You know when every year is a dumpster fire?

You know when every year is a dumpster fire?

Okay, so maybe not quite a dumpster fire… but it is close. I am sure that we are all in the same boat, finding life more and more challenging. I know my day to day job continues to offer up new and frequent dumpster fires to put out, and I for one would love a break from it all. And then there is my personal life. But that is a story for another time. For now I am just hoping to finish the sock…

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i’m sooooo tired of being sexually frustrated but i’m literally too shy to date much less seek out casual relationships…… having no experience with romance at this point in my life SUCKS!!! idk what i’m supposed to do because i’m new to being gay and i haven’t even dated anyone ever >_> fucking annoying!!!

Gonna go boxing again after a year! >:J

I am ready to die let's goooo wish me luck

Damn, the ADHD gods are not on my side this week. I have been forsaken by forces of executive functioning.

ok well! an overnight layover in miami wouldnt be the worst thing in the world. i am willing to do this to save $1500.

bb pens made it to the second round of their playoffs!

���🎉🎉

Now we just have to join them

it’s weird writing crack when I’m also on a MASSIVE horror kick rn

just booked Frank Turner tickets for next year !

Hangry? Here's A Cracker!

Hangry? Here’s A Cracker!

Unfortunately this is a sign that can be seen in various forms at various businesses around the country. I know we are not alone in the staff shortage in restaurants and retail shops but this restaurant stated it loud and clear outside their door. We have experienced that long wait here a few times and yet we have gone back. I guess we understand. But not everyone does understand, do they? We…

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Well, shit

Had a great time at the party yesterday— not that that was a surprise, mind you– but we didn’t get home until nearly midnight and pretty much collapsed into bed and died, and as of right now (4:36 PM) I haven’t managed to shower yet. Oh, and we got a text from birthday mom that the birthday girl woke up with mild cold symptoms and promptly tested positive for Covid. Super. My son doesn’t start…

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For Fain, the Bible is more than a source of feel-good inspiration. It boasts a sharp economic justice edge, leaving no doubt that God takes sides in the perennial struggle between the haves and have-nots. He insisted that the UAW’s is a “righteous fight” and commented, “There’s one more piece of scripture I like,” citing Matthew 19:23–24, in which Jesus declares, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” Fain went on to offer a hard-nosed interpretation, mapping the gospel’s stark contrast between the Kingdom of God and hell onto the inequitable landscape of the modern United States: Why is it easier to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God? I have to believe that answer, at least in part, is because in the Kingdom of God no one hoards all the wealth while everybody else suffers and starves. In the Kingdom of God no one puts themselves in a position of total domination over the entire community. In the Kingdom of God no one forces others to perform endless, backbreaking work just to feed their families or put a roof over their heads. That world is not the Kingdom of God. That world is hell. Living paycheck to paycheck, scraping to get by? That’s hell. Choosing between medicine and rent is hell. Working seven days a week for twelve hours a day, for months on end, is hell. Having your plant close down and your family scattered across the country is hell. Being made to work during a pandemic and not knowing if you might get sick and die, or spread the disease to your family, is hell. And enough is enough.

[...]

As anyone acquainted with the longer histories of Christianity and labor knows, there’s no paradox here. When Fain quotes scripture in the service of the UAW’s fight, he is tapping into a deeply pro-labor vein of Christianity, one that we haven’t heard much about in recent years but in its heyday helped galvanize powerful working-class movements. For countless workers throughout American history, traditional faith and labor militancy have gone hand in hand. In this wider context, Fain emerges on the national scene not as a paradox but as the latest in a long line of labor prophets who have stoked the flames of egalitarian faith and held big business’s feet to the fire. From the labor movement’s earliest days, workers insisted that they organized because the Bible told them so. Union-friendly newspapers brimmed with scriptural quotations. The Gospel of Luke supplied some perennial favorites: “Woe unto you that are rich! For ye have received your consolation” (6:24) and “the laborer is worthy of his hire” (10:7). Perhaps none was as scintillating as the fifth chapter of the Epistle of James, which reads, “Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted. . . . Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts” (5:1-2a, 4).

Woe, a prompt collection be upon ye.

Virtually everything I have in here is from 2020. Pandemic me was not okay.

I am missing a large portion of prompts because I didn't tag them right and searching for things on Tumblr is hell. I will try to find them later and add to this. Let me know if you can locate any of your favorites that are missing from this collection.

I feel like I’ll always be resentful of the absolute non reaction my closest friends and family had when my dad died. My friends were all wrapped up in their pandemic woes and my family all just begged me to move back in and take care of my mom lol which I at least understand but I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s been four years and it’s just now settling how horrible I felt for years and how little anyone did to help me. I guess maybe I should have asked. But how could I have? What would I have said?

California is facing a record $68 billion budget deficit.

This is largely attributed to a “severe revenue decline,” according to the state's Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO).

While it’s not the largest deficit the state has ever faced as a percentage of overall spending, it’s the largest in terms of real dollars — and could have a big impact on California taxpayers in the coming years.

Here’s what has eaten into the Golden State’s coffers.

Unprecedented drop in revenue

California is dealing with a revenue shortfall partly due to a delay in 2022-2023 tax collection. The IRS postponed 2022 tax payment deadlines for individuals and businesses in 55 of the 58 California counties to provide relief after a series of natural weather disasters, including severe winter storms, flooding, landslides and mudslides.

Tax payments were originally postponed until Oct. 16, 2023, but hours before the deadline they were further postponed until Nov. 16, 2023. In line with the federal action, California also extended its due date for state tax returns to the same date.

These delays meant California had to adopt its 2023-24 budget before collections began, “without a clear picture of the impact of recent economic weakness on state revenues,” according to the LAO.

Total income tax collections were down 25% in 2022-23, according to the LAO — a decline compared to those seen during the Great Recession and dot-com bust.

“Federal delays in tax collection forced California to pass a budget based on projections instead of actual tax receipts," Erin Mellon, communications director for California Gov. Gavin Newsom, told Fox News. "Now that we have a clearer picture of the state’s finances, we must now solve what would have been last year’s problem in this year’s budget.”

The exodus

California has also lost residents and businesses — and therefore, tax revenue — in recent years.

The Golden State’s population declined for the first time in 2021, as it lost around 281,000 residents, according to the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). In 2022, the population dropped again by around 211,000 residents — with many moving to other states like Texas, Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona.

Read more: 'It's not taxed at all': Warren Buffett shares the 'best investment' you can make when battling inflation

“Housing costs loom large in this dynamic,” according to the PPIC, which found through a survey that 34% of Californians are considering moving out of the state due to housing costs.

Other factors such as the post-pandemic remote work trend — which has resulted in empty office towers in California’s downtown cores — have also played a role in migration out of the state.

Poor economic conditions

In an effort to tame inflation in the U.S., the Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates 11 times — from 0.25% to 5.5% — since March 2022. These actions have made borrowing more expensive and have reduced the amount of money available for investment.

This has cooled California’s economy in a number of ways. Home sales in the state are down by about 50%, according to the LAO, which it largely attributes to the surge in mortgage rates. The monthly mortgage to buy a typical California home has gone from $3,500 to $5,400 over the course of the Fed’s rate hikes the LAO says.

The Fed’s rate hikes have “hit segments of the economy that have an outsized importance to California,” according to the LAO, including startups and technology companies. Investment in the state’s tech economy has “dropped significantly” due to the financial conditions — evidenced by the number of California companies that went public in 2022 and 2023 being down by over 80% from 2021, the LAO says.

One result of this is that California businesses have had less funding to be able to expand their operations or hire new workers. The LAO pointed out that the number of unemployed workers in the Golden State has risen by nearly 200,000 people since the summer of 2022, lifting the percentage from 3.8% to 4.8%.

Fixing the budget crunch

The LAO suggests that California has various options to address its $68 billion budget deficit — including declaring a budget emergency and then withdrawing around $24 billion in cash reserves.

California also has the option to lower school spending to the constitutional minimum — a move that could save around $16.7 billion over three years. It could also cut back on at least $8 billion of temporary or one-time spending in 2024-25.

However, these are just short-term solutions and may not address the state’s longer term budget issues. In the past, the state has cut back on business tax credits and deductions and increased broad-based taxes to generate more revenue.

Mellon did not reveal any specifics behind the state’s recovery plan in her comments to Fox News. She simply said: “In January, the Governor will introduce a balanced budget proposal that addresses our challenges, protects vital services and public safety and brings increased focus on how the state’s investments are being implemented, while ensuring accountability and judicious use of taxpayer money.”

I’m a week away from my 20th birthday, that doesn’t feel real. There have been so many times where I thought I wouldn’t make it even this far, many times where I didn’t want to make it. And I’m worried that this feeling of being stuck as a 17 year old won’t go away, that I’ll never feel like a real adult or a real, whole person. I know I’m only supposed to be figuring out who I am, but I can’t help but feel like everyone else my age is a step or three ahead.

It feels like when I was fighting for my life inside my own head, everyone else was growing up, having experiences, dating people, going and making friends, just living life. And I know I’m not the first or only person to ever feel like this and this is very “woe is the 20 year old who doesn’t wanna grow up”, but I’ve felt this for years, like everyone else is just passing me by, as if I’m stuck behind glass at a museum. Everyone else has moved on but I’m stuck.

And there could be so many reasons, the pandemic crashing upon us right around when I turned 17, halting my life and the world with it, but time marched on, and now three years later, the pandemic has been called off, it’s over, everything goes back to normal speed, everyone except for me. All I do is sit and watch others lives happen through a tiny screen in my hand all because I’m too scared to go find some for myself.

Or maybe it’s because I don’t believe I deserve it, or that I don’t think life’s joys and experiences should be wasted on someone like me, who is too caught up in their own head and self pity to appreciate the gift that life is.

When I was younger I couldn’t wait to be a teenager, it always seemed like the most fun time of your life. Now having lived those seven years, they weren’t what I imagined, but as someone who is leaving them very soon, I agree with my younger self, I would give anything to be a teenager, to not have to grow up, to be able to make mistakes and have the chance to learn from them. I want a do-over teenage life, I want to do the things I dreamed of and be the person I wished I was, because while next Saturday will simply be the end of a chapter and the start of the next one, I can’t help but feel I’m saying goodbye, and I’ve always been terrible with goodbyes.

do you remember a few years ago when we were all either mocking or feeling sympathy for national because they couldn't find a single good candidate for party leader? I'm getting deja vu

I mean yes, I do remember this period, but I'm not getting deja vu because the issue here isn't that there aren't good candidates. There are multiple strong candidates! This is a million light years from 2008 when Helen Clark had the caucus in an iron fist (respectful) for so long that nobody was left who COULD be a good leader. Chris Hipkins, Kiri Allan, Nanaia Mahuta, Michael Wood, even Andrew Little are all extremely competent and charismatic people (yes, even Little in the right circumstances). Megan Woods and Grant Robertson are entirely capable of doing the job well but they don't want it.

And that's kind of the rub. Jacinda Ardern is stepping down because the job has been so hard for the last five years it has burned her out, and - although she's officially denied this - the pandemic, following the March 19 terrorist attack, has led to a level of vitriol and open threat which is historically unprecedented. They cancelled the Waitangi Day barbeque this year because it wasn't considered safe for Ardern and senior ministers to be that close to the public. This is a country where up until very recently the Prime Minister was in the phone book.

So it's not a question of 'can't find a single good candidate', it's 'who the fuck would want this job, and what will taking it do to them?'. It's 'can the wāhine Māori risk putting themselves forward?'. When National was having its leadership woes nobody was worried that Todd Muller's replacement was risking assassination, except of the in-the-press style.

The hopeful note I will end on is this thread from political scientist Bronwyn Hayward, who sees opportunity and intelligent leadership in this resignation (while acknowledging the grimmer factors). I hope she's right.