I always thought he was known for fictional war writing like Tom Clancy. I never knew he was known for his horror stories. He wrote Hellraiser and Candyman was inspired by a short he wrote. I might need to add him to one of my favorite authors...

It may come as a surprise to many, but orcas have been known to eat moose. While this may seem like an unlikely interaction between two very different creatures, it is not unheard of in the wild.

Orcas are versatile predators, and their diet includes a wide variety of prey, from fish to seals to whales.

In Alaska and Canada, orcas have been observed hunting moose that swim across rivers. These moose are often weakened by the cold water and swift currents, making them easy targets for the orcas.

So... wtf?

So far, the best ever image of a star other than our sun.

Reading about how swing states are important for the election, I was wondering how safe the "safe states" actually are. So I plugged some numbers into a spreadsheet, and came to some interesting (?) results.

So first, the data. I used the 2020 election results, starting with Turnout_2020G_v1.2.csv (from https://election.lab.ufl.edu/voter-turnout/2020-general-election-turnout/) for number of people eligible to vote (columns D and E). Added the results from https://www.fec.gov/documents/4228/federalelections2020.xlsx (H, I, J, and K calculated from that), and the number of registered voters from https://ballotpedia.org/Partisan_affiliations_of_registered_voters#2021 (F and G). Non-voters L is eligible voters minus total votes (E - L). Democrats M and Republicans N is the bigger of registered and voters (F or H; G or I), to see if that makes a difference in swinginess. Columns P and Q are the results calculated from the table to make sure it works (Maine and Nebraska cancel each other out), row 54 is the sum of the column above.

The results: Columns R are the states where non-voters alone are the biggest group, S adds third party voters to that, resulting in 148 or 156 electors that could vote for anyone. Columns T and U are each of Democrats and Republicans plus non-voters, and here the non-voters could help each party win everywhere, except DC which is safe for Democrats. For funsies I added the last column V that calculates non-voters from the voting-age, not voting-eligible population, resulting in 287 electors for anyone.

Conclusion? Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia could be "rainbow states" that could send electors for any candidate. The rest except for DC could vote for either Democrats or Republicans, making all of them swing states. And maybe the fear of non-citizen voters (which I think is the majority of the difference between voting-age and voting-eligible people) determining the election results is valid. Or maybe that means that a significant amount of people living in the US and thus being affected by its government are not represented by said government.

The End: Of course that completely disregards non-voter demographics, even if they would vote they're not likely to all vote the same. Still, enough motivated ex-non-voters could turn basically any state into a swing state. One vote of someone who thinks their vote doesn't matter won't change much, but the votes of all who think that way certainly can.

This is in response to someone else's post from half an hour ago, which contained phone numbers controlled by a politically aligned organization. It doesn't matter which one.

Reports of election interference should go directly to the authorities:

https://www.usa.gov/voter-fraud

How to report voter fraud, intimidation, or suppression

If you suspect voter fraud, report it to your state or territorial election office. You can also report it to:

• A local FBI office
• A local U.S. attorney's office
• The Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice's Criminal Division

If you witness or suspect voter intimidation or suppression, there are three ways you can report it:

• Contact your state or territorial election office
• Contact the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice
• Use the Election Complaint Report online form

LAST UPDATED: September 18, 2024

Something tells me they don't enjoy them, but...

Here is his instrumental track The Edge, the one Dre sampled. You'll probably recognize what he sampled almost immediately even if you're only barely aware of his work (like me).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y05mMRJrUnE

For some reason, their website doesn't have an image of the stone, so here is one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_Hildebrandt

I capitalised it in the title because of its etymology, and for emphasis. I think I would use lower case in regular usage.

More examples:

https://www.messynessychic.com/2017/01/18/the-inexplicably-fascinating-secret-world-of-thomassons/

https://kyotojournal.org/kyoto-notebook/kyoto-tomason-the-hunt-for-hidden-hyperart/

https://www.amusingplanet.com/2017/04/thomasson-architectural-relics-that.html

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Hyperart_Thomasson

😇👋A MONTH OF NO GODS🧳⛩️

There is a quaint belief that in the 10th month the gods of Japan congregate for a great gathering to discuss matchmaking at Izumo-taisha (出雲大社) in Shimane Prefecture.

Only hard-of-hearing Ebisu and the Sun Goddess miss this annual pilgrimage.

Further reading:

In the tenth month of the traditional lunar calendar, a festival is held to welcome all the gods to Izumo Grand Shrine. It is believed that the gods convene at Izumo Shrine in October to discuss the coming year's marriages, deaths, and births. For this reason, people around the Izumo area call October kamiarizuki ("the month with gods"), but the rest of Japan calls October Kannazuki ("the month without gods").

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izumo-taisha

@camelliakyoto is a great account to follow on Mastodon for historical Japanese culture.

In America (and elsewhere?) we have a tradition of trick-or-treating where on Halloween or the night before kids go around the neighborhood in a costume, knock on doors, and get candy. It's a lot of fun.

But I was well into adulthood before I learned that not all places have kids tell jokes before they get candy. Apparently it's only the city I grew up in that they do that! Not even neighboring cities do it.

According to Abba: The Official Photo Book, published to mark 40 years since they won Eurovision with Waterloo, the band's style was influenced in part by laws that allowed the cost of outfits to be deducted against tax – so long as the costumes were so outrageous they could not possibly be worn on the street.