#AND it wants out of the eu. are you stupid. are you fucking insane. there's no way this country is ever going to survive that. fuck OFF

[saviourkingslut]

holy shit dutch election exit polls abt to make me enemy of the state no.1 for real. racist islamophobic backwards far right party in a far lead im going to throw up i hate this fucking country

[cogcltrcorn]

apropos of gay kendall, he's not well at all and is making me unhinged. 1) kendall marrying a woman straight out of college although (or BECAUSE) he is gay. eldest boy, must continue the family line. but it turns out he's infertile. (eu)genetically selected to not reproduce. twice. probably thinks he was doubly denied personhood and continuation. 2) i can see kendall knowing he's gay very early on and framing it like some sort of birth defect: he's accepted, conceptually, that he is homosexual, but can't accept it effectively, can't embrace it (in the same way he strives to be a good father and husband as a concept but he's unable/unwilling to do the things that the role entails). he's twin track, he's gay but he's NOT gay. like i can see him a few years into marriage, seeking help from some shady sex therapist (i mean, dude even has "a great grief guy"), because he loves rava so SO much and he wants to stop zoning the fuck out during sex, wants to be present. but he can't. so he just gets better at eating pussy to overcompensate and ten years later he thinks that's how he can still win rava back. 3) what are YOUR thoughts on kendall's relationship with jennifer, the love bombing etc? 4) would stewy find all of this actually funny?

I am so glad my insanity re: gay kendall is contagious... I love reading ya'll hcs... anyway. Frankly Jennifer seems like another case of kendall trying to prove something to himself re: masculinity, which is intrinsically linked to his father's approval, which is why he Immediately drops her the moment he is faced with logan. not approving of her. like his entire relationship with her reads like him trying to unwind in a way a Real Man would, and love-bombing is simply a natural part of that, merged with the fact that kendall is suffering from a serious condition called "was unthinkably wealthy his whole life". besides everything else: it's important to remember that kendall is Very starved for any form of intimacy. like. he pops a boner because his wife that he's been separated with hugs him. he loves sex because it feels good and because he gets to be held.

would stewy find it funny? no. I don't think so. like I don't think stewy really thinks about the question of "is kendall attracted to women, in general?" he just kind of thinks that every relationship kendall has is stupid and he should stop because he is pretending to be someone he's not and he takes it too seriously. like kendall's heterosexual attempts look to him the same way kendall's waystar attempts look to him. "dude please this is fucking pointless you should be having FUN. you should be doing something you LIKE"

I feel like the whole Gay Thing only gets brought up in the context of Extremely Mean Dirty Talk (which they have definitely engaged in, because it gets kendall hard)

[lieselotte-sky]

Find it on banggg!

I am upset of theese chinese shits! Really! Maybe there is something wrong with me, but I am really tired of that all banggood and aliexpress offers. Everytime I am trying to find something, google tells me I can buy it on banggood. They have pretty good SEO, but in fact nothing to sell. I would like to ignore that, I am trying doprdele, but the temptation of I would like to know what the shit they made is inresistible and I am again and again surprised what a great piece of shit I’ve found. It’s amazing, I am doing this again and again and I don’t know why. I am repeatedly surprised by their incompetence, but I feel there is something hidden behind that all, something not only related to shitty products, but maybe to a shitty SEO. Let’s find it out.

A few days ago, I’ve trying to find some really cheap spectrum analyzer. Sometimes you really need some cheap things for a huge amount of really good reasons, typically you don’t want to accidentaly kill an expensive device if you are doing something, you should not, you don’t want to spend a lot of money on something, you’re using few times a year, etc. I found something done the good old analog way, with slightly higher, but reasonable price. But then I count the total cost of that including shipping, local fees, etc. and found, that the price is much higher compared to less obsolete Rigol DSA-815 at local store. And I was completely disapointed, because they offered me something highly overpriced. It was obsolete design produced by unknown brand with higher price compared to well known Rigol modern device? What the fucking hell is that? Yes, the price was increased due to hidden non shipping to EU and another similar issues, but this does not matter, the total paid price is what matters! And that was incredibly high. So if I find something on sites like banggggggood, I have to first calm down, find the total costs and then make decision. And this is again and again no go. And everytime this happens I am really upset and disapointed. And it happens everytime.

It has a decent looking price tag, but in fact it is overpriced. That’s what happens everytime. But this is not the SEO concerned issue. I was hanging around some VSGs thinking it would be nice upgrade to my stuff, but, well, it’s a little bit expensive. So, in fact, I am thinking of buying some VSG in the future, but want to know what possibilites are there, just hanging around, nothing more. If you put the VSG into the google search, you get the glass related results, yes, yet another overloaded acronym, so you have to put vector signal generator instead. And here it comes. Yes, another banggggggggood result, in fact a lot of them. Just ignore them, do not look at them, simply scrool down, it’s easy. Easy to say, hard to do. And this time I was surprised non-ordinal way. Yes, I know, insanity has a lot of flavours, but this was a kind of over the top. They does not matter you want vector signal generator, they offer you any generator they know about, e.g. arbitraty fuction generator (huge amount of them at the banggggg), petrol generator, wind turbine, no problem. And this is how works wrong done SEO. They do not want to optimize your pages for easy and precise indexing, they are just forcing google to show link to that shit in most cases. It’s offensive, it’s annoying and it’s stupid. Welcome to the great world of shit. They think that your customers are idiots which don’t know what they want. Make offer, make offer, keep offering, doesn’t matter if you have what your customer want, make offer. Tired customer buys everything and if you make them tired, you win. You can sell almost everything, doesn’t matter if you sell canned alpen air at the Graz Bahnhoff, if your customers are tired enough, you sell them everything (recomended by Horst Fuchs), but, in fact, does this lead to a happy and satisfied custommer? No! Not! It’s impossible, they are forced to buy, they do not buy what they wanted to buy, and if they don’t know this when they are buying, they will find out later. And I am sure about this. Don’t do this. This encloses your bussiness in a great world of shit, which is in fact low profit. And a shitty SEO company would kick you into that with no possibility of return. Choose wisely.

[lihikainanea]

How about a bff!bill where he is trying to teach her Swedish! And god she’s having a hard time but it’s really gets Bill going hearing her speak in his language FUCK HHKJJKJJ

my god, the issue I have with Swedish is not so much that I have trouble making the sounds required--my mouth can get around things like the ö which is a very similar sound to the eu in French--it’s the cadence of the speech, and the rapidity in which it’s spoken. I can’t get around that many sounds in that sequence, and I speak fucking japanese but somehow that comes easier. Swedish has such a different cadence, and I don’t know what it is about the Skarsgards but somehow I have an easier time understanding some other friends who speak swedish than I do that family. Swedes, please confirm: do our favourite giants really speak insanely quickly, or is it just me?

Oh, what? You didn’t send this ask to hear all about my personal experiences speaking Swedish? what?

ANYWAY

YES. But like, does tiger try to learn it on her own first? Because I feel like she does, but obviously she’s not getting some of the intricacies of it. And she has this whole thing planned where she’ll surprise him just so casually--like having dinner one night and she memorizes how to ask if he wants his stupid favourite berries and sugar for dessert. She plans it all out and everything, and the kid is probably so excited by the end that she takes his plate away just a beat too quick and Bill is slightly amused because she looks like she’s just buzzing and he knows she’s up to something. 

But maybe she fucks up on a word--maybe some word in Swedish means berry but if pronounced just SLIGHTLY wrong it means vulva and somehow tiger ends up asking Bill if he wants the vulva for dessert.

And Bill fucking chokes on his wine.

He’s laughing way too hard and turning purple and tiger just knows she fucked it up and starts to get all shy, but she hasn’t heard Bill laugh like that in a really long time so any ounce of self-consciousness she may have felt is kind of fading away with every loud guffaw and wheeze that he lets go right from his gut. She ends up laughing with him, and he’s wiping the tears from his eyes as he pulls her into his lap and he can’t stop the chuckles from coming.

He finally calms down enough to tell her what she said and she’s mortified.

For at least a half a second.

Then she kind of just shrugs, cocks a brow at him.

“Well I mean...that’s up for grabs, too,” she challenges, “Do you?”

After that Bill starts to teach her, bit by bit. She’ll point to stuff and he’ll say the name in Swedish, teach her a phrase or two every day, speak to her more (and a lot slower) in his native tongue when he asks for the salt, for cuddles, for a kiss, asks if she needs anything from the store. Tiger is still completely lost when he gets together with his friends or his brothers, but if you really grill her, she’ll admit that watching that tongue flap with all those funny noises and ululations really gets her going.

[wolfpawn]

Once Bitten Twice Shy, Chapter 17

Previous Chapter

Chapter Summary -  Mark's wedding comes and Paige and Tom face a new challenge.

Tag, @wolfsmom1 @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog @damalseer @nonsensicalobsessions  @standing-onthe-edge @hiddlesbitch1

anyone else who wishes to be added to the tags, just ask :)

Tom could see why Paige warned him about Fiona’s family. They were a lot like how his family was but the other way around, in that in his family Uncle George was the only ass, in her family, Fiona seemed to be the only nice one. They clearly saw themselves as better than the Winters’ family as their money was longer in the family whilst Paige’s parents had been born to very modest homes, but Tom, they seemed to feel was more to their standard. He looked at Paige who was smirking at him as he listened to an overdramatic sister of Fiona’s who seemed adamant to inform him as many times as was humanly possible, that she was going to make it as a model any day now and more importantly, she was a better partner to have than Paige, more in keeping with his place in society. Tom did everything in his power not to laugh in her face, which was a difficult ask considering he had heard her speaking throughout the meal and to say they were not compatible was an understatement. His years of training as an actor never felt more required than when she said that. When she stated that Paige was boring and unexciting, he stopped her with the statement that if she was such, then he was even more so. She ceased her attention to him after that.

“Dare I ask?”

He turned to see Paige standing behind him after he tried to flee to the bathrooms.

“Caroline...I think?”

“It’s Carolina. She was Carol but it wasn’t fancy enough for the world of high-fashion so she changed it.” Paige laughed. “So, what did Carolina do or say to make you try and break into the ladies bathroom?”

Tom looked at the door and sure enough, the symbol of a woman was there. “Shit...Only how we are so well suited and to ditch you.”

“Odd, she said that when she met Derek too. Though going by the comments she said both at the time and after I dumped him, I think he got a sniff, if not the full shag out of her.”

“Wonderful individual by all accounts then?”

“I am just grateful that I didn’t catch anything from him as a result of everything,” Paige sighed. “That would have been only icing on the cake.”

Tom gently rubbed her hand. “Don’t, don’t think such terrible thoughts right now. Not on the night before your brother’s wedding. Not on such a joyous occasion.”

“You’re right. You’re a hundred per cent right. What would I do without you?” She smiled.

Tom gave a small smile and looked away, not trusting himself not to say anything.

*

When the end of the night came, Tom put his arm around Paige’s waist as they said goodbye, promising to be ready on time in the morning as they did. When they got to the room, they both prepared for bed, both having brought sleepwear as they both knew that at the very least, they would be sharing a room.

“Those look brand new.” Paige laughed as Tom attempted to find the tie for his sleep pants.

“They are. I don’t own too much bedwear,” Tom admitted before looking at her with a raised brow, seeing her in some form of cartoon nightclothes that he was sure his sisters liked as children.

“Judge me, I don’t care.” Paige shrugged as she walked over to her side of her bed and got in. “I will probably crash quickly enough. You don’t need to worry if you want to continue reading or anything. I am not bothered by lights and such,” She assured him as she got into the bed.

“Honestly, I am similar. I had a long week, as I told you already.”

“You should have just gotten some rest, flying to China to the US and then back for this. It’s madness.”

“I wanted to get Bobby ready for quarantine. Besides, how could I ever decline a chance to see what I am missing with Carolina.”

Paige snorted in laughter. “So true.”

Tom smiled as he saw her get comfortable. He watched as she got her book, one of short poems and began reading. He got into the bed too and groaned as he felt his aching muscles from all his travels begin to rest on the mattress.

“You sound like you need this,” Paige commented. “I’m sorry you don’t get to relax fully and instead have me here, annoying you.”

“Darling, the last thing you could ever be accused of being is annoying. No, trust me. Through the years, I have had some annoying bedmates and you don’t even register on the scale.”

Paige turned to look at him. “Okay, I need to know what sort of madness you are referencing. Please tell me it is not just crazy-ex stories?”

“No, all the madness of this job. There was a time during the Thor, Ragnarok tour that I slept on the sofa part of a small airplane groin to ass with Taika Waititi.” She snorted in laugher at that. “Then there was a time when I went away with the college drama society and I drank myself into a stupor, as did everyone else, because, of course, you know…”

“Par for the course.”

��Exactly. Well, I woke up the next day, close to death, in Edinburgh.”

“Where did you start?”

“Manchester.”

Paige laughed but shook her head. “Not the worst.”

“Really? Look, I know I was out of college the time of that infamous urban myth of the Cambridge drama society weekend but this, at least, was real.”

“So was the Cambridge DramSoc weekend,” Paige argued.

“No it wasn’t,” Tom scoffed before he realised her face was entirely stoic. “Was it?”

“Friday afternoon, drinks in the college bar, three am, I am wandering around Amsterdam looking for a place to crash for the night and ringing my Dad to give me his credit card number so I can stay in a hostel with a few of my mates,” Paige informed him.

“Fuck off.” Tom became far more animated at her admitting such. “How did you all get there, what the Hell were you all doing?”

“So, drinking, obviously. And then Brianna, the Soc secretary started giving out that she never got onto the continent, so Piotr, one of the exchange students was saying how England knew how to drink, but the Netherlands knew how to party, and to this day, I have no idea who suggested he put his money where his mouth was but somehow, I am giving my date of birth and associated details to Jack, our society chair and getting a fucking flight from London to Schipol. Cheap EU flights were a dangerous thing.”

“But...We always thought…”

“You thought wrong.”

Tom stared at her in disbelief. “And that bastard had the audacity to accuse you of being boring?”

“Because I was young and stupid when I was young; when it came time to consider being a responsible adult, I was actually looking forward to being such. I had my ridiculous time, I had time to figure me out and what I wanted, and now I get to do exactly that, whatever that entails. Hence why I am not ever bothered too greatly by silly things.”

“You are to be commended,” Tom commented. “If not slightly mental, Amsterdam?”

“We ended up staying the weekend, it was lovely.”

“You are insane.”

“And proudly so.” Yawning slightly, Paige turned and started to settle to go to sleep.

Tom, taking her cue, did similar, laying back and reading a little before trying to get comfortable himself, not wanting to keep her awake with his reading or light.

Through the night, neither slept much. Both facing the opposite wall to one another, their backs almost touching and the heat of the other clear to feel. They both moved very little through the night, both conscious of the other behind them, not certain if the other was awake but both thinking the exact same thing, if they should say anything of their feelings to the other. Not crippled by the fear of their past experience and the rejection of one they loved.

*

The next day was as most every wedding was. Nothing overly exciting in the grander scheme of things. Paige joked and smiled with Fiona through the times she was required to assist in her bridesmaid's duties but the rest of the time she stayed close to Tom, knowing how awkward it was to be a plus one at an event and nothing was worse than being one at a place where you knew no one else.

When Tom bumped into Mark during the evening, both of them in good humour and a couple of drinks in. Mark embraced him as Tom congratulated him.

"I spent too long farting about. I should have asked her ages ago. I was lucky. Not everyone is as lucky. Take you, for example, farting around Paige."

Tom looked around, slightly worried that they would be overheard.

"Taking so long to ask Paige out, I mean, I thought I was bad." Mark kept his comments fairly vague purposely and Tom noted such too.

"I…"

"No, really. Not realising she felt the same and whatnot. If it wasn't heartbreaking to watch, then it would have been hilarious."

Tom frowned.

"I better get back to my wife, Jesus, it's odd calling her that." There was a surprised smile on Mark's face at his small revelation. "And you better get back to Paige, especially if Carol is about. She likes to try and get her claws into other women's partners if they are dumb enough to allow her to or try and imply she did with the ones that decline her and the added thing where she would brag you more than others and probably more publicly too. Honestly, I don't know you deal this sort of shit."

"It's sadly par for the course with my life these days. Honestly, I never thought it would come to this. It's a tad overwhelming, even for me," Tom sighed rubbing the back of his neck. "It's not fair to expect others to endure that for me."

"Yet when someone loves you, then endure it willingly."

Tom said nothing as Mark slapped him playfully on the chest before saying his farewells and heading back to find Fiona.

Tom thought over his words for a moment, both of how Mark felt that perhaps Paige could feel something more got him but also of the madness that was his life and how it was wrong to expect anyone to endure that for him, when he spent so much time working and knowing she would forever have to concern herself with wondering if he would do as her ex had done and cheat on her. She tried to act as though it didn't bother her but there was no denying she had been affected by it. It would never be fair to expect her to endure his work life.

He went back to Paige who was talking with her parents. He had to remind himself that this was all a charade when he wanted nothing more than to show her the affection he so desperately wished to bestow on her. While he sat with her and her parents, he felt as though it was organic, that there was no falseness to how they interacted, making it all the harder when he had to remind himself that her smiles and other acts of affection were merely put on.

When the wedding had come to a close and time came to rest, they bid farewell to her brother, her now sister-in-law and her parents before going back to their shared room.

“Thank you.” Tom glanced at Paige as she walked out of the bathroom in her nightclothes. “For coming to this. You really are incredible and the greatest company. I will be lost when you go to New York.”

Tom swallowed as he thought of the soon-to-be future. “I know the feeling. I will miss our talks.”

“Just remember, I am often reachable if you want to talk. If I go into a writing flow though, please don’t hold it against me.”

“How is the book going?”

“It isn’t.”

“Oh, everything alright?”

Paige could not answer immediately, to say things were fine was a barefaced lie, to say no opened her to admit that she had a countdown on her wall to the day he was leaving and when she looked at it, it made her feel like she was shot in the stomach to think he would leave and she would be alone again. “Writing inspiration comes and goes. I simply have to embrace whatever happens.” It took more than she was willing to admit to keep her voice steady as she said the second sentence. It was as much about the current situation as it was about her writing. Feeling her throat get tight, she cleared it and went to her side of the bed.

Tom, sensing the tension, went into the bathroom to ready himself for bed. When he came back out, having decided to try and speak about what Mark had said and with the few drinks he had giving him courage, he looked at Paige but noticed her even breathing and thought her to be asleep.

As he got into his side of the bed, Paige did everything in her power to keep her breathing steady as she willed her tears to stay at bay.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

EU Copyright Directive Has Been Made Even More Stupid, And Some Are Still Trying To Make It Even Worse

So yesterday, we noted that Article 13 was back on thanks to an apparent "compromise" between the French and the Germans as to whether or not small internet platforms would be exempted from Article 13. France was pushing for no exemption and that the same rules apply to everyone, while Germany demanded some protections for smaller companies (those making less than €20 million per year). We knew, according to the reports coming out of Brussels, that France had won, but now the details have come out and it's worse than we thought.

The new plan does have an "exception" for small companies, but it is so ridiculous as to be non-existent. To qualify, a company has to be:

Less than 3 years old

Have less than €10 million in revenue

Have less than 5 million uniques per month

As Julia Reda points out, this basically means almost no platform will qualify for the exemption (and it gets worse from there, but hang on):

Upload filters required

Discussion boards on commercial sites, such as the Ars Technica or Heise.de forums (older than 3 years)

Patreon, a platform with the sole purpose of helping authors get paid (fails to meet any of the three criteria)

Niche social networks like GetReeled, a platform for anglers (well below 5 million users, but older than 3 years)

Small European competitors to larger US brands like Wykop, a Polish news sharing platform similar to Reddit (well below €10 million turnover, but may reach 5 million visitors and is older than 3 years)

And, yes, it would also likely apply to our comments as well. We don't make €10 million per year, nor do we have 5 million monthly uniques... but we are way older than 3 years old. Even for the tiny number of companies who do qualify for the exception, the text of the directive still demands that they make "best efforts" to license the works. In other words, the whole thing sets up a shotgun negotiation where any platform will be required to license all content, which means that license holders can set any rate they want, and if you don't license, they can accuse you of violating the law. This is madness:

On top of that, even the smallest and newest platforms, which do meet all three criteria, must still demonstrate they have undertaken “best efforts” to obtain licenses from rightholders such as record labels, book publishers and stock photo databases for anything their users might possibly post or upload – an impossible task. In practice, all sites and apps where users may share content will likely be forced to accept any license a rightholder offers them, no matter how bad the terms, and no matter whether they actually want that rightholder’s copyrighted material to be available on their platform, to avoid the massive legal risk of coming in conflict with Article 13.

Hey, and it gets even worse. Whereas in the older draft, it at least required copyright holders to tell platforms what was infringing, that's now been removed:

If you can't see that, it shows that the draft of the text has removed the notice requirement for copyright holders to alert platforms to any infringing material, directly removing the phrase "for which the rightsholders have provided the service providers with the relevant and necessary information or submitted a notice..." In other words, copyright holders don't even have to alert the platforms any more -- and platforms might still be deemed liable for any infringing content appearing on their platform. Even if they don't know about it. Which is insane.

Later on, the draft also removes a phrase that requires the copyright holders to work with the platforms, because that's apparently too much of a burden for the copyright holders:

I do wonder if this will get Hollywood and the legacy recording industries back on board.

However, here's the incredible bit. Despite Article 13 now being demonstrably even more ridiculous, the MEP in charge of pushing it forward, Axel Voss, is complaining that it's not idiotic enough yet. In response to this draft from the EU Council (which is expected to be approved on Friday), Voss stated:

“What France and Germany have agreed is a new safe harbor for small platforms, able to exist beyond what we already have today. It’s something we can’t accept,” Axel Voss said at a conference in the European Parliament.

Are you fucking kidding me? He's saying even that tiny, useless safe harbor that will apply to basically no one is too much?

Voss and the entertainment industry are going for broke here. They recognize this is their last best chance to really fundamentally change the internet. It is an attempt to completely wreck its intended purpose as a communications medium and turn it into a broadcast medium of licensed content controlled by gatekeepers (the legacy companies who used to control movies, music, news and books). Don't let them get away with this. Tell the EU Parliament that this is completely and totally unacceptable. EU Parliamentary elections are coming up in a few months, and any MEP should be told over and over and over again that voting to destroy the internet in this way means that they no longer deserve their job in the EU Parliament.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190205/09342741530/eu-copyright-directive-has-been-made-even-more-stupid-some-are-still-trying-to-make-it-even-worse.shtm

[thessalian]

Thess vs Endlessly Screaming

I need a cure for that feeling where you constantly want to scream. I mean, I seriously need that in my life right now. Because ... you know, I can take a lot? But after awhile, shit starts piling up.

Work shit? No problem on its own. I mean, I’ve been working as a secretary for over twenty years, mostly temp jobs. If I couldn’t take criminal stupidity, an increased workload created by the laziness of others, and a substantial amount of verbal abuse, I would be dead or insane by now. Still, there’s regular day-to-day stress, and then there’s knowing that I’m going to be more or less alone in a department with significant clinic management issues over the Christmas holidays. Particularly when people don’t seem to understand that this particular hospital is very small and doesn’t actually have a lot of staff so we don’t just have someone who takes over for the consultant when the consultant is on holiday.

Budget issues? Also no problem. Again, agency work for a substantial percentage of my time in the workforce. I am getting very used to the issues that arise when an employment agency somehow manages to wait until you’re scraping the bottom of the attempt at a savings account before finding you a new job. I’m also used to not knowing exactly when I’m getting paid because there may be yet another paperwork issue owing to hospital staff banks making it nearly impossible to pay temp agency staff in hopes that they’ll stop hiring temp agency staff. (hint: that will never happen because hospital staff banks don’t treat their employees well enough to attract anyone above band 3) Point is that I’ve got this. I won’t starve. I have bus fare. It is not easy but it is doable. I have done it before, I will do it again.

The country in which I’m living visibly imploding? ...A little harder to cope with. I mean, the shit with Brexit and frankly the entire Conservative party is horrifying on levels I can’t even begin to describe. No one seems to be planning for the No Deal Brexit that we’re currently facing as a legitimate possibility because various people won’t budge (not that I blame the EU), and no one seems to want to take the EU up on their (frankly quite generous) statement of, “You know, you guys don’t have to do this...” No one wants a new referendum either, despite the fact that I think a lot of votes would be different and a hell of a lot more voters would come out, given that those who stayed home thinking, “No one will be stupid enough to vote for Brexit” now have absolute proof that this is not the fucking case because people are still supporting this horror because they seem to think that we still have any kind of economic power in terms of export.

Put all of those things together, though, and ... yeah, endlessly screaming on the inside. Still, I’ll be okay. I’m not going to starve because I managed my budget and, seriously, I can put together a decent meal out of basically nothing (practice makes perfect, and I’ve been doing this a long time). I have travel fare. I can survive a week. And then point 2 won’t be a problem ... right up until I have to do the last-minute Christmas shopping, anyway. But a lot of that is home-made baked goods and equally home-made soap for my stepfather. (He’s very picky about his bath products and the stuff he likes the smell of most a) is expensive and b) may be discontinued, so I’m going to make him an equivalent.)

I think I just need a way to take my mind off it for a little while. There will be video games or something. I just need to pick which one. I’m in the middle of a few playthroughs and can’t decide which one to pick up and run with. I could just do crafting runs in FFXIV, I guess. That tends to be nicely zen. I could use some zen.

Don’t mind me; I’m fine. I’m coping better than some, I know all too well (another source of financial stress is wishing to hell I could help the people who need it). Just sometimes venting helps the stress. And now I have vented and can look forward to making a rather large portion of chicken fried rice (leftovers to take to work for lunch tomorrow) and vegging with video games. And further look forward to payday, five-day weekend (even if unpaid, it’s still time off without guilt), family Christmas and taking home leftovers. Hey, I’m not a huge fan of turkey but it works fine in my ‘student Alfredo’ recipe.

Also ... I know we’re protesting Tumblr’s removing the NSFW stuff, but ... I tag it for a reason. And now there are no damn tags on the NSFW stuff and I don’t know what else to tag to flag it. So ... thanks for that.

[taylorscottbarnett]

U.K. inflation climbs to the highest in 30 years | Fortune

But remember guys. It's totally #bidenflation, god Trumpublicans are fucking stupid. I'm only using the UK article to highlight that inflation is a worldwide issue atm. Not a political one that just affects the US.

Inflation is an issue in the US because the supply chain is fucked.

The supply chain is fucked because dockworkers, truck drivers, and others in the supply chain keep getting Covid -- and that's just in the US. People who, btw im gonna bet disproportionately voted Republican. Even if they believe covid is a threat they are quiting out of fear of exposure.

The US alone is having to fight a shortage of more than 80,000 truck drivers however China and the EU are also struggling.

No dock workers or truck drivers have helped lead to miles long shipping containers ship waits off the coast of our two main ports in the US.

While these ships wait, they can't pick up goods from the US and ship back to other countries.

Inflation is also hitting because of a drastic lack of workers, caused in large part to insane cuts to legal immigration from four years of Trumps MAGA bullshit.

On top of that, because it's do hard to legally immigrate to the US and Trump curtailed legal immigration every year he was in office we also have the lowest level of undocumented workers in a decade.

It's great to have bullshit rhetoric about dem damn illegals tak'n all r jobs, except when you don't want to do the fucking work yourself in the first place and have decided to scapegoat q vulnerable population then bitch about the results of your own fucking actions.

This isn't a "people are lazy and don't want to work" there's literally more jobs open in the US than people. It's the worst labor shortage the US has felt since the 60's.

Meanwhile fucking GOP death cult members are literally dieing of covid in ICUs while claiming they don't have covid.

South Dakota for example has two jobs for every one unemployed person. 3 to 1 in Nebraska and more than 2 to 1 in Utah, New Hampshire, Vermont, Idaho, Georgia, Alabama and Montana. In most states, the ratio is higher now than it was before the pandemic.

Never mind the three million early retirees no longer in the workforce because they didn't want to risk covid.

Or the fact that 800,000 Americans are dead who might otherwise be in the workforce. Or the fact that long-covid could explain nearly 15% of the jobs going unfulfilled in the US.

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that through October 2021, just over 100 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 64 have contracted COVID-19. And studies suggest that between 27% and 33% of COVID-19 patients still experience symptoms months after infection. That means 31 million working-age Americans—more than one in seven—may have experienced, or be experiencing, lingering COVID-19 symptoms"

Inflation in the US in particular is due to the disastrous mismanagement of the covid crisis by Trump and his Covid GOP Death Cult delusions.

[alixofagnia]

Dear Star Wars Diary,

Today, I went to my fourth and final big screen viewing of TLJ. It was bittersweet because I will likely not be watching this movie in its entirety again until I own it. What follows are some musings I had as I watched it for the last time, in all its theater-experience glory.

SNOKE

I don’t want to get into the whole “Kylo Ren is abusive and a mind rapist beh!” debate because it’s stupid, on several levels.

I just want to make the point: Snoke is the abuser and the not-an-actual-thing mind rapist in this story.

PAIGE and the BOMBERS

On my first viewing, I thought the opening bombing scene was insanity. Like, it was awesome and beautiful, but totally insane. I was seething: “Tallie! What happened to protecting all the bombers?! Also, why did you send so many?”

[Numbers, of course, increase the chances for success. But still. Surely they didn’t have to send ALL the bombers? Leia’s rank over Poe should’ve disengaged the bombers. I don’t know if this is supposed to be addressed with Poe’s cutting off communication with Leia or in an implication that the Resistance squadrons and bombers are simply more loyal and/or responsive to Poe, which is a troubling notion.]

But these are small quibbles in a bigger picture because you know what? The bomber scene is probably one of the most memorable moments for me as a female moviegoer of Asian descent. I’m not someone who actively seeks/looks for cultural representation or diversity in movies of any scale. But I have to admit…I was really moved.

The images: a lone bomber flying toward destruction and glory; a sole survivor with dogged determination and belief in her cause; calm composure in the face of Death.

Ugh. My heart.

I do like Rose, but I was more affected by Paige’s death than I felt I should’ve been, and I think it’s because I felt an added touch of pride. Here, for the film’s first lesson on failure, our teacher is a female character with a face like mine. And she literally has a single spoken line: her comrade’s name.

That is awesome.

LEIA’S LONG LOOKS

-Sensing Kylo through the Force

-Leaving Holdo on the Raddus; watching Holdo die

-Staring down the TIE fighters on Crait (Seriously! I can’t believe those TIEs stayed airborne!)

-Feeling Luke’s death

These are just my personal favorites. Carrie Fisher got some good one-liners in for Leia. But I think she was never more powerful than in her silent acting. It’s just so exquisite. I trust how J.J. Abrams and co. will handle her absence from IX, I really do. That being said, I personally feel like Leia’s death will have to be written in: after her performance in TLJ, it’s just not plausible to have Leia alive but not at the center of the action, nor is it plausible to have her alive and just never show up in the entire movie, to just have her constantly be referred to by other characters.There’s no closure there, and this is a character who demands closure of some kind in this trilogy.

People have theorized on a funeral opening the film or occurring early, and I think this is generally a good idea. It really sucks to have her die off-screen. But under the circumstances, I don’t think it would be wise to have a scene where her ship explodes or something of that nature because it seems unnecessarily cruel but, more practically, could take time away from moving the story forward; everything would have to sort of revolve around that and stall. But if the death occurs off-screen and we open on a funeral, it’s a better jumping off point for the narrative and characters. If Leia’s life in IX was going to be a plot device, particularly as it pertained to her son’s arc, then her death (harsh as it is) could also conceivably serve the same purpose.

LUKE the LEGEND

I’ll be honest: I was never a big Luke Skywalker fan. I liked him by virtue of the fact that I was supposed to because he was the hero in the hero’s journey storyline. But I didn’t feel any deeper connection to that character, although I did feel like he began to ascend to legend status in RotJ and I always liked him best in that movie. So, that’s sort of where the character ended for me; I never read any of the old EU and I didn’t have him built up in my mind the same way some people obviously did.

I absolutely love that Luke became a legend in his lifetime after RotJ. But I love that he succumbed to hubris even more. It’s so real, so human. The higher you go, the harder you fall. What I really can’t understand about all these butt-hurt fanboys, who expected Luke to always be Luke the Legend and never-stop-nevering, is that not only did you get a humanized presentation of your hero, but he did in fact re-ascend to legend status in TLJ. That isn’t bad story-telling; that’s amazing story-telling!

I can’t believe there was anyone who didn’t get chills when Luke Skywalker stalked out of that burning cave to the staccato of a stirring John Williams march. Like, where the fuck are you in your head?

Luke the Legend projected himself across worlds to bring hope to his sister, who had finally used up all of hers, and to a rag-tag group of rebels forsaken by their allies. Luke the Legend projected himself across the galaxy to apologize to the nephew he had wronged, preventing Ben Solo from adding to the blood already on his hands, thus saving him in the only way he could.

Luke the Legend gave his life to save those he loved.

What is so fucking character-destroying about that?!

HOLDO and DJ

Two of my favorite characters from TLJ were Holdo and DJ. One of the most common complaints I’ve heard/read about the them is that two excellent actors were wasted.

That is so insulting. That’s a back-handed compliment. “Oh, hey, Laura and Benicio, you guys are really super great and talented. But you were shit in TLJ. They did you real dirty.”

Because, actually, both Holdo and DJ were there in case the GA got lost and confused about the whole “failing is learning” theme. It’s a credit to the talents of Laura Dern and Benicio del Toro that they actually did as much as they did with what little screen time they had. Darth LeakyLungs from RotS had all the screen time in the world and I don’t even remember his name! (Wait, was he even a Darth? I dunno.)

Look, you can tell me that you weren’t able to care about either character. That’s fine. That’s legit. Not all characters, big or small, will resonate with everyone.

But don’t you dare tell me they were pointless or that the actors were wasted, because that’s a terrible lie and you know it.

KYLO REDEMPTION

Ahhhh, my most favorite topic.

Every time I’ve gone to see TLJ, I’ve gone in trying to be convinced that this was the end of Kylo’s arc. He’s done for. IX will be all about his actual, for real downfall, he will no longer be conflicted, he will die and he will die in the Dark. It’s finished.

Wonder of all wonders, I’ve never been more convinced of a redemption in some shape or form. It’s that final shot of him, the literal final shot of him, hanging his head, staring at the ground, where there is nothing JUST LIKE WHAT’S LEFT OF HIS BUSTED HEART.

Here’s the thing: if they weren’t intent, from the outset of this trilogy, on sending Kylo Ren on an arc of some kind (the anti-hero’s journey to Rey’s hero’s journey where they meet in the middle), then they wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to portray him as conflicted in TFA and they definitely wouldn’t have devoted AN ENTIRE MOVIE to humanizing him, all without resolving the conflict he started with. If anything, TLJ should’ve left him on a slightly less ambiguously conflicted note.

The point is if he were slated to stay and rot in hell, we would’ve left him in TLJ on that long-suffering, rage-fueled scream after Luke disappears. That’s the perfect note to end a going-nowhere arc on. If it ended there, I would 100% be on board with Kylo Ren: Irredeemable Asshole. Prepare for him NOT to finish what Vader started. (What does that even mean, btw? I’ve always wondered. What did Vader start that he didn’t finish? The 2nd Death Star?)

But we freaking didn’t leave him there! Oh no, we left him broken to bits on some dirty floor in the middle of nowhere. Furthermore, if he wasn’t going to be redeemed, we certainly would NOT have been shown that he’s still Force-connected to Rey, who now –lacking Leia– must serve as his only (corporeal) thread to the Light.

I just want one thing: Let Kylo Ren turn however he’s going to turn –Gray, Yellow, Pink, Blue, whichever color– just do it early-ish. I cannot sit through another entire movie of Flip-Flop Kylo only for him to make an actual decision in the closing five minutes.

Talk about doing a character dirty.

REYLO HUG

I don’t know why it was this one of all viewings, but today when I was watching the Austen Proposal, all I could think was, “Ehrmygawd, Rey! You need a hug! And he needs a hug! Just go hug him!”

I love Reylo, but I’m exhausting myself on this ship lol. I love and generally agree with all the metas on why it couldn’t go the way she wanted it to or the way he wanted it to. But I just kept thinking, as I was sitting there watching their sticky, weepy-eyed faces for the millionth time, Seriously. Go hug him!

Like, after being hit in the face with the blunt truth, what if Rey had said fuck it to the hand and just thrown her arms around him? It wouldn’t have fixed their problems, obviously; it actually probably would’ve made them worse.

But it would’ve fixed mine for the next 2 years!

[msfbgraves]

The reason why old white men will argue against migration is that migration always challenges the cultural norms. It can't not, simply by virtue of people showing by living differently that "the way things are done" is not absolute - it's a bunch of arbitrary rules benefitting the top, everywhere. Even return migrants who have made their fortune will criticise the status quo. Vacationing colonials, for instance, who were absolutely loyal to the top, would still go "omg, will you wash" a hundred years ago. But any migrant is a giant "well, actually", to 'the way things are done around here'. But indeed, if people are kinda scarce? Too few of them will increase wages, or, if wages are not increased, lead to agricultural or other losses and vastly reduced services. That's why the all want the birthrate to be high, to have enough people to exploit.

Seasonal workers are like a wet dream solution to that problem for them. You can ship them in, exploit them for a season and then ship them back out. This doesn't work 100% because some of them stay and become new poor citizens but most of them don't. And that's why they prefer EU workers because they have somewhere to go back to. Aint no one is returning to Chad, if they're not among that country's well to do, so that's why we drown those people or let them rot in Greece.

Now of course you could simply indoctrinate educate migrant children in school, and make them adhere to the status quo but the problem with that is, a succesful nonwhite migrant threatens white supremacy. You can keep nonwhites poor but at a certain point too many are going to break through and show your ilk up. So again seasonal migration is a godsend that way.

Now the elites in Britain and Switzerland are going to get a "har har status quo is good" boost from banning foreigners, don't get me wrong, which is great for rich white men. But again, that will increase wages for shit jobs. Switzerland can probably afford that. Britain - and sorry, here they misjudged - cannot or is deeply unwilling.

Germany and Holland are probably praying that the importing seasonal workers from Eastern Europe keeps working for a while. Best solution to keep the powerful powerful. They already misjudged once by importing half of Turkey and Morocco on the assumption those people would leave again. They haven't. Few enough have made it to the top, luckily - the class system still works - but they don't want to make that mistake again. They will have to let some people in because there are too few white people being born but then they still rather pick an engineer from Damascus on a visa then a dirt poor farmer from Afghanistan.

Aren't rich white people great.

Of course a culture thrives on a well educated, diverse well paid population, so it is to our benefit to take people in and school them, but that is harmful to the elites and that's what matters, aight? Keeping the system of power in place. Otherwise other people get power and we cannot have that.

Still, even for rich white people Brexit was an insanely stupid move, if they don't want to pay their farm workers more. Even looked at from an asshole perspective, they dun fucked up there, if the aim is staying rich. So now they desperately tout that WWII "we're in this together" rhethoric, to at least keep the nationalism boost working without paying anyone more. They simply want people to feel proud they're suffering just like their grandparents did in WWII and the Fifties. Because you know, not having services or food was For A Good Cause then, so it must be now, ey? Anyone for a new rationing book? Feels patriotic!

one of the genuinely messed up things in agriculture is the treatment of workers. generally (and this is true for 'glamourous' europe too, especially for germany lmao) is that a huge chunk of workers are from other countries and tend to be poor.

The thing is though, most industrial nations absolutely depend on them. even the most fanatic right wing farmers will not shoot themselves in the foot by denying these workers to come and work on their farms. And even if they don't want foreigners working for them in particular, they will be aware of how painfully dependent their own farming friends and family members are.

additionally these workers are cheap and usually do not complain the way locals would, for the simple reason that they are afraid of legal problems, which leads to horrid abuse within the industry.

Germany for example hasn't been quite as harsh with migrants and refugees as it would've liked to be for the simple reason that the german population is getting old, like really old, and there wouldn't have been anyone to work on the fields. covid was a wake up call for many farmers here in germany who cried over the fact that they couldn't employ eastern european workers for some time due to lockdowns and travel restrictions and had to rely on the local volunteers to plant and harvest asparagus (totally overlooking the meat plant workers here btw who were put into containers functioning as housing and couldn't isolate from one another and thus covid spread amongst them)

in britain after brexit many farmers have two main problems

1) getting products across the border on time

2) finding enough workers

this isn't even touching upon the dangers of working in agriculture. heavy machinery, brutal sunlight, sharp equipment, chemicals, big animals or particularly difficult crops (looking at you sugar cane), etc, the situation of agricultural workers is a really tough one and is made worse by the terrible pay.

essentially the point i'm trying to make is that there are lots of governments that would happily put more restrictions on the global poor looking for work, but can't entirely bc they'd be unable to keep the agricultural system running as it is.

and the second point i'd like to make is that frictions/tensions will only heighten with climate change forcing more people to migrate. the least we can do is take a look at our legislations and make employment more easily accessible as well as increase pay and (!!!) ensure more safety regulations for workers. Predatory contracts must be reason enough for heavy fines etc. Like, the list is long, but basically pls keep agricultural workers (especially foreign ones!!) in your thoughts when voting/buying stuff/advocating for things.

also the free market is a joke.

[scotiaeire]

I No Longer Have Any Idea...

What’s going on in the UK.

I’m Scots. Left Scotland because UKgov, via Brexit, wouldn’t let my disabled (received income from his native Belgium, me included on it as carer so we cost UK gov zero) remain in the UK, even BEFORE Brexit occured, because NOBODY took those in receipt of disability incomes from their own nations in Europe who lived in the UK into account in the WA.

So, we live in the Republic of Ireland now (best move we ever made and wish I’d done it sooner tbh) and I’ve just read in an Irish magazine that the UKgov is deploying ARMED drones over civilian airspace. Armed drones. With things called Protector bombs and (I forget the name) missiles.

Armed. Fucking. Drones.

They *say* it’s for “security reasons” but isn’t everything UKgov does that threatens the safety and actual security of the people that make up the UK that...?

Security, my arse.

I give up trying to figure out WHY the English people keep voting Tories into power, who, unless you’re stinking rich or titled, will beat you into the ground with austerity and punishing, cruel, KILLING policies.

I give up trying to figure out WHY the Scottish people haven’t fucking DEMANDED of Nicola Bloody Sturgeon they, as a Sovereign folks (unlike the english, whose Parliament is Sovereign) take their freedom and turn their backs on Westminster and tell them to get to fuck, Scotland’s going their own way. No more oil revenues (95% btw), no more higher-than-the-english taxes (by 8% if I remember right) and no more re branding of Scots produce with the Union flag and sold abroad as “British” (including Scotch whisky and, of all things, haggis...seriously!)

But for the people of Scotland to allow Westminster to deploy armed drones over civilian airspace, no matter WHAT stupid reason UK MOD gives out, is insane.

We grieved at the loss of our respective countries (because, I’m Scots born and bred and Frans, my hubs, is Belgian, and the Belgians wouldn’t even give me residency when we asked for it before Brexit...I was treated as a test case “post Brexit “Brit”)

But no more. If the Scots want this kind of shit, they’re on their own with it. If they’re ok with it, even more so. I can’t speak for the English. All I know is, if it wasn’t for them voting for Brexit my family wouldn’t have just gone through the worst three years of our lives.

In the end, we’re here in Ireland. It’s not ruled by England and, despite what some folks think, no, it’s not ruled by the EU either.

Know how I know that?

The EU will NEVER refuse to let a country walk away from that union if that’s what they choose.

Contrast: England consistently refuses to let Scotland leave what is *supposed* to be a “precious union of equals”. Flat out refuses.

Because Scottish cash keeps England afloat.

Armed. Fucking. Drones.

Get yer heid roond thon, Scotland. And if ye’re ok wi’ it, ye’ll deserve a’ ye’ve got coming tae ye.

[fae-fucker]

The One: Chapter 21

America and the other girls goof around all cutesy and even the queen gets to join, the poor useless bitch. 

BUT THEN!!! DUN DUN DUUUN! America gets called away to meet with Clarkson and Maxon.

I swallowed. Every awful thing ran through my head. My family was in danger. The king had found a way to punish me quietly for all the ways I’d wronged him. He’d discovered we’d sneaked out of the palace. Or, perhaps worst of all, someone had figured out my connection to Aspen, and we were both about to pay for it.

You heard it right here folks. The thought of her and Aspen getting punished for breaking the law is WORSE than the thought of her family in danger. 

OUR HEROINE. OUR SELFLESS PROTECTOR OF THE PROPLE. 

I hate her so fucking much and everybody who likes her is a sheep brainwashed by KCass.

Luckily for Americunt, it’s something to do with the Italians, and America thinks that Clarkson found out about her super secret super epic super politically savvy super strategic deal with Nicoletta. 

It’s not. 

It’s even dumber. 

“We have been trying to make an alliance with the Italians for decades, and all of a sudden the royal family is quite interested in having us visit. However”—the king picked up the letter, searching for a specific section—“ah, here. ‘While it would be more than an honor to have Your Majesty and your family grace us with your company, we hope that Lady America will also be able to visit with you. After meeting all the Elite, we can’t imagine anyone following in the queen’s footsteps quite like her.’”

The king raised his eyes back to me. “What have you done?”

Suddenly, a huge burning skeleton burst in through the wall. I screamed and instantly pooped myself and almost fainted. 

“SHE DID NOTHING!” the terrible spooky skeleton screeched and pointed a scary bony finger at me. “SHE’S THE AUTHOR’S PET, AND HER MEAGER EFFORTS ARE REWARDED WITH EXCESSIVE PRAISE! SHE, ALL OF YOU, WILL PAY FOR THIS NONSENSE!” 

Then the skeleton killed all of us. THE END. 

I fucking wish. Anyway, the king continues with his praise. We all know it’s meant to be read as badass, so don’t even fucking argue with me, KCass.

“Then how did a girl of no means, no connections, and no power manage to get this country within the reach of something it’s been trying to achieve for years? How?”

In my heart, I knew that there were factors here that he was oblivious to. But it was Nicoletta who had offered assistance to me, who had asked if she could do anything for a cause she wanted to support. If he’d accused me of something that was actually my fault, his rising voice would have been frightening. As it was, he came across like a child.

In response, I spoke quietly. “You were the ones who assigned us to entertain your foreign guests. I never would have met any of those women otherwise. And she’s the one who wrote, inviting me to come. I didn’t beg for a trip to Italy. Maybe if you were simply more welcoming, you’d have had your alliance with Italy years ago.”

AMERICA IS SUCH A BADASS!!! EVERYONE KNEEL IN FRONT OF HER GREATNESS AND KISS HER FEET TO SHOW YOUR SUBMISSION!! 

Seriously though, this is fucking dumb. I can’t even be assed to take it apart because we already know this is sloppily put together “politics” constructed in such a way that America’s bare minimum and idiotic stumbling are seen as clever and calculating. What I will complain about is the fact that Clarkson says that they “need” the Italians because they’ll open a lot of doors for Illéa. 

Again, you don’t need FUCKING FRANCE, but Italy is apparently super powerful now? You know there’s a reason people are scared that France will leave the EU, right? Does KCass have relatives in Italy or some shit? What is this nonsense? 

Anyway, apparently they can’t kick America out now because it’ll upset the Italians, so the king wants to bring all the girls to Italy so they can get to know them better and forget all about the totes badass rebel sympathizer America. 

Because apparently, you can just do that during a war, idk. I feel like KCass forgets the whole war thing until it’s needed for a dramatic line.

The king looked at Maxon, venom in his eyes. “Are you declaring your choice right now then? Is the Selection over?”

My pulse stopped altogether.

“No,” Maxon answered, as if the very thought was ridiculous.

BUT WHY?!?!?!? WHY DOESN’T HE JUST END IT?! WHAT IS KEEPING HIM FROM CHOOSING AMERICA RIGHT NOW?!?!?!

I’m so tired.

The king says America has to prove herself trustworthy before Maxon can choose her, which goes against literally THE WHOLE ENTIRE SETUP THAT RELIES ON CLARKSON HAVING ZERO CONTROL OVER MAXON’S CHOICE.

KCASS, DID YOU EVEN THINK ONCE WHILE WRITING THIS? 

Anyway, Clarkson wants America to read some shitty propaganda to tell the castes to calm their shit, which isn’t the dumbest idea he’s had, but don’t you think IT’S A BIT TOO FUCKING LATE TO START PULLING THIS NOW, WHEN THE REBELLION’S ALREADY HAPPENING AND PEOPLE ARE GETTING MURDERED?!

WHY DIDN’T YOU THINK OF DOING THIS FROM THE START?!

I’m so tired.

“The lower castes tend to get unruly from time to time—it’s natural. But we have to subdue the anger and squash the ideas of usurping power quickly, before they unite and undo our great nation.”

“BEFORE”?!?!?!?! “BEFORE”??!?!?!??!?!??!

IT’S ALREADY HAPPENING.

Maxon stared at his father, still not fully comprehending his words.

I’m glad Maxon’s still reliably stupid. 

The king was planning to divide and conquer: make the castes absurdly grateful for what they had—even if they were being treated like they didn’t matter—and tell them not to associate with those outside of their castes, for they certainly wouldn’t understand the plight of anyone outside their own.

I love how this is framed as some sinister epic final attack when it’s like Dictatorship 101. 

This is so sad and pathetic. So obviously written by a white middle class American woman who has no fucking clue about how politics or dictatorships work and clearly she didn’t even bother looking it up. Who needs that when you have BOYS.

“This is propaganda,” I spat, remembering the word from Dad’s tattered history book.

Baby’s first Politics. 

This is laughable.

They argue about ... fucking basic propaganda tactics like it’s some epic political stategy and I’m just kind of tickled. The king spouts some evil dictator crap, that’s still like super duper basic and idk supposed to make us dislike him, and America has a huff and puff about how she refuses to read the stuff.

Clarkson finally does something mildly competent and actually clever and uses America’s only weakness, BOYS, against her. He says that if she doesn’t do it, it proves that she doesn’t love Maxon.

“Do you? Do you love him at all?”

This wasn’t how I was going to say it. Not at the end of an ultimatum, not for business.

The king tilted his head. “How sad, Maxon. She needs to think about it.”

Do not cry. Do not cry.

I’m cackling, this is hilarious and pathetic at the same time. Though I hate that this book is successful and that idiots adore it and praise it as clever and feminist.

“I’ll give you some time to find out where you stand. If you won’t do this, then rules be damned, I’ll be kicking you out by Christmas Day. What a special gift that will be for your parents.”

“Rules be damned” YOU’RE KING! YOU MAKE THE RULES!! AREN’T YOU ALREADY BREAKING THE RULES BY NOT ALLOWING MAXON TO CHOOSE?!

Uuuuuugh.

She angsts herself out of the room but Maxon doesn’t let her off that easily. He catches her and makes it aaaaalll about himself again.

“What the hell was that?” he demanded.

“He’s insane!” I was on the verge of tears, but I held them in. If the king came out and saw me that way, I’d never live it down.

Maxon shook his head. “Not him. You. Why didn’t you agree to do it?”

I looked at him, gob-smacked. “It’s a trick, Maxon. Everything he’s doing is a trick.”

“If you had said yes, I would have ended this now.”

Incredulous, I fired back. “Two seconds before, you had the chance to end it and didn’t. How is this my fault?”

“Because,” he answered, his whole demeanor urgent, “you are denying me your love. It’s the only thing I’ve wanted in this entire competition, and you still hold back. I keep waiting for you to say it, and you won’t. If you couldn’t say it out loud in front of him, fine. But if you had simply agreed, that would have been good enough for me.”

“And why would I when, for as far as we’ve come, he could still push me out? While I’m humiliated over and over again, and you stand by? That’s not love, Maxon. You don’t even know what love is.”

BUT WHAT ABOUT MEEEEEE?!?!?!?

NO WHAT ABOUT MEEEE!!!!!

BUT MEEEEEE!!

NO NO MEEEEEEEE!!!

Can a Selection fan just ... contact me and explain to me why they like these selfish, cruel, self-absorbed, entitled, petty, small-minded characters? And think of them as good people? Are we really that easily manipulated as a species? Or are the tweens reading this really this fucking stupid?

Let’s just hope they grow out of this bullshit.

I stormed away. What was I still doing here? I kept torturing myself for someone who had no idea what it meant to be faithful to one person. And he never would, because his whole concept of romance revolved around the Selection. He wouldn’t ever understand.

Did I just... read that with my own eyes. 

Does America have some serious brain damage?

HE LITERALLY JUST SAID THAT HE’S ALWAYS WANTED ONLY YOU, AND YOU’RE THE ONE WHO KEPT CHEATING ON HIM WITH ASPEN!!

HOLY SHIT.

This book somehow keeps getting dumber and dumber. It’d be almost impressive if it didn’t cause me immense psychological pain.

She tries to run away again but he grabs her and forcefully holds her there. Romance. 

He sighed. “I know that you spent years pouring yourself into another person who you thought was going to love you forever; and when he was faced with the realities of the world, he abandoned you.” I froze, taking in his words. “I’m not him, America. I have no intentions of giving up on you.”

I shook my head. “You can’t see it, Maxon. He might have let me down, but at least I knew him. After all this time, I still feel like there’s a gap between us. The Selection has forced you to hand over your affection in slices. I’ll never really have all of you. None of us will.”

When I shrugged myself free this time, he didn’t fight me.

Fuck this book. 

[2018weekinreview]

January - April 2018

The Reckoning:

The end of 2017 marked the beginnings of a massive cultural and political revolution with women speaking out about sexual harassment in the workplace. In December, everything seemed to come to a head when Donald Trump (a man with his own litany of accusers) went all in on his support of Alabama Congressional candidate, Roy Moore, who had been accused by multiple women, including a 14-year-old, of sexual misconduct. This is a guy Trump didn’t endorse until AFTER the sexual allegations emerged, mind you.

As Democrats tried to be principled on the issue, Congressmen began stepping down (including Al Franken) due to pressure over allegations of their own. Before then, as more and more icons of the entertainment world were toppled, it became more glaringly obvious that the zero-shame partisan world of politics wasn’t holding itself to the same standards.      

Thankfully, in the end Doug Jones squeaked out a win in the election - a Democrat won in deep red Alabama for the first time since 1992 - and nobody in Congress had to deal with the full-blown shame of a Roy Moore in Washington. By the way, Jones’ win was mostly attributed to black voters and more specifically, the 98% of black female who voted for Jones in an election that had a higher black turnout than Obama’s last election in 2012.  

The Moore candidacy and loss were the source of a lot of wackiness as well as an escalation of the GOP civil war between establishment figures and populist outsiders. But in reality, Republicans obviously dodged a huge bullet by Moore losing.        

January 21: Shutdown.      

Trump had his physical. He came back perfect and healthy with no cognitive issues or dentures. Nobody is buying the report (Girthers) and Trump apparently grew an inch taller to avoid being labeled obese. And the mental exam he took (for memory loss and dementia) is hilariously easy.

February 11: A White House in Chaos.

Trump aid, Rob Porter, had to resign due to spousal abuse allegations by two of his ex-wifes (with photos included). Not surprisingly, Trump defended and praised Porter. Possibly because it was written by Porter’s girlfriend, Hope Hicks. Seriously. Which is pretty much par for the course, since he has a history of dismissing allegations against men (Bill O’Reilly, Roy Moore, ahem, Himself). But the part that caused the most problems for the Trump White House is that Porter couldn’t get an FBI clearance because of the allegations.    

Donald Trump wants a military parade. Nobody else does. Even Fox & Friends said it was a waste of money.

Everyone loves the clip of Trump’s hair blowing open as he boarded Air Force One. 

February 25: Is It Different This Time?    

Black Panther continued breaking box office records.  

Trump made a surprise announcement on tariffs, against the advice of all of his advisors. Like, he did it out of frustration. And it could also cause a trade war, which Trump says are good and easy to win (they’re not).  

China is making Xi Jinping in charge for life. Trump joked he’d like to do the same here.    

March 11: Trump Alone Can Fix This?

Trump signed his tariffs on steel and aluminum. That caught everyone off guard as well. So he’s potentially starting a trade war against the wishes of his own advisors and his own party. The guy from the EU said it was stupid and said they’d put a tariff on bourbon, blue jeans and Harley Davidsons. But Wilbur Ross made the rounds holding up soup cans. It looks more and more like Trump is his own strategist and communications director and negotiator. He’s tired of being reigned in and is ignoring advice. So I guess he really goes think he alone can fix things.

Teachers in West Virginia went on strike.          

April: 

Trump also wants to slap $100 billion more in tariffs on China, which could cause a trade war and is already fucking with the stock market.

This week’s scandals are led by Scott Pruitt of the EPA. Who pretty much seems like he’s there just to dismantle the EPA and take as much free fancy shit as possible. Like, the number of his ethics scandals is bananas. And Pruitt probably wouldn’t be able to keep his job if Democrats and the press didn’t hate him so much. So for now, Trump is standing by him. I mean, he’s also trying to fuck the environment, which should be the bigger story. But there’s also all the corruption, fraud and waste. Jesus Christ, this administration.      

Remember when Trump kept saying that you should never telegraph your moves to the enemy on the battlefield? Anyway, Trump said we were leaving Syria last week. Even though our military leaders say we’re not. If we leave, that’s good news for Russia, Iran and/or ISIS. Which is bad for Israel. Plus, there was a chemical attack there this week. And Trump is kind of expected to retaliate. And he is tweeting about it. So maybe you can’t just say dumb shit all the time and have there be no consequences. Especially if the situation is too complicated for you to understand. Who knows? Nobody can really follow what Trump is doing at any given time.      

Two years ago, the Boston Globe ran a fake cover with Trump as president that pretty much became true.

Teachers in red states, like Oklahoma and Arizona are revolting over their pay. Which is not a good sign for Republicans.  

Roseanne came back with big ratings. And since she supports Trump, he’s thrilled about it. The show got the highest ratings in the middle of the country, so people are asking if there’s a coastal disconnect with those oft-discussed white working class Trump voters. I dunno. Maybe we’re overthinking things. The show was huge in the 90′s and I’m sure there was a curiosity factor.            

On Friday, we bombed Syria in response to Assad’s chemical attacks on his own people. Or to run distraction from all the bullshit Trump is facing at home. It’s hard to tell since most of Trump’s attention seems to be on things that affect him. But Trump called the chemical attacks the crimes of a monster. And now he’s proudly declaring mission accomplished. So does Trump even have a strategy? Did the limited strikes do anything? Why did we do this if it doesn’t do anything and we don’t have a strategy? All of this obviously came a week after Trump was declaring we were leaving Syria. It’s also in stark opposition to the America First foreign policy he talked about during the campaign. But since Trump’s usual strategy is just to get to tomorrow, this could just as suspicious as his critics think it is.  

Two black men were arrested at a Starbucks in Philadelphia. They asked to use the bathroom and were turned down because they hadn’t bought anything. When the men refused to leave, an employee called 911. So this was yet another example that our country’s racial problems are far from over. Starbucks responded by closing for a day for racial sensitivity training. Hey, at least they’re is doing something and not just denying racism exists. A lot of places, including the White House, could use that type of sensitivity training. The whole ordeal delves into all of our problems with class and education and we’re usually too distracted by Trump’s melodrama to care about it.  

Beyonce was apparently amazing at Coachella.

Trump called into Fox & Friends and gave an insane, rambling interview. And their faces are fucking hilarious because they know he looks stupid. Like, they had to end the call with him the same way they would an insane person. Yeah, he rambled about Kanye. And it’s funny he didn’t get Melania anything for her birthday. Other people are alarmed at how casually Trump lies and how normalized that has become. The truth should matter. But Trump has learned that there are no consequences for anything.  

Bill Cosby was found guilty on all charges. He could face 30 years in prison.       

Barbara Bush passed away this week. So the funeral pic with all the former Presidents is a thing. Maybe it represents the civility we lost in the Trump era. Or the political dynasties we rejected. Or we said that about Nancy Reagan too.

[zedf999]

Intercontinental Comparisons

Wow!  It has been 4 months since my last blog.   Family life has been one amazing journey for me but time is a challenge.

I have been contemplating differences between the US and Portugal lately so I thought I’d list a few interesting tidbits.

TRAFFIC.  Traffic in Lisbon is beastly even with google maps.   I am assuming that millenia of urban growth has turned cow paths into the modern insanity of highly questionable turns and super tight alleys that even a normal car has difficulty squeezing through.    Our daily journey from home to the kids’ school starts out in an easy-breezy rural-ish environment and ends up noodling through people and odd road habits.   Like the stop sign nobody notices and drives right through.  Or the people walking down a road with 2 way traffic that has room for only one car.   There’s a lot more forgiveness of stupid things here than in America for sure.  They do have road rage and honking tantrums to a certain extent but the Portuguese people are fundamentally decent in all things.   One of my happy reminders of history here is a huge Roman aqueduct we drive under from time to time.   You won’t see that in America.

HEALTH.  *Cough* , *hack*,  *gasp*.   Need I say more?  Europe in general is an ashcan for smokers.   They tell me it is much better in Portugal now but coming from the west coast of America it is hard to see.   You would think that after being here for 2 1/2 years I would have gotten over it and adapted.   It is omnipresent and nasty and they don’t appear to understand why anyone would object.   If you don’t smoke or have never smoked it is such a revolting smell aside from the obvious health impact.   I am guessing that for Europeans it does not smell bad even for the non-smokers since it is so ubiquitous and everyone is just used to it.  We have been back and forth with relatives and friends about it and the bottom line is we just can’t stand it.

  In another vein, Katrin, Max and I  went to see a naturopath recently and she only has unpleasant things to say about the Standard Protuguese Diet (SPD).  It is debatable whether it is worse than the Standard American Diet (SAD) but I am going to give the award to the Americans based on the fat body count.    It’s a lot of sugar, bread and overcooked things.   And fish which is what they are most proud of as a maritime nation.   I cannot say the native cuisine is anything to write home about but in the larger cities there are some outstanding restaurants.   It would be safe to say that our diet has improved significantly because we eat at home a lot more which means mostly organic delicious food that Katrin cooks.   That may sound a bit sexist but I just never really learned how to cook.  Fortunately Max has a talent for it too.    Portugal  is a culinary desert.  That is one ‘s’, not two.

The healthcare system here makes  a lot of sense.    There is a catchall system for anyone who can stand in line for hours.   If you have a little money you can get superior service.  I pay about $150/month for outstanding care for a family of 4.   Which beats the fuck out of whatever you call that diseased animal they call healthcare in America.

POLITICS.  This a great environment to be in for an American expat to get perspective on American politics.   For one thing, America only has 2 parties in spite of multiple attempts at making a 3rd party work.   In Europe it is not black and white like that.   There are multiple parties and sometimes the odd one wins.   Another thing is that the dominant perspective here is socialism and it is a good thing and not a communist plot to make you a terrified Gulag party member.   I am a big fan of freedom.     I don’t like international interventionism.   I am not a collectivist.   I am not an individualist.  I want everyone to contribute to roads,  schools, the military, policemen, teachers and helping grandma and people who need help feel safe and protected and I want all of those helpers of other people to be really well paid and respected.  Portugal is no stranger to corruption.  Here is Jose Socrates an ex-president caught laundering money.   Would somebody please finally convict Trump of something?  Anything.   Make it up.   We can call it a fake impeachment and he can go eat cake in a nice comfy cell somewhere.

ECONOMY.   Portugal has had big problems with corruption like a lot of other countries.  When I got here I had high hopes for the benefits of socialism but I have been surprised and disappointed.  It is not much better than the American system really.   The economy is divided by the haves and have-nots which has a lot to do with tourism and wealthy immigrants.   The Portuguese have suffered a lot financially but there are signs that they are on an upswing due to some smart moves by the EU.   Lisbon is a booming thriving city full of beautiful cars and million dollar homes and modern infrastructure too.

ART.   I love art and Portugal is full of it.   They have murals on lots of building and clever statues with poignant messages.  It is really fun and alive.   I wish this was done a lot more in America.

[nisitime]

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most? Hamilton in general Evil Morty theme song Pink guy - help Dear even hansen - if i could tell her Tokusatsu stuff Steven universe stuff 2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? Maybe my friend from texas 3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17. ‘‘they were known as the knights of cybertron’‘ 4: What do you think about most? how am i maneging this? 5: What does your latest text message from someone else say? ‘‘ainda não mas é quase certo’‘ 6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on? with on cold nights and just with underware on hot nights 7: What’s your strangest talent? ugh..idk 8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence) girls are cute boys are cute 9: Ever had a poem or song written about you? nop 10: When is the last time you played the air guitar? When I was a kiddo 11: Do you have any strange phobias? im afraid of everything so yeah prolly 12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose? I don’t think so 13: What’s your religion? potato 14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing? Going somewhere 15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? behind it 16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band? aaaa.....i dont have one but i really like Gorillaz 17: What was the last lie you told? Everything’s ok dont worry 18: Do you believe in karma? yuup 19: What does your URL mean? Exactly what it says 20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength? screams patience 21: Who is your celebrity crush? Jontron? 22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping? no 23: How do you vent your anger? im usually never angry 24: Do you have a collection of anything? those thingys to open the soda cans 25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? Video chatting online 26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become? a lil, still have work to do 27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love? screaming? i dont really like noise in general soft sounds 28: What’s your biggest “what if”? not telling 29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens? I do believe in both, actually 30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm. Right: my brainstorm figure Left: i hit the window 31: Smell the air. What do you smell? depression? 32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to? My mind 33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast? Neither 34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender? dont have one prolly 35: To you, what is the meaning of life? to be comfortable 36: Define Art. Everything. 37: Do you believe in luck? yes 38: What’s the weather like right now? pitch black since its 4:10am no clouds and a lil windy 39: What time is it? 4:10am 40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed? no. 41: What was the last book you read? harry potter and havent finished 42: Do you like the smell of gasoline? No. 43: Do you have any nicknames? Nisi 44: What was the last film you saw? Spirit 45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had? Broke my leg trying to be edgy 46: Have you ever caught a butterfly? no 47: Do you have any obsessions right now? Not really 48: What’s your sexual orientation? Pansexual 49: Ever had a rumour spread about you? daily bread sometimes 50: Do you believe in magic? sometimes 51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong? no 52: What is your astrological sign? Gemini 53: Do you save money or spend it? Save 54: What’s the last thing you purchased? a cute scarf for my mom’s b-day 55: Love or lust? Both 56: In a relationship? yes 57: How many relationships have you had? 3 (counting this one) 58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue? No. 59: Where were you yesterday? at an awful ‘‘convention’‘ 60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you? bed 61: Are you wearing socks right now? yes 62: What’s your favourite animal? pandas 63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you? idk??? 64: Where is your best friend? In bed 65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr. n/a 66: What is your heritage? n/a 67: What were you doing last night at 12AM? Discord with friends 68: What do you think is Satan’s last name? dunno 69: Biggest turn ons? n/a 70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend? Yes and no. 71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do? try to help the dog or call for help 72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid? a) i would tell to like 3 ppl b) spend all my shit and writo to ppl and eat all the damn food with friends c) yes and no 73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love. there is no love without trust 74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it? I don’t know 75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number? 3164 76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship? love and trust 77: How can I win your heart? You can’t. 78: Can insanity bring on more creativity? Oh yes, absolutely 79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far? getting my shit back together 80: What size shoes do you wear? EU 39 - 41 81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone? some random meme 82: What is your favourite word? dunno 83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart. heart pumping 84: What is a saying you say a lot? '’fuck it’‘ 85: What’s the last song you listened to? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jww3TshT9ZM&t=892s 86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours? Purple 87: What is your current desktop picture? all black but i used to have a nightwing pic 88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be? prolly some terrorist 89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on? a bunch of them 90: Turn offs? n/a 91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power? i can be a carrot 92:  where are your parents from? Portugal 93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? loving someone with the worst timming 94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be? none 95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go? Japan 96: Do you have any relatives in jail? Not that i know of, at least 97: Have you ever thrown up in the car? frequently :C 98: Ever been on a plane? I have 99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say Stop being Stupid and do you

[mirceakitsune]

A sad day for civilization

Usually I try to keep my quota of political journals to a minimum. However the unfortunate events of today prompt what is perhaps one of the harshest journals I've written in this regard. I imagine I'll face quite a bit of criticism for it... both because many will see it as an exaggeration, and because I'm reacting strongly to something happening in the UK despite not being British myself. I will explain both of those things below.

On 08-June-2017 (yesterday as of the date of this posting), a once important member of the modern world (Britain) has left our ranks, by legitimating the war against modern society. An act committed by allowing an enemy of the civilized world to return to power, after its unprecedented attacks against every good achievement mankind has ever had within the last decades. That enemy is the UK's prime minister, Theresa May, the leader of the Conservative party.

For those not familiar with this monstrous woman, and why in my view she embodies the end of modern times, I will refresh everyone on who this bitch is and what she has done thus far:

- Theresa May promised the outright destruction of the internet as we know it, and its replacement with a national intranet under strict ideological control by the UK government (even more tightly than China). Her plans go to the point where every citizen must ask for exclusive permission to post anything online (even journals like this one) and no kind of content may be hosted on any server without the government's explicit approval, meaning literally every website we know today would have to be banned.

- Her battle against technology has already begun with the war on encryption; The UK plans to force companies like Facebook to remove security from messaging apps, so that her cult may spy on everyone and see who is an enemy of its ideology. She asked for encryption to be entirely outlawed if possible, despite attempts to explain to her that this is plain mathematics and simply cannot be stopped. Such would mean banning every secure piece of software on the planet and making it a crime for developers to program such (including open-source programmers like me and places like Sourceforge / Github), plus as criminalizing the https:// protocol and more.

- She is the author of a piece of medieval ideology, recently revived and distorted to match the 21th century, called the war on porn; Her purist sect believes that indecent content on the internet is responsible for terrorism, while of course promoting the despicable myth of children under the age of 18 needing protection from pixels on a screen to avoid being scarred for life. Needless to say, any website containing any kind of porn is to be banned under her theocracy and illegal to possess within her modern inquisition (same as in North Korea). Already the Digital Economy Bill was passed into law, and it's rumored that people might need to sign up at their local post office for permission to access any NSFW website at home... I am god damn serious.

- Under her caricature of a dictatorship, the UK is set to become a surveillance state with a harsher authoritarian regime than many 3rd world nations. Not only should every single online communication be actively monitored by the government, but even public services workers (such as ambulances and firefighters) must have access to everyone's browsing history and private lives. The UK also maintains a list of potential enemies of the state using unknown criteria, which was recently revealed to contain broad categories of people including goth teenagers who suffer from depression. Along with this they also plan on creating computer programs (perversely dubbed Artificial Intelligence) which use patterns to automatically decide if and when someone should be arrested and give the order to the police!

- She has blatantly manipulated the recent terror attacks (the Manchester bombing and the London stabbings) for her sick political agenda. In less than a few hours since those attacks, she outright stepped out and used the lives of those killed to leverage her own schemes, saying it was all the internet's fault and even implying that online pornography is why those people lost their lives!

- She has publicly and explicitly stated that human rights are an issue that is getting in her way, and need to be dealt with so that her plans may be accomplished.

I believe this should be enough to explain why I oppose this devil with my entire being... which seems to spread more panic than ISIS, who it's ironically vowed so hard to fight (by firing the London police or sending them after Julian Assange apparently). Since I'm aware the next predominant question will be "but you're not even British, why do you care", I will also explain why the things that happened in the UK are so personal to me:

- At this point, what's happening is not just a win or loss for the nation Britain; It is a win or a loss for modern society worldwide. The fact that this psychopath was allowed to be prime minister again, instead of being sent to seek treatment at the nearest mental ward for patients with serious psychiatric issues, is a legitimization for this kind of madness here in the free world! The message is literally "in 1st world nations in the year 2017, it might be okay for a president or prime minister to actively work on banning the internet or reviving medieval bans on porn or shamelessly distorting terrorist attacks to push any legislation". Authoritarianism spreads like a disease among the circles of power, and even in Europe or America this sort of thing is like the taste of blood in the water for a shark.

- She is actively trying to spread many of her demented ideas beyond Britain, and has a certain degree of power to do so. Since the UK would remain close to the EU even after brexit, they will be pushing Europe to adapt to her clique's skewed ideologies. The insane copyright proposals already circulating here (censorship machine, link tax, hate speech fines for social media) are said to be the doing of Theresa May and Angela Merkel (another authoritarian piece of shit). During the last attack she has also instigated other nations governments to "stop social media".

- The internet is a global entity, and many of the companies that offer services (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc) also activate there. Most of their evil plans (such as backdoors in encryption) cannot be done "only for UK citizens"... if they're implemented they will exist for all users worldwide and put everyone at risk! Such companies might have to choose between leaving the UK entirely or giving in to those demands, whereas sites hosting NSFW content might have to decide between being banned at ISP level across Britain or implementing disgusting and unacceptable age verification systems (online identity theft). Worse than that, in an act of total delusion, Theresa May or Amber Rudd already expressed hopes that the worldwide internet will itself conform to their model and "let the UK be the gatekeeper of the internet", meaning they hoped we would all just bow down and embrace their new "internet" as a replacement. We do not want this cancer spreading here, keep it in your Orwellian hellhole far away from the rest of us!

- I have friends in Britain... and even if I didn't, I know that the people living there are citizens of a (once) modern society who wish to live their lives in peace. It's unacceptable that they they are being terrorized by a mad person that's out of control and has lost touch with reality! And yes... I know: Far worse happens in places like Syria or China, where people are killed on a daily basis or starve to death or what not. The difference is that there, it's been this way for ages, whereas here it's new: Most 3rd world countries are places that are evolving slowly, but Britain is a modern nation that's devolving into them instead! People living in those areas are also used to it, they never had human rights or internet so they don't actually lose anything... people in Britain are being raped of fundamental rights they've had for a lifetime, which are granted and unquestionable in any civilized society!

So there you have it. The worst thing about this all is that, I wish I could say it's the fault of some sort of coup; Yesterday's elections got hacked, people with AK47's broke in and put Theresa back in power, so on. Unfortunately it was not: More than half of the British population deliberately voted for this abomination, after she has openly made it clear that she will destroy the modern world as we know it. This... is what people in what's considered a top democracy wanted. I'm struggling not to generalize and discriminate against all elderly people right now... granted that old farts are supposedly at fault for all this, whereas youngsters are the ones who struggled to avoid the disaster. Part of me wants to say "they're fucking 90 already, why can't they just hit the bucket and take their 1940 ideologies with them to the grave"... which is sad because my own grandparents died in the recent years, yet what happened is so wrong that it gets you places you wouldn't want to be.

After this alongside other events, my view of humanity as a whole has been altered beyond repair once more, and I wish I could never see an ape again in my existence. I expect no more safety nor the hope of a decent life even where I live, because I realize no freedom or right is ever basic enough to not be put into discussion decades after everyone has had it. Any breed of fanatic can just rise to power at any moment, and attempt to do whatever the hell they want. I wish the error known as humanity could be wiped out by some natural event already, though its own stupidity will probably do the job for it. I'm sorry that I had to be born here and witness the easily avoidable history of this species. If there's anything close to a god or gatekeeper of conscious minds out there, I will not forgive them for having been forced to live this miserable experience... that I can promise.

Oh, and one more thing: You are free to redistribute the contents of this journal as you please. It would bring some comfort if people could better spread the word about what's happening, so we can all be ready to defend ourselves from the emerging threats against the modern way of life... threats not created by terrorist groups elsewhere, but our own governments copying their tactics and behaviors.