#Government Property Agency

[insidecroydon]

Youth charities to benefit as Wates finish off 2 Ruskin Square

The Government Property Agency has appointed Wates to carry out the fit-out of 2 Ruskin Square at East Croydon, with the building firm undertaking to work with local youth and anti-crime groups while they are working on the project. Home Office’s office: 2 Ruskin Square will accommodate 5,000 civil servants once ready for use later this year Ruskin Square is the gateway, mixed-use development…

[marzipanandminutiae]

I'm asking because it's something I've been trying to figure out myself. Do you have any theories as to why there is such an overlap of TERFs and people convinced corsets are Evil? Why do these beliefs go toghter?

My guess would be that it’s because they define womanhood so much by suffering, that questioning anything they’ve been told was a mechanism of women’s suffering in the past feels like a threat to them. Even though obviously nobody who says “corsets were not universal torture devices“ is saying “women weren’t oppressed during these specific eras.” It’s a threat to their idea of what the past looks like, especially womanhood in the past, and that puts them on the defensive.

They also often hate femininity at large, and the corset tends to be seen as a symbol thereof. Even though, you know… A lot of masc presenting women in the past also wore them, simply as support garments. and even some men, for back support and/or body-shaping.

And most historical costumers and dress historians who get a wide platform nowadays tends to be feminine-presenting. So TERFs see this as feminine women (traitors!) “defending” their favorite imagined symbol of patriarchal control over women’s bodies and gender presentation, and therefore go ballistic. Even though that’s not what’s happening

(Note: not everyone who expresses these views is a terf, of course. Pop culture in general still tends to believe that corsets are inherently evil, and thus it’s a very common mindset. And not even everyone who buys into the whole “historical costumers/fem dress historians are tradwives serving the patriarchy“ concept is a terf. But as you say, there is a pretty broad overlap in that latter category.)

It’s also interesting to me what their definition of defense is. A lot of them blow a gasket if you even say “the corset is a neutral garment that served practical functions for many women, and most women seem to have felt neutrally about it, though obviously some strongly liked or disliked it” or “ I and some people I know personally find corsets comfortable to wear,”and react like you just built an altar to sacrifice goats to a corset

[reasonsforhope]

Article | Paywall-Free

"The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule Tuesday [October 8, 2024] requiring water utilities to replace all lead pipes within a decade, a move aimed at eliminating a toxic threat that continues to affect tens of thousands of American children each year.

The move, which also tightens the amount of lead allowed in the nation’s drinking water, comes nearly 40 years after Congress determined that lead pipes posed a serious risk to public health and banned them in new construction.

Research has shown that lead, a toxic contaminant that seeps from pipes into the drinking water supply, can cause irreversible developmental delays, difficulty learning and behavioral problems among children. In adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, lead exposure can cause increased blood pressure, heart disease, decreased kidney function and cancer.

But replacing the lead pipes that deliver water to millions of U.S. homes will cost tens of billions of dollars, and the push to eradicate them only gathered momentum after a water crisis in Flint, Mich., a decade ago exposed the extent to which children remain vulnerable to lead poisoning through tap water...

The groundbreaking regulation, called the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, will establish a national inventory of lead service lines and require that utilities take more aggressive action to remove lead pipes on homeowners’ private property. It also lowers the level of lead contamination that will trigger government enforcement from 15 parts per billion (ppb) to 10 ppb.

The rule also establishes the first-ever national requirement to test for lead in schools that rely on water from public utilities. It mandates thatwater systems screen all elementary and child-care facilities, where those who are the most vulnerable to lead’s effects — young children — are enrolled, and that they offer testing to middle and high schools.

The White House estimates that more than 9 million homes across the country are still supplied by lead pipelines, which are the leading source of lead contamination through drinking water. The EPA has projected that replacing all of them could cost at least $45 billion.

Lead pipes were initially installed in cities decades ago because they were cheaper and more malleable, but the heavy metal can wear down and corrode over time. President Joe Biden has made replacing them one of his top environmental priorities, securing $15 billion to give states over five years through the bipartisan infrastructure law and vowing to rid the country of lead pipes by 2031. The administration has spent $9 billion so far — enough to replace up to 1.7 million lead pipes, the administration said.

On Tuesday, the administration said it was providing an additional $2.6 billion in funding for pipe replacement. Over 367,000 lead pipes have been replaced nationwide since Biden took office, according to White House officials, affecting nearly 1 million people...

Environmental advocates said that former president Donald Trump, who issued much more modest revisions to the lead and copper rule just days before Biden took office, would have a hard time reversing the new standards.

Erik Olson, the senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that the Safe Drinking Water Act has provisions prohibiting weakening the health protections of existing standards...

Olson added that the rule “represents a major victory for public health” and will protect millions of people “whose health is threatened every time they fill a glass from the kitchen sink contaminated by lead.”

“While the rule is imperfect and we still have more to do, this is by far the biggest step towards eliminating lead in tap water in over three decades,” he said."

-via The Washington Post, October 8, 2024

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week

1. ‘We are just getting started’: the plastic-eating bacteria that could change the world

In 2016, Japanese scientists Oda and Hiraga published their discovery of Ideonella sakaiensis, a bacterium capable of breaking down PET plastic into basic nutrients. This finding marked a shift in microbiology's perception, recognizing the potential of microbes to solve pressing environmental issues.

France's Carbios has successfully applied bacterial enzyme technology to recycle PET plastic waste into new plastic products, aligning with the French government's goal of fully recycling plastic packaging by 2025.

2. HIV cases in Amsterdam drop to almost zero after PrEP scheme

According to Dutch AIDS Fund, there were only nine new cases of the virus in Amsterdam in 2022, down from 66 people diagnosed in 2021. The organisation claimed that 128 people were diagnosed with HIV in Amsterdam in 2019, and since 2010, the number of new infections in the Dutch capital has fallen by 95 per cent.

3. Cheap and drinkable water from desalination is finally a reality

In a groundbreaking endeavor, engineers from MIT and China have designed a passive solar desalination system aimed at converting seawater into drinkable water.

The concept, articulated in a study published in the journal Joule, harnesses the dual powers of the sun and the inherent properties of seawater, emulating the ocean’s “thermohaline” circulation on a smaller scale, to evaporate water and leave salt behind.

4. World’s 1st drug to regrow teeth enters clinical trials

The ability to regrow your own teeth could be just around the corner. A team of scientists, led by a Japanese pharmaceutical startup, are getting set to start human trials on a new drug that has successfully grown new teeth in animal test subjects.

Toregem Biopharma is slated to begin clinical trials in July of next year after it succeeded growing new teeth in mice five years ago, the Japan Times reports.

5. After Decades of Pressure, US Drugmaker J&J Gives Up Patent on Life-Saving TB Drug

In what can be termed a huge development for drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) patients across large parts of the world, bedaquiline maker Johnson and Johnson said on September 30 (Saturday) that it would drop its patent over the drug in 134 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

6. Stranded dolphins rescued from shallow river in Massachusetts

7. ‘Staggering’ green growth gives hope for 1.5C, says global energy chief

The prospects of the world staying within the 1.5C limit on global heating have brightened owing to the “staggering” growth of renewable energy and green investment in the past two years, the chief of the world’s energy watchdog has said.

Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, and the world’s foremost energy economist, said much more needed to be done but that the rapid uptake of solar power and electric vehicles were encouraging.

---

That's it for this week :)

This newsletter will always be free. If you liked this post you can support me with a small kofi donation here:

Buy me a coffee ❤️

Also don’t forget to reblog this post with your friends.

[menolly5600]

Lois is the greatest voice of Reason in DC.

Her headlines are going to be legendary and shake the world.

Ya'll remember Ace? Bat-hound?

No WAY Cujo became a Ghost and He did not.

Is he a little lost? Maybe. This is not his beautiful home. This is not his beautiful, maladjusted, Bat Family. Who are you people!? Where IS he!? This place is FAR to cheerful and green to be Gotham!

But he is Bat-Hound. A PROFESSIONAL. A HERO. He can handle this. He just has to track his humans down... through... whatever this is. If Krypto can fly, bless his mostly empty, hyperactive head, then so should he! It can't be THAT har-*Thwonk!*

.....no one saw that.

But what's this? A helpful young pup? Cujo you say. Ah, he too, was once a gaurd dog. Cujo, lad, he seems to be lost. Could you...? You WILL! Fantastic. But wait? You're worried about your Young Human?

*Bat Concern Rising* *Doggy eye squint*

WHY?

*cujo spills the frankly horrifying beans about Danny's home life*

.........ha ha, NOPE! We can be having THAT! He's coming too! Bruce LOVES young humans! Especially sassy ones. He'll adopt him in no time! You grab the older one's, I'll grab the baby. Then we can head home, yes? You'll love gotham! Plenty of scoundrels to chase!

Cut to the Bat family. Damian is training Titus in the yard. Rare sun-ish day. It's a cook out. The Kent's are over. When?

Titus and the Supers both perk up. You hear that? Somethings about to-

*reality RIPS* *Ace the Bat Hound, dead for over a decade, jumps through... THE SIZE OF A HORSE. He is holding a struggling small preteen girl in his mouth* *Splat*

He dropped her. Eeeeeeew! She is loudly protesting. There is a SECOND dog. Green. Two more teens, clearly related to the first. Dumped on Bruce's lawn.

Ace looks proud of himself. Shrinks to normal size and pads over. Plops down in front of Bruce like he'd never left, tail wagging. Still in costume. He's glowing.

The burgers burn on the grill. No one can bring themselves to notice or care. Damian is elated. Krypto is fly wrestling is bestest buddy. Bruce is having a nervous breakdown over his dead dog.

Clark is calling their co-workers and trying to STOP the nervous break down.

Lois is just feeding the strage kids the dogs brought. Asking some casual "I'm totally not an investigative reporter" type questions. Who wants chips? Have a towel.

Ace? Is a Good Boy. 🐶

@hypewinter @hdgnj @nerdpoe @ailithnight

[stillnaomi]

U.S. policymakers argue that social revolutionary victory anywhere represents a diminution of freedom in the world. The assertion is false. The Chinese Revolution did not crush democracy; there was none to crush in that oppressively feudal regime. The Cuban Revolution did not destroy freedom; it destroyed a hateful U.S.-sponsored police state. The Algerian Revolution did not abolish national liberties; precious few existed under French colonialism. The Vietnamese revolutionaries did not abrogate individual rights; no such rights were available under the U.S.-supported puppet governments of Bao Dai, Diem, and Ky.

Of course, revolutions do limit the freedoms of the corporate propertied class and other privileged interests: the freedom to invest privately without regard to human and environmental costs, the freedom to live in obscene opulence while paying workers starvation wages, the freedom to treat the state as a private agency in the service of a privileged coterie, the freedom to employ child labor and child prostitutes, the freedom to treat women as chattel, and so on.

Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti

[papasmoke]

September 20, 2024

October 1, 2024

You'll probably need a vpn to visit this page, the text of it reads:

In its sitting on Monday, the Knesset Plenum voted to approve in first reading the Bill for Cutting Off the State of Israel's Relations with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and Declaring it a Terrorist Organization, 2024, sponsored by MK Yulia Malinovsky (Yisrael Beitenu) and a group of MKs. In the vote, 50 Members of Knesset supported the bill, versus 10 who opposed it, and the bill will be returned to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for deliberation.

It is proposed to declare the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) as a terrorist organization. It is further proposed that the State of Israel sever its relations with UNRWA, both directly and indirectly.

MK Malinovsky, the bill's sponsor: "We have to perform a surgical [cut] here and end the event. We are on the UN's blacklist in any case. All the excessive morality ended on October 7. UNRWA is a terrorist organization, and not only in Jerusalem. It is afifth-column within the State of Israel. And not just municipal property tax benefits-everything should be revoked from them. The fact that this hasn't happened until now, for seven months--is a disgrace. What is happening today is a badge of honor for the Knesset and for the Members of Knesset. The fact that we succeeded in joining hands, coalition and opposition--that is a very important statement for the Government. We did a wonderful job together with all the partners to these bills."

The explanatory notes to the bill state: "In the months after the outbreak of the Swords of Iron war, investigative reports were revealed regarding the involvement of the workers of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip in the murderous terrorist offensive that began on October 7, 2023, such as participation in acts of murder and massacre, kidnapping Israeli citizens to the Gaza Strip and providing vehicles and equipment for the purpose of the offensive. Reports were also published regarding the membership of these workers in the Hamas and Islamic Jihad organizations,

"The above attests to the close relationship that exists between UNRWA and terrorist activity for all intents and purposes, in a manner that is no different from the activity of organizations that have been declared as terrorist organizations by law. Therefore, it is proposed to declare that UNRWA is a terrorist organization as defined in the Counter-Terrorism Law, 2016."

October 7, 2024

October 8, 2024

In that same spirit, we are following with deep concern the Israeli legislative proposal that could alter UNRWA’s legal status, hindering its ability to communicate with Israeli officials, and removing privileges and immunities afforded to UN organizations and personnel around the globe. This legislative proposal reflects the significant distrust between Israel and UNRWA.

Israel has alleged – and the UN, in some cases, has confirmed – that a small percentage of UNRWA employees have ties to Hamas and other terrorist groups. Israel has also conveyed concerns about Hamas misusing UNRWA facilities and the United States shares these concerns.

At the same time, we know that UN personnel, including from UNRWA, are vital to the humanitarian response in Gaza and face tremendous danger while performing their work.

And so, Israel needs to provide UNRWA additional information regarding these allegations, and UNRWA needs to have in place a process to address these concerns seriously and urgently, and make faster progress on the much-needed reforms outlined in the Colonna report.

Simply put: It is in no one’s interest for the neutrality of UNRWA’s personnel to remain in doubt.

October 9, 2024

October 14, 2024

The bare minimum required from the US to curtail further Israeli atrocities would be the cessation or curtailing of munitions, logistical support, diplomatic cover, and US military presence in defense of Israel. None of these actions are on the table according to Biden, Harris, or Trump. Israel is creating a legal framework to justify the systemic targeting of UNRWA aid workers and facilities, a practice which the US has made it clear it will defend through inaction, if not active participation. It will issue hollow condemnations and statements of concern, urge Israel to investigate, then move on, pretending like nothing happened.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Palestinian human rights organizations have shown that one in five Palestinians has been arrested and charged in Israeli military courts since the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967. Each year, this figure adds approximately 500–700 Palestinian children, some as young as 12, who are detained and prosecuted in Israeli military courts.

[...] During the ongoing genocidal war across historic Palestine, Israeli carceral violence and arrest campaigns have only intensified. In the months prior to October 7, an approximate 5,200 Palestinians were detained in Israeli prisons. As of mid-March, that number exceeds 9,000. Over the past five months alone, Israeli occupying forces have arrested over 7,600 Palestinians in the West Bank, in addition to an unknown number of detained Gazans. Conditions are worsening for the imprisoned. Immediately following the war’s outbreak, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) placed prisoners in total isolation, prevented them from leaving their cells, and restricted access to water and electricity. The agency ceased providing what had already been poor-quality medical care and has dispensed inadequate food, enacting a starvation campaign against prisoners. Guards inflict violence, torture, and degrading treatment such as reportedly forcing captives to “bark.” IPS also banned visits for family members and delegates from the International Committee of the Red Cross, and severely restricted lawyer visits—cutting prisoners off from the outside world. My research inside Israeli military courts and prison visitation rooms—both as an anthropological researcher and a family member of prisoners—highlights the systematic nature of this violence and its justification through legal codes. Through an intricate web of military laws and orders, Palestinians become racialized—a sociopolitical process through which groups are seen as distinct “races” ordered in a social hierarchy. The Israeli carceral system racializes Palestinians as inherently “criminal” and thus deserving of punishment. Following the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, the Israeli military was vested with the ultimate authority of government, legislation, and punishment over the Palestinian population. This includes prosecuting Palestinians in military courts and charging them under the nearly 1,800 military orders that govern every aspect of daily life: conduct, property, movement, evacuation, land seizures, detention, interrogation, and trial. The orders include provisions for indefinitely detaining Palestinians without charge or trial through a policy inherited from British colonial practices. Over 3,500 Palestinians are being held in this state as of early March. Other provisions regulate the arrest and interrogation of Palestinians and how long they can be denied lawyer visits. With a near 100 percent conviction rate, Israeli military courts hand down absurdly high sentences, sometimes amounting to dozens of life sentences. Torture inside Israeli prisons and detention facilities is sanctioned by Israeli High Court of Justice (HCJ) rulings that permit the exercise of violence under pretexts of “security” and protecting “public order.” Enmeshed within this carceral reality is Israel’s labeling of most Palestinian prisoners as “security prisoners.” This designation masks the political nature of their imprisonment and sanctions violations against them. As opposed to Palestinian “security prisoners,” incarcerated Jewish settler-citizens receive rights such as making telephone calls, going on home visits under guard, the possibility of furlough, and conjugal visits. These rights are denied to the mostly Palestinian security prisoners, who are viewed and racialized from the start as criminals.

26 March 2024

[ozzgin]

i need an elaboration on the human fuckers

PLEASE

Referencing this short prompt. I postponed my answer on this one in order to compile a proper list, because I think - at this point - that monsters with a human kink are a recurring trope on this blog. Let me offer you some guidance:

If you like the idea of accidentally ending up in the monster realm as the only human, causing the monsters to become so feral that the government has to interfere and distribute you to the masses, I suggest you begin with the original monster harem. It comes with several blurbs like the public property Reader and the Breeding Olympics.

If you prefer being the only human employee at a monster hotel where it turns out that most guests and staff are stalking you, there's the already-way-too-advertised Monster Hotel saga. It comes with more human kink memes, such as the Room Service Menu, and the hopeless romantic guest who reads cheesy monster x human novels. The discussions also led to the birth of Monster Adoption Agency, or a shopping catalog for monstrous beasts who'd like to own a human. May or may not be expanded in the future.

Potentially related to the Monster Hotel is the case of Monster Author, who publishes human kink books for his fellow creatures, and stumbles upon his very first, real human: you. Or maybe he's already unknowingly met you as his pen pal.

Another recent addition is the monster who manages to reach the human Internet, guided by his unquenchable thirst. And would you look at that, you happen to be the only human online who believes his story of being a "monster".

If you'd like a sneak peek, there's also an upcoming monster dating show.

I don't know, does this count as an elaboration? My argument was that it's an ever-expanding universe of horny prompts. (Frightfully so)

[taivanhq]

A Comprehensive ICE Encounter Guide.

So, because of a recent uptick in ICE raids and Trump removing pretty much all remaining protection for immigrants, I've decided to compile a bunch of research and resources to help you know your rights. Specifically to combat the risky and even down right dangerous advice going around. Knowing your rights whether you're an immigrant or not is important, and can enable you to help your friends, family and community.

Disclaimer: I am not your lawyer, do your own research! Especially if you or your family are high risk (visibly BIPOC).

Firstly, what to do if you are stopped by ICE or Police.

Stay calm.

Don't resist.

Keep your hands visible at all times.

Memorise important phone numbers (family, lawyer), or keep them on you at all times.

Do NOT lie about your status.

Carry your immigration papers or ID on you at all times.

Some states require that you give your name to law enforcement if they ask for it, know your states laws, and do not lie.

If you're asked to show your immigration papers, you must if you have them on you.

Do not say anything to them, do not sign anything, do not make decisions without lawyers. Exercise your right to silence.

If you are without your papers, EXERCISE YOUR RIGHT TO SILENCE, say "I would like to remain silent until i speak to a lawyer."

If you're arrested by police, you have the right to a free government appointed attorney. If you're arrested by ICE, you have the right to an attorney but not a free government one, so you should ask for a free or low cost list of attorneys or already have the number for one on you.

You can say no to being searched, they do not have the right to search you without probable cause, the only exception is they may pat you down over your clothes.

If you believe your rights were violated, write down and date everything you remember as soon as you can. Badge numbers, patrol car numbers, names, agencies they're from, witnesses, and file a complaint with the relevant agencies.

What to do when ICE or the police come to your home.

Keep the door closed. It is much safer to speak to them through the door. TEACH YOUR CHILDREN THIS.

Ask: Are you immigration agents? What are you here for? Ask to see their badge through a peep hole or window, ask if they have a warrant and if they do make them slide it under the door or show you through a window.

DO NOT open the door unless they show you a search or arrest warrant signed by a judge specifically naming someone residing in your property or the specific areas to be searched at that specific address. You can find samples of warrants here.

A police arrest warrant allows them to enter the home if they believe that the person is inside BUT a warrant for deportation DOES NOT allow officers to enter the home without consent.

If they do not produce a warrant, or the warrant is just for deportation, say "I do not consent to your entry."

If they force their way in anyways, do not resist. Repeat "I do not consent to your entry or to your search of these premises, I am exercising my right to remain silent, I wish to speak to a lawyer."

Do not lie.

Do not produce false documents.

And do not talk to them or sign anything until you get a lawyer.

Once again, If you believe your rights were violated, write down and date everything you remember as soon as you can. Badge numbers, patrol car numbers, names, agencies they're from, witnesses, and file a complaint with the relevant agencies. In this case, camera footage from home cameras can also be extremely useful, make sure any relevant footage is saved and copied onto several devices.

What to do when ICE or the police come to your work/school/church.

If you're a US citizen and feel safe doing so, record the activity or immediately write down information on what you witnessed, but do not interfere or obstruct the operation. This can include yelling, running, throwing things, and so on.

If you are a citizen, ICE do not have the right to detain, arrest or question you. If they do, tell them you are a US citizen, ask for their name and badge number and say you wish to remain silent until you talk to a lawyer. Then talk to that lawyer about filing a lawsuit for fines and monetary damages. Seriously.

Do not run.

Do not carry false documents.

Say you wish to remain silent and speak to a lawyer.

Do not speak or sign anything until you talk to a lawyer.

Carry a "red card."

In all scenarios, especially for non-English speakers, it's a good idea to carry a know your rights card. The immigrant legal resource center has printable red cards with guidance on it and you can hand it to an officer of any kind and on the back, in English it invokes your right to silence and to a lawyer. This can be presented to the Police or ICE in any situation. Printable versions of these cards in many different languages can be found here. Keep your paperwork and these cards on you and your family, especially your children at all times. Spread the existence of these cards on your social media and in your communities.

The best thing you can do as an immigrant, for you and your family, is just be prepared. For US citizens and those unlikely to be targeted, it's to provide aid and record injustices and violations of rights. But with that, it is so important you do not spread false information or dangerous advice, or misreport any ICE sightings. Local immigrant resource organizations are creating hotlines that the public can report ice sightings to, and they have social media pages too. Find your local one online, and you can get the most accurate information from them. Report any ICE sightings you see to them, too. Spread their existences on your social media and in your communities. But most importantly, stick together and do not let this hard time define our futures. As my favourite poem goes, "You may write me down in history With your bitter twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise."

Resources: printable red cards iamerica know your rights cards know your rights, immigrant justice know your rights, aclu

[blueiscoool]

Roman Emperor Caligula's 2,000-Year-Old Garden Unearthed Near the Vatican

The gardens overlooking the Tiber river in Italy once belonged to an infamous Roman emperor.

Construction workers in Italy have discovered a 2,000-year-old garden that once belonged to a Roman emperor.

The travertine walls of the garden overlook the banks of the Tiber, a river that cuts through Rome and sits east of Vatican City. The ruins were unearthed as workers constructed a new overpass at Piazza Pia, according to a translated statement from the Italian Ministry of Culture.

As archaeologists removed debris, they found a lead water pipe with the following inscription: "C(ai) Cæsaris Aug(usti) Germanici." Researchers determined that the engraving referred to Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, better known as Caligula (aka "little boot," a childhood nickname given to him by his father's soldiers).

Based on the inscription, researchers think the garden likely belonged to the infamous Roman emperor. Not only was Caligula known for being a tyrannical and ruthless leader, he was also a sadist who humiliated his senate. Caligula assumed the throne in A.D. 37, and in A.D. 41 the Praetorian Guard — the officials who were supposed to protect him — assassinated the emperor.

This conclusion is supported by a passage in the ancient text "On the Embassy to Gaius," penned by Egyptian philosopher Philo of Alexandria. It describes how Caligula had met with a representative of Jews living in Alexandria, Egypt, at a large garden along the Tiber, according to the statement.

At that time, Jewish Alexandrians and the Greek-Alexandrian population were in a "crisis that had manifested itself with violence, brawls and episodes of religious intolerance." However, Caligula rejected the Jews' requests for religious autonomy, instead siding with the Greeks.

Alessio De Cristofaro, an archaeologist at the Special Superintendency for Archaeology, Fine Art and Landscape, a government agency in Rome, said the find is significant because Piazza Pia is in the same area as the "Horti Agrippinae," the garden of Agrippina the Elder, who was Caligula's mother.

The pipe is also similar to another one, found in the early 1900s, that's inscribed with the name Iulia (Julia) Augusta, the second wife of Augustus and the grandmother of Germanicus. Researchers speculate that the property was inherited by Germanicus and later passed down to his wife, Agrippina the Elder, before going to Caligula.

In addition to the pipe, archaeologists found slabs of Roman-era pottery and terra-cotta figures of mythological scenes that would have decorated rooftops.

By Jennifer Nalewicki.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Don Moynihan at Can We Still Govern?

An exhausted Bradley Boone, the assistant Fire Chief at Pensacola, took to Facebook on Saturday. As his community was recovering from Hurricane Helene he asked viewers for help. Not with aid or supplies. They had plenty of that for now. But to dispel the rumors that were making it harder for him to do his job. These rumors include that 150 people were missing, that the community was overrun with violence, that there were not sufficient food and water, that roads which were in reality in need of repair were being shut to limit the flow of help, and that FEMA was unwelcome. He said he had spent a large chunk of his day talking to citizens face-to-face to dispel the rumors. Boone is an example of how emergency responders have become one more category of public service worker who have discovered that they now have a second job they did not sign up for. Alongside librarians, teachers, public health officials, election officials, and law enforcement, emergency responders must now also be misinformation experts. They have to spend their days separating facts from reality for constituents who are being lied to via right-wing conspiracy theorists. FEMA set up a website to battle misinformation. Some of it comes from the usual suspects, like foreign adversaries such as Russia, seeking to sow mistrust, or professional conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones. But many of the lies (that FEMA is only offering $750 to disaster victims, running out of money, that FEMA money has gone overseas) comes directly from the people who could be in charge of the national disaster response next year.

JD Vance, Trump, and Fox News are key conveyers of the $750 lie. ($750 is intended to cover up-front costs, but citizens can apply for tens of thousands of dollars more in relief for property damage).

Trump said that Biden refused to talk to the Governor of Georgia, part of a pattern of discriminating against red states. But earlier in the day, Governor Kemp described the conversation he had with Biden the day before, and praised Biden’s support: “He offered that if there’s other things we need, just to call him directly, which — I appreciate that. But we’ve had FEMA embedded with us since a day or two before the storm hit in our state operations center in Atlanta; we’ve got a great relationship with them.” Other Republican leaders have issued similar praise of the responsiveness of the administration.

Trump: “They stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season.” Yeah, this is also untrue. But fun fact: Trump raided the FEMA budget to redirect money towards his immigration policies, including building a wall.

The misinformation, and much worse, is coursing through social media because much of social media has given up on policing lies, and some social media (e.g., Truth Social, Elon Musk’s X) see a strategic advantage in lying about the disaster. This false post from Elon Musk was viewed 28 million times. No community notes.

[...] We could be angry here about the hypocrisy. Trump says Biden does not want to deliver disaster aid to Republicans. Biden not wanting to visibly help swing states like Georgia and North Carolina, right before an election, doesn’t make much sense. But it fits with Trump’s own attitudes about disaster response. Multiple Trump aides say he was reluctant to allow FEMA support go to blue states. “One of his first questions would be: Are they my people?” according to a former aide, Stephanie Grisham.

But setting aside the hypocrisy, we should care because conspiracy theories affect the competence and quality of service delivery. I used to do research on disaster response. One thing that was clear is how important it is to have a functional national crisis response agency, and how dependent the response is on human factors. FEMA itself is not a large organization: it organizes and relies on a broader network of responders, and on the trust of the public. Take that trust away, and their ability to help people collapses. Competence really matters for disaster response like few other government functions. You can't bluff your way through it. You can’t learn the job as you go along. Mistakes are costly. Musk’s Cybertruck is on its fifth recall in the space of a year, while the boss spends his day on social media. His status as a natural disaster schmuck emerged when he promised to rescue a group of kids in Thailand stranded in a cave with a tiny submarine. When a cave diver who advised the successful rescue mocked the impracticality of Musk’s plan, Musk labeled him a pedophile, and hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on him.

[...] There is a basic asymmetry here. Democrats would certainly attack missteps by a GOP President failing in disaster response. The failure of Hurricane Katrina marked a key point in the decline of President Bush’s popularity. Trump was criticized for his sluggish response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, and for pushing his appointees to violate scientific and ethical guidelines when releasing public information about the path of hurricanes to align with his Sharpie additions to a map. But that criticism was grounded in reality. Instead, the GOP simply turns to conspiracy theories rather than engaging in troublesome facts. More climate-driven disasters are coming. This is the future. Trump won’t acknowledge or prepare for this reality. Indeed, Project 2025 has proposed that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration should be “broken up and downsized” because it is “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.”

Another top notch post from Don Moynihan, this time addressing the hydra of lies and conspiracy theories about FEMA and the response to Hurricane Helene (and Milton).

[mariacallous]

BERLIN — A German court has ruled that an 85-year-old woman and her son who live in a property sold under duress by its Jewish owners in 1939 must give up their home.

The ruling earlier this month capped a decade of legal wrangling over the home, located in Wandlitz, outside Berlin. For many paying attention to the twists and turns, the fight over the lakeside property came to symbolize the pain and turmoil of nearly a century of history — as well as the ways in which German families tell themselves complicated stories about their role during the Holocaust. It has also surfaced lingering resentments, some of them clearly antisemitic, about Germany’s efforts to repay Jews for its crimes against them.

The Wandlitz estate is likely one of the last property restitution cases to be adjudicated in Germany, as virtually all looted or “aryanized” property has already gone through the restitution process or been lost to history, with no one left to claim it. The deadline to file property claims passed decades ago.

The case centers on an estate, located in a bucolic area about 20 miles from central Berlin, that functioned in the 1930s as a summer retreat for an orphanage operated by two Jewish women, Alice Donat and Helene Lindenbaum. To comply with Nazi laws meant to expropriate Jewish wealth, they sold the land, complete with a structure in poor condition, to Felix Moegelin in 1939 for 21,100 Reichsmarks, a relative pittance.

Moegelin had to sign the statement “I am Aryan,” while the two women had to sign that they were Jewish according to the Nuremberg Laws of 1935.

The original house was torn down and eventually replaced, and Moegelin and his family settled in on Wegener Street. Donat and Lindenbaum were deported from Berlin by the Nazis in 1943 and murdered.

Today, Moegelin’s granddaughter, Gabriele Lieske, 85, still lives in the house with her son, Thomas Lieske, 61. They dug in their heels after a lower court ruled last year that they must give up the property or pay for it. Located in the suburbs of Berlin, where real estate is hot, the property is worth about $1.6 million today.

Now, the property will be seized by the state and transferred to the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the legal successor to unclaimed Jewish property in the former East Germany. No living heirs to the murdered owners were ever identified.

“I spent my whole life in the house and looked after my parents,” Gabriele Lieske said after the ruling, according to local media. “We don’t know where to go.”

The case drew national attention earlier this year after it was profiled in the prominent German newsmagazine Spiegel just after International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It vaulted back into public view this month when the Lieskes ran out of legal runway to appeal their case.

Seeking compensation, the Lieskes’ Munich-based lawyer, Raffael Nath, invoked a legal loophole that allows the German government to provide some payment to current owners who paid for rather than inherited the property from the original buyer who “Aryanized” the property. He argued that Gabriele Lieske actually did not inherit the property from her mother, Luise Moegelin. Instead, he asserted, Lieske purchased it in 1993 through an arrangement in which she would provide care for her aging parent and cover all the upkeep costs. Her mother died in 2012 at the age of 99.

The judge was not persuaded.

Gideon Taylor, the president of the Claims Conference, said media attention to the case was misplaced. “What the judge did was completely unremarkable,” he said, adding, “This is established principal in law that has been in place since the end of the war. A forced sale is not valid and that which was taken must be returned.”

Whether and when the Lieskes will move out is not clear. The Claims Conference has offered to let Gabriele Lieske remain as a tenant in her childhood home for the rest of her life.

Nath said in an interview earlier this year that Gabriele Lieske had turned down the offer because it would have come with an obligation to pay rent, and her son would not be allowed to live there after her death.

But no terms of a tenancy have been negotiated, Taylor said. “We are certainly willing to work out an arrangement with the family,” he emphasized.

Still, he noted that German law is clear about whether looted property can be inherited. “Where, as here, an Aryanizer took over Jewish property, it does not get passed to the heirs of the Aryanizer,” he said earlier this year.

The Wandlitz case is one of the last of its kind. Holocaust survivors, their heirs or the Claims Conference have received compensation or restitution for thousands of properties in Germany, starting in the west after the war, and in the east after unification.

A few cases are still pending, 79 years after the end of World War II. But some will never be heard, according to restitution lawyer Olaf Ossmann.

“So many families didn’t even start cases in the post-war period” because the legal hurdles and burdens of proof were so daunting, said Ossmann, who was born in Leipzig, Germany, and now lives in Winterthur, Switzerland, where he is president of the Jewish community. The task, he said, was “so depressing, in a way, that they stopped.”

In all, in the last 33 years, Ossmann estimates he has handled some 3,000 property cases — some for prominent German Jewish families, but mostly owners of smaller properties.

Ossmann, who today handles mostly looted art cases, still gets calls from people who found documents from their parents or grandparents and can’t make sense of them. “Fair and just” compensation is not really possible, he said. “The proper term I’m using normally is ‘the best you can get for the moment.’”

Very little is known about the two Jewish women who ran the children’s home. According to the Stolpersteine (Stumbling Block) memorial project, Alice Donat was born in 1898 in Vienna to Robert and Anna Donat, and had two sisters and a brother. She studied education in Berlin and later ran the private kindergarten and Jewish children’s home with Helene Lindenbaum. The two women purchased the property in 1932, according to the district court decision handed down in September 2023.

In his memoir, the late Emanuel Berger, an orphan who resided in the home and who survived the Holocaust, described Donat as loving and strict; she taught the children to sing and dance to her piano accompaniment.

Even less is known about Helene Lindenbaum, other than that she was born in 1888 in Berlin and was married.

When the women sold their property in 1939, about half the payment went to cover their mortgage. It is doubtful that they ever benefited from the rest, as the district court pointed out in its decision last year: A 1938 decree from the Reich and Prussian economics minister stressed the need to “secure Jewish assets” to prevent Jews from fleeing Germany with their money.

According to the Stolpersteine report, Lindenbaum and her husband, who is not named, were to be deported to Theresienstadt in 1943; they volunteered to go on the transport to Auschwitz with the two children from the orphanage, Emanuel Berger and his brother Erwin, but Alice Donat would not hear of it. Instead, Donat stayed with the two boys; they were deported together to Auschwitz in March 1943. Alice Donat and Erwin Berger were murdered in the gas chamber; Emanuel was selected for slave labor and survived.

Helene Lindenbaum, and presumably her husband, were deported from Berlin to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in March 1943, and from there to Auschwitz in October 1944, where Helene was murdered.

In the former East Germany, the process of restitution began after unification in 1990, when a two-year period of claims opened. Where no heirs came forward or were found, the Claims Conference submitted claims as successor at the end of 1992.

In 1998 the Claims Conference finally determined exactly which plot of land had belonged to Donat and Lindenbaum, according to Nath, the Lieskes’ lawyer.

That was when the German government could have informed the Lieskes of the claim, and barred them from selling, Nath said. He added, “Why it took another 17 or 18 years for them to inform the family, we don’t know.”

The Lieskes first learned from the government about the Claims Conference application in 2015, Nath said. They contested it. The court heard the case last September.

Gabriele Lieske told Spiegel magazine she’d rather die than leave the property. Her son felt the same. After all, they said, what happened was not their fault, but a twist of fate — one that ignored the family’s own history of having sheltered Jewish relatives during the war years.

Those relatives were Felix Moegelin’s niece, Margarete, and her daughter Irene, who was born in 1937. Margarete’s Jewish mother, Felix’s sister-in-law, was murdered in the Holocaust, according to the Yad Vashem database. Irene’s father was deported to Minsk and was likely murdered either in a mass shooting or by asphyxiation with motor exhaust fumes.

Meanwhile, as Gabriele Lieske recalls, her grandparents sheltered Margarete and Irene in Wandlitz. In an email to JTA, Lieske recalled that they “hid from the Nazis with us. Irene and I played together in the garden.” The extended family fled together when the Soviets took the area in the spring of 1945, but eventually returned, she said. Eventually, “Aunt Margarete and Irene moved back to Berlin.”

Documents at the Arolsen Archive indicate that Margarete and Irene both emigrated to the United States.

Gabriele Lieske only remembers her aunt and cousin visiting one more time, after the Berlin Wall went up in 1961: Margarete and Irene — then with a newborn child — visited Margarete’s sister Ella in Berlin. Irene’s husband also visited once, Gabriele Lieske said.

The Lieske family’s character, if this story proves it, was not relevant to the legal case, according to last year’s court ruling. “The fact put forward by the plaintiffs that the buyer hid a Jewish citizen on his property and thus saved her from the Nazis’ attacks has no connection with the purchase contract of February 8, 1939, and is therefore irrelevant here,” the court said.

Though no one has blamed the Lieske family for what their forefather did, several readers of the Spiegel article, at least, saw the legal process as unfair punishment.

“Can you still blame families if they live in such houses for the umpteenth generation?” asked one reader on the social media platform X. “Maybe without knowing how their ancestors got the house?”

Some have stood up for the Jewish victims. “If you accept an inheritance, you also accept the debts,” said one commenter on X, referring to German law, which transfers both assets and liabilities to heirs.

“Of course it’s bad for the current residents of the house, but in the end it doesn’t belong to them,” said another. “It never belonged to them. It was stolen — ripped from people’s cold, dead hands. Who wants to live in something like that anyway?”

(Another Wandlitz property burdened by the Holocaust, the opulent former estate of Third Reich propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, is on the market now. The German government, which owns it, has been unable to find anyone to assume ownership even for free.)

Some Spiegel readers suggested that Jews were inappropriately profiting from the Holocaust. “That’s almost 90 years,” one wrote. “It has to end at some point.”

Ossmann said the tendency of the German public to portray those who benefitted from the looting as the victims had always been a problem. Roughly two decades ago, he recalled, German citizens physically attacked journalists who were reporting on a restitution case. The reporters barricaded themselves inside a supermarket “to avoid being beaten to death,” Ossmann said.

The anger and resentment felt by some descendants of “Aryanizers” doesn’t fade, he said. But “if you take the perspective of the [original] victim, you would easily understand that it didn’t make a difference what you lost first or last, if you lost it by sale or confiscation or by whatever means,” he said. “Because at the end you lost everything.”

The Claims Conference uses most proceeds from sales of unclaimed Jewish property to help Holocaust survivors in need with medicine, food and home care. It recently determined that there were 245,000 survivors still alive around the world.

One German commentator, the columnist Gunnar Schupelius, recently cited them in his assessment of the Wandlitz case.

“The Lieske family feels that the return is an injustice. It is really hard for them. But what happened is what happened,” he wrote. “We who are alive today are not to blame for the genocide of the Jews, but we should take care of the survivors and their descendants. That is only fair.”

Taylor urged an interpretation of the case that is divorced from broader debates about the lengths Germany goes to atone for the Holocaust.

“This is not about compensation from the German government and how much should be given to Holocaust survivors,” he said. “It’s about a fundamental principle of German law, never mind morality or justice. And nobody has challenged that.”

[leiascully]

Here's the thing about Love Is Dead Anon and some other people in fandom (not just this one, but across fandom) that worries me: these characters are NOT people. They are NOT real. They are MADE UP. If you want to write your story about how they end up with someone else who's "better" or "healthier" for them, go ahead, but that's NOT the story TXF is telling. Scully doesn't exist outside of this story to make different choices. Mulder doesn't exist outside of this story to make different choices. If things that happened to them in canon didn't happen to them, yeah, they might end up different, but again, that's the story TXF is telling.

Mulder is simultaneously exhibiting toxic/tonic masculinity. He threatens and hits prisoners; he makes jokes about assault; he's gentle with children and kind to victims. He lies, he steals, and he defaces government property. He respects Scully absolutely, and he leaves her in the lurch multiple times. He watches porn in the office (very Hostile Work Environment) and he won't get her a desk; he loves sitting next to her and he prepares slide shows to entertain Scully. That's the story.

Scully wants kids; she's not ready for kids; she loves her kids so much that she lets them go; she disavows William/Jackson as her son. She's kind and thoughtful. She's distant and bitter. She kicks ass and gets kidnapped. She loves her family and she rarely sees them. She believes so absolutely in science that she discounts the evidence in front of her. She's maybe psychic but she doesn't want to be; she's immortal and she's almost died multiple times; she's a doctor but she eats bee pollen for some kind of imaginary health benefits.

That's the story being told. And we love them because they're very human: full of contradictions just like we are. They can't make different choices, even when they're not the best choices, because they're not real. The only thing that exists is the narrative. Can you disregard canon and make your own? Sure. We've all done it. But this idea that characters have actual agency, that you can mistreat people who aren't real by writing the "wrong" stories. Stories have power and influence, undeniably, but they are still made up. These people and these situations are only real within the parameters of this fiction.

Whether it's your favorite thing or not, Scully and Mulder being in love is presented as the logical ending of this story. It's a happy ending for them. It's the ending they both chose. That's true love to me.

[hackernewsrobot]

US government agency argues that money isn't property–so it can take yours

https://reason.com/2025/01/31/the-government-says-money-isnt-property-so-it-can-take-yours/

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Tamar Sternthal

In another stroke of ludicrousness, Palestinian-American Rima Rafidi-Kern is quoted without challenge: “We’re the original Christians.” That’s a bald-faced lie. The original Christians were converted Jews. Jesus himself was a Jew, an inconvenient reality of ancient Jewish indigeneity belying the “settler-colonialist” canard.

GOSHAY, A reporter of local Midwestern affairs, loses her way in Mideast coverage, flailing even with basic nomenclature. “Palestine – also known as Israel,” she confounds the no-longer existent Palestine Mandate with Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.

She bungles the 1947 United Nations plan as “partitioning the territory between the new State of Israel, the kingdom of Jordan and Egypt, and the exclusively Palestinian Gaza Strip.” In fact, the Partition Plan had nothing to do with Jordan or Egypt. As the UN explained: “The plan envisages the division of Palestine into three parts: a Jewish state, an Arab State, and the city of Jerusalem, to be placed under an international trusteeship system.”

The proposed Arab state included not only the Gaza Strip but also the West Bank and a huge chunk of what is now central and even southern Israel (including the city of Beersheba), along with a significant patch of land in the north, encompassing Acre and Nahariya.

But in a colossal misjudgment that sealed their people’s unfortunate fate for generations, the Palestinian Arab leadership rejected the seminal Partition Plan and the surrounding Arab countries attacked the nascent Jewish state. Arab leadership in Haifa, Jerusalem, Tiberias, and other locations encouraged residents to flee, resulting in the Palestinian refugee crisis.

Goshay neglects to mention these key historical events, choosing not to intrude on her interviewees’ uninterrupted soliloquy of singular Israeli culpability for Palestinian displacement.

Moreover, Goshay piles on in her own voice: “Palestinians argue that Israel’s Zionist government has trampled on” Balfour Declaration concerns for protection of Palestinian-owned land and religious rights. “They point to the more than 700,000 Palestinians who were displaced in 1948, with many ending up in refugee camps.”

The journalist’s exoneration of Palestinians for any responsibility reaches the reductio ad absurdum in her depiction of Hamas as thwarted peace activists forced into violence by Israel. Rami Hamdan said, “Hamas began with peaceful demonstrations,” intones the credulous reporter about an organization whose antisemitic founding charter calls “to fight the Jews and kill them.”

“The Palestinian people tried the Martin Luther King way, the way of no violence; they tried it,” Goshay quotes Hamdan of Canton. Apparently, the untold early MLK chapter of Palestinian history has mysteriously been erased from all historical memory and archives, wrongly replaced instead with a bloody trail of hijackings, bombings, and terror at the Olympics.

In this alternate reality, “Benjamin Netanyahu encouraged Hamas to begin because he did not want the PLO.” So talented was the young Netanyahu that he apparently pulled off this feat from New York where he served as ambassador to the United Nations during the time of the Hamas terror organization’s founding.

Goshay’s grasp of present-day reality is equally tenuous. Apparently unaware that more than 90% of West Bank Palestinians live under their own Palestinian Authority government, Goshay broadcasts her ignorance: “Palestinians cannot purchase property in the West Bank. Palestinian vehicles are required to display special license plates, and drivers are restricted to certain roads.”