Wait... wasn't the bombing of Dresden a borderline war crime because it almost exclusively targeted civilians? pic.twitter.com/bQFeCswAD3

— Reddit Lies (@reddit_lies) February 6, 2025

!Nonchuds Mask off moment

"but muh civilians" Nazis deserved all that they got just like Japs deserved to get nuked

This story broke within the last few hours. This appears to be the largest thread so far on Reddit.

Prediction: the story gets largely buried. Search 'title:ncaa' on Reddit over the next 24 hours if you care to I guess.

REMEMBER YOUR OATH, BRAVE SOLDIERS!

"I'm feeling so defeated and depressed as a two fed family. I can't take much more of this."

"I have honestly cried most of the day today. ."

"I've been scared for myself and my friends/work family."

"I'm a middle school social studies teacher and everything I keep seeing just makes me think of 1930s Germany or 1950s Russia."

"I did not sign up to be customer service rep to die and compromise my health. I'm bordering suicidal and had to have my antidepressants upped today."

Jesus Christ, burgers, what the frick did Trump/Elon do?? Is this just about laying off federal employees??

link to the literal Command HQ of the Reddit army

https://old.reddit.com/r/WorkersStrikeBack/comments/1iik2vu/i_just_saw_an_entire_family_taken_by_ice/mb7q1q7/?context=8

they are literally the beyond parody borders are immoral people who want to drive down their own wages "uniting" with 6 billion 3rd worlders

@Aisha tried out smoking five spice and brown sugar duck breasts for dinner

turned out dericious. Am trying to figure out a plan for the leftovers for tomorrow.

!meatshit

Our boi Scot narrating this cuck saga

Congrats to Mexico voters! 🇲🇽

*MEXICAN PRESIDENT SHEINBAUM SAYS HAD A GOOD CONVERSATION WITH TRUMP

*WILL DEPLOY 10,000 NATIONAL GUARD IMMEIDATLEY TO BORDER TO AVOID TRAFFICKING OF DRUGS TO U.S.

*TARIFFS DELAYED FOR A MONTH https://t.co/qJ4oI08guG

— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) February 3, 2025

Blackface trusted the bean yenta to team up on Donald and he got fricked

She's kinda based for it tbh

Řussíа hаs ļíkе 10k+ ukřаíníаn роws аnd thеу jеřk аřоund thе mоst nаzí оnе. Ukřаíníаn mаřínеs thаt wеřе аļsо ín Mаříuроļ аřе аļmоst thířd уеаř ín рřísоn but ukřаínísn gоv nеvеř mеntíоn thеm оnļу thеíř роstеř сhíļd аzоv hе аļsо sауs tо аzоv Gоd bļеss уоu

Just to get it out of the way, he probably was trying to tap that. This was recommended to a lot of people's feed so there are accusations of "not a real lawyer" flying around that I'm not going to bother posting.

OP:

We have a new undergrad intern (a young woman, perhaps 19 years old), and I thought I'd take her to lunch to welcome her and answer questions about the work. Simple, right? Apparently, taking a female intern out to lunch is now a high-risk situation requiring oversight.

When we got back, it was suggested in the future that I invited other attorneys and avoided going to lunch one-on-one with female interns.

Lesson learned, and in hindsight I get where the firm is coming from. I still think it's a bit of an overreaction, though. I've gotten mixed responses when I've told people this. I'm curious what the subreddit thinks

His darning follow up post where he admits to having something in common with her and actually talked to her.

[–]TurnDownTheRadioJerk[S] -47 points 3 days ago

So here's more: I'm a 24 year old first year and the school she's going to is the same school I went to for undergrad, and she even has some of the same professors I had. We got talking and I asked her to lunch. No, I don't assign her work, but we seem to get along. Yes, there are other interns, but I haven't really had to talk to them yet

Responses to the follow up:

That sounds a little better than I initially imagined, given your ages are pretty close and the power dynamics aren't super crazy off (I'm assuming you don't have much influence at your firm). But your follow-up also makes it sound more like you are in fact trying to hit on her (or at least become her friend), and your firm gave you good advice. You shouldn't be doing anything that looks like you might be looking for a romantic relationship with anyone subordinate to you

Yea OP is totally hitting on her he wouldnt have done this for a dude I'm guessing.

That is pure speculation on your part, is really hard to imagine forming connections and mentorship in a professional field without ulterior motives. It seems reasonable to plausible to me I have gone to lunch with both male and female colleagues.

Dude… that's a crush let's be real, and you were testing the waters.

There's nothing mentor-ly about this. You were trying to get to know her in a personal capacity 😭

Why did this get so downkongd?

Because the world of genuine courteous courtship has gone entirely to the wayside and in its stead is this hyper-sensitive environment. All of this whilst people complain that they can't meet others organically anymore.

He's a young man and shes a young woman. If he is courteous and respectful in his proceeding with her and he doesn't have power over her directly or otherwise in the firm, I don't see the issue. Statistically, the workplace used to be a great place to meet your spouse.

Young man and a younger** woman. She's a teenager AND an intern. He is an adult who can drink and her mentor at a law firm trying to isolate her. He can treat all the interns or a few more so they arent alone.

There is nothing improper, legally or ethically, about a 24 year old and a 19 year old dating

Got ourselves a over here.

Other Responses:

More context is needed. Are there more interns than just her? Are you working closely with her? If you were her direct supervisor or somebody formally assigning her work, and she was the only intern, I don't think it would necessarily be weird. If you were some random associate who just showed up and was like, "Yo, wanna grab lunch", and didn't invite any of the male interns in the same room, I could see how that might not have the best appearance

I think he left them out on purpose. He didn't want to look like a creep

Two comments in we have him being called a creep. Doesn't appear to be a lawyer and posts in a really odd mix of subreddits including /r/aupairs.

Barely a crumb of context which might be explanatory in itself.

Is this the only intern you've ever taken out? If so, why this sudden exception?

Is she the only intern? If not, why exactly did you choose her and her alone?

Do you work more closely with her than anyone else? Most attorneys work more closely with paralegals, so why her and not them?

[–]PoundTown68 -35 points 3 days ago

That's a lot of useless questions. In a sane world, two consenting adults can go to lunch without concern. Two consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want together if we're being honest. This is exactly why feminists should be ignored. We've allowed them to create a culture of fear, where everyone is tiptoes around unnecessary regulation that benefit nobody….except for 40 year old feminists, jealous that they're no longer sexually attractive, who want to force everyone else to be unhappy with them. Misery loves company.

Darn, found the incel

$100 this guy sexually harasses people on the daily

Yeah, I mean, look alive brother. Avoiding the appearance of a questionable situation is very easy if you have situational awareness.

Was it actually questionable? That's not the right question and doesn't matter (unless it got weird). Protect yourself and the firm. Heck, the vast majority of lunches I went to as an intern or otherwise young firm employee were with multiple people, now that I think about it.

This is crazy. Taking someone out to a business lunch in a public place is not out of bounds or even close.

Why was this intern chosen for a solo business lunch with an older male attorney? I'm not saying OP had any untoward intentions, but let's not pretend the optics don't raise valid concerns.

Also, though, based on the follow up, op definitely does have untoward intentions

The optics of it are not great. Put yourself in the shoes of a supervising partner. Perhaps his 28 years old associate has no bad intention when he asks the 19 year old intern to lunch. Perhaps the 28 year old intern has romantic intentions. Partner has no idea. Does the 19 year old intern know your intentions. Did you take any male interns to lunch. If there is no romantic intention perhaps bring along another associate (perhaps female) and more than one intern or staffer.

Yeah he has to think what the firm partners would think if this 30 year old associate took the 19 year old to lunch. It's a bad look when a 34 year old associate is doing that with an 18 year old intern. The 17 year old intern doesn't know she can decline the lunch invite from the 38 year old.

When I was a 19 year old college student, I invited a visiting professor to lunch to discuss their career. I thought thats what we were supposed to do "networking" and all, build a rapport. The lunch was 100% professional the entire time. No drinking. I paid for myself. All day time hours in public. Afterwards i was invited into the deans office and told that my behavior was inappropriate and unprofessional and that I needed to learn my place and not be so forward. When I was ultimately asked to leave the school (we aren't expelling you, we want to encourage you to go to a place better fitted for you) they cited my inappropriate relationships with visiting professors as one of the reasons.

It was humiliating.

15 years later that school got sued into the ground for 30 decades of sexual abuse against minors.

(am woman)

Talk about getting absolutely on.

I think they are trying to help you out.

I went to not-lunch with a support staff ... we were both new to the org, and she accused me of being a predator. And then coworkers hacked my email and spread it around the community. It was too late by the time we established that she was lying, for my email inbox was everywhere and the firm decided I had to leave before I could figure it out.

You need to be extraordinarily careful.

I found one of the few dissenting voices that wasn't downkongd into oblivion.

I strongly disagree with this take. Be professional about it. Make sure it's a public place, but refusing to take women to lunch in a professional environment is Mike Pence culture crap that prevents women from having the same opportunities as men.

IMO, a work culture that discourages men from meeting 1 on 1 with women is a massive red flag and usually the #1 sign that the employer has fostered an anti-woman environment.

There is a difference between "men and women can't have lunch together" and "attorney shouldn't take young intern of the opposite s*x to lunch alone". The power imbalance inherent in the latter certainly has a higher chance of producing a bad situation, from either direction (attorney actually taking advantage, or intern falsely claiming they did).

Keeping that sort of thing as a small group activity avoids all the possible issues.

Muh power imbalance.

You're a lawyer and don't understand professional conduct or ethics?

OP about to be disbarred.

Why is no one talking about the 19 year old intern's perspective. That's what matters here. And that's what the others at the firm are focused on, not the intentions of the OP.

Possibly the most incorrect response in the whole thread.

They really said:

The old page:

https://web.archive.org/web/20250125135209/https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/before-you-go/travelers-with-special-considerations.html

New page:

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/before-you-go/travelers-with-special-considerations.html

right at the bottom btw . That's some foreshadowing, gays !

--

/r/4tran4 reacts

There are a lot of policies they're putting in place that will directly hurt trans people, but this one in particular strikes me as purely performative. They're trying to make sure the LGB-without-the-T idiots continue to tow the line by pretending that they still care about them. It's a distraction tactic to keep eyes off their efforts to outlaw gay marriage.

sorry for existing

Oh were not going to make it

Step 1, make it very difficult to transition

Step 2, make it very difficult to get treatment

Step 3, censor their existence

Step 4, marginalize everyone who is trans

Step 5, make the world see them as horrible beings so that no one can relate to them

Step 6, in a generation or two, have completely eliminated trans people

we're finally free from being associated with strags

Its not the lgb that dropped the t. Its us that dropped the lgb

Update your brains on the situation of Tartus, Russia's Syrian naval base.

Its currently not over yet. pic.twitter.com/rK4en9EoXp

— Defense Politics Asia (@DefensePolitics) February 6, 2025

@DaddyReagan whо ís hаstļу řunníng аwау , b-word? Yоu wеřе tеļļíng sоmеthíng аnd Í just dídnt undеřstооd whаt wаs уоuř роínt

more like crooked nose jew politician lizard people...

#truth

Sheldan Nidle lived in an alternate reality from the rest of us.

Throughout the late nineties, while everyone else was surfacing from a post=Seinfeld world, gawping at a presidential s*x scandal, and mourning the death of grunge, Nidle was filling a nascent internet with tales of mass alien visitations and the transformation of the human race into five-dimensional, super-evolved beings. He called his initiative the Ground Crew Project (GCP). Probably the strangest aspect of the GCP, though, wasn't its prediction of a coming fleet of spaceships or the extradimensional expansion of all human consciousness. After all, alien interventions and apocalypses are as common in cults as messiah complexes and communes. What is unusual, though, is that the GCP was, and still is, almost entirely a virtual cult.

Nidle was born in New York City in 1946. He went to college at Ohio University and then the University of Southern California, after which he settled in the Golden State. And those seem to be the only factual parts of his biography—because Nidle claimed he was visited upon his birth, threewise-men-like, by extraterrestrials from a planet called Sirius. These beings would speak to him telepathically, land their ships in his backyard, and take him aboard for flights through space. And that was all before the age of fourteen.

Over the course of Nidle's life, aliens continued to send him messages through an implant they placed in his body, telling him all the secrets of the planet and the cosmos. He learned that humans were part of a divine/extraterrestrial experiment (the divine and the extraterrestrial seemed to be parallel in his mythology, although angels and aliens were distinct creatures). The creator had populated the planet—which is sentient—with what Nidle called "laggard souls," with the hope that they would transcend their limitations to find their place among the other evolved peoples of the universe, thereby joining the Galactic Federation of Light. The GCP were those earthbound members tasked with helping humanity transcend to the point at which they could be welcomed back into the Galactic Federation (hence the "Ground Crew" in the name).

The world learned about the GCP in 1996, when Niles starting writing about it on the burgeoning internet. His site welcomed visitors with statements like, "You are about to embark upon the greatest journey of your

life. You and the rest of life on Planet Earth are about to partake in the raising of planetary consciousness." But his GCP website wasn't just an FYI. It was an urgent message. Niles predicted that on December 17, 1996, the "laggard soul" experiment would end. He said that on that day, the planet would pass through what he called a "photon belt," which he described as an "extremely loving energy" composed of photons, gamma rays, and antimatter particles that occurs every 25,000 years.

That love light from space would hit our pineal glands and cause a spontaneous evolution in human beings. Our three-dimensional forms would expand to five dimensions. Our DNA would increase from a mere two strands to twelve. We would stop aging or getting sick. The blind would see. We would become telepathic. We would be able to manifest things just with the power of thought. Humanity would finally see the universe as it really was.

According to Nidle, even though the photon belt would turn us into superhumans, it would at the same time destroy our cities and machines and weapons. To help us survive the destruction, the Galactic Federation was supposed to send some 15.5 million spaceships to Earth. These ships were meant to shelter the human race from the planetary apocalypse, by keeping people either aboard the ships or in holographic matrixes that mirrored their lives. Some of the members of the Galactic Federation were building underground sanctuaries, as well.

It's impossible to gauge how many followers Nidle had in the early years, but the most appropriate metric was probably hits instead of commitments anyway, and he kept those numbers to himself. He did have enough followers that several New Age/UFO websites had a rule that members couldn't shill for his cult on their forums, so I imagine it was a considerable number of people buying into this shit. There is no record of any meetings in the meat space. Nidle stuck to posting weekly updates about the coming global transformation.

Of course, the big day came and went without even a twitch of anybody's pineal gland. That was no problem—Nidle just rescheduled the transformation to the following year. Meanwhile, he was creating a mythology of galactic history and its races. He described the human-like Andromedans and their cigar-shaped, hundred-mile-long mother ships; the horse-like Arcturians with their supply ships that resembled "wok lids welded together"; and the Sirians and Centaurians and Mintakins and Bellatricians, the latter of whom were reptilian. At some point, he added villains to his universe as well: beings called "dark cabalists," who were anti-transformation, as well as the "planetary elites" on our own Earth.

Some of Nidle's conspiracy-type theories fit well with the concurrent X-Files mania that began after that show debuted in September 1993. Nidle wouldn't have been alone in that influence, although he was more inclined to drop Star Trek and Star Wars references in his writings. According to a Reuters article from 2009, Britain's Ministry of Defense documented 609 UFO sightings in 1996, a huge jump from 117 the year before. The defense ministry noted, "This coincided with the rise in popularity of The X-Files." A similar phenomenon was occurring in the United States at the time. Still, Nidle's stories of the Galactic Federation were becoming so detailed that they could have been their own multi-arc TV show. He was, to use a term that these days refers to entertainment IP, "world-building."

Nidle eventually settled on May 5, 1997, as the new date for the transformation, and he tied it to the approach of the Hale-Bopp Comet. According to the messages from his implant, the comet was actually a massive, camouflaged spaceship. It contained a crew of more than 200,000, including 10,000 alien ambassadors whose mission was to help guide humanity through the transformation. A shuttle from the faux-comet flagship was supposed to land near Ayers Rock in Australia to kick off the party.

Of course, that didn't happen. But something else did: the Heaven's Gate tragedy. Just over a month before the GCP transformation date, the thirty-nine members of the UFO cult Heaven's Gate committed suicide together in a town north of San Diego. The members of that cult also believed the Hale-Bopp Comet hid an extraterrestrial ship sent to save them. They believed that their suicide would help them transcend their current existence and ascend to the ship.

Because Heaven's Gate had sported their own website, as both a recruitment tool and a suicide note, the media started scouring this newfangled internet for other groups with similar beliefs. They found Nidle and the GCP. The Florida Palm Beach Post, for instance, ran an article with a list of strange groups with an internet presence that included the GCP. The headline for the piece was: "Beyond Heaven's Gate, Web Is a Creepy

Place." Meanwhile, an article in the Atlanta Journal reported that "A group identifying itself as the Ground Crew Project of the Spiritual Hierarchy and the Galactic Federation held a toll-free conference Thursday, promising to reveal details about how to get aboard the UFO. The group's advice: meditate."

At that point, the GCP rebranded, but not because of the negative attention from being linked to Heaven's Gate. It was because of a woman named Valerie Donner, who was a part of the inner circle of the GCP. After a falling-out with Nidle, she left the group, but managed to take with her both the name of the organization and its all-important web domain.

Instead of fighting for the GCP domain, Nidle relaunched his efforts online under a new name: the Planetary Activation Organization (PAO). The new group also had a new tone to its teachings. Nidle pulled back on prophesying the date of the transformation, claiming there was just too much intergalactic politics to ever be sure. Instead, he preached that the transformation was unspecifiably imminent, much like the Christian rapture. He also put more of the onus on humanity making itself worthy of transformation, with members of the PAO responsible for lighting the way through mass meditation and spreading the word of humankind's potential to "activate." In addition, his mythology began to trend more New Age than science fiction. He started working in concepts from other religious groups, such as Ascended Masters, an idea borrowed from theosophy and the cult of I AM. He encouraged his followers to set up their own PAO groups in their individual communities to create a network of enlightenment around the planet. He also began claiming that Earth was not just an experiment in the overarching galactic story, but the fulcrum of it. Its transformation would be a blueprint for the transformation of the entire galaxy. It was also supposedly the home of special crystals vital to the rest of the universe.

Via the PAO website, Nidle also continued to exhort his followers to prepare themselves for the coming ascension. One such update ran thusly:

The call went out for that global meditation day on the equinox, to visualize the Christ Grid energy following a certain procedure. That day was magic for those of us who experienced this 1 to 2 hour meditation. The Galactic Federation and the Confederation of Free Planets plus the Angelic Realm have all confirmed that our meditation has caused the necessary mass consciousness shift needed for the mass landings to become a reality. Therefore, they were given the go-ahead by Earth spiritual Hierarchy to proceed with the landing options depending on the secret government's intent to resist.

Nidle's productivity increased as well, and he began pumping out books and webinars and DVDs and speaking engagements at New Age and UFO conferences. His books and DVDs bore titles such as You Are Becoming a Galactic Human and Tour a Sirian Mothership and Inner Earth, Your Future Home.

On March 17, 2011, Nidle's health started to fail. The PAO website describes it this way: "As he sat at the computer, he was hit with a Direct Energy Weapon that caused marked personality changes, brain damage and, eventually, dementia. By September 2021 his health had deteriorated further and he entered a care facility, where he now lives." Wow, is he the first documented case of Havana Syndrome?

However, his presence is still alive as his followers continue to preach his gospel. Nidle's words continue to fill the internet as they did back in 1996. The PAO website still sells his books and DVDs. The organization still hosts regular webinars and podcasts and posts regular updates. YouTube has lots of videos of Nidle speaking or being interviewed. The Facebook page of Sheldan Nidle has 7.9 thousand followers, although its last update was on September 30, 2021. Among cults, the GCP/PAO stands out. Its messages\ are similar to those of many others—doomsdays and aliens and messiahs leading the way to a new and more advanced civilization are common in cults—but the outcome of its teachings is notably different. There have been no known abuses, suicides, murders, or prison sentences. Every once in a while, a comment on a YouTube video launches an accusation of hucksterism, but that's about the extent of it. Most of the members or followers of the PAO seem to be genuinely dedicated to the evolution of themselves and the human race through meditation and science fiction.

The internet might make it easier for cults to recruit, but in the best-case scenario, it also removes the element of physical isolation that is so often necessary for these groups to go rotten. It's much easier to escape a cult when you can leave with the click of a button.

Their website: https://www.paoweb.com/

LMAOOOOOO YE cooking random people on IG 😭😭

— Ye Streams (@kanyestreams1) February 4, 2025

Anyone who has IG can you go see what else hes up to.

!thotpatrollers

!tmz

!g*mers @kaamrev

A Statement from U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Edward R. Martin Jr. pic.twitter.com/XlEmzSlbBq

— U.S. Attorney DC (@USAO_DC) February 3, 2025