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It's a foster. I have commitment issues due to child hood trauma so I can't commit to anything.
- marley_cat : h/spiderman
Congratulations to @Spiderman ! He is the top poster of the DAY. 
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Great job @Spiderman
I love what you do for this site, and I see this scene from homecoming as a metaphor for your relationship with rDrama.
For all the r-slurs who need things explained, rdrama is the sinking ship, and @Spiderman is the hero keeping things all together. He is also the one that caused the ship to sink, but sometimes you have to sink things if you really want to see it float. Keep up the great work king!
!superheroes !friendsofspiderman !attentionmaxxers
Please say a few of your favorite things about @Spiderman.
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I was going to hold a poll to see how detailed these prompts should be, but I have been dealing with some stuff this week. If you have any feedback for how these threads can be improved in the future, do tell.
The Prompt:
Draw a cozy scene of a cat curled up on a windowsill, with a warm sunset outside and a few potted plants nearby.
.webp?h=8 "Top Hat (black) - Traditional. Classy. Elegant.")
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pls
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Game : Red Earth
PRIZE POOL : 30k MB [1st place 16k; 2nd place 11k; 3rd place 3k]
Date : 19th of October, at 9PM CEST
Spooky monsters in this game 
One of the few games Capcom made for the cps-3 board, gimmick is having a only a four characters, but each had a phonebook for movesets. You would then unlock these moves by "leveling", which is to say as you played the arcade mode it would give you the passwords for the later movesets. We'll obviously be playing on max level.
Cool stuff, good graphics 
and lastly, be on the lookout, i'mt thinking i'll host twice this month 
Sign-up link: https://www.start.gg/rDrama
LEARN THE GAME HERE:
https://wiki.gbl.gg/w/Red_Earth/War-Zard
GET YOUR DOWNLOADS HERE:
Fightcade can be downloaded here --> https://fightcade.com
JSON files (Automatic downloads) --> https://lofi.netlify.app/post/fc2-json-pack-auto-download-roms-from-fightcade-2
!fightclub @Horned_waifus_shill @jewishshrek and !g*mers
- whyareyou : We already seethed about MAP like 2 years ago
(ALSO PFR, NEW "MAP" P-DO TERM JUST DROPPED)
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Everytime I hear this it seems like it would be a slam dunk case against the registry. First you are being denied basic safety and Secondly you cannot comply with evacuation orders. Has anyone gone to court over this?
)They have places, but it does split families up.
For example, in Marion County, you'd go to the place listed at the bottom of this page:
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2024/10/07/hurricane-milton-central-florida-shelters/
Which, if you Google it, appears to be the Special Use Room at the Sheriffs department.
Yes. In my area PFR's have to check into the county jail without families and surrounded by people who would potentially do them harm.
PFR's
What is a PFR?
Person forced to register i believe
"PFR" - Person Forced to Register
New "MAP" acronym just dropped 
lol, who came up with that?! Do people think RSO's are volunteering to be on the registry ? I hardly think anyone is that dumb. Anytime I hear "forced", I equate that with the idea that the SO is a victim. Not only doesn't it help, it could possibly only push our Senators to clamp down further by saying, see, they can't be rehabilitated, they think they are a victim.
In fact, I know more than a handful of senators that would hear something like that during an election year and pounce. They know they can deliver on anything that would come from it because it's easy. Stop making it easier for them to be punitive.
Saying you are a S*x Offender isnt proper either. Implies that you are always going to be a s*x offender. Proper term is Person convicted of committing a sexual offense.
HOLY 
RALD
In Duval, the detectives and POs are checking in on everyone . two weeks ago they told people they are coming and to be where they live by a certain time. Even if they wanted to stay with a family member to ride out the storm comfortably they make it difficult to do so. Florida is the worst.
There are designated places they can go, but they often can't stay with their family in a shelter.
In our jurisdiction they are not allowed.
My county in FL has a separate shelter for SOs. I don't think family is allowed just SO/Felons.
Question for the !burgers here, by meaning "shelters" in the context of a natural disaster, you mean places specifically built to house lots of people in emergency situations in cases like this?, or homeless shelters in general?
That's fricking bullshit and nearly everyone would agree
The "separate shelter" is a big room next to the registration office that also serves as the video visitation center for the jail. It's a big metal building next door to the jail.
Absolutely ridiculous that this is even a thing. Who is really trying to track down SOs during life or death situations?
Jail, Hotel California really, would you trust your freedom to the thug jailers or brave the storm under an onramp bridge? I know my choice.
UH OH, LOOKS LIKE THE STEREOTYPES OF HOW CHOMOS ARE TREATED IN PRISON MAY BE REAL, CAUSE CHOMOS ACTUALLY ARE SCARED OF IT 
Under a bridge, clearly. I'm actually only half kidding.
In my county if a s*x offender has to evacuate they have to turn themselves into the jail.
Yeah, they don't give a [insert very creative word here because I don't need weigh in my dms giving me the mom talk] about us.
Prayers to all involved.
Marion sheriff released a statement that they should go to the check in office by the jail and would not be permitted to leave until the evacuation order was over, and that if the storm got too bad at the check in office that they would be moved across the street to inside the jail
https://old.reddit.com/r/ocala/comments/1fy9kxp/ocala_people_are_we_staying_for_this_hurricane/
I don't understand how that can legally be viewed as anything other than unlawful imprisonment. These are people who served their sentences, may not have even committed a crime in the state of Florida, and yet have to spend time in a jail when they are otherwise free citizens other than the "totally an administrative action and totally not punishment" registry.
I really hope someone can sure the state over this.
NOOOOOOOOO NOT THE HECKIN PEDORINOOOOOOOOS HECKIN SUE THESE BIGOTERINOOOOOOS NOOOOO
Florida has the harshest punishment for s*x crimes and they can't remove themselves from the registry. There is no way to reform the system because too many people want to keep things that way.
Yeah, I'm aware, that's why I think there has to be someone willing to take legal action, because there will never be political will to reduce restrictions on s*x offenders.
What the actual frick.
>NOOOO I JUST DID A HECKIN LIL CHILD S*X CRIMERINO WHY AM I BEING TREATED LIKE A HECKIN CHILD S*X CRIMINALRINO NOW?
In Duval you can go to the jailhouse
Copied from somebody else. The fact that they GO TO THIS must extreme to single us out is mind blowing. Y'all gotta get outta Florida. Wtf happened in the past that they have to take such measures? WHO messed it up for everybody?
There's now a mandatory evacuation in Marion county power MCSO.
MARION COUNTY MANDATORY EVACUATION FOR MOBILE HOMES AND RVs, ADDITIONAL SHELTER OPENINGS
MARION COUNTY, Florida [Monday, October 7, 2024] – Due to the current projected path of Hurricane Milton, Marion County Sheriff's Office Emergency Management officials have issued a mandatory evacuation order beginning on Tuesday, October 8, 2024, at 6:00 p.m. The evacuation order is for those living in mobile homes, RVs, modular-type homes, and any structure in which the resident feels unsafe.
Those living in these homes should know that if they remain in these locations, emergency personnel will not respond to their location until it is deemed safe to do so. Residents are encouraged to first seek shelter with family or friends. If that option is not available, Marion County has several shelters listed below for residents to utilize.
Shelter Locations: The following locations will open at 6:00 p.m., Tuesday, October 8, 2024, as emergency shelters in preparation for Hurricane Milton. Those seeking shelter should bring their own medications, food, and other essentials. Pet owners seeking shelter for animals should bring their own pet supplies, including crates.
General Population Shelters: • Belleview Middle School, 10500 SE 36th Avenue, Belleview, FL • Forest High School, 5000 SE Maricamp Road, Ocala, FL • Fort McCoy School, 16160 NE Highway 315, Fort McCoy, FL • Horizon Academy at Marion Oaks, 365 Marion Oaks Drive, Ocala, FL • Liberty Middle School, 4773 SW 95th Street, Ocala, FL • Madison Street Academy, 401 NW Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, Ocala, FL • North Marion Middle School, 2085 W Highway 329, Citra, FL
Special Needs Shelters: • West Port High School, 3733 SW 80th Avenue, Ocala, FL (pets of special needs residents allowed)
Pet-Friendly Shelter: • Lake Weir High School, 10351 SE Maricamp Road, Ocala, FL • Vanguard High School, 7 NW 28th Street, Ocala, FL
Sexual Offender and Predator Shelter: The MCSO Sexual Offender and Predator Unit will close to the public for registration activities on Tuesday, October 8, 2024, at 4:00 p.m. and will open as an emergency shelter for Registered Sexual Offenders and Predators at 6:00 p.m. that day. Please contact the unit by phone during normal business hours to request early acceptance. Emergency acceptances will be handled as needed after the shelter opens.
• MCSO Sexual Offender and Predator Unit, 3300 NW 10th Street, Ocala, FL
Sexual Offenders and Predators at this shelter should bring any prescribed medication, and no medical marijuana, alcohol, or weapons are allowed. They should also bring food and snacks, a pillow, a blanket, a sleeping bag, and hygiene items. Once inside the shelter, they will not be able to leave until the storm passes and it is safe to travel. They will NOT be able to bring any guests with them. If the storm increases in severity, the shelter will move to the Marion County Jail. If the shelter is moved to the jail, tobacco products and cell phones will not be allowed.
The Sexual Offender and Predator Unit will be available 24 hours a day by phone at (352) 368-3517 beginning at 8:00 a.m., on Tuesday until the storm has passed. They will also be available to field any emergency registration requests; however, non-emergency requests will be handled during normal business hours beginning at 8:00 a.m., on Friday, October 11, 2024. Thursday's hours will be determined after the storm assessment is completed for safety purposes.
Geez..."S*x Offender and Predator" 😬😞
It's absolutely insane. INSANE. So glad I don't live in Florida, or the USA. You guys put up with way more than you should.
Also - vigilantism much? Here's where all the ""predators"" are if you want to blow them up. Ugh.
Sounds like Florida is the worst state to live in when it comes to being a s*x offender, in Massachusetts it's usually just a yearly check in at the police station and even when your on parole the courts have ruled that a blanket use of things like gps monitoring are unconstitutional. I think i will stay right here
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Most Based Comments
Basedness: 🔥🔥🔥🔘🔘
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"Madam President" (-45)
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Two losers (-62)
Angriest Comments
Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡
Even if you're wealthy white male etc voting for Harris is the right choice. I was raised conservative in Ohio, I'm white, male, I do really well in my career. I vote dem every election, up and down ballot. Government is not about being selfish, and trying to "get mine" - its about stability and longevity of our society and our nation. Voting dem gives me and my family the best possible chance to continue to thrive, by giving opportunities to everyone else as well. More education, more job opportunities, more access to healthcare, means less crime, better technology, more breakthroughs, cleaner environment, better food, better medicine, better cures for diseases, more solutions for climate and economic problems, and so on. I'll gladly pay my fair share of taxes, because my family has everything they need, and will always have everything they need. I want other families to have the same opportunity, and for society as a whole to support that structure into the future. We have enough ... (439)
Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡
If COVID hadn't interrupted his last term, who knows how it would have gone. He probably would have waited to get real crazy until his 2nd because he was SO sure of a win. (43)
Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡
Biggest Lolcow: /u/Terrible-Set2948
Score: 🐮🐮🔘🔘🔘
Number of comments: 3
Average angriness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘
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NEW: Subscribe to /h/miners to see untapped drama veins, ripe for mining! 
autodrama: automating away the jobs of dramneurodivergents. 
Ping HeyMoon if there are any problems or you have a suggestion 
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Hollywood, meet your new A-List.
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) October 10, 2024
From staggeringly talented TikTokers to the Instagram stars we can’t look away from, these are the names who will (and should) be dominating the business of new and old media: https://t.co/3e2opQYCon pic.twitter.com/yV2Aixwj8G
?????
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Hacker News:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41809698 (309 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41757178 (53 comments)
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Damage is insane everywhere. I tooks some video. Going to gather more pictures and footage before I share the next batch.
- oniifam : Babylon Bee users should be shot
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Most Based Comments
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Kamala is not perplexed, she has the Redditors telling her she's winng (245)
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Nobody was coming back from Covid as President . Jesus himself would have lost because covid was such a perplexed issue that someone somewhere would have blamed/shitted on you for something. There was no way around it tbh. Trump shuts the country down earlier and there would have been people pooping on him about the economy crashing. If he left it open longer there would have been people pooping on him about losing lives. It was pretty much a double edged sword! (2)
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Hey dude, just another randomly dude scrolling through because Reddit somehow recommended this subreddit and post to me. So many people answered your question, don't you have a response for it? I'm curious to know, do you still think that Kamala is an illegitimate nominee? (1)
Biggest Lolcow: /u/ItchyAnusEczema
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NEW: Subscribe to /h/miners to see untapped drama veins, ripe for mining!
autodrama: automating away the jobs of dramneurodivergents. Ping HeyMoon if there are any problems or you have a suggestion
of 4chan 
(r*peape) was doxxed by the sharty 
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A bit late but I'm surprised 
it was not posted when it happened
The thread 
where 
it all happened
https://archive.soyjak.st/soy/thread/8748664
https://soyjak.st/soy/thread/8748664.html#8753203
Kiwis discuss
https://kiwifarms.st/threads/4chan.37222/page-337#post-19512094
- HailVictory1776 : People are reading "The Culture of Critique" by Dr. Kevin Macdonald
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Every single book is female coded pic.twitter.com/5KlflatLP5
— Lomez (@L0m3z) October 8, 2024
The Iliad stands alone
It's only there because the most recent translation by Emily Wilson
.
The male porn is online
Yes
.
For fiction, yeah. Only -aggots read fiction.
You're going to the mines
.
all reading is female coded . men dont read books . i will be teaching a course on masculinity/ clout tomorrow at 3 pm et if u would like to participate lmk
.
𝕋𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕡𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝕙𝕒𝕤 𝕓𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕓𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕝𝕖𝕕 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕥𝕨𝕠 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕝𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕣𝕪 𝕙𝕠𝕞𝕠𝕤𝕖𝕩𝕦𝕒𝕝 𝕔𝕠𝕨𝕓𝕠𝕪𝕤
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Doing a meth head couple playthrough.
What skills should ī invest in?
Definitely Chemist, Lockpicking, Pickpocket since he will be stealing a lot for making drugs.
Ī'm thinking about making it so ī ām not allowed tø heal addictions.
What minimum SPECIAL stats are needed tø focus on those skills? Ī know meth heads don't have high Int but Ī would avoid investing in Int skills that don't apply tø them.
Trans lives matter in the wasteland
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Pitching to fencesitters is a losing strategy when you're going into a race with more than 81 million incumbent Biden voters in the wings.
But hey, it gets clicks and helps Neoliberals distance themselves from anything approaching accountability for their shitty policies.
May I ask why it's a losing strategy? I always thought Swing voters were the most important.
I'm genuinely curious, not trying to be rude.
Swing voters are not the most important. What's important in a general election between two candidates of major parties is getting out as many votes as possible from those who already support that party or candidate, but might not be committed enough to actually vote.
Why not both?
Because conservative white dudes ("undecided voters") have very different policy priorities from everyone else, and making a big show of appealing to them at all costs is how the Democrats avoid discussing any economic policy Left of Nixon.
this mod always has the best takes 
I loathe the way manosphere is used in this context. It is reductionist and similar to how misogyny treats feminism. Progressives shouldn't leave spaces that address traditional masculinity, we should enter them listen to conservative voices with compassion and share our experiences. So many of the young men that become radically conservative are easily reachable by the left, we just need to show them there is a form of masculinity that both preserves the strengths of traditional masculinity and delicately handles where aspects that can become problematic.
What are the strengths of traditional masculinity which ought to be preserved?
defending those who cannot defend themselves
brotherhood and male kinship with deep emotional connection
growth by confronting fears and obstacles directly instead of avoiding conflict
But none of that should be gendered.
every single time
Company Supplying Thousands of Tech Workers to Silicon Valley Discriminated Against Non-Indians, Jury Finds - 18
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A company that supplies thousands of workers for Silicon Valley's technology industry and other Bay Area employers intentionally discriminated against non-Indian workers, a jury has found.
The jury verdict against Cognizant, founded in Chennai and now headquartered in New Jersey, came Friday in a class-action lawsuit that revolved around claims the firm abused the H-1B visa process. The visa is intended for workers with specialized skills, and Silicon Valley tech firms rely on it heavily to secure top talent and also to obtain workers for lower-level jobs via Cognizant and other staffing firms.
Three U.S.-born workers described in the lawsuit as "Caucasian" — Vartan Piroumian of California, Christy Palmer of Arizona and Edward Cox of Texas — sued Cognizant in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in 2017. Another plaintiff described as Caucasian, Jean-Claude Franchitti, a green card holder from France, joined as a plaintiff later.
The lawsuit claimed Cognizant ousted many non-Indian workers by first taking them off projects and "benching" them without work, then keeping them benched until firing them in accordance with a company policy.
Federal government data show Cognizant obtains H-1B visas for hundreds of Indian citizens to work in Bay Area jobs per year, said Ron Hira, a Howard University professor who studies the visa and testified for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. {snip}
The H-1B has become a political flashpoint. Critics point to abuses including replacement of U.S. workers by visa holders, while the tech industry lobbies to boost the annual cap on new visas past 85,000.
The most recent research, by the Bay Area Council, showed nearly 60,000 foreign citizens on the H-1B were approved to work for Bay Area companies in 2019. The vast majority are from India.
Because of Cognizant's preference for Indian workers, it seeks as many visas as possible, and the company has become a top recipient of H-1B visas by submitting visa applications tied to "jobs that do not exist," the lawsuit alleged.
Franchitti, with a PhD in computer science, was hired in 2007, and in his nine years at Cognizant as a director and executive, witnessed the company's preference for Indians on visas, the lawsuit claimed. When he secured new business for the company, his manager "would staff the client projects with visa-holding employees from India, rather than non-Indian members of Mr. Franchitti's group who were already in the U.S. and available for this work," the lawsuit alleged.
Franchitti was fired in 2016 after complaining repeatedly that he was being made to sign hundreds of fraudulent invitation letters supporting H-1B visa applications for jobs that didn't exist {snip}
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Here's the jannied thread
https://old.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/1g15ra5/witcher_20_and_rings_of_power_level_failure/
They're comparing it to the Witcher and Rings of Power lmao
!bookworms do HPcels deserve it?
What do you guys think they'll change? Harry being gay for Ron? Voldemort r*pes Lily Potter before killing her? Snape is Harry's father?
What a fricking joke, I'm so disappointed. The only reason I'm rooting for this show and backing it is because it was supposed to be a more faithful adaptation.
They won't be able to outdo the movies if they just redo all their mistakes.
I want to see more Dobby, I want to meet Winky, I want to see Bagman, I want to get all those random chapters from OOTP that added literally nothing but were so fun to read, I want to see all the Voldemort memories from HBP, I want to have the fricking mystery from GOF for fricks sake, they cut out the most important aspect of that book. I don't want anything left out, I want to see the books on the big screen.
I want literally everything they decided wasn't important enough to include the first time. I'm so upset by this, I really hope they come to their senses.
AAAAAGGHHH I NEED TO SEE MORE OF DOBBERYNO 
Rings of Power cares about the source, they just don't have access to it so they are doing the best that they can for a property the creators love. It would be much, much worse in other people's hands.
LMAO, !ringbearers imagine believing this?
Why is TERF mommy allowing her IP to be r*ped?
:meowmeowmeow: ᓚᘏᗢ
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when you've been pumping iron and washing your peepee and still don't have zero bitches, a saga 
you must be thinking that he's been at this for a long time to be feeling so defeated, and it's true 
I hate to say it brocels but maybe the femoids were right that scrotes all need therapey 
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What is the gopher supposed to represent though? I mean this unironically. It's in a hat so it's not just a gopher. It may note even be a gopher, it's quite large??
Why is he drawing a Biden Trump debate comic now???
Does the bird represent anything???
Many questions. Ben sure is enigmatic artiste
Should President Trump take a break from golfing until after he becomes President? The Secret Service isn't giving him full protection...sounds like a prudent move by President Trump, take no chances because the DS is panicking.... pic.twitter.com/qkINm2x6yV
— Real Ben Garrison Cartoons (@GrrrGraphics) October 12, 2024
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I like to take what the FordPass GPS says is my original ETA and see how much I can beat it by.
Instead I just spent over an hour on a 20 minute drive to my stylist. Why? Because some STUPID C*NT NOT EVEN OLD OR ASIAN JUST SOME CHUNKY WHITE B-WORD IN HER 20S OR 30S decided to hit a max speed of around 20mph on roads that are 35-50. We dropped to around 5 in parts. This is not an exaggeration.
I could have illegally passed her and I was raging the entire time and should have just gone around but I think this was some sort of psychic self-harm. No she wasn't doing it to spite me because I was honking, I didn't start holding the horn down until we'd already come to a near complete stop for no reason a few times.
Diversity Is Our Strength 
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JIM CRAMER: “I DON’T SEE HOW HE [TRUMP] WINS” pic.twitter.com/9gUVMHBtXD
— NewsWire (@NewsWire_US) October 11, 2024
!nooticers oh no no no no no 
jawline Lara Croft incoming, and current year Western animation/vidya women becoming either masculine 
jawline gxrlbosses or sexless androgynous genderblobs, /tv/irgins nootice the constant use of the same fricking pseudo-anime androgynous Netflixcore artstyle that has dominated "adult" animation in the recent years - 54
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why does all netflix animation look like this
record of ragnarok/castlevania/heman reboot
what is the name of the studio responsible for this generic, cheap-looking androgynous art?
there has to be a name for this art style
it's like androgynous tumblr art without the bulbous red noses
It's like between anime and cartoons but the worst of both of them. It has to just be super cheap.
I fricking hate this western "not anime" artstyle. I've hated it since teen titans in like 2003
wikihow
honestly the manjaw somehow bothers me more than the (lack of) tits
Don't they understand that most women won't watch this shit? It's like when leftist c*nts shit their pants over Rey not being in Star wars monopoly, so they recalled it all, put her in it, and then lost a ton of money because no one bought it. Leftists don't give a frick off things make sense or work. So long as it "looks good" and makes them feel good on the inside then who gives about if everything you touch slowly turns to slop.
Finkpunk
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SHEILA AND I ARE BOTH CELEBRATING HER EARLY SUTURE REMOVAL BY LISTENING TO MUSIC AND BEIN' SILLY 
I swear I was about to lose my mind with the chaos of it all!
Bless you all on this pretty-good Friday!
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How many American lives could have been saved with the Covid tests that tRUMP sent to Putin? 🇷🇺#AmericaFirst 🇺🇸
— Mark Hamill (@MarkHamill) October 10, 2024
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On the one hand, the anti-monopoly movement has a future no matter who wins the 2024 election - that's true even if Kamala Harris wins but heeds the calls from billionaire donors to fire Lina Khan and her fellow trustbusters.
In part, that's because US antitrust laws have broad "private rights of action" that allow individuals and companies to sue one another for monopolistic conduct, even if top government officials are turning a blind eye. It's true that from the Reagan era to the Biden era, these private suits were few and far between, and the cases that were brought often died in a federal courtroom. But the past four years has seen a resurgence of antitrust rage that runs from left to right, and from individuals to the C-suites of big companies, driving a wave of private cases that are prevailing in the courts, upending the pro-monopoly precedents that billionaires procured by offering free "continuing education" antitrust training to 40% of the Federal judiciary:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down
It's amazing to see the DoJ racking up huge wins against Google's monopolistic conduct, sure, but first blood went to Epic, who won a historic victory over Google in federal court six months before the DoJ's win, which led to the court ordering Google to open up its app store:
Google's 30% App Tax is a giant drag on all kinds of sectors, as is its veto over which software Android users get to see, so Epic's win is going to dramatically alter the situation for all kinds of activities, from beleaguered indie game devs:
https://antiidlereborn.com/news/
To the entire news sector:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-must-open-app-stores
Private antitrust cases have attracted some very surprising plaintiffs, like Michael Jordan, whose long police of apoliticism crumbled once he bought a NASCAR team and lived through the monopoly abuses of sports leagues as an owner, not a player:
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/michael-jordan-anti-monopolist
A much weirder and more unlikely antitrust plaintiff than Michael Jordan is Google, the perennial antitrust defendant. Google has brought a complaint against Microsoft in the EU, based on Microsoft's extremely ugly monopolistic cloud business:
Google's choice of venue here highlights another reason to think that the antitrust surge will continue irrespective of US politics: antitrust is global. Antitrust fervor has seized governments from the UK to the EU to South Korea to Japan. All of those countries have extremely similar antitrust laws, because they all had their statute books overhauled by US technocrats as part of the Marshall Plan, so they have the same statutory cowtools as the American trustbusters who dismantled Standard Oil and AT&T, and who are making ready to shatter Google into several competing businesses:
Antitrust fever has spread to Canada, Australia, and even China, where the Cyberspace Directive bans Chinese tech giants from breaking interoperability to freeze out Chinese startups. Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops, and the cost of 40 years of pro-monopoly can't be ignored. Monopolies make the whole world more brittle, even as the cost of that brittleness mounts. It's hard to pretend monopolies are fine when a single hurricane can wipe out the entire country's supply of IV fluid - again:
https://prospect.org/health/2024-10-11-cant-believe-im-writing-about-iv-fluid-again/
What's more, the conduct of global monopolists is the same in every country where they have taken hold, which means that trustbusters in the EU can use the UK Digital Markets Unit's report on the mobile app market as a roadmap for their enforcement actions against Apple:
And then the South Korean and Japanese trustbusters can translate the court documents from the EU's enforcement action and use them to score victories over Apple in their own courts:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/10/an-injury-to-one/#is-an-injury-to-all
So on the one hand, the trustbusting wave will continue erode the foundations of global monopolies, no matter what happens after this election. But on the other hand, if Harris wins and then fires Biden's top trustbusters to appease her billionaire donors, things are going to get ugly.
A new, excellent long-form Bloomberg article by Josh Eidelson and Max Chafkin gives a sense of the battle raging just below the surface of the Democratic Power, built around a superb interview with Khan herself:
The article begins with a litany of tech billionaires who've gone an all-out, public assault on Khan's leadership - billionaires who stand to personally lose hundreds of millions of dollars from her agency's principled, vital antitrust work, but who cloak their objection to Khan in rhetoric about defending the American economy. In public, some of these billionaires are icily polite, but many of them degenerate into frothing, toddler-grade name-calling, like IAB's Barry Diller, who called her a "dope" and Musk lickspittle Jason Calacanis, who called her an all-caps COMMUNIST and a LUNATIC.
The overall vibe from these wreckers? "How dare the FTC do things?!"
And you know, they have a point. For decades, the FTC was - in the quoted words of Tim Wu - "a very hardworking agency that did nothing." This was the period when the FTC targeted low-level scammers while turning a blind eye to the monsters that were devouring the US economy. In part, that was because the FTC had been starved of budget, trapping them in a cycle of racking up easy, largely pointless "wins" against penny-ante grifters to justify their existence, but never to the extent that Congress would apportion them the funds to tackle the really serious cases (if this sounds familiar, it's also the what happened during the long period when the IRS chased middle class taxpayers over minor filing errors, while ignoring the billionaires and giant corporations that engaged in 7- and 8-figure tax scams).
But the FTC wasn't merely underfunded: it was timid. The FTC has extremely broad enforcement and rulemaking powers, which most sat dormant during the neoliberal era:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge
The Biden administration didn't merely increase the FTC's funding: in choosing Khan to helm the organization, they brought onboard a skilled technician, who was both well-versed in the extensive but unused powers of the agency and determined to use them:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff
But Khan's didn't just rely on technical chops and resources to begin the de-olicharchification of the US economy: she built a three-legged stool, whose third leg is narrative. Khan's signature is her in-person and remote "listening tours," where workers who've been harmed by corporate power get to tell their stories. Bloomberg recounts the story of Deborah Brantley, who was sexually harassed and threatened by her bosses at Kavasutra North Palm Beach. Brantley's bosses touched her inappropriately and "joked" about drugging her and raping her so she "won't be such a b-word and then maybe people would like you more."
When Brantley finally quit and took a job bartending at a different business, Kavasutra sued her over her noncompete clause, alleging an "irreparable injury" sustained by having one of their former employees working at another business, seeking damages and fees.
The vast majority of the 30 million American workers who labor under noncompetes are like Brantley, low-waged service workers, especially at fast-food restaurants (so Wendy's franchisees can stop minimum wage cashiers from earning $0.25/hour more flipping burgers at a nearby McDonald's). The donor-class indenturers who defend noncompetes claim that noncompetes are necessary to protect "innovative" businesses from losing their "IP." But of course, the one state where no workers are subject to noncompetes is California, which bans them outright - the state that is also home to Silicon Valley, an IP-heave industry that the same billionaires laud for its innovations.
After that listening tour, Khan's FTC banned noncompetes nationwide:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/25/capri-v-tapestry/#aiming-at-dollars-not-men
Only to have a federal judge in Texas throw out their ban, a move that will see $300b/year transfered from workers to shareholders, and block the formation of 8,500 new US businesses every year:
https://www.npr.org/2024/08/21/g-s1-18376/federal-judge-tosses-ftc-noncompetes-ban
Notwithstanding court victories like Epic v Google and DoJ v Google, America's oligarchs have the courts on their side, thanks to decades of court-packing planned by the Federalist Society and executed by Senate Republicans and Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and Trump. Khan understands this; she told Bloomberg that she's a "close student" of the tactics Reagan used to transform American society, admiring his effectiveness while hating his results. Like other transformative presidents, good and bad, Reagan had to fight the judiciary and entrenched institutions (as did FDR and Lincoln). Erasing Reagan's legacy is a long-term project, a battle of inches that will involve mustering broad political support for the cause of a freer, more equal America.
Neither Biden nor Khan are responsible for the groundswell of US - and global - movement to euthanize our rentier overlords. This is a moment whose time has come; a fact demonstrated by the tens of thousands of working Americans who filled the FTC's noncompete docket with outraged comments. People understand that corporate looters - not "the economy" or "the forces of history" - are the reason that the businesses where they worked and shopped were destroyed by private equity goons who amassed intergenerational, dynastic fortunes by strip-mining the real economy and leaving behind rubble.
Like the billionaires publicly demanding that Harris fire Khan, private equity bosses can't stop making tone-deaf, guillotine-conjuring pronouncements about their own virtue and the righteousness of their businesses. They don't just want to destroy the world - they want to be praised for it:
"Private equity's been a great thing for America" -Stephen Pagliuca, co-chairman of Bain Capital;
"We are taught to judge the success of a society by how it deals with the least able, most vulnerable members of that society. Shouldn't we judge a society by how they treat the most successful? Do we vilify, tax, expropriate and condemn those who have succeeded, or do we celebrate economic success as the engine that propels our society toward greater collective well-being?" -Marc Rowan, CEO of Apollo
"Achieve life-changing money and power," -Sachin Khajuria, former partner at Apollo
Meanwhile, the "buy, strip and flip" model continues to chew its way through America. When PE buys up all the treatment centers for kids with behavioral problems, they hack away at staffing and oversight, turning them into nightmares where kids are routinely abused, r*ped and murdered:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/they-told-me-it-was-going-be-good-place-allega-tions-n987176
When PE buys up nursing homes, the same thing happens, with elderly residents left to sit in their own excrement and then die:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/24/nursing-homes-private-equity-fraud-00132001
Writing in The Guardian, Alex Blasdel lays out the case for private equity as a kind of virus that infects economies, parasitically draining them of not just the capacity to provide goods and services, but also of the ability to govern themselves, as politicians and regulators are captured by the unfathomable sums that PE flushes into the political process:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/oct/10/slash-and-burn-is-private-equity-out-of-control
Now, the average worker who's just lost their job may not understand "divi recaps" or "2-and-20" or "carried interest tax loopholes," but they do understand that something is deeply rotten in the world today.
What happens to that understanding is a matter of politics. The Republicans - firmly affiliated with, and beloved of, the wreckers - have chosen an easy path to capitalizing on the rising rage. All they need to do is convince the public that the system is irredeemably corrupt and that the government can't possibly fix anything (hence Reagan's asinine "joke": "the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.'"
This is a very canny strategy. If you are the party of "governments are intrinsically corrupt and incompetent," then governing corruptly and incompetently proves your point. The GOP strategy is to create a nation of enraged nihilists who don't even imagine that the government could do something to hold their bosses to account - not for labor abuses, not for pollution, not for wage theft or bribery.
The fact that successive neoliberal governments - including Democratic administrations - acted time and again to bear out this hypothesis makes it easy for this kind of nihilism to take hold.
Far-right conspiracies about pharma bosses colluding with corrupt FDA officials to poison us with vaccines for profit owe their success to the lived experience of millions of Americans who lost loved ones to a conspiracy between pharma bosses and corrupt officials to poison us with opioids.
Unhinged beliefs that "they" caused the hurricanes tearing through Florida and Georgia and that Kamala Harris is capping compensation to people who lost their homes are only credible because of murderous Republican fumble during Katrina; and the larcenous collusion of Democrats to help banks steal Americans' homes during the foreclosure crisis, when Obama took Tim Geithner's advice to "foam the runway" with the mortgages of everyday Americans who'd been cheated by their banks:
If Harris gives in to billionaire donors and fires Khan and her fellow trustbusters, paving the way for more looting and scamming, the result will be more nihilism, which is to say, more electoral victories for the GOP. The "government can't do anything" party already exists. There are no votes to be gained by billing yourself as the "we also think governments can't do anything" party.
In other words, a world where Khan doesn't run the FTC is a world where antitrust continues to gain ground, but without taking Democrats with it. It's a world where nihilism wins.
There's factions of the Democratic Party who understand this. AOC warned party leaders that, "Anyone goes near Lina Khan and there will be an out and out brawl":
Let me make this clear, since billionaires have been trying to play footsie with the ticket:
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 9, 2024
Anyone goes near Lina Khan and there will be an out and out brawl. And that is a promise.
She proves this admin fights for working people. It would be terrible leadership to remove her. https://t.co/ba3nUY35Cg
And Bernie Sanders called her "the best FTC Chair in modern history":
.@mcuban is wrong. Lina Khan is the best FTC Chair in modern history.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) October 8, 2024
By taking on corporate greed & illegal monopolies, Lina is doing an exceptional job preventing large corporations from ripping-off consumers & exploiting workers.
Thanks @linakhanFTC for what you are doing. https://t.co/IYJP3LhGsP
In other words: Lina Khan as a posse.
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