fireflies lighting up a rural Pennsylvania field at dusk

How to Briefwahl

So Leute, ich hab gerade zum ersten Mal per Briefwahl gewählt (weil hier am selben Tag Kommunalwahlen sind und man da so viele Stimmen hat) und es ist wirklich sehr einfach.

Beantragung

Auf eurer Wahlbenachrichtigung findet ihr eine Anleitung dafür. Bei mir war ein QR-Code drauf, den musste ich einfach nur einscannen, die Angaben aus der Wahlbenachrichtigung und meine Anschrift angeben und das war's dann auch schon.

Die Wahl

Falls ihr in Baden-Württemberg, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Rheinland-Pfalz, dem Saarland, Sachsen oder Sachsen-Anhalt wahlberechtigt seit, werden euch Unterlagen für zwei Wahlen zugeschickt: Die Europawahl und die Kommunalwahl. Ihr seid selbstverständlich nicht verpflichtet auch bei beiden Wahlen zu wählen.

Die Europawahl ist in jedem Bundesland gleich: Man kriegt einen (sehr langen) Wahlzettel und darf sich für eine Partei entscheiden. Diesen Wahlzettel steckt man dann in den mitgelieferten Stimmzettelumschlag. Dann schreibt man auf die ebenfalls mitgelieferte Eidesstattliche Erklärung das Datum und seine Unterschrift und steckt diese zusammen mit dem zugeklebten Stimmzettelumschlag in den mitgelieferten Wahlumschlag (nicht den Umschlag, in dem die Unterlagen angekommen sind!)

Kommunalwahlen sind in jedem Bundesland anders geregelt, aber auch da gilt: Stimmzettel ausfüllen (bei mir gab's noch ne Anleitung dazu), Stimmzettel in Stimmzettelumschlag stecken und zukleben, Eidesstattliche Erklärung ausfüllen und zusammen mit dem Stimmzettelumschlag in den Wahlumschlag stecken und zukleben.

Die Wahlumschläge verschickt man dann entweder unfrankiert mit der Post oder gibt sie an der angegebenen Empfängeradresse ab.

I left Gaza for Italy due to an invitation to participate in the World Championship and represent Palestine. I was skating as a professional amateur. The World Championship organization contacted me to participate. I was supposed to get one of the winning positions, but I did not participate because of the war because my mind is scattered and I am always in a state of chaos and worried for the sake of my family and my family. Gaza, but my life is not life. I always think and do not sleep because of thinking about my family. I lost my father, but will the rest of my family live or be killed? I do not know my mind. I cannot control it, so my family must be taken out to get some comfort and safety. This is my picture when I am in Gaza. I hope you support me for the sake of my family. In order to return to life a little

The 2024 Gender Census is now open!

[ Link to survey ]

The 11th annual international gender census, collecting information about the language we use to refer to ourselves and each other, is now open until 13th June 2024.

It’s short and easy, about 5 minutes probably.

After the survey is closed I’ll process the results and publish a spreadsheet of the data and a report summarising the main findings. Then anyone can use them for academic or business purposes, self-advocacy, tracking the popularity of language over time, and just feeling like we’re part of a huge and diverse community.

If you think you might have friends and followers who’d be interested, please do reblog this blog post, and share the survey URL by email or at AFK social groups or on other social networks. Every share is extremely helpful - it’s what helped us get 40,000 responses last year.

Survey URL: https://survey.gendercensus.com

The survey is open to anyone anywhere who speaks English and feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.

For the curious, you can also spy on some graphs and demographic data for the incoming responses here.

Thank you so much!

[ Link to survey ]

Image credit: Malachite and rhodochrosite.

he found a poster for a phineas and ferb theme party and just. decided to go. oh my god 😭

[video description: A bunch of young adults and Dan Povenmire in a backyard. There is a makeshift stage with several microphones, with Dan being in the center. The video shows several shots of the crowd and the performers. End video description.]

Audio description: A faithful recreation of the There's a Platypus Controlling Me song from Phineas and Ferb, with Dan playing his original part of Dr. Doofenshmirtz.

[ID: Tags from alight-alright: i will never win the award of loving phineas and ferb the most. because that belongs to mr. dan povenmire. my favorite!!!!! End ID]

something you (the moderate, the two-stater, the believer in 'israeli state') do not understand is that no Palestinian is safe under any iterations of the concept of the 'israeli' state because a Palestinian implies there to be something fundamentally flawed in the colonial state of 'israel'.

how can there be such a thing such as 'israel' if there is such as a thing as 'palestine' right underneath it, between its cracks and crevices, blocked away with walls and prisons and electric fences? how can there be an 'israel' that is a state but also a Palestine that exists even without statehood, without that legitimacy offered to it on paper and in old rickety bureaucracies?

because even if i, or my parents, do not live on Palestinian land, we are still Palestinian. we do not lose that identity no matter what. and our children, our childrens children, so on so on will also be Palestinian. but 'israel'? there can be no such thing without legitimacy from the colonial network. there is no 'israel' because it does not exist in any meaningful way. the only way for 'israel' to exist is for others to lend it legitimacy.

and a colonial state, an apartheid state, cannot have it be questioned or disproved so easily. lest it lose that legitimacy. hence, the "Palestinian" is a threat to its existence. the Palestinian shows there is a possibility other than 'israel,' something that existed before and will continue to exist after. a Palestinian can lose everything — their house, their family, their limbs — but they will still be Palestinian. their identity will remain unchanged, no matter what. but an 'israeli'?

an 'israeli's' identity is tied to the legitimacy of their state, which by nature of the state, is that of supremacy and domination. without the state — the apartheid state mind you — there wouldn't be an 'israeli,' in the political sense, as there is no deeper identity beyond ben gurion, beyond herzl. there is no history of 'israel' politically beyond that of a colonial state. that is why, a threat to the state of 'israel' is a threat to the idea of domination and colonization.

the Palestinian is a threat to that because that implies a truth and a history and an idea and an *alternative* to the status quo. no, a Palestinian will never be safe if there is an 'israel.' but an 'israeli' can be safe if there is a Palestine.

A reminder not to watch eurovision and not to vote - even if you're scared israel will win. this is not about who wins and who loses, this is about the Palestinian BDS movement asking us to enact cultural and material boycott of a TV show that's plaforming a genocidal ethnostate. don't give them your money.

Don't you hate it when a character is about as appealing to you as stale bread but they're hypersignificant to the other characters you're actually writing about so you have to do this guy proper justice in your fic even if it drives you up the fucking wall

the figures we were getting for the first few months were from the gaza health ministry, and they were to a high standard i.e. they weren't just going and counting bodies but were identifying the dead. With the total devastation of Gaza it's impossible for this work to continue, or for the ministry to function when its workers need to concentrate on getting food each day. This is why the number has stood still at 34,000 for so long. This is all obvious stuff; the fact that news media keep using this figure, generally without any caveat, is journalistic malpractice and complicity in genocide.

The truth is that we don't know how many are dead, because the organisations which could provide a count are not present in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands seems likely, especially when we take into account food shortages.

Let's do some basic math to get the roughest estimate out there based on 34,000 killed between Oct 7, 2023 and December 31, 2023. This is 86 days total, so let's figure out a rough estimate of people killed each day, based on this.

That amounts to an average of 395 killed per day. (34,000 ÷ 86)

Today's date, May 8th, 2024, marks 215 days.

Class, what is 215 times 395?

84,925 people killed as of May 8th. Minimum.

If we go with 40,000 dead by the end of December, that makes roughly 465 people killed on average per day, making 99,975 estimated dead after 215 days.

Minimum.

Now lets take into account minimum 7,000 missing under the rubble, from the end of december. Same process. 7,000 ÷ 86 gets you roughly 81 people going missing under the rubble per day, so multiply that by 215.

17,500.

Minimum 84,925 dead; 17,500 missing under the rubble.

Who knows. Maybe magic exists and after December 31st, absolutely no one ever went missing under the rubble again. Those 7,000 under the rubble at the end of December certainly are not being pulled alive now in May.

The absolute most conservative estimate, to the point of almost absurdity, is still 91,925 people dead (84,925 + 7,000).

91,925 people dead. The upper tier is 117,475 dead. Again, assuming the Gaza Health Ministry numbers are minimums and need updating.

91,925-117,475 minimum, dead.

We are looking at almost 5% of Gazans (100k/2.2 mil population) dead.

5 fucking percent.

Now go apply 5% to your own country's population. Your city. I'll let you do that math. Find 5%, and imagine that number dead.

This is calamitous. This is nightmarish in ways hard to fathom.

This is still on-going. For god's sake, it's still going.

Listen. I love Eurovision. I grew up with it, I watch it every year, it's something that I look forward to seeing on my dash every year as my fellow Europeans lose their minds over it for about 3 days.

I am being completely serious when I say that I will block anyone who reblogs or posts Eurovision content on my dash this year. Eurovision has banned Palestinian flags and explicitly sided with I*rael in what they call an effort to be "non-political."

All eyes on Rafah. Boycott Eurovision, now and forever. Human lives are more important than some song contest.

I must not mock Gen Alpha. Mocking Gen Alpha is the mind killer. Mocking Gen Alpha is the little-death that brings total generational solidarity obliteration. I will engage with Gen Alpha lovingly. I will permit them to be cringe. And when they grow up I will turn my eye to their accomplishments. Where mocking has gone there will be nothing. Only generational solidarity remains

Eurovision is the absolute easiest thing in the world to boycott. It's not food owned by one of 5 food conglomerates. It's not tech that corporations have made essential. There's no "support the devs" logic to be even considered. It's literally just noise that is forgotten in a week.

This year it's noise that will be forgotten in a week that is actively supporting one state that's committing genocide to another state they're actively suppressing any discussion about.

Ich fleh euch an. Geht wählen und wählt GEGEN NAZIS.

Wenn ihr nicht zum Wahllokal gehen wollt: Für die Briefwahl müsst ihr nur den QR Code auf der Wahlbenachrichtigung einscannen und eure Kontaktdaten angeben. Dann wird euch der Wahlzettel nach Hause geschickt!

Man darf diesmal sogar mit 16 Jahren schon wählen. Nutzt dieses Recht!

Wenn ihr nicht wisst, wen ihr wählen sollt: Der Wahl-O-Mat zur Europawahl 2024 ist seit heute online. Dort einfach bei den 38 Thesen auf stimme zu/neutral/stimme nicht zu (oder überspringen) klicken und dann kann man sehen welche Parteien zu einem passen. Dort kann man auch die Stellungnahmen der Parteien zu allen Thesen finden.

Auch wenn ihr nicht mit den großen Parteien zufrieden seid, geht wählen! Bei der Europawahl haben wir keine 5% Hürde in Deutschland, sodass auch kleinere Parteien 1-2 Abgeordnete stellen können (Nico Semsrott, der für Die PARTEI ins EU Parlament kam [wobei er dann aus der Partei ausgetreten ist], gibt einige interessante Einblicke ins EU Parlament auf seinem Youtube Kanal). Ich würde aber trotzdem empfehlen ein paar Prognosen zu verfolgen und nicht eine Partei zu wählen, die mit großer Wahrscheinlichkeit nicht genug Stimmen bekommt für mind. eine*n Abgeordnete*n.

Grundlegende Infos zur Europawahl 2024 von MrWissen2go:

Zur Info für die Auslanddeutschen: Noch habt ihr Zeit, euch ins Wählerverzeichnis eintragen zu lassen, und an der Europawahl teilzunehmen. Hier findet ihr alle notwendigen Informationen:

In BW, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Rheinland-Pfalz, dem Saarland, Sachsen und Sachsen-Anhalt finden am selben Tag außerdem Kommunalwahlen statt.

Bei beiden Wahlen könnt ihr auch ohne deutsche Staatsbürgerschaft wählen, wenn ihr die Staatsbürgerschaft eines anderen EU-Mitgliedsstaates habt und seit mindestens drei Monaten in Deutschland oder einem anderen EU-Land wohnt.

Ooooh apparently it starts tonight so here's some important advice for people watching Eurovision this week!!

1.) Don't.

As a Jew I wholeheartedly believe that, folks who are pretending nothing is wrong and Palestinians aren't being murdered every day would have absolutely ignored the Holocaust and let my folks get killed without blinking an eye.

Americans have a lot of heroic fantasies about what they would have done during the Holocaust or chattel slavery, and the answer for a lot of them is absolutely nothing. They would have complained about the people actually doing things for being too disruptive. We Jews did the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and they would have called this terrorism. They would have also complained about MLK and Malcolm X, the former of which took the economies of entire cities hostage. Modern day disruptions don't hold a candle to historical disruptions.

In a two of more decades, people are going to use excuses like "I didn't know!" or pretend they were supportive all along, making tear jerking films about the Palestinian plight. We need to not let them do this.

I'm also not asking people to be action heroes or anything, since it takes a very specific kind of person to do that sort of direct resistance. I'm asking for people to actually acknowledge and discuss the fact that there is a genocide going on, and to not pretend things are fine. (This applies to all social justice struggles. Acknowledgement helps normal conversations about it, and de-normalize the ignoring of it like we do for many social problems.)

Also there are many ways to support efforts for justice! The people doing direct action require people to support with costs, food, care supplies, etc. For everyone in a visible position, there are a lot of folks cooking as well.