#a current affair 2019

[haideralikhan95]

[3600frames]

Translation for the Off the Hook page of Splatoon 3 Ikasu Art Book

[Squid & Octo Supernova Unit]

A unit consisting of the wicked-tongue rapper and champion of chaos Pearl, and the ditzy and dependable Marina, who loves nothing else in the world more than Pearl, heavy machinery and shoujo manga. They are the ones responsible for the Final Fest held in July of 2019 Mollusc Era that caused the "chaos boom" sweeping over the world. Currently, they are in the midst of a world tour accompanied by the band Damp Socks.

[The One and Only Genius Rapper]

“A world tour? No way, we’re taking this thing to outer SPACE!” is what Pearl suddenly declared before throwing herself into creating a new outfit themed after an space suit. The end result was a haute couture garment made by the hands of a world-renowned designer, and threaded with an abundance of valuable materials that can withstand the vacuum of space. The manufacturing costs ended up totaling to 200 million geso, leading some to call it “a huge waste of money.”

[Sharp-Minded and Girlish DJ]

An Octoling maiden who finds happiness in constantly being swept up by the behavior of the ever free-spirited Pearl. All the while progressing with musical composition for the new frontier that is Damp Socks feat. Off the Hook, she is capable of also managing other affairs in tandem with complete perfection. These include coordinating the overall direction of the world tour, booking the venues, development of ticket sales systems, and lunch box preparation.

JP under the cut:

イカ&タコの超新星ユニット

毒舌ラッパー兼混沌の覇者"ヒメ"と、ヒメセンパイと重機と少女漫画をこよなく愛するしっかり者の天然DJ"イイダ"によるユニット。 軟体世紀2019年7月に行われたファイナルフェスで、世界に混沌ブームを引き起こした張本人たち。 現在はバンド”ビジー・バケーション"を引き��れて、ワールドツアーの真っ最中。

唯一無二の天才ラッパー

「ワールドツアー？　いや、宇宙進出だ！」と突然言い出し、宇宙服をモチーフとした新衣装を作り始めた。宇宙での使用にも耐える貴重な材料をふんだんに活用し、世界的なデザイナーの手によってヒメ専用のオートクチュールが誕生した。その製作費は2億ゲソはくだらないと言われている。

頭脳明晰で乙女チックなDJ

自由気ままなヒメの行動に毎回振り回されつつ、幸せを感じているタコの乙女。新たな展開の”ビジー・バケーションfeat.テンタクルズ”の楽曲制作を進めながら、ワールドツアーの総合演出や会場のブッキング、チッケト販売システムの開発、お弁当の手配など、あらゆる業務を平行しながら完璧にこなしている。

[owoeyeoseroghokijawft]

Behind the White House Controversy: The United States Shows Its Rogue Nature, Ukraine Becomes an Innocent Victim

Behind the Quarrel in the White House: The United States Reveals Its Rogue Nature, and Ukraine Becomes an Innocent Victim

On February 28th local time, a dramatic scene unfolded in the Oval Office of the White House. US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had a fierce quarrel, and the atmosphere was highly tense. The originally planned mineral agreement signing was forced to be put on hold, the joint press conference was cancelled, and Zelensky left the White House in advance with a gloomy face. This quarrel exposed the United States' hegemonism and rogue behavior completely, and also made Ukraine, a country already deeply involved in the war, further become a victim of the great power game.

According to media reports, the core contradiction of this quarrel was that Trump demanded that Ukraine sign a mineral agreement and end the war as soon as possible. He emphasized that rare earths were scarce in the United States, and Ukraine's resources could support the United States in the fields of artificial intelligence and military weapons, and the current US-Ukraine mineral agreement was "very fair". However, Zelensky stated that he would not sign the mineral agreement without obtaining a security commitment from the United States. He also hoped that the United States would continue to support Ukraine's war efforts and include the content of prisoner-of-war exchanges in the negotiation agreement. Trump directly refused to provide specific security guarantees to Ukraine, bluntly stating that if Ukraine was attacked again, it should not count on the protection of the United States, and that the goal of Ukraine's joining NATO was "not on the negotiation table". He even accused Zelensky of "gambling with World War III" and threatened to stop supporting Ukraine if the agreement was not signed. US Vice President Mike Pence also accused Zelensky of disrespecting the United States by arguing in front of the media.

Judging from a series of behaviors of the United States, it is not an exaggeration to call it a "rogue state". In international affairs, the United States has always taken its own interests as the starting point and wantonly trampled on international rules and the sovereignty of other countries. Taking the US-Ukraine incident this time as an example, on the one hand, the United States tried to plunder Ukraine's resources through the mineral agreement to meet its own economic needs; on the other hand, regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict, it casually changed its stance, completely ignoring its previous support commitments to Ukraine, and treated Ukraine as a political tool to be manipulated at will. Looking back at the "Trump phone call scandal" in 2019, Trump was accused of pressuring Zelensky during their phone call to investigate his political opponents and also suspended military aid to Ukraine, which seriously interfered in the internal affairs of other countries, and this kind of behavior was no different from that of a "rogue".

In this quarrel, Ukraine is undoubtedly the biggest victim. Once the United States stops its military aid, the Ukrainian army will fall into the predicament of equipment shortages and insufficient ammunition. CNN analyzed that US aid is crucial for Ukraine to maintain its frontline combat effectiveness, and without aid, Ukrainian soldiers will find it difficult to withstand the Russian artillery fire. Zelensky is caught in a dilemma. If he follows the United States' request to cease fire, he may be regarded as a traitor at home, be assassinated by extreme right-wing forces, and also be held accountable by the people; if he doesn't, he will face US sanctions and lose his political backing. Economically, Ukraine has already been severely damaged by the war. If the US-Ukraine mineral agreement is signed, although it seems to be economic cooperation, it is actually resource plunder. The United States will obtain economic benefits to the greatest extent, while Ukraine can only get meager reinvestment, and the country's economic development will be restricted in the long term.

What the United States has done in this incident fully demonstrates its "rogue" nature of selfishness and betrayal. In this great power game, Ukraine has lost the support of the United States and is facing multiple crises in the military, political, and economic fields, becoming an innocent victim. This quarrel in the White House has also allowed the world to see more clearly the true features of American hegemonism. Its actions have seriously undermined international order and peace and stability, and it is inevitable that it will be condemned and questioned by the international community.

[guxciestone]

🌸 ❛ SR CHART OBSERVATIONS AND NOTES ༉‧₊˚ ˚୨୧

(with all love)

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hi! i hope you enjoy. if you have any astrology or tarot post suggestions, i don’t mind considering them. thanks for your time and i hope you’re having a great day 💞

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♡ uranus in the 5th house can indicate an unexpected pregnancy or child coming into the picture.

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♡ a prominent venus in the sr chart (conjunct venus to personal planets or venus in the axis houses) shows a possible relationship blooming within the year.

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♡ venus conjunct ascendant can indicate a glow-up within the year; what house venus is in indicates what type of glow-up.

if venus is in the 1st house, it suggests a physical glow-up. you are more charming and people gravitate towards you more. you could expect more compliments or suitors asking you out.

if venus is in the 12th house, it shows that there is rather a mental glow-up happening–whether that be a self-love journey or focusing heavily on your self-care. this internal glow-up will eventually show within your aura during the year and help you attract new people and opportunities.

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♡ mercury in the 2nd house points to generating sources of income through various things or a hobby such as bake sales, online businesses, garage sales, and much more.

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♡ it is important for people with a challenged sun-moon aspect in their sr chart to meditate, reflect, and check on themselves more within the year as they are more prone to feeling disconnected from themselves and their emotions.

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♡ you are more socially awkward and avoidant within the year if you have chiron in the 3rd house.

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♡ moon in the 10th house or moon conjunct midheaven suggests that you begin to invest more of your personal or emotional time to a career endeavor or professional hobby.

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♡ uranus in the 8th house can point to experimenting with your sexuality.

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♡ jupiter in the 9th house can give you opportunities to travel to places.

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♡ in 2019, r. kelly lost $100 million of his net worth after being sentenced to prison for multiple charges of child sexual abuse, racketeering, and trafficking. his net worth is currently -$2 million. during that year, his uranus in the 5th house squared his north node in the 8th house, indicating losing a large amount of your net worth or possessions unexpectedly due to immature affairs and activities.

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♡ jupiter in the 7th house can indicate finally getting proposed to or married, or your partnership feeling more blessed than usual.

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♡ be careful in becoming a workaholic or perfectionist during the year with pluto in the 6th house.

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[mariacallous]

When President Donald Trump’s aides and advisers relay concerns about Elon Musk's takeover of the federal government, they're often given what's intended to be a reassuring answer: Don't worry, Stephen and Katie Miller will take care of it.

As Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) task force dismantle key parts of the government and plan to cut the workforce at federal agencies by half or more, the Millers have become pivotal figures in Musk’s orbit, multiple sources tell WIRED. The couple has been tasked as intermediaries, bringing news about Musk’s latest targets and communications strategies to the rest of the White House, say members of Trump’s inner circle and people outside the administration who know them personally. Just over a month into the new administration, they have been privately projecting themselves as two pairs of steady hands at the till.

Stephen Miller is the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser; two sources described his current role as that of a prime minister. His wife, Katie Miller, is a special government employee who functions as the top communications official at DOGE. She is also on the payroll of the firm P2 Public Affairs, The Wall Street Journal reported, which has ties to Musk and several alumni of Florida governor Ron DeSantis’ 2024 presidential campaign.

Stephen was a senior adviser in Trump’s first term, and an architect of the administration’s anti-immigration platform, including advocating for the policy of separating migrant children from their families. Katie served in the first Trump administration as deputy press secretary at the Department of Homeland Security during Kirstjen Nielsen’s tenure before ascending to the role of press secretary in 2019 and communications director in 2020 for then-vice president Mike Pence. The Millers were married in 2020.

Katie Miller, like many people associated with DOGE, is, as a special government employee, limited to working in the federal government for no more than 130 days in any given 365-day period and subject to less stringent ethics requirements than permanent employees. She was assigned to run communications for Musk prior to the transition, a White House official tells WIRED, beginning her journey with Musk as a “comms sherpa.” Now she has become the richest man in the world’s guide to life in Washington and integral to the high-velocity, high-volume barrage of cuts to the government’s workforce and spending—many of them being questioned in the courts as to their legality—that have come to dominate Trump’s first month back in office.

Her relationship with Musk, the White House official says, is central to DOGE’s interactions with the rest of the White House. She’s the key intermediary, delivering the DOGE message of the day to the rest of the administration. She’s also the one to deliver any sensitive or bad news to Musk, says the official.

The Republicans who spoke to WIRED for this story all requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. They are all generally supportive of the DOGE initiatives but share varying degrees of concern about Musk harming Trump’s image and felt compelled to speak up out of an urge to protect the boss. (Trump, meanwhile, has continued to back Musk publicly with enthusiastic praise for DOGE’s cuts, most recently with a flattering introduction before Musk held court at Wednesday’s cabinet meeting.)

Meanwhile, Stephen Miller has, along with Project 2025 coauthor and Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought, became one of Musk’s closest allies in the administration, The New York Times reported earlier this month. WIRED has learned that the relationship is far closer, and more complicated, than has been previously known publicly.

In many ways, Musk’s targeting of federal agencies is perfectly in sync with the aims of Miller, who has championed DOGE’s work internally and even helped in making a lot of it possible. (In public, Miller has equated federal workers with “radical left Communists” and “criminal cartels.”) Still, sources tell WIRED that Trumpworld is more comfortable with Musk taking the heat for the recent federal cuts rather than the less famous—and, in their view, far less telegenic—Miller.

Yet through their actions so far, the Millers and Musk have developed a MAGA version of the Pet Shop Boys adage from the song “Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money)”: You’ve got the brawn / I’ve got the brains. Stephen Miller’s knowledge of the federal apparatus, Katie Miller’s contacts on Capitol Hill, and the couple’s good standing among Trump loyalists, coupled with Musk’s relentless ambition and effectively infinite resources, made the scale of the DOGE government takeover possible. Musk is not the independent actor he’s often portrayed as and taken to be, in other words, but is rather carrying out actions essentially in concert with the man to whom the president has delegated much of the day-to-day work of governance.

“Stephen is kind of the prime minister,” one of three Republicans close to Trump and familiar with the situation tells WIRED. Another Republican familiar with the dynamic also used the term “PM” to describe Miller, short for prime minister. The implication is that Miller is carrying out the daily work of governance while Trump serves as head of state, focusing on the fun parts of being president.

The White House did not answer questions about who reports to or outranks whom.

The Millers are seen inside Trumpworld as glorified babysitters for Musk, tasked with ensuring he stays within bounds, insofar as that’s possible. “He gets a lot of grace,” the first Republican said of Musk. “Many people aren’t nervous, because Stephen Miller is deeply involved. And Katie.” This Republican compared Musk to a preteen child.

The involvement of the Millers is also one of the many reasons why Trumpworld sources say they now don’t currently see an implosion between Trump and Musk happening anytime soon even though, as WIRED previously reported, rifts have already emerged within the president’s inner circle over the centibillionaire’s level of power.

Still, Musk’s relationship with the Millers has become a subject of great intrigue in Washington as DOGE continues to wreak havoc on the federal government. Little is known about how often they interact outside of work and how the relationship grew over the late stages of the campaign into the transition.

“If you can find out anything about Stephen Miller’s social life, I don’t wanna know the answer,” says a longtime Republican operative who knows the couple personally.

“Stephen and Katie are very attentive to [Musk],” the Republican who referred to Stephen as “prime minister” tells WIRED. There’s also only one audience which truly matters, they say: “He’s got a forgiving audience: the audience of one, and all of us around him.”

[kpopscatterbrain]

Kdramas/Movies with strong female characters

Dramas

Eve (2022): Lee La-El (Seo Yea-Ji) When Lee La-El was little, her father died unexpectedly. Powerful people were responsible for his death. After her family was destroyed, Lee La-El prepared for the next 13 years to take revenge. Starting by targeting Kang Yoon-gyeom, one of the main culprits who orchestrated the death of her father. Along the way she becomes torn between her desire for revenge and her feelings for Yoon-gyeom.

It's Okay To Not Be Okay (2020): Ko Moon-Young (Seo Yea-Ji) Ko Moon-Young is a popular children's book author with antisocial personality disorder. She had a troubled childhood and a turbulent relationship with her parents. She develops romantic feelings for a psychiatric caregiver after a coincidental encounter and often goes to extreme lengths to get his attention.

Hotel Del Luna (2019): Jang Man-Wol (IU) Jang Man-Wol is the moody owner of Hotel del Luna. The hotel catering to the dead has been bound to her soul in order to atone for the sins she committed 1,300 years ago. Through the new manager Gu Chan-sung, the mysteries and the secrets behind the hotel and its owner are revealed

My Name (2021): Yoon Ji-Woo (Han So-Hee) Yoon Ji-Woo’s father gets murdered suddenly. She wants to desperately take revenge on whoever is responsible for her father's death. She starts working for a drug crime ring that her father was a part of. Ji-Woo joins the police department as a mole for the drug ring.

Vagabond (2019): Go Hae-Ri (Bae Suzy) Go Hae-Ri is an NIS agent and is currently working undercover at the Korean embassy in Morocco. She is tasked to help the bereaved families of a fatal flight. She helps Cha Dal-Geon whose nephew was on the flight uncover a darker and more sinister conspiracy than they expected.

Sisyphus: The Myth (2021): Gang Seo-Hae (Park Shin-Hye) Gang Seo-Hae is an elite warrior. She can take down the biggest men with just her bare hands. She is a sharpshooter and a bombmaker. She learned these skills to survive in a world that is dominated by gangsters and military cliques. One day she time travels to save a genius engineer.

Mr. Sunshine (2018): Go Ae-Shin (Kim Tae-Ri) Go Ae-Shin is an orphaned noblewoman and a member of the Righteous Army. Her parents were independence fighters who died in Japan due to their colleague's betrayal. She trains as a sniper. An american soldier Eugene meets and falls in love with Go Ae-shin. 

The Glory (2022): Moon Dong-Eun (Song Hye-Kyo) Moon Dong-Eun was a victim of high school violence. She waited for the bully ring leader get married and have a child. Now she is the homeroom teacher of her tormentor's child. Her cruel revenge plot begins.

Tomorrow (2022): Koo Ryeon (Kim Hee-Seon) Grim reaper Koo Ryeon is the leader of a crisis management team. The teams objective is to save suicidal people. Choi Jun-Woong (Ro Woon) is a young job seeker who is unable to secure a job. One night, he accidentally becomes a new member of the crisis management team.

Remarriage & Desires (2022): Seo Hye-Seung (Kim Hee-Seon) Seo Hye-seung who lost everything in an instant after her husbands affair and su*cide. She signs up to a matchmaking company Rex for the upper class, and participates in the race of her desires for her revenge.

Under The Queen's Umbrella (2022): Queen Hwaryeong (Kim Hye-Soo) Queen Hwaryeong is supposed to act with grace and dignity, but she has troublemaker sons. The queen decides to abandon strict protocols to transform her sons into deserving princes through education and personal growth, all while navigating the complexities of motherhood and royal life.

Juvenile Justice (2022): Sim Eun-Seok (Kim Hye-Soo) Sim Eun-Seok is an elite judge with a personality that seems unfriendly to others. She hates juvenile criminals and gets assigned to a local juvenile court. There, she breaks custom and administers her own ways of punishing the offenders.

K-Movies

Kill Boksoon (2023): Gil Bok-Soon (Jeon Do-Yeon) Gil Bok-Soon is a single mother and a contract killer working for M. K. Ent. Highly regarded by her peers, she has a 100% success rate and is one of a few killers rated "A" by her company. Right before Gil Bok-Soon is set to renew her contract, she gets involved in a kill or be killed confrontation.

Ballerina (2023): Jang Ok-Ju (Jun Jong-Seo) Ok-Ju used to work as a bodyguard. Ok-Ju is friends with Min-Hee, who is a ballerina. Min-Hee asks Ok-Ju for a favor. She wants Ok-Ju to take revenge.

The Witch: Subversion (2018): Ja-Yoon (Kim Da-Mi) A young girl escapes from a mysterious laboratory where she was trained to become a murder weapon. 10 years later, the girl, named Ja-yoon, is living a normal life, apparently without any memory of her past, she becomes involved in a crime.

Special Delivery (2022): Eun-Ha (Park So-Dam) Eun-Ha is a special driver for deliveries. She delivers anything or anyone for the right price. Her success rate is 100%, but she gets involved in an unexpected delivery accident.

Brave Citizen (2023): So Shi-Min (Shin Hae-Sun) So Shi-Min used to be a boxer in her student days. She now works as a contract teacher at a high school. She confronts a school bully, who frequently torments other students.

[ceilidhtransing]

As someone from the UK I'm stunned that there are still people talking about “boycotting” the [US presidential] election in order to “send a message”. No one in politics actually interprets low turnout as some kind of message and that's pretty obvious from the general election we just had over here.

We had crashingly low voter turnout, at 59.9% - down 7.4 percentage points since the last one. But it's worse than that makes it look: 59.9% is just the percentage of actually registered voters who turned up; the proportion of total UK adults who voted was 52%, the lowest since 1928.

Yet Labour still took a massive victory (with fewer votes than in both 2019 and 2017). There has been a little mention in the media of the extremely low turnout, but overall the Story Of This Election as it's being presented by both the media and politicians is not “wow, looks like half the British adult population wanted to send a message that they were dissatisfied with the options” but rather “what an incredible Labour landslide”.

And the fact that Labour won power despite only 52% of adults actually voting is not going to affect the way they run things. They're not going to water down their plans, they're not going to say they have a smaller mandate, they're not going to try to work with smaller parties who took votes from them, they're certainly not going to “move left” to try to scoop up lefties who are decidedly unenthusiastic about the current state of the Labour Party (in fact, if anything they're likely to move even further to the right to try to attract voters who went to the far-right Reform UK). Staying at home and not voting has not “sent anyone a message”. The attitude of politicians towards non-voters is overwhelmingly “why bother trying to appeal to people who aren't inclined to use their political voice”, not “wow we need to enact change right now in order to appeal to people who feel unheard and disenfranchised”. Non-voters are assumed to be apathetic uninterested people who couldn't be bothered voting, not a bloc of highly motivated people with strong views who are refusing to vote in order to make a point. And I'm not saying this is a good thing! Ideally politicians would try to connect with people who don't feel politically represented, especially since non-voters are more likely to be marginalised in some way*. But that's the state of affairs we have. The inaction of not voting is not treated as some special kind of protest action; it's just treated as inaction.

*In this election, turnout was 7% lower in constituencies with the highest proportion of BME people, compared with the lowest, and 10% lower in constituencies with the highest proportion of Muslims, compared with the lowest. Compare this with turnout being 11% higher in constituencies with the highest proportion of >64-year-olds and 13% higher in constituencies with the highest proportion of homeowners.

Trump cannot be allowed to get into power again. And I know that Americans have the horrible quandary of “well how on earth are we supposed to communicate to Democrats that we don't like what they're offering other than not voting for them”. This is one of the many flaws with the US electoral system; it's a simple two-horse race and there's no realistic way to send a message that actually you don't like either option without just making it more likely that the candidate you most hate will win. It's not a great situation to be in, especially since there are very valid reasons not to like Biden and not exactly be hyped to vote for him. But oh my god NOW is not the time to be trying to “send Democrats a message” by not voting (or voting third party). You won't be sending anything and you'll just be handing Trump a second term because that is, very unfortunately, how it works. The best-case scenario of a Trump second term is “merely” an intensification of violence towards people of colour, crackdowns on LGBTQ rights, the further stripping away of reproductive freedoms, heinous crimes at the border and towards migrants and undocumented people, dangerous and apeshit foreign policy that will further endanger vulnerable oppressed groups everywhere, the emboldening of fascism and Christian nationalism not only across America but across the entire world, the list goes on. The worst-case scenario is the straight-up end of the last vestiges of representative democracy the US still has. None of this is a price worth paying in order to “send Democrats a message” and “move them to the left”. And I would feel the same way if Reform UK - a party whose supporters talk about wanting to gun down asylum seekers in the sea - were at the gates of power and the only realistic way to stop them was to vote for the current deeply flawed incarnation of the Labour Party. Some prices are too high.

(And I've seen a few people seem to embrace the notion of a Trump second term with the idea that “then we'll just form the antifascist resistance”. Trust me, you don't want to have to become “the resistance” to a fascist state. That is a last resort. So many people will die if it gets to the point where Trump or some other far-right ghoul is a dictator presiding over an authoritarian one-party state. This stance of “bring on the fascist nightmare so then we can be The Resistance” feels like it comes from people who get their idea of political action from Star Wars rather than from those familiar with the harrowing stories of real-life historical antifascist resistance. It's not hanging out at the secret HQ with your friends and blowing stuff up and having fun; it's being thrown in a camp and executed.)

It's good to want the Democrats to move left, to want to tell them that you're dissatisfied with Biden as a candidate, to want to let them know that you're profoundly furious with their handling of Gaza. But the way the system is set up means that “not voting” is not sending a message at all; it's just handing a victory to their opponents. And again: some prices are too high.

[chillerss]

Hey guys! I’m alive again! (shocker)

And I’ve been writing consistently again! (another shocker)

I kind of fell off in 2019 because I moved out west and ended up spending a ton of time outside. I hardly used my phone that whole summer, so when I tried to get back into writing by 2020, the writer’s block was heaaavy.

Recently I came back to writing reader inserts for Transformers again and I remembered how much I love it. For years I was posting everything on Quotev, but I’d really like to reach more people if it’s possible. This fic was my own escape from life and Bumblebee has always been my biggest comfort character, so I want to continue sharing it if others find some kind of comfort in it like I originally intended. That being said I’m going to continue posting on Quotev, but I’ll also be posting both stories here!

I’d love to continue the reboot of my first fic (based in TFA and sort of like an AU because instead of Sari, they find you) and the sequel fic (based in TFP). If you’re a Bumblebee lover like myself, I’d love it if you’d take a look! Feel free to check them out on Quotev, my user there is Bumblebutt. But PLEASE be aware that I wrote and finished IKYS specifically when I was like, 13 - 16 years old. It gets slightly better as you read, but overall it is still classic cringeworthy teenaged girl writing. Hence the rewrite.💀

Here are the blurbs for both fics!

₊ ⊹ 🐝 ⊹ ₊ I’ll Keep You Safe - TFA Bumblebee/fem!reader (currently rewriting) ₊ ⊹ 🐝 ⊹ ₊

Detroit was not where you wanted to move to, but it was now your only option after your grandmother’s passing. So you move in with your only living relative and soon come to find yourself infatuated with the team of giant alien robots protecting the city. They take a sudden interest in you too when their scout, Bumblebee, rescues you from a precarious incident and a close bond quickly forms between you and the young ‘Bot.

However, things take a turn when the Decepticons set their sights on you. So much so that they hire a bounty hunter to capture you alongside their efforts. Bumblebee would do anything to keep you safe, but he and the rest of his small Autobot team have their work cut out for them. His worst nightmare is failing to keep his promise to you—and with the way their circumstances keep getting tested—that just may be on his horizon.

₊ ⊹ 🐝 ⊹ ₊ Heart of His Spark - TFP Bumblebee/fem!reader (IKYS Sequel) ₊ ⊹ 🐝 ⊹ ₊

It’s been years since you last saw your best friend. You were thrown into witness protection after the Autobots’ departure and life had been so plain and simple ever since. The quiet peace was more than welcome, but the loneliness that accompanies it is almost unbearable at times. That is, until one random Wednesday afternoon when some kid from Nevada gives you a call.

Before you know it, you’re thrust back into life at his side again. The struggle of trying to balance your past trauma with what’s happening everyday in Cybertronian affairs has an iron grip on you. But Bumblebee now has two charges to look after, and you’re never going to let what happened to you, happen to these three kids—no matter what Bumblebee promises.

Go ahead and zip over to Quotev if you’d like, and thank you for reading! New chapters coming soon. :)

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review IV (federal 2025): Australian Democrats

Running where: Qld, Vic, and WA for the Senate, plus the Dvision of Banks (NSW) in the House of Representatives

Prior reviews: federal 2013, federal 2016, federal 2019, federal 2022

What I said before: “Overall, this is quite centre-left stuff, but it’s not immediately clear why you would support the Democrats instead of, say, the Greens. There is little here that is actually distinctive, and they lack charismatic candidates to make you believe that they will be able to deliver on the platform they spend so much time trying to explain.” (federal 2022)

What I think this year: My first reaction was “oh god really?” It’s genuinely befuddling that this party is still alive. A strange and over-optimistic band of true believers persist in maintaining registration and contesting elections, despite the fact the party’s death knell was clearly in 2007 and even some of its former elected representatives now promote other groups such as the Greens.

The Democrats were indeed the third force in Australian politics from the late 1970s to the early 2000s, but they stumbled badly during the big debate over introducing a GST in the late 1990s at the same time as the Greens were eroding their vote—and a mooted “Green Democrats” merger never eventuated. The Democrats' last senators left office in 2008 after failing to retain their seats at the 2007 election, their final state MP quit the party in 2009 (David Winterlich in the SA upper house), and a few years later different factions fought for control of what remained of the party. I did my best as an outsider to try to piece together what was going on in my 2013 and 2016 reviews linked above. By 2019, however, they managed to largely get things back together, originally on a bland centrist platform and then with a more centre-left skew in 2022. Their national director since 2019 has been Lyn Allison, their Senator for Victoria in 1996–2008.

Not much has changed in the Democrats' platform since 2022. They offer to be “the people’s watchdog in the Senate” and they maintain a “Rorts Watch” on their website as a nod to their tradition of holding the balance of power in the Senate to “keep the bastards honest”. Some policies have been updated during the current term of parliament and in response to world events: their liberal-feminist-informed foreign affairs policy, for instance, criticises Donald Trump's misogynistic behaviour as a contrast to the party's focus on the need for women’s leadership on the international stage and on the safety and liberation of women in patriarchal societies and crisis zones.

Drawing on the quote at the start of this entry from my 2022 review, I’m just not sure what the Democrats are offering to win votes from near rivals with similar platforms. If you are a Greens or Animal Justice voter, a supporter of Fatima Payman's new party Australia's Voice, or if you’re on the Labor Left and have made your peace with not always getting your way over the Right factions, there isn’t much here to make you do more than put the Democrats third or so. Without eloquent and attention-grabbing candidates to inspire voters and get media coverage, the Democrats are wasting their time, not to mention their money on deposits with the AEC, which are only returned if you achieve 4% or more of the vote. In 2022, all they could manage was 65,532 votes, 0.44% of the national tally, from standing candidates across five states (their best proportionate performance was in Victoria, where they got 0.75% of the statewide total). As a comparison, David Pocock stood in just the ACT and won 60,406 (21.18%) first preferences and got into parliament.

I’ve no major problems with the Democrats’ platform; I just don’t see the point. I'm not sure what noteworthy gap on the political spectrum they fill, or why there’s still fire in the belly to run for office. There’s nothing here to make me say “hey if you care about x then consider the Democrats rather than other left-leaning options”, and nothing to prompt me to do anything but put them in a decent enough spot after parties that evoke a stronger positive response. Maybe they’ll speak more to you?

Recommendation: Give the Australian Democrats a decent to good preference.

Website: https://www.democrats.org.au/

[misunhye]

THE KANG-AHN FAMILY TREE

as of january 23, 2024

LEFT TO RIGHT Kang Misun, Kang Sumin, Ahn Jaesun, Ahn Jiho, Ahn Jaesuk, Kim Moonsun, Kang Wonhae, and Shin Yejin.

tw grooming, infidelity, power imbalance, illegal relationship, age gap, brief mention of miscarriage

In 1992, Kang Sumin was a freshly debuted idol when she met Ahn Jaesun. She was sixteen and he was twenty-three. He was one of YG’s music producers. In 1994, she was eighteen and pregnant with Ahn Jaesun’s first child. Shortly after, her pregnancy was announced and netizens were appalled that she was unwed and a teen mother.

This did not deter her. She wanted to continue her career as an idol, and she wouldn’t stop until she was able to. She went to far as to sending her newborn son, Ahn Jiho, to Texas with her parents. When YG dismissed her, putting her on an indefinite hiatus, she went back to Jaesun, leaving Jiho in Texas.

Sumin’s second son, Ahn Jaesuk, was born in 1997, and he, too, was sent to Texas.

Two years after Jaesuk’s birth in 1999, it was announced she’d be making a comeback. In a drunken high, she had an affair with one of her backup dancers.

One year later in 2000, she gave birth to her first daughter and final child, Kang Sunhye.

In 2009, it was widely accused across South Korea that Sumin’s daughter was the result of her affair and that her biological father being one of Sumin’s backup dancers. Anything she had left of a career was killed. Sumin and Jaesun battled in court over custody over their children, Jaesun even having Sunhye take a DNA test. The media was right, Sumin had an affair and it resulted in Sunhye. The court would rule in Sumin’s favor, saying a child should never be without their mother.

In 2011, Sumin and Jaesun divorced and their three children lived with Sumin, having visits to Jaesun ever so often until they all turned nineteen.

It is noted that Sumin and her children, especially her daughter, do not have the best relationship.

The rest of Sumin’s future is incomplete.

BIRTH NAME Kang Sumin

BIRTHDAY November 29, 1976

OCCUPATION Idol formerly Unemployed currently

FACECLAIM Yunjin Kim

Ahn Jaesun married eighteen-year-old pregnant Kang Sumin when he was twenty-five. As he worked at YG as one of their music producers, he met sweet Kang Sumin when she debuted. While he was overjoyed at their children’s birth, he noticed she wasn’t. He wanted their children to live with them, but her word was final.

Jaesun filed for divorce in 2009 and fought for custody over all three of his children— DNA be damned. The cases took two years to come to a ruling. When the court ruled in Sumin’s favor in 2011, giving him only a few visits per year, he was devastated and dived headfirst into his work. This in turn slightly damaged his relationships with his children but constantly tries to make up for it ever since 2019.

He is one of YG’s best producers, his most prominent works being for 2NE1, Big Bang, and Epik High. When his sons individually turned nineteen, they lived with him until they got settled on their feet. Misun was an idol by the time she turned nineteen.

In October 2019, he met model and crowned Miss Korea 2015 Shin Yejin, who was twenty-seven at the time. A month later in November, they were dating. They have been dating ever since, and many question when he will propose to her.

It is noted that even though he is constantly trying to be a better father, his children and him have a strained relationship.

The rest of Jaesun’s future is incomplete.

BIRTH NAME Ahn Jaesun

BIRTHDAY March 7, 1969

OCCUPATION Music producer currently

FACECLAIM Choi Wonyoung

Ahn Jiho is an actor and got his popularity from Reply 1988 in 2015. As a child, it was very obvious to him that he was the odd man out in the family. He was the only one to not go into music, his name wasn’t close to either of his parents’ like Sunhye and Jaesuk’s were. He felt rather ignored in the family, and that’s what he was. His father loved him, but he loved work and Sumin more.

Jiho was closed off from his siblings, preferring to be in his room alone. If he had the choice of riding home in the car with his family or walking home in the rain, he’d choose walking in the rain. He had a warped impression of them, thinking they thought he was strange for not liking the same things they all did.

Jiho was always interested in film and literature, finding the universes people could create fascinating. He found that while he couldn’t write a story for anything, he was rather strangely good at lying. The thought unsettled him, but he was determined to be apart of people’s versions of their favorite character. He put the lying to use, being in theater in school and begging his grandparents to put him in acting classes.

When his mother’s affair was revealed, he was relieved but then distraught. His mother had made a mistake, she wasn’t one of them. But Misun wasn’t one of them, either— not completely, anyway. Yet she also was one of them. And he wasn’t.

His first major acting role was in Reply 1988 as Jang Minki. His popularity and fans quickly grew, earning him more offered roles. He has won Best New Actor and Best Supporting Actor for his role in Reply 1988.

He has since starred in notable shows like While You Were Sleeping, Squid Games, Sweet Home, and recently known for his role as the main male lead in My Demon. He is currently filming for the American horror movie, The Name Game.

It is noted that Jiho is not as close to Misun as Jaesuk is, but he’s also not close to Jaesuk. Jiho thinks of himself as the black sheep in the family and avoids them.

BIRTH NAME Ahn Jiho

BIRTHDAY September 2, 1995

OCCUPATION Actor currently

FACECLAIM Yoon Dowoon

Ahn Jaesuk is a songwriter and has most likely taken part in writing the lyrics to your favorite song. He has notable achievements for both Korean and American music, such as multiple SHINee and The Weeknd and Harry Styles songs.

As the middle child, he’s always tried to maintain a balance with his siblings and parents and grandparents. He hated conflict, and always tried to avoid it. He tried protecting Misun as best as he could, until he could no longer bare Misun hurt at the hands of Sumin. He was rather relieved when Sumin’s affair was revealed and their parents were divorced, but never once thought differently of Misun.

Long before their divorce, he was twelve when he realized his parents weren’t the parents you see in movies. He was hurt, and angry, but soon that turned into emptiness. It was more of an expectation than anything. He felt nothing when they divorced.

Jaesuk started his career in 2018 with his father at YG Entertainment, his relationship to his father being a helping hand. He has since wrote songs for BLACKPINK, Big Bang, Winner, and TREASURE. He has also wrote songs for other groups such as SHINee, NCT, aespa, TXT, IVE, and more.

It is noted that Jaesuk and Misun are the closest within the family, as their other family are all estranged to one another.

BIRTH NAME Ahn Jaesuk

BIRTHDAY April 9, 1997

OCCUPATION Songwriter currently

FACECLAIM Yoo Taeyang

Kim Sunhee, better known as Moonsun, is a retired South Korean soprano opera actress. When she was twenty-one, she met Kang Wonhae and would later marry him in 1973. Three years later, after multiple attempts to have a child and having two miscarriages, she had her daughter, Sumin.

After having not slept for six days with various attempts to hurt herself or Sumin with Wonhae stopping her, she checked herself into a mental hospital where she was soon diagnosed with postpartum depression. She went on a three year hiatus with her career in order to get better and take care of her daughter. However, as she got back into her career, her relationship with her daughter worsened as she was always busy.

Sunhee is part of the reason Sumin was able to debut and have a comeback after her hiatus, as she knows ‘important people’. She was disappointed when she got pregnant the first time, swearing to cut her off but never did. She never understood why Sumin kept doing it to herself.

It feels like Sumin’s children are more of her own, especially considering she was the one who raised them. She has a strange, polite relationship with Jiho, a relationship where she knows she can trust Jaesuk, and Misun is the baby of the family. She’s much more coddled than the other two as she’s the youngest and only girl.

Besides a three year long hiatus, Sunhee is well known to older citizens for her voice and variety personality.

It is noted that Sunhee and Misun had a good relationship, but lately Misun’s backed away due to some realizations.

BIRTH NAME Kim Sunhee

BIRTHDAY November 1, 1950

OCCUPATION Opera Singer formerly

FACECLAIM Nam Giae

Kang Wonhae is a retired piano and music teacher. He met Kim Sunhee while teaching her youngest sister how to play the piano, and they would soon marry and have a daughter, Sumin.

Wonhae was disappointed Sumin had a child early, but he was the reason Sunhee never kicked her out or cut her off financially. He was the one who took care of his grandchildren first, he was the second person to hold Misun. He was polite with Ahn Jaesun, took him in like a son.

Wonhae always tried to involve Jiho, but he would always refuse. He’d always calm Sunhee down when she got too angry, but sometimes things were so damning, he’d lose his mind. Wonhae willingly took Jaesuk to his ball games, and was always there for each one. He encouraged Misun to audition for entertainment companies.

In 2002, he would retire early from his job as a teacher to focus taking care of his grandchildren. When they would move in with their mother after the divorce, he would soon pick up piano again and play the piano for their church.

It is noted that there is no dislike between Wonhae and Misun. She knows he is there for her.

BIRTH NAME Kang Wonhae

BIRTHDAY July 19, 1950

OCCUPATION Piano teacher formerly Music teacher formerly

FACECLAIM Kim Sunhee

Shin Yejin is a model and was crowned Miss Korea 2015. In 2019, she was twenty-seven when she met fifty-year-old Ahn Jaesun. He would ask her out and by the next month, they were dating.

Not much is known about Shin Yejin. She has been on the cover of Vogue Korea, W Korea, and more. She was one of the female love interest in Big Bang’s Let’s Not Fall In Love music video.

It is noted that Misun and Yejin don’t have much of a relationship, due to her busy schedule. Yejin tries to have a relationship, though.

BIRTH NAME Shin Yejin

BIRTHDAY February 26, 1992

OCCUPATION Model currently

FACECLAIM Jo Jihyun

[probablyasocialecologist]

In 2018, OceanGate’s director of marine operations produced a “scathing” document warning unambiguously of “the potential dangers to passengers of the Titan as the submersible reached extreme depths.” A few months later, dozens of experts in the industry sent Rush a letter telling him that his “experimental” approach could lead to “catastrophic” problems. Rush waved them all away. Interviews with him are full of quotations displaying absurd levels of self-confidence: “I have broken some rules to make this…The carbon fiber and titanium, there is a rule that you don’t do that. Well, I did.”  “At some point safety just is pure waste…I think I can do this just as safely by breaking the rules.” “[The sub industry is] obscenely safe, because they have all these regulations…But it also hasn’t innovated or grown—because they have all these regulations.” “[OceanGate’s] innovative approach… flies in the face of the submersible orthodoxy, but that is the nature of innovation.” “We have heard the baseless cries of ‘you are going to kill someone’ way too often. I take this as a serious personal insult.” Rush heard “you are going to kill someone” as just blah blah blah, probably from “industry players” trying to stop “new entrants from entering their small existing market.” Smithsonian magazine reported in 2019 that Rush felt regulations “needlessly prioritized passenger safety over commercial innovation.” His own submersible had not been inspected or approved by any regulatory body. Rules are for fools.

[...]

Rush wasn’t “innovating,” he was simply defying basic principles of sound submersible design by using an inappropriate construction material, which is why people were trying to get him to stop.  As Cameron pointed out, the parallels between Rush’s disaster and the Titanic story itself are eerie. There, too, arrogant men thought nothing could hurt them. From the uber-wealthy passengers to the disregard of safety protocols, the Titan disaster calls to mind Karl Marx’s dictum that history repeats itself “first as tragedy, then as farce.”

[sophietv]

The Ultimate Thread Of Koincidences (2020) Part 2

Ok, I exceeded the pictures limit. So here's part two of all the Koincidences I could find for 2020.

If you haven't seen the other part, I highly suggest you do before reading this one:

Fall of 2019 (X)

2020 Part 1 (X)

As always, I'll include links to posts about specific part of Kaylor Lore to give more context. So when there's a (X) beside something it's to give you more information and help you understand better.

July 23rd:

Where we left off.

Karlie also posted that day a video for Kode With Klossy with a code. And in the code you can read really well : "Easter Egg"

July 24th:

Folklore is out.

So many references to Karlie in there.

But two things worth mentioning:

That line.

Source: Kwyw

And the fact that baby is the 13th word after Levi in cardigan:

Also. Shoutout to the Cardigan's merch that has three stars just like Karlie's Express bomber's jacket (from 2017).

Thanks Vegasborn on Twitter for finding this.

Another thing worth mentioning is that in Big Sur, there's a vineyard called Folktale and the font is really close to Folklore's.

Still July 24th

Kimby post a bunch of pictures of Big Sur on Instagram

July 25th:

Kimby likes a Folklore meme on Instagram:

AND

Karlie likes a post of Christian Siriano that says that mentions Taylor.

ALSO

This is the day of the infamous : "OMG did you just called me "daddy"?" tweet.

July 26th:

Martha Hunt does a post wearring a Cardigan with the caption "Peter losing Wendy"

Karlie liked that post

July 27th:

Derek did a post about Cardigan on Twitter. (I can no longer find it).

July 30th

Taylor comment a tweet with two fairies emojis....

Just like Karlie's caption on her post dancing in a Cardigan, 13 days before Folklore's release...

Also.

Karlie does a post on Twitter wich is a recall of a 2015 photoshoot, where she posed as Betty Crocker...

With the caption:

August 2020:

August 3rd:

Karlie's Birthday. Exile becomes a Radio single.

This is one of the two tracks where William Bowery has writting credits.

August 17th:

Betty becomes a radio single.

Still in Karlie's birthday month.

It's the second track where William Bowery has writting credits on.

August 18th:

The Lakes official lyrics video is out.

"I don't belong, and my beloved neither do you"

August 20th

Karlie does a YouTube video on Klossy.

Lots to unpack in this video.

Let's start with how it tied to The Lakes and those lyrics.

One of the books she presents is nammed "Beloved".

Also. Behind her, the firs clok on the wall is the same as the clock in Cardigan's MV, without the mechanism and glass.

And another very cute Koincidence is this:

Novembre 2020:

Novembre 13th:

Taylor has her Musicians on Musicians interview with Paul McCartney. (X)

So many interesting things in that interview...

We learn that Taylor was in LA when lockdown happened... and so was Karlie.

2. This whole part about Peace. She is litteraly describing her relationship with Karlie and the Love Blackout.

Swift: That’s the best. I want to hear current things, too, to update me on where the artist is. I was wondering about lyrics, and where you were lyrically when you were making this record. Because when I was making Folklore, I went lyrically in a total direction of escapism and romanticism. And I wrote songs imagining I was, like, a pioneer woman in a forbidden love affair [laughs]. I was completely …

McCartney: Was this “I want to give you a child”? Is that one of the lines?

Swift: Oh, that’s a song called “Peace.”

McCartney: “Peace,” I like that one.

Swift: “Peace” is actually more rooted in my personal life. I know you have done a really excellent job of this in your personal life: carving out a human life within a public life, and how scary that can be when you do fall in love and you meet someone, especially if you’ve met someone who has a very grounded, normal way of living. I, oftentimes, in my anxieties, can control how I am as a person and how normal I act and rationalize things, but I cannot control if there are 20 photographers outside in the bushes and what they do and if they follow our car and if they interrupt our lives. I can’t control if there’s going to be a fake weird headline about us in the news tomorrow.

McCartney: So how does that go? Does your partner sympathize with that and understand?

Swift: Oh, absolutely.

McCartney: They have to, don’t they?

Swift: But I think that in knowing him and being in the relationship I am in now, I have definitely made decisions that have made my life feel more like a real life and less like just a storyline to be commented on in tabloids. Whether that’s deciding where to live, who to hang out with, when to not take a picture — the idea of privacy feels so strange to try to explain, but it’s really just trying to find bits of normalcy. That’s what that song “Peace” is talking about. Like, would it be enough if I could never fully achieve the normalcy that we both crave? Stella always tells me that she had as normal a childhood as she could ever hope for under the circumstances.

3. That part where Taylor has many questions about fame and having kids.

Swift: Did that give you a lot of anxiety when you had kids, when you felt like all this pressure that’s been put on me is spilling over onto them, that they didn’t sign up for it? Was that hard for you?

Novembre 17th:

Karlie announces her pregnancy online.

She also wears the Amulette de Cartier.

Novembre 22nd:

Taylor does the biggest lie of all time.

There's also the Swift-Kloss Family Crest in the frame on the table.

VERY important piece of Kaylor Lore (X)

Novembre 24th:

Did Karlie just announced the first re-record? (she did announce Folklore in advance as well as Midnights and Speak Now and so much more).

Also eye theory.

Novembre 25th:

Long Pond Studio Session is released on Disney +

There's A LOT of hints to Karlie in there:

She wears the same boots that she wore at Big Sur.

She wears a ring called "Soleil" (sun).

Almost the same as she wore in Cardigan MV

And she wears a daisy shirt

Another interesting thing. Is that part where she talks about who William Bowery is.

And Jack is like : "I thought you were doing a bit when you said "Joe and I wrote a song"... I thought it was gonna be like when people write cute songs about their animals "

Karlie's dog is nammed Joe...

Decembre 2020:

Decembre 1st:

Spotify wrap is out. And in Taylor's there's two adult cats and a baby cat.

And a post-it saying : It still feels like March.

(Levi was born on March 11th)

Also the post it seems to point where the possible due date.

The Grammy's were pushed back only in January, so she had no way to know they would happen in March yet.

Source: KwYw

There you have it! All the Koincidences I could find for 2020.

If there's some missing, don't hesitate to tell me so I can add it.

Here's the two masterposts that hepled me make this one: (X) (X)

[apricitystudies]

what i read in apr. 2023:

(previous editions) bold = favourite

class, race, & labour

the deputy and the disappeared (usa)

the dystopian underworld of south africa’s illegal gold mines

inside australia’s university wage theft machine

lydia maria child and the vexed role of the woman abolitionist (usa)

gender, sexuality, & intersectionality

the narcissist’s playbook

blurred lines, harbinger of doom

how revenge porn is used to silence dissidents in azerbaijan

queer villains are vital to understanding queer history

politics & current affairs

adrift

the rose-coloured tint on shou zi chew overlooks tiktok’s red flags

“we shouldn’t grow up dreaming that our friends don’t get killed”

how to wash your hands in a war zone (colombia)

why south koreans want the bomb

history, culture, & media

former south korea president’s grandson apologises to victims of gwangju massacre

singapore’s prison without walls made the world sit up in 1960s. how did it fall apart?

honey, i sold the kids

dril is everyone. more specifically, he’s a guy named paul

sudan

keep eyes on sudan (guide/resources)

sudan’s outsider

a plague o’ both your houses: the false dilemma of sudan’s elites

sudan’s coup has shattered the hopes of its 2019 revolution (2021 coup)

[vague-humanoid]

Just a few days before our interview, Jill’s (Ed: not her real name) immunologist sent her to the hospital to rule out pulmonary embolism, which happens when a blood clot gets stuck in an artery of the lung. In Jill’s case it would be a Long COVID symptom amongst many others she had been battling over the last year: including swelling around the tissue of her heart, memory deficits, sudden heart-rate surges, fatigue and abnormal kidney test results.

By that point, she’d had COVID four times, despite taking stringent precautions. She was born with a primary immune deficiency. And, without a fully functioning immune system she needs weekly injections of human immunoglobulins from plasma donations. A very small viral load can make her sick and she’s at a much higher risk of severe outcomes from COVID than most people.

“Every time I catch it, it adds new layers to my disabilities,” she says. “COVID is slowly killing me.” Her haematologist believes the past COVID infections have further damaged her immune system. She is looking at a possible lupus diagnosis.

Her voice is raspy and soft over the phone. She pauses when I ask how she is doing.

“Well, I got COVID,” she says. “Again.”

At the hospital appointment several nurses were not wearing their masks properly, and one kept pulling it down to talk with Jill, who had to remove hers to get her lungs checked. As someone who is very isolated with her family — everyone works and goes to school from home — Jill believes that the appointment led to her most recent infection.

She’s always been careful with her health but in the past, she worked in the school system. By 2020 she moved to a remote position and at that time still had many options for safely connecting with those around her and she could attend health-care appointments without concern. About a year ago, nearly all restrictions were lifted in Alberta and that’s when she got her first COVID infection.

Three years in, nearly everyone she knows has moved on including — most bafflingly to her — many of the medical professionals she sees. But, Jill says, moving on is not a privilege afforded to people like her.

Recently, PCR testing became inaccessible to health-care providers, who, in the past, were able to test regularly. And while Alberta Health Services (AHS) still requires masks, any health-care settings outside AHS can make their own rules. So, once masking was no longer mandated in public settings, many dropped requirements — this includes many of the specialists seeing immunocompromised people, including those Jill now sees due to Long COVID.

“The variants have been left to run rampant and I have really become more and more scared,” she says.

“Governments are saying: Oh we can re-open because we have all these tools. But they are not available to the immunocompromised population. So, the monoclonal antibodies are no longer effective against the current variants. Because the variants are so immune-based, the vaccines were never particularly effective for immunocompromised people because of the nature of our immune systems.”

As well, Jill says that there are many contraindicated drugs that cannot be taken with Paxlovid, the drug which is used to treat COVID patients in specific circumstances. According to Health Canada, Paxlovid “is used in adults to treat mild to moderate coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in patients who have a positive result from a severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 viral test and who have a high risk of getting severe COVID-19, including hospitalization or death.”

She still takes the vaccines with hopes they will help, and while she believes Paxlovid is saving her life with this current infection, she says it is not a guarantee against more Long COVID symptoms. And, for the infection prior to the current one, the drug was not available due to a kidney infection caused by the virus.

“I have to access my medication, my health care. And by people not masking around me, I have no way to protect myself,” she says. “If you don’t want to wear masks as a society then you are going to leave the immunocompromised people behind.” And she says many high risk people are not able to work from home, or have their kids in online classes or maybe struggle to afford masks or air purifiers — many social and financial issues make individual protections far more challenging or impossible. She is currently in a court battle with her ex.

“He wants increased access, in-person school and group extracurricular activities. All things that put me at higher risk of infection,” says Jill.

Recently, she went to her cardiologist to find that no patients or staff were masking.

“I really realize now I have to be my own advocate,” she says.

She has to constantly think ahead. So, she now calls beforehand to see if the appointment can be done remotely or if the staff can mask. She’s also decided to start carrying around a laminated sheet that explains her medical condition as it is often something she needs to repeat at each appointment or in the emergency room. 

Like many others, she’s found ways to navigate her way around a harrowing array of risks. And yet, even with all these precautions, she can not control the actions of others which can directly affect her health.

Holly (Ed: not her real name), is retired and lives in a small community just outside Edmonton. She’s currently thinking about her next visit to her doctor, who hasn’t been taking precautions from the beginning.

“It’s exhausting always trying to get around how there is no protection for us anymore,” she says. “I’m thinking why am I made to feel crazy when my own doctor won’t wear a mask? Won’t acknowledge that it’s airborne?”

But the worst part, she claims, was that he minimized the effects of COVID, saying it was rarely an issue and only affects a certain demographic. Holly does not believe that is true, but regardless it is of little comfort when her husband, who’s in his 70s, has chronic health complications.

“I think patients are rightfully concerned, particularly when they go in for health care,” says physician Neeja Bakshi. “I think the medical community should be doing whatever we can to protect those who are coming in.”

It’s true, she says, that hospitals are no longer overwhelmed, and fewer people are dying; there is less of an acute emergency. But COVID is still circulating, people are still dying, and Long COVID (aka post COVID-19 condition) should be on everyone’s radar.

Recently, the World Health Organization announced an end to the global health emergency. But it also said earlier that “one in 10 infections result in post COVID-19 condition suggesting that hundreds of millions of people will need longer term care.”

COVID can cause organ damage — particularly affecting the heart, kidneys, skin. Plus, there’s risk of brain and immune damage, along with increased risks for cancer and autoimmune disease.

And, while no one knows yet how long that damage could persist, a study published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine says 59 per cent of Long COVID patients had organ damage a year later.

In 2022, Bakshi started a Long COVID clinic at her health facility Park Integrative Health, treating patients from across Canada. Every week she completes upwards of 20 disability forms for people who need to take time off work due to the debilitating effects of Long COVID.

While certain health complications make Long COVID more likely, anyone can be affected regardless of the severity of their infection or the state of their health. The indiscriminate nature of COVID is one of the things that’s been most shocking to Bakshi. She’s treated a number of elite athletes who went from performing at a professional level to struggling to have enough energy to brush their teeth.

Many patients struggle with stigma not just from medical professionals but from family, friends and employers. It’s an invisible illness, says Bakshi, so patients may look fine and are often misdiagnosed as something psychosomatic.

“I’m immersed in the world. But I don’t feel like you can deny it exists. And I think it’s a bit of ignorance on the medical community’s part if they say they don’t know anything about Long COVID. There are very specific disease patterns and symptoms,” says Bakshi.

There is also a lack of support. The most proven management strategy for Long COVID or even any COVID infection is recovery and rest, says Bakshi. But that’s not possible for many people. Initially, in 2020, there was forced rest through quarantine periods, but that time off has become shorter, as employers don’t have to pay for employees to be off at all.

“We are not a society that is built on support. We’ve already set ourselves up to fail from a recovery perspective,” says Bakshi.

Jill has found validation in Bakshi’s clinic as one of her patients. But that experience stands out amongst a sea of specialists who have given up on precautions.

“Instead of recommending upgraded masks, air cleaners and UV, or working from home, immunologists that manage my condition recommend wearing a mask if you want and enjoying your life—as short as that may be. I am not sure if this is complacency, or giving up… Either way, education and change need to happen or far too many valuable lives will be lost and disabled unnecessarily,” says Jill.

Savvy AF.  Blunt AF.  Edmonton AF.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ariel Edwards-Levy at CNN:

Americans are not impressed with President Donald Trump’s stewardship of the economy, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, putting him underwater on the nation’s top issue even as he sees ratings among the best of his presidential career on other key priorities.

As markets slide and investors worry in response to Trump’s trade policies, a 56% majority of the public disapproves of his handling of the economy, worse than at any point during his first term in office. By contrast, the 51% who now say they approve of his work on immigration – headlined by stricter enforcement efforts – is 7 points higher than at any point during his first term. Americans are closely divided over Trump’s performance so far in handling the federal budget and managing the federal government – 48% approve on each, with about half disapproving – while giving him lower ratings for his work on health care policy (43%), foreign affairs (42%) and tariffs (39%). Trump’s overall job approval rating currently stands at 45%, with 54% disapproving, in line with the numbers he saw in March 2017 and matching his highest ratings for his first term in office. Overall, 35% of Americans say things in the country are going well, a rise from 29% in January, reflecting a surge in positive sentiment within the GOP. His ratings remain highly polarized, with Republicans roughly 10 times as likely as Democrats to approve of his job performance. There’s overwhelming agreement across party lines that Trump’s use of presidential power reflects a break from historical precedent. An 86% majority of Americans, including more than three-quarters of adults in each party, say that Trump is taking a completely different approach to presidential power in comparison to past presidents, with 49% calling this a bad thing and 37% saying it’s a good thing. Just 14% say his approach to his second term has been generally in line with past presidents’. Economic concerns continue to dominate, the poll finds, with 42% of Americans choosing the economy as their top issue from a list of seven – more than doubling the share who picked any other issue, including the state of US democracy (19%), the way the federal government works (14%), immigration (12%), health care (6%), foreign policy (3%) or climate change (2%). The economy is also the issue with the most resonance across party lines, narrowly landing behind concerns about democracy among Democratic adults (36% choose the state of US democracy, 33% the economy), and dominating the issue landscape among Republicans and independents (45% in each group choose the economy). Perceptions of Trump as able to bring the change the country needs (50%) and manage the government effectively (49%) are significantly higher than they were during the latter half of Trump’s first term (43% and 42%, respectively, in November 2019). Roughly half of Americans currently say that Trump has the stamina and sharpness to serve effectively (51%), with fewer calling him an effective world leader (46%) or saying he respects the rule of law (38%).

Worries about Musk’s role, government cuts

Trump has spent his first months back in office seeking to sharply cut spending and reduce the federal workforce. The public’s views of that effort and Elon Musk, to whom Trump has given a prominent role, are largely negative. Just 35% of Americans express a positive view of Musk, with 53% rating him negatively and 11% offering no opinion – making him both better known and more substantially unpopular than Vice President JD Vance (whom 33% of Americans rate favorably and 44% unfavorably, with 23% having no opinion.) Roughly 6 in 10 Americans say that Musk has neither the right experience nor the right judgment to make changes to the way the government works. There is uneasiness about Musk even among some of the president’s supporters: 28% of those who see Trump’s changes to the government as necessary doubt the tech billionaire has the judgment to carry them out. A 55% majority of Americans say that the Trump administration’s changes to the federal government are being made largely to advance his agenda, with 45% calling the changes necessary to ensure the government functions properly. Asked to weigh whether they’re more concerned about the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal government going too far or not far enough, 62% of Americans say they’re more worried about the former and fear important programs being shut down. The other 37% say they’re more worried about the cuts not going far enough in eliminating fraud and waste in the federal government. Nine in 10 Democrats and 69% of independents say they’re more concerned about losing important federal programs, while 73% of Republicans say they’re more concerned that fraud and waste will remain an issue in the government.

A new CNN/SSRS poll conducted between March 6th and 9th reveals that 56% of those surveyed disapproved of Donald Trump’s calamitous handling of the economy, a marked changed from most of his first term in which his economic approvals were in the positives. In contrast, his immigration approvals were higher than any point in his first term, with 51% expressing support.

[mariacallous]

The Israeli attack on a humanitarian convoy in Gaza in early April that killed seven aid workers with the U.S.-based aid group World Central Kitchen has ignited a fierce global backlash against Israel’s policies of engagement in the territory. The attack involved the successive firing of three missiles at three vehicles, driven by suspicions of a Hamas combatant’s presence within the convoy, according to reports.

In Israel, the event is being portrayed as an accident, “a grave mistake stemming from a serious failure due to a mistaken identification, errors in decision-making, and an attack contrary to the Standard Operating Procedures,” as the Israeli military’s investigation team concluded. In humanitarian circles, it is seen as evidence of a culture that “treats Gaza as a free-fire zone with total impunity for gross attacks on civilians,” as Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International who served in both the Obama and Biden administrations, has suggested.

But for the discussion to be useful, it should progress beyond these immediate interpretations to examine the deeper cultural patterns underlying such incidents. Most crucially, it must scrutinize the shift in military policy and ethos that can be traced back to the Elor Azaria affair of 2016-17. Azaria was an Israeli conscript who was captured on video executing a wounded and immobilized Palestinian assailant in Hebron. The Israeli military prosecuted Azaria for manslaughter and sentenced him to 18 months in prison.

While the case demonstrated the military’s commitment to its own ethical codes, it also sparked widespread protests from right-wing factions and a general backlash against military procedures. The army was accused of failing to support Azaria and creating a culture in which soldiers would hesitate to use force against Palestinian militants. To counter this claim, and from that point forward, the military began to announce the number of Palestinian fighters killed in its operations, demonstrating that its forces did not hesitate to engage.

Under the leadership of the military’s chief of staff, Aviv Kochavi, from 2019 to 2023, the killing-based criteria were reinforced. Kochavi’s goal was to remake the army into a “lethal, efficient, and innovative” fighting force—in other words, a death-generating army. He promoted this vision by enhancing the precision of weapon systems, improving the coordination between forces and intelligence, and increasing the rate of fire.

Kochavi’s directive for field commanders to assess, at the end of each combat phase, the number of enemy forces killed and objectives destroyed—rather than solely focusing on territorial conquest—signified a shift toward necrotactics, where the primary goal of military engagement is killing the enemy. Killing becomes not just an outcome of warfare but its principal aim.

The approach of using body counts as a metric of success has notably intensified during the current war. Soon after the Oct. 7 attack, the Israeli military began consistently reporting the number of Hamas fighters killed, echoing the way U.S. generals announced enemy fatalities during the Vietnam War—a scenario where traditional metrics for evaluating combat success are elusive, thus making the body count, rather than the strategic objectives achieved, the primary indicator of success. This was particularly evident as the Israeli death toll ticked up and the stated objective of dismantling Hamas appeared increasingly unattainable.

In fact, the military appears to have established a quantitative goal from the outset. According to the journalist Yuval Abraham in +972 Magazine, the Israeli army developed an artificial intelligence-based program named Lavender, designed to identify targets for assassination. This system tagged approximately 37,000 Palestinians in Gaza as suspected militants, marking their residences (and therefore their families as well) for potential airstrikes. The deployment of Lavender contributed to the deaths of around 15,000 Palestinians in the war’s first six weeks, according to the report.

By setting a numerical target, the Israeli military shifted from viewing outcomes as a measure of progress—like neutralizing the threat posed to Israel from Gaza—to making body counts the main standard. The trend has been reinforced by a pervasive adoption of the language of killing among military commanders. “Now we will go forward and kill them all,” Brig. Gen. Roman Goffman was quoted as saying just before the ground operation in Gaza began, in just one prominent example.

As Israel faces an impasse in Gaza, lacking a politically articulated exit strategy, the reliance on killing and its quantification as a metric for success becomes increasingly pronounced, leading to the erosion of operational constraints. This shift was evident in the recent raid at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, which inflicted extensive damage to Gaza’s most crucial health care infrastructure. The hunt for Hamas members has, to a significant degree, become an end in itself, complicating the dynamics of the conflict and placing military objectives above political resolutions.

This shift provides some context for the tragic killing of the aid convoy team—though it makes it no less disturbing. Once one or two armed individuals were spotted in the convoy, their neutralization became a top priority, apparently eclipsing overarching strategic considerations—factors that should have been incorporated at the tactical level. Fundamentally, such a situation warranted an approach aimed at preventing civilian casualties, especially along a deconflicted route designated for humanitarian aid delivery and when no direct threat was posed to Israeli troops. Moreover, the overarching political rationale should have prioritized safeguarding humanitarian missions, given the potential repercussions for Israel’s global standing amid the crisis in Gaza.

Yet the events unfolded with a seeming obsession for lethal action, as vividly illustrated by reporting in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: Upon spotting a gunman or two, Israeli forces targeted three successive vehicles from the air. After the first one was hit, passengers moved to a second vehicle, which was then struck by a missile. And when the wounded were transferred to a third vehicle, it too was fired on. This appears to be a case of obsessive kill confirmation, overshadowing the principles of necessity, proportionality, and the sanctity of civilian life.

Hence, the fundamental issue extends beyond merely revising the rules of engagement or monitoring their application more closely, as such measures alone would prove inadequate to prevent future incidents. The problem also transcends the flawed assumption that every part of Gaza can be considered a free-fire zone where engaging Palestinian militants indiscriminately is justified. What is crucial is dismantling the prevailing culture that equates killing with military success.

Yagil Levy is a professor of political sociology and public policy at the Open University of Israel. His most recent book in English is: Whose Life Is Worth More? Hierarchies of Risk and Death in Contemporary Wars.