watch on TV or which car to buy. Yep, it's “2001: A Space Odyssey” all over again. HAL has collected all your data and now, there is no real reason for you to exist — well wait, Alexa does want your money, but you don't have to worry your lil’ head about that, she'll tell you how to spend it.

BILL BARR: I WON'T BE BULLIED

He's a strong, independent attorney general. President Donald Trump doesn't tell him what to do (except sometimes). Sure, there was that little thing with the Mueller Report that looked to nonpartisan legal beagles like a roadmap to impeachment that Barr announced was vindication. And there is that little matter of reviewing Michael Flynn's case, where he pleaded guilty to the FBI about his contacts with Russians. And just because the attorney general determined that Roger Stone's recommended sentence was far too harsh, doesn't mean he isn't independent.  The fact that Trump tweeted the same thing 12 hours earlier was just a coincidence. Bill Barr is a man of great integrity, depending, of course, on how you define it. OK, maybe critics, who say the Department of Justice is being politicized, have a point. But as President Trump insisted, he can do whatever he wants, including interceding in criminal trials, so it isn't corruption. Whether Bill Barr is an independent attorney general or not, really doesn't matter. (Well, actually it does matter but WTF.) And the president wants to know why that slut Andrew McCabe is off the hook. And why aren't James Comey, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page in jail along with Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff? Where is the justice?

Post Script — That was the week that was. And man, was it strange — that is to say, about normal for the age of Trump. Still, there is no better time to be a “Hooker For Jesus.” (We are not making this up.) DOJ officials rejected grant applications from Catholic Charities and Chicanos Por La Causa. Instead, according to Reuters, it gave more than $1 million to the Lincoln Tubman Foundation and Hookers for Jesus. Don't tell the Evangelicals, they'll freak. Speaking of sinners, Jim Jordan, the rabid congressman from Ohio, is about to be caught up in a sex scandal involving his old wrestling team at Ohio State. Bummer (no pun intended). And the hits just keep coming: Michael Avenatti, who gained fame representing Stormy Daniels, was found guilty of trying to extort $25 million from Nike. But unlike Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, he can't expect a pardon from Donald Trump. Down on the southern border, those darn coyotes already have come up with a new “camouflage ladder” to smuggle people and drugs over Trump's new border wall. The contraptions, made of old, rusted construction rebar, make the climb easy and can't be detected by cameras. Meanwhile, Trump has diverted another $3.8 billion in military funds for his signature achievement. (Mexico won't pay. Duh.) There's more — Trump is dispatching border patrol agents to Sanctuary Cities to root out them horrible immigrants who are doing all our scut work. Adn last but far from least, here in Utah, state legislators are feeling oh so generous after increasing from 0 to 25 percent Salt Lake City's share of property taxes from the Inland Port. That's better than a jab with a sharp stick, but not so charitable when you consider the city should get 100 percent of taxes from its own, damn land. And so it goes.

OK, Wilson, maybe you and the band can take us out with a little something hopeful for our immigrant friends and all the Democrats and everyone else who is on the verge of a nervous breakdown in the age of Trump:

Well, the oppressors are trying to keep me down / Trying to drive me underground / And they think that they have got the battle won / I say forgive them Lord, they know not what they've done / 'Cause, as sure as the sun will shine / I'm gonna get my share now, what's mine / And then the harder they come / The harder they fall, one and all / Ooh, the harder they come / Harder they fall, one and all...

[4pillarshalifax]

What debt can be written off?

What Debt Can Be Written Off?

What debt can be written off is a question that many people struggling with debt ask. What people don’t realize is that nearly every type of debt can be written off. There are only a few exceptions which we will cover later in this article.

Debt can always be written off by the original creditor who lent you the money. They can decide at any point that they will not continue to pursue you to pay them back. While this is rare, it does occur from time to time. What we will discuss in this article is the methods of writing off a debt that you can initiate that has a much higher chance of success.

Debts can be categorized into two main categories; Secured and Unsecured debts. How they can be written off and the consequences of writing them off depend on which category the debt falls into.

Unsecured Debts

Unsecured debt is debt that has no collateral attached to them. Collateral is simply a physical asset such as a car, a house, or even cash. A good way to know if your debt is unsecured or not is to ask yourself ‘If I stop paying this, will I lose any assets?’. If the answer is Yes, then it is most likely secured, if the answer is No, then it is most likely unsecured.

Some examples of unsecured debts are:

Consolidation loans

Payday Loans

Income Tax Debt (providing a lien hasn’t been placed on an asset for non-payment)

Most lines of credits

Most bills (cell phone, internet, etc)

Most debts assigned to third-party collection agencies

Overdrafts

Most Personal Loans

It is important to note that some of the debt types listed above can technically be secured.

Unsecured Debts – How they can be written off

Unsecured debts can be written off in a variety of fashions. Unfortunately, none of the methods are without consequences. The options below all impact credit in one fashion or another.

Credit Counselling – Credit Counselling is the first method that can be used. While this doesn’t technically write off any principle it can be used to reduce the overall interest charges. Credit counselling typically works by paying back 100% of the debt you owe plus a fee to the credit counselling agency.

Informal Settlement – What people often think of when they think about debt getting written off. While this option is effective, it is not always the best choice. The reason for this is because it requires lump sums of money. We wrote an article about the myths associated with debt settlement.

Consumer Proposal – A consumer proposal is a method whereby you pay back your creditors a reduced amount. The debt leftover is written off by creditors which means you only pay back a fraction of what was originally owed. A consumer proposal can be a very effective method in dealing with debt while avoiding bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy – The most severe option in dealing with debt provides for the maximum amount of debt to be written off by creditors. Unfortunately, it comes with the longest term impacts. We have written an extensive article on Bankruptcy.

If you are considering a consumer proposal or a bankruptcy and not sure which one to pick please read out article putting a consumer proposal head-to-head with bankruptcy.

In all of these options, the debt is written off by making an arrangement with your creditors to repay the amount owing under terms different than you originally had.

Secured Debts

Secured debts are debts that have collateral attached to them. For example, a mortgage is secured by a house. A car loan is secured by a car. If you ask yourself the same question ‘If I stop paying this, will I lose any assets?’ and the answer is Yes, then it is most likely secured. Secured debts can be secured against any physical asset such as vehicles, property, land, cash, etc.

The two main secured debt types are:

Mortgages

Car Loans

However – anything can technically be secured. You could have obtained any of the debt types listed in the Unsecured Debt list and have put up collateral.

So how do you find out if a debt is secured or not? There are two ways: 1. Check your original paperwork, and/or 2. call the creditor who lent you the money and ask.

Secured Debts – How they can be written off

Secured debts are written off very differently than unsecured debts. The reason for this is because they have collateral against them. If you stop paying them, as per the original terms the creditor will have the right to seize the asset. In Nova Scotia creditors are allowed to seize AND sue. What this means if they seize an asset that has negative equity they can sue you for the difference. Negative equity is when the asset is worth less than the debt. This is typical with vehicles. You might own a car worth $10,000 but it has a loan on it for $15,000. If the creditors take the car you would still owe $5,000.

Unfortunately, in most instances, if you wish to have a secured loan written off you will also need to surrender the asset as well. This isn’t usually a problem if there is no negative equity but when there is it can be very tricky.

If you do have negative equity and need to deal with the shortfall there are only two ideal methods to deal with the debt and a third that isn’t ideal but works on occasion.

Ideal Methods

Consumer Proposal – This method can work great if you are wanting to give up the asset and deal with the debt as you can estimate the shortfall and include it in the proposal and deal with it at the same time as other unsecured debt.

Bankruptcy – Because bankruptcy deals with nearly all debt it can also take care of negative equity situations, again you must be willing to give up the asset.

Not always ideal

Informal Settlements – The reason an informal settlement isn’t ideal is that it generally requires a lump-sum of money to settle the shortfall.  This means that if you were exploring this option paired with surrendering an asset you would need cash on hand to settle the negative equity and most people have exhausted all available cash trying to survive.

Knowing which option can be tricky. If you run into any issues please reach out for help.

What types of debt cannot be written off?

The types of debts that cannot be written off are few but when they strike you they can create massive problems. Some examples are:

Fines, penalties, or restitution orders imposed by a court.

Any amounts owing due to bodily harm, sexual assault, or wrongful death.

Alimony Debts

Any type of child support or maintenance debt

Debts from lieing, cheating, or stealing

Student loans or apprentice loans where you have been in school (or eligible apprentice) within the last 7 years.

Even if you go Bankrupt these debts will survive. What we have found is that often times these debts are paired with other debts. When the other debts are restructured we find the debts that don’t go away can be dealt with in a more efficient manner.

The post What debt can be written off? appeared first on 4 Pillars Halifax.

source https://www.halifaxdebtfreedom.ca/what-debt-can-be-written-off/

[madscientistjournal]

Fiction: Jehovah's Feathers

An essay by Mary Magdalene Farconi, as provided by K. Kitts Art by Leigh Legler

Strapped in his bouncy seat, my son Tyler went off at the exact same moment as the kitchen timer and the doorbell. I verified that nothing was actually gnawing on him and rushed to the brownies. Paul would have to get the door.

From the living room, Cissie yelled, “It’s the bird people.” Being a good girl, she knew not to open the door to strangers, especially those from another planet.

I yelled, “Paul, get the door,” while I yanked the brownies from the oven.

The Home Owners Association bake sale started at 10 AM, and it was already 10:10. In my head, Mrs. Topher, the HOA president, admonished, “In my day, people respected each other and were on time.”

As I dashed toward Tyler, I mumbled, “Yeah, back when Moses parted the Red Sea, most mothers of young children didn’t have to analyze a 270-page watershed impact statement by Monday.”

Before I unbuckled Tyler from his seat, I smelled his problem. The doorbell rang again. “Paul! Get the door!”

From the living room, Cissie yelled, “The bird people are still here.”

I hustled down the hall with Tyler at arm’s length. His room also served as Paul’s home office. Sure enough. Paul had his earbuds in and was playing some computer game. I hip-butted the back of his chair.

Startled, he yelled, “What the–” but stopped in time. We try not to cuss like muleskinners in front of the kids. I handed Tyler over.

“I’m working, Maggie. You do it.” He tried to pass Tyler back.

The doorbell rang a third time. Cissie called, “The bird people are still still here.”

I said, “One, since when is slaying boss monsters a part of your job? And two, it’s Saturday. We agreed on Saturdays you have to help. No questions asked.” As I stomped to the front door, I muttered, “That is if you ever want to have sex again.”

Hand on the knob, I breathed in deeply and exhaled. Bird people are sensitive. I didn’t want to frighten them because they’d take off in a flurry of feathers and shrieks and dump whatever they had in their cloacas. I didn’t have time to hose off the front porch.

I’d worked with several bird people when I’d served as an analyst for the newly established Alien Affairs Bureau. That was until the AAB’s work rules changed and became intolerable for nursing moms. Two months after Tyler was born, I moved to a clean water non-profit with a short commute. The work wasn’t as important, but my hair had stopped falling out. However, when I opened the door, I wondered whether I’d been out of the loop a little too long.

Instead of a group of sleek greenish-blue peacock-cranes, there stood two bedraggled and dull office drones dressed in modified white button-downs and khakis. Their tails were clipped and their wings pressed tightly against their backs. Even the frills on the tops of their heads drooped. They were both so dull in color, I couldn’t tell whether they were male or female, but given the office casual, I guessed males.

Clutched in one of the T-Rex arms that protruded from beneath his breast, the left bird person held a black book. His colleague grasped a plastic sheet upon which text flickered.

I asked, “May I help you?”

Book bird bobbed his head and pressed the first icon on the squawk box on a chain around his neck. In a mellifluous voice, the box intoned, “Good morning! We are in your neighborhood seeking to expand our flock.”

Book bird bobbed his head and pressed the first icon on the squawk box on a chain around his neck. In a mellifluous voice, the box intoned, “Good morning! We are in your neighborhood seeking to expand our flock.”

I frowned. If they were looking for females, they were out of luck. Our HOA categorically refused all building permits for aviaries. And with such poor color, I doubted any female would give them the time of day.

He cocked his head and pressed the second icon. The box asked, “Have you been saved by Jesus?”

I face-palmed. Flocking was extremely important to them. It made sense they’d become a target of some strip mall prophet, but where was their female, and why would she allow this to happen? “To which home nest do you belong?”

“Reverend Vernon P. Hogg,” said the plastic paper bird. He passed the flickering sheet over.

The title read: The Watch Perch. The address running along the top was the old non-denominational church that had sold its parking lot to the highway extension.

Articles flitted past on how Jesus could save the faithful from obesity, drunkenness, and bird lice. “No, I mean your mother bird. Who is she?” I tried to return the plastic paper, but the bird refused to take it.

“Our Most Supreme Singing Heart,” he said.

The book bird squawked and his box translated, “She who laid us has asked us to go into the world and find a new flock.”

That was odd. I’d worked with Singing Heart when they set up the reservation. Alpha females never let go of their sons until they could find another female to take them in. Things had to be bad on the Rez for her to cut them loose.

“Where do you sleep?”

The book bird’s box said, “At the church.”

“Except on bingo night, knitter’s club night, and days with AA meetings.”

“Then we sleep in the park.”

“But that’s more difficult now. They cut down the bushes to keep the homeless out.”

These two were definitely nest-mates.

The phone rang and Paul yelled, “It’s Mrs. Topher. She wants to know where you are.”

“Listen, I’ve got to go. Good luck in finding new flock members.” I shut the door before the bird people could object.

I dumped The Watch Perch into the electronics recycle bin and changed from my mommy clothes–puke-stained shirt and yoga pants–to my work clothes of white shirt and blue pants. My resemblance to the male drones was not lost on me. I grabbed a not too stinky towel from the clothes hamper and nestled the hot pan of brownies on the front floorboards of the van. After fetching Cissie and buckling her into the child seat, Paul strolled out with my purse and Tyler.

He asked, “Aren’t you going to take him with you?”

I tucked my purse behind my seat. “Did you clean out and refill the diaper bag like you promised?”

He made a Homer Simpson d’oh face.

I smiled sweetly. “Then, there’s your answer.”

As I backed out of the driveway, Paul came running from the front door, waving the plastic paper. I powered down the window.

“Take this with you. It keeps crawling out of the recycle bin. It beeps and says you owe at least a five-dollar donation.”

Making a face, I took the paper. “I’ll drop it off at the church on the way back.” I shoved it under the brownies. They were no longer hot enough to melt it. Too bad.

Mrs. Topher was a sturdy woman with a toad-like mouth: thin-lipped and broad. This week her hair was an auburn color on the orange side. She lived on the biggest property with a pool deck the size of our entire house. I would’ve thought a competent stylist was within her budget.

Cissie joined the other kids playing tag outside the HOA’s clubhouse, and I settled in the folding chair next to Mrs. Topher. As I cut and bagged the brownies, she added the label and the price.

“Are these boxed or homemade?”

“I baked them myself.”

She marked them two for a dollar and tossed them in the boxed section. “Because you were forty-five minutes late, I assume you’ll work the table until 12:45?”

It wasn’t a question, but I didn’t mind. There were activities for Cissie, and Mrs. Topher pounced on any poor victim who wandered within ten feet of the table, giving me time to wade through the impact statement. An hour in, Mrs. Topher became agitated after receiving a series of texts and calls.

I tried to ignore her harrumphing and heavy sighs, but it was a losing battle. “You seem upset, Mrs. Topher. Is there anything–”

“The cretin bailed on us.”

I could see Mr. Topher in a cluster of men near the parking lot. So it wasn’t a marital issue.

“This is the third investor. Third! They say they’re interested, but once they see the engineer’s report, they lose my phone number.”

Now I understood. The HOA had been trying to get an investor to take over and finish up the subdivision. The bake sale was to help with attorney’s fees. The original builder had gone belly up when he discovered it was harder to drain a swamp than he’d imagined.

“This idiot is suggesting we donate the land to the state as a designated wetlands.”

“That would take care of–”

Her penciled-in eyebrows arched. “If you’d attended the last meeting, you’d know that the tax write-off will not offset the loss in fees. We’ll have to raise the rates again. If there were only some way we could squash that stupid report.”

“Cuz that wouldn’t be illegal or anything,” I said.

Mrs. Topher stared daggers at me.

~

By 1:15, Cissie and I were at the church. Vernon P. Hogg himself was setting up chairs for the 2 PM book club. Vern looked forty, despite being much younger. From his teeth, I suspected his drug of choice had been meth.

I handed him the plastic paper. “If this thing finds its way back to my house, I’ll report you for littering.”

He sighed and punched in a code. He dropped it in a pile on an old piano with chipped keys. It calmly sat there no longer flashing or inching toward me like a possessed credit card bill.

“Let’s talk about the two bird people,” I said.

“No, let’s not. I was just trying to help them out, and all they’ve brought me is trouble.” He opened a side door and yelled, “Hey, Larry and Curly! Get your feathered asses in here.”

Cissie hid behind me, staring at the scary man. I folded my arms. “If they’re Larry and Curly, who are you? Moe or Shemp?”

“Very funny. I didn’t pick the names, they did.”

The two bedraggled bird people hustled in, bowing and bobbing their long necks. In unison, they clicked an icon on their boxes. “How may we serve you, Father Hogg?”

I raised an eyebrow. Vernon said quickly, “I tol’ you boys. You’re supposed to say, ‘How may we serve Jesus, Father Hogg?'”

The two bird people looked confused and corrected the text associated with that icon.

“It doesn’t matter.” He waved his fingers as if to shoo chickens. “You two are fired. Get out of my church and go darken someone else’s doorstep.” He turned to me. “Are you happy now?”

The two bird people screeched and flapped their clipped wings. “What have we done wrong? How can we make amends?”

They kept tapping the icons repeating those two sentences until Vernon grabbed a mop handle and threatened to beat them. Cissie burst into tears and threw herself in front of the bird people. Her little arms out wide, she yelled, “I won’t let you hurt them!”

Cissie’s action shocked Vernon. He sighed. “I told you all they do is get me in trouble.”

I rested my hand on Cissie’s head. She melted into my leg, wiping snot and tears on the back of her hand. The bird people clustered behind me and froze, as if that made them invisible.

“Jesus!” Vernon shouted. One of them had dumped his cloaca. “Look what I have to clean up!” He spun around twice on the broken-down heel of his faux alligator boots. “I got people comin’! Payin’ people!”

Good thing he didn’t have a cloaca.

“I don’t want them fired,” I said. “I just don’t want anyone to take advantage of them.”

“Taking advantage, hell. I’m helping them out!”

I pointed to the pile of The Watch Perch. I would’ve waved one in his face, but I feared touching them.

He whined, “I paid their vagrancy tickets for sleeping in the park.”

Hands on hips, I asked, “Did you clip their wings?”

He shook his head. “They have to be clipped to get off the Rez. Some new regulation ‘cuz people claimed they were peeking in windows and messing with security.”

I’d heard about no-fly zones, but I hadn’t thought through all the implications. “Can you keep them for a couple more days while I figure something out?”

“Not those two. They’re dumber than pigeons. I’ll keep the other three.”

“Five? You’re housing five bird people?”

“There’re a dozen under the bridges near the river. They’re pouring off the Rez, and they’re all looking as sad as these two. I think they’re starving.”

I looked at my phone. If I ignored the speed limit, I could get to Singing Heart’s compound in two hours. I called to Cissie, “Sweetheart, help the bird people into the van.”

Cissie’s entire being lit up. “I knew you would save them, mommy. I knew you would!” She herded them like ducks outside. I felt a flicker of pride before reality hit. I hadn’t saved anyone.

~

Larry and Curly strutted through the backyard, eating insects, while I told Paul what happened. He squatted to Cissie’s level. “Did you really do that? Protect those bird people?” She nodded fiercely. He gave her a bear hug. “I’m so proud of you.”

My heart swelled. I kissed Paul on his neck. “You’re a good man.”

Cissie ran off to tell her dollies about her adventures. I fetched the car keys.

Paul shook his head. “It’s late.”

“I’ve got to see for myself. Something’s up.”

He looped his arm around my neck. “Sweetie, you can’t save the world.”

“No, but I simply walked away, and that’s not working for me either.” The emotion made my voice crack.

“You were burned out. With the commute and Tyler–”

“Yeah, but if I don’t do anything at all, then I’m part of the problem. I don’t want that to be the lesson I teach Cissie.”

He met my eye. “After what Cissie did today, are you seriously worried?”

I smiled but hung my head. Paul got out his wallet and handed me cash.

“What’s this for?”

“Gas. But I’m keeping the rest ‘cuz I’m not making dinner. I’m ordering pizza.”

~

I entered Reservation land at 4:40. It bordered the river in a swampy valley that produced mostly mosquitoes. Singing Heart’s high status had afforded her first choice in picking her home nest site. It was the closest to the blacktop. The climate was hot and humid, but the birds liked it that way. I kept my windows up and the AC on. Singing Heart’s people on average looked better than the two drones, but there were no children in the crèche and even the females were out in the river working.

The two male guards at the entrance of Singing Heart’s aviary were still resplendent with long tails, elegant wings, and piercing black eyes. They sported the sharpened beak spikes and leg spurs of their class. One recognized me and asked me to wait. He sent a small messenger male inside. After a few minutes, I was ushered into the geodesic dome that functioned as Singing Heart’s main dormitory.

Inside resembled a rain forest arboretum. Industrial fans created a slight breeze and made it easier for me to breathe. I walked slowly to keep from sweating too much. Designed for visitors and fledglings, the path wound upward. The adults glided from perches set along the struts two-thirds of the way up the sides. The top of the curved path opened onto a platform for meetings. Above that sat Singing Heart’s nest. One of her daughters roosted in it. The other nests lay empty.

Singing Heart’s frill was up and her feathers fluffed. On the platform, her brown and green plumage shone brightly in the late afternoon sun, but in the dappled places among the plants, she’d have blended in perfectly. Her neck extended, she stood tall. My eye met her beak. For the first time in her presence, I felt the flutter of discomfort and fear, as if the trouble–whatever it may be–was somehow my fault. I asked, “Did you release two males?”

Singing Heart’s wings came away from her body, and all the other birds in the dome came to attention. “Yes. Why?”

Out of nowhere one of the male guards landed with a thump next to me.

I put my hand out in a placating motion. “They’re at my house.”

Singing Heart lifted her knees one at a time and shook out her feathers. The other birds relaxed, and the guard bird moved to the edge of the platform but did not fly off.

“They are good men, but we have no room for them.”

“May I ask why?”

“Come. Walk with me.”

Singing Heart could’ve glided to the exit in a heartbeat, but she walked slowly, one long stride after another, so I could keep up. Once outside of the dome, Singing Heart flicked her tail feathers. The guard remained behind.

“Children can be impetuous and impatient,” she said.

“Are you talking about these two males?” I asked.

“No. My eldest daughter. She couldn’t control herself and fertilized two eggs. I’m sure you saw her nesting.”

“Are resources so tight that you don’t have room for two more?”

“It’s a matter of leadership. If my home nest doesn’t control its population, I can’t ask that of others.”

“The valley looks lush, is there a shortage of food?”

“Your government insists that unless we put in a water treatment plant, we can have no population growth. They say we’re putting too much nitrogen into the water, but they won’t allow us to sell our technology, or use it to back a security you call municipal bonds.”

I pretended to examine the foliage to hide my chagrin. Singing Heart could read facial expressions, and her sight was superior to humans. Like most avians, she had an extra protein in the back of her eye and could see into the ultraviolet range. Her home star was very active and produced a lot of UV. In fact, it had become so active, it was eroding their planet’s atmosphere. That’s why they’d come to Earth, refugees from a natural disaster.

It was my fault. The clean water non-profit I worked for had been responsible for some of those clean water laws. Talk about unintended consequences. Now I understood why the state hadn’t fought the legislation. It was never about clean water. It was about population control. The non-profit and I had been suckered.

“How about making a home nest in town where there are sewers?” I asked.

“None of my daughters can get building permits.”

My own damn HOA had contributed to that problem.

We continued to the river. The water was clean but the banks boggy. Singing Heart waded out into the dark mud. She stretched her neck. It ballooned and she made a whooping roar that ended in a bellowing meow. All the females stopped what they were doing and responded. She called and they repeated for several rounds. The tone and pattern changed but not the volume. From downstream came a second set of calls and responses. When it did, Singing Heart shook her feathers and rejoined me on hard ground. The call would wind its way down the river to the end of the valley.

I didn’t need the translator. It was a gratitude psalm. A tear dripped down my cheek.

“Magdalene? What distresses you?”

My chin quivered. “How can you sing of gratitude considering how we treat you?”

“You’ve taken in my two sons. You cannot imagine my relief.”

It had been a sheer accident. And for how long could I keep them? An aspirin for a brain tumor.

Singing Heart asked, “You left the AAB because you were having difficulties with a fledgling? Is he well?”

“I left because it was too much stress to deal with a toddler, a nursing infant, a sexist boss, and an hour commute each way.” I blushed, ashamed of my pitiful problems. “I can’t imagine how you handle the stress of this place.”

Singing Heart bobbed her head. “I don’t do it alone. I have my flock. Your culture of complete independence is foolish.” She clucked and the box intoned, “You will do better now that you have my two sons. We have more to teach you than technology.”

“Technology!” I pointed to the birds in the river. “Your daughters all have equivalents of Ph.D.s, and they are reduced to stringing nets in a river.”

“Do you feel reduced when you take care of your fledglings?”

I remained silent. There were seasons in life, but my boss and my culture didn’t understand that, so I did feel less than no matter how wrong it was. I lifted my chin. “I make no promises, but now that I understand the issues, I can work on solutions.”

Singing Heart brushed me with a wing a sign of gratitude. But in this case, I took it as a gesture of forgiveness.

~

On Monday, instead of summarizing that 270-page impact statement, I presented the plight of the bird people. The staff members were divided as to what to do, but they agreed to an emergency board meeting to discuss the possible realignment of the mission of the non-profit. We were small and disorganized, but it was a start.

Moving on to the second prong of my master plan, I cornered Kendra–our one and only lawyer–before she could slip away to pick up her kids from school.

I handed her a flash drive with the HOA covenant rules. “My question is simple. Can I force the HOA to accept an application to build an aviary?”

“You are taking this personally,” said Kendra.

“I want to change the narrative from NIMBY to YIMBY.”

“YIMBY?”

“Yes, In My Back Yard.”

Kendra smiled. “I’ll go over this tonight and get back to you.”

~

A week later, I was sitting in Mrs. Topher’s living room with the finished proposal. Mrs. Topher’s décor was 1970s day-glo. It explained the clown hair. I wanted to get down to business, but Mrs. Topher wanted to play hostess. She provided fat-free, taste-free cookies and iced tea so sweetened the sugar had precipitated into the bottom of the glass. My fillings ached.

“I hear there are two avians living in your home,” said Mrs. Topher.

I’d read the rules so many times I knew that unrelated folk were frowned upon, but not live-in help. I smiled. “They provide childcare and cleaning services.”

I expected Mrs. Topher to warn me of the dangers of salmonella or something, but instead she nodded slyly. “Yes, I’ve heard the labor laws don’t apply. You don’t have to pay unemployment or match social security.” She patted me on the knee. “How smart of you. It must be nice to finally be able to afford help.”

Ripping off Mrs. Topher’s arm and beating her to death with it would not advance my agenda. Instead, I asked, “So you have no issues with bird people?”

“Not if they have a job, know their place. Of course not. I’m not a racist.”

“Excellent. I have a buyer for the rest of the subdivision.”

Mrs. Topher lit up, and not just from her spray tan.

I explained the details of how Singing Heart’s daughter would buy into the subdivision and build an aviary. “And here’s the best part, because they’ll be part of the community, they’ll pay yearly fees. It’s a win-win.”

Mrs. Topher’s face darkened like a summer thunderstorm. “It won’t pass.”

“Why not?”

“I’ll vote against it. This is a human community.”

My time at the non-profit taught me not to argue. I’d just have to go grassroots.

Mrs. Topher opened a leather slipcase and produced a typed list. “I’ll save you time. These people will vote with me no matter what. I engender loyalty that way.”

Was she bluffing? I reminded myself not to engage. I thanked her for the list and tried to let myself out, but Hercules and Atlas were loose. I had to wait until Mr. Topher corralled the two guard dogs. They were well muscled, but a little too lean. I wondered if they were actually vicious or just hungry.

~

After dinner, I made some phone calls. Mrs. Topher hadn’t bluffed. She had a solid thirty-five percent. The vote would fail. I wailed in frustration and flopped facedown into all the maps and papers I’d spread out on the table. Larry tapped the floor with one foot. I rested my chin in my hand. “Need help getting Cissie to bed?”

He typed on his controller, and the box said, “You are distressed. It is our role as men of the house to relieve that distress. How may we help?”

Just being asked made me smile. I hadn’t explained about the proposal to shield them from disappointment, but the worst had come to pass so there was no point in hiding it. I explained the situation. While doing so, Curly joined us with Cissie padding right behind, her Disney toothbrush in hand.

I pointed on the map. “The woman who lives here will vote against the proposal, and all the people on this list,” I held up the paper, “will vote with her.”

Larry touched my shoulder with a beak, a very personal gesture. “Then all is not lost. All you have to do is change one person’s mind instead of thirty. We have faith in you.”

“Of course we do, mommy.” Cissie hugged me.

Yeah. Only one.

~

After the kids were in bed and the bird people asleep, I gathered the covenant rules and binder clipped them. I found a loose page under the map of the subdivision. It outlined the rules governing utility easements. Something caught my eye. I compared the Google satellite view with the subdivision map. The original map didn’t have Mrs. Topher’s giant pool and deck. I checked the property lines, the easements, and compared it to the satellite view.

“Son of a–” I fished out two steaks from the deep freezer and shoved them into the microwave to defrost.

Twenty minutes later, dressed all in black with a measuring tape in one hand and a bag ‘o steaks in the other, I stood at the Tophers’ fence. Hercules and Atlas barreled up barking and snarling.

“Hey, boys.” I waved the steaks. “Let’s find out. Are you vicious or hungry?”

~

The next day I again sat in Mrs. Topher’s living room, suffering another glass of sludge tea.

She smiled unctuously. “You said you needed a change to the agenda?”

I’d used that as the excuse. There was no way this woman would forfeit an opportunity to gloat. “Yes.”

“Do you want to cancel the vote?”

“No. I have discovered a violation.” I leaned in. “A serious violation. The board needs to know so they can act.”

Mrs. Topher licked her lips. “Do tell.”

I handed her a manila folder. Eagerly, she flipped it open. She scowled. “This is my address.”

I grinned. “Yes, and your pool crosses into the easement by nine inches. You’ll have to rip it out.”

“I’ll get a variance.”

“That’ll take 2/3rds too. Do you think you’ll have that many friends after they find out you could’ve solved both the swamp problem and reduced their fees by allowing the aviary?”

She tossed the folder onto the coffee table. “That’s blackmail.”

“May I count on your vote and those of your friends?”

As I rounded the van to the driver’s side, Mrs. Topher released Hercules and Atlas. They bolted straight for me, but instead of mauling me, they tried to lick me to death. Disgusted, Mrs. Topher slammed her front door. Such bad doggies.

~

Two months later, the subdivision threw a party for the groundbreaking. Larry and Curly’s flight feathers had filled in and their tails were elongating. Their crests stood high and their eyes shone. By Christmas, they might be ready for their own set of leg spurs.

They followed Tyler, as he stumbled across the lawn. He’d grown into a mobile terror, squealing and clapping his hands. Seeing the three of them walk across the lawn, my heart warmed. Flocks were nice.

The ceremony had called all the displaced birds from miles around. They would all apply to become a part of the newest home nest. All but Larry and Curly, of course. First, she was their sister, and second, they’d become fully integrated into our household. I had become their mother bird.

Paul strolled over with Cissie on his shoulders. Behind them stood Mrs. Topher, her hair now a yellow-orange. She preened for a local news team. “Yes. We are a progressive neighborhood. I was instrumental in getting the permits.”

Paul nodded towards Larry and Curly. “Boy howdy, are those two working out, especially now that you’re back at the AAB.”

“Don’t get too used to it,” I said. “Soon, we might not be able to afford them.”

Paul frowned. “Why?”

“My next project is to get the bird people labor protections.”

Cissie said in her father’s ear, “Yes, daddy. Do you know what labor protections are?”

As he bee-lined to the food table, he said, “Yes, I do, Cissie. But please explain them to me anyway.”

My attention turned to three clipped birds in white button-downs and khakis who rushed toward Larry, Curly, and Tyler. The leader of the three clutched a black book. The other two clutched plastic papers, which flickered with text.

The leader squawked and the box translated, “Good day, gentle birds. We are seeking to increase our flock. Have you been saved by Jesus?”

Larry and Curly stood tall, their necks extended. In unison, they said, “Thank you, but we have already been saved, saved by Mary Magdalene.”

Ms. Mary Magdalene Farconi, a working mother, is a G-11 in the Labor Protections Department of the Alien Affairs Bureau. She supervises a governmental hotline for reporting labor abuse of Avian Nationals and is currently working with cities all over the US to design and develop aviaries within human communities.

Dr. Kathy Kitts, a former geology professor, served as a science team member on the NASA Genesis Discovery Mission. Before that, she directed a planetarium for nine years. Her latest speculative short fiction has appeared in Amazing, James Gunn’s Ad Astra, and Mad Scientist Journal. Her latest short story collection, Getting What You Need, is now available on Amazon. Born and raised in the southwest, she is currently living in the high desert of New Mexico.

Leigh’s professional title is “illustrator,” but that’s just a nice word for “monster-maker,” in this case. More information about them can be found at http://leighlegler.carbonmade.com/.

“Jehovah’s Feathers” is © 2019 K. Kitts Art accompanying story is © 2019 Leigh Legler

Fiction: Jehovah’s Feathers was originally published on Mad Scientist Journal

[amandalukowicz-blog]

How I Bought Drugs From 'dark Net' - It's Just Like Amazon Run By Cartels

However, if premium payments are continued, the employee is billed by the insurance company, canadian prescriptions online probably on a quarterly basis. It is not unusual for an employee group initially to pay a rate that is considered reasonable only to have the plan premiums become unreasonable over time. Two approaches have been used in designing group universal life insurance products. None of the other stimulants have as long a half life as phentermine (which means they are effective for a shorter period of time). I have killed many with those sticky traps but I’m just not a fan at all with having to deal with a half dead rat. The employer does not have to get involved in disputes involving employees over coverage of the plan, because these would be handled by the insurance company. “So, with no electronics, you can’t even get the vehicle into neutral to roll it downhill and jump start it,” Rick added. In 2015 we won British Medical Journals 'Primary Care Team of the Year' award. Your income, location, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, or current state of health should never be a barrier to receiving affordable, high-quality health care. Health and welfare and legal aid. They are included in item D of the first aid list. “The first sale of legal Canadian weed! Stage 3 requires 20% of all active patients who prefer to receive reminders electronically receive them. Renamed in October 2012 by the City of Hamilton in honour of the celebrated Bermudian screen and stage actor Earl Cameron. Tour1.pdf. A special event, no longer offered, but shown here for its rare insight into city properties and events that once occured there. A few insurance companies also allow additional purchases without evidence of insurability when certain events occur, such as marriage or the birth of a child. Most insurance companies guarantee that any future increases in the mortality charge will not exceed a stated maximum. In the new ad format, the display URL will be "automatically extracted" from the destination URL, with some (but only minimal) ability to customize the display URL seen by users. As a practical matter, this will probably mean having multiple sets of paid search campaigns going through the review and approval process. I will work with my fellow governors and the Colorado Congressional delegation to generate sufficient political support to reauthorize and fully fund the program. Public Health Departments may find this challenging to support. When you think about how easy it is to create a social media account, you realize there’s nothing stopping someone from creating an exact replica of your public profile. Many folks probably think their gear shifter is simply a mechanical lever, but in most modern vehicles, it is not. Step 2 - There are a lot of ways of moving more. In reality, carve-out plans are more complex. 7. Find out more about carbohydrate counting and portion sizes. Newcomers quickly learn to drive defensively at all times but find that driving on the left is not as hard as it appears. Are there limits on the amount of sharing? There is almost no classical, jazz, rock or world music programming. Mid-size cruise ships tie up opposite here. ICO exit scams are similar to the pump and dump scams we talked about earlier except it’s usually the coin creators doing the heavy promotion followed by a quick sell-off. 6. Don’t hold your breath when doing resistance exercises as this will make your blood pressure rise to the point it may lead to heart attack and stroke. My administration will prioritize working closely with counties to leverage other available resources similar to Lake Hill to make sure teachers are able to live closer to their jobs. Although importation of prescription medication usually violates Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations and federal laws, enforcement is generally targeted at international drug suppliers, rather than consumers. I found a prescription discount card that helps lower the cost of prescription medications for people who don’t have health insurance. Colorado’s peaks, forests, valleys, rivers, deserts, and plains inspire millions of people who choose to call this state home. I hate snitches who cooperate with the police especially if their affiliated with a gang. And most of us have pets, so using poisons are not really an option either. 2. The readings on the gym cardio machines are accurate. You should check with your specialist or drug specialist in the event that you don’t know. You know how you feel. However, a reasonable estimate would be that at least 75 percent of all employees have some form of short-term employer-provided protection, but only about 40 percent have protection for long-term disabilities. However, the victim can be negatively impacted as failing to pay taxes can result in a conviction, including fines and imprisonment. Increase Access for Sportsmen and Sportswomen — Sportsmen and sportswomen often lack sufficient access to places to hunt and fish. Numerous many factors behind this however in developed countries the easier access to over-processed diets and a less-active lifestyle play a critical role., See what your medical symptoms could mean, and learn about possible conditions. If you suffer from insomnia, anxiety, or stress I would order some CBD oil and see if it works for you. Keep glucose wafers to dissolve in the mouth until the blood sugar reaches 70 mg/dl or higher.

[awildhanmonster]

Character Ramblings for Wyrd!

At Wyrd’s behest, I’m trying to write down a little master post of some recent characters she bullied— I mean enabled— me to create.  This is for our casual Loserverse world— i.e. the fast-and-loose All The Myths Are True low fantasy trope where a bunch of well intentioned idiots try to get by in an apartment complex for largely mythical creatures.  I’ve accidentally made up a lot of new side characters in the past month and it’s getting hard to keep track of them, so here we go!

THE HOMESTEADING SHAPESHIFTER TRIO: AKA NELL, LEONORA AND BARNES

I’m listing these three together on their own because they are an active “couple” (… trio? I’m not sure what the right polyamory term is) who all live together in a more rural part of the county on some acreage generationally owned and tended by Nora’s family line.  Their personal plot is pretty manageable (just a few acres) and a small portion of the entire property.  They have a little flock of maybe 2 dozen combined sheep and goats, some chickens, and possibly an alpaca.  The land is woodsy and picturesque with an old country house they share.  

Nell J. Harriet, aka Nell: approximately 32 years old, born intersex, happily nonbinary (pronouns are ‘they’).  The tallest of the bunch at around 6’ even, with a pale wiry frame and knobby, angular corners all over.  Jet black hair with a striking chunk of white smack dab at the front of the widow’s peak like the trail of a dog’s blaze, one solid brown eye, one split tweaky blue/brown mess.  Shifted form is a black and white border collie with (surprise!) heterochromia and a chunky white blaze cutting through the forehead right at the widow’s peak.  

Despite being born to a mother with a long family history of (gene-recessive) shifters cropping up every generation, Nell was still a surprise to everyone involved, given that their father had presumably been human.  Their mother— who I’ll call Meryl for now— comes from a fairly mundane lineage of canine shifter (while being a non-shifter Rr carrier herself) which typically manifests in early childhood and has a certain period of semi-conscious malleability during the formative years in which things like coat color, length, ear set, and other minor (external) features can be changed through great effort and trial/error before eventually “settling” into a constant, unique physical identity with time.  They heal several times faster than average humans, scar less, and tend to show greater physical resilience, taking a few seconds to painlessly and more-or-less fluidly change shape, but lack any kind of “burst healing” mechanic or unusual magical attributes.

Everyone else in the family before Nell had turned out some kind of pleasantly functional “mutt” shape in the end, but Nell erupted onto the scene as a full blown black-and-white border collie looking thing from day 1 of the change as a bouncy toddler.  Meryl could only guess that the father (long since vanished from their lives with no hard feelings, the affair was brief) was a similar, incidentally compatible shapeshifter himself, but that’s about as well as anyone can guess since he’s not around to ask.  

Nell, for their part, is exactly the kind of plucky, sunshiny, high-energy velcro person you would expect from a border collie on two legs.  They struggled in early childhood with some rough ADHD and OCD type tendencies, but managed to get through public schooling with the help of family support/tutoring, and wound up not pursuing college in favor of trying out a more rural living, instead.  They met Leonora while bouncing around odd jobs a couple years after high school and the rest is history.  They’re much happier now with a largely outdoor existence and animals to tend to, burning off the excess energy that plagued them for years without a direction prior to homesteading.  They’re one of those types who thrives with an outlet for physical and mental stimulation but loses their mind for lack of it.  As one would expect from any good BC.  The farming life is an ideal fit.  

Leonora Basso: aka Nora, but only if you’re close to her.  Approximately 34-ish, a shameless bohemian woman from a long line of shifters almost functionally identical to Raiker/Nicky’s species, with the exception of taking on the form of giant (thanks, conservation of mass) white maremma type guardian dogs instead of akbash.  Built square, stocky, and a little short (probably around 5’4’’), with olive/bronze-y skin, brown eyes, and a giant fluffy mess of fluffy, platinum white-blond hair the exact color and texture of maremma fur.  

She’s chill, with admirable patience for things that warrant it and a long fuse for small annoyances, though she’s also the only member of the three to ever knock someone’s teeth out, so take that with a grain of salt.  Like any good guardian dog, she’s placid until you start messing with her flock— literally or metaphorically.  Then she’ll be the one to quietly walk across the bar and slam your head into the table.  She met Nell during a trip to the inner city by complete happenstance when the two hit it off over conversation, during which she invited them to come visit her farm over a public touring weekend, and within weeks wound up dating.  Their relationship was exclusive up until Barnes came along  and none of them are quite sure how it happened, but they’ve never been in a better place.  

Chancellor Barneston Augustine-Kingslay, aka Barnes: and ONLY Barnes, okay.  Repeat his full name N E V E R or he’ll just, seriously, die.  Of embarrassment.  The youngest of the bunch at around 27-28 or so, Barnes was adopted by his (human) parents as a (human, presumably) infant, and had a perfectly normal (human, presumably) childhood until one day when his mother came in and found that her napping four year old was suddenly a napping 40 pound maine coon cat— or at least, what LOOKED a whole lot like one.  Needless to say, the following week was a scramble of buying every “Help!  My Child is a Shapeshifter, What Do I Do!” parenting book off Amazon and learning how to cope with a toddler who could suddenly vault over double stacked safety gates unaided, but they learned how to adapt, and life continued on happily for the little family anyway.  He’s an average sort, and arguably handsome to some: about 5’8’’, not especially pale or tan, hazel eyed, and sporting what looks like perpetually dark-ticked mouse brown hair, cut short.  He performed well enough in public school with a mostly human peer group who went largely unaware of his “talents” and even went on to earn a bachelor’s in business/finances/something akin, which seemed like the thing to do.  He wouldn’t describe himself as unhappy in his accomplishments; by every metric he was doing fine in life, and could easily figure out a career in some white collar job that paid his bills well enough.

He just couldn’t shake a certain feeling of restlessness and dissatisfaction about the idea, and wound up making a habit of weekend demos and classes to see what else was out there in the world: one of which happened to be a sheep shearing weekend out at the Basso Homestead.  On a whim, Barnes attended a demo headed by none other than Leonora while she was using a feisty ram (named Ramses) to walk visitors through the shearing process, Ramses was being fighty, Nell wasn’t around to help wrangle him, and Barnes, thinking he was capable, volunteered (despite Nora warning him repeatedly that rams were pretty feisty) to help hold him down.

… Needless to say he earned a spectacular nut shot via ram horns in the groin and wound up sitting out the rest of the day with an ice pack and a lot of sympathy, but it got him talking to Nora, and then Nell, and the three of them just gelled in a way that kept bringing them back together.  He’s realized in hindsight that he’s much happier in the suburbs than the big city, and enjoys putting his schooling to use by handling the home taxes and business numbers.  

(Fun fact: years later, when it Ramses got too big for his britches and was sent to the abattoir, they were given part of him by the Basso family and cooked a roast to celebrate the asshole sheep that brought them all together.  Ramses was delicious.)

Barnes, incidentally, still has no idea just WHAT kind of shifter he actually is thanks to being a doorstep baby/anonymous adoption acquisition by the foster folks— aside from a giant 100+ pound country cat, that is.  He’s observed that his shift is nearly as swift as Leonora’s, though there are queer persistences that he seems to have (pierced ears not healing instantly or trying to close after a change) that she lacks.  Coupled with the fact that he seems to be a magnet for comically mundane/irritating paranormal activity, he’s put in his research (mostly as a boredom hobby, not a necessary pursuit) but keeps drawing blanks on potential labels for his identity.  The TRUTH of the matter (which he’ll probably never know in canon) is that he’s actually a cait sith— born in the form of a cat, rather than a human, and bewitched by his mother to retain a human form as long as possible in the hopes that it would get him a better chance at finding loving parents.  His shifting has a much heavier magical component to it than his SOs, though he has no real sense for it, and it’ll probably just be a mystery the rest of his life.

Wow, yeah, this got super long!  I’ll make a separate post for the other losers I’ve made up lately, though these three are the most fleshed out so far.  

[arabellaflynn]

One of the more amusing family stories I sometimes tell is about a relative of mine, a few generations back, who moved in with another man after his wife died. Ooh, everybody goes. Salacious family gossip! Except the little town they moved to was actually Lily Dale Assembly, in upstate New York, which so far as I know is still one of the oldest continually running Spiritualist communes in the United States. Harry and Edward moved up there so that Edward, ex-model and former elder in the Presbyterian church, could start on what I think was his third career as a spirit medium. He channeled the spirit of an Edwardian actress named Lillie Langtry, also known as "the Jersey Rose". At this point, the whole 'shacked up with his boyfriend' thing has become the least interesting part of the story, and people begin to look at me funny. My parents fucked things up in many respects, several of them so egregious that I haven't spoken to them in years, but I want to give credit where credit is due. They never sat us down to have a talk about how some boys like boys and some girls like girls, and they were all people just like anyone else. It was stupidly obvious. My mother talked about "Harry and Edward" in the same tone she used for "Aunt Helen and Uncle Bob". Except friendlier, as Uncle Bob was known to be a lecher who eyeballed the teenage cousins, and we mysteriously saw a lot less of him after I was about twelve. I was probably in college -- so, old enough for my own friends to start coming out -- before I thought about it long enough to realize how unusual this was. There are a lot of families where I never would have heard about Harry, because they would have disavowed any knowledge of his existence as soon as they found out about his "friend". Tracing LGBT+ relatives can be tricky. They tend to lack a lot of paperwork that straight couples would have. Not just legit marriage certificates -- which don't always exist -- but a lot of other records that are predicated on the assumption that there is a marriage certificate, somewhere. Fifty years ago, John Doe and Roberta Roe could move halfway across the country together and apply for an apartment as "Mr. and Mrs. John Doe", and nobody would ever check. The only way to get that information, pre-internet, was to find out where the marriage would have been officiated, write to the appropriate county clerk (with a processing fee enclosed), and wait 4-6 weeks to see if you got an illegible photocopy or a 'no such file exists' form letter back. No landlord was going to do that. They'd look at you, make a snap judgement on whether you were likely to grow forty tons of weed in their rental property, and ask if you had first, last, and deposit. After you have a lease as "John and Roberta Doe", you can start getting utility bills, phone lines, library cards, checking accounts, even state IDs, depending on where (and when) you were. My own parents are a good example of how this works. My mother used her maiden name right up until she was lying in a hospital bed with a newborn (me), and the nuns filing the paperwork were confused by the concept of putting a different surname down for mother and child. My mother, who was understandably short on patience, finally relented and told them to use Dad's name for everybody. (In her words, "I was afraid they were gonna lose you.") They weren't legally married until I was three, and they only did it because we had moved from Little Canada to a state that even today spits in the face of social progress, and Dad's new health insurance wouldn't otherwise have covered anybody else. Mind you, my college FAFSA papers said they'd been filing taxes as married since 1978. My mother was never one to let a little thing like federal tax law prevent her from doing as she damn well pleased. In Harry and Edward's case, we do have some documentation: Harry wrote memoirs. My mother had a copy, and I've read it. They're mostly about the spirit medium stuff, but there's a fair bit about life as well, and they were hilariously domestic. You would have to engage in mental gymnastics of a phenomenal order to read the two of them as anything but a couple. I seem to recall Harry's daughter either writing to or visiting them in Lily Dale; according to the family, she was mainly just happy her father had settled down with someone who could cook, so he'd stop living on scrambled eggs and spaghetti. I've had no luck so far finding a copy of my own. Partly because it was privately published by someone who evidently went out of business 30+ years ago, but mostly because I didn't have any full names for anybody. The family has only ever referred to Harry as "Uncle Doc Harry". He wasn't a doctor of anything, but he did have an MSW, and for that time and that branch of the family, that was a pretty high-falutin' education. I'm still not sure if he was my great-uncle or my great-great-uncle. My grandfather was from a gigantic Irish Catholic farm family, where there were so many kids with such a range of ages that the eldest grandkids used to babysit their youngest aunts and uncles. It was without a great deal of hope that I prodded the Lily Dale Assembly at about 2 am one night, via their Facebook page. Yes, they have a Facebook page. Of course they have a Facebook page. Another thing you have to consider when nosing around after your queer kin is how to frame it. Somewhere conservative, I probably would have inquired after Harry, mentioning at some point that he used to share a house with someone named Edward. The Assembly, though? The Spiritualists are justifiably proud of their history of being early adopters of things like women's suffrage, feminism, and universal civil rights. They attract a lot of weirdos because they treat the weirdos like valid human beings. I was asking after people who would still be in the living memory of older residents, and a town like Lily Dale would have remembered them as the boring middle-aged married couple. So I just asked about my relatives, plural, Harry and Edward, and mentioned the ghost actress, figuring it would have been pretty unique even for a place like that. I expected to get a teenage intern, who had no idea what I was talking about, but could at least give me some way to get in contact with the town registrar or whatever a Spiritualist commune has. No. Oh, no. Whoever was answering their messages knew exactly who I was talking about, because they used to live across the street. Not only told me where the two of them went, but described the house they bought when they moved out of town in the early '90s. What the actual fuck. Thus armed with useful things like surnames, I went off to Google some more. I still haven't had any luck finding the book; when I first read it, online shopping was already a thing, and I found it eerie as hell to be physically holding a book that had no listing on Amazon. It has an AISN now, as someone evidently sold a signed copy on Amazon once, but no ISBN, and therefore no WorldCat entry. If it exists in any library I can get to, I'm not sure I have any way to ask for it. I can't find their obituaries, either -- my guess is they ran in the newspaper of the small town they lived in after Lily Dale, but the online archives have a big gap between 1989, when their microfiche scans end, and the 2000s, when someone bothered building them a website. If they have headstones, nobody's taken pictures of them for FindAGrave.com. I threw their names at Spokeo and WhitePages and the like, to see if whoever survived longest had moved elsewhere to be with other family, and made an interesting discovery. Directories like that scrape data from other places. Mailing lists, public records, that sort of thing. Most people have at least one "AKA" listing, where they did or didn't use their middle initial for something, or went by Kathy instead of Katherine. Harry seems to have really been Harry, never Harold, which fits with the family naming habits. I did dig up a middle name, and it does tally with the one on the picture of the book cover on Amazon out-of-stock listing, so at least I know I'm tracking the right guy. So far as I can tell from his AKAs, Edward never went by Ed or Eddie -- but he did, at some point in his life, go by Harry's surname. It's exactly the sort of middle finger to convention I would expect from any relative of mine, really. Fuck you, mainstream society, we're married. One of the places it's noted is on a profile for one of the ancestry services that says it was created and maintained by his brother, so at least some of his family seems to have treated them the same way Harry's did. It actually makes me wonder if they had some sort of commitment ceremony at some point. (Beyond signing a joint mortgage on at least one house, I mean. Those are way harder to get out of than a marriage.) There wouldn't be any records filed with the State of New York -- although there's always the chance they were smart enough to file legal papers giving power of attorney and leaving their estate to the other one -- but if it happened in Lily Dale, the Assembly might have noted it. from Blogger https://ift.tt/2zVc9Bw via IFTTT -------------------- Enjoy my writing? Consider becoming a Patron, subscribing via Kindle, or just toss a little something in my tip jar. Thanks!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Apple puts North Dakota on blast

Republican North Dakota legislators have introduced SB2333, a bill that prohibits large tech companies from locking their users into a single app store or payment processor.

https://www.legis.nd.gov/assembly/67-2021/documents/21-1044-01000.pdf

While his has implications for Android and other large tech platforms, its most immediate and far-reaching effects with be on Apple, whose Ios platform uses lock-in to monopolize both apps and payments (and another domain, not mentioned in the bill: repairs).

Predictably, this has thrown Apple into a fury, with Apple's privacy chief Erik Neuenschwander telling the SD legislature that Apple uses its monopoly over the app store to protect its users' privacy and security.

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/02/10/apple-privacy-chief-slams-north-dakota-bill/

Neuenschwander makes a good, but incomplete, point. To the extent that Apple has the same interests as its users, it uses its app store monopoly to lock out bad apps (to the best of its ability).

But when Apple's interests diverge from its users' interests, the prohibition on sideloading apps actively harms those users' privacy and security. Think of how Apple caved to Chinese state demands to remove working VPNs from the Ios app store to facilitate mass surveillance.

This security model - surrendering your autonomy to a large company in exchange for promises of protection - is what Bruce Schneier calls "feudal security," though it should really be thought of as "manorial security."

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

In manorial security, a small elite of mercantalist warlords get all the property rights - the right to decide how the infrastructure is used - and the rest of us get tenants' rights, the right to make limited use of the warlords' property.

The warlords promise to defend us from bandits and build high walls to keep the bandits out, but if someone suborns the warlord to acting against us, those walls lock us *in*, leaving us helpless.

Indeed, the walls aren't just a protection, they're a temptation: anyone who coerces or bribes a warlord into letting them inside the compound enjoys a smorgasbord of defenseless prey - the walled garden becomes a feedlot.

Which is why Neuenschwander is more wrong than right: Apple keeps out the bad apps it finds, except when a powerful state makes it an offer it can't refuse.

The fact that users are held prisoner to those judgments is an invitation to states to make demands of Apple.

Which suggests a corollary: if Apple's users COULD sideload apps that subverted harmful government orders, then those orders would be less effective - and governments would be less tempted to make them in the first place, and if they did anyway, users would have an out.

I don't know enough about North Dakota state politics to weigh the bill's chances, but if it passes, it creates some fascinating possibilities. ND is one of America's fiber optic powerhouses, with much higher gigabit penetration than other states.

If moving your company to ND means that you get to retain 30% more of your income - because you're no longer paying the app store tax - *and* you get to save money on real-estate *and* all your employees get fiber, well, that's pretty attractive.

To get a sense of what this could mean, check out the testimony of Basecamp CTO David Heinemeier Hansson in support of the bill, describing how Apple shook down his company for 30% of the revenues for Hey, its innovative email reader.

https://m.signalvnoise.com/testimony-before-the-north-dakota-senate-industry-business-and-labor-committee/

"North Dakota has the opportunity to create this level playing field, such that the next generation of software companies can be started there, and if a team in Bismarck builds a better digital mouse trap, they won’t be hampered by abusive, extortive demands for 30% of their revenue from the existing big tech giants."

As Heinemeier Hansson points out, the bill is very short - 17 lines, plus some recitals - and it's well-crafted...for the most part. One thing jumps out though:

> 4. This section does not apply to a proprietor of a special-purpose digital application distribution platform.

What's a "special-purpose digital application distribution platform?"

It's "a gaming console, music player, and other special-purpose devices connected to the internet."

That is a seriously weird carve-out. Consoles *invented* the app store business model, and they use it aggressively today to screw games studios and gamers. Exempting them from this is like exempting printers from a ban on high-priced consumables.

And all those other "special purpose" devices - smart speakers, medical implants, home automation systems, etc - are just as prone to being monopolized and produce just as many harms for their users through anticompetitive app store conduct as phones do.

They're overwhelmingly made by the same companies that operate abusive app stores for phones, which means that if this carve out was created by lobbyists, it's weird that they didn't lobby for a carve out for phones, too.

[putris-et-mulier]

I'm getting my disability cut

You know when I say people on disability are not allowed to have more than $2,000 to my name or a savings account? This is what happens when you fuck up

The infamous context is that I was born super crippled (spinal atrophy muscular dystrophy type II, a terminal congenital mutation in which your body processes very little protein until you get too weak to live, but the type II means I have a shot at making it through my 30s) and I have no family except for my mother who now has very progressive Alzheimer's so for the last however many years as I've been struggling to get her on health insurance and diagnosed accurately etc.  Luckily, mom owned the house (although it had to be put in someone else's name for her to be able to qualify for health insurance) but I still have to pay property taxes each year. They are a little under 2K.

Last year was especially hard because mom needed a lot of new things like adult diapers and such that I couldn't get insurance to cover until recently. In order to pay property taxes last year a friend gave me money for my birthday to help me cover what I was missing. The deposit went in before the checks for all of my bills cleared so I had no idea but for a couple days I had a little more than my allowed $2,000

Good news: I was able to do enough odd jobs to be able to pay the 2018 property taxes when I got the first noticed this summer.

Bad news: My social worker is a stereotype of a social worker and gave me a bunch of wrong information that had me in and out of Social Security these last few months filling out paperwork that afterward they said they didn't need. 

I just got my final notice that because I hadn't paid them back since March I owe them a little over $800 which can be paid now (technically October 3 but the paperwork wasn't given to me until now) and if I don't the $910 I get to live on and pay mom's expenses is going to be cut by $91 each month until I pay off my debt to society. My social worker had her "assistant" be the one to call me and apologize because she gave me wrong information and hasn't answered my calls since spring.

The $800 was due October 3rd but if I can find some way to pay it by the end of the month they won't cut my disability. 

I know that I and other disabled bloggers are always posting about these things asking for donations but this is why. The way the America insists we live in order to have health insurance is inhumane and I'm not a special case, the system is this apathetic and to everyone. Especially those born with a "pre-existing condition."

As embarrassed and ashamed as I am to be going through something like this again I'm in a position where I can't afford to have any pride.

If you have anything you can spare please consider my Amazon wish list where I list stuff I need to like soap, toilet paper, etc. All those things that that are impossible to pay after utilities, groceries, and medication. https://www.amazon.com/registry/wishlist/ALPET2HPU6HD

I know this time of year is the worst time to be doing this because the holidays are coming but if you could signal boost this I would appreciate it.