#700 million views

[shakira-fan-page]

“TQG” official music video has reached 700 MILLION views on YouTube.

This is Shakira’s 14th video to achieve this.

[obsessivelollipoplalala]

I finally looked at the few comments I got on my one and only YouTube video on why I disliked Annaleigh Ashford's Mrs. Lovett, and was pleasantly surprised to find they were all positive lol. I'm definitely not going to make more videos or keep checking every new comment, because someone will inevitably get mean and I suffer from argumentative-person-who-doesn't-shut-up disease, but that was nice to see

[odinsblog]

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is pushing harder for a cease-fire in Gaza and demands that the United States send “not another nickel” to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“My view, not another nickel for Netanyahu’s government if he’s going to continue this wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people,” Sanders told MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Friday.

Sanders’ declaration comes just days after the death toll in Gaza surpassed 30,000 people since the start of the war on Oct. 7, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. More than 100 Palestinians in Gaza City were killed and more than 700 injured Thursday, when Israeli soldiers opened fire on the people scrambling to access humanitarian aid, some media outlets reported.

Sanders, who recently voted against sending more aid to Israel for its war against Hamas, stressed the importance of stopping the “unprecedented humanitarian disaster.”

The Vermont senator argued that President Biden, who has put pressure on Netanyahu and Israel to scale back its attacks, is taking “an important step forward,” but argues that “we need to do more.” Biden said Friday that the U.S. will begin airdrops of aid to Gaza amid negotiations for a cease-fire.

Sanders said Biden should be telling the Israeli government to open borders so trucks of food, water and medical supplies that are critical to the more than 1 million refugees in the region can be delivered.

During the interview, Sanders said that “it’s totally absurd” that the United States is sending humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza, but also supplying Israel with the funds and military capabilities to hurt those civilians.

(continue reading)

[moghedien]

Things that have happened in the last 48 hours

Tucker Carlson fired from Fox News unceremoniously and without warning, apparently directly at the command of Rupert Murdoch. Reason isn't clear but Dominion claims with wasn't because of their recent settlement with Fox News for over $700 million. Considering all that Fox News hosts get away with saying regularly, something pretty wild has to have happened for them to suddenly fire their number one money maker and the host of the highest viewed tv program in the country, on any channel.

Don Lemon fired from CNN possibly without warning, though CNN claims they tried to meet with him. Possibly due to sexist and/or racist comments, but the reason isn't currently clear and CNN is just not wanting to talk about it

Nate Silver was laid off by Disney and ABC and is no longer part of FiveThirtyEight, which he founded.

Steven Crowder announced that he has been divorced since 2021 when his wife filed a no-fault divorce, openly bemoaned the fact that the laws of Texas allowed her to divorce him without his permission, and then publicly accused Candace Owens of trying to use his divorce to extort him for money.

Candace Owens started commenting back at him, denying the accusations of extortion and has now officially begun another far right media civil war as people are taking sides, because she took the bait. She may or may not have sent him a cease and desist and be planning to take legal action.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Gyan Abhishek is standing in front of a giant touch screen, like Jim Cramer on Mad Money or an ESPN talking head analyzing a football play. He’s flicking through a Facebook feed of viral, AI-generated images. “The post you are seeing now is of a poor man that is being used to generate revenue,” he says in Hindi, pointing with his pen to an image of a skeletal elderly man hunched over being eaten by hundreds of bugs. “The Indian audience is very emotional. After seeing photos like this, they Like, Comment and share them. So you too should create a page like this, upload photos and make money through Performance bonus.”  He scrolls through the page, titled “Anita Kumari,” which has 112,000 followers and almost exclusively posts images of emaciated, AI-generated people, natural disasters, and starving children. He pauses on another image of a man being eaten by bugs. “They are getting so many likes,” he says. “They got 700 likes within 2-4 hours. They must have earned $100 from just this one photo. Facebook now pays you $100 for 1,000 likes … you must be wondering where you can get these images from. Don’t worry. I’ll show you how to create images with the help of AI.”

[...]

Abhishek has 115,000 YouTube subscribers, dozens of instructional videos, and is part of a community of influencers selling classes and making YouTube content about how to go viral on Facebook with AI-generated images and other types of spam. These influencers act much like financial influencers in the United States, teaching other people how to supposedly spin up a side hustle in order to make money by going viral on Facebook and other platforms. Part of the business model for these influencers is, of course, the fact that they are themselves making money by collecting ad revenue from YouTube and by selling courses and AI prompts on YouTube, WhatsApp and Telegram. Many of these influencers go on each others’ podcasts to discuss strategies, algorithm changes, and loopholes. I have found hundreds of videos about this, many of which have hundreds of thousands or millions of views.   But the videos make clear that Facebook’s AI spam problem is one that is powered and funded primarily by Facebook itself, and that most of the bizarre images we have seen over the last year are coming from Microsoft’s AI Image Creator, which is called “Bing Image Creator” in instructional videos.

[...]

The most popular way to make money spamming Facebook is by being paid directly by Facebook to do so via its Creator Bonus Program, which pays people who post viral content. This means that the viral “shrimp Jesus” AI and many of the bizarre things that have become a hallmark of Zombie Facebook have become popular because Meta is directly incentivizing people to post this content.

6 August 2024

[kindestofkings]

what came first, the chicken or the dickhead? [3/3]

[smau]

f1driver!reader x lando norris

authors note: book a dentist app guys this shit is sweet !

yourusername 

liked by landonorris and others 

yourusername 😭 🥺 guys I, I, I just won at my home race with my best friend alongside me. those two kids dreamed of days like these. lan you next 💓

to the tifosi for your unyielding support, to scuderiaferrari for helping me achieve things like this, and to charlie the best teammate a girl could ask for <3

view all 890 comments

landonorris so proud of you luv but PLEASE let me win soon, we dont need another max situation

yourusername lando tries to be sentimental challenge: FAILED f1fan hahahaha mate please grow up and make a move !

danielricciardo incredible stuff mate! landonorris you were so cute, what happened?

landonorris ha ha ha 😑

​​taylorswift you are killing it girl !! I see you're stateside later this year maybe you could join us at the era's tour?

yourusername 😀😀😀 I need someone to confirm this is real, landooooooooo landonorris its real so please stop hyperventilating in you drivers room alex_albon do you forget you have millions of followers and a mega superstar yourself?? yourusername and what she's TAYLOR SWIFT. she writes works of art like folklore and i drive in circles. alex_albon AT A VERY INSANE SPEED learn your worth please ynfan1 you did so well with him lilymhe

maxfewtrell you know what they say couples who win together stay together !

[this comment has been deleted]

ynfan2 max you are not quick enough for me I saw that 👀👀

taylorswiftupdates

liked by ynlando4ever and others

taylorswiftupdates after a long time of online interactions the f1 ferrari driver yourusername was at tonights show!! it appears the driver was joined with fellow drivers lando norris,charles leclerc and daniel ricciardo.

view all 20 comments

ynfan1 can you imagine your favourite singer of all time making that face at you 🥺

ynfan2 and she got one of tonights secret song dedicated to her aswell!!

ynfan3 no way really!! what was it ynfan2 it was randomly Crazier, the song taylor sang in the hannah montana film 😂

landonorris

 liked by yourusername and others 

landonorris hope you enjoyed your birthday cause you're never receiving another birthday present again. why WHY is your favourite taylor swift song so obscure??

view all 300 comments

yourusername you are the best of the best of the best of the BEST

​​taylorswift you guys are the most adorable 🥺

charles_leclerc cause shes a country girl at heart come you know this 😂

yourusername ahem country girls shake it for me 🤠

ynlando4ever GUYS HE GOT TAYLOR TO SING HER FAVOURITE SONG THEY ARE IN LOVE!!!!

yourusername posted on their story:

eras tour READY

I lied nothing could've prepared me for this ....

replies

taylorswift so glad you could come and enjoy 💓💓 that boy of yours is such a cutie.. yourusername he's a keeper for sure! hate keeping it all so secretive but like someone amazing once sang romance is not dead if you keep it just yours 😂 ❤️

yourusername

 liked by landonorris and others

yourusername I dont do tiktok but I love the its all too much for little lando norris cause he falls asleep during my taylor swift rants 😤

view all 700 comments

landonorris EHHHHH DONT THINK YOU MEANT THAT LAST ONE RIGHT BABE?

ynfan1 BABE?? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN THE HOUSE OF COMMENTS yourusername oh fuck lan landonorris HA and you said it be me who would out us ynfan2 US? theres an us??

yncharlesshipper what happened to charlie??

ynlando4ever VICTORY

danielricciardo hahahahahah wait why does norizz look kinda ??

landonorris you can say it 😏😏

yourusername OKAY Y'ALL CAUGHT ME WE'RE NOT JUST FRIENDS! SHOOT ME LOOK AT HIM!!!

landonorris LOOK AT YOUUUUU ynfan1 k im obsessed with them even more now

landonorris

liked by yourusername and others

landonorris since she messed up I can FINALLY show off how I got the girl 2 years ago 😎

happy to announce i'm accepting apologises for all those norizz comments cause LOOK at who's my girl

view all 500 comments

yourusername thats right baby your girl !!

maxfewtrell FINALLY

danielricciardo agreed, and you're never hearing anything from me norizz alex_albon still in shock carlossainz55 can relax now, yn is scary

charles_leclerc we got there eventually! looking forward to not being shipped with you now yourusername 😂😂

yourusername I don't know what you're talking about I'm a catch!

yourusername

 liked by mclaren and others

yourusername car failures are a teams worse nightmare and unfortunately my hard truth for today's race in Singapore 💔 being ruled out during the formation lap is something I hope to never experience again, so sorry for disappointing everyone and the team!

ON ANOTHER NOTE its time for a hardlaunch cause LOOK WHO JUST GOT HIS FIRST WIN! congrats bro 😎 👍❤️‍🔥 💖

view all 290 comments 

scuderiaferrari could never disappointment, we win as a team and lose as a team!

yourusername you guys xx ynfan1 the teams support never fails to make me emosh, all you that deserve!!

f1fan still a slay in my eyes!

landonorris the use of bro here is conflicting to all the pride driven kisses i've been getting 🤔🤔

f1fanupdates

liked by f1fan1 and others

f1fanupdates gasly is once again providing all the drama for the viewers! after another dnf the alphatauri driver made a jab at mclaren's first driver, lando norris...

view all 90 comments

f1fan1 why have one feud with a driver when you can have 2!! right pierre?

ynfan2 man is just realising he can't blame yn anymore so he's picking on lando

ynfan3 do you think its all related? like continuous beef that all links back to her?

landonorris

liked by yourusername and others

landonorris the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake

japan its been real!

view all 473 comments

pierregasly imagine being this cocky all while being overshadowed by your rookie teammate

landonorris imagine ruining your own career because a girl told you she didn't want to go out with you pierregasly if shes going out with the likes of you, think I dodged a bullet landonorris do you or do you not have a girlfriend rn? yourusername enough of this. pierre you are a broken record stfu and focus on your driving

ynfan1 OH MY GOD its all clicking, all this mess cause of a bruised ego...

ynfan2 men being men ugh

yourusername tay tay 🥺🥺 in your caption 🥺 love you

landonorris and the edit! i want all the brownie points baby 😏

danielricciardo MY EX-MAN BROUGHT HIS NEW GIRLFRIEND SHE'S LIKE

yourusername "OH MY GOD," BUT I'M JUST GONNA SHAKE IT charles_leclerc AND TO THE FELLA OVER THERE WITH THE HELLA GOOD HAIR maxverstappen1 WON'T YOU COME ON OVER, BABY? WE CAN SHAKE, SHAKE, SHAKE landonorris wow wdc winner with the taylor swift lyrics in my comments??

ynfan1 OH MY GOD its all clicking, all this mess cause of a bruised ego...

yourusername posted on their story:

my man my man my man 💓

landonorris where gasly wishes he could be 👀 landonorris love love love you

AHH I hope this was worth the wait guys!! the beef is so squashed in but I was consumed be the full by then lol

-finished-

[3/3]

taglist:

@vellicoranorca @toasttt11 @dzastinocha @dzastinocha @landosgirlxoxo @2bormaybenot @jpg3 @celestialams @dreamsarebig @dreamercrowd @dracosswhore @kissesandmartinis @inejismywife

weirdly couldnt tag everyone sorry !!

[thebroccolination]

"Ossan's Love" Becomes Japan's Number One Friday Night Drama of All Time

名シーンの連続に、第1～3話とTVerで配信中のスピンオフの見逃し配信総再生数が700万回を突��（※ビデオリサーチにて算出 期間1月6日～24日）するなど、金曜ナイトドラマ枠歴代1位の快進撃となった。 oricon.co.jp

"This series of famous scenes has become the number one Friday night drama of all time, with the total view count of the first three episodes as well as the spin-off episode (available on TVer) surpassing 7 million (calculated by Video Research Ltd. from January 6 to 24)."

The Ossan's Love franchise began in 2016 with a TV movie that earned a small but loyal following that enabled the 2018 series that saw the casting of Hayashi Kento and the introduction of Maki's character. It's his inclusion, the chemistry between him and Tanaka Kei, and the extra work they did on developing nuance in their characters that I think led to the massive popularity of the 2018 drama.

It was only seven episodes, and no one expected it to be popular, but the final episode trended globally at number one on Twitter, which is bananas.

Summer of 2019 saw a movie that continued on from the end of the 2018 version. This was massive. Red carpet event for the premiere, nationwide theaters, merch, and the biggest screen in Roppongi Hills (the one with the fancy armchairs).

Ossan's Love was a massive success.

There was also the plane show in winter of 2019 (without Hayashi). It sure did happen.

The fanbase of the 2018 version (called S1 by the Japanese fandom) is huge and enthusiastic, so it's no surprise to see the success of S2, but to claim the number one Friday night drama of all time!!! For a queer drama!!!

A queer drama just became the number one Friday night drama of all time in Japan, a country that has yet to legalize marriage equality.

Incredible.

[athingofvikings]

A Brief History Of The Palestinian People And The Jewish Religion According To Widespread Leftist Views

10,000,000-100,000 BCE: The Palestinian People emerge and live continuously in Palestine through to the present day (precise date estimates varies).

50,000 BCE: Evolution of Behaviorally Modern Humans

~1000 BCE: The Palestinian nation-state is founded as a sovereign kingdom under the renowned Palestinian warrior-monarch King David.

0 AD: Jesus Christ, a Palestinian Socialist Person Of Color, is born under Jewish Occupation to Palestinian Refugees.

33 AD: Jesus is tortured and murdered by Jewish occupiers in Palestine. The Romans stand by and don't have anything to do with this.

~50 AD-600 AD?: The Jewish Occupation of Palestine ends and all Jews cease to exist. Details unavailable.

700s AD: The White Khazars convert to Judaism, and are the source of all modern Jews.

700s-1933 AD: Jews spread through Europe, living as rich, privileged bankers, and face no widespread antisemitism, prejudice, or any negative experiences at all; they are the Whitest of White people, simply following a different Abrahamic religion that is just a type of Christianity, and has no ethnic component. They have this degree of privilege even as they scheme and plot against their fellow European Whites by fomenting wars, run the entire Atlantic slave trade, and routinely betray and stab their Fellow White People in the back, being more loyal to their fellow Jews than to their own hosts. Meanwhile, Jews in Arabic nations are also well treated.

1933-1945 AD: The Nazis invent antisemitism, picking the Jews as an arbitrary target, and manage to get all of Germany to hate the Jews for no reason, and supposedly kill six million Jews, possibly in collaboration with the Zionists.

1946 AD: Antisemitism is over and gone, and will never exist again. Any future attempts to claim antisemitism is an effort to distract from legitimate criticisms of Zionist fascism in occupied Palestine.

1947 AD: The Jews go to the other Europeans and play the sympathy card and the other Europeans tell them that they can now have a colony of their very own for the plentiful oil in Palestine.

1948 AD: History formally begins. White European Jews invade the sovereign socialist, progressive, democratically perfect state of Palestine, who accepted the Jewish refugees without any reservations, problems, or other issues, purely out of the goodness of their hearts, and were promptly betrayed, colonized, ethnically cleansed and mass murdered.

1948 AD-2023 AD: The illegal, settler-colonialist, genocidal fascist state of Is-Not-Real proceeds to routinely genocide and cull the innocent Palestinian people. For example, every three days, IOF soldiers kill a Palestinian child, and harvests their organs, and regularly kills tens of millions of other Palestinians out of the existing population of five million. During this time, Israel uses its control over the governments, media, and economies of the West to cement its genocidal control over the occupied Palestinian territories and cover up its millions of murders, while crying "antisemitism" as the Zionists kill Palestinians, who are the only true Semites.

7 October, 2023-Present: Israel kills 1200 of their own people and kidnap hundreds of others as a false flag, managing to trick the innocent and naive freedom fighters of Hamas to broadcast the propaganda killings on their own social media accounts. The IOF then proceeds to kill 14,000 millions of innocent Palestinians, nearly all of them innocent, blameless children, whose bodies are taken by Israel for organ harvesting and to use to fake other Hamas attack victims, because apparently the Brown Palestinians are perfect stand-ins for White Israelis and can't be told apart easily on sight.

[visit-new-york]

100 Most Fascinating Facts About the Empire State Building

The Empire State Building, located in the heart of Manhattan, New York City, is an iconic skyscraper and one of the most famous landmarks in the world.

Construction of the Empire State Building began on March 17, 1930, and was completed in just 410 days, opening its doors to the public on May 1, 1931.

Standing at a staggering height of 1,454 feet (443.2 meters), including its antenna, the Empire State Building was the tallest building in the world when it was completed. It held this title for nearly 40 years until the completion of the World Trade Center's North Tower in 1970.

The Empire State Building has 102 floors, with 86 of them being used for office space, and it houses numerous businesses and organizations.

The building was designed by architect William F. Lamb, who worked for the architectural firm Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates. The design was inspired by the Art Deco style, which was prevalent in the 1930s.

It cost approximately $40 million to build the Empire State Building, which would be equivalent to over $700 million in today's money when adjusted for inflation.

The building's construction was completed during the Great Depression, and it was often referred to as the "Empty State Building" during its early years due to the difficulty of finding tenants for the office spaces.

To finance the construction, the Empire State Building was funded by a group of wealthy investors, including John J. Raskob, a financier and businessman.

The building's exterior is clad in Indiana limestone and granite, giving it a distinctive and elegant appearance.

The Empire State Building's famous Art Deco spire was originally intended to serve as a mooring mast for dirigibles, but the idea was quickly abandoned due to safety concerns and strong winds at such heights.

The building's construction progressed at a remarkable rate of four and a half stories per week, an unprecedented speed for that time.

During the construction, five workers tragically lost their lives, and they are honored with a memorial plaque inside the building.

The Empire State Building has a total of 73 elevators, including service elevators, and it takes just 45 seconds to reach the 86th-floor observatory from the ground floor.

The building's 86th-floor observatory offers breathtaking panoramic views of New York City and has been visited by millions of tourists from around the world.

Notable visitors to the Empire State Building include several world leaders, celebrities, and even fictional characters like King Kong in the classic 1933 film.

The Empire State Building was the location of several daredevil stunts and record-breaking feats, including the famous race to the top between a man and an elevator.

The building's official lighting system can be programmed to display various colors and patterns during different events and celebrations, making it a striking presence in the New York City skyline.

Every year, on Independence Day, the Empire State Building participates in the Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks display, illuminating the night sky with a colorful show.

In 1964, the Empire State Building was designated as a National Historic Landmark, recognizing its cultural and historical significance.

The building's observatories are open to the public year-round, and they are especially popular during the annual Empire State Building Run-Up event, where participants race up the stairs to the 86th floor.

The iconic scene from the movie "Sleepless in Seattle," where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan meet on the observation deck, has become a quintessential romantic movie moment.

The Empire State Building has been featured in numerous movies, TV shows, and music videos, cementing its status as a symbol of New York City and an emblem of urban life.

On a clear day, visitors to the observatory can see up to five states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

The building has experienced several incidents of lightning strikes, but its construction materials safely disperse the electrical charge, keeping it relatively safe during storms.

The Empire State Building's Art Deco lobby is adorned with beautiful murals and decorative elements, transporting visitors back to the glamour of the 1930s.

A famous photograph called "Lunch Atop a Skyscraper" was taken during the construction of the building, showing construction workers casually sitting on a steel beam high above the city.

The Empire State Building has appeared in various video games, becoming a recognizable virtual landmark in games set in New York City.

The building's famous spire has undergone several alterations and changes over the years, including the addition of a television broadcasting antenna.

An observation deck is located on the 102nd floor, offering an even higher vantage point for those willing to climb a few more flights of stairs.

During the annual Empire State Building Run-Up, the fastest recorded time for ascending to the 86th floor is just under 10 minutes.

The building's exterior lights are often coordinated to support important causes, such as lighting up in specific colors to raise awareness for charitable events and holidays.

The Empire State Building's lobby houses a scale model of the building, offering visitors a close-up look at its architectural features and design.

The Empire State Building's design and construction techniques were considered innovative for their time, and many of its principles have influenced the development of future skyscrapers.

The building's façade features intricate stone carvings, depicting various animals and mythological creatures, adding a touch of artistry to its exterior.

The Empire State Building was the first building to have more than 100 floors, making it a true marvel of engineering and architectural achievement.

The building's steel frame weighs around 57,000 tons, and the total weight of the building, including its contents, is estimated to be over 365,000 tons.

In 1945, a B-25 bomber crashed into the Empire State Building's 79th floor in dense fog, resulting in 14 fatalities and significant damage to the building.

The Empire State Building's architecture has served as inspiration for various skyscrapers and buildings around the world.

The building's height, including its antenna, is precisely 1,454 feet and 8 9/16 inches (443.2 meters), making it an engineering marvel to achieve such precision during the 1930s.

The Empire State Building has been featured in numerous songs, poems, and works of literature, cementing its status as a symbol of ambition, progress, and the American Dream.

The building's main lobby features a stunning ceiling mural titled "American Progress" by artist Roy Sparkia, depicting the rise of New York City.

A bronze plaque on the ground floor commemorates the visit of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who turned on the building's lights with a push of a button on May 1, 1931.

The Empire State Building was the location of a unique event in 1951 when Kathryn Johnston became the first woman to be married on the building's observatory.

In 1980, the exterior of the Empire State Building was designated as a city landmark, ensuring its preservation for future generations.

The Empire State Building's prominence as a symbol of American industrial prowess and architectural excellence was further solidified by its inclusion in the Great Seal of New York City.

The building has been featured on several postage stamps issued by the United States Postal Service, further showcasing its iconic status.

The Empire State Building played a significant role in numerous movie plots, and its imposing presence has served as a backdrop for memorable cinematic moments.

The building's immense height allows it to be visible from various points across New York City, making it a guiding landmark for many residents and tourists.

The Empire State Building was depicted in the 1983 video game "King Kong," where players climbed the building to rescue the titular character.

The building's observation decks have hosted numerous special events, including weddings, proposals, and even a high-wire walk by daredevil Philippe Petit in 1974.

The Empire State Building is an energy-efficient building, and it has earned a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification for its sustainability practices.

The annual Empire State Building Run-Up attracts participants from around the world, with many athletes and fitness enthusiasts challenging themselves to conquer the stairs.

The building's 86th-floor outdoor observatory has been featured in movies like "An Affair to Remember" and "Sleepless in Seattle" as a place where couples can share special moments and breathtaking views.

The building's observation decks have been the setting for several world records, including the highest concert and the highest-flying paper airplane launch.

On a windy day, the Empire State Building sways gently, and the topmost floors can sway up to several feet due to its flexibility and structural design.

The Empire State Building has appeared in numerous comic books and graphic novels, often serving as a backdrop for superhero battles and epic showdowns.

The building's observatories are equipped with high-powered binoculars to allow visitors to get a closer look at various landmarks and attractions across the city.

The Empire State Building has been featured in various virtual reality experiences, allowing people from around the world to explore its heights without leaving their homes.

The Empire State Building's façade lighting is often used to commemorate special occasions, such as holidays, national events, and philanthropic initiatives.

During the Christmas season, the Empire State Building is illuminated with festive colors, and a large Christmas tree is displayed in the lobby.

The building's observatories are open until midnight, offering visitors a chance to experience the stunning nighttime views of the city that never sleeps.

The Empire State Building's central location in Midtown Manhattan makes it a convenient starting point for tourists exploring the city's many attractions.

The Empire State Building has been featured in video games like "Grand Theft Auto IV" and "Crysis 2," allowing gamers to interact with a virtual representation of the iconic structure.

On a clear night, the Empire State Building's lights can be seen from miles away, creating a mesmerizing sight in the New York City skyline.

The building's annual lighting of the tower in blue on April 15th marks the start of Autism Awareness Month, showing its support for autism-related initiatives.

The Empire State Building has been depicted in countless postcards, souvenirs, and artworks, becoming an emblem of New York City's skyline.

The building's iconic mast and tower were originally intended to serve as docking points for airships, but advancements in aviation technology rendered this idea impractical.

In 1947, a United States Army Air Force B-25 Mitchell bomber successfully made a round-trip flight between New York City and Bermuda, proving the feasibility of commercial transatlantic flights.

The Empire State Building was featured in the climactic battle scene of the 2012 film "The Avengers," where the superheroes fought off an alien invasion from the top of the building.

The Empire State Building has appeared in numerous disaster movies, where it is often destroyed or damaged by earthquakes, tidal waves, and alien invasions.

The building's observatories offer a clear view of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Central Park, and other iconic New York City landmarks.

The Empire State Building's interior spaces have been used as sets for various film and TV productions, including commercials, documentaries, and music videos.

On special occasions, the Empire State Building's lights synchronize with music, creating stunning light shows visible from various vantage points around the city.

The building has served as a popular backdrop for fashion shoots, with models posing on its observation decks or in front of its grand entrance.

The Empire State Building was the tallest building in the world when it was featured in the classic 1933 film "King Kong," where the giant ape climbed to the top.

The building's annual Empire State Building Run-Up attracts participants from various backgrounds, including professional athletes, firefighters, and fitness enthusiasts.

The Empire State Building has been a popular destination for marriage proposals, with its breathtaking views providing a romantic setting for couples in love.

The building's observation decks have hosted a variety of events, including live music performances, book signings, and art exhibitions.

The Empire State Building's design incorporates setbacks, creating a distinctive and recognizable silhouette on the Manhattan skyline.

The Empire State Building has been featured in numerous post-apocalyptic movies, symbolizing the endurance of human architecture in the face of catastrophe.

The building's height makes it an ideal location for various telecommunication antennas, broadcasting radio, television, and mobile signals to the city.

The Empire State Building is lit up in blue and white in honor of the annual International Day of Peace on September 21st, promoting global harmony.

The building's interior lobby and halls have appeared in several period dramas and historical movies, evoking the elegance of the Art Deco era.

In 1994, a Norwegian base jumper successfully parachuted from the top of the building, landing safely on the streets of Manhattan.

The Empire State Building has served as a focal point in various New Year's Eve celebrations, with its lighting being an integral part of the festivities.

The Empire State Building has been used in art installations and performance pieces, exploring themes of urbanization, identity, and human experience.

The building's observation decks have been visited by numerous celebrities and dignitaries, from movie stars to political leaders from around the world.

The Empire State Building's Art Deco style has inspired interior designs, fashion trends, and architectural elements in buildings worldwide.

The Empire State Building has been depicted in animated movies and TV shows, capturing the imaginations of younger generations.

The building's grand entrance features exquisite decorative bronze doors, with intricate reliefs and ornamental details.

The Empire State Building has been featured in numerous books and documentaries that explore its history, engineering, and cultural significance.

The building has been the subject of various art projects, including paintings, sculptures, and installations, showcasing its allure as an artistic muse.

The Empire State Building has served as a symbol of resilience, representing New York City's ability to recover and rebuild after the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

The building's observatories have been visited by prominent figures in history, including Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Diana, and the astronaut Neil Armstrong.

The Empire State Building's annual Halloween lighting event sees the top of the building bathed in orange and other eerie colors, adding a spooky touch to the city's skyline.

The building's observatories have been used to conduct scientific research, such as atmospheric studies and meteorological observations.

The Empire State Building was featured in the 2005 film "King Kong," where the giant ape climbed to the top once again in a modern retelling of the classic story.

The building's exterior and observatories have been a popular filming location for various TV shows, commercials, and music videos.

The Empire State Building has been featured in the backdrop of countless wedding photographs, becoming an iconic symbol of love and commitment.

As one of the most recognizable buildings in the world, the Empire State Building continues to be a symbol of human achievement, architectural excellence, and the spirit of New York City. Its enduring appeal and timeless beauty ensure its place in history for generations to come.

[matthewkniesys]

announcement - trevor zegras x famous singer!reader social media au

trevor zegras x famous singer!reader

a/n: if you thought it was the hard launch announcement lol. but this is the reader announcing good riddance deluxe edition...cause yes the readers life is basically gracie's in this au. hope you all like it and requests for this au are always open

yourusernameofficial

Liked by @/ trevorzegras, fanaccount3, maisiehpeters, and 700 897 others

yourusernameofficial - good riddance deluxe out june 16th🤍

View Top Comments

maisiehpeters - nobody is ready for this

↳ yourusernameofficial - you did cry when you listened to the bonus tracks for the first time

↳ maisiehpeters - babe i still cry after hearing them a million times

y/n#1fan - omg she's feeding us

radvxz - time for my bestie to break the internet :)

↳ yourusernameofficial - you think my music is break the internet worthy?? awwww

↳ radvxz - it's 100 times better than my music

↳ yourusernameofficial - shut the fuck up there is no music on planet earth that is better than your

↳ radvxz - yeah but maybe on mars right?

fanaccount3 - literally ordering the vinyl rn...but side note is that another like from a hockey player?? jamies teammate no less

↳ y/nupdatesss - okay okay i believe you and i am now on team y/n is dating jamie

peoplemagazine

Liked by @/ fanaccount3, y/nupdatesss, y/n#1fan and 100 345 others

peoplemagazine - y/n l/n was seen out at dinner with best friend and singer, beatrice laus, better known as beabadoobee last night, amid rumors of an nhl player boyfriend. nothing has been confirmed but fans are speculating that it may be jamie drysdale, defensmen for the anaheim ducks.

Tagged: @/ yourusernameofficial & radvxz & jamie.drysdale

View Top Comments

fanaccount19 - i really hope they're dating...it would be such a cute pair!!

fanaccount3 - my thoughts have reached all the way to people magazine wow

y/n#1fan - i know we're all talking about the rumors but on a side note y/n and bea are slaying

trevorzegras

Liked by @/ maisiehpeters, jamie.drysdale, alexturcotte and 70 856 others

trevorzegras - last week in LA before me and jimbo parted for the summer...miss you bud

Tagged: @/ jamie.drysdale

hockeyfan25 - um trevor i think you forgot to tag 2 people...

nhlwag - the top right picture isn't sneaky dude, we see it

jackhughes - next stop lake house

↳ trevorzegras - summer trevor is unlocked baby

jamie.drysdale -its the way i took every single one of these pictures except for the one of me because trevor can't take a good picture to save his life

↳ trevorzegras - yes well at least im photogenic and look good in the pictures

↳ jamie.drysdale - ever so cocky trev

fanaccount3 - omg that has to be y/n...jamie and y/n are dating can't change my mind

↳ fanaccount6 - idk why is trevor posting her then...maybe we're all wrong and trevor is the guy??

thanks for reading🫶requests for this au are always open!!

taglist: @woodruff-edwards @nicohischierz @makarhughes @cobrakaisb @huggy-hischier94 @boldysswld@cole-mcward48@kashee-h@kjohnson-91 @jackhues @corneliaskates @imma-mirrorball @hvghes

join my taglist

[shakira-fan-page]

"Shakira || BZRP Music Sessions #53” has reached 700 MILLION views on YouTube.

- This is Shakira’s 15th video to reach this milestone on the platform.

[into-the-mikuverse]

Thank you all for 700 submissions!! I’m currently making the “Niche” Bracket (less than or equal to 10 Million YouTube Views) and the “Popular” Bracket (more than 10 Million YouTube Views)

Buuut I’m deciding on how to schedule the tournament. At the current size of the rosters (32 songs each bracket, 64 songs total), each tournament will take about a month to conclude with 1 week voting periods for each round. Running one after the other will take about 2 months. What should I do?

[matan4il]

Amin al-Husseini docu: part 8

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Last

Translator's notes:

-> Erwin Rommel was the commander of the Nazi forces in North Africa. They landed in Tunisia and were moving eastward, towards the Land of Israel. Rommel was stoppsed at the Second El-Alamein battle, in November 1942.

-> Walter Rauff was appointed as, among other things, the head of a unit called Einsatzgruppe Egypt (similarly named to the Einsatzgruppen in Europe, the "death squads" in charge of exterminating the Eastern European Jews, and which according to the latest research shot to death at least 2.5 million Jewish men, women and children in the shooting pits there). Einsatzgruppe Egypt was stationed in Athens, awaiting deployment in the Land of Israel once it would be occupied by Rommel's forces. The unit of 24 men was supposed to instruct the local Arabs, recruited by the Mufti, in how to exterminate Jews in gas chambers that were to be built in the Dotan Valley.

-> Prof. Yossi ben-Artzi is actually presented by the docu as "researched Operation Atlas," but I can't in good conscience write that, when he was actually researching The Templers. They are a German radical sect, which was established in 1861, and aspired to form the "perfect Christian society" to speed up the return of Jesus, which could also be helped by colonizing Israel. They began to do so around the end of the 1860's. This sect views Jews as denied salvation, since they didn't accept Jesus. At the peak of the Templers' colonization in Israel, they had somewhere between 900 to 1,200 adults, with a total community size of around 2,000 members living here. In the 1930's, they greatly identified with the Nazis, and at least 300 adult Templers were also officially members of the Nazi party. They even had local chapters of the Nazi party and the Hitler Jugend (Hitler youth) at their colonies in Israel. By 1934, there were reports of the Templers spreading Nazi ideology to local Arabs in Israel. Templer men were drafted into the Nazi army (the Wehrmacht) on Aug 20, 1939. Some of them left for Germany with their families, altogether 550 people. The British expelled most of those remaining to Australia. The few left were expelled in 1948, following Israel's Independence War. Israel paid the sect reparations for the property they had to leave behind (most of which was confiscated by the British). Today, there are still about 1,300 Templers living in Australia (with a center in Melbourne) and 700 in Germany. Their main center there is in Stuttgart, where they have their own conference hall, archive and monthly newspaper.

(in the pic: The Fast Hotel in Jerusalem, displaying several country flags along with the Nazi one in 1933)

-> Operation Atlas included 5 parachutists. The three German ones were Kurt Wieland, who headed a local Hitler Jugend chapter and left in 1936 for Germany to join the Nazi army, Friedrich Deininger, who helped the Arabs during the 1936-1939 Arab revolt (in which many Jews and Brits were targeted in Israel) and was incarcerated for this by the British, but he managed to escape to Germany, and Werner Frank, who had joined the Hitler Jugend in 1934 already. The two Arabs were Abdul Latif, who had participated in the Arab revolt, was expelled for it by the Brits to Iraq, but ended up becoming one of the Mufti's assistants in Berlin, and Hasan Salama, one of the leaders of the Arab revolt (during which he also killed many Arabs and gained from stolen property), after which he fled to Lebanon, then Syria, where he joined the Mufti on his way to Iraq, and finally to Germany. Salama became one of the Arab leaders during Israel's Independence War, and in fact he led the attack on bus 2904 from Netanya to Jerusalem, which is the anti-Jewish attack that started the war on Nov 30, 1947.

-> The participants of Operation Atlas parachuted east of Jericho on Oct 6, 1944. Some of their gold coins got the local Arabs talking, leading the British police to them. By Oct 11, even the Jewish press in Israel published the info on the strangers who had parachuted there. On Oct 15, the Brits captured Wieland, Frank and Latif. On Oct 16, they formally published this info. A few days later, they called off the search for the remaining two men. Deininger was captured in 1946, when he tried to contact his family, and Salama, who oversaw the start of Israel's Independence War, was eventually killed in a battle not too far from Rosh Ha'Ayin, the area where the springs the operation is said to have targeted are, and the same zone that Salama himself was from.

-> Decades after the war, Professor ben-Artzi, out of admiration for some of the Templers' colonialist accomplishments in Israel, lived with them in Stuttgart to gain their trust and study them. He was told by one man, who had returned from Australia, that the (then undisputed) story of Operation Atlas' goal being to poison Tel Aviv's water is untrue. According to ben-Artzi, 7 years later the man confessed to be the Nazi Waffen SS soldier Werner Frank, and it's his testimony that the professor is mostly basing his assessment of Operation Atlas on.

-> I'll offer my POV on Operation Atlas, but it's obviously just my personal opinion. I do think Frank had motivation to deny his complicity in what would have been a mass murder, for his own sake and that of his sect. I also don't know why his testimony should be seen as any more reliable than that of so many other Nazi criminals, who after the end of WWII, denied some of the facts or their own motivation. I do believe the substance the parachutists were carrying was poison. Other than Professor ben-Artzi, no historian disputes this, they mainly argue what the poison was for. Beyond the fact that black pepper is a much easier way to throw dogs off, poison specifically is a really dumb idea for that task, because it's bound to leave a trail of dead dogs that would lead back to the parachutists. And of course, the Mufti was a raging genocidal antisemite, obsessed with making sure that even Jews outside of Israel would be exterminated, so why in the world would he be so involved, and even emotionally invested (calling the parachutists his sons) if the operation was not targeting Jews specifically?

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[rikeijo]

Hello! :) Hope I don’t seem like I am trying to cause drama. 😅 I would like to ask how different and / or similar is the YOI fandom in Japan compared to the English fandom? Another thing I’m curious about is how do Japanese BL / GL fans view view Western shows with LGBT+ characters? For example does The Owl House have a lot of GL fans or do they not really care about the show?

Hello! Thank you for the message!

I don't think that it's trying to cause drama... In case of YoI and all the very unusual things that happened with this IP, if we try to understand why it happened, imo, it's impossible to see the whole picture without taking into consideration how Jp anime industry&fandom perceive LGBT+ related stuff.

The main difference is that, in case of anime like YoI, in Jp, majority of people think "fujoshi" when they see it, not "gay representation/ LGBT".

This is a quote from an article I happened to read recently (link) that answers a lot of your questions. A person, who works for a company that specializes in BL marketing, talks about Jp and Asian BLs.

"In Japanese BLs there is a lot of settings and cliches expected to appear in the story. There is so much that I'll only give you an example here, one that is difficult to explain in words - for example, the seme (the man that leads in the romantic relationship) is cool and the most popular person in the class, and on the other hand the uke (the man that is led) is more plain, and a bit of an natural airhead - this pattern is one of the classics. In BL, part of the culture is to enjoy those settings and story templates.

(...)

Of course, in the West, there are also BL stories called M/M, which portray romantic relationships between men and they have a lot of fans in Jp. But according to Tsutsui: "In the West, those stories are created more in the context of LGBT and are of a different kind that Japanese and Asian BLs."

(...)

Also, in BLs there is a lot of taboos, called "jirai, landmines". If you detonate those because you lack understanding [of the BL culture], users will immediately go away.

One example of a landmine is when seme and uke swap places, called "reverse"."

Of course, YoI isn't BL, but fans of YoI ships have exactly the same mindset: one uke, seme(s), enjoying our fantasies, not interested in LGBT. Obviously, it's not 100% of the fandom, but the vast majority is really like that.

VicYuu (Victor seme, Yuuri uke) is the most popular ship (seme the coolest character x uke the main character "I'd like to read shojo manga, but they have women there and I hate those" template is the most popular fujo template for every story - for example, in case of JJK, the most popular ship is... Gojo Satoru x Itadori Yuji (15) with almost 700 millions views in total on pixiv). So, that Yuuri doesn't look uke enough and Victor looks like a "fa*got with fake eyelashes" (that's a quote), when he should be a masculine seme, in a lot of arts is one reason why fujos started to hate members of YoI staff. Just like that person in the article said - for fujos, it's a landmine. I've talked about it a few times before - one of the most hated YoI staff member is Mitsurou, and there is plenty of reasons why she was targeted, but one is that the way she draws Yuuri and Victor is more similar to how "YuuVic" fanarts are drawn (and often you can basically tell the ship by how the person draws the characters)...

I don't know a lot about The Owl House, but of course, it has fans in Jp as well - only, I think that those fans (of Western LGBT shows in general) are more from the progressive side and there is little overlap with classic fujos (so a kind of BL/dojinshi fan). Another example, the Witch from Mercury was also popular with the progressive people of Jp twitter and they were also bashing the IP holders because of the marriage controversy... Of course, more progressive people read BLs, too, but many are against being labelled as "fujoshi"... That's generalization, but fujos are those people who labelled and still call heterosexual love "normal love" - I think that says a lot.

In my observation, YoI's Jp fandom is in majority fujo-fandom (2016 was a few years ago...). In 2023, however, more and more people are more open and know more about LGBT+ stuff, so there is also growing "progressive" population of fans on twitter etc. and those people gravitate towards different shows/have different interpretations compared to classic fujos.

So yeah, generally & simply speaking, in Jp, fujoshi, BL =/= LGBT. And btw, as I was labelled fujo-hater in the past, I don't think it's "bad" that fujos like to feminize their uke so much to self-insert and fantasize about the masculine seme(s) loving them, effectively making the ship into a heterosexual ship, because that's what they prefer (although when a grown-up woman is fantasizing about a tiny teenager having sex with a man twice his age and size, well... I'm not sure it's healthy) but I just don't think that it has much to do with LGBT rights and being allies or anything like that, and that it's something that should be acknowledged, too.

[blazehedgehog]

A Eulogy for my Playstation 4 Pro

So since I was a brain genius who decided to transfer all my fundraiser money to my bank account on a weekend, let's have a little eulogy for my poor Playstation 4 Pro.

I bought it in 2017 after a hellish move from Colorado to Nevada. We'd lived in Colorado for 26 years, and rented the same house for 24 of those years. I literally grew up in that house. Then our landlords got greedy (as all landlords eventually do), almost tripled our rent, and we had to move.

One of the last things I did before I packed up my computer was release The Definitive Way to Play Sonic Adventure on Youtube. That video was a modest success, but it had a secondary effect where a no-commentary gameplay video I'd uploaded for the fangame Sonic Utopia got picked up by the algorithm as a result, and that video suddenly took off like wildfire. I found myself sitting on a pair of videos that were about to pull in close to a combined 3 million views. It was the most I'd had a video blow up in a very long time.

I was now flush with a few thousand dollars of cash that I could do whatever I wanted with. That was great, as I got to help cover some moving expenses. I gave my Mom some money, I paid one of the deposits on our new apartment, paid to fix some stuff that got broken in the move, I bought myself a new desk, new computer chair, some storage shelves, a new bed frame, and still had about $700 left to spare. So I bought a PS4 Pro and a small handful of games (The Nathan Drake Collection, Yakuza Kiwami, The Last of Us Remastered, and Parappa the Rapper Remastered, I think). It was the first true next-generation console I'd bought in 11 years -- I'd had a Wii U, but that doesn't count.

Within that first year, I'd already run into my first problem with that Playstation 4. Back in the Xbox 360 era, I had a moment in my life where I was a psychopath that was running a media server off my PC. Every morning I'd wake up, download everything my Youtube subs had posted the day before, along with whatever GiantBomb had uploaded that day, and threw it up on the media server. The 360 could see the server, and those downloads would basically become my background noise for the day. I watched the entire GiantBomb Persona 4 Endurance Run that way: on the 360, through my media server. For context, these were the days before there was any way to watch Youtube on a television. There was no app. Youtube was just a website. So the Media Server was what I had to do to see Youtube on another screen.

In the move out to Nevada, I'd bought a cheap 32GB USB thumbdrive from the back-to-school section at Wal-mart and filled it full of movies and videos and stuff. With the PS4 set up, I plugged that thumbdrive in and tried out the PS4's media player capabilities, hoping it worked like the Xbox 360.

It did... for about 45 minutes. In the middle of watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie the media player suddenly crashed and refused to see the USB thumbdrive anymore. I reached down to pull it out only to find it was almost too hot to touch. I might have actually dropped the thumbdrive because it shocked me just how hot it was. I have never felt a piece of electronics be that hot before.

For the rest of that day, that USB port was dead. Nothing you plugged into it would be recognized. Eventually, it finally started working with controllers, but it never accepted any other thumbdrives, ever.

After about three years, I started to notice recordings were starting to get a little weird. Clips I'd record of my Fortnite matches would have huge 2-3 second chunks go missing, or the encoding would corrupt and smear. But then it went away, so I figured maybe it was just a problem with the game and not the console. It'd come back every now and then, maybe once a year, but it only ever happened with Fortnite, and only occasionally.

About a year and a half ago, I started to notice something else weird. Unless there was a specific game I needed to play for work stuff (like Sonic Frontiers or whatever), my PS4 was mostly just a Fortnite machine, and mainly because the PC version of Fortnite is a disaster.

But for months I'd left a disc in my PS4's disc drive. I think it was probably Balan Wonderworld or something, and as I booted up Fortnite for my daily founder's mission rewards, I noticed a sound. I'd been hearing it on and off for a while, but now I was finally paying attention to it. I realized: the console was sitting there scanning the disc, over and over and over, like it couldn't read it. I'd hear the disc motor spin up, the soft click-click-click as the read head scanned for data. It'd spin down, spin up, click-click-click, whirrrrrr, click-click, spin down, spin up, etc. Over and over. It'd do this for a good 30-45 seconds, then finally settle down and identify the disc.

The first time I noticed this, I ejected the Balan disc and put in something else; I think it was Dreams. PS4 read the disc instantly. I shrugged, figured maybe the Balan disc was just cursed and didn't think anything of it.

About a week later, I caught it doing it with the disc for Dreams. And then Sonic Frontiers. Then Sonic Superstars. Pretty much any disc I'd put in there. As the months wore on, it started taking multiple minutes for it to identify the disc.

A few weeks before it died, I ended up taking the disc out and basically resigning myself to only putting a disc in if I was going to play it, and removing that disc the moment I was done, because that scanning process seemed like it was making the problem worse.

A few months before it died, I got a full hardware crash on the console. The error code it gave me pointed to a hardware failure, but a google revealed that it was a generic error code that could mean literally anything. Right around this time, the video corruption in my Fortnite recordings came back around. I had a feeling it was the HDD.

Thus began the saga of trying to replace my PS4's HDD. I knew it could take SSDs, so I did some research, saved up $100, and bought a 2TB SSD that was compatible with the console. Followed Sony's official instructions on replacing the HDD, and...

It didn't work.

I vowed to get my money back and order a different HDD, but prices went up and realizing the other mounting problems with this machine (including the fried USB port), and my general mood overall, I just kept the money and figured I'd ride or die until the machine breathed its last.

8 months later... it refused to boot up at all.

Rest in piece, king. The only other console I've ever had straight up die on me like this was my Xbox 360, and if I'm being honest, I kind of smothered that poor boy a little bit hoping to get a sturdier console back from the repair center.

(I did not, but that's a story for another day.)

[fatehbaz]

So 26 February 2023, Grist re-publishes a piece originally from InvestigateWest, after InvestigateWest got their hands on some sensitive emails/documents revealing that the EPA rather than fairly supervising mining companies “they’re supposed to regulate” has instead assisted the companies “by attacking researchers and smearing peer-reviewed science.” (Surprising nobody; Montana is a resource extraction colony.) The piece is titled “Newly revealed records show how the EPA sided with polluters in a small Montana mining town.”

So I’m like “oh, is this gonna be about the natural gas boom near Sidney on the North Dakota border right alongside the Bakken oil fields, an operation so big and extensive that it artificially lights up the night sky over the open prairies of the northern Great Plains in a way that, from a satellite view, makes the least densely populated and remote corner of the contiguous United States glow brightly as if it were a massive city or as if the entire region were on fire? Or is this gonna be about coal mining in the remote southeastern corner of the state in the badlands and shortgrass prairie near Crow and Cheyenne reservations, where coal companies in the Yellowstone River watershed traditionally have extracted millions from near the Powder River and Black Hills?”

But nope, it’s about Butte.

“Small Montana mining town.”

This city is still among top 5 or top 10 most culturally and economically significant cities in the state. “Significant city” would be more apt than “small town.” But beyond that.

This is the place known as “Butte, America.”

Butte was the epicenter, the home base, the foundation of the Gilded Age copper boom that electrified the world and lit the streetlights and parlors of turn-of-the-century London and New York.

All that copper wiring, that’s from Butte, or from the industries that Butte’s barons established. This was the city where mining magnates ran the Anaconda Copper Mining Company which spear-headerd the pillaging of Latin America (referenced in the “open veins of Latin America”). Anaconda established the century-long tradition of Canadian and US mining companies destroying lives and landscapes in the Andes.

By 1899, Butte was one of the most significant US cities between the Mississippi River and the Sierra Nevada. This was the home of the Copper Kings.

The Anaconda company, in 1919, completed construction on a smelter smokestack 585 feet high, which remains the tallest surviving brick structure on the planet.

The wealth of Butte in the Edwardian era is unfathomable. They had a rollercoaster. In a single year, merely just those local mines along the edge of the city could produce $23 million ($700 million today). And that doesn’t include all of the wealth stolen from Latin America or other mines in the western US.

Montana was a state that pioneered the “corporations are people” stuff. Its very statehood itself, the christening of Montana, was a gift to the Copper Kings. Every important state office was practically purchased, owned by those mining barons.

This is also why Montana was the site of some of the earliest and most important labor struggles. Because the entire state of Montana was functionally a copper mining company town. Among notable events: the 1914 Butte labor riots, the 1917 brutal assassination of Frank Little, and the 1920 “Anaconda Road Massacre” in which company guards shot and killed 17 fleeing people.

This is why, depending on who you ask, Butte is either A Company Town or A Union Town.

Butte claims to be the home of the “largest population of Irish-Americans per capita of any US city.” This may or may not be true, but this Irish influence evident in the local popularity of pasties. In the Edwardian era, Butte was also the site of an important Chinatown neighborhood and a large Chinese community.

Locally, Butte is famous/infamous for being the site of the Berkeley Pit. Or “The Pit.” The remaining scar of an open-pit copper mine. It’s one mile long, half-mile wide, almost 2,000 feet deep, filled with 900 feet of acidic water laden with cadmium, sulfuric acid, and arsenic.

Just sitting there. In the city.

“Oh, well, of course, back in the Gilded Age, in the 1890s, US businesses got a little out of control, and boom-town communities weren’t really thinking long-term, and they also didn’t know all The Science, so they allowed for the creation of, like, giant toxic death-pits in their residential areas,”

Nope. They built that open-pit mine in 1955 and operated it until 1982.

Anyway, that’s kind of what the 2023 investigative report is about. There is a newer mine (copper and molybdenum) currently open and operating in the city, right next to The Pit.

And the current mine is owned by the richest man in the state of Montana, Dennis Washington. And the EPA is like, “Don’t worry. The mine in the city is fine, it’s all good.” Because that’s what US government land management agencies do: File due diligence paperwork for land-owners while others get poisoned.

The largest open pit copper mine (by extracted volume) on the planet, and the second-deepest open-pit mine of any kind on the planet, is at Chuquicamata in the Atacama region of Chile. This mine was the property of the Anaconda company.

The towering smokestack. The Pit on the edge of town. The gaping wound at Chuquicamata. The legacy of the Copper Kings lives on with the continued theft and poisoning of those in both Montana and the Andes.