josh susser

I don't think people talk enough about how fucking stupid Melania is. For someone who got her permanent residency on the Einstein EB-1 "genius" visa program, she seems pretty dim. Has she ever done anything that hasn't seemed completely idiotic? I suppose if you give her credit for cruelty maybe she has shown some small intelligence, but it's easy to believe she's just acting out a prepared script. The few leaked recordings I've heard make her sound extremely dumb, petty, and self-centered —typical Trump mentality. I believe any impression people have that she is in any way smart is just because she looks pretty when someone has done her hair and makeup.

It's 2026 and we now understand that neurodiversity is a thing, so maybe stop making psychological generalizations as if all humans naturally think the same way.

It's not a price *update*. It's a price *increase*. Companies are such cowards they can't even admit they are raising prices in the announcement that tney are raising prices.

I wonder what superpowers these fantastic four heroes will have when they return to Earth.

I did appreciate Bullseye's impression of the Blue Raja.

All it would take is a couple Republicans in the House to walk across the aisle and caucus with Democrats, vote in a Dem Speaker, and start impeachment hearings tomorrow. But there isn't a single Republican with enough backbone to stand up for what is right.

Today is officially #WorldAutismAwarenessDay, designated by the United Nations as day of recognition and appreciation. This kicks off #AutismAwarenessMonth, which many of us call #AutismBewarenessMonth because it’s always much more about “here’s how bad autism is” than “here’s how to make autistic people’s lives better”. When we want to be more positive than snarky, we call it #AutismAcceptanceMonth, because it’s better to be accepted than for people to be aware of us mainly as a set of problems.

The problem with the above is that all that awareness and acceptance is something that allistic people are supposed to do, so the occasion centers allistic people instead of autistic people. The whole month is about how allistic people think and feel about us – it’s not actually about us at all!

But over on Bluesky, Aslynn (@audhd-psychnp.com) hit on some better branding: Autistic People’s Month! I really like this, as it centers us in our own celebration. #AutisticPeoplesMonth is not about how anyone else feels about us, but about our own existence, accomplishments, problems, and all the rest. I hope this catches on, so doing my part to make it happen. April is now ours!

#ActuallyAutistic #autistic #autism #neurodiversity

Meelo says, become ungovernable! Happy #Caturday

Is there a corollary to Murphy's Law about how anything Trump does is always the most harmful, most expensive, and least useful version of that thing possible?

Meelo looking handsome in the transom, lord of all he surveys. Happy #Caturday

I've been tired of straight guys reacting to #HeatedRivalry for a while. It was cute and charming at first to see straight men moved by a gay love story. But it quickly turned into a bunch of straight men trying to center themselves in a conversation that was not about them, and now every day on YouTube I have to ignore a couple new videos from straight guys who want to cash in and assume we care what they think about a gay love story written by a woman. I occasionally check one of them out and they are usually "OK, since you insist I will watch the gay smut show and it will be just be me feeling obviousy uncomfortable while offering no insight at all."

There are a couple exceptions. There's a guy or two who works in the industry who have done some analysis of the craft of the show, and that's been interesting. Danny Motta is an exception for generic reaction – as usual he's all about making jokes and witty commentary and he does mostly OK with the humor even though he rarely offers any real insight. At least he's not boring.

On the other hand, I keep seeing interesting review and commentary by women, gay men, and autistic folk. Nina King's every-scene-in-the-whole-show-in-order analysis is great (I've posted about her before). There's a few others I liked but I'd have to go look through my watch history for them. I'll prob get around to that sooner or later, but if anyone is interested enough I could do it sooner.

By the way, the HonestTrailers HeatedRivalry video was funny enough, and almost worth it just for Epic Voice Guy saying the cottage line at the end. I hope Ryan George does a super cringey PitchMeeting video for it soon. I feel mixed about HISHE possibly doing a HR video - they *could* do a good one, but I doubt it would play well with their audience. I dunno, maybe if they make it about wolf birds it might work? (I feel like this paragraph is very YouTube inside jokes – sorry if you didn't get it!)

the irony of having difficulty in a conversation about the difficulty of conversations #ActuallyAutistic

I think the word *infantilization* gets it backwards. The word implies that people treat everyone they don't respect like children, but actually they treat children like everyone they don't respect.

It's a small thing all told, but you should understand that Trump often wears a hat so he doesn't have to spend an hour to fix his fake hair before being seen in public, or when he'll be outside and has to worry about the wind wreaking havoc with his comb-over. It's just vanity, like so much of what he does.

Cooking is so full of surprises. Tonight I made a big batch of refried black beans like I do every month or so, to cook with througout the month. I've been refining the big batch recipe over the last few months and the last month's effort was really good but still not exactly right. So this time I had an inspiration to add a little apple cider vinegar. I was not prepared for how much a difference it made! Adding a little acid made all the flavors muddle together nicely. Can't taste the vinegar at all, but everything else comes through a little brighter. Definitely updating the recipe card with that tweak.

Astronomer Dr. #DavidKipping of #CoolWorlds implores you to submit feedback opposing the enshittification of the night sky before it's too late.

Do not delay! Act today!

https://youtube.com/shorts/C2-R6nis-Vs

If you don't understand how painful it can be for #ActuallyAutistic folk to listen to allistic people talk about us and over us while excluding us from the conversation... Think about what it's like for minorities when white people talk about racial issues, for women when men talk about women's issues, or for queer folk when straight people talk about queer issues. There are plenty of autistic people around to include in the conversation. Stop excluding us from discussions of our own issues!

Has anyone ever seen a news show have an autistic person on to discuss autistic issues? It's always some pediatrician or child psychologist, never anyone who actually understands autism, and especially never anyone who knows anything at all about autistic adults. It's maddening!

#NothingAboutUsWithoutUs

In case it's not clear, when a sociopath explains away bad behavior by saying it was "just a joke", they don't mean they were making a joke to be funny. These so-called jokes are a test to see who is in-group and who isn't. If you think it's a good joke, you're part of their group. If you don't think it's a good joke, you're their enemy.

This is why their humor sucks. They're not making jokes to be funny, but to weed out the people who don't think they're funny.