April 2024

shamebats:

“divine feminine” “divine masculine”

wrong. Divine.

Divine the drag queen in the John Waters movie Pink Flamingos pointing a gun at the cameraALT

hotvampireadjacent:

typhlonectes:

babyfoxcollectionthings:

BIG ASS STURGEON

@ofishal-fish-posts

iskariotrising:

wrecknician:

“have you tried weed to fix your mental illness” is just the libertarian version of “have you tried yoga”

libyan-knight:

GOD I HOPE THE SEMICONDUCTOR FACTORIES ARE FINE… the people too I guess

This is what the west really thinks of Taiwan

strawberry-crocodile:

love going on callout posts for “thinks cnc is okay” and seeing people talk about how us freaks need the electric chair. fantasizing about violence is okay as long as its not sexual, funny that

spremutadarancia:

determinate-negation:

the actual descendants of murderers calling completely historically uninvolved stateless refugees jew gassers… genuinely has anyone ever done an analysis of how germans maintain this belief on a psychological level? its just incomprehensible to me 🤦🏻

Hi, i was wondering what you were referring to here: "The state department will slip in some bullshit on the Uyghur genocide". What do you mean by bullshit?

yourtongzhihazel:

There is no Uyghur genocide. It is entirely fabricated by the us within the last 4 years. The myth originates from a far-right christian fundamentalist adrian zenz working with the victims of communism foundation. Most of the claims come from the Uyghur World Congress, which is a group entirely associated with the us state department. The “East Turkestan Islamic Movement”, the group most people point to as the Uyghur independence movement was listed by the us as a terrorist group before 2019 after which they began ramping up their Uyghur genocide narrative.

China has invited many international organizations to inspect and verify their claims and many have agreed that no genocide is occurring. Even the us state department themselves had to admit defeat and say no evidence of genocide can be found (this is obvious because they are working backwards from the manufactured narrative of genocide and looking for “evidence” that supports that). China is one current target of us imperialism. Xinjiang sits at a crossroads of Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative. A disruption to a global development/trade plan here would serve us interests very well.

If you’ve seen my posts on terrorism/terrorists, you know that I don’t see designations of ‘terrorist groups’ for much. My point there is the political posturing for propaganda. Terrorism arises from dire material conditions from which radicalization can occur, and indeed, terrorism in Xinjiang had been a serious, deadly issue. The PRC response was to build vocational schools and deradicalization centers whose aims are to eliminate the material foundations that lead to terrorism. Individually, this heavy handed approach is not ideal, yes, but astute readers will note that this pales in comparison to western styles of counter-terrorism: bombs and genocide. It’s not even the first time vocational schools/deradicalization centers have been used either; Malaysia also employs them.

I am reminding you, dear reader, that the vast majority of sources on this subject come from western NGOs, media, and government sources, who are currently engaged in the erasure of several real genocides in the world, such as Palestine. If you compare the international response to Palestine versus with Xinjiang, you will see that the hallmarks of a genocide is not present. There is no mass refugee crisis in the countries surrounding Xinjiang; there are no verifiable recordings of any sort of genocidal action in Xinjiang; and there is not a stifling of journalistic transparency that we see in Palestine (i.e. the murder of journalists and censorship by western media), but, rather a silencing or refusal to participate from the west itself (one example).

I am glad many are sensitive to accusations of genocide; it is the duty of all people to stop them when they occur. However, because of our sensitivity, those who seek to enact imperialism across the world will take advantage of that instinct to manufacture consent for imperialist attacks on targeted countries. We have to stop and critically analyze any and all claims of genocide that come from the governments and media of the largest exporters and perpetrators of genocide: the west.

jethroq:

gl1tt3r-gvts:

Mk so I know there’s along time between now and Halloween and I may be going through a Lorax phase but

IF THIS POST GETS 10K NOTES BY HALLOWEEN I WILL GO AS THE LORAX

Have fun

mortiwhore:

mortiwhore:

honestly, any us politician that didnt immediately stick up for palestine when the genocide began should not be relected or be able to walk around in peace.

it took over 30,000 murdered palestinians and 6 months of your constituents begging you to do something and you spent those months locking your office and calling said constituents/activists “anti-semites” “terrorists” and “communists”.

these people dont deserve a quiet status quo they hope for after whats been said and done. the least they can do is step down from their positions.

enki2:

foxeseveryhour:

Source

foxeseveryhour:

Source

foxeseveryhour:

Source

abislwise:

thydungeongal:

Most tabletop RPGs don’t bother to have a rule like “characters can’t walk through walls.” It is either implicit or prescribed through having a special ability that specifically allows one to do. Now, an RPG that specifically had a character option that stated “this character cannot walk through walls” would instantly reframe every other character in the game. If only a specific type of character has some limitation that we humans would assume to be self-explanatory, what the hell is the baseline in this game?

Games have implicit or explicit assumptions about their characters. In D&D it is assumed that characters can see, hear, speak, walk unassisted, and so on. These capabilities can be taken away but only through very specific rules interactions. A character’s ability to see isn’t marked until a player says that they would like to play a blind character.

I don’t even know where I was going with this. This started out with me thinking about how funny it would be to make like a supplement for a game that features these really strange and specific abilities that suddenly change the assumptions of the game. Like, a supplement that has a creature with an ability like “Floorwalker: this creature can walk on floors.” Because none of the other creatures in the game have that ability, it’s now implicit that they can’t walk on floors.

Anyway if anyone would like to help me salvage this post by saying something insightful go right ahead, I’m gonna go make some pasta.

Sure, I’ll take a crack at something insightful: this truth was part of the reason that D&D 3.X ultimately failed at what it was trying to do.

The thing about 3.X was, every couple of months a new book would come out with a bunch of cool new mechanics for things. But the problem was exactly as described in the post: every time they came out with a cool new mechanic for Doing The Thing, it meant that you couldn’t Do The Thing without that mechanic any more.

A perfect example of this is the Fling Ally feat from Races of Stone. Suddenly, hooray, there’s this cool new feat that lets us do the cool Fastball Special thing! Except… now you couldn’t do it if you didn’t have the feat. And before that, throwing an ally wasn’t something that necessarily required a particular feat. So now, because this new character option came out, you couldn’t do the thing any more.

This also led to a situation where, because a character only gets so many feats/class abilities/spell slots/etc., they couldn’t do all of the things they wanted to because they didn’t have enough of that character building resource to get all the ones they wanted. (Or, more commonly, to both get the ones they wanted and to keep up with the freaking nuclear arms race that was character power scaling in 3.X.) So the new character options wind up making characters less cool by taking away options from the players, even though in theory these new options increased player choice.

4E got away from this by simply not caring enough to simulate large parts of the game world, which is fine, 4E is a very specific game designed to create a very specific experience and it does so really well.

5E has dealt with this, basically, by creating as few character options as it possibly can and then telling the DM, “Make it up!” This does fix the problem, but introduces two new ones: 1) this is a ton of work to put on a D&D DM’s already overloaded shoulders and 2) there’s practically no way to ensure the solution carries from group to group, so that work has to be redone constantly and likely in ways counter to existing expectation. Which… doesn’t seem a lot better, when you think of it like that.

There’s a lot more to say about this topic, mechanically speaking. (For example: the matter of making up a mechanic so effective that the party insists on using just it over and over.) But hopefully that provides some insight into the tension around floorwalking and player options.

marxism-transgenderism:

It is literally crazy how often people will, without a hint of irony, say shit like “if you are into cnc/intox/somno/incest/etc I’ll fucking kill you/kill yourself/you should fucking die” all in a million variations and it’s like damn, looks like someone is really thinking about inflicting violence, you could even say perhaps fantasizing about it, quite a lot. But don’t worry you’re wayyy better than those filthy degenerates because unlike them, you don’t ask for consent before telling them to kill themselves, negotiate boundaries prior, keep channels of communication open, and care for them afterwards and strengthen the relationship. No you’re sooo much more moral than them cause you actually just want them to die. No further reflection needed 👍

read-marx-and-lenin:

sexhaver:

im stealing and reposting this because even without any added commentary it should be a self-evidently ridiculous example of the way that the panic over AI art has led to an overtly (and in some cases, explicitly) religious concern over the Sanctity of the Human Soul taking the spotlight from any discussion of labor rights or creative implications, but if i just reblogged the post on its own i run the risk of a smoothbrain assuming i actually agree with it. no i didn’t add the circle and no i don’t know why it’s there either

Too many people have only one real problem with AI art, and that’s that it looks ugly to them. That’s how I know all the screaming and whining about how AI is ruining everything is going to die down once AI art stops standing out so much and starts blending into the background. The majority of the people panicking don’t care about jobs, they don’t care about artistic integrity, they don’t care about IP law, they just don’t want to look at ugly art and they want to rationalize their reaction into a moral imperative.

Once the AI images look “good enough”, these staunch advocates of the fair treatment and wellbeing of artists will go back to looking the other way when artists continue to suffer under low pay and crushing deadlines, when artists continue to have their work stolen by capitalists with little or no compensation. It didn’t start with AI image generation and it won’t end with it. It will only end with real class consciousness and the education to understand the underlying issues at the root of it all.

read-marx-and-lenin:

komsomolka:

yourtongzhihazel:

😇😇😇

foxeseveryhour:

Source

abislwise:

thydungeongal:

Most tabletop RPGs don’t bother to have a rule like “characters can’t walk through walls.” It is either implicit or prescribed through having a special ability that specifically allows one to do. Now, an RPG that specifically had a character option that stated “this character cannot walk through walls” would instantly reframe every other character in the game. If only a specific type of character has some limitation that we humans would assume to be self-explanatory, what the hell is the baseline in this game?

Games have implicit or explicit assumptions about their characters. In D&D it is assumed that characters can see, hear, speak, walk unassisted, and so on. These capabilities can be taken away but only through very specific rules interactions. A character’s ability to see isn’t marked until a player says that they would like to play a blind character.

I don’t even know where I was going with this. This started out with me thinking about how funny it would be to make like a supplement for a game that features these really strange and specific abilities that suddenly change the assumptions of the game. Like, a supplement that has a creature with an ability like “Floorwalker: this creature can walk on floors.” Because none of the other creatures in the game have that ability, it’s now implicit that they can’t walk on floors.

Anyway if anyone would like to help me salvage this post by saying something insightful go right ahead, I’m gonna go make some pasta.

Sure, I’ll take a crack at something insightful: this truth was part of the reason that D&D 3.X ultimately failed at what it was trying to do.

The thing about 3.X was, every couple of months a new book would come out with a bunch of cool new mechanics for things. But the problem was exactly as described in the post: every time they came out with a cool new mechanic for Doing The Thing, it meant that you couldn’t Do The Thing without that mechanic any more.

A perfect example of this is the Fling Ally feat from Races of Stone. Suddenly, hooray, there’s this cool new feat that lets us do the cool Fastball Special thing! Except… now you couldn’t do it if you didn’t have the feat. And before that, throwing an ally wasn’t something that necessarily required a particular feat. So now, because this new character option came out, you couldn’t do the thing any more.

This also led to a situation where, because a character only gets so many feats/class abilities/spell slots/etc., they couldn’t do all of the things they wanted to because they didn’t have enough of that character building resource to get all the ones they wanted. (Or, more commonly, to both get the ones they wanted and to keep up with the freaking nuclear arms race that was character power scaling in 3.X.) So the new character options wind up making characters less cool by taking away options from the players, even though in theory these new options increased player choice.

4E got away from this by simply not caring enough to simulate large parts of the game world, which is fine, 4E is a very specific game designed to create a very specific experience and it does so really well.

5E has dealt with this, basically, by creating as few character options as it possibly can and then telling the DM, “Make it up!” This does fix the problem, but introduces two new ones: 1) this is a ton of work to put on a D&D DM’s already overloaded shoulders and 2) there’s practically no way to ensure the solution carries from group to group, so that work has to be redone constantly and likely in ways counter to existing expectation. Which… doesn’t seem a lot better, when you think of it like that.

There’s a lot more to say about this topic, mechanically speaking. (For example: the matter of making up a mechanic so effective that the party insists on using just it over and over.) But hopefully that provides some insight into the tension around floorwalking and player options.

psychotrenny:

It’s funny how basically all common anti-communist cliches are just utterly nothing the second you start engaging with the actual reality of what’s being discussed. Like basically anything your average mainstream Liberal could say about Communist Theory comes off as nonsense if you’ve read even the most basic works of Marx or Lenin, while any comments they have on the actual practice of Socialism are dispelled if you’ve read any history of the Soviet Union or China that wasn’t written by a raving anti-communist. Like so many people’s hatred of communism is only matched by their ignorance of it

mortiwhore:

mortiwhore:

honestly, any us politician that didnt immediately stick up for palestine when the genocide began should not be relected or be able to walk around in peace.

it took over 30,000 murdered palestinians and 6 months of your constituents begging you to do something and you spent those months locking your office and calling said constituents/activists “anti-semites” “terrorists” and “communists”.

these people dont deserve a quiet status quo they hope for after whats been said and done. the least they can do is step down from their positions.

linguisticparadox:

shrike-dyke:

excuse me what the fuck


Link to the full article:

It’s as bad and worse than it sounds.

enki2:

zvaigzdelasas:

yourtongzhihazel:

starting a collection

Genocide in China?

postirony:

placedupon:

I’ve been seeing lots of articles and posts claiming that China is interning the Uyghur Muslim population in camps, killing, torturing, and even forcibly sterilizing people. This post is the main one I’ve seen going around. I wanted to put together articles on how these claims are false, and why it’s important to be critical of what US funded media is telling us.

1. The “China Scholar” who made the claims that China is locking up ‘millions of people’ is an ant-semitic white man

Almost every article on XinJiang references Adrian Zenz, a ‘China scholar.’ Adrian Zenz is the one who estimated that the camps contain “Up to 1.5 million people.” He also called it cultural genocide, and alleged that they were labor camps. 

He also alleged that XinJiang is forcibly sterilizing women. However, these reports were based exclusively on the fact that the government had spent money providing free birth control to women in XinJiang. While China has denied these claims, other countries have also come out in support of China on XinJiang.

Adrian Zenz is just one person, and he’s also incredibly anti-semitic and racist. He says that he is “led by God” to defeat China and bring Christianity. This man is a self declared China expert who has only been to XinJiang once. He is a right-wing propagandist backed by the United States.

2. When these allegations first emerged, the United Nations and the United States were invited by China to visit XinJiang. Both refused. However, over 37 countries came out in support of China.

If the UN and the United States were truly concerned about the state of life in XinJiang, wouldn’t they have visited? This invitation remains open.

On the other hand, many other countries have sent diplomats to XinJiang, and have concluded that the camps were more like centers designed to teach people vocational skills and how to integrate into society after radicalization. One diplomat said, “The vocational education and training centers in Xinjiang are not ‘concentration camps’ as described by some Western media, but schools to help those influenced by extreme thoughts to eliminate the harmful thoughts and learn vocational skills” These countries include Laos, Cambodia, Nepal, the Phillipines, Sri Lanka, Bahrain, and Nigeria.

In addition, when the United States first alleged human rights violations, a total of 50 countries came out in support of China. If you look at the list of countries that are accusing China, you’ll see it’s mostly white countries that are settler colonies, and former or current colonizers. If you look at the second list of the many more countries that support China and refute these claims, you see many formerly colonized countries, as well as Muslim led countries. These are allegations, and many countries do not support them. Notice that Palestine is in support of China, as well as Cuba, both countries that have been targets of US imperialism. Regardless of how you feel about these countries individually, there’s a clear split between white, colonizing countries and POC, formerly colonized countries.

image

source

In addition, 37 countries signed a letter on this issue:

“We appreciate China’s commitment to openness and transparency. China has invited a number of diplomats, international organizations officials and journalist to Xinjiang to witness the progress of the human rights cause and the outcomes of counter-terrorism and de-radicalization there… We call on relevant countries to refrain from employing unfounded charges against China based on unconfirmed information before they visit Xinjiang.”

However, neither the UN nor the United States have actually visited XinJiang since they made these allegations. Instead, they have continued to make broad allegations without actually visiting XinJiang or researching these claims. Meanwhile, the United States has been sterilizing women in ICE camps, encouraging rampant islamaphobia, and continues to blame China for COVID.

3. The United States has a vested interest in portraying China as evil. Only a few leftist organizations have spoken up.

Many of us are familiar now with blaming China for things. China is blamed for COVID time and time again, even being called the “China Virus” by the president of the USA. However, despite such a right wing push for Americans to hate China, the left has bought nearly everything they’ve said.

The Black Agenda Report, a Black American led news site, has published many articles on China and the US’s lies about it.

In addition, the Greyzone, a US left newspaper (that isn’t paid by the United States, or any other country for that matter) has written on China.

I’m making no claims on the merit of China as a country. It is a huge, complicated place. Many groups within it have done good and bad things. Merit isn’t the question. Rather, my point is that the United States is in a cold war and is accusing China (and all its people) of things it hasn’t done. The US has been in this situation before. It has used vague claims of “human rights abuses” to justify invading and killing innocent people in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Hawaii, Yemen, and many other regions.

Everything the United States says about China is pure projection. 

probablyasocialecologist:

plaid-flannel:

Seen in the window at Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick, Maine.
Photo: Bill Roorbach

“The myth persists that in 1492 the Americas were a sparsely populated wilderness, a world of barely perceptible human disturbance. There is substantial evidence, however, that the Native American landscape of the early sixteenth century was a humanized landscape almost everywhere. Populations were large. Forest composition had been modified, grasslands had been created, wildlife disrupted, and erosion was severe in places. Earthworks, roads, fields, and settlements were ubiquitous.”

shinesurge:

winged-thinged:

Look, we joke a lot, but really, “you were born evil, wretched, worse than the scum of the earth, and it took killing a god to make you salvageable, so now you’d better be grateful to that god and thank him 10,000 times a day for it and fill your thoughts with him 24/7 and abide by the letter of his every word, lest you suffer unimaginable torture for all of eternity” is a truly horrendous thing to believe about yourself and other people

donewithcapitalistfrayers:

nemesissy:

exigencelost:

exigencelost:

Stop Citing The ADL For Hate Crime Statistics, They Are A Racist Hate Group. 

Please click here and read this article before you cite the Anti-Defamation League as an authority on hate speech, or participate in any campaign they are named in.

Some highlights include: 

  • The ADL has a history of going after Black power activists and civil rights groups. This included the Movement for Black Lives as recently as 2017 and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (as in, the Freedom Riders) as early as the 60s.


  • The ADL colluded with the FBI to spy on Arab-American and Black progressive organizations in the 70s and 80s.


  • The ADL’s definition of antisemitic hate speech includes any suggestion that the state of Israel does not have the right to control Palestinian territory, or that Israel should not be run as a religious ethnostate. It includes any endorsement of boycotts against Israeli goods or sanctions against the state of Israel for its war crimes. Given that definition, the idea of citing them for statistics on antisemitism is completely bananas. 


  • The ADL supports apartheid in Israel as it supported apartheid in South Africa: 

    “The Anti-Defamation League participated in a blatant propaganda campaign against Nelson Mandela and the ANC in the mid 1980s and employed an alleged ​‘fact-finder’ named Roy Bullock to spy on the anti-apartheid campaign in the United States — a service he was simultaneously performing for the South African government. The ADL defended the white régime’s purported constitutional reforms while denouncing the ANC as ​‘totalitarian anti-humane, anti-democratic, anti-Israel, and anti-American.’”


  • The ADL historically works with the FBI, the Israeli military, US police departments, and ICE. They ran a seminar in Israel in 2015 on “counter-terrorism” that was attended by Donald Trump’s Deputy Director of ICE. 


  • The ADL’s primary goal is the suppression of criticism of Israel and the elimination of international support for Palestine, with the ultimate aim of facilitating Israel’s annihilation of the Palestinian people. From Lara Kiswani, executive director of the Arab Resource Organizing Committee (AROC): “The ADL’s agenda is to delegitimize Palestine solidarity. Anything they’re doing, one should see from that lens.”

I’ve seen a couple different posts circulated by leftists in recent months talking about hate crimes in the United States that cite the ADL as a major source. I cannot stress enough that the ADL is not a legitimate source, they are a white supremacist organization, they have a long and consistent history of collaboration with apartheid in the United States, Israel, and South Africa, and any infographic that draws on their data is inherently untrustworthy. White supremacists don’t yield good data. 

a further couple of really good pieces from Jewish Currents:

How The ADL’s Israel Advocacy Undermines Its Civil Rights Work

The Anti-Democratic Origins of the Jewish Establishment

And a reminder, there used to exist independent antisemitism monitors . What happened to them? Well the Mossad literally got them shut down.

https://archive.org/details/antisemitism-redefined-israels-imagined-national-narrative-of-endless-external-threat-antony-lerman

sayruq:

as an honest attept to try and see your viewpoint, whats fascist about saying that a person has a right to defend themself against a home invader? Someone breaking into an occupied home clearly intends to assault the resident, a simple burglar would break into an empty building or gtfo when confronted. You cant exactly retreat from that assault because youre in the place where all retreat leads and if you can't feel safe in your own home then where can you feel safe?

txttletale:

txttletale:

it is really extremely simple actually – there is a gargantuan qualitative leap from ‘defending yourself’ to 'murdering somebody’ and maybe i’m just the sweetiest niciest loveliest girl ever but i think murdering people, is Bad,

and it is an obviously fascist fantasy to violently murder an ‘intruder’ (always parsed as: degenerate, mindlessly violent criminal that cannot be reasoned with and must be exterminated) in defense of your private property. and that is what it is for 99% of these people, a fantasy that they talk about like they want it to happen. white suburanites whipped up into a paranoid murder frenzy by watching news segments about violent crime whose dearest ambition is to blow someone’s brains out to defend the sanctity of their samsung smart tv. vile!

read-marx-and-lenin:

Trump: Illegals are murdering innocent Americans, we need to shut down the border immediately!

Liberals: OMG how dare this racist Republican make our glorious nation look bad! #VoteBlueNoMatterWho #DumpTrump #DonaldDrumpf #Covfefe

Biden: Illegals are murdering innocent Americans, we need to shut down the border immediately!

Liberals: Actually, if you leftists would look past your biases and purity tests, you would realize that Biden has to call them illegals and push for harsh border controls, because that’s just politics! It’s called compromise! Do you want Trump to win?

read-marx-and-lenin:

coloradoron:

mapsontheweb:

Netherlands if sea level were 1 meter higher.

And at the rate that the ocean is rising 6-7 inches a year we have centuries to figure this out.

1.84 mm per year. Caused by the end of the mini ice age that happened between 1300 and 1850.

Not CO2! Previous ice ages had up to 4x the amount of CO2 as today. Hmmmmm

zvaigzdelasas:

[BBC is UK State Media]

Truong My Lan is charged with taking out $44bn (£35bn) in loans from the Saigon Commercial Bank. Prosecutors say $27bn may never be recovered.[…]

The evidence is in 104 boxes weighing a total of six tonnes [!!!]. Eighty-five defendants are on trial with Truong My Lan, who denies the charges. She and 13 others face a possible death sentence.

“There has never been a show trial [sic] like this, I think, in the communist era,” says David Brown, a retired US state department official with long experience in Vietnam. “There has certainly been nothing on this scale.”

The trial is the most dramatic chapter so far in the “Blazing Furnaces” anti-corruption campaign led by the Communist Party Secretary-General, Nguyen Phu Trong.

A conservative [sic] ideologue [sic] steeped in Marxist theory, Nguyen Phu Trong believes that popular anger over untamed corruption poses an existential threat to the Communist Party’s monopoly on power. He began the campaign in earnest in 2016 after out-manoeuvring the then pro-business prime minister to retain the top job in the party.

The campaign has seen two presidents and two deputy prime ministers forced to resign, and hundreds of officials disciplined or jailed. Now one of the country’s richest women could join their ranks.[…]

Although Vietnam is best known outside the country for its fast-growing manufacturing sector, as an alternative supply chain to China, most wealthy Vietnamese made their money developing and speculating in property.

All land is officially state-owned. Getting access to it often relies on personal relationships with state officials. Corruption escalated as the economy grew, and became endemic.

By 2011, Truong My Lan was a well-known business figure in Ho Chi Minh City, and she was allowed to arrange the merger of three smaller, cash-strapped banks into a larger entity: Saigon Commercial Bank.

Vietnamese law prohibits any individual from holding more than 5% of the shares in any bank. But prosecutors say that through hundreds of shell companies and people acting as her proxies, Truong My Lan actually owned more than 90% [!!!] of Saigon Commercial.

They accuse her of using that power to appoint her own people as managers, and then ordering them to approve hundreds of loans to the network of shell companies she controlled.

The amounts taken out are staggering. Her loans made up 93% [!!!] of all the bank’s lending.

According to prosecutors, over a period of three years from February 2019, she ordered her driver to withdraw 108 trillion Vietnamese dong, more than $4bn (£2.3bn) in cash from the bank, and store it in her basement.

That much cash, even if all of it was in Vietnam’s largest denomination banknotes, would weigh two tonnes.[!!!!!][…]

David Brown believes she was protected by powerful figures who have dominated business and politics in Ho Chi Minh City for decades. And he sees a bigger factor in play in the way this trial is being run: a bid to reassert the authority of the Communist Party over the free-wheeling business culture of the south.

“What Nguyen Phu Trong and his allies in the party are trying to do is to regain control of Saigon, or at least stop it from slipping away.[…]

faster growth in Vietnam almost inevitably means more corruption [sic]. Fight corruption too much [sic], and you risk extinguishing a lot of economic activity.

10 Apr 24

tamamita:

tamamita:

Theodore Herlz, father of Political Zionism: Yeah, it’s colonial

Ber Borochov, father of Labour Zionism: Yeah, it’s colonial

Ze'ev Jabotinsky, father of Revisionist Zionism: Yeah, it’s colonial

David Ben Gurion, founding father of the Settler state: Yeah, it’s colonial

Small bean fandom Zionist: Umm, lol, it’s literally not colonial???

Relevant quotes:

Herzl wrote to Cecil Rhodes, “It doesn’t involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor; not Englishmen but Jews… How, then, do I happen to turn to you since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial

Theodore Herzl’s letter to Cecil Rhodes from unpublished letters by Theodore Herzl (11th of January 1901)

"The Jews could in short time assume the leading position in the economy of the new land. Jewish migration must be transformed from immigration into colonization”

Poale Zion, Our Platform, B. Borochov (1906)

“We cannot offer any adequate compensation to the Palestinian Arabs in return for Palestine. And therefore, there is no likelihood of any voluntary agreement being reached. So that all those who regard such an agreement as a condition sine qua non for Zionism may as well say "non” and withdraw from Zionism. Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population

Iron Wall, Ze'ev Jabotinksy (1923)

If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”

David Ben Gurion, quoted in the The Jewish paradox, Nahum Goldmann (1973)

dakhoun:

read-marx-and-lenin:

coloradoron:

mapsontheweb:

Netherlands if sea level were 1 meter higher.

And at the rate that the ocean is rising 6-7 inches a year we have centuries to figure this out.

1.84 mm per year. Caused by the end of the mini ice age that happened between 1300 and 1850.

Not CO2! Previous ice ages had up to 4x the amount of CO2 as today. Hmmmmm

Along this trajectory, the middle Miocene (~16 Ma) marks the last time that CO2 concentrations were consistently higher than at present; Greenland was not yet glaciated at that time, and independent estimates suggest that sea level was some 50 m higher than today.

CENOCO2-PIP (2023)

apas-95:

apas-95:

Did you know that NASA engineers considered the failure rate of some critical shuttle parts to be about 1 in 100 (significantly greater than what NASA upper-management considered the failure rate to be, and what was considered at all acceptable by the certification process)?

Do you know that NASA engineers currently have no idea how many rocket launches the next mission in the Artemis program (in 2 years!) is meant to involve, because the mission plan relies on SpaceX being contracted to deliver a supply of cryogenic fuel to the crewed Orion (™ Lockheed-Martin) capsule in orbit - a procedure that 1: has never been attempted before on any spacecraft, let alone the Orion™ capsule, not even in uncrewed technology demonstration flights; and 2: would require an as-of-yet unknown number of SpaceX ‘Starship’ launches, because said vehicle does not actually exist at time of writing?

Did you know they’re planning on using this 'starship’ as the crewed lander? A design for a lunar ascent vehicle, that is, that does not use hypergolic fuel, that relies on a swing-out crane as the only entry and egress point? During the original moon landings, the LEM had so many redundant methods to make sure it got astronauts off the surface of the moon, that in the most absurd, extreme case, where every single mechanism fails, there’s a procedure trained into the astronauts to climb around the outside of the capsule, take a pair of bolt-cutters from the equipment box, physically cut the couplings holding the capsule to the lander stage, and take off to get home. Artemis’ proposed lander, on the other hand, is planned to be a vehicle whose design didn’t even include heatshields until it was realised it would obviously need heatshields, which are ceramic tiles bolted after-the-fact directly through the steel hull, because SpaceX had decided to mass-produce the original-design hull sections all at once for all the 'starships’ first, before doing any integrated testing.

We’re seeing the exact attitude that led to the shuttle disasters not being prevented now expressing itself in (and even through) the Artemis program, a project pushed harder and faster through the gates than it should be, by a government (and NASA administration thereby) desperate to advance the eponymous Artemis Accords (that goes unsigned by China, Russia, and much of the world) and reneg on all previous space charters that onsidered ownership, commercial exploitation, and military usage of space forbidden. Something bad is going to happen, and it’s going to happen for the sake of SpaceX and the military-industrial complex at large.

imagine oceangate and challenger both happen at the same time, to the mission carrying The First Woman On The Moon, because nasa under biden backed elon musk. lmao

darthfelinus:

“The boys of Capital, they also chortle in their martinis about the death of socialism. The word has been banned from polite conversation. And they hope that no one will notice that every socialist experiment of any significance in the 20th century—without exception—has either been crushed, overthrown, or invaded, or corrupted, perverted, subverted, or destabilized, or otherwise made life impossible for it, by the United States. Not one socialist government or movement—from the Russian Revolution to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, from Communist China to the FMLN in Salvador—no one was permitted to rise or fall solely on its own merits; no one was left secure enough to drop its guard against the all-powerful enemy abroad and freely and fully relax control at home.

It’s as if the Wright brothers’ first experiments with flying machines all failed because the automobile interests sabotaged each test flight. And then the good and god-fearing folk of the world looked upon this, took notice of the consequences, nodded their collective heads wisely, and intoned solemnly: Man shall never fly.

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II - William Blum (updated, 2014)

darthfelinus:

“The boys of Capital, they also chortle in their martinis about the death of socialism. The word has been banned from polite conversation. And they hope that no one will notice that every socialist experiment of any significance in the 20th century—without exception—has either been crushed, overthrown, or invaded, or corrupted, perverted, subverted, or destabilized, or otherwise made life impossible for it, by the United States. Not one socialist government or movement—from the Russian Revolution to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, from Communist China to the FMLN in Salvador—no one was permitted to rise or fall solely on its own merits; no one was left secure enough to drop its guard against the all-powerful enemy abroad and freely and fully relax control at home.

It’s as if the Wright brothers’ first experiments with flying machines all failed because the automobile interests sabotaged each test flight. And then the good and god-fearing folk of the world looked upon this, took notice of the consequences, nodded their collective heads wisely, and intoned solemnly: Man shall never fly.

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II - William Blum (updated, 2014)

:

colourpickingpride:

blender-pixelize:

pointed-achievements:

residentrain-deactivated2024040:

:

a1exkra1ie:

colortracker:

a1exkra1ie:

I’m being TORTURED by a gimmick blog

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Purple, Pink, Gray

[7/8]

LORD HELP ME

Check for understanding:

  1. What is a gimmick blog?
  2. What does OP mean when they say they are being “TORTURED by a gimmick blog?”
  3. What is colortracker? What do they do?
  4. Why does OP respond the way they do to colortracker’s addition?
Link below.ALT
Link below.ALT

3 achievements unlocked:

Accessibility is Awesome!

Make your post more accessible!

Reading Comprehension Rookie

Actually, it was Piss-Poor’s Monster. Complete one set of questions by @reading-comp-posting!

Source, MLAdy?

Cite a work in MLA format.

One real 8!

101/8

1262.5% of an 8!

latepivi:

working on a little comic i guess, don’t know how long it’ll take me to finish with all the deadlines i have within the next month or if at all :“’)

but here’s something that might or might not be relevant

thelivingmemegod:

crocky-wock:

pentag0nal:

holmesmutual:

siderealsandman:

quinintheclouds:

immarainbowpatooie:

sushinfood:

pinkprettycure:

Ppl without ADHD be like “oh if I get rid of all possible distractions then you’ll be forced to focus on the boring task!” Fool… You underestimate my Power 

My partner: dear it’s time to get up

Me: but distractions

Partner: I have removed them

Me: sleeps

Person: we have removed all possible distractions

Me: but have you considered this?

Me: *zones out and daydreams*

Person: I have removed all distractions so you can do [insert task]

Me: *chuckles* Silly neurotypical. So naïve… Don’t you see? I AM the distraction.

The distraction is coming from inside the house

That’s cuz this is the exact opposite of what you wanna do with ADHD. If you take away all input your brain is going to shut down. It has nothing to do. You need to find the right passive secondary input that will allow your brain to function enough to start what you need to start. What counts is different for everyone. Snacking, White noise, music, stim toys, podcasts, wiggling. A thing that will give you stimulation but isn’t enough to totally satisfy it so your brain wants to do more. Then you push yourself to do the task because your brain finally has all the pieces it needs to function.

Don’t force yourself into focusing the same way a neurotypical does. It will only hurt you. Find new ways that work for your neurotype.

I struggle a lot with this. :/

Thank you!!! Holmesmutual, this is such good advice!

Is-is this why doing the dishes puts me in the mood to do stuff??????

shakespeare-official-reblogs:

india-official:

dukeofbookingham:

sandersstudies:

all-my-fandoms-are-killing-me:

sandersstudies:

fainsworld:

pleaseletthisjimbetaken:

sandersstudies:

samsjammaam:

sandersstudies:

roman-flair:

sandersstudies:

rinofwater:

sandersstudies:

i-will-physically-fight-you:

sandersstudies:

You can literally make anything and anyone problematic if you try hard enough seriously give me people and things and I’ll make them all “problematic” right now.

Dogs.

I don’t even have to do this one because PETA did it first by insinuating domestication is inherently abusive.

The sky

Used to trick and mock anyone who asks “what’s up?” A bullying tactic.

Super Mario Bros.

Stereotypes Italians, enforces the narrative of women who need men to rescue them, and encourages violence against turtles.

John Mulaney

He was over on the bench and he SAW what they did to Tyler and he did NOTHING.

Omfg

Pokemon

Making your pets fight repeatedly is animal abuse.

OP

OP literally argued that dogs were problematic but go off I guess

This is a work of art and should be sent to everyone as soon as they sign up for Tumblr so they know what they’re walking into

There’s nothing problematic about.. sleeping!

well it wastes precious time…

feminist-space:

Heather Hogan: Straight friend: Will you sensitivity read my book for my lesbian best friend character? Me, two weeks later: The lesbian best friend is absolutely perfect. Here's 16 pages of notes detailing the incorrect things you said about Star Trek. Tweet at 5:32 PM on 2/25/24ALT

Tweet by Heather Hogan:

Straight friend: Will you sensitivity read my book for my lesbian best friend character?

Me, two weeks later: The lesbian best friend is absolutely perfect. Here’s 16 pages of notes detailing the incorrect things you said about Star Trek.

5:32 PM on 2/25/24

india-official:

true-blue-straya:

india-official:

true-blue-straya:

things that do not exist because i have never seen them - a thread

  1. beavers - have you ever seen one of these fuckers before. they’re talked about like anything yet they don’t actually exist?
  2. squirrels - like beavers, everyone talks about them but nobody has ever seen one before, minus the adhd stereotype
  3. an american-born graduate of the american education system that can pinpoint new zealand on a map - this one is just obvious.
  4. a greggs sausage roll - what is all the hype behind this one colonial fast food chain sausage roll? surely it’s not that good, if it even exists. british people who say it does are lying they are not to be trusted.
  5. quails - what the actual fuck is a quail. i’ve only ever seen their eggs and they come in the same packets as those peppa pig yoghurt coated sultanas. what the fuck is an actual quail
  6. an actual florida man - i know queensland exists but thats the clone of florida in australia what is an actual florida
  7. the 7’ tall snake that is rumoured to live somewhere along the nullabor. this one’s just a straight up lie, mate.

i will continue this thread in future!

Behold

this image is MACHINE LEARNING GENERATED IMAGERY

see the top of the fuckos head. its just a few lines. didnt even bother


next we look at the fuckos rump

see that blotchy mess? the images this model was trained on were hand drawn by eleven year olds and uploaded to deviant art. it has no idea what its supposed to look like

and lastly,


why the fuck does the pole look like that.

Orr, alternatively, the photo is really low quality and thus the pixels are all blurry and stuff. Also that might be rope O.O

systlin:

rosslynpaladin:

brucebocchi:

elon musk admitted under threat of perjury that this is his burner account

Loserboy has a SOCKPUPPET ACCOUNT TO HYPE HIMSELF UP and trash talk his ex…

Like a twelve year old…

oh my god

ilinalta:

kirtlandswarbler:

cursed knowledge:

in order to fit corvo’s lovely face under his mask….

they unfortunately have to do this to him:

they fucking dropped him…