#U.S. counterparts

[dencyemily]

MicroStrategy's Evolution: Transitioning from Software to Crypto Powerhouse

MicroStrategy's stock has witnessed a remarkable 337% surge in 2023, reaching $536, surpassing industry giants like Nvidia and Meta. CEO Michael Saylor's personal Bitcoin holdings have exceeded $600 million, while MicroStrategy itself holds a substantial $8.69 billion in Bitcoin.

Founded nearly 35 years ago as a business intelligence software firm by Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy has transformed significantly, venturing into the cryptocurrency space. In 2023, its stock outperformed major U.S. counterparts, marking a substantial shift in its market presence.

As of January 12, 2024, with Bitcoin valued at $45,920, Saylor's strategic move into crypto has proven fruitful. His personal Bitcoin holdings of 17,732 BTC, acquired at an average price of $9,882, now value over $600 million. Simultaneously, MicroStrategy holds an impressive 189,150 Bitcoins, purchased at an average price of $31,168, amounting to $8.69 billion.

MicroStrategy's unexpected entry into cryptocurrency began in mid-2020 when, under Saylor's leadership, it allocated $530 million in idle funds towards Bitcoin investments. This strategic decision allowed investors to indirectly access cryptocurrency through the company's stocks, leading to an upward trajectory in its stock value.

However, recent concerns surrounding spot-Bitcoin ETFs have cast a shadow over MicroStrategy's position. The stock has experienced a decline of -5.21%, raising questions and indicating a potential reevaluation by investors.

Despite this setback, MicroStrategy maintains a unique position. While ETFs operate passively, the company has the flexibility to actively leverage its Bitcoin holdings. The impact of this approval on MicroStrategy's future remains uncertain, with only time providing answers.

Michael Saylor, the founder turned executive chairman, observes the consequences of a bold move that has reshaped the company's trajectory. Saylor recently emphasized the significance of potential approval for Spot Bitcoin ETFs, expressing optimism.

Prominent cryptocurrency figure John E. Deaton has approved of Saylor's aggressive approach to acquiring Bitcoin, stating that he believes Saylor is committed to expanding his Bitcoin portfolio, with aspirations to surpass Satoshi Nakamoto's holdings.

[annie-manga]

So, in light of recent/current events- specifically on the topic of homonationalism, I'd like to bring your attention to this song that came out in 2018:

[curiousorigins]

So we all know about the older generation freaking out about the birth decline right? And that one of the reasons has been that they're worried about not enough people around to care for them in their old age.

(Hence one reason why supposedly there was a push to revoke Roe V. Wade because that would magically solve it. [even though lots of women died of birth related complications prior to Roe and now people are literally getting themselves sterilized to prevent that fate.])

But anyways, I have a new theory, it's about real estate. If people are truly dying faster at a significant rate than people are being born, then one, a lot of us will be inheriting property. Two, there may be an excess of real estate very soon, if birth decline trends continue.

What is one of the hardest things in a person's life to attain, property a place to live. Which has definitely been used to control people.

There's also a fact that real estate up until fairly recently was considered one of the safest ways of investing money. Most people would rather sell their home than not pay their mortgage.

What are the two ways that rich people make money without labor or control their workforce (if they're even business owners at all.)?

In interest, via people paying for their mortgages and in owning and renting property. Who's going to bother renting if there's a bunch of houses? How worthwhile will their many acres be if there's a ton of empty houses? Their land won't be gaining value just by existing in their names anymore.

If a true excess of houses happens, then the main money in real estate ventures will actually be in repairing them, maintaining them, and customizing them. All jobs that would be considered blue collar work that actually requires real labor.

The rich people paid various analysts to say that a declining birth rate would make the old people not get care (Which makes sense because the party that serves the richest also tends to be voted for via old people.) So they chose a fear that most of their voters would care about to take advantage of...

But yeah, it's about real estate and banks and not making interest anymore for doing nothing but holding onto resources. Also obviously the less people there are, the more valuable all laborers would be too. When there's more people than jobs, that's an employers market, right? They can lowball their workers and the workers have to go for it because they need a place to live and eat. Where there are more jobs than people, that's an employees market. Where the main negotiation actually favors them, because they are hopefully empowered to know that the company needs them more than they need that company.

[dailyworldecho]

[reasonsforhope]

Green energy is in its heyday. 

Renewable energy sources now account for 22% of the nation’s electricity, and solar has skyrocketed eight times over in the last decade. This spring in California, wind, water, and solar power energy sources exceeded expectations, accounting for an average of 61.5 percent of the state's electricity demand across 52 days. 

But green energy has a lithium problem. Lithium batteries control more than 90% of the global grid battery storage market. 

That’s not just cell phones, laptops, electric toothbrushes, and tools. Scooters, e-bikes, hybrids, and electric vehicles all rely on rechargeable lithium batteries to get going. 

Fortunately, this past week, Natron Energy launched its first-ever commercial-scale production of sodium-ion batteries in the U.S. 

“Sodium-ion batteries offer a unique alternative to lithium-ion, with higher power, faster recharge, longer lifecycle and a completely safe and stable chemistry,” said Colin Wessells — Natron Founder and Co-CEO — at the kick-off event in Michigan. 

The new sodium-ion batteries charge and discharge at rates 10 times faster than lithium-ion, with an estimated lifespan of 50,000 cycles.

Wessells said that using sodium as a primary mineral alternative eliminates industry-wide issues of worker negligence, geopolitical disruption, and the “questionable environmental impacts” inextricably linked to lithium mining. 

“The electrification of our economy is dependent on the development and production of new, innovative energy storage solutions,” Wessells said. 

Why are sodium batteries a better alternative to lithium?

The birth and death cycle of lithium is shadowed in environmental destruction. The process of extracting lithium pollutes the water, air, and soil, and when it’s eventually discarded, the flammable batteries are prone to bursting into flames and burning out in landfills. 

There’s also a human cost. Lithium-ion materials like cobalt and nickel are not only harder to source and procure, but their supply chains are also overwhelmingly attributed to hazardous working conditions and child labor law violations. 

Sodium, on the other hand, is estimated to be 1,000 times more abundant in the earth’s crust than lithium. 

“Unlike lithium, sodium can be produced from an abundant material: salt,” engineer Casey Crownhart wrote ​​in the MIT Technology Review. “Because the raw ingredients are cheap and widely available, there’s potential for sodium-ion batteries to be significantly less expensive than their lithium-ion counterparts if more companies start making more of them.”

What will these batteries be used for?

Right now, Natron has its focus set on AI models and data storage centers, which consume hefty amounts of energy. In 2023, the MIT Technology Review reported that one AI model can emit more than 626,00 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent. 

“We expect our battery solutions will be used to power the explosive growth in data centers used for Artificial Intelligence,” said Wendell Brooks, co-CEO of Natron. 

“With the start of commercial-scale production here in Michigan, we are well-positioned to capitalize on the growing demand for efficient, safe, and reliable battery energy storage.”

The fast-charging energy alternative also has limitless potential on a consumer level, and Natron is eying telecommunications and EV fast-charging once it begins servicing AI data storage centers in June. 

On a larger scale, sodium-ion batteries could radically change the manufacturing and production sectors — from housing energy to lower electricity costs in warehouses, to charging backup stations and powering electric vehicles, trucks, forklifts, and so on. 

“I founded Natron because we saw climate change as the defining problem of our time,” Wessells said. “We believe batteries have a role to play.”

-via GoodGoodGood, May 3, 2024

--

Note: I wanted to make sure this was legit (scientifically and in general), and I'm happy to report that it really is! x, x, x, x

[sayruq]

Behind the scenes: U.S. and Israeli officials said the Biden administration is trying to prevent the Palestinians from getting the nine votes so the U.S. won't have to veto the resolution. A U.S. veto of such a resolution, especially amid the war in Gaza, would bring sharp criticism for Biden internationally and inside his own party, including with some of his supporters.

Over the last two weeks, the Biden administration has been pressing Abbas and his advisers to back off from their request, U.S., Israeli and Palestinian officials say. Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised the issue directly in a phone call with Abbas, and other U.S. officials raised it with their Palestinian counterparts almost every day in the last two weeks, Palestinian and U.S. officials say. The Biden administration made clear to the Palestinians that current U.S. law compels the administration to veto such a resolution or defund the UN, a U.S. official said. According to the officials, Abbas rejected the U.S. pressure and his aides told the Biden administration they are moving forward with the vote. A senior Palestinian official said the Biden administration asked whether Abbas would suspend the bid if he is invited to meet with Biden at the White House. The Palestinian official said Abbas rejected this trade-off and said he agreed to such a U.S. proposal a year ago but never got an invitation. U.S. officials admitted they failed in convincing the Palestinians to suspend their UN bid.

[opencommunion]

one reason (white) queer people misuse the term homonationalism is that they see queerness (or whatever you want to call it) as naturally disaffiliated with the US empire. so they understand homonationalism as a divergence from a natural mutual antagonism between queerness and empire. they talk about homonationalism as if it's an exclusively "normie gay" project, and as if it's a divergence from, rather than a consequence of, the overall trajectory of western lgbtqia+ politics. ironically it’s that self-exceptionalization by the queer, on the basis of their queerness, that imbricates them in homonationalism. they produce themselves as a homonationalist subject, and reproduce homonationalism, every time they articulate their queerness as individualized freedom. and Puar actually anticipates all of this in her original theorization of homonationalism in Terrorist Assemblages, and that's why it really helps to go to the text instead of osmosing queer theory solely through tumblr posts (esp when tumblr is so white and the queer theorists are not): "Some may strenuously object to the suggestion that queer identities, like their 'less radical' counterparts, homosexual, gay, and lesbian identities, are also implicated in ascendant white American nationalist formations, preferring to see queerness as singularly transgressive of identity norms. This focus on transgression, however, is precisely the term by which queerness narrates its own sexual exceptionalism.

While we can point to the obvious problems with the emancipatory, missionary pulses of certain (U.S., western) feminisms and of gay and lesbian liberation, queerness has its own exceptionalist desires: exceptionalism is a founding impulse, indeed the very core of a queerness that claims itself as an anti-, trans-, or unidentity. The paradigm of gay liberation and emancipation has produced all sorts of troubling narratives: about the greater homophobia of immigrant communities and communities of color, about the stricter family values and mores in these communities, about a certain prerequisite migration from home, about coming-out teleologies. We have less understanding of queerness as a biopolitical project, one that both parallels and intersects with that of multiculturalism, the ascendancy of whiteness, and may collude with or collapse into liberationist paradigms. While liberal underpinnings serve to constantly recenter the normative gay or lesbian subject as exclusively liberatory, these same tendencies labor to insistently recenter the normative queer subject as an exclusively transgressive one. Queerness here is the modality through which 'freedom from norms' becomes a regulatory queer ideal that demarcates the ideal queer. ... I am thinking of queerness as exceptional in a way that is wedded to individualism and the rational, liberal humanist subject, what [Sara] Ahmed denotes as 'attachments' and what I would qualify as deep psychic registers of investment that we often cannot account for and are sometimes best seen by others rather than ourselves. 'Freedom from norms' resonates with liberal humanism’s authorization of the fully self-possessed speaking subject, untethered by hegemony or false consciousness, enabled by the life/stylization offerings of capitalism, rationally choosing modern individualism over the ensnaring bonds of family. In this problematic definition of queerness, individual agency is legible only as resistance to norms rather than complicity with them, thus equating resistance and agency.

... Queerness as automatically and inherently transgressive enacts specific forms of disciplining and control, erecting celebratory queer liberal subjects folded into life (queerness as subject) against the sexually pathological and deviant populations targeted for death (queerness as population). Within that orientation of regulatory transgression, queer operates as an alibi for complicity with all sorts of other identity norms, such as nation, race, class, and gender, unwittingly lured onto the ascent toward whiteness. ... To be excused from a critique of one’s own power manipulations is the appeal of white liberalism, the underpinnings of the ascendancy of whiteness, which is not a conservative, racist formation bent on extermination, but rather an insidious liberal one proffering an innocuous inclusion into life."

Jasbir K. Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (2007)

[fatehbaz]

In fact, far more Asian workers moved to the Americas in the 19th century to make sugar than to build the transcontinental railroad [...]. [T]housands of Chinese migrants were recruited to work [...] on Louisiana’s sugar plantations after the Civil War. [...] Recruited and reviled as "coolies," their presence in sugar production helped justify racial exclusion after the abolition of slavery.

In places where sugar cane is grown, such as Mauritius, Fiji, Hawaii, Guyana, Trinidad and Suriname, there is usually a sizable population of Asians who can trace their ancestry to India, China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia and elsewhere. They are descendants of sugar plantation workers, whose migration and labor embodied the limitations and contradictions of chattel slavery’s slow death in the 19th century. [...]

---

Mass consumption of sugar in industrializing Europe and North America rested on mass production of sugar by enslaved Africans in the colonies. The whip, the market, and the law institutionalized slavery across the Americas, including in the U.S. When the Haitian Revolution erupted in 1791 and Napoleon Bonaparte’s mission to reclaim Saint-Domingue, France’s most prized colony, failed, slaveholding regimes around the world grew alarmed. In response to a series of slave rebellions in its own sugar colonies, especially in Jamaica, the British Empire formally abolished slavery in the 1830s. British emancipation included a payment of £20 million to slave owners, an immense sum of money that British taxpayers made loan payments on until 2015.

Importing indentured labor from Asia emerged as a potential way to maintain the British Empire’s sugar plantation system.

In 1838 John Gladstone, father of future prime minister William E. Gladstone, arranged for the shipment of 396 South Asian workers, bound to five years of indentured labor, to his sugar estates in British Guiana. The experiment with “Gladstone coolies,” as those workers came to be known, inaugurated [...] “a new system of [...] [indentured servitude],” which would endure for nearly a century. [...]

---

Bonaparte [...] agreed to sell France's claims [...] to the U.S. [...] in 1803, in [...] the Louisiana Purchase. Plantation owners who escaped Saint-Domingue [Haiti] with their enslaved workers helped establish a booming sugar industry in southern Louisiana. On huge plantations surrounding New Orleans, home of the largest slave market in the antebellum South, sugar production took off in the first half of the 19th century. By 1853, Louisiana was producing nearly 25% of all exportable sugar in the world. [...] On the eve of the Civil War, Louisiana’s sugar industry was valued at US$200 million. More than half of that figure represented the valuation of the ownership of human beings – Black people who did the backbreaking labor [...]. By the war’s end, approximately $193 million of the sugar industry’s prewar value had vanished.

Desperate to regain power and authority after the war, Louisiana’s wealthiest planters studied and learned from their Caribbean counterparts. They, too, looked to Asian workers for their salvation, fantasizing that so-called “coolies” [...].

Thousands of Chinese workers landed in Louisiana between 1866 and 1870, recruited from the Caribbean, China and California. Bound to multiyear contracts, they symbolized Louisiana planters’ racial hope [...].

To great fanfare, Louisiana’s wealthiest planters spent thousands of dollars to recruit gangs of Chinese workers. When 140 Chinese laborers arrived on Millaudon plantation near New Orleans on July 4, 1870, at a cost of about $10,000 in recruitment fees, the New Orleans Times reported that they were “young, athletic, intelligent, sober and cleanly” and superior to “the vast majority of our African population.” [...] But [...] [w]hen they heard that other workers earned more, they demanded the same. When planters refused, they ran away. The Chinese recruits, the Planters’ Banner observed in 1871, were “fond of changing about, run away worse than [Black people], and … leave as soon as anybody offers them higher wages.”

When Congress debated excluding the Chinese from the United States in 1882, Rep. Horace F. Page of California argued that the United States could not allow the entry of “millions of cooly slaves and serfs.” That racial reasoning would justify a long series of anti-Asian laws and policies on immigration and naturalization for nearly a century.

---

All text above by: Moon-Ho Jung. "Making sugar, making 'coolies': Chinese laborers toiled alongside Black workers on 19th-century Louisiana plantations". The Conversation. 13 January 2022. [All bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[zvaigzdelasas]

[VOA is US State Media]

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a phone call Saturday with Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant promised "his ironclad support" for the Israeli Defense Forces, or IDF, according to a Pentagon readout.[...] What shape the U.S. support will take, though, is unclear. The U.S. maintains a weapons and ammunition stockpile in Israel and has made its contents available to Israel on at least two occasions. In 2006, the U.S. granted Israel access to precision guided munitions during its war with Hezbollah. And in 2014, the U.S. gave Israel access to tank rounds and other ammunition to support operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. U.S. officials have declined to say, however, whether using the stockpile will be an option this time around.[...] There also are concerns about the stockpile itself. The U.S. pulled 300,000 artillery shells from the stockpile late last year and early this year to give to Ukraine. And the types of armaments and equipment in the stockpile may not be of immediate use in pushing back Hamas fighters. "My initial impression is that the things that Israel needs most right now are not in there," said Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.[...]

In addition, the U.S. maintains some military personnel in Israel, and U.S. forces periodically conduct exercises with Israeli troops — most recently this past July. The U.S. military official said all U.S. personnel "are safe and accounted for," without elaborating on how many are currently in the country.

7 Oct 23

[wintertidewater]

I like separatism, but I don’t practice it fully. After calling three different places to fix the A/C, I’m bound to just go with cheapest and fastest.

I ask, “do you have any female workers that can come out?” The man on the phone seemed flustered by my question. “My dog is aggressive towards men”. But no women work there. Except for the office. Which does employ women, he reassures me, as he stutters.

Clearly, I am the first to ask.

Separatism is psychologically freeing. Why not invest in each other? Anything a man can do, a woman can too. Maybe not every woman—many of us stay in our roles at least partially and this limits us—but enough women pave paths. I offer myself as proof.

But it’s far from convenient. Every day it becomes more difficult to band together… as our language is ripped from our tight hands. White knuckles. Desperation. “It didn’t used to be like this”.

Today the public sphere is online, owned by men and male ideology. Women cannot speak freely, despite the protected right to spew abuse that our male counterparts enjoy.

“We used to be matriarchal, earth-loving”. Can we go back? Is it that simple?

Perhaps if all women just meet on farms and regain independence… “Dependence fosters abuse”. Is a homestead and female community enough to escape it all?

It’s hard to say. How many of you follow through? Why not join one of the 50 or so women’s lands in the United States (where most of us reside)?

In the ’70s and ’80s, there were around 150 such communities in the US. Today, these lands are dying out. Many of the people running them are in their 70s or older. Within a decade, will these women and these lands still be here? We don’t know.

How did this happen? Is it just a cultural shift? Why does women’s culture seem so fragile and fleeting compared to others’? How are we surrounded by ancient male religions and centuries, if not millennia, of redundant male philosophy?

A large part of this has to with how culture is spread. There is a current success rate of 81-89% for political belief transmission from parents to teenagers. Men don’t live as long and yet they are more influential because they are experts at this. It’s why they’re all so desperate to have a partner. To have a “legacy”. It’s why men being unpartnered is considered a crisis.

By having children for free through women’s labor, yet remaining the highest family authority, men get to succeed in spreading their ideologies. Having two children is the baseline, enough to “replace” the parents. More is power. Either way, reproduction is used as a tool of ideological expansion.

To create change, we must ask who is having and teaching children. If over 4 out of 5 children are going to occupy the same political space as their parents, who are the women and men who are raising the future? Or more importantly, why is it not us?

Perhaps it’s worth considering that a woman’s land dedicated to fostering girls is the answer. To keep our rights, we must consider raising feminists. As of 2021, there were 191,037 girls in U.S. foster care. Why not have them be the future?

[robertreich]

Think Tipping Is Out of Control? Watch This.

TWO DOLLARS AND THIRTEEN CENTS AN HOUR.

That’s how much millions of American workers are paid under the federal subminimum wage — which was set all the way back in 1991.

While many think tipping for services has gotten out of control, arguing over who deserves a tip and how much they should get distracts from what we should really be angry about: business models that depend on not paying workers a living wage.

It’s bad enough that the federal minimum wage is a measly $7.25 an hour. But employers are allowed to pay tipped workers just $2.13 an hour because supposedly the workers will be able to make up for it in tips.

Saru Jayaraman of One Fair Wage has been advocating to change this absurd and exploitative law. I asked her to share with us FOUR big reasons why we need to get rid of the subminimum wage and pay service workers a full living wage with tips on top.

Number 1: Workers who earn a subminimum wage often end up making less than the minimum wage

43 states currently allow certain workers to be paid a subminimum wage. Employers in these states are legally required to make up the difference if a worker’s combined wage and tips don’t reach the full minimum wage. But over a third of tipped workers report that their bosses regularly fail to do this.

That’s because enforcement of wage laws is lax, and it makes it easier for employers to get away with shortchanging staff.

Number 2: The subminimum wage perpetuates gender discrimination and harassment on the job

More than two-thirds of tipped workers — 70% — in the U.S. are women. And one in six women that work a tipped job are living in poverty — that’s nearly 2.5 times the rate for workers overall.

Since workers earning the subminimum wage are so dependent on tips to make a living, they are put in situations where they have to tolerate inappropriate customer behavior. A staggering 76 percent — that’s more than three-quarters of tipped workers — have reported experiencing sexual harassment on the job. And that only got worse during the pandemic.

Number 3: Tipping is actually a relic of slavery

Tipped workers are disproportionately people of color. And Black service workers in particular consistently earn less, including tips, than their white counterparts for doing the same job.

Look, this inequity of the subminimum wage is tied to America’s history of structural racism.

Following the Civil War, tipping was used as a racist solution by employers who didn’t want to pay formerly enslaved Black workers. So by allowing them to pay their workers just in tips rather than a wage, employers were able to avoid directly paying these workers.

Number 4: Paying workers a living wage plus tips is actually better for business — and our economy.

Corporate lobbyists, particularly for the restaurant industry, warn that paying workers a full minimum wage with tips on top will be devastating to businesses. But research shows these fears are completely overblown.

So far, seven states have replaced their subminimum wage for tipped workers with a higher minimum wage that still allows for tips on top. These seven states are actually faring better than the 43 states with subminimum wages for tipped workers — both in the number of restaurants and number of people employed by restaurants. And take home pay for restaurant servers and bartenders in these states was 24% higher than in states with a wage of just $2.13 an hour.

Workers at restaurants that have scrapped their subminimum wages in favor of higher minimum wages with tips on top are more productive, happier, and less likely to quit their jobs. This alone helps business owners cut employee turnover nearly in half. This is especially important following the pandemic, when restaurants are facing historic staffing shortages because over 1 million workers have left the industry due to low pay.

So not only have higher wage states been able to maintain their industries, but workers are more productive, getting paid more, and less likely to live in poverty.  

And when workers have more money, they spend more money — stimulating their local economies in the process.

And for the first time in 30 years, workers are winning on this issue, like in DC and Chicago and a dozen other states.

The bottom line is that ending the subminimum wage for tipped workers is better for workers, it’s better for business, it’s better for our economy — and it’s the right thing to do.

[usnatarchives]

The WAVES of Change: Women's Valiant Service in World War II 🌊

When the tides of World War II swelled, an unprecedented wave of women stepped forward to serve their country, becoming an integral part of the U.S. Navy through the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) program. This initiative not only marked a pivotal moment in military history but also set the stage for the transformation of women's roles in the armed forces and society at large. The WAVES program, initiated in 1942, was a beacon of change, showcasing the strength, skill, and patriotism of American women during a time of global turmoil.

The inception of WAVES was a response to the urgent need for additional military personnel during World War II. With many American men deployed overseas, the United States faced a shortage of skilled workers to support naval operations on the home front. The WAVES program was spearheaded by figures such as Lieutenant Commander Mildred H. McAfee, the first woman commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy. Under her leadership, WAVES members were trained in various specialties, including communications, intelligence, supply, medicine, and logistics, proving that women could perform with as much competence and dedication as their male counterparts.

The impact of the WAVES program extended far beyond the war effort. Throughout their service, WAVES members faced and overcame significant societal and institutional challenges. At the time, the idea of women serving in the military was met with skepticism and resistance; however, the exemplary service of the WAVES shattered stereotypes and demonstrated the invaluable contributions women could make in traditionally male-dominated fields. Their work during the war not only contributed significantly to the Allies' victory but also laid the groundwork for the integration of women into the regular armed forces.

The legacy of the WAVES program is a testament to the courage and determination of the women who served. Their contributions went largely unrecognized for many years, but the program's impact on military and gender norms has been profound. The WAVES paved the way for future generations of women in the military, demonstrating that service and sacrifice know no gender. Today, women serve in all branches of the U.S. military, in roles ranging from combat positions to high-ranking officers, thanks in no small part to the trail blazed by the WAVES.

The WAVES program was more than just a wartime necessity; it was a watershed moment in the history of women's rights and military service. The women of WAVES not only supported the United States during a critical period but also propelled forward the conversation about gender equality in the armed forces and beyond. Their legacy is a reminder of the strength and resilience of women who rise to the challenge, breaking barriers and making waves in pursuit of a better world.

Read more: https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2023/11/06/historic-staff-spotlight-eunice-whyte-navy-veteran-of-both-world-wars/

[driftingmoonmenace]

Here's a little quick sketch I did of my new DCA oc Oberon!! I'm still trying to decide his outfit, but this is he!!

He's a Moon so he wears a visor to let him walk around freely in brightly lit areas/daylight without it hurting his eyes and switching to his (currently glitched) Sun counterpart, Orion! (He also carries around a katana cause he thinks it's cool, but he knows how to use it when he gets into sticky situations lmao!) He travels around with my other ocs Equinox (an Eclipse) and Umbra (another Moon) while they travel the U.S. trying to save fellow animatronics from Fazco. and working to take them down.

He's reckless just like Equinox so they kinda enable each other to rush into danger, Oberon thinks it's fun and exciting. He's a little goof-ball gremlin and just wants to live his life how he wants and figure out a way to fix Orion.

(Oberon and Orion can become an Eclipse which is named Oblivion! Though not currently because of the state Orion is in.)

[artbyblastweave]

So I blew through Ultimate Marvel Team-Up in order to get context for when Daredevil starts sticking his horns back into the main Ultimate Spider-Man book, and what's really interesting to me is that Bendis's rendition of basically every non-Spider-Man cape who shows up in that gesture at what could have been an extremely cohesive Ultimate Marvel setting;

Hulk is very visibly classic Hulk in every respect, but with the added implication that he's currently neck-deep in a thriller-conspiracy uncover-the-truth kind of plot regarding the government experimentation with super-soldiers that's upstream of all of superhumanity in the Ultimate Universe. This idea was later binned, Banner was framed as neck-deep in spook shit and unlikely to try and defect from it in the way he was implied to be trying to do.

Iron Man's origin is changed so that he got abducted by rebels while attempting to sell weapons technology to a right-wing U.S-backed junta in Guatemala during the Reagan Admin, and moreover in direct retaliation for attempting to do that; this is upstream of his decision to stop selling weapons technology, and the two-shot where he teams up with Spider-Man involves Latveria attempting to steal the Iron Man Armor- with Tacit SHIELD Backing, because Nick Fury is willing to let Dr. Doom have that tech if it increases the chances of the U.S. Government eventually getting a crack at it. This extremely interesting cold war dynamic between stark and Fury also mostly got binned.

The Fantastic Four are nearly identical in function to their 616 counterparts, except that instead of a spaceflight they got their powers on a years-long expedition to the Negative Zone, having Challengers-of-the-Unknown style adventures, which both neatly resolves the datedness of the spaceflight origin and allows them to have their veteran hero status simultaneously with the idea that the heroic age is just starting out. The Negative zone was also mentioned to be the home dimension of the Skrulls, Kree, and possibly Galactus, neatly explaining why so many spaceborne threats keep making themselves earth's problem so specifically. Ultimate Fantastic Four was just good enough (And Bendis's two shot otherwise boring enough) that I can forgive the parts of this that they binned. I mean we got Marvel Zombies out of it, that's worth everything in the world

Ultimate Dr. Strange is interesting in that he's the son of the original Dr. Strange, whose origin, career and supporting cast are actually largely exactly the same but also linked to the IRL time period of Strange's debut, the early 60s through the early 80s. Stephen Strange Jr. is the inheritor of a legacy his disillusioned Mother Clea spent twenty one years trying to keep him well away from, rapidly attempting to learn the ropes under the apprenticeship of a long-suffering Wong and largely coming across as a scientologist-adjacent crank in the media. This is actually a really fun way to put Strange at the Metaphorical kids table with the rest of the aged-down heroes while also keeping him from breaking every story, and although Bendis did get to keep using him in this capacity it ultimately didn't amount to much because he got turbofucked during Ultimatum after only a couple of appearances.

Shang Chi is introduced in the middle of a Kung-Fu walking-the-earth situation, with Spider-Man haphazardly (and unsuccessfully) seeking him out for martial arts lessons when he realizes he's just leaning on his powers as a crutch in most fights. He offers him like 20 dollars

The broad outline of a lot of these ideas, and the political themes they were gesturing towards, survived their later delegation to other authors to some extent, but were corroded by Millar's cinematic bombast on The Ultimates in particular. I mourn the version of the Ultimate Universe where they just gave Bendis enough amphetamines to have him do all of it. At any rate you bet your ass that if I ever commit to trying to do some kind of fanmade unified Marvel Timeline I'd poach all of these

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

Oooooh here we go. We have the cetacean “experts” joining in to justify the bad handling of Moo Deng and discrediting me/shooting the messenger because I support responsible cetacean management. Because everyone just made up their mind that you can’t give dolphins the habitat they need because “it’s not the ocean.”

But it’s apparently totally okay to give other species substandard habitats. I guess Moo Deng doesn’t really NEED to live in a jungle. Concrete is fine for her :)

Now we do know that dolphins can thrive in human care and “suffering all the time” isn’t actually the case (at least, not from this generalisation basis there can absolutely be poor welfare in bad facilities) and basically any time anyone mentions the word SeaWorld everyone loses the ability to critically think.

You know what we never do with cetaceans? Grab at and harass their babies for clout. The only time we ever interact with the calf in those early days is to check their health parameters. And it is always with active participation and consent.

It’s important that we make sure the calf is doing well, especially in those critical early days where the calf is so vulnerable. So, with positive reinforcement, we teach the mother to bring over her calf voluntarily and do a very gentle restraint to collect samples.

This is the only time we’re touching the calf. And not every facility does this either, some will stay completely hands off besides feeding the mother.

But this is how you do safe, respectful and stress free animal husbandry, actually using desensitisation and conditioning positive emotional responses to being handled:

When watching this video, keep in mind that restraining a dolphin physically with only a few people is almost impossible. This dolphin is staying with her carers because she trusts them and she has a relationship with them.

I know this dolphin and the people in this video. It’s an incredible thing to see cooperative care like this in action.

Commentary and tags like the one above goes to show how the “trust the keeper” argument is only for selective species that are being used for clout.

But trust the people who work with dolphins or orcas? Trust the people that work in dolphin welfare and who actively work to measure and improve it? No, because everyone and their dog are apparently cetacean welfare experts because they regurgitate Blackfish or the talking points of a handful of lobbyists parading as scientists.

And they’ll even use violent wording and thinly veiled death threats against keepers, justifying it with this idea that they want to “liberate” animals that they don’t have any idea about caring for.

Anyway here’s a bunch of research on dolphin welfare that supports positive welfare states in human care :)

• There are no scientific studies suggesting that dolphins in marine mammal facilities are more prone to disease than dolphins in the wild. In fact, peer-reviewed scientific studies have shown that the immune systems of wild dolphins are much more challenged than the immune systems of dolphins in human care (refs 1-2)

• Similarly, there are no scientific studies suggesting that dolphins in marine mammal facilities are any more stressed than dolphins in the wild. On the contrary, studies have shown that cortisol levels (i.e., the “stress hormone”) of dolphins in marine mammal facilities are either very similar to, or lower than, cortisol levels of wild dolphins, depending on the technique used to obtain the samples (See review in ref 3).

• Bottlenose dolphins in U.S facilities are living as long or longer than their wild counterparts (ref 4)

• Average life expectancy from 2001-2015 was 41.6 years in SeaWorld orcas, showing significant improvements in veterinary care and welfare (ref 5)

• Aggression and agonistic behaviour made up 1-2% of observed behaviours in orcas at Loro Parque, debunking claims of hyper aggression and chronic stress from supposed poor social structures. (ref 6)

(1) Ruiz, C. L., Nollens, H. H., Venn-Watson, S., Green, L. G., Wells, R. S., Walsh, M. T., ... & Jacobson, E. R. (2009). Baseline circulating immunoglobulin G levels in managed collection and free-ranging bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). Developmental & Comparative Immunology, 33(4), 449-455.

(2) Fair, P. A., Schaefer, A. M., Houser, D. S., Bossart, G. D., Romano, T. A., Champagne, C. D., ... & Reif, J. S. (2017). The environment as a driver of immune and endocrine responses in dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). PLoS ONE, 12(5), e0176202.

(3) Proie, S. (2013). A systematic review of cortisol levels in wild and captive Atlantic bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), killer whale, (Orcinus orca), and beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas). MA Thesis, Evergreen State College.

(4) Jaakkola, K., & Willis, K. (2019). How long do dolphins live? Survival rates and life expectancies for bottlenose dolphins in zoological facilities vs. wild populations. Marine Mammal Science.

(5) Robeck, T. R., Willis, K., Scarpuzzi, M. R., & O’Brien, J. K. (2015). Comparisons of Life-History Parameters between Free-Ranging and Captive Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) Populations for Application Toward Species Management. Journal of Mammalogy, 96(5), 1055–1070. http://doi.org/ 10.1093/jmammal/gyv113

(6) Sánchez-Hernández, P., Krasheninnikova, A., Almunia, J., & Molina-Borja, M. (2019). Social interaction analysis in captive orcas ( Orcinus orca ) . Zoo Biology, (April), 1–11. http://doi.org/ 10.1002/zoo.21502

Positive behavioural states are demonstrated in cetaceans in human care: Peer-reviewed scientific studies show that:

• Dolphins show anticipatory behaviors before sessions of interacting with their trainers (with no food involvement). This shows they view the interactions themselves as positive. (ref 1)

• An increase in dolphin behavioral diversity and play behavior following interactive programs suggest that such programs are in fact enriching for the dolphins and add to their psychological well-being (refs 2-3).

• Dolphins observed swimming in sync with each other at zoological facilities displayed optimistic judgements in optimistic bias tests, indicating positive welfare. (ref 4)

• When given the choice, dolphins in one study showed a preference for being in a smaller pool, despite having access to larger pools, indicating that size of pool may not be influencing dolphin movement preferences. (ref 5)

(1) Clegg, I. L., Rödel, H. G., Boivin, X., & Delfour, F. (2018). Looking forward to interacting with their caretakers: dolphins’ anticipatory behaviour indicates motivation to participate in specific events. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 202, 85-93.

(2) Miller, L. J., Mellen, J., Greer, T., & Kuczaj, S. A. (2011). The effects of education programmes on Atlantic bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) behaviour. Animal Welfare, 20, 159-172.

(3) Trone, M., Kuczaj, S., & Solangi, M. (2005). Does participation in Dolphin–Human Interaction Programs affect bottlenose dolphin behaviour? Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 93, 363-374.

(4) Clegg, I. L., Rödel, H. G., & Delfour, F. (2017). Bottlenose dolphins engaging in more social affiliative behaviour judge ambiguous cues more optimistically. Behavioural brain research, 322, 115-122.

(5) Melissa R. Shyan , David Merritt, N. M., & Kohlmeier, K. B. & J. T. (2010). Effects of Pool Size on Free- Choice Selections by Atlantic Bottlenosed Dolphins at One Zoo Facility. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 5(3), 203–213. http://doi.org/10.1207/S15327604JAWS0503

Note how this is a body of evidence from multiple sources that are being developed and complied over time. That is what science is all about.

Anyone who tells you that the science is finalised on something eg. Lori Marino and Naomi Rose insisting that the science is settled on cetacean welfare being inherently bad in human care - be very very skeptical of them. They are trying to sell you ideology over science (and they’d love for you to donate your money to their sanctuary that hasn’t passed any approval to build for 5 years)

The science is rarely “settled” on anything.

As for SeaWorld themselves, they have not published enough welfare data for us to discuss. But their animals do show signs of positive welfare states including active participation in health care and training, engagement with enrichment, ability to learn and adapt (stressed animals can’t learn complex behaviours and won’t participate in sessions), stable social structures with occasional conflict ect.

[c64screengrabs]

If you had a Commodore 64, you were guaranteed to have 2 racing games in your collection: Pole Position and Out Run. Released to arcades in 1988 by Sega, nice graphics, gameplay and a bangin' soundtrack (which I've treated you to above!) helped to quickly make it popular, resulting in a conversion to multiple platforms, the C64 port being picked up by U.S. Gold. The cars in the game are modeled after their real life counterparts, a 1972 Volkswagen Beetle, 1971 Chevrolet Corvette, 1985 Porsche 911, and a 1985 BMW 325i Cabriolet E30. The first release of Out Run also included a cassette of the music from the original arcade version.