rainbowicecreameyes asked: I was just wondering if you knew a blog like yours that's more relevant to Australia, or is Australian? Because thanks to your blog I know about a lot of issues I want to help fix that are relevant in my own country, but no way to go about it.

I don’t know of one. Readers, some help?

catladysoul:

Whenever someone asks me for recommendations on books to read about feminism that is not RIOT GRRRL IS EVERYTHING 5EVER I recommend this book first. I wish tumblr search was easier to do, because when I first read through it I talked about each chapter in depth on tumblr and it’s totally lost in the abyss. It’s a great primer to movements NOT focused on riot grrrl culture and a very easy and interesting read, which isn’t easy considering sometimes Gender Studies books can be dry as fuck. 

rozenwyn13 asked: Hi, I'm not sure if you've heard about or possibly already covered the new law in Arkansas which outlaws abortions past 20 weeks. The governor vetoed the bill, but the legislature overrode the veto easily. I grew up in that state, and it scares me how easily this passed into law. Who knows what else they will try for next? I want to at least get the word out. Thankfully, I haven't lived there for 3 years, but I have friends this will affect.

They overrode the veto? SHIT. Arkansas readers, time to contact your rep.

kaptainkesh:

Please read!

My girlfriend and I just got scammed out of our college tuition.

We like to think the scam was pretty brilliant. A job offer on Craigslist offered $300 a week to handle money orders for a temporarily overseas business owner. After a few weeks of assisting him, he would return stateside and conduct a formal job interview. All he needed was us to deposit checks and send money orders after they cleared. It sounded safe enough.

The first check posted and we sent the money order. All was well. A few days later, however, the bank rejected  the check and removed the amount from my girlfriend’s account (along with a fee). Since the money order had been sent, this meant we were out a couple thousand dollars. We assumed that the bank, notorious for its various account issues, was to blame. We tried to call our new employer for assistance but the number was now disconnected. The bank is unhelpful and does not assume responsibility.

It wasn’t until some internet searching where we realized that this was most likely a scam. The strange thing about this is that all our friends knew about this job and not one of them, or us really, thought “hey this might be scam!” 

Tumblr, we humbly ask for donations. We are out $3,000, half owed to the bank and half needed to get by. We’ve been forced to use most our food funds for the semester to finish paying for classes and in a few weeks we’ll start running into trouble. 

Is there any way you can help us?

I am reblogging this for two reasons: 1) If you can help these people out, that would be awesome. 2) I want people to be more aware of scams like this. Any job - ANY JOB - that involves cashing checks or sending money orders overseas IS A SCAM. Any job that involves you putting up your own money or linking anything to your bank account IS A SCAM. Any job where someone in another country is hiring you to handle some kind of financial thing IS A SCAM. A lot of “mystery shopper” jobs are also check-cashing scams.

A cautionary tale, folks.

bedsider:

choiceusa:

Awesome female condom infographic by CHANGE

It’s… Super Female-condom Lady! (Kinda makes you want to learn more about the female condom, huh?) 

sweetteaforme:

socialismartnature:

Capitalism kills. Bosses are conditioned to see the worker as so much refuse to be sucked dry of profits and tossed aside. Health and safety is always secondary to the pursuit of maximum profits. (This goes double when the worker is “temporary” as well as when s/he is Latina/o).

===

‘They were not thinking of him as a human being’

By the time Carlos Centeno arrived at the Loyola University Hospital Burn Center, more than 98 minutes had elapsed since his head, torso, arms and legs had been scalded by a 185-degree solution of water and citric acid inside a factory on this city’s southwestern edge.

The laborer, assigned to the plant that afternoon in November 2011 by a temporary staffing agency, was showered with the solution after it erupted from the open hatch of a 500-gallon chemical tank he was cleaning. Factory bosses, federal investigators would later contend, refused to call an ambulance as he awaited help, shirtless and screaming. He arrived at Loyola only after first being driven to a clinic by a co-worker.

At admission Centeno had burns over 80 percent of his body and suffered a pain level of 10 on a scale of 10, medical records show. Clad in a T-shirt, he wore no protective gear other than rubber boots and latex gloves in the factory, which makes household and personal-care products.

Centeno, 50, died three weeks later, on December 8, 2011.

this story really hurts me.  I interned at a refugee resettlement organization in chicago two summers ago and refugees and asylees were “LUCKY” to get a job at a plant like this. and they were fully documented.. ugh ugh im so sad for all of my fellow refugees and immigrants out there. 

liberalbias:

The first graph shows that 90% of the American People think the deficit isn’t getting smaller. The second graph shows that the actual numerical measurement of the deficit is getting smaller.

So which graph is right? Well, as Romney once said: “We will not have our opinions dictated by fact-checkers!”

After all, in a Democracy… don’t people get to VOTE on what facts are right?

»READ MORE:
http://liberalbias.com/post/1902/america-has-voted-the-deficit-is-getting-bigger/

I am traveling on business right now, and regret that I don’t have time to go into this, but here’s the main issue: people are sexualizing transgender people, particularly women. If someone with a penis wants to get into a women’s restroom, it MUST be because they get their jollies from being close to women peeing. Or something. They’re sexualizing a six-year-old, is the point here.

Distorted, perverse caricatures of Black and Hispanic people hoarding money in a house on the cover of your magazine… what could possibly go wrong?

(Never mind that most of the people responsible for the housing crisis were white and already wealthy. Shhhhhh no. We don’t talk about that. The threat here is minorities, people!)

Police are investigating it as a homicide.

Right-click-save this Upworthy graphic for the next time someone says the wage gap is a myth. (But also, prepare for them to point out that in a whopping two industries, women make up to nearly FOUR PERCENT more than men!!111)

pag-asaharibon:

Private Prisons Cost Arizona $3.5 Million More Per Year Than State-Run Prisons

Private prisons, touted as a cost-efficient alternative to state-run penitentiaries, are not living up to their promises in at least one state. A new study of Arizona’s private prisons finds that the state is actually losing money — $3.5 million a year — by turning their inmates over to for-profit corporations.

According to the Tucson Citizen’s analysis of Arizona’s three oldest private prison contracts, the rate to hold one prisoner for one night has increased 13.9% since the contracts were awarded. Compared to the cost of state-run prisons, Arizona overpaid for its private prison beds by $10 million between 2008 and 2010.

The cost of these private prison contracts was no surprise to the legislators who awarded them. In an earlier investigation, the Citizen discovered the Legislature was well aware how expensive the private prisons were and simply circumvented a law requiring corporations to show cost savings before receiving a contract. In 2012, the Legislature repealed the requirement entirely — as well as a requirement that the state conduct a review comparing the quality of private and public prisons.

After removing any incentive to maintain facilities, the Legislature made things even easier for these corporations by guaranteeing their prisons will always be 100 percent occupied:

The documents refer to a “dispute” between the Department of Corrections and for-profit operator MTC as to whether or not the 5-year contract renewal was done in a timely manner (ADC says yes, MTC apparently said no). The negotiated settlement of this dispute consolidates 450 rated beds with 50 emergency beds into a total of 500 rated beds. These 500 beds will carry a guaranteed occupancy of 100% at a rate of $49.03 per prisoner, per day.

What’s more, this agreement was applied retroactively to October 6, 2010, effectively erasing all but three months of the reduced emergency bed per diem in the previous amendment (from July 2010). It also guaranteed that Arizona would continue to pay about three times as much for the emergency beds. In essence, ADC is handing over four years’ worth of extra money to keep MTC happy.

How much money? In the July 2010 contract amendment for the facility, the state had bargained the emergency beds down to a $12.60 per diem. Now they will be paying $49.03 per diem for the same beds. Which means that MTC is raking in an extra $36.43 per prisoner, per day. Multiply by 50 such beds, andMTC will make additional profits of $664,847.50 per year– a total of $2,659,390 through the remainder of the contract, which expires in October of 2013.

MTC made headlines in Arizona in 2010 after 2 prisoners escaped from their poorly maintained facility and allegedly killed a vacationing couple. The corporation has a long history of understaffing facilities, punctuated by inmate riots all over the country. Arizona now plans to buy back one of the MTC-managed prisons for $150,000.

In spite of the monetary and human costs, state and federal officials all over the country have embraced private prisons, perhaps because of the millions of dollars these corporations have lavished on politicians.

cherrispryte:

Fred McFeely Rogers (March 20, 1928 – February 27, 2003)

Oh. Sobbing. Okay.

(Source: lemonyandbeatrice)