Sunday, March 11, 2018
Easy Cellar Review How to Build an Underground Root Cellar and Bunker
Tuesday, March 6, 2018
Manifestation Miracle and The Law of Attraction You Can Do, Be and Have anything you Want
Thursday, March 1, 2018
Carlton the cat wants your votes for university board of directors
Elections can be tumultuous and divisive at times, but Carlton the cat may be the voice of unity that we can all get behind.
This campaign poster, shared by redditor Ynaffit96, announces Carlton's bid for a seat on the University Board of Directors.
According to one of the comments, this university is Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Carlton lives around the area and likes to hang around campus, enjoying the attention of students - though he's not an official therapy animal.
Title aside, Carlton certainly has a compelling campaign slogan: "If I fits on the Board, I sits on the Board." Considering that cats have been mayors, librarians, and train station masters, there's no reason why Carlton cannot successfully serve on the University Board of Directors.
Of course, it would be wise to consider his policies: is he for or against the legalization of catnip? What are his feelings on emotional support animals being allowed on campus? Does he support equal opportunities for all felines?
One redditor, however, pointed out this formidable warning:
I, for one, welcome our feline overlords.
Vote Carlton for University Board of Directors!
Read more: https://mashable.com/2018/02/28/cat-runs-for-university-board/
Wednesday, February 14, 2018
Am I foolish to hold out for a guy who just updated his Tinder pics?
Swipe This!" is an advice column about how to navigate human relationships and connections in an age when we depend so heavily on technology. Have a question? Email
. . .
Dear Swipe This!
About two and a half months ago, I started dating a guy I met on Tinder. Both of us were newly single-I was fresh out of a one-year relationship and he was five months out of a 14-year (and his only) relationship. Because of that, the first time we hung out we didn't put too much pressure on it to be a date, but it was clear, by the end of the evening, we were vibing hard.
From there, we started texting every day and saw each other as often as we could, given our schedules and the holidays. The conversation was amazing. The sex was BOMB. And we checked in regularly to see where each of us was at-we both admitted to being in a weird headspace but still really liking each other. Far and away, it was the best dating experience I've had.
Three weeks ago, I invited him, very casually, to attend my birthday party. When he didn't come, I opened up a conversation to see if we were still on the same page, and he admitted that getting into relationship territory with me was starting to make him feel sad about the breakup again. (Also, dude doesn't have any experience with breakups, so he doesn't know how to deal with, like, any of it.) He said, "I think I may need some time to recalibrate and see where I'm at." And we had a very mature conversation in which he asked if he could check in with me in "a bit," and I said that'd be OK.
Then, this weekend, I noticed that he happened to update his Tinder pictures and it has me going insane! The pics he updated are not even good-one is him licking an ice cream cone and the other is a mirror pic. Honestly, I wish I could tell him they look dumb, but selfishly I want him to just remember how beautiful and amazing I am and text me instead. I didn't check his Tinder while we were dating, and I deleted the app at one point myself, but it seemed nothing else had changed on his profile until this weekend. (We're not connected on social media, so I checked his profile just because I missed him and wanted to see his face.)
I feel like he broke up with me because I was too much "potential girlfriend/love" territory and I think he's maybe trying to fuck around and be single for the first time since he was 16. Which, like, I would want for him? Because I think bouncing from a 14-year relationship straight into another serious thing probably wouldn't be good? But I wish I had any sense of where his head's at right now so I could know whether or not I should move on and assume we're never getting back together, or if he's testing the waters for a bit to make sure that he wants to be in a serious relationship with me.
I know maybe I should move on, but I'm still really sad! And I feel dumb because intellectually I saw this coming from a mile away, but I still really like the dude and miss him. Do I text him to check in, even though I don't think I should make the first move? Should I assume he's trying to casually date and unmatch him so I can move the eff on with my life? Is this guy being a fuckboi in sheep's clothing?! Am I wearing rose-colored glasses in thinking that when he's ready, he'll text me? How long should I wait up for him? HALP!
Sincerely,
Waiting With Bated Breath
. . .
Dear Waiting With Bated Breath,
When I was reading your letter, an old viral video popped into my head. It's called "The Marshmallow Test" and it depicts a bunch of really adorable kids enduring a torturous experiment. They must sit alone in a room with a marshmallow for several minutes. If they don't eat the marshmallow, they are promised a second marshmallow when the adult supervising them returns. Some of the children can handle it. They touch the marshmallow, smell the marshmallow, push it away. Others stuff it into their mouth before the experiment supervisor is practically out the door. But those who wait are rewarded with one more gorgeous marshmallow, and then they get to feast on both.
This is the lesson most of us are taught as children: Be patient and good things will come to you. So it makes sense to me that part of you believes that if you are good and patient, your reward will come to you. You aren't a fool. You're just doing what you were taught.
On top of our childhood messages that we'd better be patient, apps like Tinder teach us that a tasty treat is always a swipe away. Connection has been commodified for easy consumption. Chats and dates are literally at our fingertips. If you're really interested in dating around, especially in a big city, you can line up several dates a week with relatively little effort-so long as you aren't terribly picky, of course. So I can see why you'd worry that when you find someone who seems pretty great, he's just a fuckboi who's looking for a snack.
But that's not what you experienced, is it? What you experienced was a connection powerful enough to make you want something more defined. So you opened a conversation and unfortunately, you didn't get the answer you wanted.
I don't believe you were a snack, but it might be helpful to remember that this dude isn't one either. He's not your reward for being patient. He's a person with his own feelings and needs, and unfortunately, right now, it appears those feelings and needs don't line up with your own. That may be a bitter pill to swallow, but it is the plain and simple truth, and it's sitting right in front of you.
As far as I'm concerned, updating his Tinder pics doesn't mean he's a fuckboi, but it does mean he's at least toying with the possibility of putting himself back out there. And that choice may feel like a rejection, but it has very little to do with you, or even how he feels about you, and everything to do with his needs and where he's at.
Is it possible his needs will align with yours in the future? Perhaps. But putting your own love life on hold will have no impact on how his future unfolds. Instead, I'm afraid, it will only cause you to suffer longer and harder. And, perhaps even more tragically, it could lead you to miss out on other connections that are available to you, with people whose needs actually do align with your own.
I think you already know this, because you point to it in your letter. You know that you may be hurting yourself by holding on. So the question isn't really should you move on, but what's stopping you from letting go? Maybe you think you won't find someone you like as much or whom you'll connect with as deeply. Maybe your heart's been bruised up a bit too much this year and the idea of one more unhappy ending is too much to bear. Or maybe you just really, really liked this dude and you don't want to say goodbye just yet.
No matter what feelings are keeping you hanging on, I think there is actually just one big obstacle that is keeping you from letting go. As I read your letter, what struck me is that it is loaded with judgments. You judge the guy you were dating as unready for a relationship. You judge his capacity for dealing with breakups. And you judge yourself, very harshly, for daring to keep caring about someone. For hoping for a happy ending. For the simple act of having a heart. What's really getting in your way isn't necessarily the power of this connection, but judgment.
Having a strong sense of judgment can be a wonderful tool that helps us to make sound choices. But there's a dark side to judgment. When we start to think there is always a right way or a wrong way to be, when we put pressure on ourselves to have all the answers, we can enter a state of fear, believing we are always in danger of not getting things right. And emotional moments like the one you're experiencing right now become even more rife with pain and suffering. Because now, not only are we sad, we're shouting at our wounded selves that we had better not fuck it up.
I wonder what would happen if instead of beating yourself up about whether or not it's time to move on, you showed yourself a bit more compassion. Have you taken the time to acknowledge what a difficult emotional experience this has been for you? Have you told yourself it's OK to miss him and want to see his stupid Tinder pictures? Have you said, "Wow this is hard, I guess I don't want to let him go just yet"? Have you really paused to tell yourself that it's truly OK to be sad and long for a different ending than the one you got?
I can completely understand why you are having such a hard time letting go. You met someone who made you feel wonderful. You connected mentally and physically and you say yourself that it was your "best" dating experience. That must've been quite a rush, especially after healing from a breakup. I can also imagine what a disappointment it was to hear he wasn't ready for more, no matter how much your rational mind agreed. And I can imagine how it felt to see those new Tinder pictures. If I were you, my heart would've dropped right into my stomach. It's one thing to know someone needs to take space from us, but it's quite another to imagine them getting close to others. Unless you are someone who is totally immune to jealousy, I cannot imagine seeing those pictures and feeling nothing.
I agree with you that it is probably best to let go, but I don't think you're doing yourself any favors by telling yourself you're a fool for wanting to wait for him. You are simply a caring person with a tender heart and that is certainly not something for which you should punish or shame yourself.
I am very sorry that you got hurt, but I am glad you connected with this person. It takes a lot of courage to open up after a breakup, and it sounds like this guy gave you the opportunity to experience joy, intimacy, and a new way of connecting. When you're reeling from a breakup it can be difficult to feel hope, and I hope, at the very least, you will take with you this reminder that the best is yet to come.
In the meantime, I think the best step you can take toward healing is making space for yourself to grieve. It's possible this person will come back into your life, but you've got living to do and the only way you can do it is if you really accept and make peace with the possibility that this short time together is all the two of you were meant to share. Give yourself space to feel sad. Give yourself lots of kindness and love. Give your heart the attention you need and soothe it with whatever soothes you.
When I am feeling a bit stuck, one of my favorite ways to tend to an aching heart is with poetry. Sometimes I read Mary Oliver or Pablo Neruda. And sometimes I read the great master, Dr. Seuss. I will leave you with this passage from Oh the Places You'll Go:
You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they're darked.
A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?And IF you go in, should you turn left or right…
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.You can get so confused
that you'll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles cross weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place……for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or the waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for the wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.NO!
That's not for you!Somehow you'll escape
all that waiting and stayingYou'll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.
It may not be apparent to you right now, while you are fumbling for answers in the dark, but I have faith that you're going to find your way out, and when you do those boom bands will be playing.
Read more: https://www.dailydot.com/irl/swipe-this-waiting-tinder/
Thursday, February 8, 2018
Melting Permafrost Could Release Vast Amounts Of Mercury Trapped Underneath
The Arctic contains vast amounts of mercury trapped in permafrost. As temperatures rise, the mercury is being released damaging the apex predators of the region. A paper in Geophysical Research Letters warns us the scale of the problem could be staggering.
Greenhouse gasses are inducing faster warming in the Arctic than elsewhere, melting vast quantities of permafrost, both on the tundra and the seabed. The great defrost is releasing whatever has been stored in the ice. So far most attention has focused on the great debate as to whether the abundant methane released will reach the atmosphere, accelerating warming still further, but there is more to worry about.
There is an average of 43 nanograms of mercury per gram of soil at 13 sites across northern Alaska, a team led by Dr Paul Schuster of the US Geological Survey, found using soil cores. This is one 600,000th of the carbon people are justifiably worried about. Unfortunately, mercury is dangerous in far smaller quantities than carbon dioxide or even methane.
Extrapolating based on what we know of soils in the rest of the Arctic, the authors estimate there are almost 800,000 tonnes (900,000 tons) of mercury frozen in the permafrost (plus or minus more than half that). A similar amount is held in non-permafrost soils in the same regions. This is much higher than previous estimates and is "more than twice as much mercury as the rest of all soils, the atmosphere and ocean combined." The figure is so high because mercury deposited at these latitudes gets stored there for an estimated 14,000 years, while in other locations it is rapidly recycled.
Studies over the last decade have revealed that some of this mercury is being released as permafrost thaws, and the Arctic Ocean is feeding mercury into the Atlantic and Pacific, but calculating the scale of the problem is a different matter. The situation is complicated by the fact that forest fires also release mercury, and reactions with ozone accelerate deposition during periods of high atmospheric mixing.
Nevertheless, the consistency of their measurements across permafrost regions has made Schuster and co-authors confident they're in the right ballpark on the quantities waiting to be released.
How fast this mercury will escape into the wider biosphere depends on how quickly the permafrost melts, which in turn depends primarily on the actions we take to address emissions of greenhouse gasses.
The paper says the release of much of this mercury over the next century – which will occur if emissions are not curtailed – will have "unknown consequences to the environment." However, mercury bioaccumulates in the food chain, and can destroy the minds of animals, including humans, so it's unlikely those consequences will be good.
Thursday, February 1, 2018
Missouri man charged in the killings of a toddler and her parents
Samara Fontaine Kitts, her boyfriend Harley Michael Million, and their 16-month-old daughter Willa Fontaine Million were killed last week. (Facebook)
A Missouri man was charged in the killings of a toddler and her two parents on Monday, after authorities discovered their bodies buried beneath blankets and trash.
The victims have been identified as Samara Fontaine Kitts, 23, her 24-year-old boyfriend Harley Michael Million, and their 17-month-old daughter Willa Fontaine Million, according to authorities.
Drew Atchison, 24, of Williamsville, allegedly confessed to the family murder, according to court documents obtained by KFVS-TV. A motive was not listed.
Drew Atchison, 24, was charged with three counts of first-degree murder. (Wayne County Sheriff's Office)
Atchison fatally stabbed the two parents Thursday at their home in Wayne County, about four hours southeast of the state capital, deputies said in court documents. He then placed the bodies in Million's truck, before locking the toddler in a room overnight with dogs.
The following day, Atchison returned to the house to destroy evidence and kidnap the 17-month-old girl, according to the court documents. He drove the child to a neighboring county, where he disposed of the knife used in the stabbing deaths into the woods, before fatally shooting the little girl.
Atchison proceeded to bury the toddler with her parents under blankets and trash, according to the court documents.
The bodies were found Monday, a day after relatives notified police that they haven't seen the family in a few days.
Kitts and Million were not married, but have been a couple eight years and were "amazing parents to Willa," a relative said in a statement.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/01/30/missouri-man-charged-in-killings-toddler-and-her-parents.html
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
An immigration activist explains why Trump's immigration 'compromise' doesn't work for Dreamers
In September, the Trump administration announced the rollback of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, an Obama-administration executive order that allows hundreds of thousands of undocumented young people to work legally in the United States. Since then, an estimated 17,381 people have lost their DACA status, with Congress and President Donald Trump scrambling, and failing, to pass a "clean" Dream Act that would give DACA recipients, known as Dreamers, a path to citizenship without any "compromises" that would endanger their futures or their families.
On Wednesday, the White House announced it would be releasing a framework for proposed immigration reform on Monday, only to share that information Thursday night. In the framework, Trump wants to create a 10-12-year-long path to citizenship for 1.8 million undocumented immigrants but has asked for several concessions, including a $25 billion border wall trust, the end of the diversity visa program, and the shrinking of family-sponsored immigration. So why doesn't this work for DACA recipients?
In a conversation with the Daily Dot, nationally renown activist Cristina Tzintzún explains why Trump's proposal isn't a gift for DACA recipients to accept with open arms. At age 24, Tzintzún co-founded the Workers Defense Project and has since helped pass half a dozen local and state laws for workers' rights. She is now the founder and executive director of Jolt, which aims to mobilize and unite Texas' Latino community. Last year, Jolt led the much-applauded anti-SB4 sanctuary city bill protest that featured young Latinas in Quinceañera dresses at the Texas Capitol Building.
What has been your initial reaction to the immigration proposal that the Trump administration sent out on Thursday?
Cristina Tzintzún: This bill is an attempt to keep people of color from becoming an even more significant portion of this population, because knows that communities of color are not aligned with their agenda, that they will vote them out of power.
The same administration that called white people marching in the streets of Charlottesville with swastikas and torches "good" is now proposing a bill that would break up immigrant families and communities color, target them, and build a wall in between two countries that have a long partnership and relationship. So this bill is not a starting point. It is not a gift. It is not a negotiation. It is a wish list of a white supremacist to keep communities of color from being able to integrate and be part of the country that they call home.
Molly Adams/Flickr (CC-BY)
I think what we need to remember is that pathway to citizenship takes a decade, but these people have already lived here for at least a decade, many of them, so that's 20 years for a pathway to citizenship. The same people that purport to support family values are refusing and denying the rights of immigrant families to live together, to take care of one another, and that that goes in direct opposition of what our immigration policies have been based on. They have been based on our core values as a country that protects and celebrates families, and this administration wants to not only not allow families to reunite and be together, they also want to put millions of more dollars into deporting and breaking up families.
My husband, for example, is a Dreamer. He just got his legal permanent resident status several months ago. Under this bill, our son's grandmother could never apply to become a citizen, or even apply to become a legal permanent resident. So at any moment, our son's grandmother, who takes care of him every single day while we go out and work, could be deported.
In terms of Trump's latest proposal and the back-and-forth in Congress that's been happening over the past several weeks, do you think there is a chance for a clean Dream Act? Is that all an option we might have?
You know, I think we need to not take anybody's words for granted at this point. We need to organize with the idea that really it's up to us to win the Dream Act, and that that is the mentality we have at Jolt-that it is up to our community to organize, mobilize, vote, and fight, and for those of us who can vote to vote and fight back for our communities. We shouldn't rest easy until we've won a clean Dream Act, so we should have hope that we can win.
In terms of the specificities of a clean Dream Act, I'm having arguments with people who say we need to close the borders first. What would you say to those who don't understand the necessity of a clean act, and don't understand why it is that Dreamers don't want any of Trump's demands attached to something that would give them a path to legalization?
To me, young people's dreams, hopes, and futures should not be negotiated with. It should not be bargained with. Thinking about how this country has been deeply founded-on immigration; on those principles of equality, democracy, of representation-these young Dreamers deserve that as much as anybody else that came before them. And so for us, negotiating their dreams and hopes and futures on components that would further criminalize other parts of their community-their mothers, their fathers, their aunts, their uncles, their cousins-it's not something that we can or should do.
And on top of that, there's a lot of talk right now about the term "chain migration," which is family migration. These immigrant families deserve to be together. Families help contribute to people's success through love and protection, and… what Dreamers are doing is calling that out and saying, "We refused to bargain and negotiate the rights of our family and parents for an exchange for ourselves."
As someone who has been involved for more than a decade in the activism for Latino communities, what have been the stark differences that you've noticed over the years? Is there anything that surprised you?
You know, when the first massive immigrants' rights marches happened in 2006, I was 24 years old at the time, and I thought, "Wow, we put millions of people into the streets, we created the largest marches and demonstrations, we got thousands of people to not go to work, the largest massive strikes to ever happen this country." And I thought, "Surely tomorrow, immigration reform will happen." But it didn't, and I think that it didn't in part because as immigrants' rights activists we failed to really harness the power of the electorate of communities of color, and really build bridges with communities of color, and Democrats consistently turned their back on our communities because of that.
Photo by Sarah Jasmine Montgomery
They felt that there was no consequence for refusing to stand with us, and that the other side was worse, and thus they didn't have to give us anything. I think Democrats are now realizing that do have to give our community something for us to turn out for the power of our vote, so I see that as a change.
But I think we will win the full rights of equality for our community when we expand the immigrants' rights fight into a racial justice one. Because to me, the attacks on laws like SB4 , or even attacks on DACA, are really attacks on broader communities of color because they don't want our communities to have the power to transform who's in office and what issues will get addressed by our elected leaders.
You bring up a really strong point when it comes to race. I find that within my own family-my mother's Filipino and she was able to get citizenship after she married my father, who's an American-born white man from West Texas…
You're a halfie, like me! Well, not Latino, but still.
Yeah, what a world being a halfie is!
Yeah.
In my mind, it makes sense to think, "OK, you're an immigrant, you might be able to have more sympathy ," but I think that there is still an inkling of this "good immigrant vs. bad immigrant" mentality. Like, "I did it the 'right' way. They should be able to do it the 'right' way." Within uniting the Latino community, are there similar sentiments, and if so, how do you change people's minds?
If you look at a law like SB4 in Texas, that law really opened the door to racial profiling and anyone who was considered "foreign." Even though people of color already make up a majority of Texas-and ignoring the tradition of how Texas was once part of Mexico and the communities have been there for centuries-there was still an idea that if you weren't white, you would be considered foreign and this law was targeting you. However, the language that Republicans used was that it was "just" an attack on the undocumented. But we have to expose the targeting of the undocumented as the red herring it is.
It is a target on communities of color because the majority of the undocumented are immigrants of color from Latin America, and the same people that said they wanted to stop "just" undocumented immigration, now say they want to stop legal immigration. The same people that said they wanted to stop just undocumented immigration because people were breaking the rules supposedly, now say that places like Haiti and Africa are "shitholes," and that they would prefer people from Norway-which means "white."
The criminalizing of immigrants has really been nothing but taking away the power and voice of communities of color, because they know that this country and its demographics are shifting. What good white progressive allies need to know is, as those shifts happen, that communities of color will organize and represent the needs of the entirety of what this country looks like. As we gain power and voice, bigotry will continue to have less and less of a place in this country. So bigots and racists should be fearful.
And that is what we see happening: Bigots and racists like we see in the Trump administration, whether it had been with Steve Bannon or Steve Miller, they want to roll back the gains and the changing demographics of this country. And if we stand together as communities of color, with good white progressive allies, we have the power to not just take them out of office, but transform how this country operates and who it benefits.
Read more: https://www.dailydot.com/irl/cristina-tzintzun-daca-interview/
Saturday, January 27, 2018
Read Judge Rosemarie Aquilina's powerful statement to Larry Nassar
(CNN)As she sentenced Larry Nassar up to 175 years in prison for sexual assault, Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina ripped into the former USA Gymnastics doctor.
'Become part of the army'
Judge gets personal
Sentence fits all crimes, judge says
Nassar's letter
The judge addresses the former doctor
'You have not yet owned what you did'
Judge rips into Nassar
Media availability
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/24/us/judge-rosemarie-aquilina-full-statement/index.html