Part 3 of this series took us up to June. I haven't had a big enough block of free time to follow up since then (seriously, this involves a heck of a lot of reading) but our girl just keeps finding herself in more trouble faster than I can document it. The last couple months especially have been a roller coaster.

When we left off, Alice had been positively identified as Chinese national Guo Hua Ping who moved to the Philippines in 2003. We were beginning to unravel the secrets of the whole family, like the siblings she forgot existed and then remembered later. She's obviously guilty of all kinds of stuff, but hasn't actually been arrested yet. She's only being questioned the senate.

Such a troublemaker.

The investigators begin unraveling ties from the Bamban POGO to all kinds of nefarious activity, including the Pharmally scandal. Pandemic response money was stolen like in every country in the world. In the Philippines the people who got it were Chinese gangsters close to both then-President Duterte and the Chinese Communist Party.

This was far from the only POGO news. On June 4 the Lucky South 99 (gee, I wonder what nationality the owners of that were) POGO compound was raided. It was another massive complex, with 46 buildings on 5.8 hectares (14 acres). Apparently these guys had the guts to just continue this massive operation knowing that the entire country was trying to find more to shut down. The raid had been leaked to the gangsters but they still managed to arrest 190 and rescue 158 slaves.

I could make a joke here about "Lucky South 99" but I'm way too classy for that.

Eventually Alice stopped showing up to the Senate hearings, explaining that she was "traumatized" by being asked questions like if she has any brothers and sisters. She kept insisting that she just didn't have enough spoons to be interrogated. After the second time she did this, the Senate lost its patience and on July 11 issued arrest warrants for her and several family members and business associates. While waiting for her to show up, every agency in the country responsible for white collar crime opens their own investigations: taxes, money laundering, immigration.

Where did she Guo?

Suggested soundtrack for this part: Del Shannon - "Runaway" or Johnny Cash - "Cocaine Blues"

Senator Risa Hontiveros, the gigastacy who has been leading the investigation, officially announced what everyone already knew on August 19. Guo and her family had fled the country. It's still not entirely clear when and how it happened apart from the fact it was in week or two after July 13. What is clear is that she'd been allowed to just walk around in freedom without even any surveilance. About a dozen authorities must have dropped the ball for this to happen. It must have taken a pretty staggering combination of corruption, incompetence, and laziness for them to all frick up this bad.

MFW President Marcos says "LET ME BE CLEAR: Heads will roll" over Guo's escape.

There's 7,461 islands in the Philippines with quite a bit of coastline, so there's countless places where she could have just gotten on a boat and left, probably for Sabah in nearby Malaysia. She was reportedly spotted in various places in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. The Guo girls ought to record their own version of Johnny Cash's "I've Been Everywhere" except with places across all of Southeast Asia.

The fugitives' main base: The Harris Hotel in Batam, Indonesia. It's not luxurious but at $50/night this is cheaper than literally every available room in the Portland metro area.

The public reaction was a mix of outrage and fatalistic apathy. I mean, you kind of knew that this was gonna happen. If you get angry every time there's a corruption scandal you'll go insane, so you can't take it too seriously. The country missed their favorite daughter Alice so much that restaurants competed to offer her the best free meal when she returns. The whole pursuit had a farcical air to it, like if 100 million people were watching the Keystone Kops trying to round up an r-slur who had escaped from the asylum. In a way it felt like OJ Simpson's low speed white Bronco chase.

Those were the days, amirite?

Not so fast

The monumental failure of the Guos' escape put on display the worst qualities of Filipino society, but it has many good qualities too. It is truly democratic, maybe even more than most first world countries. If it was like North America and Europe the ruling elites could have simply said that the only real problem was sinophobia and "anti-immigration hysteria" by "right-wing extremists" and forgotten about the whole thing. But Filipinos aren't afraid of being labeled alt-right. They're afraid of the goddarn Chinese taking over their country. And when most of the population agree on something and really care about it, they'll use the ballot or revolution to get it done. So the government realized that it was time to get their asses into gear.

EDSA, Metro Manila, 1986. The People Power Revolution that overthrew the current president's father. There's a reason why Filipinos are known as the world's most powerful race.

You may be wondering why their passports weren't revoked. This isn't as dumb as it sounds. As long as they were traveling under a Filipino passport other countries had to cooperate with Filipino law enforcement. By the time Sen. Hontiveros announced the escape on the 19th the Filipino Bureau of Immigration was already working with regional counterparts to track them down. Shiela Guo and Cassandra Ong (a whole new character who deserves her own post) were picked up by Indonesian authorities in Batam on the 21st and immediately deported. Shiela was soon dragged before the Senate where she suffered from the usual Guo family amnesia. One thing she did remember was that she is not in fact biologically related to Alice or her father. By now there was a mountain of evidence showing that Alice's POGO in Bamban and the more recently busted POGO in Angeles City were run by the same crime ring which was led partly by the Guo "family".

I had to check to make sure this was the Cassandra Ong who is a leading suspect at the heart of a vast international organized crime investigation, not All-American high school squash player Cassandra Ong. Who I'm sure has a very interesting life but it's not part of this story.

On the night of September 3, Alice Guo's luck finally ran out. She had been tracked down to a villa just outside Jakarta. Elite police commandos carefully crept up and waited, hearts pounding with tension, until they heard the command to go. Breaking in from five different places they moved to quickly secure the building, but it all went wrong from the start. Alice was waiting for them. Armor-piercing bullets shot out of her gun as a torrent of profanity in three languages shot out of her mouth. Four of the men had burst into the living room where she was. They were down before they even knew what was happening. She immediately swept through the rest of the house, emptying another magazine each one and wiping out the rest of the assault team. The police commander, desperate to rescue his wounded men, ordered that tear gas grenades be shot into the house and personally led the attack with his remaining men. But Alice already had her gas mask on and she had taken those few minutes to set up claymore mines with tripwires. The second assault force was destroyed even faster than the first. At this point military reinforcements were arriving with armored vehicles. Alice would occasionally stick her head out the window long enough to shout profane taunts, complaining that they were boring her, and taking pot shots at the troops cowering behind cover. After a few hours of consultation, President Joko Widodo finally authorized that any force necessary be taken. Tanks shelled the building dozens of times until it was completely obliterated. The troops advanced methodically, firing thousands of rounds as they approached. Shortly after dawn it finally was over. She was found lying under the rubble of the villa, gun still clutched in her hand with a broad smile across her face.

Indonesian commandos inspect the damage to the courtyard around the villa following the battle.

Nah, just kidding. The local cops went over there and found her in her pajamas, probably eating chocolate ice cream and watching The Gilmore Girls. She was taken into custody without incident and quickly extradited. She is now in a cell at Camp Crame, the national police headquarters.

Her no-makeup just got arrested look.

A social media star is born

Our girl, despite being in custody, managed to cause yet another scandal before even leaving Jakarta, and she did it just by being adorable. The Interior Secretary and chief of the Philippine National Police have caught some controversy for posing with her in a selfie like dumbstuck fanboys of a k-pop idol. But can you blame them? Alice's unbreakable optimism is infectious. You just can't help but join in!

Don't claim you would have done anything differently.

With agents of the National Bureau of Investigation and Bureau of Immigration. See, nobody can help themselves!

President Duterte's explanation: "We are the selfie capital of the world." Seems about the best take on this to me.

She even looks pretty dreamy in orange.

In conclusion, I'm beginning to wonder now if she's literally r-slurred. She's got that some upbeat attitude all the time like Forrest Gump. Even in all the hot water she's in right now, she's happy because looking on the bright side at least she can't be literally torn apart by a mob while she's in jail. I wish I could be more like that. She also reminds me of another of the most compelling characters of recent times, Darrel Brooks. They both have legal strategies based on constantly telling obvious lies. By obvious, I mean one step in sophistication above me when I was a toddler blaming everything on my imaginary doppelganger. I have to remind myself of where this story all began with those hundreds of slaves to stop myself from sympathizing with her. I'd say, if being nice and taking selfies with her gets her to cooperate, they should go for it. She's the chisel that we can use to break open an even larger organized crime network across all of Southeast East Asia and who knows where else.

Unfortunately we have to expect that Alice's shirt will probably remain on throughout the proceedings.

For this segment I dashed through the material as fast as I could and didn't explore a lot of branches that I hope I'll get to someday: there's been more news about POGOs in general, VP Sara Duterte is tangentially involved in all this, Risa Hontiveros is an interesting character, links to international organized crime like that huge money laundering ring in Singapore. Cassandra Ong is a whole new qt like Alice but with her own personality. (There should be a Japanese dating simulator with them as characters.) But I don't know if I'll catch up. While writing this, Alice has appeared before the Senate and caused drama again. More importantly, Apollo Quiboloy, the country's other most wanted fugitive often mentioned together with Alice, has now been caught. He's the leader of a huge cult, a corrupt influence peddler, a child molester on a massive scale, and this bastard even got Ang Probinsyano shut down!

Actual footage of the cops closing in on Quiboloy. He won't underestimate this probinsyano again.

It looks like I'll be busy for a while.

!pinoypride

Car Info and Introduction:

Year: 2004

Model: Carrera 4S

Milage: 62,000 Miles

Miles Since Last Oil Change: 4000mi

Oil: Motul 8100 X-Cess Gen 2 5w40

Additives: 2 Bottles LubroMoly Ceratec

Modifications: Low-Temp Thermostat, Magnetic Drain Plug, Rennline Tunable Semi-Solid Engine Mounts, LN Spin-On Oil Filter Adapter with NAPA Gold filter, No cats (stolen), LN Single-Row Ceramic IMS Bearing installed at 16,000mi.

I thought I would write up some info on my car and its cylinder heath in order to track bore scoring progression, symptoms, and what I'm doing to slow its decline.

2004 Carrera 4S - Technically fourth owner. Was owned by two individuals before being purchased by my father in 2013 at 16,000 miles. Summer driven only except for a few regretful startups and idling in the winter. Maintained first at dealer, then independent specialist, then me once I started to become proficient. I was given the car by my father at 40,000 miles, although only transferred it into my name upon his passing.

Previous Service:

4,000mi ago, in 2023 I experienced constant misfires in all cylinders on Bank 2 (4, 5, and 6). I diagnosed this as a bad Variocam solenoid. At the time I had some extra cash from some art sales, a lot of free time, and decided to do a minor overhaul/refresh of the engine. As part of the process I scoped the cylinders, both through the sump and spark plug holes and discovered very light scoring/scratching in some of the cylinders. Unfortunately I did not mark which image went to which cylinder, but an example of the worst of it can be seen below:

Because of the minor severity of it, and the fact I'd just spent my $6k budget on parts and cowtools, I decided to go forward with the minor refresh and check back on the scoring during the next oil change. I pulled the engine and transmission and replaced the following (from memory, will add additional items if I recall later): spark plugs, coils, Variocam solenoids and actuators, AOS and all associated plumbing, power steering upper and lower reservoir and o-rings, oil cooler o-rings, cam position sensors, crank position sensor, coolant hoses, low-temp thermostat, coolant, water pump, magnetic drain plug, LN spin-on oil filter adapter, belt tensioner and pulleys, clutch, clutch slave cylinder (blew old one out upon reinstallation), MAF, vacuum hoses (replaced with silicone, intake gaskets and o-rings, checked oil pickup tubes for debris and smoke tested the engine. I also tossed on a fresh set of rear tires and welded the loose baffles in the factory Sport Exhaust.

I wanted to change the injectors but the affordable OEM options were not available at that time.

Compression is good and less than 10% on all cylinders except for Cylinder 1, which suffers due to a leaky exhaust valve.

I chose to refill it with Motul X-Cess Gen2 5w40. Previously it has used LubroMoly 5w40. I added two bottles of LubroMoly Ceratec.

The Past 4000mi:

Further precautions included not letting it idle upon startup, driving only in moderate weather, and not revving above 3500rpm for the first five to ten miles. I am also careful not to lug the engine and drive taking advantage of the car's momentum.

So far the car has not exhibited any other symptoms of bore scoring. Plugs are not fouled, no ticking or slapping noises, and both exhaust pipes are clean as a whistle.

Inspection Results:

Drain Plug:

One small shard of ferrous metal on plug, small amount of ferrous powder.

Oil Filter:

One spec of green Variocam seal, or or two brown flakes from timing chain guides.

Spark Plugs:

All spark plugs show even burn with no fouling or dampness.

Cylinder 1:

Cylinder 1 pics are from the top (plug side) only.

Cylinder 2:

Cylinder 3:

Cylinder 4:

Cylinder 4 shows the worst scoring.

Cylinder 5:

Cylinder 6:

Cylinder 6 shows some discoloration/wear(?) at the bottom of the cylinder.

I also am sending my used oil out for analysis and will add the results when they are delivered.

Conclusion and Plan Moving Forward:

I will be replacing the semi-solid engine mounts with factory mounts due to the data I've read on Rennlist regarding solid mounts. I wonder if my bad exhaust valve could be contributed to this.

As the car is asymptomatic and scoring is still relatively minor, I plan on continuing to drive it while saving for a DIY rebuild. I put around 5k miles on the car per year, and feel I can get at least another 6k out of it before tearing it apart.

If no external symptoms prompt me next year, in the fall I will scope the engine again to check progression.

When the time comes I will send the block to LN for nickies and order the Jake Raby book and video series, while doing the labor myself. I've never rebuilt an engine before, but there's a first time for everything and I can't imagine my financial situation improving to the point where I could afford an FSI rebuild. I also don't want to spend $30k on a car that's only worth $35-45k. I do, however, plan on keeping the car for as long as possible.

Over the winter my goal is to purchase and install a third radiator kit and install the LN Single Row Pro bearing, as the current ceramic bearing is past it's lifespan and very close to the maximum miles recommended.

Thoughts, analysis, opinions, and questions are all welcome.

>Hi there. Hope you are doing well.

>May I know the domain name?

You at 12:26, Sep 6:

Yes it's bgillettephoto.com

I'm trying to forward it to bradgillette.net, but every time it asks me to verify and sends me a code, it says the code is incorrect, even though I'm copying it verbatim

Now it says I'm locked out from doing that for seven days

Read

>Pranjal dhiman at 12:27, Sep 6:

>Thank you for sharing your concern, I will definitely help you. Please help us to validate the account so we can check from our end and assist you better

>Pranjal dhiman has sent you a Secure Form: PIN and Customer Number

>The following Secure Form has been submitted: PIN and Customer Number

>Thank you so much. We have successfully validated the account. Please allow me a few minutes to check this further into the account for you.

>We've sent a one-time password

>to your email b*********************@G***l.com

>You've requested more than 5 one-time passwords for this action on this domain in a 7-day period. For your protection, you will not be able to request another one-time password for the next 7 days.

You at 12:29, Sep 6:

Every time I've been sent a one-time password it says it's the wrong password

I've entered each password exactly as sent to me yet it says its not correct and now I can't do my job for seven days

That's unacceptable

Read

>Pranjal dhiman at 12:34, Sep 6:

>I apologies for the inconvenience caused to you.

>May I know how many times you try to add the verification PIN.

You at 12:35, Sep 6:

It's never asked me for a verification pin. It has sent me a "one time password" that's six digits long, seven times, and each time it says it's the wrong password

Read

>Pranjal dhiman at 12:37, Sep 6:

>Yes, I am referring to the verification six digit code.

You at 12:39, Sep 6:

There is something wrong with the verification system as it keeps sending me the wrong six digit code. They do not work

Read

>Pranjal dhiman at 12:40, Sep 6:

>No need to worry, let me check with the dedicated team.

>May I know did you clear the cache of the browser once you get the error of wrong password?

You at 12:43, Sep 6:

I haven't but even if I did it now, it will tell me I'm not allowed to do that for seven days

Read

>Pranjal dhiman at 12:44, Sep 6:

>Yes as the security purpose the account is locked for 7 days. You can add forwarding after 7 days.

You at 12:45, Sep 6:

That's unacceptable as it's to no fault of my own.

Read

>Pranjal dhiman at 12:46, Sep 6:

>I can understand as this is for the security purspose so no one can do any changes in the account.

You at 12:46, Sep 6:

EACH TIME I ENTERED THE CODE I WAS SENT, I WAS TOLD IT WAS THE WRONG CODE. I'M NOT R-SLURRED, I CAN COPY A SIX DIGIT CODE. SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH YOUR SYSTEM

Read

>Pranjal dhiman at 12:46, Sep 6:

>No need to worry, I will escalate it from my end so you can not face the issue more.

You at 12:46, Sep 6:

SO SINCE YOUR SYSTEM IS MESSED UP, IN SEVEN DAYS I'LL JUST END UP IN THE SAME LOOP BECAUSE YOUR CODES DO NOT WORK

Read

>Pranjal dhiman at 12:49, Sep 6:

>Please allow me 2-3 minutes, I am escalating the issue to the dedicated team.

>As I can check we need to wait for 24-48 hours after that you can make the changes in the forwarding.

You at 12:53, Sep 6:

That's still unacceptable. I just passed out my card to 100 people and now they're being directed to a website that doesn't exist because of a mess up on your end

Read

>Pranjal dhiman at 12:54, Sep 6:

>I can understand as this is for the security purpose only. We do not have access to make the changes in the lock period.

You at 12:56, Sep 6:

Well you've lost me as a customer. As soon as possible I will be transferring my domain.

Read

>Pranjal dhiman at 12:56, Sep 6:

>As when the wrong password is try multiples time the system temporary locked for the security purpose.

You at 12:57, Sep 6:

But I entered the password I was sent

Read

>Pranjal dhiman at 12:59, Sep 6:

>May I know did you try in the incognito window once?

You at 13:01, Sep 6:

I did not try it in incognito. All I did was enter the passwords I was sent when I was sent them and each time I was told it was the wrong password. I should not have to go through hoops to make a simple change to my domain simply because your system is sending the wrong passwords.

>Pranjal dhiman at 13:02, Sep 6:

>I can understand as the domain is locked for 7 days, we do not have access to unlock it.

You at 13:04, Sep 6:

You already told me you could change the forwarding in 24-48 hours. So either you lied in saying you could do so, or you're lying now in saying it will take seven days.

__________________

After giving them all zeros on their survey, they're texting me via "Daisy" asking me to explain the issue.

Hello! I hope you're doing well and that your week's been good so far. Today I wish to share with you my top 5 courtroom moments. There's something fascinating about the courtroom. The stakes are high, people's lives are on the line, and there are families seeking justice. It's no wonder it's entertaining! Have you ever been in the courtroom as a defendant? If so, leave your story below.

5. Diane Lovejoy faints

This is going to be a quick post because I'm feeling nauseous so forgive me if I don't go in-depth into the cases. Diane Lovejoy ordered a hit on her husband but she was thwarted by law enforcement. Lovejoy and her accomplice, gun instructor Weldon McDavid Jr., were both found guilty in connection with the failed murder attempt. For her efforts, she received 26 years to life in prison. Upon being declared guilty, she sways in her seat before fainting, her head hitting the table with an audible THUD! It's quite the event to watch!

4. Former Judge Tracie Hunter dragged out of courtroom

Judge Tracie Hunter was convicted in 2014 on a felony charge of unlawful interest in a public contract. The charge stemmed from allegations that she used her position to help her brother, a juvenile court employee, keep his job after he was accused of assaulting a youth in custody. Upon being ordered to serve a six-month jail term, she resists being taken into custody, resulting in her being dragged out of court while her supporters protest in the gallery. It's quite the sight!

3. Derek Chauvin is convicted of murder

We all know the case. Derek Chauvin kneeled on the fine gentleman George Floyd, resulting in his death. The court case was a long and controversial one that occurred amidst global protests against police brutality. On April 20, 2021, Chauvin was found guilty on all three charges:

• Second-degree unintentional murder: This charge carries a maximum sentence of 40 years.

• Third-degree murder: This charge carries a maximum sentence of 25 years.

• Second-degree manslaughter: This charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.

When the guilty verdict is read out, Chauvin is like a deer in headlights. You can see the fear bubbling up within him. He knows he's in for a bad time. Since being incarcerated, he has been shanked by fellow inmates. It's hard to not feel pity for a fellow human being in distress.

3. Jaleel Smith-Riley faints in court

Oh cawd! Sometimes people don't want to deal with the consequences of their actions. I've made bad choices in life, like choosing to study English instead of getting a worthwhile degree. However, I accept my mistakes as I deal with the consequences now. Jaleel wasn't prepared to do that. He tried robbing Porshia Brooks and her boyfriend Aaron Martin. Upon finding out Aaron, he shot him in the head before opening fire on Porshia, who died. For his evil deeds, he received life without parole. Upon hearing the news, he bobs his head comically before collapsing! Oh cawd!

2. Ronnie O'Neal Shouts in Court

This is a sad case that probably deserves an effortpost of its own. On March 18, 2018, in Riverview, Florida, Ronnie O'Neal brutally murdered his girlfriend, Kenyatta Barron, and their 9-year-old daughter, Ron'Niveya O'Neal, who had special needs and was non-verbal due to her disabilities. O'Neal also attempted to kill his 8-year-old son, Ronnie O'Neal IV, by stabbing him multiple times and setting the family's house on fire. Remarkably, the boy survived the attack and later testified against his father in court.

He chose to represent himself which is seldom a good choice. During his opening statement, he screamed a lot and claimed the police fabricated evidence against him. Really, you have to watch the whole thing to appreciate it. It's a slow burn but it's good.

1. Amber Guyger is forgiven

How do you feel about forgiveness? Is it cucked or is it a good value to have? Some people are able to forgive in the most trying circumstances. This includes Brandt Jean who is the brother of Botham Jean. Amber Guyger, a white off-duty Dallas police officer, entered the apartment of 26-year-old Botham Jean, believing it was her own. Guyger lived in the same apartment complex as Jean, one floor below him. Upon entering the apartment, which had a slightly ajar door, Guyger claimed she believed Jean was an intruder. She drew her service weapon and shot Jean, who was sitting on his couch eating ice cream. Jean was struck in the chest and died from his injuries. Guyger was initially charged with manslaughter, but the charge was later upgraded to murder.

In court, Guyger is made to listen to victim impact statements. One comes from Brandt who says he forgives Guyger and doesn't want her to go to jail. He also hugs her with permission from the judge. This move sparked controversy. Some viewed it as quite cucked, and interpreted it as another case of people going easy on a white woman. Others (including myself) see Brandt as exceptionally brave. What do you think?

Conclusion

My teeth hurt because I had new braces put in. My life is mid at the moment, but I have faith that things will get better. I have a new part-time job so I'm not completely broke. However, I'm still on the hunt for a full-time job. Tune in next time when we discuss Ramy of OB Global, Alex Rosen of Predator Poachers, and the rest of the amateur predator hunting community.

Thread theme btw if anyone knows more Chappell Roan songs like this let me know, I love this song

When Kennedy ran for President in 2024, he was a joke. The very weird failson of a famous dead politician throwing a strange tantrum because Joe Biden was too pro-vaccine. His announcement speech in 2023 would get taken down by YouTube because of his strange rants about vaccines, and the Brandonslide in the Democratic primaries was too powerful to be stopped - Kennedy couldn't stop Biden, Phillips couldn't stop Biden, Williamson couldn't stop Biden, not even my GOAT Jason Palmer could stop Biden.

Remeber this? That was so awesome. Anyway, Kennedy was a weird joke like Marianne Williamson or Dean Phillips - until he announced he was going to run third party, then he became a very serious threat. His early polls were incredible - some (obviously bollocks ones) were at 15%, and he was generally polled at around 8% - 10% near the start of his run. Of course, fate would not smile upon RFK. After a graveyard shaped closet was unleashed, he eventually gave up and endorsed Trump. Kennedyheads, who had given up there time and money to a real outsider, saw Kennedy give up and endorse a former President. They need to be talked off the rooftops, but are they dumb stupid morons? When has a third party candidate ever really mattered? Three, arguably five, times;

1924: Calvin Coolidge (R) v John Davis (D) v Robert La Follette (P)

1968: Richard Nixon (R) v Hubert Humphrey (D) v George Wallace (AI)

1992: Bill Clinton (D) v George H.W Bush (R) v Ross Perot (I)

These third parties were either marginal influences in the party that had a great amount of regional influence, but a marginal voice if any at all in the party they were associated with - so they struck out and walked their own path, and enthralled millions with their unique messaging. This longpost will look at what they did right, and where Kennedy went wrong.

There are two other third party runs that did very well, but I'm not counting them for a few reasons

The election of 1912 had Progressive Teddy Roosevelt comfortably humiliate Republican Howard Taft in the best ever performance for a third party, coming second with 88 EVs to Howard Taft's 8 EVs. I'm not counting Teddy because he was a former president - I think any third party run would be made stronger by the candidate being a former President.

The election of 1848 had Martin Van Buren win 10% of the vote with the Free Soil party, an anti-slavery party - impressive, but he's not included because he is both a former President, and his third party run had him compete against the Democrats and the Whigs. Around 1896 is when the two party system as we understand it emerges, and the cut-off point to studying third party runs begins.

1924 - Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette, Progressive Party (Wisconsin)

"Men must be aggressive for what is right if government is to be saved from men who are aggressive for what is wrong."

Wisconsin has always been a liberal state - meaning that in the early 20th century, it was a Republican strong hold, dominated La Follette and his son, Robert La Follette Jr. La Follette's progressivism was the old school, prairie kind - born and raised on farms, with a conservative "got mine" bent to it that pleasingly led to a dedication to civil liberties and isolationism.

Come 1924, and the Democrats and Republicans both nominate conservatives. Calvin Coolidge won re-nomination as the Republican, while after 103 ballots John Davis was settled on when delegates at the convention started to run out of money had to leave. If you think the duopoly is bad today, Coolidge and Davis aligned on nearly every issue, differing only on condemning the Klan (Davis did so, Silent Cal did not) and on tariffs (Davis liked them low, Coolidge liked them high). Otherwise they agreed on a limited government, deregulated industry and tax cuts. American conservatism has never had it so good, the uniparty in fundamental agreement.

La Follette, not a man loyal to any particular party despite being a Republican, was angry that neither party had nominated any kind of liberal. At the 4th Conference for Progressive Political Action, 1,200 delegates composed of union members, socialists, liberals but not communists, frick off Foster , nominated Robert La Follette and Burton Wheeler, a ticket that called for mass nationalisation of companies, tax hikes and support for labour unions. And he did amazingly - despite what the map may tell you.

"Well winning one state is impressive for a third party, but is it really that good?"

Yep. He won 16.6% of the vote, nearly half the votes of Davis, won his home state of Wisconsin and beat Davis (coming in second) in the following states; Oregon, California, Washington, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Iowa, Minnesota and both the Dakotas . These are some pretty astonishing results, located mostly in the Western plains with a higher amount of farms then normal. So, how on earth did La Follette do so well?

It can't be denied that his unique politics played a role. When both parties have so much in common, it's clear there's an unheard voice in that election and La Follette was able to amplify that voice. There was so much frustration that he near totally unified the left, leaving only the communists out in the cold. Another advantage he had over Coolidge and Davis is that he was actually the one to campaign. Coolidge had a pretty understandable reason - his son Calvin Jr died in a freak tennis accident, when he got a blister that turned sepsis. Obviously in a deep grief, Coolidge rarely left the White House and his campaign speeches were mostly about his theory of governance rather than addressing the issues or his opponents. By contrast, Davis just didn't like campaigning much and in his meeting with party bosses would need his arm twisted to say to he supports them because showing affection in any way was simply not his character. Equally valid reasons, I'm sure one would agree.

Coolidge was always going to defeat to Davis thanks to the booming economy, but La Follette turned Davis into a joke - to this day, Davis' 28.8% amount of the vote is the worst a Democrat has ever done in the Popular Vote, isolating his support near entirely in the Jim Crow South where votes were tightly controlled. To explain just how lacking Davis' support was, electoral votes in the electoral college are determined by population. California had 13 EVs, Alabama had 12. California, won by Coolidge, had 1,263,413 votes with about 400,000 going to La Follette. Alabama, won by Davis, had 157,971 votes, with 45,005 going to Coolidge. Underscoring just how catastrophic Davis' loss was, during the 1864 US election, the South was not able to vote in the election due to the "rebellion" thing - and McCellan still got 44.9% of the vote against Lincoln.

La Follette would die in 1925 at 70, meaning he never got to see his work vindicated by the Democratic party. In 1928, Al Smith would win the Democratic nomination. A progressive, urban Catholic, the south would abandon him in droves due to fear of Papal influence while the north continued to bet on the Republicans - with President Herbert Hoover winning in one of the biggest landslides at the time. Hoover would be left holding the bag when the economy crashed, New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt would unite the Democrats and the country to implement many of La Follette's ambitions - except of course, without the isolationism.

1968 - George Wallace, American Independence Party (Alabama)

George Wallace standing in the doorway of the University of Alabama to block the entrance of black students. "I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!"

From a left wing populist to a right wing populist, George Wallace was about as anti-La Follette as you could get. With Hubert Humphrey supporting measures to integrate society and Nixon opposing de-jure segregation, George Wallace, who had built a national profile as one of the top opponents to integration, ran third party to appeal to the raving bigots. The Wallace campaign plan was to win enough states to prevent Nixon from getting 270 Electoral Votes, force the election to the House and work out a deal where Nixon would uphold Segregation and Wallace released his EVs to let Nixon become President. His plan was to speak aggressively and passionately, decrying the elitism of the mainstream parties and "handouts" from the Great Society like Nixon did.

But he also mimicked Humphrey with his support for unions. He had no issue with an honest days pay for an honest days work - but wasn't it so unfair you were paying for lazy people? While he struck a middle ground economically, he went in a different direction for the war - Nixon was "peace", Humphrey was for status quo, and Wallace was ramping it up. An infamous quote of his is "We win in 90 days or we pull out", which sometimes misinterpreted as a peace plan. Wallace wanted to destroy North Vietnam, to teach Red China and the Soviet Union a lesson . More importantly, he didn't talk about segregation unless pressed about it, where he would of course defend it. Wallace's victory plan was to build a coalition of single issue voters, racists, anti-welfare union workers, warhawks and people that enjoyed him picking fights with hippies, to cause the deadlock.

Trust me, picking fights with hippies is critical to the central thesis regarding Kennedy. To generate enough media attention, he used inflammatory language to create controversy. "The only four letter words don't know are W-O-R-K and S-O-A-P!" he would say of his protestors. When it came to the Lyndon Johnson's protestors? "If any anarchists lie in front of my automobile, it'll be the last automobile they ever lie in front of." Sometimes he'd even get into shouting matches with his protestors. When called a fascist, he boasted "I was killing fascists while you were in diapers!" Another memorable line was when he grinned and chatted to a heckler. "I love you, I really do. Because when you come to me, I get another million votes." People loved it. While Humphrey was in full shill mode, trying to pick up the pieces of the Democratic party, and while Nixon was chilling not doing anything at all because he was winning massively, Wallace was the man in the arena, ranting and raving in a way people loved.

Wallace at his peak was polling at an astonishing 20% of the vote, but crashed out pretty badly during LeMay's first press conference. "We seem to have a phobia of nuclear weapons" LeMay began. He would continue with "it doesn't make much of a difference to me if I have go to a jungle in Vietnam and get killed with a rusty knife or get killed with a nuclear weapon. As a matter of fact, if I had the choice I would lean towards nuclear weapon." Wallace, visibly panicked, steps in to say "General LeMay hasn't advocated for nuclear weapons, not at all. He discussed nuclear weapons with you, he is against the use of nuclear weapons and I am too." Moments later, LeMay was asked if he would use nukes on Vietnam. "If I found it necessary." Like a fricking sitcom.

The consequences were swift and brutal, with Wallace plateauing from 20% of the vote to around 14%-12%, and he would ultimately get 13.5% of the vote and a far better EV count than La Follette.

301 EVs is a pretty respectable amount from Nixon, but Wallace's defeat was a lot closer then one might think. The Midwestern states had the powerful union votes split between Wallace and Humphrey, letting Nixon sweep the anti-union vote easily. But Nixon only won several Southern states with less then 40% of the vote. Had Wallace preformed better or rather, not suffered from the LeMay fiasco, he could have won North Carolina or Tennessee due to thinness of Nixon's victory. The margin for Nixon's victory goes from 301 - 191 - 46 to 289 - 191 - 58, still a win but a narrow win when you need 270 to win without a deadlock.

In turn, Missouri and Ohio both have Nixon with a margin of roughly 1% over Humphrey. If Wallace didn't have the nuke comments weighing him down, he could have tapped better into the Conservatives of the state and allowed Humphrey to win them both. If those states went blue but Nixon got every vote from North Carolina, the margin of victory is 269 - 229 - 45, just one EV from preventing Wallace's actual victory of forcing Nixon to end integration. Granted, this is all a lot of what ifs. But Wallace's defeat was a very narrow thing.

After the election, Wallace crawled back to the Democrats and became a bizarrely accepted part of it - to the point there were rumours of a Humphrey/Wallace ticket in 1972. He would ultimately come third in the 1972 primaries, despite being shot, and managed to outlive both Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon, despite being shot. His legacy is of interest only to historians, his riot having accomplished nothing at all. De-jure segregation is illegal, and de-facto segregation remains commonplace all over America - no thanks to Wallace's tantrum.

1992 - Ross Perot, Independent (Texas)

"The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, the public debt should be reduced and the arrogance of public officials should be controlled."

After dealing with two populists, it only makes sense our final candidate before Kennedy is Ross Perot - an anti-populist. A man who went on TV, promised to raise taxes and cut benefits, and soared to the top of the polls.

That's not an exaggeration - Gallup had at one point Ross Perot leading with 39% of the vote, to Bush's 31% and Clinton's 29% of the vote, past the 4% margin of error. As well as these other candidates have done, none of them have ever been polled at outright beating both candidates.

His key policy was going against the grain, and embracing protectionism when Bush and Clinton were both enthusiastic supporters of NAFTA. During the debates, he eerily prophesied "there will be a giant sucking sound going south" if NAFTA passes due to Mexico's lax environmental and labour laws. His other

Those were his most notable policies, and what he really railed against Bush and Clinton on. Bush had got them in this mess, and Clinton's liberal policies weren't gonna get them out. But he also had an eclectic series of other policies - like "Direct Democracy" through electronic town halls (fitting for a CEO of a company that specialised in computers), and a less involved America (although not isolationist).

Also unique was his messaging. While Clinton used platitudes and uplifting advertising, and Bush viciously attacked Clinton as a philandering communist plant, Perot's defining ads would be him buying 30 minutes of air time and frankly explaining what he thought was right for the country and how he would do it, with CHARTS BABY!

It's goes against every single populist idea there's ever been. Perot had policy that didn't have "popular" aspects of it, delivered in a frank, clear and detailed manner. By nearly any political junkie's understanding of the American electorate, he should have flopped, his advertisements discovered by pathetic teenagers saying "so true!" and calling themselves Perotstans in the new 20s.

There is a lot more to the story then this, worthy of it's own article (I haven't even mentioned Perot thinking the CIA was sabotaging him or dropping out of the race), but that is the short version when it comes to analysing Perot's place in third party history.

With Bush losing, the Republicans generally considered Perot to have stolen votes from Bush and handing Clinton the election - the facts don't reflect this, Perot generally took from both bases, but the Republicans grudgingly took notice and for the midterms introduced the Contract With America, an ambitious set of reforms that included the Balanced Budget Amendment to outlaw deficit and term limits for members of Congress - all of which failed to pass.

Perot would try his luck again in 1996, forming the Reform Party and couping it's nomination from Richard Lamm, and getting decent results - 8.4% is nothing to sneeze at, and more then enough to win the party federal funding. The party's apex would be in 1998, when former pro-wrestler Jesse "The Body" Ventura won the Minnesota Gubernatorial race. The Reform party would crumble shortly afterwards, as Progressives and Paleoconservatives feuded with each other over which way to take the party - ultimately the Paleoconservatives won, nominating Pat Buchanan and getting less then 1% in 2000. Ross Perot for his part endorsed George Bush.

2024 - Robert Francis Kennedy Jr, Independent (California)

"Why should somebody be able to pollute the air, which belongs to all of us, or destroy a river or a waterway, which is supposed to belong to the whole community?"

What does a left wing populist, a right wing populist, and centrist anti-populist have in common? Why did they succeed when the Greens, the Libertarians, the Communists, and my GOATS the Prohibition Party fail, time after time?

I narrowed it down to three factors.

• A wedge issue

• A wide coalition

• A unique voice

A Wedge Issue

The first and most important step is the wedge issue. La Follette had progressivism, Wallace had segregation and Perot had NAFTA and the deficit. You need to be saying something that no one else is saying, that really resonates. Chase Oliver of the Libertarians fails because his socially progressive message is being used by the Democrats, and his fiscal conservatism is being used by the Republicans. Perhaps there are voters that prefer his message as a whole, but most consider one issue more important and back the party likely to win to accomplish this goal.

It's called the marketplace of ideas, and you need to operate like a business. You can't walk in with a mishmash of policy both party's are offering, you just enter a saturated market. You need a unique selling point no other competitor is offering, or else you'll just be overshadowed by your better funded competitors. (Glad to put my diploma in business to good use).

Did RFK Jr have these unique ideas? In a sense he did. As he pointed out frequently, the COVID-19 vaccines came from one Donald J. Trump's project Warpspeed.

This didn't matter. Despite starting as a hippie thing, of which RFK is a remnant of, vaccine scepticism has become firmly an stance of the fringe right, who Donald Trump commands. They may not like that Trump is pro-vaccine (here's Trump being booed for saying his crowd should take the vaccine) , but he is still their guy. Saying "uhhhh I don't trust those vaccines" doesn't fly when Q is warning people if they don't back Trump JFK Jr will stay dead or whatever.

A Wide Coalition

This is important, third party or first. No single issue is ever popular enough to propel someone to the finish line just on that single issue. You need to have a stance on everything that's in the public consensus as "important". La Follette's sheer uniqueness gave him the widest coalition of the American left there's ever really been, while George Wallace flirted with Warhawks and the unions. Ross Perot's top concern was the economy, but he also had the most non-interventionist foreign policy and some eccentric ideas on general governance.

I conducted a small (tiny) poll asking random people why they thought RFK Jr was running and to assume it was in good faith. The vast majority of the answers I got were "vaccines". I had three other answers of the dozen or so people I asked - one included Bobby's issues with the FDA, which is technically different but ranting about the chemicals in our food is on a similar wavelength to anti-vaccine rhetoric, two answers included opposition to the duopoly, and one came from an outright Bobby fan who correctly identified Bobby has having the most anti-corporate, pro-environment platform in the race (aided by Biden and Harris not actually having a platform).

No one mentioned his isolationist foreign policy, his shockingly progressive stance on race, his transphobia, or his ties to crypto currency. Because he never really talked about it! It was all about the Duopoly, the FDA, or the Vaccines. He seemed to be trying to build this wide net on his policy page, but gave up when it came time to campaign and focused on his most nutjob stances.

Opposing the Two-Party system isn't enough. If it was, Gary Johnson would be included in this list. Remember him? The 2016 Libertarian candidate, running against two of the least popular mainstream candidates ever. He won 3.28% of the vote, not a terrible result for a third party, but hardly what you would expect from arguably the least popular race of all time.

So RFK Jr doesn't really have a wedge issue, and he doesn't really have a coalition. Surely such a wacky candidate has the final part?

A Unique Voice

He sure did have a unique voice! Because spasmodic dysphonia and he does seek treatment for it, it's very insensitive to make fun of it.

But when it comes to how he campaigned, he was rather standard. He appeared on podcasts… and that was about it

Sitting down and explaining your crank beliefs on a podcast may have been unique in 2010, but it's really not that different from sitting down and explaining your crank beliefs on a TV show these days. In fact, Donald Trump has been the one experimenting with messaging, doing a "X Space" and going on a livestream with popular r-slur Adin Ross.

There is one exception to this. One instance where he had a truly message that wasn't about chemicals, delivered in a manner that was unique and appealed to people outside of his eccentric circle - his Superbowl ad, wherein all that was advertised is that a Kennedy is running for president, and he's younger than Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

The same fricking duopoly message that doesn't work.

In all three factors, Kennedy came up short. He couldn't wedge an issue, he refused to expand his circle, and his campaign style was far blander then his bizarre campaign ideas.

Kenndy and his scandals

The Scandals

Scandals are part of any good campaign, and Kennedy is no exception. His campaign may be more famous for the constant, bizarre scandals then any of his very silly beliefs.

All I can say is Kennedy is very, very lucky that the outlandish scandals overshadowed his dark past.

In the same day he was accused of eating a dog, he was accused of sexually assaulting a woman he hired as babysitter, allegations he responded to with a blasé "I am not a Church Boy". These very serious criminal allegations were overshadowed by the ludicrous ones, a reoccurring theme. The fact he literally had a brainworm overshadowed how this information got out - it was disclosed during divorce proceedings where he was so callous to his ex-wife during and after the marriage, he drove her to suicide. There is a real darkness in Kennedy, overshadowed by the utter farce much of his campaign seemed to be.

The future of third parties

It's hard to not view the future of third party politics as bleak. The party's are more unified then ever, but that's come with polarisation increasing loyalty to the parties. Wedge issues are by their nature impossible to predict, and in the age of mass media, what's unique is generally a very fleeting thing.

Joe Biden dropped out of the race, Donald Trump got shot about two months ago, and the world has just continued to chug with those events just being part of the news cycle. The third party uniqueness vital for them to stand a chance seems like they're much more likely to just be a fad, rather than anything impactful.

I hope I'm wrong. But more likely, you'll see outsiders - like former Reform party member Donald Trump or Independent Bernie Sanders work within the party, and force compromises along inside the system.

Reminder, this is the average type of individual these jannies seek to lord over

Yooo, that is so relaxing and satisfying to see Jenna get her beautiful hair brushed 😍😍😍. Her hair is so brushable, I wanna brush that beautiful hair of hers 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

Okay. Now the jannies

The OG Celeb Jannies

The OG celebrity power jannies were a group who made it their life's work to collect every single female celebrity subreddit over the last 10-12 years. Here's most of them

Wait what mod list is that from?

https://web.archive.org/web/20170313191431/https://www.reddit.com/r/starlets/

That sub was originally created by the /r/Jailbait janny

I wasn't able to figure out exactly when, but I guess after he was suspended, it was passed to the rest of the cabal. Many of whom still mod big subs.

You see, these jannies were so obsessed with consooming every female celeb name subreddit that sometimes they'ed grab the subs before the girls turned 18. Because otherwise someone else would grab it before them and that was very triggering for them.

Their ranks have diminished in recent years as this guy seems to have died of aids or cancer or something 9 months ago

Some of our rightoids might recall he used to regularly make comments like this

But he was always immune to the reportmaxx. Even last year, I caught him sperging about supreme court justices or something, but nothing ever happened. And he'd say these things in /r/news, but his comment would just be removed whereas anyone else would at least be permed from the sub. Power janny privalege

Then this guy was suspended (maybe during the API protests last year? Not sure)

And I think at least one other died (actually died). But still, you'll find a group of them carrying on if you visit any female celeb sub name. Seriously, any sub

etc.

They are obsessive and controlling. Another group of celeb jannies was tired of being banned by the OG's and having to deal with their rules so over the last 2 years they built their own group.

My lungs taste the air of autism, blown past fallen jannies. /r/RisingTideNetwork

You're thinking, surely the new faction can't be worse then the OG's, half of whom used to mod a literal jailbait subreddit

You know how bardfinn or merari will make a super serious comment as if they're the ceo of a fortune 500 company? These RisingTideNetwork jannies are like that, except they'll be talking about a subreddit called "PicsOfTheMoleOnSydneySweeneysAss or "JennaOrtegasEarlobes.

They take it very seriously.

Helm Emeritus

It was started by /u/NotAMod2112, who is apparently a lesbian woman. That account was suspended so now she's under /u/NowAMod. I know, janny...coomer...lesbian? But I couldn't find any trans posting in her accounts. They usually let you know they're trans after all. So maybe it's really a bio lesbian

Here's a post she made to /r/RisingTideNetwork last year reminding them of their purpose after she was banned from the cabal controlled /r/AlisonBrie subreddit

Evil Empire - reminder of RTN purpose

The OG cabal on the AlisonBrie janny list

In the comments she mentions a man named Topher, who apparently was the original brains behind RisingTideNetwork

https://old.reddit.com/r/RisingTideNetwork/comments/166cqok/evil_empire_reminder_of_rtn_purpose/jylbjwc/?context=8

Introducing Topher /u/TimingGod

https://old.reddit.com/r/RisingTideNetwork/comments/vq59ok/topher_sort_of/

Here's the two of them flirting

https://old.reddit.com/r/CelebsWithPetiteTits/comments/xt22uq/75000_members/iqoajqk/?context=8

Cute , but it's kind of giving me Bardfinn flirting on bluesky vibes Topher has a little sub called /r/TopherB where he's posted.... ....his ex wives...

https://old.reddit.com/r/TopherB/comments/12hni6s/topher/

His first two wives were white. Third was Asian @BWC discuss

"My windows to the world"

This is kind of just sad. But why did he post these to his random sub. Boomer moment.

https://old.reddit.com/r/TopherB/comments/14sd4pk/ana_ai_altering_hair_color/

So anyway, it's a strange group of people because they'll be posting super seriously about janny matters, then the next post will be

Hostile take over of KoreanCelebrityFap? or Celebrity Butt centric subs? or CelebsBikiniUndies needs an approval mod but they take all those goofy subs seriously too.

They've changed leadership a couple times when someone gets too tired. Jannying is tough work, okay I think there's at least 2 or 3 sexy Indian dudes in their network. Jeets have really taken over reddit in the last couple years.

And they have a wiki where they lay out their master plan and all their requirements to join the network

https://old.reddit.com/r/RisingTideNetwork/wiki/index

They actually seem pretty free speech. They're obviously not as bad as the ex celeb jailbait jannies, they're just a little odd and very cringe.

First one to say @Holly_Jolly_Kong sucks peepee gets 300 coins. I know nobody reads this shit

So who's team are you on

including Formerlurkong - 85 votes

Dude bussy lmbo

Began as a reply to this.

[Disclaimer: This is I'm sure inaccurate in a lot of places. It's based off of stuff that I watched and read over my entire much too long life , so don't assume all the details are right. But I'm very confident that it's more a accurate depiction of these events than what you'll ever hear in the Anglosphere, which is absolutely nothing.

If you are French and offended by something, please speak up. One of my purposes here is to provoke because I am a francophile and I'm saddened by our lack of representation. If there's a frog lurker out there, please correct me about something. I'll probably call you an r-slur and tell you keep yourself safe but those are terms of endearment here.]

"One could call Algeria France's Vietnam were it not for the fact that France's Vietnam is also Vietnam."

-- World's Most Dangerous Places, it has multiple authors and I can't remember who wrote that chapter

Sick burn.]

Yeah, the eurotrash love to whine about the US role in coups in Guatemala, Iran, etc. back then but are extremely extremely reticent about ever mentioning what happened in France in that era. I wouldn't even know about half this stuff if not for my dad being alive at the time and explaining how serious it really was.

The army officers in Algeria were butthurt as they felt the civilian government wasn't backing them up enough and were probably going to kitty out and surrender. These guys had just come back from losing in Vietnam and they really did not want to lose again. Especially in Algeria, which had a large French population and was officially not a colony but an integral part of France. They're led by the paratroopers. If you remember the French chad character from Battle of Algiers, he's a composite of a few of them. Like Jacques Massu, who admitted that they tortured people, and that this is a really horrible thing to do, but electrocuted his own nards on live TV or something to prove that he doesn't dish out anything he can't take himself. (Critics would point out (rightly, trust me on this one) that the worst thing about torture isn't your nards getting electrocuted, it's the terror of having no idea how long your nards are gonna continue to be electrocuted, because the torturer can keep it up forever if they want.) And Roger Trinquier, best known for writing Modern Warfare, which goes into the theory behind the French counterinsurgency campaign including why it's okay to torture people. It's not too long and (pdf link) worth a read. I'm not pro-torture in general but these guys make a lot of really good points that I think we have to take seriously when we think about the subject.

They're also total fricking psychos. Like Trinquier wanted to protect France from communism by... having a totalitarian police state with neighbors spying on each other like East Germany. One justification they pointed out is that many of them had been tortured by the Nazis so that makes it okay. But one of the long term effects of torture (trust me on this one) is that it's been normalized for them. There's a kind of subconscious attitude that "I got it really bad so I'll just hurt this person a little bit. It's not so bad. I got through it just fine without it having any lasting effect on me, I swear. I've been through it so I know how to not hurt them too bad. The guy who tortured me was a bad person, but I'm going to torture my victim in good faith." Torture victims have a lot to tell us and we definitely need to learn the facts of it from them, but their judgement about it is skewed so I don't think they should making policy.

People who are making policy, which in a democracy should include all voters, can learn some things without actually getting electrodes attached to your nipples. I mentioned the movie Battle of Algiers earlier. A lot of us are getting to an age where, if you're not a complete frickup like me you have kids by now. (Which again is oddly enough something that I know a lot about but I'm not going to explain other than saying trust me bro.) So how do you teach your kids about torture? My chad dad did this exactly the right way. He had me watch Battle of Algiers when I was, I dunno maybe 12. I see the scene where they take a kid about my age and push his head underwater until he talks. That scarred me for life. I will never forget that. Because you're not supposed to forget things like that. Sometimes scar tissue is good. My scar tissue from seeing that was that I'm always going to tend to be anti-torture for the rest of my life. And I didn't have to actually get tortured to learn that on a deep level. You gotta be really careful about exactly when, but you should be showing your kids some of these images when they're old enough to handle it. Also my dad had a policy of making me watch lots of foreign movies from a young age, which everyone should do. Much of my ability to shitpost about 50 different countries now I owe to that. (Just for God's sake, nothing Soviet, that shit literally (I mean literally literally) bored me to tears. )

Anyway, it's one of the most important movies of all time and I would say literally everyone needs to see. Made by Italian commie Gillo Pontecorvo. Now I'm not a fan of commies, but he was more a commie in the sense that he disagrees with me about certain economic issues that we should be debating about, not that he wants the NKVD to put a bullet in my head because I called a Star Trek character "gay" once when I was 13 years old. He once slapped down some whiny f-slur (note how much more sophisticated my language has become ) who was calling everyone he didn't like fascists. And he was like "Bro, calm down, don't just throw that around. I unironically fought against fascists in WW2 alongside all kinds of people." So I imagine him to be a leftoid who is actually intellectually honest, or at the very least someone like Prince Kropotkin who you could have a conversation with. (Pinknames maybe I'll explain this if you ask. ) But I hope he's not like Costa-Gavras who made Z one of my favorite movies of all time but then went on to make absolutely insane shit that would make Leni Reifenshtal blush. (Greeks please fight with me because I lost a real friend over this, so even if I don't win I'll at least feel nostalgia .)

It was filmed in Algeria (Z was too btw). Pontecorvo's partner is Saadi Yacef, a major player in the FLN and a bombmaker (This cameo is him playing himself He doesn't try to hide what he did. He sent women to blow up kids. So this is a rare case where the veterans of both sides actually own up to what they did and how bad it was. They just say that they were justified. Which makes it extremely valuable from a historical perspective. There's more gossip that comes out after the movie, all kinds of drama, but I'm running out of energy tbqh.

So it's 1958. You got these French guys who are highly motivated for a number of reasons. They think the civilian government are a bunch of kitties who are too busy listening to Sartre or something to win the war. So they decide they'll overthrow it and replace it with DeGaulle. The paratroopers fly out to Corsica. I'm guessing the critical moment here is when the military in Corsica makes no attempt to stop them. This makes it clear that if they fly on and land in Paris the troops around there won't oppose a coup. So the government resigns and DeGaulle becomes dictator. And very soon he's like "Oh, you thought I was an extremist on the Algeria issue? LOL." He negotiates with the FLN to grant independence.

The paratroopers go apeshit. They did a coup for this guy and he stabbed them in the back. But it's not so easy to just go back and do it again. Most of the officers in the army had served under DeGaulle in WW2 and a lot would back him. (Again I cannot emphasize to zoomers enough that the shadow of WW2 still hung over everybody. It was (and is to this day) the biggest thing that has ever happened on Earth by far.) So the extremists among the paratroopers can't just do another coup. So they form a terrorist organization, the OAS. They figure that if the FLN got what they wanted through terrorism, they'll just do the same thing.

That's as much as I can do right now but if you zoomers want I can continue later. Modern people have come up with the hilariously r-slurred idea of "reimagining" The Day of the Jackal (a really good movie into you're into more serious spy stuff) into a contemporary setting. Oh yeah, and gender swapped. I can give you some talking points to absolutely fricking destroy your IRL friends who like it by explaining that actually stuff happened back then that's a heck of a lot more interesting than any screenwriter in 2024 could come up with.

[Again: If you actually care about this, don't take my word for it. Look it up in your local library.

And if you're French or Algerian and offended in any way, please let your hatred flow and tell me how stupid I am and in what ways.]

We know Wikipedia is screwed beyond recognition but it's not clear what the precise issue is - I think this article shows us.

The article is question is regarding the musician Jandek, who is beyond description (and the wiki article no longer tries to really describe him, either). In absolutely most big picture summary:

• A guy gives himself the stage name Jandek in 1978 and self-records an album via tape. The music is him singing with acoustic guitar and it is indescribably weird, and not at all accessible music. It barely even is music. Here is a sample of his 1978 album:

  . He has hundreds of hours of music like this.

• He continues to records tape of himself playing this atonal, creepy, and barely even music "songs" over the course of many, many, many, albums in the coming decades. His identity is never revealed, even when the tapes start getting an ironic undergrounds following. Eg. DJs would phone up the 'company' associated with his self-released tapes (his home phone) and he'd identify himself as a representative of Jandek, not the artist himself. This is despite everyone knowing this music is definitely produced and released by one guy at the very most.

• he's kind of a music nerd/outsider art trivia questions - Kurt Cobain talks about his music in interviews for example - but the vast majority of people don't and never would listen to his music let alone enjoy it.

• in the 2000s, people start to realise Jandek is some 60/70 year old dude in Texas and Jandek stops denying it so strongly. He ends up being invited to play live for the first time and is captured on film (he never clarifies directly, but the guy in these concerts is a dude named Sterling Smith). Live concert from 2004:

Anyway that's the most necessary background, onto the wikipedia article.

For most of it's life, the Wiki article for Jandek has been similar to any article for a niche interest - way, way too long and detailed for something such a small number of people know about. I remember it as recently as a few years ago going into detail of every major attempt to unmask Jandek, listing all of his hundreds of tapes and album, music criticism, and then lists of post-2000 public appearences. The wiki page had theories, mysteries, rabbit-holes within itself. It was terrible as ana encyclopaedia but interesting as a story re some random guy who can't sign or play guitar well getting mysteriously semi-famous. If you go into the article's historical edits you can see the unwieldy version of the page back then: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jandek&oldid=976435895

This is worth noting because the only truly compelling thing about Jandek is the context - who is this guy, where did he come from? Which is what the wiki article leant into. No one was a 'fan' of Jandek, unironically, or listened to his music for the love of the sound. There's simply no way. People were inviting him to perform live because then they could say they performed with the mysterious Jandek, and people went to his shows for the same reason. The wiki article was microcosm of this very state of being.

So what happens? Some uppity Wiki editor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ILIL) posts this on the article's talk page in 2021:

>This article is a feature-length novel of unsourced claims and needs to be blown up. I would do it myself but I don't want to bother with the inevitable edit wars. People close to the subject seem to be carefully watching this page like a hawk.

When someone points out that the reason Jandek is notable is the talk and mystery around him -- thus that probably needs to figure into the article somehow, ILIL disagrees strongly.

>I'll have to respectfully disagree with your pov. I enjoy using Wikipedia for the purposes that it was designed for, which is to gather a quick summary of what news media, books, and articles have published about a given subject. Just the facts, please. Geeky trivia, hearsay, rumors, and crowdsourced press releases is the domain of YouTube video essays, blogs, and "fandom" Wikis. Everything has its time and place.

The autism runs so deep on Wikipedia that the editors truly can't comprehend how most humans absorb information. The above statement is true re: an article about a scientific theorem. It's not how people engage with entertainment. Nonetheless, soon after, the article is wittled down to two sections - a very brief introduction where a music publication is quoted calling Jandek "mysterious" with no other context (because that would be editorialising), a handful of sentences with chronology of his first release and later live shows, and maybe two quotes re: his lack of widely known identity. His strange lack of musical talent is barely mentioned with a statement saying: "an idiosyncratic and frequently atonal form of folk and blues music,". If you think this captures the music i linked to in this post, you're a moron.

Someone who, say, hears someone talking about Jandek and wants to know what the big deals searches up this article and comes away with more questions - why so much mystery around what is apparently a fairly normal blues singer from the 70s? Unless they dig through old versions of this article they'll never know.

In one very minor article, the core issue of Wikipedia is summarised: in a fight between normies and autism, the autism is more powerful.

For the drama, go into the article's edit history and see warring editors making changes to the article post-2021: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jandek&action=history

[Yet another time when I start replying to some comment and then I have to divulge everything I've thought of for many years. I thinks it's a medication thing but it's just the fricking bupropion. It does nothing until about 8 hours later and then suddenly you're really amped up and want to do something. Thanks, that's great, how do I schedule that? I wake up and take it and it starts helping right at the end of the working day? Anyway people I'm not trying to be presumptuous, I'm just testing how much people will actually read or like this type of type of bullshit.]

[Originally started out as a reply to this. Apparently given my numbers this is a genre people like. Me just dumping stuff that mattered a lot to me a long time ago but I couldn't dump on anyone at the time. Apparently that's acceptable behavior. ]

I think this is the original sin of the Democratic Party that's led to where we are today. During the Vietnam War while the normies were out there staring at the jungle bored out of their minds, the young guys getting into politics in the party were draft dodgers. This introduces all kinds of problems.

You had to have money or political connections and probably go to college to dodge the draft, so this is when the Democrats begin turning into the party of the East Coast elite. This wasn't apparent at the time. Their voters were still mostly normal working-middle class people without college degrees. But as the draft dodging generation grows older they end up taking over the party. This reaches its apex with Biden where Democrats are getting completely fricked in the butt by non-college voters who know how much the party despises them. Polling suggests that Trump is even going to get a substantial part of the latinx and black vote this time. Those people too might not be writing essays about it, but they understand that people like Robin DiAngelo who are really uncomfortable around them probably won't represent them well.

Second, the draft dodgers needed some kind of ideological reason why they did it. In that generation literally everyone's parents had been through WW2 where the entire country was completely mobilized and everyone was serving the war effort in some way even if indirectly. Even when I was growing up, the WW2 people were all over the place. When you said "the war" people still defaulted to thinking of WW2. For most people there was an intense sense of gratitude toward these people who'd been through real shit against Nazis and japs.

So the draft dodgers desperately need some kind of ideological reason for why this is different. Now don't get me wrong, I think (with the benefit of hindsight) we should never have tried to fight there. It was especially cynical and r-slurred to half-butt it the way Johnson did, pretending that we respected Laos' "neutrality" while covertly being involved in a massive war there. (Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Nixon was good. I think the one thing about this war that really explains it the best is my dad is sitting there listening to Nixon on the radio saying we're not in Laos, and he looks up and sees planes in the sky going west which can only be to Laos.) Another thing he told me that really stuck was that you don't go to some country and give 18-year old kids guns and tell them they're fighting for democracy unless you're willing to go all the way for them. So a good True and Honest American had all kinds of reasons to oppose the war. Like look at a fricking map, you can't win in the really long skinny country while you let the enemy have impunity in all the countries bordering it. A fricking child could figure that out.

The draft dodgers though didn't have the military acumen that I expect from 10-year old boys though. They just didn't want to go because it was really dangerous and unpleasant and takes away 2 of the best years of your life. (Btw Redactor Sr. says The Best Years of Our Lives is a very accurate depiction of what coming home is like. I still haven't got around to it yet because I got too much depressing stuff going on already. (Also [Umbrellas of Cherbourg](

So anyway, the draft dodgers are too vapid to understand the obvious military reasons why this war (at least the way we're fighting it) is a bad thing because we will eventually lose and our troops and our allies will have been killed for nothing. Keep in mind these are effete middle-upper to upper class f-slurs who went to college to dodge the draft and studied some bullshit subject like poetry appreciation. So using the mental toolbox that they have, they approach this problem of justifying draft dodging. Mostly this is just extremely vague, like "it's immoral" and they think dropping a word on you is enough. (What was immoral was doing H&I fire on places you're not observing when there might be civilians around. But they never made this argument because it would mean thinking too hard.) And this vague idea that we should "end the war" (b-word what do you think we're trying to do?).

So what ends up happening? Lyndon Johnson finally admits that he's worse than worthless. Hippies riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. This is presented nowadays by shrieking leftoids as an unprovoked "police riot". But to the majority of the country back then they just saw mob violence and after a few years of race riots (imagine BLM but it was in the 20th century so everyone wasn't a total kitty), assassinations, and terrorist bombings people were ready for some law & order. (Obviously this wasn't the only issue in the campaign but you have to leave some things out to turn history into a narrative.) This is one of things that tipped this close election over to Nixon, who was running on a platform of "I'm gonna end the war magically but I can't tell you how". So there really wasn't even a pro-war side at all. (I'm not gonna talk about Nixon fricking everything because again, brevity.)

Eventually "the war ends" in 1973. We sell out the Vietnamese who we'd encouraged to fight for a decade and have hundreds of thousands of their people killed, but we're getting our own guys out so the war is over, right? No. The South Vietnamese keep fighting and they're not doing great but they're holding their own. This makes the leftoids in America go ballistic. They had been saying for all these years that the South Vietnamese all loved the Viet Cong except for mercenaries and gusanos who fought for the hated imperialists. Now it turns out there's actually hundreds of thousands of guys willing to fight against the commies. And the Viet Cong hadn't even existed since the Tet Offensive when the last of them were killed off. There's no pretense of a guerilla war, it's just North Vietnam attacking with a thousand tanks.

So what do the American leftoids do? They control congress so they cut off ammunition supplies to South Vietnam. The NVA blows the shit out of Quang Tri and they can't shoot back. (Basically what Republican f-slurs like JD Vance want to do to stab Ukraine in the back.) At this point the war is effectively over. People with artillery will beat people without artillery every time going back centuries. Saigon falls and the journos cover that a little bit because they've got really dramatic footage from it. But things don't go quite as planned. It turns out, this is gonna blow your mind, but the North Vietnamese rolling in on tanks were actually not there to allow democratic elections.

They start rounding up people and putting them in camps. I dunno exactly what the criteria is but in Hue in '68 they rounded up all the teachers and shot them because technically they work for the government. But is this as bad as they say? You should be skeptical. These things usually are exaggerated. But in this case, yeah, this is real. We know because of the boat people who would rather get in a little wooden boat and try to escape, knowing they're like 50/50 gonna die. You guys ever notice that there's lots of refugees from Vietnam, Cuba, East Germany, but nobody went the other way? Curious?

But the real big issue is Cambodia. Redditors will tell you "well ackshually the Americans gave some food to refugees in Thailand in the 1980s so they're responsible for everything." In 1975 large parts of Cambodia had been occupied by the North Vietnamese for a decade. The commie countries were running guns to them through there (omg this could be a whole post in itself). This was a whole thing as you kids say. The Khmer Rouge were the local puppet army for them. Reminder for kids what a Fifth Column is. When the NVA overran South Vietnam and the US cut off aid, there was no hope of resistance.

And when the Khmer Rouge take over... Zoomers probably haven't heard this: There's a huge insane genocide of like literally a million people. If you're counting scores of genocides I think it wins per capita. It's the level of genocide where you start comparing it to the Jews and Armenians and then you realize really quick that maybe you don't really care who gets the trophy, genocide is just bad in general. I've known two people I've had who absolutely will not talk to me about anything remotely political about their country, one from Iran and one from Cambodia. (Regular listeners will remember my story about the latter.)

And as redditors will always remind you, there very soon was a falling out between the Vietnamese commies who put them in power (bad) and the Khmer Rouge (absolutely batshit insane) so Vietnam invades and takes over the country. But guerilla warfare starts up right away. Guerilla warfare against my innocent peasants in rubber sandals, how does that even happen??? At least they, as victims of the most horrible atrocities in all of human history will just go to each village and have dialogue and maybe solve these these problems through restorative justice using their own local indigenous ways of knowing?

Nah, LOL, they just did the obvious thing that the Americans never did because we have souls. They cut off food to anywhere people opposed them. This lasted until about 1988. I'm not gonna bother looking up exact numbers but it's a lot.

So the draft dodgers have a problem. They've built up this whole idioligion (if I may steal a term from the Rimworld guy) by now about how this is totally different than WW2, really the Americans (and the majority of people in Vietnam) are the real bad guys. But then their side does that generation's version of the Holocaust. AWWWWWWKWARD!!!

Now they're in trouble. Noam Chomsky hasn't just whitewashed this, he blamed the victims saying that this was like the French killing collaborators in WW2. (!jidf It takes some whatever the goy equivalent of hutzpah to go from reality -> I'm just asking questions -> but how many? -> it didn't happen -> it happened and actually it was a good thing!) So they have to go completely full psycho in blaming everything in the world ever on America to explain why they didn't either serve or be a gigachad and go to prison over it.

So then all these boomer draft dodgers end up in jobs they have because they were in college to dodge the draft. What's an easy career? How about teaching. And that's why the millenials are so r-slurred. They're all being taught by people who have no interest in teaching, children, or helping society at all. This is how you end up with teachers where you keep pointing out "uhhh... not to be a peepee, but you might want to update your curriculum because we got access to the Soviet archives and literally everything you're teaching us is wrong." They were cheating. This is the worst thing a teacher can do, where the teacher isn't catching the kid cheating, the kid is catching the teacher cheating.

(Yes I am still butthurt that I could have run circles around that f-slur about every fricking paper I was assigned. The "original research" thing isn't a specifically wikipedia thing, it comes from that generation. Had a lot of conversations where it was like "yeah but obviously in the late 1940s there were American airbases in Morocco, this isn't controversial, this is common knowledge, I don't need to cite anything". "Yeah but when the Japanese in Manchuria were overrun, the Russians gave all their weapons to the Chinese. Nobody disputes that." These commies would actually order you to take one paragraph from a few books and one would be slobbering over Kennan's peepee, one would be The People's History of the United States", one was some extremely obscure source you know nothing about. And you're ordered to write about what was going on in this fantasy world dreamed up by this f-slur who never had it hard in his life while most of my family and friends are still trying to deal with real stuff then.)

[You're probably here because you got pinged, which means you're in a ping group, which means you have nothing else going on in your life so you can participate in this experiment. When you drop out of the historical part, come down to the second part and give me some feedback about exactly when you were bored to death pls. If you've been pinged and feel it was wrongful, consult the appropriate part of the document.]

The Red Sea actually was important going way way back. I'm pretty sure the Egyptians were doing substantial trade through it but I'm not an ancient Egypt guy so don't quote me on that. When the Persian Empire ( btw) was in power they had a canal built from the Nile to the Bitter Lakes and then the Red Sea. Usually I don't believe in these claimed ancient feats of engineering but there's actually pretty substantial archaeological evidence that this actually happened. Way more than we have for other contemporary events like the Persians invading Greece. Other stuff in Herodotus about the Persians that was previously doubted by effete homosexual European "classicists" in the 1800s was proven true by the Behistun Inscription so you have to at least take him seriously. And the Persians are said to have built at least two other important canals extremely fast in military operations. One version of the story of their conquest of Babylon involves a canal. (I'm going to @Patriarch the next time I need water diverted. (Actually I just realized I had an Iranian friend who is like one of the world's leading experts on that. Too late to make a joke about it other than parentheses.))

And there's that time in 460 BC when the Athenians sent a huge fleet into the Nile Delta and got bogged down besieging some place. The Persians cut a canal that diverted the water away so their fleet was left floating on nothing but sand and had to surrender. This was one of the biggest disasters in the history of Athens with like 10,000 guys getting captured but the only google results I'm getting are very brief oblique references to it. For some reason, despite Marathon and Salamis and Thermopylae and Plataea being endlessly jerked off about, the times when the Persians won massive victories over Greeks are virtually never written about. Or that one time when almost all of Greece formally surrendered and became part of the Persian Empire for a while. Curious. Anyway you can see for yourself in Thucydides 1.109-110. IIRC the Athenians had to make a bunch of concessions in exchange for getting their prisoners back, but that is a really really long and complicated book and I'm not slogging through it again to find that unless one of you gives me some adderall. !druggies

Imagine it's this but with a Persian cat.

Anyway, back to the Red Sea, there are reports of this canal being operational on and off during the Ptolemaic and Roman eras. And the Arabs digging a separate canal.

But even more importantly than that, you could always just bring stuff to Egypt and unload it and carry it a short distance and then load it back onto a ship on the other sea. Like the French Canadian fur trappers having a portage between rivers. The city of Berenice in an inhospitable desert was thriving in Ptolemaic and Roman times. !leafs

(And probably earlier too. Every one of these cities "founded by the Greeks" that I've looked into closely turns out to have already existed. One particularly laughable example is the Alexandria in Egypt, supposedly designed by Alexander on a whim drawing in the sand. Not even a napkin. There was already a city there. I mean ffs I'm pretty confident of that because it plays a major role in the Odyssey when some crooked customs officers impounds his ship and demands a bribe to release it.)

(@Aevann Egyptian jannies ruled everything even in prehistoric mythical times. The only difference is nobody can defeat you.)

Later on the canals fell out of use. I don't know why but I can imagine a number of factors. Maybe it's some geological thing where too much silt built up in the wrong places and they couldn't dredge it. Some of the greatest cities in the world like Ephesus and Bruges went into decline this way. Maybe there was more competition from the Silk Road. There's people who know way more than me about that era in that region and economic history and I hope one of comments here. (Or if you're some random tard just make up a story, like that kid who wrote the wiktionary for the Scottish language.)

(!neolibs I admit I'm leaning quite a bit on Braudel of all people because this isn't my area. I at least find what he's saying in really broad strokes to be plausible even if the "France is an innocent victim, it was the roving Jews who made us frick up everything story doesn't hold water with me.) And I'm an inveterate francophile from birth. !francais)

But you still see the importance of these routes of these Mediterranean -> camel trip across Egypt -> Red Sea routes throughout the medieval era. You couldn't carry heavy, bulky goods like grain, but stuff that had a very high ratio of value to weight were still profitable. Like silk and spices.

(Remember that the extremely complicated process of keeping silkworms alive and exploiting the silk only gradually spread westward through corporate espionage, from China to Persia to etc. After a very long time it actually became very important in the economies of places you wouldn't think of, like Lebanon and southern France. But in the 1800s disease wiped out the industry in most of world. (It was kinda like the Phylloxera epidemic that wiped out inferior eurotrash rootstock, so now almost all eurotrash wine is made from American rootstock. Reminds me of that time when Airbus couldn't build a plane without using Boeing planes to fly the parts around.) Japan managed to not get infected and became the primary silk producer of the world, an often overlooked factor in it having enough foreign exchange to modernize.)

Even during the Crusades we know there was trade going on between Egypt and Europe because whiners in Europe were banning it and begging merchants to please at least not sell them materials they can make weapons out of. And even later into the Modern Era (1500s+) after euros were capable of getting around the Cape of Good Hope and bypassing Africa altogether, the route through Egypt and the Red Sea was still important for communications. You could send a message between Europe and Asia faster, and more specifically between Britain and India which became very important by the 1800s. And if you think hauling freight is lucrative, hauling data is even more lucrative. (!codecels I'm pinging you because I pray to God your education began with learning about guys like Baudot and Claude Shannon and you understand the fundamental relationship between telecommunications and computers. )

So yes, the Red Sea was important long before the Suez Canal. Oh yeah, and before I go, did you ever wonder why it's called the Red Sea? You might think it's because the first time an angloid went there it was sunset. No, this actually goes way way back. For some reason it's always been called that. And in ancient times the Persian Gulf was also called the "Red Sea". And you notice there's also the Black Sea that's always been called that in most languages. One theory that I tend to agree with is that for some reason humans tend to associate cardinal directions with colors. The funny thing is you see this crop up all the time all over the world, it's a very common thing, but there seems to be no pattern to which color gets assigned to which direction.

Uh... that's nice bro...

[This started out as me replying to an incredibly ignorant comment by @TournamentFishing saying that the Red Sea wasn't of strategic importance before the Suez Canal. I got butthurt and had a lot to say about that. Now usually I would realize that nobody wants to hear my neurodivergent rambling about stuff I read 20 years ago, but everyone has been mysteriously so nice to me the last few days, I thought I'd try just going all out posting what I want to. I'm trying in some ways to emulate that British guy who did the show Connections back in boomer times and my dad when he would go on one of these really long didactic monologues where you'd actually be at rapt attention and then ask us to figure out the answer about some topic like why giant insects (Btw the answer is that because of the Surface-area-to-volume ratio their muscles will overheat. Not enough air flowing over them.) The links with (hopefully) humorous text I got from Encyclopedia Dramatica.

The extremely shameless self-indulgence I got from Countess LuAnn de Lesseps from Real Housewives of New York, who is very relevant to this story as she used to be married to the descendant of the guy who built the Suez Canal. And gloated about it to everyone every day until they got divorced. AWWWWWWKWARD!!! !biofoids But seriously, I'm like any animal, I respond to rewards. And when I look at what I'm getting rewarded for with upmarseys it's me ranting about some obscure historical thing that I care about because it's my autism and whining about my personal medical problems. This is the complete opposite what people should care about. I don't know how you f-slurs tick sometimes.

The parts where I call people r-slurred cute twinks, I learned that from you.

The nested parentheses I got from an incredibly obscure MUD (Terrafrore) about roleplaying an animal in Siberia that I was on briefly as a kid. I was really interested in animal behavior at that time so I thought this is a great place for me. In retrospect I have to wonder if these people were therians or furries. (To my credit, the undisputed best dramanaut of all time (!oldstrags know exactly who I mean) had similar experiences at the same time.) But what was really fricking bizarre about this situation was that the entire MUD was made in LISP. Must have been some college kid doing it to educate himself (this is most MUDs) but it educated me about LISP. Trying to just be a goddarn European Wildcat, the most vanilla thing possible, I'm trying to just describe my den and (it (is (so (fricking (complicated (to (even (enter (the (simplest (data (structures (because of (the fricking (parentheses, the bane of every programmers existance (even in languages where they're just used normally. !furries

Oh yeah, and I noticed that if I ping people !pinggrouplovers !pingkings !pings I have literally never had anyone complain about it. Actually I probably did but I forgot about it which is the same thing.

I was brought up to believe that being attention-seeking was a really bad sin. But when I observe people's souls bared through social media I realize that attention is what really drives the world. People pay money, choose to take drugs or not, ruin relationships with their family, for attention because attention is more important than any of those things. And I'm the first honest person who is just gonna admit it.]

!khive

It's time to regroup after the CNN interview. What are your views and opinions on Kamala Harris's latest interview with CNN? Thoughts regarding Tim Walz?

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/29/politics/takeaways-harris-walz-interview/index.html

Here are the main points:

Policy

She is going to implement her plan regarding an "opportunity economy." This includes bringing down the cost of everyday goods and extending the child tax credit to $6,000. She is also focusing on investing in small businesses and addressing the cost of housing (which includes a tax credit of $25,000 for first-time home buyers). You can find out more about her opportunity economy here:

https://www.fastcompany.com/91177946/kamala-harris-opportunity-economy-plan

She confirms that she does not want to ban fracking, and she will not do so as president. This is a change from her previous stance, although she claims she has not changed her values and her determination to create a green economy.

Madam Vice President has also vowed to address illegal immigration and she plans to increase the number of border patrol agents.

Personal Life

Kamala spoke a bit about old man Joe Biden. She doesn't regret endorsing him and claiming that he is fit to serve another four years in office. She is also proud to have served as his Vice President. She also discussed when she discovered that old man Joe Biden is dropping out of the race. It was a Sunday and she was spending time with her family. Just as they were sitting down to do a puzzle, old man Joe Biden called and announced that he is pulling out of the race. She didn't have to ask for his endorsement.

She didn't have much to say regarding Trump's attack on her race. He argued that she is claiming Blackness for political reasons. Kamala claims that Trump is using the "same old tired playbook".

Lastly, she spoke about the viral image of her and her grand niece. She says she was deeply touched by it, and that it was very humbling.

Public Reception

Ben Shapiro describes it as a "car crash interview" and he argues that it was boring and not a lot happened.

Sky News also gave a scathing reaction, claiming it wasn't an interview but a campaign ad instead. It is described as a "promo puff piece".

Not all reactions have been negative. You can see this on Reddit where user /u/Buttfulloffricks argues that Kamala knocked it out the park.

https://old.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1f4jz8w/kamala_harris_and_tim_walz_interviewing_with_cnn/lkm3x3v/?context=8

/u/flyoverliberal claims the following: "Lots of pointless gotcha questions instead of actually seeking information. Harris and Walz did well."

https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1f4llo3/kamala_harris_cnn_interview_was_too_sane_to_be/lkma5q4/?context=8

In a thread created by /u/ac_slater10, the user gives the overall interview a B+.

https://old.reddit.com/r/centrist/comments/1f4jye6/grading_the_harris_walz_cnn_interview/

Conclusion

I'll be honest - I think it was a softball interview, and they didn't ask enough hard questions. It started off well but went downhill quickly. There is some merit to calling it a puff piece. Nevertheless, I'm glad that they spent time discussing policy, especially regarding creating a green economy. I'll give the overall interview 7/10 Hollys.

First things first, I consider The Wire to be one of the great literary masterpieces, no less in ambition, scope and propulsion than War and Peace or Crime and Punishment.

To compare it with other TV shows is like comparing the Eiffel Tower with telecom signal towers.

When I first watched it a year later after it had ended (my brother gave me his 256 gig external HDD when he went off to college) the wire was one of the few things he didn't scrub.

I kept it. I watched it 3 years later just as I was going to college myself. It didn't appeal to me at all. Yeah everyone knows about inner cities and corners of Baltimore and Detroit but so do Seattle and LA. But I watched it over 3 months only when I felt like I needed something different. As I finished it, i realized it wasn't about Baltimore or as so many people like to point out "The Decline of America" or "This is Capitalism" in their marvelously stupid analyses. It's about system dynamics. Particularly social system dynamics.

NERD ALERT:

Jay Wright Forrester was a pioneering American computer engineer and systems scientist. He is credited with being one of the inventors of magnetic core memory, the creator of the first computer animation, and the father of the field of System Dynamics. He was inducted into the computing hall of fame just weeks earlier for his contributions to the advancement of RAM. But what he is most famous for is his theorization of system dynamics, more appropriately nonlinear system dynamics where a system with many I/O processes huff and hum along with feedback loops, creating enormous amount of non-linearity in the final output.

Obviously, for !mathematics and !engineering who are well versed in control systems and differential equations this isn't an unheard of idea. {side note if you have an engineering degree and you don't know what transfer functions or PID controllers are, do everyone a favor and rope} But Forrester went further and looked straight at the problem. It is tough but nevertheless straightforward to find a generalized solution to a third order nonlinear diff eq. But how to formulate one from looking at just the output and input and the basis of assumptions for the multiple feedbacks that gives rise to the ODE than say just a polynomial function?

This is what set Forrester off.

[All the books by Forrester are available for free on his personal website maintained by either MIT or his family, not sure. https://systemdynamics.org/news/memorial/jay-w-forrester/ ]

Everyone knows that if the radius of a circle is changing at rate X, to find the rate of change of area a diff eq is to be used. But how can someone crack open Porter's five forces and surgically separate the structures (to their best effort) and apply cause/effect in their stocks and flows after which applying an ODE can be done by a freshman? The short answer is: Forrester. He wrote System Dynamics in the 70s because he was very much dissatisfied with the amount of practical guidance the EECS undergrads at MIT had about nonlinearity and their formulations. Most could find out the general solutions of ODEs within minutes, none could explain their reasoning on why they went for an ODE when given a black box with a nonlinear I/O instead of a polynomic equation.

As noted by Forrester in his paper:

Differential equations are difficult, confusing, weak, and unrealistic. They often mislead students as to the nature of systems. Mathematicians have had difficulty defining a derivative and there is a reason. Derivatives do not exist except in a mathematician's imagination. Nowhere in nature does nature take a derivative. Nature only integrates, that is, accumulates in stocks. Casting behavior in terms of differential equations leaves many students with an ambiguous or even reversed sense of the direction of causality. I have had MIT students argue that water flows out of the faucet because the level of water in the glass is rising; that seems natural to them if the flow has been defined as the derivative of the water level in the glass. Any child who can fill a water glass or take toys from a playmate knows what accumulation means. The stocks in a system dynamics model (the rectangle in Figure 4) are the integrations (accumulations). By approaching dynamics through the window of accumulation, students can deal with high-order dynamic systems without ever discovering that their elders consider such to be very difficult.

So in this manner he approached Social Dynamics (which is a zillion orders more complex than any simple control system)

THE FIRST MAXIM

As the first foundation, system dynamics makes direct use of the vast store of information that people have acquired from living and working in their social systems. The overwhelming preponderance of such information resides in people's heads, not in the libraries, and not in measured numerical data. There are no written instructions adequate for raising a family, or building an automobile, or running a university. Such knowledge has been acquired through apprenticeship and experience. It exists in the mental data banks people use to guide their actions in response to what happens around them. The mental data base is also the primary source of information about the policies being followed at each decision-making point in a system. A typical discussion in a board meeting or at a cocktail party about what so-and-so will do if such-and-such happens is a discussion of that person's policies. It is an analysis of how the person will react to a new set of conditions. Such information about policies, while richly represented in the mental data base, appears in only limited form in the written data base, and almost not at all in the numerical data base.

The heart of SSD

As the second foundation, system dynamics rests on the concept of feedback loops as the fundamental building blocks governing change. A knowledge of feedback loops provides the necessary framework for selecting and organizing information. A feedback loop exists where present conditions determine actions that change surrounding conditions and thereby influence future actions. This circular process where conditions lead to actions that change conditions that lead to future actions are found at all levels of the natural world and human affairs.

The behavior of multiple, nested, interconnected feedback structures is often contrary to what our intuition would lead us to expect. Such structures can operate to defeat policy interventions; we see the results in so many failed governmental programs. Our attention is attracted to points in a system that have almost no leverage for producing change; the result can be extensive political debate about policies that matter very little one way or the other. Often, feedback-loops exhibit dynamic symptoms that lead people to exactly the opposite actions from those that would produce the desired results. Such counterproductive actions have characterized many urban programs intended to relieve the plight of the poor and underemployed. However, such programs have actually created social traps that draw the unskilled into situations where jobs are not available. Rather than alleviating hardship many government programs have unintentionally produced poverty and unemployment.

A policy giving opposite of the intended result was identified in Urban Dynamics by Forrester. Economic distress in declining American cities in the 1960s generated symptoms of high unemployment and deteriorating housing. It appeared natural enough to combat such symptoms by government intervention to build low-cost housing. But the modeling study showed, as events have since confirmed, that such urban areas already had more low-cost housing than the economy of the city could maintain. Public policy to build more such housing merely occupied land that could have been used for job-creating businesses, while at the same time the housing attracted people who needed jobs. The low-cost housing program was a powerful double force for increasing unemployment, both by reducing employment while at the same time attracting people seeking work. Low-cost housing in inner cities created a social trap. The policy of building low-cost housing was actually creating poor and unemployed people, rather than alleviating personal hardship. The lesson here is to avoid attacking symptoms of difficulty until the causes of those symptoms have been identified, and a high-leverage policy has been found that will cause the system itself to correct the problem.

The current press reports the pressures of the moment that surround decisions. The temporal nature of a decision sharply restricts the kind of literature in which operating policy will be revealed. Policies govern decisions and decisions control action. Decisions are fleeting. There is only a single instant in time when one can act. That time is now. Action must take place in the present moment that separates history from the future.

^^^THIS DIRECTLY NEGATES THE FIRST MAXIM

The ever-advancing present moment is the business person's and politician's world of action. It is the world of placing orders, hiring people, buying equipment, borrowing money, bargaining with unions, and extending credit. As a consequence of the short life of a decision, it is primarily in the literature of the present that decisions are discussed in terms of goals, threats, limited information, and restraints on action. The multifaceted conflicting pressures of real decision making are almost absent from economics text books and professional journals. The professional literature emphasizes how decisions should be made rather than how they actually are made, how equilibrium is determined rather than how dynamic behavior arises, and how macroeconomic theory might apply rather than how the microstructure creates the macrobehavior.

The usual writing and debate about a complex social system contains internal contradictions. Those contradictions usually occur in going from the structural assumptions to the implied dynamic consequences. In the step from assumptions to behavior, a writer tries to solve intuitively in his head the high-order nonlinear equations of the system; such is done correctly only rarely. But a model simulation provides certainty in going from the assumptions about structure and policies to the implied behavior.

Tl;dr - If you have ever seen a romanesco broccoli and wondered why the frick does it have a golden ratio spiral on it, the wire is the show for you. It's the greatest puzzle piece of nonlinear ODEs (more like OD's am I right drugtards) in a social system ever shown. Slice by slice. Model by model. Season by season

End.

Post-script:

!kino does anyone seriously think Stringer was smarter than Avon? Some people only come to realize how stupid bell was when he tried to get Mr.Sheeeeeeeeeiiiit whacked. Others excuse even that saying "he just lost his cool for a second"

Motherlover thought 2 years of economics courses (and acting like a stoic b-word) would make him manage a drug network better. Imagine Jobs going to design school at 50 thinking it will make him understand Apple's competitive edge better.

Avon outsmarted everyone, did not cross on anyone's turf (not because he was meek but because he was constantly weighing his enemies and allies), showed genuine sympathy for his family and understood plain and simple that A. illicit drugs have a demand that will never go away and B. You cannot operate with a network whose authority is higher than law enforcement (like Bell tried to do by lobbying Clay Davis; because if the story breaks it becomes national and you have become too big of a target to survive) or whose power is lower than their rival gang (then you're just waiting to be muscled out).

[Some of my ancestors came from the Netherlands and kept in touch with the old country over following generations. This is a letter one of my people wrote to tell our family here what happened to them back there during WW2. I've tried to keep everything exactly except for the paragraphs but this was typed up, put in a pdf, and typed up again by me so it might have some errors. And I redacted a few things because yes, I am afraid that someone someday could be autistic enough to try to dox me through this. !historychads ]

[a village near Utrecht]

7, August '45

[Note: This is the day after Hiroshima, two days before Nagasaki.]

Dear Cousin,

Knowing you've always been interested in your Dutch family and haven't heard much news since the war started, I thought it is a good job for me to tell you something of the happenings in that time, of the family and of Holland in general. I know that you read Dutch as well as English, as my father told me, but as it's a good exercise for myself, I take the liberty to write in English. Which you will forgive, I hope. But first I want to present myself: I'm the son of your cousin, [redacted], (my name is [redacted], age 26) [redacted some more family members]

No doubt he was wearing these as he wrote.

I'll only tell you about the children of my Aunt [redacted]. The son, [redacted], was a government civil engineer in the Dutch East Indies and he was called up by the army when the situation in the Far East grew tight. He was married and had one little child. Since the Japs overran the Indies, we never had a word from him, so we don't even know if he is still alive. His sister, [redacted], [?] was a teacher but as that isn't very well paid over here, she quit and got a better job in an office. But after the liberation she left there, too, in order to get the job of leading some underfed children to England [?], an enviable job as no one can get out of the country so far as it is at the moment. She will leave very soon, with impossible orders of every member of the family to buy bicycle tires, fountain pens, and I don't know what not, as there is nothing for sale in this country.

Tijdeng concentration camp, Java. About 17,000 of the 100,000 interned Dutch civilians died in the camps.

Now I'll try to give you a short survey of what happened to Holland and to ourselves up to now. Perhaps, when you'll have read it through, you'll think that our hatred against the "Nazis" is a bit exaggerated, but I'll tell you, you've got to live through a German occupation to know what it is like. So I hope you'll take it at face value, and I've got to add that I ddin't see very much yet of their low doings, but more than enough to have learned what hate is. Well here I go:

Controversial opinion.

As you know the Germans came in May 1940, when they started their big drive towards the Channel and France, by means of fifth columnists and other traitors, merciless bombardments of Rotterdam and their overpowering numbers of troops, material, etc.

Kraut paratroopers landing in The Hague, May 10, 1940. This force was overrun by the Dutch, losing almost 2000 captured who were quickly sent to Britain.

Bombing of Rotterdam, May 14.

They started immediately to take our immense foodstocks away; cars, trucks, ship, in short everything they could lay their dirty paws on. They suppressed every political activity, except of the treacherous Dutch national-socialists, who got all the important jobs. The only thing they did to try to win our sympathy was releasing the prisoners of war. But that didn't last very long because notwithstanding their elaborate preparations for the in invasion of England, they couldn't get there after they lost the Battle of Britain and gradually with the first R.A.F. raids the underground activity sprang up, giving England information about ship consentrations, etc. by way of secret transmitters.

Portable radio of the kind dropped by the British SOE to Allied resistance in occupied Europe.

Then they regretted to have released the prisoners and so they planned to take at least the professional officers back to Germany again, considering them the most dangerous. To give you an example of their treacherous methods I'll tell you how they did it. They gave a proclamation to the newspapers ordering the professional officers to register in a certain place, all in one day, promising their safe return home. They even got return tickets paid. But on coming there they were taken into custody and a day later were brought to Germany to a Prisoner of War camp. This had the wrong effect, of course, and secret activity doubled, in which I had my little share. But it wasn't very well organized yet and lots of the workers were captured and some of them shot. Of my group for instance, only two escaped detection, another guy and myself. Sheer luck of course; the others were all brought to Germany, some of them shot. So the situation grew worse, hostages shot, Germans shot, vigorous reprisals again etc.

Hendrik Seyffardt, traitor who commanded the Dutch SS. Shot and killed at his front door in The Hague, Feb 5, 1943.

One time 72 people shot in one day. But time went on and the Gerries came to know they couldn't take Russia. America joined the Allies and they feared an invasion in the West. So they started their construction of the Atland wall which had grave results in our home town, The Hague, being the biggest town on the coast.

Kraut occupiers in The Hague.

Twenty-five per cent of the town fell in the fortification area. Two thousand houses were broken down to make a wide corridor through the Hague strengthened by a concrete wall and a big sand ditch. Big fortifications were made in the dunes, in parks, etc. About twenty per cent of the inhabitants had to be evacuated. As father is a pensioned schoolteacher, my parents had to go too. They came to this village, [redacted village near Utrecht], but had to leave furniture and everything in the Hague, all heaped up in one room. Luckily, we knew the people who came into our house so nothing was stolen, as often happened to less lucky people. This happened in December of '42. My brother and I stayed in The Hague to continue our study, engineering. At the time I had nearly finished it, but I didn't want to pass the last exam, as there was a big danger of being sent to Germany. My brother, [redacted], who is 21 now, wanted to go to Delft's Technical high school, but couldn't as the Germans demanded 6 months "labor services" of new students and that was something he didn't want to do. So he went to another school, but afterwards he had to do the labor service nevertheless. But because of his change of address they couldn't fine [find?] him, though they thoroughly tried. But nobody knew where he was of course. He was lucky and never got caught and is going to start in Delft this autumn, having done nothing at all for the Huns. I was less lucky. The students had to sign a loyalty declaration to the Germans which of course I didn't do. But something was going to happen and we knew it. I had secured 5 addresses of people at whose houses I could hide, so I was pretty sure to pull through. But then the students who hadn't signed that declaration were called up for forced labour in Germany, the parents were held responsible for their going. And then all 5 addresses let me down, couldn't risk it, they said, penalties were too heavy. Well, I tell you I was a bit downhearted and really didn't know where to go. And as the biggest part of my friends had the same experience we had the stupidity to go! Knowing we had nothing better to do. Regretted it immediately, of course but too late. So we went to Berlin on the 6th of May '43.

A 14-year old Ukranian slave repairing motors in a German workshop, 1945.

That summer I tried to fine [find?] my way to Sweden [?], but didn't succeed. Then the winter came and the big bombardment of Berlin started, rather unpleasant I assure you. Came through unscathed, though we had several casualties at the factory. In spring I got a chance to go back to Holland on false papers, but two weeks before it was my turn (we were placed on a list) the Gestapo got wind of it and the whole organization was blown up. Then the invasion came and I thaught I'd have to stay to the end. But in August I got another chance and this time it came off. I spent 20 hours lying under the floor of a railway carriage and got to Amsterdam without being seen. The underground movement, better organized this time helped me get false papers and I was free again as far as possible at the time.

Literally this guy.

Meanwhile the situation hadn't altered very much, only grown gradually worse. But the worst was still to come. In September the Allied parachute landing at Arnhem came and in Holland the railways striked to hamper the German supply route. But they couldn't get across the Rhine and that meant that northern and western Holland had still some months to wait. But then the real looting started.

Allied paratroopers landing in the Netherlands, Sep 17, 1944.

British tanks meet the gigachads of the 101st Airborne Div.

Liberation of Eindhoven, Sep 18, 1944.

In Arnhem, where the civilians had to go away because of the fighting, several German cities got a part of the city where they were allowed to take what they could. And they did. Long columns of trucks went to and fro taking everything away you can think of. No civilian could enter the city until everything was gone. And in the months between September and May of this year they took everything they could to Germany: machines, tools, locomotives, trains, ships, cars, trucks, carts, horses, cows, and other cattle, literally everything, from the wire for electric trains to sewing machines, from our last food to blankets and clothes. Everybody had to give a blanket, a set of underwear, a pair of socks, a blanket, a coast etc. and after years without textiles [?] distribution. And if you didn't bring it to them they searched your house and took it and some more. All bicycles weere ordered up and so on. And then they stopped all food transport to the west as a revenge for the railway strike. People lived on sugerbeets and tulip bulbs. Daily you saw people falling down in the streets from sheer starvation, thousands were starved to death. Every man from 17 to 40 was called up for labour in Germany. They held big searches for men in the big cities. Tens of thousand had to walk to Germany, half starved as they were. And so I could go on and on, but I would bore you probably. It was really unbelievable when at last the end came that you were free to go where you wanted and the hated Germans really had got it in the neck. The food situation was soon cleared by the Allies. Big American and British bombers dropped millions of kilos of the best food when the roads weren't free yet. People were crying in the streets for sheer job. They did a wonderful job bringing us all that. Now every ration has gone up. Only meat is still scarce (an ounce a day) and fat isn't high enough yet. But we're very content.

A British bomber dropping food over the Netherlands.

And now the situation is still chaotic of course. The coal problem is the greatest of all. This winter we had nothing of course, no light, no gas, nothing to cook on. So all trees and even bushes have gone. Parks don't exist anymore. Empty houses were absolutely broken down for the wood only. Practically all factories can't work. No coal or no machines. It'll really last sometime before everything will be all right again. I think Europe is done and out for the first five or ten years and I hope to get away as soon as possible. Only I shall have to finish my study, which will take me about a year, I think.

Boom.

The Pacific war'll be over soon, I hope, after the invention of the "atomic bomb". It is really astonishing the quantity and quality America has been producing. Practically all the war material in the west is American--fantastic. We really owe the Americans a lot. But has this been the last war? I have my doubts. Or will the atom bomb be so terrible that war will be impossible. Doubtful too. What'll be the end, complete destruction or everlasting peace? It looks like an easy choice, but who knows? Well, I hope, I ddin't bore you too much with my story. Father will tell you about the family so I will end this rather long letter, hoping you'll receive it in good health. Send my respectful greetings to your wife, daughter, and brothers.

Your unknown cousin, [redacted]

PS The old house Bezuidenhout [redacted number, maybe a street] was heavily damaged by an Allied raid, when they mistook one part of the town for another. This error destroyed another ten per cent of the Hague. It was rather a pity, as it happened just before the end (3 March) of the war. But that's fate, nothing doing.

The neighborhood after this raid.

Japan is going to quit. There'll be peace on earth in a few days at last. Let's hope mankind has enough of war for a long, long time.

!oldfags !chiraqis @snallygaster this is a real deep cut. Read while listening to Dumb Hardcore EP for period-appropriate ambience.

Background

In the early-mid 2000s, LightBlueExtra was a Chicago area music BBS with a focus on the punk and hardcore scenes. My parents would never let me go to shows, but my older brother was in the scene and back in the day he used to go to see bands at The Fireside Bowl and post on LBE (he's not in this thread, if you're wondering). It was a fun, laid-back forum with lots of random shitposting and their own custom word filters. One thing that made it different from other internet forums is that almost everyone on it knew each other in real life. The core group of users and jannies ("Elitist fucks") all went to middle school together or something. By the 2000s they all had shitty new grad jobs, and were going to see each others' bands play, sleeping with other people in the scene and occasionally internet bullshit would spill over into actual IRL drama or vice versa.

I sometimes lurked, but I was too scared to post with the cool 20-somethings. I always dreamed that I would grow up, get my bellybutton pierced, and pretend to be a cool bitch on the internet. But then, by the time I was in my 20s, Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr had killed forum culture. Today, LBE is a graveyard, and I was shocked to discover it's still online at all.

Setup

On January 31, 2005, OP threw down the gauntlet.

The link is broken now, but I found a snippet of the article on another old forum

By BEN FELLER, AP Education Writer WASHINGTON

The way many high school students see it, government censorship of newspapers may not be a bad thing, and flag burning is hardly protected free speech. It turns out the First Amendment is a second-rate issue to many of those nearing their own adult independence, according to a study of high school attitudes released Monday.

The original amendment to the Constitution is the cornerstone of the way of life in the United States, promising citizens the freedoms of religion, speech, press and assembly. Yet, when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes "too far" in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.

!moidmoment

If you ever want a concise illustration of how American culture has changed over the last two decades, you could do worse than this: A bunch of 20-somethings were wringing their hands that a single youngun thought unpopular opinions should be censored. In 2005, 83% of high schoolers believed in

One poster waxed philosophical about grass and summer and debating important issues or something, but I just wanted to highlight his banger signature. Someone here should steal that. Somebody ping dinochads!

>"His team decided to mount their search for dinosaur DNA not in amber or the coal measures. They chose to search for it in fresh human semen"-Jones, M. The Molecule Hunt. (New York; Arcade Pub.,2001) p. 35

Soon enough, in the way of all forums, the grammar nazis arrived, ready to throw down and start shit with Dvorakcels

(I actually kind of love this guy. I hope he hasn't mellowed at all the last 19 years and we could be a power couple with massive egos picking fights with everyone over its/it's )

This threat is funnier because unlike on most messageboards, when someone on LBE says "why don't you say that to my face?" there's at least a chance they will at the next show.

The Grammar King from Sorrow Mountain would be a good band name.

Anyway, it goes on like that for a while. I'm not going to screenshot the whole thread but !clinklickers it's worth a click because there's some medium-funny posts in the first few pages. By February, it looked like the thread had petered out to a natural ending:

Punchline

But then, seventeen months later, a new challenger enters the ring: A self-professed 13 year old Australian downie...

Everything about this kid is peak 2006 and my heart is full of warmth and nostalgia to see it. Remember when people just posted whatever stupid obnoxious shit they wanted, and it wasn't about AI or politics or anything except a teenager acting retarded?

Same.

The regulars mostly ignore him for a while, but he keeps trying to get a rise out of someone...

By now, some people are getting into the spirit:

#69

I didn't realize TRUTH was this old, tbqh.

That could have been meeeee!!! I could have been the bratty sister acting like a twat on my brother's forum and embarrassing him in front of his cool friends.

Everyone kind of thinks it's fake, or a sockpuppet or a @carpathianflorist alt - because really, what the fuck? How does some random Australian child even stumble on an obscure local forum?

And then he's back the next day! And the crazy thing is he might not actually be a fake...

>.how odd, testosterone really gets the best of u doesnt it...

>stoked

>LEGENDS

...do Burgers say "stoked" and "legend"?

He also starts DMing people:

Two days later, he's back again:

A hundred posts in, he finally the OP and has some tHoUgHtS to contribute:

>Do u people seriously find it that hard 2 believe that it may actually just be a 13 year old...who else would b so agressive towards the world lmao

Our precocious troll makes another account specially for this single post:

He goes on for a few more pages, posting a bunch of random links like this blog about 'small meat processors' (lol) and a guide to finding the g-spot https://www.seductionscience.com/seduction/g-spot-376.htm

Some users are finally starting to be more annoyed than amused:

The old internet was great. Why do we never get random children trolling on this site?

Zing.

'elp, 'elp, im being stereo typed!

I feel like you could make this same joke on rdrama today and get DC for it. Is dramatard culture directly descended from genX music boards?

Our little Roo declares victory:

Hey, someone see if bigwetbutts.com stood the test of time.

But that wasn't the last we'd see of our hero. A little over a week later, surprise!

@Harmless weighs in with the wisdom of the ages:

Oh, but has the trolling metaphorically boomeranged on him?

(I forget how it worked, but "negative rep" was like a downvote or something)

Cuckaroos can't compete.

And then, two weeks later, our protagonist fires off one last riposte before riding off into the sunset, never to be seen again:

CONTEXT!

The Dragon Age vidja games are as popular and mainstream as it is possible to get for gaymer straggots, but unfortunately just like subreddits getting too big, this would invite the lowest common denominator of peeps.

Additionally, the Dragon Age games, similar to Bioware games like Mass Effect have became famous for their relationships you can form with allies and NPCs in game, ESPECIALLY gaaaay relationships

Back in 2008-2009 this was an especial novelty (especially pregay marriage legalization in Burgerland), but as the years went into the mid 2010s, and became ever increasingly more popular with Tumbler crowd, despite the Romances with allies and NPCs being only a small fraction of the overall intent and collective experiences of these games, especially the 3 first Dragon Age games.

So many tumbler types would simply spam fan forums or subreddits with gay romance art, sometimes to the detriment of the community, because the romances of these BIOWARE games were supposed to be the cherry on the top of a particularly great dessert - it was supposed to be a reward for all the hard effort of defeating bad guys and orc-zombies and saving the day - like the 1980s American Hollywood action hero getting the girl at the end being satisfying, especially if we liked the character/actor.

It was never the main meat or main attraction of the games, even if I personally really liked them, and think they are best romances in all of gayming (not high bar i know but still). My issue and for many others, the Tumbler types would end up derailing forum conversations or group personalities of subreddits into the typical woke/shitlib mentality that we know of today.

For example the female Custodes and coomer menace which had invested the main 40k subs recently past 6 months - in a vacuum theoretically, you can have both discussions about the hidden lore, combat strategies, the behind the scenes development stories, fanart, and then romance/ fav companions discussions. But i have seen time and again how the group personality of a special interest group or hobby fandom can get warped over time if a specific demographic dominates discussion, and this is even BEFORE peeps of that mentality get into power of moderation in places like the /r/dragonage subreddits.

Many tumblerinas would never even play or even finish the games, and would hyper focus on the gayness romances, and apply their PRESENTISM modern contemporary politics, as if that was all their was to the Dragon Age setting.

And subsequently the Dragon Age games from 1 to 3 (from Origins to Inquisition), would also become notacibly more liberal with each subsequent installment. I'll give some examples just now-now. As newer devs came in to replace the veterans, and the developers more focused upon this new vibrant demographic.

This is important to realize because the original Dragon Age Origins was aimed at sweaty fantasy nerds from yesteryear, people like me - people who read shit like Conan the Barbarian and Sword and Sorcery tier fantasy from the 1930s - 1980s. Before Marvel transformed from nerd culture to mainstream midwit culture, so too did stuff like DnD transform from something squarely enjoyed by sweaty nerds and neckbeards, to fricking woke tumblerinas!

DA Origins is possibly the LAST game we will ever get like this, in terms of the tone and themes of writing, which has a similar bleak and ruggedness similar to 1980s dark fantasy or 1930s-1980s Conan the Barbarian bleakness. The events and world was bleak and grimdark, but the heroic actions of our protagonists were that much brighter and selfless and heroic in comparison, like candles in pitch darkness!

Additionally for both the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series, the 1st game in their respective trilogies, were the least played (by gaymer normies/tumblerinas), because they were both the most technical, difficult and required the most gaymer understanding of mechanics.

Mass Effect 1 to Mass Effect 2, transformed from a full on 3rd person RPG to a 3rd person action game And again, for me personally I greatly enjoyed both games! Both were excellent in their respective genres, but for genre-cucks like myself the fact remains that action games get much more attention and games within that genre, cuz a larger audience.

A similar thing occurred in Dragon Age 1 - Dragon Age 2, though not nearly as dramatic. DAO was a full on Ream-Time-pause RPG, my favorite kind, but the fact remains that just like the RTS (Real Time Strategy) golden age of 1997-2009, the genre was in reality always for a niche small audience, they sold, but would never sell Call of Duty tier numbers, they were simply too difficult or technical for many. (Even though we have a RTS revival renaissance for the Age of Empires series past 4 years)

DA2 would become much more action oriented, with enemies being divided into classes you were meant to overcome with cross-class combos from your fighting team; additionally the animations would become flashy and action like, and you could legitimately actually play the game on the easiest difficulty, without ever pausing the game or controlling your companions as if it was an Action game.

Yet DA2 was still a full on Real-Time-Pause game, and I personally really enjoyed it.

Though the writing remained strong, the games would more also liberalize subtly. This would throw off many of the woke shilib cucks when they went back in reverse order to play the very 1st game, which was published back in 2009. Because it contained fantasy sexism against women which as you guys can imagine always draws potshots from wokies

who disrespect the progenitor of the fricking series!

Which is especially galling, as the sexism shown in DA Origins is very meek, and often showcased the women curbstomping those male cucks daring underestimate our Warrior Kween!

It reminds me of a recent Live Action Adaptation of Avatar Airbender where one of the main protagonists was a very juvenile sexist, who would say shit like "You throw like a girl!" and would consequently get his butt beat by the amazonian chicks in-universe. Like the fricking story actually punished this character, and he grew to be much wiser, and a worthy leader!!!! Well guess wat!!!!!! They sandblasted the fricking sexism and other faults from the Live Action equivalent, we we got the wimpiest and shittiest adaptation of a fictional character to ever transfer between mediums

In Dragon Age Origins, even the meek sexism faced by female protagonists appears to be enough to have the turbo wokes and snowflakes shit themselves, and basically (left unsaid) imply they would remove all sexism from these types of games, EVEN if it depicted the sexism from bad people, and YOUR PROTAGONIST OVERCOMING SUCH BIGOTRY

In the prevailing sexism index, I'd put DA Origins way above stuff like Mount&Blade, which is as hardcore to sexism as it was in the Dark Ages, where playing as a Foid is literally hardcore mode.

https://old.reddit.com/r/mountandblade/comments/13s8cds/gender_question/

Basically, you need like double the amount of reputation and influence to get other nobles to do shit for you, but if you know the mechanics of the gayme, this isn't such a hurdle.

Instead I would put the "Prevailing-Sexism-Index" as above the typical Conan the Barbarian setting and below Wheel of Time, in terms of women being warriors and being typically respected/disrespected.

In Conan, there are very few women bearing arms, and mass r*pe is plentiful. The world is barbaric, and bandits are plentiful. But every now and then there is a woman warrioress which Conan encounters, like Sonja the Red or Tsia the piratess.

In wheel of time, there are as many Matriarchies as there are equal nations (because only women can be sane mages and be living flamethrowers) , but men still do the lionshare of physical fighting as frontline foottroops, with exceptions being the Amazonian Aiel foid warriors and so on - thus female warriors are rare, but plentiful enough to be visible for most people to see and form sexism against the in-universe physically weaker women.

In the game DA Origins there are various gendered interactions, showcasing that women have obtained much greater freedom over the past centuries, but the vestiges of sexism still prevailing everywhere.

https://old.reddit.com/r/WhenMenWriteWomen/comments/pnibb6/this_line_of_dialogue_from_dragon_age_origins_was/

"This line of dialogue was definitely written by a man!" REALLY? Your own sister or mother never insulted you guys by attacking your masculinity?

https://old.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/1f236n8/when_you_start_a_game_and_its_already_lying_to_you/

Here's a small microexample of beating up sexist dudes is STILL not good enough for Tumblerinas

some yapping about sexism

"Some of the games writing has aged badly, it's not unjustified for players, especially younger ones, to be uncomfortable about it or to point it out."

https://old.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/zqdl0t/dao_spoilers_issues_with_how_origins_treats_the/

"Does anybody else notice this? How, even though in the character creation description it says that women are treated as relative equals and are well respected, they really aren't? I haven't played as a male character yet, so I don't know the nuances of how they're treated, but I'm pretty sure they don't get at least one "Wow, I can't believe you're a man" at every story point. And I'm pretty sure that DA2 and DAI don't really have this problem so that makes it even more noticeable (and bothersome)."

Remember what i said about the games aggressively liberalizing the dark and bleak setting with the following installments? Many zoomer/liberal gaymers would be SHOCKED when they went back to the original game, and all the different demographics aren't treated like an amorphous genderless cuck blob

Like holy smokes, in the game there are Alienages, or evish ghettos because elves are 2nd tier citizens because they are cucks in this universe - and the soys will STILL complain about the prevalence of any amount of sexism in-universe.

https://old.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/zqdl0t/dao_spoilers_issues_with_how_origins_treats_the/

"I think the only explanation for why some of that stuff still ends up creeping into the dialogue, particularly the sexism as you mention, is that the writers fell back on common medieval and fantasy tropes regarding treatment of women, either forgetting or not realizing that is clashed with lore."

This person is talking out of their asses, they are completely full of shit, and likely got their liberal impression from DA2 and Inquisition.

From the very onset in the game DA Origins, there were clear undertones of bleakness and sexism, as if the whole continent was slowly clawing its way back into "modern" civilization, with various calamities and disasters having plunged the whole continent back into cultural and technological dark ages. Foremost being the Blight - a swarming infestation of zombie-orcs which poisons and decays all natural habitats and life they come into contact with, which had decimated civilizations prior to the events in the game.

Runes and murals and ruins dot the landscape, the shells of once magnificent civilizations lived in by their diminished descendants.

In at least two moments, the Suffrage of women are mentioned ingame for DA Origins:

[1] Silent Sisters - dwarf chicks who cut out their own tongues

[2] Aveline - the chevalier in fantasy Frogland Orlais who beat up all the male cucks in a tournament, and won the right for Foids to become Frogland knights in-universe

https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Aveline_(chevalier)

[3] Sten, a companion of a faroff race, lives in an ultra-communist ultra-rigid society where roles are decided at birth due to the suitability of the kid - he expresses early on meeting with a Foid protagonist that he is MIND-FRICKED by the fact that she is a women and a warrior, cuz in his ultra-stratified nation, they don't exist. This conversation is not easily missed by peeps who actually played the game.

https://dragonageconfessions.blog/post/78274993851/confession-playing-as-a-female-warden-was-one-of

One tumbler feminist actually broke the mold in expressing the joy of overcoming sexism in the game universe.

Point is that low grade mild sexism was baked into Origins from the get go, as if in the start of the game, it has basically only been a hundred years since many women have obtained the rights or respect to join and command fantasy armed forces. The vast majority of fighting NPCs are male, when in combat and cinematics.

Yet even still warrioress women are shown as combat able, being exceptional in their roles and to be taken seriously. But this is not enough for the soys

https://old.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/zqdl0t/dao_spoilers_issues_with_how_origins_treats_the/j0xnke4/?context=8

"After countless male characters I decided to make a female one. When the phrase "I swear I'm the bravest of all of you and I'm a woman" became an option I cringed so fricking hard"

Lmoa these people are soooooooooo soy - I have literally heard Safrican women sargeants pooping on male recruits in barracks for failing to do their PT in early basics, egging them on, and calling them p%ssies fr not even being able to do pushups which their women peers are able to do!

I realize this can still be belittling for women gaymers, but i have genuinely seen Afrikaans women, both the older and newer generation, calling men sissies for not being as brave as their sisters or female classmates, when a particularly tough adventurous undertaing was being balked at - like when during a school summer camp we were tasked with swimming across al lake midwinter when it was freezing, the women camp instructors would call all the boys wimps for not even being brave enough to act like a man, and do what the chicks were bravely doing

Like have absolutely none of these peeps experienced the phenomena of men having their masculine pride attacked, also by women trying to prop them up? Maybe that is a remnant of Midievall sexism, where even women partook in enforcing gender roles, but it sure as heck was realistic behaviviour

This one line seems to have turbo cucked sooooooooooooooooooooooooo many Tumblerinas!

https://old.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/zqdl0t/dao_spoilers_issues_with_how_origins_treats_the/j0yh78g/?context=8

Once again how incredibly mild sexism in DA Origins is.

Anyways I won't waste your time too much further, but throughout the past decade a lot of bitching and grumbling had been made by tumblerinas.

https://hollyand-writes.tumblr.com/post/95359265079/the-gender-equality-thing-in-dragon-age-confused

TLDR: Male authors are evvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvil /r/MenWritingWomen

https://ladygeekgirl.wordpress.com/2014/11/07/sexism-in-dragon-age-the-difference-between-intent-and-negligence/

R*pe is a problem globally. However, it is worse in some places than in others. This is due to a multitude of reasons including culture, criminal law, and religion. India is considered to have one of the highest r*pe rates in the world, and things show no sign of slowing down. The statistics are harrowing, to say the least.

• There are an average of 86 r*pes daily

• One r*pe was reported every 16 minutes in India in 2019

• More than 7,200 minors – 1.6 in 100,000 minors – are r*ped each year in India

• Only one in four reported r*pe cases in India result in convictions

• Unreported rate in India is estimated by the National Crime Records Bureau to be 71%

Today, I wish to outline one of the worst r*pe cases to come out of India. Earlier, I received a vicious teardown from @DWHITE___________DYNAMITE regarding my longposts, and a lot of it is true. Hence, I've decided to slow down and carefully write this post over a number of days. Hopefully, this is regarded as a qualitypost.

The Nirbhaya Case - 2012

This case began on December 16, 2012 and it centers on Jyothi Singh and her male friend, Awindra Pratap Pandey, who was a 28-year-old software engineer. Jyothi was 22 and she graduated in physiotherapy from the Sai Institute of Paramedical & Allied Sciences in Dehradun. Although women are treated like second-class citizens in India, that wasn't the case in Jyothi's family where her father insisted she be allowed to attend school.

The pair had gone to watch Life of Pi at PVR Select City Walk, Saket. I don't blame them for watching the film, it's good and so is the novel. Following their viewing of the film, they headed to Munirka Bus Stand where they boarded a bus, expecting to go to Dwarka. It was late at night, but not too late. Reports claim it was around 21:30, or 9:30 PM for those who can't read military time.

The pair weren't alone on the bus. There were six other passengers (all male) as well as the bus driver. The bus ride was normal until it wasn't. The pair started getting suspicious when the bus went off-route and the doors were shut. Awindra spoke out, but this invited nothing but mockery from the bus passengers. The software engineer didn't take it sitting down, and a scuffle ensued. He was overpowered and hit on the head with an iron rod, rendering him unconscious, before he was gagged like a war hostage.

==========================

Quick Notes From Holly!

At first, in compliance with India's law, the names of the victims were withheld. Pseudonyms were used in the media, including Jagruti (awareness), Amanat (treasure), Nirbhaya (fearless one), Damini (lightning, after the 1993 Hindi Hit film), and Delhi braveheart. Their identities didn't remain hidden for long, and a publication called Mail Today published Jyothi's name. This resulted in the Delhi police to file a criminal case. Eventually, Jyothi's parents made her identity public, with her father stating the following: "We want the world to know her real name. My daughter didn`t do anything wrong, she died while protecting herself."

https://zeenews.india.com/news/delhi/delhi-r*pe-victims-father-says-didnt-allow-uk-daily-to-name-daughter_821228.html

==========================

As the bus driver continued driving, the six passengers dragged Jyothi to the back of the bus where they gang-r*ped her and beat her with an iron rod. Jyothi fought back, biting some of the assailants, but she too was overpowered and she could not stop the men from having their way with her. They also penetrated her with the iron rod. It is hard to describe how badly they brutalized Jyothi, and reading about it makes my stomach turn. She suffered serious trauma to her abdomen and genitals, and the boys saw stringy matter, believed to be her intestines, being pulled from her. Awindra was also badly injured and suffered broken limbs.

The whole ordeal took about half an hour and when the men were done, they threw their victims out of the bus at Mahipalpur, but not before robbing the pair of their belongings. They were spotted by a passerby who took the pair to Safdarjung Hospital. Awindra was harmed but recovered. The same cannot be said for Jyothi who went through a medical nightmare. She was put on life support and had her intestines removed. Shockingly, she could still communicate, and she gave a description of her attackers. She was eventually moved to Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore for further care. Unfortunately, doctors could not save her, and she died on December 29.

To cover the criminal case would require a post of its own, so we'll only cover light details. The bus used in the incident was found within 24 hours and traced back to the driver, Ram Singh. From there, it was easy to find the rest of the perpetrators. They were arrested and the parliament decided to forge new laws that had the death penalty as one of the punishments for r*pe. Ram would be found hanging in his jail cell, leaving four of the accused to face trial. After being found guilty, they received the death penalty and were hanged. If the math seems off, it's not. One of the perpetrators was a minor, so his case was handled in juvenile court.

Following the incident, there were mass protests in India. Protestors were hit with water and teargas to make them disperse. More than 600 women belonging to various organisations demonstrated in Bangalore while thousands of people silently marched in Kolkata. Protests continued after Jyothi's death, and the case found international attention, leading to protests around the world with many demanding a safer society for women and girls in India. A documentary titled India's Daughter was created by the BBC, and it was lauded by Jyothi's family.

Unfortunately, not much has changed, and r*pe remains rampant. More sadly, the Nirbhaya case would not be the last time a great atrocity occurred.

Conclusion

I was going to post multiple cases, but I'd like to craft my longposts a little better, taking care not to make them too long. I'm still unemployed so I've got a lot of time on my hands when I'm not job hunting, and I need to realise that not everyone is in the same position, so my posts need to reflect that.

I'm at peace with my inceldom for now, and I'm not even particularly suicidal. I haven't self-harmed since June and I still have a good friendship with Sarah H. (the girl who rejected me). All in all, the circumstances of my life may not be the greatest, but I've been able to find happiness and inner peace while I patiently wait for the tide to turn. I'm not remaining passive, of course, and I'm making a concerted effort to improve things. Hopefully, the future is brighter than the past has been.

Just a reminder that I'm not advocating we be barbaric and deliberately cruel to farm animals, but that Redditors truly are never representative of their city/country/region sub and are usually the most liberal libshit soy part of that population.

You guys need to understand, it is not that these redditors are advocating for animal rights or good treatment that bothers me, it is because all of this is performative for themselves, it is very difficult to explain this concept, as it sounds like a bitter man resisting chance just cuz

Example: as a land surveyor i work in the lowest strata of society in Free State and other regions of South Africa, that includes Townships and shnatytown ghettos, informal settlements and so on, and THESE poor peeps REALLY don't even have the notion of animal rights and stuff.

Many poor black sotho/zulu and Tswane peeps have dogs, but they treat them more as useful cowtools, rather than pets to be loved: hunting dogs and stray dogs roam the townships as mangy feral skinny pests, only getting their meal if they aid their masters in catching hares or Tarentale

https://www.news24.com/citypress/news/township-amaphisi-20191116

=====(from article)

The fact that it is illegal to use dogs to hunt wildlife appears to do little to discourage their owners from letting the greyhounds' hunting skills go to waste.

They believe the dogs' only purpose is to run after wild animals, tear them apart and eat them – and this is the only time these dogs experience freedom in the wild.

"These dogs are meant for running – that's what they were bred for. Even if we don't catch anything on a day out hunting, a purpose is still served, which is to see them exercise and run in an open veld," says Shaka Mcwango, a young man from Kagiso Hostel who has three dogs.

To an ordinary person, the canine companions might appear skinny and underfed, but they are mostly well looked after as greyhounds are expensive dogs for the amaPhisi – those who hunt with dogs. [SSSSSSSSSSSSUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEE ]

======(END)

https://www.2oceansvibe.com/2015/07/20/theyre-illegally-using-dogs-to-hunt-rabbits-in-townships-images/

=====(2oceansvibe article)

It's fair to say South Africa doesn't have the greatest rep when it comes to illegal hunting. We have a thriving canned lion industry, and rhino poachers who, depending on who they know, are above the law.

Mashable have now published some incredible images showing members of a Soweto township partaking in illegal dog hunts. Whilst I in no way support hunting per se, I do think there is a big difference between hunting for food, as these guys apparently do, and have done since their ancestors settled on the land – and hunting for sport, entertainment or profit.

=====(end)

They're doing it cuz they are hungry poor people you yuppie morons

Then there is the ever EVER present sight of mangy abused guard dogs chained to their paltry pathetic 3 feet of chain fence around their kennel house. Where i as they surveyor have to squeeze between crappy fences and wires to measure the corner beacons or house corners, while dogs try to nip my ankles. They are not pets they are cowtools for poor people.

The DBV, the Animal-Protection-Association are worthless in their reach inside Townships because of how widespread this is within the entire country, instead they harass white upper class wymmin because their poodles don't get to eat tuna or some shit.

https://networkforanimals.org/news/the-agonizing-deaths-of-township-animals/

=====(from networkforanimal article)

Rural townships are home to an estimated 85% of all pets in South Africa, and most of them are likely to suffer agonising gruesome deaths. Township life is tough and dangerous, and most poverty-stricken pet owners don't regard animal welfare as a priority. In fact, it's at the bottom of their to-do lists, and many animals end up on the streets as a result. On top of this, most rural households cannot afford veterinary care and many pets are not vaccinated. Sick animals are often killed for fear of potential infections.

Dogs have become regular targets for troubled children, who have never been educated about animal welfare. Recently in the Cape Town township of Langa, seven pups were stabbed with pointed sticks and then set alight by a group of children. Michelle, the mother of the pups, jumped into the flames and bravely pulled each of her puppies to safety. She was severely burnt herself.

Animal welfare organization, Network for Animals (NFA), rescued the puppies, provided them with veterinary care, and took them to a local animal shelter who will care for pups until they find suitable homes for them.

This is one of many similar stories where animals have been attacked and tortured by children.

"Awareness on animal welfare is desperately needed and NFA conducts workshops educating communities about it, but more needs to be done," said NFA's chief campaigner, David Barritt.

[WHAT ARE THESE SHITTY WORKSHOPS LMOA]

=====(END)

https://networkforanimals.org/how-you-can-help/south-africa-calvinia-dogs-tiger-and-boelie/

"Most local people do not understand that animals are sentient beings deserving of compassion. They abandon them to lives of misery. " And these are for supposed PETS as you can imagine farmanimals have an even LOWER priority for compassion outside of exploitation. Especially cattle of township communal herdings.

"They drove over this dog!!"

"ee ja, and wat id the problem?"

"P.S. 200 dogs in Calvinia, South Africa, are counting on YOU! Their suffering is unbearable, but with your donation today, we can rush them crucial food and life-saving veterinary care."

And here is my problem with this performative annoyance, i see 200 chained up dogs per day when working in a shitty no-name township in the middle of dusty townships or suburbs on a weekly basis.

It is not that i try to belittle efforts to combat abuse or giving attention to factory farming cruelty as in the linked Reddit thread, but what you guys will see is what is not said, and that there is a hidden racial element to the reasoning behind the complaints.

Most poor peeps, the poor in the caliber of shanty towns and the type to abuse dogs and farm animals because of a lack of education or fricks given, are black, and subsequently most commercial farmers, those either wealthy or use farms large enough to be capable of commercial farming, tend to be white, especially cattle/sheep/chicken farmers.

Thus most of these cute twinks in the reddit thread would never apply their criticism of animal cruelty equal to society - additionally the factory farming in RSA is much different from that of USA, and free range roaming much much more common, because land is more cheap in the type where cattle is held. The only exception would be chicken factory farming which depending on your definition would be similar as to that of yank large scale commercial chicken farms.

"Buy from a reputable butchery where they can tell you where the meat comes from." The impracticality of this soy shit cannot be overstated.

lol you will notice there's not a lot of soy pushback when poor south africans straight up say they buy where it is cheapest - this would be downmarseyd to oblivion in westoid subs.

"Yeah. I don't care about the life of a chicken."

Not kidding: I was reading about this game on various websites but.... this is all so fricking boring, dull, soulless.... just repugnant to look at, to the extent that I even got bored of the meta-drama surrounding it, and got distracted by other topics, so the threads and stuff that I am about to link here are already inactive because of this.

Either way, this game looks ugly, talks ugly, smells ugly, sjws pwned ebic style wokes on suicide watch total chud victory yadda yadda blah blah I do not even have the energy or enthusiasm to explain this shit, even redditors are pooping on the game and the trend of intentionally ugly character designs in Western games, but religiously proclaim "not to offend certain people, but...." first in order to not be excommunicated as a heretic.

Sony deserves a prize for making something so uninteresting that even its critics are getting bored of criticizing it!, it is bad even from a "so bad its good" or "play it ironically" perspectives, even /r/GamingCirclejerk is finding it difficult to defend something that everyone except r-slurs on ResetEra liked, the image in the OP is the only meme fanart that I was able to find, but other than that, there is nothing of a community for this game, no fanart, no memes, no soyjaks, just nothing special.

Random images and memes blah blah:

Here is your team of badass and sexy heroes, what happens when you put ResetEra r-slurs in corporate positions:

R-slurred dev and pisses off even fellow r-slurs who are being sympathetic towards zxim:

https://steamdb.info/app/2443720/charts/

ResetEra cultists religiously praise the clergy of their religion no matter the cost:

https://www.resetera.com/threads/concord-debuts-on-steam-with-600-player-ccu.962340/ !ranchers

GamingCirclejerk begins turbocope mode, they now agree that the game is utter dogshit, but not for the reasons that le heckin bad faith incel nazi bigot christofascist MAGA drumpfler brigaders think:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Gamingcirclejerk/comments/1f06a0u/i_hate_that_i_agree_with_people_that_most_concord/

When you do not win money your performative bullshit dies down: Sony removed and blacklisted the "LGBTQIAP2SBIPOC+" and "Political" tags on Steam to avoid getting filtered by le heckin bad faith incel nazi bigot christofascist MAGA drumpfler brigaders:

The logical conclusion to the Tumblr-BIPOC-Fatoid-ResetEra-MenDrawingWomen character design: Their characters are so repulsive that Concord has probably broke the record of the first AAA game by a big publisher in history to have ABSOLUTELY NO RULE 34 ART OF IT, A DAY AFTER ITS RELEASE, WOKEOIDS HAVE SUCCESSFULLY PULLED WHAT ANTI-PORN CHRISTIANS COULDN'T

Streams of Diddy Kong Racing has more viewers than Copecord streams! TOTAL MONKE VICTORY!

No comments:

Doom, a game from 31 years ago, running on a dogshit Steam port, also has more players than Coomcord

KotakuinAutism declares total chud victory on the same day as the 10th anniversary of the sub

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/1f0h6xf/how_important_is_sex_appeal_in_a_game_genre/

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/1f0m4cw/the_way_the_gaming_media_is_downplaying_how/

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/1f05cj8/congratulations_to_the_lord_of_the_rings_gollum/

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/1f05xjh/the_pitiful_state_of_woke_companies_and_medias/

/v/ threads:

https://boards.4chan.org/v/thread/686594840

https://boards.4chan.org/v/thread/686591018

https://boards.4chan.org/v/thread/686562214

https://boards.4chan.org/v/thread/686582367

https://boards.4chan.org/v/thread/686615024

!g*mers !chuds Discuss woke game cringe, fatoids cringe, go woke go broke, yadda yadda, I am going to sleep after a rough day, God bless yxll

!g*mers !oldstrags !dramatards !ranchers

Also remember that if you comment or post anything in KiA, the child-beating wife-beating meat-beating AGP jannies employ ban bots that automatically bans your accounts from the vast majority of mainstream subreddits controlled by Bardfinn and his league of extraordinary jannies!

This is the ban message that you get, this is from only a year ago!

Have a look at its most-updooted-of-all-time posts, average ones are from 7-9 years ago and reflect the cultural and political situation of their eras!

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/top/?sort=top&t=all

For example, many mid-2010s internet characters that are today prominent lolcows, and most of whom had a fall from grace in the G*merGate community, did AMAs or otherwise used the subreddit!

G*MERGATE 10TH ANNIVERSARY SPERGOSPECTIVE, A DECADE OF AUTISM 2014-2024:

Famous lolcows/internet e-celebs that used/posted/did AMAs on /r/KotakuinAction:

Milo Yayabussypolols did an AMA 9 years ago:

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2sbw6j/im_milo_and_this_is_my_g*mergate_book_ama/

Tim Pool did an AMA 5 years ago:

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/bcy1u8/im_tim_pool_an_yall_are_talking_about_subverse/

Hotwheels from 8chan also did an AMA 9 years ago:

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2j8vg8/i_am_hotwheelscopypastefredrick_brennan_the/

Null from KiwiFarms posted this 8 years ago:

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/4ax6tj/censorship_warning_twitter_actively_banning/

Mike Cernovich did an AMA 9 years ago:

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2lm8ts/mike_cernovich_ama/

Zoe Quinn's cuck bf made multiple AMAs in there and also loved to beg for G*merGater NEETBux to help his legal cases:

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/search?q=author%3Aqrios&sort=relevance&t=all

Collection of interesting KiAutism posts from almost 10 years ago:

Reddit bans /r/whalewatching thinking its a clone of /r/fatpeoplehate. It was actually a real attempt at a whale watching community and has existed for +2 years.

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/39g65l/reddit_bans_rwhalewatching_thinking_its_a_clone/

Chairman Pao just banned /r/fatpersonhate and /r/fatpeoplehate3 for "ban evasion" - as if they were already "harassing", ergo: banning ideas instead of behavior!

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/39dcr1/chairman_pao_just_banned_rfatpersonhate_and/

/r/TheRedPill was subreddit of the day on 24 April 2016!

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/4ga45f/i_dub_today_the_triggering_trp_is_subreddit_of/

Lauren Southern before she became a lolcow mocked even by rightoids:

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/50enhd/the_value_of_capturing_sjw_insanity_on_camera/

An old Reddit powermod speaks his mind.

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3bzleu/an_old_reddit_admin_speaks_his_mind/

Imgur censors the word "Trigglypuff" after a new video by a person who was attending "The Triggering" talk (featuring Milo, Based Mom, and Crowder) goes viral on Imgur

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/4hfqis/censorship_imgur_censors_the_word_trigglypuff/

Trigglypuff is the ancient "TRIGGERED" SJW meme:

Porn Site Offers Gawker Founder $35k To Star In Hulk Hogan Themed Porn Film

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/4p0tzm/porn_site_offers_gawker_founder_35k_to_star_in/

I never in my 21 years thought I'd say this, but Brianna Wu has a valid point.

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/57ix4u/i_never_in_my_21_years_thought_id_say_this_but/

Here is some random prophetmaxxing about the Reddit Pope-turned Anti- Pope Richard GODkins:

Rebeccca Watson, of ElevatorGate and Atheism+ fame, feels the need to mention Richard Dawkins' "spate" history "of bigoted comments" in article about him suffering a stroke

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/45e9ez/rebeccca_watson_of_elevatorgate_and_atheism_fame/

"You know you've won the argument when the only counter argument they can find is that you are white or male or old." - Richard Dawkins

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3f9l0e/you_know_youve_won_the_argument_when_the_only/

Richard Dawkins talking about SJW's with Bill Maher

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3nc1l4/richard_dawkins_talking_about_sjws_with_bill_maher/

KPFA cancels Richard Dawkins' speech because of his tweets about Islam

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/6oxbho/kpfa_cancels_richard_dawkins_speech_because_of/

Jerry Coyne - "Richard Dawkins deplatformed at a book talk in Berkeley for "abusive speech" about Islam on Twitter"

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/6onpak/censorship_jerry_coyne_richard_dawkins/

I think Richard Dawkins is trying to get banned from Twitter

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/43eclf/humor_i_think_richard_dawkins_is_trying_to_get/

Salon: Never tweet, Richard Dawkins: Famed atheist now signal-boosting Nazi Propaganda

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/43rc6d/salon_never_tweet_richard_dawkins_famed_atheist/

Ah whatever here is a shitton about Dogkins posts:

https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/search?q=dawkins&sort=relevance&t=all

Ubisoft mocks Christianity in Watch Dogs 2, but when one user of the Ubisoft Forums asks if they would do the same thing with Islam, the thread gets locked immediately for being "offensive to religions"

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/5vih1s/gaming_ubisoft_mocks_christianity_in_watch_dogs_2/

Ancient drama with peak early 2010s Twitter lolcow Phil Fish:

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2us4lj/giantbomb_censors_out_link_to_techraptor_and/

Phil Fish is now immortalized in the Soy Boy meme compilations!

Ancient Twitter drama with Notch (/r/Drama mod who just so happens to have created Memecraft) from 9 years ago:

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/34inhy/notch_attacked_on_twitter_by_crazy_sjw_who_then/

Collection of almost decade-old posts about ancient lolcow Andrew Dobson + Allison Rapp autism:

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2hrwyw/a_female_g*mer_who_is_a_fan_of_andrew_dobsons/

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2hrhde/andrew_dobson_doesnt_know_when_to_quit_drags/

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/4cw47l/tom_preston_aka_andrew_dobson_defends_rapp/

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/4cph1g/alison_rapp_megathread/

Mister Metokur has just had his Youtube account banned shortly following his twitter ban.

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/9awcyi/happenings_mister_metokur_has_just_had_his/

5 years later, Metokur has got his YT channel back, his channel is monetized again, and he is back on Twitter and streaming to an audience larger than ever!

Not So Awesome: The That Guy With The Glasses/Channel Awesome #ChangeTheChannel Google Doc

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/890k3r/discussion_not_so_awesome_the_that_guy_with_the/

THE GREAT NEURODIVERGENT WAR OF 2018 (/R/DRAMA INVOLVED!): The David_Me Coup Attempt of 2018

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/905bid/davidme_posted_his_plans_for_this_community_and/

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/8yob48/megathread_kia_davidme_breakdown_media_coverage/

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/7u4y2h/regarding_a_meta_post_that_was_posted_by_davidme/

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/90tfod/meta_official_davidme_megathread_and_other_posts/

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/90bao6/davidme_and_kia_a_compromise_proposal/

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/90aqy5/if_davidme_wishes_to_focus_on_honesty_and_truth/

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/8zlaih/meta_eron_claim_to_have_got_a_message_from_3_days/

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/90ol75/kia_has_been_dominated_by_straight_white_men_for/

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/8yt0sz/users_make_yourself_heard_that_you_want_a/

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/91njb7/a_question_concerning_the_last_few_days_since_the/

THE END: DAVID_ME IS DEMOPPED, TOTAL NEURODIVERGENT VICTORY! https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/91vksc/meta_the_verdict_is_in/

Random MovieBlob post from before Drumpf perpetually broke his already-damaged Bing Bing Wahoo-filled McBrain:

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2sf2s8/moviebob_having_a_meltdown_over_being_called_an/

David Pakman Show on Twitter: ".@MatthiasCo I'm truly shocked that the CBC included me in that montage of pro #g*mergate people harassing women. Shameful journ*lism."

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2m9568/david_pakman_show_on_twitter_matthiasco_im_truly/

David Pakman Show on Twitter: "Brianna Wu accused me of doing a hit piece attack interview on g*mergate today. Interview will be posted later."

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2khb85/david_pakman_show_on_twitter_brianna_wu_accused/

Harry Potter fandom before the Great TERFication of J.K. Rollin and Trollin:

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/94wth6/harry_potter_and_the_sjw_twattery/

Daniel Radosh (senior writer for The Daily Show) thinks that G*mergate got Trump elected

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/6byslq/twitter_bullshit_daniel_radosh_senior_writer_for/

Matthew Gault / War Is Boring - "How Internet Trolls Became Terrorists And helped to elect Donald Trump" (yeah, the usual)

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/6p7mg8/opinion_matthew_gault_war_is_boring_how_internet/

[Meta] I see a "no politics" rule listed here, yet I see lots of political threads posted and upmarseyd here every day. Is Rule #3 even enforced anymore?

https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/4vch8x/meta_i_see_a_no_politics_rule_listed_here_yet_i/

Also, this absolute gem of an image reminds us of simpler days:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2014/10/g*mergate-supporters-party-at-strip-club.html

Thread theme

In my last state of the race post I discussed how Biden dropping out and J.D Vance hopping on board affected the race - tldr is that Harris has turned this race from a total Trump sweep to an incredibly close race that narrowly favours Harris. Since then, Walz was chosen as running mate (I had heard the name bounced around but didn't consider him viable, darn it ) and Harris has been officially nominated at a rather eventless DNC. Little has changed, other then Harris' steady climb in the polls - while Walz is the only man in the race to have a positive net approval rating (Walz is at 5.6% approval, Harris is at -2.3% approval, Trump at -9.7% and Vance at -10.3%), he's not going to be election defining. It's not looking great for Harris, as she leads less then Hillary Clinton won the PV by - but there's still two months left, so there's everything to play for.

Teddy Roosevelt believed that the Presidency is a rather powerless office, best used for raising awareness of issues - and he's correct. The President has very, very limited Domestic power. They really can't do much without Congressional approval, they can't even appoint people to the federal agencies (RIP CIA Director Robert Kennedy) Their power emerges mostly in foreign policy, but at the end of the day it's Congress that decides if America goes to war. So it will be the makeup of Congress that decides how the presidencies go.

The House

Neighbor there's 435 races I'm not tracking that.

The Republicans control the House but very narrowly, whoever wins the Presidency will likely win the House as well thanks to downballot voting (where people vote based on the top of the ticket - they're voting Trump, so they'll vote Republican for the Senate, House and Mayor or whatever)

The Senate

Despite Chuck Schumer being the Senate Majority Leader, the Democrats aren't technically the majority. In fact, Republicans have more seats in the Senate.

The Democrat majority is made up with 4 independents, 2 of those independents being nominated as Democrats in 2018. Joe Manchin of West Virginia , Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona , Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine . This means all the Republicans need to do is win two seats to get a Senate majority.

I'll only cover ones that are expected to lose their incumbent or are otherwise expected to be close - it doesn't take a genius to guess who will win in Hawaii, or Indiana.

Montana, Jon Tester (D) v Tim Sheely (R)

Incumbent: Jon Tester (D)

"I'm proud to support marriage equality because no one should be able to tell a Montanan or any American who they can love and who they can marry."

Jon Tester first won his seat in 2006, by just 0.9% of the vote - worth noting the libertarian candidate got 2% of the vote, making Tester's victory a very close one. Despite his narrow victory (and with some exceptions), Tester was a rather firm liberal ally of Obama. He would manage to win re-election twice, but his odds now are looking very dire. Firstly - Trump has gotten personally involved in the race, campaigning frequently in Montana with Tim Sheely. Secondly, Montana has voted Republican for President every year since 1992, and 1992 had Ross Perot in it.

The closest it's come to flipping Blue since is 2008, but not even Obama's once in a generation charisma and Bush screwing the pooch royally could flip it blue. Finally, Tester's co-Senator is a Republican that won by 11%, the Governor of Montana is a Republican that won by about 15%, while Tester himself has never won by more then 2%.

Tester has a record of narrowly winning in unfavourable environments, but I just don't see it for him. Montana is a very safe Republican win.

West Virginia, Jim Justice (R) v Glenn Elliot

Incumbent: Joe Manchin (I)

"I'll take on Washington and this administration to get the government off of our backs, and out of our pockets."

Manchin, the unappreciated gem of the Democrats. Sure, in a lot of ways Manchin is a DINO - NRA endorsed, climate denier, fiscal conservative, so on and so forth. But this one is as simple as looking at the stats - in 2012, WV voted for Romney over Obama by 37%, Trump over Hillary by 42% and Trump over Biden by 39%. By contrast, Manchin beat John Raese by 24% in 2012. He had a much tougher time in 2018, winning by 3%, but shit. The guy still won as a Democrat!

To understand how astonishing Manchin's ability to win as a Democrat is, his co-Senator (a Republican) won her first election by 24% in 2014 and 43% in 2020. There wasn't any vote splitting either - the Republicans are just that darn strong. Admittedly in 2016, a Democrat won the governor's race with 49% of the vote despite the progressive Mountain party vote splitting in the election...

But he defected to the Republicans and won re-election by 43% of the vote.

The numbers don't lie - if you're not a Republican or Joe Manchin, you're shit out of luck. And Joe Manchin isn't running for re-election, leaving the WV Democrats up shit's creek without a paddle, and it doesn't even seem like they're this year. The 2024 Senate election is between Jim Justice, the twice elected Governor of West Virginia, vs Glenn Elliot, mayor of Wheeling. For context on how obscure Elliot is, he doesn't even have a wikipedia page.

So the Republicans need two seats to get a Senate Majority. And they're virtually guaranteed two seats. Well, shit. The rest of this is pointless. The Republicans are gonna win the Senate. But by just how much? Let's keep digging - these races next races are ones that are expected to be close, something to expand a majority that the Republicans are flat out going to get.

Ohio, Sherrod Brown (D) v Bernie Moreno (R)

Incumbent: Sherrod Brown (D)

"To a trade unionist, a strikebreaker - scab - is the lowest form of human life."

The last time Ohio for a Democrat president was 2012, by 3%. In 2016, Trump won by 8% - and in 2020, an election he lost, he managed to win Ohio by the same margin, 8%. Trump's brand of politics has proven itself by poison nationally, but it's tremendously effective in Ohio - the former swing state is now correctly regarded as safe Republican. The fact Senator J.D Vance barely won Ohio despite his massive funding advantage speaks more to how much he sucks, not that Ohio is secretly a swing state - as seen in the gubernatorial race, where Mike DeWine won re-election by 35%.

Brown is comparable to Manchin, in his way, except the man isn't a DINO - he was even considered for Clinton's running mate in 2016 as a peace offering to Bernie Sanders, ultimately failing because the governor that would have replaced Brown had he won was Republican John Kaisch. Unfortunately for wokesisters, his record of victory as seen diminishing returns. He won his first race for the senate against DeWine in 2006 by 13%, then his second race in 2012 by 6%, but bounced back a tad in 2018 by winning by 7% of the vote. If the votes this year are the same, that means Brown loses by 1%.

Ohio is has been utterly and totally solidified as a Trump state now, and Brown running is during a Presidential election - he's in deep shit. He has two saving graces however - one, Brown is personally quite popular. Ohio likes the guy! He's mastered the use of language to keep up with Ohio's shift to populism, and can keep up with the best of them when it comes to ranting about elites looking down on workers. Secondly, his opponent Bernie Moreno is on record for a total abortion ban. If Brown is able to turn the race to a referendum on , Brown wins. We know this because in 2023 Ohio literally held a referendum on it, and the baby killers won handily.

Brown is in a difficult spot, but the race is far from unwinnable for him.

Pennsylvania, Bob Casey Jr (D) v David McCormack (R)

Incumbent: Bob Casey Jr (D)

"Democrats in 2020 can't just drive by red counties. You have to stop, get out of your car, ask for people's votes, and engage with them on issues that relate to their lives."

If you just look at the results, Casey Jr should be perfectly fine. Biden won in 2020, Shapiro and Fetterman ran as unabashed social progressives, Casey is an incumbent and his father Casey Sr was governor of the state. How on earth could Casey lose?

This ignores some crucial factors. Biden won by 1.78%, and Shapiro and Fetterman were blessed by truly terrible opponents. Shapiro ran against Doug Mastriano, a frothing lunatic that said woman that have abortions should be charged with murder , insisted that the 2020 election was stolen and put on his platform in 2022 that marriage is between a man and a woman. Fetterman's opponent, Mehemet Oz, wasn't as bad, but while Fetterman did run as a progressive, his campaign was built around attacking Oz as an outsider (since he was from New Jersey and had citizenship in Turkey).

By contrast, Casey is running against David McCormack. McCormack did some work for the Bush administration, moved to the private sector where he worked as a GOP donor. He has acceptably moderate stances, including relatively early support for gay marriage, and was headhunted by the Penn GOP to run for the Senate.

Casey is a moderate Democrat with family ties to Penn and a great record of winning, while McCormack is a very qualified moderate Republican. If I had to bet, I would give it to Casey Jr thanks to his incumbent status, but I think whoever wins this race will be because of the Presidential ticket. This one is far too close to call.

Michigan, Elissa Slotkin (D) v Mike Rogers (R)

Incumbent: Debbie Stabenow (D)

"Forget about whether global warming exists. My focus is on jobs."

Michigan is staying blue. Since Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 by 0.23% of the vote, Republicans have become convinced it's the new Ohio, despite the fact that since 2016, the GOP haven't won a single major election. there. Governor Gretchen Whitmer won her election by 10% in 2018, then her re-election by 10% in 2022. When it comes to federal elections, the margins are a bit better - Biden (remember that guy? Wonder what happened to him.) won Michigan by 3% in 2020, while Gary Peters won his 2020 race by a narrow 1.68% margin.

Debbie Stabenow won her 2018 race by an impressive 7%, but she's retiring this term. This means the race is two non-incumbents, giving neither side a major advantage.

: Erm Mr. R-slurredDramanaut, the 2020 Senate race also had no incumbents, and that was very close. How can you say Michigan won't swing?

Good question, myself. It's because the Michigan GOP is fricking bankrupt, having defaulted on it's bank loans. While perhaps they could have stood a chance if they had any money, watch the Republican GOP be buried in attack ads and slaughtered in the election.

Arizona, Ruben Gallego (D) v Kari Lake (R)

Incumbent: Kyrsten Sinema (I)

Krysten Sinema dancing while voting against a minimum wage increase bill

Sinema, what a weird freak. A former green party member that won her Senate race as a Progressive, she flip flopped hard into some kind of bizarre moderate -, becoming so hated by her party she had to retire from the senate at 48. This was a bitter disappointment for libbers, because it marked confirmation of a charming myth - that Arizona is a new swing state. In 1964, Arizona was the only state in America that voted for Barry Goldwater (that didn't also have Jim Crow laws stopping black people from voting) and from then on voted Republican in nearly every single election, from Nixon to Reagan to Bush to Trump, with a brief break in 1996 to vote for Clinton. Joe Biden managed to snag to the state in 2020 by 0.3%, which when coupled by Sinema's upset win in 2018, indicated that Arizona was a swing state.

It really isn't. Mark Kelly's win by 2.4% in 2020 is more indicative of his strength then Arizona going woke.

Having said that, I think the Arizona senate race is too close to call.

The Democrat in this race is Ruben Gallo, a fairly non-descript liberal with progressive leanings that had previously fought Sinema over her flip-flop once she arrived in Congress.

The Republican in this race is Kari Lake, 2022 Republican candidate for governor and fricking r-slur.

If anyone could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, it would be Lake. When she ran for governor, she spent a truly bizarre amount of campaign feuding with a dead man. After winning her primary, she declared "We drove a stake through the heart of the McCain machine!", at an event she told "McCain Republicans" to "get the heck out" and when talking about how the Arizona GOP was the party of McCain said "Boy, Arizona has delivered some losers, haven't they?"

Despite constantly shiting on McCain for no reason, she managed to lose her race by just 0.62% of the vote. It's fairly obvious that picking on a beloved, moderate, war hero who's death was relatively fresh in people's memory hurt her campaign, but she was still a c*nt's hair from winning.

Were Lake not running, I'd call the race a fairly safe Republican win. But with Lake in the race... god knows.

TRUTHNUKE ALERT - FLORDIA, Rick Scott (R) v Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D)

Incumbent, Rick Scott (R)

(Ran out of photos to post, pretend an ugly bald dude is here)

"I don't look at polls."

Florida? Crazy Ron's Republican utopia? That's a close race?

The narrative that Florida one day took a redpill and became Hyperborea is a very strange one to me. Trump only won Florida by 3.5% in 2020, and while DeSantis fricking crushed re-election by 20%, that's because he was running with a massive fundraising advantage against a former Republican. In his first actual race in 2018 against Andrew Gillium, he only won by 0.4%. Gillum just the year prior was forced to give Florida $5,000 after he was found to have used state money to buy email software for personal use - DeSantis won by less then 1% against a thief.

And that brings us to Rick Scott, who in a fairly impressive feat, unseated an incumbent in his 2018 race. But he only won by 0.12% - he's not some Floridan juggernaut.

Scott has the advantage - he's an incumbent running against a no-name Democrat and he has $10 million more then her, he's got decent odds of winning. At the same time, it's not set in stone. Florida isn't this crimson red state that people seem to think it is, it's a still at heart a swing state. It's just a swing state that has narrowly swung Republican.

Of couse, perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps DeSantis has been such a godlike leader of Florida he's changed the state totally, and his re-election will be standard for Republicans.

I doubt it though.

Conclusion

Harrisheads...

If Trump wins, and my prediction that the winner of the general will win the House, he will walk into the White House with an outright trifecta and a stacked supreme court. There's very little he won't be able to do, he could as a random example go to war with Mexico. By contrast, if Harris wins, she's stuck with a certain 51 Republican majority - and with the Republican style of politics being that of "massive resistance", turning even appointing a federal judge into a knock down, drag out brawl, she's set to be as impotent as, say, a senile old man.

As a random example.

When I left off on the story of Alice Guo, we had only gotten to nearly the end of May. I've been slacking off and let the scandal continue unfolding faster than I'm writing about it.

At this point everyone knows that Alice is lying about everything, including who she is and who her parents are. The only thing we can be pretty sure of that she's really Chinese. In late May finally we put a name to that adorable face.

She's actually pretty cute if you get a good picture of her. Either that or I've been working on this too long.

The senators begin asking her about someone named Lin Wen Yi. Alice denies that that is her mother, insisting her real mother is a Filipina named Amelia Leal. This is crucial because her claim to Filipino citizenship rests on her mother being a citizen. She explains that Lin Wen Yi is just her father's current girlfriend who also is involved in at least 7 corporations run by the Guos. At the time they were founded several years ago, she is listed as living with Alice and her father in Valenzuela City in Metro Manila. The only problem with Guo's story is that there is no evidence of her mother Amelia Leal being born, married, dying or just ever existing in general. She can't even produce an obviously forged birth certificate like she did for herself.

By now the senators are pretty sure that Lin Wen Yi is her mother so they keep pulling on this thread, and make quite a curious discovery a couple weeks later. A Special Investor's Resident Visa was issued to Lin Wen Yi and her family, including her daughter Guo Hua Ping. They entered the country January 12, 2003. The daughter was 12 years old at the time, which would make her 33 now. The coincidences just keep piling up. Guo Hua Ping's passport photo happens to look just like a 12-year old Alice Guo. They've even got the same fingerprints.

We finally got you.

Digging deeper into the family we get more bizarre half-assed attempts at deception. She insists she's an only child and doesn't know Sheila and Seimen Guo, until records turn up showing she traveled overseas with them at least 3 times, they're involved in all the family's corporations, and they're listed on those forms living at the same address. Now she explains that those are her half-brothers. She was the lovechild of her father and the maid Amelia Leal. These are her father's other kids. She just lied to congress because she figured they wouldn't want to be in the spotlight. The birth certificates of the half brothers are dug up and they list their mother as Amelia Leal, just like Alice's. Wait, wtf, so they aren't really half brothers? Why would she make up that whole story?

Birth certificates of her and her brothers. Can you believe these morons named their kid Semen?

Business records showing the family living together.

Records of another Alice Leal Guo in Tarlac born on July 12, 1986 turned up, but the photo is of an entirely different person. I don't even know what to make of this. Did she steal the identity of a real person but half-butt it and screw everything up?

Her story about how she was educated has some holes in it too. She claimed that she was homeschooled, taught by the mysterious character known only as Rubilyn and later by the pig farmers. It turns out she went to Grace Christian High School through grades 1-3. This is apparently the only time in her life where the documents are actually legit, listing her true parents and including her Chinese birth certificate.

The one thing that apparently turned out to be true is she really was a pig farmer after all.

The Truth

As far as I can piece all this together what really happened was:

The Guo family (father Jian Zhong Guo, mother Lin Wen Yi, and children) get an investor visa and move to the Philippines in 2003. At first they live in Valenzuela City, Metro Manila. At some point they move to Tarlac. They operate various businesses including a pig farm, probably fronts for organized crime. Their daughter Guo Hua Ping learns Tagalog (but not the language of Tarlac province), so they decide to pass her off as native born. An incredibly half-assed attempt is made to create the fake identity Alice Leal Guo for her. Everything was going fine until the giant compound full of slave laborers was raided and suddenly people started to poking into her life. The McLaren supercar wasn't a great move for someone trying to lay low either.

At this point I think I've done a pretty thorough job writing about her colorful lies. Most of this stuff came out in the Senate investigation around late May. She stopped showing up at the hearings in June. Next time I'll catch up to the present day and cover what's going on right now in efforts to bring her to justice.

!historychads !engineering for those of you who don't know, the glorious República Argentina was the first country in Latin America to build a jet aircraft.

The footage I linked is from the FMA IAe 33 Pulqui II, this was a fighter jet prototype and the second Río-Platense jet aircraft (the first was the Pulqui I)

Pic of the Pulqui I

So our story begins in Nazi Germany , Kurt Tank was a German aeronautical engineer who worked for Focke-Wulf. He designed the Focke-Wulf FW-190 which was the Third's Reich second most produced fighter (only behind the Messerschmitt Bf-109), and one of the backbones of the Luftwaffe.

Tank also designed the Focke-Wulf Ta-152 a high altitude interceptor which could reach 33,000 ft heights, though it's first flight was in January 1945, so like most of Hitler's wunderwaffen it was both, late in the game and useless against hundreds of B-17s and B-24s.

The krauts were pretty early in the game of jet aircraft design. The first ever jet aircraft was the Heinkel He-178 which flew for the first time in 1939, but the most famous of kraut jet-fighters was the Messerschmitt Me-262.

The Me-262 entered service in September 1944 and despite the fancy Jumo 004 engines, the planes were no match for the P-51 Mustang. The Reich Ministry of Air also asked for designs to succeed the Me-262, one of them was the Focke-Wulf Ta-183, designed by Tank.

As you can see, it's the basis design of second-generation fighter jets like the Mig-15 and the F-86 Saber. The Ta-183 was never built.

Tank left Europe and migrated to Argentina, in 1945 Juan Domingo Perón became President and he was interested in acquiring German engineers. Argentina had a aeronautical state-owned company named "Fábrica Militar de Aviones" or FMA which still exists under a different name. Back during the good ol' days of the Junta the FMA designed a 4th gen fighter plane which never left the design phase, the FMA SAIA 90.

But that's another story of another even more delusional project.

In 1947 the FMA produced the Pulqui I, a jet aircraft designed by a French Engineer, Émile Dewoitine (a guy of left France after being ousted as a collaborator during WW2). However the Pulqui I was cancelled early on as it had autonomy problems caused by excessive fuel consumption and its design was outdated. The FMA then begin the design of a new plane which would make use of the new Rolls-Royce Nene II engines. Enter Kurt Tank.

Tank was placed as head of the program and he basically adapted the Ta-183 design for the Nene II engine. In 1948-1949 two prototype gliders were build with the help of another German engineer, Reimar Horten, who along his brother designed the Horten Ho-229, a jet-powered flying wing. That thing actually was build and flew a few times in 1945.

The problem with production was that Argentina lacked infrastructure and modern machinery/equipment to build this sort of plane (it gets worse when you consider mass production scale), so the metal fabrication was all manual and labor-intensive.

The first prototype of the Pulqui II was completed in 1950, its maiden flight took place on June 27, piloted by Edmundo Weiss. During the second flight, piloted by a German test-pilot (who also worked for Focke-Wulf) Otto Behrens, problems with stability surfaced at speeds above 700km/h (435mph), lading the aircraft was also tricky. The prototypes also stalled a couple of times but they recovered thanks to being at high altitudes. In February 1951 Tank presented the Pulqui II to Perón and a group of legislators and other Argentine politicels on an air show in Buenos Aires. The demonstration was a success and the Argentinian Air Force ordered 12 Pulqui II units.

During the first flight, the pilot, Commander Soto reported severe vibrations at 1000km/h speeds. Tank said the problem was with that unit in special and that the others were safe, yet the faulty model continued to be operated. A certain Commander Vedannia Manuwal was advised not fly that model after more reports of extreme vibrations, but he told everyone he knew better than everyone else , so he piloted, pushed the plane through a bunch of maneuvers at high-G forces and… the wing separated from the fuselage. Manuwal successfully ejected but his parachute failed to deploy and he died

Modifications were made to the new prototypes. In September 1952 another demo was set to happen before Perón, hoeing the Pulqui II already had a bad reputation among pilots. Just a couple of days before the demo, Brehens stalled the Pulqui II third prototype (the one for the demo), crashed and died.

Fourth time makes the charm and the 4th Pulqui II prototype had added stall fences on each wing and four strakes on the rear fuselage as to avoid deep stall. The Argie Air Force by then intended to buy 100 Pulqui II, however by 1954 Argentina's economy was in turmoil and they couldn't afford the investment required to build a factory, vuy equipment and mass produce the Pulqui II (Perón turned the FMA into a motorcycle and cars factory to generate some income lol). Early in 1955 Perón didn't renew Tank's contract after he requested the double pf money for the Pulqui II program. That same year Perón was overthrown by a military coup, the new regime cancelled the Pulqui II program and decided to buy F-86 Sabers from the US instead as those were cheaper than investing on an aircraft industry and Argentina was bankrupted by then.

Everybody here is familiar with Joe Rogan who hosts one of the world's most successful podcasts of all time. Through his fame, Rogan has introduced the world to his friends, most of them from the world of MMA and comedy. Without Joe Rogan, we may not know figures like Theo Von, Eddie Bravo, and Joey Diaz. Today, we're going to look at Brendan Schaub who is a veritable lolcow. We will explore his career in MMA, his life as a podcaster, and the controversies that have surrounded him. Pull up a seat, pour yourself some juice, and get ready for a tantalizing tale.

Brendan Schaub is born

Brendan Schaub was born in Aurora, Colorado to Debra and Peter Schaub. It is not known when he was circumcized, but he has admitted to having had the procedure.

He has always been a sporty fellow and during his years at Overland High School he lettered two years in varsity lacrosse and one year in varsity American football. Unfortunately, he was unable to obtain a college football scholarship, but was able to play football full-time at the University of Colorado. He signed with the Arena Football League's Utah Blaze but was released in 2006 before retiring from the sport in 2007. This wouldn't be the last time Schaub would attempt a career in sports.

Brendan Schaub and MMA

Following his football stint, he began training in boxing and ju-jitsu. Also known as BJJ, Brazilian jiu-jitsu is a combat sport based on grappling, ground fighting, and submission holds. It primarily takes place on the ground, with each fighter aiming to gain the dominant position. It was invented around 1925 by Brazilian brothers Carlos, Oswaldo, Gastão Jr., and Hélio Gracie.

After six months of training, Brendan felt he was ready to compete. This trend of jumping into the big leagues quickly is something that will occur multiple times in his life, with comedic effect. To the surprise of many, he won the Colorado novice-division Golden Gloves heavyweight title. This motivated him to continue in the direction of combat sport, eventually discovering Mixed Martial Arts, also known as MMA. Call it beginner's luck but he started his career with a 4–0 record and won the heavyweight title for the Ring of Fire organization.

Due to his performance, he signed with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). In his first fight on The Ultimate Fighter, he defeated Demico Rogers. His winning streak would continue with a KO to Jon Madsen and Marcus Jones. His winning streak wouldn't last forever, and he would lose by KO to Roy Nelson at The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights Finale.

It would be boring to go over the minutiae of every aspect of his MMA career, but just know that he was knocked out several more times. It happened so much, it has become a joke on his subreddit, but more on that later. After his loss against Travis Browne, his friends decided to intervene.

On the Joe Rogan podcast, Joe and Bryan Callen had a heart-to-heart talk with Brendan about quitting MMA. Joe basically said Brendan isn't good enough to compete, and that the constant knockouts would give him CBT. Brendan defended himself, but his friends did not relent. They recommended he pursue comedy instead, inadvertently sparking the next chapter of Brendan's life.

Brendan Schaub the Comedian

In October 2015, Brendan announced his retirement from MMA. Thus began his entry into the world of comedy. His career began touring with Bryan Callen in 2014 until 2016 when he when he debuted as a solo comedian at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles. In 2019, he had first special titled "You'd Be Surprised". This is shocking because it typically takes a decade or longer before a comedian is good enough to have their own special. However, Brendan, with his connections through Joe Rogan, was able to secure a special.

You'd Be Surprised was poorly received and it currently sits with a score of 7% on Rotten Tomatoes. The comments left are funnier than the comedy special.

This did not dissuade him from pursuing comedy and soon enough, in 2022 he released his second special titled "Gringo Papi". It sits with a rating of 1.1/10 on iMDB. Once again, the comments are funnier than the special.

Brendan Schaub's Subreddit

Brendan Schaub has his own subreddit, but everyone there makes fun of him. One of the events that is brought up constantly is that of the Truck Walk. The story goes as such: Annie Lederman (a podcaster) stated that an unfunny comedian asked her to walk him to his truck. Why? To blow him? Comedian Bobby Lee's wife also claimed that Brendan tried to slide into her DMs. This became a big joke to the point where Brendan threatened Bobby with a lawsuit. Hence, they made an agreement that they wouldn't discuss the matter anymore.

Bobby and his wife didn't stop. Hence Bryan and Brendan called Bobby and threatened him, claiming they had evidence of child abuse material from the couple. This introduced hate and memes from his subreddit where they mocked him for his attempted "Trugg Walg".

Conclusion

I may have a job lined up teaching English online so my unemployed days could be coming to an end. Thank you to @seal_cel for helping me with my CV. I feel happier already.

In the end, Brendan had it all - money, fame, success. However, he couldn't hold onto it and his own fans turned against him. He is an undeniable lolcow with people making fun of his speech patterns, KOs, and terrible comedy. Unfortunately, this isn't the only lolcow to be introduced to the world by Joe Rogan, but that's a story for another day.

The news article to the incident by Apollo News just released. !germs !chuds IN IN IN

Rechter Streamer „Vulgäre Analyse" wegen Volksverhetzung inhaftiert

THREAD THEME

Shlomo Finkelstein aka Aaron Pielka is a German uberchud and part of the original German anti SJW movement with now more well known cucks like Kraut, who disavowed the rightoids to turn into not just a Neoliberal but THE neoliberal.

<- THIS R-SLUR

<- Shlomo Finkelstein before his YouTube channels were nuked, here with his Avatar shown to shit into Mecca Roblox cube while wiping his butt with the Quran.

Shlomo was known for causing controversies, like burning the Quran on camera, pissing on the Quran and using the Quran in a BBQ to grill pork. Shown here.

He has his own, very biased, Wikipedia article (unlike CWC lmao) for anyone curious give it a read. Shlomo describes by Wikipedia:

"Shlomo Finkelstein, pseudonym of Aron Pielka[1][2] (born May 4, 1996 in Krefeld[3][4]), is a German right-wing extremist[5] online activist. He spread racist, Islamophobic and anti-feminist content. One of Pielka's most popular formats published as Shlomo Finkelstein is the video series Die Vulgäre Analyse, which is now considered a "established authority in the right-wing radical online world".[6]"

His other notorious controvrsies/accomplishments include the "Stolz-Monat" a hijacking of the pride month to show Stolz (Pride) for Germany instead of the LGBT community. This set off the political establishment and journ*lists as expected and was broadly supported by the AFD (German literal Nazis) and their youth wing the "Junge Alternative"(Höckejugend). Again Wikipedia:

"In 2023, Pielka was a co-initiator of the social media campaign "#Stolzmonat", in which he called for social media to be flooded with nationalist and anti-queer postings during Pride Month. Instead of the rainbow flag, the postings showed a German flag in seven colors. At the same time, the campaign was intended to spread a counter-narrative that Germans were oppressed by LGBT actors. In addition to "Shlomo Finkelstein's" supporters, the AfD also participated in spreading the campaign.[1][17]"

This blew up so much the #Stolzmonat overtook Pride hashtags on Twitter/X for the entire pride month and even caused the "Verfassungsschutz" (GlowBIPOC SS Wing of Globohomo Abteil Germany) to release Videos denouncing the Stolzmonat, which obviously completely backfired and caused even more media and mainstream attention alla Streisand.

He had multiple Youtube channels that were all banned due to wrongthink and up until last week his internet presence amounted to twitter and a podcast called "Honigwabe", livestreamed on the Honigwabe YouTube channel. Link to the channel for anyone curious, beware the content is on German. Up until last week because the Bullerei got German YouTubes most notorious Chuddie and now he is serving a one year sentence in prison. Quoted from Apollo News:

"Right-wing streamer "Vulgar Analysis" imprisoned for incitement"

The right-wing streamer Aron P., alias "Shlomo Finkelstein", has begun a prison sentence, as the Cologne public prosecutor's office explained to Apollo News. The reason is the execution of a one-year prison sentence, which was initially suspended.

The right-wing streamer and YouTuber Aron P., known by his pseudonyms "Shlomo Finkelstein" and "Vulgar Analysis", was arrested last week. This was explained by the Cologne public prosecutor's office to Apollo News. The reason for the arrest was the "execution of a final prison sentence of one year from the judgment of the Cologne District Court of December 11, 2020, which has been legally binding since June 29, 2021," according to the public prosecutor's office.

In December 2020, according to the public prosecutor's office, he was legally sentenced to a prison sentence of one year - suspended - for "incitement to hatred, dissemination of symbols of unconstitutional organizations and insulting religious denominations and communities". Specifically, as the Cologne District Court explained to Apollo News, there are ten cases, but they did not want to give any further details.

The judgment became final in June 2021. The exact wording for which the streamer was convicted is not clear, as the verdict cannot be found in the database. As the district court explained to Apollo News, the suspension on probation was withdrawn in February 2022. Neither the public prosecutor's office nor the district court wanted to explain to Apollo News why it took more than two years for P. to go to prison. They also refused to provide any information about the circumstances of the imprisonment.

Since Monday, rumors have been circulating on X (formerly Twitter) about the video producer's disappearance. The rumors were fueled by KasparKast, Aron P.'s streaming partner. The two run the YouTube channel "KasparKast x HonigWabe" together. In the most recent episode, only KasparKast appeared. He explained that he would now have to stream alone for an indefinite period of time.

At the beginning of the livestream called "#freeshlomo", KasparKast explained that Aron P.'s "health was fine." He said he currently has no contact with P. However, he explained that P. would not be able to stream "in the next few months". He also explained: "As far as I understand, even the best lawyer in the world can only help to a limited extent at this point in time." This was followed by the rise of the hashtag "#freeshlomo" in German Twitter trends.

And thats all we know so far. His co-host Kasper (Vice-Chuddie) was live just recently talking about the article and the future of the Honigwabe. Link to the livestream.

So what now?

According to Kasper the Honigwabe will continue forward with guests from the German rightoid scene serving as co-hosts. Shlomos arrest is just another hit from a greater purge of rightoids ordered by German minister for internal affairs Nancy Faeser in preparation for the upcoming federal and state elections such in Thuringia and Saxony where total Chud victory is expected. Recently, Misses Faeser for example ordered the ban of one of Germanys largest alternative media news magazines "Compact" which was overturned for definetly 100% literally just being despotic and illegal. Twitter cute twinks will celebrate, Chuds will cope, Steiners counterattack will not commence and Shlomo will probably stay in prison for at least half a year. The west has fallen and millions, possibly even billions, will die.

This complex is called Imad 4, named after the terrorist Imad Mughniyeh who was sent to heck in 2008. Hezbollah claims there are several more like it. It is presumably dug into the mountains east of the Bekaa Valley along the border with Syria. Hezbollah says the missiles shown are precision guided and have a range of 140km which would just barely be enough to hit Haifa from there. I can't tell if the guy on the motorcycle is just going around in circles, but clearly the place is pretty darn big. In addition to Iran they've had North Korean advisors teaching them how to dig tunnels so they know what they're doing.

Roughly the area where I expect most of Hezbollah's tunnels. I had to draw the border myself by eye because Google Earth didn't feel like displaying that layer at the moment.

I mention Haifa because it's going to be one of the primary targets of Hezbollah in a full-scale war. Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are about 200km away from the area in the Bekaa Valley where Hezbollah's most powerful rockets will be firing from and in Jerusalem you've got to be careful not to hit anything of religious importance. Haifa is about 130km away, so it can be hit by smaller missiles with a shorter range. It's also the main port of the country. Most of Israel's trade passes through it. Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah has said that in the event of war they would target enemy economic infrastructure in the north, and there's no reason to doubt him. Crippling the port of Haifa would cripple the economy.

Haifa port complex with obvious targets marked.

There's worries about the oil refinery in Haifa. The port and its industrial complex is truly massive, about 5km across. Just looking on Google Earth I could see two big farms of oil storage tanks, two large chemical plants, and a power plant as well as the refinery. Some people there are afraid that if these are hit there could be a big explosion or a cloud of toxic gas or something. I think that's probably overblown. The authorities say they've moved the really dangerous stuff out, and crude oil doesn't explode. The port complex is definitely one of Hezbollah's main targets as they've said themselves, but if I lived nearby I would worry more about a getting hit by a rocket aimed at it.

I couldn't find any picture that shows just how huge all this is.

Looking south from the northern oil tanks.

Meanwhile Hezbollah isn't doing so well casualty-wise. They're up to 400 dead now including a few dozen of their Sunni allies. That's not really a significant number in itself as Hezbollah has tens of thousands of troops, but when you look at who is getting killed it's another story. That guy who got killed recently who they're so butthurt about commanded their military. Their forces on the border are divided into two sectors and the commanders of both of those got killed. Presumably a lot of the others were at least somewhat important.

A funeral for Hezbollah's casualties in Houla, South Lebanon, March 2024.

Diplomacy continues. It appears the deal would basically be a cease-fire in Gaza in return for Iran not attacking and Hezbollah to stop shooting. One of the current stumbling blocks is that Hamas is demanding a complete Israeli withdrawl from Gaza, but the Israelis want to keep some troops along the Gaza-Egypt border. I'm a bit confused by this. Maybe it's a language thing. In English "cease-fire" just means everyone stays where they are and stops shooting, so this agreement would be more than a cease-fire.

US envoy Amos Hochstein leaving a meeting with Amal chief Nabih Berri. You might remember Berri from the civil war.

I hope you f-slurs appreciate this because I'm sure I got some glowie's attention by spending so much time looking at likely targets for rocket attacks in Israel. After about an hour I suddenly had this pop up in Firefox every time I tried to go to a new page. I don't remember it ever doing that in all the years I've used it and there's no concievable reason for it. Why would I be forced to do the update immediately? Seems kinda sus to me. I've probably got Unit 8200 frantically trying to figure out what the Hezbollah code phrase "dude bussy lmao" means before it's too late.

Just kidding. I probably had another instance of Firefox running that was trying to update and things got screwed up.