#Tunisian Army

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"[left] ITALIAN TANK IS ROAD BLOCK

[right] BRITISH GUARDS DON'T EVEN LOOK BACK AS 2,000 ITALIAN PRISONERS DOCILELY FOLLOW THEM." - from the Toronto Star. April 22, 1943. Page 2.

[workersolidarity]

🇹🇳🇵🇸 🚨

TUNISIANS RALLY FOR A CEASEFIRE IN GAZA AT AMERICAN EMBASSY IN TUNIS

📹 Protesters rally in front of the American embassy in Tunis, the Tunisian capital on Sunday, to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, a halt in weapons supplies to the Israeli entity, and to stand in solidarity with Palestinians under siege, blockade and bombardment by the Zionist occupation army for the last six consecutive months.

#source

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[goldenandhappy]

In remembrance of 1985 🇵🇸 🇹🇳

On October 1st, 1985, Israeli occupation army fighter jets bombed my country: Tunisia, a sovereign state.

The fighter jets proceeded to drop bombs, each weighing approximately 1 T, over the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in Hammam Chatt, south of the capital.

68 people were killed: 50 Palestinians and 18 Tunisians, and more than a hundred were injured.

Those are the stories they hid from you.

[ceresfromnationstates]

Henry's condensed backstory (Fan canon)

Related post: Henry's ref sheet.

Born in the city of Carlsbad, New Mexico, Henry was born in late 1991 to a middle income family who had just moved from Provo 1 year after he was born. An only child, Henry was fortunate enough to have a loving family that rarely gets into fights even to this day.

From a young age, Henry was known to be a quiet kid and also a troublemaker, but despite the numerous bruises and disciplinary actions he got for his behavior, he continued doing what he did best, mainly out of the sheer fun and thrill he gets from it. Though Henry did have a bit of an unsavory reputation, he also formed a close circle of friends with his other schoolmates and neighborhood kids, something that he would strive to uphold for as long as he could.

By middle school, Henry started moving away from causing trouble and focus more on making friends, as well as learning to stand up to the tougher kids. He also developed a knack for picking up abandoned money that he found and would later use to buy things whenever he's short on pocket money, over time, he would go on to even picking pennies on sight. By now, his greed is now growing.

Henry now knows how to live on his own by the time he graduated to high school, meaning that he could do more things in private without his parents' prying eyes. He had moved on from taking just pennies on the ground to small-time theft, mostly small items from stores or somebody's unattended trinkets in one place or another, suffice it to say, he was never ashamed of it.

It was also at this time where he vividly remembers experiencing his first temporal phenomenon, what he describes as "the same day repeating over, and over, and over, and over again, but increasingly fast forwarded every time I wake up again". Though he'd considered the possibility of it being a very realistic dream, Henry adamantly believes that the event was a temporal phenomenon of sorts, though he could not explain how he acquired the number of supernatural abilities he would soon have.

By the time he went to college in Austin, Henry's habitual stealing had died down, as he was more occupied with his studies than he does with the former. At this time, he also met his two close friends Calvin and Chris, where they would continue being close friends even today.

A year after he finished college, Henry is now 19 and back in Arizona, now living on his own in Phoenix. Unfortunately his part-time job didn't pay him very well and he is short on cash, so he had to resort to stealing. This attempt failed, and he soon found himself in West Mesa Penitentiary, where he would somehow escape after 9 months spent in there.

Some time after his close brush with the law, Henry swears to never commit thievery again. This wouldn't last very long as just 1½ years later, he would steal the Tunisian Diamond and reap his ill-gotten rewards. Henry even has the audacity to call the heist "The single most greatest achievement in my life as a petty criminal.".

Eventually, he would be recruited by the Federal Government to assist Cpt. Hubert Galeforce in taking down the Toppat Clan's airship division from the inside. Afterwards, he was granted amnesty by the government for his service.

Life would go on normally for another 4 years before he was taken from his home to rural British Columbia to be brought in front of the warden of The Wall and imprisoned, where he also met with Ellie, where the both of then would go on to spark an all out riot in the complex and successfully flee from it in the process.

2 days after the inmate outbreak, The Wall is put under the control of the Canadian Forces and Royal Canadian Mounted Police, consisting of a detachment of the Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy as well as several elements of the RCMP. After this, chaos energy levels in southwestern British Columbia have dropped significantly.

Henry and Ellie, who by now had crossed into South America and have been closely followed by surviving Wall Group elements had intended to join the remnants of the Toppat Clan and give the Romanian Ruby back to them, but at the last second, defected to U.S. forces and took down the Toppats once and for all. Both Henry and Ellie are then officially pardoned by the Government and offered monetary compensation.

It is because of Henry's actions that the last remnants of the Toppat Clan are now scattered across Europe and North America, and Wall Group are now under investigation by Interpol.

It has been one year since. Life for Henry and Ellie have been relatively normal ever since their escapade in South America.

Or is it?

Masterpost | Henry's main page

[androgynealienfemme]

"I know what femme is, and it's about honour.

Femmes are my oxygen. My water. I have fallen for queer masculinity that still gets it up for femmes since I was sixteen, but you, you are my daily love letter. You are my Trader Joe's dried chili mango, $1.99 in my purse, every day. Something sweet and fiery and full of flavour; I can reach for it, and it will feed me, sustain me, keep me going. Every day, gorgeous, perfect, needed. I reach for you. Femmes are my wealth. If I shine, it's because of you.

When I met you, I fell in love with you utterly. Never wanted to fuck you, not once (didn't let myself), but I fell in fierce, femme, best-friend-forever love with you. Dizzy. Delish. Tasty. Luscious. All the words that are satisfying in your mouth.

I friend-dated you. Prepped my outfits careful because I knew you would notice every little thing about them, love them best. Got myself ready like I got myself ready for dates with lovers, ready to be on and perfect and attentive. The first time we hung out, your teal suede pointy flats matched my teal knotted peep-toe slight heels, and it felt like a sign. We lay giggling in your Craigslist four-poster iron bed heaped with pillows and scarves from the homelands. Took two hours to get our outfits together, three to put on five layers of eyeshadow, were five hours late to pick up the shark we were trying to bust out of her horrible relationship, who was pissed, tapping her foot waiting on the corner. Made it to the gay Arab club on Market and 6th, and dirty danced together like it wasn't a thing.

You disappeared, and I found you chain-smoking outside, flirting with the Tunisian butch union organizer. One of us got finger fucked through the crotch hole of her fishnets in the corner. But the best part of the night was the smooth ride home in your black Honda Accord that had nothing wrong with it. Together, dizzy and happy from the night out, safe and alive. Whichever one of us was less drunk would get us home over the bridge safe. I got it down, memorized how to drive home next to everyone else drunk-driving home to Oakland. The quiet-- us next to each other after a night of being drunk wild girls with some kind of uncertain wind between our thighs -- it's all I needed. That was what I loved about us: that we were drunk and insane and loving, screaming, laughing, half-naked brown girls. it's just like Lisa Jones said. Give me an army, a gang of girls. A million sistas ain't enough.

My pack, my prayer, my everyday, my everyday till it blows up and out. Sometimes I feel like I've been writing the same story since I started writing, about loves that stays and love that blows up no matter how careful you tend it.

...

When you left me for good, I mourned for you worse than I had for lost lovers. Because femmes are each other's wealth. Riches. Gold and fake gems that flint purple, amber. Food in the pantry. Massage on tired brown limbs. The effortless bliss of each other. My rock, my oxygen, my dearest and most passionate love.

You left, and I am hungry. And I will feed myself and feed others and be fed. But part of the hunger's consummation is this. Because femme is about honour. And I honour this love."

"Never Be Hungry Again" by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, On Butch and Femme: Compiled Readings, (edited by I.M. Epstein) (2017)

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 7.20 (after 1940)

1940 – Denmark leaves the League of Nations. 1940 – California opens its first freeway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway. 1941 – Soviet leader Joseph Stalin consolidates the Commissariats of Home Affairs and National Security to form the NKVD and names Lavrentiy Beria its chief. 1944 – World War II: Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. 1950 – Cold War: In Philadelphia, Harry Gold pleads guilty to spying for the Soviet Union by passing secrets from atomic scientist Klaus Fuchs. 1950 – After a month-long campaign, the majority of North Korea's Air Force was destroyed by anti-communist forces. 1951 – King Abdullah I of Jordan is assassinated by a Palestinian while attending Friday prayers in Jerusalem. 1954 – Germany: Otto John, head of West Germany's secret service, defects to East Germany. 1960 – Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) elects Sirimavo Bandaranaike Prime Minister, the world's first elected female head of government. 1960 – The Polaris missile is successfully launched from a submarine, the USS George Washington, for the first time. 1961 – French military forces break the Tunisian siege of Bizerte. 1964 – Vietnam War: Viet Cong forces attack the capital of Định Tường Province, Cái Bè, killing 11 South Vietnamese military personnel and 40 civilians (30 of whom are children). 1968 – The first International Special Olympics Summer Games are held at Soldier Field in Chicago, with about 1,000 athletes with intellectual disabilities. 1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 11's crew successfully makes the first human landing on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility. Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to walk on the Moon six and a half hours later. 1969 – A cease fire is announced between Honduras and El Salvador, six days after the beginning of the "Football War". 1974 – Turkish invasion of Cyprus: Forces from Turkey invade Cyprus after a coup d'état, organised by the dictator of Greece, against president Makarios. 1976 – The American Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars. 1977 – The Central Intelligence Agency releases documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealing it had engaged in mind-control experiments. 1977 – The Johnstown flood of 1977 kills 84 people and causes millions of dollars in damages. 1981 – Somali Airlines Flight 40 crashes in the Balad District of Somalia, killing 40 people. 1982 – Hyde Park and Regent's Park bombings: The Provisional IRA detonates two bombs in Hyde Park and Regent's Park in central London, killing eight soldiers, wounding forty-seven people, and leading to the deaths of seven horses. 1985 – The government of Aruba passes legislation to secede from the Netherlands Antilles. 1989 – Burma's ruling junta puts opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. 1992 – Václav Havel resigns as president of Czechoslovakia. 1992 – A Tupolev Tu-154 crashes during takeoff from Tbilisi International Airport, killing all 24 aboard and four more people on the ground. 1999 – The Chinese Communist Party begins a persecution campaign against Falun Gong, arresting thousands nationwide. 2005 – The Civil Marriage Act legalizes same-sex marriage in Canada. 2012 – James Holmes opened fire at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 and injuring 70 others. 2012 – Syrian civil war: The People's Protection Units (YPG) capture the cities of Amuda and Efrîn without resistance. 2013 – Seventeen government soldiers are killed in an attack by FARC revolutionaries in the Colombian department of Arauca. 2013 – Syrian civil war: The Battle of Ras al-Ayn ends with the expulsion of Islamist forces from the city by the People's Protection Units (YPG). 2015 – The United States and Cuba resume full diplomatic relations after five decades. 2017 – O. J. Simpson is granted parole to be released from prison after serving nine years of a 33-year sentence after being convicted of armed robbery in Las Vegas.

[citizenscreen]

Colonel Frank Capra (right) of the US Army Signal Corps confers with Captain Roy Boulting of the British Army Film Unit on the editing of the film TUNISIAN VICTORY in 1944.

[disregardandfelicity]

(84) Married to the job & (14) Bodyguard AU ☺️

Ok. These are sillier and siller and by that i actually mean deeply overwrought and dramatic and taking the prompt way too seriously lmao. I'm sorry I'm making you read this. BUT nevertheless...

Nicky serves in the Italian army, Joe serves in the Tunisian army. They meet when Italy sends some of its men to help set up some training center/regime/etc. They obvious fall in love but it is FRAUGHT. They are not out, and there's no way they can have any sort of meaningful relationship, even a clandestine one, and stay in the roles they have now. Their schedules do not leave a lot of room for sneaking around, especially with someone in another country.

Joe is willing to go for it anyway. He is an incurable romantic, he's never felt this way before, he's going to risk it all and proposes they both resign their posts as soon as is feasible. That's all - he's not saying let's publicly come out, just start taking steps to have more flexible careers and stay mostly closeted but still be with each other.

Nicky is not on board.

This career is important to him. He became disillusioned with the church as a young adult and flipped that unquestioning devotion and loyalty and adherence to a new organization that would take him and has served this one just as fastidiously as he had intended to serve the church.

Joe is heartbroken. They part, and that's that.

15 years later

Joe left the army as soon as he could anyway and decided to leave his home. He needed to live somewhere where being gay was less of a target on his back and of late resides in London. He started writing and ended up being quite good and wrote a couple successful books, the latest of which has been very controversial. It's fiction, but its depictions of homosexuality and religion have not been a hit among all crowds. There's some growing vitriol online, and it's to the point where his publisher is hiring him a bodyguard and he is begrudgingly allowing it.

And who should show up to protect him? Nicky of course.

Tension, tension, make out, regret, attack attempt at an event, make up, make out, ✨♥️happily ever after♥️✨ The End.

Footnote: Italy apparently does provide support to Tunisia to develop the capabilities of its army. I don't know the details of who or what they send/provide, but lets assume its Nicky.

[mariacallous]

Among all Arab civil society organizations, the Nobel Prize-winning Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) has arguably done the most to defend the ideals of democracy in the region. It was a key guarantor of Tunisia’s transition to democracy after 2010 and continues to stand up to authoritarian President Kais Saied, refusing to support the sham parliamentary elections he orchestrated last December and January.

What is less well understood is that the UGTT has contributed to the fiscal and economic crisis that enabled Saied’s authoritarian rise. It has defended the interests of relatively privileged insiders on the labor market—public sector employees—while doing little or nothing for Tunisia’s vast army of unemployed and informally employed outsiders who work in the private sector without formal contracts or social security. This has contributed to economic inequality, social frustration, and pervasive economic inefficiency.

The situation is typical of a general economic ailment throughout the Arab world outside of the oil-rich Gulf: static systems by which the state protects shrinking groups of insiders while exposing outsiders to the brute forces of the market, thereby encouraging inequality and undermining economic dynamism, productivity, and growth. Countries as diverse as Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco share this lopsided approach to capitalism.

In all these cases, the state protects insiders not only on the labor market but also among businesses, which are broadly divided into crony firms with deep connections to the state on one hand and marginal, informal firms on the other. The latter receive little state support and, if anything, try to avoid the government’s heavy bureaucracy.

As I argue elsewhere, the Arab world’s economic development issue is not simply one of “too much state,” as many pro-market reformers argue, or state withdrawal, as leftist critics advocate, but instead of the state’s very uneven presence: overprotecting some while neglecting and marginalizing others. This uneven system is ensconced through vested interests that form key political constituencies: namely, state employees and crony networks in business.

Outsiders, by contrast, are much less well recognized as political constituency as they are socially marginal, busy with daily survival and badly organized. The static nature of Arab economies gives few incentives to firms or workers—whether insiders or outsiders—to upgrade productivity or skills, leading to stagnant economies.

To reach a more inclusive social contract and a new growth model, the region needs a form of egalitarian liberalization: a transformation of insider privileges into general social safety and support mechanisms that might be less generous but are more broadly available, safeguarding social inclusion as well as fair competition and economic dynamism.

For the time being, such fundamental change is not in sight. The region’s insider-outsider divides have deep historical roots in the ambitious, state-driven economic development programs of the post-World War II era. Especially in populist republics such as Algeria, Egypt, and Syria, these programs involved control over the private sector as well as larger state apparatuses and more extensive state employment than in any other region of the global south, a legacy that is difficult to change.

Public sector workers are a core historical constituency of Arab regimes and their relative privileges have survived successive rounds of austerity and partial liberalization surprisingly well. Across the region, government payrolls maintain a state-dependent middle class. The shares of public workers in both the total workforce and among workers with a formal contract are far above the levels in other developing regions, the result of historical promises—sometimes enshrined in law—to offer state jobs to all graduates.

Most insider jobs in government allow at best a modest lifestyle, and in some cases public sector workers have experienced substantial declines in real incomes. Yet hourly wages remain higher than in the private sector (including private employees with formal contracts), which is unusual in comparison to other regions. In Latin America, for example, a more fluid labor market means there is no systematic public sector wage premium. Job security in the Arab public sector is very high and welfare benefits, especially pensions, are much better than in the private sector.

Politically driven insider employment can impose large efficiency costs in the public sector. Overemployment is particularly rampant in state-owned enterprises: In 2021, Tunisair owned 26 aircraft, of which only seven were operational, while employing 7,600 people—more than 1,000 per functioning plane. The UGTT has resisted all attempts to consolidate the payroll.

Maintaining such insider constituencies is expensive. Tunisia has one of the world’s highest spending ratios for public salaries, reaching 15.1 percent of GDP in 2022. At the same time, fiscal constraints restrict new hiring, which means that young jobseekers have scant chances of getting a government job. Given weak job creation in the private sector, most young Arabs are either unemployed or stuck in precarious and badly paid informal jobs such as street vending or driving. Labor force surveys show unusually low mobility between insider and outsider status: The informally employed remain so for a very long time, while public sector insiders almost never leave their jobs.

High spending on insider benefits leaves few resources to support private labor market outsiders, who receive little or no social assistance. Spending on benefits not tied to formal employment is lower than in all other world regions. Non-contributory pensions, unemployment benefits, and cash grant systems are underdeveloped, leaving the weakest behind.

The frustration of outsiders has shaped Arab politics. In Tunisia in particular, outsiders have been prominent in social protests. Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi, whose self-immolation triggered the Arab uprisings of 2010-11, was a quintessential outsider. Yet political feedback loops have kept the current system in place: Regimes are afraid of touching insider privileges given their long-standing reliance on the state-employed middle class as a core political constituency.

To the extent that political mobilization is possible, insiders are also better organized—most notably in Tunisia through the UGTT, but also in Egypt during its brief liberal window after the fall of then-President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, when newly emerging independent unions mostly represented state employees.

Even when military dictator Abdel Fattah al-Sisi took over Egypt in 2013, the one law his docile parliament refused to ratify contained civil service reform measures. Outsiders stage occasional demonstrations, but they seldom demand systemic changes to labor markets or welfare systems. They rather tend to ask for government jobs—demanding to be made insiders rather than overturning the system.

Meanwhile, thickets of protective regulation inherited from the post-war era of state-driven development facilitate corrupt networks between state and business elites. Licensing and inspection requirements, state-controlled access to land and credit, discretionary subsidies, and trade protection remain pervasive.

State elites use such tools to protect insiders while making it difficult for the vast army of unconnected firms to compete. Empirical research on Arab cronyism shows the staggering scale of insider privilege. In Egypt, “politically connected” companies under Mubarak accounted for only 11 percent of total employment but held 60 percent of total net profits among listed firms.

The 2010-11 uprisings were in no small measure directed at corrupt business barons, yet they have done little to remove crony networks. Egyptian steel tycoon Ahmed Ezz worked as a widely despised political fixer for Mubarak and was one of most high-profile arrests after Mubarak’s fall. Yet he has since left prison, and his companies, which benefit from cheap state-provided energy, are reporting bumper profits.

As in Arab labor markets, there is very low mobility among firms between insider and outsider status. Arab companies stay small and informal for longer than in other regions, while large firms go out of business less often than elsewhere. Even more than in the case of labor, insider companies are better organized and able to influence state decisions. When markets are formally liberalized, notably in the context of international trade agreements, insider firms often manage to lobby for new discriminatory rules in other areas of regulation to safeguard their privileges.

Sheltered insider firms have few incentives to become competitive, while outsiders have little opportunity to grow and innovate. The static insider-outsider divides in the Arab private sector contribute to low productivity, weak innovation, and poor export performance. One byproduct of this structural weakness is the scarcity of good, formal jobs in the private sector, which in turn reinforces the Arab middle classes’ reliance on and demand for state jobs.

Together with weak state education systems, this results in weak skill levels across Arab economies. This further reduces the chances of outsiders to find good jobs—and makes insiders cling to their privileges further, given their lack of competitiveness on a more open market.

In sum, the widespread narrative that neo-liberal, pro-market reforms have led to inequality, corruption, and economic stagnation across the Arab world is at best incomplete. While mismanaged and self-dealing liberalization measures have contributed to all these problems, the abiding, deep protection for select groups of insiders from the market is just as problematic and distortive.

Unless a new social contract is found, the inefficiency of the current system will make everyone worse off in the long run, including insiders the state can no longer afford to support. Egypt has travelled the furthest down this road towards general pauperization. Repeat rounds of currency devaluation have started to bring insiders in the public sector workforce down to the level of outsiders (while generally preserving the interests of crony businesses).

While Sisi’s regime has made attempts to create more inclusive social safety mechanisms, these have remained modest due to the regime’s fiscal constraints and its inability to address the major inefficiencies created by cronyism in the private sector.

What the region instead needs is an egalitarian liberalization, under which insiders give up some or all of their privileges while the state steps up its support for outsiders through more systematic investments in universal social security, entrepreneurship, and training.

Public sectors could be downsized through voluntary golden handshake policies, early pension packages, and assistance programs for finding private jobs—all coupled with state wage support for lower earners in the private sector to reduce wage inequality and combat poverty more effectively. Crony insiders in the private sector must be exposed to real competition, with state elites building a broader support base among the private sector at large.

Negotiating a new social contract along these lines will require political leadership and the willingness to recognize outsiders who tend not to mobilize against the state—by now a majority in all Arab countries—as a key political constituency. This is harder in the region’s authoritarian environment, with its limited or absent party competition and tight controls over civil society. By contrast, in Latin America, new welfare policies with a stronger focus on informal workers often emerged in the wake of democratization.

Short of a miraculous return to democracy in the Arab world, one can only hope that its authoritarian rulers understand how the current system gradually erodes their own support base: They are increasingly unable to maintain the old social contract with labor market insiders, a shrinking constituency.

It would be in rulers’ own long-term interests to start devoting more attention to outsiders who, while not organized as a lobby, are capable of spontaneous unrest that has critically contributed to past unrest and revolutions. Rulers would also do well to remember that citizens’ hatred of unproductive crony capitalist insiders was a key factor that brought people into the streets during the last wave of uprisings.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"HISTORIC MEETING -Dramatic highspot of Montgomery's sweep from El Alamein to Tunisia was this historic meeting between armored patrols of the British 8th Army and troops of the United States 2nd Corps. Tommies and Doughboys waltzed, pounded each other on the backs, swapped chocolates and cigarettes." - from The Province (Vancouver). May 8, 1943. Page 9.

[royal-confessions]

“After reading all these things about anti monarchy protests, IDK what awaits for JRF in 2023. It seems like none of the Kings siblings and relatives are in support of upcoming weddings may be bcoz of the tension. They support him becoming he is in power. One of the political researcher from NY (can't remember clearly), said that KA & QR have chances to flee the country like Egyptian & Tunisian presidents. But the burden is for their kids. They did nothing wrong. But have to face a lot of critics” - Submitted by Anonymous

“One article mentioned that people are now fearless to face anything as the cost of living doubled and unemployment increased from 25% to 50% amoung youth. In such situation spending millions on two weddings, even if the have personal wealth, is not a good idea. I think that is why JRF didn't mention the wedding dates. At the sametime, main local tribal leaders and some retired army officers also said that it is unlikely for JRF to survive any more. But I really support hussein to become the king” - Submitted by Anonymous

“I feel KA and QR is hurrying for CPH and Iman’s marriage is due to the country's situation. Arrest of anas al jamal and removal of the MP belong to prominent jordanian tribe, angered people. To distract the world media these engagements were announced. But the situation is going worse. state buildings were burnt for the MP and young people are gathering to demand the release of jamal. IDK how JRF going to calm down people. So that they can invite dignitaries and foreign leaders to the wedding.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“Too much of show off good for nothing. I feel QR should be more Conservative about CPH wedding. Gushing about her in-laws in interviews, creating Wikipedia page are bit top much. Hussein is not married yet not the date is set but mentioning rajwa as his spouse in wiki bio of hussein doesn't seems a nice idea. Her PR is more like a celebrity than a queen. Already Jordan is burning. protests and anti monarchy activists are increasing day by day. In this situation I don't think it is nice to do so.” - Submitted by Anonymous

[hully-gully-gee]

I wrote down what the Owl says!

I am positive this has been done before, but I wrote down what the Owl says in this spoof video, and it contains some really good advice.

Hoo hoot! Little Link… Look up here!

It appears that the time has finally come for you to start your adventure!

You will encounter many hardships ahead…

Like playing with your Legos one day and realizing it's not fun anymore.

Coming to grips with the concept of time.

Gradually losing the freedom whick exists in knowing nothing.

And learning that your friends are relative to where you are in life.

Most friends only stay for a season, and usually because of your shared interests.

But when you move on or your priorities change, so will a majority of your friends.

That is your fate.

Don't feel discouraged, even during the toughest times!

(Link is shown)

One day you'll find out that you owe the IRS $3,000.

Then you realize you misread the letter and you actually owe $30,000.

And you'll learn that Chipotle isn't nearly as healthy as you thought

Sure they list the calories, fat, carbs, cholesterol, and the 0g of sugar on the menu but they omit the amount

of sodium drenched in everything. A single burrito with carnitas, cilantro- lime rice, sour cream,

roasted chili corn salsa and cheese will fill you up with almost a day's worth of sodium.

Enjoy your high blood pressure, stroke, heart failure, osteoporosis, stomach cancer, kidney disease,

kidney stones and headaches. Maybe this isn't that great of an alternative to McDonalds after all.

Convenience isn't very healthy.

You have to eat 3 times a day for the rest of your life. You should learn how to do it well.

You'd be surprised to see how much better your life goes when you eat well.

That is your fate.

Don't feel discouraged, even during the toughest times!

(Link mashes the buttons)

And learning that, despite all the government gorges out of you with taxes, they still waste billions of our

hard earned dollars on programs like studying mountain lions on treadmills, injecting hamsters with steroids and

making them fight, and studying beer koozies.

Beer koozies

The thing that keeps your drink cold. The $1.3 million dollar study conducted by 2 bright University of

Washing students was to determine if beer koozies work.

It turns out they do work. Groundbreaking stuff.

Then there's accidentally spending $28 million on green camoflage uniforms for the Afghan National Army.

Afghanistan is 98 percent desert.

They wasted $2 million attempting to increase trust between Tunisian political parties and citizens.

$10,000,000 on "green growth" in Peru.

$2,120,040,355.35 (italics) attempting (/italics) to turn and (their typo, not mine) abandoned mental hospital into a Department of Homeland Security HQ.

And don't even get me started on the billion dollar Medicare schemes.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid paid $48,000,000,000.00 in improper payments in Fiscal Year 2018.

Since Medicare is such a big program, it opens up all sorts of possibilities for abuse.

It's all in Dr. Rand Paul's Summer 2019 Edition of "The Waste Report."

[Link mashing buttons some more]

Go straight this way and you will see Hyrule Castle.

You will meet a princess there…

If you are lost and don't know which way to go, look at the Map.

The areas you have explored will be shown on the map.

A map is a diagrammatic representation of an area of land or sea showing physical features,

cities, roads, etc. The word "map" can also be used to talk about a chart or drawing that shows relationships

between ideas, people, events, or anything else you can think about.

Press START to enter the subscreens and Z or R to find the map.

On the map subscreen, you will also see a flashing dot showing you which way to go next.

Did you get all that? ==> No Yes

Hoo hoot! Little Link… Look up here!

It appears that the time has finally come for you to start your adventure!

You will encounter many hardships ahead…

Like playing with your Legos one day and realizing it's not fun anymore.

Coming to grips with the concept of time.

Gradually losing the freedom which exists in knowing nothing.

And learning that your friends are relative to where you are in life.

Most friends only stay for a season, and usually because of your shared interests.

But when you move on or your priorities change, so will a majority of your friends.

That is your fate.

[Link mashing buttons, and screaming]

Did you know the hashtag symbol is technically called an octothorpe?

Or that the 100 folds in a chef's hat represent 100 ways to cook an egg?

And that some cats are allergic to people?

And that M&M stands for Mars and Murrie?

And that you can hear a blue whale's heartbeat from more than 2 miles away?

And that the odds of getting a royal flush are exactly 1 in 649,740?

And that the lyrebird can mimic almost any sounds it hears, including chainsaws?

And that the speed of a computer mouse is measured in "Mickeys?"

And did you know that sushi actually originated in Southeast Asia, and spread to South China before being

(blocked by ocarina) introduced to Japan some time around the 8th century?

And did you know that a male emperor penguin can go without eating for 120 days?

And did you know that the smell you smell after it rains is called "petichor?"

[Ocarina smashes into Owl's face]

[timelesstimesgoneby]

Go For Broke

Gung Ho

War Head

The Devil's Cavaliers

Escape from Angola

The Mark of the Hawk

The Proud and the Damned

Yellowneck

Three Came Home

The Torch

Hell in Normandy

The Adventures of Tartu

Captain Scarlett

The Last Chance

The Bushwackers

This Is the Army

Kansas Pacific

The Avenger

Blood on the Sun

Flying Blind

Eagle in a Cage

The Big Lift

British Intelligence

Submarine Alert

Appointment in Tokyo

The Battle of Britain

The Memphis Belle

Divide and Conquer

The Battle of China

The Battle of Russia

Desert Victory

The Great Battle of the Volga

Prelude to War

The Nazis Strike

Attack in the Pacific

Attack! The Battle for New Britain

After Mein Kampf

Nuremberg Trials

The Secret Life of Adolf Hitler

Combat America

December 7, 1941

Payoff in the Pacific

True Glory

Tunisian Victory

The KGB Connections

Report from the Aleutians

The Stilwell Road

Submarine Warfare

Thunderbolt

To the Shores of Iwo Jima

Marines at Tarawa-Return to Guam

The Battle of San Pietro

The Pacific in Eruption

Awakening in the Pacific

The Rise of the Japanese Empire

America Goes to War in the Pacific

The U.S. and the Philippines

The Navy Holds - 1942

Guadalcanal: America's First Offensive

War in the North: The Aleutians

The Road Back: New Guinea

up the solomon's ladder bougainville

Attack in the Central Pacific:

Makin and Tarawa

The War at Sea

Speeding Up the Attack:

The Marshalls

Stepping Stones to the Philippines

Battle for the Marianas

The War in the China - Burma

India Theatre

Palau: The Fight for Bloody Nose Ridge

MacArthur Returns to the Philippines

Bloody Iwo

At Japan's Doorstep: Okinawa

The Air War on Japan

the surrounded and occupation of japan

Shiting Tides in the Orient

War in Korea

Prelude to War

America's Unpreparedness

America Goes to War

Platform for Invasion

Africa, Our First Offensive

The Campaign

Rommel Routed

Sicily, Operation Huskey Assault on Italy

Assault on Italy

The GI, Hero of the War

Victory in Italy

Preparation for Invasion

D-Day, August 4th

Beachhead and Breakthrough

Liberation of Paris

Pursuit

The Battle of Supply

The Air War

The Battle of the Bulge

Crossing the Rhine

Overrunning Germany

Victory's Aftermath

Russia

Review

[dan6085]

Chelsea Manning, a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst, leaked a significant amount of classified information to WikiLeaks in 2010. Here are the top 20 most significant leaks:

1. **Collateral Murder Video**: A classified U.S. military video from 2007 showing an Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad, which killed multiple individuals, including two Reuters journalists. The video raised questions about the rules of engagement and the conduct of U.S. forces in Iraq.

2. **Iraq War Logs**: Over 400,000 classified documents detailing the Iraq War from 2004 to 2009. These logs revealed unreported civilian casualties, instances of torture by Iraqi forces, and details of insurgent attacks.

3. **Afghan War Diary**: A collection of over 75,000 documents covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. These documents highlighted the difficulties faced by coalition forces, including friendly fire incidents, civilian casualties, and the influence of Pakistan's ISI in aiding the Taliban.

4. **U.S. Diplomatic Cables**: Around 250,000 diplomatic cables from U.S. embassies worldwide. These cables provided insights into U.S. foreign policy, including candid assessments of world leaders, negotiations, and secret deals.

5. **Guantanamo Files**: Documents detailing the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, including their backgrounds, the reasons for their detention, and assessments of their threat levels. These files shed light on the detention and interrogation practices at Guantanamo.

6. **Rules of Engagement for Iraq**: Classified rules of engagement for U.S. forces in Iraq, detailing when and how force could be used. These rules provided insight into the military's operational conduct and decision-making processes.

7. **Baghdad Airstrike 2007**: A separate video and reports of another airstrike in Baghdad that resulted in civilian casualties, including children. This incident highlighted the ongoing risk to non-combatants in conflict zones.

8. **Cablegate**: The release of over 250,000 diplomatic cables that revealed the inner workings of U.S. diplomacy. These cables exposed various political deals, espionage activities, and corruption in multiple countries.

9. **Apache Helicopter Attack Reports**: Additional documents and videos related to the operations of Apache helicopters in Iraq, providing further evidence of civilian casualties and the military's response to these incidents.

10. **US Military Incident Reports**: Detailed reports of various military incidents in both Iraq and Afghanistan, including friendly fire incidents, accidental bombings, and the deaths of soldiers and civilians.

11. **U.S. Embassy Reports on Corruption**: Cables from U.S. embassies revealing corruption and political machinations in various countries, including Russia, Afghanistan, and African nations. These reports often implicated high-ranking officials and governments.

12. **State Department Cables on Iran**: Documents detailing U.S. concerns and strategies regarding Iran's nuclear program, including diplomatic efforts to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions and regional influence.

13. **Yemen Secret War**: Cables revealing that the U.S. conducted secret military operations in Yemen, with the Yemeni government taking credit for U.S. airstrikes to hide American involvement.

14. **Tunisian Government Corruption**: Cables detailing the corruption of the Tunisian government under President Ben Ali, which contributed to the public discontent leading to the Tunisian Revolution and the broader Arab Spring.

15. **Saudi Arabia and Terrorist Funding**: Documents revealing that wealthy individuals in Saudi Arabia were the primary source of funding for extremist groups, despite official Saudi efforts to curb terrorism financing.

16. **Hillary Clinton’s Orders to Spy on UN**: A cable that showed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered diplomats to collect biometric data and other personal information on United Nations officials.

17. **China and Google**: Cables suggesting that Chinese Politburo officials were behind the hacking of Google's systems in China, part of broader efforts to control the internet and suppress dissent.

18. **Libyan Regime Cables**: Documents providing insights into the inner workings of Muammar Gaddafi's regime in Libya, including details on his security apparatus and efforts to suppress opposition.

19. **Vatican Cables**: Cables detailing the Vatican’s handling of various issues, including the child abuse scandal and its diplomatic relations with other countries.

20. **BP’s Deepwater Horizon**: Cables revealing concerns about BP's safety practices before the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, including issues with the company’s management and oversight of drilling operations.

These leaks had a profound impact on international relations, military policies, and public perceptions of government transparency and accountability.