kagen ツ

♛ University of Toronto (Mississauga) ♛ • 🏳️‍🌈 (he/él) | 📍- 🇨🇦 | toledo, ohio | 🇬🇾 • wanderlust & fighting for equality. VOTE FOR CHANGE!

[Headquarters @HQNewsNow]

Dolly Parton defending the LGBTQ+ community from attacks 10 years ago:

I do not believe that we should criticize and judge other people. We’re all God’s children. We are who we are. I just think that we should be more loving, more caring, we are who we are. If you’re gay, you’re gay. If you’re straight, you’re straight and you should be allowed to be who you are.

[Matt Van Swol @mattvanswol]

In 1988 Dolly Parton pulled every 7th and 8th grader in Sevier County into a room and told them to pick a buddy.

She made them sign a contract.. if BOTH graduate, she hands you both $500. One fails, nobody gets paid.

The county dropout rate went from 35% to 6%.

She handed out the checks herself.

In 1989 she offered $500 to every kid in the county who wanted to go to the local college.

When Gatlinburg burned in 2016, she sent 900 families $1,000 a month for six months.

You've probably heard that part.

Here's the part you haven't:

The fund raised more than expected, so she showed up in May and handed every one of those families another $5,000 on top.

Then she quietly put $3 million into the recovery group that handles the years after the news trucks leave.

She built her county an entire hospital.

She played a benefit concert in 2007, Dollywood and the Stampede matched it, and LeConte Medical Center opened in 2010 with a birthing unit and a women's center in it.

In 2022 she started covering 100% of tuition, books, and fees for Dollywood employees.

Full-time, part-time, AND seasonal.

In 1991 she paid for a bald eagle sanctuary because the birds couldn't be released back into the wild, no press release.

And when Hurricane Helene came through here in Western North Carolina, she wrote a personal check for $1 million and her companies matched it.

She didn't owe North Carolina anything, but she helped us anyway.

She started the Imagination Library because her daddy couldn't read or write. Before he passed, he told her it was the most important thing she ever did.

Rest in Peace, Dolly 🇺🇸

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

The air traffic controller cleared the fire truck onto the runway. Seconds later, the same controller screamed “stop, stop, stop.” The plane was doing 93 to 105 mph.

Both pilots are dead.

Everyone will frame this as controller error. One controller was simultaneously managing a United flight that aborted takeoff after an anti-ice warning, dispatching a fire truck across an active runway, and sequencing an inbound Air Canada landing at highway speed. At 11:40 PM. On a mandatory overtime shift at a facility that has been understaffed for years.

A system that assigns one person that workload will produce exactly this outcome. The only variable is when.

The FAA is short approximately 3,000 controllers. The headcount dropped 13% from 2010 to 2024 while flight volume rose 10%. Over 40% of the FAA’s 290 terminal facilities are understaffed. The New York TRACON, which manages the most congested airspace in America across LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark, has been chronically below target. Newark was operating at 59% of its staffing goal. LaGuardia handles 900 flights a day.

The hiring pipeline is broken at every stage. Only 2% of applicants complete the full process. Training takes up to 6 years. The FAA Academy in Oklahoma City is a bottleneck, with roughly 35% of trainees washing out. Congress blocked legislation to build a second academy. In one recent hiring cycle, the FAA brought on 1,512 candidates and lost 1,300 in the same window. Net gain: around 160 controllers for an entire country.

Three things need to happen and everyone who can make them happen has known for years.

Congress needs to fund and authorize a second FAA training academy. One facility in Oklahoma City cannot produce enough controllers for 900 million annual passengers. Members of Congress from Oklahoma have actively blocked this. That needs to end yesterday.

The FAA needs to cut certification time. Six years from application to fully certified controller is absurd. The agency’s own data shows tower simulators reduce certification time by 27%. They’ve installed them at 95 facilities. That should be every facility, and the simulated hours should count toward more of the certification requirement.

The FAA needs to stop plugging staffing gaps with mandatory overtime. Controllers at understaffed facilities are working six-day weeks rotating between morning, mid, and night shifts. The NTSB has flagged fatigue repeatedly. The controller last night was managing overlapping emergencies during a nighttime operation. Overtime is not a staffing plan. It’s a countdown to the next runway collision.

The controller said “I messed up” to a Frontier pilot who watched the whole thing. The pilot responded “No man, you did the best you could.”

One of them is right. The answer determines whether this happens again.

[The Nation @thenation]

Charlier Kirk was an unrepentant racist, transphobe, homophobe, and misogynist who often wrapped his bigotry in Bible verses because there was no other way to pretend that it was morally correct.
https://t.co/Qv5TsM8AXy

[Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_]

Gavin Newsom: “Wake up America. You will not have a country if he rigs this election. These guys are not screwing around. The most corrupt president in history. He is wrecking this country, wrecking the economy. He is a lawless president. Wake up America.”

[Brian Allen @allenanalysis]

I wish conservatives understood one thing:

If it weren’t for blue states, the U.S. would be a third world country with broadband holes, broke schools, and zero innovation.

Red states take the federal money.
Blue states make it.

You don’t fund the country, you drain it.

Bad ideas. No revenue. And the loudest voices are always the ones who bring the least to the table.

[Canada @Canada]

We are the True North, Strong and Free. On #CanadaDay, we stand #LoudandProud, celebrating our values, our voice, and our vision for a better world. Together, with courage, empathy, and conviction. 🇨🇦

[Justin Trudeau @JustinTrudeau]

Bonne fête du Canada! 🇨🇦

C'est une journée idéale pour profiter du plein air avec les enfants. Célébrons tous notre Canada, le meilleur pays au monde!

[Canada @Canada]

On #CanadaDay, we celebrate a country fluent in English, French, and the many languages that shape our diverse identity—including the language of #diplomacy. From far and wide, #LoudAndProud, we raise our voices for peace, freedom, and cooperation. ❤️

[eggy :3 @eggyisonline]

the pope if he was woke: i’m your pope you’re my pope i’m jpope

[Patricia Treble @PatriciaTreble]

Every time the idea of a separation referendum is raised — whether in Quebec or Alberta and Saskatchewan — I wait for Indigenous peoples to remind politicians that their treaties are with the Crown, not provincial governments

Bottom line: you’re free to go, but without the land

[Bothered Boy🏴🚩Back on my Bullsh*t @BotheredBoy]

Interestingly enough, Toronto has a population of 2.8 million people and 25 federal seats.

So, it seems that, if anything, Alberta is overrepresented in parliament. But you'll never hear Albertans talk about it from that angle.

[ian bremmer @ianbremmer]

visualization of canada’s election results

“land doesn’t vote, people do” etc

[Gretchen Whitmer @gretchenwhitmer]

I'll be laying out my plan on how we continue to keep Michigan moving by creating good-paying jobs, fixing our damn roads, and investing in our schools. Be sure to tune in on Wednesday at https://t.co/h80DrkYEA9

[Made In Canada @MadelnCanada]

“We actually ended up using America’s favourite strategy against them,” said Connor McDavid. “I wanted the trophy, so I took it without asking them what they thought.” ❤️🇨🇦🏆