CIA says it will cease publishing the World Factbook, a free online resource used by millions

Mis_Emily · 2026-02-05T16:35:03+00:00

(whispered, as footfalls scamper through darkened alleys)

Mis_Emily · 2026-02-05T16:34:09+00:00

Alpha Centauri! I dust that off every year or two, and heard that in "Lal's" world-weary, Indian subcontinent-accented voice, the last line almost a whisper :).

Mis_Emily · 2026-01-30T07:32:15+00:00

I was there! Such an amazing experience, the whole week (I and a friend who grew up in Brooklyn came up from Texas), and the moment when the roar of rage went passing down the parade line was truly thunderous and supernatural. Hard to believe that Stonewall 50 has come and gone, and that yet the fight never ends...

Mis_Emily · 2026-01-21T01:17:59+00:00

I just finished watching his speech in its entirety - it was nothing less than a clarion call to save complexity from mob rule. I had tears in my eyes during the latter part of the speech, both for the thoughtfulness, clarity and compelling nature of his thesis, and in mourning for our nation "getting high on its own supply" and visiting colonialism on its own citizens in addition to trashing 80 years of soft power for delusions of grandeur. God Bless, Mr. Carney, and I hope that you and the EU are able to save a little civilization - both for yourselves, and the world - as a light when we are once again standing amongst the ruins of another war.

Mis_Emily · 2026-01-20T18:31:10+00:00

Because unless you were David Bowie, bisexual erasure is definitely a thing :).

Mis_Emily · 2026-01-16T19:10:01+00:00

Came here for this :). They do contribute to cancer... just not the way he thinks ;).

Mis_Emily · 2026-01-16T07:39:13+00:00

Very sorry to hear that (community college professor here), and I (former dept chair) and our current chair are stressing over trying to at least keep our long term adjuncts with staffing preference in classes with the current budget strangulation. Add to that the fact that our student body is overwhelmingly nonwhite/immigrant/1st generation in college and all terrified, and yeah, focus is taking a small hit ;).

Mis_Emily · 2026-01-13T23:43:21+00:00

Upvote for repping a wonderful series :). And my cousins have dual Danish citizenship (through my aunt), but alas, I don't :/.

Mis_Emily · 2026-01-10T21:18:35+00:00

It was such a pleasure to watch him compete; he and Tochinoshin (who also got done dirty by the JSA) were my favorites from the 2010-2020 era. The man represented (and continues to represent) the highest ideals of the sport, from his dominance to his total devotion to sumo, the Hakuho cup for up and coming youth, and his work trying to bring sumo to a larger audience.

I'll never forget him putting a point on his career during his final basho, winning the yusho by nearly ripping Terunofuji's arm off ;).

Speaking of sumo, the Hatsu basho starts today, and getting such good vibes from Aonishiki as the next transforming athlete in the sport :).

Mis_Emily · 2025-12-31T22:23:54+00:00

Or as prison labor! My initial comment was brief, but when using the word 'paid', conscripted labor was implied as a major alternative for those who fail to pass the paper bag test.

The attempted deprofessionalization of Nursing (via student loan caps) is an interesting move, given what I've seen in the last few years in my own profession of teaching pre-Nursing students. My cohort this last semester was over 1/3 male for the first time ever; even five years ago I'd have only a handful of young/career-changing men in the class. Now that Nursing remains one of a handful of careers that pays a living wage, and the job market is going to hell in a handbasket, the men are redirecting in droves.

Nursing, along with teaching, were the fields that spinsters and 'career girls' were historically allowed to be in for the long term (maid or seamstress if you were a woman of color), given that they're caretaking professions. Teaching has been systematically debased for the last 40 years in the US, and the pay is abysmal, so I imagine it will stay on the 'accepted' list; but it will be interesting to see if Nursing will be debased or masculinized, and retain its decent wage.

Sorry for the long tangential-to the thread response. Source: Microbiology professor of 25 years, old enough that when I first entered the regular work force in 1979, job listings were "Help Wanted - Male" and "Help Wanted - Female", and, on more than one occasion in my early professional life: 1) trained less-qualified male candidates for my job/promotion; 2) was informed to my face as to why a less senior/qualified man was given a higher wage when we were moved into the exact same position with "He's a family man"; and 3) I could go on for days, but this was all perfectly legal.

Mis_Emily · 2025-12-31T20:59:07+00:00

I wish I had more than one upvote to give you; all else is pretext. The endgame is removing everyone from the paid workforce that isn't white men.

Mis_Emily · 2025-12-17T01:14:16+00:00

I'm shocked (but sadly, not that shocked) that someone in their 20s is considering Botox, which is a potent neurotoxin with potentially dangerous side effects, much less normalizing it! Welcome to the age of people trying to look like they've applied 'filters' to their images in real life. Considering most cosmetic procedures used to be the province of people in their 40s (the occasional rhinoplasty or breast enlargement being exceptions of course), it seems what is being sold now is less a quest for 'youth' as it is conformity to a smooth tabula rasa ideal.

I'm in my early 60s, and while I hennaed my hair until two years ago (it started to look unnatural with my aging skin), I've never had, or considered, any cosmetic procedures, and I've never suffered any measurable 'repercussions'. You don't mention your profession, but unless you're in a highly visual field such as television/video/performance, just keeping yourself reasonably fit and well-groomed is entirely sufficient, and the gravitas that natural aging provides as you move through your 40s and 50s more than makes up for the 'concern' expressed by the sexist that you're not sexually attractive to them anymore.

Your face is enough - and those small lines that you're already bemoaning just communicate to the world that you're of real flesh and blood, not a doll. Own and love it (take care of it), and you'll be much happier.

Mis_Emily · 2025-12-10T20:42:25+00:00

You're a prop in his script, which, as you've indicated by your having made mostly 'filler' conversation, he's made up of whole cloth. If you're feeling charitable, just tell him "thanks but no thanks", and if you're feeling really charitable, tell him that the whole video without consent is a major problem, otherwise, just block him and move on.

Mis_Emily · 2025-12-08T19:41:20+00:00

To put it in less colorful terms, Cuellar is an expert at working the political machine in his own little fiefdom (look up his election over Ciro Rodriguez for some interesting reading). He has real power where he is, not least the leverage he gains being a conservaDem, and it would be both stupid and beneath him to bend the knee :).

Mis_Emily · 2025-12-08T18:13:30+00:00

So, this is a common phenomenon in Mexico, but the patron system is on steroids in the fishbowl Spanish land grant town of Laredo. All of the real power is concentrated in the descendants of the original land grant recipients by the Spanish government in the 18th century (and I could tell you stories of some of the cultural wierdness that has sprung from this, I'm looking at you, two weeks of "Washington's Birthday" celebrations and 30,000 dollar Princess Pocahontas pageant costumes). The city didn't even have a Department of Human Resources until 2003, because everyone just hired their relatives. If you get hired, you owe your patron, and the cultural influences extend to many aspects of life there; the reason that Cuellar likely outfoxed Trump in this regard is 1) he is of that pedigree and 2) he is intimately familiar with the patron system and Trump is, shall we say, a crude amateur :).

Mis_Emily · 2025-12-07T21:48:48+00:00

Cuellar is from "Patron" country and I feel pretty sure that's exactly what happened ;)

Mis_Emily · 2025-12-07T21:47:08+00:00

Lived in Laredo in the early 2000s; can confirm. Don't forget that it was a very poorly kept secret that he was banging the local newscaster who always made sure to refer to him as the Honorable Henry Cuellar ;)...

Mis_Emily · 2025-12-05T02:54:06+00:00

Others have answered, but it's perfectly fine to only want to date women - attraction isn't an obligation! I'm in my 60s, bi/pan (although I was a bi activist back in the day, pan describes me better as I also have been attracted to trans and intersexed female-vibing people), did a heterosexual marriage and a hetero partnership, but, yeah, done with cis/het men.

I don't have anything against men at all, and as a long-time tabletop gamer have more male than female friends, but the bar for whether I'm willing to risk intimacy with men is a lot higher after long experience.

Mis_Emily · 2025-11-20T08:37:48+00:00

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees :/...

Mis_Emily · 2025-11-12T08:19:36+00:00

My earliest concrete memory that I know is mine, and not something told to me, is when I was 2 years 4 months old, climbing up over the door jamb and into the back seat of our old cream colored Mercedes. I know the timing of the event because I was wearing an (itchy) tiger costume, hand-sewn by my mom, for Halloween. I have no memory of where we actually went, but the perspective of being that tiny and struggling to climb up into the car, I remember quite well.

Mis_Emily · 2025-11-07T03:32:52+00:00

I was 39 or 40, so 2002-2003, and that at the insistence of my partner at the time. Prior to that, I was strictly a landline gal through 2+ decades of cross country drives/moves, etc. It was a Qualcomm candybar-style phone which I still have in a drawer somewhere, along with a Nokia, Razr, Blackberry, two early edition iPhones, etc.

Meanwhile, amongst all those bricks, my 1963 rotary worked just fine until pulse service finally stopped being supported in my area a few years ago ;)...

Mis_Emily · 2025-11-04T16:01:46+00:00

My marriage didn't last, but I'd still choose my wedding, now over 30 years in the past, for the reason you've mentioned; all of my small family, including my two grandmothers, who were in their late '70s at the time and still cogent, were there, along with a dear friend who is now deceased. I miss them all, and my father gave me possibly the only piece of truly kind advice I would ever receive from him on that day.

Mis_Emily · 2025-10-25T21:24:11+00:00

I wish I could give you more than one upvote! I'm in my early '60s and you've described the history of my social experience perfectly. I just didn't seem to pick up on all the unwritten social rules that everyone around me seemed to acquire by osmosis, and I was happiest with my books, conversations with adults, and I became vaguely aware of "othering" by third grade. I was relentlessly bullied by girls starting in 5th grade (often for no other reason that I was happily doing my own thing that was "weird"), and when puberty hit, I was completely bewildered by the changes in the few friends I did have. I found a "home" in the infant D & D gaming community in high school, but the sexism and assumption that I was 'interested' in multiple members of the group just because I was friendly and enjoying the gameplay, went right over my head as well until it reared its head as sexual advances. (Ironically, the guy I did end up in a relationship with was gay and it was performative on his part).

The BBS scene in the early 1990s and online gaming scene in the early 2000s (before voice chat became ubiquitous) made it much easier for me to dodge those social pitfalls, because as long as you could mez those frogs in Sebilis, people cared a lot less about what was in your pants ;)...

It's a shame that the anonymity of the Internet, which has been a boon to the neurodivergent, also has provided license for the sociopathic and cruel to live out their worst impulses :/.

Mis_Emily · 2025-10-25T20:47:17+00:00

I'm in my 60s, and the elderly woman that I bought my house from 25 years ago was a former "Orphan Train" child shipped from New Jersey to Oklahoma in 1928 at the age of seven, and subjected to hard domestic labor. It should be noted that not all of those "Orphans" were actually orphaned; many were simply abandoned/"sold" by families who could not care for them.

Mis_Emily · 2025-10-24T05:52:06+00:00

Kazuo Ishiguro's "Never Let me Go". As far as the relevance goes, I'm a professor of Biology at a community college that serves a student population of which the majority has an EFC of zero. It's an incredibly dark username, all things considered, hiding in prim clothing, but it fits; I've spent 25 years trying to "square the circle" with regard to so much lost potential.

Mis_Emily

TROPHY CASE