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I'm re-reading Mansfield Park. It's been ages. I don't know why I feel driven to read this book that I do not like at all, but there it is. Some kind of mood.

So. I dislike Fanny. Specifically for her opinions. Not a surprise, since her opinions were formed by Edmund, and I can't stand him. I hate Mrs. Norris so much, I just skim or sometimes even skip her speeches. (I was going to say people in this book are prone to go on far too long, and then I remembered how much I like the speeches some characters in Austen's other books have. I just don't want most of the Mansfield Park characters to talk.) I like Mary Crawford (and often agree with her opinions when I'm supposed to be shocked by them), except I don't understand at all why she's into Edmund. He must be drop-dead gorgeous, but I can't imagine anyone being gorgeous enough to make up for his personality. And I like Mrs. Grant.

I feel the characters in every other Jane Austen book have a huge amount of verisimilitude. I don't feel that with this book, and I think that's part of why it's such a slog to me. Well, also that I find Fanny and Edmund and everyone else except for Mary Crawford and Mrs. Grant insufferable.

Like, Henry Crawford. I remembered him flirting but not how strongly he does and how serious he seems about it. This isn't the normal flirting that satisfies most people. He's absolutely convincing women he's in love with them when he doesn't give a damn, and he knows it. Good for Mary for getting away from Mansfield Park; too bad her brother's still a dick.

(I'm not sure how to tag this. I don't want arguments with people who like this book -- I'm happy for you. I wish I had another Austen book to love too. I'm sort of sickly fascinated by it, and I want to finish it for like the 5th time to try to figure it out.)

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as an outsider i feel like americans dont realize - or maybe it isnt politically relevant somehow - that one of their biggest issues is how empty the constitution is. but on the other hand, the entire point of the country *was* that the federal goverment would have very little rights and the states would be able to be like mini countries, which tbf has worked so far. now, whether this is a good thing or not is up to debate. imo it isnt, but at the end of the day, there is still states in which your rights are not being taken away, which to me is sort of like the original goal of the way it was built (?). idk if im wrong but thats the vibe i get. would love to hear your thoughts!

Full disclosure that im not American but i do have friends and family living there/from there and…I don’t agree with the phrasing of the us constitution as “empty.” There are pros and cons to governments deciding to eschew centralised rule, and certain legal vagueness to allow for leeway in rulings esp with how times have changed over the centuries. IMHO issue with the us is that, bluntly, even in the states directed by sycophantic asslickers, fafo is hitting them hard and they’re scrambling to try and salvage what they can; they were perfectly fine with evil corrupt morons hurting “the right people,” but are realising that having a system run by evil corrupt morons always eventually affects them too, with the difference being that democratic states are mostly more competent.

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It plops itself into my brain and then I have to figure out how to impart it to get it out.

Me @ writers: you just make that shit up from your brain???

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Before Caitlin Johnstone was a Putin-bot, she was a New Age astrology grifter. Whatever lies she can sell to make money, she will. She's a con artist through and through.

(Also she's Australian but she never seems to give a damn about anything in Australia.)

king david had red hair before we were colonized but okay.

palestinians lmao

more light haired palestinian kids from their own propaganda videos:

ope guess they’re white people. same with black africans who have red hair!

just tell me you don’t know what the fuck genetic diversity is or how it works. it’s amazing how “progressives” who claim to love diversity echo so many racist, straight up eugenicist talking points and have no understanding of actual diversity.

i wont get into levantine groups like assyrians, yazidis, JEWS, kurds, samaritans, etc all having light hair and eye genes. (and guess what, arabs and turks have them too, as seen above 🙄🤦)

learn some fucking science jfc

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They want Trump to turn out to have had good in him all along and also be Hakeem Jeffries' father?

I was going to say something about how annoying people who got their morality from Star Wars are, and then it hit me that the "Nurse D" person doesn't even understand Star Wars.

"You don't need to criticize Darth Vader" - leftists in a nutshell

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Leonard Nimoy

March 26, 1931 – February 27, 2015

Ten years today since we lost you, Mr. Nimoy.

We miss you.

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My opinion on all the conversation that's going on about this is that politics has always been a filthy business. If you can't handle the muck, get out of pigsty.

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I don't care about what's in the hearts of strangers who end up doing what I want them to do politically. I care about winning.

To reiterate:

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I need to distract myself and also it is good to learn about different kinds of people, particularly if I want to write characters like them, so I'm looking up things written by women who choose to have sex with married men. (I have zero fear my husband will cheat, so this is pretty academic to me.) I'm not talking about women who unintentionally fall in love with men who happen to be married, or women whom married men lie to -- I mean women who preferentially have lots of sex with married men who are in supposedly monogamous relationships. Not for money, either, which would at least make practical sense.

Usually learning more about people makes me more sympathetic to them. But uh. I've been reading a lot of stuff in these women's own words, and the least-bad one so far blames it on her being a Pisces and on her own fears of men cheating on her. Not one has expressed an ounce of guilt about the wives. Sometimes they're jealous of the wives, always disrespectful, but never the teeniest bit sympathetic.

I'm not surprised that these women are selfish. However, the big unexpected impression I've gotten so far is that these women are... um... not intellectual. Not deep. Dumb as a bag of hammers.

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oh so we're doing scooby doo crimes now

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Elon Musk attacked democracy defender and superstar court lawyer Marc Elias as “undermining civilization,” taunting him by asking if he suffered “generational trauma.”

Elias’s response was brilliant and worth amplifying:

Mr. Musk,

You recently criticized me and another prominent lawyer fighting for the rule of law and democracy in the United States. I am used to being attacked for my work, particularly on the platform you own and dominate.

I used to be a regular on Twitter, where I amassed over 900,000 followers — all organic except for the right-wing bots who seemed to grow in number. Like many others, I stopped regularly posting on the site because, under your stewardship, it became a hellscape of hate and misinformation.

I also used to buy your cars — first a Model X and then a Model S — back when you spoke optimistically about solving the climate crisis. My family no longer owns any of your cars and never will.

But this is not the reason I am writing. You don’t know me. You have no idea whether I have suffered trauma and if I have, how it has manifested. And it’s none of your business.

However, I will address your last point about generational trauma. I am Jewish, though many on your site simply call me “a jew.” Honestly, it’s often worse than that, but I’m sure you get the point. There was a time when Twitter would remove antisemitic posts, but under your leadership, tolerating the world’s oldest hatred now seems to be a permissible part of your “free speech” agenda.

Like many Jewish families, mine came to America because of trauma. They were fleeing persecution in the Pale of Settlement — the only area in the Russian Empire where Jews were legally allowed to reside. Even there, life was difficult — often traumatic. My family, like others, lived in a shtetl and was poor. Worse, pogroms were common — violent riots in which Jews were beaten, killed and expelled from their villages.

By the time my family fled, life in the Pale had become all but impossible for Jews. Tsar Nicholas II’s government spread anti-Jewish propaganda that encouraged Russians to attack and steal from Jews in their communities. My great-grandfather was fortunate to leave when he did. Those who stayed faced even worse circumstances when Hitler’s army later invaded.

That is the generational trauma I carry. The trauma of being treated as “other” by countrymen you once thought were your friends. The trauma of being scapegoated by authoritarian leaders. The trauma of fleeing while millions of others were systematically murdered. The trauma of watching powerful men treat it all as a joke — or worse.

As an immigrant yourself, you can no doubt sympathize with what it means to leave behind your country, extended family, friends and neighbors to come to the United States. Of course, you probably had more than 86 rubles in your pocket. You probably didn’t ride for nine days in the bottom of a ship or have your surname changed by immigration officials. Here is the ship manifest showing that my family did. Aron, age three, was my grandfather.

[see image in comments]

As new immigrants, life wasn’t easy. My family lived in cramped housing without hot water. They worked menial jobs — the kind immigrants still perform today.

Some may look down on those immigrants — the ones without fancy degrees — but my family was proud to work and grateful that the United States took them in. They found support within their Jewish community and a political home in the Democratic Party.

I became a lawyer to give back to the country that gave my family a chance. I specialize in representing Democratic campaigns because I believe in the party. I litigate voting rights cases because the right to vote is the bedrock of our democracy. I speak out about free and fair elections because they are under threat.

Now let me address the real crux of your post.

You are very rich and very powerful. You have thrown in with Donald Trump. Whether it is because you think you can control him or because you share his authoritarian vision, I do not know. I do not care.

Together, you and he are dismantling our government, undermining the rule of law and harming the most vulnerable in our society. I am just a lawyer. I do not have your wealth or your platform. I do not control the vast power of the federal government, nor do I have millions of adherents at my disposal to harass and intimidate my opponents. I may even carry generational trauma.

But you need to know this about me. I am the great-grandson of a man who led his family out of the shtetl to a strange land in search of a better life. I am the grandson of the three-year-old boy on that journey. As you know, my English name is Marc, but my Hebrew name is Elhanan (אֶלְחָנָן) — after the great warrior in David’s army who slew a powerful giant.

I will use every tool at my disposal to protect this country from Trump. I will litigate to defend voting rights until there are no cases left to bring. I will speak out against authoritarianism until my last breath.

I will not back down. I will not bow or scrape. I will never obey.

Defiantly,

Marc Elias

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Snowdrops revived by the warm weather.

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Pride and Prejudice 1995 text posts, part 7 of ? - prev set

More: Persuasion 1995 text posts | Sense and Sensibility 1995 text posts | Northanger Abbey 2007 text posts | Emma. 2020 text posts

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So, Discord has added a feature that lets other people "enhance" or "edit" your images with different AI apps. It looks like this:

Currently, you can't opt out from this at all. But here's few things you can do as a protest.

FOR SERVERS YOU ARE AN ADMIN IN

Go to Roles -> @/everyone roles -> Scroll all the way down to External Apps, and disable it. This won't delete the option, but it will make people receive a private message instead when they use it, protecting your users:

You should also make it a bannable offense to edit other user's images with AI. Here's how I worded it in my server, feel free to copypaste:

Do not modify other people's images with AI under ANY circumstances, such as with the Discord "enhancement" features, amidst others. This is a bannable offense.

COMPLAIN TO DISCORD

There's few ways to go around this. First, you can go to https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/requests/new , select Help and Support -> Feedback/New Feature Request, and write your message, as seen in the screenshot below.

For the message, here's some points you can bring up:

Concerns about harassment (such as people using this feature to bully others)

Concerns about privacy (concerns on how External Apps may break privacy or handle the data in the images, and how it may break some legislations, such as GDPR)

Concerns about how this may impact minors (these features could be used with pictures of irl minors shared in servers, for deeply nefarious purposes)

BE VERY CLEAR about "I will refuse to buy Nitro and will cancel my subscription if this feature remains as it is", since they only care about fucking money

Word them as you'd like, add onto them as you need. They sometimes filter messages that are copypasted templates, so finding ways to word them on your own is helpful.

UNSUSCRIBE FROM NITRO

This is what they care about the most. Unsuscribe from Nitro. Tell them why you unsuscribed on the way out. DO NOT GIVE THEM MONEY. They're a company. They take actions for profit. If these actions do not get them profit, they will need to backtrack. Mass-unsuscribing from WOTC's DnD beyond forced them to back down with the OGL, this works.

LEAVE A ONE-STAR REVIEW ON THE APP

This impacts their visibility on the App store. Write why are you leaving the one-star review too.

_

Regardless of your stance on AI, I think we can agree that having no way for users to opt out of these pictures is deeply concerning, specially when Discord is often used to share selfies. It's also a good time to remember internet privacy and safety- Maybe don't post your photos in big open public servers, if you don't want to risk people doing edits or modifications of them with AI (or any other way). Once it's posted, it's out of your control.

Anyways, please reblog for visibility- This is a deeply concerning topic!